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THE CONFUSING EVENTS that early fall in Molena Point began perhaps with the return of Kate Osborne, the beguiling blond divorcée arriving back in California richer than sin and with a story as strange as the melodies spun by a modern Pied Piper to mesmerize the unwary. Or maybe the strangeness started with the old, faded photograph of a child from a half century past and the memories she awakened in the yellow tomcat; maybe that was the beginning of the odd occurrences that stirred through the coastal village, setting the five cats off on new paths, propelling them into two forgotten worlds as exotic as the nightmares that jerk us awake in the small hours, frightened and amazed.

The village of Molena Point hugs the California coast a hundred and fifty miles below San Francisco harbor, its own smaller bay cutting into the land in a deep underwater abyss, its shore rising abruptly in a ragged cliff along which Highway One cuts as frail as a spider’s thread. Maybe the tale commences here on the narrow two-lane that wanders twisting and uncertain high above the pounding waves.

It was growing dark when Lucinda and Pedric Greenlaw and their tortoiseshell cat left their favorite seafood restaurant north of Santa Cruz. Lucinda had carried Kit to their table hidden in her canvas tote, the smug and purring tortie curled up inside anticipating lobster and scallops slipped to her during their leisurely meal.

They’d departed San Francisco in late afternoon, Pedric driving, the setting sun in their eyes as it sank into the sea, its reflections glancing off the dark stone cliff that soon rose on their left, towering black above them. The Lincoln took the precipitous curves with a calm and steady assurance that eased Lucinda’s thoughts of the hundred-foot drop below them into a cold and churning sea. In the seat behind the thin, older couple, tortoiseshell Kit sprawled atop a mountain of packages, her fluffy tail twitching as she looked far down at the boiling waves, and then looked up at the dark, wooded hills rising above the cliff against the orange-streaked sky. The trip home, for Kit, was bittersweet. She loved the city, she had loved going around to all the exclusive designer’s shops, riding in Lucinda’s big carryall like a spoiled lapdog, reaching out a curious paw to feel the rich upholstery fabrics and the sleekly finished furniture that Lucinda and Pedric had considered. She loved the city restaurants, the exotic foods, she had rumbled with purrs when they dined grandly at the beautiful old Mark Hopkins Hotel, had peered out from her canvas lair secretly amusing herself watching her fellow diners. Part of her little cat self hadn’t wanted to leave San Francisco, yet part of her longed to be home, to be back in her own village with her feline pals and her human friends, to sleep at night high in her own tree house among her soft cushions with the stars bright around her and the sea wind riffling the branches of her oak tree. Most of all, she longed to be home with her true love.