THE SOUND OF tears stirred Giacomo from his death-like slumber. He awakened to the face of an angel rubbing her cheek with his; he was undoubtedly in Cat Heaven. Although she was sobbing, he kept gazing in awe at her beauty, wondering what could cause an angel to grieve with so much sadness. He sat up to comfort and tell her not to cry on his behalf, that he was fine, that he no longer suffered, and in doing so he startled her. She opened her mouth to say something, but the words got stuck, and he suddenly realized where he was. It wasn’t the paradise of Beyond.
“Felicia? Is that you?” he asked.
She sniffled and remained silent. It was her, the femme-cat of his dreams. He glanced behind. He was on the bank of Lako de Katta, lying in the spring sunshine just beyond the drawbridge of Purr Meowni and he hadn’t the faintest clue as to how he had got there.
“I was foraging for duck eggs and saw you clinging to that log,” she said, holding back the tears. “I couldn’t believe my eyes. I pulled you onto dry land. I… I thought you were dead.”
Giacomo glanced at the lake. Just offshore, a large hardwood log was wedged amongst the reeds. He had no recollection of it. That he was still alive seemed incredulous, if not miraculous. “I was dead,” he said, letting out a stifled laugh. Felicia looked puzzled. “But now I am alive.”
“We need you, Giacomo,” she said, and coughed. “The plague is still with us. The cemetery is full. We’ve lost hope.”
Giacomo recalled Felicia and Lucinda’s despair, a memory that was now fading fast and seemed more like fragments of a dream than something he’d witnessed. Had he really seen them? Had he really drowned? Or had he just had a wild and fantastical dream? Then again, was he still dreaming? He figured he was and he wasn’t; it didn’t really matter. What mattered more was the love he felt for Felicia.
Felicia coughed again and when she stood her legs trembled. Her fur, he saw, had begun to fall out in patches and boils were erupting from her skin. Giacomo drew a deep breath, immediately reminded of Papa Katto. He had to act quickly.
When he had stepped through the mirror he had learned of the whereabouts of his Chalice. He spun around and searched the area where he had lain. It wasn’t on dry land, so he searched the shallow waters. Then, just as he was about to give up in frustration, he saw a glint of light from the muddy bottom. Almost completely covered in the silt between several reeds, at the exact same spot where he had been found as an abandoned kattino, Giacomo spied the unmistakable rim of a golden goblet. He dug it out and washed off the mud, holding it up to the sky. It was his Chalice. He had finally found it. He dipped it into the lake, filling it to its brim. Like magic, the water turned milky white. The metamorphosis was instantaneous.
He put the chalice to his lips and savored the sweet, pure essence of the Milk of Life. Time seemed to stop. An epiphany washed over him and he sensed an awareness of thought, wise and all-knowing, filling his conscious with infinite understanding. He had died and been reborn.
“I know why cats have nine lives,” he said to Felicia, waking from his reverie. She hadn’t moved, although, to him, an eternity had just passed. “I know how to save the village.”
He filled the Golden Chalice with water and offered it to her. Inside, the water had miraculously turned milky white. The chalice itself seemed to glow with an inner radiation, a self-sustaining golden aura. “Is this what I think it is?” she asked, staring into it. Giacomo nodded, and she sipped.
Felicia tilted her face. Suddenly, her whole body was glowing with the same golden essence as the chalice. She lowered the cup and smiled more radiantly than he ever remembered. She gazed at him with the full force of her love, her eyes so bright, so alive. She was saved.
“Come,” he said. “We have a lot of work to do.”