Unfamiliar Territory, page 2
I turned and met Grimm’s eyes. Soundlessly, the black dog jumped into the wagon. I studied my partner for a second, checking for noticeable injuries from the fight. Nothing stood out as obviously wrong and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Satisfied with my quick inspection, I latched and locked the double doors, and then hoisted myself into the driver’s seat. Humbert, who had been snoozing patiently during our absence, shook his head once and started to move the instant my hands got a hold of the reins. He knew where to go; the reins were nothing more than a symbolic gesture.
I sighed heavily and leaned back against the wagon, letting my mind wander and my senses relax a bit. The pockmarked road led us on a slow decline, the density of the trees starting to thin as we descended altitude. It was very early morning; sunrise would occur in a handful of hours. It had been a productive night, but we weren’t finished yet. I could only hope that the sheriff of Veradale would handle things efficiently so that I could collect our reward, drive to a secluded spot, revert to my true form and purr myself into a deep and deserving sleep.
Oh yes, I forgot to mention—I’m a cat.
Chapter 2
The world I live in is not the same as yours, but rather a sister dimension. Being such, there are many similarities, true, but vast differences as well. One of the biggest differences is the fact that in my world, magic exists, and things that are regarded as myths and legends in your realm are very real here. Werewolves and vampires? They are ordinary nuisances here, and the only reason other dimensions even know of their existence is that on occasion our worlds can connect. For instance, about a hundred years ago a man from your world opened a temporary gateway to mine and for some reason gifted us with free energy. That man, Tesla, sure changed our world in a big way.
As it is, we still don’t have much use for highly advanced technological capabilities because some of the population is gifted with a variety of magical talents, some small, some big. These talents can often replace the need for technology; why invent a fancy icebox when you can use an enchanted entropy-free box to keep your groceries fresh? Or what use is there for heavy farming machinery when some people are gifted with plant manipulation? The types of magics are as varied as the people who wield them: spell casting, enchanting, elemental magic, mind magic, and innate magic, just to name the common ones. Magic is simply a way of life here, and magic users of all types live side by side with the mundane. It’s usually no big deal.
But on occasion, magic can be a very big deal. Let me tell you a story.
Once upon a time, approximately five hundred years ago on the eastern coast of Vinland, there lived a witch of frightening power. She was known as Annie Coddle, and her reputation induced fear in even the bravest of souls. Annie did not use any of her magical ability to benefit anyone else, but rather for her own interests.
Now, it is common knowledge in my world that witches with a certain threshold of magical talent have the ability to summon to themselves a being of energy. These beings, once arriving in our plane of existence, create a body for themselves, which always takes the form of a small animal, house cats being the most popular model for some reason. These beings are known as familiars. Annie had power in spades, and so it took her no time at all to summon her own familiar, a cat spirit by the name of Glivver. Now, familiars are usually emotionally attached to their witches, protecting them from unwanted attention and aiding in their spells. Annie, though, was into cheap labor. Instead of treating Glivver as an equal or protector, the witch swiftly downgraded the familiar’s status into nothing more than a slave.
There is only so much that an ethereal cat can do around the house, even with magical talent, and Annie wanted Glivver to do all the dirty work, quite literally. So, the old witch devised a spell that turned Glivver into a human woman at Annie’s will. That way Glivver was forced to do all the cleaning, cooking, ingredient gathering, and basic spell preparations while Annie focused on her one and only aspiration: world domination.
The witch proved to be quite adept at the one thing she set her mind to. Annie Coddle quickly turned her small corner of the country into a hell hole. Magic users began to die of mysterious circumstances and mundane people lived in fear of enslavement and harsh punishment. Crops withered. Even the mighty forests began to die as Annie’s influence over the natural realm stripped the trees of their organic magic. And her evil influence spread ever wider and at an alarming pace.
But there was one little detail that she overlooked.
To say that Annie’s relationship with her familiar was an unhealthy one would be an understatement. Glivver despised Annie from the moment the witch first forced her into a woman’s body. While in this state, the familiar was stripped of her powers and vulnerable. To make matters worse, Glivver was hardly ever allowed to revert to her cat form as Annie kept her constantly busy. This angered Glivver to no end. But Annie, bent on enslaving the planet, was too busy to notice her slave’s feelings.
One day, as the witch perfected her immortality potion (for what fun was ruling the world if you had to die some day?), Glivver made a simple potion of her own. Annie swiftly finished her recipe, unaware of her familiar’s goings on, and, feeling generous, allowed Glivver to change back into a cat. This was the moment Glivver was waiting for. While Annie Coddle ladled her precious potion into a mug and began to sip it ritualistically, Glivver murmured a few words over her own concoction and activated its magical qualities. Then, as Annie tipped the dregs of her potion into her greedy, wide-open mouth, Glivver propelled her potion into the witch’s face. The majority coursed down her throat.
The results, they say, were fantastic, but I don’t know the specifics.
