Moonshine

by Susan Dexter

  The wind felt colder every moment. Maybe he should go back to the village. He could beg a coal at one of the houses. Maybe the baker wouldn’t ask questions.

  Tristan decided he would rather dare the stopped-up nose and sneezing fits. Another idea teased him till he considered it. If he could wring the worst of the water from his clothes, they’d be a lot drier than they were. Drier should be warmer. There was a spell he used when he washed the linens in the stream beside his master’s cottage…he could try that! The principle of it was exactly the same.

  Tristan positioned his fingers with care. He stretched one out straight, cocked another back till his wrist ached. He spoke a strangely accented, precise string of words and moved his last finger in a tiny circle in time to his lips. Squinting with concentration, Tristan turned his right hand sunwards and his left hand widdershins. Exactly as if he were wringing out wet laundry…

  Instantly, water began dripping out of the young wizard’s clothes. Water streamed from the ragged hems of his trews, ran out of his sleeve ends. Water dripped through his hair and rolled down his nose. Water squirted out of his socks. A puddle formed on the ground about his feet.

  Tristan could not hold back a surprised laugh. He hadn’t expected the spell to work. His magic so seldom did what he wished it to—but there it was! Every last thread of his clothing was busily twisting the water out of itself. Soon he’d be dry as toasted bread.

  His skin itched as the threads writhed and crawled over it. Tristan ignored the unpleasant sensation. The spell had nearly run its course. The wringing would stop soon enough, and he’d pull his boots on, go home, and face his master in dry clothes.

  Suddenly Tristan heard—and felt—threads popping. Fibers snapped from the strain of constant twisting. They broke by ones and twos, then by the dozen. Patches sewn over the worn spots on his trews flew off like square birds. Threadbare spots became actual holes, then long rents. Seams opened like plowed furrows, unraveling while Tristan stared helplessly.

  The knitted wool of his pullover tightened up, as if the garment was being boiled. The twisted yarns hugged one another tightly. They never let go. Tristan’s sleeve-ends—which had not reached his wrist-bones since his growth spurt the spring past—wormed toward his elbows. The ribbed collar choked him. Tristan got two fingers inside it only just in time. He pulled against the knitting for all he was worth. He tugged, he yanked, and at last something tore. Tristan gasped out a breathless counter-spell, but by the time the garbled dismissal took effect, the damage was done.

  Tristan sighed, trying not to let his breath out as an actual sob.

  At least his clothes were dry, he told himself. Wrecked, they were, but dry.

  That was how his magic worked! Quirky, backward, random. Perverse in every way it possibly could be. Uncontrollable, no matter how much care he took with it. Blais had often assured his apprentice that the persons who’d abandoned an infant son in his orchard would only have done so for the most desperate of reasons. Lately, Tristan suspected those strangers had somehow known exactly the sort of child they were ridding themselves of, that midwinter night fourteen years back.

  A twig snapped, very near.

  Tristan jerked his head up. Jock? Rho? Sneaking up with more pranks in mind? It was a moment before he noticed a little cat standing at the edge of the road, staring at him with narrowed green eyes.

  You smell like fish, the cat said. Its mouth was open slightly, but its whiskered lips did not move to shape the words. Tristan heard a dry voice in his head, very clearly.

  “I fell in the harbor,” he explained, aloud. He didn’t assume the creature could read his thoughts, though maybe it could. “That water always stinks of fish-guts.”

  The cat was a well-grown kitten. Old enough to roam free of its mother, but only just. Its rabbit-color fur was tabby marked with stripes and spots of black, and it looked as if it might grow longer as the kitten grew older. Tail well up, it strolled toward Tristan.

  The green eyes narrowed further. So you don’t actually have any fish?

  “No.” Tristan held out his hand politely. Except for reaching, he kept it still. It was unmannerly to grab at cats. Cats scratched when you were rude.

  The cat butted its round head against his fingers. Pity. Fish is very nice.

  “Harbor cats have trouble getting fish?” Whenever a boat came in, the cats of Dunehollow swarmed the quay. The gulls did likewise. The two sorts of creatures mewed and screamed at one another, setting up a racket until they were given—or had stolen—their fill of fish.

