Meow, Baby

by Rebecca Royce

  Her curtain was in ribbons. She glanced out one of the rends to meet the placid gazes of the cats. “Nice,” she said. “You owe me a curtain.”

  One of the cats lifted a paw, and with his eyes on hers, licked it before swiping it over his triangular shaped face. Michaella narrowed her eyes at him before pointing out the rip. “I have my eyes on you.” She pointed at the other two. “And don’t look so innocent. You probably told him to do this, didn’t you?”

  The blue-eyed cat coughed, almost like it was laughing. Michaella laughed in reply. “Ha ha. Fine. Shower curtain zero. Cats one.”

  She turned off the water, drying herself and steaming the bathroom up in the process. The biggest cat, the one who hadn’t been communicating much, rubbed against her leg, purring. A second later he seemed to jolt back, eyes wide.

  “Not used to purring are you? Haven’t had a lot of reason to be happy?” She yawned, dropping her towel in the laundry hamper. She padded over to her drawers. “I suppose it’s a flannel pants, t-shirt night in case I have to go over and beg the fellows next door to turn down their music. Or I may find a man who can turn into a flying leprechaun on the roof. Yeah, that happened once.”

  She dressed herself in the ugly pajamas that she hated. The third cat jumped into her still open drawer, knocking her one sexy set of black silk pajamas onto the floor before lifting his head to meow at her.

  “These? If only. I haven’t had any reason to wear these since my ex left. That’s okay. I have a very full life.” She walked over to the bed, turning off the light on her way. “You may be noting that I live a lot like a human. Truth is, I’m only very low power. I can heal, and I can fly. That’s the best the school could get my powers working. I know there are other places that draw them out, but this is it for me.” The cat blinked at her. “It’s okay. I take care of the old and the sick. It’s a gift. Oh now. You don’t know the first thing about any of that? I’m rambling. Humans can feed you the same way that I can.” She climbed into her bed. “If you guys could save the cat antics while I’m sleeping that would be great.”

  All three of them leapt onto the bed, pushing down around her as though they meant to get comfortable for the night. It was nice to have their light weight on the bed. The one with the blue eyes was closest to her head. He purred lightly, and she closed her eyes.

  Sun beamed through the window, and Michaella opened her eyes. What time was it? She rolled over to look at the clock. It was almost eight. She’d slept last night. As she rubbed her eyes, she startled when three sets of cat eyes regarded her silently.

  “Guess I slept through the party.” Muscles languid, she sat up. “How about you guys? Did they keep you up?”

  Two of the cats looked at each other and then back at her. She laughed. They were funny creatures. She’d never seen cats like this before.

  The doorbell rang. “Who would be here now?”

  Michaella jumped out of bed. On her best day, she wasn’t graceful, but with three sets of still unnamed cats winding around her legs, meowing at her, and almost pushing her back, she was a study in clumsiness. “Guys!” she complained as she tripped and caught herself on the doorframe.

  Blue eyes yowled so loudly, Michaella worried he was hurt. Ignoring the doorbell, she knelt, and he immediately jumped at her. She caught him and stood, his claws biting into her shoulder. As she stood, she gasped at his weight. “You’re a big boy.” Michaella smiled as she reached for the doorknob. “That’s your name now, Big Boy.” He made a low growl in her ear. “Fine. I’ll rethink it.”

  Michaella opened the door and immediately regretted her decision not to get dressed before answering it.

  “Hello,” the well-dressed man on her porch said. His eyes raked her from head to toe in a way that suggested he found her completely lacking. “Sorry to bother you, but I’m a friend of your neighbors, the Addingtons. I was wondering if you’d seen them lately.”

  At her feet, the two cats hissed and backed inside, while the cat in Michaella’s arms growled low. “Ouch!” she said as his nails cut her skin.

  He hissed and leapt over her shoulder, taking off after his brothers.

  “Sorry,” she said, as he disappeared. “My neighbors? Yes. I saw them yesterday. This…” She waved to the bushes and tire tracks. “This is their handiwork.”

