“Rain on the green grass, rain on the tree, rain on the house-top, but not upon me,” the cat softly sang before poking a paw out of the window and confirming the barely-more-than-a-mist happening outside did not make contact with his beautiful black fur before climbing out onto the wet fire escape and down to the cobblestone street below. Heading west towards City Centre he dashed along tight to the walls even though he was encased in a thin bubble of dryness perfectly shaped to his sleekness, and concealed by the deepening darkness. 

Dodging drain pipes that smelled too much of rats he hurried through the section closest to the Mischief’s main entrances, his tension dissipating the closer he moved toward the Colony. The bells from the street of churches behind him began their last tones of the day urging him onward—it had been nearly five minutes since he’d been roused from a good day of sleep by the unexpected cries of the chorus scattered throughout Melitown as word spread from cat to cat that all idle paws were to report in. Philemon was certain something exciting was happening and he refused to miss out.

The air passing through his rain barrier brings hundreds of scents. Rats, humans, cars, house dogs, orange peels (he sneezes at this one but loses no speed), fabric softener, cooking oil, pigeons, rats, rats, and more rats, deli meats and old beer from the bins half-opened at the entrance to an alley. And then the familiar smell of one of his uncles overwhelms the corner where the little Baines Street convenience store sits. 

“Been a long time kit,” says the familiar voice of the cat who has appeared by his side keeping pace. 

“Several moons! How have you been, Uncle?”

“I was enjoying my retirement but who knows what this summons will bring. You’re still on tarriance?”

The younger cat grumbled. “As if mother would let me be useful.” His uncle’s whiskers quiver in silent thought.

They rounded the corner and the library’s brick walls loomed overhead. From every direction cats dripped from the shadows of the walled courtyard and shrubbery and into the open basement window that led to the Colony’s depths. A number of them stopped short on seeing Philemon, heads quickly bowing before scooting away as quickly as possible. 

The pair ducked inside and followed the flow into the great hall hidden between the long forgotten fallout shelter and an even further from living memory bootlegger’s tunnel the Colony had claimed in a bloody battle against the Mischief. And it truly was great in all senses—the entirety of the Melitown Colony dynasty had contributed to its splendor, adding to the elaborate sunken relief designs carved into the walls in the style passed down from Inebu-hedj over seven thousand generations, and bits and bobs plundered and gifted from other colonies near and far in the more recent fifteen hundred generations since their skogkatt foremothers crossed the seas with the first ships accompanying their friends the hamingja, Gyda and Gulla, the first Obscure to assist the Norsemen Obvious to the new world.

An oversized paw landed on Philemon pinning him down.  “Where have you been?” hissed the scar covered orange and white long-haired cat it was attached to; a cat of stature and a coat clearly descendent of the Northern lines.

“I went for a walk,” he spits back, rolling his shoulders to shrug off the royal advisor. The claws hidden in the thick tufts of fur jutting in every direction from between the toes sunk in to hold him in place. “Leave without permission again and I will see to it you never see another moon, brat.”

“Now now, he’s almost five and this is too old to be treated with such disrespect, soldier,” his uncle rumbled lowly, leaving the shadow and startling them both even though Philemon knew he was there, a testament to Fasol’s skill. 

“Sir!” The advisor released Philemon and took a step backwards. “I didn’t know you would be joining us.”

Fasol’s eyes narrowed at Haarvard who flinched under the old hero’s gaze, “If this is how my nephew is treated in his own home, I fully understand his desire to spend as much time away as possible. I will be speaking to my sister, soldier. Come along, Philemon.”

Philemon’s scowl turned into a wide grin at Haavard’s panic and regret. His whole life he’d been bossed about by his mother’s attendants and counselors, never seen as anything but a spoiled kit. Can one who is not given anything special or allowed to do anything at all really be spoiled? He supposed his mother’s refusal to allow him to do anything but study and train seemed like coddling more so than confinement to those who weren’t being suffocated by it. He sighed as they entered the hall and followed his uncle as he moved along the periphery barely perceptible in the low lighting and the assembly. Haarvard, unfrozen from the shock of Fasol’s scolding, moved straight through to the front to alert the matriarch but she had already locked eyes on the pair and beckoned them over.

“Tsk, she just can’t let me be, eh?” Fasol groaned. His sister’s tail twitched. “Yes, that’s right Sister. I’m comfortable right here and am keeping my nephew with me in case these old bones need a pillow to rest on.” He rumbled, knowing she and everyone around could hear him. He sat and leaned toward Philemon, waiting for him to settle. Philemon almost purred in delight at not being ushered away from the crowd, and eagerly plunked his hind legs down, wrapping his long tail around to cover his front paws forming a solid but soft wall for the elder to rest against now that he was playing tired retiree. 

His mother flicked an ear in annoyance but stood a little taller before addressing the crowd. “Greetings kith and kin. It is good to see proof we are living in such easy times as to have so many of you on tarriance, however there’s been a report of unusual fluttering of the Veil in Ottarstedt. I don’t know how long this posting will be but I want to know everything about it.”

