She was weaving a basket from blades of dried grasses. Above her head was a shelf full of the baskets she had made, some with dried wildflowers or colored threads woven into them. Several had long shoulder straps, which made the baskets perfect for carrying bits of food or scraps of cloth. All of the baskets were skillfully made, with perfect knots and minuscule braids and weaving so tight the baskets could hold several thimblefuls of water or honey.

Celeste’s newest basket was going to be of a design she hadn’t tried before, with a side pocket and a fold-over flap to keep things from spilling out. Her nook was dim, but Celeste was used to it. From her pile of dried grasses she pulled another long blade and, using her teeth and nimble fingers, began twisting and weaving.

“Over, under, around, through, left over right…” said Celeste to herself as the grasses sang. The blades smelled sweetly of sunshine, of summertime.

As she wove them together she pondered over where the grasses may have grown. She had nearly forgotten what a sunny day was like. She spent her time under the floorboards, or upstairs in the dining room, furtively darting about in the shadows, searching for bits of food, plucking strands of horsehair from the dining-room chairs’ seat cushions, or searching for bits of grass that had been tracked into the house on the shoes of humans. And always at night.

And lately Celeste had been finding something else on her expeditions upstairs: feathers. This was something new; she had never seen any before. Some were as small as her ear; others, long and pointy. Some were soft brown, others vivid green, still others brilliant blue and white. More often than not, after a venture to the dining room or crossing the hallway, she would return with a feather.

Finally, her paws a bit numb, Celeste tied off the last knot and sat back to examine the completed basket. “Goes quickly, once you have a rhythm going,” she mused.

Her nose twitched, and she brushed dust from her whiskers.

She heard the deep gong of the dining-room clock resonate through the floorboards above her head.

Then she heard a rustling sound, and she glanced nervously down into the darkness of the tunnel between the musty floor joists.

Two gray rats emerged from the shadows and crowded into Celeste’s nook.

No, it wasn’t living in the darkness under the floorboards that Celeste minded. But these two, they were a different story.