The Witch's Cat and the Spirit's Cloche
by G. J. Brillante
Alveric Olveron the great wizard served no master, but Alveric the cat, unfortunately, did; or, rather, he had to pretend that he did if he ever wanted to attain even a sliver of his former dignity.
Pattering forward on four tiny excuses for legs, he flicked his tail irritably as he and the witch emerged from the bushes. Dahlia refused to carry him. It would have been so much easier to sit upon her shoulder, keeping a watchful eye on the lone, wandering king, but as it was, she would rather have him tread along at her side like some mangy dog even though he was a cat—a situation, granted, that he did not consider to be any better than being a dog—than risk his claws tearing the delicate fabric of her bright gown. Too bright gown. The king would notice them approaching.
She was dressed like the sunrise, after all, in yellow silk overlaid with petal-soft, sheer pink fabric woven from the full morning clouds. Her hair was long and golden, and she had it bound in garlands of thorned vines.
“Who’s there?” the unfortunate king called, unsheathing his sword.
Alveric suppressed a growl. Wyrm and weather! They had been seen prematurely just as he had warned her they would be if she did not, at least, don a cloak. Yet, Dahlia did not like stealth. She wanted to be a rising star, and he knew she hated, above all else, that there was a ceiling to how high her powers could take her. She, for one, could not hope to touch the power of the true stars, those spirits of the Realm of the Stars.
Yet, tonight, she shone. She swept forward with her arms outspread and said, “He who seeks to live like a god among men, mortal king, if you are him, come to my home on the hill that the crescent moon touches, and there I shall unveil a secret to accomplish your quest in return for a place among your court and the jewels filled with twilight you keep in your hoard.”
Alveric sighed. Such petty rewards for the secret she offered, but it was not his problem what she offered the king. He would get his boon in the end.
The king opened and closed his mouth, starved of words to say. Rumor was he hadn’t slept or eaten in weeks, nor had he spoken to anyone since the strange idea filled his head of capturing a spirit from the Realm of the Stars. The king’s advisors, whom he had dismissed before falling mute, had said the king had once dreamed of a dark world with no sun and had ever since then fallen under an unbreakable spell to wander with his head lifted toward the sky in search of a glimpse of the Realm of the Stars, longing for a spirit to capture.
The advisors were right about the spell. The king was enchanted, of course. Alveric was the one who had cursed him.
“My magic has taken effect!” Dahlia said with a squeal.
Alveric wrinkled his nose. Well, it was her magic, but his curse.
“It’s time, kitty.”
Dahlia grinned and flicked her dress at him. Alveric hissed. He knew his cue, and he knew his mark even better. The king would fall prey for his trap.
Although the king had read plenty of stories on how to approach the Realm of the Stars, he did not know how to capture a spirit from the Realm of the Stars and keep the spirit from fading as soon as she breathed mortal air or touched mortal ground.
So, it did not surprise Alveric when the king said, “Aye, witch. I’ll be there, and I’ll give you all my jewels in exchange for this secret. Make me immortal, not a king of ash and bone but of gods!”
“Come. Come then!” Dahlia cried, throwing up her hands. Alveric rolled his eyes and flicked his tail. He drew on his magic, and with the rapid falling of mist that sounded like the hush of a waterfall, they vanished from the king’s sight. He made them appear on the hill that the crescent moon touches.
“Sit and await him. I must tend to my collection,” Dahlia said no sooner than they had arrived.
Alveric hissed, but did not respond otherwise. Oh, Dahlia could do what she liked for all he cared. The poor, unfortunates she called her “collection” had his pity, but he was living the nightmare, for, you see, Dahlia really only knew how to cast one spell on her own, and that spell turned people into beasts; to make matters worse for him, it was the first and only spell he had chosen to teach her.
Dahlia went on her way, and he stayed waiting for the king. It was not long before he heard footsteps walking up the hill that the crescent moon touches. Alveric lifted an eyelid and fixed the king with a golden-brown eye. He narrowed the abyss of his slitted, black pupil. He did not rise to bow to the king; rather, he waited for the king to address him.
