Catgirl System

Right outside the cabin, not far from the kitchen’s side-door, there were two open tin canisters full of trash in burlap sacks. They weren’t just full—they were beginning to tower. Maybe Vencians had never heard of compost piles. Or, rather, the animals of the forest were their compost piles. I saw a couple of crows standing on top and pecking at the trash like entrails, but it seemed no animal would take more than a few scraps. Obviously the cans were intended for some true omnivores with hardy stomachs—no wonder Bayce and Reed had been talking about getting the raccoons to deal with the trash last night.

Why didn’t they just magic it away? Did that cost money? Too time-consuming? Why didn’t they just buckle down and develop their own tougher stomachs so they could eat their own trash themselves? I’d asked myself similar questions about humans in the city more times than I could count.

Now that I stood in Reed’s room with my head up high like a scuba diver’s snorkel, sniffed deply, and really mulled over what I was picking up, I was discovering that the ripe smell today was the natural consequence of the not-that-bad smell of last night. I knew the problem all too well. There was too much old meat and bone in there.

“Oh yeah!” Reed finally said. “That trash, I’ve been meaning to go deal with it. Ever since the raccoons, um…” She waved the subject away, obviously not wanting to insult me. I knew what she was referring to, though: when I came and lapped up the raccoons’ milk offering, their living trash disposal armada had taken it to heart and never come back. “Ever since that happened, we’ve just been ignoring the issue. So I’ll jump on it! I’ll go change after a shower.”

She dug through a dresser and rushed away. I seriously hoped she wasn’t about to head out without slowing down and eating first! Well, fine, if taking out the trash was only gonna last five minutes, maybe that was okay.

But now that I had started the day with Reed, I kind of wanted to keep this going.

When she showed me her room and all of the artistry in it, she showed me the innermost parts of her mind—or that’s what it felt like to me. Even if I still couldn’t totally grasp art or the need for it, I knew what it meant to master technique and to revel in your power to do it, then experiment, innovate. And whatever I couldn’t grasp, somehow I trusted to be amazing.

Was Reed a master or an amateur? I wasn’t equipped in the slightest to tell one way or the other.

To me, it didn’t matter.

I hopped down the stairs and caught Bayce in the den. She was making space for the dining table, looking both fabulous and exhausting. How was that even possible?

“Meow,” I said in greeting.

“Hey, cat,” she said groggily. “I forgot to ask, did you scrounge up any feathers while you were away?”

Without hesitation, I summoned the sack full of magpie feathers. Sadly, I unleashed it a little too high up, and several were sent puffing and drifting in the air above us.

Bayce coughed, but they were joyful coughs! Swishing one hand in the air, she said, “Aw, this is amazing! I can—BLEH, KEH-HEH—really put a hurting on your cantrip with this!”

Okay, maybe those were no longer joyful coughs, but at least she was more authentically happy now than that time I gave her a useless decaying spellbook.

Quest: Collect Ingredients for the Reading Cantrip
Progress: 66% (2/3)

Bayce managed to shove most of the lost feathers back in, then sealed it up with a rubber band from a kitchen cabinet. The bag disappeared, seemingly into one of four bracelets she was currently wearing. She looked chipper, but the cough and the bags under her eyes were kind of…

“Meow?” I asked.

“The what?”

I pointed a paw at her face.

“You like my eyes?”

Um, incidentally yes I did, but I ignored that and instead made a curving motion.

“Rings under my eyes?”

Nod nod.

She sighed hugely. “Oh, it’s nothing. I stayed up way past bedtime—not that I have a real bedtime, but—yeah, I mean, there’s a lot to catch up on. I was trying to cram the names of all the famous anatomagi they’ll expect me to know…”

“Meow?”

“No! No, I forgot everything. Then I just read magazines. Ah…” She was overcome with a yawn. “Seriously, cat, you and these cantrips are like the light of my life right now. I can’t make myself excited about anything else but school, stars, and food.”

Was that even a compliment? I hadn’t done anything except be needy and occasionally provide for my own needy needs. I meowed graciously, though.

My ears picked up something: absence of a sound. The shower upstairs had just cut off, reminding me of Reed’s existence. Which gave me the idea to ask Bayce about Reed—or “ask,” with extremely heavy scare quotes.

I dashed off without explanation to pick up an item I’d seen on the floor, apparently dropped.

Then I was back, and I de-Inventorized it on the table that Bayce had just set out.

“A paintbrush, eh?” she said. “Thanks but no thanks. This already belongs to someone.”

I stared up at her from the other side of the table, pressing for more.

“Yes, yes, more information: this is Reed’s paintbrush, one of many, and she cherishes them. Long nights she spends painting stories of the stars. Except you can’t understand those stories when you look at them unless you’ve got an essay on a placard right next to ‘em.” She shrugged. “I’m a plebeian.”

