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The World Walkers: Raenarin: Rachel: Becoming Human (part 2)
Rachel stared at herself, not entirely able to believe what she was seeing, because if she really did look like that then she’d been a cat for much longer than she thought she had. Slowly she ran her hands down her sides, trying to stop the tears from falling once again. The day the witch came, the very angry witch, she was ten years old, and she could remember that day like it was yesterday, even though she didn’t want to. At first everything had seemed fine, but when she looked back, with the benefit of the years she spent as cat, she realised that the conversation they’d been having wasn’t what she thought it was.
No, they, her father and the witch, were trying to come to an agreement. The man had made a stupid mistake and he had to pay for it, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t think he should. It wasn’t long before the conversation became an argument, which was when Rachel had started worrying, because that was when she knew the witch was angry. One thing she had been taught, by her mother at least, was to never make a witch angry. You never knew what they might do. Shivering, she tried her best not to think of her family or what might have happened to them, as she’d spent years as a cat.
Still naked Rachel went to the door of the bedroom, opened it, and called, “Niall, what year is it?”
Fortunately his reply came from a distance, “It’s 1968.”
Blinking, Rachel shut the door again. That couldn’t possibly be right. She couldn’t have been a cat for over ten years. As she wiped a tear from her cheek she made her way back to the mirror. With the passing of time she had become a woman without even knowing it was happening and as she ran her eyes over her body once more she wished that she’d stayed a cat. Being a cat was simple, mostly, as long as you had someone to look after you, although she could remember times when she found herself sleeping outside, having to hunt mice to stay alive. Even that wasn’t so bad, not really, not in comparison to what had happened to her.
Falling in the bath water had made the spell break… or maybe it was just down to time. Rachel sighed. The witch might have set a time limit on the spell. She didn’t really know enough about magic to know if that was possible or not. Back then she hadn’t really had a reason to learn about it or any interest in the subject and at the time when she might have found herself wanting to study it she’d been sleeping on someone else’s bed, curled up in a ball, because she’d been a cat. Another tear trickled down her cheek, one she didn’t bother to wipe away. Every plan she’d made for the future had become worthless. Until she asked Niall for more information she didn’t even know where she was.
The witch had stolen the time when Rachel should have been becoming an adult, leaving her standing in front of a mirror, seeing herself as the woman she knew she’d become, eventually. Instead of it being a slow process, the process of seeing her body change, go from child to adult, she’d gone from child to cat to adult. She had spent her teenage years as a cat, the body she left behind, as she could see when she looked in the mirror, going through exactly the same changes it would have done if she’d never been transformed.
As Rachel did her best to stop herself from actually crying she looked at the clothes that Niall had put on the bed without her noticing, her focus being entirely on the cat hairs she could still see on the bed, and realised that she had nothing. No money, no clothes, no qualifications… she remembered the conversation she had been having with her teacher, about what steps she needed to take if she wanted to become a Walker, but that wasn’t going to happen. Between them the witch and her father had taken away her choices. Shaking her head she picked up the shirt, that looked much too big for her, and put it on, trying not to marvel at how agile her fingers were. Having hands really was nothing like having paws.
Niall’s trousers were too long, but with the belt he’d left her Rachel managed to make them fit around her waist. He didn’t look like he was much bigger than her, so she was surprised by how loose they were, although she had a feeling it had something to do with the difference between clothes made for women and clothes made for men. She shrugged. It wasn’t as though she really knew anything about clothes, because it had been a long time since she’d had to wear them, and when she did they were very different to what she would have to, somehow, purchase soon. With no money.
It was quickly becoming obvious to Rachel that she was in a very difficult position, in the house of a man she didn’t know, having just been his pet cat, and she had no idea how she was going to extricate herself. More useless tears trickled down her cheeks. She didn’t remember crying so much before she’d become a cat, but then life was very different then. Until it happened she had no idea that a witch would end up turning her into a cat, because that wasn’t exactly something that anyone could imagine happening to them, even though they lived on a magical world, as most people were smart enough not to make a witch angry. Her father, unfortunately, wasn’t.
