Unexpected Magic: Collected Stories

  There was a space between the curtains and the walls, and Good Thing sent me sneaking through that space, around the room. There were people in the room. I peeped at them through a crack in the curtains.

  There was a very fine Man there, almost as tall and fine as my Boy, but much older. With him were two of the ones in white hats from the kitchen. They held their hats in their hands, sorrowfully. With them was a Woman in long clothes, looking cross as Old Man.

  “Yes indeed, sir, I saw this cat for myself, sir,” the Woman said. “It stole a cake under my very eyes, sir.”

  “I swear to you, sir,” one of the white hats said, “it appears every evening and vanishes like magic with every kind of food.”

  “It is magic, that’s why,” said the other white hat.

  “Then we had better take steps to see where it comes from,” the fine Man said. “If I give you this—”

  Good Thing wouldn’t let me stay to hear more. We ran on. “Oh, dear!” Good Thing said in my head as we ran. “We’ll have to be very careful after this!” We came to a room that was white and gold, with mirrors. Good Thing wouldn’t let me watch myself in the mirrors. The white-and-gold walls were all cupboards filled with clothes hanging or lying inside. We stuffed the invisible sack as full as it would hold with clothes from the cupboards, so that we would not need to go back. For once it felt heavy. I was glad to get back to Boy waiting in Old Man’s book room.

  “Great Scott!” said Boy as the fine coats, good boots, silk shirts, cravats, and smooth trousers tumbled out onto the floor. “I can’t wear these! These are fit for a king! The Old Man would be bound to notice.” But he could not resist trying some of them on, all the same. Good Thing told me he looked good. I thought Boy looked far finer than the Man they belonged to.

  After this, Boy became very curious about the mansion where the clothes and the food came from. He made me describe everything. Then he asked Good Thing, “Are there books in this mansion, too?”

  “And pictures and jewels,” Good Thing said through me. “What does Master wish me to fetch? There is a golden harp, a musical box like a bird, a—”

  “Just books,” said Boy. “I need to learn. I’m still so ignorant.”

  Good Thing always obeyed Boy. The next night, instead of going to the kitchen, Good Thing took me to a vast room with a round ceiling held up by freckled pillars, where the walls were lined with books in shelves. Good Thing had one of its helpless turns there. “Which do you think our Master wants?” it asked me feebly.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m only a cat. Let’s just take all we can carry. I want to get back to my kittens.”

  So we took everything out of one shelf, and it was not right. Boy said he did not need twenty-four copies of the Bible: one was enough. The same went for Shakespeare. And he could not read Greek, he said. I spat. But we gathered up all the books except two and went back.

  We had just spilled all the books onto the floor of the room with the freckled pillars when the big door burst open. The Man came striding in, with a crowd of others. “There’s the cat now!” they all cried out.

  Good Thing had me snatch another book at random, and we went.

  “And I daren’t go back for a while, Master,” Good Thing said to Boy.

  I saw to my kittens; then I went out hunting. I fed Boy for the next few days—when he remembered to eat, that was. I stole a leg of lamb from an inn, a string of sausages from the butcher down the road, and a loaf and some buns from the baker. The kittens ate most of it. Boy was reading. He sat in his fine clothes, and he read, the Bible first, then Shakespeare, and then the book of history Good Thing had me snatch. He said he was educating himself. It was as if he were asleep. When Old Man suddenly came back, I had to dig all my claws into Boy to make him notice.

  Old Man looked grumpily around everywhere to make sure everything was in order. He was always suspicious. I was scared. I made Good Thing stay with the kittens in the cupboard and hid the remains of the sausages in there with them. Boy was all dreamy, but he sat on the book of history to hide it. Old Man looked at him, hard. I was scared again. Surely Old Man would notice that Boy’s red coat was of fine warm cloth and that there was a silk shirt underneath? But Old Man said, “Stupid as ever, I see,” and grumped out of the house again.

  Talking of sausages, when do you eat? Soon? Good. Now, go on stroking.

  The next day Old Man was still away. Boy said, “Those were wonderful books. I must have more. I wish I didn’t have to trust a cat and a spirit to steal them. Isn’t there any way I can go and choose books for myself?”

