"What's going on?" she asked Victoria, who was sitting on the old car with her face in her paws. Victoria ignored Dem for a while. From the way her shoulders were heaving, it looked like she was crying.... Then she looked up, tears streaming down her face, and said softly "Mistoffelees is dead. They just found his body over... over there." She sniffed and gestured with one elegant white paw towards a heap of scrap metal and junk. "He was buried underneath it. It looked like magic had pushed over the pile... I guess he was practicing, and accidently hit it...." She burst into tears again and put her face back in her paws.

Demeter staggered back to the pipe, thinking furiously on what Victoria and Tantomile had said.... "Tantomile?" she said. The grey queen looked up out of the shadows. "Tantomile, I want the truth: Did you use your psychic powers to knock over the pile of metal and kill Mistoffelees?" A moment passed in silence. Then Tantomile's soft voice whispered "Yes."

Munkustrap and Old Deuteronomy were silent for quite some time after Demeter finished her tale. Then Old Deut spoke up. "There doesn't seem to be much we can do except exile her...." Demeter interrupted him. "Oh, Old Deut, that's wrong! Grizabella was exiled for killing Matranastani, and everyone welcomed her back - she even went to the Heaviside! Please don't exile Tantomile! She's... I don't know, she's disturbed... Just come talk to her, or something." Old Deut hesitated. Munkustrap remained silent, looking troubled. Demeter said again, "Please?" Old Deuteronomy nodded. "I will speak with her. Then I will make a decision."

Demeter led Munkustrap and Old Deuteronomy to her human's house, then went to fetch Tantomile. The grey queen seemed, unsurprisingly, uneager to talk to the elderly leader. "Come on, Tant, you'll be exiled if you don't!" Tantomile gave Demeter a strange, uncanny look, and Demeter suddenly remember the rumor that she and her brother could read minds... "Why do you care so much about me, Demeter?" she asked quietly. Demeter was silent.

Tantomile repeated her question. "Why?" "I don't know! I just... I don't want to see anyone else have to go through what Grizabella went through...." "Why is that?" Tantomile asked, in the same quiet, gentle voice.

Demeter sat down hard on the ground, head in paws. "I hate cats killing other cats," she said in a muffled voice. "I hate it. But what I hate even worse is killing them for the killing. Or rather, killing everything that IS them... taking away their family, tribe, name, reputation, dignity.... I hate it, I hate it!" Tantomile said nothing, but knelt, and put a paw on Demeter's shoulder.

The simple touch did much to restore Demeter's calm, and she stood up, brushing away tears, and said "Well, anyway, Old Deut and Munku are waiting...." Tantomile nodded silently, and followed the other cat.

Before she left the pipe, however, Demeter noticed a bit of paper on the ground. She picked it up unobtrusively, and led Tantomile back to her house.

Demeter sat behind Munkustrap, who was watching the proceedings with his customary silence. Old Deuteronomy was talking in a low voice to Tantomile, who was staring at her paws. While these events were going on, Demeter took the time to open the folded bit of paper she had found, and read it... It was in a messy, cramped handwriting, in red ink:

"Killed him killed him me I killed him my paw my magic my fault I killed him my guilt my blame his death my death darkness and blood no darkness no blood just death death no shadows no hiding tired shadows just light light light and no blood no blood just him and death and me and my magic and he's dead he's dead and I killed him I killed him I killed him."

Munkustrap seemed to notice what Demeter was doing, because he turned to her and whispered "What's that?" Demeter tried to hide the paper from her mate. "Nothing...." "Give it to me..." Demeter reluctantly gave him the paper. The silver tabby read the scribbled words, and looked back up, saying seriously "This bodes not well for Tantomile's sanity or peace of mind." Demeter couldn't help but roll her eyes. "I know that, Munku. Believe me, I know that all too well."

