The Allustrian tree-spirits made much of her, petting her and crooning to her and watching her playas they trailed their branches temptingly for her to pounce at and miss, and sometimes catch. When she grew hungry, they showed her where small creatures burrowed, termites that might eat of their wood. At night, by herself, she found the mice. The forest was also filled with scents that frightened her, but she stayed near the trees and knew they would protect her. In fact, the tree-spirits taught her to climb up to their limbs for safety-then gently and with much reassurance and coaxing, taught her to climb down again.
At last, though, one dryad sighed and told her sisters, “She is not meant to be our pet, no matter how much we enjoy it.”
“True, Sister Pine,” another said. “She is more than she seems.”
They all knew what.
“Come, then, little one,” said Fir, “follow my needles.” She trailed a branch along the ground, and pounce by pounce Balkis followed.
“Here, little one, come here,” Cedar called, and her needles took up at the limit of Fir’s reach.
Thus they led her, tree by tree, deeper and deeper into the wood, until the boughs opened out into a broad clearing. In its center stood a cottage with a thatched roof. Half the clearing was a vegetable garden, and a gray-haired woman plied her hoe there, in wooden shoes and long woolen skirts with a blouse of homespun.
“There is only one human word you need know,” the last dryad told Balkis, “and that is ‘Mama.’ ” Then she touched the little cat on her forehead and intoned,
A wave of dizziness passed through Balkis. She shook it off and moved forward tentatively—but how clumsy she suddenly seemed! Looking down, she was appalled to see fat little arms where her legs should have been, and chubby hands instead of paws!
“Do not let it fret you, little sister,” the dryad said, voice tender with sympathy. “You shall become used to it quickly, and be as deft and agile as ever you were.”
Balkis mewed protest—but it came out as a wail.
In the garden, the old woman looked up in surprise and concern.
“Go now to that woman,” the dryad said. “She will surely give you comfort and nurturing, for never has she had a child of her own, though dearly she has wished for one.” She gave the baby a pat on the rump.
Confused and awkward, Balkis crawled from the underbrush toward the garden, crying.
The old woman dropped her hoe and came running. She found an eighteen-month-old baby with a golden blanket wrapped about her hips and torso, crawling toward her-for of course, at a year and a half a cat is fairly grown, but a human is still a baby.
“Oh, you poor little thing!” the old woman cried, and knelt down, holding out her arms.
Balkis looked up, blinking, and if the tilt of the eyes in that pale little face seemed odd to the old woman, she certainly did not say so. The rosebud mouth opened and spoke a single word: “Mama?”
The old woman’s heart turned within her, making her all the more greedy to pick up the child and cradle it in her arms. “No, alas, I’m not your mother, pretty babe, but I shall find out who is. Come, come back to my cottage now, and I shall feed you warm milk and soft bread until my husband comes home. He shall spread the word throughout the wood and find your mother for you.”
Old Ludwig was as delighted as his Greta to see the baby. Still, he dutifully went from cottage to cottage among the widespread, loose-knit community of forest dwellers, asking who had lost a girl-child. None had, and he and his wife exulted. Sooner or later, they knew, her parents would come looking for her, though they had heard of children being taken to the forest and abandoned. They kept her and hoped, and Greta held her to her heart. “I shall call you Leisel,” she told the child.
But the little girl shook her head, her mouth firming with stubbornness, and spoke her second word: “Balkis.”
Greta stared in surprise, then gave a laugh of pure delight. “Even so, if that is your true name. Balkis you shall always be.”
The true parents never came, of course, and as she grew older, Greta and Ludwig ceased to think of her as a foundling and thought of her only as their daughter. At first she only mewed in answer to their fond chatter, and they found it endearing. When she could walk, though, she sometimes strolled into the forest in the early morning or evening to talk with the trees, and old Greta, watching her face, could have sworn she heard the firs and pines reply.
It was a year before Balkis happened to look out the doorway and see some kittens tumbling at play in the yard. She yearned to be with them, to be mock-fighting, though she knew she was too old for such things, a grown cat fit to have kittens of her own—but hard on the heels of the thought came an immense desire to snuggle a little body against her own, to feel its little nose nuzzling …
“Balkis?”
She looked up and saw Greta looking about, concerned. “Balkis, where are you?” she called.
“Here, Mama,” Balkis answered, but heard only mewing from her own throat. Startled, she looked down at her feet, and saw hind legs and paws. The fur was tan, the color of the homespun gown Greta had made for her.
“Balkis!” Greta called, worried. “Come out of hiding, child! Don’t make me fret!”
“But I’m right here, Mama,” Balkis protested. She heard only mewing again, and dropped down to all four feet, heart thudding in fright. “Mama, help me!”
“Oh, out of the way, silly cat!” Greta flapped her apron. “Shoo! I must find my child!” She ran out into the yard, calling, “Balkis! Where are you, dear?”
Finally Balkis realized that the old woman saw only a cat, that she had indeed changed back into the shape she had worn for so long. She sprang to the side and, in the shadows, thought fiercely of her human shape, of chubby legs and small bare feet …
She looked down at her forepaws and saw hands.
With a sigh of relief, she ran toddling out the back door and around the cottage, calling, “Mamamamamamamama!”
“Balkis! There you are!” Greta came running and swept her up into an embrace. “Oh, you had me so worried, child! Never go outdoors without me! Never do that again!”
Balkis clung, trembling, and resolved that she never would “do that again”—at least, not where Greta might see her, or when she might worry.
Now that she had discovered she could change into a cat at will, though, she did, now and then-but only alone in her room at night, or when Greta allowed her to go into the under-brush to search for berries. Balkis found that a cat could go under the bushes and find the fruits that others never saw.
As she grew past five she began to think about the stories the old woman told her at bedtime—not only about the tales themselves, but what they showed as evil or frightening. Some of the stories were meant to scare, she realized—to make silly little children learn to be wary of dangerous things. The brother and sister who were abandoned in the forest and found a house of gingerbread where a witch lived, demonstrated what happened to children who wandered away into the trees—and the wolf who gobbled up the grandmother then donned her nightgown and bonnet to decoy the little girl in the red hood into coming close enough to catch, showed Balkis not to talk to strangers. But who were the wicked ones? Witches and wolves, night-walking spirits and fairy horses that could change themselves into men! Things of magic were evil and dangerous, wild animals were unpredictable and frightening.
What, then, would be a magical child who could change herself into a cat?