“Where is your master?” the king said.
Alveric hissed and wrinkled his pink nose. Slowly, he rose to his feet, stretched his striped orange and tan body, and lifted his long tail into the air. Then, to the king’s annoyance, he sat and licked his paw.
“Dumb beast, you would dare ignore a command from your king?”
Alveric set down his paw, opened his fanged mouth, and said, “I roam between worlds as I please, I serve as I want, and I sleep when I have need. You have interrupted my nap. Begone. The witch is out, but I may still curse you.”
The king raised his fist as if to strike him—the fool!—but he stopped when he arched his back and the hairs on his body rose. He opened his mouth to utter a great curse when the ground swallowed the king whole.
Thus, the king fell into the terrible witch Dahlia’s lair as did he.
With a hiss and a sputter, Alveric landed on his feet and immediately took to licking his paw again, but the king fell flat on the stone ground carved with runes.
“You have marched up my hill that the crescent moon touches, stomped on my roof, and have insulted my cat,” the witch said in a deep and echoing voice. “I should curse you for that.”
The king glanced up, beheld the witch, and hid his trembling hands behind his back. It was clear he was not afraid though, for a boyish grin had overtaken his face. Between Dahlia and him, they were giving the king the adventure he had craved.
“Forgive my trespassing, oh terrible witch Dahlia, on your humble abode. I went tromping up your hill touched by the crescent moon as you commanded to seek the knowledge you promised.”
“Hmph!”
The witch snorted and folded her arms, but since she did not turn the king into a frog, the king, wisely, took it as a sign to continue.
“Oh, great one with hair like golden grain, irises like tiger’s eye, and face like a rose, if you would tell me how to capture a spirit of the Realm of the Stars, I would share the magic given to me with you.”
Dahlia laughed and waved a hand. “I should sooner turn you into a pig than believe that you would share any of that place’s magic with me. Besides, what use have I of magic from the Realm of the Stars? It would only fade under our sun that never sets, and I could take no pleasure in the mischief it would cause, for its effects would be brief, more brief than a rose destined to wither, a rose like you have called me.”
Yet, in the witch’s eyes a green flame flickered and sparked. Alveric knew she wanted to be ever-powerful and did not want to die as all mortals do in this realm, but she had no knowledge to offer the king in order to strike this bargain. She needed him.
“I will hear your wisdom, or I will not leave,” the king said.
Dahlia laughed. “Ooh, you are a pest! I’ll turn you into a rat if you do not go!”
The king was petulant and sat where he stood, tilting up his chin at Dahlia’s words.
Yet, Alveric knew the witch was all talk, for the idea of capturing a spirit from the Realm of the Stars had taken root in her heart. He bowed his head and began to lick his paw as Dahlia tromped up to him.
With her hands on her hips, she said in a whispered voice, “Alveric, this thing that the king wants, to capture a spirit from the Realm of the Stars and keep her fresh with magic and untouched by the power of death in our mortal land, is it truly possible? I thought it was only a scheme… but how can it be done? How can I get this power?
“If I deliver the king this method—forget the jewels!—I would have half the power of that realm. I could rule both the Realm of the Stars and the kingdom where the sun never sets. So, offer up this information. Then, when I possess the magic of the other realm and have no need of your powers, I may release you.”
Alveric went on licking his paw.
“Useless, stubborn cat!” The witch threw up her arms.
Alveric paused and said with a hiss, “To keep her magic and her life, this thing cannot be done.”
The witch frowned. “There is no way that you know of? It was all a fool’s errand! Useless—”
Alveric stared at her and flicked his tail. The witch looked away.
