Natalie leaned back against the cold metal door and sighed. Why was it that the customers you wanted most to leave always stayed and stayed and stayed? She’d had to wait to shelve the ginormous shipment of new books until after closing. Now, the moon was high in the sky, and she still had a desk full of homework to look forward to.

Another sigh misted white in the night air, and Natalie shivered. She chafed her upper arms briskly, bounced up and down on the balls of her feet a few times, then picked up the bags of trash and folded cardboard boxes she’d brought out from the bookstore and headed toward the dumpster.

There was a crash from further down the alley. Natalie jumped, stifling a scream, then berated herself for her reaction. It was probably just one of the bajillions of stray cats in the area. She set the bags of trash down near the dumpster and peered into the darkness, trying to see what had made the noise.

It seemed to Natalie that there was a clump of darker darkness near the other end of the alley. As she drew nearer, she heard snickering laughter and whispers that echoed oddly off the red brick walls. The clump gradually resolved itself into a handful of small, shadowy figures, backlit by a dim street lamp, huddled around something that seemed to amuse them quite a bit. Natalie was about to leave them to continue whatever it was that they were doing, when she heard something that made her turn right back around — a cat’s hiss.

They were tormenting a cat.

Some stupid kids were tormenting a cat in the alley behind her bookstore.

“Hey!” she found herself shouting. “Get away! Leave the cat alone!”

She strode forward, and the figures pulled back in surprise. Natalie couldn’t make out any features, it was too dark for that, but they seemed young and their eyes were round and wide with shock.

“I said get away from that cat!”

The figures looked at each other in consternation.

“Get out of here! Go home! It’s late! Your parents would be ashamed!”

With each exclamation she took another step forward. She waved her arms at them. Finally, they scattered, disappearing into the night. Natalie watched them go, her brow furrowed in disapproval. She shook her head. What had those kids been thinking, out so late, causing so much havoc? A faint scritching noise drew her attention back to the cat.

It was a black cat, lean and long, and it was lying very still. For a moment, Natalie was afraid they’d killed it, but then she saw its eyes. It had bright green eyes, open in narrow slits, and it was watching her intently. The cat was tied up in some kind of dark, translucent string that caught the moonlight like spiderwebs. Fishing line maybe? Whatever it was, Natalie knew it had to come off. She reached in her apron pocket and pulled out her trusty pocketknife.

Natalie approached the cat slowly, her hands in front of her, all too aware of the cat’s claws flickering in and out of sight. She spoke to it softly, reassuringly.

“Hello, there. That doesn’t look comfortable at all. May I help you out of it?”

The cat’s gaze was oddly weighty. Natalie felt as though she were being judged.

After a moment, the cat seemed to relax. It closed its eyes and rested its head on the ground. Natalie leaned forward. She pulled out a pen and slid the tip of it between the strange filaments and the cat’s fur, being careful not to let the former touch her skin. It gave her just enough room to maneuver her knife. The strands resisted her blade, parting only after quite a bit of sawing, but bit by bit she prevailed.

Freed from his tormentors and their bonds, the cat stretched to his full, majestic length. He was much bigger than Natalie had thought. She’d never seen a cat anywhere near his size. There had to be some coon cat in him somewhere, but he was sleek, not fluffy, and jet black, with not a single speck of another color on him anywhere that Natalie could see.

The cat snuggled into the ground, rolling in the dirt that dusted the asphalt, maybe trying to get the feel of the bonds off of himself. Suddenly, he sat up, shook the dust off, and arranged himself very properly, paws together, tail curled elegantly over them. He looked up into Natalie’s face where she sat watching him and met her eyes.

Very deliberately, the cat bowed his head.

When he looked back up at Natalie, he almost seemed to be smiling. Then with a flick of his tail, he spun and disappeared into the darkness, leaving Natalie sitting on the ground in the alley, bewildered.