From an empty box, Harry watched the humans below. On the large stage, the humans pranced, screeched, and did whatever else they needed to do to put on their performance. He couldn’t understand what humans found appealing about such movements or noises, but he shoved such thoughts out of his mind. A more important matter loomed over him that he had to ponder.
Sighing, Harry gazed across the theater at the boxes directly across from him. Perched on the banister of one of those boxes was Roxanne, who also stared down at the humans.
Harry grinned. Seeing Roxanne safe in the opera house lifted a weight from his shoulders he hadn’t realized he harbored since last night. He leaped from the banister and rushed toward Roxanne’s box. Once he reached it, he padded into the box and trilled, “Hey, pretty puss.”
Roxanne spun around, her fur on end. Once she saw who had called her, her fur flattened. “Hi, Harry,” she said softly. “Care to watch with me?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Harry bounded up beside her. A few seconds of silence passed between them before Harry cleared his throat and spoke again. “You know Norb is looking for you. Despite what happened with Stripe, he insists the show must go on. They’re practicing on the roof today.” Harry paused to gauge Roxanne’s reaction. She continued staring at the stage. Harry continued speaking, his voice low. “Norb seems to think it’s safer to move practices around every few days or so if a murderer is prowling about.”
“How wise of him,” Roxanne muttered. Not taking her gaze off the humans, she asked, “Do the other cats think Norb odd for moving practice locations? After all, we swore we wouldn’t discuss what happened to Stripe.”
Harry tilted his head. “Oh, they know about the incident,” he muttered. “But not because I blabbed. Unfortunately, no secret remains kept in a place like this. Remember, Olga was with us. She can't keep her snout shut for anything. Everyone is looking over their shoulders, half expecting to see the Ghost Cat looming over them.”
Silence met Harry's words. Roxanne’s attention appeared to be elsewhere.
Harry twitched his whiskers, deep in his own thoughts. He had wondered how to best broach the subject of Roxanne’s midnight journey to the opera house, but no matter how many times he rehearsed what to say in his head, nothing sounded right.
Best to get it out and over with. Harry blurted, “So who’d you meet here last night?”
Roxanne flicked her head up to stare at Harry, her eyes wide with worry and her whiskers quivering. Harry regretted his blunt approach regarding the subject upon seeing Roxanne’s anxious expression.
“What are you talking about?” Roxanne demanded.
“I followed you last night,” Harry whispered, leaning closer to Roxanne. “I followed you up to the roof. And I heard a voice.”
Roxanne’s eyes grew wider, a feat Harry had not believed possible. Trembling, Roxanne murmured, “You didn’t. You weren’t here! You never heard a thing!”
“I did. Tell me, Roxanne. Who does that voice belong to?”
Before Harry finished his sentence, Roxanne jumped to the floor and scurried out of the box. Harry leaped down and ran after her. He saw the tip of Roxanne’s tail disappear behind the corner. He trotted after her and watched her lithe body glide down the long staircase to the foyer, a small red waterfall in an ocean of alabaster floor tiles. Clenching his teeth, Harry followed.
“Roxanne,” Harry hissed. “Stop!”
Roxanne kept her gaze fixed straight ahead. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she called back in a wavering voice.
Harry pushed himself to run faster. When he caught up with Roxanne, he jumped in front of the nervous cat. With his paws blocking her path, Harry said, “I heard the voice, Roxanne. I saw how it affected you. You looked as if you’d been transported to some paradise, a heaven only known to you. Tell me, who sang last night?”
“I can’t tell you,” Roxanne said. A tear welled in her eye. “I can’t tell you about it, Harry.” She slid between him and the wall and continued on her way toward the backstage entrance.
Knowing this might be his only chance to solve this conundrum, Harry raced after Roxanne. Roxanne walked behind large backdrops and under ornate props, clambered on tables, and scampered between mannequins wearing fancy dresses. Harry followed her, at one time tripping over a tray and yet another time snagging his claw on a stole, but he managed to not lose sight of her.
