The Cat Edward

1,619 words - teen fantasy

Once upon a time, there was a cat.

            His name was Edward.

He was gray with two white feet and one white tip on his tail.

            And of course he was magic.

Once upon a time, there was a girl.

            Her name was Clara.

She was skinny as a bone and had only one dress to her name.

            And of course she had Edward the cat.

Once upon a time, there was a princess.

            Her name was Sophia.

She lived in a palace and smelled like lavender and bathed three times a day.

            She did not have a cat. But of course she wanted one.

Once upon a time, the cat, the girl, and the princess all ended up in the same place at the same time. And so a story began.

            It was a cold day, the kind that burrowed into your bones. The kind with snow that creaked under your boots, if you were lucky enough to own boots. Neither the cat nor the girl had boots, but the princess did. She also had a coat, rabbit fur mittens, and two guards.

            The girl Clara had a sign that said, “Edward the magic cat” and a tin cup with three coins inside.

            The princess Sophia had come to the market to look for something, but when she saw Edward the cat with his two white paws and the one white tip on his tail, she forgot all about the something she had been looking for.

            “I want that cat!” she said. She pointed with one rabbit fur mitten, and when she pointed, her guards obeyed.

            But the cat did not.

            Edward the cat climbed the nearest thing he could find, which happened to be the girl, Clara. He hissed, showing tiny white teeth and a bright pink tongue. The guards had faced assassins, but they had never faced a cat.

            “I want that cat!” the princess said. But wanting something didn’t always mean you could have that something. The princess didn’t know this yet, and so she threw a fit. And then she made a plan.

Once upon a time, there was a sorcerer.

            No one knew his name.

He was older than he looked, but younger than anyone guessed.

            And of course he had magic. But he did not have a cat.

            When the princess Sophia came to the sorcerer, she said, “I want a cat. He is gray with two white paws and one white tip on his tail. And he is magic.”

            The sorcerer nodded. He wanted a magic cat too. He had wanted one for longer than the princess Sophia had been alive. He knew that wanting something didn’t always mean he could have that something. But he made a plan anyway.

            The princess Sophia left the sorcerer’s street with two potions in two glass vials, one in each mittened hand.

            When the princess Sophia woke up the next morning, her ladies in waiting screamed at the sight of her. Her parents wept. Her guards dragged her to the dungeons.

            She might have been wearing princess Sophia’s silk nightgown and sleeping in princess Sophia’s canopied bed, but she did not look like princess Sophia anymore.

            Her father’s entire army was sent out to search the city for the princess they thought was missing.

            When the girl Clara woke up, it was because two guards grabbed her. The cat Edward jumped off her feet and hissed. The village people whispered behind their hands.

            She might have been wearing the only dress she owned with holes in the sleeves and rips in the hem, but she now looked exactly like the missing princess.

The princess Sophia, or rather the girl Sophia, sat shivering in her nightgown in a cell. The girl Clara, or rather the princess Clara, stood trembling in the throne room with her hands tucked behind her back. The sorcerer stood watching from his magic mirror, his smile making the mole on his cheek stand out. And the cat Edward was yowling outside the palace doors, pacing back and forth on his paws, two gray and two white.

No one, not Sophia who’s plan had gone astray, or the sorcerer who’s plan was just beginning, or even Clara who knew nothing about anyone’s plans, had considered what Edward the cat wanted.

He wanted something very much. He wanted a girl. The one who was skinny as a bone with long hair and big eyes and only one dress to her name. Appearances didn’t fool him. He knew exactly who she was no matter what she looked like. And he knew that wanting something always meant he got that something as long as he had a plan.

And so Edward’s plan, the sorcerer’s plan, and Sophia’s plan got all mixed up together with poor Clara tossed around in the middle.

When the sorcerer showed up at the palace with two dried fish, the cat Edward followed him all the way to his dusty home. The sorcerer thought it was the fish that Edward wanted. As long as you fed a cat, it would keep coming back. That was what everyone said.

When the sorcerer woke up the next morning, he felt strange. His hammock was much too big for him. In fact, his whole house was much too big. When he tried to get up, he found he had four paws instead of two feet. Two gray paws and two white ones.

When Edward the cat woke up, he stretched and smiled. And the smile made the mole on his cheek stand out.

The sorcerer, or rather the cat who used to be a sorcerer, yowled and scratched and hissed, but the sorcerer Edward shut him in a closet with the dried fish and left for the palace.

When he arrived, he banged open the doors to the throne room with a crack and a cloud of smoke. The courtiers screamed.

