The Cat Lady

Natsumi shot bolt upright and checked herself afraid that she had wrecked herself. Was Hana still six? Was she still twelve? Was she actually dead? As she examined herself the answers became clear.

Hana probably wasn’t six — she hadn’t seen her in… how many years?

She was no longer in fact twelve even if some people thought she looked the height of a twelve year old, but that was easily adjusted with ten centimeter stilettos.

Was she dead? That was… questionable. Certainly there was a moment of death but then a reawakening and rebirth. Those were questions she wanted to ask the Tall Woman, and she would have had her chance in the park if she didn’t zonk out stone cold.

And awoke here…

Where was here?

Once Natsumi confirmed her own corporeal-ness, she slouched over in the bed and coughed. On the wall to her right was a broken window covered in a plastic sheet with painter’s tape. The room was elegant and tidy. It was clean looking with white walls adorned with very questionable, sexy looking, black and white lewd nudes frozen in mid-writhing. There were questionable cylindrical things sitting on a shelf against the far wall. From a distance they suggested artistic sculptures of some sort or perhaps a strange garden of plastic cacti of varying shades of color and material from dull plastic to shiny chrome. A dressform stood by the doorway and wrapped snugly over it was a blue leather minidress that she recognized from her previous outing in the park. By the dressform was a metal rack with more leather clothing hanging from.

Natsumi coughed again and stuck her tongue out.

It still didn’t answer where she was. It certainly wasn’t her room. If it were it would have looked more like someone had haphazardly and halfhearted attempted to rob the place. The clothing would have been exploded out of each open drawer and then draped with great negligence on any edge that might support the draping of cloth. As long as everything was where she knew it to be it was for all intents and purposes “put away." But here everything had its place and it reminded Natsumi that somebody must have lived this way. Someone very anal and strange and adored naked people and colorful fake 22.86 centimeter succulents.

"Oh Natsumi," a voice rang out from the close-by ether. "You’re finally awake." More confirmation that the dream was over. “How are you feeling?" The soft voice was reminiscent. But, of who?

"水をください。" Natsumi said. A woman entered her periphery and held out a tall glass of water. Whoever she was, she was a lifesaver. "だれですか？"

"It’s me. Here. Mizu." Her Japanese was spoken with an accent, a second language.

With a child-like grip, Natsumi reached forward with both hands and accepted the offering of water and drank it in sips. "ありがとう。" She mumbled to her savior.

Indeed, though, who was she?

Her figure was slim — she could make out that much from examining her skinny-fit jeans. The woman’s oversized, fluffy sweater covered up the rest of her. Likewise, a thick-rimmed pair of nerdy eye-glasses covered her face. The sunlight that diffused from the plastic-tarp covered window sill reflected off the lenses hiding her eyes from view. The shock of blonde hair flickered images of the corona of the white-hot sun and Natsumi turned away from the woman and tipped her head and glass back to consume the all life-giving fluid. The cold water splashing down her throat felt refreshing.

“That blast of energy must have done quite a number on you," the blonde woman said. “You’ve been out for… well, days."

"Mmm…" Natsumi mumbled in agreement.

Wait, what?

Days? How long ad she been asleep? Natsumi focused her eyes on the woman and really gave her a second thought. "Mmm, uhhh?"

The woman’s lips curled into a frown and she seemed a bit irate, but it wasn’t like Natsumi could come out and ask her who she was, like that would be rude -- Oh, right, except that she totally did.

The woman stepped over to the dressform and plucked up the military cap sitting on the neck of it and (with a flourish) donned it on her head of blonde tresses. She turned her head to the side removing much of the glare from her glasses revealing a pair of startlingly green eyes, eyes one could fall into because they were so ethereal looking. With her left hand, she gripped the hem of her sweater and pulled it down to make it look more like a dress and struck a bit of a pose.

“Does this ring a bell?"

Nope.

"What’re you? LIke a… sexy cat lady?" The words echoed in Natsumi’s mind. Sexy. She had been with a pretty sexy lady the night before. They were in the park fighting an upside-down headed ghoul. Cat… cat? "Cat…herine. Catherine. See, I remembered."

The memories all at once returned to her. She had found the hidden Yokai town in the Kabuki district. She had gotten inside somehow. She had seen all the yokai and weird monsters that lived down there and didn’t flinch one bit. And then, she had accosted and accused her of not doing her job and somehow it lead to them partnering up.

Helena.

That was her doing… mainly to get rid of her.

Oh crap!

The gremlins. Natsumi forgot about them.

Well, whatever, Helena was probably taking care of it, but she would be absolutely angry with her, that was a certainty.

"Sure you did, Natsumi," Catherine said adjusting her nerd glasses. "Also, please don’t associate me with a cat lady."

"Then, why are you dressed like one?!?" Natsumi retorted. Catherine only looked more irate. Natsumi also had a heap of other questions which she began to enumerate in rapid succession…