What I do know is even though Annie Coddle managed to drink enough of her potion to achieve everlasting life, Glivver’s actions banished her to another dimension where she could no longer do harm in this world. Before she left, Annie vowed she would find a way back from her banishment and finish the job she started. Glivver was no dummy—she knew Annie meant what she said. So, she used a little-known tool that familiars possess to create a prophecy:
“By Glivver’s blood the witch is bound,
By Glivver’s word the witch must obey,
So long as the daughters of Glivver remain,
So long as the cat that walks as a woman lives,
The witch Annie Coddle can never return.”
Glivver, sacrificing the last of her power, stole the shapeshifting spell from Annie and internalized it, successfully allowing Glivver to change from cat to human and back again at will. Aside from this new magical ability, Glivver lost all her power. She ceased to be a familiar and became a mortal cat. It was the price to pay for freeing the world of evil tyranny.
Despite the amount of abuse Annie Coddle had heaped upon Glivver, the witch had kept her familiar a fiercely guarded secret. Nobody knew of her existence, either as a cat or a human. Glivver could not have waltzed into society as a mortal cat, for no one would have been able to understand that Annie was truly gone. No, Glivver needed to access her human side, which was why the shapeshifting spell was worth her immortality.
She wasted little time in setting out in her human form to spread the word of her successful banishment of Annie Coddle. Changing her name to Gilva, she claimed to be the powerless slave of the witch who happened to be lucky enough to learn of a way to dispose of Annie during her imprisonment. Her story spread far and wide, and it wasn’t long before the heads of state lauded her as a hero.
It also wasn’t long before men came out of the woodwork to ask for her hand in marriage, for Gilva’s human form was quite lovely to look upon, and her status had skyrocketed. Popularity and beauty made her quite the catch, but love wasn’t exactly a factor in any of these proposals.
Gilva, of course, knew that the prophecy required her to bear offspring in order to keep Annie at bay. What she didn’t know was that sometimes prophecies take on a life of their own and form some of their own rules. In this particular case, the requirement was that Gilva could only procreate with a man that was her one true love.
It didn’t happen overnight, but eventually Gilva did indeed find a suitor worthy of the title. She married him and had a very happy three months with him before learning the next rule.
Since she was a cat first and foremost, it was of the utmost importance that she revert back to her true form every now and then. This was of course done in secrecy as her husband did not know of her true state. One day, Gilva told her beloved that she was going to take a stroll through the woods, a pastime she often used as an excuse to get some alone time. Once safely away from any prying eyes she shifted back into her cat self and spent a wonderful hour hunting and frolicking. When she tried to change back, though, she was unable to. Instinctively, she knew the reason why: she was pregnant.
A developing embryo must stay the same species as its mother, and changing forms during growth could cause severe damage to the budding life in the womb once it was past the single-cell stage. With this logic, it only made sense that the mother’s body would have a built-in mechanism to deny shapeshifting during the entire pregnancy. Glivver (for she still identified with that name as a cat) was a bit saddened by this revelation, for she had not properly said goodbye to her husband. She had to settle for approaching him while he worked outside and rubbing up affectionately against his leg. He in turn gently nudged her away and shooed her from his sight, unaware that this would be his last glimpse of his wife.
Approximately nine weeks later Glivver delivered a healthy female kitten. She was once again able to transform into Gilva, but she no longer felt there was a reason to. Her daughter, upon reaching maturity at eight months, obtained the ability to shapeshift as well. And thus, the lineage of Glivver came to be.
Which brings me to, well, me. I, Cressida Curtain, am the last in a very long line of feline shapeshifters. I am the latest descendant of the familiar Glivver. And if the prophecy from five hundred years ago is to be believed, I am the only thing standing in the way of Annie Coddle’s return. No pressure, right?
I was born two years and almost six months ago in a long-abandoned barn in the woods, a tiny kitten of pure white, save for two small black markings resting between my ears on my forehead. My mother raised me there, catching a variety of rodents and birds for her own sustenance while I was still nursing, and then teaching me the feline art of hunting as I got older.
She also taught me about humans and their rules, laws, etiquette, and all other important tidbits, even though I had never even met a human before. Mom also told me stories of how she could shape-shift into one, and how I would too when I became old enough. I begged her to change into a human for me to see, but she never did. At times I felt like the whole humanity thing was all a big lie my mother told me.
But when I was around eight months old, I woke up one day feeling different. I had been maturing from a fuzzy blue-eyed kitten into a sleeker medium-haired cat with a wonderfully fluffy tail. At that moment I had crossed an invisible threshold, one that forever barred me from kittenhood and ushered in the primitive maturity of teenage-dom.
That day, Mom led me to a small clearing in the woods, far away from any prying eyes. She took a deep breath and her form shimmered before me. I could no longer see her in the indistinguishable glow that lasted just a mere second before the shimmer enlarged and went away. Standing before me was an unusual creature. A human.
Despite her vast change in appearance, I knew she was still my mother. Excited to try for myself, I concentrated on changing shape. From my open eyes I could see the shimmer happening, and then suddenly I was much taller than I had ever been in my young life. Concentrating again, I managed to transform back into a cat.
I practiced all day that day until I had perfected my transformation. Once I had mastered that, it was time for my mom to up my studies, which included learning to speak in the human language common to this region, reading, and writing as a human.
