“Thanks so much,” Christian said, trying not to let on that he was using a bit of telekinesis to lighten the bales of straw as they came out of the back of the truck. It was embarrassing that the farmer, who was probably his grandfather’s age, hardly seemed to notice the weight. “The cats will be grateful. And so will my dad’s flower beds and all.”
The farmer just shrugged. “Not a big deal, swinging by here when I’m in town anyway. How’s your dad doing? Scotland, is it?”
Christian nodded. “My mom is loving being home, after half her life here. Dad settled right in to helping on the family farm in no time flat, and he’s really enjoying combining what he knows with what they know. And my grandfather’s having a great time with all the new things to see and new people to talk to.”
“You doing okay alone?”
“I’m all right, thanks. I have friends here still.”
The farmer nodded. “Good to hear. Tell your dad I said hi, next time you talk to him, eh?”
“I will.”
“And if you need more straw, just give me a yell. Same for firewood and manure for the garden.”
“Thanks. I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind about letting me pay you for delivering it along with the straw itself.”
“You’re right, I haven’t. It’s not much out of my way, and I know you don’t drive. Just the thirty for the straw is plenty.”
Christian handed him a trio of tens. He suspected, though he had no proof, that this particular farmer owed someone in his family a favour that was never discussed, but possibly he was just paranoid, and the farmer was just a really nice guy who remembered Christian’s father coming to him as his first choice for several kinds of materials.
With farewells duly said, Christian began to haul the half-dozen heavy bales—he figured they must be fifty pounds each, give or take—into the porch, via the rarely-used door that opened onto the driveway.
The porch was the size of any of the house’s generously-large rooms, tightly-fitted vertical wooden planks for the lower three feet but all windows from there up; it wasn’t properly insulated, but it did catch the sun even in the winter, past the privacy fence that followed the property line a few feet away, and in the summer with the windows open it was wonderful. Ruth had used it as a feral cat infirmary and, more than once, had coaxed pregnant females into having their kittens there. It was still set up for that, with cabinets to hold supplies for the ferals outside as well, although it had been used less often since Ruth’s death.
It was also most of the length of the house.
He stacked the bales near the door at the far end.
This was going to be a lot of work.
Instead of going outside, he went through the mostly-glass door that took him to the living room.
“Brownies?” he called aloud. At least one would hear him, he was sure. “I’m going to go outside and clean the cat shelters now. If any of you have some time and would be willing to help me, I’d really appreciate it. I think a lot of you have done it before, since this happens at least once a year. But it’s out in the yard, for the cats, not in the house, so it’s technically not part of your job, and I totally understand if you don’t want to be involved.”
He didn’t wait for a response. They’d come if they chose, or not. He went back to the porch and out the back door, leaving it open since he’d be in and out.
The back yard was huge, there was no other word for it—it actually reached all the way to the small side street behind. It could have been split off from the house and sold as its own lot, probably for a substantial sum, but that wasn’t happening.
It was very much his father’s creation.
Old pictures showed the tidy beds of plants to have straight lines and a simplistic layout. Jacob had recreated them, making the edges more sinuous and edging them with stones. The plants had been chosen with care to attract birds and butterflies and bees, native ones that needed little tending, and arranged around the ancient trees to form welcoming cover for small things, animal and liminal and elemental alike. There was no grass that needed cutting, only ground-cover that served similar purpose but more colourfully, and a stone-paved patio and walkways.
The picnic table on the patio had been used often for family meals outdoors in good weather. Currently there was a cat lounging on it, enjoying the late-morning sun: the big orange neutered male with the tattered ears who was benevolent ruler and protector of the colony. Below him on the sun-warmed patio slabs, a fluffy grey-and-white female groomed her wiry young-adult daughter, who shared her colouring but with more white and less fluffiness; the younger cat submitted meekly with eyes closed. They were aware of Christian, he knew that, but they ignored him. He considered that a compliment.
He wasn't sure who had added two birdbaths and multiple feeders for varied kinds of birds, with no attempt at excluding the squirrels and chipmunks from the bounty, but he suspected it might have been his great-aunt Ruth, making sure her beloved house cats were entertained.
He knew beyond question that Ruth was ultimately responsible for the presence of multiple features that were meant specifically for the local feral cat population.
