Beyond the Prophecy

What the hell was that? Leda…glowing? Cats don’t glow, especially for ten seconds straight. Did the light come from another source? No…no, it came from her. I looked at every inch of Leda to find out how that was at all possible when I saw the tip of her tail; she was only supposed to have one tip, but now she had two. What happened to her?

“She’s becoming a nekomata,” someone said at the door.

When I glanced at the one that spoke the thing I noticed was her thin, dark brown eyes that held no emotion. Her long, dark tresses were straight with bangs that stopped below her eyebrows. Her style was a little strange to me; she had on a black shirt with short, round sleeves and ruffles lined down the center of the shirt, black shorts folded at the hem, a pair of dark blue belts around her waist, matching tights, black legwarmers and black mary janes. And since her skin was as pale as Chris’s I assumed she was a vampire.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I came on Farrokh’s behalf.”

“Is something the matter with him?” Chris asked her.

“Yes.”

As Chris walked in her direction I stood with Leda in my arms and slid my feet into my slippers. Leda didn’t move much; she was probably recovering from whatever it was that just happened (or is happening) but something tells me that she won’t remain that way for long. Both Chris and the new girl were already walking away when I reached the door and neither of them said a word or even reacted when I strode by their side.

“Farrokh’s the big white eagle that carried me from the forest right?” I asked them both.

The new girl gave me a nod.

“Howya,” I said to her. “I’m Natasha.”

She glanced my way once and then faced forward. “I know.”

“What’s your name?”

Hesitantly, she said, “Hatsumi.”

The top of Hatsumi’s head barely reached my chin. As we walked down two flights of steps I tried to take a closer look. To me, she looked like she couldn’t be more than sixteen years old. But I could be wrong, especially if she really is a vampire.

“Seventeen.”

“What?”

“I was seventeen when I became a vampire.”

“Oh.” So I was right. “How old does that really make you then?”

When we reached the front door Hatsumi held it open for us. Just as it closed behind us she said, “Ninety-five.”

I stopped walking and nearly shouted, “Ninety-five?” My eyes widened and my lips parted, but Hatsumi still showed no emotion. She must’ve been used to people being surprised by her age.

“She’s only one hundred and fourteen years younger than the average vampire,” Chris said matter-of-factly.

Calculating the numbers in my head took a little longer than it probably would for them, which is why I kept my feet planted and concentrated. I hate math; it was never my best subject. When Leda wiggled out of my arms though, it left my fingers free to aid me in my computation.

“The average vampire lives to be two hundred and nine years old?” I said. “That’s a long time.”

“Not necessarily. The average age of a mortal is eighty years old and the longest a mortal’s ever lived was one hundred and twenty-two years old, so far.”

“I wonder why the average age for them is low then.”

He sighed. “Everyone thinks that the word ‘immortal’ is equivalent to invincibility. They forget what it takes to survive and think of the present instead of the future, believing they have an endless amount of time to pursue everything. But their carelessness takes the best of them, which they learn the hard way. Insanity takes hold of them more and more as time passes. When a vampire can no longer tolerate it, they take their life.” He paused to glance at me. “A prolonged life is not as glamorous and desirable as mortals deem it to be.”

I didn’t know how to react to that. So many people are afraid to die; they live cautiously or they live as if it’s their last day alive. But given the choice to live forever? A lot of people would jump at the chance. I once desired it myself, but when I started to really think of what it would be like, I turned away from the idea. To live forever. To lose everyone you’ve ever know. To walk the earth, alone, for eternity; watching the world change around you while you try to keep up. Doesn’t sound so appealing anymore, does it?

My thoughts halted when I took a whiff at the air. It smelled so foul, like the stench of rotting flesh. Closing my mouth and pinching my nostrils didn’t help; the taste of it lingered on my tongue. Holding my breath helped but I couldn’t hold it for as long as I would’ve liked. I looked at Chris and Hatsumi, both unfazed by it.

“Don’t you guys smell that?”

“I noticed it long before you sensed it,” said Chris.

