Erza noticed his absence even before opening her eyes. She sighed quietly and rolled over. Surely he wouldn't have left without saying goodbye – except that his side of the bed was empty. Erza reached across the cold sheets to touch the edge of his pillow. It seemed he'd been gone for a while. For the first time in her life, Erza felt lonely. The morning was beautiful but her heart was broken.
The blankets near her feet shifted and she shot up in the bed. Erza stared at the intruder, who stared right back at her. It wasn't that Erza disliked cats or that she was allergic to cats or anything like that at all... she just didn't have a cat. Yet, there, at the foot of her bed was a cat.
"Are you lost, kitty?" she asked softly, swinging her legs over the edge of her bed. She wanted to cry. The cat eyed her silently before stalking across the blankets and perching on her thigh. "Well," Erza said swallowing her tears and touching one velvet ear. "It certainly seems as if you're used to people."
An insistent knocking on the shop door below her apartment jarred Erza from her thoughts.
"Erza!" a voice outside her window called. "Erza! Please be awake, Erza!"
The cat leapt from her lap, gracefully hopped up to the windowsill, and placed one paw on the glass. Erza followed the cat and peered down into the street.
"Oh, no," she whispered. Rushing through the top floor apartment, Erza grabbed her bathrobe but forgot her slippers. Meredy Fernandes was knocking again when she finally made it to the front door of the shop. Her eyes were wide, and red.
"I'm so sorry for showing up like this," Jellal's sister began. "But Jellal was meant to be at the harbor this morning at sunrise and he promised me he'd come say good bye." Tears that Erza suspected weren't the first to fall, leaked from her eyes. "Please tell me he left a note or... or something," she finished in a whisper.
Erza frowned and clutched at her bathrobe. "He didn't," she muttered. "He was here last night and... he's usually very good about waking up on his own but..." Erza trailed off. Her eyes bounced around the front end of her bakery awkwardly. "I woke up alone."
"He better not have decided not to say goodbye to spare me sadness! My brother has always been stupidly... he's just so stupid!" Meredy sniffled again and glared up at the ceiling trying to blink away new tears.
Despite Meredy's harsh words, Erza was distracted. Her new cat friend pranced toward Meredy and circled her ankles. It's paws stretched up to poke at the hem of her school uniform skirt.
"When did you get a cat?"
"Uh, I didn't. I mean, he was in my bed when I woke up."
"That's not weird at all," Meredy muttered, bending down to take the cat into her arms. She laughed when it began to purr loudly and nudge her chin. "I think he likes me. He smells good too! It's almost like... lavender or something?"
Erza frowned. "What did you say?"
"I said your new cat is friendly!"
"No I mean, the other thing. He smells like lavender?"
"Just a little. His fur is gorgeous! Honestly, Erza, you should keep him." Erza watched intently as Meredy placed the cat back on the floor. "Listen, I have to get to class. I guess I don't feel as bad about Jellal just taking off if he did it to you, too. He'll write or call soon, I'm sure. Dad was saying drafted officers like Jellal probably don't see much action anyway."
"Right. Of course. He probably overslept for the first time in his life and didn't want to wake me," Erza managed. She couldn't take her eyes off the cat. "You'd better get going."
Meredy smiled fully and wiped the last of her tears on the cuff of her jacket. "I'll see you around, Erza!"
The blue-grey cat turned his gaze back to Erza once the bells above the front door chimed and she knelt down to get a closer look. Bright green eyes blinked slowly and Erza's breath caught in her throat. Not only were the eyes strikingly familiar, he absolutely carried a faint scent of lavender.
"It can't be!" She gathered the cat against her chest and took the stairs two at a time up to the second story. The door to her grandmother's bedroom was still open from the night before as was the spell book on her desk. Erza left the cat on the untouched bed and began to skim the pages. She'd done everything right! The protection spell should've kept Jellal from any circumstances that might have taken him away from her! She couldn't remember her exact words, though.
Erza turned around and watched the cat stretch out across her grandmother's bed. He gazed at her in a way that made the hair on her arms stand up. She didn't want to believe it. The very idea was ludicrous! Erza had spent the whole of her childhood watching her grandmother practice what she'd called The Small Magicks. Just a few things here and there to protect the bakery and keep Erza safe while at school. Never had she seen anyone turn into a cat or anything half so bizarre!
With a deep sigh, Erza snapped the spell book shut. She slid it back into the empty space on the shelf and her eye caught on an old notebook. Erza smiled and flipped through the pages of her own handwriting. On the back inside cover there were words not of her hand, but still well remembered.
"Magni Momenti!
To gain one treasure, another must be lost,
Nothing comes without a cost.
Magic lives in the heart, sweet child,
So be careful with the words, or they'll run wild.
The soul of a spell lives and breathes,
It yearns to give the comfort a caster needs.
But magic is a restless force,
And draws it's potency from the source.
So be wary, good girl, and always think first,
What starts out as love can end in a curse."
Erza shook her head replaced the notebook and joined the cat on her grandmother's bed. He was lithe and perfectly sleek as he situated his body in a statuesque pose. With reluctance Erza's eyes glanced quickly at his exposed belly.
"Well," she said suppressing a giggle. "You're definitely a boy cat." His eyes slid open and shut slowly, showing no signs of humor. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry." Erza fell back against the quilt and reached up to run a hand along the length of his body when he settled over her chest. "Is it really you, Jellal?"
