My Familiar
Familiar: noun - (familiar spirit) a demon supposedly attending and obeying a witch, often said to assume the form of an animal.
Katniss didn't remember much before that day. She didn't remember where she'd been or how she came to be there, only that she woke cold and hungry amongst the flowering reeds by the waterside.
And she would have stayed that way if it hadn't been for him. The fair-skinned, golden-haired boy with a dirty face and bare feet that sat by the fire keeping watch so that the bread didn't burn.
It smelt so good, the ache in her stomach made her cry.
With a whispered shout for her to hurry, he threw the loaf, and she ran as fast as her legs would carry her, into the woods. The bread was so hot it steamed as she ripped it apart, its crust burning her fingers.
A few days later, when her stomach was once again growling with hunger, she came back but the boy wasn't at the fire. He had been replaced by a girl, older than him but dressed in equally dirty rags.
"Go on, get out of here," the girl warned, throwing a stone in Katniss' direction.
"Please can I have something to eat," Katniss begged. "I'm hungry."
"Aren't we all?" the older girl scoffed. "But no matter how hungry I am, it ain't worth taking a beating from the master for a loaf of bread, when I'll still be hungry tomorrow and then her making sure I don't get nothing to eat for a week."
Katniss looked to the long house where the older girl's eyes had strayed. It was bigger than the other huts in the village, still made of mud daubed on a wooden frame with a straw roof, but twice the size of the others, commanding an important central spot in the settlement.
She found him there, the golden-haired boy, tethered and cowering like a whipped dog. His body showed the signs of the beating the girl had spoken off, with dried blood on his lip beneath his swollen broken nose and dried bloodstains on his rags.
As Katniss moved forward to untie him so he could escape, a woman came into view. Katniss ducked down, hidden, behind the woodpile so that her view was disrupted and all she could see were the woman's feet as they jabbed at the boy's middle.
"You hungry Peeta?" She heard the boy moan in response. "Answer me, boy?" the woman screeched harshly.
"Yes mistress," came his timid answer.
"Well, you just think about that next time you're tempted to steal the master's bread. Greedy, fat, useless lump, eating the whole bloody loaf on your own. There'll be nothing for you until Sunday and then only after the pigs have been fed."
"I'm sorry, I won't do it again," Peeta snivelled.
"To bloody right you won't." She kicked him hard this time. "Or I'll let the master punish you again."
"Please, no," his desperate voice pleaded.
"Better you than me," she said sourly. "Do you think you're the only one he punished?" Katniss saw the woman's foot pulled back, ready to serve revenge to the soft goal of Peeta's middle.
I wish he was free, thought Katniss, I wish he was small enough to wriggle free from his bindings and fly away from here.
The boy's body quivered and trembled, and then he was no more. Peeta's mistress screamed stumbling back on her heels and Katniss shot to her feet, forgetting the need to hide, to see a small goldfinch flapping in the terrified woman's face. It circled twice before it took flight.
The bird flew towards the woodpile, its blue eyes meeting Katniss' briefly before it sailed over her head and was gone. As much as his disappearance left her disappointed, wishing he had stayed and waited for her, she wanted him to be free more.
In the days that followed, Katniss learnt that her wishes brought her beds of dry moss and leaves to lie down in at night, that they caused the trees to fill with fruit to eat and cool fresh springs to flow at her feet.
When she swam in the river, the fish leapt right out into her waiting arms, offering themselves for her dinner. Flames sparked and flickered beneath her open palms, setting light to the wood she had gathered, and she went to sleep every night in the fire's warming glow, with a full belly.
She didn't have to be cold and she wasn't hungry any more, but she was lonely.
She kept an eye out for the goldfinch, wondering what had happened to it, hoping that perhaps it or the boy would return. Sometimes a predatory hawk would circle high overhead and she would hear the owl's eerie screech at night, and she hoped that the little goldfinch's fate had not been as another bird's dinner.
Sometimes she ventured into the villages that dotted the valley beside the river, but as the years passed and she grew, so did the distrust and suspicion of the villagers.
One day a man spied her summoning the branches of a tree to bend and bow at her feet, forming a bridge for her to cross the river where it ran too deep to wade. The next day the villagers came into the woods, with cries of witchcraft and devilry, hunting for her. But she wasn't the only one they encountered that day. Their paths crossed that of a large bear angry at being disturbed by their clamour, and he chased them away.
