by Anthea Sharp
Cat blinked—and then gave a loud guffaw. It was a measure of their growing friendship that he could tease her this way.
But later, when he was back in in his apartment getting ready for bed, he replayed the conversation in his head and admitted that what Cat said was true: Mortals and Folk rarely crossed the invisible circles they drew around themselves. With sudden clarity, he knew that he couldn’t expect the Folk to change. They had reasons for being cautious. They were already swallowed up in a world where their voices were rarely heard. The only people who could change that were the mortals.
The next time he saw Cat at the club, he broached his idea. She listened without interrupting, her ears pricked forward.
“So, let me get this straight,” she said when he paused to take a sip of his drink, “you want to find a Folk song to take to your producer. A song that mortals will like. A song that will, what, win you the producer’s job?”
“When you put it like that, it sounds so self-serving,” Liam complained. “Even if Barry wasn’t going to retire, I think it’s time that mortals started listening to the songs of the Folk.”
“Why?” Cat said, leaning back in her chair. “Because you think we’re entertaining?” It wasn’t quite, but it was almost a sneer. Liam flushed.
“Because I think your music has something important to say.”
“Mortals don’t want to hear what we have to say.”
“I do,” Liam said.
Cat turned her gaze on him. “You’re…different. You’re…weird.”
* * *
Despite her initial reservations, Cat told him she’d see if any of her musician friends were interested in having a song produced by a mortal recording company. Weeks went by and Liam began to despair, but one evening when he arrived at the club, Cat was sitting with the woman in red he’d heard sing on his first visit. In the twinkling lights he could see the points of her ears peeking from her long hair. An elf? Or a fairy? He wanted to ask but sensed that his prying would be unwelcome. If it was important to know, she’d mention it.
Cat wasted no time. “Moira’s agreed to let you take a demo to your boss.”
Moira opened her palm and held out an ordinary looking flash drive. “I wrote it,” she said. Her voice was as soothing and melodious when she spoke as when she sang.
“But you can’t tell anyone that,” Cat said. “Just say that it’s a fairy tune you found. Keep it anonymous.”
“But—“ Liam said, but Cat cut him off.
“That’s the deal,” she said. “Take it or leave it.”
He took it, of course. The other two assistants had already presented Barry King with music they were sure would rocket to the top of the charts. If he didn’t come up with something soon, he’d be out of the running for any kind of promotion, and maybe out of a job altogether.
He scheduled time in the smallest of the recording booths to play back the song Moira had given him. Handing the flash drive to the sound technician, he looked closely to see if he was the Folk that Cat had mentioned. Hard to tell—a reality that made Liam feel both guilty and sad. One day the Folk wouldn’t have to hide like this.
“So, what you got for me?” Barry swept into the room in a characteristic hurry. Liam nodded and the sound tech toggled a switch. Moira’s voice started out low and then filled the room, the lyrics and notes conveying such heartfelt longing that Liam caught his breath. Darting a glance at the sound tech, he saw that the man’s mouth had fallen open. Barry rocked back and forth on his heels, his hands pressed together like someone in prayer.
When the song ended, everyone seemed to give a collective sigh. A moment of silence, and then Barry clapped.
“You did it, kid,” he said, delighted. “This is what I’ve been looking for.”
For the rest of the afternoon Liam walked on air—not just because he’d pleased Barry and helped his own career, but because now more people would actually hear the songs of the Folk. Or at least one song. His thoughts were racing—how to convince Moira to write more, how to convince the other Folk to follow her lead. He could imagine a crossover genre of Folk and mortal music, appealing to a diverse audience hungry for something new and unified. He texted Cat and suggested that they meet for dinner that night to celebrate.
Choose your favorite restaurant, he wrote. It will be my treat.
With a start, he realized that they’d never shared a meal. Most of their time together was at the music club, though once she’d taken him to the graphic design office where she worked and showed him the new project she was working on. Another time he’d coaxed her to show him her paintings—and though he had hoped it would involve taking him to her apartment where she had hung most of her work, when she pulled out her phone and scrolled through her photographs of her paintings instead, he wasn’t disappointed.
If he was brutally honest with himself, he had to admit that underneath every conversation, every music set listened to at her side, every drink sipped slowly while he stole glances at her lurked something less like friendship and more like love. There, he’d admitted it. He was falling for her—not just her outward, exotic beauty, but her clever mind, her quick wit, her open and generous heart.
Suddenly he had something more important to tell her than the good news about Moira’s demo. He’d do it tonight, confess his feelings. The idea of it shortened his breath and made him impatient for the day to slip past. What was it she had said the first time they met—that he had followed her because she wanted him to? What an idiot he was, holding back all this time. She’d obviously been waiting for him to admit what she already sensed—that they should be together.
* * *
“You know this will never work,” she said. As usual, Cat was dressed in white, her black hair pulled up into a complicated, messy knot at the nape of her neck.
Liam set his glass of champagne on the table.
“I hope you’re joking,” he stammered. “That’s not how you usually respond when someone admits he loves you.”
