The Adventures of Caterwaul the Cat

by Damon Plumides

  “Tell it to someone else, Queenie. You don’t expect me to believe that, do you? I may be a rat, but please don’t assume that I am daft. The Witch put a spell on you? Tell me some more porky pies. You’re not pulling any wool over these eyes, I tell you. That’s rich . . . Like somehow it was the Witch who made you the greedy thing that you are. I tell you this. You don’t need help being rotten. You practically invented it.”

  She was dumbfounded.

  “Just go on down . . . you know she’s waiting for you. She’s got eyes everywhere, she has. She’s known you’re coming ever since you set foot in Red Moon.” He gestured that she should follow the path as it went deep into the cave.

  With their every step, it got darker. Warwick lit a torch, but even by the torchlight, the cave seemed to go on and on. It was the smells they noticed first. They were initially faint, but gained in intensity as they moved along the path.

  First, there was a really foul and pungent smell like a stagnant water pool. The walls of the cave were bleeding moisture, and Druciah guessed they must be near an underground stream. Next, the scent was joined by a smell of rotting wood. Tree roots stuck through the wet clay walls in a massive tangle. Some of them were rotten as if they supported trees on the surface that had long ago died off. Mushrooms and other fungi feasted on the decaying wood.

  Warwick Vane Bezel III noticed that there seemed to be no animals about. It is unusual, he thought. In fact, he couldn’t recall seeing even an insect since they’d left Edsel. Soon they came to notice the signs of habitation. The mud walls were gone, and the party found itself surrounded by clean, bare rock. Notches carved out of the walls housed small glass jars, each of which emitted a strange green light. Warwick nodded to the guard to examine one.

  The glow was generated by the bodies of luminescent caterpillars gingerly feasting on vine leaves. It really was ingenious. It was a natural adaptation of insect larvae that the Witch had adopted for her purposes. The cave path was now actually well lit, and the party soon came to a door, which was slightly ajar. The queen pushed it slightly, and it opened, revealing a good-sized room. There was a woven grass mat just inside the door, upon which was written the word “Welcome.”

  “Wipe your feet,” called a voice from within the room.

  The room was lit by torches and candles that flickered in a smoky haze. Still, even squinting, it was difficult to see inside.

  “Wipe your feet,” said the voice again. “What, were you raised in a barn? There’s a mat there for a reason. Your feet are filthy. I don’t like it when people track mud into my home.”

  It was difficult to see far into the room, but as they moved further inside, the queen was able to make out the shape of a woman. She was dressed all in black and had long, matted, gray hair. She was sitting on a rickety, old chair. The queen and her party moved deeper into the room, first carefully cleaning the dirt from their shoes.

  “Is there a chance that any of you lot plays chess?” she asked.

  9

  Knight Takes Pawn

  “Chess,” the Witch repeated. “You look like civilized folks, surely you know the game? I would like to play.”

  “I play,” answered Druciah.

  “Are you any good?” the Witch inquired, tilting her head to the side the way a parrot might. The torchlight emphasized the opaque whiteness of her cataract. “I haven’t had a game of chess in a while, but it’s been longer still since I played anyone worth his salt.” The Witch rose from her seat and walked over to a shelf and grabbed a wooden box. “Come over here and sit by me. Your men too; tell them to make themselves comfortable.”

  There were few places to sit, and none of them looked particularly comfortable. Still Warwick Vane Bezel III and the guard sat down.

  “My playing partners have been limited of late and no challenge either. The rat can’t play at all, I’m afraid. You and I shall have a game, Druciah,” the Witch said.

  The queen moved a rickety chair over to a table, and the Witch moved her chair accordingly. She opened the wooden box and revealed an intricately carved set of chess pieces. The carvings were beautiful, the work of a master.

  “This game set was given to me long ago by my grandfather,” she said as she began to set the pieces. “I always play black, my dear, so you will go first.”

