The wind seemed to carry a kitten’s haunting cry to Maria Delk’s bedroom window.

She and her husband were getting ready for bed. And then they heard it again. A persistent plea.

Meow.

“It kept going on and on,” she tells The Dodo. “So, finally, my husband went outside.”

On the sidewalk across the street, the kitten seemed apparition. Her husband brought her inside.

Delk recalls, “I feared she was going to die.” “It appeared as though her eye had vanished.”

And there was Grace, a wild kitten who is bouncing back brilliantly at Delk’s house after a much-needed trip to the vet.

No one knows how the little house in Rio Vista, California, became a home for wayward cats. Least of all the family who lives in that house.

Delk declares, “I’m not a cat person.”

No one seems to have informed the cats. Instead, the same bizarre scenario repeats again. Again. And once more.

There’s Gandalf the Grey, who was living in a bush three months ago.

And Bailey, who showed up with an infected mouth.

“I had to rush him to the hospital,” she recalls.

Delk’s house had to be erected on top of an old catnip gravеyard. What other explanation could there be for the uncanny draw?

She has a total of seven cats in her home. Grace the kitten’s siblings, on the other hand, have lately appeared in need of attention. That adds up to nine lives. Naturally.

What about outside? A swarm of sinewy strangers, crippled migrants, and ravenous ghosts comes and goes.

Delk explains, “There are probably 15 distinct ones that arrive.” “I’ve given them names. I’m not going to name any of them. I’m attempting to avoid becoming overly involved.”

These cats, on the other hand, aren’t looking for catnip. They’ve come for empathy.

Delk is one of the only persons in a community of 8,000 people who devotes so much time to caring for stray and Iơst cats. Many of them arrive with serious injuriеs.

“Sometimes I just want to close my shades,” she explains. “But I’m afraid I won’t be able to. I know that if I don’t feed them, no one else would.”