After that, Katniss shunned the lowlands where the settlements were located and travelled further into the mountains, but its inhabitants were no less threatening. She woke one night to the howl of wolves prowling in the depths of the forest. Lying very still she could hear the snorts and pants of their breath, and caught the glint of eyes in the blackness. Her heart stopped, a scream trapped in her chest, when she heard the snaps and snarls of a fight close by. When it ended, she heard the whine and whimper of the wounded animal limping away and then the forest was quiet again.
Winter came and the stream froze over, hard and polished enough in which to see her own reflection. The grey eyes that looked back up at her no longer belonged to a little girl. Her hair hung down to her waist and she would be tall enough to reach the tops of the bramble bushes that bore her favourite fruit in late summer.
Had she really been alone so long? She didn't want to be anymore. She wished that there was someone to keep her company, someone who would be her friend.
That night the snow came. She found a cave and lit a fire, but the wind blew right into its mouth, making eddies on the dusty floor and causing the flames to splutter. Her teeth chattered and her body shook with cold. Until, from the darkness, there was warmth.
A thick fur coat pressed against her side and she let her frigid fingers sink into its deep pile. She felt a dry snout nuzzle at her cheek and she curled into the comfort of the animal's heat.
When she woke it wasn't a beast that lay beside her. She recognised him immediately, although he was no longer a boy but now a young man. His eyes were closed, gently snoring, his unruly long hair, that fell over his forehead, reached down to meet his gold lashes.
"You," she whispered and he eyes flew open, staring at her with a startled flash of blue.
His body quivered and shook and a golden-coated wolf stood, where only seconds before, the man had been.
"The hawk," she whispered with stunned understanding. "The bear. The wolf. They were all you."
He nodded and then he turned to go.
"Please don't go," she begged. "Please stay."
He hesitated, his eyes full of regret, but he still turned and trotted away. She waited until he was gone and then she hung her head and cried. All her other wishes had come true - why couldn't this one?
He returned that night when she was cold and when she woke in the morning she found him beside her dressed in ragged clothes.
"You made me what I am and I am indebted to you. You freed me and because of that I will serve you as my mistress. I will stay with you, but I need to be able to come and go as I please, I cannot give up the freedom you gave to me," he explained.
"I wouldn't ask you to. I don't ask to be your mistress."
"But you are," he said. "You have all the power. I have seen it. You are my mistress just as clearly as you made me your familiar."
So Peeta stayed with her all winter, roaming on his own during the day and returning after sundown to keep her warm. When spring came, followed by the long days of summer, he would walk by her side and leave her at night to run or fly.
Even when she was on her own, she wasn't lonely anymore.
They came upon a spot where the river formed a lake and the trees sheltered them from the cold north winds.
"I like it here," he said one afternoon, as his toes trailed lazily in the water. "I wish we could stay here, like this forever."
"If that's what you wish then that's what we'll do," she said, enjoying the warmth that radiated in her chest from his pleased smile.
So they built a house, like the ones in Peeta's old village, from wood, clay and thatch.
In time, other people moved into the area. They built their timber houses on the far side of the forest, where the river sloped down towards the sea. Sometimes Katniss would venture into the settlement to trade the herbs and mushrooms she had gathered. She would point out which herbs cured which ills and soon people sought her out for her advice.
It all changed when the men came that built the tall stone church. One day, Katniss' visit to the market was met with catcalls from the same people who were too cowardly to admit they had once been grateful for her help. They threatened her with shouts and promises to purify her soul with fire, but her snarling guard dog kept them at bay long enough for her to escape. When the mob followed her into the woods, they found the bridge over the river washed away and the waters flowing too fast and deep to cross.
"We should leave," Peeta said.
"But you like it here; you said you wanted to stay forever."
"I meant I wanted to stay like that; happy, safe. It doesn't have to be here."
So they travelled further north, where people hadn't yet settled. They built another home, with thick log walls to keep out the cold and where, in the long dark days of winter, Katniss shared the heat from the thick warm coat of a golden bear.