When Roxanne reached the pulleys and levers that lifted various backdrops and curtains, she jumped on the thickest rope and clawed her way to the catwalks above. Harry stayed right behind her.
At the top, Roxanne sat in the middle of the thin catwalk, which overlooked the center of the stage below. When Harry accidentally slid on the catwalk, Roxanne pricked her ears toward him. Upon seeing the source of the sound, Roxanne’s shoulders sagged. She gazed again at the humans.
“Why aren’t you attending practice? And I don’t mean the human ones.” Harry pointed his tail at the people below.
Roxanne sniffed. It took Harry a few seconds to realize she was crying. In a quiet voice, so quiet Harry had to strain his ears to hear each word, Roxanne said, “I will not need the Opera Cat practices for a time. I won’t be seeing Lady for a while either, so I want to watch her as much as possible before I go.”
“Go?” Harry’s fur stood on end. “Go where?”
Roxanne placed a small paw over Harry’s large one. His fur relaxed at her touch. “Please, Harry, I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t,” Roxanne whispered.
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll tell Norb you’re planning on permanently leaving the Opera Cats. After all, that sounds very close to what you're going to do.”
At Harry’s words, Roxanne’s eyes shone with fear. “No! Don’t breathe a word of this to any cat!”
“I won’t if you tell me what this is all about.”
Roxanne leaned back, her tail twitching behind her. “If I tell you,” Roxanne said each word slowly and deliberately, “then you must swear—swear it!—that you won’t tell another soul, not even Norb. I might be jeopardizing my future by telling you, but it might be worse if I don’t tell you and you share your suspicions with Norb.”
“I swear to keep whatever you say to myself,” Harry said, promising himself that he’d break such an oath if what Roxanne told him was something endangering her life.
Taking a shaky breath, Roxanne said, “I’m going away for a short time to practice with my teacher somewhere in the opera house. When I am done with my private lessons—when I am ready—I will return and triumph, surpassing my performance from a few nights ago.”
Harry raised an eyebrow. What Roxanne said didn’t sound too horrible, and he would’ve laughed if the situation were different. Considering Roxanne’s serious tone and worried expression, he remained silent. There had to be more to what she said to make her so agitated. Harry asked, “Who is your teacher?”
“Oh, I wish you’d never heard him!” Roxanne wailed, her head rocking back on her shoulders. She gazed at the rafters above them. “I believed I was the only one able to hear him. I suppose, though, that I am truly not hearing voices in my head if you also heard him…”
“Roxanne, tell me.” Harry sidled closer to her. He had to keep Roxanne focused.
“He will not continue to instruct me… He had me swear that I’d not tell another cat about him…”
Roxanne’s words became more incoherent. Harry took a deep breath. Beneath the cats, Bellows busily ordered the screechers around. Someone had spilled a bucket of paint on the stage, and no one was making a move to clean the mess. When Roxanne spoke, Harry shivered at the distressed tone in her voice.
“I suppose there is no point in not telling you,” Roxanne began, sighing. “You’ve heard his voice. After all, I was not the one to share his existence with you.” Another sigh. “It was about a month ago when I first heard the voice. It came to me in Lady’s dressing room. It knew my name, and it told me I had a beautiful voice that could be made better with practice, practice from him. I told the voice I didn’t have a personal instructor—the chorus cats all practice under the same cat—but the voice insisted he could help me.”
Harry hadn’t expected so much information at once. He decided to focus on one aspect of Roxanne’s story at a time. “The voice is male?” he asked, leaning his face closer to Roxanne.
“Yes.” Roxanne darted her eyes to Harry. When she saw he wasn’t laughing and that he appeared as solemn as a tombstone, she continued telling her story. “I was terrified at first when I heard the voice. There was no cat in the room with me, and I couldn’t justify the voice as being someone from the other side of the door or behind the wall. You know the walls here are thick; you can’t hear much from the hallway when you’re in the dressing room. I think the voice thought that I thought I was hallucinating, so he told me I could trust my senses because he was a great singer—”
Harry interrupted by asking, “Didn’t you worry that you were speaking with the Ghost Cat?” That had been his initial thought when Roxanne mentioned hearing the voice.
