Chapter 3
Chase Your Dreams
T he last time Tabitha had seen Tom had been nearly three years ago. He had left on some adventure with his new miller friend, and she had spent hours pacing the floor, certain he would be returned to her broken and bleeding. The king’s man from the night she tried to sell the matchsticks was not the only creature Tom had pounced on, playing the hero, and she had been sure that someday he would find an enemy he couldn’t handle on his own.
Like an ogre masquerading as a marquis . . .
She shuddered at the thought. And when Tom’s miller friend—Archie—returned from the neighboring marquis’s castle without the cat in sight, she couldn’t sit through the full tale without asking, “And what happened to Tom?”
Before the blond and broad-shouldered man could answer, a young woman moved beside him. She wore a common peasant dress—complete with an apron—but there was no mistaking who she was. The princess of Umbrae was a fierce beauty with long auburn curls who would stand out anywhere. “Tom? You called my brother Tom?”
Tabitha blushed. She had learned only the day before that Tom was actually an enchanted prince—the missing Crown Prince of Umbrae and Princess Ainsley’s elder brother. And really, it only seemed natural that he should be royalty. The tabby cat had been far too intelligent and noble to be anything else—even if Tabitha still wanted to think of him as her Tom.
But Tom was a prince, and his sister was sure to find Tabitha’s lapse horribly disrespectful.
She bowed her head. “I’m so sorry, your highness. I meant, what happened to Prince Leopold?” Leopold. Leopold. His name was Prince Leopold.
“We don’t know,” Archie said, his frustration evident in the tenseness of his jaw and the way he kept his muscled arms tightly folded. Tabitha was tall enough to awkwardly dwarf a few men, but not Archie. Not by a long measure. Strange to see such a large man look so helpless. “The rat—the ogre—started moving again. Leo caught it in his jaws and ran off with it. We don’t know where.”
“But we’re going to keep searching for him,” Ainsley said, placing her hand on Archie’s arm—full evidence of their recent adventures and corresponding whirl-wind romance on display. “And if you learn anything, or if he comes here again, you’ll let us know?”
Tabitha bowed her head again, this time remembering to lengthen her skirt into a full and proper curtsy. “Yes, of course, your highness.”
Ainsley paused, her brow furrowing. “Tabitha, you called my brother Tom. You stitched him up when no one knew who he was. You cared for him. You loved him.”
Tabitha shook her head, ducking away. She had grown up having faerie dreams. She truly believed in the stories the revered matrons told of love and romance and had cheered on Tom’s unlikely friendship with the miller’s son and Archie’s subsequent relationship with the princess, like watching one of those tales in the flesh. But she never thought she was a part of it.
Yes, she had stitched the miller’s son’s cloak to make him look more like a noble huntsman destined to become a celebrated ogre-slayer. Yes, she had helped Tom when he was hurt.
But that was all. “I don’t mean any disrespect, your highness.”
“But you called my brother Tom . . . Can’t you call me Ainsley?”
Even as Tabitha shook her head, still trying desperately to cover for her previous lapse and show proper deference, her thoughts flew ahead of her and straight into the clouds. She and the princess were of the same age (though Tabitha passed the princess in height). The dress Ainsley wore now wouldn’t look out of place on a simple shop-girl. In another world, in another life, maybe they could have been friends. A miller’s son had just become an ogre-slayer. Perhaps many other impossible things could come true.
But that was just another fantasy; it would never work for a girl like her. Tabitha’s eyes went to the black and silver guards who shadowed the princess everywhere. She waited for one to sneer at her simple patchwork-dress, to remind her who her mother was. Perhaps even try to have her arrested for panhandling or some other petty crime she had unwittingly committed as a child.
And even if none of them did right now, it was only a matter of time.
It had been so many years, and her memories were muddled. She couldn’t say which of the king’s men had been the one to attack her, but her mind quickly solved the problem by deciding every dark-haired man in the king’s livery was the same.
And every authoritative woman was still her mother.
Tabitha might be able to serve and bow before a noblewoman, but this was something entirely different. Ainsley wanted something Tabitha could never give.