“To capture a spirit from the Realm of the Stars, tell the king to trap a siren’s song in a seashell, to gather foxgloves when they chime, and to walk just before moonlight when the sun is fully hidden by the Realm of the Star’s shadow. Then, he must set the seashell and foxgloves on a dish, waiting for the first star of night to rise, and when the spirit hears the siren’s song and sees the flowers, she will fall to the mortal realm. And while she is all shadow and mist, he must drop the dome of ensorceled glass. Then, will he capture a spirit from the Realm of the Stars and be able to keep her in a cloche.”
The witch turned away without a word of thanks to inform the king of how he may proceed. Alveric sighed, but he was biding his time and wanted the king’s mission to succeed even more than the witch. He longed for the Realm of the Stars in which he had spent the many joyous years of his youth before he had become tethered to the kingdom where the sun never sets.
🝊
“What could this be? What is this melody?” came a voice from faraway, carried to the kingdom where the sun never sets by a wayward gust of wind from the Realm of the Stars.
A man walked before moonlight apart from the fields of men, bearing foxgloves in his gauntleted fist that chimed little notes with every step he took and a seashell that whispered songs with inhuman melodies when pressed to the ear.
The small man held up both items on a dish made from human bone. She watched him as he walked until the first star shone before even the moon of her realm made herself known. Then, the man grew as still as stone. Curious.
Oh, she was very curious, for a moment later she caught a glimmer of starlight moving below and heard the tinkling laughter of flower bells ringing. She laughed too, delighting at the polished gleam of the bone-white dish and drew even closer to the man, no, king of dust and bones.
Mother Star had always told her that humans were deadly, dangerous things, always trying to glut themselves on the magic of their people beyond the twilight. Yet, this spirit had observed the seashell and heard the siren’s call, so she approached the dish despite Mother Star’s warning.
Thus, she formed eyes, two of them, to mimic the humans she had so often seen from afar, and then she made a mouth to make faces at her reflection. A nose to smell the flowers and two ears to listen to birdsong followed next. Her long hair, which was colored like the reflection of a sunset on a frozen lake—a sight never before seen in this kingdom—waved behind her as if caught in an unfelt breeze. Then, the spirit formed a body, not much larger than a seashell, out of the night’s mist and decided to place two small feet on the dish to walk across it.
She smiled and laughed as the foxgloves rang furiously in alarm, but she did not heed their warning cries. So, when the king dropped the magic reinforced cloche onto the dish, she was surprised to find herself sealed inside.
“Oh!” The spirit leaped into the air and bumped her head on the cloche’s glass top. She drifted back down to the dish, like a leaf shed from a tree.
The king picked up the dish, holding the lid tight. “I have caught you, spirit!” he said.
The spirit climbed up the stem of a flower and placed her hands on her hips. Yet, standing before the large eye that seemed sure to swallow her whole, she shied away from the glass and hid behind a petal.
“Let me out!” she said. “Mortal of dust and bones, I command you to release me, or I’ll work terrible magic and curse you!”
The king laughed and tapped the glass. “Curse me, fair one? No. You will serve me.”
The spirit growled and raised a hand to curse the king, but with a snap of her fingers and a blink of her eye, the magic fizzed and popped and sank to the bottom of the cloche, settling like a miasma of despair.
To her utter horror, the king then began carrying her away, but as they walked she beheld the sun in all its glory as it made the world golden. This made the spirit forget her worries for a time, for she had never seen the sun before. It reminded her of the molten fire in a dragon’s eye or the golden dew of the trolls’ precious garden of honeysuckles.
“Ooh! Won’t you let me out, so I may dance with the colors of the sun?” the spirit asked, daring to appear before the king’s two monstrous eyes.
“No. Your magic is mine,” the king replied.
As they approached the castle, the spirit saw for the first time men working the fields. So, she said, “What gems could I unearth if I were to walk upon Mother Earth? Oh, won’t you let me out to play with the farmers and their tools?”
“No,” the king said. “Your magic is mine.”
And for every new thing her eyes of burning light beheld, whether it was a shiny stone like a moon’s teardrop, a cloak flapping in the wind like fairy wings, or a cane tapping unwittingly to the heartbeat of the trolls, she asked to be let out and the king denied her.
