Chapter 6
Dream in Color
A rush of nausea and light-headedness sent Tabitha spinning to the ground. When she opened her eyes, she was still holding the key and balancing Bandit in her arms, but she wasn’t in the old witch’s cottage anymore. She was crouched on the forest floor.
Tabitha dropped the key. She almost dropped the cat. She had wanted to use the key, not only to open the cage but to escape the entire cottage.
Somehow the magic of this place had granted her wish.
It was all so surreal. Especially the white and silver-tipped cat who was sitting in front of her, carelessly grooming a single paw. “Well, that was a bit much, but I suppose it will do. Though, it is a shame you left the witch alive. You know she is just going to find someone else to feed on. Perhaps a child.”
Tabitha shuddered at the thought. She still felt completely rung out. Like she needed to dry-heave into one of the bushes that still seemed far too uncanny and bright. “Are all fae so horrible?”
“Fae?” The cat blinked and put down her paw. “Witches aren’t fae. Do you imagine a fae would ever let herself age so disgracefully? That woman was perfectly human—perhaps another dreamer like you. Twisted by her own magic and hungry for more. They are far worse than any fae or faerie creature you can name.”
“I didn’t want to kill her.” She couldn’t be responsible for another death. She just couldn’t. But if the woman truly had killed and even eaten children . . . “But perhaps . . . she was old. Might she die in her sleep? Something painless?”
The cat flicked her tail lazily in response. “From your lips to the Fae Queen’s pointed ears, though I would be careful about throwing curses around. Someday, you might truly mean them.”
Curses? “I’m a dreamer. Both you and that old witch said so . . . so I have magic in the Fae Realm?” She still didn’t quite believe the words, but everything she wanted, everything she wished for, was coming true, and she had never realized how awful a power that could be.
Was it any wonder that the old woman had been twisted by it, becoming such a wretched and unfeeling crone? Would that be Tabitha’s fate as well? She certainly hoped not.
She shook her head. “I didn’t think my own dreams would be so dark.”
“Didn’t you?”
“Not all my dreams are dark,” Tabitha said defensively. This wasn’t her fault, and she didn’t want to stay here. She just needed to find Tom and return home. “Some of them . . . I came here looking for someone I saw in a dream. Another human like me. Have you seen—?”
The faerie cat didn’t even blink. “A lost human prince? Handsome? About your own age?”
That was Tom! “You have seen him.”
The faerie cat let out a puff of air like a laugh. “No, I just know what human girls dream about. What we all dream about. Though currently . . .” She rose as if about to stand on her two hind feet but then sat down again, self-consciously. “I’m sorry, but this is so undignified. If you want more answers from me, perhaps you could make me something decent to wear.”
Tabitha frowned. “You want something to wear?”
“Yes,” the faerie cat said. She started grooming herself again, like she could lengthen her fur to cover herself more completely. “You are familiar with the concept of clothing? And why a gentlelady might wish for a proper dress while in . . . certain company.” Her sapphire eyes marked the other cat still resting in Tabitha’s arms.
The male cat. Was that what was making her so uncomfortable?
It should have been comical. It should have been absurd.
“Aren’t you always naked?” She was a cat.
The faerie cat lifted her nose into the air. “You assume me one of your wild vagabonds? How vulgar. I am a creature of magic and the first of all the cats. I was wearing a proper frock when my travels brought me to the witch. She was the one who stripped me naked, and you were the one who removed us from the house without a chance to retrieve my gown.”
Tabitha considered the problem. It might be different than what she was used to, but it was a welcome reprieve from thinking about the witch or anything else in this world that still seemed much too big for her. “I suppose I could make you a dress. If I had the proper materials.”
She started to tear off a piece of her underskirt, trying to picture how she would go about fashioning a dress for a cat. She would start with a small bodice like a human might wear but perhaps a tapered skirt only in back so the cat could run on all-fours or stand as she pleased? It wouldn’t cover the part under the cat’s tail, but Tabitha still couldn’t get herself to believe a cat needed to worry about that. She was a cat .
A talking, standing magical cat.
And as the idea took root, the material in Tabitha’s hand shifted into the proper design. The white cotton became silk dyed to match the cat’s sapphire eyes.
The bodice and the tapered skirt matched the image in her mind.
More magic. Tabitha stood there dumbly for a moment, waiting for the accompanying nausea and light-headedness to pass.
“Well? What are you waiting for?” The cat was impatient and perhaps tired of trying to hide behind her own tail. “The dress. Aren’t you going to hand it over?”
