Grimalkin - Chapter Four (Patreon)

Chapter Four

Upon beginning a new adventure, one should never forget the three basics: food, money, and a good disguise.

-Lady Chatterwick

Maria’s mother was allergic to cats, and thus they were technically banned from the palace. Maria knew there were a few who lurked around the kitchens and stables, but no one would claim them. Because of this, Maria’s closest acquaintance with that thing known as a ‘cat nap’ was when Tia would deign to fall asleep in her lap when Maria snuck away to read in her hidden sanctuary. Nonetheless, Maria had read of it often in books, but she was still surprised to find that both cats woke from the sleep as abruptly as they had entered it.

Within about five minutes of Maria finding herself alone with her whirling thoughts and two snoozing cats, one of Tia’s yellow eyes cracked open. The kitten blinked, and her little pink tongue curled as she stretched out her fluffy paws, yawning luxuriously. Her brother’s slightly greener eyes opened as well, and he lifted his furry orange chin from his sister’s back.

The larger cat sat up on his haunches, shaking his head and sighing. “Well, I suppose we should get going, then.” He sounded entirely nonchalant, as though he hadn’t tipped Maria’s world on its head just a few minutes before and then promptly gone to sleep.

Maria stepped out in front of him, stumbling slightly, since she’d almost forgotten she now had four feet instead of two. “Wait! What do you mean, your kingdom is the same as mine? This is our kingdom! Father is the king, and Jalinda will be queen after him! If you Felis live here, then you’re daddy’s subjects just as much as anyone else!”

The two cats looked at each other and snickered. Tia turned and walked off toward the outer wall of the tower, the twitching white tip of her tail perfectly conveying her complete disregard for Maria’s words.

Tobias shook his head and turned to follow his sister. “Cats live among you humans all the time. That doesn’t make us part of your human social constructs. We go where we want, we do what we want, and the only laws we follow are those set by the Grimalkin. Now, come on.”

Ahead, Tia stepped lithely into midair and dropped from Maria’s sight, vanishing without a sound. Maria’s further protestations dried up in her throat as she stared at the empty space. “What-”

The tabby snickered. “She’s fine. Follow me.” He walked to the wall and looked over. When he took a step, Maria was able to see that he was actually stepping down using a thin ridge formed where some ancient mortar had crumbled away. It took only an instant for him to disappear as well, and when Maria peered down over the edge of the wall, she swallowed hard.

“It’s… really high.” She squeaked out, staring down at the fifty foot drop to the ground around the outside of the castle.

Tia was already winding her way down the outside of the castle in much the same way she’d climbed the inner walls. Her tiny kitten paws somehow found purchase in the smallest of spaces, and everything from vines clinging tenaciously to the battlements to chipped stones became footholds for the small creature. A few times, there was nothing close enough to give her an easy step, but she simply leaped down and across, each time causing Maria’s heart to lodge in her throat even as the kitten landed easily on another seemingly unbroken bit of wall.

Tobias followed nimbly, though he seemed to take great joy in making even longer and more frequent jumps than his sister. As a result, he quickly passed the smaller cat who glared after him indignantly.

Maria simply stood at the edge, watching, as every speck of courage she’d ever thought she had seemed to shrivel in her chest and blow away like dust. “I can’t,” she whimpered, certain that no one would hear.

Somehow, Tia did, and the kitten paused, looking back up. “Just try,” the fluffy cat meowed crossly. “Remember, you’re a cat now. You can do anything.”

Maria bit her lip, wincing as she realized that her newly sharp teeth were finally going to break her of a habit her mother had been nagging her about for years. “I’m not really a cat, though. I just look like one.”

Even from twenty feet away, Maria could see Tia’s eyes roll. “Of course you are,” the kitten yowled derisively. “You can’t be only a little bit a cat any more than you can be a little bit-” She hesitated, looking for a good comparison. “A little bit dead!”