One summer, long after the unbroken days of sunshine had melted the winter snows, and when the welcome breeze made the curtains dance at night, she woke with a scream as a mountain cat sprung through the open window. The powerful, sinewed muscles of its shoulders rippled with every step it took, as it stalked swiftly towards her. The ripples turned to shuddering waves coursing through its body until a naked man straightened to stand in its place.
"Katniss," Peeta rushed to her. "Are you alright? I heard you screaming."
She nodded, but she still welcomed the solid comfort of his arms that encircled her. "It was just a nightmare, but it felt so real. I dreamt I was lost in the woods. I couldn't find you."
"I'm here. I would always find you. I would seek you out with a wolf's keen sense, or spot you from the heavens with an eagle's eye. I would run fast, fly straight and swim against the tide until I found you," he reassured her
"But why?" she shook her head, pulling away from him. "Why do you come back?"
"I promised you I would stay and I will, always."
"But you don't have to, you don't have to obey me. When I freed you from one mistress, I never meant for you to take another. You're free, you can leave whenever you want. I won't punish you."
"I can't leave you. I belong to you."
"No. No you don't," she argued.
"Yes," he asserted, taking her hand and placing it on his heart, "I do." He kissed her with soft persuasive lips that grew more forceful encouraged by her fingers tightening in his hair.
The furs that covered the bed were kicked aside and her nightclothes shed, until she was pressed against him, as naked as he was. She welcomed a different heat from him, a fire that set her own body alight, as his hands spread over her.
When his mouth sought her out with a primal hunger, she curved and arched beneath him until it was her body that trembled and shook. His body fitted with hers, as it felt it had always been meant to, until marked by the blood between her legs and that drawn by the tracks of her nails on his shoulders they truly belonged to each other.
After he had cried out her name in glorious wonderment and their bodies, that had clung together too exhausted to let go, had finally, reluctantly, released their hold. She put her hand to where she could feel part of him mixed with part of her. Anointing her fingers with their spilt essence, she raised it to his chest before she stopped.
She had altered him once without his permission - she wouldn't do it again.
"Do it," he said, as if reading her mind.
"But you don't know…you don't understand."
"Its already yours, do it," he affirmed, placing her hand on his chest.
She painted the interlocking symbol above his heart and then, inking her fingers once again, she did the same over her left breast. They kissed, connecting her artwork in their embrace.
There were times when they didn't leave the cabin, or indeed their bed, for days, but she could always sense the growing discord in Peeta's heart when he had spent too long in human form. There was a conflict between his wish to be with her and the instinctive hunger for the exhilaration that came when he ran or flew free. Then she would urge him to leave and satisfy his natural desire. He would disappear into the woods or sky but never for long and, he assured her, never out of earshot. If she had a nightmare, he was by her side in moments, and she noticed that increasingly, he wandered during the day and spent the nights at home with her.
But on the nights when the moon was full, he grew more restless and those were the nights she would wake up alone to the sound of a lone wolf howling as it ran through the trees.
On those nights some of the animal would remain when the man returned, his mouth and tongue seeking out the heat between her legs, before taking her on all fours, with the primal force of the animal whose form he favoured most.
Seasons came and went and they continued the same, never ageing, still frozen in the moment Peeta had wished for. Time ticked along slowly for them whilst the world about them rushed into the future. They continued to move ever further north, shying away from the encroaching developments, when at first the railroad puffed and steamed its way across the land, followed later by the highways full of shiny new automobiles.
She knew the moment she stumbled upon the spot that it was what they'd been looking for. Hidden under the shadow of the mountains and sheltered from the weather by the protective wall of trees lay a small lake. She walked there the next day with a small bird perched on her shoulder, who had been given strict instructions not to open his eyes.
"Could you be happy here? Could you feel safe?" She asked, when they stood on the lakeshore.
"Yes," Peeta grinned. "Safe, happy and together. It's all I wanted."
A blonde otter darted and played in the water all afternoon as she watched him, singing contentedly to herself.
"Come swim with me?" he invited, as his boyish face beamed up at her from the water.
"It will be too cold."
"What kind of a witch are you," he scoffed with a glint of mischief, "if you can't warm the water a little?" Laughing as he splashed her.