And throughout my first year of life, there was one lesson upon which my mother placed the most emphasis: I must keep my true nature a secret. No one can know what I truly am. She broke it down into three simple and easy to remember rules:
Always pretend to be a plain mundane human.
Never shift if any human can see you.
If you screw up 1 and 2, never give them the whole story.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I have already broken the first two rules with two humans, but the third is still intact. And of course, Grimm knows the whole truth, but he’s a dog. I asked my mom why I must live in secrecy, and her only comment was that while Annie has never returned since her banishment, there may still be some unsavory characters out there who are hell-bent on trying to destroy the prophecy and allow Annie Coddle to return.
And there’s one other time where I’m allowed to break the rules, if I wish. When I find the one man that is my true love, I could tell him. But I am nowhere near ready for that level of commitment. I’m still young, I have time, and it’s best not to dwell on those types of things.
After all, I have a business to run.
Chapter 3
It was still dark, of course, as Humbert and the wagon made their way down the mountain road. But with the full moon and my magically sensitive eyes, I could see well enough to be at ease. The dense trees that had enclosed the road for so long finally began to taper off, giving way to scrub and farmland on either side.
While Annie Coddle and Glivver had resided in the eastern portion of the country of Vinland, at some point in the last five hundred years my ancestors had traveled west. I was born in the Oracune Region, about a hundred miles inland from the vast Serenic Ocean. I might have been a bit biased being a native and all, but I surmised this area of the country to be one of the prettiest, especially with the Hooded Mountain looming close by.
I let my tired mind wander as I took in the scenery. We reached Veradale an hour from where we had apprehended our quarry. To call Veradale a town was to give it more status than it deserved. There was a simple wooden sign on the outskirts, engraved with the words, “Welcome to Veradale, pop. 300.” The engraving had once sported bright colors but most of the paint had peeled off and faded away.
Humbert followed the road as it became the main—and only—drag through the little burg. A tiny oval village green split the lane in two at the very heart of the town. At the widest point sat a handful of businesses: a post office, a police station, and a grocery store on one side, with a restaurant, a general store, a bar, and a church on the other side. I noted with a small amount of amusement that the bar and church were next door neighbors. I wondered if that had been planned. A small number of houses surrounded these buildings before giving way to farms and sheep fields on either side.
The town green housed a quaint tall clock upon an iron post, the most interesting focal point of the entire place. The clock told me the time was 3:29 in the morning. I fervently hoped that someone was working at the police station at this hour. It wouldn’t be the first time that I would have to knock on doors to wake people up in these micro-towns. That didn’t mean I enjoyed doing it.
Thankfully, as I rounded the green and slowed Humbert to a stop in front of the police station, I spied a light within. With the strict laws enforcing the use of free energy, I surmised nobody would be stupid enough to waste their allotment by leaving the light on without anybody working there.
Humbert fully came to a stop, blowing a great horsey sigh from his lips. It had been a long night for him, I thought with a pang of guilt. I got down from my perch and stretched some of the kinks out of my spine once again. Leaving Grimm and Mr. Collier in the wagon, I pushed open the peeling, beige wooden door and entered the station.
There was someone working there, but he was fast asleep at the front desk. Given his youth, he must have been a deputy working the graveyard shift. Occasional werewolf aside, I bet there wasn’t much need for round-the-clock law enforcement in a town so small. I surmised he was only here tonight due to special circumstances. I could hardly fault the man for sleeping on the job. But I was weary myself and wanted to end this business as quickly as possible.
A tarnished bell rested on the counter. I struck it smartly, and it let out an alarmingly clear and loud ding. The young man startled at the sound and nearly tumbled off his chair. He blearily glanced around before resting eyes on me. Upon seeing me, he leapt to his feet in a rather uncoordinated way. He ran a hand around his belt to check that his shirt was properly tucked in before fixing his full attention on me. His eyes leapt straight to my hair and stayed glued there for far too long.
Ah yes, the stare. I was well used to it by now. My unusual magical genetics translated my medium-length white feline fur into straight, fine hair of a practically white platinum blonde shade that fell just below the tops of my shoulders. But because my true form had those two black spots marking my forehead, my human counterpart’s locks included two small jet-black streaks that grew from just above my temples at the hairline. For someone with such pale hair, the streaks were incredibly noticeable and rather jarring. Most strangers assumed I dyed my hair that way on purpose.
And if it wasn’t my hair that caught looks, it was my eyes. They retained the vivid sky-blue shade of my cat form, a color that was highly unusual in a human. Coupled with the fact that my lashes and eyebrows were of a darker shade than my platinum hair, my eyes really stood out. I suppose this, along with my petite five-foot-three-inch stature and wiry, athletic build, had generally led to me being labeled by humans as "cute." It was mostly a distinct downside for my chosen profession, unfortunately.
I quietly allowed the deputy’s visual perusal as his brain slowly warmed back up. Still mentally dusting off the cobwebs and obviously at a loss, he finally mumbled, “Uh, can I help you, ma’am?”
