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At least maybe Scout had learned a lesson about opening packages that were pointedly not addressed to him. He’d yelled loud enough that she’d jumped nearly out of her skin, and he had fled all the way across her tiny studio apartment, away from the package on the table. This landed him in the bedroom, where she’d been trying to fold her laundry. The bedroom was mostly her living room, also. It was now very crowded.
"What the hell,” she demanded, tossing a cardigan on top of the appropriate pile. The remnants of the appropriate pile, Scout had scattered everything.
"I dunno! Fuck! Jesus, you pissed off the Teufort mob or somethin’! Oh mygod, Edie.”
“Scout, for god’s sake.” She crossed the apartment, peeked into the raggedy cardboard box.
The cat had come in the mail. Again. She didn’t want it any more than she had last time, but this time it had come back from Pyro, mildly singed and with an apologetic, terribly spelled note attached.
She read it. Apparently the cat had not been amenable to the addition of fire. “Oh. Well, drat. Thank god no one was hurt. I guess that’s reasonable. Drat.”
Scout was still cowering on the couch, wild-eyed. “What. What even…who…how the hell. An’ why? Who sent you a dead cat?”
"Frobisher," she corrected absently, lifting the magnificent creature out of his box. He’d been an incredible specimen of a cat, and he was a masterful example of taxidermy.
“Who the hell is Frobisher?” He added, helpfully, “I will kill him for sending you a dead cat.”
She shook her head. “No, the cat is Frobisher.”
Scout was staring, bewildered. “…you…named him already? Quit doin’ that, Edie, I swear, you get attached to the scariest goddamn animals, an’…”
“I didn’t name him. He’s my mother’s.”
Scout had started refolding her laundry, just to have something to do with his hands. Still staring, though. Still bewildered. “Uh. Okay. Okay. I am just real lost, I gotta be honest.”
And, still staring. Still bewildered. Possibly more horrified than before. “…that ain’t… goddamn. That just ain’t natural. Edie, for the love’a Christ. Why’d your ma….? I mean…she oughta have…I dunno, buried the poor thing in the yard, or somethin’. Cremated it. I got an uncle does taxidermy, it ain’t…ain’tnice. S’messy. He kept ‘em all around the house, too. God. Taxidermy. Used to scare the shit outta me.” He didn’t add that it still did, it still very, very much did. With the frozen face and the staring glass eyes. Oh god.
Miss Pauling sighed, stroked the cat absently. Scout winced visibly. “You have to understand about my mother,” she began, then paused, sighed. “Well, and Frobisher always hated me, and it was entirely mutual. So I guess I don’t understand about my mother. So I guess I can’t explain. Natural. What’s natural, anyway?” She held Frobisher up, squinted at him. Sighed again. “The poor thing. He’s dead and now no one wants him. I guess he may as well stay.”
And…yup. Put him on the mantle. Turned him slightly, so the late afternoon light caught his glassy eyes. Scout shuddered.