She hasn't always lived in our pantry. In fact, I think once--a long, long time ago--she may have lived in a house with people. But that time has faded to the dimmest of memories, overshadowed by the long years of fear and hunger of her feral life.

I don't know how long she lived in our woods. I first noticed her in the Spring of 1996 when I saw her nibbling the cat food we keep out on our porch for the feral and abandoned cats. What I noticed was that she was pregnant.

Oh, great...

We weren't going to sit by and watch feral kittens starve or get hit by cars or torn by predators. No--not going to do it. The only solution was to trap the little tortoiseshell and keep her safe until her kittens were born, then try to tame them and find homes for them.

So, I trapped Grendel and set up a nursery for her in the downstairs bathroom. Fortune had guided my timing, because she had her kittens a week later--two little black shorthairs. When one of the cats at the Shelter had a litter of kittens a few days afterwards, our plan changed. Grendel's kittens were mixed in with the shelter cat's litter and grew up tame and trusting.

I felt badly about taking Grendel's babies away from her. The life of a feral must be so lonely and devoid of pleasures. But I knew that the kittens would have a much better life growing up with a human-friendly foster mother. Indeed, once the litters were mixed, it was impossible to tell Grendel's kittens from the originals. They all grew up to be engaging little kittens.

So, a few weeks later, we had Grendel spayed. I wanted to see if I could tame her down, but before I had much of a chance to work with her, she escaped after I moved her to an outside cat run. I didn't see her again and sadly assumed she had fallen prey to predators or the hard life of feral cats. At least her kittens had a chance at a better life. That was all the comfort I could garner from the whole venture.

Three years and some months later, in the depths of winter, I had been setting our cat trap each evening, trying to bring in what strays or ferals were around our yard before the weather got cruelly cold. On this particular night, when I walked around the house to check, there was a frightened tortoiseshell in the trap. I didn't think it was possible, but I recognized her--it was Grendel.

Having given her up for dead once, I wasn't going to risk her life again, so she became a member of our household, albeit a rarely-seen one. She creeps out when the house is quiet to enjoy the cat porch and take care of her feline business. We occasionally surprise her in the bedroom or living room and she will hurry back to the safety of the spare room but over time there is less panic in her gait. Her wariness seems born more of habit than actual fear.

She has turned out to be actually rather placid for a feral cat. If I reach back under the dresser where she has made her den, I can pet her, though she doesn't much like it. She greets me with hisses but I think she knows I mean her no harm. For years, she resolutely refused to be socialized, but our forest is dying around us and the landscape is no longer safe for feral cats. Since Star has come to live with us, Grendel has gained confidence and comes out more during the day. Instead of scurrying off whenever she sees us, she will peer at us with a mix of uncertainty and curiosity before retreating to a safe vantage point.

I think she knows she is safe now.