“What the hell is that?”

Leda ran full speed ahead and didn’t stop even when I called her. The air had more and more of a nasty kick to it as I followed after her and I tried not to gag. Instead I concentrated on catching up to her which made it a little easier. I kicked off my slippers and grabbed them so I could keep up with Leda's newfound energy. She led me to something by a tree, something I couldn’t identify. I walked closer to see what it was and jumped back when I recognized it: an animal carcass.

I could tell it was an opossum by its head and tail, but had they not been there then it would’ve been unrecognizable, at least it would to me. It laid on its side but the way it was bent looked like the opossum might have been snapped nearly in two, and its head twisted in an unnatural way as well, nearly facing its back completely. The rear portion was still intact, but the middle was ripped open. I could see some of its bloody organs pouring out of its stomach, and some of its skin was so thin that its skeletal structure was easy to see. I could even see its spine though the middle. Flies flew around and above it eagerly. Why would Leda run towards this?

I tried to turn away, but I couldn’t when Leda hesitantly approached it. She sniffed the carcass a few times, pawed at it and then did something I never thought she’d do; she started to eat it. My eyes shot open and I gasped. What the hell is she doing? She ate slowly at first but the more she consumed the greedier she became. I moved to stop her but Hatsumi held me back. Why is she keeping me from getting her away from the body? And why isn’t she or Chris doing a damn thing to stop her?

“Let me go,” I demanded.

“Don’t be shocked,” she told me. “Nekomata eat carrion.”

“Carrion?”

“Dead animal carcass. You’re going to need to research information on nekomata to properly care for her. There’s a book in the library here on Japanese Folklore.”

“I’ll just look it up online. Now let me go.”

“Not if you’re going to stop her. She needs to feed.”

“Let. Me. Go.”

Hatsumi looked to Chris and he gave her a nod. She sighed and I felt her grip loosen until her hands were off me. I wanted to stop Leda but the shock of what she was doing made it hard for me to move.

“The books in the library are more reliable than the internet,” Chris told me.

“How would you know?”

“Because the books contain accurate information and records written by credible individuals that have witnessed and experienced what they wrote about. It’s not speculation or theorization but hard facts. You cannot find information as precise as that anywhere else.”

I sighed “Fine. Where’s the library?”

“On the first floor. Hatsumi can escort you there later.”

During the conversation Leda was still filling up on carrion. How she could eat something so disgusting is beyond me. Maybe I’m overreacting. Some animals hunt and kill their prey before eating it soon after. Leda’s an animal after all, and she tracked the carrion down too. If this is going to be part of her regular diet then I might have to grow accustomed to it, as impossible as it seems. But how can it work? Is all the cat food I have for her useless now? Do I have to somehow provide carrion for her from now on? And speaking of carrion, where did this one come from anyway? Don’t answer that, I don’t want to know.

The longer I’m here, the more unusual things get.

Leda came to me when she was (hopefully) full. The outside of her mouth, her nose and her front paws were stained with blood. I knew she wanted to brush up against my legs before she did so I shook my head and took a step back.

“I’m not comfortable with that yet Leda. Let me at least bathe you, and then we’ll talk.”

“It’s going to have to wait,” said Hatsumi. “Farrokh needs tending.”

I gave her a nod and then turned back to Leda. “Whatever you do, don’t leap on me since you just ate some of that…thing. I love you, but that’s nasty.” When I heard a short chuckle from Chris I smiled.

Our destination was a few more paces away from the carrion. Deep in the forest was a gigantic dome that was almost as big as the mansion. The dome's frosted glass made it hard for me to see anything beyond unidentified silhouettes. I tried to recall what Farrokh looked like; In my memory he’d be too big to fit inside, unless my imagination was altering the image. But I stopped trying to remember when Hatsumi held the door opened for us and I walked in.