Two-thirds of the way towards the back was a hexagonal gazebo. On five sides, unbroken wood rose to waist-height, except for a single cat-sized arch in the centre for quick escape. Hardy evergreen vines flourished around the outside, all the way to the roof, even partly curtaining the open side, so densely overgrown that the interior stayed sheltered year round from temperature extremes and precipitation without the cats feeling trapped, since they could also go over the walls and through the vines and out. It gave them a sheltered place to find food and water even in the worst weather—especially in witch-enhanced bowls that would not allow water to freeze.
Farther back stood a sturdily-built wooden shed lined with polystyrene, with similar vines over it. Much of the front could be opened as a pair of double doors, but each of those doors had a cat-sized hole at the bottom, with a short length of heavy plastic pipe wedged in to make sure that nothing larger invaded the space. That, and a trio of small individual shelters that were hidden within the greenery, were Christian’s current project. For as long as he could remember, he’d helped first Ruth, then his grandfather, clean them regularly.
For years, whenever he was around he'd been doing their daily meal himself. The cats accepted him as caretaker, though he really needed to make more time to build on Ruth's early lessons in how to talk to them. There was just always so much more to learn and practice. He did remember her other lessons: some cats would never be happy indoors. The best they could do was make sure those ones had the essentials and just let them do their own thing—after making sure they weren’t adding more kittens.
Even though the weather was beautiful today, and he could be outside working in cut-off shorts and a ragged T-shirt and his bare feet, they were past the autumn equinox and the days were starting to get shorter. Soon, there’d be more and more days that were wet and cool and grey, and nights with a distinct chill. The colony of feral cats would make heavier use of insulated dens, but they’d need a little time to make the dens their own again.
He retrieved the three small shelters from their little raised nooks, and disassembled them on the patio. Each had a storage bin large enough for two friendly cats nested within polystyrene as insulation within a larger bin, matching holes cut in each and a short length of plastic tube bridging them to make a doorway comfortable for a cat but less so for a raccoon or other wildlife, weighed down with a couple of bricks in the bottom between the layers. He dumped the straw bedding from all three into a paper yard-waste bag, for the moment. There were more to come, but he uncoiled the hose to use in cleaning them, just to have it in reach.
Then he crossed the yard to the shed, and tapped on the doors.
“Guys? It’s cleaning day. If there’s anyone in there, I need you to come out for a bit.”
At this time of day, with the sun high and bright, it wasn’t a surprise that there were no cats inside to take him up on it.
He threw the doors open and, just in case, checked that the three floors of kitty beds were all currently vacant.
In the interests of accommodating varying levels of comfort and sensitivity to cold and, for that matter, variable weather, the three floors were different.
The bottom level held the same sort of insulated beds that were outside. One of those was larger than the others, and had been used by pregnant moms with kittens.
The layer above, on a sturdy built-in wooden shelf with a ramp on each end up to it, consisted of deep covered litter boxes, filled generously with more straw, but lacking extra insulation.
Above that, on a second shelf with ramps, were open-topped boxes, a mixture of small storage boxes and large litter trays, with straw bedding. Much of the winter, it was so warm in the shed that those open beds were comfortable—maybe more comfortable than the more enclosed ones.
Even with Ruth’s protections against fleas and the like renewed as necessary, the bedding still got soiled and needed to be cleaned at least once a year.
He started gathering up beds, stacking as many as he could in his arms.
Half a dozen brownies had tackled cleaning the bins already waiting on the patio, two of them handling the hose while the rest supported the components and scrubbed any stubborn bits. The human-shaped liminals would not, on all fours, be much larger than the cats; their hair and skin and clothing were all nondescript shades of brown that varied individually from a pale almond to a dark liver and every possibility between. He was fairly sure there were at least a dozen in the house at the moment; about half of them volunteering to help with an outside task was more than he’d really expected.
“Thanks,” Christian told them. “I’m really grateful. This is always a really big job, and I’ve never had to do it completely by myself before.”
One of the brownies waved cheerfully from on top of a bin lying on its side, before the next blast of water struck the inside and en had to concentrate on keeping the bin from moving.
Two more converged on Christian’s current armload, pulling them apart into their individual pieces before he could even begin to. So he went back for another load.
Even with his energetic assistants, it still felt like it took forever to finish. Everything had to be dry before it could be reassembled. The brownies were resourceful and strong for their size, but they were small, and they couldn’t handle bricks or the assembled bed-boxes, let alone a full bale of straw.
