As I gaze through Time, gentle reader, I can watch my mother living her life. I’ve done that for a long, long time. Ever since I first discovered that I could manipulate the temporal dimensions in this way. Given this ability, you might expect me to watch the major events for which she is renowned: her roles in the Fall of Kullos, establishing the Guardianship, battling demons, defeating an Angel. But often, I get the greatest joy from her, shall we say, less than stellar moments. They make me feel better about my own mistakes, mishaps and misunderstandings. Perhaps my favourite of these is the story of ‘The Cat Who Smelled of Horse.’
*****
Catriona immediately rushed over to give the delivery boy a helping hand.
“Hi,” she said, “I’d shake your hand, but you don’t seem to have one free. If I can take some of that stuff for you, then you will.”
“Oh, thanks a lot, miss…?” he replied, handing out some of the bags.
“I’m Catriona,” she said, shaking his now free hand, “but you can call me Cat because we’re friends now.”
“Jacob,” he said, returning the handshake, “and that’s Bonnie,” he added, indicating his horse. “So, Cat, what brings you out here? I’ve never seen anybody visit old Renjaf before. Are you a relative?”
“Oh no,” she said. “I’m just helping out, you know, tidying up the grounds and making sure your deliveries get through.”
Jacob looked around in amazement. “Is all this you?”
She nodded. “Yep, all me. Been busy.”
“I can see that. Well, you’ve certainly made my job easier, so thanks for that.”
“No problem, it’s a public service.”
“I’m sure the old guy will appreciate it.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Cat agreed. “So, if I were to ask him for one teeny, tiny little thing in return, like, say, I don’t know, just for instance, a book. That would be perfectly reasonable, right?”
“A book?”
“I’ll explain later,” she said. “For now, let’s just deliver these groceries!”
She gave him an enthusiastic punch on the shoulder and regretted it instantly when he looked at her strangely.
They had reached the door by now and, trying to cover her embarrassment, she cleared her throat and asked, “Do you want to knock or shall I?”
Jacob did it himself.
“How does this work?” Cat asked. “We go inside and drop all this off in his kitchen, or something?”
Jacob laughed, “No, I leave it just inside the door.”
That wasn’t as good as Cat had hoped, but still, it was inside the tower, which was closer than she had been so far.
When the moment came, however, the wizard only let Jacob inside, using his magic to keep Catriona on the doorstep while snatching the bags from her hand.
Doing her best to seize the moment, she said, “Jacob here was just saying he thought I’d done a good job with your grounds, Mr Renjaf, and he thought it would be pretty reasonable if you were to give me that book I wanted, in return.”
“Well, I didn’t exactly—” Jacob began, but Cat shushed him to cut him off.
“So, what do you say? Deal?”
Renjaf’s response, gentle reader, was something rude and offensive that I see no need to write here. Suffice to say, as Jacob stepped back outside and began to head back down the path, Catriona was left once again staring at the door, frustrated, hands on hips.
Not one to give up, though, a new approach formulated in her mind. After all, there was clearly at least one person who was allowed inside Renjaf’s door. If she could just get where Jacob had been a moment ago, she would need only a moment longer to get what she wanted.
“So, Mr Renjaf,” she muttered to herself, quietly, “I don’t look like your usual delivery boy, eh? Well, I’ll just have to see what I can do about that.”
Calling out to the delivery boy, she asked, “Jacob, where are you off to now?”
“Back to Compton,” he replied.
“Great! Any chance of a lift?”
“Sure,” he shrugged. “No problem.”
“Excellent, thanks,” she said, linking arms with Jacob as they walked back down the path. Jacob seemed surprised but didn’t object. “So, tell me about yourself: do you come this way often…”
During the ride back to the town, Catriona flirted shamelessly with Jacob, learning everything she needed to know to pull off her plan. Studying his face, his body, his voice, committing it all to memory. She found out that Renjaf’s deliveries mostly ran to a specific schedule, and so Jacob would be out that way again in just a few days. Catriona got him to agree to her joining him, on the pretext of her doing more work on the grounds in hopes of gaining Renjaf’s favour. Of course, she didn’t really need any help getting out there, her falcon form being much quicker than any horse, but he didn’t need to know that. That’s how Catriona got there over the next few days, to work on the grounds some more. She brought Renjaf bottles of wine, chocolates, pastries from the bakery, anything she could think of to persuade him to change his mind, but nothing moved him, so her plan went ahead.
*****
When the day rolled around, to make things as easy as possible, she had decided to forgo her customary red wizard’s robes for a simple top and trousers.
This time there wasn’t as much to carry, so Cat made sure she grabbed everything almost before the horse had stopped. Jacob called for her to wait up, but she only walked faster. Once inside the grounds of the wizard’s tower, she used her magic to cause a few of the plants to reach out and grab Jacob so he couldn’t move. She even persuaded them to place a broadleaf over his mouth so he couldn’t cry out.
Once she judged herself sufficiently far away, she concentrated hard and shapeshifted her body to match the image of Jacob that she had in her mind. When she looked at her reflection in the pond, she was reasonably satisfied.