“Not really,” Roxanne said with a shake of her head. “Because the voice sounded too beautiful and treated me kindly, I believe—and I know—that the voice and the Ghost Cat are not the same cat. How can a ghost cat teach opera to the living? Why would it even want to?” Roxanne stared at Harry with narrowed eyes, as if waiting for an answer to her questions.
Something about Roxanne believing that her teacher and the Ghost Cat weren’t the same creature bothered Harry, but he didn’t understand why. He decided not to press the topic further, at least for the moment, fearing if he did, Roxanne would not finish her tale. “I suppose a ghost cat would have more important matters at paw, such as scaring kittens and stealing props,” he muttered.
“If you aren’t going to take me seriously, I’ll just leave.” Roxanne stood as if to scurry away.
Harry placed his paw over Roxanne’s. “I’m sorry, Roxanne. I didn’t mean to upset you. Trust me, I am taking it seriously.” He wished she knew just how seriously.
Roxanne slowly sat down again. When she spoke, she averted her gaze from Harry. “So my teacher began instructing me in Lady’s dressing room when no cats were present and the humans weren’t there. Since Olga had left, I was able to sing the other night, as my teacher had promised me. I’d thought that would be my grand entrance to stardom, but apparently not, since Olga returned as if nothing happened in her absence.” Roxanne groaned. “It’s almost as if I never sang in the first place.”
“But your teacher is going to instruct you further, correct?”
“Yes. So next time I sing, he said, there will be no doubt that I’ll have the prime roles.”
“How can he be sure? Especially if Norb wants Olga to sing them.” Harry hadn’t the heart to tell Roxanne that when he’d spoken with Norb earlier about allowing Roxanne to sing in more prominent roles, his suggestion hadn’t gotten that far. Norb had his mind set on Olga.
“I don’t know.” Roxanne anxiously curled and uncurled her tail. “That’s what he told me, and I trust him.”
Harry squinted at the auditorium. The only lights on were the stage lights, pointing at the stage and thus cloaking the empty seats in darkness. “How did your teacher know you’d replace Olga? For all anyone knew, she might have felt better and returned a week earlier instead of when she did, and then you never would’ve sung in the first place.”
Roxanne shrugged. “I’m not sure. He told me I’d sing, and I did. I guess I never really thought about it.”
Harry flicked an ear, thinking. Olga became ill a month or so ago when Roxanne’s teacher mysteriously appeared. Soon after Olga became sick, her human did as well. It seemed too perfect to be a coincidence. He wondered if the sicknesses weren’t natural. He wondered if a cat capable of murder could somehow make others ill…
A creak on the catwalk above them sent a shiver down Harry’s spine. Evidently, Roxanne had heard it too, for she bristled.
“I’m sure it’s only a human up there,” Harry said, not understanding why he felt compelled to explain a perfectly normal sound away. Except it hadn’t seemed normal.
“And I’m sure you’re right,” Roxanne muttered, not sounding as if she agreed with Harry in the slightest. “Last night, my teacher called me here. He told me he’d sing some special songs for me if I came to the opera house, so I came.”
“What songs could have been that important for you to leave your human? Lady was extremely worried about you.”
Roxanne’s shoulders sagged. “I know. I don’t want to leave her, but I must if I want to improve my craft.”
“I can’t imagine your craft being more important than Lady.”
Silence fell between the two cats. Harry wondered if his comment had been too insensitive. The mind of a singer, he realized, would be one he’d never completely understand. He decided to ask a different question to urge Roxanne to conclude her strange story. “Well, tell me what the songs were. I’m curious,” he said.
