Cats Triumphant Read online

  “Now, now, enough sentiment,” Violet said, giving her a little shake. The old lady seemed to be just as she was the last time Mira had seen her, crotchety, brusque, formidable, but whole and erect now, not wracked with the shaking or the weakness of atrophied muscles. “Now, how is my worthless brother?”

  They talked together for a while. Mira gave her updates on everything that had happened in the last two years. She was surprised that the people in the afterlife had no way of knowing what was going on with the people they left behind. She didn’t know how long they went on laughing and sharing memories. The light never changed there, and she never tired.

  “But what I really need to know, Aunty, is the name of the village that Great-great-grandfather Georgi came from,” Mira said at last when they’d run out of relatives to abuse. “I’m still trying to look up our family history, and the geneologists all said it would help if I knew that.”

  “Is that all, girl?” Violet said, her shade brightening with amusement. “Volberg was the place. I couldn’t find a trace of it on modern maps. Probably lost. Everyone there died, or left, or it was renamed by the shifts in government. You know the way things happen.”

  “Volberg,” Mira said, committing it to memory. As she did she sensed a withdrawal of energy around her. She’d fulfilled her purpose for being here. She looked around. The features of the ghostly landscape seemed further away. She wanted to pull it back to her.

  Violet sensed it, too. “Go on back, girl. It’s not your time yet.”

  Mira hugged her. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there when … ”

  “When I passed? But it’s all better now, do you see? I’m well and happy. Tell them that.”

  “I will.” Mira was comforted. “Do you like it here?”

  “Of course!”

  “Aren’t you ever afraid?” Mira said, thinking of the aggressive shadows that had swooped over her.

  “No, there’s nothing here that can harm me. Ah, but you, we can’t defend you if you’re attacked. Only the living can save the living.:”

  “I’ll be all right as long as I’m in the circle,” Mira said.

  The old woman’s face twitched in a smile. “You were always a smart girl. I’ve got to go now. So have you. It’s time.”

  Mira’s heart sank. “Don’t go, Aunty Violet. Please.”

  The bright form receded from her. “Don’t forget me.”

  “I won’t! I never will.”

  The voice came from farther away now. “I’ll remember you, too, Mira. You were always an interesting girl. Give them all my love. No,” Violet stopped, finger in the air in an old, familiar gesture, “don’t. They don’t deserve it. You do.” She smiled the conspiratorial grin that Mira remembered so well. Death hadn’t changed her. She turned away. Mira just had to hug her one more time. She started after the fast-receding light. Her hands touched only air.

  Bang! Her foot struck something solid. She saw the candle on the floor, which she had forgotten about, just as it went out. Mira stooped to pick it up. She must relight it immediately. Her hands fumbled for the electronic match, hidden somewhere beneath the gray mist.

  But the enemy didn’t hesitate to attack. Blackness took her like a shroud, surrounding her, paralyzing her, sucking life out of her. She scrambled toward the nearby gate, but it tripped her to the ground. With eyesight enhanced by contact from her familiar she saw features in the inky folds, grinning mouths, hollow, hungry eyes. It was an entity of many evil minds, and it wanted to devour her. The lips drew back, baring teeth filed to points. Mira fought, but she didn’t know any defenses against otherworldly demons. She never counted on making a mistake like that!

  Years of playing D&D didn’t help. She had no magic missiles to throw. Instead, she summoned up the memory of her women’s self-defense class, clawing, thrashing and generally refusing to go quietly. Her feet flailed wildly, but failed to connect with a solid mass. Unfortunately you couldn’t kick a ghost in the balls. She started yelling for help, but there was no one to help. There wasn’t another living being within earshot.

  The blackness shoved at her, dragging her over the rough floor. A black hole opened up ahead of her, just like what happened to the bad guy in Ghost. She would be dragged down to the pit.

  “Help!” she cried. “Lewis!” He wouldn’t be home for a couple of hours. “God and goddess!” But the gods weren’t listening. She glanced back at the bright shape watching her with its head tilted. “Zoomer! Do something!”