So, after three nights and three days of travel, the king came back to the castle, weary of the spirit’s whimsy, and, to her horror, he summoned his aged advisors to commence with his plan of capturing her magic. And although he did not call for them, the witch and the witch’s cat came too.
🝊
“Now,” the king said, holding up the spirit’s cloche. “Let us have magic. Make me immortal, so I will rule those of dust and bone and never join them in the earth.”
Alveric watched closely as the spirit frowned. She walked on the stems of the foxgloves and stood at her full height, no taller than the spiral shell in the cloche, and said, “I cannot. If I have no magic to curse you, then I have no magic to bless with.”
The first advisor to approach the cloche had a long, grey beard, which made his back bend at an odd angle. He said, “Spirit, can you mend my bad back with a flick of your wrist?”
The spirit raised her hands, but her magic just fizzed and popped as soon as it touched the ensorcelled glass.
“No. I cannot,” the spirit said with a growl.
The second advisor with a nose like a vulture’s beak came forward. “How about my aching teeth?”
Again, the spirit’s magic fizzed and popped. So, the second advisor went away gnashing and grinding his teeth.
The third advisor, whose turn it was to approach the spirit from the Realm of the Stars, would not come forward. She stared with dark eyes, almost as black as twilight, at the spirit and then went away, wandering across nameless fields until she came to rest by wild foxgloves, whose bells tinkled with laughter. Thus, the wisest of the advisors died in the land where the sun never sets and she died under a sky veiled by clouds and mist.
When the third advisor went silently away, Dahlia came forward and inspected the cloche and the spirit trapped inside. Alveric held back a laugh as she wrinkled her nose and tsked.
“It is little wonder this creature does anything at all aside from hissing and growling when you chose such a dull shell and dying flowers.”
The king tapped the cloche and said, “Do my bidding, spirit, for I am your king.”
“You are a mortal king, and you will sooner settle into the kingdom of dust and soil ruled over by maggots and worms than I will ever find a reason to obey you!”
“Can you not work magic then?” Dahlia asked the spirit with a yawn.
“Of course I can work magic!” the spirit said, and the foxgloves began to chime. “But not while I am trapped in this cloche full of mortal things.”
Alveric purred as he watched the king’s face turn a burning shade of red. The king raised the cloche to smash it against the ground, but at that moment, Dahlia intervened.
The spirit grinned and gathered the loose petals of her dress to swirl about her, so she might catch the witch’s eye, but Dahlia wouldn’t give her any attention. Alveric looked instead, and when the spirit’s eyes met his, she squealed in delight, making the foxgloves chime.
“What is this?” Dahlia demanded of the king. “For instructing you on how to capture the spirit, you promised me half of its magic!”
“It has no magic to give,” the king grumbled.
He again hefted the cloche, but this time threw it at the ground. Yet, the glass did not break and the dish did not separate from the lid. The spirit giggled as she flipped in the air, unharmed and still trapped inside.
“What’s this?” the king said. “It will not break! The spirit cannot be killed!”
Dahlia eyes glowed an unnatural shade of green. “You would dare try to break our bargain, and in my presence, too!”
The witch threw up her hands to curse the king, but glanced at Alveric first and caught his eye. He meowed, so she turned away from the king to approach him.
“What is it, servant?”
Alveric went on licking his paw.
Dahlia frowned and said, “Well, is it true what the king has said? The spirit has no magic to give.”
Alveric flicked his tail and twitched his whiskers. He said, “What the king has said is a lie.”
“What should I do?”
“Curse him,” Alveric said, “and take the spirit to your house where you might learn its magic through observation.”
Dahlia grinned. Without a word more, she turned the king into a rat. Alveric’s eyes narrowed to slits and he pounced. He batted the rat between his paws once, twice, and then swallowed it whole. The entire time this was happening, the spirit cackled inside her cloche and clapped her hands, enjoying the show of magic; although with her own power, Alveric knew she would have delivered a curse that was a thousand times worse.
