 
### The Vitch's Kat in Hollywoodland

starring Ketz and Mika

Jon Jacks

Other New Adult and Children's books by Jon Jacks

The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly

The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale

A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)

The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator

Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll's Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666

P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers – Gorgesque

Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)

Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent

Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak

Died Blondes – Queen of all the Knowing World – The Truth About Fairies – Lowlife

Elm of False Dreams – God of the 4th Sun – A Guide for Young Wytches – Lady of the Wasteland

The Wendygo House – Americarnie Trash – An Incomparable Pearl – We Three Queens – Cygnet Czarinas

Memesis – April Queen, May Fool – Sick Teen – Thrice Born – Self-Assembled Girl – Love Poison No. 13

Whatever happened to Cinderella's Slipper? – AmeriChristmas

Text copyright© 2017 Jon Jacks

All rights reserved

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. It remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Thank you for your support.

The Hollywoodland Sun: Stop Press

Presidential candidate Maria Marina, along with Hollywood movie stars Ketz and Mika, has mysteriously disappeared after last being seen heading into their apartment...

# Chapter 1

On the great ship taking us all to a new life in America, there were many, many different kinds of people – and yet Ketz and I were undoubtedly the ones receiving the very rudest of probing stares.

'I have never seen such strange creatures; nor would I have believed it possible for them to exist!' I overheard the captain say of us: and yet that was one of the politest remarks I happened to chance upon as we wandered aimlessly around the ship.

Naturally, we couldn't afford to eat in the fine restaurants, of take casual strolls upon the upper decks reserved for more privileged passengers. Even those in the lower berths of steerage, however, tended to shun us, or at least keep their distance.

This, of course, is the attitude we had hoped we were fleeing from.

In America, we had heard, everyone is judged upon their capabilities, not upon how they look, or where they were originally from.

When we first met our first American on board the great ship, it seemed that everything we had heard was true; Maria Marina was a starlet, she told us, working not on the stage as we might have at first supposed (she _definitely_ had theatrical airs about her!) but in a bright new business – 'Making Movies'.

*

Now anyone reading here of our first meeting with Maria Marina might well regard us as being particularly naïve; how could we not to know anything of a woman who is now not only a US Senator, but may soon also be our first female president?

However, please don't forget that the country we were leaving had had almost no cultural affiliations or even contact with America, particularly during the early years of the twentieth century that I am recalling here. Moreover, even though Maria would become a world famous beauty and actress, renowned for her appearances in a number of successful movies, at this time she was virtually unknown, for even the movie business was in its infancy.

She had seen us, she would later tell us, as she had looked down towards the lower deck from her far more privileged vantage point of the uppermost deck. We were out walking arm in arm, 'taking the air', and we were naturally being left to ourselves.

Desperately wishing to draw our attention, yet feeling it would be unbecoming to cry out to us, Maria had swiftly unclasped a bright, glittering earring and tossed it down towards us, such that it landed and rolled at our feet.

Ketz hurriedly picked up the obviously expensive earring – it was made almost wholly from the most beautiful of gemstones, one glittering with every colour imaginable – wondering where it could have fallen from. As he looked up and about him, he couldn't fail to see Maria (as we would only later come to know her, of course) waving down to him: she had clasped in her hand one of the long, flowing silk scarves she would later become so famous for wearing.

Of course, she still refused to call down to us: instead, she used a series of hand signals that appeared to us – after a brief discussion between ourselves – to mean she intended to descend at any moment to collect her lost jewellery.

We patiently waited for the beautiful young woman's arrival, standing hand in hand, ignoring the strange glares we were receiving. We had no thought of taking the sparkling jewel, despite its obvious value, for that would only lead to us constantly berating ourselves for our dishonesty.

Maria arrived quite breathless, she had been in such a rush to reach our level. She was not alone, but accompanied by a wary steward who had insisted on escorting her out on to a deck 'where all manner of ruffian will be seeking to take advantage of a young lady'.

Ketz politely bowed his head as she approached. I was a little unsure as to how I should great such a fine lady, making a half curtsy in my nervous confusion.

I must have done something wrong, however, for the steward glowered at me as if bewildered by my actions.

Of course, I'm used to such bewildered glares, for few people are prepared to accept the way we look. But in this case the steward seemed completely unfazed by Ketz's (to most people's eyes) somewhat similar appearance.

Maria seemed amused when Ketz attempted to hand the earring to her.

'Oh no, no: I have no need of it anymore,' she giggled excitedly, her smile so wonderfully bright and welcoming. 'It's not worth much; please, please keep it, as a reward for being so honest!'

Now the steward appeared completely startled when Maria reached out to gently close Ketz's fingers on the proffered earring.

And yet he was far less startled than we were.

She had spoken, almost flawlessly, in our own language!

As she had approached with the steward, we had most definitely heard her speaking American. But now we exchanged curious glances, wondering if she was also travelling from our country to settle in America.

She must have seen our confusion, and understood why we were surprised too, for she once again smiled, laughing so delightfully that everyone close by turned to see what could be so amusing and entrancing to her.

When they saw that she was talking to us, they pouted knowingly, as if instantly recognising the source of her amusement.

No one turned away in disgust this time, however.

Now they had seen her, everyone – men, women, children – were charmed by her presence, her gaiety, her freedom of movement, her sense of style. Of course, there was also that charming laugh: a laugh which would soon be entrancing millions, including some of America's most famous stars and entrepreneurs.

'My parents – may God bless them – also came from your country, Emarike,' she exclaimed. 'That's why I'm on this steamer: I promised them I would visit the land of their ancestors.'

Thankfully, Maria's parents must have informed her of the existence of people like Ketz and myself; that would explain her ready and perfectly unstartled acceptance of the way we looked. Perhaps, though, her parents had _not_ informed her of the everlasting enmity existing between Ketz's people and mine, for she did not appear to be in anyway scandalised that we were obviously lovers.

(Naturally, our love for each other had not even been accepted by our own peoples; we had been disowned by them. Hence our desire to start a whole new life in America.)

'We cannot accept such a valuable–'

'You _can_!' Maria interrupted Ketz's protestations that we couldn't keep her earring. 'In fact, it's only _half_ of a good luck charm: and therefore I insist your delightful companion accepts them both from me as a gift!'

Before we could stop her, she was unclasping the other earring, and handing it to me.

'Please, we can't–'

She stopped my own protest with a simple raising of a hand, a theatrically stern pout.

'Please, please,' she said, clasping my hands in hers, 'I _insist_ you accept this; as a gift from someone welcoming you to your new life in America! You may not realise this, but it is not as easy to enter America as you might have been led to believe; so, wear _these_ , and I _assure_ you they _will_ bring you luck!'

The steward smiled at me at last. Perhaps my reticence to accept such a valuable object either amused him, or at least proved to him that I was not uncivilised, as he might well have presumed.

'Your names, I must know your names.' Maria trilled excitedly.

She smiled as I introduced myself as Mika, a smile, I think, that said she regarded it as an apt name. But when Ketz revealed his name, it seemed at first that she misheard it, repeating it back with a knowing grin as 'K _a_ tz'; only to immediately apologise with a light-hearted chuckle, exclaiming that she wouldn't be surprised if most American's we met would be briefly similarly confused.

'Names are _so_ important in America,' she informed us. 'They can help _define_ you, even _make_ you who you are; as part of a new start in America, you can grant yourself any name you choose. And therefore a name can say _who_ you are, and how you _regard_ yourself.'

I nodded, smiled; this made a great deal of sense to me.

I _liked_ the name Mika.

*

It had seemed as if a goddess had stepped into our lives.

Not only was she the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, but she was also granting us good luck charms.

Of course, there was a part of me doubting (or, rather, that _wished_ to doubt!) her insistence that we would face a similar level of prejudice to that which we'd already encountered within our own country. Yet when we found ourselves amongst the seemingly endless throngs of people crowding onto Ellis Island, we began to wonder just how much we had been misinformed about this new country.

It wasn't just the people around us who spat at us, or pushed us aside, as if we were inconsequential. It was also the uniformed men, whose task it was to check papers and identities, and your general health, and what have you.

Naturally, in such chaotic circumstances, I had refused to wear the earrings. They would be far too tempting a target for any thieves amongst the hordes of people hoping to enter America. It wasn't even as if I could hide them under flowing locks of hair, like the other women thronging around me; my ears, of course were so much larger than theirs.

But as we increasingly despaired that we would ever be allowed into America, I could have sworn that the earrings felt warmer in my pocket. When I half pulled them out of my pocket, and glanced down at them, I was surprised to see that their resplendent gemstones had changed colour, glistening now as if they held captive hundreds of minute blue cornflowers within the very greenest of fields.

I wondered – were they indeed good luck charms, as Maria had claimed?

Why should she lie to us?

I nervously clasped the earrings to the base of my ears (thankfully, they were of the kind that grips rather than pierces the lobes).

And immediately, our fortunes would change for the better from this point on.

*

# Chapter 2

As soon as I'd clasped the earrings to my ears, it seemed to me, the people surrounding us no longer glared at me but smiled.

Of course, it could have been nothing but my imagination. Sometimes, I've found, when we believe things are running against, it is simply because we see everything that happens to us in a negative light; when, however, we assume a brighter outlook on life and the events besting us, we no longer regard our problems as being insurmountable.

We smile – and people smile back.

Is that the only difference that had occurred?

I couldn't be sure, even now.

And yet it really did seem to me at that time that, whereas I was now benefiting from a ready acceptance of how I looked and who I was, Ketz was still suffering angry, bewildered glares. I reached out with a consoling hand, taking his hand in mine; and, as if the magical effects of the good luck charms had now spread through to him, he too became at once accepted as being a person worthy of – if not out and out respect – at least a nominal level of fair consideration.

We were at last passed through the various stations of Ellis Island with relative ease; en route to being accepted as new citizens of America!

*

In truth, we had not expected that our acceptance by the American _authorities_ would be quite so easy.

Yes, we had heard that America was more open to both appreciating yet also thereby ignoring the many differences – including long held animosities – between the many and varied groupings of people they were accepting into their new country.

But as we had already found during our travels, the authorities in many countries were run by an officious bureaucracy who, in subservience to conformity, negated any normal sense of humanity within their officers.

Even within our own country of Emarike, the simple purchasing of a ticket for passage aboard the steamer had run foul of this attitude, a problem compounded by the lack of knowledge of our peoples amongst those who had always lived in cities far from the mountains and dark forests – for _our_ land was one of isolated villages, of miners and mines, of wolves and vitches.

'Cats _cannot_ talk!' the manager of the shipping firm's local office had adamantly declared on being called on for assistance by a befuddled clerk. 'And neither can _mice_!' he added with a touch more vehemence as he glowered at me.

And yet here we were, not only talking, but requesting passage to America.

'These are not even real creatures!' he had irately protested, as if he had been landed with an unfathomable problem to solve. 'They're like some wild childish drawing brought to life!'

This, you see, is the way people used to talk about us, right in front of our faces: as if we were incapable of taking offence, as if we had no right to exist – as if we were incapable of emotions such as embarrassment, shame or fear.

As if we could never be regard as possessing any human qualities at all.

If the people in this office had ever heard of peoples of our kind, it must purely have been in nothing more than stories they had obviously dismissed as fairytales, or at best as legends of long vanished populations.

It was only when we produced our money that the manager reluctantly agreed to grant us passage upon his company's fine ship.

'But they must pay for a two berth room,' he had insisted, 'for no one else will wish to share a room with them!'

It is hard to believe the prejudice we faced in those days.

So naturally, we could only assume that the way the American authorities had more readily accepted us could not be down just to their more enlightened stance on such matters, but also to the magical effects of the earring's gemstones. Coming from a land of mines, we had fully embraced the lore of the beneficial effects or otherwise of certain stones; although we were admittedly at a loss to exactly define the nature of the earring's jewels.

They were of a consistency and of a colour – that is, they appeared to take on whichever hue they found more pleasing to themselves on that particular day or even hour – we had never come across before; which, in our eyes, made them seem all the more remarkable and magical.

But if that was indeed the case, then why had Maria so carelessly parted with them?

It took only a moment's thought and discussion for us to arrive at our answer; because, of course, she hadn't really believed that they had any _real_ magical effect on our lives.

She had called them her good luck charm only in the almost throwaway sense that most people of today regard such things.

For it is a time when no one believes any more in _real_ magic.

No doubt she had received these earrings as a gift from her parents; no doubt they had pressed upon her their importance; and no doubt, having been raised in America, she had dismissed the presence of any magical qualities, other than regarding the earrings as nothing more than some kind of rabbit's foot that could be rubbed every now and again in the hope of bringing a little more favourable influence on unfortunate events.

How wrong she was!

And that meant only one thing; that we had no real claim on such remarkable objects after all.

We would somehow have to return them to Maria – before her life suffered in anyway from their absence!

*

# Chapter 3

When we eventually tracked Maria down, even we were taken aback by the remarkable downturn in her circumstances.

Gone was the girl we had met on the ship, travelling first class and smartly attired in glamorous clothes. Now she was struggling to pay the bills on her expensive apartment, while many of her clothes lay unworn, for she was no longer earning the money to have them professionally cleaned.

'It was all just so so quick and unexpected,' she explained to us, 'for I'd assumed a role I'd been cast for in a movie was mine for the taking; and yet it went instead to a far less well known actress!'

And yet, despite the way Maria had so causally parted with the cause of her previous good fortune, it was the earrings who had once again resolved to help her out; for how else would we have found Maria but for the earrings?

New York is a strange place; although a large and modern city, its streets strangely reminded us of home, for like the marsh gas that would rise up around us as if out of nowhere, so here vast clouds of steam would abruptly erupt from holes in the ground, unexpectedly and completely enveloping us in their veiling fog.

In this fog, we are told, the Wraith Maiden herself can appear, leading you either to riches or, if you are undeserving, a sad end.

And as this cloud of glistening vapours curled about us, the earrings – which we had shared between us, with Ketz using his as a sparkling tiepin – switched through an eerie, swirling blue until it became the blinding yellow of sun-struck meadows of the ripest corn.

I stared into Ketz's tiepin, and he stared into my solitary earring.

And I saw myself in his gem, and he saw himself in mine.

And behind us both, there stood a smiling Maria.

*

'But – I _still_ don't see how that led you to me,' Maria said as we explained how the earrings had directed us to her.

In fact, I do believe she was staring at us as if she believed we might be just a little crazy!

'It reminded us of the tales like _Sinyushka's Well_ , or _The Blue Crone's Spring_ as some prefer to call it!' I said excitedly.

Maria's brow furrowed all the more, but this time as an expression of distress.

'I may be a touch down on my luck, Mika,' she said with a nervous titter, 'but I must confess I _still_ flattered myself I had retained my _beauty_! I'm not so sure that I wish to be associated with a _crone_!'

Of course, I was aghast that I might have caused the poor girl any offence.

'No, no, please!' I blurted out hurriedly. 'The Blue Crone is actually the Wraith Maiden; who is indeed _incredibly_ beautiful, such that she entrances any man who sees her, persuading them to stay with her beneath the mountains; but on first sight, to many she appears as an old crone, as a test of their true natures!'

'Besides,' Ketz added, aware of my own distress, 'when the gems began to glow – to reveal both ourselves and you within them – then it reminded us instantly of other, if similar tales: of _The Sunstone_ , or _Tayutka's Mirror_.'

'It seems there are many tales from our homeland I'm not aware of,' Maria laughed, her more natural good humour thankfully at last returning.

'This story can also be called _The Dancing Fire Fairy,_ or _Veselukha's Meadow_ , or _A Fragile Twig_!' I explained.

'So _many_ names!' Maria observed.

'So many _versions_!' Ketz chuckled.

'Yet there is one _particular_ version _we_ prefer above all others,' I said.

*

# Chapter 4

The Inner Mirror

When a girl falls in love with a boy, the sense of joy that so effortlessly passes between them is rarely shared by everyone around them.

And when the girl comes from a rich family, and the boy from a poor one, few people at all take delight in the relationship.

Like many a boy, of course, Mitya was hoping to better himself; to make himself worthy of his beautiful Tayutka.

He was apprenticed to a worker of stones, and he practised long and hard to master the skills necessary to become an accomplished craftsman. Even so, he was dissatisfied with his work, reasoning that he could only ever be judged an incompetent, for the complex designs he had in mind never ever materialised in his creations of stone.

His attempts at pieces of intricate delicacy were, in particular, deemed by him to be his most frustrating failures, for they invariably cracked as they neared completion – an unforeseen flaw in the stone unexpectedly working against him and crumbling in his hands at the very moment he dared to sense satisfaction.

His own flaw, as Tayutka saw it, was that he was allowing the controversy surrounding their love to affect his work. His heart was aching, suffering the pains of the world, rather than rejoicing in the richness of life.

He was struggling too hard to arrive at creations that, surely, she instinctively sensed, should flow more naturally from his heart.

As they walked hand in hand across the meadows, it often seemed to her that the blue marsh gas that would mournfully rise up from the ground and swirl about them had been conjured up by Mitya's misery.

Yet if you stared hard enough through the mist, she realised, the condensing of the water vapour upon the grass made each blade glisten like finely carved emeralds, while the darker stones sparkled, as if formed of painstakingly polished jade.

Amongst it all, however, one stone, one day, glittered far more seductively than any other.

Tayutka reached down for it, amazed that it appeared to her as if it were a piece of permanently solidified ice. Yet it felt reasonably warm, not cold, in her hand.

It was also oddly smoothly flattened on two sides, with only its rim being roughened, such that she wouldn't have been surprised to hear that it had been cleanly sliced from a larger piece.