“No joke,” she said, her voice steady and serious. “We can never hope to be together.”
“I don’t…understand what you’re saying.” His throat was dry and he had trouble getting out the words. “I know you have feelings for me.”
Cat ran her fingers along the edge of the table. “I’m saying, we can’t be together. No matter what we feel.”
“That makes no sense.” He tried not to sound angry, but Cat looked up in surprise.
“Look,” she said, “we live in different worlds. We have different customs, traditions, histories.”
“Which is part of the reason I fell for you,” Liam said, his voice rising.
“Oh, I see. I’m your exotic fetish.”
His voice rose louder. “You don’t really think that.”
Cat blinked and toyed with the stem of her wine glass. “No. I don’t think that.”
“Then give me a reason I can understand,” Liam said. “I want to be with you.”
“We are together. We’re good friends. Best friends. We talk about everything.”
“That’s not the same and you know it.”
The silence lay like a dead thing between them. In the distance, a chair scraped the floor as a diner stood up. Ambient music, insipid and dull, wafted and waned. Liam could hear his heartbeat in his ears.
“I guess I should go,” he said at last. He looked up to see if Cat would object, but she met his gaze with her unblinking green eyes. He refolded his dinner napkin and placed it on the table before standing up.
“I’m sorry,” Cat said.
Liam opened his mouth to say something, anything, but no words came. He nodded and left without looking back.
* * *
“We’re in serious trouble. Serious trouble,” Barry King told him at the next Monday roundtable brainstorming session. The other two assistants sat on the other side of the table, smirking. “The song’s great. I like it. Heck, I love it. I’m ready to put a contract on it now.”
<
br /> Liam waited a beat. “But?” he said.
“But, I’ve given it to our best singers, and it’s no good. It’s flat. Or phony. Something. I don’t know what to call it. It doesn’t work. I need the right singer. If we had a singer, we’d have something, but without the singer, well, we have nothing. So here’s the deal, boys. Whoever can find the right singer for this song, you get this job. Miami’s calling me. My wife is ready to move today without me. Sick of this weather, ready for the sun. I don’t blame her.”
The next month was a fruitless, pointless waste of time. Like he had before, Liam visited the music clubs around the city—some large and well-known, others just holes in the wall. When he wasn’t working, he flopped in a funk on his bed, scrolling through his phone, until Robbie became concerned.
“Dude, you have to stop moping over a woman,” he said. “It wasn’t going to work anyway. You need to move on.”
Liam felt his hackles go up. “Why wasn’t it going to work? What do you know about it?”
“She’s an anthromorph, right? They have their people, we have ours. That’s just the way it is.”
Stubborness had kept him away from the Folk club. Now stubbornness drove him back—or a desire to prove Robbie wrong. Maybe Cat couldn’t love him, but she could be his friend. Surely mortals and Folk could have some connection. Surely they weren’t condemned to living out their lives in parallel worlds, vaguely aware of each other without finding more than just accidental intersections.
He was on the train to Bushwick to head to the club when his phone buzzed, a text from Cat.
I miss you.
As if she knew he was coming. Hardly a declaration of love, but something.
She was sitting at their customary table when he arrived. When he sat down, she slipped her hand in his.
“I got your text,” Liam said. “Was it true?”
“You know it was.”
The music started then, an energetic piano player whose pallor gave away his vampyre origins. He played a single rollicking tune, and then Moira joined him on stage.
“That’s it,” Liam said. “That’s what’s missing.” Cat eyed him oddly. “The song. Barry King liked the song. He said he loved the song. But without Moira, it’s nothing. She brings it to life. It has to be her voice.”
“She won’t, you know,” Cat said. “I had a hard enough time convincing her to sell the song.”
“I need her!” Liam gestured toward the stage with his free hand. “The world needs her! She could be a Folk ambassador, bringing music to the masses!”
“You goofball,” Cat said. “Don’t get your hopes up. She’ll never agree.”
But Moira did. Swiftly, agreeably, happily when she joined them at their table later. Liam had the unmistakable sense that Cat had said something to her beforehand, had greased the proverbial skids, had made the case for trusting him.
Jubilant, bouncing as he walked Cat out of the club later, Moira’s promise to meet him at the studio in the morning giving him a loopy smile, Liam took Cat’s hands in his and swung her around on the sidewalk. A bemused couple angled around them. A car horn honked, a cabbie thrusting his arm up in salute out his open window. Above them, the stars were spangled brightly across the night sky.
With a sudden impulse, he stopped their twirl and slid his arms around Cat’s waist. Her face was tipped up at his, and before he could stop himself, he leaned into a kiss.
A moment later she stepped back. “You know we can’t do this.”
“We are doing this.”
“This is nothing but trouble. We’ll cause each other pain.”
Liam tugged her close again. “So said every couple in the history of the universe.”
He felt her relax then, as if she had decided to give in to the inevitable.
* * *
Of course Barry didn’t keep his word.
“It’s not enough to have the song and the singer,” he told Liam and the two office assistants at the Monday brainstorming session after Moira recorded her song. Already the rumors around the office were that Barry had a big hit on his hands—or a big flop.