  I am not meant to be a harbor cat. I have a destiny. My mother told me so. The cat sniffed delicately at a thread dangling from Tristan’s sleeve. I am Thomas.

  “Pleased to meet you. I’m Tristan.” At least, that was the name Blais had given his foundling. If Tristan had more of a name than that, he wasn’t likely ever to know it. He sighed again, feeling sorry for himself. Not, he decided, without proper cause.

  Are you going to sit here all day? The cat curled his tail around his paws and regarded Tristan with unblinking curiosity.

  Tristan wished he could just stay where he was, possibly for the entire rest of his life. He didn’t relish explaining to his master about the fish he hadn’t bought. He didn’t want to confess losing the only cash money they’d earned in a month. Could he just sit till hunger and thirst made an end to him and his misery?

  Probably not. People would pass by on the road and object to his loitering beside it. Jock might discover him. Blas might even search him out. Tristan pulled his boots on, with some difficulty. The wet leather needed oiling. It was going to stiffen. The left boot was starting to lose its sole. The heel was coming off the right. Tristan used a small rock to hammer the pegs back in, which would hold the boots together for a few miles more.

  He lurched to his feet. No use tugging at his sleeve ends. His pullover was a good deal smaller than it had been when he’d pulled it on that morning. Loose threads hung from it like grass from a robin’s nest. Tristan decided he had best not pull at any of them. He’d be walking home naked as a newly hatched bird, if the knitting unraveled.

  After a hundred paces, he noticed the cat was following him.

  “I don’t have any fish,” Tristan reminded him. “I was supposed to fetch some, but I lost the money.”

  What about a cow? I like cream, the dry voice informed him, rather hopefully.

  “So do I! It’s the only thing that makes pease porridge worthwhile.” Tristan frowned. “We have a milk cow, and we have chickens, and we have kept a pig, from time to time. And a beehive, for honey and candle-wax.”

  No cat?

  “My master’s never said anything about wanting a cat,” Tristan told him, hoping the cat would catch the hint.

  Then the position’s open. Evidently his hint had gone unnoticed.

  “I don’t know,” Tristan said uneasily. “I really think you’d better be going back.”

  The cat ignored his advice. In fact, it strode past Tristan, tail hoisted high, and walked on as if it knew its way perfectly well. After a moment, Tristan hurried after it.

  “It’s a long walk,” he tried again.

  Any dogs at your place? The tail was still high, but the cat’s tufted ears tipped back, just a bit.

  “Dogs? No, no dogs. But—”

  Good. The ears came back up to a jaunty angle. Not that dogs are a problem, you understand. My mother taught me all about dealing with dogs. No worries there.

  “But I can’t…I can’t just bring you home with me,” Tristan explained. “It’s bad enough I’ll be back without the fish for supper.”

  Oh, fish. Eat it once, it’s gone for good. Whereas a good cat…did I mention that I catch mice?

  “I bet you catch birds, too,” Tristan said.

  Certainly. I am a skilled hunter. That sounded like a bluff. Thomas was surely too young to have gathered much experience.

  Tristan pounced anyway. “Well, that’s no good! My master loves birds!
Blais won’t let you stay.”

  Thomas brushed the objection away. I might agree not to chase anything feathered. In exchange, say, for the occasional saucer of fresh cream. The cat stopped and looked up at Tristan. Its little pink mouth was open slightly, panting. This is rather a far piece of walking, it said. With your long legs, you probably don’t notice it…

  Tristan sighed. He bent down. Thomas allowed himself to be picked up. The small cat snuggled against what was left of the tortured pullover, purring loudly enough for a creature three times his size.

  An Inept Apprentice

  “No,” Blais said firmly.

  “But he’ll catch mice!” Tristan persisted.

  “And what else?” Blais arched one brow high. “Mice do not trouble me, Tristan. A few simple wards keep them out of the larder and the barn. The field mice and the voles in the meadow harm no one. And I do not wish to be finding dead birds on my doorstep.”