She could never be friends with a princess.
She could only be friends with Tom because . . . well, he was Tom . And there didn’t seem to be a thing she could do to make herself think of him differently.
“You’ll work on it?” Ainsley asked, as though she already knew she had lost.
Tabitha nodded her head in deference, and she kept searching for Tom. Whether he was a prince or a cat, she missed her friend desperately. She hated to think he could be in trouble, but Tabitha never found anything worth reporting.
She only saw Tom in her dreams—the same sort of dream every few nights.
Or rather, the same series of dreams.
They could have been memories. Tabitha would be standing beside her mannequin, fitting a dress like she had done hundreds and hundreds of times before.
And she would ask, “ What do you think of this one, Tom?”
Instead of an answering meow , a male’s voice she never heard in the waking world would answer her. “Of course it’s beautiful, kitten, but I very much doubt the countess’s daughter should be wearing that much white. You know she has men calling on her at all hours.”
Or “Is that the size she gave you? There’s no corset in the world that would make her waist that trim.”
Tabitha always laughed. It was so outrageous. It was so Tom. Somehow, he knew about fashion and all the latest noble gossip, but perhaps he always had. His meows had always been very opinionated, and now that she knew he was a prince, her dreams had given him a proud and clever voice to match.
Her dream prince was someone much bolder than Tabitha could ever be.
She wasn’t always sewing. Once or twice, she stood by the cupboard, wondering what she had left to feed the cats, and a cloaked huntsman would come into the room and set a poached rabbit on the table, like a cat gifting her one of his rats.
And Tom would look stern and say something like “You can give some of it to the cats if you want to, but you better be feeding yourself as well.”
So much more than a mere shop assistant, Tom was the perfect partner and foil to all her dreams. She would see him sitting up in a chair to keep her darker dreams at bay or working on some creative project of his own. And even though she didn’t always see him clearly, and she didn’t think she had ever seen the prince’s human form before (even when they were both still children growing up in vastly different parts of Castletown) she always knew it was him.
So many dreams, but they always ended the same way. Thoroughly charmed, she tried to get closer to her dreamlike version of Tom only for the shop to fade away. In the sudden way of dreams, she found herself standing in the nearby forest. The dark thorn trees parted; the river gurgled slightly in the background. Tom—human Tom—walked toward her, turning his head this way and that with a slight frown.
Perhaps he was lost. Perhaps he was searching for something . . . or someone?
Tabitha never saw for certain, but in the way of dreams, she knew she had to help him find his way home. “Leo? Prince Leopold?” She called for him using every name she knew.
She reached for his hand only to have it slip away.
But, after three years of having that same sort of dream, something whispered back to her with the breathy voice of the wind.
Tabitha, please come.
In the early morning hours, Tabitha woke in her familiar cot. Sweat stuck to her nightdress though nothing in the waking world seemed unsettled. She remembered everything that had happened the previous day. The shop was now hers, and the last message she had received from the castle was an invitation to Ainsley and Archie’s wedding, scheduled in less than a fortnight—the same invitation for their open celebration that went out to every citizen of Castletown, except for a small note written in the princess’s own hand that was meant for Tabitha alone.
Please come.
Tabitha shook her head, her mind and heart transferred back into the world of her dreams. The words were the same, and she knew she had recognized a few of the trees. It couldn’t just be a coincidence. Something—or someone—was asking her to walk past the thorn trees into the faerie forest until she found her Tom. Her heart raced inside her chest at the thought of entering the Darkwood on her own, but she couldn’t avoid her dreams forever.
Tabitha knew she could grant a few small wishes by making dresses in her shop; she could see to the needs of a small colony of wild and finicky cats who she loved, but she had never been so bold as to wish for anything for herself. She hadn’t even wished to own the shop that Granny Tailor had given her, but finding Tom was the dream she wanted most.
For the kingdom. For the princess.
For Tom.
Tabitha, please come.
She quickly dressed in sensible boots, her favorite dress (the patchwork pattern now more artistic than strictly necessary) and the old tailor’s bright blue scarf.
Then she grabbed one of her cats for courage, ready to follow her dreams.