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Kylo is missing.
Normally, he liked to wander around the acre and a half of Rey’s property, slinking through the tall grass, winding up through the trees, disappearing into the shadows along the forest floor. It wasn’t unusual for Rey to go most of the day without seeing him, only for him to show up on the porch come bedtime, batting at the window impatiently like he was the one being inconvenienced. Some times Rey would have to call for him, but he always came when she called. Except for tonight, that is.
Tonight, Rey is sitting in her rocking chair on the porch, steadily cooling mug of tea in her hands as she watches for movement in the tall grass around her fence. She really ought to cut that. There’s no telling what might wind up hiding in it, whether it be rattlesnakes or skunks. She definitely doesn’t want to deal with either of those when she gets the mail on Wednesdays. And Kylo probably wouldn’t want to deal with them, either. Not that he can’t, just that he’d rather not. He’s mostly a cat these days, and being a cat doesn’t exactly ward off predators and scared skunks. If he got bitten or sprayed he’d probably limp back to Rey, looking miserable and angry until she fixed it, refusing to be babied until it was inconvenient for her. He has a habit of doing just that, many of her clothes and tables stained with ink and ashes from his need for attention at the worst moments.
But Kylo isn’t here right now. Her familiar, the errant little manifestation of her magic is nowhere to be found. He’s not in any danger, she’d know if he was, but the fact that he hasn’t come when she called bothers her. There’s no reason for him to be out this late.
But there’s nothing she can do about it right now. It’s too dark to see and it’s getting chilly out. She’ll go to bed and if he isn’t sitting on her porch when she wakes she’ll go looking. She just hopes that he’s there.
----
The first thing Rey notices when sets out on her porch in the morning is not Kylo sitting on her porch, yowling at her through the screen door being petulant. Instead, she’s greeted by a dove, perched on her rocking chair, staring straight at her.
“Good morning,” she says to the bird. It’s not unusual to have wildlife come to visit, out here in the wilderness. Or, not really the wilderness. Rey lives in the little village of Foxgrove, where there aren’t actually any foxes but plenty of skunks, but Skunkgrove isn’t exactly the name of an appealing place to live. Foxgrove houses about three hundred people and sits not too far from the untamed hills that lead up into the base of a mountain, and includes a general store and a community center that houses bingo every Tuesday at six. But it’s not that far out in the boonies. There is no cell service and most people grow their own crops, but the freeway is only a fifteen-minute drive from the entrance to the village. From there it’s about a half-hour into the biggest nearby city, and twenty to a McDonalds. So no, it’s not so far away from the rest of the world, but it’s quiet and peaceful and perfect for witchery. And wildlife, of course.
Rey stands behind the screendoor, sipping her coffee and watching her lawn. It’s mid-fall, but the summer has lingered on, keeping the temperature up and the grass growing in her lawn. Her herb garden in front of the porch continues to grow, which is nice for her stores but it’s going to be a shame when the weather turns and they get their first freeze. She’s not sure her poor morning glories will survive it.
The dove hasn’t moved. It continues to stare at her, cooing softly.
“You’re holding on to the weather, too, aren’t you?” Rey asks the bird.
The bird doesn’t answer.
“I’m not sure how much longer you should. It’s almost November. You don’t want to be caught out here when it starts to snow.”
Rey finishes her coffee in the relative quiet before slipping on her boots and making her way onto the porch. To her surprise, the dove doesn’t do more than flutter its wings.
“You haven’t have happened to see a cat around here recently? A little black thing?”
The bird twitters and hops down from its perch, hopping after her as she makes her way across towards the stairs.
Rey laughs a little as the bird follows, first on foot and then flying from bush to bush as Rey walks into the yard. “You must be a pet. Who do you belong to, huh?”
The bird twitters again, but doesn’t answer. Because birds don’t answer. But it’s lonely out here and there’s no one to judge her for talking to animals.
Rey makes her way through the gate and down onto the dirt road deeper into the village, calling out for Kylo as she does. She takes a deep breath of the clean morning air, reaching out with her senses to look find his trail. The bond between a witch and familiar is strong and easy to tap into, almost like a physical thing between the two. Following it should be like following a thread attached between their very essences. It shouldn’t be hard. Today, however, there is interference.
Rey can feel him but she feels something else, too. Her essence is being tugged in three different directions, two ahead and one slightly behind, like a string around her wrist being tugged backward. She spins on her heels and finds the little dove, still following, sitting on the ground with its head tipped to one side.