Not the most encouraging of comparisons, Maria thought, but she set a trembling paw out onto the narrow, cracked ledge of mortar. A chunk promptly crumbled away, and she nearly discovered exactly how close of a comparison it really was. Before she could tumble to her death on the hard rock below, however, her claws leapt from their sheaths and dug into the disintegrating adhesive, halting her descent.

“There you go,” Tia said from below, tone satisfied, and faint scratching sounds indicated that she was continuing her own journey.

Maria clung to the wall, shuddering, but after a moment she found that her body was relaxing even as her mind continued to panic. The sun warmed her back, and wind ruffled her fur. She felt the grit of sand between her paw pads, and smells and sounds she’d never noticed or appreciated before seemed to fill her whole world.

Maria’s vision narrowed, focusing on the wall in front and near her. Supple muscles flexed and twisted, and without conscious thought, she began climbing down the wall. Her path was more akin to Tia’s than Tobias’, but before she knew it, she found herself standing on bare earth beside the other two cats. Her heart was racing, and her breath came in shallow pants, but she felt a flush of exhilaration and accomplishment that nothing else in her life had prepared her for.

“I did it!” She felt her chest swell with pride, and thought she must actually be glowing.

Tia snorted. “Of course you did. Now hurry, we want to be well away before they realize they’re short a princess.”

Maria deflated, and Tobias gave her a conciliatory lick on her shoulder as he passed by. “Don’t mine her. She’s always been a cat. You did a good job.” He sounded more than a little patronizing, however, and Maria stood and watched as their furry tails vanished into the scrubby underbrush that was all that was allowed to grow near the castle walls.

Finally, she shook her head and trotted after them. Whether cats or humans, some children were always annoying.

❦ ❦ ❦

Tobias had hidden his clothes in a tree in Evelyn Park, the green, open area that Maria’s father had dedicated to her mother when they got engaged. Lady Evelyn, as she then was, loved to go for walks, and she and Maria’s father had met not far from the large elm Tobias and Tia were using to hide their cache of goods. It was a terribly romantic story, and one that Maria had heard a thousand times, where the two’s gaze had met, and they had instantly known they were meant for each other. There was even a statue in the middle of the park commemorating the incident.

Maria hated it. It was just another case highlighting her parent’s perfect lives. They had gone on to have eight perfect children. Eight, and Maria.

A small leather bag thumped to the ground beside Maria and Tia, where they sat at the base of the elm. Maria jumped back, spine arching and fur on end. Tia just continued grooming her own whiskers as if nothing had happened.

Tobias landed beside the bag a moment later, and caught the drawstring in his teeth. Tugging, he managed to pull the satchel over to a large, dense box hedge. He ducked into an opening between the trunks of two of the bushes that made up the hedge and vanished inside without a word.

Maria looked back and forth from the hedge to Tia. “Are we supposed to follow?”

Tia snickered, rubbing a damp paw over one fuzzy black ear. “I should let you, just because it’d be funny to see his reaction, but no. He’ll be back out in a minute.”

Sure enough, a little more than a minute later, grunting began to emerge from the hedge, and shortly thereafter the freckled face of an adolescent boy popped out of the same spot Tobias had entered. It took a great deal of wriggling and irate muttering, but soon the entire boy was revealed.

Tobias was a lanky, ginger-haired boy of about the same height as Maria’s third oldest brother, Malcolm. His face was almost more freckles than not, but he mostly just looked like any other sixteen-year-old human boy, except that his ears and eye-teeth were just a little too pointed. His wiry orange hair stuck up in every direction, and he shook his head, spraying twigs and leaves all around him.

Without hesitation, Tia stood and walked languidly to her transformed brother. She gathered herself and leapt up toward his chest, and he caught her close, setting her neatly on his shoulder. Tia looked down from her new perch.

“Aren’t you coming?” she chirruped interrogatively. Tobias the boy tilted his head in the same way he did as Tobias the cat, and held out his arms. After a moment, Maria, too, jumped up and was placed on the narrow, bony shoulder opposite Tia.