As she twirled the stone in her hand and it sparkled like a captive fire even in this misty light, she wondered if the stories she had heard of such magical gems had told the truth after all. Some said it was a deer, others said it was a goat; some said he was called Golden Horn (for he never shed his horns) others that his name was Silver Hoof (for he had a hoof of sliver) – yet all agreed that wherever he stamped his hoof, he would leave behind a fabulous gem.

'Silver Hoof; he's been _here_!' Tayutka breathed reverently.

Mitya chuckled.

Taking the rear of her hand in his palm, he lifted her arm up a little more until the gem sparkled as if Tayutka held a raw flame in her hand.

'It's a sunstone,' he said. 'Even if the sun is hidden in mist,' he continued, indicating the rapidly thickening and rising fog with a turn of his head, a sidelong glance of his eyes, 'a sunstone will gather what little light there is to sparkle for you.'

His eyes widened in surprise.

He had noticed another sunstone shinning amongst the rapidly dulling emeralds of grass. Letting go of Tayutka's hand, he reached down for this new stone, bringing it up towards the one held by Tayutka.

They could have been twin stones, they appeared so similar.

Perhaps, Tayutka mused, they had both been smoothly cleaved from the very same larger stone.

As Mitya placed the smooth side of his stone against the other, he also twisted it slightly, while also gently persuading Tayutka to turn around a little, to raise her arm a bit more, until the sparkling in the twinned stones seemed to her to come together, to sparkle more vibrantly in one specific position amongst the crystalline forms of the combined gems.

' _That_ is where the sun is!' Mitya proudly declared. 'Even though you can no longer see it with the unaided eye!'

At first, Tayutka smiled; then she frowned.

'But the sun was over _there_ ,' she insisted, pointing off up to another point in the sky. 'I saw it there before the mist thickened.'

Now Mitya frowned too; he also remembered seeing the sun there.

There was no way it could have moved so swiftly across the sky!

They peered curiously into the flaring stones, the glow now spreading more evenly, glittering as brightly, as silvery, as a gloriously full moon.

And as the stones silvered in this way, Tayutka and Mitya saw they were staring back at themselves, reflected as if in the most wonderful mirror of frozen mist.

They chuckled in delight.

They felt the tingling of their touching hands.

Behind their reflected selves, the flaring continued to blaze, as if something in the stone had been set afire. The flames crackled, highlighting the precisely ordered crystalline formation, the jagged faults that lay otherwise unseen within it.

It flamed yellow, then orange.

First Mitya's stone turned a sparkling ruby red. And then Tayutka's stone also took on the hues of hotly coursing blood.

Naturally, the flames were redder, more excited than ever.

And in that flame of the very brightest red, Tayutka and Mitya began to see the Fire Fairy herself begin to take form.

*

They had both heard of the Dancing Fire Fairy of Veselukha's Meadow, of course.

It was said she would offer wine to any miner fortunate enough to come across her. An excuse for them to arrive home drunk, others would say; or perhaps they had seen her because they had _already_ had too much to drink.

More importantly as far as Mitya was concerned, however, was that it was also said that she could make craftsmen aware of the patterns lying deep within every stone; hidden patterns waiting to be discovered, to be brought to life, into existence.

The flickering flames expanded, it seemed, beyond the mirror's edges, almost blinding in their growing intensity. The Wraith Maiden's hair flared, rising about her like a vast cloak flowing and snapping in the strong winds of an electrical storm. Her eyes blazed, her smiling lips flashed; her expression radiated mystery, knowing – danger.

The Fire Fairy was always lying there, hidden in the mist, some said; and now these stones had thankfully revealed her to them.

Tayutka was torn; she rightfully feared the Fiery Maid, dreading in particular the influence she might have upon Mitya. Even now, she could see the glow of excitement in the reflection of his eyes.

Should she cast the stone aside? But that would hardly banish the Fiery Maid, would it?

She would still be present, but now unseen, perhaps even more dangerous than ever.

Mitya was torn; he rightfully feared the Fire Fairy, yet he couldn't fail to be tempted by the promise in her eyes.

She could help him cast all his woes aside. She would banish his fears that he was inadequate to the task of bringing out the soul of the stones he worked with.

He saw in the fearful glow of Tayutka's reflected eyes that she wished the Fire Fairy would leave them alone.

He griped the edges of both stones harder, his fingers strong through years of working with some of the very hardest of materials.

Tayutka's hand was almost crushed under the pressure of his firm hold.

She wanted this woman to leave them, now!

Her stone flared; then blanched.

It was instantly a glittering white, like a frozen snowstorm.

The stones cracked, fracturing along their overheated fault lines.

The mirror image was shattered.

And the Fiery Maid vanished.

*

'It was...I just imagined I saw...'

'No, _I_ saw her too,' Tayutka said, noticing Mitya's confusion – and his dismay.

'Then _she_ could have shown me...'

They each still held one of the twin, cracked stones in their hands. Tayutka reached out with her free hand to take his free hand in hers.

He smiled, if a little sadly.

'If she had shown me the inner secrets of the stones,' he said, 'then your father would have accepted me as...'

Tayutka smiled back at him as his voice trailed off.

She saw his uncertainty; even if he became a master craftsman, her father would never accept him as being worthy Tayutka.

Wasn't it this uncertainty that was holding him back? His sense of inferiority?

It was all making him too tense, too unfeeling; too much like the stone he sought to bring to life!

She clenched his hand reassuringly.

She had to help him bring out the talent she was sure lay deep within him, the skills veiled by his anguish, his shattered confidence – if only he could caress and care for his stones the way he cared for her, he would undoubtedly become the master craftsman he so sorely sought to be.

'Your stone; the stone left by Silver Hoof,' Mitya said apologetically as he brought the cracked stones together once more, their hands touching, warming and tingling at their closeness. 'I'm sorry it shattered.'

The stones, he saw, no longer flared as if with a barely contained fire; and yet he somehow saw within them now a more carefree whirling of shapes amongst the more rigid crystalline grid – one that branched off a number of times, spreading through the stone as if it were something alive.

'I'll make something from these stones,' he declared confidently, 'something for you that's more beautiful than I've ever made before.'

*

As he caressed the stones, his hands warmed, tingled, to the touch.

He sensed the flaws; he was aware now that he should work with them, not pit himself against them.

The stone wished to be something _other_ than it was; and it was simply his role to enable it to achieve this new state.

What he'd always taken to be flaws where simply the pattern for this long-wished for transformation, the veins of a new life he had it in his power to release.

The rush of darkness he found within the stones became the writhing stems of branches, weaving in an out of each other.

Hints of green became in his hands sharp leaves, their brightness intensified in this new form.

In one stone, there was a globular red that could only be the bloody berries of the holly.

In the other, a mystical white that had to be the milky drops of mistletoe.

But most remarkably of all, when both branches were complete, they wove together as one, as if made purely for each other.

The warp and weft.

And once they were one, their entwining stems made it impossible to draw them apart.

It wasn't the most beautiful thing Mitya had ever made.

It was the most beautiful thing _anyone_ had ever made.

*

'It's...it's _wonderful_!' Tayutka declared when Mitya presented the entwined stems, to her, delighting in the intricate way the branches wove about each other. 'I wouldn't have thought it possible to create something so lifelike from stones!'

'The poorest of stones; and yet they sprang to life in my hands,' Mitya said, without a hint of boastfulness; for he believed it was the stones themselves who had informed him what they wished to be. And he had merely been the person fortunate enough to be chosen for such a task.

Their will to form had come through him, emanating from somewhere else entirely beyond him; and he had merely been the reflection of that will.

'The most _priceless_ of stones,' Tayutka corrected him, 'because _you_ treasured them!'

Even Tayutka's father was astounded by the beauty of this precious jewel.

He studied it closely, attempting to fathom how something so intricate, so full of life, could come from that which was hard and lifeless.

'It could only have been made from the most precious – the least flawed – of all stones!' he breathed in awe.

'Oh no, no Father,' Tayutka gleefully corrected him. 'Mitya brought it to life from only the cheapest – even _cracked_ – stones!'

'The _cheapest_ stones? _Cracked_ ones?'

Tayutka's father glowered furiously at the intricate 'jewel'.

He abruptly felt cheated.

He had been fooled into appreciating something cheap and worthless.

He threw the inextricably entwined branches to the floor.

And crumpled them to dust beneath his heel.

*

Tayutka's father wasn't aware of it, of course, but his perfectly beautiful daughter – like us all, if we would only care to admit it – contained what he could only think of as a flaw.

Within us all, there lies a hidden fault line, patiently waiting for the day that someone or something awakens us to its presence.

And as it at last ruptures, we are finally forced to recognise that we are not who we thought we were.

If we still have the will to do so, we have to make a choice – to decide what form the new us will take.

Tayutka chose a mystical pureness, denying her blood ties.

Mitya chose the coursing of his blood, at last entwining with her gloriously milky body.

At once they were one, impossible to draw apart.

And neither one nor the other was ever seen in the village again.

*

# Chapter 5

As I finished telling Maria my tale of _The Inner Mirror_ , she briefly seemed uncharacteristically startled.

'But...I don't understand,' she said, regaining her more natural composure so quickly that I could only reason that I had imagined her alarm, 'how can this story possibly be linked to you finding me here?'

'The _gems_ , Maria,' I explained, 'they led us to you as surely as if we were following any map; for they glowed the brightest blue on the side pointing towards the street we must take!'

'We wouldn't have believed it ourselves,' continued Ketz helpfully, 'and yet they even – both at the _very_ same time – glistened as brightly as any sky as we stood outside your apartment block; and there, amongst the names on the address panel, we saw yours!'

Maria laughed; a little nervously, it must be said.

'Then if what you're saying about these strange gemstones _is_ true – for I must say, I find it all quite unbelievable, and wonder, if you don't mind me saying, if the heady atmosphere (which gets to us all, everyone agrees, particularly on the hottest of days!) of New York hasn't confused you a touch – then I'm not sure I _can_ accept them back, even though, as you've explained, you wish to return them: for they have _never_ worked in this way for _me_!'

'But don't you see, Maria? They _must_ have worked for you in _some_ way!' I confidently declared, airily waving a hand to indicate our surroundings, the rich décor of her plush apartment. 'For – as you yourself have just said – you were doing well: and yet now you are down on your luck!'

'It's _coincidence_ , that's all; I'm _sure_ of it!' she resolutely insisted. 'There are _other_ movies to make: they're producing more and more of them each year, don't you know, usually just out in Fort Lee – New Jersey, that is. They're already casting for one, I've heard, _The Blue Bird_ –'

She abruptly stopped.

Her eyes were wide with excitement.

'A _cat_!' she exclaimed, turning towards Ketz, almost reaching out for him in her elation. 'They want someone to _play_ a cat! But how ridiculous is that, when _you_ could play him Ketz!'

Ketz was embarrassed. Although it's true that his people bear a strong resemblance to cats, the relation to them is now as distant as a man's is to a monkey! My people think of ourselves in exactly the same way, of course; although our ancestors may once have been like any other mouse we see dashing around us today, that was hundreds of thousands – perhaps even millions – of years ago; and we have evolved from those earlier species just as much as man has!

'I have never acted in any roles!' Ketz pointed out with a nervous chuckle.

Maria brushed his worries aside.

'Oh, the movies are nothing like the _theatre_ , Ketz! You don't need to remember any words; the words you're supposedly saying appear on screen, of course! And if you get something wrong, you simply demand that the shot is retaken!'

Ketz still didn't appear persuaded. He glanced my way.

'But what of Mika? Could she act in this film too?'

I shot Ketz a glare.

This was _not_ what I had been expecting him to say!

Instead of throwing her hands up in horror, however, Maria paused to consider this.

'I can't remember any role for any mice,' she admitted thoughtfully, 'but there was one for a dog–'

'A dog! I can't play a _dog_ , Maria!' I protested.

Maria chuckled delightfully.

'Oh Mika, Mika: of _course_ you can't! But in the movies, if they like who you are, they'll _rewrite_ a role to suit you! Why _can't_ there be a mouse in this film?'

And so Maria had decided it for us; we were going to work in the _movies_!

*

# Chapter 6

Marie was hoping she would be cast as the beautiful fairy Bérylune.

She will be the one who brings the souls of fire, water, light, bread, sugar and milk to life to help the two children Mytyl and Tyltyl find the Blue Bird of Happiness. The children's pets, a cat and a dog, will also be able to help them, as the fairy has granted them the power of speech.

Of course, Ketz attended the casting for the cat, appearing before the director Maurice Tourneur and the producer Adolph Zukor.

Maria had told me to simply accompany Ketz, as it's not unknown for either a producer or director to spot potential in a person and ask them to take part in the casting.

To our surprise, this is indeed exactly what happened.

'It...it's a _possibility_ ,' I heard Adolph mumbling to Maurice. 'There's still time to write in a new part...'

Maurice regarded us more doubtfully.

'It would be an _interesting_ effect,' he conceded. 'But are we _really_ saying we're making something like, you know – Gertie?'

'Gertie?' Adolph sniggered. 'Gertie the Dinosaur?'

I was used to people rudely talking about us as if we were little children being openly discussed by adults. Yet I would soon come to understand that at casting sessions like this the poor actors and actresses were indeed discussed with no thought of their feelings.

Of course, at that time I had no idea who this 'Gertie the Dinosaur' was.

It was only later that I would discover she was an animated creature, a creation of Winsor McCay, the illustrator of the Little Nemo in Slumberland newspaper comic strip (most early animators entered the business to bring their strip characters to life). He had already given movement to his Little Nemo in animated films he used in his stage shows, but with Gertie he had added a new dimension to his art: having stepped behind the screen, he would appear to walk into the scene featuring Gertie, first standing in her mouth and then riding upon her back!

Not surprisingly, we weren't awarded the roles, the cat eventually being played by Tom Corless, while no mice that I know of appeared in the final cut. Maria lost out on her cherished role too, as this would go to Lillian Cook (who would later become a dear friend of both Ketz and I).

Despite our disappointment, we had at least had a great deal of fun meeting the children who would play the leads, Tula Belle and Robin Macdougall. When they heard we hadn't been included in the final cast, they offered to complain on our behalf; but naturally, neither Ketz nor I wished to cause anyone any trouble, though we thanked the children for their kind offer.

Fortunately, the short film that had been made of our fruitless attempts to land the roles had generated considerable interest amongst a number of people in a growing offshoot of the movie business; the very animated films that _The Blue Bird's_ makers had spoken off with such disparagement.

It would seem that a friend of a friend had shown the Australian animator Pat Sullivan (Pat would go on to create the _Feline Follies'_ Master Tom, now better known as _Felix the Cat_ ) who, having just parted the Bronx-based Barré-Nolan Studio under a cloud, had drawn us to the attention of the rival Bray Studio.

It was John Randolph Bray himself – the so called 'Henry Ford of Animation', on account of the way he instigated assembly-line animation – who invited Ketz and me to an interview.

Fortunately, we didn't have far to travel; for in those early days the home of animated movies was in – yes, Manhattan!

*

Our knowledge of animation at this point in our lives wasn't just sketchy; it was non-existent.

It was Maria – who assured us that she was not at all envious of our good fortune, swearing that in the movies a friend's success simply provided even more of those all-important contacts! – who made us aware that whereas Barré's now renamed Barré-Bowers Studio was responsible for animating Mutt and Jeff (as well as _The Animated Grouch Chasers_ , _Phables_ , _The Boob Weekly,_ and a series of animated Charlie Chaplin adventures) Bray had been the one who could claim to be the one who had 'set it all in motion': for it had been his _The Artist's Dream_ , or _The Dog and The Sausage_ , that had proven it could work as a feature in the movie theatres. Now his own hits included _Colonel Heeza Liar_ , _Bobby Bump_ , and _Al Falfa_.

Unfortunately, although John and his animators were amiable enough, we got off to bad start when it was made clear to us that they saw us as characters who would be expected to be forever pulling cruel tricks upon each other: a request we could only refuse, for this was – as it were – too close to home for us, this enmity between our people being the very thing we had fled Emarike to avoid.

'It's only _acting_ ; it's not for _real_!' a surprised and disappointed Maria admonished us when we informed her that nothing had come of our meeting. 'And the savings you say you brought with you will surely run out soon!'

On this matter, she was undoubtedly right – indeed, our savings were now flowing even more freely through our fingers now that we had also agreed to support Maria until she found work once more.

We also had to accept that she had a point when she asked what other jobs we were considering applying for; there were no professions or crafts we could call ourselves particularly adept at, after all.

We sighed.

All three of us.

We _had_ turned down a golden opportunity, hadn't we?

'I know: let's move,' Maria suddenly said brightly.

'Move? Where to? And _why_?' Ketz asked, not unreasonably I thought.

'Why; to _Hollywoodland_ , of course!'

*

# Chapter 7

Hollywoodland.

The movie business was moving out there, Maria told us, because it was a land of sun – effectively, a perfectly natural lighting system.

Not that animators need the sun, of course. But they needed distributers for their creations, of course, and that meant studios like Paramount and Goldwyn.

Better still, by the time the three of us had moved out there, animation had gained new levels of respect on the release of McCay's _The Sinking of the Lusitania_ , a vivid portrayal of an unwarranted attack on the steamship by a U-boat.

Unfortunately for us (you know, we were beginning to think, perhaps these earrings we still always carried with us weren't such good luck charms after all!) it turned out that even the new animation studios being set up were still basing themselves in the very place we had just left – New York!

And they were in absolutely no hurry to move out here either!

When Pat Sullivan would set up his own studios just a year later, he would chose Broadway for his operations, producing not just the _Charlie in..._ adventures he'd illustrated earlier but also the _Sammy Johnsin_ series and Felix; whose name came from the Latin for luck!