The sorcerer Edward didn’t like speaking, having only meowed all his life, but he did it anyway.

“I have come to exact revenge!” he said.

The king and queen cowered. The princess Clara squeaked with fear.

The sorcerer Edward didn’t like to see his girl afraid, but it was for the best.

“Many years ago, my throne was taken from me by a greedy monarch. I have learned the art of magic, and now I have come to overthrow all monarchs. For many long years I have planned and plotted, and at last my moment has come! I have already exacted revenge on one princess, the girl you have locked in your dungeons. I sent her here to show you what fate awaits you, any of you who survive my wrath. See what a sorry state she is in now that my vengeance is complete? Her family is gone. Her kingdom is gone. Her riches and jewels and armies are gone. I have taken them all from her! All she has left is one dress to her name! And when I am through with you, it shall be the same!”

“Seize him!” The king pointed at Edward the sorcerer, and when the King pointed, his guards obeyed.

The sorcerer Edward sent up a plume of smoke and vanished. When the smoke cleared, the princess Clara was gone!

“My daughter!” the Queen wailed.

“Find her!” the King commanded.

And so a search was begun once again to retrieve the missing princess.

If anyone had time to check the dungeons, they would have noticed that the girl Sophia was also missing. But no one did.

The satisfied sorcerer Edward, the frightened princess Clara, and the bewildered girl Sophia made their way to the sorcerer’s home, where the cat who used to be a sorcerer was still clawing at the closet door and yowling.

The sorcerer Edward made quick work of reversing the spells and soon the cat Edward was purring and rubbing against the girl Clara’s legs, while the sorcerer let himself out of the closet cursing magical cats as he did so, and the princess Sophia sat down and cried.

Just then the royal guards banged on the door so brutally that the door’s hinges broke and it landed flat inside the sorcerer’s house making everyone jump.

Everyone, even the cat Edward, was escorted back to the palace where the sorcerer was put in the dungeon, the princess Sophia was embraced by her parents, and the girl Clara was given a new dress.

It was decided that since the girl Clara’s kingdom had been taken from her, she should remain at the palace. And since her cat with the two white paws was said to be magical, he should remain as well.

The sorcerer disappeared from the dungeons, and a search was sent out for him, but no one in the kingdom ever heard from him again for he had had quite enough of magical cats.

Once upon a time, there was a princess.

            Her name was Sophia.

She had a sister whom she sometimes shared her dresses with.

            And sometimes she had a cat that would sit on her lap.

Once upon a time, there was a princess.

Her name was Clara.

She owned more dresses than she could count and wore a different one every day.

            And of course she had a cat.

Once upon a time, there was a cat.

            His name was Edward.

He was gray with two white feet and one white tip on his tail.

            And of course he was magic.

Once upon a time, the two princesses and the magical cat all ended up in the same place at the same time, and so a story began in which they all lived happily ever after.

The end.

photo by Rene Dana

Seed

1,588 words - teen sci-fi

I leaped from the space pod right before it crashed, tumbling as I hit the ground. Gravel scraped my palms and tore at my pants. The pod was a wreck. Coming into earth’s atmosphere had been harder than expected. It was never going to fly again. But that didn’t matter. This was a one-way trip for me. 

I hadn’t bothered with a helmet and breathing was laborious. There was enough oxygen, but sucking in the dirty air made my lungs ache. When I looked up, the sky was a murky red at the edges fading to a smoky black top. Crags of volcano tops ripped up the skyline. I knew it was bad before I came. Everyone knew. But seeing it for myself was so much worse.

I got to me feet as the earth shifted under me, throwing me back onto my side, spilling my dozens of cornrow braids onto the ground around me.  

Pressing a hand to the capsule hanging around my neck, I felt a warm pulse against my palm. The seed was still safe.

Rolling onto my back, I looked straight up. Somewhere up there, there was a sun, dull and red, ready to blink out of existence. But the volcano ash was too thick to make it out. I sat up and looked around, more wary about getting to my feet this time. The gravel was the same deep brown as my skin, like people had crumbled to pieces here, their bodies turned to dust and rock. Something cracked behind me and I jumped up.

The ground was breaking open, a deep fissure splitting the earth like a crooked mouth. The ground popped and crackled under my feet, ready to swallow me up. I ran.

The seed was burning inside the capsule, hot and alive. I needed to plant it before it was too late, but where? The ground was black and broken. The volcanoes were angry or dead. The sun was hidden. The whole earth was decaying. The seed didn’t stand a chance on this planet.