She glared at him, trying to subdue her smile, until the look on his face made it impossible to pretend to be cross. He watched her with unabashed desire as she stripped and walked towards the water. With every step she took into the depths the waters warmed, until they relaxed in the mellow heat of a warm bath.
He towed her out to the rocks, where she hewed the stone face with one flick of her hand to form a seat so that she could straddle him. The sound of her name amplified and multiplied in the echo that surrounded them moments later.
"Why is it," he asked, as he stroked the curve of her breasts and left lazy kisses over the skin of her shoulders, "that you never choose to be an animal?"
"I used to be scared it would hurt. When I would watch your body tremble and shake, I couldn't see how such a reaction could be caused by anything but pain."
"But now you know differently?" his mouth curved into a smirk that made her skin heat.
"And it was your thing, what you needed," she continued seriously. "I don't need to escape, I don't want to be alone."
"It is never about escaping from you. You do know that, don't you?" He said, lifting her downcast gaze with a gentle touch beneath her chin. "In the beginning it was a means to escape my human body and the pain it remembered. When I'm an animal I feel only its basic primal needs; it is easy to forget the human suffering that went before. That first time, when you freed me, I didn't think I would ever want to be a boy again. What he - my master - did to me, I didn't want to remember. But I couldn't leave you. I watched you alone. I saw how sad you were and I wanted to be the one to make you happy, but I didn't know how. So I just contented myself with keeping you safe and warm. I couldn't leave you alone. Even now, on the full moon, when the animal threatens to eclipse the man, it is always the memory of you, the need to stay with you that brings me home."
"That's why you have stayed with me."
"Why I will always stay with you. I love you, Katniss." He placed his hand over the skin of her breast that had once been stained red with the evidence of their first time. "And you love me."
She nodded, and his smile lit up the shadows cast by the rocks.
"Then swim with me," he coaxed. His body quivered beneath her, until she knelt alone on the rock as an agile golden otter slipped into the lake.
She visualised her wish and with a sweeping gesture she set her body trembling as her desire transformed her body and a sleek dark otter soon chased and frolicked with the other in the water.
There were still occasions when Peeta went out alone, but there were plenty more times that Katniss joined him. She howled at the moon and the stars with him and understood exactly how it felt to feel her human senses slipping away. Giving way to the base instincts of the animal, as his teeth held her firm by the ruff of fur at her neck and she whimpered in pleasure in the depths of the woods, only to wake in the morning both human again, the memory of the night before just a hazy dream except for the mud-stained evidence of being on all fours.
He flew her to the highest mountains and they watched the progress that the rest of the world was making: the roads now filled with cars and the people they brought to the once empty land. Inquisitive, they watched the people go about their lives as they covered the grassland with concrete and stone, and built their homes from brick, tile and glass. It was an alien world from the one made of wood, thatch and mud they had left many lifetimes ago.
They watched with interest but kept a safe distance, witnessing that whilst the people had outwardly changed, their civilisation still harboured violence, intolerance and injustice to those deemed to look or live differently from the designated normality.
They were happy to be on their own, yet Katniss noticed that Peeta's mood would dip every spring. It began almost imperceivably but became darker each year upon year.
"Peeta, what is the matter?" she asked one spring day as they sat by the lake. He had not changed his form for days, even though she had suggested it and no matter what she did she couldn't lift his low mood. "Please, tell me and I promise I will fix it."
"Don't Katniss. You shouldn't make promises that you can't keep," he warned.
"I won't, I don't," she insisted, biting her lip as she thought but didn't say, I would do anything for you.
"It is spring," he shrugged with a sigh. "Every bird lifts its tail to me when I perch, every cat and bitch raises its tail and submits. I think they sense a dominance, a difference that surpasses any natural order of mating ritual and they all offer themselves eagerly to me as a partner.
"I would never want anyone but you, Katniss," he quickly reassured her horrified expression. "But for the animal there is a deep innate need to procreate that I find it hard to fight."
She swallowed, shocked and hurt by his confession.
"Why is it, Katniss, after all these years that we have no children?" he asked with a depth of sorrow in his eyes.
"Because I wished it so," she admitted with a trembling voice.
"You didn't want our child?" his voice was wounded and confused. "Part of you and part of me, you didn't want that?"
"I didn't want anything to change. I was scared."