Shaking her head again at his stupidity Rachel left the bedroom and started walking in the direction she vaguely remembered leading to the kitchen. When she reached it Niall was sitting at the table, still in his dressing gown, with a cup of something hot in front of him. It was the sort of situation her father would have gone to the liquor cabinet to sort, so that made her feel slightly more comfortable with the man who had been her owner. Finding words was impossible, even though she knew she should thank him, so she just sat opposite him, hoping that he would break the silence.
“You’re going to need to tell me what happened,” Niall said, after sipping his hot drink. “I’m pretty sure you were changed by witch magic, though, so it’s not something you need to do any time soon. Just, when you’re ready, because this isn’t something you should deal with alone.”
“I’ve been dealing with it alone since I was ten. I don’t see why things should change now.”
“Rachel…” He trailed off, staring at her. “How long were you a cat?”
“Nearly eleven years.” Rachel pushed all her emotions aside, not wanting to show any weakness in front of him. “A decade of my life spent being a cat.” She shrugged. “It happened and now I’m going to put it all behind me.”
“We both know it’s not going to be that simple. You have nothing and there’s no one here to help you right now, apart from me.” Niall bit his lip. “Even though it’s obvious that you don’t want it you really have no choice but to accept it, at least for now, because you need it. Do you even know where you are?”
“No, I don’t.” She sighed. “I remember the day I was turned into a cat, but I don’t remember as much about my time as a cat. Those memories faded almost as soon as I realised what had happened to me, which may be me trying to protect myself or a part of the magic that was used to transform me, so I’m not certain how I got to be here.”
“After I split up with my long term girlfriend I decided I wanted a companion and I’ve always wanted a cat. She was allergic, so I thought it would be a good way to stop myself going back to her, because we really shouldn’t have stayed together as long as we did. We really weren’t right for each other, but after we’d been together for a couple of years I couldn’t bring myself to end it, no matter how bad things got, because I didn’t want to waste that much of my life.” Niall shook his head. “Finding out you were a cat for more than a decade really puts things into perspective.”
The clock ticked as Rachel stared at him, unable to believe how open he was being with a complete stranger. “Why are you telling me this?”
He smiled. “I don’t want you to be scared of me and I know that being alone with a man you don’t know is probably terrifying to you right now. To be honest I think I’d feel exactly the same way if I was in your position, but the only way I can think of putting you at ease is to tell you about myself and I’ve always had a habit of over sharing. It was something my ex hated about me. I think it might have been one of the reasons she chose to leave me.” Their eyes met for a moment and Rachel could see the concern in his. “When I decided that I started checking out the rescue places. There are plenty of them and witches are well known for dropping off litters of kittens they don’t want. I didn’t know exactly what I was after until I saw you.
“Rachel, you were the most beautiful cat I’ve ever seen. You looked at me with those gorgeous green eyes of yours and I decided then that you were going home with me, no matter what, even though the person who was showing me around tried to convince me to pick any of the other cats that were there. Maybe she knew that you were a human trapped in a cat’s body or maybe it was just that you had been a witch’s cat that had her worried. I don’t know and I didn’t think to ask. All I knew was that I wanted you to come home with me straight away, because I couldn’t bear to think of you living in that cage any longer.
“After what seemed to be a pointlessly long conversation, when they made certain I knew I was going to be taking home a cat who’d once belonged to a witch, I was allowed to take you. You came home with me and settled yourself on the end of the bed almost immediately, as though you knew this was going to be your home. I had you for a week before you fell in the bath.” He sighed. “Now I’m going to have to find myself another cat, although I think this time I’m not going to pick a witch’s cat. They might end up changing into another human and I can only look after one human at a time.”
“You don’t need to look after me, Niall. Just give me the directions to go home and I’ll be out of your hair by the end of the day. I’m sure my mother, at least, will be pleased to see me.”
Niall bit his lip. “You were changed in 1957?” Rachel nodded. “When exactly in 1957?”
“On the first day of winter. We’d celebrated the solstice before the witch arrived and my father being drunk probably didn’t help matters.” Rachel sighed. “All I know for certain was that he made the witch angry.”
“There is a chance I learnt about you at school. In my history class, about three years ago, we were taught about something that happened to a family on the first day of winter in 1957.” Niall ran his tongue over his bottom lip as Rachel tried not to shiver. “Witches are dangerous and it was important that we remembered that, because we would be spending the rest of our lives dealing with them. The story we were told was an example of exactly what a witch would do to you if you treated them badly.”
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.
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