“They were songs my father used to sing to my mother when they first met,” Roxanne explained in a dreamlike voice. “My father had composed them himself. I think that’s why my mother became smitten with him in the first place. They loved each other dearly. I never got to meet my father, though.” Roxanne glanced at Harry, her eyes shining from the stage lights below. “But my mother told me about him, and how wonderful his voice was, and how brilliant his songs were. She sang them to me every night when I was a kitten. I always wished I could have heard my father sing them, but of course, that was impossible. But last night I heard him sing his songs, in a way. My teacher’s voice sounds like what I always imagined my father’s voice must have sounded like.”
“You should have your mother listen to your singing sessions,” Harry said dryly.
“That, too, is impossible,” Roxanne said with a shake of her head. “She died last year.”
“I’m sorry.”
For a few minutes, the cats sat in silence. Somehow their tails found each other, and they intertwined together. Harry held extremely still, fearing if he stirred, Roxanne would move away. He wanted to stay with her how they were now, and he wondered if his feelings were reciprocated. He also wondered how Roxanne's teacher knew the songs her father had created. So many questions, and Harry had yet to find a single answer.
“Are you attending the party tomorrow night? Surely your teacher wouldn’t let you miss out on it,” Harry asked. The upcoming party was held every April in celebration of the long years the Opera Cats had enjoyed performing at the Shelley Opera House, and cats from all over New York City attended.
Roxanne shrugged. “I’m supposed to practice with my teacher every second of every day. I doubt he’d let me go to the party when he could be teaching me instead.”
“That seems harsh.”
Silence fell a third time. Thoughts about Stripe’s murder and Olga’s illness refused to leave Harry’s mind. Olga became sick when Roxanne’s lessons started… Roxanne sang the lead role in the last performance… Stripe’s lifeless body was found murdered after Olga’s return. How—or were—the events connected?
Curious, he asked, “Did your teacher ever mention Olga’s illness to you? Or Stripe’s death?”
Roxanne stiffened. “What are you implying?”
“Nothing.” Harry shrugged. “Just trying to figure out the puzzle, that’s all.”
“What puzzle?” Roxanne disentangled her tail from Harry’s, then backed a few steps away from him. “Nothing is tying my teacher to either of those things. How could someone make a cat sick? Besides, what would be the point of Stripe’s murder if they were connected? Do you know how bizarre that sounds?”
“Everything has to be considered when a death has occurred,” Harry insisted. “I want to make sure you’re safe and that you’re not running into the claws of a killer!”
“I’m smart enough to make my own decisions!” Roxanne spat as she spun around and darted down the dark catwalk. “To be honest, I trust my teacher more than I do you! I’ve known him longer than I’ve been acquainted with you!”
Harry rose to his paws, but it was too late. Roxanne’s delicate form had vanished.
“Leave her be!”
Harry turned his face upward to where the growling voice had emanated from. “Who said that?” Harry meowed, tensing his muscles and preparing to pounce. No answer came.
Who could have said those words? Harry slid down the rope to the stage, anxious to leave the catwalks. He walked behind the curtain, slowly so as to not draw the humans’ attention. The voice had sounded wicked, and it scared Harry more than he wanted to admit to himself.
A ragged noise caught his attention. It sounded as if something was being sawed in two. Harry sat, glancing everywhere to see what caused the noise, when a whistling from overhead pierced his ears.
The humans screeched. Harry realized they were staring at something above him, and that the sound was getting closer.
With a hiss, Harry leaped from his spot. A huge sandbag pounded to the floor in the spot he’d been mere seconds ago, sand spilling out around it. The rope that had held the sandbag sailed through the air, smacking Harry’s nose. His snout burned where the rope had struck him, and black and white splotches filled his vision.
Soon Harry felt two thin arms lift him in the air. He looked up and saw a human child near his face, babbling and weeping at the same time.
Too stunned to jump from the girl’s arms (being an alley cat, he didn’t fancy humans, especially ones holding him), he stared at the sandbag. His eyes followed the rope, curling around the floor like a large rat’s tail, and when he saw the end of the rope, he shuddered.
The rope had been cut in half.