Rudy

It was a strange, new world. Familiar, though.

She used to have such flights of fancy as a small child; elaborate games with her imaginary friends, adventures and romps and games of hide-and-seek. Her parents, both doctors of one sort or another, were uniformly alarmed when she came out of her room talking excitedly about her adventures with her imaginary friends… she didn’t really have any normal friends, beyond the family cats. She hardly even played with her toys, except a favorite few. She was such an intelligent child, but it felt like she was slipping away, even as she was advanced a grade at age seven, from second grade to third.

She didn’t stop seeing her adventure friends, but, after a long battle with her parents… mostly her father… she learned to pretend they weren’t there. She learned to at least pretend to sleep quietly in her room each night rather than go off with them and come back with a head full of stories. She learned to not look at them when company was around, or talk to them when others could hear. She learned to “play with others” and “chew with her mouth closed” and say “yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”

Eventually, she learned to just not look at them. One day, years later, after a night of wild dreams, she tried… and they were just gone. She was fourteen.

The next few years were hell for her parents. She saw to it. She went through a dark period in her life, dressing in black, torn clothes, writing dark, sad poetry, listening to groaning, angry music. Her mother called it her “Goth phase,” and she got angry every time she heard it.

The only reason she didn’t drop out of school, eventually, was because of her cats. When she was eleven, a schoolmate’s dog died. She’d seen this dog just about every day for years, on her way to school… a great, noisy Rottweiler, in a yard she’d always felt was too small for him. The child who owned him disliked her greatly, but the dog… the dog just adored her. He’d wait for her to pass and go nuts, bounding and slobbering alongside her down the fence, just waiting for her to pet him. The moment she did, he’d just stop and lean in, gazing at her with adoring brown eyes for as long as he could get “scritchins.”

The boy, once, spent an entire year trying to get the dog to hate her on sight. For a while, she’d see them on the porch in the morning, the dog with welts on his hide and the boy holding his head pointed at her, yelling and snarling at the dog to “get her!” He never stood a chance; the few times the dog would bolt at her during this dark time, he’d still just cavort at the fence, looking desperately for love and scritchins. The boy finally gave up, and they returned to their normal routine.

The boy announced that the dog had died, one day, at recess, the first day of school. He said it casually to his friends, where she heard him. The dog had gotten into some pool chemicals and gotten sick. It had taken him two weeks to die under the back porch, over the summer. Crying, she went up and asked him what the vet had tried. He just looked coolly into her eyes, even smirking a little, and said they never took him. He just let him die, suffering, under the porch. He told them the dog had run away.

Her cats had been the only ones left in the house she could build any kind of imaginative relationship with. Of the three, “Owl” was, by far, the oldest, having been a household fixture five years before she was born. Of the three, Owl was the most patient; indeed, there had been times when the girl had seen Owl looking at her with what she thought was a mother’s love, even as she dressed the long-suffering feline in outlandish outfits to have tea. A majestic seventeen-year-old “silver tabby” Maine Coon, Owl had been showing her age for the last year or two; slower to get up, slower to get to food and water, sleeping more and more. Neither of the other two… Anjelica, a smallish black-and-white “jellicle cat,” as the girl’s mom called her, who was eight and a prim kitty who would still “dance” with the girl in her bedroom, and “Grimmy,” a crafty six-year-old Mackerel tabby who spent most of his time either trying to get out of the house or trying to steal her toys and hide them away, like he thought he was some sort of ninja…  showed any signs of slowing down, but Owl had just about become a throw pillow, as the girl’s mother put it.

She wanted to make a difference to those she loved dearest… she finished high school, surprising her parents, her teachers, and every schoolmate who made fun of her attitude, so she could be a veterinarian.

Owl lived for a surprisingly long time, surprising to everyone except the girl. She finally died, comfortable, happy and sedated, on the girl’s lap, when the girl was seventeen. Owl was a venerable twenty-three years old. The girl had doted on her above the other cats… not neglecting the others, as they still required occasional feeding, litter duty, dancing and toy finds now and then, and a little loving every day… and convinced her parents to do well by the geriatric queen, nursing her and encouraging her at every step.