(Well, hadn't Maria warned us of the importance of choosing the right name?)

Even by 1921, when Max and Dave Fleischer left Bray to continue producing their _Out of the Inkwell_ creations – where a live action Max would find himself suffering from the mischievous exploits of an animated clown character who crept out of his inkwell – they would set up their Inkwell Studios in New York.

'Oh, what's it _matter_?' Maria gaily trilled, even as Ketz and I began to seriously worry that we had made a mistake setting our hearts on making movies. ' _You_ don't _need_ to be animated! Why, if we all played in the _same_ film together, how magical would _that_ look?'

Ketz and I exchanged wary glances.

'But what...what sort of movies could we appear in?' Ketz asked unsurely.

'Ones based on your stories, of course; the fairytales and legends of the old land – the Land of Vitches!'

*

# Chapter 8

The Silver Antlered Deer

Old man Kokovanya had no family; his best friends were a cat and a mouse who, through their mutual friendship with the old man, had also discovered that they liked each other.

No one had ever wished to stay with, let alone marry, the old man because he was a prospector in summer and, in the winter, a very particular kind of hunter.

Through the cold, icy season, he tried to track the Silver Antlered Deer; for like many of those who the scoured the land searching for gem stones, he firmly believed in the tales that promised riches to anyone who saw the deer stamp its silver-hoofed foot. For here the deer would leave behind the most precious kind of stones.

For the moment, however, he lived frugally, for his prospecting had not been as successful as he had hoped, while he had never seen even the faintest signs of this fabulous deer.

Whatever meagre finds he made would soon be spent whenever he made his rare trips down into the nearest village, where he would purchase his supplies in bulk, buying enough to last him through each season.

In truth, he would often declare in surprise to himself, his own, lonely little mountain cabin was also full of more happiness than anyone could find in the whole of this poor, unhappy village.

There were hardly ever any young men around, for they were usually away working in the mines. Of those that lived here, they were either embittered because they had been crippled by their arduous work, or they were gemstone carvers who couldn't help but sense their skills were poor and inadequate, being unable to produce the finely intricate pieces that somehow made their way down to the city markets from – it was rumoured – the legendary workshops of the Wraith Maiden.

Even the old men who had managed to survive the mines were near death anyway, their bodies wracked, misshapen, their lungs full of substances that made them endlessly and painfully cough, or bring up foul coloured phlegm.

The women, then, were all widows, of a sorts.

Widows of the men who had died.

Widows of the men who, lamenting their lacklustre cutting skills, had headed into the mountains, seeking out the Wraith Maiden who would teach them how to bring stone to life.

They never returned.

Had they died, alone and freezing in some mountain pass?

Or had they discovered the workshops, only to remain working there until they were satisfied with their achievements?

Either way, the result was the same; any poor young woman left behind would eventually be forced to mourn her loss.

Some would then remarry, only to go through the same thing all over again.

Others, unable to accept that their loved one could desert them, would set out themselves in search of their husbands, never to return.

These they called the Dead Man's Brides, forever wandering, crazed and dishevelled, clad in nothing but the white lace of ice-laden shreds until they themselves died.

As for the village's children; well, it wasn't simply a matter of what kind of life they led – what kind of life did they have to look _forward_ to?

They appeared haunted, wide eyed, as if permanently prepared to accept yet another piece of distressing news.

As such, the appearance of an unaccompanied twelve-year-old girl in the village brought few remarks from anyone. There were so many orphaned children, most had to forage for themselves, unless they had relatives prepared to take them in.

And yet Kokovanya's cat must have seen something special about this girl, for he approached her, his tail and head held high. He had chosen wisely: for she smiled, stroked him fondly, and shared out what little food she had with both him and the mouse comfortably nestled on his back, being neither distrustful nor scared of either.

What could Kokovanya do but bow to his closest friends' wishes that this young girl, Daryonka, should be invited to share their home with them?

*

Kokovanya soon realised that Daryonka was a gift, not a burden.

He delighted in her happy, carefree nature. She even seemed to be able to converse with his friends the cat and mouse, something he'd thought only he was capable of: and that only because he was reaching that time in his life when old men begin to imagine such impossible things might be possible after all.

More startling still, as the season passed she seemed to hardly age at all, despite the way girls of that age tended to shoot up swiftly – even though they themselves blissfully remained unaware of it.

Perhaps, perhaps...

Could it be, he began to muse hopefully, that she had been sent to him for a reason?

Isn't it claimed, in so many stories, that it is the coming together of the young and the old that brings about contact with otherworldly creatures, like the Silver Antlered Deer? Such creatures at last feel safe to reveal themselves, of course, to those who won't be believed; the ancient fool, who's mind is going, the young girl, who lives in dreams.

And so, one day, Kokovanya nervously confessed to the young Daryonka that he had sought all his life for the legendary Silver Antlered Deer, fearing she would think him an old fool.

Yet, instead, she nodded sagely as he told her his tale of his fruitless searches amongst the mountains.

'Yes, yes,' she declared elatedly when he had finished, 'we must _all_ go in search of this _wonderful_ creature!'

*

'Cats, I've heard,' Daryonka began to explain when Kokovanya protested that the poor creature would freeze to death, 'can act as a _link_ between worlds; which is why vitches find them so useful!'

'And the mouse?' Kokovanya asked wryly.

'The mouse is the cat's closest friend,' Daryonka wisely pointed out. 'Besides, didn't you just hear her? She _insists_ that she wants to help us!'

They dressed in the thickest of furs; yes, even the cat and mouse, who already had their own fur to keep them warm.

They took with them enough provisions to sustain them whenever it became impossible to live off the land, carrying what they could manage on their backs, and the rest upon a small sledge Kokovanya and Daryonka took turns in dragging behind them.

Even so, their journey higher into the mountains was wearisome and hard. The layers of snow crumbled under their every step, making each rising of the foot necessarily higher than was comfortable. The wind and the thickly swirling snow whipped seemingly endlessly at them, cutting through the furs like the sharpest slivers of ice.

As the ever-denser squalls of white snow swept low across the land lying ahead of them, they were frequently fooled into believing they had at last come across entire herds of silver deer, rushing over the hills, through the darkening forests.

Small trees, their tops stretching up higher than the next peak the wanders were approaching, their branching stems cloaked in glistening ice, were often mistaken for the long sought after glimpses of silvered antlers,

Hardened blocks of shattered ice, sparkling everywhere amidst the white blanket of snow, could easily have been taken to be the glittering gem stones left behind wherever the deer had stamped his foot.

'Every time the Silver Antlered Deer stamps with his silver hoof, then he leaves behind a precious stone,' Kokovanya had earlier explained. 'So if he stamps twice; then, of course, he leaves behind _two_ gems for us to find! So if we can persuade him to paw the ground – why, then we will be rich beyond our wildest dreams!'

Each time they thought they might have espied the Silver Antlered Deer, however, Kokovanya would hopefully peer more intently through the whirling snow; then he would shake his head sadly, miserably declaring that it was once again nothing more than a mirage conjured up by their overactive imaginations.

'I have fooled myself so many times by my own ridiculously optimistic imaginings,' he once added mournfully. 'And in those days, I was even so foolish I would waste my time and energy chasing after these mirages!'

'It _should_ be easy to discern a real sighting of the Silver Antlered Deer from a false one,' he confidently declared, 'for his antlers are truly a wonder to behold; they branch so many times that they would put to shame even the grandest, most powerful stag, and each stem shines as if made from the clearest, most silvery moonbeams!'

Ironically, the sighting of any normal stags caused them no confusion at all; for in winter, of course, they shed their antlers. And this was why Kokovanya always sought the Silver Antlered Deer in the coldest seasons, for unlike its closest relatives it always retained its fabulous antlers.

If it had shed them, of course, then finding these would indeed be a discovery to cherish, for the silver antlers alone would undoubtedly make anyone fabulously wealthy.

Despite the legends' firm assertions that the deer never lost its antlers, Kokovanya would not have been disappointed if these claims were untrue – as long as _he_ was the one lucky enough to come across them.

And so he almost danced with glee, in spite of his exhaustion, when he saw the sparkling antlers lying in the snow not far ahead of him.

*

Dazzling even in the dim sunlight that managed to claw its way through the constant squalls, the glittering antlers branched up into the air as if they had taken growth in the snow, crystalline in their angular beauty, as gorgeously wonderful as the finest coral.

Kokovanya rushed towards the sparkling antlers, throwing off his baggage, leaving behind the sledge in his eagerness to reach them.

He drew to a disheartened halt.

It wasn't the antlers, of course.

It was the petrified corpse of a woman, one of the Dead Man's Brides who had been frozen solid in her last beseeching cry for mercy from the gods.

Her shredded clothes, whirling about her in the freezing squalls, had similarly gradually stiffened, taking on like her an icy coating that sparkled like so many imprisoned stars.

Kokovanya fell to his knees in disappointment.

'We must bury her,' he said as the others caught up with him: for he had already regained his compassion for others despite his own dismay.

'The ground is too hard to dig,' Daryonka pointed out with uncharacteristic callousness. 'Our own travels have already exhausted us all.'

'We can lie her down, cover her with stones,' Kokovanya persisted.

'This is nothing but her shell; the real her has moved on, ageless now – unless she's still foolishly wandering, still searching for her love.'

'Still...' Kokovanya said, 'I _cannot_ leave her like this.'

'I think you are both right,' the cat said. 'We must respect the customs of both worlds.'

*

The rocks they used to cover the poor woman's corpse glistened every bit as brightly as she did.

The nearest stones to hand were of chrysolite, each one glowing a mystically misty green, as if formed from frozen sections of a deep lake.

Despite her original reticence to bury the poor woman, Daryonka joined in with the gathering and carefully reverent placing of the rocks. Therefore Kokovanya was surprised when, declaring their job well done, and at last glancing up from their task, he realised she was no longer with them.

Looking about him, trying to make things out in the thick, angry swirling of the snow, he finally caught sight of her standing some distance away from him.

Her back was towards them.

And all around her there was the most astonishing glow, as if she were shinning even more brightly than the freshly constructed mound of sparkling chrysolite.

Towering far above her head, there was the most curious thing of all: a brilliantly dazzling maze of petrified lightning streaks.

No; a vast array of spectacularly shimmering antlers.

It was the Silver Antlered Deer!

Daryonka had found him!

*

Remarkably, Daryonka was gently, tenderly caressing the Silver Antlered Deer, as if she had somehow managed to tame him.

Despite the deer's apparent placidness, Kokovanya nevertheless approached him as slowly and as quietly as he could, curbing his impetuousness, his eagerness, to see his long sought after prize up close, recognising that this wondrous creature might immediately flee if startled.

Even its fleecy skin was lustrous in the vibrancy of its silvery light, more radiant even than any ice-crusted pelt he had ever seen, each hair seemingly a thread of silver, sparkling as if drawn from the very moon itself. Its eyes were as black, however, as the darkness the moon nightly whirled within, as if you could plunge into them and plummet down into them forever.

As Kokovanya cautiously approached Daryonka and the deer, the apparently docile creature's head flicked his way a touch, those globularly dark eyes curiously taking in his every move.

Kokovanya paused, no longer daring to progress any farther.

The deer didn't run.

Rather, he seemed to be enjoying Daryonka's tender caressing and tearful kissing of his brow far too much.

He began to paw the ground with his silver hoof; and with every strike, a precious gem would spring up as if formed within the very snow itself.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice...

The Silver Antlered Deer struck the ground twelve times, an evermore precious stone flying up from its hoof each time, each jewel glittering more seductively than the last.

Yellow.

Green.

Blue.

Mauve.

Red.

Each precious stone was of its own, totally unique colour, some of a hue Kokovanya had never seen before, or had ever imagined could have ever existed. They landed softly, silently, in the layering of snow, from where they sparkled iridescently, as if the most gorgeous rainbow had been cast down to earth.

Edgily drawing closer once more, an overjoyed Kokovanya eagerly began to pick them up, to collect them in his coat pockets, his backpack.

When he at last glanced up from his task, he saw that the deer had at some point gone, vanishing as silently as he had arrived.

Once again, too, Daryonka was no longer with them.

Looking about him, trying to make things out in the thick, angry swirling of the snow, he finally caught sight of her, now a great distance away from him.

She was riding the Silver Antlered Deer.

And the deer was swiftly taking her farther and farther away with every magical step of its silver hoof.

*

Of course, with every step the deer took, it left behind yet another sparkling jewel.

Kokovanya was suddenly richer than he might have ever dared hope to be.

And yet, he realised; no, he was suddenly poorer than he had ever been.

'Daryonka!' he wailed uselessly as he rose to his feet, as he let the sparkling gems in his hands silently fall back into the snow.

'She's gone,' the mouse said sadly.

'We can follow the trail...'

It was Kokovanya's voice that trailed off. Somehow, he knew, the Silver Antlered Deer wasn't so easy to follow.

The track, at some point, must end; otherwise, how had he never come across the creature before?

'She didn't tell you, did she?' the cat said curiously.

'Tell me? Tell me what?'

'She's free now,' the mouse said brightly. 'She's found her love at last.'

As Kokovanya walked home alone, he began to cry.

And as he cried, his tears froze and turned to diamonds in every step he trod.

He left them there, of course: glistening in the snow like newly formed souls.

*

# Chapter 9

One of the problems we always found with making films, of course, is that you have to significantly adapt an original story to make it work as a screenplay.

Then again, this did, I must admit, work in our favour.

After all, the original tales we drew from contained no mouse.

While the cat – as played by Ketz, naturally – belonged to the girl in the source material.

Maria played the girl, and remarkably successfully too. I'd like to think that it was Maria's portrayal of Daryonka that, the very next year, would persuade Mary Pickford that she too could play a twelve year old; in this case, Eleanor H. Porter's _Pollyanna_. I think I would be considered fair in saying that this was Mary's first major success, placing her firmly on the road to fame and riches.

Now you may be wondering at this point how it came to be that we were so suddenly catapulted into starring in our own movie.

But, of course, it was purely through our own remarkably good fortune.

The earrings, it seemed, were working on our behalf once more.

Maria had originally suggested that Ketz and I approach the producers of a film then being shot on one of the many lots springing up over Hollywoodland. It was going to be a mix of live and stop-motion animation, as had been so magically utilised in the _Miracles in Mud_ series, or Helen Smith Drayton's delightful _Romeo and Juliet_.

In this case, the working title of the movie being filmed was _The Pied Piper_ , relating, of course, the events that had taken place in Hamelin so, so long ago. Hundreds of model rats had been constructed for the long shots of scenes where they would flood along the streets, a mix of simplistic models tied to pieces of string and more elaborate puppets. The more detailed models that were to be used for the actual stop-motion animation were naturally made in much smaller numbers, but for the moment these too were being kept on the set of the village.

And what a set it was!

We could have been at home in our own mountain village!

The sets of the mountains, too, were remarkably realistic – at least when viewed through the cameras.

It was quite obvious to us that a great deal of money had been put into this production.

But would they have the money to spare to take on two late additions to their cast?

Well, we had to try, didn't we?

We were shown through to the sets, where they were already filming, without any serious challenges from the guards at the gates or patrolling the surrounding fences.

After all, we certainly looked the part, didn't we?

The problems started, however, in a way that I couldn't have possibly imagined.

'The Magic of Hollywood' is these days an almost throwaway line, but in those days Hollywoodland was a far stranger and more charmed place than you would believe possible.

As Ketz and I strolled through the expansive set of the village, where everyone was busy preparing for later shots, we decided we'd have more chance of discovering someone in authority if we split up for a while and conducted individual searches. But it was while walking along in this way on my own that I began to suffer the most curious sensation; a tingling of my skin alerting me to the fact that I was in danger!

The rats were raising their snouts – sniffing the air!

They had obviously sensed the presence of a creature usually far smaller and far far more vulnerable than themselves

Me!

How was this possible? Models, constructs of wood and fur and what have you, springing into life?

Well, naturally, I had witnessed far more curious events than this back in Emarike.

But I had never expected similar things to happen in a more civilised country like America!

(And from what I have heard and seen of America since then, I think I can safely say it could have happened nowhere else but in the weirdly wonderful Hollywoodland!)

The rats shuffled excitedly.

They began to swarm forward – towards me!

A vast moving carpet of the most odious creatures imaginable!

The men working on various projects about me were every bit as startled and fearful as I was.

Dropping everything, they ran for their lives. Even those who attempted to bravely defy the oncoming hordes only did so briefly, flinging away the tools they'd intended to use as weapons as soon as it dawned on them that, no matter how many of the filthy animals they brought down, ten more would instantly take their place, leaping up at the poor man with teeth bared, and sharp claws tearing at his clothes and flesh.

As the men fled from their gnashing teeth, their accumulating and ever louder hissing, the rats became evermore daring, now thankfully (at least thankfully for me) chasing after the men rather than just me.

But there were hundreds, if not thousands, of these angrily snapping rats. Worse still, whenever you thought you'd managed to either run off or climb up to a place where you'd safely left your pursuers behind, you'd not only find that they could easily and rapidly swarm up after you, but you often found yourself coming face to face with rats that had been placed in various places around the set ready for shooting.

The rats seemed to be everywhere, to be rushing everywhere, to appear out of nowhere everywhere.

Rats, rats, as big as cats, as the story reliably tells us.

They gnawed hungrily at the electric cables, causing sparks, starting fires which they painlessly ignored, causing the fire to spread ever swifter as they charged about the set merrily ablaze – and soon some of the houses, made as they were of nothing but wood and cloth, were soon ablaze.

They sent expensive equipment toppling, scrambling up so high en-mass that lighting platforms, even cameras, became too heavy for their own supports, crashing to the ground with ominous clatters of shattering glass.