“Not bad,” she said, in a slightly deeper voice than usual. It wasn’t perfect, but it should be good enough to fool someone from a distance or someone with poor eyesight.
Steeling herself, she walked the remaining distance to Renjaf’s door and knocked.
Cat had her locator spell fully prepared in her mind, ready to cast the instant she was inside, then she could run after it, find the book, pop it in her pocket dimension and get out again before the old wizard knew what had happened or that she’d taken anything.
After a moment, the door opened.
“Good morning, Mr Renjaf,” said Catriona, brightly, in Jacob’s voice. “I’ve got your delivery for you if you’ll just let me pop in with it, OK?”
Renjaf scowled and squinted at ‘Jacob.’
“Something different about you,” he growled.
“Who m-me?” she stammered. “N-no, I don’t think so…”
She had to stifle a giggle. It was something she did when she was nervous, but it wasn’t really ‘in character’ for Jacob.
“Oh!” ‘Jacob’ cried in sudden inspiration. “New haircut.”
Catriona’s real self had long ginger hair halfway down her back – she’d been growing it out since she was little – whereas Jacob’s hair was dark and short. She did worry that she’d made it a bit too short, though, when shapeshifting in a hurry. She also hoped she would remember how long her own hair should be when she changed back.
Of course, gentle reader, my mother could have used her magic to grow her hair as long as she wished, but she always considered that cheating, somehow.
So far, her real self had always snapped back on cue, but she supposed there was a chance that it wouldn’t. That’s why she still added a pair of small red bands when she shifted, as an anchor to her real self. They were currently around ‘Jacob’s’ left ankle where they were covered by ‘his’ socks so they wouldn’t be conspicuous.
With another grunt, Renjaf, apparently satisfied, stepped aside, and finally Catriona found herself inside his home. She wasted not a moment looking around before placing the bags on the floor and casting her locator spell, which the druidess followed with her mind as it shot up the stairs to Renjaf’s library on the tenth floor. In seconds, she would have a precise location, but her attention wavered as she felt something brushing against her back. Something familiar and yet somehow wrong: her hair.
“Uh-oh!” she cried.
While casting her locator spell, she had inadvertently let go of her image of Jacob and reverted to her old self.
“You!” Renjaf cried, his face darkening like the sky preparing for a thunderstorm. “Get out of my house!”
“Look, I’m sorry, OK?” Cat said, holding up her arms in surrender.
Damn, she had been so close!
“I just really need that book. That’s all! Really! There’s no need to—” but she never got to finish her sentence as Renjaf picked her up with his magic and literally threw her out of his home, through the air and into the pond where she landed with a splash.
After crawling her way out of the water, she stood up and walked back down the path, where she freed Jacob. He was understandably livid.
“What the hell was that?” he demanded.
“The plants wouldn’t have harmed you,” Cat assured him. “I just needed you out of the way.”
Jacob shook his head, “You don’t get it, do you? I wasn’t worried about the plants.”
“Then what?” Cat wondered with a puzzled frown.
“It’s pretty solitary, this job of mine,” he said. “Not much chance to meet people. I know Renjaf’s a grumpy old miser, but even the polite customers aren’t interested in getting to know the delivery boy. Still, here I thought I’d actually made a friend. But no! You were just using me, weren’t you?”
A dripping wet Cat reluctantly nodded. “Yes, I was,” she admitted, quietly. “I hadn’t thought of it like that, but you’re right. I’m sorry.”
“At least you’re honest about it,” Jacob allowed.
“Oh yes, I’m fully prepared to be completely honest about my total dishonesty,” she quipped.
Despite himself, Jacob laughed, “You know you could have just asked me to help, right?”
“It never occurred to me,” she confessed. “When it comes to this staff of mine, well, everybody thinks my story is insane, so I tend to keep it to myself.” There was a pause for a moment, then she said, “So, what now?”
“Well, I’ve got more deliveries to do around Compton…”
“Alright.”
“…and after what you pulled today, I should just leave you here.”
“Absolutely fair enough. You should probably do that.”
“But I’m not going to.”
“You’re not?”
“Come on,” he said, taking her arm, “Let’s see what we can do about getting you dry.”
“Only if you’re sure,” Cat said.
“Well, I can’t leave a half-drowned Cat to fend for herself, now can I?” Jacob quipped, taking her arm and leading her back to his cart.
“Well, OK, then,” Cat smiled. “If you put it like that, thanks. I just don’t want to be any trouble.”
Jacob snorted, “You’ve already been that, and you really shouldn’t thank me yet – there is a price: On the way, you can tell me your ‘insane’ story, so I know exactly who it is I’ve made friends with.”
“That’s fair,” Cat agreed.
“Also,” Jacob added, “the only blankets I have are for Bonnie, so before long you’re going to smell like a horse.”
“‘The Cat Who Smelled of Horse’!” Catriona laughed. “They’ll be telling the story a thousand years from now.”
*****
And so, gentle reader, here I am, doing exactly that!
One of the reasons I include this part of my mother’s story is to provide balance. Catriona Redfletching is a legend, but she was once a person, and like all of us, she was flawed, fallible. She made mistakes.
I just hope, for all our sakes, that I am not making one now.