It was the first day of September. Three days before the Harvest Moon. In the old lady’s garden, at the edge of the wild wood, Fat Cat sat under the old apple tree thinking, as he had everyday since he arrived back in Faerie-land. Now that he’d started he’d discovered there was no stopping it. One thought following another in a constant procession.
He thought of the life he’d led with Ollie and Tash in the tall house at the edge of the sea in Brighton in the days when he was just an everyday kind of kitchen cat. And of newborn baby with her long lashes curled against her soft cheeks, her plump dimpled arms and her smell of milk and honey as he snuggled against her and purred her off to sleep. And most of all, he thought about the time when everything changed. The night when a wild wind blew in a faerie changeling and newborn baby was stolen away to Faerie-land.
Of course, Fat Cat thought, he hadn’t known that at the time. All he’d known was that newborn baby had disappeared and a strange new creature had taken her place. A creature who might have looked the same – and Tash and Ollie didn’t seem to see the difference – but who smelt nothing like her. The scent was in his nostrils now. Salt and air and wild thyme and moss and something older and wilder – the smell he now knew was the scent of Faerie-land.
This was one of the problems with thinking Fat Cat was beginning to discover. You couldn’t think about things that had happened in the past without knowing the things you knew were going to happen in the Future. And of course, the things that were going to happen in the future then were things that had happened in the past now. And maybe, he thought, that was just as well. Because if he had known all the things that were going to happen in the future he probably wouldn’t have done the things he did at the beginning and in that case they wouldn’t have happened anyway.
Fat Cat thought about that. He thought about Ollie not blaming him for the havoc the faerie baby was causing and not throwing him out into the dark night. He thought about not finding the open door at the bottom of the garden. Not following the delicious smell that led him to the old lady’s cottage. Not setting off on the journey to rescue newborn baby and not fighting the Evil Sorcerer and saving the world.
And the more he thought about that – and the infinite numbers of possible causes and effects of not doing those things – the more confused he became.
There was something to be said, he thought, for the kind of cat he had once been. A cat interested only in sleeping and eating, eating and sleeping. Easily led by the smell of food and an empty stomach. And maybe, Fat Cat thought,, as his nose twitched and his tummy rumbled, maybe he hadn’t changed as much as he thought he had. Because from the open kitchen window delicious smells were wafting. The tang of sharp green apples mingling with the sweetness of blackberries. Cinnamon, nutmeg and a hint of cloves, mixed with the sugary smell of biscuits baking and the yeasty smell of dough rising, as the old lady made her preparations for the Harvest Feast.
And now, Fat Cat’s thoughts turned to saucers smeared with bramble jelly just waiting to be tasted. To broken biscuits and knobs of left over sugared pastry. And with these thoughts in mind, Fat Cat stretched his back and padded across the green grass towards the open door and the cosy kitchen where the old lady was waiting for him.
THE OLD LADY’S BRAMBLE AND APPLE JELLY
4 lb apples, 2lb blackberries, water to cover
1 lb sugar to every pint of juice
Wash the apples and cut them up. Put in a pan with
blackberries that have been soaked in clean water.
Cover with water and boil to a pulp. Strain through a
muslin cloth. Measure liquid and put back into pan with
1lb of sugar to every pint of juice. Boil for about 15 minutes
or until you hear a kind of plopping sound. You can
test if it is ready by dripping a small amount onto a saucer to
see if it has reached a jelly-like consistency. Put into clean
jars and seal.
Week two
Curled up on the pile of cushions in the sagging armchair by the side of the fire the old lady always kept burning, Fat Cat watched through half-closed eyes as the old lady bustled about. Selecting jars from the rows that gleamed with a purple light on the open shelves. Wrapping loaves, shaped like sheaths of corn, in white cloths. Piling crescent biscuits into round tins and packing them all into the willow basket that hung from the peg on the kitchen door.
It was the night of the full moon, the Harvest Moon, and the old lady’s harvest was safely gathered in and ready to eat. Fat Cat yawned. For days now the old lady had been busy. Chopping and peeling. Stirring and simmering. Kneading dough and rolling out pastry. Just thinking about it made Fat Cat tired.
He’d trotted at her heels a she picked apples from the old tree and blackberries from the hedgerows – gathering a few of the leaves to put on the scratches she’d explained were an inevitable part of such a task.
Fat Cat’s mouth watered as he remembered the delicious smell of blackberries and apples simmering together in the cauldron on top of the old stove. The steady drip, drip of the purple juice that ran from the muslin bag tied to the legs of an upside down stool, slowly filling the earthenware bowl. The plopping sound as the juice – mixed with sugar – boiled in the cauldron. And the delicious taste of the rapidly cooling jelly the old lady dripped onto saucers to test that it was set.
Fat Cat was so busy thinking about all these things that it was a while before he realized that not only was the jelly ready but the old lady was too. Dressed in her long grey cloak, with her basket over her arm and gazing at him with a quizzical look. His tiredness disappearing in an instance, Fat Cat bounded to his feet. This was the moment he’d been waiting for. And giving himself a quick lick and brush up, head up and tail high, he followed the old lady out into the dark night.
Except that it wasn’t. A round orange moon shone in the dark sky. Lighting the scene with a strange light that changed the familiar garden into a magical place of shifting shapes and wavering shadows. And magic was in the air. Because the faeries were on the move. Led by Titania on her white mare and Oberon on his black stallion, in a clatter of tiny hooves and tinkling bells. Trooping along winding pathways edged by dense hedges where small birds fluttered and small creatures scuttled. Swooping through the dark forest. Whirling through the starry sky in a dance that grew ever wilder, so that Fat Cat was forced to grip with his teeth onto the old lady’s cloak in order to keep up. Until a grassy clearing appeared beneath them and they dropped as one into a circle of red and white spotted mushrooms.
There were certain advantages in being a cat, Fat Cat thought, as he landed safely on his four paws on the mossy grass. But as the old lady opened her basket all other thoughts faded from his mind. The warm bread thickly spread with butter and bramble jelly; the smoky brown honey that filled his mouth as he crunched into the crisp sugary mooncakes and the fizzy bubbles of elderflower champagne popping on his rough tongue, occupying his mind completely until his tummy was as round and tight as a drum and he couldn’t manage another mouthful.
Only then, did he hear the haunting sound of the faerie pipers as the faeries began to dance. Slowly at first with a graceful, hypnotic motion, like a wheel, turning almost imperceptibly, into a twirling, whirling dance. As the beat quickened the energy built. A cone of power rose into the sky, exploding on the first stroke of midnight into a thousand fragments of glittering stars.
The old lady smiled at Fat Cat and Fat smiled back at her. For the time being all was well with the world.
Read more about the adventures of Fat Cat in The Faerie Baby Trilogy - Faerie Baby, Moon Magic and The Stone Dragon. Available from Amazon and other online stores. Or visit http://www.faeriebaby.com/
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