“You’re ambitious,” Mark said, leaning against the porch doorframe. “I assume you have help, because I don’t think your telekinesis would let you do multiple things at once while doing something else with your hands. What are you doing, anyway?”
“Cleaning all the beds the feral cats use. My great-aunt Ruth started it. It’s not a big deal, we’ll be done today for another year. And they’ll be warm and safe when winter comes.”
“This is what you choose to do, less than seventy-two hours after doing crazy stuff to rescue a troll? So much so that you passed out?”
Christian shrugged. “I don’t remember most of Saturday. Yesterday was just tough, especially at work. But I’m fine today. And this isn’t exactly using much by way of my gifts, just tiny things I could do in my sleep. The farmer that my dad always got the straw from was available today, and if I have it and it’s a gorgeous day, I figured I might as well do it now.”
“Why do you do it at all? All this work, and even the birdfeeders? If they couldn't survive on their own, they'd've died off as a species by now. The cats won’t cuddle with you or anything, they don’t do anything for you.”
“They're alive. Birds, cats, squirrels, whatever. They feel, and hurt, and get hungry and cold. I know they can survive as a species. It's my way of trying to reduce the suffering of the individuals a little. They can come in the gazebo to get out of the snow and rain and wind for a little while, and have something to eat. Then they can go sleep somewhere safe, in one of the shelters. It's more than worth it, for the price of cat food, wild bird seed, and suet, and a bit of extra work. I mean, the cat food’s cheaper than I’d like, and not the healthiest, but it’s better than nothing and it’s what I can afford. And the straw once a year. The coons steal a bit of the food from the gazebo, but they haven’t figured out how to get into the shelter, so they’re welcome to that much as long as they don’t fight with the cats.”
“You get absolutely nothing out of it. It really has no impact on your life.”
Mark sounded confused, though he was trying not to, Christian thought. As much as attitudes like that disturbed him, he could hardly blame Mark for being what he was, so he kept his replies patient. “Yes I do. I get to sleep knowing that I'm doing something to reduce the pain in this world just a little. Humans, animals, it doesn't make any difference. Cold and hunger are cold and hunger, in birds or squirrels or cats or raccoons or humans.”
“Yet you eat meat.”
Christian sighed. “I tried doing the vegetarian thing for a while. I started getting headaches and feeling depressed, even though I tried to be careful. I try to buy it at the butcher shop that deals with local farmers, instead of in the grocery stores where it probably came from a factory farm, and I stick with basic beef, pork, and chicken, no veal or anything. The way they raise veal, I'd probably start vomiting just from touching it, let alone eating it. That doesn’t work with takeout, unfortunately. But it's the best compromise I've managed to make, between what I need to stay healthy and what I believe in.” He shrugged. “I don't get mad at cats for hunting, when that's what they need in order to eat, and their food has to have meat in it. Kinda silly to get mad at myself for it.”
Mark considered that, while Christian started putting together an insulated den. “How on earth do you manage to survive, with conflicts like that?”
Christian glanced at him, and smiled. “Must be a human thing. You trying to tell me you've never had ambivalent feelings about a situation?”
“If it threatens you or annoys me or gets in my way, it dies. Trust me, I don't lie awake thinking about it. Not much ambivalence. You're right, must be a human thing. Are you likely to be much longer?”
“Not really. We’re putting things back together now. That still takes a bit of time, since they have to be reassembled with the insulation and all, but we’re over the worst of it.”
“Good. When you’re done, try to make yourself presentable. I found out about an all-you-can-eat buffet. You need food after wearing yourself out. Any liminals ask for help on the way back, this time you tell them you’re not up for it until you’re done recovering from the trolls.”
“I can’t argue. I guess I’m not completely recovered. I tried a bit of scrying last night to see how they were. I should have been able to tune in on the one that I tracked before, but I couldn’t get anything at all. Either I’m still too tired and just completely failed, or they moved so far away that they were outside my very limited range when I don’t have a good strong anchor, and I know it was unpleasant but why would they move away that quickly?”
“Sounds like you need more rest. And more food. I’ll be in the living room. Come tell me when you’re finished.”
“I will. Thanks.”
Mark shrugged and went back in the house, and Christian tried to keep his attention on the cat shelters.