“Meow…”

“I didn’t mean she sucks at it!” Bayce cried, taking offense at me taking offense. “It’s just a school of art I’ll never understand. Sometimes I do like the pretty colors. But me as Plebeian Art Critic admires her wood carvings a lot more. Just wish she would paint some stuff with obvious living creatures in it—”

Her last word ended with an odd tone, an offbeat. At this point, I’d been in enough human conversations to notice when a sentence stopped wrong. A second later, Bayce stared off, eyes narrowed.

“The trash. Why am I smelling the trash?”

A voice hollered from upstairs, “The window’s open!”

Reed was free! And, as she made clear in her next holler, she was deeply sorry about exposing us all to the trash air. A distant window slammed.

“So,” Bayce said nonchalantly, “you two are going out to deal with the trash today, right?”

My eyes shone like the sun.

“Meow!” I cried. I would’ve done a hopping dance if I wasn’t afraid that would inspire Bayce to pick me up.

“That’s wonderful!” she cooed. “And are you going to arbitrarily extend that journey so that Reed can take a flippin’ break for once?”

U-uh, sure?!

Wait, that wasn’t such a terrible idea after all!

In fact, the extension didn’t even have to be arbitrary! I’d need to go down to the absurdly pointy southern mountains for the last piece of my reading cantrip. I needed to collect poledust from the Kaugs, and as Bayce had told me many days ago, that was a highly technical matter—I’d need an extra pair of hands.

Not to dismiss Reed as nothing more than hands. She was also a blade! And the hands could draw! …Never mind, this was sounding worse.

Now Bayce was dancing around, for real! It was a disturbing sight. But cool that she was so thrilled about Reed enjoying an impromptu camping trip!

…Reed would enjoy it, right?

I couldn’t very well ask that question, so I’d just have to watch Bayce propose the idea and judge whether Reed liked having a surprise like that sprung on her.

We let her command the kitchen first. Breakfast was peach wedges, waffles, catfish steak fried in breading and some kind of burgundy juice, and – magpies! A bunch of magpies! Chora must’ve brought that in. I hoped she’d get some good leftovers to eat. Not only that, but these were artfully prepared with pieces salvaged from the magpuck!

Reed had really put a hurting on this dish. She’d done it up like an exhibit in one of those ancient 1950s cookbooks, the ones with recipes nobody in the years since would even consider food. Magpie feathers were stuck into the rind of a big fruit between a tomato and a pumpkin, as if they were dusty flower petals or the rays of an evil sun. Two grapey fruits were also stabbed into the tomato-pumpkin with toothpicks. These were the eyes. The whole thing “levitated” over its plate thanks to a glass stand. But the piece de resistance was the eight spiderleg-prongs radiating out from the bottom of the fruit. Magpuck legs and other spare parts were scattered ornamentally around this centerpiece.

At least everything smelled good.

Besides, it was made with love! As Reed and assistant Bayce brought in the goods platter by platter, Reed said modestly, “This is my first time cooking magpies and magpucks, but I just ported over my recipe for chickens. I hope it works well enough!”

“Reed,” said Bayce, dead serious, “if it weren’t for you, I’d be eating nothing but frog ribs. As long it doesn’t contain oats, this whole house is happy.”

“Meow! Meow!”

Reed rubbed the back of her neck. “Thank you, you two.”

The only way I could reassure her was by digging in with the rest.

***

The first order of business at the breakfast table: describing the starsigns influencing yesterday and today!

“Reed,” said Bayce, popping a thick waffle slice into her mouth, “I’m seeing a good chance for connection in your future.”

“That’s because my cat friend,” said Reed, biting off half a crispy magpuck leg, “is welcome to help me take out the trash.”

“But,” said Bayce, “what if…”

“What if what?”

“What if Cheyoran was hovering over the Kaugs tomorrow?”

Reed paused in her chewing, looked away for a moment. “It would mean that I should be there tomorrow?”

Bayce hammered the table. “That’s right! What if the cat was also, by sheer coincidence, going down to the Kaugs to collect some poledust? And what if she’d never done it before and could use some help?”

With a giggle, Reed copied her insincerity. “Well, gee, it would seem that I really should join her!”

I nodded my approval, and after that, Bayce taught us both a little about the poledust extraction process. There was more to it than simply walking up to the mountains and milking its…mountain…udders. It involved a drill, and a “stabilizer,” and other complicated stuff that went in one ear and out the other. She also told Reed to bring a coat.

Wait…surely we weren’t going that far south…

Once the plates were put away (goodbye, crispy wine fish-steak and surprisingly flavorful magpie meat), Bayce led us to her room, where she brought out tools for what was quickly becoming an all-out expedition.

