Fiona was out in the dawn-lit, dew-decked meadow, calling her cow for the morning milking, when the fairy queen stepped from the forest. She wore spring waters and budding leaves, with her hair tightly curled upon her head and dotted through with delicate, pale flowers. She strode across the meadow towards Fiona, wings folded, a breeze blowing around her. The flowers and grasses bent and swayed to let her pass. The morning sun rose higher with each step she took, wreathing her in gold.
Fiona’s blood ran cold.
A thousand tales told by the elders around the winter fires sparked in her mind: the fairies lured maidens to their deaths, they kept them as servants, they turned them into stone. Fiona knew she should run.
But she couldn’t move.
She lifted a hand to her brow to shield her eyes from the piercing sun, wanting to see the fairy queen better. The fae’s beauty bewitched Fiona more than any spell could. Her heartbeat quickened in her chest and her blood thawed, running hot and right to her cheeks.
The fairy drew up in front of her, tall as a sapling with a year’s growth. Stunning. She didn’t look much older than Fiona, who was almost twenty.
“Have you seen a cat?” Her voice was deep and honeyed, with magic layered below the surface. And annoyance just below that.
“A… Cat?”
“Yes.” She crossed her arms and her dragonfly wings flicked in and out. Fiona’s gaze caught on her eyes, the deep brown of late autumn leaves damp from rain.
“What kind of cat?” Fiona finally managed to ask. There were lots of cats in the village, but she couldn’t imagine the fairy looking for any of those.
“A bad cat.”
“Any proper cat is a bad cat.”
The fairy laughed. “What’s your name?”
Fiona narrowed her eyes. “Tell me your name first.”
“Do you really think—” The fairy cocked her head to the side. “—that if I wanted to steal you away from here, I couldn’t come up with a better line than ‘have you seen a cat’? You can call me Zaubi, though.”
“I’m Fiona.” Fiona did a small curtsy, hoping Zaubi didn’t notice the flush on her cheeks. “Perhaps I could help look for your cat?”
“It’s not my cat. It’s one of Freyja’s damned ferals—Bee, she’s calling herself today. I was supposed to be watching Bee while Freyja’s looking for her husband.” Zaubi’s wings flicked.
“So you’re responsible for the cat?”
Her wings folded. “Yes.”
“And you’ve lost the cat?”
A heavy breath. “Yes.”
“Let me help you.” The words slipped out of Fiona, and she immediately wished she could swallow them back. No one offered to help fairies. They took whatever—
Zaubi smiled, warm as the rising summer day. “I’d really appreciate that.”
Before Fiona could convince herself that this was a terrible idea and that she was definitely getting kidnapped and taken away to fairyland, she found herself nodding and mentally running through all the places in the village that a cat might hide. “We have a number of cats hanging around, they keep the rats down. Maybe Bee fell in with them? I’ll go check behind the butcher’s, then down by the river. If all else fails, I’ll check the midden.”
Zaubi lifted her chin. “I’ll come, too.”
The fairy’s body blurred and her form changed. The sparkling dew dress shortened, turning into a linen shift. Her stature diminished and she became human. The flowers tucked into her hair no longer shone with enchanted starlight. She was still absolutely gorgeous, though. Fiona balled her hands into fists, fighting off the sudden image of putting her arm around Zaubi’s waist and brushing the red diamond patterned belt now wrapped there.
“And now for the finishing touch.” Zaubi plucked a strand of hair from Fiona’s head.
“Ouch!”
The fairy touched Fiona’s arm. A feeling like cold stream water rippled through Fiona’s blood, dulling the sharp pain. “I’m sorry.”
“What was that for?” Fiona asked.
Zaubi wrapped the strand of hair around her finger. “A charm. Now everyone in the village will think they know me.”
Fiona nodded. A small voice in her mind mentioning that if everyone thought Zaubi lived there, then Zaubi didn’t need to leave the moment they found her cat. She could stay for the midsummer’s dance coming up—Fiona shook the thoughts away, reminding herself that fairies were tricksters, at best. Even when they weren’t at their worst, they weren’t date material.
Off they went, cat hunting.
The cat wasn’t behind the butcher’s, but he told them to check down at the riverbank since the village cats sometimes clustered there, hoping for scraps from the daily fishers. Zaubi smiled and thanked him graciously.
Fiona licked her lips, toying with the thought of asking Zaubi if she wanted to take a break. They could sit and talk and discuss… Cats. Maybe something else if Fiona could turn the subject…
“To the river?” Zaubi asked.
“The river,” Fiona found herself saying, before she could say anything else.
It was for the best. Fairies were dangerous. No one with a lick of self-preservation would spend their morning trying to figure out how to flirt with one. Fiona motioned Zaubi to the path leading out of the village and towards the river.
“So what’s the party for?”
“Huh?”
“I noticed the pigs hanging in the butcher’s. Seems like a lot for day-to-day life in a small village like this.”