“Thanks so much,” Christian said, trying not to let on that he was using a bit of telekinesis to lighten the bales of straw as they came out of the back of the truck. It was embarrassing that the farmer, who was probably his grandfather’s age, hardly seemed to notice the weight. “The cats will be grateful. And so will my dad’s flower beds and all.”
The farmer just shrugged. “Not a big deal, swinging by here when I’m in town anyway. How’s your dad doing? Scotland, is it?”
Christian nodded. “My mom is loving being home, after half her life here. Dad settled right in to helping on the family farm in no time flat, and he’s really enjoying combining what he knows with what they know. And my grandfather’s having a great time with all the new things to see and new people to talk to.”
“You doing okay alone?”
“I’m all right, thanks. I have friends here still.”
The farmer nodded. “Good to hear. Tell your dad I said hi, next time you talk to him, eh?”
“I will.”
“And if you need more straw, just give me a yell. Same for firewood and manure for the garden.”
“Thanks. I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind about letting me pay you for delivering it along with the straw itself.”
“You’re right, I haven’t. It’s not much out of my way, and I know you don’t drive. Just the thirty for the straw is plenty.”
Christian handed him a trio of tens. He suspected, though he had no proof, that this particular farmer owed someone in his family a favour that was never discussed, but possibly he was just paranoid, and the farmer was just a really nice guy who remembered Christian’s father coming to him as his first choice for several kinds of materials.
With farewells duly said, Christian began to haul the half-dozen heavy bales—he figured they must be fifty pounds each, give or take—into the porch, via the rarely-used door that opened onto the driveway.
The porch was the size of any of the house’s generously-large rooms, tightly-fitted vertical wooden planks for the lower three feet but all windows from there up; it wasn’t properly insulated, but it did catch the sun even in the winter, past the privacy fence that followed the property line a few feet away, and in the summer with the windows open it was wonderful. Ruth had used it as a feral cat infirmary and, more than once, had coaxed pregnant females into having their kittens there. It was still set up for that, with cabinets to hold supplies for the ferals outside as well, although it had been used less often since Ruth’s death.
It was also most of the length of the house.
He stacked the bales near the door at the far end.
This was going to be a lot of work.
Instead of going outside, he went through the mostly-glass door that took him to the living room.
“Brownies?” he called aloud. At least one would hear him, he was sure. “I’m going to go outside and clean the cat shelters now. If any of you have some time and would be willing to help me, I’d really appreciate it. I think a lot of you have done it before, since this happens at least once a year. But it’s out in the yard, for the cats, not in the house, so it’s technically not part of your job, and I totally understand if you don’t want to be involved.”
He didn’t wait for a response. They’d come if they chose, or not. He went back to the porch and out the back door, leaving it open since he’d be in and out.
The back yard was huge, there was no other word for it—it actually reached all the way to the small side street behind. It could have been split off from the house and sold as its own lot, probably for a substantial sum, but that wasn’t happening.
It was very much his father’s creation.
Old pictures showed the tidy beds of plants to have straight lines and a simplistic layout. Jacob had recreated them, making the edges more sinuous and edging them with stones. The plants had been chosen with care to attract birds and butterflies and bees, native ones that needed little tending, and arranged around the ancient trees to form welcoming cover for small things, animal and liminal and elemental alike. There was no grass that needed cutting, only ground-cover that served similar purpose but more colourfully, and a stone-paved patio and walkways.
The picnic table on the patio had been used often for family meals outdoors in good weather. Currently there was a cat lounging on it, enjoying the late-morning sun: the big orange neutered male with the tattered ears who was benevolent ruler and protector of the colony. Below him on the sun-warmed patio slabs, a fluffy grey-and-white female groomed her wiry young-adult daughter, who shared her colouring but with more white and less fluffiness; the younger cat submitted meekly with eyes closed. They were aware of Christian, he knew that, but they ignored him. He considered that a compliment.
He wasn't sure who had added two birdbaths and multiple feeders for varied kinds of birds, with no attempt at excluding the squirrels and chipmunks from the bounty, but he suspected it might have been his great-aunt Ruth, making sure her beloved house cats were entertained.
He knew beyond question that Ruth was ultimately responsible for the presence of multiple features that were meant specifically for the local feral cat population.
