GT Chapter Nineteen

The man tore off one of the beast’s arms, and chased it into the darkness. While I was certainly grateful for his intervention, I did feel that perhaps the monster was somewhat misunderstood, since as far as I could tell, it was only protesting the rather raucous nature of the party.

-Lady Chatterwick’s Journey

As they walked, Tia carrying Maria within the shelter of her cloak-covered arms, the two looked for anything they recognized. Was that the roof from which they’d leapt onto Myra’s wagon? Had they clambered up that tree in order to escape their tormentors? Was that small servant boy scurrying by the same one who had thrown them into the raging river?

Truthfully, they didn’t know. They had been so frightened, and in such a hurry, that nothing had really registered. They could probably pick Myra or Thomas out if they heard or smelled them, but even that was doubtful. The whole town looked strange, as seen through a wary but calm gaze. Tia, especially, was thrown off, since her new perspective was entirely different from her old.

“How can you stand smelling so little?” Tia muttered, as they dodged out of the way of a cart rattling by.

Maria wrinkled her nose. The cart smelled as if it was carrying ‘fertilizer’ newly gathered from a stable somewhere. Other, even less pleasant, scents assaulted her constantly. Whether it was the odor of unwashed bodies or sewage thrown from an overhead window, she would far rather have had a less sensitive olfactory sense.

“I’ll trade you if you can only tell me how,” she meowed plaintively, burying her face in Tia’s dress.

Abruptly, a more familiar aroma reached her through the soup of stench, and she perked up, turning her head to try to catch it again. “Wait,” she hissed. “Go back!”

Tia hesitated, and a man bumped into her from behind, and muttered angrily about the parents of such a disrespectful girl before hurrying on his way. Tia ignored him, looking down at Maria’s shadowed face. “What is it?”

“I think…” Maria poked her nose out of the opening, and then hopped down gracefully. Tail twitching, she stalked the scent down a narrow street, and then another. It grew stronger with every step, until she was standing outside of a large, yellow-painted building with double doors. Loud, somewhat off-key music came from inside, and the smell of fresh-cooked meat made her stomach rumble.

“Here. We need to go inside.” She glanced up at the wooden sign hanging above the door. A bull sported a broad pair of horns and held up an enormous mug. The words, ‘The Drunken Ox’, were painted beneath the picture, and Maria’s lip curled as she hissed. “It’s a bar. Why is he here?”

“He who?” Tia asked, leaning over to scoop Maria back into her arms.

“Tobias!” Maria said, pointing a paw at the door. “I can smell him! He spends a lot of time here, I think.”

Tia scoffed. “My brother doesn’t even like beer.”

Maria blinked. “How would he know?”

Yellow eyes shifted away guiltily. “We tasted some beer Tosep left out, once.” Her nose wrinkled. “It was disgusting. We both spat it out.”

Maria laughed. “I did the same, though it was my father’s drink. I don’t understand why anyone would like it. Still, I’m certain Tobias is inside. Or has been.” Internally, she wasn’t quite so certain. Her cat instincts were positive, but her human mind was attempting to reason away her confidence. After all, she’d barely spent a day in the boy’s company. How could she possibly recall his scent so exactly several days later?

Tia sniffed, her nose wrinkling further as the doors swung and a man walked out, calling cheerfully over his shoulder. A thick, sour waft of smell rolled out after him, and both girls shrank away from it, as though it were a physical thing.

“Phew,” Tia said, waving a hand in front of her nose. “That reeks!”

The man turned to glare at Tia, but before he could say anything, he saw the stark white skin of her hand, attached to the charcoal of her wrist. Leaning in, he tried to catch a glimpse of her face, but Tia grabbed the edges of her hood and scurried away hurriedly. She ran down two streets, ignoring the curious glances of the people she passed, and turned into an alcove formed by a fence set back between two buildings.