Inside the dome looked just as the forest does outside of it with one minor difference: there was a huge tree in the middle of it. Every tree except for that one was an oak tree. The oaks already had most of its fall foliage in various colors but the tree in the center, which was at least three times the height of the other trees, had all of its autumn foliage; every leaf was yellow. I wonder what kind of tree that was…

“It’s a tulip tree,” Chris said.

I nodded. “It’s beautiful. And it’s tall as hell.”

On one of the branches was something that was white. I couldn’t tell what it was at first, but the more I stared at it the more my eyes made out: wings, talons, feathers, a beak, a pair of eyes…I knew it was Farrokh. But even sitting up so high I knew that he shouldn’t be able to lie on the branch without snapping it because of how big he was.

“He’s a lot smaller than I remember him,” I said.

“The dome is bewitched,” Chris told me. “When Farrokh gets no more than thirty feet away from the dome his size increases back to normal, but within the confinements of the dome’s enchantment he’s no bigger than a harpy eagle.”

He followed the path towards the enormous tree and climbed up the rope ladder nailed to it. Once reaching him, Farrokh barely moved his head in order to see him but closed his eyes when Chris slowly stroked his head. I couldn’t see what his face looked like from such a high distance, but his careful behavior towards Farrokh reminded me of the way I acted when Leda was suffering before her tail changed. I’ve only ever seen Chris stoic, pissed or satisfied (at the expense of my happiness), but never concerned.

“Farrokh’s been around longer than I have,” said Hatsumi, “and it takes a lot for him to get sick. The fact that Master Chris is concerned isn’t as surprising as you’d think.”

“What got Farrokh this way in the first place?”

“The sharp feathers from the stymph’ birds are toxic to him. On his way back to the mansion some of their feathers nicked him.”

“Why have those damn birds out there if it’s harmful to him?”

“The birds weren’t after him, they were after you.”

Chris held Farrokh carefully close to him and then stepped off the tree. I gasped and moved forward instinctively but Hatsumi shot her arm out in front of me and gave me a reassuring nod. Falling so far would kill someone even before ground impact, but he landed softly and safely in front of me. Farrokh was unharmed too.

“The next time you do something that stupid, give me a warning so that I don’t have a fecking heart attack,” I said sternly.

“You wouldn’t care if anything happened to me.”

“Whether I do or don’t doesn’t matter. I won’t be a witness to a suicide. The peelers would think that I pushed you off the tree on purpose, or that I’d be an accomplice because I didn’t do a thing to stop you. Though, I can’t say I’d blame them.”

He smirked. “That’s the difference between you and me. If a murder was committed by my hands, no one would ever be aware of it. You cannot accuse someone of a crime if there are no witnesses, evidence or crime scene.” He moved closer while I crossed my arms across my chest. “I suggest you think long and hard before you open your mouth to me again.”

I smirked back. He should know by now how I respond to threats; I do just the opposite of what was commanded.

Hatsumi opened both doors wide enough to prop them open and Chris took a few steps out of the dome. Then he cautiously held Farrokh from underneath him, lowered his arms and moved them up. When his arms rose, Farrokh took flight.

The further away Farrokh flew the bigger he got, and when he stopped growing he dropped to the ground and didn’t rise again. I had only jogged a few feet by the time Chris reached him. My hesitation made my stride slow to a halt before I caught up. It’s not that I didn’t want to go there but it’s that I was afraid to. Farrokh was much bigger than I thought.

“What happened to your so-called bravery?” Chris said without turning around.

“Look, it’s one thing to fear someone your own size, but it’s another to be afraid of something that can swallow you whole.”

“Don’t let his size fool you,” said Hatsumi. “Master Chris is more of a threat than Farrokh.”

I could see Chris smirk in my peripheral vision. Should I listen to her advice? She’s barely spoken to me and she works for an asshole. But then again, so do Calista and Kyle and they’ve been honest with me. I might as well give it a shot. I don’t want to always wonder if she was right, and if I look like a coward in front of Chris then I might not hear the end of it.

I moved slow enough so that Farrokh would know that I meant no harm and Leda followed closely behind. My palms were already sweaty and my heart wanted to jump out of my chest. Every breath I took was deep and shaky and when I finally reached him I gulped.

