The Cat's Me-Abracadabra

It is a most peaceful of mornings. Luxuriating as I do in my cozy bed, I stretch out to welcome the bright, sunny day. A few early rays of sunshine leak through between the curtains, warming my face as I close my eyes against the light. My stomach roars in hunger, bringing with it the usual ache and pains that launch me from my bed in search of sustenance.

I call out for my servant but receive no response. Am I to be starved this wretched morning?

I call out again. This time I hear a clatter coming from the kitchen. Ah good, she must already be working on my breakfast. I scamper down the hallway to greet her but, to my horror, the kitchen has seemingly been hit by a storm. Pots and pans litter the counters and floor, cutlery is everywhere, vegetable heads are scattered around the rubbish bin, and worst of all there is no sign at all of my breakfast!

“Servant! What is happening here?” I ask loudly as I hop onto the counter to get a better look.

“Oh, Madam Whittlesticks, I didn’t hear you wake up. Did you sleep alright?” she asks as she absentmindedly passes a hand over my back, which I did not approve of. I slap her hand away in disgust.

“Where the Hell is breakfast?!” I demand.

She ignores me, which I will punish her for later. I’m already plotting which shoe to use as my litter box when she opens up the cupboard and pulls my can of food. Thank the Heavens!

“Oh thank you, you’re such a good servant. Such a good servant. I always say so!”

She places the dish in front of me and the world around me disappears as I dive into the delicious gravy-covered chunks of meat. With each bite, I feel the nourishment fueling my body and soul. If divinity exists, it is this!

As I lap up the last morsels of gravy, I become aware of clanking and clattering going on around me. I give her an inquisitive look before attending to my grooming ritual.

“Oh Whit, you’re such a good girl.”

Honestly, the audacity. Good? Good? I am the best girl to ever live. In all the-

“You’re the most perfectest creature to ever live in the history of forever. In all the seven queendoms. That’s a true magic fact.” She kisses my perfect little head.

Well now, that is the proper way to address me.

My servant sighs, her body deflating like a balloon when I attack it. Her eyes, too, are now leaking. Why is my servant sad? I rub against her, making sure to smack my butt against her face to remind her that I am here, that she is mine to care for.

Her hand rests atop my head, her fingers rubbing circles against the base of my ears. I purr loud enough to wake the neighbors.

“Whit….oh Whittlesticks of Whiskerdom. What do I do?” She looks around her at the mess that has somehow become worse since my meal. “I am trying to make Harissa’s Coronation potion for the Queen’s coronation tomorrow but her grimoire was destroyed in the fire last year and none of my books have it! Goddess, I’ve tried everything I can think of but every attempt has ended in disaster.”

Boom! The house shakes, causing all my hair to stand on end and my back to arch.

My servant simple shrugs. “That was my basil batch.” She collapses to the ground, resting her back against the burnt cupboards. I hop down and curl up in her lap, purring her back to mental health.

Three raps ring out against the door.

“That must be Miriam.” She stands, rudely discarding me from her lap like bones at the end of a meal. For shame.

I inspect my coat and find it filthy where she was petting me so quickly get about to cleaning myself. Especially my ears which she so loves to fill with her filth and stench. Through the walls, I hear voices but I pay them no mind as I am clearly not wanted in her precious conversations.

“There’s the perfect kitty! Hiya Whit. Gosh, you’re looking extra beautiful today.” Miriam is a wise woman, it’s no wonder she is the head of the local witches. I allow her to adore me, purring loudly to ensure her wisdom is rewarded.

My servant hovers in the doorway. “Sorry for the mess,” she mumbles in a manner so far beneath her stature that I pause in my purrs to leer at her for ignoring my lessons in self-confidence.

Miriam keeps petting me as she talks. “Not to worry, Anyanka. My own home often looked like this back when I was a young witch. Now you say you need Harissa’s potion?”

“I assume so. She was the late queen’s personal witch for many years…wasn’t she?”

“That she was. And the last two queens before her as well. Yes, it will be Harissa’s potion you need to recreate. Without the Coronation Potion, there could be no coronation. And with no coronation, there is no new queen. And with no new queen, our queendom falls into ruin, crops will fail, diseases will run rampant. Life as we know it will cease to exist.”

In a voice that sets my mouser instincts on edge, my servant responds: “That won’t really happen, will it?”

“Not if you get the potion right.” Miriam stands and rests a hand on my servant’s shoulder. “What, you think queens actually do anything? We are the ones who make the world go ‘round, as they say. But what is there to worry about? Witches in all the seven queendoms have been making this potion for millennia.”

“So you have the recipe?”

“No. But between you and Her Royal Whiskerness here, I have every faith in you.” She turns on her heel and leaves the room, stopping briefly to give me a goodbye chin scratch. Pausing at the door, she adds: “I believe there’s bay leaf in it…or perhaps that was her bechamel sauce. May luck be on your side!”

In the first few seconds after the door closes behind her, there is not a sound, not a movement, not a single sign of life from my servant.

And then she erupts. She throws everything her hands can grab as fast and as hard as she can. I dive for cover in an open cupboard, narrowly avoiding being hit by a jar of star anise on its way out the window. The tantrum goes on for so long that I fall asleep somewhere after her second lap around the kitchen when a wooden spoon was sacrificed to the back garden.

