She walked quickly around her one-room apartment. After more than four years in this one home she knew all its possibilities, how it could put on a sham appearance of warmth and welcome when she needed a place to hide in, how it stood over her in the night when she woke suddenly, how it could relax itself into a disagreeable unmade, badly-put-together state, mornings like this, anxious to drive her out and go back to sleep.

All cat stories start with this statement: "My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...

I have always loved to use fear, to take it and comprehend it and make it work and consolidate a situation where I was afraid and take it whole and work from there.

Am I walking toward something I should be running away from?

I came to believe that being a private detective was the work I was meant to do.

I shall weave a suit of leaves. At once. With acorns for buttons.

It watches," he added suddenly. "The house. It watches every move you make.