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Much had faded from his memories, but Leo had always been resourceful and excelled at landing on his feet—literally and figuratively. He was a born hunter, and even if he was smaller than the humans, he refused to become their prey. Checking exits, learning to open latches not intended for his use had become a staple in his life from the time before became now.
But just as Leo was about to dash into the surrounding winter fields and the coming dawn, Archie called for him again. “Puss, I know you’re here, and I know you’re not a normal cat.”
Just like that, Leo froze, fully caught in another man’s trap.
Chapter 3
Caterwaul
Leo dropped from the rafters to the floor. His tail up in a slight hook, he let Archie corner him without a struggle. After years of being called “puss” or being completely ignored. After years of dodging dogs and hunting smaller vermin. I know you’re not a normal cat . . . How did Archie know it? Leo wasn’t entirely certain himself. He suspected. He hoped. He had flashes of before—but to know? And if the boy knew that, what else did he know?
Would it be anything Leo longed to know himself?
The very idea was enough to keep his thoughts whirling and his paws still. Archie carried Leo out of the mill and up the hill, standing by one of the neighboring wheat fields that overlooked the river connected to the mill’s waterwheel. Only Leo’s ear twitched like it had a mind of its own.
Really, Leo didn’t like being held. It was constricting and made him feel far too small and ridiculous. Like someone’s doll.
Archie was far too old to be indulging in such a juvenile practice.
But Leo was able to push those feelings away again as Archie began to speak, the words morose and dreamy as the boy frequently was. “Father’s dead. I don’t know if you knew that. I know you don’t come around the mill every day.”
No, Leo hadn’t known the elder man had passed, but he also couldn’t say the news surprised him. The late miller had been overworking and neglecting himself for at least the last four years—all the years Leo had known him. Unhealthy and more prone to the deadly sort of fevers the winter months were famous for.
“We read the will yesterday,” Archie said, forcing lightness to his words. “Father gave Rupert the mill and house. And then Harris got the donkey and cart, so he’ll be able to deliver our flour all over Castletown and take other jobs as a carrier. There’s enough work for both of them to make their fortunes together.”
He smiled then, or at least he seemed to be giving it his best try.
Archie was like that. Daydreaming. Smiling when he had no proper reason to. A cat would be more sensible. “And you know what? I’m glad for them. My brothers are good, responsible men. They will work hard and use their birthrights to provide a good life for themselves and the women they will marry.”
As Archie continued to caterwaul and spill out all his troubles, Leo squirmed. How else could the cat tell the boy to get to the point without shutting him up altogether?
Archie only patted him in response. Ugh.
“Rupert already has his eyes on that goose girl. The one with the freckles? I saw her at the last barn-raising, and he’s not the only boy she’s been winking at, but now that he has the mill, he’ll outstrip all the farmhands and errand boys to win her over soon enough. And that’s just as it should be.”
Archie’s attempts at petting Leo became stiff and wooden.
“Because Father didn’t completely forget about me. I thought he might—he sometimes does. A man doesn’t really need three sons—he said that once when he was drinking and missing Mother something fierce. He said I was nothing but another mouth to feed. But right at the end Rupert saw it, and he showed me so I could see it too. Rupert got the mill. Harris got the cart. And I got you.”
What? No. Leo was no one’s servant and no one’s pet. He refused to belong to anyone, so how could he possibly be given to someone else? It was absurd. It was criminal. The injustice swept through his veins, and Leo remembered he had claws. The boy knew nothing, and Leo didn’t have to put up with any of this nonsense.
He swiped. His weaponized claws tore through the miller boy’s flesh in a fluid arc.
Archie yelled and dropped him.
Leo, of course, landed on his feet. He started to sprint through the late winter melt. He would never come back to the mill again.
The boy was madder than a spring hare, and all the mice in the world weren’t worth this.
“I know you aren’t a normal cat!” Archie yelled, holding his scratched wrist and gasping after Leo.
And like the words carried a spell, Leo found his paws slowing once he was hidden behind the bent brown stalks of the fallow winter field. Enough to hear what might come next.
“You’re not normal,” Archie said, more confidently, though he didn’t try to catch the cat again. “You react to everything we say, and the way you hunt mice? All those traps and things you build?” His head slumped as if caught by the hopelessness of his situation.
“When we read the will, Harris laughed and said you’d be worthless unless I wanted one night’s dinner or a fancy new fur muff, but I know there is something—magic about you. Like a faerie or even a djinn. And those with magic like making deals, don’t they? So I thought, whatever you were, maybe you would make a deal with me. Help me build my fortune, puss, and I’ll find a way to help you too.”
* * *
