When your heart speaks, words will follow.
Kate's eyes popped open. She wasn't sure whether she had been dreaming or not, but she heard the gypsy-woman's words as clearly as if they had been whispered directly in her ear.
Those were the exact words the woman used, Kate was convinced of it. It could have been her subconscious calling to mind the words or somehow the woman was near but invisible-not much of a stretch, considering she had turned Kate into a cat.
It didn't matter now. All Kate needed to do was speak her heart and she'd be turned back into her human self, she was sure of it.
Simple.
Yeah, right.
Everything else the woman had said before Kate's transformation had been about her relationship with Castle.
That had never been anything short of complicated.
But she couldn't escape what the words meant.
She had to speak her heart.
To Castle.
She had to tell him she loved him.
Without using words.
The next twenty-four hours passed more or less peacefully. Castle and Alexis had accepted that she wouldn't use the litter box and with them doing the flushing for her, she didn't have to. After Kate refused to eat the cat food they'd provided Alexis had given her a can of tuna. Not her favorite thing, but much better than Friskies dried cat food. Castle spent a lot of the next day writing but he wouldn't let her in the room after Kate tried, once again, to use his laptop.
She wished she hadn't done that. Even though he was only mere feet away, she missed him. If he gave her another chance, she decided she would sit quietly in his lap while he wrote and wait for some other way to 'speak her heart.'
Shortly after her second series of attempts to use his laptop failed Kate had tried just saying 'I love you.' Unfortunately, it came out as 'r'ow mow,' which Castle took to mean she was thirsty. After filling up her water dish he had gone back into his den, shutting the door in her face.
It wasn't until Alexis started making cookies, peanut butter from the looks of it, that Kate saw her chance.
A five-pound bag of flour drew her gaze. Feeling like she was stalking after a suspect, Kate hunched down and slowly made her way towards the means of her freedom.
When Alexis' back was turned to get out a mixing bowl Kate broke into a run and leapt onto the nearest barstool. Not wasting any time she jumped from the barstool to the counter and slammed her body into the bag.
As she had hoped, the bag was open and flour dumped in one large heap onto the floor. Knowing Alexis would notice the mess any second, Kate quickly wrote "I love you" in the white powder with her front right paw. The handwriting wasn't the best but it was definitely legible.
"DAD!"
The volume hurt Kate's ears but the stunned expression on Alexis' face told her that the girl had seen what she had written.
Less than a second later the door to the den slammed open and Castle ran across the room, skidding to a stop next to Alexis.
"What? What happened? Are you-?"
"T-t-the cat-"
"What?" Castle whipped his head around until his eyes landed on Kate.
Not wasting any time, Kate quickly wrote 'Castle' with her front right paw.
"KATE?!"
Before Kate had a chance to reply to Castle's shocked exclamation, everything went black.