Inspired, some of his friends told him. Unprecedented. Music like no other.
“Have you lost your mind,” his golf buddies told him. “What audience is going to go for this?”
Liam crossed his arms and sat back, waiting for Barry to tell how, once again, retirement would have to wait, how he needed just one more thing before he could bow out.
“If I had the right promoter,” Barry said, “who could schedule some major venues, then this record would be sure to take off. Someone who can put together a good concert tour—get the buzz going about our new incredible Folk singer—then we could drop the record, up the airtime, and we’re off. Tons of exposure. Tons of money.”
Liam closed his eyes and tipped his head back. This was never going to end. First there was the quest for the song, and that wasn’t enough. Then he brought Barry King the singer, and that wasn’t enough. Even if he did find a talented promoter, Liam knew it wouldn’t be enough. Barry would send them off looking for something else—an advertising team, a marketing campaign, a television show, a full page spread in Variety.
It. Would. Never. End.
“You have an idea, Liam?” Barry’s voice was curt and abrupt. Liam opened his eyes.
“Not a single one,” he said. “Not anymore.”
He saw Barry’s eyes widen as he stood up and started for the door.
“Where are you going!”
Liam paused, swiveled around, and said, “I’m done with this journey. I have other places to go.”
* * *
He had to ring the bell twice before Cat buzzed him in. He took the steps two at a time and reached the top of the stairs right as she opened her door.
She was dressed in a white bathrobe, her hair loose about her shoulders. If she was surprised to see him, she didn’t let on.
“I quit,” he said without preamble. “I told Barry King goodbye. Adios. Arrivederci. Vamoos—“
“I get it,” Cat said. “You’re now unemployed.” She pulled the door all the way open and stepped aside. Liam crossed the room and fell back heavily in an overstuffed armchair.
“I am now unemployed,” he agreed.
Cat slinked across the room with deliberate slowness and perched on the arm of the chair. Her hand snaked out and she ran her fingers along the line of Liam’s jaw.
“Just like that, you quit,” she said. “After everything I did to help you.”
She sounded more amused than irritated. Liam felt her fingertips trail down the side of his neck and flick at the edge of his collar.
“After everything you did to help me, yes, I quit.”
Cat slid off her perch into his lap, her arms tucked up on his chest where she rested her head. Liam bent down and let his cheek touch her hair.
“I’m not sorry you quit. It wasn’t the right job for you. I like your idea, though.” Her voice was muffled and she sat up to continue. “About finding some common ground between Folk and mortals. Music’s one way, but it’s not the only way.”
Liam stroked Cat’s hair away from her face. Her expression was intense, as if by force of will she could make him understand what she was saying.
“What else did you have in mind?” he asked. Cat’s expression didn’t change.
“Book stores that sell books of magic as well as whatever mortals read. Art galleries that have Folk art on display next to mortal sculptures. Work places that have more than just a token Folk employed. A Folk Senator. Maybe even a Folk President.”
Her eyes were shining. “And one day, we would realize that sure, we were Folk and mortals, but we were also all people, and we would enjoy the differences and celebrate them, but we would celebrate our commonality, too. And it wouldn’t be weird to talk to anyone about whatever we wanted without being afraid, and no one care if an anthromorph was a cat who had fallen in love with a man, and the man would finally know—once and
for all—what he had been looking for when he followed her into the club.”
“I was looking for a song to take to Barry King,” Liam said primly, but Cat laughed.
“Of course you weren’t,” she said, blinking like a cat content in a warm patch of sunlight. “You were looking for me.”
~END~
* * *
AUTHOR’S NOTE
“The White Cat” is a French fairy tale about a king who sends his three sons on several quests to prove that they are worthy to rule the kingdom. The king is reluctant to retire, however, and the quests he sets for his sons seem impossible. His youngest son stumbles upon the castle of a white cat who helps him meet the conditions of the quests. By the end of the story, she reveals that fairies had enchanted her into the shape of a cat, but with the youngest prince’s help, she is freed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kay McSpadden is an award-winner author (Norman Mailer Writing Award, Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Fiction Festival, CWC Fiction Prize, Novello finalist), whose work includes literary fiction, a regular newspaper column, and science fiction and fantasy short stories.
King Arthur and the Chalice of Life
Julia Crane
Arthur went about looking for his wife; she was nowhere to be found on the grounds. Strange, he thought, but perhaps she had decided to go into town. Very unlikely, but you never knew with women.
He felt the urge to do something, anything really. The days had begun to blur together. Peacetime was good for the common folk, but it was dissatisfying to a warrior. He and his knights were anxious to see action. There was always a push and pull within him. Being king, he knew peace was the answer; being a knight, he craved the madness of war—the bloodshed, the feeling that your life could be taken from you at any moment. So much power radiates throughout one’s body during such a time.
Alas, he would have to find another way to keep his blood pumping. His love for his wife always stirred a deep desire within him. He found he wanted to find her and ravish her under the setting sun. Where could she be?