“Kitten-beans, though they are reluctant to admit it, crave, desire, and yearn for human contact. They were made that way. Boys quite willingly grow attached to small, wild, and furry things. They were made that way as well. And so, when the bean fields flooded and the kitten-bean was caught in a torrent, when the boy grew restless and left his antler home, the Summer King, watchful and wise, decided the two were to be bound, and the boy heard first the voice of the waterfall, hush hush hush, and then…”
A tribute to Harlan Ellison’s “A Boy and His Dog.” Ranylt Richildis, the editor of Lackington’s, describes it as follows: “a tender bit of slipstream that’s part fable and part Pinter production, featuring a vegetized kitten that could soften the hardest heart.” Part of the Many Seasons cycle.
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