Read All the Gates of Hell for Free Online Page B

proper for her to be a cat then and do what a cat was supposed to do. She simply pounced, and she missed. The mouse skittered away, and that was that. It got away. Which made Jin/Missus Tickles very sad.
    As quickly as it came, the vision was over. Jin wasn't Missus Tickles anymore, but she remembered everything and, for some reason that she pondered for a long time, she still didn't think anything particularly odd had just happened. Jin just blinked, and looked down at the cat, who was still staring off into space. She scratched behind its ears.
    SILLY OLD THING. IT'S NOTHING TO BE UPSET ABOUT. I BET YOUR MOTHER MISSED LOTS OF MICE IN HER TIME.
    Missus Tickles looked at her. That was all. Then she curled up in Jin's lap and died. At least, that's what Jin assumed happened at the time, but there was more to it even then. Despite having the weight of Missus Tickles on her lap, Jin had a distinct feeling of, well, there was no better say this: absence . Missus Tickles was gone, just as, in the corridor, Rebecca was gone, even before her body went away. The cat's body likewise vanished; it simply faded away while she was looking right at it.
    Jin told her mother what had happened later, and of course her mother told her that she was imagining things, including the cat. There was no cat and had never been a cat. Jin had insisted that there had so been a cat and thought her mother was playing a cruel trick on her, but that wasn't it. Turned out there was no sign of a cat at all. No cat bed, no cat food in its usual place in the kitchen cupboard; even the photograph of Missus Tickles that Jin kept on her dresser was gone. It was as if Jin had, truly, never had a cat, and she herself was the only one who knew better.
    Just to be safe, Jin never got another cat, or any other pet. It was also five years or more before she could bring herself to touch another animal. Even a hug from her mom would terrify her, afraid that her mother, too, was going to disappear and her remaining relatives would come to her and say, Oh, no, you never had a mother, silly girl.
    Jin realized now that this was exactly what she had done to Missus Tickles and that, when the cat disappeared, it was no different from the time she'd sent the little girl in the corridor out of Hell.
    This is Hell .
    Rather, she reminded herself quickly, Medias was "a" hell, one of many. Which, Jin was forced to admit, explained one awful heck of a lot.
    Jin finished her toast and grabbed her purse. One thing she was certain of was that being a bodhisattva wasn't going to pay the bills. Jin wondered ruefully if that was one reason the job was usually done by someone of other than the mortal persuasion.
    Elysium Fields Avenue was quiet as usual for that time of the morning. One or two stores were preparing for business but she didn't meet anyone on the street until after she'd stopped at Juney's Café for usual morning coffee. By then there were a few more people on the sidewalk, most coming from the commuter lot between Juney's and Resolution Park as the office workers came in from the suburbs of Medias. There was a young man in a black leather jacket standing at the corner. Jin thought he looked familiar and then remembered the man standing near Teacher Johnson the day before. Was it the same one? She tried to get a better look but he was gone now; Jin didn't see where he went. She shrugged and continued walking along the old brick wall lining the park to her left. When she passed the wrought iron gates that marked the entrance to the part someone spoke to her.
    "Where do you think you're going?"
    It was Teacher, on the other side of the gate, his hands gripping the bars as if he were in jail. Jin sighed, and stopped.
    "To work, Teacher. Where else?"
    "You're suffering under the delusion that your work resides in a single place on Pepper Street."
    "Funny about that, considering they're the ones who pay me."
    Teacher just looked a little forlorn. "You know that's not your real job