The Collar of the Two Skies Chapter 2

 

 Chapter 2

“Ma chérie, my conscience is nagging me...”

“Why, Mistral? Because you didn’t become friends with me back when I was still a woman?”

“That too, but if my stomach hadn’t been so loud, if I hadn’t asked for food, if...”

Sirocco, the little ginger, looked at the two cats who were bigger than him, and since “loylity” was something he was learning more and more each day, he timidly began to apologize.

“Yeah, but if I hadn’t played with that ‘bizz-bizz’ thing in the yard, if it hadn’t gotten stuck up in that ‘mayonnaise’ tree...”

“Japanese, kiddo, Japanese. The elegance of a Japanese cherry tree has absolutely nothing to do with mayonnaise, Sirocco.”

“But someone would have thought that necklace, collar, or whatever it is, has magical powers,” Aeolus sighed from under the silk fringes of Mistral’s pillow. “We checked that day. The original is in the Cairo museum, under strict guard.”

“Something doesn’t add up here. It’s impossible for it to be a replica in Cairo, under... that strict guard. Unless... Mon Dieu! This must be...”

“Th-there are two dollars... two ‘scholars’.”

“Collars, shorty... you’re a genius! Now it makes sense, there must be two... twins! Look at us, slowly figuring it out, boys! And it’s not your fault at all. The collar glowed, flickered, and fell right out of the cherry tree at my feet. What possessed me to hang it around my neck? Especially since I don’t really wear trinkets. Come on, help me put the collar back on my neck now, because if it gets lost again, I’ll stay a cat for the rest of my life.”

From the kitchen, the word “kidnapped” could be clearly heard, repeated by both Anemo and Daniel Frost, newly christened Trench.

“People think I’ve been kidnapped... I just hope my mom doesn’t come, she’s allergic to cats and...”

The white cat didn’t even get to finish her sentence before the front doorbell began an unmusical duo with the bronze lion-shaped ring. At the door, rushed and impatient, stood Anna Storm, Aura Gale, and Daisy Queen. Fleur, who was watching the detective’s conversation with Anemo almost silently and almost motionlessly, rushed immediately to open it. The three of them barged in like a flock of geese on the Capitol, ready to wake up the whole city with their commotion.

In the living room on Ether Drive, the air had become unbreathable, and not because of dust—which Aura Gale had already cleared away the night before—but because of the tension. Daniel Frost, or “Trench,” as the household crew had already named him, walked resolutely toward the velvet armchair.

“I will take the purse for inventory, Mr. Gale. It’s an essential piece of evidence,” he decreed, reaching a hand out toward the purse on the armchair.

Mistral, perched on the backrest like a black plush toy, shot Remi an “now or never” look. Remi, crouching at the detective’s feet, felt her cat heart pounding in her throat.

“Now, Anna!” Mistral meowed, even though he knew Remi’s mother couldn’t understand him.

But the timing was perfect. Anna Storm approached the armchair just as her feline daughter shook her long, fluffy tail right under her delicate nose. The effect was instantaneous.

“Achoo! Achoo! Aaachoo!”

Three loud explosions shook the living room. Frost, caught off guard by the blast, instinctively turned toward Anna, offering her a tissue from his trench coat pocket. In that exact second, the feline mechanism triggered. Mistral gave the open purse a short shove with his left paw. Little Sirocco, who had been lying in wait under the armchair, dashed out like a flame and, with the skill of a pickpocket, “fished” out the slim phone just as it slid from the overturned purse. The device fell silently onto the armchair cushion, and a second shove from Sirocco sent it straight into the deep gap between the seat and the backrest.

“Aeolus, confirm!” Sirocco whispered as he retreated to safety.

Aeolus, who was watching everything from under the fringes of Mistral’s pillow, poked out only the tip of his nose and twitched his whiskers quickly: “Clear!”.

Frost turned back to the purse and picked it up. It felt unusually light in his hand, but Anna grabbed his arm through tears and sneezes.

“Her glasses... are they in there? And the phone? What if someone holding her hostage calls?” she whimpered, fixing the detective with a desperate look.

Frost felt the soft material of the purse from the outside. The sunglasses made a plastic clicking sound, giving him the illusion that everything was fine.

“We have everything we need, Mrs. Storm. The procedure is under control,” he said, stuffing the “essential evidence” into the wide pocket of his trench coat.

In the next moment, the white cat jumped onto the armchair with a grace she didn’t know she possesses. She curled up exactly over the gap where the phone had vanished, turning into an immaculate ball of fur. She began to purr, as if this purring were a form of meditation or grounding, much like walking barefoot was for Anemo.

* * *

“Now we could go to Mars or to one of the poles, my dear. Aeolus is Agent 003.5, completely at your service, you stormy lady!... We should look up a wind name for you on the internet... We are in the House of the Winds.”

“You’re right, I guess... I will call myself Bise.”

“Bise,” Mistral repeated thoughtfully, “it sounds so elegant and Parisian that it almost makes me jealous...”

The black cat straightened his back, swishing his tail through the air like a general instructing his troops.

“I like it,” he decreed, looking down at her. “A winter Bise, proud and distant when guests arrive, but a summer Bise, warm, obedient, and motherly with the little ones when it’s just us in the House of the Winds. That’s how you should be, my dear. A feline elegant, yet pliable.”

The white cat stopped purring. She raised her chin with a movement so sudden and rigid that the black leather of the armchair seemed to creak beneath her. Her eyes, like two blades of ice, locked directly onto Mistral.

“You forgot one tiny detail, Mistral! I wrote ‘Women cannot be tamed’. The fact that I have fur now and walk on all fours doesn’t change the rules of the game. I chose my own name, and I will choose my own seasons. But I admit that the way you all accept me can greatly influence, positively or negatively, my headache-inducing gusts.”

Sirocco, looking like a child who had just been scolded by his favorite parent, let out a long sigh.

“I’m gonna go climb that ‘mayonnaise’ tree again, maybe I’ll find another ‘arfephact’ that can turn me into a pigeon, or a puppy like Skye, so Noel can ‘adapt’ me!”

“It’s pronounced ‘adopt’, shorty. Shh, it’s getting frosty in here,” Aeolus tried to quiet the redhead, while trying his best not to stand out too much... just in case the white cat found him too appetizing and... who knows.

Mistral swallowed hard, grooming a paw behind his ear as if nothing had happened, even though his leader’s pride had just taken a direct blast to the face. Bise sat back down over the gap in the armchair, sealing the phone beneath her with the same regal grace. However, in the very next second, when Sirocco let out a trembling whimper, seemingly determined to go into exile, she stepped down from her throne with a fluid movement. She wrapped the ginger cat in her long, white tail, pulling him protectively under her chin, and began to soothe him with her rough, pink tongue.

“I heard you’re learning more and more every day , and I also heard that you, shorty, liked me even before this.”