  Tristan felt his carefully thought-out arguments for the usefulness of a cat dissolving like mist in the sun. He should have remembered that he’d never seen a mouse inside the cottage—and understood why. A wizard who could set magical barriers that kept rodents from crossing his threshold scarcely needed a cat to do the same work. And Blais plainly didn’t want a cat.

  “Thomas wouldn’t hunt birds,” Tristan began again, but the ploy lacked force, and Blais pushed it aside.

  “It is a cat’s nature to hunt. They cannot help it. No creature can be other than it is, Tristan.”

  “He won’t hunt birds if I ask him not to!”

  Blais frowned at his apprentice’s refusal to let be. The lack of resemblance between the two could not have been greater. Tristan was two fingers taller than his master already and plainly nowhere near done with his over-hasty growing. Blais’ hair and beard both curled, and had once been the color of clean sand. The stress of raising an abandoned infant and struggling to turn him into a wizard had turned every last hair white. It was the only transformation that had been completely successful. Tristan was still a long way from becoming a wizard. A distressingly long way, some days.

  The apprentice’s chin was bare, so far, but the thick hair on Tristan’s head was dark as a sparrow’s wing and grew straight as spider silk. Tristan pushed it back out of his eyes so often that he continued to do so even now, when it was sheared even with his brows and could not possibly blind him. His green eyes held an anxious look—but not a trace of hope.

  Tristan had, Blais saw, made an effort to mend his spell-wrecked clothes. Fresh patches shone bright on both knees, as well as across his seat. Each repair was firmly stitched with strong thread. Tristan could not yet trust magical mending to hold—more was the pity. Because he got more practice at it, the boy’s darning was better than his spell-casting by far. Tristan seemed to grow out of his clothes while he slept, and when awake he found countless ways to rip, tear or burn holes in the cloth. The kitten’s claws had added a few new snags.

  Blais sighed. It wasn’t Tristan’s fault. The cast-off clothes were barely worth mending. The boy never complained, and he tried his best to learn his lessons. At infrequent intervals, he showed real promise in magic. At other times…times like this…there were too many times like this, Blais thought. It was enough to make a wizard despair.

  He kept his emotions hidden. It would be cruel to let Tristan see his concern. Kinder to be stern with the boy. Pity could sting more sharply than any blow.

  The boy was lonely. His ventures to Dunehollow had netted him trouble a-plenty, but had yet to produce a friend. Tristan had never seemed to want a pet, but Blais decided the idea was not entirely without merit. Perhaps a rabbit—no, then there’d be no more meat for the stew-pot. Too much like eating family. Perhaps a squirrel. One of the little flying ones. Soft, gentle creatures, attractive and harmless. Squirrels didn’t kill for sport and weren’t worth eating either.

  “I don’t forbid pets,” the wizard said gently, his thoughts come full circle. “But a cat can never help being a cat. You must not expect this one to change his nature simply because you wish it, Tristan.”

  Tristan’s forehead was furrowed ever so slightly. What else was magic, but bending creatures and forces to a wizard’s will? He said nothing. His curiosity might sound insolent, put into words. Tristan knew he had learned no magic that would keep Thomas from hunting birds, if he could not trust the cat’s word. Trust was his failing—he had trusted Jock and Rho, after all. Maybe he shouldn’t want to trust a strange cat.

  “You can take him back to Dunehollow—where he no doubt has family missing him—tomorrow. I shall be off myself at first light. I have been called to consult with Master Sedwick,” Blais told him. “I should be back within the week. You will look after things here, as usual. There’s plenty of meal for porridge and cakes. No one has ordered any charms except the usual for the cabbage moths. I shall attend to that when I return.”

  “I could—” Tristan began hopefully, raising his head.

  “Best if you wait till I’m back,” Blais said, squelching the hope at once. He rested a hand on Tristan’s shoulder and squeezed to command his apprentice’s attention. “The moths may not be the whole trouble with those cabbages. The spell may need to be recast, before ‘twill be effective. You will learn how to do so by watching me, not by muddling through on your own. If a wizard appears uncertain, his clients may refuse him his payment.” Blais sighed. “For now, go and start supper.”

  “Porridge?” Tristan asked in a very small voice. Blais had also sighed over the matter of the fish. That resigned sound had hurt worse than any beating Rho ever got from his master.

