Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback(45)

But the ogre turned into Puss. When Julian opened his eyes, it was just Puss and him in the apartment. The Cat had bribed the roommates to go away.

“One great difference between ogres and cats is that cats never talk about themselves,” Puss said. “But others talk about us. You must know the story of how I dealt with the ogre.

Julian saw through cat eyes Puss challenging the monster to turn into a lion, an elephant, and finally a mouse; watched the cat kill and eat the mouse.

“Just as the ogre changed with what he ate, when I devoured him, I inherited his ability to change shapes and came into my dominion.”

Right in front of Julian the cat turned first into a hawk, then a bear, and again into a fat, hairy ogre. Julian was terrified. He thought of the contract he’d signed with Reynard.

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“Never fear me.” Puss was once again a smiling cat. “You’ve met my old . . . acquaintance.”

“He said . . . ”

“ . . . many things.” The cat shook his head, “Young men are so foolish.” But he seemed charmed by that fact.

The apartment door opened. “Movers,” said Puss. “Ones you can trust. Show them what has to be taken from here. I’m placing you in more suitable quarters.” The movers set to work and Puss disappeared.

Later that evening, Veronessa and Julian sat in the back seat of a car carrying them through Central Park to her townhouse in the East 70s. He stared, fascinated and shocked, at her vivid, barbaric vest of red fox fur.

She noticed this and gave a nod and a smile. “Jack Reynard will not be back. At least not in this incarnation,” she said, patting the fur.

Julian wondered if having your dreams and ambitions realized always left you as tense and confused as he felt. “I hope my staying at your place is okay . . . with you . . . ” he began.

She smiled, reached over and stroked the back of his neck like a pet. His nerves were so relaxed at her touch that it felt like he was sinking into the cushions. “Richelieu’s’ kittens,” she said, “were treasured by those to whom the Cardinal gave them.”

“If they knew what was good for them,” Julian remarked and was surprised at himself.

“Ah,” Veronessa said with a small frown. “It is not wise to be wise so soon.”

Puss was there when they arrived. His hat bore a red fur tail with a white tip in place of the white plume. “The Fox has the strengths of the trickster: misdirection, a quick eye, and a fast tongue. But . . . ”

He shrugged. “Cat and Fox: when we meet it always ends like this.”

He looked at Julian. “You’re still confused by what’s happened. You wonder about my motives.” He showed Julian the goofy young man who was Puss’s first owner swimming bare assed in a pond while Puss called out that the Marquis of Carabas had been robbed of his ? 143 ?

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clothes and a king and his lovely daughter stopped their carriage.

Because of a cat’s schemes the young man married far above his station. He came close to ruining his life a dozen times thereafter.

On each occasion Puss was delighted to step in.

“His antics gave me pleasure for his lifetime. When he died (mortals are given such a short span of years) I found another.”

“So my being a failure . . . ” Julian began. The Cat just shook his head and smiled a cat’s smile.





6.


Veronessa, in an antique 1940s dress with shoulders that were almost wings, brought Julian (wearing a very nice suit Puss had bought him) to Angelica Siddons’ lunch at Airmail Express where men dressed as stewardesses in long-gone twentieth century U.S. airlines brought airplane dinners and martinis. Earlier that day, Tales That Fairies Tell had named Mrs. Siddons “Fairy Godmother of this Epoch.”

“She certainly has been for you!” Veronessa said on the drive there.

“And she’s so anxious to meet you,” she added.

“Why all this with fairy tales?” he asked.

“The craving for fairy tales appears when a world is changing from one of magic to one of science and vice versa.”

“But you don’t believe in them.” They’d slept together a couple of times and it had been fun, but not magic.

“My mother was part Fey.” He narrowed his eyes. She waved a hand and a butterfly appeared. It fluttered around in the back seat of the car. She opened her palm and it landed. She closed her hand and opened it and the butterfly was gone. She was amused by his silence.