They bit the men working on the sets.

They scared off the camera crews.

They chased the actors.

They ran up the flowing skirts of the actresses.

It would all have been a complete catastrophe if Ketz hadn't realised that the rats seemed to have a natural fear of him.

He fearlessly darted amongst them, chasing them back.

Now they were the ones squealing in fear.

As men rushed in with buckets of water to douse the smaller fires the rampaging rats had started, Ketz kept up his pursuit of the would be pursuers, dashing about so quickly from place to place that he was managing to herd them all back towards the very worst of the conflagrations.

Terrified of Ketz, but not the flames, the wildly shrieking rats rushed headlong into the blazing houses. Here they swiftly burned away to nothing, being in reality nothing but wood and old fur themselves.

With the threat of the rats having at last vanished, the crew could at last begin to douse the raging fire. They stopped it spreading, but even so, the large village they had built was now a small one.

Thankfully, the sets of the mountains had survived unblemished, while most of the equipment wasn't as badly damaged as anyone might have feared.

And yet too much had been lost to continue filming the tale of the Pied Piper.

But, of course, more than enough of the set had survived to film a story we suggested to them; a story called _The Silver Antlered Deer_.

*

The unexpected success of _The Silver Antlered Deer_ immediately spawned (along with a swiftly growing interest in other tales from our Land of Vitches) a number of imitations; many of which became remarkably successful within their own right.

Bray Studios not only released an animated _Krazy Kat_ but also the very first US cartoon to be in colour, _The Debut of Thomas Cat_. This was also the time, of course, when Pat Sullivan would introduce to the world his Master Tom in _Feline Follies_ and _Musical Mews_ who, by the third showing, _The Adventures of Felix_ , would become the more famous _Felix the Cat_.

Ah, so much for a _cat_ , you might be thinking; but where's the _mouse_?

But of course, poor old Krazy Kat would continually suffer whatever Ignatz mouse would throw at him, bizarrely interpreting these violent actions as a sign of love – while arguably the most famous cartoon character of all time was yet to make his appearance, Walt Disney being nowhere near Hollywoodland at this time.

However, while heading the failing Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, he would instigate a project involving a live action girl preforming alongside an animated cat called Julius. This was _Alice's Wonderland_ , later to become the _Alice Comedies_ when Disney finally persuaded the wonderful Virginia Davis – who played Alice – to move to Hollywoodland with him.

But I'm getting far, far ahead of myself, aren't I?

In fact, none of this might have taken place if we'd failed to find a distributer for our movie, which for a while seemed very likely indeed!

It was the ending of the story that was causing so much trouble for us.

Why can't we have a happy ending? every potential distributor asked us.

People _demand_ a happy ending, we were sternly assured.

One where we see the old Kokovanya _enjoying_ his new found riches. (Kokovanya, by the way, was played by the delightfully eccentric but now unfortunately late Meredith Grant. He was an absolute wonder to work with, patiently teaching us many tricks of his trade.)

Just when it seemed we would have to relent and shoot a whole new ending, the original distributer we had approached now came to us saying that they would accept the movie as it was originally intended to be seen after all.

It seemed that someone holding a powerful position within the firm had had a change of heart.

It would not be right for me to disclose who that person was, as he now disputes the reason for changing his original decision that the movie required a more 'upbeat closure'. But we were definitely told at the time that he had suffered a quite dreadful experience throughout the night previous to his change of mind; an experience that had left him so shocked and distraught he felt he had no choice but to relate the strange happenings to a close friend, if only to prove to himself that he wasn't going mad after all.

Late in the evening, while seated at home reading beneath the conical beam of an overhead reading lamp, he heard the weirdest of noises in the darkness lying beyond the pyramid of light he was seated within.

It was a mingling, he'd informed his friend, of an animal-like hissing and the slithering of unseen things across the floor or furniture tops.

Abruptly rising in terror from his seat, he'd flicked on the switch that lit up the whole room; and found himself looking out over the most unimaginably horrendous sight.

His room was full of serpents of every kind, of every size and colour!

Worse still, they were gathering around him; closing in on him!

He had nowhere at all to retreat to.

Naturally, he threw whatever was to hand at the encroaching reptiles, but this seemed to anger them all the more rather than scaring them off.

He felt sure that he would die within the next few minutes, and in the most terrible way at that!

It was then that things took a turn that, in the light of day, when he had had chance to calm down and clear away the last traces of fright, would seem even more unbelievable.

Through the window of his house, out in the relative darkness of the barely lit street, he saw the very brightest of glows.

It was as if, he told his friend the next morning (yet would later deny having ever said such a thing), the moon had dropped down to earth, positioning itself right outside his home.

This silvery light shifted, such that it appeared to seep in through the window in a fluid motion more akin to the movement of water. It sparkled blindingly in parts, almost as if it were throwing off short but fiercely crackling lightning bolts.

And these branching bolts became a pair of massive antlers; _silver_ antlers.

With a shimmering of the light, it became in an instant a silvery-white deer.

Without a cry of anger, the deer began to remorselessly stomp upon the writhing serpents, crushing the life out of them with every fierce blow. The serpents vanished, in what appeared to the poor man as a rapidly diffusing cloud of sheerest darkness.

When, at last, every serpent had been completely flattened or broken beneath the deer's hooves, the lustrously glowing creature turned without a sound. It walked through the walls as if they no longer existed.

With the passing of the threat to his life, along with the removal of the almost blinding light of the silver deer, the man could at last take in his room once more.

There were no dead serpents lying around him.

And yet his floor and nearby furniture tops were all littered with the crushed remains of objects that could be said to have a serpentine nature; severed sections of electrical cables, the materials and the securing ropes from the drapes, the coiling wood that had been the staircase railings, or the elaborately carved legs of chairs.

On the morning, he presented some of these shattered objects – the wooden items in particular now badly warped, as if they had indeed at some point writhed into life – to his previously disbelieving friend.

Naturally, as rumours of the poor man's terrifying experience spread amongst his compatriots, he had little choice but to deny it had ever happened, for fear of being declared insane. He would say, rather, that his change of heart regarding our movie was down to nothing more than his realisation that the old man had recognised the importance of relationships over riches.

Whatever the truth of this strange matter, I do know for sure that our movie was distributed, unchanged.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

*

# Chapter 10

The Flowering Stone

Katinka, Danilo believed, was quite easily the most beautiful, the most _wonderful_ , girl in the world.

The trouble was, her mother thought so too.

She wasn't going to let her daughter go easily.

She believed her daughter was destined for better things than marriage to some poor stonecutter, no matter his undoubted skill

Now naturally, she didn't wish to make an enemy of her daughter.

She realised that Katinka loved Danilo every bit as much as he loved her.

Pah!

What use was love in the world?

Did it keep you fed?

Did it keep you clothed?

Alas, her lovely Katinka was far, far too young to be aware of the vagaries of this cruel world.

She needed to prove to her daughter that Danilo was _not_ the one for her.

She needed a test for Danilo that he would be more than willing to accept; one that his pride would prevent him from refusing.

A test that would frustrate him so much that he would unconsciously reveal to Katinka the bitterness of humiliation that every man suffered: before it was too late, and she was married to him.

Fortunately for Katinka's mother, she had a cup resembling the most beautiful of blooming flowers – even though it had been carved from stone.

Who had carved it, no one could remember. It was an ancient cup, one rumoured to have been carved when man benefited from a closer understanding and contact with the land.

'It's...it's the most beautiful, the most _wonderful_ , thing I've _ever_ seen!' an awestruck Danilo had to admit when Katinka's mother revealed her sparkling cup to him.

It was as if the most beautiful flower of all was slowing opening up before him, beckoning him to drink, to wallow in the nectar that must quite naturally flow from its reddened lips.

'It's said,' Katinka's mother said, 'that – despite its incredible beauty – this is a mere _copy_ of a cup far more fabulous than this one!'

Danilo shook his head; no, no – he couldn't _possibly_ believe that!

This cup was _alive_ , a _source_ of life: he was _sure_ of it!

'Now,' Katinka's mother purred seductively, 'could you produce something like this for my daughter; something that looks so much like the most beautifully blossoming flower, that you'll not be able to take your eyes off it?'

*

How could poor Danilo resist such an invitation?

It would prove his skill.

It would prove his love for Katinka.

Thinking in this way, of course, was far, far easier than thinking how he would achieve it.

The cup Katinka's mother had revealed to him had been so entrancing, he could think of hardly anything else but the way it had seemingly tempted him to drink endlessly from it.

Surely there could be _nothing_ so beautiful, so _wonderful_!

Now most hours, day or night, he worked on nothing but his efforts to simulate the burgeoning of life he had seen within that most remarkable of cups.

His workshop blazed with candlelight throughout the night, as he experimented with the heat of flames, the cold of water, just as he had seen the workers of metals transform their own earthy materials into intricately airy works of beauty (not that he had witnessed even the masters of gold and silver forming anything anywhere near as glorious as the apparently natural burgeoning of the cup).

Katinka, ironically, was forgotten and ignored as he tried to win her as his bride.

Every attempt he made at bringing life into his craft left him evermore frustrated, evermore furious; quite obviously, he lacked any real understanding of the materials he was hoping to bend to his will, to caress into other forms!

He doused his fires, using the cold waters, both hissing irritably as they were unwillingly brought together in this cruel manner.

He cast his failed pieces to the earth, shattering them there so that they were nothing but the raw rock once more.

He needed air; he needed to clear his mind of his anger, his sorrow – his bitterness and his humiliation.

*

He used to walk hand in hand with Katinka across the meadows.

Now he walked across them wringing his hands in frustration, the blue marsh gas mournfully rising up from the ground and swirling about him as if it had been conjured up by his misery.

There was a well out here, cresting the meadow's slight rising, but he knew of no one who had ever drunk from it: it was far too deep for anyone to draw up a pail of water (did it make _any_ sense, to have a well on a _hill_?), no matter how well they came prepared with ropes.

As a young boy, despite the warnings of adults not to go near the well, he and his friends had often dropped stones into its yawning, dark mouth, counting the seconds as they waited to hear it plunge into the water; their counting always faltered long before they heard anything that could be deemed to be their stones striking something.

As he drew towards the well, he saw amongst the swirling of the mist a darkened dishevelled figure that could have been formed from the more solid spiralling of the fog, as cold waters twirl into the irresistible pull of the whirlpool.

Her clothes were shreds of darkness, her hair elongated shadows.

She was so rigid as she stood against the well, she might well have been carved from the land.

Yet as Danilo drew closer to her, she turned and attempted a smile.

Beneath her wayward hair, her face was a contortion of various shades of darkness. She was an old woman, as ancient as any he could remember having seen.

'Would you be so kind,' she asked Danilo with a surprisingly clear and tinkling voice, 'to draw some water for me?'

Danilo knew better than to refuse such an apparently innocent request.

He had heard, naturally, of men who had sworn they had espied the Wraith Maiden here; and she could take on whichever guise she wished.

It may well be a test for him

He must, at the very least, show willingness to help the old crone.

He glanced about him, realising that there was nothing like rope to hand, that he would need the very longest of branches to have any hope of reaching far down into the well.

The trees that managed to grow here were poor specimens of their kind; warped by wind and cold, stunted by a lack of nourishing, deep earth. The advantage of that was that they frequently shed even the very largest of their stems, which broke off under their own unsustainable weight.

Searching around amongst the dead branches of wood, Danilo pulled out the nearest to what could be called a straight pole, its end conveniently split and thereby hopefully capable of holding a small pot in which he could withdraw water from the well.

Hah!

What hope was there of that?

The branch was far, far too short to reach anything but the driest parts of the well.

Besides, there was one major flaw in his already patently inadequate scheme.

'I'm afraid I don't have anything to attach to it,' he admitted ashamedly.

'I have my own cup,' the crone replied merrily, 'but I wouldn't wish to risk losing something so wonderful and pure down some old, dry well!'

She smiled; and Danilo was astonished to see that, as her dark hood of hair flailed back and up in the wind, she wasn't an old crone at all but, rather, the most startlingly gorgeous young woman.

She pulled apart the shreds of darkness that were her clothes.

She produced her cup.

A cup so beautiful that Danilo feared he might never be able to take his eyes off it.

*

'How...how did you come by such a cup?' Danilo asked, so awestruck by the sight that he failed to realise his question could be deemed rude and insulting.

Fortunately, the young woman merely smiled.

'It's...it's more beautiful, more _wonderful_ , than _anything_ I could possibly imagine!' Danilo breathed.

He felt dazed by the incredible beauty of the cup she held out before him.

Surely it couldn't really be of stone, of _anything_ once inflexible and hard; it _pulsated_ with life!

It glistened, as if moist with dew, as if beckoning him to drink from it even though it was yet to be filled.

He was lightheaded in his entrancement, his vision seemingly increasingly glazed, for the bottom of the cup was now swirling before him, no longer solid but perfectly fluid, as cold waters twirl into the irresistible pull of the whirlpool; but no! – it _was_ the swirling of _water_!

The freshest, the clearest, of waters, springing up into the cup!

'Why!' the maid exclaimed, as if as surprised by the filling of the cup as he was. 'I see you _have_ filled my cup for me!'

She proffered the filled cup to him, as if _he_ were the one who had requested water to be drawn up from the well, not her.

His mind was too befuddled to refuse.

Besides, there was nothing he had ever wished for more than to be able to drink from this cup.

He had never desired anything more than he desired to drink in its waters.

The water was cool, more delicious even than he had imagined it would taste.

It could never slake his thirst, for he would always be left wanting more.

'Danilo!'

The loud cry made him splutter as he drank.

He whirled around on his heels, looking back to where the call to him had come from.

Katinka was running across the meadow towards him, smiling, waving gaily, as if glad to have found him.

Strangely, Danilo _wasn't_ pleased that she had found him; not at this particular moment, at least.

He turned back to face the young maid; but she was no longer there.

And neither, of course, was her cup.

*

As Danilo worked on replicating whatever he could remember of the fabulous cup, all thoughts of Katinka – at least for the moment, he told himself, at most until they were married – were forgotten.

He wished of course, that he had savoured more of his meeting with the maid; that he'd had the chance to ask her the secret of the cup's creation.

If she hadn't known, then she must have known where she had purchased it.

Naturally, he had searched for her again up by the well.

But he had never seen her again.

He cursed Katinka's foolishness; she might well have jeopardised any chance that they had had of getting married.

Of course, _she_ remained perfectly oblivious of the potential repercussions of her impetuous actions.

She had come seeking him out, fearing for his wellbeing when she had found his workshop empty, his work uncharacteristically untouched.

Fortunately, Katinka made no mention of his meeting with the young maid by the well.

The swirling of the mist, it seems, had happily veiled the maid from Katinka's view.

The working of his stone was better than it had ever been. On Katinka's increasingly rare visits to his workshops (he made it plain she wasn't welcome, that she was spoiling his concentration), she was impressed by the quality of his pieces, telling him that he should rest, that now – at last – he had something that easily bettered her mother's cup.

Danilo disagreed.

He couldn't tell her, of course, that he had seen a cup far superior to her mother's, far more wonderful than anything else he had ever seen.

He wished so much he had drunk _more_ from it!

*

Katinka's mother was deeply impressed by Danilo's work.

Indeed, anyone who saw it marvelled at its beauty, the way the stone curled as if granted life, the manner in which it sat so comfortably within a hand.

Just as Katinka's mother originally requested, many people within the village declared that it was like a blossoming flower; but as it was really made of stone, they felt unable to fully keep their eyes off it.

Danilo was simply angered by their foolishness.

Couldn't they see that whereas even the simplest flower brings joy to the heart, he had simply spoiled the stone?

Where was the beauty of the real flower in his work?

Nevertheless, despite his own reservations regarding the quality of his creation, the wedding to Katinka went ahead with her mother's blessing.

And yet there was no joy in this wedding for Danilo; he felt, rather, as if he were attending his own funeral.

In the morning, with a cry of anguished scorn, he picked up and smashed the unsatisfactory cup.

*

Katinka was aghast at Danilo's destruction of the cup.

And yet she was well aware of his reasons.

'The maid, at the well,' she said sternly. 'That's what this is about, isn't it?'

'You _saw_ her?'

Danilo was astonished; she had never admitted to him before that she had seen him with the maid.

'Don't you know who she is?' Katinka demanded with a puzzled glower.

'I...I have my _suspicions_.'

Katinka couldn't believe his naivety, his stupidity.

_Pah_!

Suspicions?

Is that really all he had?

_Suspicions_?

Didn't everyone warn men to beware of the well and its attendant seductress?

Life loses all of its sweetness for men who fall to her charms.

'Stone and living matter cannot join,' Katinka warned her new husband. 'Anyone who seeks such an impossible thing is _bound_ to remain unsatisfied with their lives!'

'Then you believe it _was_ her?'

He spun around, at last taking his eyes off the smashed pieces, glaring accusingly at her.

'Didn't you see the way she became as one with the mist as I approached?'

She could see in the way his eyes glazed over that he hadn't see this, that he had seen only what he wished to see.

'If it _was_ her,' Danilo asserted determinedly, 'then she's the one I need to be with!'

*

In the tales he had heard of the Wraith Maiden, she owns a flowering stone that grows within her domain.

Those who see it at last begin to understand the beauty of stone.

He strode across the meadow.

He ascended the slight rise leading towards the well.

And there he waited as the swirling mists spun about him, like the irresistible pull of the whirlpool.

*

'I saw that you had such a beautiful bride, Danilo,' the young maid purred seductively, the whirling shadows hardening, taking form. 'Are you sure that you can forget her? As you must, if you are to learn everything I can teach you?'