  The man smiled tightly. “Seems familiar. You haven’t seen them since then?” he asked.

  “What was your name again?” Michaella asked. She wasn’t normally a suspicious person, but she wasn’t about to give anyone’s location, or lack thereof, to a stranger.

  “James Cabot.” He waved his hand in the air like a magician to materialize a business card. “This is my information. Call me if you see them?”

  “Sure,” she replied. She was going to lose this card as soon as he left.

  He turned around to leave, but before his foot hit the first step, he spun. “You will call,” he commanded. There was something about his voice; it cajoled but contained a hint of power. It hit her like a wave and tried to sink into her skin. The thing about not having a lot of magic was that people who did have a lot thought they could take advantage of her. This wasn’t the first time someone had tried to influence her, and it wouldn’t work. Michaella was a healer, and one of the benefits of being a healer was self-care. Her magic counteracted negativity, and right now, this warlock’s magic was negative.

  He’d never know it, but his power was wasted on her.

  “Sure,” she replied again, stepping back and closing the door. “Will do.”

  Locking the door, she turned around and stumbled. The cats had returned and were watching her with narrowed eyes. “As bad as the Addingtons are, I’m not about to help that guy.” She started upstairs. “Using magic on me. Trying to influence me. What a jerk. Why are people so mean?” she muttered as she walked into her room and flopped onto her bed. The mattress jumped as the cats followed her. Blue Eyes walked onto her chest and lowered his face to hers. He let out a yowl, and she laughed.

  “I’m naming you,” she said, rubbing the sides of his face. “Your blue eyes remind me of my favorite actor, Paul Newman. But you don’t look like a Paul, so I’m naming you Butch Cassidy. Butch for short.” He licked her face, which she took as approval.

  Michaella pushed herself up, dislodging Butch. His claws flexed, but he jumped next to his brothers and waited for her to sit against the headboard.

  “Okay.” She studied the other two. The one cat had a chunk taken out of his ear and the other was a beautiful pure black behemoth with bright yellow eyes. “Um. Tom and Jerry? Chip and Dale?”

  They slow blinked at her. “Lorelei and Rory?”

  The bigger one yowled and swiped at her.

  “So not that one. Okay. You don’t want names related to each other and you don’t want it related to Butch over there. Fair enough. Well, you must be the tough guy to have been clawed at like that. Missing that fur. So I’ll call you Tough and you, the one with the yellow eyes? You’re like a panther so that is what I shall dub thee. You’re Panther. Butch. Tough. None of you are meowing so you must not hate it. You guys didn’t like that man who showed up. I’m not surprised. Cats have great sense of people, and I don’t think I’d much care for anyone the Addingtons like.”

  This time Panther meowed and followed it up with a loud hiss.

  Michaella wasn’t sure what that meant. She had to go get them some food and feed herself, so she could go to work. She walked to the kitchen to make eggs. While they boiled, she went ahead and cooked up some chicken for the cats. She tore it up, placing it in three different bowls. They were very dominant personalities, and she thought perhaps they wouldn’t like to share.

  She placed it on the floor. Tough sniffed it and then stared up at her. Michaella put her hands on her hips. “I don’t know where you were before here but this is as good as it gets. I’m not giving you caviar. So you can go back where you came from or eat my chicken.”

  Panther hit him with his tail
and started chomping down in his chosen dish. Butch stayed where he was, regarding her silently. He wasn’t eating, but he wasn’t not eating either. It was like he was more preoccupied with staring at her.

  The doorbell rang again, and she sighed. “I never have visitors. It’s probably the housing association come to fine me for my beat-up yard.” She walked over to the door just as Panther let out a howl and grabbed onto her foot. And he didn’t let up. The cats kicked up a commotion all the way to the door.

  She managed to scat him away as she opened it. A woman stood there. She was beautiful, black-haired, with striking eyebrows and sharp brown eyes that looked like they could see right into her soul.

  Maybe they could. She never did know what other abilities witches had.