The further I ran, sweat dripping off my nose and chin, the more I realized how pointless this was. I came here to save this seed, to try and save humanity, but all that was here for us was death. I knew it was a suicide mission, but I didn’t realize it would be a genocide mission too.

I scrambled up the side of a volcano, slipping on loose stones like broken glass. The peak of the volcano was smoking like a newly blown out candle. Steadying myself, I looked around for something, but I didn’t know what I was looking for anymore. Green was an impossible color here.

There was only black and that one belt of red circling me on the horizon, dividing the black in two. As I watched, even the red line of light was dimming, fading away until it was a smudge. And then a memory. Blackness engulfed me.

Wind hit, cold and sharp, snatching the sweat off my skin. I huddled down on the side of the volcano, wrapping myself together for warmth.

The darkness was so thick it pressed my eyeballs back into my skull.

The sun was gone.

I knew it like I knew I was breathing.

The sun was gone.

The

Sun

Was

Gone.

I was too late.

There could be no life without a sun.

The volcano I was huddled against flared, throwing orange light and a blast of heat over everything. I slipped, lost my balance, and tumbled down the side of the volcano. The sharp rocks stabbed at me until I slid to a stop at the bottom.

I pulled my arm out from under me and untangled my legs. My hand went to the capsule around my neck. It was safe. My clothes were shredded though. I could feel the wind whipping the torn edges. My shoulder and leg were both bleeding. It was too dark to see, but I could feel my limbs slippery with blood.

I should not have come.

I pictured this planet, floating through space next to a smoldering rock that used to glow. What did a sun look like when it was gone? No one would ever know.

I blinked, but the darkness didn’t lift.

Stretching out my legs, I rested back on my hands, wincing, and looked straight up at where the stars were, if only I could see them. I tugged the capsule off from around my neck.

“There’s no place for you, little seed,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. All you need is one little bit of life to live off of, but there is no life here.”

I pictured each volcano going out, turning cold, the lava hardening. I would be long dead before the last of them. If only they were truly alive. Then I would climb to the top and throw the seed in. But I knew it would be a waste.

I opened the capsule and light came out as the glowing seed tumbled into my palm. It was like a star, right there in my hand, the only one I could see.

This one seed contained the fate of billions of people. How tragic that neither it nor I would ever grow up to become what we could have been. We would be the last two things to die on this planet.

“Oh,” I said, as a realization came to me. “I am alive. I am the life I came here looking for.” It hadn’t been a waste coming here.

I scraped at the ground with one hand, pulling up chunks of rock and earth. Then I dropped the single speck of light into the shallow hole. It shined up at me, bright and warm. I buried it and the world went dark. But not forever.

I let the blood from my arm and leg drip onto the buried seed, like water for a plant. But this was no mere vegetation I was growing. The blood was dripping too slowly, so I took a sharp rock, sucked in my breath, and pressed the pointed edge into the wound on my leg, ripping it wider.

I gasped at the pain, but the blood came freely now, swift and thick. I let it run.

I had known I was coming here to die. This was the best death I could have imagined for myself.

I hoped the seed would grow quickly. I hoped I wasn’t too late. I hoped there were people still alive, still waiting for the light to come back.

I felt my consciousness draining away with the blood. I fell to my side and curled around the hole I’d dug, my braids splayed on the ground around my head.

And I waited to die.

The place where I’d planted the seed began to glow. And then one tiny little tendril of light poked out of the ground like a plant sprout. Right in front of me, it began to grow. I watched leaves divide from the stem, the tips of them reaching higher and higher like a plant looking for sunshine. It pulled itself up tall as branches split off and more leaves budded. I flopped onto my back to watch it fill out above me, this tree of bright light. The trunk thickened, the branches lengthened, the leaves multiplied. It was beautiful and glorious.

The tree at last settled into itself, the whole process happening without a sound. And then fruit began to form, blossoming from the branches, filling out full and round, making the branches bend beneath their weight.

Right above me, a branch tipped down, a single piece of fruit at its tip. I reached up, and the fruit fell into my hand. It was hot and heavy, and when I bit into it, the skin broke under my teeth spilling juice down my chin and delicious sweet warmth into my mouth. I had never tasted anything so delicious.

I could feel the warmth spreading from my stomach down through my limbs. And then, in my center, where my shirt is torn to expose my stomach, I began to glow.