'The world already seems dead to me,' Danilo admitted miserably

Against her clothes of darkness, a roughly hewn stone she held in her hand glowed as if it were the most precious of gems.

The glow rose up from the stone, until the maid was able to pull it free, leaving it glistening in her palm as if it were the most wonderful ruby.

'Everything possesses a soul, a pattern of what it cries out to be,' she said. 'We just have to open up our own soul to see it clearly.'

She held up the ruby, so that it caught the light, revealing in its remarkable transparency a pattern that could be fiery veins. As she twisted the gem in her hand, her fingers slipped inside, moving the structured lines aside a little, making them vibrate.

She drew the lines into simple shapes, the image a child might draw of a gorgeous bloom.

And the previously roughly formed stone in her hand became a flowering rose.

Danilo couldn't keep his eyes of the rose, which opened and bloomed before him.

'Now you must choose,' the maid said, her own eyes flowering as ruby red as the rose spreading in her hand. 'Forget your bride; or return to her, but forget all that is mine.'

*

At last, Danilo begins to unveil the life that lies within every stone!

There are those of red, of fire, blood, creatures, lust, and energy.

Those of orange, of the sun, the planets, and fortune.

The ones of yellow are of the earth, the fate set in stone; but then again, isn't stone malleable, changeable, after all?

Green is the sap, of growth, of trees and grasses, of understanding.

Blue is fluidity, water, air, gas; changes.

Indigo death and darkness.

Violet is the otherworldly, love.

White is the milk of life, mysticism, purity.

And within the soul of man, there are all these colours, to varying degrees.

And so, naturally, Danilo didn't wholly forget his bride, Katinka.

He thinks sadly of her every now and again.

For it pains him greatly that his wonderful creations will never be seen by her.

*

# Chapter 11

'A sad ending – again?'

Even though he couldn't fault the success of our previous film, the director chosen to film _The Flower of Stone_ hadn't been at all happy with the script presented to him by the producers.

He wasn't quite sure, either, that Ketz and I were right for the main roles of Danilo and Katinka.

'I mean,' he said, exasperated with our insistence that all these things had already been decided upon, 'in your _last_ movie, there were _definite_ characters that could _only_ be played by a cat and a mouse!'

We shrugged off his worries. If anything, we believed that it was _imperative_ that we took on these roles, if only to ensure the movie would be accepted by its audiences as being a charming tale, as opposed to unconsciously highlighting the unwarranted and unwanted connotations that some people unfortunately read into the tale.

'We believe Ketz and Mika are ready to be accepted as _character_ actors,' Maria stated firmly, her anger close to boiling.

She had her own disagreements with the director to sort out. She had seen herself as playing both the Wraith Maiden and Katinka's mother: but the director had thrown up his hands in horror at the suggestion, declaring that this would only confuse people all the more.

It made no sense at all, he insisted.

He had an actress in mind, he'd assured us, who would be far better in at least _one_ of the roles Maria demanded should be hers.

Of course, anyone who has seen _The Flower of Stone_ will be fully aware that Maria did indeed go on to play both characters, the Wraith Maiden and the mother. I doubt if anyone outside the movie business knows that there were many fraught discussions and arguments regarding the casting of the movie, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is the first acknowledgement of these difficulties that most people will have read.

The actress in question is a well-known one, but I doubt if she would appreciate me revealing her name, in light of the unfortunate and previously undisclosed events that beset her around this time.

On a personal level, Ketz and I felt no animosity towards her, despite the conflict arising between her and Maria. Naturally, in regards to the casting, we took Maria's side that both roles should be hers; and yet we were firmly of the opinion that the director was the one to blame for the antagonism lying between Maria and this poor lady.

It struck us that Judy (let's give her a name – if not her correct one – if only to make describing the following events easier to explain) had no burning desire to take on either role. It was just that she was in some form of burgeoning relationship with the director, and it wouldn't surprise me to hear that he was hoping to cast her in his film purely as a means of demonstrating the power he could wield.

She was little more than a pawn in his struggles to assert his own growing power within the studio system.

It was all such a shame, too, for she really was a quite beautiful and incredibly charming girl. I fear I might be unintentionally giving her identity away when I say that she had the most spectacular mane of long-flowing golden hair; but I have no choice but to reveal this, as it plays an essential part in the following events, as you will soon see.

Late one night, Ketz and I received a call from Judy, who sounded strangely hysterical, insisting that she had to talk to us, that it _had_ to be us, and that we would _have_ to see her in her apartment; it was just impossible for her to come to see us – for _that_ was the _very_ problem she was suffering!

Mystified, Ketz and I immediately took a cab down to the address Judy had provided us with. We had never visited her in her apartment previous to this night, which made her request all the more unusual, as she surely had dearer friends than the ones we had become to her in the relatively short time we had come to know her.

As she lived in a block of particularly expensive apartments, Judy's area was one of those rare parts of town benefiting from high, overhead lighting. Even so, as we drew closer towards where she lived, it seemed to us to be getting darker, far darker than we would have expected it to be in this wealthy district.

In the abruptly growing darkness of the cab's interior, our respective gems glowed brightly, like amethysts: a colour we had never seen the earrings sparkle with ever before, even though we had witnessed them go through a wide variety of colours. Usually, too, the stones would sparkle with different tones; they agreed in their hues only when Ketz and I also appeared to be in agreement regarding our moods or feelings.

Leaning back in the cab's seats, we stared out of the window and up into the night sky.

The darkness of the night was, strangely, flooding _beneath_ the lights.

*

The darkness was spreading and solidifying as if it were a black snow of the very largest flakes.

As if it were dark hands, interlocking their fingers, gradually blocking out all light.

We sensed the nervousness in the driver. He, too, was peering up towards the blackening sky.

'Others have been out here,' he said morosely, doubtlessly referring to other cabs. 'They said I should refuse anyone wishing to travel this way.'

Despite his reservations, the driver nervously continued on his way, pulling up outside Judy's apartment block with a sternly delivered 'Don't ask me to wait.'

As Ketz and I exited the cab on both sides, the darkness rapidly descended towards us.

It swooped around us, swamped us; a blackness that was furiously cawing and shrieking.

It was a mass of carrion, of crows and ravens.

They careered towards us in such a frenzy of hatred that many crashed headlong onto the car, the roof reverberating with bump after heavy bump. They struck the windows with a flurry of feathers, the clank of hard beaks almost shattering the glass.

Our driver had suffered enough.

'Out, out!' he screeched at us when, glancing back at us, he saw we were still only half way out of the doors of his cab.

He pushed on my back, almost sending me sprawling out upon the kerb but, fortunately, I managed to remain on my feet.

Seeing that I'd been pushed out into the thronging crows, Ketz realised he had no alternative but to join me, leaping out of the cab on his side and rushing round its rear to offer me help.

Even before he knew if Ketz was safely clear or not, however, the terrified driver had slammed down hard on his accelerator. He roared away from the kerb, his still open doors flapping angrily like the great wings of an angrily harassed and now fleeing eagle.

The crows whirled around Ketz and me, their beaks, eyes and claws glittering in what little light there was coming from the apartment block's windows. Thankfully, they no longer seemed sure about their attack, however, the furiously swirling birds gathering about us in a frenzy of thrashing feathers rather than directly launching themselves at us.

Perhaps they were confused by our appearance.

Perhaps they were as mystified by us and our behaviour as we were of them and theirs.

We took their puzzlement and indecision as an opportunity to dash as quickly as we could towards the beckoning doors of the apartment block. A few of the pitch-black birds stayed with us, angrily fluttering by our sides, but the vast majority hung just above our heads in a dense, brawling mass of sheer darkness.

We gratefully ducked inside the doors, a little surprised that no birds followed or even attempted to swoop inside after us.

Naturally, we'd both hoped and expected that the apartment block's foyer would be an oasis of peace after what we'd just experienced. Yet we could hear a chaotic commotion taking place on every level stretching above us, a mingling of furious and bewildered cries as everyone gathered outside their apartments on the landings, with many still in their nightgowns.

We entered the elevator running up through the middle of the angularly spiralling stairs, slamming the grill-like doors into place in our urgency to reach Judy's apartment on the uppermost storey. We stared in awe and horror through the grill as we slowly ascended, for the thoroughly confused people milling about on the stairs appeared to have been forced from their apartments by a densely growing hay, which spilled from doorways like impossibly elongated corn. The apartments' interiors were now jungle-like in the way the rolls of golden wheat either hung from ceilings or were carelessly draped everywhere across the now fully enveloped furniture.

There were attempts by the expelled people, of course, to hack away at the flowing garlands that had taken over their homes, but it was all fruitless.

On reaching the top floor, we were of course expecting to come across poor Judy similarly exiled from her own apartment. But her door was closed, and the landing was empty.

We knocked on the door, not knowing what else we should do.

A muffled, wailing cry for help came from inside the apartment.

'Come in! I can't come to the door!'

It took both of us, putting our combined weight (which, admittedly, wasn't _much_!) against the door, to slowly push it open.

The thick coils of wheat almost crushed us as they curled around the door's edges and fell thickly and heavily about us.

Only, it was all far too soft, far too heavy, to be hay.

It was hair; golden hair.

*

# Chapter 12

'I'm in here!'

Judy continued to shout to us as we struggled through wave after rolling wave of golden hair.

We entered a room that appeared to be full of nothing but the very largest swirls of hair, and it was only when Judy cried out to us once more than we noticed her sitting in the very midst of it all, like a crooked Rumpelstiltskin almost enveloped by the spun gold he'd filled his room with.

'Thank goodness you managed to get here,' she wept with relief, her head bowed by the weight of the hair continuing to spill from the top of her head like a glittering spring. 'Everyone else I called never came, even though they promised they would!'

That must have been the work of the crows I surmised; they would have scared anyone off, if they'd continued to attack them the way they'd dived so maliciously upon the cab.

We must have been the last ones she'd managed to call too, I also realised, seeing that the telephone lay tangled up in her hair far out of her reach now that she was weighed down by her own shining locks. Also tangled up in the hair were tables, dining chairs, lampstands. I also glimpsed what I thought could be scissors and, possibly, a large, serrated breadknife; obviously, she'd tired to sever her hair at some point, but had been unsuccessful in her endeavours.

I thought, but I couldn't be sure, that she was sitting in a chair; it was so hard to tell, because everything was covered in her hair.

'It's all so _heavy_ ,' Judy wailed. 'I can't stand up anymore!'

'How...how did this _happen_?' Ketz asked concernedly.

'How should I know?' she snapped back. 'Do you think _I'm_ responsible for this?'

'Then...who would _do_ this to you?' I said.

'And how should I know _that_?' she snapped again. 'I got you out here because I thought you might be able to help me! Not ask me stupid questions!'

'But what can we–'

'Because it's _magic_ , isn't it?' she stormed. 'You know; like some evil _witch_ has put a spell on me? And what are _your_ stories about but witches and what have you? The Land of _Vitches_ , right?'

As she talked, she had to lean farther and farther forward in her chair as the increasing weight of her hair made it evermore difficult for her to stay sitting upright. Her uncomfortable position made her already irate tones harsher still.

'Golden Hair!' Ketz whispered to me worriedly.

'What? _What_ was that?' Judy demanded. 'So it _is_ something to do with you and your country!'

'No, no,' I insisted as calmly as I could, hoping to reassure her and prevent her from panicking, 'it is a legend from our lands; but it just has _similarities_ –'

' _Similarities_?' she shrieked. 'What _sort_ of _similarities_?'

'Well, a girl – a beautiful, _beautiful_ girl,' Ketz said, his gentle tenor one of someone hoping to placate someone close to throttling anyone nearby, 'once had beautiful golden hair that began to grow and grow–'

"How did she _stop_ it? _That's_ all I want to know!' Judy snarled, her breathing now hard and heavy, as her ribs crushed against her knees.

'Well...er...'

I can understand the difficulty Ketz is having in trying to explain this.

She doesn't so much escape, as ends up living underground – underneath Lake Itkul, where Poloz is powerless.

Which, some people have said, is just another way of saying she died.

You know, my land _does_ have some very sad endings to its fairytales, doesn't it?

*

'Oh, I'm sure all this has absolutely _nothing_ to do with any stupid legends!' I said with all the gaiety I could muster.

'I think it has _everything_ to do with you and your stupid legends!' Judy gasped painfully, the weight of her hair now pulling her head almost to the floor.

'But _she_ was the daughter of Poloz the Great Snake–'

'So _now_ what're you saying?' Judy angrily interrupted Ketz. 'That this is my _father's_ fault?'

'No, no! I meant, like Mika did, that there really _can't_ be any connections–'

' _Connections_? The _connection_ is _you_ and your damn _movie_!'

' _Poloz_ won't let his daughter go with Ailyp, a young man; _he's_ the one pulling the hair underground–'

' _Underground_? You mean my hair is _rooting_?'

Now she begins to wail and weep all the more.

'Please _please_ tell me how to stop this!'

Unfortunately, Ketz and I are every bit as puzzled by Judy's unbelievable dilemma as she is. We exchange bewildered glances, each one of us obviously hoping the other might have an answer.

'This snake's daughter; how does she stop her father doing this?' Judy continues to wail, her voice now rasping horribly as the heavy hair presses her chest ever harder against her knees.

'They have to ask the wise eagle-owl–'

' _The wise eagle-owl_?' Judy manages to snarl furiously. 'Are you _kidding_ me?'

Her breathing now is heavy and laboured.

'I wish I'd never got involved with you and your stupid, stupid movie!'

As if she had spoken the magic words of a spell, the hair about us abruptly sparkled more golden than ever, blinding in the intensity of its radiance.

' _Now_ what's happening?' Judy wailed miserably, leaping up from her seat in her panic and fury.

'You...you're _standing_!' Ketz pointed out to her in surprise.

Judy looked down at herself as if seeing herself like this was an entirely new experience for her.

'I _am_ , aren't I?'

She sounded as much astonished as relieved.

She slipped an arm beneath her flowing locks, gawping in wonder as she found she could at last lift the rolling waves of hair.

'It's not as heavy anymore!' she cried out elatedly.

All about us, the rolling curls of hair where rapidly shifting, like some great golden serpent awakened in its lair.

'It's not growing anymore; it's receding!' I yelled out excitedly.

The hair was rushing back into the top of Judy's head, a sight that – to me at least – was more far frightening and astonishing than when it had been simply growing.

Where was it all going to? I wondered, perhaps a little stupidly; for all this was obviously, as Judy had so rightfully suspected, something to do with a magical curse.

Although who could have cursed her, or why, I had no idea.

Judy almost danced with joy when, finally, she could at last pull the ends of her hair clear of the floorboards they'd somehow managed to spread through as easily as young ivy worms its way through the smallest cracks.

In a moment, her hair was back to how it had been when we'd last seen her before this unfortunate event; a glowing curtain of golden hair, stretching down to her waist.

In a moment, it was even shorter than this.

In a moment, Judy was entirely bald.

And she was weeping inconsolably once more.

This Hollywoodland; it really, really _is_ a much stranger and more magical place than even the Land of Vitches!

*

# Chapter 13

I don't really know why Judy was so upset by what had happened to her; the wig she purchased was truly quite remarkably realistic, and you had to be up very close to her to see any join. It was also perfectly safe to wear, she had been told, as long as she kept clear of any flames or water.

Still, she insisted she still wanted nothing more to do with either us or our 'stupid movie'.

She left the country, I believe, taking her director boyfriend with her.

Although this seemed at the time to be an unfortunate setback to the making of our movie, we soon acquired a new director prepared to take on the task, while Maria – naturally – was pleasantly surprised to be told that, due to Judy's abrupt relinquishing of her role, she would now be cast as the daughter's mother.

In fact, Judy's fleeing of the country worked to Maria's advantage in other, unforeseen ways, for the former had been heavily involved in state politics for a long time, and had been preparing to put herself forward as a possible senator representing the region – and Maria found she slipped almost seamlessly and effortlessly into this other abandoned role of Judy's.

We weren't to know it at the time, of course, but this would set in motion Maria's relatively abrupt transition from movies to politics.

Although Maria was beginning to set her eyes on new horizons, for the moment, of course, she would thankfully still be heavily involved in putting together ideas for our next movie, _The Bejewelled Girl_.

We'd intended this to be yet another retelling of legends from our homeland, in particular a delightful tale called _The Malachite Casket_. Naturally – as we _always_ do in the movies – we realised we would have to adapt the tale to our own satisfaction, taking into account the high expectations of the modern movie theatre audience.

We also recognised that our next film would somehow have to be even more successful than _The Flower of Stone_ , for we were facing increasingly serious competition from the expansion of rival companies, most of which was still thankfully taking place outside of Hollywoodland.

Around this time, Max and Dave Fleischer left John Bray to form their Broadway-based Inkwell Studios, where they not only continued to produce their popular _Out of the Inkwell Films_ but also began pioneering the use of 3-D animation landscapes, which in a few years time would result in the hour-long documentary _Einstein's Theory of Relativity_.

Walt Disney, surprisingly, was still struggling to make a financial success of his otherwise well received Newman Laugh-O-Grams, expanding into his own retelling of fairytales such as _Puss in Boots_ , _Little Red Riding Hood_ and the _Four Musicians of Bremen_ : and I don't believe that anyone from that period could satisfactorily prove that they had even an inkling of the tremendous accomplishments Disney would go on to achieve.

Perhaps our greatest challenge, however, came from the regular studios, for there were already rumours that Paramount Pictures were discussing storylines in preparation for filming a version of J. M. Barrie's _Peter Pan_ : worse still, we'd also heard that the fairy Tinker Bell would be created utilising innovative special effects.