Tobias took a step, and Maria nearly lost her footing. Her claws dug into his shoulder, and Tobias yelped and turned his head to glare. “If you’re going to do that, you can walk,” he growled irritably. “It’s bad enough I have to do this as a human. I’m not going to bleed all over my one set of clothes, too.”

Maria blinked miserably. “Sorry,” she muttered, forcing her claws to retract. She peeked over at Tia, and saw that the kitten was draped languidly over her brother’s shoulder, using her whole body to maintain her balance. Gingerly, Maria did the same, desperately trying to ignore the fact that she’d never been this close to any boy other than her brothers before. It had been one thing when Tobias was simply a tabby cat, but now….

Tobias sighed, running a freckled hand through his hair, shaking out a few more twigs and a small spider. “It’s all right. I’ve just never been a human in front of anyone but family before.” Faint red touched his cheekbones and the slight point of his ear. “I mean, other humans, sure, but not anyone I know.”

Tia snorted a laugh. “Are you shy?” She wrapped her tail around Tobias’ neck, so it brushed Maria’s back. “This is great. He’s always a big, bossy, know-it-all. He thinks he’s so great because he shifted when he was only six.” The kitten continued to chortle to herself as Tobias set out with long, confident strides, clearly determined to show his sister that he was not, in any way, shy.

Maria quickly forgot Tobias and Tia’s interchange as they left the wide, winding paths of the park and entered the city. She didn’t get to spend much time in the city outside the castle, especially not alone. She was always surrounded by guards and siblings, and they were usually on their way to some event or other. Even when they did get a rare chance to go shopping, Maria’s family was more likely to visit the tailor and the jewelry store than bookstores and street vendors.

Now, it was like entering a whole new world. It wasn’t a brightly colored foreign bazaar like the ones lovingly described in Lady Chatterwick’s memoirs, but it was bustling and energetic in a way it never was when the royal family came through. Men and women alike hawked their wares in loud, boisterous voices, and people were everywhere.

The royal guards strictly limited the number of people allowed near their royal charges, and the only time Maria had seen so many people in one place was at the few large balls she hadn’t been able to avoid attending. Those were filled with heavily perfumed bodies richly clothed in yards of silks and satins, all carefully maintaining appropriate social distance based on their various levels of nobility, often to the detriment of those on the bottom of that sharply defined hierarchy.

These streets smelled of clean air, dust, and the rich odors of cooking meat and pastries. No one stepped aside for the red-haired boy with two cats on his shoulders, and Tobias squeezed his way through spaces Maria would never have dared attempt. It was obvious that at least some of his feline grace carried over to his human form.

The boy paused at a stall to buy three skewers of freshly grilled chicken, and the scent wafting up from the meat made Maria’s stomach growl and her mouth water. Tobias didn’t eat one, however. Nor did he share with Tia and Maria. Instead, he tucked them into his belt and continued on his winding path through the crowds, forging his way down several blocks toward his mysterious destination.

Finally, Maria was unable to stand it any longer. “May I have some chicken, please?” she asked politely.

Tia giggled as Tobias nearly jumped. “Ah, yes,” he muttered, glancing around to be sure no one was watching him talk to a cat. “Just let them cool. A cat’s tongue is more sensitive to heat than a human’s. If you try to eat it now, you’ll regret it.”

Tia’s little pink nose and white whiskers nodded up and down on the other side of Tobias’s neck. “He’s right. Hot food is terrible. I prefer ice cream.”

Tobias sighed. “The cream upsets your stomach, and the sugar isn’t good for you. Besides, ice cream is expensive, and the Grimalkin only gave us enough money for what we need.”

“But we’re going home early,” Tia wheedled. “We won’t need all the money, and she won’t mind if we spend just a bit of the extra.”

“You don’t know her as well as I do,” Tobias grumbled, but he veered off toward a small shop with a pretty pink awning and baskets of flowers hanging outside. It seemed this was an argument he already knew he would lose.