  Good Thing drifted about the house, thinking. At last it got into me and said, “There is no way I can take you to the mansion bodily, Master. But if you can go into a trance, I can take you there in spirit. Would that do?”

  “Perfectly!” said Boy.

  “Oh, no,” I said. “If you do, I’m coming, too. I don’t trust you on your own with my Boy, Good Thing. You might go feeble and lose him.”

  “I will not!” said Good Thing. “But you may come if you wish. And we will wait till the middle of the night, please. We don’t want you to be seen again.”

  Around midnight Boy cheerfully went into a trance. Usually he hated it when Old Man made him do it. And we went to the mansion again, all three of us. It was very odd. I could see Boy there the way I could see Good Thing, like a big, flimsy cloud. As soon as we were there, Boy was so astonished by the grandeur of it that he insisted on drifting all around it, upstairs and down, to see as much as he could. I was scared. Not everyone was asleep. There were gaslights or candles burning in most of the corridors, and someone could easily have seen me. But I stuck close to Boy because I was afraid Good Thing would lose him.

  It was not easy to stay close. They could go through doors without opening them. When they went through one door upstairs, I had to jump up and work the handle in order to follow Boy inside. It was a pretty room. The quilt on the bed was a cat’s dream of comfort. I jumped up and paddled on it, while Boy and Good Thing hovered to look at the person asleep there. She was lit up by the nightlight beside the bed.

  “What a lovely girl!” I felt Boy think. “She must be a princess.”

  She sat up at that. I think it was because of me treading on her stomach. I went tumbling way backward, which annoyed me a good deal. She stared. I glowered and wondered whether to spit. “Oh!” she said. “You’re that magic cat my father wants to catch. Come here, puss. I promise I won’t let him hurt you.” She held out her hand. She was nice. She knew how to stroke a cat, just like you. I let her stroke me and talk to me, and I was just curling up to enjoy a rest on her beautiful quilt when a huge Woman sprang up from a bed on the other side of the room.

  “Were you calling, my lady?” she asked. Then she saw me.

  She screamed. She ran to a rope hanging in one corner and heaved at it, screaming, “That cat’s back!”

  “Run!” Good Thing said to me. “I’ll look after Boy.”

  So I ran. I have never run like that in my life, before or since. It felt as if everyone in the mansion was after me. Luckily for me, I knew my way around quite well by then. I ran upstairs and I ran down, and people clattered after me, shouting. I dived under someone’s hand and dodged through a crooked cupboard place, and at last I found myself behind the curtains in the Man’s room. He ran in and out. Other people ran in and out, but the Princess really had done something to help me somehow and not one of them thought of looking behind those curtains.

  After a bit I heard the Princess in that room, too. “But it’s a nice cat, Father—really sweet. I can’t think why you’re making all this fuss about it!” Then there was a sort of grating sound. I smelled the smallest whiff of fresh air. Bless her, she had opened the Man’s window for me.

  I got out of it as soon as the room was empty. I climbed down onto grass. I ran again. I knew just the way I should go. Cats do, you know, particularly when they have kittens waiting for them. I was dead tired when I g
ot to Old Man’s house. It was right on the other side of town. As I scrambled through the skylight in the roof, I was almost too tired to move. But I was dead worried about my kittens and about Boy, too. It was morning by then.

  My kittens were fine, but Boy was still lying on the floor of the book room in a trance, cold as ice. And as if that were not enough, keys grated in the locks and Old Man came back. All I could think to do was to lie around Boy’s neck to warm him.

  Old Man came and kicked Boy. “Lazy lump!” he said. “Anyone would think you were in a trance!” I couldn’t think what to do. I got up and hurried about, mewing for milk, to distract Old Man. He wasn’t distracted. Looking gleefully at Boy, he carefully put a jar of black powder away in his cupboard and locked it. Then he sat down and looked at one of his books, not bothering with me at all. He kept looking across at Boy.