Tendrils of bright white light emerged on my skin, curling and growing, making a pattern of curves across my stomach. The light kept growing, curling across my chest, wrapping down my arms, and spilling down my legs. Vines of light curl around wrists and ankles. As I watched, the wounds on my arm and leg began to close up, the skin healing without a scar. My veins, empty of blood, filled with light. Small leaves and flowers blossomed in the design on my skin like they had been inked on in shining white. A rose bloomed on my palm as vines curled around each finger and toe. I could feel the light trickling up my cheeks and across the back of my neck.

I sat up, turning my hands over and over, stretching out my legs, admiring the shimmering beauty.

I could feel heat intensifying across my back, warm and comforting. When I turned my head, I saw that two enormous fiery wings had grown from the light, stretching out from my shoulders. I furled them open and felt a rush of glory at their size and majesty.

I didn’t come here to die.

I came here to live.

The trees roots began shooting out across the ground like tongues of fire, turning the black earth to burning gold.

The next sun was coming.

photo by steve p2008

Garlic in the Blood

1,715 words - adult fantasy

The garlic plants were dead.

Sei knew before she pulled up the first bulb. She been trying to save them for weeks now as the stalks turned brown from the tips down, wilting until they lay flat on the ground. She’s known they were dying. And now they were dead. All of them.

            She had outlined her property in garlic, a line of plants poking out of the earth like bright green sentinels. And then she had planted another outline around her house. It was impossible to have too much. But this year there would be none at all.

            Sei dropped the rotted bulb and wiped her palms on her jeans, smearing them with mud and decayed plant. More than the potatoes, more than the peas or the watermelon or the corn or even the wheat, Sei needed the garlic. She wouldn’t have time to die of starvation if she ran out of garlic.

            Wiping her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand, she got to her feet. The sun was low, sitting on the ground and glaring. It was time to drink her tea.

            That was when she saw something she hadn’t seen in over a year. A stranger.

At first, he was just a dark smear against the setting sun, but every muscle in her body from her little toes to her scalp tightened at the sight. People did not come and visit Sei. There wasn’t a soul for miles. And there especially wasn’t anything without a soul. At least, there shouldn’t be.

            And the garlic was dead.

            She watched the man get closer. He was riding a horse of all things, which made her hunch her shoulders when she saw it, like she could make herself smaller, make herself disappear. She bent her knees like she was readying for a fight and her hand darted to her pocket where a long smooth piece of metal protruded. She was never without it, even after more than a year of solitude.

            She swallowed hard, twisted her foot firmly into the dirt, and waited.  

            She watched him dismount, the horse throwing his head like he had been ridden too hard and too fast and was glad to be rid of his rider.

            “Who are you?” she asked. Her voice was creaky from talking only to cats and chickens.

            She saw him take in her stance, the metal stake in her fist. He raised his hands in surrender. “I’m Drake,” he said. “I’m human.”

            “I can tell,” Sei said. But she didn’t relax her grip on the weapon.

            “Are you Sei?” the man asked.

            It was a stupid question. They both knew it, so Sei didn’t bother to answer. 

            The man – Drake – cleared his throat. “I need your help,” he said.

            “I’m done with all that.” Sei narrowed her eyes. “So you can get right back on your horse and go back to where you came from.”

            “I can’t!” Drake said. “There is no place to go back to anymore. It’s gone.” His voice cracked. “My whole city is gone.”

            Sei closed her eyes, trying to block out his words. “How many?” she asked.

            “I think it’s just one.”

            She snapped her eyes open. “One? That’s impossible. How big is your city?”

            “About 10,000. Or, it was. Only a couple hundred of us are left.”

            So it was small. But still.

            “When did it start?” she asked.

            “A month ago. It happened so fast, we didn’t realize what was going on until it was too late.”

            Sei watched the rim of the sun slide out of sight. She couldn’t be out here now.

            “I can’t,” she said, turning away and striding across the garden toward her house.

            “No!” Drake ran after her, grabbing her arm.

            She turned on him, the metal stake raised. No one had touched her in years. Even before she retired, before she came to the farm and chose solitude over death, she was untouchable. People spoke to her with downcast eyes, keeping a safe distance, like she wasn’t entirely human herself.

            “I’m sorry,” Drake said, dropping her arm and raising his hands again. The gesture irritated her.

She started back to her house.

            “But if you don’t help us, there won’t be any of us left. My daughter-” His voice broke again.

            It could all be an act. Sei knew this as she scuffed her boots off on the doormat and opened the front door. It could be a trap. There were plenty who wanted revenge on her. She just wasn’t sure how they would have talked Drake – a human – into helping them.