“Oh! You’re a familiar!” She says to the little bird. It flaps it’s wings, kicking up dust as it goes, before landing on Rey’s outstretched hand.
Looking closer, it’s clear that this little bird isn’t a normal dove. For one, its eyes aren’t the usual black or red, but one a bright blue and the other yellow-green. For another, there is an essence of magic that thrums from inside the little bird, like ripples on the surface of a deep lake. It’s warm and bright, sweet like fresh spring water.
“Who’s your witch, huh? How far from home are you?” Rey asks. As far as she knows, she’s the only witch out here.
The familiar chirps and ruffles it’s feathers, hoping a little along Rey’s fingers. “Do you even have a witch?” She asks.
“Yes, she does,” a deep, masculine voice calls from behind her, and Rey startles, nearly unsettling the little bird.
Behind her, no more than ten feet stands a man she’s never seen before. He’s tall with dark hair that shines like rich chocolate in the early morning sun. He’s also massive, his arms alone probably as thick around as her thighs, and for a moment Rey’s worried about being all alone on a mountain road with him. But the familiar at her hands doesn’t seem to be worried at all. Instead, she starts singing.
“Kira, come,” he says. The bird takes flight, nearly catching Rey with her wing before landing on his shoulder. He strokes the bird on the top of her head as she snuggles close, and Rey’s hit will an odd amount of fondness. It’s not unusual for familiars to reflect their masters, but what she’s seeing between the two of them is an exercise in opposites. This large, frankly intimidating man and his tiny bird familiar are oddly endearing.
And then, of course, she notices the little snakehead poking out of his shirt pocket.
“Kylo!” She snaps, marching up to the stranger, nearly shoving her hand in his pocket before she thinks better of herself. “Where the hell have you been?”
The snake slithers out of the stranger’s pocket and slips into Rey’s palm as bashfully as a snake can manage, which frankly isn’t much.
“I take it that one belongs to you?” Says the stranger. His voice is so deep she can almost feel it reverberate against her skin. At least, she’s going to pretend that’s what has her so shaken. It’s definitely not the heat of his dark eyes or the scent of clove that’s emanating from his sweater.
“Yes. Where did you find him?” Rey asks.
“He was on my porch last night,” the stranger says. “Down the road,” he points behind him, to a house neither of them can see.
“I wasn’t aware we had a new resident in the village. I thought all the houses were bought and paid for,” Rey says, cupping both hands around Kylo, who’s suddenly very restless and intent on winding through her fingers.
The stranger shrugs. “Inherited it from my uncle,” he says.
“Right,” says Rey. “Well. Thank you for finding him,” she lifts her cupped hands as Kylo hisses in irritation.
The stranger does not respond.
“Well, be seeing you,” Rey says and makes her way back down the road. She does not look back over her shoulder.
----
A cat is yowling on Rey’s porch.
Usually, this wouldn’t be an issue, by Kylo is currently trotting through the living room, heading towards the door. He’s out of her sight by the time he joins in on the crying and Rey rolls her eyes.
For the past three nights, Kira has shown up at her doorstep, crying to be let in. The first night Rey let her in to give her someplace warm to sleep, only for the cat to jump up onto her working space and try to bat her crystal ball off its stand. Once the ball was safely locked away into the cabinet, she started smacking at Rey’s crystal mobile, then the fern she’s been babying in the laundry cubby, and then finally snuggling into Rey’s bed and shedding all over the place. Eventually, Rey gave up and locked the cat into the bathroom, only to find herself staring up at a little white gecko on the ceiling.
From that point on, Kira has not been allowed in the house.
“She can’t come inside,” Rey shouts at the cats. It doesn’t do anything. Of course, it doesn’t.
She eventually locks Kylo out of her bedroom and falls asleep to her loudest playlist, barely drowning out the noises of sad and needy cats.
----
Kira’s master lives just up the road, in mister Skywalker’s old house. It’s one Rey hasn’t been to before, even though she’s been friendly with most of her neighbors. Mister Skywalker wasn’t exactly the most friendly person when he was alive, embracing the hermit lifestyle with vigor like no one else. The fact that she hadn’t head he’d even died didn’t surprise her, given that she only saw him when the man drove his truck off to get supplies once every blue moon.
Rey relies on Kira to lead the way, trotting ahead next to Kylo like they’re out on a casual stroll like nothing in the world is wrong.