“Has Tuor spoken of it?” Grandmother Rue asked.

Philemon’s mother asks “Fasol?” All eyes turn toward them.

“First I’ve heard of it. She’s had some unusual happenings of her own keeping her busy, but I will stop in on my way back.”

Grandmother Rue steps to the front feigning feebleness, the crowd parting for her. “I would go myself if these bones would carry me so far. My best student should investigate such matters, do we not agree?”

Philemon’s pulse quickened, eyes widening until his mother’s glare reached her mother-in-law. Uncle Fasol, stood and placed a paw on his back. “Perfect! It’s about time the prince meets Tuor. I’ll take him with me, and he can go from there to Ottarstedt.”

“Absolutely not!” His mother yowled. Silence fell over the hall until Grandmother and Uncle both tsk’d together. “I’m not going, Sister, and I’m in agreement with Elder Rue; no one is better studied on the shadows and the veil than Philemon.”

The crowd murmured, they’d rarely seen the young prince since his father’s passing but with the approval of both the Colony’s most learned scholar and the best strategist and spy he must be exceptional. The pressure of the elders and the expectation of the assembly won out and Philemon soon found himself leaving the Colony’s territory for the first time without needing to sneak.

* * *

Fasol glanced out the apartment window above the corner store where he’d taken up residence, expecting to find his nephew waiting below for him to return from checking in on the old man he’d adopted. He squinted into the darkness next to the stairs and then by the dumpster surprised the youngster had moved. Sliding the vent cover he’d left attached with only a single screw to the side he hurried out into the alley to catch his scent in the open air. 

Philemon’s form stepped away from the wall where he should not have been missed, startling the elder into bristling a bit.

The elder cat gasped, “You little devil!” 

“Hrm?” He asked head tilting, his black fur shining in the sunlight and the golden glitter of his eyes looking too regal for almost any undercover job.

“Nothing, never mind. Before we go in, what do you think you know about Tuor?”

Philemon looked across Baines Street to the row he knew was one of the two original blocks built in Melitown. The antique store seemed much younger than the rest of the shops but he didn’t see the telltale shimmer of an illusion. Considering the resident he figured it probably had some sort of protective charm.

“Not a lot. Does anyone really know where she came from?” His uncle stepped towards him to sit on the bottom step, and he joined him facing the sign with its human script and a gilded tower with a single eye-shaped window that every community in the Obscure half of Melitown and the towns and villages near and far recognized as the mediator between them and their liaison to the Obvious. But he had no idea how she came to be in that position. “Well, I’ve never questioned it but I don’t really know how she knows so much. I guess when you have lived for so long you have a lot of time to learn everything.”

The elder cat chuckled, “Well don’t go speculating about her age in her presence, but you’re not far off. She’s ancient, possibly timeless.”

“Is she a seer?” asked the prince, nodding toward the golden eye. 

“If she is, she’s not let on. She says she’s an archivist, and researching the world. Consulting for the Obscure just seems to have happened naturally over time.”

“Why not ask the opinion of the one who’s seen the most, I suppose,” considered the younger aloud. 

“Important notes, young prince: The place is protected by a Kikimora. That’s a spirit from abroad in the form of a moth the size of a human. She can get into your head and give you nightmares if you disrupt her household. Only your best manners.”

“I… I love moths,” said Philemon promptly forgetting his genteel upbringing at the mention of delicious treats. 

Fasol bopped him over his head, “Exactly none of that foolishness. If the Kikimora doesn’t fill your mind with endless terrors, there’s at least one other formidable creature in there but I’ve yet to see them.”

“Tuor’s got… pets?” The prince’s voice wobbled between shock and disgust.

“Absolutely not,” Fasol quickly answered. “She would never. Although I can’t place all the scents inside. There is definitely something different in there, watching. It feels dangerous.”

“Specter? The building is very old, right?”

“Well, she’s been the only proprietor and I doubt the Kikimora would end anyone in a fashion that would leave a lingering spirit. Specters don’t smell of … well, anything.”

Philemon didn’t have much time to think about this before his uncle was up and crossing the street. He stopped behind him on the black and white mosaic penny-tiled entryway that also depicted an eye. Fasol hooked his paw into a handle on a chain that formed a loop suspended from a metal contraption covered in bells next to the double-width heavy wooden and glass paneled door. There were other handles along its length at various heights to accommodate various guests from all land-living-and-dead communities. The ringing hadn’t stopped before a rush of displaced air from the door opening gave it another life. Only Philemon looked up expecting to see someone, while the elder cat stepped forward. “Good evening, Madams!” he greeted. A thick rope of smoke wound down the stairs in the back corner of the shop before settling into the form of a tall, pink-skinned woman with a pair of comb-like antennae extending from long pale yellow curls. Her multi-jointed arms cradling a notebook to her chest, she blinked at them with the oversized eyes one would expect of an insect, before giving them a small stiff bow and turning around the notebook to show an ornately lettered “Welcome” in the glyphs used by their colony. It then morphed into “Tea?”