            She flicked on the lights and turned to face him, her arms crossed. “I’m retired,” she said. “You wouldn’t want me anyway. I’m rusty by now. I haven’t killed more than a chicken in fifteen months.”

            “You’re the best there’s ever been,” he said. “And you’re the only one left.”

            She frowned and turned away. “That’s why I’m done,” she said. “If I go back, I won’t live any longer than the rest of you.” Taking the kettle off the stove, she filled it with water from the tap and replaced it, turning on the burner and hearing the little drips of water on the outside of the kettle sizzle as the stove heated up. She opened the kitchen cupboard and took out her tea ball, a cluster of garlic cloves, and a ceramic dish of honey.

            Drake watched her from the doorway, unmoving. As she made the tea, she avoided his eyes.

            “I couldn’t get within five miles of it anyway,” she said and crushed the first garlic clove with the side of a butcher knife. The papery skin slid off and the sticky pale flesh went into the tea ball. She couldn’t smell the garlic anymore. But she knew that Drake could. She was sure he could smell the farm – smell her – miles away. And he was only human.

            “How often do you drink that?” Drake asked as she crushed the next clove and added it to the tea ball.

            “More often than I eat,” she said. “Eating is only important if you’re going to be alive long enough to go hungry.”

            Drake looked around the kitchen, at the rows of braided garlic hanging from the rafters, at the sliver cross above the table, at the boxes of matches piled in a bowl next to the sink, at the hand-dipped candles standing on every flat surface, and at the gun on the window ledge. He could probably guess that the bullets inside were silver.

            “When you eat garlic,” she said. “It doesn’t just stay on your breath. It gets into your system. It takes days to wear off.”

She didn’t just eat her garlic. She saturated her bath water with it, made lotion out of it, wore it in a locket that she never took off, stuffed her pockets with it, and made potpourri to fill her drawers.

She didn’t just have garlic breath.

“I have garlic in my blood,” she said.

Drake picked up the nearest candle and examined it. It too was full of dried garlic. He set it down.

“Why did you start?” he asked.

The kettle began to whistle. Sei pulled it off the stove with a hot pad and poured a steaming stream of water into her mug, dousing the tea ball full of juicy garlic cloves. She replaced the kettle and added honey to her mug.

“All those years ago,” he said, “if you knew it was so dangerous, what motivated you to start?”

She stirred the tea and looked out the window at the dark landscape. “Shut the door,” she said. “And turn the locks. All of them.”

Drake did as he was asked. She blew on her tea to cool it but didn’t take her eyes off the garden outside.

“It was my sister,” she said. “She was a year younger than me.”

            She sipped the tea. It burned her tongue.  

            “She was killed right in front of me.”

            “I’m sorry,” Drake said. “I’m sorry.”

            Sei set down her mug with a hard clink. “But I killed her murderer. It was my first kill.”

            Drake met her hard gaze with his own. “Not all of us can do that,” he said. “You have a talent. A gift.”

            “I have a curse,” she said. “They may not have souls, but each and every one of them haunts me to this day.” She felt herself breath in made herself hold it, lungs full, trying to block the memories. “Two hundred twenty seven,” she said when at last she exhaled.

            Drake took in his breath.

            No one realized how many it was. She had a scar for each and every one of them. A physical scar, either from their nails, or from their teeth, or from the fire when she burned their bodies. Fights were messy. Fights left wounds. But nothing on her body was as permanent as the scars on her mind. Teeth and fire and blood could never do as much damage as a memory.

            “What would your sister want?” Drake asked.

            It wasn’t a fair question, and they both knew it.

            She gazed out the window even though it was too dark to make out much but the line between the black ground and the star speckled sky.

            The garlic was dead.

            She turned away from Drake, putting her hands on the countertop and closing her eyes.

            “Give me a week,” she said.

            Drake inhaled to speak, but she cut him off.

            “That’s the best I can do. Even after a week of detox, I’ll still have garlic in my blood.” She would have to sweat it out, move away from this farm that had garlic in the very wood the house was built from. A week wasn’t even close to enough time.

            It was suicide and she knew it.

            But what else was there?

            There were the chickens and the cats. There was the garden. There was life. There was the simple pleasure of breathing in and out.

            But how high a price was she willing to pay for those simple things?

            Would she give up her sister again? Would she give up this man’s daughter?

            “One week,” she said. “And then I’ll go after your vampire.”

photo by Pete G