back in the present...

Mistoffelees was still sitting in his box bed, thinking of how terrible it was to have his great gift bound by the one person he should look up to the most. This was awful. Annoyed, he stood up to go find Alonzo, and sat right back down again. How quickly he seemed to forget how he had gotten here! He had drained himself completely, practicing teleportation. Now, nothing but sleep would bring his strength back. Exhausted, he lied down and curled up for a little catnap.

When he awoke, refreshed, it was nearing sunset. The low light cast gorgeous red and pink and purple streaks across the sky in the west, and the brightest stars were just beginning to show themselves in the east. Mistoffelees grinned. He knew just what to do to lift his spirits! Who cared what Munkustrap might do?! He would never find out!

Victoria sighed as she climbed onto her pillow after the maid and the mistress left the room. Mistoffelees hadn't come by in a while, and she missed him. Yesturday afternoon she had gone to the junkyard to tell Jemima what a wonderful night she had had with her tom, but when she got there, Jemima could not be found. It annoyed her, but at least it didn't confuse her. Jemima didn't live in the junkyard, so it was more than likely that she was out with her family, or at home napping, or something of the sort. But what was confusing was why after such a wonderful night Mistoffelees was unhappy. She had seen him around two o'clock, sulking towards the general direction of the box he slept in. She was going to jump on him, but he seemed out of sorts, so she just left him alone. This would have been right after Munkustrap got on his case the first time for using magic, but Victoria didn't know that. Poor Mistoffelees. Something must have happened in the time between when he left her room two days ago and when she saw him in the junkyard. Or maybe he was just tired. He did fall asleep in her room extraordinarily quickly the other night. She supposed it might be because of his magic, but she didn't know.

Oh well, she thought. Maybe some things are better left unknown.

But Victoria really did miss Mistoffelees. She thought about the last night they had spent together as she curled up on the velvety cushion beneath her. He had taken her up to her rooftop first, to get her used to being up high. Then, when she had given permission, he lifted her up to the sky, where they danced a song of love and freedom: love of each other, and freedom from the restraints of their world (such as gravity). Dipping and soaring through the night, Victoria grew closer to Mistoffelees than she had ever felt before. It felt like he was all around her, even though he was only right next to her, holding her paws in his own the entire time so she would not be afraid. But how could she possibly be afraid! She couldn't quite explain the feeling, but it felt so good, so magical. For such a small tom, he felt so strong, so safe, like she could crawl into his arms and never be harmed there. It felt much better than dancing with Plato at the Ball had felt. Plato lifted her body, but Mistoffelees lifted her spirit. There was simply no comparison. There was some kind of a magical quality about Mistoffelees that made him irrestible...

Oh, duh, she thought. Of course there was a magical quality about Mistoffelees. He was, of course, "Magical Mister Mistoffelees."

Giggling to herself, she slipped into slumber, to dream about her bewitching tom.

But she didn't sleep for long. Something woke her up, but once she was awake, she couldn't quite put her paw on it. There was something foreign in her room, but it was not a bad something. It felt familiar, like an old friend, but it wasn't quite all there. Not to mention that there was no one in the room but Victoria. It was not a thing so much as it was a feeling. Some feeling had aroused her from her slumber. Not that she cared. She rather liked this feeling. It made her feel warm and safe. Oddly, Victoria could have sworn she'd felt this feeling before, not too long ago. She was about to fall back asleep, lulled into drowsiness by the feeling, when blue-gray smoke appeared out of nowhere in the middle of her room. Now terrified, Victoria dashed off her cushion and took cover under the cat-sized vanity her humans had put in the room for fun.

The smoke was getting bigger. It grew to the size of a mouse, then a rat. It also started to take shape. A large lump on top grew into a head, and four more grew into arms and legs. A nub on its rear lengthened into a tail. When the smoke finally cleared there was Mistoffelees, standing in the middle of Victoria's bedroom with a wild grin on his face. He looked himself over, as if to make sure he was all there, then peered around the room, looking for something else.

"Victoria!" he cried when he saw her cowering under the vanity. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you!"

"Misto? Is that you?" she asked when she finally opened her eyes. Mistoffelees nodded vigorously, his eyes bright. "You did scare me, but I'm ok." She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. "Right now, the ends justify the means," she said under heavy eyelashes.

"Oh, Vicky..." Misto uttered as he came closer to her. She came out from under the vanity. He rubbed his head against hers, and they lay there for a moment, cuddling and rubbing each other.

Finally Victoria sat up, leaned over him, and whispered, "Misto?"

"What?" he replied, his eyes half closed. He was still savoring the moment.

"Don't call me Vicky." she said, giggling.

