[ WP ] In the canine world , humans are celestial beings who live for more than 500 years at a time . The caretaker of you and the past seven generations of your family will die soon .

The Cat Guardian is back, the smell of heavy sand and fur trailing behind her feet. She is sitting beside the Mistress, touching her hand, whispering something. I can understand things like *food* and *walk. * I can not understand the heavy shove of these words, the wet ocean smell on her skin. 
 
 We went to the beach once, Mistress and the Cat Guardian. We stood beside the waves and judged the horizon. Mistress threw sticks into the surf and the Cat Guardian shied away from my wet paws. 
 
 Cat Guardian has two little demons that follow her. When we visit her, on long mornings, the cats slink through the rooms and tell me stories. They tell me about the way mice taste, how I am a stunted wolf, how they are tigers still in their tiny souls. 
 
 But today the demons are not with Cat Guardian. There is only her Bag of Secrets, a heavy heart, and a drawn look. 
 
 Cat Guardian brings me into the Room, where I have slept my whole life. There on the white bed, with the flowers and old stuffed animals I can not chew. There Cat Guardian places me beside Mistress and lets her touch my throat, my nose, my ears. 
 
 I understand her words, for they are slow and familiar. `` Be good.'' 
 
 Then Cat Guardian is kneeling beside Mistress. She is touching her face, her hands, her hair. She is saying things too quickly for me to understand. She is weeping openly, her hands rattling. Cat Guardian is younger, within her first cycle of celestial ability. She will live four hundred more years. 
 
 But not Mistress. I know then what Cat Guardian is saying. She is picking up the leash, she is whispering `` walkies.'' She is looking away from Mistress. 
 
 `` Be good, Blossom,'' Mistress says. `` I love you.'' 
 
 Then Mistress turns away, to look at the windows. I am passed to another Being and taken from the white rooms, the white bed, the wonderful smell of flowers and cheese. I am taken into a car that smells like sand, to a world with demon tigers. 
 
 And no Mistress. 
 
 I do not see her again until she is stone growing from the ground. 
 
 It is their way. 
 