Tabitha started to, almost glad to have someone else’s orders to follow with how strange everything was becoming, but then she thought better of it. The cat could talk. She could stand on her hind legs and wanted to wear a dress. She had to be some sort of faerie beast, and Tabitha needed her help. This new world was too much for her to handle on her own. The old witch had proven that. But the stories of the fae (and the faerie creatures who accompanied them) always said they were self-serving and prone to tricks.
Tabitha couldn’t risk that the cat might abandon her once she got what she wanted. She had to make some sort of deal. “And if I give you the dress, what will you give me in return?”
The cat yowled. “What do you think I could offer you, girl?”
A question answered by another question. The cat truly was a faerie creature, but Tabitha needed information more than anything else. “Will you answer my questions? Really answer them, with no more riddles or questions of your own?”
The cat paused to consider. “How many questions? I don’t mind making a bargain with you, but you must be specific.”
Tabitha nodded. She wanted to be firm, but a part of her was still trembling. She couldn’t stay in this world long. If nothing else, she wouldn’t risk making herself into another cannibalistic crone. But she had come here for a reason, and she had to see that through as well as she was able.
“I’ll give you the dress if you help me find Tom. You will answer all my questions and be my guide until we find him.”
The cat was as stone-faced as a cat could be. “And if we don’t?”
“Then I will release you from your bargain.” She couldn’t be unfair. “But only if you tried your very best.”
The faerie forest seemed to still as the cat considered the bargain. “Hmm . . . I don’t believe that is a very good bargain, but you helped me escape that witch, and you still have an innocent air about you. Magic hasn’t twisted you up yet. Give me the dress, and it will be as you say.”
Tabitha put the dress by the cat, and because it somehow seemed appropriate, she turned so neither she nor Bandit would see what happened next. She waited until the cat spoke again.
“Much better.” The cat shifted onto her hind-legs, swishing the skirt and showing off her new frock. “Now, what can you tell me about your missing prince?”
“He isn’t really mine, but he . . .” Tabitha shook her head. It seemed she had come full circle. She was talking to a magical faerie beast, a cat just like Tom had once seemed to be. That had to mean something, didn’t it? “Tom used to be a cat, but he’s a prince. A human prince who made some sort of a deal with a fae prince.”
“Is that all you have to go on?”
“Yes. No, wait.” She put down Bandit and felt around her apron pockets. Then she held out the colored hair bead. “This was his. Does that help?”
The cat gave it a quick sniff. “That’s easy. He’s a thrall. A royal one too. You said he made a deal with a fae prince? There are many of those, but I would say you are looking for someone at the Queen’s court. Maybe even the Queen herself.”
Tabitha looked back at the bead doubtfully. “You can tell that from one bead?”
The cat flicked her tail like she was insulted. “Well, it’s not entirely unexpected. Humans in the Fae Realm . . . If they aren’t proper dreamers and don’t have enough sense to control their own magic, then they often end up as thralls to powerful fae. You could end up the same way. I imagine you have some pretty dreams that any one of them would be happy to feast on.”
The fae feasted on dreams? Like the witch feasted on children? At least, it sounded just as sinister. “Is that why Tom looked so . . . His eyes were so . . .”
“Blank?” the faerie cat guessed. “I would imagine so. Though if he had been entirely used up, he would have been discarded. I’ve seen them before. Fallen like broken puppets, lying wherever they were dropped, or dull-eyed men who walk without any direction in mind. Still alive, perhaps, but without the sense to keep themselves that way. And their masters . . . They have no more use for them.”
That was far worse than anything Tabitha could have dreamed of. If Tom was doomed to become some sort of soulless puppet, then Tabitha couldn’t wait. She picked up Bandit again. “I have to get to him before that happens.”
“Good luck. If he’s still a favored pet of a royal fae, that is hardly an easy task.”
“But you’ll help me, won’t you? That was the deal.”
The cat shook her head. “I said I would answer your questions and guide you. If you end up fighting the sparking Fae Queen for possession of this boy, then you are on your own.”
“That’s fair,” Tabitha agreed. She couldn’t imagine fighting a fae queen herself and could never ask someone else to do it for her, even if it would save Tom. She put the hair bead back in her pocket, preparing herself for the journey. “Where do we go to find the Fae Queen?”
“Why are you asking me? You are the one who wishes to find her. And you can hardly expect her palace to be open to just anyone.”
“But my magic . . . my dreams could help us get there?”
“Yes,” the faerie cat said, sounding exasperated. “Tell me, girl. What do you suppose a palace of a fae queen and all her court might look like? Where would it be?”
Tabitha frowned, but she took a step forward. There was a lot she could imagine about that.