  Druciah picked up the white queen. She gently rubbed her index figure over its contours. “Beautiful,” she whispered. It was the most detailed chess piece she had ever seen. She put the piece down on its appropriate square. “How do you know my name?” she asked.

  The Witch chuckled. “I know lots of things. Some of them not so pleasant, and I would prefer not to remember them.” She finished setting the pieces. “My dear, there is nothing that goes on in my forest that I am not aware of.” She smiled slyly. A few of her teeth were no longer there.

  “A game then?” she said. “It’s your move, white.”

  Druciah moved her queen’s pawn forward two spaces.

  The Witch grinned. “Interesting. You may give me a game after all. You are either very bold or very stupid. We shall see which one it is.” She countered with her own queen’s pawn cutting off Druciah’s.

  White followed by moving her left-hand knight in front of her bishop’s pawn. Black countered by moving her right-hand bishop’s pawn up two spaces.

  Druciah next moved her knight to take the Witch’s queen’s pawn.

  “Aha!” said the Witch. “You are a player.” She took her finger and knocked over her own queen indicating her concession.

  “Why did you do that? We’d only just begun playing,” asked the queen.

  “I can see very clearly that you have me, my dear. In twelve moves, most likely. You are a very clever player. Not everybody would have the audacity to play a counter-gambit like that with white.”

  The Witch picked up the pieces and returned them to the box. “Tell me why you are here, my love. I am open to some arrangement. But know this before we go any further. One of the things that I am going to demand of you is the return of my cat.”

  “Your cat?” asked the queen. She was about to lie to the Witch, then thought better on it.

  “I suspected that you might have him, and your chess opening betrays you. The opening moves you made are from what we chess aficionados call the Keravian Gambit. It is a bold strategy indeed, and not one that I would expect from anyone but the best of players. It is a strategy used often by my cat. He once beat me in eleven moves with that advance.

  “Logic tells me that you have played against my former pet, and he has beaten you with that angle. You observed his play, and now you use it against me. Clever, but I expected it. You are exposed. He must have told you about me and my powers. So tell me, why have you come here?”

  By now Druciah’s eyes had adjusted to the lights and smoke. She looked around. The Witch’s cavern did not look so ominous. It hardly looked “witchy” at all. It’s true that there were books. In fact, there were lots and lots of books, and scrolls, and stacks of papers and parchments. But it did not look like the majority of them were magic tomes. In fact, the cavern was overstuffed with all sorts of things that Druciah could only call junk.

  There was a wall filled with jars and bottles, which the queen assumed were magical in nature, but right next to that was a counter heaped with the crockery and leftover remains of several meals. The cauldron on the fire seemed to have some kind of vegetable stew cooking in it. This place hardly seemed like the home of a sorceress.

  On closer inspection, the old woman hardly looked like a witch at all. In fact Warwick Vane Bezel III thought she appeared more like a sad old woman. Like the kind of sad woman who lived a very lonely life underground, here in this dark cave miles away from anybody else. She could have been anyone’s grandmother, if that anyone was the kind to abandon her grandmother to fend for herself here in Red Moon Forest.

  The Witch spoke again, “My cat was my only real companion, but this cave was no home for an animal like him. He nee
ded to roam, to explore, and to see more of the world around him. That is why, as much as it pained me to do so, I let him go.”

  The queen looked surprised.

  “You find this hard to believe, Druciah? That I let my Caterwaul go away from me? Why? He is my only friend. I love him, and I could not bear to see him feeling like a prisoner. So I let him go . . . and now I am miserable.”

  The queen smiled. She now felt that in this new game, she had the upper hand. “Well then, I will not dance about the bush,” Druciah said gliding around the room. “You know who I am, no doubt. As it happens, we can help each other. I have something you want, and you possess something I need. Though he appeared to me as a stray, the cat is no doubt yours, so I will return him to you.