"One condition," he responded, opening his eyes all the way and gazing up at her. "Come with me."

"Oh? Are we going where I think we're going?" she mused, thinking about the wonderful evening she had had two nights ago.

"I think so," he responded as he started to get up. Victoria began to turn towards the window, but Mistoffelees stopped her. "No," he said. "I have a better way."

Before Victoria could protest, blue smoke wrapped around her as Mistoffelees held her close. She started to cough, but he put a paw over her mouth and uttered, "Don't worry, it's fine." She experimentally breathed the stuff and found it to be harmless, just as he said. As the smoke blotted out her surroundings, she clung tighter to her tom (who was intentionally drawing out the process so that he could hold on to her longer). She burried her face in the white part of his chest and refused to look. Finally, he nudged her, and whispered, "It's okay, Victoria. I'm done. You can look now."

When she peered out, she was shocked to find herself on the roof of the mansion. She had been here once before, but it hadn't been so beautiful then. Tonight she gazed over the rooftops and chimneys and looked up at the sky, a mix of violet and maroon streaks, entwining with patches of sky shot with brilliant stars. "Oh, Misto," she uttered. "It's all so magical."

"That's the idea," he said, smirking. (Oh, that was brilliant! he thought to himself. I'm so clever!) Aloud, he said, "Where do you want to go?"

"Nowhere."

"Nowhere?" Mistoffelees was genuinely surprised.

"Nowhere." She gazed at him. "I'd much rather sit here and enjoy it with you."

"Well, if you insist," Mistoffelees, who was not quite so displeased, said. They both sat down on the roof and stared up at the stars as Mistoffelees had done many times before on his own. But something about them was different tonight. The stars seemed to lend themselves to something, as if they wanted him to work with him. A picture formed in his mind's eye, and before he realized what he was doing, he reached out to the sky with his magic. It deepened as it spiraled ever upward, turning a shade of silver visible only to a cat's eye. The stars realized what he wanted of them, and bent their own wills to conform to his. Before long an image made itself visible in the night sky, a combination of the points that were stars, streaks of color created by the setting sun, and the silvery lines of raw magic.

"Mistoffelees! How did you do that?!" Victoria gasped. A perfect representation of her serene, smiling face was crystal-clear in the sky.

Mistofflees gulped. He wasn't sure whether or not Victoria was pleased with this new turn of events, and he didn't want to jynx it. After all, he didn't really do it on purpose; his love for Victoria had put him in that dreamy state that was best for the working of magic, and without realizing it, magic had urged him to write out his emotions in the sky. Cautiously, he squeaked, "Magic."

"Well, so I gathered," Victoria said, wryly. "I was thinking more along the lines of why you did that."

"Oh, yeah," Mistofflees said. "I knew that..." He rubbed one ear with his paw. "I guess it was kind of unconscious..."

"I love it!"

"I knew you would," he lied. He inwardly gave a sigh of relief.

"How come you never did that before?" she queried.

"Actually, I didn't know I could do it...that was the first time."

"Can you do something else like that?" Victoria really did love Mistoffelees' magic.

"Uh, I can try." Mistoffelees thought for a moment. What had he done, again? He closed his eyes, and fell into the dreamy state that put him in the center of his magic. He let it swirl around him for a moment, as he tried to recapture the feeling that shot through him when he drew lines in the sky. Without opening his eyes, he grabbed that feeling and let it slip through his paws as he made a sign in the air. When he opened his eyes, Victoria was ooh-ing and awe-ing. In between them floated a two-dimesional picture of a heart with an arrow through it.

"It's adorable! Do another one!"

Mistoffelees was only too happy to oblige. As Victoria looked on, he drew out the words, "Mistoffelees & Victoria" in large letters with plenty of flourishes. With a flick of the wrist, he sent them spiraling up into the heavens, until each letter was only a vague and distant dot. Then, just as it was about to disappear, each letter exploded into a burst of color, a fireworks show reserved only for a cat's eyes. Victoria laughed as multicolored sparks rained down on her like glitter.

They spent the entire night together on the roof, with Mistoffelees creating wondrous illusions in the air and Victoria loving every minute of it.

"Do you hear something?" the mistress of the house asked her husband as they lay in bed reading.

"No, darling. Why? Did you?" he replied, concerned.

"It's just that I could have sworn I heard a cat just a minute ago. It was purring, like it was warm and cozy by the fire."

"Was it our little Snowball?" he asked.

"No, I saw her to bed myself. Snowball is asleep in her room."

Her husband rolled his eyes. "Oh, don't worry about it, dear. Go to sleep now."

And I've sometimes been heard by the fire
While I was about on the roof!