SOUTH KITSAP — The young cat was intrigued by the baby chicks. Can you blame him?

Owner Danielle Moe speculates her purebred Abyssinian, strictly an indoor cat, slipped through an unlatched door when she brought the babies out to the henhouse.

Curiosity didn't kill this cat, but it came close.

Helix, missing since April 2016 and given up for lost, was found and turned into the Kitsap Humane Society in late January. He was skin and bones, dehydrated with an injured eye and abscessed tooth. But remarkably after nearly four years fending for himself in woods frequented by coyotes and other predators, Helix had survived.

"This cat would not have been alive today if it had been another week," said Patrick Moe, Danielle's husband.

Helix lounged lazily in his kitty condo Tuesday, looking utterly content although a little worse for the wear. Squinting out his left eye, he looked like a scrappy pirate on shore leave.

"I wish I could get an eyepatch for him. He just deserves it," Patrick said.

Helix is still skinny but gaining weight on a high-calorie diet. The Moes figure he survived on birds, mice and possibly handouts from neighbors.

"All the stories that he could tell you, the scary stories, the great adventures ..." Patrick mused.

Once he's stronger, he'll have surgery to address the tooth abscess and eye injury.

Helix hissed and growled at Henry, the Moe's exuberant boxer. Henry backed off, looking a little sad and mystified.

The two were best buds back in the day.

Helix and Henry joined the Moe household, which includes three teenage humans, within two weeks of one another. A photo on Patrick's phone shows Helix snuggled up to puppyish Henry a half-hour after they met.

The Moes think Helix may not remember Henry, or that the cat is still traumatized by his ordeal and needs time to regain strength and trust in the world.

As a young cat, Helix was super friendly and outgoing. True to his breed, he could jump up on the counter with ease, and he loved to be in the middle of everything.

On the day Helix escaped, the Moes called for him all over the property. They found his quick-release collar under the couch, so they realized he lacked identification. Their search stretched into weeks then months. Danielle kept looking for kitty footprints on her car.

"I was devastated," she said. "I actually dreamed about him coming home."

A year-and-a-half after Helix went missing, they had mostly given up hope, however. They adopted Clyde, a large black cat, telling themselves that Henry needed a friend.

"I thought that might help me heal a bit, not that it would replace him," Danielle said.

The Moes were reunited with Helix after he was brought to the Humane Society through a series of coincidences.

Their daughter Aubrey, 17, is not one for social media, but late one night in January, she was checking the Port Orchard Facebook page to see if icy roads would delay school the next day.

Aubrey, falling under Facebook's spell, began randomly scrolling and scrolling, eventually stumbling on a shared post from a lost pet group. There in the post was a cat that looked for all the world like Helix.

Aubrey took a screenshot and sent it to her mom.

"I was so excited," Danielle said. "I was 90% sure this was Helix."

But she and Patrick had to work for two days — she as a nurse, he a paramedic at Swedish Hospital in Seattle — so they couldn't immediately get to the Humane Society. And the shelter's voice mailbox was full, Danielle said.

The shelter puts a three-day hold on pets that are turned in, giving owners time to reclaim them. Reunifications after such a long time are almost unheard of, according to Humane Society staff.

"This is really a miracle that the owners figured out it was their cat at KHS and they came in and were reunited. So that's our dream," said Dr. Melissa Kehl, the vet who first examined Helix. "It's why we do our work, is to get owners and their pets back together."

Kehl said Helix — who the shelter staff called "Cairo" — was "sweet and easy-going" despite his apparent ordeal. The staff's first goal was to stabilize his low blood sugar and to help him gain weight.

Helix's microchip provided confirmation of his identity. The woman who turned him in as a stray found Helix about three miles from the Moe's home, according to the Humane Society.

"Despite being very weak, when Helix saw his family, he let out a faint but warm "meow,'" a news release from the Humane Society said.

When Danielle saw Helix again after all this time, she felt "just totally astonished but at the same, I don't know, it kind of felt like it was meant to happen. ... I don't know I kind of feel like I won the lottery."

Chris Henry reports on education and community news for the Kitsap Sun. Reach her at (360) 792-9219 or christina.henry@kitsapsun.com. Support coverage of local news by signing up today for a digital subscription.