Something changed after that. She laid Owl to rest next to the garden, in a lovely little grave with cat toys and a small headstone the girl had made herself, with her father’s tools and advice. She went to her room, threw away all her black clothes, and asked her mother to take her shopping. By the end of her last year at school, nobody recognized her, with her ready smile, her slightly silly quips, her colorful clothing and a sudden interest… and talent for…  little pranks and jokes. For those close to her, every day with her was an adventure… you could never tell what little jokes she might make, what pranks she might play on who, what outlandish stories she might tell to tease your wits. Her mother half-joked that she was possessed by Owl, but nobody could argue with her scholastic achievement or drive.

Twenty-one years of age found her hip-deep in the University of Chicago’s DVM program, a program she’d had to extend to the full four years due to time constraints. She was already deeply involved with the Chicago Veterinary Emergency & Specialty Center, which not only fulfilled the field-work portion of her education requirements but guaranteed her a place to work upon imminent completion of her degree. Her graduation drew near, but there were a great many animals in need of care and those took priority.

She was nonplussed when a small, quiet young woman walked into the exam room where she was caring for a sneezing, lethargic chinchilla named Gulliver. An unusual creature that was outside the scope of general veterinary medicine as yet, she was charmed by these lively, delicate, soft, surprisingly intelligent and funny animals and made a point of knowing as much about such exotic pets as she knew about any cat, dog or goldfish. As she administered the first mild dose of medicine to the poor thing, the woman eased in and said “hello, Rudy.”

She could only stare for a moment, absently petting the distraught rodent. The girl looked a little nervous. She was on the small side, maybe 5’2” at best, perhaps 20 years old, wearing a rumpled black button-up two sizes too big for her, hanging open over a white T-shirt, black jeans and white socks… but no shoes. Short black hair framed a round, pale face with big, black eyes. She stared at the girl, nervous and excited. “Hi, Rudy. You are Rudy, right? I think I’m right. Do you remember?”

As the girl stared at her, she thought she could see light reflect back from her eyes. Like a cat’s. Suddenly, it clicked, an excited, almost audible click, as it all came rushing back to her. Wide-eyes, one hand on Gulliver, she could only stammer “A… Anjelica?”

Now, I spend all my time split between my waking job as a successful veterinarian at the CVE&SC and my time as a Pooka at a set of lofts near Hamlin Park, goofing off with other Pooka, Satyrs, a particularly invectively-inventive Nocker called Canter Maloney, one patience-strained Walden Proudfoot the Quick, a Boggan, and the occasional visits from a large, surprisingly patient troll Knight named Arden Peterbilt (usually on business from the Duke Damian Lightwalker of the Seelie Court of Chicago Summer), whom I pick on mercilessly when he’s in town, and an unsettlingly whispery Sluagh who calls herself Elizabeth Marie Coombs, Underseeker Of Conspiracies. Apparently, Elizabeth likes to keep her hand in on undertakings across the realm, especially… well… conspiracies. There’s an Eshu around here, I’m told, but I’m yet to meet her. They travel a lot, I guess.

A Baron Gregory Hammerwalker sees over the freehold here, as well as the realm covering everything east of the river from Graceland Cemetery to Old Town, but not Cabrini Green. He’s an old Grump of a Satyr with horns so great I wonder he can keep up his head! He still likes his fun, and you can always see a glint in his eye even as he imparts his baritone wisdoms and flirtations. He’s fond of saying his “trago” isn’t going to “take him to the party for a long time,” whatever that means. Lakeview, and especially Boystown, provide a great deal of Glamour for those of us so inclined… and we Pooka and our Satyrs are so inclined, believe me!

I’ve spent the last year reacquainting myself with the Realm, relearning Chicago as Anjelica and I used to see it. The Seelie Court of Summer and the Unseelie Court of Winter trading roles with the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes. The roles of the Kithain and who best… and worst… to play our pranks on and tease. The nature of Dreams. We’ve also talked about the plague of the Shadow Court with Gregory, but I’m not all that worried about them.

Anjelica still lives with my parents; she has them believing she just likes to hide in obscure places in the house when she wants, although they suspect she’s getting out. Grimmy doesn’t stick around much anymore… he still stops in there for a meal and a warm bed, and maybe to hide a spoon or a dishrag, but he has other, more interesting dreamers to tease.

Owl died trying to make sure the dreams didn't die in me. I'm yet to meet Kith or Kin who knew her and didn't have great respect for her, which is saying something for a Pooka. I don't know why she did what she did, but, even as I can feel my Pooka mein coming out more and more, I'll always be grateful, always love her.

-Rudy Tabootie, Edited by Sir Walden Proudfoot the Quick