Tia stopped, and sank down onto her haunches. Maria jumped down as her friend buried her face in her hands. “I can’t,” she gasped. “I can’t go in. I can’t talk to anyone! I can’t even buy the carriage tickets, even if we can find the station. I’m worthless! I’ll just shift back-”

Maria set a firm paw on Tia’s knee. “No,” she said. “You can do it. You have to! What’s the worst that could happen?”

A tear tracked down Tia’s cheek. Beneath her hood, her ears were flat against her head. “They could think I’m a freak. Which I am. They could call me names. They could lock me up…”

“They can think that,” Maria said, calmly. “They can think that all they want. They can’t lock you up. Not just for being different. Not in my father’s kingdom. They shouldn’t even call you names, but I suppose they could do that, too. But will any of that change who you are? Does it really, deep down, change anything, if you don’t let it?”

Tia buried her face in her knees, though her hand reached out to touch Maria’s paw lightly. “What would you know about it,” she muttered. “You’re a princess.”

“The plain princess,” Maria said, bitterly. “The princess who’s so boring, the most interesting thing anyone can call me is ‘the one who reads’.”

Tia flinched at hearing her own words thrown back at her.

Maria bumped her head against Tia’s. “People have thought I was a freak my whole life. They’ve called me names, and a lot of them are less pleasant than ‘plain’. It used to hurt, but then I realized it just made me stronger. I don’t have to worry about what they think. Not any more. They’ve already made up their minds, so I can just be me, since nothing I do will change anything, anyway. As long as I have food, water, clothes, and the love of my family, what anyone else thinks doesn’t matter.”

Tia’s teary yellow eyes turned toward her. “But you still dreamed about running away. Just like Lady Chatterwick.”

Maria sighed. “Of course I did. I wanted to go somewhere where people wouldn’t judge me by what they thought I should be. Somewhere no one knows my family, and how perfect they are. Still,” she smiled, thinking of little Eva and Jonas, with their sticky hugs and unending questions. She thought about Malcolm, who acted the part of the ideal prince while he dreamed of flying. Her father, who read to them all by the fire on cold winter nights. Even her mother, with her jasmine-scented hugs. “Still, I wouldn’t really want to leave them behind. Not forever. Even Lady Chatterwick went home, after all.”

Tia leaned her head to one side and eyed Maria thoughtfully through rapidly-drying tears. “It’s not like there’s anything wrong with being a cat, is there?”

Maria purred and rubbed her head against Tia’s knee. “Someone once told me cats can do things no mere human ever dreamed of.”

“Cats are superior in every possible way,” Tia mused. She held out her hand, opening and closing the thumb. “If cats had thumbs, we wouldn’t need human shapes at all.”

Laughing, Maria sat back. “That’s the spirit. Looking like a cat just makes you that much closer to perfection, right?”

Tia planted her hands on the ground and pushed herself to her feet. “Right! I mean, anyone who denies the dominance of the Felis is clearly stupid anyway.”

Wait now, Maria thought, I wouldn’t go that far. Still, she didn’t say anything. Tia needed all the confidence she could get if she was going to go into that tavern and ask if anyone had seen her brother.

And, indeed, the girl was striding away, back down the road, and Maria had to scamper to catch up. For a moment, it seemed as if the younger girl would even let her hood fall back from her face, but at the last moment, she seemed to think better of it and clutched at the drooping fabric.

It took only a few minutes for them to end up back in front of the double doors leading into the tavern, but by the time they got there, Tia’s steps had slowed considerably. She looked down at Maria, biting her lip. “What if they kick me out?”

Maria stood on her hind legs, stretching up toward Tia’s arms. “Then we’ll find another way. I’m right here with you.”

Tia picked up Maria, settling the cat on one arm so the other one was free. Carefully, she pushed the door open. Their feline eyes adjusted to the dimness beyond quickly, and Maria could see that the layout was much as she would have predicted. There were several small tables, with two or three chairs at each. The long bar was against the far wall, next to a door that probably led to the kitchen. A big man, both tall and broad, stood behind the bar, a towel thrown over his shoulder, as he chatted with a customer seated in front of him.