  “He won’t come willingly, so you will have to prepare for me some type of sedative which I can place in his food. In exchange, I need from you only a small thing. In return for your pet, you will consult your catalogue of spells and give me back my youth. I want to be young and beautiful for nine lifetimes.”

  She went on, “I want to be as I was years ago, blossoming and beautiful as an apple tree in spring. I want to rule unblemished by time for nine lifetimes. I want to be as fair as the summer flowers and as timeless as the sea. Can you do this for me?” Druciah asked.

  “Of course I can, my vain queen,” the Witch grinned. “But let me warn you. If you try to lie or cheat and do not return Caterwaul to me, I will come after you, and I assure you that you will not like it if I do.

  “So are we then agreed?” asked the Witch.

  “Agreed,” said Druciah happily.

  “Well, now that this is settled, we have work to do,” the Witch said as she slid a ladder around the room. She climbed nimbly up to the top right corner of a bookshelf and retrieved an ancient, dog-eared manuscript. Its pages were yellow and stained, and it had no cover. Climbing down, she walked over to the fireplace for more light. Flipping through the pages, she began to smile. “Ah . . . here it is. This is one of the oldest and most dangerous spells I have ever known.” She giggled. “It is a recipe for a pie.”

  The queen looked at her confused. “Did I understand you correctly? Did you say pie?” Druciah inquired. The Witch blew the dust off the pages into the fire, causing the dust particles to burn like tiny fireflies.

  “Yes, my dear, your hearing is perfectly fine. I did say pie. What I have here is the recipe for creating an ancient confection of deliciousness guaranteed to make you young again and for the requisite nine lifetimes. It is the recipe for feline pie,” the Witch said with a snicker.

  “It requires some preparation, so you will need someone who understands his way around the kitchen. Judging from how spoiled you appear to be, I am sure that you have someone you can trust to make it for you.

  “The ingredients must be gathered with great care and followed explicitly according to my instructions. You may find some of the more unconventional ingredients in the forest on your way back. The rest can be assembled with what’s already in your kitchen, I’d imagine.” The Witch paused for a minute reading the fundamentals of the dessert. She handed Druciah a piece of paper and some charcoal and began to dictate the recipe.

  “Begin the pie with whatever pie dough recipe you like. I prefer to add in some white sugar and honey. This will give you a mild and buttery taste. You can substitute brown sugar for the honey if you don’t feel like getting stung,” she giggled. “But doing so will give the pie more of a caramel flavor. I don’t particularly care for caramel myself, but each according to her taste.

  “Prepare a nine-inch pie pan; it’s best if you use a glass one, my dear. Place the crust in it evenly and glaze it with the yolks of at least two eggs. You need to have the temperature of your oven preheated to about 375 degrees while you gather a bowl to mix the filling.”

  Her voice became suddenly more “witch-like” as she recited to Druciah the components for the pie’s filling.

  “1 cup of sugar, 4 large eggs, 6 tablespoons of unsalted butter—you have to use unsalted butter, no exception—2 tablespoons of vanilla, 1/4 cup of dark rum, one eye of salamander, 2 owl beaks, 6 leaves of the althea plant, threads from the golden seal root, a pinch of feverfew, the pinky toe of a rat, the slime of an immature toad, a pinch of salt, and the tail of a white female cat.”

  The Witch paused to see if Druciah had gotten it all down correctly. “Now you must combine the ingredients, all except the cat’s tail, together in a large bowl while warming the crust until hot. Place the cat’s tail in the pie pan, pour the filling on top of it, and cover with a rolled out top crust.”

  The queen shook her hand to keep it from cramping.

  “Poke some holes in the top so the steam can escape and brush the top of the pie with more of the egg yolk to ensure that it bakes to a golden brown.” The Witch hungrily smacked her lips together. “Make sure you bake it for between forty- five and fifty minutes; remember some ovens are hotter than others. You will want to take it out once the top is golden brown. Let it stand for one hour before eating,” the Witch finished.

