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Affinity had found a tiny cranny in the cave in which to sleep, a perfectly rat-sized burrow made of stone. Colder and less cozy than a dirt burrow, but she was tired, and she had no trouble falling asleep.
She was not sure how long she slept. The cave was still dark when she awoke and peeked out of the crevice before venturing to step into the cave again.
"Oh good. You're awake now," Affinity heard someone whisper. She looked around, back and forth. They couldn't be talking to her? The voice was soft and feminine.
"I watch you sleep. Are you hungry?" The speaker was sitting in the corner of the cave chamber in which Affinity had found her burrow. A girl who looked very young, but she had to be at least 13, with brown hair falling just past her shoulders. The denim overalls she was wearing looked too small for her, and the grey sweatshirt looked too big.
Affinity drew closer. She sensed no danger from the girl, and there was something compellingly interesting about her. An almost sacred feeling, she might have thought, but that made no sense to Affinity really. She wondered if the girl would understand her if she spoke as a rat speaks. "Yes, hungry," she ventured.
Mouse reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of grains and a bit of cheese. She set them on the ground for the rat. The rat crept closer and sniffed the offering, then picked up the cheese in its tiny paws and nibbled delicately.
Mouse giggled softly as she watched the rat eat, then turned her head and listened to see if anything else was stirring. No, she thought after a careful moment, everybody else is sleeping. She turned back to the rat and whispered, "Did you come from the bad place?"
Affinity finished the cheese. It was delicious. "Denton," she answered. "Yes, it's bad there now." She tasted one of the grains, then another. "Very good cheese, thank you."
Mouse nodded vehemently when she heard the word Denton, whispering quickly, "Mouse went there once. Scary. Bad things. Are you alone?"
"There was a man hiding near me when I was trying to get out. I hid in his pocket and he brought me here."
Mouse responded automatically, "Sid-ney," breaking the word apart into two syllables.
Affinity didn't understand, so she ate the rest of the grain while she thought. "What's Sid-ney?" she asked the girl finally.
"The man. The man with comfy pockets." Mouse pointed toward where she thought Sidney lay sleeping.
Affinity crept closer to her, putting her front paws on Mouse's knee. She looked up into the girl's eyes. If she had been thinking of Mouse as human, she would never have done that. But there was this strange feeling about this girl. She was in a category all her own, and Affinity wanted a closer look.
Mouse smiled at the rat, a tenderhearted smile, and she slipped her hand down slowly beside the rat. She held out her cupped hand. The rat moved away slightly. "Want up? Could ride on my shoulder. Hide in my hair. No one see you there. Mouse is very quiet. Mouse likes to watch and listen. Good place to watch."
Affinity was unsure. The girl smelled good, and hiding was good. But being picked up by a human hand, the thought gave her too much vertigo. "Mouse is you? Your name?" she asked, scooting back a bit further.
Mouse nodded excitedly. "Mouse is me. Are you going to talk to Niko soon? You should, you should. Bad things for the other rat people. Bad things coming. Niko help."
"Bad things already there." Affinity remembered the name Niko. It was what the voices had called the big scary slobbering wolf that had jumped over the man whose pocket she'd been in. "You tell Niko - very bad things. Big black wolves with green eyes. Big ugly white or no fur ones too. They killed a lot of us. We killed some of them too." For a moment she felt pride in the fight, but it was better to have lived and got out of there, she knew.
Mouse frowned in concentration for a moment, pulling her hand back into her lap. She tried to think of the words to say what she knew was coming. She hesitated, then spoke again. "Bad things there now, maybe. Worse things coming. All rat people gone. All gone. No more rat people." She sounded very sad. "'Cept you, now, maybe. Cause you're here."
Affinity might not want to talk to Niko, but she couldn't let all the ratkin of Denton be destroyed because she was scared of a big wolf. "Okay, I talk to Niko. You help me? He knows you, doesn't know me."
Mouse nodded her head several times in a row enthusiastically. "Mouse help."