“No thank you, Miss Kika. I hope you’ve been well.”

The notebook page flipped, “The house remains standing,” appearing in the same elegant script.

“Kika my dear, don’t make them think I’ve been causing you trouble,” came a voice from behind a deep blue velvet draped archway a few human-sized steps beyond the curved stairs. A shorter figure wrapped in layers of fringed ebony and emerald silks stepped into the sunlit room, arms of bangles and fingers full of jeweled rings sending glinting reflections scattering around the dustless display cases and polished rich woods of the furniture ostensibly for sale. Philemon strained to not let his instincts send him chasing after a large scarab-shaped reflection from a charm its owner deliberately moved slowly back and forth having noticed the youngster’s attention. Tuor’s glossy merlot smile grew, pushing her round cheeks to squeeze her kohl-rimmed eyes nearly closed, already quite taken with the handsome young cat, as his eyes followed the glowing beetle across the carpet beneath his paws, older than the city.

Fasol’s tail thumped against his haunch snapping him to attention, and he did his best to sit up straight hoping no one else had noticed. “Madam Tuor, this is my nephew and our Colony’s brightest scholar, Philemon.” 

Philemon bowed deeply and straightened, his regal poise regained, “Madam Tuor, it’s my pleasure to meet you.”

A tinkling of golden bangles sounded along with a swoosh of silk as she clapped her hands together, “Young Prince Philemon of the Eastern Colony! Little Rue’s favorite pupil; beloved by the Veil. You made it exactly on time. Well done, gentlecats!” 

Two furred chins dropped in a most undignified way.

“Beloved?” Fasol asked.

“By the Veil?” Philemon whispered.

* * *

Tuor beamed down at the surprised felines and then looked up at Kika who stood a full two heads taller. “Shall we move to the parlor? There’s so much to discuss.”

Kika’s thin triangle of wings pulsed once like a single heartbeat before she disintegrated into a plume of smoke that disappeared up the stairwell.

“She said to give her a moment. The little one might be sleeping in there and she is a grumpy thing when she first wakes.” 

Before Fasol could ask any of the dozens of questions suddenly added to his internal list, Tuor turned towards the steps. “She says the parlor is safe. Follow me, boys,” she added as her beaded slippers silently ascended. 

At the top of the stairs, they followed her through a windowless central hallway surrounded by walls covered in framed paintings and niches of vases of fresh flowers and statues of various deities that their eyes could easily make out despite the dim lighting. It ended in a T, and she led them towards the side with the most light. Philemon peeked behind him as they made the turn and scanned the walls and ceilings feeling something watching him. Fasol’s fur was slightly raised, and his nostrils twitched almost imperceptibly as he tried to place the strange scent that was much stronger up on the second floor. 

Having settled on a low chaise opposite a wooden framed cushioned platform with a cat-sized step, she motioned for them to get comfortable. Kika appeared and set a mirrored tray in between the two cats and removed the lid covering a platter of olives and sardines and two bowls of water. 

 “Now then, you have questions about the Veil?” 

The two cats blinked at each other, Fasol warning the prince in the secret language of cats to not give into the temptation of asking about the ‘little one’ who they both realized was possibly much larger than themselves, and a wholly unknown danger.

“Madam Tuor,” Fasol began, “we’re investigating rumors of unusual movements of the Veil over in Ottarstedt. Well, Philemon will be. This is his first mission.”

Something fell in the room above them with a loud bang and Kika poofed away into smoke once more. Tuor smiled, “Ah nothing to be concerned about. She’s just not used to her legs and terribly shy.”

The cats shared a nervous glance before she continued. “So Philemon, your first mission as a shadow! How exciting, and perfect timing, I have a proposition I think will appeal to a cat with an interest in the Obscure arts.”

Philemon leaned forward, eager to hear more. His pupils widened, entranced. 

“How would you like to discover something entirely new?”

The young prince tipped right over the cushion’s edge and scrambled back up to his equally surprised uncle. “I… would love to but I need to report back to Mother on what’s happening in Ottarstedt.” 

She smiled over the edge of her porcelain teacup, then setting it gently down in its saucer and then both onto the low table in front of her, dramatically turning her wrist in a sweeping gesture. “How about both?”

A few short hours later Philemon was on the road to the college town; heart light and fleet of paw. Singing himself a rain barrier, he hoped Tuor was correct in her suspicions that the rumors and her something-new were one and the same. Her words had demystified an internal fog he’d long held during his training as a shadow—all of his studies finally had a real purpose! He replayed her parting words, inscribing them in his mind, an indelible invocation. “We are more than our eyes; more than shadows, Philemon. Harm watch, harm catch.”