  “Can I help you?”

  She smiled coldly. “Hello. Sorry to disturb you. My name is Margery—Marge. You met my husband, James, earlier.”

  “Ah, I suppose so.” What else was she supposed to say to that?

  “He may not have explained to you who he was because, you know men, they’re always doing things wrong. The Addingtons are my cousins. We are trying to find them, as he told you. But, in the meantime I am deeply concerned for their cats. Three black ones. My husband mentioned that you had cats.”

  Michaella cocked her head slightly to the side. “Cats? The Addingtons have cats? I’ve never seen them with cats or seen any cats in the neighborhood.”

  “Well, they are inside cats. Dearly beloved by those boys.” She smiled, and again, Michaella was overwhelmed by coldness. It was as though it crept from Marge and tried to infest Michaella. She’d seen witches who were off, who tried to do very bad things. Some of them were housed at Prestige, although most the Enforcers, the witch population’s law enforcement, took them elsewhere. There was no healing some people. The best healers and Enforcers could do was take them out of the general population.

  But in all of Michaella’s experience, not one of them had wicked down like this witch. “I want to make sure they’re being taken care of, but they are not in the house. Again, James thought he saw them here.”

  Michaella shook her head. “Cats? I’m afraid he’s mistaken. I don’t have any cats here.”

  “You will tell me the truth.”

  Internally, she sighed. What was with these people? Well, she could think she won this round. “I don’t have cats. I could never lie to you.”

  She narrowed her gaze. “Stupid husband. Thinks he’s seeing cats when there are no cats. Well, you will tell me if you see them.”

  Michaella nodded. “Of course.”

  With that, she shut the door in Margery’s face. When she turned around, the cats were on the other side of the room. The door shut and Butch jumped up on the couch. Michaella shook her head. “No frickin’ way is she getting the three of you. That kind of witch probably hurts cats. I have to get dressed for work. I’m going to suggest you stay inside today to avoid her until she leaves. You’re the Addingtons’ cats? Well then, I apologize for being nasty about them but maybe you could explain to them that my life is hard enough as it is.”

  Tough seemed to bob his head which she took as an affirmative. To reward him for his sensitivity, she rubbed his cheeks. “Such a handsome boy.” Michaella decided to risk dropping a kiss on his head. He tolerated it and even purred for a second before cutting off suddenly. She got the sense he hadn’t meant to purr. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I won’t tell.”

  Chapter 3

  Michaella worked most nights. Two nights a week she got to sleep during the nighttime hours but then she had to work a double shift the next day. It left her very little time to be at home. Particularly because she had to travel so far to get to work.

  It didn’t take Michaella long to get ready. The Addingtons had cars for fun, but she knew they were powerful enough to de-materialize and materialize wherever they wanted to go. She on the other hand? She needed a car if she was going any distance. Flying rocked, but unless she was flying across the ocean, it did her no good between home and work. She had to alternate taking the train with using her car. Vehicles were really expensive, and she didn’t have the money to pay human prices for them. Still, today she got to drive.

  The trip to Prestige cleared Michaella’s mind. As she pulled through the gates of Prestige, she found her poor little run-down sedan was the only one in the dirt parking lot.

  “Welcome back Healer Lansing.” The receptionist, a kind woman named Susan, smiled at her.

  “Hi Susan. How was today?”

  “Not bad,” she said, collecting her sweater and purse from beneath the desk. “I’m clocking out. See you in the morning.” The time clock behind her clicked as she magically entered her time, and then she disappeared.

  Healers wore uniforms like human doctors, but they were a bit more witchy. Personally, Michaella wished she could dress down. It was unnecessary for healers to wear billowing white coats, but that was her opinion. Her sleeves constantly got in the way of her hands, and more times than not, she rolled the sleeves up so she could have freer movement.

  Also, she was really short, and the length of the coat, along with the color, made her appear shorter and rounder than she really was. She didn’t have a lot going for her, physically speaking, but she did know how to dress her body.