It was too bad that both tom and queen were occupied with the paper; because if they hadn't been, they might have prevented a death which was to go down in history.... As it was, a strangled cry caught their attention, and they turned in time to see Tantomile reach for Old Deuteronomy and slash through his throat, leaving three bloody stripes across his neck, and blood dripping from her claws. Deuteronomy stood for a moment, looking shocked, then collapsed - dead - to the floor, blood pooling beneath him.

Munkustrap, Demeter, and Tantomile all three stared at the body for a moment. Then Munku & Dem stared at Tantomile. She stared back. Then she backed away, reaching for the door, gasping with what seemed to be mortal terror. Before she could reach the door, Munku snarled and jumped at her - he pinned her to the ground, and said furiously "You murderer! Do you know what you have done?"

Demeter screamed. She couldn't help it. She had grown far too used to cats being kind, and not killing, since her time back at the Junkyard from Macavity's lair. She never would have screamed during her time with the Hidden Paw. But now, she screamed, and it was enough to distract Munkustrap for a split second - a split second being quite enough time for Tantomile to scratch her claws through his throat, and escape, tears flying from her eyes, a choking sob flying from her mouth, out the door.

Demeter dropped to the floor on her knees beside Munkustrap. The silver fur was stained with blood, and more of the ghastly red liquid was pooling beneath him. The striped tom gasped with pain as Demeter tried to hold him - then he smiled weakly at her. "Sorry, Dem," he said in a pained, breathless voice. "I did try, you know.... I did...." "I know you tried, Munku," said Demeter. Munku closed his eyes. "I think I just want to sleep now... I failed... but I did try... I tried...."

Demeter didn't know how long she held him after he died. Certaintly it was dark by the time she finally came back to herself, and lay his body gently beside Old Deuteronomy's. Then, her eyes burning with unshed tears, she stalked out into the night to confront the killer.

Tantomile woke up slowly from a dream in which Coricopat had been alive.... A dream in which she had not been a murderer.... "But that's all lies," she whispered in the dark alley where she had taken refuge after killing the Jellicle Leader and Leader-To-Be. "Lies. He's dead, they're dead, and I'm as good as dead."

"Not so, Tantomile," said a voice from the other end of the alley. Demeter stepped into view in the ray of light that shone from a window in a human building that bordered the alley. "You are not as good as dead." Demeter seemed tired, but not physically. Her voice was sad, almost world-weary, and she spoke as though she just wanted to lie down and sleep. "You still can live, but only in the darkest places. Only in evil. Only in shadows."

Tantomile's yellow eyes widened. It was perfectly true that she and Coricopat could read minds - they usually preferred not to, but this one time.... She peered carefully within Demeter's thoughts....

~Why in Bast's name am I helping her?~ Demeter was wondering. ~She killed Mistoffelees, OId Deuteronomy - and - she killed Munkustrap.... She's a murderess, she should die... she should....~

Aloud, Demeter said "In the shadows, you will be a shadow yourself. Macavity is a shadow. His work is in the evil, dark alleys - like this one." Her eyes were troubled, dark, sad. "Do you want to be like Macavity? It's the only way you can live, now. Grizabella killed only one cat, and not the Jellicle Leader."

Tantomile sighed; she knew what she had to do. Standing, she held out her paw, claws extended. Demeter looked startled - but then she slowly nodded. She, too, held out her paw with claws extended. Both queens put their claws to their throats - and slowly took their own lives....

It was a tale that would live for centuries, though, of course, in a far different form. How Tantomile, the mad queen, murdered the entire tribe of Jellicles, including the leader and her own brother, until one young queen named Demeter found her, and killed her in a ferocious battle that even humans noticed. How Demeter was wounded in the fight, and staggered, bloodied and dying, to another tribe. How the leader-to-be of that tribe found her on the outskirts of the junkyard, and brought her back, but how it was too late to save her life. How he fell in love with her, and, when she died, killed himself.... But the true story is known to very few. It is, perhaps, too sad, too dark for kittens to hear - better they are told a story with strict right and wrong, a story which they can hear and sigh over, then go to sleep and forget about it. Better they do not hear a story written in words of blood....