He rested his palm on her stomach for a moment before removing it and turning to face the water. "I told you that you shouldn't make promises you can't keep," he stated darkly, then dove into the water. He didn't reemerge but some time later she saw the tail of a large fish break the surface before disappearing from view again.
She sat on the rocks and waited. It turned dark and then light again before he climbed onto the rocks beside her.
"I'm sorry, please forgive me for my selfishness. Its like this each spring. It will be over soon and I promise I won't ever mention it again," he pledged.
He kissed away the tears that she didn't realise were on her cheeks and she kissed him back, sucking on the salty tip of his tongue. His hands were gentle but commanding as he laid her back and covered her body with his. She stroked him and guided him inside her. "I love you Katniss, you're all I want," he assured her, and she closed her eyes and wished that she wasn't so selfish.
After three months of not bleeding, he asked her if she was all right; she placed both his hands on her belly and told him they were both fine. When he asked her how, she replied with devilish amusement there had been too many occasions to pinpoint exactly how or when.
"But you said you didn't want to," he said, still shocked.
"I don't make promises I can't keep," she answered.
He prowled the room like a caged lion through each of her contractions, until she shouted for him to leave her alone and run it off, but he came back at the sound of her cries. Still naked between her legs at the foot of the bed, he delivered their daughter.
"She's beautiful," he said, his voice choked with tearfully emotion, as he watched his child suckle at Katniss' breast. With a gentle hand on her head he wondered at the tiny shock of blonde hair. "I though she would be dark."
"I wished her to be golden like you," Katniss replied, gazing at the miracle in her arms.
"But with your eyes."
"I forgot to wish for blue."
"Next time, our son will be dark with blue eyes."
"Next time!" Her eyes flew to Peeta's with alarm.
"We have plenty of time," he laughed at her shock.
They had to leave the lake and move on when others came, and then again when a new wide, multi-laned road was built travelling north.
"They keep finding us," she fretted, "we can't be alone anymore."
"Perhaps that is the problem," Peeta offered. "We keep hiding out in the open where it is easy to find us. If we were just one of many, we would be hidden within their numbers."
"But it's not just me this time," Katniss worried, watching her daughter summoning a ballet of butterflies to entertain her younger brother.
"Katniss I would never let them hurt you, any of you. The first sign of trouble and we will leave."
They knew that gold was just as valuable as it had ever been. So Katniss asked the earth to provide and, as it always had, it gave her exactly what she needed. Enough to buy a tall, red brick house on a street where people were too busy to take interest in their neighbours, in the busiest city they could find. Where buildings towered up to the sky, higher than a church steeple.
Katniss discovered that it was safe to have an interest in herbal medicine without risking claims of witchcraft or dark magic. That it was possible to trade with people without ever having to meet them. With her daughter's help, Katniss set up an internet company selling herbal remedies under the guise of moisturisers and lotions. She soon had a strong following and customers from around the world, in places she never knew existed before. Their reviews swore her herbal potions and concoctions were near miraculous.
Heather pleaded to go to school, but Katniss was scared that people would find out exactly how different their family was. Although little Callum showed no signs of having any gifts, he and his sister had grown up playing with their own menagerie of animals that doted on them, enjoying real bear back rides, and petting extremely big cats and dogs. Although Heather had long outgrown the toddler temper tantrums that had made their old home shake and the earth crack, Katniss was concerned her daughter would slip up and expose herself.
On her eighth birthday Heather said the only thing she wished for was the chance to make new friends. Katniss couldn't refuse when faced with the truth of her daughter's loneliness and she and Peeta agreed that Heather could start school and Callum, kindergarten.
The neighbours, if they did notice them at all, thought nothing of the ordinary family that came and went, other than how handsome a group they made. They barely noticed the cat that jumped from the upstairs window to prowl the rooftops, nor the urban fox that explored their gardens and alleyways at night.
Katniss woke in the night, a scream not of nightmare terror, but of intense pain on her lips. Her hands searched the empty bed for Peeta, but she knew he wasn't there. She didn't stop to dress; she merely pulled on a pair of boats and an overcoat, and ran out into the night.
On finding the crumpled body of the fox lying by the side of the road, she dropped to her knees with an anguished howl.
As her fingers found a weak pulse, he opened one blue eye before closing it again. She lifted him into her arms and ran.