  My kittens distracted Old Man by having a fight in the cupboard about the last of the sausages. Old Man heard it and leaped up. “Scrambling and squeaking!” he said. “Mice! Could even be rats by the noise. Damn cat! Don’t you ever do your job?” He hit at me with his stick.

  I tried to run. Oh, I was tired! I made for the stairs, to take us both away from Boy and my kittens, and Old Man caught me by my tail halfway up. I was that tired. … I was forced to bite him quite hard and scratch his face. He dropped me with a thump, so he probably did not hear the even louder thump from the book room. I did. I ran back there.

  Boy was sitting up, shivering. There was a pile of books beside him.

  “Good Thing!” I said. “That was stupid!”

  “Sorry,” said Good Thing. “He would insist on bringing them.” The books vanished into the invisible sack just as Old Man stormed in.

  He ranted and grumbled at Boy for laziness and for feeding me so that I didn’t catch mice, and he made Boy set mousetraps. Then he stormed off to the cellar.

  “Why didn’t you come back sooner?” I said to Boy.

  “It was too marvelous being somewhere that wasn’t this house,” Boy said. He was all dreamy with it. He didn’t even read his new books. He paced about. So did I. I realized that my kittens were not safe from Old Man. And if he found them, he would realize that I could get out of the house. Maybe he would kill me like the cat before. I was scared. I wished Boy would be scared, too. I wished Good Thing would show some sense. But Good Thing was only thinking of pleasing Boy.

  “Don’t let him go into a trance again,” I said. “Old Man will know.”

  “But I have to!” Boy shouted. “I’m sick of this house!” Then he calmed down and thought. “I know,” he said to Good Thing. “Fetch the Princess here.”

  Good Thing got into me and bleated that this wasn’t wise now that Old Man was back. I said so, too. But Boy wouldn’t listen. He had to have Princess. Or else he would go into a trance and see her that way. I understood then. Boy wanted kittens. Very little will stop boys or cats when they do.

  So we gave in. When Old Man was asleep and snoring, Boy dressed himself in the middle of the night in the Man’s finest clothes and looked fine as fine. He even washed in horrible cold water, in spite of all I said. Then Good Thing went to the mansion.

  Instants later the Princess was lying asleep on the floor of the book room. “Oh,” Boy said sorrowfully, “what a shame to wake her!” But he woke her up all the same.

  She rubbed her eyes and stared at him. “Who are you, sir?”

  Boy said, “Oh, Princess—”

  She said, “I think you’ve made a mistake, sir. I’m not a princess. Are you a prince?”

  Boy explained who he was and all about himself, and she explained that her father was a rich magician. She was a disappointment to him, she said, because she could hardly do any magic and was not very clever. But Boy still called her Princess. She said she would call him Orange because of his hair. She may not have been clever, but she was nice. I sat on her knee and purred. She stroked me and talked to Boy for the whole night, until it began to get light. They did nothing but talk. I said to Good Thing that it was a funny way to have kittens. Good Thing was not happy. Princess did not understand about Good Thing. Boy gave up trying to explain. Good Thing drifted about, sulking.

  When it was really light, Princess said she must go back. Boy agreed, but they put it off and kept talking. That was when I had my good idea. I went to the cupboard and fetched out my kittens, one by one, and I put them into Princess’s lap.

  “Oh!” she said. “What beauties!”

  “Tell her she’s to keep them and look after them,” I said to Boy.

  He told her, and she said, “Brindle can’t mean it! It seems such a sacrifice. Tell her it’s sweet of her, but I can’t.”

  “Make her take them,” I said. “Tell her they’re a present from you, if it makes her happier. Tell her they’re a sign that she’ll see you again. Tell her anything, but make her take them!”

  So Boy told her, and Princess agreed. She gathered the tabby and the ginger and the mixed kitten into her hands, and Good Thing took her and the kittens away. We stood staring at the place where she had been, Boy and I. Things felt empty, but I was pleased. My kittens were safe from Old Man, and Princess had kittens now, which ought to have pleased Boy, even if they were mine and not his. I did not understand why he looked so sad.

  Old Man was standing in the doorway behind us. We had not heard him getting up. He glared at the fine way Boy was dressed. “How did you come by those clothes?”

