• As time passed, I began to discover that the Abbey was a marvelous place for an intrepid cat. Mice scurried in the walls, sparrows nested in the eaves of the roof, and there was no shortage of warm sunny windows to while away the afternoon in. As my injuries healed, I discovered each of these joys, and grew fat and sleek on a steady diet of fresh cream, fish, poultry and other table scraps. Sophie’s delight in me grew with each passing day, and I grew fonder of her. She was a gentle creature, in every sense of the word, and while she scolded me when I brought the fruits of my hunting back to the safety of her room, she neither took it away nor tried to stop me.

    By far my most troubling worry over Sophie was what she needed, what I could do for her to repay her kindness. I was sufficiently recovered now to set out again, but I was determined to do what I could for her before I did so. She seemed to have everything she could need here in the Abbey: food, shelter, clothing, safety, and companionship. Despite all this, though, she seemed unhappy. I resolved to watch more closely, to see if I could determine the source of this unhappiness.

    It was a warn afternoon in mid June when it happened. Sophie was tending the garden and I lay nearby comfortably nestled in the branches of a large elm. The Brothers went about their daily tasks, working along side her or hurrying past to the Abbey kitchens. Sophie took little notice of them, but what struck me as strange was that none of them seemed to see her. In an Abbey, where she was one of only a small number of women, not one of these men seemed to notice her. Admittedly, I have never been much of a judge of human beauty, but I had to admit that Sophie was attractive. She was also, by far, the youngest woman working in the Abbey kitchens so from a purely biological perspective, she should have been highly desirable. She was also far sweeter in her demeanor than women like Martha, who had still failed to warm to me.

    When Sophie picked up her basket of greens and began to walk back to the kitchens, I jumped down from the tree and trotted along behind her. She looked back and smiled at me, then looked up as she walked past a small cluster of young men. She smiled at them tentatively, but they met her smile with furtive, even open hostility. Her smile faltered and she hurried past them, nervously tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and gazing at the ground ahead of her until she gained the safety of the kitchen. It was hot in there, steamy, and the air smelled of the stew simmering over the fire. Martha stood shopping vegetables, pausing to wipe the sweat from her eyes and regard Sophie with disapproval. Her hands went to her hips and her face fell into a frown.

    “What’s the matter now?” she demanded impatiently as Sophie put her basket on the counter and began to remove the greens for washing.

    “They hate me,” Sophie said softly. “I try to keep out of their way, try to be pleasant, and still they make me feel filthy, worthless.”

    “Well what do you expect?” Martha laughed. “You’re a woman, living amongst a group of monks! You’re a walking temptation to them, my girl. If you had any sense, you’d leave to go find yourself a husband and you’d take that,” she pointed angrily at me, “with you.”

    “If I had somewhere else to go, I would,” Sophie sighed.

    Both women fell silent as they concentrated on their tasks and I trotted unnoticed from the kitchen. I could hear mice scurrying along inside the walls, but I ignored them now as I padded into Sophie’s room and settled myself on her bed. My mind was racing, and to soothe my irritation I began to groom myself. I surrendered myself to the repetitive motions of my tongue combing through my fur along my shoulder, down my leg and paw. It allowed me to begin to place into perspective all that I was thinking, that I was feeling.

    Firstly, Sophie was lonely because she felt unwelcome here in the Abbey. Martha’s explanation about the brothers still made no sense to me, but I could understand Sophie’s concern; she was such a sensitive creature, and the hostility of the brothers would hurt her deeply. Secondly, Sophie wanted and, in my opinion, deserved a mate of her own. She certainly wouldn’t find one here, which meant that she would have to leave. That brought me to the biggest problem of all: where could she go? I knew enough to know that a human couldn’t travel like a cat, couldn’t live for extended periods of time by themselves. They needed things: clothing, blankets, shoes, tools, and shelter. I could make do with an abandoned burrow or the thick covering of branches in a hedge for shelter, but Sophie would need more than that. Humans liked a permanent shelter, a good sturdy den of their own.

    As I groomed, I began to feel the tension leave my body and my concentration altered between the soothing motions of my tongue and the problem of a den for Sophie. Ideally, she could move into a den or shelter that was no longer inhabited by another human, one that was certain to remain empty. I began to remember the earth den my mother had raised me in, how warm and large and quiet it had been with it’s compacted floor and walls. But the ceiling had been even planks of wood. We had lived beneath a human dwelling, a cottage, in a meadow. There had only been us – the cottage was empty and smelled only slightly stale from being closed off. I had ventured in once as a kitten to investigate, hoping to find even a trace of human smell.

    My mother had explained to me that it had been empty for many seasons. She had been a young cat when the last human had lived there, and that human had moved on. They all did, she had said with a smile, but some stayed longer than others and they all left behind something useful for the next inhabitant. Could I bring Sophie there?

    My whiskers tingled as I thought about it. It had been many years since I had been there myself, but a part of me felt sure that it would still be empty. It had been a quiet meadow, remote and out of the way. There might not be any immediate human contact for Sophie, but she would be free to come and go as she pleased there and there was a village within a day’s walk. There would be other humans there. Men, potential mates for her.

    I began to purr, seeing Sophie clearly within the cottage and leaning over a pot on the stove. She fit so well within the vision, it seemed the cottage had been made for her. The interior was a dim memory, but that did nothing to lessen my certainty that this was the right thing to do. I could bring Sophie to the cottage, stay with her while she looked for a mate. It would repay my debt to her, and bring her to where she was meant to be, I was sure of that.

    The only question that remained now was how to bring her from the Abbey to the cottage.