Every morning they went crabbing. Winston would carry the pail, and Buster would trail behind, stopping to sniff dead fish and complaining when his delicate paws sank in wet sand. Sometimes people would coo over him--they seemed drawn to a cat on the beach--but usually they would watch from a distance.
Winston knew the town thought him strange. They called him that crazy guy with the cat, and most never visited his shop. Only tourists came in, and they usually bought the mass-produced items, not his specialty items. Those he sold to select customers who never returned, although they recommended the store to their friends. He did a steady mail order business, shipping weekly all over the United States, Canada, and Europe.
He didn't care about the money. It was merely a way to maintain his warm and cozy home, built on a cliff overlooking the sea. He had worn a path from the back door to the beach near the small town of Seavy Village, and he and Buster tramped down the path daily at first light, crabbing if the tides allowed, and playing in the sand until nine a.m. Then Winston returned home, showered, and drove to his shop on a decrepit section of Highway 101. Buster complained about the drive, but flirted with the customers shamelessly while Winston studied his books behind the counter.
It was a small life, as magic ones went, but it was his, his and Buster's. They had shared it since Winston fled San Francisco twenty years before and arrived in Seavy Village to find the cliff house for sale, and a rain-soaked kitten who spoke perfect English huddled beside its front door.
Only this morning, Buster didn't wake up. He remained curled at the foot of the bed, eyes half open, skin already cool. They had known the end was coming--few cats made it to twenty and remained as healthy as Buster--but they hadn't thought it so soon. Kind of Buster to wait until Monday, the only day the shop was closed.
Winston put his hand on Buster's still black-and-white side, and wished that instead of all his tiny powers, he had a single large one: the power over death.
But he didn't, and he never would. He sighed once, cradled his best and only friend for a long time, and then padded into his workshop to build a ship.
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