"Change," Katniss commanded in a shaken voice and Peeta lay on their bed, his arm twisted and broken his face bleeding.
He cried as she straightened out his broken limb, and again as she ran her hands over his middle, healing the hidden wound that bled internally.
She put one hand on his heart where she could feel the faltering beat. "No," she shook her head, "I won't let you go. You promised me you would stay." She gave him every last drop of energy she had left to spare and collapsed beside him.
"Daddy!" Katniss was woken by Heather's distress. "This is my fault, I did this," she began to sob.
Katniss raised her groggy head. "No, sweetheart. It wasn't you; it was an accident."
"No it wasn't! It was me! I dreamt about a fox being hit by a car. It was Daddy, wasn't it?"
"Shush, Heather, it wasn't you. Perhaps you saw it, but you didn't make it happen."
"Is he going to be okay?" Heather asked.
Katniss hesitated. There was more she could do, but she was too weak. She only hoped it wouldn't be too late when she was strong enough. "I've done everything I can for the moment."
"I can do it for you," her daughter offered
"No, Heather." She couldn't let her eight-year-old give her strength.
"Please Mummy, show me what to do," Heather begged tearfully.
"Only a little; as soon as you feel tired you must stop," Katniss warned.
Heather placed one hand on her heart and the other on her father's, as her mother showed her, and then another little hand joined hers as her brother stood beside the bed.
"As soon as you feel tired, you must stop, promise," Katniss stressed.
The little boy's hand dropped away quickly, sinking to his knees with fatigue. But Heather continued until Peeta's hand pulled it away.
"That's enough," he said gently but firmly.
"Daddy!" Two pairs of arms threw themselves about him, until Katniss told them to give their father space.
"How do you feel?" She asked him with concern.
"Sore," he said rubbing his hand over his face, and then stopping abruptly wincing as he touched the cuts and grazes there.
"You fixed everything else and left my good looks ruined," he queried with a grin.
"I'll give you something to fix them later," she said rolling her eyes, relieved that he was well enough to joke. "Luckily your hair was too long as usual and the extra fur protected your good looks."
"Come on," she said, herding the children from the room. "Daddy needs to rest so he can get better. How about I make us some hot chocolate and cookies?"
The children gave him another kiss and cuddle before they left the room, Katniss slipping back in when the kids were settled watching TV.
"How did you find me? How could you know I was hurt?" Peeta asked.
"Because I felt it. When you're hurt I hurt," she saw his look of confusion. "When your heart stops so will mine."
"Katniss! Is that what you did, after that first time? I thought you were just binding us together, marrying us!"
"I tried to explain, but you didn't want me to. I wouldn't have, if I'd known we were going to have children, but at the time it was only you and me and I didn't want to be alone again. What I felt, what I feel is stronger than marriage, it's not just words that can be broken."
"Oh, Katniss,' he sighed taking her hands in his. "Sometimes you act so rashly you don't stop to think of the consequences, just like us never ageing."
"It's what you wished for."
"But can it be reversed? I don't want to bury our children, Katniss."
"They might choose to be like us," she offered hopefully.
"Or they might choose to live a normal life, with people who will grow old and die," he reasoned.
"When the time comes, we will give them the choice and then we'll make ours," she promised sadly, disturbed by the thought of saying goodbye to him. Although she wished that even then they would not be parted, she held a fear that perhaps he would welcome the final freedom. "Do you regret it, living this life with me? Do you wish I hadn't been so rash, that I hadn't changed you?"
"You know I don't," he insisted. "Do you? Do you regret choosing me?
She shook her head. "I didn't choose you, you chose me, you saved me with the bread. You showed me I had the power to survive. There couldn't have ever been anyone else for me but you. I believe a witch is destined to only have one true familiar."
"Witch," he smiled at the term she had never used for herself. "My witch, my mistress."
She shook her head adamantly. "My partner, my heart, my love." She kissed his lips, gazing into the depths of his blue eyes that no matter what form he took always remained the same. "My familiar."
Massive thank you to Court for being an utter star and reading and correcting this for me at such short notice.
Hope everyone enjoys their Halloween - I, a vampire and a vampire cat (!) will be going out later to see how many sweets we can bag.