“This,” she said, opening a barn-red toolbox complete with handle, “is Ms. Lily Gnaeomi’s old Kaug toolkit. On this side is the equipment for boring and suction. On the other are some hiking implements—stakes, rope, a repurposed scythe, and some really old trail mix. Throw that out,” she said, casting the nasty food aside into a corner of her room, to be buried and rediscovered many years from now. “You won’t necessarily need the hiking stuff, but they will make decent improvised weapons. Not that you’ll need them,” she said with a nod to Reed, “but the cat, maybe. No offense.”

“Meow,” I said meekly, even though I was certain I could kick Bayce into next week.

“Speaking of weapons,” said Reed, hands behind her back, “I haven’t made new arrows yet, and my favorite travel Spells need recharging… Can I borrow some of yours, please?”

“Ha! As usual, I laugh in your face for being overly polite.”

“It will never stop,” Reed said, smiling sweetly.

“In any case, yes, I have plenty of stuff you can use, as long as you make your own next go-around. And just in case you don’t know,” she told me, “Spells are one-time use. Equipment lasts, cantrips last, Spells don’t.”

“My favorite Spells are buffs,” Reed threw in, “but I always bring a few Healing Spells and long-range attacks.”

“You never know when you might need an Attraction Spell,” Bayce said.

She sifted through the mountains of things and brought out a delicate wooden box engraved with a pattern like shifting, wind-curled waters. Inside were several tiny compartments. Each one held several twine-wrapped bundles of commonplace, disposable objects: pebbles, wood chips, pencil tips, coal flakes, clips of yarn and string, fruit stems, dried leaves, beads, and many more along the same lines. It only took a millisecond for me to realize that the palm-sized fireplace fuel I’d seen last night was of a piece with these.

On the underside of the lid were microscopic words, each paragraph matching up with a different compartment. The way Reed looked up and down from these words to the objects confirmed that these, of course, were notes on the objects and the magic they held.

“Humans cast magic one Spell at a time,” Bayce told me as Reed quietly took her pick. “I’ve never heard of any kind of spirit, soulbound included, casting a human-made Spell. Then again, you folks tend to come with your own. I’d have to guess that spirits never find themselves in the need to try, and Spells do need to be carried… Would you want to try?”

I had Skills, but sure, why not? Why wouldn’t I want to expand my arsenal? I meowed.

“Why don’t you take what Reed’s taking? That could be kind of heartwarming.”

Sure! I was more excited to get on the road than to hear a patient explanation of every single type of magic in that box.

Reed handed me five skin-smearing chips of coal—Fire Spells in the making. Then she gave me tiny braids of beadwork, along with stems that smelled like cinnamon and cloves. These all went into my Inventory, thankfully grouped by category and not sprawled across twenty different spaces.

Inventory: 5/5

Chora’s Crystal Ring

Debug Blade

Fire Spell x5
A bundle of wood, charcoal, and a hint of kindarin pepper. Casts a fireball, either in place or as a projectile, depending on intent.

Minor Heal x5
A braid of beads colored white, yellow, red, blue, and green to represent the five humors of the body as depicted in some branches of Vencian folk medical belief. Heals a small amount of HP.

Attack Up x5
A bundle of cinnamon sticks, chicory, cloves, and white pepper. Boosts Attack for a limited time.

Were the first two items even worth keeping? One was for a total emergency and the other was an object I didn’t even know how to use safely. But I just had a good feeling about hanging onto both. I thought of it this way: if I left them at home at a time when I absolutely did need them, I would kick myself forever and/or in the afterlife. Plus, I could eat stuff I encountered on the road.

If this box was all the magic the cabin could spare, then we really were short on resources. Reed and I set the Fire Spells and Attack Ups to single digits and exhausted the supply of Minor Heals.

At that, Bayce quirked her mouth to the side. “You know who’s makin’ these, right?”

“I’ll help.”

Bayce whistled. “And you remember what you’re in for?”

Reed held up one placating hand. “As long as I get the chance to stick my head out and breathe once an hour…trust me, I’m fine being your beleaguered assistant!”

Stick her head out of where? “Meow?” I asked, though I knew I was little more than a bystander in this conversation.

“Oh, ‘beleaguered’ means ‘put-upon.’”

I shook my head. “Meoww?” I said a little more insistently.

“Nah, bringing a spirit in would probably jack up the process. No offense. It’s just something about mortal brain structures.”

Yeah, just a bystander.

Well, knock on wood, this trip wouldn’t be life-ending and we could return a little something to the box. That way, Reed and Bayce wouldn’t have to subject themselves to hours of hard labor in this mysterious Spellcrafting Sauna while Chora looked from afar, with pity.

In the meantime: yay! As long as Reed had enough Inventory space to carry the trash, we were ready to go!