Fiona nodded. “Our midsummer festival starts in two days.”
Zaubi ran her hand along the yellow flowers bobbing along the river path. “That sounds like fun.”
It is. You could come. Everyone thinks they know you.
“I’m sure it’s nothing like a party in fairy land.”
Zaubi picked a flower and rolled it in her fingers, finally tucking it behind her own ear. “You might be surprised. I never meet anyone new in fairy land.”
From around the bend the song of flowing, burbling water rang out.
Fiona broke her gaze away from the flower and pulled her mind back from the thought of Zaubi’s long fingers playing with the flower stem. “We’re almost there.”
There were no cats at the riverside.
In fact, the three women fishing said there had been no cats all day.
“Strange,” Fiona said.
Zaubi frowned. “Let’s try the midden? Middens attract a bit of magic.”
An anxious feeling settled in Fiona’s stomach, a worry she would disappoint Zaubi. There was fear in it, fear of fairies, of punishment, but also a silly desire to make Zaubi, this pretty fairy she had just met this morning, happy. It was a dangerous, foolish feeling. Dangerous in that fear was the more logical feeling, and the one she should be cultivating. Foolish—she caught Zaubi’s gaze for a moment and forgot why, exactly, it was foolish. All she could think about, as she led the way to the midden was that Zaubi could come with her to the festival.
The thick scent of rotting vegetables hung in the midden air, but there were no cats about.
Zaubi toed a scrap of turnip. “Is there anywhere else?”
Fiona started to suggest the gardens (there were always mice in the gardens and where there were mice it followed there would be cats) but then another voice interrupted her, small and mewling.
“I’m late, I’m late, I’m late.”
Fiona and Zaubi crept around a pile of broken furniture, waiting to be recycled into something new or firewood.
“Last one!”
A tail vanished into the pile. A moment later a tabby emerged with a kitten in her mouth. She made for the woods with her tail held high.
Fiona might have thought it strange that the village cats were speaking, but she was already traipsing around with a fairy.
Zaubi followed the cat.
Fiona followed Zaubi.
When they entered the woods, Zaubi’s human appearance vanished, and Fiona caught her breath all over again. What would it be to be a fairy? To wear gowns of dew drops? To know Zaubi better? Sticks crunched under foot and the heady scent of loam filled the air. A breeze rustled the oak leaves. Fiona felt far from home. She felt like she was in Zaubi’s realm.
“Bee!”
There, in a clearing, were all the village cats. The tabby deposited her final kitten next to three others, all fluffy and fat. In the center of the circle of cats, was Fiona’s cow, and next to her cow sat a regal winged cat, huge, with sleek, golden fur, flashing eyes, and fangs peeking from curling lips. Seeing the last kitten brought before her, Bee rose on hind legs and proceeded to milk Fiona’s cow, squirting the milk into a chipped bowl and pushing this towards the kittens. Then she turned to Zaubi and Fiona, tail thrashing. “Zaubi! How dare you interrupt my congress of cats?”
A meowing, hissing chatter went up from the gathered felines. Fiona could make out words here and there. None of them were happy.
“It’s Queen Zaubi to you, and what in a moonlit fairy circle are you doing?” Zaubi’s wings went wide. Her hands rested on her hips.
“Like I said, I’m holding a congress of cats.”
“You’ve taught them all to talk?”
“I have given voices to the voiceless.”
Another murmur went up. “We have demands. We have needs. We want changes.”
The mother cat licked the fluffy, striped head of one of her four children. “I want my kittens taken inside.”
“For each rat we catch, we should be given bits of fish,” an orange cat said.
A calico stretched out. “When we get old, we want to lay near your hearths.”
“Kids who throw stones at us should be punished.”
“Cream every morning!”
“Let us in your beds. Let us keep you warm.”
“Venerate us as gods!”
A gust of wind shook the trees. “Enough!” Zaubi shouted, bringing quiet to the clearing. “Can this be undone?”
“Not by me.” Bee raised a hind leg to scratch behind her ear.
The four kittens waddled over to Fiona. She knelt and scooped one up, a white and grey tabby. “Zaubi, what they want is fair.” Fiona held the kitten out to the fairy queen.
“Fiona is wise,” said the mother cat, licking her paw. “She always gives me cream.”
“Hi!” the kitten squeaked to Zaubi.
“They are cute.” The fairy’s eyes met Fiona’s and softened.
Heat filled Fiona’s heart, rushed through her blood, colored her cheeks. Heat and impulsiveness. She reached out and touched the strand of hair twined round Zaubi’s finger. “Why don’t you stay a little while, till the congress of cats concludes and all their demands are met? You could come to the festival?”
“With you?”
“With me.”
“I’d like that.” Zaubi smiled.
The kitten purred.
A.P. Golub is a speculative fiction writer residing in central Virginia with their partner, dog, and three cats in varying states of domestication. They’re a graduate of Viable Paradise writers’ workshop and can be found on Twitter and Instagram as @andtatcat.