  “I did a spell,” Boy said airily. Well, it was true in a way. Boy’s mood changed when he realized how clever we had been. He said, “And Brindle got rid of the mice,” and laughed.

  Old Man was always annoyed when Boy laughed. “Funny, is it?” he snarled. “For that, you can go down to the cellar, you and your finery, and stay there till I tell you to come out.” And he put one of his spells on Boy, so that Boy had to go. Old Man locked the cellar door on him. Then he turned back, rubbing his hands and laughing, too. “Last laugh’s mine!” he said. “I thought he knew more than he let on, but there’s no harm done. I’ve still got him!” He went and looked in almanacs and horoscopes and chuckled more. Boy was eighteen that day. Old Man began looking up spells, lots of them, from the bad black books that even he rarely touched.

  “Brindle,” said Good Thing, “I am afraid. Do one thing for me.”

  “Leave a cat in peace!” I said. “I need to sleep.”

  Good Thing said, “Boy will soon be dead and I will be shut out forever unless you help.”

  “But my kittens are safe,” I said, and I curled up in the cupboard.

  “They will not be safe,” said Good Thing, “unless you do this for me.”

  “Do what for you?” I said. I was scared again, but I stretched as if I didn’t care. I do not like to be bullied. You should remember that.

  “Go to the cellar in my invisible sack and tell Boy where the golden ball is,” Good Thing said. “Tell him to fetch it out of the floor and give it to you.”

  I stretched again and strolled past Old Man. His face was scratched all over, I was glad to see, but he was collecting things to work spells with now. I strolled quite fast to the cellar door. There Good Thing scooped me up and went inside, in near dark. Boy was sitting against the wall.

  “Nice of you to come,” he said. “Will Good Thing fetch Princess again tonight?” He did not think there was any danger. He was used to Old Man behaving like this. But I thought of my kittens. I showed him the place where the golden ball had got lost down the crack. I could see it shining down there. It took me ages to persuade Boy to dig it out, and even then he only worked at it idly, thinking of Princess. He could only get at it with one little finger, which made it almost too difficult for him to bother.

  I heard Old Man coming downstairs. I am ashamed to say that I bit Boy, quite hard, on the thumb of the hand he was digging with. He went “Ow!” and jerked, and the ball flew rolling into a corner. I raced after it.

  “Put it in your mouth. Hide it!” said Good T
hing.

  I did. It was hard not to swallow it. Then, when I didn’t swallow, it was hard not to spit it out. Cats are made to do one or the other. I had to pretend it was a piece of meat I was taking to my kittens. I sat in the corner, in the dark, while Old Man came in and locked the door and lit the tripod lamp.

  “If you need Brindle,” Boy said, sulkily sucking his hand, “you can look for her. She bit me.”

  “This doesn’t need a cat,” Old Man said. Boy and I were both astonished. “It just needs you,” he told Boy. “This is the life transfer spell I was trying on the black cat. This time I know how to get it right.”

  “But you said you couldn’t do it without a special powder!” Boy said.

  Old Man giggled. “What do you think I’ve been away looking for all this year?” he asked. “I’ve got a whole jar of it! With it, I shall put myself into your body and you into my body, and then I shall kill this old body off. I won’t need it or you after that. I shall be young and handsome, and I shall live for years. Stand up. Get into the pentangle.”

  “Blowed if I shall!” said Boy.

  But Old Man did spells and made him. It took a long time because Boy resisted even harder than I usually did and shouted spells back. In the end Old Man cast a spell that made Boy stand still and drew the five-pointed star around him, not in the usual place.

  “I shall kill my old body with you inside it rather slowly for that,” he said to Boy. Then he drew another star, a short way off. “This is for my bride,” he said, giggling again. “I took her into my power ten years ago, and by now she’ll be a lovely young woman.” Then he drew a third star, overlapping Boy’s, for himself, and stood in it chuckling. “Let it start!” he cried out, and threw the strong, smelly black powder on the tripod. Everything went green-dark. When the green went, Princess was standing in the empty star.