The cat started to purr and he tucked his head between his paws. He pressed his nose into the palm of her hand when she touched the tips of his ears again.
"I promise I'll figure this out, okay? I'll fix it."
Erza quickly learned that forwards magic was a lot easier than backwards magic. Undoing a spell or trying to rectify severe damage done by another spell – and turning her boyfriend into a cat was definitely something Erza considered to be severe damage – wasn't a task to be taken lightly. It occurred to her that she shouldn't have taken the original spell as lightly as she did, but there was nothing to be done about that now.
She couldn't afford to close up shop and dedicate all her time to transforming Jellal, the bakery was her livelihood. So during the day, the blue-grey cat napped in swaths of sunlight on the wood planked floor while Erza carried on business as usual. A night, he perched on the edge of her grandmother's bed and watched her frustratedly flip page after page of spell books and grind satchels of herbs until her hands ached. Every day she grew more and more impatient.
Meredy stopped by every now and then to ask after news of Jellal and Erza had nothing to tell her. The girl did take a fair amount of joy in playing with the new cat and begged Erza to let her call him Furnandes. Erza winced at the terrible pun but acquiesced. The thought crossed her mind to let Meredy in on the secret but that revelation would have to come with a host of other admissions Erza wasn't quite ready to make. As with her grandmother before her, rumors of witchcraft were harmless – but solid truths would be a lot harder for outsiders to swallow.
On the last Thursday of November, Erza lit one red and one white beeswax candle on her windowsill and left Jellal curled at the foot of her bed for a shower. He'd been uncharacteristically anxious all day, circling her ankles and yowling loudly anytime she left him alone. The source of his anxiety remained unknown but at least he'd calmed down by the time the sun set – she needed a break.
When Erza returned to her bedroom she nearly dropped her towel. Sitting casually on the edge of her bed – as if he hadn't been a cat for the last twenty-nine days – was Jellal. Completely human and dressed as he had been before bed on the last night they were together.
"Hey, Erza," he said with a grin. She stared agape and managed to catch a breath before rushing across the room and crashing into him. He laughed and touched the wet strands of her hair in his face.
"How can you laugh?" Erza asked sniffling away surprised tears. "How are you here and not a cat?" She pulled away from him and sat back on the bed. "I slipped and hit my head in the shower, didn't I?"
"No," he said softly, still smiling. "I'm actually here."
"But –"
"I don't know for how long. I can feel things." He frowned and Erza reached out to smooth the wrinkle between his brows. "All day long I could feel something."
"Is that why you were so clingy today?" she asked carefully.
"Yeah." His grin turned sheepish. "Sorry about that. I'm not completely myself. I mean, I am now, but my thoughts are... cattish otherwise. I have certain impulses and instincts."
Erza bit her lip and felt on the verge of tears again. "I'm so sorry for doing this to you, Jellal. It's my fault. I just wanted... I just wanted to –"
"Don't beat yourself up, Erza," he said taking her hand and pulling her back against him. "It's not like I didn't put the idea in your head."
"I should've known better." Jellal's eyes shifted to the candles and then beyond the window glass. "What is it?"
"It's the moon, I think."
Erza blinked. "Oh. Oh, of course! It's the full moon! That's why you're here!" She groaned and hid her face in his neck. "I really am the worst kind of witch."
Jellal laughed and ran his fingers through her hair again. "I have faith in you, Erza," he whispered. "Let's not waste the time we have." Erza pulled away and placed her hands on either side of his face.
"I will fix this, Jellal. I promise."
"I know." He smiled and Erza thought maybe his eyes twinkled in the candlelight. "For now, though, I think I just really want to kiss you. I see you just about every moment of every day and I still missed you so much."
Erza didn't recall how her towel ended up on the floor or where his pajama bottoms went, exactly. She only knew that when he kissed her, she forgot any other type of magic.
When the sun rose and filled her bedroom with light, Erza snapped upright. Her eyes fell on the lump of blue-grey fur at the foot of her bed and her heart sank. The bath towel was still on the floor but all traces of Jellal, besides the sleeping cat, were gone. Erza's chest tightened and she swatted at a few stray tears. She had information now. Jellal could return to his human form on a full moon. That had to mean something!
The cat stretched and watched her with Jellal's green eyes. Without warning, he stood and leapt from her bed to the dressing table. He gazed at her regally until Erza stumbled from the bed. Realizing she was still naked, she blushed and held the sheet around her body. It somehow felt wrong to be naked in front of the cat. In response to her sudden modesty, Jellal meowed loudly and slapped his tail against what appeared to be a stack of papers and envelopes.
Erza crossed her bedroom floor and shuffled through them. There were three envelopes and a loose sheet of paper. He must have written letters after she'd fallen asleep. His thoughtfulness touched her. One was addressed to Erza herself, one was for Meredy, and the third for his father. The note separate from the envelopes simply read,
Please don't let Meredy call me Furnandes anymore. It's demoralizing.
A peal of laughter escaped Erza's throat and she glanced over at the cat who still swished his tail indignantly.
"I'm afraid you'll have to deal with the name, Jellal. I can't exactly tell your sister why it's a terrible." He let out a rumbling yowl when Erza dropped a kiss on his head before dressing for the day.