“H-howya, Farrokh. How’s it going? Um, I’m Natasha.”

I held back a yelp when his eyes shot towards me. One of his brown eyes was about the size of my face. Each of his feathers was almost as big as me and I’m almost six feet tall.

Farrokh made a low sound (though the volume itself was loud) so I looked back to his eyes. There was so much pain in them. Whenever he blinked he clenched his eyes and opened them slowly. Watching him suffering like that made me less afraid of him. I also felt guilty.

“I’m so sorry you’re going through this. It’s my fault you were in the forest before in the first place. But I want to thank you. You saved my life. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”

My hand was tremulous when I tried to reach his head. When it was inches away Farrokh moved his head purposely so that it bumped into my palm. I stroked it gently before his eyes closed. His feathers were much softer than I thought, maybe as soft as cashmere.

I caught Chris looking at me with his eyes more open and his lips parted. “What?” I asked.

“…Nothing.”

A bright flash, kind of like a camera flash, blinded me for a second. Even though I saw a few spots afterwards I looked to my right to see where it came from. There was nothing there; no camera, flashlight, nothing.

Leda came closer to Farrokh and I smiled. But then my eyes widened when I saw her do something I’ve never seen her do before: walk on her hind legs the rest of the way. Jaysus, how in the world is she doing that?! She moved her paws to his head and her tail moved up and down a few times. But as it moved completely, the two tips of her tail moved quicker. Soon after, a nuclear glow emanated from her paws for a while and then faded.

“What just happened?” asked Chris.

“I don’t know.”

Farrokh started to rise so Chris, Leda and I backed up. He flew high enough so that his call wasn’t deafening but it was still really loud. A smile came on my face while I watched him soar. But, I thought he was sick; He shouldn’t be acting so lively and adventurous. Is it Leda’s doing then? It has to be.

“Leda healed him,” Hatsumi told me. “It’s one of the powers a nekomata possesses.”

Chris bent down to Leda and started stroking her just before he thanked her. I can’t believe it. He must’ve seen the disbelief in my face because when he stood and faced me his eyebrows arched.

“I don’t get it. How come you can show respect and even a little bit of kindness to everyone and everything else and show me none at the same time?” I said before walking to him. “What do you have against me anyway?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does. It does if you’re going to be so bitter with me all the time. If you don’t like me because of my personality then fine, I get that. I’ve pissed off enough people in my life, so I know what it’s like. But you started acting this way before you even got to know me. Why?”

Farrokh landed behind me and the gust that came from the flaps of his wings was strong enough to push me forward. My balance was too far off for me to stop myself from falling, so I closed my eyes and braced myself for the ground collision. But instead of feeling the ground, I felt a pair of arms around my torso. It wasn’t until I opened my eyes that I saw they were Chris’s. Normally the thought of having our arms around each other would make my stomach turn, but it was happening and neither of us moved. It was strange, standing this close without trying to hurt each other in any way.

“Thanks,” I said to him.

“I didn’t catch you so you wouldn’t fall. I caught you so you wouldn’t knock me down.”

“Then why didn’t you move out of the way and let me fall?”

I expected a smart remark to my question, but while maintaining a bewildered look his face he said, “I don’t know.”

Next thing I know, I saw the bright flash again from the corner of my eye. Chris and I turned to see what it was and saw Hatsumi holding a digital camera. So that’s where the flashes were coming from.

“What are you doing?” he asked her.

“Following Emily’s instructions. They came in a letter.”

Who the hell is Emily?

“Emily requested photos of you and Mistress Natasha that makes it seem as if you’re both dating.” Hatsumi took out an envelope from her pocket and handed it to him.

I tried to sneak a peak of whatever picture was currently displayed on the screen but she clutched the camera close to her chest.

“They’re for Emily’s eyes only. But, you said you wanted to go to the library to learn about nekomata. I can’t take you there tonight. The sun’s rising in a few hours. One of the other servants will have to take you.”