Thus, Dahlia seized the cloche with the captured spirit and they returned to the hill that the crescent moon touches all as Alveric had designed.
🝊
Alveric could feel the buzz of magic in the air, making his fur stand on end. He twitched his whiskers and feigned indifference, though, as the witch continued to demand that the spirit surrender her magic, and just like the spirit had answered the king, she said, “I cannot.”
“Cannot or will not?” Dahlia demanded.
“Both,” the spirit replied.
Dahlia’s eyes flashed green as she placed the spirit on a shelf in her study.
“Then, I will read how to extract your magic from you! Hmph!”
Dahlia seized three books from the shelf and went to read by the light of her cookfire as she baked bread and stirred a potion—all by Alveric’s design.
The spirit, who was floating in the cloche, sank to the bottom and sat upon the dish with her hands of mist pressed against her face. She sniffled then and Alveric knew what she must be thinking: that if one who knew magic would not release her, then what hope was there of ever seeing the stars and dancing with the colors of the sky again?
Just as it had struck him centuries ago, she must have arrived at the conclusion that she was trapped in the kingdom where the sun never sets, for her eyes began to well with tears and the colors slowly bled from her hair, splashing like rain against the bottom of the cloche.
Alveric, however, saw that this was his moment. With the witch distracted, he approached the spirit.
“Greetings spirit from the Realm of the Stars, do you have a name my mortal tongue can say?”
The spirit looked up and wiped gem-shaped tears from her eyes, which shattered into sparkling dust as soon as they collided with the dish.
“Speak again, mortal of bone and dust. To my ears, your words have not settled, and to my eyes, you do not exist.”
So, Alveric came closer and again asked for her name.
This time she saw him. The spirit’s magic was greater than the magic she perceived in the cat’s eyes, so she did not fear him. Therefore, she said, “A name of mine, which you may say, is Zira, though I am called by many other names that have no meaning in this world and others that would take an eternity to say.”
“Then, I shall call you Zira.” Alveric moved away from the spirit’s cloche to sit by the fireplace as he often did at this time of day. After hours of sifting through daydreams, Alveric drifted back to reality. “I can free you,” he said from his seat by the fire, “but I will require a favor in turn.”
Zira placed her hands against the glass of the dome, and despite wanting to be free, was wary of the cat’s desires. She asked, “And what would you ask of me, little lion of Earth?”
Alveric turned and looked her in the eye.
“I want you to free me in turn. I was once a great wizard in possession of magic from your realm, for I had been whisked away there as a child before Death sent me back to the mortal realm.
“And being so great and so terrible, laying blessings and curses on this earth, I grew tired of the fear and awe that I had inspired and wished for something new. Therefore, I found a young witch, new to her magic, and made her my apprentice, but believing myself to be immortal, I did not take heed of her vain and violent ways, so I had not foreseen that she would trap me in this terrible form, so I might surrender all my magic to her. Yet, though years have passed, I will not yield, and she cannot undo the curse, so I am stuck as you see me: as a cat.”
Zira trembled as she looked closer and saw the vast pools of knowledge in the cat’s eyes and felt the thrum of magic flowing through his veins. She shed a tear and again the foxgloves in her cloche began to chime. This time, however, they kept on chiming.
“I will do it,” she said. “Free me, and I will free you.”
Alveric’s mouth curled into a grin. He leaped from his spot before the fireplace onto the shelf where the spirit’s cloche rested. Then, like others of his kind, he took his paw and knocked the cloche clean off of the shelf.
Zira closed her eyes as she fell and felt at peace as the siren’s song from the seashell washed over her. Then, crash! Clang! Thud!
The cloche shattered into thousands of pieces of glass. The cat hissed and the hairs on his back stood up while Zira lay full sized on the ground. She was free of her prison and held the foxgloves clasped in her hand like a bouquet. Her eyes were closed as if she were sleeping.
All was silent as Alveric leaped onto the ground and stood beside Zira. He pawed at her arm.
