The Cheshire Cheese Cat by Carmen Agra Deedy

Author:Carmen Agra Deedy [Deedy, Carmen Agra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781561458462
Publisher: Peachtree Publishing Company
Published: 2018-09-21T00:00:00+00:00

“Yes? Go on. Say it.”

“—my friend. I didn’t mean to hurt him. Pip, I mean.”

The raven blinked several times and then said, “Even more remarkable to me is the fact that I believe you. I also believe that you did hurt him. And now you feel sorry and wonder how you can undo what’s been done, eh? Well, I am here to tell you that you cannot undo it any more than I can fly back to the Tower on my own and resume my rightful place. Only worms and insects have no memories of past sins. And only humans can choose to forget them. We animals must live with our foolhardy choices.”

Had Skilley detected a change in Maldwyn’s tone?

“All one can do”—the bird’s tone had softened—”is own up to the truth.”

“The truth,” Skilley spat, “is that I should never have come to The Cheese.”

Maldwyn’s head snapped up at that. He clacked his beak. “And if you hadn’t, and we now had only Pinch’s fine company? I know of his brutality most intimately. He it was who took my eye. You are a cat, but that one… that one is a fiend.”

“A cat is a cat,” said Skilley.

Maldwyn remained quiet for a long while, deep in thought. When at last he spoke, the hardness in his good eye seemed to melt away and his voice rasped in his throat. “And nature can’t be changed?” He turned his back, as if dismissing the humbled cat.

Skilley felt positively peevish now. “I don’t know why I came to you.”

With his back still turned, Maldwyn answered. “You knew before you entered this chamber that you would receive no soft words from me. Therefore, you must have come in search of the truth.”

Then Maldwyn gathered himself and stood erect. Once more Skilley witnessed the rising majesty of a Tower raven. Even with his head averted, there was royalty in his form.

“You want the truth, Master Skilley? Then find out just what manner of cat you really are… and brazenly, unabashedly, boldly, be that cat.”

The bird shrank to his normal self, which left him looking old and impossibly frail. “Kindly leave now. You have wearied me.”

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