Day 252: 17 July 2026

 Short story -- Healing

The field was full of blossoms of all sorts of colours and sizes. The grass came up to her waist as she waded through, collecting various blooms to brighten up the space where her sister was healing back home.

At least, she and her parents hoped that her sister was healing.

No one really seemed to know what this sickness was. Her sister had just woken up with it one morning: a fever, spots… and then a day later… she hadn’t woken up at all. But she was still breathing. So Ariana had to believe that she was still fighting.

There was a purple blossom where the field met the forest that Ariana had never seen its equal before. She waded over to pick it. But before she did, she noticed a thin feline tail swinging back and forth like a pendulum.

The cat it was attached to sat up in the tree.

‘Hello there, cat,’ Ariana said reaching for the flower.

‘Hello,’ the cat said back.

Ariana’s hand stopped.

The cat waited, still twitching his tail. For it was a he.

‘You can talk,’ Ariana said uncertainly.

‘I can,’ agreed the cat. ‘And I know why you’re picking these flowers.’

Ariana looked startled.

‘What if I told you that I could make your sister wake? That I could heal her?’ the cat continued, eyes sparkling.

‘How… how?’ stammered Ariana.

‘Ah,’ answered the cat. ‘She has been cursed. Lucky for you, and her, I know the antidote.’

‘And what would it cost me?’ Ariana asked, knowing it was never wise to make open ended deals with whatever sort of creature this cat was.

‘Wise,’ purred the cat. ‘Only this. An invitation to stay in your home and bear your hearth whenever I pass through for as long as you live.’

Well, Ariana could see no harm in that.

‘Done,’ she said.

‘Excellent,’ answered the cat. ‘Then I shall come home with you now, and we shall see your sister.’

So the two waded back through the field and to Ariana’s house on the edge of the village.

Her father was out tending the fields and her mother was busy with the washing, so they entered the house uninterrupted. Ariana led the cat upstairs where her sister lay.

The cat pounced up onto the bed and stood on the chest of the girl looking down into her face. He exhaled a long breath onto her and jumped down.

Ariana watched as her sister stirred and then opened her eyes.

‘Ari?’ she asked weakly.

‘I’m here, Lucy. I’m here.’

‘I was having the worst dream… and I’m so thirsty…’

‘Let me get you some water,’ Ariana said and rushed downstairs.

She saw the cat sitting by the hearth.

And she ran back upstairs with the water.

Later that night, after her parents had marveled at Lucy’s recovery, even if they didn’t relish the idea that a cat’s breath had broken a curse and now they were obligated to let said cat sit at their hearth, Ariana asked the cat, ‘Since I am bound to welcome you the rest of my life, what is your name?’

‘You can call me Catjeet,’ he answered.