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death daughters of an ancient earth. Sebastian felt a tingling, like hair standing up, down past where his spine ended. Intensity flooded all of his senses now as the new clarity spread to sights and smells. From under the trailer, a bullfrog's thumping throat pounded in his ears. A lizard's shadow sliced across the floor by the open door and the scent of a field mouse, sniffing at a lumber pile out back, burned pungent in his nostrils. The wind gusted, the trailer lurched, and he was dropping again, but this time he landed on springs inside a cushion of cloth. Sebastian slid out of the clothing pile and spotted Mr. Tenney crouched against a side wall, ears laid back, watching the battle.

The cat saw him, hissed and crouched lower. It growled a low, guttural sound, and sprang for the open hole in the floor, leaving a fading trail of tracer images in its wake. Sebastian followed instinctively, dropping through the hole and landing on soft mud beneath the trailer. He sniffed the musty air; cool and damp, then turned to the sunlit back lot. A seam in the tall grass marked Mr. Tenney's trail and Sebastian gave chase.

The flood of smells and sounds outside overwhelmed him and he lost focus. He leapt after a rustling in the weeds, froze, turned to stalk a flash of feathers, froze again, then bounded up and onto the woodpile. The wind quieted and the trees settled. Grass and weeds, laid flat by the squall, slowly stood back up. Soon Mr. Tenney crept out from behind an old refrigerator and ducked under the trailer. Sebastian followed him under the trailer and back up through the hole, then crept across the floor towards the counter, looking left and right for Mr. Tenney. Seeing no sign of the cat, he sprang up onto the counter at the end opposite the two people.

6.

Mr. Tenney's rambling discourse about the past, future and present left Sebastian confused. The meaning was clear enough, but he could find nothing to connect it to, nothing to bind it in his brain. The customer left, but Desiree stayed at the counter to cast a long, mischievous grin at Sebastian and the cat.

"Well gentlemen, in case you've not had a chance to become acquainted, let me do the introductions. "Sebastian, allow me to present Mr. Robert A. Tenney. And Mr. Tenney, this is Sebastian." She frowned, then smiled serenely and added, "That name is much too casual. You will need a surname, one befitting a creature of uncertain status. Mr. Tenney, please greet our new associate, Mr. Schrodinger."

Learn more about this author, Jim Mcinvale.
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