We needed a new hit; and we needed it quickly. And we decided that, playing off of the enthusiasm of tales of the Wraith Maiden generated by _The Flower of Stone_ , we would create a follow up to the adventures of Katinka after her abandonment by Danilo.

*

# Chapter 14

The Bejewelled Girl

It had only been one night that they had been together; but it was enough.

Katinka had to face up to the fact that she was carrying Danilo's child, even though he had left the very day after their wedding.

How would she support both herself and the child?

And yet, if she weren't carrying her child, she wondered in her lowest moments, would she have become yet one more wandering Dead Man's Bride?

She did wander, however, up by the well on the meadow, hoping to catch sight of Danilo, hoping that he had somehow returned from the unbreakable embrace of the Wraith Maiden.

While out walking one day in a thick blue mist, she thought she saw him standing by the well, a dark shape taking form from the whirls of coiling mash gases.

She would have run towards him, but she was already far into her term, and it was more difficult than she had imagined it would be.

But there had been no need to run after all, she realised miserably; it wasn't Danilo.

It was another woman.

She started; it could _only_ be the Wraith Maiden!

She hesitated.

But then she told herself not to be so ridiculous; for the woman was also carrying a child, like her.

Maybe, even, she was also an abandoned woman, like her.

The Wraith Maiden would never let her body be soiled by anything as mundane as childbirth, despite having many lovers.

Katinka continued drawing closer towards the woman, thinking she should explain her earlier hesitation, in case it had been noted, and frowned upon.

'Seeing you here in the mist, I feared you might be the Wraith Maiden!' Katinka cried out to the woman in a mix of relief and greeting, laughing at her own foolishness.

'It's a chancy thing to meet her,' the woman agreed gaily enough. 'Isn't it said, it brings woe for a bad man, and for a good one there's little joy comes of it?'

'There's much truth in that,' Katinka agreed bitterly.

As they faced each other, the woman smiled warmly.

'I see that, like me, you're with child,' she said merrily, deftly using her fingers to quickly draw the simple image of a babe in the air above her own bump.

When the woman raised her hand once more, Katinka was shocked to see that it now contained – for she was _sure_ it hadn't before – the most resplendent of emeralds.

Even more startlingly, the woman proffered the precious stone to Katinka, even as – with her other hand – she drew the image of the babe again, this time over Katinka's bump.

'For you,' she said, indicating the jewel in her hand with a nod, a grin, 'for the child _you_ shall carry.'

Before a startled Katinka could refuse, the woman had deftly slipped the necklace over her head and about her neck; despite Katinka being _sure_ that the emerald hadn't been a part of a necklace when she had first seen it.

'No, no! I can't take _this_!' Katinka insisted. 'It's far, far too _expensive_!'

' _Expensive_?' The woman laughed. 'Why, such a trinket is _nothing_ ,' she declared, this time producing in her hands – as if from beneath her gown, as if from nowhere, Katinka could no longer be sure – a malachite casket, its lid open to display the most fabulous collection of precious stones Katinka had ever seen.

Naturally Katinka was briefly mesmerised by this truly fantastic sight of gems that glittered and sparkled, as if each one contained a fragment of a particularly spectacular rainbow.

So much so, in fact, that the sight made her wonder if she had imagined that the woman's bump seemed to have vanished.

So much so, in fact, that she unthinkingly reached for the casket, so that she might admire the lure of the jewels more closely, and in more detail.

'For the children,' she heard the woman saying, 'but the green one can only be for the one with green eyes!'

' _Children_?' Katinka replied, at last glancing up from the bewildering glow of the precious stones.

But the woman didn't explain what she meant by children.

She was no longer there.

Katinka was standing alone by the well, holding a casket of jewels a king would envy.

*

_Children_?

What an odd thing to say.

Surely she was carrying only _one_ child?

And yet, now she thought on it, her bump was quite large, wasn't it?

And it _was_ a heavy weight to bear!

But as for the green eyes...?

Well, what _nonsense_!

Neither she nor Danilo had green eyes.

Indeed, the only green eyes she had _ever_ seen were those of the woman at the well.

*

Katinka gave birth to just the one girl, not two.

But she did have the most remarkable green eyes.

'The colour of the necklace's pendant!' Katinka's mother proudly declared, having accepted her daughter's lie that Danilo had somehow spirited the gems to her in recompense for abandoning her for the Wraith Maiden.

With a child to support and raise – and a girl at that, who would probably _never_ earn her way – Katinka was glad that she had kept the necklace and the casket of jewels.

Strangely, she found that she hadn't had to part with any of the precious stones, as she had quite naturally feared. For whenever she reached a point where she had to seriously consider selling, say, the ruby, then a local farmer – a long time admirer of Katinka's beauty – quite graciously presented her with a cow who had caused fractions amongst his bulls. Whenever she took out the orange clinohumite, shimmering as if it were a droplet of a molten sun, other forms of good fortune would smile on them, the alignment of the planets ensuring that all their needs would be met without relinquishing the stone after all. And just when it seemed everything had at last turned against them, why, simply producing the gloriously yellow elbaite would prove that their fate wasn't set in stone after all, and once again food, clothes or whatever else they had been short of would almost magically come their way.

Of course, Katinka had never considered selling the emerald pendant.

As the woman who had left these precious stones to her had requested, Katinka had slipped the necklace around the neck of her green eyed daughter Tanyushka on the day she had been born.

Given the similarity of the sparkling green of her eyes to the radiant jewel, it simply seemed quite natural that Tanyushka should always wear it.

And so the emerald continually sparkled upon Tanyushka's chest, as if it were a dazzling third eye.

*

Even as a young child, Tanyushka played endlessly with the gems in the casket, as if they were the most wonderfully entertaining toy that anyone had devised

It wasn't, it seemed to Katinka, that she was simply attracted to the glorious colours, the delicious sparkling, of the jewels.

She appeared to be forever entertained by them, holding them up to the light and staring into them as if she could see a whole new world in there, delighting at every change in its glimmering as if an entire adventure was being laid out before her.

If anything, Tanyushka's all abiding interest in the stones became worse after a visit by a vagabond woman to their village, a woman impoverished and in rags who Tanyushka strangely took an instant attraction to.

Indeed, even worse for Katinka, she once caught Tanyushka hugging the woman tenderly: 'She hardly has time for her own mother,' she wailed tearfully to her own mother, 'yet she _embraces_ this beggar!'

Now Katinka would have been even angrier if she'd caught Tanyushka slipping out of the house with the precious casket of gems. She would have been furious beyond belief if she had seen Tanyushka innocently displaying the priceless stones to this vagrant, who could easily have pocketed any number of them while the girl was distracted.

The beggar studied the precious jewels with great interest. She picked them up one by one, balancing them expertly on upraised fingers, letting the gems sparkle wonderfully as she twirled them this way and that.

She held up the sapphire, so that it caught the light just so, revealing in its remarkable transparency a pattern that could be rippling streams, flowing rivers, expansive lakes.

As she twisted the gem in her hand, her fingers slipped inside, moving the structured lines aside a little, making them vibrate.

She drew the lines into simple shapes, the image a child might draw of a gorgeous room.

And the malachite casket lying between them became that room.

*

Tanyushka was standing to one side of the room, the beggar woman to the other.

The room was the most glorious that Tanyushka had ever seen, decorated with malachite, with amber, such that it glowed as if they had been transported into the realms of heaven itself.

Without any word of any arrangement, the woman and Tanyushka began to draw towards each other across the room.

'This is the most treasured room in the queen's palace,' the woman explained. 'The Malachite Room.'

'It's beautiful,' Tanyushka gasped.

'But _is_ it?' the woman dressed in dark shreds asked her.

Tanyushka looked curiously around the room,

'No; its _dead_ ,' she admitted, now that she'd had chance to study the decoration and ornamentation more closely. 'There is no understanding of true beauty here.'

The woman nodded with satisfaction.

And then the room, and the woman, vanished.

*

Soon, Tanyushka's incredible beauty became as blinding to men as the entrancing flashing of the emerald she wore.

Any one of them would have gladly courted her.

And yet she had no interest in them.

She had no interest, even, in spending time with the other girls in the village.

She seemed so cold to them that they began to describe her as being as perfectly formed but as unresponsive as a stone statue.

Katinka knew who to blame for this sad sate of affairs; the vagabond woman.

The Vitch – for what else could she have been?

_That_ would explain the peculiar hold she'd had over Tanyushka!

Whatever charm or curse the Vitch had inflicted upon her daughter had to be removed, otherwise poor Tanyushka would never lead a satisfactory life. Katinka decided that she would have to search out this Vitch, and either beg, or force, or pay her to remove the curse she had placed upon Tanyushka.

The _casket_!

Yes; _that_ would persuade the Vitch to release her daughter from her bevitchment.

Wasn't that, in all probability, the very reason why the Vitch had charmed her daughter? Because she desired the casket and its riches?

Once again, she would wander up by the well on the meadow, especially when the whirling blue mist flowed like a mystical lake across the land. But there was no sign of any woman, no sign of any Vitch.

What chance did she have of finding this loathsome woman?

None at all, now that she was being deliberately avoided by the Wraith Maiden.

(Yes, she felt sure it had to be the Wraith Maiden who had brought all this trouble upon her once again.)

Why didn't the queen hunt this troublesome woman down?

Why didn't she send her soldiers to scour the land until they had found the Wraith Maiden, and imprison her, and release all the men she held captive?

She would go to see the queen.

She would insist that the queen should seek out the Wraith Maiden and force her to lift all the curses and charms she had cast across the land.

And what would she use to persuade the queen to do this?

The _casket_ , of course!

She would offer the casket and all its precious stones to the queen!

*

It was well known that the queen delighted in surrounding herself with precious stones.

Her dresses, even most of the rooms in her palace, were heavily adorned with the precious stones obtained from every country around the world.

Of course, the most fabulous of all the queen's chambers was the Malachite Room for – it was reliably said by those who claimed to have seen it – it glowed as if the sun himself had permanently taken up residence there.

Naturally, Katinka couldn't inform Tanyushka of her plans; for Tanyushka would never agree to parting with even one of the precious stones, let alone the whole casket. For this reason, too, Katinka decided that Tanyushka would have to accompany her on her journey, for the girl would never allow the casket to be taken away from her for anything but the very shortest of periods.

As they travelled, they naturally had to keep not only the casket but also Tanyushka's emerald necklace covered, fearing that they would be robbed en route to the queen's palace if they were so foolish as to put on display such obvious riches.

In fact, both Katinka and Tanyushka ensured the casket was kept well hidden until they had to briefly produce it to ensure they were granted audience with the queen; and it wasn't until this point that Tanyushka began to seriously question why her mother wished to see the queen.

Her foreboding increased as they were escorted through rooms sparkling everywhere with precious stones. On finally being brought into the magnificent presence of the queen and her daughter, garbed in dresses glittering with the bright rainbow tones of the finest jewels, she might well have gasped in awe, as her mother most certainly did; but instead, Tanyushka 's eyes were carefully taking in the walls of the room they had been shown into.

The room glowed as if they had been transported into the realms of heaven itself.

It was the Malachite Room.

The room the vagabond woman had shown to her so long ago.

*

To either side of the seated queen and princess there stood rows of what Tanyushka took to be either attendants or courtiers. And yet they all studied Tanyushka and her mother with a strange, barely controlled eagerness, as if expecting them to either perform or produce something quite remarkable.

'These jewels; let me _see_ them!' the queen sternly commanded.

As Katinka brought out the casket from beneath the many layers of her dress, everyone bar the queen and princess –who merely leaned forward in their seats – impatiently stepped forward to get a closer look: and Tanyushka immediately, instinctively realised that these weren't regular courtiers at all, but jewellers and other workers of precious stones.

'Bring it closer!' the queen excitedly ordered Katinka as Tanyushka's mother flipped open the lid to reveal the lustrous gems.

Tanyushka was about to reach out and hold her mother back, to insist she was told what was going on; but she was too late.

Her mother had stepped closer towards the queen and princess, while the jewellers had crowded around her, mumbling in awe at the undeniable beauty of the stones.

As an avid collector of precious stones, the queen almost instinctively recognised that these gems were not only the very finest, most precious she had ever seen; but there was also some indefinable quality to them that she sensed rather than saw with her eyes alone.

She feverishly reached for a stone; and instantly let it fall back into the box with a pained cry.

'What treachery is this?' she stormed. 'I've never come across a gem that's _burnt_ me before!'

Her fingers did indeed appear to have been burnt.

'I...I don't understand,' Katinka insisted nervously, reaching in and picking up the same stone with no trouble at all. 'I've never seen that happen before, Your Majesty!'

Despite the shock her mother had suffered, the princess greedily picked out a stone that radiated every shade of indigo. Unlike the queen, the princess suffered no ill effects.

She triumphantly twirled the precious stone, raising it upon her fingers so that it caught all the light.

'Hah! See, they don't hurt _me_ , mother!' she announced gleefully.

The queen frowned peevishly, reaching out to yet again take a stone from the casket; but abruptly thinking better of it and snapping back her hand.

'Master Jeweller,' she said sternly, turning to one of the men admiring the gems, 'is this natural; for a jewel to have such an effect?'

'It can be that stones from certain lands bring with them residues that react painfully with tender skins, Your Majesty,' the man replied authoritatively.

'We could make settings that kept the stone clear of your skin, Your Majesty,' another declared imperiously.

Around them, the other jewellers mumbled wary disagreements, as if they feared that these stones weren't to be treated so carelessly.

'I...I _think_ , Your Majesty,' one of the braver ones amongst them began uncertainly, 'that these stones are of a most _special_ nature–'

'Of course they're _special_!' the queen snarled furiously. 'That's why I _must_ have them!'

She turned to her daughter the princess, who was still admiring the gem she was twirling on her fingers.

'What do _you_ think daughter?' the queen asked her.

But all she received in reply was a rude grunt.

Because the poor princess now had the face of a pig!

*

'Vitches!'

'Treason!'

'Arrest them!'

'Grunt, grunt!'

The room erupted, with everyone crying out for the guards, for the palace wizards, everyone fearing they would be the next to fall under the Vitches' spells.

Some of the stronger, taller stone cutters banded together to grab Tanyushka and Katinka by their arms, the girl's emerald necklace falling outside of her blouse as she struggled to resist.

'Stop, stop!' the queen bellowed, raising an arm to bring everyone to an abrupt halt.

She stared wildly, covetously, at the sparkling pendent. That almost instinctive recognition that had earlier drawn her to concluding that the casket did indeed contain the most unique of gems was once more causing a tingling of her senses: _this_ was the most wonderful of them _all_!

She saw the glow of every green that made up the world of nature; she saw it, too, reflected in the girl's equally dazzling eyes.

'Let _her_ go,' she ordered the men holding Tanyushka.

Tanyushka tempestuously shrugged free of the grasping hands. She held her head challengingly high.

'Can _you_ help my daughter?' the queen furiously demanded.

Tanyushka nodded.

'I can do more than that; I can also tell you the _meaning_ of the stones!' she declared proudly.

*

' _We're_ not responsible for your daughter's _unfortunate_ change,' Tanyushka assuredly announced. 'It is the Wraith Maiden who's ultimately responsible!'

From behind the veil the princess had hurriedly and ashamedly drawn across her face when had realised what had happened to her there could be heard a weeping-like squealing.

She no longer held the stone. She had let it fall to the floor, where it now lay, glistening like some huge, transparent berry.

'Why would the Wraith Maiden do _this_ to my daughter?' the queen irately demanded.

With an airy wave of a hand, Tanyushka indicated the surrounding walls of coruscating gems.

'Because here you have her children, her most magical offspring: and yet you use all her gracious gifts as nothing more than pleasant decoration!'

As she talked, Tanyushka had drawn closer towards Katinka. She tenderly took the casket that her mother still held, forcing the men to release their hold on Katinka with nothing more than a flash of her angry eyes.

She turned to face the queen once more, raising high on twirling fingers the ruby she had taken from the box.

'Lust!' she said: then she sharply withdrew her hand.

The ruby hung spinning in the air as, moving on, Tanyushka took out and raised another gem, this time the pure white diamond.

'Purity!'

It was as if she were picking the most magical of fruit, only in reverse; for she was one by one lifting a gem from the box then leaving it hovering and twirling in the air, the colours reflected and refracted from the gleaming gems mixing in their interplay to create evermore shades and tones, such that the most fabulous rainbow would have been shamed by them.

'Fortune!'

'Changes!'

Within the gems themselves, everyone could now clearly see a latticework of lines, a weaving of curls, the structures that somewhere within them contained the patterns forming everything in the world.

'Love!'

'Fate!'

'Darkness,' Tanyushka intoned menacingly, at last picking up the fallen tanzanite that glowed the very brightest of indigo, raising it up to join the hovering line of whirling jewels. 'For the darker souls.'

One again, the veiled princess wailed and wept.

'And green?' the queen demanded. 'What of green?'

'Understanding, of course,' Tanyushka answered calmly.

She was still touching the base of the indigo jewel, spinning it a little on her fingertips, such that it caught the light, revealing in its remarkable transparency a pattern that could be the stilled, darkened veins of the dead.

As she twisted the gem in her hand, her fingers slipped inside, moving the structured lines aside a little, making them vibrate.

She drew the lines into simple shapes, the image a child might draw of a gorgeous princess.

Leaving the gem hanging there, Tanyushka reached out towards the princess and drew aside her veil.

The court gasped.

The princess no longer had the face of a pig.

If anything, she was more beautiful than before.

*

The princess, of course, wasn't quite sure how to interpret the shocked faces of those crowding about her.

It wasn't until the queen squealed with delight and wrapped her within a tight corkscrew hug that she realised everything must have returned to normal.

The queen suddenly broke free, whirling around to see what had happened to _her_ magical jewels.