When I awake, the house is quiet. The pitter patter of my paws echoes through the hallways as I trot through each room in search of my servant. But with each room I pass through where her smell is but a faint memory on the air, I grow increasingly worried that she has abandoned me forever.

That is, until I arrive in the back bedroom that is almost exclusively my playroom. But there she is, laying in bed in the dark, whimpering softly. I must take care of her.

Without a sound, I leave the room and head straight for the garden. My extraordinary hunting skills lead to a kill within minutes (or hours, I have no real sense for time outside of designated meal times). Kill in my mouth, I proudly trot back through the house and jump up onto the bed where my servant still lays in utter depression.

I drop the mouse onto her face.

“What the-WHIT! You little sh-ugar plum traitor!” She jumps to her feet, sending me and the meal I brought her flying across the room. This is the thanks I get for bringing her food…honestly.

After her breathing slows back to normal, she scoops me up in her arms, holding me against her warm body and rubbing my head until I am purring up a storm all warm and cozy and loved. I reach my nose up slightly and she leans her forehead into mine.

“I guess you’re right. We just need to make this happen. Can’t give up or we’ll both be eating mice.” She says like that it’s a bad thing?

I follow her to the kitchen, offering reassurances that she will do a fine job with this potion. After all, the best of the best has trained her to be a witch (not to brag, of course).

The light outside is already starting to set and the potion needs to be at the castle before the sun rises on the morrow, which doesn’t leave us much time at all to finish this and less time than that to clean. When she begins to put away pots and pans and search around for various spices, I gently bite her hand to scold her for wasting time so foolishly.

“Ok, Whit, I hear you. We just have to get on with it.” Her face stretches and she exhales slowly. “I can do this.” She glances over at me. “We can do this.”

“Of course we can do this you silly servant!” I cry.

She rubs me between my ears. Ah, bliss.

When I am done being scratched, I politely push her hand away and jump onto the counter where I can supervise.

Somewhere between her consulting her books and stirring some ingredients into a potion, I fall asleep. When I wake, hours must have passed, if not days for my hunger has never been so great. I cry out in pain, too weak to move.

“It isn’t time!” the cruel response rings out.

I open my eyes and see my lazy, no-good servant SITTING on the floor beside a cauldron of boiling red liquid. Looks like I’m not the only one she’s failing.

“I am STARVING!” I shout, gathering all my strength to walk the length to the counter to lord over her.

“Fine, fine. I’ll feed you. Sheesh.”

I purr enthusiastically as she prepares my meal and lays it immediately in front of me so that I may eat without further weakening myself before the nourishment of the meat and gravy replenishes my energy.

Once I am properly satiated, I return my gaze to the servant and discover that she has emptied the cauldron and returned to a prostrate position upon the floor. Most unbecoming.

“Get up!” I command. She doesn’t stir. “Get up!” I command more loudly.

In response, she pulls her knees up to her chest and rolls away from me. Absolute disrespect.

I simply must punish her. Her eyes scour the countertop and quickly rest upon a vial of yellow liquid. Perfect. I saunter over, swishing my tail happily as I know that I am about to get my way, and, with a quick flick of my paw, send the vial crashing into the cauldron with an echoing crash.

“Madam Whitney Whittlesticks Grand Duchess of Whiskerdom! I know you didn’t just know off the only semi-useful potion I’ve been able to-“ she pauses in the middle of her (presumable) speech about my glory and looks into the cauldron in wonder. I am wonderful, after all. “You genius!” She shrieks. “Yes! What is a familiar for if not to be a vessel for magic!”

Before I can object to being called a vessel, I am being picked up and spun around in the air, a sensation that is both thrilling and horrifying and I want more of it and to never do this again.

With a kiss, she plops me gracelessly down onto the counter and scurries about the kitchen at a dizzying pace, placing endless vials and jars along the edge of the countertop over the cauldron, almost mockingly. With each one that goes down, my instincts sharpen and I know what must be done.

I creep up on them, stealthily, hidden by my slow movements and crouched posture. They don’t stand a chance.

The first jar crashes into the bottom of the cauldron before she even has any water in it.

Next in line is a purple vial but that one doesn’t interest me. No, I have my sights set on the pink vial just beyond it. With a sudden strike, it is sent spiraling toward the cauldron, smashing atop the ruins of the first.

And so it goes, vials and jars crashing into the cauldron, only attacking those that will bring me joy and leaving the ones I deem boring. Crash, crash, boom, smash. Over and over.

Now I am tired and must rest. Leaving the boring containers behind me, I seek out water for I must clean up from my killing before I can rest my weary bones.

I haven’t even laid my delicate head upon my gently crossed paws before my servant is screaming and jumping up and down as if she is some kind of dog trying to reach a squirrel in a tree. Heh, stupid dogs.

“You did it, you miracle of miracles! You actually made the coronation potion!” The servant picks me up once again, this time pulling me against her chest as she spins around and covers my entire head with kisses. “I must bring this to the castle at once! But first, a special treat for saving the day. Whit, you are one remarkable familiar.”

She opens a jar emitting a smell so decadent, my entire body perks up and I race to it. With a spoon, she heaps out a portion into a little bowl for me and I immediately lose myself in the divinity of the gravy.

Oh but it is good to be a witch’s familiar, I think to myself as I settle in, full of gravy and love, for a well-deserved nap on an old sweater next to a roaring fire. Yes, it is a good life for Madam Whittlesticks.