Chapter One
Annalise
Annalise was playing on her front porch the first time she heard a cat talk.
It was one of those bright summer days where the breeze played in the tops of the tall mountain pines and then dipped down to get caught in the elms around the house. It sucked the heat of the afternoon away, making the wrap-around porch a shady paradise.
Annalise had rescued an arm load of stuffed animals from the unbearable heat of the upstairs bedroom and had them arranged around her on the porch swing. She propped them up on the cushions and assigned them roles to play, while she provided all the voices. The black and white cow was Momma and the orange bear was Pappa and the fairy winged piggy was Sister while the plush chick was Brother. The indigo dragon was Teacher but she did not have much to say in this drama except “Harrumph” and an occasional “Hands to yourself, Missy”.
Momma cow was telling a long bedtime story called Tina Triceratops and the Three Bears which involved a large pot of Cretaceous palm fronds and an unruly visitor named Golden Nose. The rambling story was occasionally punctuated by Pappa Bear’s snore, Pappa bear being very susceptible to the soporific effects of bed time stories. She was just getting to the exciting part where Pappa bear walked in on Tina as she was eating the sofa when Annalise realized she had an audience.
She looked up and caught a gray and black stripped cat staring at her with its enormous yellow eyes. Annalise got the oddest feeling that it had been sitting there for some time, watching her, waiting patiently for her to notice it.
“Oh, hello there. Are you lost?”
The cat rose and leapt up onto the porch swing, displacing the teddy bear and knocking the yellow chick to the porch floor.
Annalise frowned at it.
“That was very rude. Saying hello is not an invitation to the party. I must warn you that Momma thinks I am allergic to cats.”
“Meyarrgh” it said, “You are the Lady Annalise, I believe?”
Annalise stared silently at the talking cat. She could not remember the rules about cats. Were they supposed to talk? If so, no one had seen fit to tell her, but then she was seven and no one saw fit to tell her much of anything.
“My name is Annalise.” she acknowledged, being too polite to point out that he had the honorific title wrong.
“I have come to warn you. The Lizard King is looking for you. It is just a matter of time before he finds you. This place is no longer safe.”
Since none of that made any sense, Annalise tried to break it down into logical bits.
“Who, exactly, is the Lizard King?”
“He is the Lord of Chaos, ruler of the Land of Shadows.”
“Oh. My. That sounds quite intimidating. Is he a good guy or a bad guy?”
Annalise thought her question quite valid, as she had only recently come to the understanding that not everyone saw the world as she did and that some people liked to pull the legs off grasshoppers and set fire to anthills and lock fairies up in glass bottles and give perpetual sleeping potions to princesses.
“He is powerful and unstoppable. When he wants something, he takes it. Now, he wants you.”
“Hmmm. I see”, she said solemnly.
She did not see, really, but it was something Pappa said when he wanted time to think about things. Annalise certainly needed to think about this bit of news. “Why does he want me, exactly? Is he an insomniac?”
“Meow?” the cat asked, nonplussed, “Insomniac?”
“Perhaps he has heard of my powers at story telling and he needs someone to tell him bedtime stories. Pappa always falls asleep long before I have made up an ending.”
The cat wheezed and coughed a bit. It sounded like cat laughter but she pulled her skirt aside just in case he happened to cough up a hairball by mistake.
“No, lady, he wants you for his wife.”
Annalise raised one small eyebrow and considered the solemn cat. Secretly, she thought herself terribly polite, having not burst into laughter.
“I am only seven. I don’t think I am allowed to be married. Besides, boys are disgusting. I think I would much prefer marrying my pony. I have told Momma that on several occasions. She says I will change my mind, but I don’t think she understands quite how loathsome boys can be. Surely there is a Lizard Princess somewhere who wants to marry a King. There are a ton of lizards living under the boards of the old barn. Should I take you to see them? I am sure one of them would be more than willing if you enticed her with a fat cricket.”
“Meaaghh!” the cat rowled in frustration. Was she laughing at him?
He hated this reality. It was ever so hard to get people to take him seriously. How could one maintain one’s dignity when everyone was trying to scratch behind your ears.
“Lizard is his family title, not his species. He claims he can trace his lineage all the way back to the first dragon who was spewed from the Caldera at the beginning of time. He wants you. He has sent his emissaries out of the Shadowlands to find you, to marry you by proxy and to take you back to his palace.”
Annalise frowned in concentration. Apparently, cats, like adults, could say a lot of words that she did not understand. Proxy. What was proxy? She reminded herself to carry her pocket dictionary the next time she decided to talk to a cat. She asked the only question she could think of.
“Why?”
“Because of who you are”
“And who am I?” Annalise asked, confused. Had she missed that part of his story? The cat was just as good at story telling as she was, but just like her, he seemed to forget to fill in a few key details.
“You are the Heart, the One Mother made flesh.”
Annalise raised her eyebrows. Oh, this was delicious. She was going to remember this and use it in her next story. Maybe Pappa would stay awake long enough to hear the ending, this time.
“Really?” she said politely, trying to keep the smile away from her lips, because if she smiled, she would end up giggling and if she giggled, she would definitely end up laughing and she had a feeling that Cat would not appreciate being laughed at.
But the cat became offended, anyway. He yowled and leapt to the porch floor and began pacing back and forth.
“There has always been a Heart. There must always be a Heart,” he said earnestly, almost as if he were trying to convince himself, “The Heart protects the Pattern from being eaten away by Chaos. The Pattern is the clockwork that keeps everything in working order. It keeps the planets orbiting around the sun and the moon orbiting around the earth. Rain falls down instead of up. Spring follows winter. Fall follows summer. Babies are born and flowers bloom. That is the Pattern and the Heart is the antennae and the transmitter, the doorway into the One Mother. She reminds us where the Center lies, that we might not forget to be ever vigilant and on guard against the encroaching Nothingness. Even the Lord of Chaos fears the Nothingness. When ever a Heart dies, another is born, somewhere else in the wide Oneverse. The Heart matrix is never lost. It always finds a host. You are the current Heart.”
Annalise listened intently to this. She was a very good listener. It pleased her that Cat knew about the One Pattern, also. She had only just thought of the idea of a dominating principle keeping order that very morning. But there was a disturbing hole in Cat’s story.
“What happened to the last Heart?”
The cat stopped and looked uncomfortable. He did not want to tell her this part of the story but knew he must.
“The Lizard King found her and took her into the Shadowlands. Not long after, the duty of being the Heart passed to you.”
“He killed her?”
“It would seem so.”
Annalise frowned down at the cat. She was not liking this story very much, at all. So, it was with a certain amount of relief that Annalise heard her mother calling her to come in and get washed up for dinner.
“Well, I have to go. It was nice meeting you. Try not to eat too many birds on your way home,” Annalise said, rising and gathering her toys.
“You do not believe me.”
“Oh, no. I do. Really”, she said forcing a polite smile onto her lips, “But, you see, I am just seven and I am not allowed to go out of sight of the house, so I am fairly certain I will not be allowed to marry the Lizard king and go live in the Shadowlands. There is not really anything more to be done about it, is there?”
“There will be others. If I can find you, then they can, also.”
Annalise looked down over the pile of plush fur in her arms, a hopeful look on her small face..
“More talking cats?” she asked hopefully.
“Yes, but also creatures who are not as polite as I.”
“Oh, dear”, sighed Annalise, walking into her house and shutting the screen door carefully behind her. If Cat thought himself polite, she dreaded talking to those Cat thought rude.
