Chapter 4
So, just how did this happen, precisely?
Baron Humbert von Gikkingken or Baron for short, stared at his gloved hand as he opened and closed it before his face in the dim light cast by the lanterns that hung in the garden.
He had been left in the window one night with a view of the sunset, and the warmth of the fading light had seemed to just seep into his heartwood. The feline gentleman could remember smiling as he watched the sun disappear, then his ear had itched and he had reached up to deal with it.
The doll had expected to touch a wooden ear, what his gloved hand had actually touched was something that had been velvety soft and warm. A real ear, like on a real cat.
He felt different all over, now that he was going over himself. His clothes were fabric, his tail and face were covered in fur, the only thing that hadn't changed at all was his cane, and walking sticks were usually made of wood any way.
Baron sat down and considered this strange change. How was it possible? What had triggered the change? Was it reversible? That last was a good question. The gentlecat wasn't sure how Sensei Yoshioka would take it, that his favourite work wasn't a work any more, but life instead.
He would probably be thrilled, but then, he might also have a heart attack, and that wouldn't be good. So… wood. He needed to know if he could will this change, rather than it just happening to him. The cat concentrated on the memory of what it felt like to be wood. His body snapped-to, and he knew he was lying on the shelf, a wooden doll again, and unable to move.
It was only marginally better. For his maker to think he had been knocked over in the night, rather than come alive, well… the old man could be superstitious… he might think his house had become haunted… In a way, Baron supposed it had – certainly, he wasn't the usual kind of life, or unlife, or anything like that.
Am I both alive, and dead?
The warm touch of light came again; an answering warmth that had never really left him flowed again. The doll sat up. So life was his, but what was he to do with it?
Well, there were plenty of books, and he had seen his maker, and his friend both, reading through them in the quiet times. Perhaps he could try that…
Deciphering the strange characters was, to say the very least, a challenge. He had never turned his glassy green eyes to this task before, after all, and had no real idea of what he was looking at. He tried another book. The characters in this book were completely different. The doll did not realise that he had exchanged a Japanese book for a German one. It didn't help him much though. The second was no more understandable to him than the first one had been.
With a sigh of frustration, Humbert von Gikkingken, Baron of the window-ledge, raised his top hat to run a gloved hand through the fur between his ears. It was a surprisingly soothing motion, though he didn't understand why, or what had prompted the motion.
Another sigh escaped his warm, furred lips, past small, sharp teeth that had never been carved, because the mouth had been shaped shut. The world around him just did not seem to make sense.
Will it ever?