His voice replaced the chime of the flower’s bells, “Awaken, Zira, and use your magic to free me as you have promised.”
She did not move. She did not breathe. Her heart did not beat.
Alveric hissed, and his eyes widened. A shard of glass had fallen onto her chest, and as if it were guided by the power of some creature of the Realm of the Stars, it had stabbed her through the heart.
So, Zira, an immortal spirit from the Realm of the Stars, had died in mortal lands.
What will happen now? Will the sun set? Will the stars forget to shine? Will the sea grow wrathful and turn to conquest in the spirit’s name? he wondered and began to tremble in fear.
Alveric meowed and hissed until the witch came from reading her books and glanced into her study and saw the shattered cloche. Dahlia screamed at the sight and raised her hands as if to ward off powerful magic, but in breathing the air that the spirit of the Realm of the Stars could not, she relaxed. The spirit’s life had fled and with it her magic also, or so Dahlia thought.
“You did this,” she said, facing Alveric with her hands on her hips.
He twitched his nose and unsheathed his claws. “I did.”
“You killed the spirit!” she yelled at him. “I was reading what I could do to steal her magic!”
“Yes, I know,” he said. “Now you will work yours on her.”
Dahlia frowned and glared at the orange tabby. She crossed her arms and said, “What’s this? You’d have me turn her into a dumb beast?”
Alveric did not reply but narrowed his eyes on Dahlia’s face, waiting for her to do his bidding.
She groaned and shook her head. “I have no idea why I don’t just throw you to the dogs!”
Yet, Dahlia, accustomed to doing as Alveric said, obeyed him. She cast up her hands and, by inspiration of the foxgloves, turned Zira into a fox.
“There. It is done,” Dahlia said.
Suddenly, the blood dripping down Zira’s chest turned to green stems, and foxgloves sprouted all around her, their purple bells ringing.
Dahlia covered her ears with her hands. “What is this? None of my curses have gone awry before!”
Alveric meowed loudly and a grin overtook his face. His eyes alighted when he first saw the fox’s chest rise and fall. Then, Zira’s eyes opened and she looked at him with an emerald wilderness in her gaze as she sprang to her feet. With a flick of her tail, she cast her spell.
Dahlia screamed again, eyes overtaken by green.
“Free! At last!” Alveric exclaimed, standing on his own two feet. Before Dahlia could turn him back into a cat, he uttered his own curse and turned her into a flower who loved the stars and bloomed with sunburst colors.
Without waiting for Alveric to follow, Zira leaped into the air and the roots of the earth pulled her through the soil until she stood atop the hill that the crescent moon touches. Then, she ran across the fields toward the same twilight where magic flows, and as she ran, her tail painted the sky in hues of orange and red. And when Alveric emerged from the mound swathed in a mantle of shadows and armed once more with his own magic, thinking to undo the curse on Zira, he beheld the world’s first sunset and knew the Realm of the Stars had separated from the mortal lands, leaving what magic it had given behind but no more than that.
Alveric stood there on that hill that the crescent moon touches for a long time after the sun had set and the first night of darkness had fallen. With a sigh, he released his magic, freeing it so it may pass with the twilight, and by the dawn of the first sunrise in a kingdom where the sun had never set before, he turned to dust to travel on the breeze still connected to fairyland.
Still, whenever the foxgloves chime, a seashell sings, or the wind whispers, the story of the witch’s cat and the spirit’s cloche is told and the magic of the Realm of the Stars silently lives on.
🜁🜄🜂🜃
G.J. Brillante (she/her) is a book-dragon who enjoys adding books to her hoard and daydreaming of epic adventures. She writes fantasy novels and fairytales. She has had a short story, “A Song of Silence for the Mother of Grendel,” published in “Currents,” the fourth issue of The Icarus Writing Collective. To read more of her work, feel free to visit her Instagram @gjb.creates or her website: https://gjbcreates.wixsite.com/gjbcreates.