Frau Holda Frekke, Dispenser of Cats... Finder of Lost Souls

June 10th, 193X was the day that Alba Milesian first went missing. Her Aunt Holda was desperate to find her, and summoned 468 search cats to scour the hills, creek banks and surrounding woods in order to find her as dusk was quickly approaching, which would be followed by its cousin, night - and that was when the Proto Eurasian Wolves came out to hunt.
Holda was distraught, having promised her brother Japheth that no harm would befall Alba shortly before his disappearance and then his recent death. Caring very deeply for Alba and being filled with fear for her safety, she addressed the cats before they set out, saying slowly and sternly so that each would understand, “We do not break our oaths to the dead… We do not.”
Holda Frekke kept one of the cats’ number behind as an envoy and formal guarantee of the other’s return, as that is how it had always been done. Her husband Jacob (who had lost a bit of his sense after an accident in the shed) became withdrawn, and could only look on over the hills in hope, sucking his thumb for security as dusk grew ever near.