Two-thirds of the way towards the back was a hexagonal gazebo. On five sides, unbroken wood rose to waist-height, except for a single cat-sized arch in the centre for quick escape. Hardy evergreen vines flourished around the outside, all the way to the roof, even partly curtaining the open side, so densely overgrown that the interior stayed sheltered year round from temperature extremes and precipitation without the cats feeling trapped, since they could also go over the walls and through the vines and out. It gave them a sheltered place to find food and water even in the worst weather—especially in witch-enhanced bowls that would not allow water to freeze.
Farther back stood a sturdily-built wooden shed lined with polystyrene, with similar vines over it. Much of the front could be opened as a pair of double doors, but each of those doors had a cat-sized hole at the bottom, with a short length of heavy plastic pipe wedged in to make sure that nothing larger invaded the space. That, and a trio of small individual shelters that were hidden within the greenery, were Christian’s current project. For as long as he could remember, he’d helped first Ruth, then his grandfather, clean them regularly.
For years, whenever he was around he'd been doing their daily meal himself. The cats accepted him as caretaker, though he really needed to make more time to build on Ruth's early lessons in how to talk to them. There was just always so much more to learn and practice. He did remember her other lessons: some cats would never be happy indoors. The best they could do was make sure those ones had the essentials and just let them do their own thing—after making sure they weren’t adding more kittens.
Even though the weather was beautiful today, and he could be outside working in cut-off shorts and a ragged T-shirt and his bare feet, they were past the autumn equinox and the days were starting to get shorter. Soon, there’d be more and more days that were wet and cool and grey, and nights with a distinct chill. The colony of feral cats would make heavier use of insulated dens, but they’d need a little time to make the dens their own again.
He retrieved the three small shelters from their little raised nooks, and disassembled them on the patio. Each had a storage bin large enough for two friendly cats nested within polystyrene as insulation within a larger bin, matching holes cut in each and a short length of plastic tube bridging them to make a doorway comfortable for a cat but less so for a raccoon or other wildlife, weighed down with a couple of bricks in the bottom between the layers. He dumped the straw bedding from all three into a paper yard-waste bag, for the moment. There were more to come, but he uncoiled the hose to use in cleaning them, just to have it in reach.
Then he crossed the yard to the shed, and tapped on the doors.
“Guys? It’s cleaning day. If there’s anyone in there, I need you to come out for a bit.”
At this time of day, with the sun high and bright, it wasn’t a surprise that there were no cats inside to take him up on it.
He threw the doors open and, just in case, checked that the three floors of kitty beds were all currently vacant.
In the interests of accommodating varying levels of comfort and sensitivity to cold and, for that matter, variable weather, the three floors were different.
The bottom level held the same sort of insulated beds that were outside. One of those was larger than the others, and had been used by pregnant moms with kittens.
The layer above, on a sturdy built-in wooden shelf with a ramp on each end up to it, consisted of deep covered litter boxes, filled generously with more straw, but lacking extra insulation.
Above that, on a second shelf with ramps, were open-topped boxes, a mixture of small storage boxes and large litter trays, with straw bedding. Much of the winter, it was so warm in the shed that those open beds were comfortable—maybe more comfortable than the more enclosed ones.
Even with Ruth’s protections against fleas and the like renewed as necessary, the bedding still got soiled and needed to be cleaned at least once a year.
He started gathering up beds, stacking as many as he could in his arms.
Half a dozen brownies had tackled cleaning the bins already waiting on the patio, two of them handling the hose while the rest supported the components and scrubbed any stubborn bits. The human-shaped liminals would not, on all fours, be much larger than the cats; their hair and skin and clothing were all nondescript shades of brown that varied individually from a pale almond to a dark liver and every possibility between. He was fairly sure there were at least a dozen in the house at the moment; about half of them volunteering to help with an outside task was more than he’d really expected.
“Thanks,” Christian told them. “I’m really grateful. This is always a really big job, and I’ve never had to do it completely by myself before.”
One of the brownies waved cheerfully from on top of a bin lying on its side, before the next blast of water struck the inside and en had to concentrate on keeping the bin from moving.
Two more converged on Christian’s current armload, pulling them apart into their individual pieces before he could even begin to. So he went back for another load.
Even with his energetic assistants, it still felt like it took forever to finish. Everything had to be dry before it could be reassembled. The brownies were resourceful and strong for their size, but they were small, and they couldn’t handle bricks or the assembled bed-boxes, let alone a full bale of straw.