The door jingled as they entered, and a plump young woman looked up from behind the counter. She smiled, brown eyes twinkling over round pink cheeks, and said, “Hello, Tobias. Does your cat need more ice cream?” Her eyes took in her customer’s passengers, and widened. “Oh! Did you find another cat? What’s her name? She’s lovely.”

Maria blinked, surprised at the sincerity of this last statement. She was used to being called pretty by the courtiers who wanted to cozy up to her parents, but she was well aware that pleasantly pretty was the best she would ever be able to achieve. ‘Lovely’ was a word often applied to the rest of her family, but never before had even the most valiant of flatterers applied it to Maria.

The shop girl emerged from behind the counter, holding her hand out to Maria. She was about the same height as Tobias, so her face was on a level with Maria, and Maria could clearly see the genuine admiration in the soft brown eyes.

“I’m lovely?” Maria meowed, and the girl smiled in delight.

“Oh, she likes me! Don’t you think so?” She moved her fingers a little closer to Maria’s nose, and Maria gingerly sniffed at them, since it was obvious the young woman wasn’t going to give up. The girl squealed happily and began rubbing Maria’s ears. Maria was shocked to find that this was actually quite pleasant, and a strange rumbling began. It took her a moment to realize she was the one making the sound. She was purring!

Tia snorted and stood up on Tobias’ other shoulder. She turned in place and presented the shop girl with an angrily twitching black and white tail. “She never said I was lovely,” the kitten muttered.

Tobias shifted awkwardly, moving slightly further from the girl. He cleared his throat. “Ah, yes. She, um, used to live at the castle, but, you know….” He trailed off clumsily, but the attendant nodded in understanding.

“Poor Queen Evelyn. She does like cats, I hear, but she’s terribly allergic. That’s why she has them all brought down here if they’re found at the castle. I have a friend who adopted a castle cat, and it’s a wonderful ratter.” She looked as if she’d like to continue petting Maria, but stepped back with a resigned shake of the head.

“Let me just wash my hands, and I’ll get you some ice cream. A scoop on the house, since you let me pet such a beautiful cat. She’s so soft, too!” The girl waved, and vanished through a curtain into a back room.

“Tia,” Tobias hissed, sounding so much like his cat-self that Maria almost laughed. “Just be nice to the humans! Besides, she gave you a free scoop and called you adorable the first time she saw you, too.”

“Adorable,” Tia muttered darkly, and then fell silent. Maria completely understood, because that was how she usually felt around her siblings, but she couldn’t find too much sympathy in her heart at the moment, since she was basking in the warm glow of remembered admiration at the moment.

“Am I really,” she hesitated, “lovely?” She could feel her skin heat beneath her fur, and was grateful no one could see her blush.

She could, however, see the blood rise in Tobias’ freckled cheeks. “You’re all right, I guess. For a kid.” He fell silent again as the chop girl emerged from the back with a waxed paper cone piled high with ice cream. This wasn’t the fancy, colorful bowl covered in garnishes and sprigs of sugared flowers that Maria had had before. No, this was a simple, rounded scoop of creamy white, and it looked delicious.

There was a folded scoop of waxed paper to serve as a spoon as well, and the girl scooped free a bite of smooth, gleaming ice cream and raised it to Maria’s mouth. Maria took a tentative lick, and the rich, warm flavor of vanilla exploded in her mouth. The cold, velvety texture was perfect, too, and Maria heard herself begin purring again.

Brown eyes sparkling, the girl thrust the paper cone into Tobias’ hands. He reached for a pouch at his waist, but the plump girl shook a finger at him. “I said it was free, and it is. Just don’t tell Mama.” She giggled, and Tobias grinned back.

“Thanks, Suzette! I really appreciate it. We’ll get a double scoop next time.”

The bell over the door jingled as a new customer entered, and Tobias sidled out behind the giggling family of four as they crowded into the shop. Suzette waved cheerfully as they exited.