Cautiously, Tia stepped inside, allowing the door to swing shut behind her. A few customers turned to glance at her, but seeing nothing but a girl in an unremarkable cloak, they turned back to their plates. There were surprisingly few beer mugs in evidence, but many patrons were busily eating what looked like piles of fluffy scrambled eggs and crisp sausage links. A heavenly smell broke through the aroma of unwashed human, and Maria’s mouth began to water.

Tia gulped, and Maria guessed that she, too, was hungry. Their simple breakfast in the woods seemed long ago, now. As if pulled by a magnet, Tia drifted toward the bar. Looking up at the man, whose broad face was professionally expectant, she fingered her thin belt pouch. “How much for-”

The kitchen door opened, and a woman walked out, her nose in the air. She sniffed, twice, then looked at Tia with sharp greenish yellow eyes. “You,” the woman said, flashing a hand sign that Maria didn’t recognize, “come with me.”

Tia shrank back, eyes luminescent in the shadow of her hood and the low light of the lanterns. “I don’t-”

The woman frowned, taking another step closer. Her hair, which was nearly as red as Tobias’, swung in a heavy braid over her shoulder as she leaned forward. She gave a small gasp, and reached out to take a grip on Tia’s free arm, moving faster than Maria thought anyone should be able to. “Hsst,” the woman muttered, voice abruptly low and feral, “come, kitten.”

Tia allowed herself to be pulled into the kitchen. Not that she really had much choice. She was barely able to catch herself as the door closed behind them, and Maria jumped down, growling warningly. She could feel the fur on her back lift, and knew her tail was twice its usual size.

The woman hissed back, eyes flashing dangerously, and Maria’s back sank as her tail tucked beneath her. Her cat-side knew when it was outmatched, and this woman was clearly larger, older, and stronger than either Tia or Maria.

Tia plunked down into a chair as the woman released her, pulling out another chair from beneath the broad kitchen table and sitting down herself. Her cheeks reddened from the heat of the ovens, but she didn’t shift her gaze from Tia except to glance at Maria, who was now firmly pressed against her friend’s ankles.

“Out,” the woman snapped to the two people working in the kitchen. After a startled moment of hesitation, a younger woman pulled a pot from the stove and set it on a pad on the nearby counter, then exited through yet another door, along with a young man who had been washing dishes.

Fixing distinctly feline eyes on the two girls, the woman growled, “Who are you?”

Tia stuttered, fighting her own fear and her lisp, until the woman reached out and pushed back the hood concealing the girl’s face. She didn’t flinch, or even look surprised, just shook her own head, and, without another word, shifted into a dark tabby.

The deep auburn fur of the tabby matched the woman’s hair perfectly, and she looked completely at ease as she lifted a paw and began to groom her ears. “Now, Felis child,” she said calmly, “perhaps you’d like to explain what you’re doing in my home. No one is supposed to come here without permission from the Grimalkin, you know.”

With an expression of relief, Tia, too, changed to cat-shape, though she had to struggle out of her fallen clothing once she did. Looking around, Maria could see that the woman’s change had included her clothes, as Tobias’ had. She was obviously a powerful Felis.

“We’re looking for my brother,” Tia blurted out. “Maria thought she smelled him here, so we came in. I didn’t know we weren’t allowed!”

The adult cat sat back on her haunches, looking thoughtful. “You’re Tobias’ sister, then? The one he said was missing? Which would make you the princess,” she added, shifting her gaze to Maria. Looking back at Tia, she cocked her head to one side, tail twitching. “Tobias said you couldn’t shift, though. We’ve been looking for two kittens, not a kitten and a girl.”

“I… I had to. We were going to drown, so I changed. Just like they said, I just had to want to enough,” Tia said, lamely.

The tabby shifted back to human, hurrying over to set the pot back on the stove, and stirring it vigorously. “You were the kittens the boy threw in the river, then!” She dipped a spoon in the pot, tasted the concoction, and frowned. Reaching into a cabinet, she tipped some white crystals into the mixture and stirred again.