“You’re ambitious,” Mark said, leaning against the porch doorframe. “I assume you have help, because I don’t think your telekinesis would let you do multiple things at once while doing something else with your hands. What are you doing, anyway?”
“Cleaning all the beds the feral cats use. My great-aunt Ruth started it. It’s not a big deal, we’ll be done today for another year. And they’ll be warm and safe when winter comes.”
“This is what you choose to do, less than seventy-two hours after doing crazy stuff to rescue a troll? So much so that you passed out?”
Christian shrugged. “I don’t remember most of Saturday. Yesterday was just tough, especially at work. But I’m fine today. And this isn’t exactly using much by way of my gifts, just tiny things I could do in my sleep. The farmer that my dad always got the straw from was available today, and if I have it and it’s a gorgeous day, I figured I might as well do it now.”
“Why do you do it at all? All this work, and even the birdfeeders? If they couldn't survive on their own, they'd've died off as a species by now. The cats won’t cuddle with you or anything, they don’t do anything for you.”
“They're alive. Birds, cats, squirrels, whatever. They feel, and hurt, and get hungry and cold. I know they can survive as a species. It's my way of trying to reduce the suffering of the individuals a little. They can come in the gazebo to get out of the snow and rain and wind for a little while, and have something to eat. Then they can go sleep somewhere safe, in one of the shelters. It's more than worth it, for the price of cat food, wild bird seed, and suet, and a bit of extra work. I mean, the cat food’s cheaper than I’d like, and not the healthiest, but it’s better than nothing and it’s what I can afford. And the straw once a year. The coons steal a bit of the food from the gazebo, but they haven’t figured out how to get into the shelter, so they’re welcome to that much as long as they don’t fight with the cats.”
“You get absolutely nothing out of it. It really has no impact on your life.”
Mark sounded confused, though he was trying not to, Christian thought. As much as attitudes like that disturbed him, he could hardly blame Mark for being what he was, so he kept his replies patient. “Yes I do. I get to sleep knowing that I'm doing something to reduce the pain in this world just a little. Humans, animals, it doesn't make any difference. Cold and hunger are cold and hunger, in birds or squirrels or cats or raccoons or humans.”
“Yet you eat meat.”
Christian sighed. “I tried doing the vegetarian thing for a while. I started getting headaches and feeling depressed, even though I tried to be careful. I try to buy it at the butcher shop that deals with local farmers, instead of in the grocery stores where it probably came from a factory farm, and I stick with basic beef, pork, and chicken, no veal or anything. The way they raise veal, I'd probably start vomiting just from touching it, let alone eating it. That doesn’t work with takeout, unfortunately. But it's the best compromise I've managed to make, between what I need to stay healthy and what I believe in.” He shrugged. “I don't get mad at cats for hunting, when that's what they need in order to eat, and their food has to have meat in it. Kinda silly to get mad at myself for it.”
Mark considered that, while Christian started putting together an insulated den. “How on earth do you manage to survive, with conflicts like that?”
Christian glanced at him, and smiled. “Must be a human thing. You trying to tell me you've never had ambivalent feelings about a situation?”
“If it threatens you or annoys me or gets in my way, it dies. Trust me, I don't lie awake thinking about it. Not much ambivalence. You're right, must be a human thing. Are you likely to be much longer?”
“Not really. We’re putting things back together now. That still takes a bit of time, since they have to be reassembled with the insulation and all, but we’re over the worst of it.”
“Good. When you’re done, try to make yourself presentable. I found out about an all-you-can-eat buffet. You need food after wearing yourself out. Any liminals ask for help on the way back, this time you tell them you’re not up for it until you’re done recovering from the trolls.”
“I can’t argue. I guess I’m not completely recovered. I tried a bit of scrying last night to see how they were. I should have been able to tune in on the one that I tracked before, but I couldn’t get anything at all. Either I’m still too tired and just completely failed, or they moved so far away that they were outside my very limited range when I don’t have a good strong anchor, and I know it was unpleasant but why would they move away that quickly?”
“Sounds like you need more rest. And more food. I’ll be in the living room. Come tell me when you’re finished.”
“I will. Thanks.”
Mark shrugged and went back in the house, and Christian tried to keep his attention on the cat shelters.