“I think I’m going to sleep too. I’m beat. Plus, Leda needs a bath.” I smiled when Leda chirped and took a few steps back. Then I faced Farrokh and stroked his head once more. “Tá súil agam go bhfuil tú i mbarr na sláinte,” I said to him. “I hope you’re in the best of health. And thanks again for saving me.”

A little over thirty minutes later I was already back in my room and Leda was bathed. It still bothered me that she ate carrion with such eagerness, as if it was so natural and common. With time I might get used to it, but for now I hope cat food is still appealing for her. I can’t exactly provide animal carcass on a daily basis. But at least now there’s no evidence of what she ate; she smells like her shampoo and the blood stains, luckily, washed off. I’m glad that Leda’s one of the rare cats in this world that actually likes taking baths.

During my sleep I dreamt of my ma. She looked just as she did the last time I saw her with my da, my sister, Innogen, and me. She was so beautiful and ethereal. I loved how her long, curly red hair glowed in the sunlight and how it always smelled like gardenias, her favorite flowers. Her perfume matched the scent too. Her green eyes were as gentle and inviting as her smile and held so much wisdom. She always wore a skirt or dress because she loved how it flowed in the wind. And her voice, her soothing voice, always calmed me down and helped me fall asleep. Just the thought of her made my eyes water and my heart ache. I was overcome with nostalgia.

The dream changed a bit so that I was as I am now and was sitting on the hill the Winterberry Cottage, my home in Dublin, was located. Ma sat beside me, still looking just as I remembered her.

“You’ve been having a hard time with Chris, haven’t you?” she asked.

“Like you wouldn’t believe. Every day is a fecking dose with that dirtbag. He’s such an uppity prick. We don’t get along at all even though some stupid prophecy said we’re supposed to.”

“Nothing is ever easy.”

“Especially in this case. I don’t get it; we’re too different. How are we supposed to end up together?”

Ma smiled. “You’re quarrel with him is not due to your differences; it’s because you’re too much alike.” Her smile grew when my eyebrow rose. “Pay closer attention to his behavior when you’re with him next. It will be apparent.”

I sighed. “It’s hard when I’m forced to be around him, in a way. I think he gets a kick out of all the grief this whole situation’s given me.”

“A ghrá, it will be hard at first. But the events that will occur in the next few days will bring both of you closer.”

“How do you know?”

The knowing smile on her face was all I needed. Every time she showed me that smile her predictions came true. She was always so perceptive and clairvoyant.

“You should know that Chris has had a difficult time with the prophecy as well.”

I chuckled. “He has an odd way of showing it.”

“Perhaps you should ask him about it. You might be surprised at what you learn.”

Suddenly, the dream took a nefarious turn. The light blue sky turned crimson and thunder and lightning followed soon after. The moment ma stood a strong gust blew towards us. We had to practically shout so that we could hear each other speak clearly.

“No,” she said softly.

“What’s going on?”

“I must go. I’m so sorry a ghrá.”

“No! Don’t leave me again!”

“I have no choice. It’s for your own protection. I will not let him get to you.”

“Who’s he?”

“…Arawn.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“And you never will. Not if I can help it.” She hugged me, kissed my forehead softly and whispered, “Blessed be. Is tú mo ghrá, a ghrá mo chroí.” Then she ran in the direction the wind blew from.

I woke up with a start while calling out to her. My breaths came quick and my eyes held unshed tears. When Leda jumped onto my bed and approached me, I held her close. The dream I had lasted all night; the morning sunlight peaked from in between the curtains. The dream felt so real…I could still smell her fragrance. But why did the dream change drastically towards the end? Who’s Arawn, and why was she protecting me from him?
________________________________________
Da: Slang for "dad"
Dose: Something which is difficult to endure.
Uppity: Disagreeable.
A ghrá: Gaelic for "my darling" or "my love."
Is tú mo ghrá, a ghrá mo chroí: Gaelic for "I love you, my darling."