On top of everything else, it had started to rain. With a sigh, Lydia went for the big spaghetti pot and set it under the leak. She watched the rain drops plink and plop in. It had not been a good week. She’d lost out to Lizzie for the lead in the school play and hadn’t even got a part at all, which meant she was regulated to the chorus. It also meant she’d have to endure Lizzie’s sneers at close range for the next two months. Mary had left to spend a month with her cousins in England. She’d talked of nothing else for the last week and hadn’t even hinted that she might miss Lydia. Lydia was happy for her - at least she had been when she was going too. Then Jane had to plan her wedding right in the middle of the England trip, forcing Lydia to stay home. Wearing a stupid bridesmaid’s dress and eating cake did not make up for missing England and gave Lizzie another thing to sneer about. And now, her beloved thirteen year old tuxedo cat, Kitty, (named when she was four), was dying.
Lydia didn’t cry. She let the ceiling cry for her.
She glared at the leak, while the pot slowly filled up and Jane and their mother came in and talked about wedding plans. Jane’s big, wonderful wedding plans that would transform their backyard into “a romantic English countryside for the night,” which Lydia humphed loudly about. Sure. Their yard, with the basketball standard, in-ground trampoline, and decaying swingset. There was nothing romantic about any of it, no matter how many fairy-lights they put in, and she said so. Jane promptly looked as if she was about to burst into tears (what right did she have to cry? Her life was perfect). Their mother made soothing noises in Jane’s direction and told Lydia to go outside.
“It’s raining,” said Lydia.
“Take an umbrella,” snapped their mother.
*
She wandered. She certainly wasn’t going to stay in the non-romantic, non-English backyard. She ended up at the elementary playground. Being a Saturday and raining, no one was there. Lydia sat on a swing for a bit, until she was soaked through and cold. There wasn’t really anything else she could do in the rain while holding onto an umbrella. So she wandered over to the soccer field and got her feet soaked too. Kitty wouldn’t have had anything to do with the outdoors on a day like this. The thought made her blink back tears, and she dug her toe into the ground. The field was suffering from a clover invasion. It had been as long as she could remember. At recess, she and Mary would comb through the leaves looking for a four-leaf clover. They never found one.
Absently Lydia gazed at the pool of leaves. She could use some luck right now. There wasn’t anything to be done about the play or her trip to England, but maybe Kitty would pull through. Of course, she wouldn’t find anything. But as she turned away, something caught her eye. Bending down, she she couldn’t believe what she saw. She counted the leaves four times before she was sure. A four-leaf clover. That was so lucky. In awe, she bent down and picked it. Well, maybe things weren’t so bad after all. If she’d found a four-leaf clover, which was next to impossible, maybe some other next to to impossible things could happen. Smiling, she put the clover in her pocket.
“Wet day isn’t it now?”
Lydia started, and looked down where the voice had come from. Standing there in the clover was a tiny man, about three inches tall wearing green. She stared in disbelief. “What?”
“I say it’s wet. Wetter than a sinking submarine.”
Lydia blinked. “You’re a fairy.” She felt stupid for saying it, but never in her wildest dreams would meeting a fairy involve submarines.
“That I am, sweetheart. The real deal! Bona fide, in the flesh. What can I do for you?”
“Huh? I don’t…”
He waved away her confused protest. “Everyone needs something darling. Particularly beautiful young girls with tears in their eyes.”
Her heartbeat sped up and she drew a sharp breath, “Can you make Kitty better?”
“Naturally, naturally,” the little man beamed. “Nothing could be easier. Anything for a friend. Can I call you friend? Give me your name friend and then to the aid of your kitty!”
“Lydia. I’m Lydia Kelly.” Four-leaf clovers were indeed lucky. Kitty was saved! She held out her hand and the little man jumped in. “Let’s go.”
*
Lydia opened the door to her room quietly. Despite the open curtains, the rain kept the light muted. The room was draped in shadows, hiding the wood paneling on the walls and her unmade bed. It wasn’t until she flipped the light switch that Kitty was revealed, curled up in her basket at the foot of the bed. She lay there looking and cute and adorable and not at all like she was dying. Holding her breath, Lydia set the fairy down next to the cat. “Here she is.”
The little man took one look at the black and white cat and glared at Lydia, “That’s no cat,” he snapped. “That’s a cat sidhe. Why didn’t you say so instead of talking in riddles?”
“What does it matter if Kitty’s a she cat?” demanded Lydia indignantly.
“Not she. Sidhe! One of the races of fairies…” he sputtered clearly nettled.