Tia nodded. She looked around and, reluctantly, changed back into her human shape. She began pulling on her clothes, though she wasn’t particularly adept at it yet. “You followed us that far?” she asked, clearly surprised. “We thought we were going to die.”

“We thought you had,” the woman said, bluntly, adding a few leaves she’d pulled from a plant in a pot nearby to her dish. “Tosep went to tell the Grimalkin, but Tobias stayed here. He was sure you weren’t dead, and he insisted on continuing to look. He’s been ranging further and further downstream every day.”

Tia smiled, shrugging into her heavy green cloak. “That’s the first time I’ve ever been glad he’s so stubborn.”

“Ha! He knew how much trouble he was going to be in if you were really gone. Both of you. He should have had more than enough money left to buy horses for you all, and head straight to Bremerton. You never should have had to stop here at all, much less stay in one of the safe spaces.” Her mouth twisted as she removed the pot from the heat again, and covered it with a lid. “Not that it turned out to be all that safe. I’ve been warning them for years that since the humans renovated the abandoned building across the street, that area got too much foot traffic.”

She looked over at the two of them, wiping her hands on her apron. Putting out one hand, she said, “I’m Gata, by the way. You’re Petunia?”

Tia gingerly accepted the hand, sticking out her thumb in the way Maria had told her it was supposed to be done. She shook as if she was touching a mildewed towel, and dropped it as soon as she could. “Tia,” she said, firmly. “It’s Tia, now.”

One eyebrow arched, but Gata just smirked and said, “All right. Wait a minute while I let the kids back in.” She stepped over to the door, and opened it, to reveal the young man and woman, who were both perhaps in their late teens or early twenties, and had clearly had their ears glued to the door. The boy stumbled a step before recovering himself, but the girl just crossed to check on the pot Gata had been stirring. She lifted the lid, sniffed, and grimaced.

“Mum, you never put in enough garlic.”

Gata glared. “It burns my tongue.”

Muttering under her breath, the girl pulled the white powder from the cabinet and added a generous quantity. Taking a cautious nibble from another spoon, she smiled. “Better.”

The boy, meanwhile, was still watching Gata and Tia avidly. Tia belatedly realized her hood was still down, but when she went to pull it up, Gata stopped her. “Don’t worry. These are Kourtney and Kable. My kits, for my sins.”

Kourtney just rolled her eyes, but Kable took the introduction as an invitation and began spouting off questions. “Who are you? Why are you here? Why do you look like that? Is that what it looks like when a half-human shifts? Can you teach me?”

Tia’s mouth dropped open, and her eyes flicked from Gata to the door leading out to the front of the tavern. “Half human? You mean-?”

Gata sighed and pushed her son back toward the sink full of dishes. “That’s my husband, Liam. I met him when I was serving as a scout, and, well, one thing led to another, led to these two young fools.”

“Hey!” Kourtney said.

Her mother winked, but didn’t correct herself. “They can’t shift, of course, but they’ve got a bit of the language, and some of the instincts.”

“They can’t shift?” Maria asked, speaking up for the first time.

Gata shook her head, eyes filled with sadness as she looked at her children, who both had their backs turned to her. “That’s the way of it. It’s why humans and Felis rarely marry. The human side always wins, and after a generation or two, you can’t even tell there’s Felis blood in them. Still, they’re good enough kits, even if they can’t grow fur.” She cuffed the back of Kable’s head affectionately, and he muttered “Ow!” without turning around.

“In any case, now that the old cache has been destroyed, I hope the Grimalkin will see sense and make this place the new resting place for passing Felis. With us here, it’ll be safe for the foreseeable future, and we can provide information, as well as food and money.” Gata stepped into the room her children had occupied, and came back out with a small bag.

“Here’s some gold. It’s more than enough to get you to Bremerton. You’d best hurry, though. The Grimalkin is probably frantic by now.”

Maria and Tia exchanged glances.

“We just came from there,” Maria said, finally. Tia just nodded agreement.

Both of Gata’s eyebrows flew up. “Sounds like you have more story to tell. Go on!”