“You’re right, it’s not,” she said
thoughtfully, “but it still has to make
you wonder if maybe the genetics of    
cats has been modified before, except  
by nature itself, instead of humans,   
but none of those mutations survived   
long enough to reproduce.”             
     “Or, maybe they did survive,” I   
said, just to disagree with her, “but  
they’re all pretending they can’t,     
until they take over the world.”       
     “Do you even listen to yourself   
sometimes?” Beth said with a smile,    
while rolling her eyes and shaking her 
head.                                  
     “Anyway, the second reference was 
the same general kind of story. A quick
mention of a cat that could talk and   
also cast magical spells, but nothing  
else. That one was published in 1834,  
* but the legal case is the most           
interesting of them all and the        
oldest.”                               
     “You like all this research stuff,
don't you?”                            
     “I love it, but like I was saying 
earlier,” she said and gave me her sad 
look, “the legal reference was also the
saddest.                               
     “It doesn't really have anything  
to do with any case that was decided in
a court of law, at least not           
officially. It's from some Journals    
that a rich guy, from Boston, had      
donated to the University.             
     “They were all written around the 
1750s, long after the Salem Witch      
Trials, but one of them references it.”
     “What's this reference about, if  
it's not about a legal case?”          



CHAPTER 11: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30th
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