  “Or oatcakes,” his master suggested. “You might ask the bees for a comb of honey.”

  Tristan nodded, a little cheered. He could never get enough of sweets, and usually the honey their bees made went into Blais’ potions. Tristan started toward the cottage, thinking happily about the honey. He noticed Thomas prowling along the little stream, stalking through the waving grass on the bank.

  Tristan tried convincing himself that he didn’t need a pet. Especially a pet apt to make him presents of small dead animals. He hadn’t considered that. Tristan had nothing against sparrows and moles—he rather liked the little creatures.

  His efforts failed miserably. He remembered the way Thomas had sought him out, had chosen to stay with him. Been his friend. The pit of his stomach felt empty. It wasn’t hunger—though he was hungry, Tristan decided. Too bad they wouldn’t be having fish for their supper. Fried up in a pan or added to a chowder, either choice was good and filling.

  He always seemed to be hungry. From growing, Blais said. Tristan sometimes wondered if he would be done with growing while he could still get through the cottage’s doorway without ducking.

  A splash interrupted wistful thoughts of dinners that might have been. Tristan glanced toward the stream. He didn’t see a cat on the bank. He heard another splash and then a choked squall.

  Supper forgotten, Tristan sprinted toward the water.

  He spied Thomas at once, splashing furiously in a pool. Something thrashed beneath the cat. Tristan saw the flick of a tail-fin, a flash of dappled scales. A trout! Evidently, Thomas’ plunge had not been accidental.

  The fish was nearly the young cat’s match for weight and too much for him to master in deep water. Thomas wrapped his paws around the trout. He yowled and sputtered as the fish took him under. Tristan teetered for a heartbeat on the bank, then leaped in after him.

  Blais, drawn by the commotion, raised his hands—but a wizard could cast no magic over or into running water. Tristan’s master strode down the bank instead, watching anxiously. The stream was deep enough to drown a cat, but not an apprentice unless the apprentice worked at it. Slippery rocks frustrated Tristan’s efforts to get to his feet, but mostly his head stayed above the surface. Even in running water, he wasn’t in any real danger.

  Finally, the current pushed him against a snag of drifted wood. Tristan tried to climb out, using
the hand that wasn’t holding the cat to seize a twisted branch. He slipped, went under, came up sputtering—still with the cat clutched to his chest. Tristan groped blindly for the drifted tree. Blais reached past his fingers, caught hold of Tristan’s sleeve, and heaved. With a ripping sound, boy, cat—and trout—flopped out onto the muddy bank.

  Tristan coughed helplessly, sprawled on the wet ground. To be nearly drowned twice in the same day! It was completely unfair! Thomas wriggled out from under him. The cat gave the trout a hard bite on the back of its head, and the fish ceased its thrashing. Thomas shook water from his fur, mostly onto Tristan.

  Fish, he announced unnecessarily.

  * * * *

  “That’s a fox track,” Blais pointed to the ground beside the hen coop. “This one is bold. He’s been testing the wards every night. You must watch out for him, Tristan. Don’t neglect the wards, or forget to re-set them at sunfall.”

  Tristan nodded. The protective wards were dismissed during the day, so the hens could forage for bugs in the yard. They caught most of their own food, that way.

  “I could sleep out here,” he offered. “Give the fox a surprise if he gets in.”

  His master’s mouth twisted. “Just set the wards. A grown fox would make a worse pet than a cat.”

  Tristan began to protest, but Blais shushed him and took the sack of oatcakes his apprentice had baked for his journey-food. “Don’t forget to milk the cow morning and evening. And see if you can’t churn some butter. Sedwick will likely send some of his new potatoes home with me.”

  * * * *

  “You still have to go, Thomas. Blais was very firm about that.” Tristan scrubbed fiercely at the porridge pot. He’d been careless of the fire. Besides burnt porridge for breakfast, he had the work of cleaning the scorched pot.

  Didn’t he like the fish? Thomas asked. The cat tossed a tiny pebble from paw to paw. The pebble escaped, and he sprang at the shadow it cast as it rolled across the sunlit floor.