Chapter Three

"Why do cats like telling stories so much?" I asked Benjamin one day. He looked at me, surprised.
"I will never cease to be amazed at what you people don't know," he told me. "Cats were the first storytellers. Humans learned it from us." This made me wrinkle my nose in skepticism.
"Storytelling is intuitive," I retorted. "It's natural to tell stories."
"It's natural to hunt," he rebutted, crouching low to investigate a grasshopper, "but you still have to teach kittens how to do it. Look, I'm not saying humans are bad at storytelling. Quite to the contrary, you've done some very inventive things with the medium. But the fact remains, it is a tradition originated by cats."
I dropped the subject, and had actually forgotten about it two evenings later when Benjamin came around the house. I hadn't seen him in the meantime and asked him what he had been up to.
"No time for that, come quickly," he said. His tone was friendly but insistent, so I threw on a jacket and followed him off into the orchard. Benjamin was kind enough to slow his pace for me, but it was still difficult to keep up with him in the murky twilight. His velvety gray fur all but disappeared amid the tall grass and looming trees. Soon we had left my grandparents' land and now I followed him out through unfamiliar rows of peach and apricot. The trees seemed to become steadily larger as we went, and soon they towered over my head. I had no idea where we were. Benjamin seemed to know exactly where he was going, though, and I trusted him enough to put worry aside. We must have traveled in this way, half-hiking, half-jogging for ten or twenty minutes before he finally stopped. My eyes were straining to make out his shape in the near-darkness and I was exhausted from the trip. I have never been particularly physical, and my endurance especially leaves much to be desired. I collapsed on the grass and leaned back against a rough tree trunk, the night dew soaking through my jeans.
"I'm sorry to have dragged you all the way out here, but theres a storyteller passing through the area and I doubt you'd ever get a chance to meet her otherwise.
"I thought all cats were storytellers," I said, not really caring at this point that it was sort of a rude thing to say, especially after Benjamin had gone to the effort of trying to introduce us. He was gracious enough to let it slide.
"All cats are storytellers, but just as some cats are better hunters than others, some cats are better at telling stories." This made good sense. "She's called Hermia, she's pretty famous. Stay here," he told me, "I'm going to tell the gathering that I've brought a... guest."  I smiled at the way he finished.
I barely even saw him move before he vanished into the pitch and I was left by myself. It was summer still, but the night was unusually cold. The moon was smothered under a thick blanket of clouds, but I thought I could see the steam of my breath. I pulled my jacket tight around me and covered my hands in its folds.
After a short time I looked up out of instinct to a shape emerging from off to my right. I thought it was Benjamin at first, but the voice which ordered, "Follow me," was a stranger's. I got up and followed.
Within a minute, maybe two, I entered a clearing.  The ground was rough, with tough patches of grass working up through the hard soil.  Trees ringed us, and within the circle they made was echoed a second one of perhaps a dozen cats.  They did not seemed concerned by my entrance; glancing over lazily before attending to a paw that needed grooming.  Cats are always like that.  "Sst," I heard a voice whisper softly.  I looked up to where it had come from and saw Benjamin lying on a thick tree branch near my head.  "Sit here," he said under his breath.  
As I took my seat beneath him, I began to pick out the shapes of more cats, both in the trees and on the ground around us.  I estimated about twenty, but it was hard to tell.  They did not speak, and so neither did I, all of us waiting for some cue.  Finally a black, slender cat made her way out of the trees and walked idly into the center of the glade.  We had been passively quiet, but the silence became active.  Just the wind could be heard, carrying the ever-present chorus of the crickets.