The Tangle Box

Dirk was licking one paw diligently. “I wasn’t sent. I am never sent. I go where I choose.”


“Excuse me,” she apologized. “Why did you choose to come, then?”

Lick, lick, lick. “I can’t remember, really. It seemed like a good idea, I guess.” Lick, lick.

“Can you tell me where we are going?”

“West,” the cat said. Lick, lick.

“Yes, but ...”

Dirk stopped preening and gave her his cat look, the one that suggested sly amusement, deep understanding, grave concern, and total amazement all at the same time. “Just one moment, please. You are losing me. Don’t you know where we’re going?”

She shook her head in confusion. “No, not really.”

He stared at her thoughtfully. “Oh, dear,” he said. “Oh, well. I guess we will just have to find our way as best we can.” And he went back to licking himself.

A little while later she grew brave enough to ask him again, taking a slightly different approach.

“We should reach the fairy mists by the day after tomorrow,” she advised cautiously. “Once there, what do we do?”

Dirk had finished his bath by now and was seated on a patch of grass close by the fire, paws tucked under himself, eyes closed.

The eyes opened to slits. “We pass through the mists into Holiday’s world.” The eyes closed.

“How do we do that?”

The eyes came open again, a bit wider. “What kind of question is that? I must say I will never understand humans.”

“I am a sylph.”

“Or sylphs.”

Willow’s lips tightened. “It is just that I am concerned for my baby. I am required to do these things to protect its birthing, but I do not know how I am to do them.”

Dirk regarded her with genuine interest. “Cats learn early on that very little is accomplished by worrying. Cats also know that things have a way of working out, even when the means are kept hidden from us. Best to deal with things as they arise, and let the future take care of itself.”

“That seems very shortsighted,” she ventured.

Dirk might have shrugged; it was hard to tell. “I am a cat,” he offered, as if that explained everything.

She didn’t talk to him about the matter again that night or all the next day, and so by nightfall when they had crossed out of the lake country and passed up into the foothills that bordered the fairy mists, she was surprised when he brought it up again of his own accord.

“Tomorrow morning, I will take you through the mists,” he advised as she worked on building the requisite evening fire. She had spread her cloak on the ground close by, and Dirk had taken a comfortable seat on it.

She looked over at him. “You can do that?” she asked.

“Of course I can do that,” he replied, sounding a bit put-upon. “I live there, remember? I know all the paths and passageways.”

“I suppose I just wasn’t sure what you could or couldn’t do.” She rocked back on her heels. “I didn’t know if fairy creatures could pass out of the mists anywhere or into any land. I thought it might be limited somehow.”

Dirk yawned. “You thought wrong. Cats can go anywhere. Nothing new in that.”

“Do you know where we will come out?” she pressed.

He thought it over a moment. “A city, I think. Does it matter?”

She felt her exasperation with him getting away from her. “Yes, it does. I am going back to a world in which I once almost died. I am doing so against my will and for the sake of my child. I want to go there, do what I was sent to do, and leave again immediately. What are the chances of that happening?”

Dirk rose, stretched, and sat. “I haven’t the faintest idea.” He regarded her solemnly. “It all depends on you, I suppose.”

“Yes, but I don’t know where we are going,” she insisted. “I know I am supposed to gather soil from Ben’s world, but I don’t know where that soil is supposed to be found. It is a rather big world to be looking through, you know.”

“Well, I don’t know,” the cat said. “I have never been there. But everywhere is pretty much the same to a cat. I am quite certain we will find what we need without having to look too hard. I have a gift for uncovering secrets.”

She went back to building the fire, finished the job, stepped back, and looked over at him. “How many secrets do you know, Dirk?” she asked quietly. “Do you know secrets about me?”

The cat blinked. “Of course.”

“And about Ben?”

“Holiday? Yes, a few.”

“Can you tell them to me?”