  She felt a surge of power well up within her. Light burst from inside her, driving the darkness back. With the gift of her familiar, she was able to defend herself and ward off its advance. The enemy recoiled slightly, but it wasn’t enough. It thinned out, then surged forward again, surrounding her completely. “Help!”

  The cat-giant jumped over the wall of blackness, in between her and the smothering enemy, pummeling, clawing, tearing rents in black shadow that bled brilliant white light. Mira pulled herself away on her elbows, crawled to her feet, yelling encouragement at Zoomer.

  “That’s it! Kick him! Tear him apart!” she yelled. The cat-shape fought fiercely, ceremonially burying the pieces of its vanquished foe in the carpet. Mira almost cried with relief. “Oh, Zoom, I’m proud of you,” she said, reaching high up to scratch the huge head. Zoomer purred, vibrating the air.

  But the nightmare monster had a big brother. It rose out of the ground, blotting out the translucent landscape, everything, a dozen, a hundred times larger than they, until the only light they could see came from a tiny point high, high above them. Zoomer took one look and jumped into Mira’s arms, a giant in fear, yowling and trembling. She clutched him, not knowing what to do. They were out of options. They were going to die. The walls began to close in, closing off even that distant point.

  But they had an unexpected ally, too. Mira heard a tremendous ‘boing!’ Bounding in over the barrier of darkness, glowing like Liberace’s piano, was an even bigger entity made of light. It kicked back the black walls, trounced the darkness, sucking it into its glowing form like a vacuum cleaner drinking a balloon. As soon as it was all gone, it bounded toward Zoomer and Mira. Mira recoiled, fearing it would start on them next, but it drove them toward the gate back to the real world. The gate whisked over them.

  Suddenly, they found themselves on the other side looking back at the Summerland. They weren’t glowing any longer. Mira looked around for their mysterious rescuer, but saw nothing. No time to waste. She did a banishing, blew out the candles, grabbed Zoomer and ran down the stairs.

  * * *

  “I wonder who that was that saved us,” Mira asked Zoomer, after her first restorative sip of coffee. Not wanting to go back to the sanctum for her caftan, she sat wrapped in her pink terrycloth bathrobe. “I wanted to thank him. Her? It? There shouldn’t have been anyone else in that circle.”

  Zoomer sat down and began to scratch furiously at his neck with a back claw.

  “That flea’s still there,” Mira said, almost glad to have something mundane to concentrate on. That had been a harrowing experience. Wait until she told Loretta! She drew Zoomer on to her lap, went through his fur with her fingers. Even though they were out of the sanctum it still felt as though the two of them were the only living creatures in the whole wide world, and here she was picking a flea out of her sole companion’s fur. She located a hard, hyperactive, black speck and held it up.

  “There!” she exclaimed, triumphantly. Immediately, Zoomer turned around, swatted her hand and bounded to the floor. The flea disappeared again, probably jumping right back into his fur. Why would Zoomer protest when she was freeing him from an irritation? Then Mira had a funny thought.

  The chalk on the floor would have prevented anything else from coming into the circle with them. They had been the only living creatures in the whole wide world. She remembered Violet’s words. Only the living can save the living. She gla
nced at Zoomer. His flea? The enormous being had defended them, as if it was dedicated to them, exactly like her familiar was supposed to do, but …

  Nah.

  On the other hand…why not?

  “Zoom?” She asked, tentatively, feeling stupid even to be asking the question, “was that your familiar? Did you do the calling ritual?” Then she stopped, feeling even more idiotic. “No, what am I saying? You’re just a cat. I mean, you enhance my abilities, but … ?” She hesitated. Could her familiar have a familiar?

  Zoomer struggled away, scratched again, looked up at her with the wise look he’d given her when he had first moved into her house, into her life. Mira stopped. He was capable of anything, with an old soul like that. She couldn’t underestimate him. Look at how he’d appeared in the Summerland, larger and more powerful than she was. He was a magician in his own right. And the protective presence, so unexpected, shrinking out of sight just as they passed through the gate to safety. What else could it have been? The flea must be mightier still than either one of them. Mira giggled. It might even have its own familiar, a microbe or something. What could be next down the line? A supercharged molecule?