They were no longer there.

The jewels that cast out the structures, that controlled the patterns of the world, were no longer there!

Neither was the girl, nor the casket she had held.

The queen anxiously scanned the room, seeking the girl out.

She was standing by one of the walls, still holding the casket in one hand, and grasping the older woman's hand in the other.

Then the girl slipped magically into the stone of the walls, as if stepping through into nothing more solid than sun-kissed water.

Her heel was the last of her to clear the wall, to vanish completely from the room.

And as she vanished, so did every gemstone in the room.

*

The walls were bare of any decoration or ornamentation of stone.

The once elaborately jewelled dresses were also now stripped of their sparkle, their glittering magnificence.

Going by the anguished squeals from everywhere about the palace, Katinka could only assume that Tanyushka had left with every precious stone.

But no; not _every_ precious stone.

Katinka wept, of course.

Naturally, she had tried to prevent Tanyushka from leaving.

She had raised her as her daughter, after all.

But the eyes; the _green_ eyes.

She had suspected all along, but had never wished to admit that it might be true.

But Katinka also wept with happiness.

'For the child you _would_ have carried!' Tanyushka had said with a smile as a parting gesture, grasping her hand.

And so in her hand, Katinka had found a gleaming sapphire necklace.

Yet more importantly, she felt a bump, a small kick, in her belly.

Katinka smiled joyously, deftly using her fingers to draw the simple image of a babe in the air above her bump.

She would have eyes of sapphire.

The sapphire of her _own_ eyes.

*

# Chapter 15

Anyone familiar with the story we'd based _The Bejewelled Girl_ upon will almost certainly disagree that the changes we made were necessary.

For instance, some will claim that in the version they had heard, the mother is called Nastyona, the father Stepan.

Others will wail that Katinka went searching for the missing Danilo, and the impressed Wraith Maiden allowed him to leave her domain.

Yet isn't this scenario completely unimaginable? Why would the Maiden relinquish the hold she has over Danilo?

Why, indeed, would _he_ want to leave?

But in truth, all such arguments are perfectly academic: for although there might be disagreements on certain points, everyone agrees on the gist of the tale that Tanyushka is the Maiden's daughter, and she controls the power of gemstones with all the flair of her mother.

As far as we were concerned, however, there was in fact one glaring and major flaw to the story.

There was no obvious role for Ketz!

*

Of course Danilo, whom Ketz had played so successfully in _The Flowering Stone_ , made no appearance in this continuation of 'their' tale.

Tanyushka is the undoubted star of the story.

I played her, as well as reviving my role as Katinka.

Similarly, Maria was once again cast as both Katinka's mother and the Wraith Maiden.

We attempted a number of rewrites, bringing in more important male characters. Yet each one we introduced was a glaring intrusion into an otherwise wonderful tale.

Perhaps it was a little bit pretentious of us, but we looked to Shakespeare for an answer. For many of his plays, we'd noticed, contained an 'all-present' narrator; that is, someone who wanders onto the stage at any moment, explaining details to the audience he believes important enough to draw to their attention.

Sounds crazy, huh?

And yet it worked – if anything, Ketz's frequent appearances granted our tale a seriousness as well as an overall sense that this was a true tale.

As we finished viewing the very first edit of our movie, a delighted Maria – sitting by Ketz's side – turned to him and joyfully declared; 'You know Ketz, I do believe you were _born_ to make the fairytale come true!'

*

'How can you tell a fairytale in a present-day world that pretends to be one?'

Maria blurted this out to us one day after a particularly frustrating month in which her burgeoning political career had suffered a number of unexpected setbacks; namely, the newspapers were seeking to dig up every sordid tale they could either find or make up about Maria in the hope of dislodging her from the lead position in the forthcoming elections for senator.

Their descriptions of her were more suited to a fairytale wicked queen than any basis of reality; anyone who wanted to come forward with any salacious information to offer was believed without question.

Up until now, her rise through the echelons of the political establishment had been almost spectacularly easy, for she was not only popular and well known through her movie roles but she had also, of course, inherited all of 'Judy's' long established and painstakingly nourished organisation, along with all its accumulated funds and backers.

As such, she was now spending more and more time on her political rather than her movie career. Despite this, she still wished Ketz and me success, of course; she had retained her shares in the company we had set up, MKM, and whenever she had time she was always on hand to act in an advisory role.

Despite the success and eager reception of _The Bejewelled Girl_ , we were now in a ironically vulnerable position; for others sought to displace us, and were deliberately encroaching on fields we erroneously believed we had made our own.

Walt Disney, although still based in Kansas, had at this time wound up his retelling of fairytales in his _Laugh-O-Grams_ with his own, short versions of _Goldie Locks_ , _Cinderella_ , and _Jack the Giant Killer_ , only to introduce a new series the _Lafflets_ : and with titles like _Gold in Slow Motion_ and _Descha's Tryst with the Moon_ , we could only wonder if he wasn't planning on fully moving into the type of legends we ourselves were covering.

Moreover, other animation studios had what might be declared an unexpected advantage over us; for in truth, of course, _we_ weren't an animation studio at all!

All our movies were filmed entirely in live action – it was just the unusual appearance of Ketz and myself that granted them the charm of an apparent mix of animation and live shots.

Naturally, the _real_ animation studios had the wherewithal to create new characters on the slightest whim, introducing them to test their acceptance by the audiences, then cruelly abandoning them the minute they fell out of favour.

They had already produced their own versions of a cartoon cat.

Now they were experimenting with what they hoped could be an even more exciting creation; a dog!

*

# Chapter 16

Even though they were effectively our rivals, we had always benefited from a good relationship with the Fleischer brothers, based on mutual respect as well as friendship.

Max Fleischer had, I believe, invented the device called the Rotoscope; certainly, he and his brother Dave utilised it extensively to animate their _Out of the Inkwell_ series of animations. They once invited us along to a shoot in which Dave was filmed, in full clown costume, going through the motions they were intending to use in the next animation. Max would then trace this; effectively transforming the real Dave into the cartoon clown.

(Of course, on our day in the studio we were greatly amused to see the antics of the animated clown who would one day be called Ko-ko transformed into the comical capers of the real-life Dave!)

Now the very first dog to appear in a Fleischer animation was actually a rather plump little pup magically drawn by the clown himself in _The Clown's Pup_. It wasn't the first animated dog, however: _Bobby Bump_ 's sidekick Fido had made his appearance in 1915, while the pup himself would soon be followed by the canine policeman in _Krazy Kat_.

But then came Fitz.

The Fleischers had brought in the talented Dick Huemer, who would not only forgo the Rotoscope in favour of a more fluid animation, but also created a companion for the clown who would be even more mischievous and charming: a white dog with a black spot on his back, who often walked on two feet and benefited from seemingly human abilities.

To add to the problems of the arrival of this entertaining little scoundrel, there were also rumours that plans were in motion to shoot a live-action version of L. Frank Baum's _Wizard of Oz_ in which Dorothy's dog Snowball would be given a far more important role than the book had accorded him!

As the gossips had it, the Wizard would dress Snowball as the cowardly lion, enabling the dog to scare the prison guards holding the Scarecrow captive. Even more amazingly for a dog, Snowball would later rescue the Scarecrow again, this time by flying a plane with a ladder dangling underneath, allowing the surrounded hero of the film to grab a rung and be whisked to safety!

As this was a live action film, the dog would be played by an actor (the role eventually going to a long-time friend of ours, Spencer Bell) which, of course, presented a route for us to take if we wanted to introduce new animal characters within our own movies; yet all three of us felt this would be the wrong direction to take.

'It has to be an _animated_ dog – somehow!' Maria firmly declared at the end on one of our more stormy discussions on the subject.

We all agreed on this.

What we couldn't agree upon, however, was how this could ever be achieved.

*

Ketz and I had been working on a new story line, with the working title of _A Vitch's Cat in Mistletoewoodland_.

Unlike our earlier movies, this would be more of a complete rehash of half- forgotten tales, ones that neither Ketz nor I could wholly recall hearing in their entirety, even though we were strangely in complete agreement regarding certain elements of the tale.

When we divulged our initial ideas to Maria, however, she was adamant that she wanted nothing to do with it: not only did she fail to give us a firm commitment that she would be available for any roles, but she even went so far as to suggest that if we insisted on going ahead with filming our 'outrageous' story, then she would utilise whatever means she could – including legal avenues – to block its production.

Ketz and I were aghast.

We couldn't understand why she'd taken such a vehement objection to the project.

Yes, we realised she was under a great deal of stress, what with the increasing demands being placed upon her in her political role. But she had never protested so forcefully against our proposals, even when her dual careers clashed, as they so often did.

When we queried her immovable stance, she at last calmed down enough to explain her apprehension that we were tampering too much with the retelling of the legends from our homeland.

'Some people take these tales _seriously_ ; they're more like _histories_ , rather then _legends_ , to them! Maybe, you know, we've upset too many people, and we need to start considering their opinions and beliefs?'

Hah – there was the _politician_ talking to us, right?

Ketz and I had grinned knowingly as she had finished her tirade – and unfortunately, this only angered poor Maria all the more.

She had stormed out of what was supposed to be our conciliatory meeting, throwing back at us her oft-repeated request that we seek a new character to join our team; then, and only then, should we begin to think of the new movie's storyline.

Ketz and I were in a sombre mood, then, as we walked around the studio where we had held our meeting.

Our earrings were glowing the very same colour; a dark indigo.

A sign of darkness – even in some cases death – according to the stories we were bringing to life on screen.

It only served to bring a darker vein to our humour.

Thankfully, our dour mood wasn't shared by everyone working at the studio that Sunday morning.

As we walked miserably alongside one of the longer buildings, we heard the happy whistling of someone approaching us just around the corner.

As our joyous whistler cleared the building's edge, we saw at first nothing more unusual than the regular sight of a patrolling guard, wearing his dark uniform and cap.

Then we stopped, flabbergasted.

The guard wasn't a man.

He was a _dog_.

A dog who, like us, appeared to have been badly drawn.

*

# Chapter 17

The precious stones in our earrings were now like sparkling, miniature oranges; the colour of fortune!

With a fleeting exchange of excited glances – he'd be _perfect_ in our movies! – Ketz and I rushed towards our whistling guard.

He was, naturally, a little startled to see us dashing towards him.

But he was even more startled when Ketz simply blurted out, 'We'd like to talk to you about being in our next movie!'

'Me?' he said, quite obviously taken aback, babbling elatedly, 'Well, yeah: of course! That'd be wonderful! But why me? What do you want me to play? Let me guess; a guard, right?'

He chuckled excitedly.

We chuckled along with him.

'Not just a _guard_!' I said.

'We'd like to see how you come across in front of a camera – would that be okay?' Ketz asked.

'Well, sure, sure!' the guard replied gleefully. 'But I don't get it; I mean, I've been guarding these studios now for years! Why this sudden interest in me?'

'But...but we don't see how we ever _missed_ you,' I said, surprised by his claim that he'd been working here all this time.

'We've never even seen people like you back in our own country,' Ketz said. 'I wouldn't have thought it was even possible that there were people like you!'

'Like _me_?' The guard frowned in puzzlement. 'What do you mean, like me? I'm just a regular jock, aren't I?'

We laughed.

I noticed for the first time that he had glowing gem on his badge.

It sparkled a lemon yellow, the tone of fate, but perhaps not one yet set in stone.

'But _look_ at you!' Ketz chuckled merrily. 'You're a _dog_ – a walking, talking _dog_!'

The guard glowered angrily at us.

'A _dog_?' he snapped. 'Is this your crazy idea of a joke?'

He seemed genuinely furious. We couldn't understand why.

'A joke?' I said, mystified. 'We mean; well, you're a _dog_ – like us, only a dog!'

He frowned down at me; but he turned to look at his dark reflection in one of the large windows running down the side of the building.

His face fell.

He gawped in surprise – in horror – at his own reflection.

'No, no!' he growled miserably, bringing a paw up to touch his face as if still refusing to believe what he saw in the window. 'I _was_ a man. Just _minutes_ ago...I was a _man_!'

*

Of course, neither Ketz nor I wanted to upset the poor man any further.

We let him go.

He wandered off, weeping, shaking his head in disbelief.

When we called Maria to tell her of our find, she was furious with us all over again.

'How could you let a find like that slip through your fingers?' she wailed. 'You have to find him again! He sounds _perfect_ – just what we need to secure MKM's future in this business!'

We searched for him.

But we never found him again.

We did see him once more, however.

We might not have been able to persuade him to make a movie, but someone else did; the Fleischer brothers!

Ironically, our guard would achieve fame by becoming the very first animated character to speak synchronised words.

The movie is called _My Old Kentucky Home_.

And his words?

'Follow the Bouncing Ball and join in everybody!'

*

Despite our differences, Ketz and I are till in contact with Maria.

Naturally, as this autobiography I'm writing involves her, I called her on the telephone to inform her of my plans.

Once again, however, she surprised me by vehemently objecting to its publication.

'Don't you realise how the newspapers could twist your story?' she'd fumed.

'What will they make of our meeting on the steamer from Emarike? Isn't that the _perfect_ gift to them?

'If they can make it out to mean I wasn't born in America, I can kiss goodbye to being president!' she'd snarled before demanding to see me.

' _Now_! I'll come across right _now_!'

So, for the moment, Ketz and I might as well work on completing our account of _A Vitch's Cat in Mistletoewoodland._

Maria will be here soon enough.

And then, once we've sorted things out, I'll continue with our tale.

*

# Chapter 18

A Vitch's Cat in Mistletoewoodland

Once upon a time – in fact, not so very, very long ago, we're very, very sure – there was a Vitch.

A very, very nasty Vitch

Not that everyone realised she was _so_ nasty, of course; oh no!

Like you or me, or, indeed, like anyone else, she chose to keep this aspect of her character very, very well hidden from anyone she met.

Otherwise, no one would speak to her, would they?

Now you might well expect this Vitch to have a cat; and yet, she didn't.

She hadn't yet found one adequate to her particular needs.

She did have a young apprentice, however; one who may well have been her daughter, going by the striking similarities existing between them.

Their bright green eyes, for instance.

Their bevitching beauty.

In the young girl's case, it was a beauty that couldn't go unnoticed by the young boy who worked for the Vitch creating the most gorgeous sculptures from the fabulous stone she supplied him with.

And the young girl found this boy, Stephan, every bit as handsome and charming as he found her beautiful and entrancing.

Naturally, the Vitch frowned upon their burgeoning relationship.

She decided to teach them a lesson.

She would briefly turn the girl into a cat, the boy into a mouse; for it was well known, of course, that enmity had always existed between these creatures.

So when she came upon them walking in the meadow together, she reached inside them, drawing out their souls; and with a deft twirl of her fingers, she manipulated the patterns lying within them, drawing the child-like images of a cat, a mouse.

Now the girl was nowhere near as accomplished as her teacher when it came to magic; but she had acquired enough knowledge to understand what was happening to her and the boy.

Even though she was held within a trance of the Vitch's making, the girl attempted a defensive spell, one she hoped would cause the images to flare away into nothing; but the Vitch was too quick for her, repelling the girl's hex with a dismissive cry.

'Fool! Who knows what you'd've been turned into if your useless charm had worked!'

And yet, despite the Vitch's attempt to allay the full effects of the girl's spell, it had had some effect after all.

For the boy was the cat.

And the girl the mouse.

*

The mouse ran

The cat chased after her.

And the Vitch laughed; for she didn't know that her charm had gone wrong.

*

The mouse ran this way and that.

The cat ran that way and this – and yet still managed to keep up with her.

The mouse was soon exhausted, whereas the cat appeared to have hardly tired.

'All right, all right; I give up!' the mouse screamed fearfully, a little surprised that she could talk. 'Just snap me up as quickly as you can and get it over with!'

The cat loomed closer towards her; and kissed her gently on her nose.

And then the mouse remembered that, strangely, she was in love with the cat.

'Why were you running from me?' the cat asked in surprise, not a little shocked that he could actually ask this. 'You _know_ I love you!'

Yes, she _did_ know that he loved her.

But she didn't know much more than that.

And neither did he.

They could only remember that they'd had some trouble with a Vitch.

_That_ could explain they're faulty memories.

'We must get farther away from her!' the mouse said.

'Yes,' the cat agreed eagerly, 'but first; I _do_ remember where she hid some precious stones...'

*

The cat and mouse soon found that, as well as being able to talk, they could also walk on two legs, just like the many men and women they encountered on their travels.

They were a strange sight; a cat and a mouse, holding hands.

They were polite and courteous to everyone they met – and yet still everyone would frown angrily at them.

They weren't to know it, of course, but they no longer possessed their own souls.

This is why they elicited such contempt and even fear wherever they went; for although very few people are actually capable of spotting someone without a soul, they will always instinctively sense that _something_ isn't quite right.

Of course, the Vitch had always intended to restore the soul of her apprentice; and yet she hadn't had the opportunity, as yet.

When the Vitch realised the girl had run away, she determined to follow after her, to hunt her down.

And so, first of all, she transformed herself, so that she wouldn't be recognised.

And naturally, she did restore her _own_ soul to its rightful place, hidden deep within her.

*

The large coach to Mistletoewoodland was packed, as usual.

Even so, almost everyone tried to give the cat and mouse traveling with them a wide berth; they couldn't quite put their finger on what they thought was wrong with their fellow travellers, and yet...

The sole exception was a remarkably beautiful woman, one dressed in the most wondrous clothes. She merrily conversed with the cat and mouse, although she had appeared briefly startled when she first realised the cat spoke with the harder tones of a boy, the mouse with the voice of a girl.