Lydia waited a moment, still confused, but not wanting to provoke him. After all, this was Kitty’s only chance of living. The fairy glared about the room, first at a pile of school books then at her desk across the room. The silence stretched out until she couldn’t bear it anymore, “So, are you going to help her or not?”
“Help her? Certainly! After all, that’s why I’m here!”
Lydia jerked back from his sudden attitude shift, but breathed a sigh of relief. He was still going to save Kitty.
The fairy continued, “My friend Lydia, it occurs to me that your cat there, might think I’m a mouse once I’ve done my work. Open the window for me and I’ll make a quick escape. Even better, hold that cat sidhe- don’t let her follow.”
“Sure,” said Lydia. She opened the window, popped out the screen, lifted the fairy to the ledge and took Kitty up in her arms. “Now what?”
“Now I begin!” With that, there were suddenly leaves in his hands. At least they looked like leaves. They glinted though and made her think of gold and rubies and emeralds. He blew them towards them, and they floated over Kitty in an autumn haze. There were far more of the leaves than she had thought at first. They caught in Kitty’s black fur like a veil. One landed on her arm; it was warm. Then the leaves suddenly pulsed blue and vanished.
With butterflies fluttering in her stomach, Lydia anxiously looked Kitty over. Had anything happened? Kitty just lay there peacefully, unchanged. Then a clawed hurricane broke out in her arms. Yelping, she nearly dropped Kitty. Just before she did, she heard the little man cry out, “Lydia, restrain the cat sidhe!”
Some strange force made her hold onto Kitty. Her arms felt cold and heavy and moved of their own accord. Despite numerous scratches and pain, she couldn’t let go. What was going on? “Hush, Kitty, it’s alright,” she tried to sooth the cat with no effect.
“Lydia, let go!” This voice was feminine. Immediately, another force surged through her, knocking out the cold and making her hot and breathless. Instantly she dropped the cat. Kitty promptly tore out the window. The cold force made her take a half hearted grab at the cat’s tail, but she was already gone. Lydia sat down hard; gasping and alternating between freezing and feverish, not even noticing the blood all over her arms. She stayed there dazed until her mother came to get her for dinner, and after taking one look at her, whisked her off to the ER. Sometime during the mad car ride to the hospital (she hadn’t known her mother had the ability to speed!) the rain and the hot-cold war going on inside her stopped and she started thinking clearly again. After emergency stitches, and a car ride home at a normal speed (with a stop for hamburgers), she was in her room again, looking out the window at the twilight. The screen had been replaced, and she had been given very strict instructions to never, ever take it out again.
She tried to puzzle out what exactly had happened, but was at a bit of a loss. Kitty was no longer dying. That much she was sure about. Lydia just hoped she would come back. The city wasn’t the safest place for a cat. But it seemed Kitty wasn’t just a cat. She hadn’t paid much attention when the little man had said Kitty was a… that cat fairy thing. Cats were so normal and magical in and of themselves that they didn’t really need anything added to it. But if Kitty was a fairy and the little man was a fairy, then why the apparent animosity between them? The strange hot and cold forces were unsettling, and made her sick to the stomach when she thought about them, but she couldn’t explain them. Shivering, she turned away from the window.
Then turned back when she heard a meow at the window. “Kitty!” she cried, and couldn’t get the window open fast enough, never mind what her mother had said about the screen.
Kitty elegantly hopped onto her desk, wrapped her tail around her paws and said, “You are far luckier than you deserve. What were you thinking, giving your name away like that?”
“Wait, what?”
Kitty slapped the desk with her tail, “You’d better start at the beginning. What happened?”
So Lydia summed up the day’s events. When she explained the bit where the little man had asked for her name, she had the distinct feeling that Kitty was doing a facepalm, despite not having hands. She was much more interested in the healing leaves thing and asked a bunch of questions about it. Lydia didn’t see the point, but Kitty seemed pleased. “He did that right then,” the cat muttered. And when she reached the strange cold and force Kitty sighed. “That was magic. That’s what happens when a fairy knows your name. They can make you do whatever they want. So, never, ever, give your name out. Got that?”
Lydia frowned, “You know my name.”
“Lucky for you. I couldn’t have gotten you to let go otherwise. As it was what you felt was our conflicting orders. If it’d gone on much longer…” Kitty shrugged and Lydia shivered.
“But it stopped.”
“Because I caught him,” Kitty showed her teeth. “He can’t use your name again. But he’ll be seeking revenge. So your first lesson starts now. If you’re too public with your name - like you humans are - you need to protect it. We’ll need some ground hen’s teeth…”
“Lesson?” gasped Lydia, trying to keep up. “For what?”
Kitty swished across the table waving her tail like a teacher’s pointer, “For magic.”