  Why shouldn’t she believe in a familiar’s familiar? She’d just spent the last two hours talking to a ghost. What could be weirder than that? Zoomer looked at her with feline insouciance. But why?

  “All right, I’ll buy it,” Mira said. She threw her hands in the air. “I give up. What do you need a flea familiar for?”

  As if in answer, the cat elevated slowly in the air until it hovered at eye level. Mira stared, astounded. Then, with an expression she could only call a smirk, Zoomer rose to the cabinet above the refrigerator, hooked it open with one paw, and knocked down the can of Petreats.

  “Too haughty,” the black and white cat said. Marco swished his fluffy tail as prince after royal prince paraded, bowing and smirking, along the flagstone path past the Princess Briar Rose’s blue silk pavilion which stood in the shadow of her father’s castle. “Hmph! A dandy, with not a brain in his head! Oh, look, a barbarian! I can smell the horse’s blood on his spurs from here.”

  Briar Rose, sixteen and beautiful as the flower of her name, sighed at the multitude of handsome men in silks and leather and gold coronets. With lips as red as rose petals and eyes as blue as the sky, Briar Rose had poets getting into fistfights to recite poetry about her glorious attributes. Her knee-length, barley-gold hair fell in silken waves around her molded cheeks, soft, white neck and creamy bosom. She leaned forward and put her pretty chin on her palm, gazing dreamily, and stroked the cat in her lap with her free hand. “But surely one of them would be a worthy husband.”

  Marco turned his round green eyes up to the girl’s face. “Not worthy of you, my dear. Not one. Daffodil, Lavinia and Nocila would strike me blind if I let you choose any of these wretches.”

  Briar Rose appealed to Bruno and Humberto. “What about you?” The brown hound and the gray mouse shook their heads.

  “They don’t smell trustworthy,” Bruno said, putting one big paw on her lap.

  “They admire themselves in the polished shields of the guards before they show themselves to you,” Humberto said. “They’re all as vain as Marco.”

  The cat’s eyes narrowed, but he controlled himself. Briar Rose’s three fairy godmothers had placed him in charge of her well-being.

  “A man, even a prince, worthy of marrying you,” he said, “must have all of the finest qualities. He must be brave, loving, trustworthy, loyal, kind, curious, resourceful and respectful as well as handsome.”

  “Why, then,” Briar Rose laughed, lifting the cat and kissing him on the top of the head, “I’d end up marrying you!”

  A large, black-haired man in red leather came to a halt at the door of the pavilion and scowled as he heard the princess speak. His expression quickly changed to a simpering smile as Briar Rose put the cat down on her lap and looked up. Marco growled a word of disapproval at his hypocrisy. Briar Rose gave the man a polite smile but no word of encouragement. With an angry look, the prince stalked away.

  “Not a genuine prospect in the whole litter,” Marco said, and settled in, folding his white paws under his snowy white breast.

  Briar Rose just stroked him and gazed out at the file of suitors. She could understand the speech of animals, a gift from her godmothers. The king and queen thought it was a fancy on her part, that she could speak to her companions. Bruno was hurt by their disbelief, but Marco had assured him it was better if they didn’t know such communication was possible. Animals would only tell the king and queen the truth about what they thought, and royal personages cannot stomach the truth. Briar Rose only listened to her parents because she had been taught respect by her guardians, the fairy godmothers who had protected her from the day of her christening sixteen years before, and by the three animals who lived in the forest cottage with them.