Both the cat and mouse spoke a little sadly of the land they had left behind, a curious land where no one need fear rats or serpents, for such creatures had left the country long ago.

They related tales, too, of the very weirdest and most unbelievable of buildings, ones that grew up from the ground like a moth emerging from its chrysalis, hardening in the sun with a rigid exoskeleton supporting otherwise flimsy walls.

The beautiful woman nodded in recognition of such wonderful sights.

'My parents originally came from your land,' she explained, 'and that's why I made the briefest of visits there.'

She seemed curiously aware that the rest of the passengers felt uncomfortable around the cat and the mouse.

'Would I be right,' she asked in a whispered aside, 'in guessing that everyone feels edgy in your presence?'

The cat and mouse nodded, glad that someone had recognised their dilemma.

'No matter how kind we try to be,' the mouse whispered back to the young woman, 'they seem to _hate_ us!'

The woman placed a consoling hand on the little mouse's knee.

'Not to worry,' she said. 'For in Mistletoewoodland, you'll find instead that you're warmly welcomed by everyone!'

'Really?' said the cat in pleasant surprise. 'But why, when wherever else we go we're shunned?'

'Because,' the woman confidently replied, 'in Mistletoewoodland there is a young but thriving business that requires people of your calibre! A business that – although I'm still on its very lowest rungs – I'm hoping to turn to my advantage in my endeavours to form a most profitable enterprise!'

'What business is this?' the mouse asked curiously.

'Why, I'm a _ratcatcher_ , of course!' the beautiful woman proudly declared.

*

Both the cat and the mouse were taken aback by the beautiful woman's candid admission.

'A _ratcatcher_?'

The woman laughed good-naturedly.

'Well, where do you think all those rats and serpents who fled your lands ended up? It's a far better standard of living in wealthy Mistletoewoodland, don't you know?'

'We've never hunted rats before!' the mouse pointed out a little uncertainly.

The young woman waved aside their doubts.

'A mouse can fool the rats into thinking everything's safe for them to come out; while a cat, of course, is a _natural_ at chasing them down!'

With a fleeting glance of acknowledgment each other's way, the cat and mouse both agreed to join the young woman's venture.

'Good, good,' the woman said joyfully, curiously but quickly removing her glittering earrings, 'and here, as a goodwill gesture, is your very first salary!'

She deftly and tenderly clasped one earring to the mouse's ear, the other to the cat's furry chest.

The precious stones glowed the wondrous yellow of sun-kissed stone.

And all around the carriage, everyone warmly smiled at the cat and mouse for the very first time.

*

Even on their entering a town where the council would haughtily insist they'd never had any trouble from rats, they would soon find themselves gainfully employed when a completely unexpected explosion of rodents took place only a few days later.

The rats, it seemed, had been in hiding, even sheltering unseen in the furs worn by the councillors and their richly garbed wives.

Similarly, towns that claimed to have never suffered a plague of serpents would find themselves overrun with snakes that writhed up from the earth like tree roots eagerly seeking sunlight.

The serpents, it turned out, were not only scared of cats but also any mouse that could bravely douse them with the special powders the young maiden said she had inherited from her parents.

The three of them soon came to the attention of a king, who was also beset with his own problems.

The king was allowed to take as his queen only a girl who had been born within his own kingdom, for she could neither be a foreigner nor a commoner.

Despite these restrictions, the king was set to marry a most remarkable beauty, a girl with the most lustrously golden hair.

Unfortunately, she had recently insisted on keeping to her chambers, allowing no one access – not even the king – except her most trusted maids.

As they were led before the king, the cat and mouse both had to agree that their friend had never, ever looked quite so beautiful. The king was obviously quite entranced by her.

'If I may be so impolite to enquire,' the king said to her, 'could you tell me if you're of these lands?'

'Of course, Your Majesty,' the young maiden replied, adding, 'Indeed, my palace lies in the part of your kingdom known as the Wood of Holly.'

Now this came as quite surprise to the cat and mouse, for they had visited these woodlands often, and had never seen any building approaching the size of anything that could be deemed to be a palace.

Nevertheless, they both had the good sense not to challenge her on this, presuming she was merely trying to impress the king in the hope of being granted some royal appointment, such as ridding the king's stables of rats, or his hunting grounds of serpents.

Besides, each of their earrings was sparkling with exactly the same colour, a wondrously bright orange; and they had come to recognise that when their earrings were of a like mind (or rather, of a like colour, for they were more often of completely different hues) then either a munificent Fortune or a devious Fate was about to take a hand in their affairs.

'May we ask what task you wish to set us, Your Majesty?' the cat politely asked.

And so the king told them of his dilemma involving the princess he wished to marry.

*

'Now I know what the problem is, for the princess's maid couldn't refuse me when I demanded to know what ails her; it seems her hair has grown crazier than any wild thorns, rooting in the ground and preventing her from moving anywhere.'

As the king finished his tale, the cat and mouse swapped befuddled glances before pointing out humbly;

'But Your Majesty; we are mere _ratcatchers_ who–'

'Who have preformed near miraculous deeds throughout my land; yes, I know,' the king said wearily. 'But you are my last hope, as every other magician I've invited here has failed in solving my problem.'

'Then we should at least make _some_ attempt to help Your Majesty and his princess,' the young maiden declared graciously.

*

The princess couldn't refuse to grant audience to the king when he demanded – as her Royal Sovereign – entrance to her chambers.

The maid opened the door, if with a great deal of difficulty; for rolls of golden hair fell everywhere about her.

The princess wailed in humiliation as she saw not only her intended scrambling towards her over her mountainous waves of hair, but also a cat and – worse – a _mouse_ and – worse _still_ – the most incredibly beautiful woman she had ever seen.

'Why do you bring these here to see my disgrace, my dear?' she howled from beneath the sea of golden hair.

'They are famed for their catching of rats and serpents–'

The king got no further.

'Rats and serpents?' the princes squealed in horror. 'Are you saying there are rats and serpents in my hair?'

Before she knew what she was doing, she had leapt to her feet, despite the considerable weight of the hair.

'Then I'm leaving this land,' she continued to bawl. 'Our marriage is _off_! I've suffered enough!'

As soon as she spoke these words, her hair at last began to not only stop growing, but to even begin to retreat swiftly back into her head.

It must have been quite painful, the cat and mouse both agreed afterwards, going by the agonised expression on her face.

The serpentine rolls of hair rapidly flowed back towards her, the very last strands eventually vanishing into the top of her head with a sickening plop.

She was left completely bald.

And her agonised expression was more pained than ever.

*

Fortunately for the princess, it was very fashionable to wear high, towering wigs in a nearby kingdom.

She moved there almost instantly.

The king didn't appear in anyway saddened by the departure of his intended.

Rather, he almost instantly proposed to the beautiful young maiden – who, naturally, almost instantly accepted.

All that would be required to formalise matters would be a visit by the king to the young lady's palace.

And, naturally, the beautiful young maiden said he could visit her there the very next weekend.

*

If the cat and mouse had been surprised by their friend's offer to the king to visit her home, they were even more astonished when she still appeared completely unperturbed as she prepared to journey 'out to her palace to prepare things'.

If she had landed herself in an impossible situation, she didn't seem prepared to admit it to even her closest friends.

She gaily bade them farewell as she set out towards the Wood of Holly.

Still, the cat and mouse were worried for their friend, and decided to set out themselves towards the woods. I this way they would be on hand to help her if things didn't work out the way she had obviously hoped they would; even if it was only to console her when the king irately broke off their engagement.

Walking in the woods, hand in hand (or, rather, paw in paw) along tracks they'd taken so many times before, they were therefore astonished to see looming ahead of them the aspiring towers of a great and sparkling palace, one they could have sworn they had never seen even once on all their trips to these woods.

The closer they approached, the more amazed they were.

It was a most unusual structure, and of a most unique design.

It looked for all the world as if it had sprouted up from the very ground itself, the stone growing as you would expect the plants themselves to rise and burgeon and spread.

Yet it also had the touch of the insect about it.

As if a giant moth, freshly sprung from its chrysalis, had shaken off at last its molten, fluid state – and, hardening in the sun, its rigid exoskeleton had been left supporting otherwise flimsy walls.

*

More remarkably still, the palace was a hive of activity, with servants, maids, and stable hands thronging everywhere about the extensive gardens.

In all the time they had worked together, the young maiden had never told either the cat or the mouse just how incredibly rich she was.

The awestruck cat and mouse halted to stare in bewilderment at this magnificent home.

It was fortunate for them that they had come to a halt too.

For a dark wolf languidly loped along the track just ahead of them, heading towards the surprisingly low walls of the palace.

The shocked couple glanced nervously at their earrings, both of which glowed a dark indigo.

It was then that they saw their friend – standing by a gate, on a branch of the very pathway that the wolf was striding down so confidently.

They were just about to cry out and warn her of the oncoming wolf when she appeared to spot it herself.

She showed no fear.

Rather, she raised a hand towards the wolf, as if she were drawing it towards her via unseen threads.

The wolf placidly approached her, lying down by her feet as if he were a favoured, pampered dog.

The young maiden bent down s if to stroke the wolf – and yet her hand slipped inside the creature's fleshy flanks as if they consisted of nothing but water.

*

The maiden withdrew a sparkling gem from somewhere deep inside the wolf.

She raised the glittering jewel up on twirling fingers, already manipulating the patterns lying within the poor creature's soul: drawing the lines into simple shapes, the image a child might draw of a young servant.

And intuitively recognising what was happening, the young apprentice girl sprang out from the bushes, hurriedly trying to recall the charms she would need to prevent the transformation.

*

Of course, the horrified apprentice was still a mouse.

Nevertheless, she had taken the Vitch by surprise.

The spell the mouse cast was far from powerful, yet it was enough to cause the changing structures within the jewel to flare, to flame – and to burn to a crispy charcoal the image of the man within the stone.

The transformation went ahead; but the man created from it was more like a crazed drawing of a human rather than anything that could be said to be real.

With a carefree chuckle at the agonised mouse, the Vitch nonchalantly handed the soul she still held to the poor man – and he clasped it unsurely as he turned and walked away.

The cat had joined the mouse, also recalling now that he had once been human; a boy who had fallen in love with a Vitch's apprentice.

His soul had been taken from him too, and handed back to him as if it were nothing but some trinket.

The girl had also remembered this.

'The power of our souls _enjoined_ ,' she said a little unsurely, quickly unclasping her earring, using her other hand to urge the boy to do the same, 'that's the _only_ thing that might stop her!'

She held up the glittering stone before her, as he too held up his soul alongside hers.

Both souls sparked a pure white.

And deep within the stones – but not as in a mirror, for these were their own souls of course – they saw themselves; a mouse and a girl, a cat and a boy.

*

Lying beyond the level where they could see themselves in the combined stones, they could see what appeared to be a flaring of the sky; a blaze, rushing through the otherwise veiled veins of the stones.

It was as if the air around them had somehow caught fire, throwing out its tendrils as blood flows through a body, connecting and controlling everything close by.

And yet as they were viewing her through their souls, they saw her for what she was; a Vitch!

A Vitch who confidently smiled.

For the stones they held were no longer purely white but were already deeply reddening, as if it were a crystalline blood they now held in their hands.

They were coming under _her_ control.

Blending with and into the bourgeoning fronds of fire.

They could feel their blood rising within themselves, a surging of adrenalin, of fear; a swirling up into the stones, where the Vitch waited to drink it in.

And as she drank, her own twists and coils embraced them, their blood mingling with the energies of the Vitch.

The Vitch laughed in amused satisfaction.

This was all too easy for her.

*

Like the cat, the mouse was in a daze, unaware of what was happening to them

But the _apprentice_ was aware of the danger they were in.

She knew they had to push back against the languidly encroaching flames.

'These are _our_ souls,' she cried out to the cat, the boy. 'Who is it that you _really_ are? Think – _think_!'

Within her own stone, there was now a flickering at the tips of the flame's flowering stems, like frost biting at a scarlet ivy.

And yet the cat's still swelled as if with blood, the stones vibrating as they came into conflict – perhaps even threatening to shatter along their fault lines, those dark serpentine lines weaving through even the supposedly purest of souls.

'Together; we must be of _one_ mind!' the apprentice scolded the cat.

She began to throw out her own tendrils, as the white mistletoe entwines itself around the red berries of the holly.

Binding them.

Strengthening their resolve.

Yet the Vitch merely chuckled at their pathetic determination.

She herself, of course, had undergone a transformation, veiling her true nature from both them, the king, and everyone else she had ever met.

Naturally, her own soul lay deep within her; but any transformation leaves it slightly disconnected, rather than indelibly embedded.

The apprentice reached out within the stones, plunging her hands of coiling mistletoe fearlessly and deeply into the midst of the flame, ignoring the popping of the white berries, the spilling of its milky juices; and she grasped the disconnected soul, bringing it forth, setting it into a whirl now with the souls of the boy and herself.

*

There was no need to hold the soul stones anymore.

They each had a life of their own.

They spun together in the air, as if in the throes of love, as if violently sparring.

Far from being concerned that her apprentice had dragged her soul out into the open, however, the Vitch merely snarled triumphantly.

'Fool,' she snapped. 'Did I teach you so badly, or were you just a bad listener? This will only make things _easier_ for me.'

Within her own stone, she was a maiden of fire. As the apprentice had done only a moment ago, but with a greater sense of ease and confidence, the Vitch reached out towards – reached deeply _within_ – the bloody stone of the cat.

With a flick of hands of flame, she warped the inherent structures of the gem, the lines and forms that made it what it truly was; and abruptly there was no boy there anymore, there was only the cat, and the flaming Vitch.

The apprentice saw that the Vitch was threatening the remnants of the boy's humanity. So now she reached out once again with lashing tendrils of mistletoe, curling around the flames, ignoring the agony.

Entwining completely around the raging fire, struggling to contain that which refuses to be held, she wrenched hard on the core of the flames, letting her own bursting, viscous sap envelop and quench the very worst of the Vitch's fury.

The cat sat through all these struggles as if uncaring, as if unaware of the danger

'Think of whom you _really_ are!' the apprentice screamed fearfully at the cat, at last pulling the Vitch clear of his stone, dragging the flames back into her own milky gem.

'Hah! My teaching really _was_ amiss, wasn't it?' the Vitch guffawed unconcernedly. 'You don't need to _pull_ people clear!'

There was an abrupt flare, a burst of a blindingly blood-red radiance; and then the Vitch was whirling from stone to stone, the apprentice uncontrollably swirling around after her, the cat reeling along with them too, their sojourn in each stone becoming ever briefer as the spinning became as fast and apparently unstoppable as a whirlpool.

And the only sound was the Vitch's laughing.

*

Of course, the Vitch was waiting for her apprentice to determine when she was back in her soul stone, to violently break away in the hope of bringing all the spiralling to a close.

It would leave the apprentice weak, vulnerable.

And just as the Vitch had anticipated, her apprentice did indeed regain enough sense to determine which was her soul stone, despite the now incredible speed of the whirling.

And just as the Vitch had anticipated, the apprentice abruptly brought all that seemingly endless spiralling to a sudden halt by choosing a soul stone to latch herself onto, causing it to break free, to spin aside.

And just as the Vitch had anticipated, the sudden halting of the build up of so much accumulated energy caused the soul stones to explosively break apart, no longer spinning or hovering in the air but, rather, tumbling towards the floor, spinning along the grassy ground, now drawing in like fierce, individual whirlpools all their previous other forms standing nearby and recreating anew whatever formation their souls had taken on.

The apprentice lay exhausted and shattered upon the floor.

Yes, she would be easy pickings for a resurgent Vitch.

*

The young apprentice glanced urgently about herself, hoping she had chosen right.

_Yes_!

There he was! Back as himself, as a boy, just as she'd hoped!

She _had_ chosen the right stone!

Not her _own_ ; no, no – _that_ would have been far too dangerous.

That's exactly what the Vitch would have _expected_ her to do!

It was the boy's berry-red stone that she had used to bring everything to an abrupt halt.

*

Each stone was a soul, of course.

The ultimate definer of who you are.

And so when the girl had chosen Stephan's stone, it was merely her _image_ of humanity that had become his.

He was _of_ that stone – and so he came from it, but bearing, sharing, now a little bit of her too.

Now the Vitch, being ahead of her in the whirl of souls, had ended up in the apprentice's soul stone; and so, naturally, the girl now shared powers she could never have imagined.

As for the Vitch's soul – well, she was briefly just a little bit confused, now that she had taken on the form of a cat.

Naturally, the apprentice, utilising her new powers, made sure that confusion would linger a great deal longer.

The cat's fur was like shreds of darkness, with hair of elongated shadows.

And as everyone who ever met her would agree, she was a very, very _nasty_ cat!

*

# epilogue

The Hollywoodland Sun: Stop Press

Investigators are hoping a half finished autobiography and a screenplay found in the apartment where Senator Maria Marina was last seen may shed light on her disappearance. They also wish to contact a young couple seen leaving the apartment with a black cat...

End

If you enjoyed reading this book, you might also enjoy (or you may know someone else who might enjoy) these other books by Jon Jacks.

The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly

The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale

A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)

The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator

Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll's Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666

P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers – Gorgesque

Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)

Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent

Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak

Died Blondes – Queen of all the Knowing World – The Truth About Fairies – Lowlife

Elm of False Dreams – God of the 4th Sun – A Guide for Young Wytches – Lady of the Wasteland

The Wendygo House – Americarnie Trash – An Incomparable Pearl – We Three Queens – Cygnet Czarinas

Memesis – April Queen, May Fool – Sick Teen – Thrice Born – Self-Assembled Girl – Love Poison No. 13

Whatever happened to Cinderella's Slipper? – AmeriChristmas