  “Is that everything?” Druciah asked exhaustedly. “I will have Orris, my chef, attend to its creation when I return. He is unmatched in the preparation of palatable pleasures.” The queen paused for a second, admiring her alliteration, and then asked, “Now, how am I going to catch Caterwaul for you? He is a tricky ball of fur. All my guards could not catch him if their lives depended on it.”

  The Witch walked over to where several potions crowded the top of a tiny table. She picked up several one by one, removing the tops and sniffing each until she found what she was looking for.

  “Here . . . this will do the trick,” she said to the queen. “Place three drops of this in his food, and it should knock him out long enough for you to complete your journey from the castle to here. It won’t hurt him; it will simply put him out for the duration of your trip.” She paused, and then said hopefully, “I will be so happy to have him back. He is the only real friend I have.”

  The Witch poured a small amount of the elixir into a small, green-glass phial.

  “I suppose you find it easy to let him go?” the Witch continued. “That proves to me you could never love another. Tell me, queen, when your wish is granted, who will you call friend? You have one, and yet you betray him. I suspect that I will soon have one more friend than you, your highness.”

  The queen sneered at what she saw as a challenge. “I will be loved again by many,” she said. “You don’t know what you are talking about, hag. Cathoon Castle will soon be filled with laughter. It will shake once again with grand parties and succulent feasts. I shall be beautiful again and for ages.” She spat on the ground. “I will return with your chess partner as soon as I can.”

  The queen turned and exited defiantly up the corridor, followed by her last remaining guard. However, Warwick Vane Bezel III, chief constable of the queen’s secret police force, stayed behind for a moment. Scratching his head in wonder, he looked at the Witch and asked, “Can I have a bite of what you’re cooking? It smells great.”

  10

  A Whole New Paint Job

  On her way out of the forest, Druciah made sure to stop by to say farewell to General Fairfax. She vowed to do whatever she could to release him from the Witch’s curse, but until then, she wished him the best.

  The general had been honestly glad to see her. Though he had been surprised to learn just how long he had been trapped as a frog, he remembered her as an innocent and wide-eyed girl and thus knew nothing of her true character. Shouting “about face” to the other frogs, they turned as one before hopping off into the forest.

  Joffrey was not so happy to see them, at least at first. He was a bit perturbed that one of his outfits came back to him covered in the muck of the forest floor. However, after the queen explained that the guard who was wearing it was now a frog, he couldn’t really stay too upset.

  Druciah again reminded him that she would soon be inviting him to the castle. How s
he would explain the presence of a man-sized snapping turtle, who was also an interior designer, was something she’d worry about later.

  Approaching the possums’ clearing, the queen was happy to find the Parliament was too involved in secret negotiations with the Assembly of Animals to be disturbed. As the party approached their domains, they saw signs that read, “No humans allowed.”

  She was glad of this because she did not want to have to stop for more pleasantries. She was anxious to get back to Cathoon Castle.

  After a while, the queen and her remaining escorts emerged from the forest. Druciah cleaned herself up and climbed up into her coach. She sent her guard and Warwick Vane Bezel III back into the woods to secure those ingredients she knew were sure to be absent from Orris’s pantry. After about an hour, when they returned, Warwick was covered in filth.

  “What in the world happened to you?” the queen asked.

  “I fell into the swamp trying to nab your bloody salamander,” he said handing her a muddy bag. “I got them all though. Every single last disgusting item, just like you asked me to.”

  He wiped his muddy face clean on his sleeve.

  As is usually the case on such journeys, the group made better time in going than in the coming. Druciah was conscious of the fact that they had been gone a long time. The coach driver, with the queen constantly in his ear, wanted to get back to the castle as soon as possible just to shut her up. The two extra horses helped out a lot in that regard.

  Again the word got around that the queen and her secret policeman were on their way. As before, the people ran away and hid. There was almost no sign of life anywhere except for the occasional kitty that scurried across their path. They stopped several times to water the horses, helping themselves to any food that the townsfolk had left behind.