  Marco well remembered the day the three good fairies had brought the infant princess home. Marco had been three then, and wise beyond his years. He’d watched with concern as Daffodil, Lavinia and Nocila had warded the house with their strongest spells. They had asked the three animals to help care for her, and they had accepted the task with love. Bruno, a large friendly puppy, had grown up to be her loyal protector, though he was not as well-furnished in the brain department as Marco. Humberto was clever with his small paws, helping the little princess to learn embroidery and fine thread work, though she was forbidden to spin. The fairies had explained that a curse had been laid on her at birth by the Black Fairy, Desdemona, and that Briar Rose was not to touch a spinning wheel or she would die. With all her other activities the girl scarcely missed spinning, so full was her life The godmothers had taught her to sing and read and dance, to cook and bake and brew, to garden and ride and swim, and simply to enjoy life. Briar Rose had been happy and well.

  As all things come to an end, so did their peaceful years in the forest. Three weeks before her sixteenth birthday, the long-awaited summons had arrived from the King and Queen of Cadmonia. Two heralds and six men-at-arms had come to escort the Princess Briar Rose and her godmothers to the castle for the girl’s coming-of-age celebration. To the amazement of the men, Marco and his two companions went with them.

  The king and queen welcomed their daughter’s strange entourage, and gave each of the animals a warm silk cushion on the floor in her chambers. Marco never occupied his. He slept, as he always had, on the princess’s own pillow beside her head, with one paw touching her hair.

  The three animals found life in the castle as puzzling as its occupants must have found them. They did not like it that mice there were considered to be prey to cats and dogs alike. It was far better when the fairy godmothers’ animals organized the mice to keep down the bugs that were eating the tapestries and grain, and making the humans miserable in their beds. The cats turned to hunting garden pests instead of the household rodents. Dogs took more seriously their job of patrolling the castle and ceased bedeviling cats. In no time, all was running in harmony. The king had to admit that things had improved greatly since the arrival of the princess’s odd guardians.

  Preparations for the coming of age party seemed also to be going smoothly. Invitations had gone out six months in advance to every one of the 24 other kingdoms on the continent, inviting every prince over the age of twelve to attend. Now that she was a grown woman, Briar Rose was expected to choose a husband. Since she was an only child, the prince who married her would be ruler of Cadmonia after her father’s death. There were no refusals. By seven days before the party, elegible suitors were pouring over the narrow isthmus of land that separated the peninsula on which Cadmonia sat from the rest of its neighbors.

  The king and queen were determined not to repeat the mistake of the christening celebration. A special invitation had been sent out to all the kingdom’s fairies, but most especially to Desdemona. The miserable page who’d drawn the short s
traw of delivering hers returned much the worse for wear bearing a scorched piece of parchment with her acceptance. He hadn’t been able to speak since, and had been assigned a quiet chamber to himself high up in one of the distant towers of the castle.

  The last of the princes paraded himself past the silk tent, then retired.

  “Highness?” Daffodil asked, fluttering to the girl’s right shoulder. Fairies were smaller and usually plumper than ordinary humans and had wings on their shoulders. The yellow-clad godmother touched the girl on the hand. “The promenade of welcome is over. Come and change into your feast dress.”

  Briar Rose picked up Marco in her arms and followed her godmother with alacrity into the White Tower where her chambers lay. Bruno and Humberto trotted along behind. “I’ve never seen such beautiful things, nor had so many dresses to wear. I hardly know what to do.”

  “People will always tell you what to do,” Marco said, nestling close to her sweet-smelling hair. “It’s knowing what is proper for you to do that is difficult.”

  “So what is proper for me?” Briar Rose asked, as violet-clad Lavinia and blue-clad Nocila helped her out of her cream-colored day dress and into the deep red feast gown.

  “You are to marry a prince, and live happily ever after,” Marco said, playing with the laces of her bodice before Daffodil snatched them out of his claws and pulled them tight around the girl’s waist. The fairy godmothers finished fastening her dress and laid a crown of gold on her gleaming hair. Bruno looked up at her adoringly.

  “You are so beautiful,” he said.

  “Every detail perfect,” Humberto squeaked. “This will be your night of nights.”

  Briar Rose knelt and impulsively gathered her three furry friends into her arms. “If anything would happen tonight to change our friendship, I would die,” she cried.