  “Healer Lansing,” a deep voice called. “We’re ready to begin rounds.”

  One of the administrators of Prestige, Director King, stood with a group of newly arrived healers. Like in a human hospital at shift changes, the head healer filled them in on any new cases and updated them on current patients.

  “We have two patients in isolation. They were accidentally hit by a shifting spell and are sitting out their time until it wears off.”

  “What are they?” someone asked.

  “Sloths,” Director King answered. “They were seen mocking an elderly human couple getting out of their car and someone decided to teach them a lesson about moving slowly.”

  Michaella snorted, and she wasn’t alone.

  “Unfortunately, whoever decided to play this joke will be answering to the Enforcers. As you know, vigilante justice is not tolerated within our community. No matter how fitting the punishment may be.” The sides of his lips twitched, and he coughed into his hand. “Right, moving on…” For the next hour, they listened, accepted their assignments, and went to work. Nights at Prestige went one of two ways: slow or crazy.

  Tonight, apparently, things were moving slow.

  Kind of like the sloths.

  Michaella couldn’t help it. She had to visit. The earlier healers had made them as comfortable as possible. The weird thing about shifting spells was that the people shifted retained their personalities, but they were also fully whatever animal they’d shifted into. So these guys—or girls, she would have to ask—were aware they’d been changed and were probably wondering why they really wanted to hang upside down from the hat tree someone had secured to the floor.

  Michaella was clearly not the only one who was interested. They’d gathered quite a crowd of people staring at them. Maybe they were assholes in real life, but as sloths they were pretty cute.

  As she turned away, Michaella grinned. She was here to help soothe those who needed her. That was what she would do.

  Chapter 4

  Michaella came home to find the mess in her front yard had not magically disappeared. There was no choice. She didn’t even bother to go inside her house, because if she sat, she’d never come back outside to pick up.

  Doing her best Charlie Brown impersonation, Michaella trudged to the shed to get her rake. How in the hell had the Addingtons managed to shave and squash her landscaping? She pictured them having a magic battle while driving ATVs.

  Soon she had a significant pile of branches and leaves, and weirdly stripped and shaped hydrangeas and hostas. With her luck, they’d get a storm tonight and it would blow the branches all over her lawn. She trudged back (again, like Charlie Brown) to the shed and f
ound some yard bags. Michaella didn’t know how much time passed, but she was sweating and nauseated by the time she finished. If she’d been smarter, she would have eaten at work, but there was so much to do. The result of her overexertion was going to be she either puked or fell asleep. Michaella hoped for the latter.

  The world tilted left. Yes, she knew this feeling. She was going to pass out. Michaella stumbled inside, met by three curious cats. They lifted their heads as she wrestled the door shut. Tough was on the counter and jumped down, and each of them rubbed against her leg. She sighed. It was probably time for them to go home.

  Even people as awful as the Addingtons didn’t deserve to have her kidnap their pets. Surely by now whatever had happened with the three of them was resolved. She opened the door to the porch.

  “You guys can go home if you want to.” None of them moved. “Are you going to do that cat thing where you don’t go out until I turn my back?” Not surprisingly, they didn’t answer her, and she sighed. “I’m about to pass out, so we’ll figure this out later. I overdid cleaning the lawn. Just another story in the never ending tale of ‘Michaella, the not-quite-up-to-par.’ Okay, you must be hungry.” With shaking hands, she got the tuna open and put some in a dish. “You have to share tonight. Please try not to fight. I can’t do more. It was a long day. One of our long-term residents finally passed. I was there for her, but it takes a lot of energy at the end.”

  Michaella stumbled toward the couch. She wasn’t going to make it to the bedroom. Darkness took her under.

  She woke up to a scratchy tongue licking her face. The clock said three, which meant the cat hadn’t awakened her a minute too soon. It was time for work again. Panther stared down at her. Michaella wished she could speak feline, because she might have sworn that he was worried about her. He purred, and she grinned at him. “Thanks. You’re like an alarm.”