“Nice to see you got out okay, moron,” said Gnick.
“Thanks for going back in for me.”
“Thank Lily; our vote was to let you cook for a while.”
“Oh, well, thanks anyway.”
“Robert?” asked Lily.
“Hmm?” said Robert.
“Where did you find the cat?”
Melvin let go of his wife, who crumpled into a heap and was hugging her knees.
“Cat?” said Melvin.
“He was inside. I assumed he was yours.”
“No, we don’t own a cat.”
“No one owns a cat,” said Lily, a stern look chiselled into her soot-blackened face.
“Well, I… did I do something wrong?”
“I’ve never seen a cat before, except in pictures, of course,” said Melvin as he examined the kitten that kept trying to swat at Melvin’s floppy goat ears.
“What?” said Robert.
“Robert, there are no cats in Thiside. Anywhere. There hasn’t been any for a long time.”
“I just found him inside.”
“You did this!” shouted Maureen as she struggled to her feet. “You lot brought some sort of evil magic in here. And now look what happened.”
“Maureen―” said Lily.
“No, I don’t believe you, Lily! You should all leave right now. We have to rebuild our home.”
“We didn’t start the fire,” said Robert.
“Get out!” screamed Maureen.
“Come on, Robert,” said Lily and grabbed him by a pyjama sleeve. The Gnomes gave a slight bow to Melvin who was once again consoling his distraught wife and followed Lily and Robert as they walked away from the halfway house.
Robert, Lily, and the Gnomes had been walking in silence through the dark for almost thirty minutes. The Dark Forest’s name was well deserved, as any remote source of light was quickly chased away. It seemed to Robert that the forest didn’t want any light intruding upon its murkiness.
Robert still held the kitten firmly curled up and fast asleep under one arm and the clothes he’d grabbed from his room in the other. He hadn’t even stopped to lace up his boots yet, and every so often his oversized pyjama pants would slip slightly, causing him to re-adjust awkwardly.
The Gnomes had vanished up ahead not too long ago and Lily didn’t look like she was in the mood to talk. She walked, stern-faced, and was probably cold, wearing only her pants and nightdress.
As they rounded a sharp bend, they came upon the Gnomes who had built a fire in a more open area of the pathway and were cooking two small rat-like creatures on a spit.
“I thought we should stop and get a few more hours’ sleep before the sun comes up,” said General Gnarly. “It’s never a good idea to travel through forests at night.”
Lily simply nodded and sat down by the fire.
Robert dropped his clothes and placed the sleeping kitten near the fire. He couldn’t help but notice the fire no longer seemed afraid of the little cat. Robert picked up his change of clothes and looked around for somewhere semi-private to change.
“Just change, I promise I won’t look,” said Lily, without looking.
“What about them?” asked Robert looking at the Gnomes.
“Although we have no desire to see you naked, moron, you do smell funny and could use a change of clothes,” said Gnick.
Robert changed clothes as quickly as possible and sat on the opposite side of the fire to Lily, who looked like she was trying to extinguish the flames with her eyes. The clothes fitted him loosely and felt scratchy in places, but he imagined they were good for travelling and could stand up to a variety of elements.
“Will the Goatheads rebuild the halfway house?” asked Robert.
“Aye,” said General Gnarly. “The Goathead family have managed that halfway house for the better part of a century; they’ll want to continue the tradition.”
“Strange fire,” said Gnick as he launched into one of the rat creatures.
“Never seen anything like it,” agreed General Gnarly.
“How did it start?” asked Robert.
“I was downstairs when it started,” said General Gnarly, “looking for a nightcap. It just started from nowhere. One minute the room was quiet and dark, and the next it was ablaze. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Robert ran a hand over the sleeping kitten, who began to purr loudly.
“I wonder where this little guy came from?”
“Cats are a bad omen,” said Gnick.
“Why?”
“There are no cats in Thiside, Robert,” said Lily.
“But why?”
“Because the Emerald Guard was ordered to kill them all.”
Robert looked from Lily to the cat to the two Gnomes who were both tearing the dead cooked flesh from the rat creatures’ bones.
“I don’t understand.”
“You’ve heard of the Cheshire Cat?”
“From Alice in Wonderland?”
Gnick snorted and almost dropped his creature.
“Yes,” said Lily. “I don’t know where the Cheshire part came from, must be a British thing. But the Cat was real. Probably still is real.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said General Gnarly, “he died.”
“He vanished,” argued Lily.
“Died.”
“Either way, he’s no longer in Thiside and hasn’t been in a long time.”
“What was so special about him?” asked Robert.
“He was powerful,” said Lily.
“Magically,” agreed Gnick.
“Yes, magically powerful. He was believed to be a great source of magic in Thiside. The Wizards of Oz consulted him from time to time. He was there in the beginning before the Emerald City fell to ruin, before the Gnome wars, before the Giants, maybe before Thiside itself. And then all of a sudden, he vanished.”
“Died.”
“Shut up, Gnick,” said Lily, and smiled for the first time since the fire. “He vanished because the Wizards of Oz decided they should control the Cat’s power and in doing so, they tried their best to bind and imprison him.”
“But it wasn’t enough,” said General Gnarly. “They failed, and the Cat vanished, taking a lot of the magic of this world with him. But just to be on the safe side, the Wizards ordered the Guard to hunt and kill all cats.”
“That’s horrible,” said Robert.
“It is what it is,” said Lily. “But what’s strange is that after there being no cats in Thiside for the last four centuries, we have a kitten sitting next to us right now.”
All four of them looked at the sleeping kitten, who looked adorable in a way that only sleeping kittens can.
“You’re not suggesting that this little thing is the Cat you’re talking about?”
“No not at all. It’s just weird.”
“You know what else is weird,” said Robert sounding more defensive than he meant to. “How about you lifting that huge beam over your head?”
There was a moment of silence as everyone stared at Lily, whose amber eyes reflected the flames that danced before them. The purring of the cat was all that could be heard for several long moments.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Lily matter-of-factly. “We should all get some sleep.” And with that she lay down, facing away from the fire.
“Nice one, moron,” said Gnick.
“Get some sleep,” commanded General Gnarly.