When they finally get to the gate, Rey is ready to let this guy have a piece of her mind. Every night this week she’s had to deal with his familiar begging to be let into her house and he hasn’t even come by to look for her. Does he even feed the poor thing? She must be starved or bored if she’s so desperate for attention from a stranger. She can’t imagine what kind of witch would neglect their familiar, especially not one as frankly adorable as Kira is, but apparently, they exist.
She’s worked herself up into a froth and is about the let fly when she notices him in the front lawn, but the words die on her tongue when she notices what he’s doing. He’s naked from the waist up, sweat dripping down his nose and glistening on his chest.
Rey stands there, stumbling over silent syllables as his attention finally lands on her.
“Can I help you?” He asks.
“Uh -”
“Or are you just going to stare at me?” He asks, folding his arms over his chest.
Rey snaps out of it momentarily. “Your familiar has been driving me crazy. She keeps begging to get into my house.”
“And how is that my problem?” He asks.
“How is that - she’s your familiar! Why is she begging to get into my house? Are you not paying attention to her?”
The stranger scoffs.
“She is! Keep an eye on her!”
“Right, like you have been with yours. Do you know where he gets off to during the day?”
“This isn’t about my familiar -”
“He’s been running around my garden, by the way. I think he’s eaten half my catnip.”
“This isn’t about Kylo,” Rey says. “Keep your cat off my porch! I haven’t slept in days!”
She starts to march off, but Kylo and Kira tangle around her feet, nearly tripping her. She picks up Kira, dumping her over the side of the gate.
“No! Stay!” She says to the cat. “And you, keep an eye on your familiar, asshole.”
She does march off this time, the asshole in question calling out to his familiar. She’s nearly ten feet away before he shouts at her again.
“My name’s Ben, by the way!”
“I don’t care!”
---
Kylo is missing. Again.
For the past three weeks, it’s been one thing or the other: Kira is either yowling at her door or Kylo is missing. There’s no question where he is, though, given that every time she sees him Ben’s familiar isn’t far behind. She can only hope that Ben’s being driven as crazy as she is when Kylo is yowling at his door late at night.
She’s sitting in her spell room, working on a brew when there’s a knock on the door. She groans, dropping her head to the table. This stupid sleeping draught was supposed to be done by now, but her own lack of sleep and calm has turned it into nightmare potion every time she tries to make it. Usually, she’d have Kylo around to balance out any of her more chaotic emotions, but since he’s more concerned with being a pest she’s on her own. And this time she’d finally been close enough to make it work, close enough that she might actually be able to sell it to Maz’s shop, but she can already smell it souring. Great. Maybe she should send Kylo a bill for all the vervain she’s wasted because of his stupid familiar.
Rey shuts off the burner and brushes her hands on her apron, making her way to the door. She doesn’t get a chance to say anything before Kylo is dropped at her feet.
“Please, for the love of all that’s holy, keep your damn cat inside,” Ben says. He’s got dark circles under his eyes and he looks about as haggard as Rey feels.
Kylo slips between her legs, quickly followed by Kira. Rey groans.
“Oh, I’m sorry, is he bothering you?”
Ben rolls his eyes. “What do you think?”
Rey doesn’t have the energy to fight about it. She doesn’t have the energy to chase Kira out of her house, either.
“Fine. But get your cat out of my house,” she steps to the side and Ben follows her in.
He makes kissy noises, calling out for her the whole time, but Kira remains quiet and hidden. He’s at least trying to look, though. That is until he gets a whiff of the sour stench rising in the air.
“Are you brewing nightmare potion?” Ben asks.
“Not intentionally,” Rey says. “It’s the stress.”
Ben hums. “Vervain?”
Rey nods.
“You know, if you temper it with chamomile it doesn’t sour so easily.”
“I hate the taste of chamomile.”
Ben snorts. “Who hates chamomile?”
“It also makes the brew less potent. It won’t do anything for my purposes if it’s weak.”
“What are you angling to do with it, spray it on spinning wheels and put princesses into comas?”
Rey rolls her eyes. “I have a shop keeper who sells it to insomniacs.”
“Oh,” Ben says, deflating a little, “that’s… less nefarious than I thought.”
Rey squawks, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Hey, don’t get mad at me. You’re the one using straight vervain for your brews. And the one with the chaotic familiar.”
“Kylo is not chaotic!”
No sooner do the words leave her mouth than is there a crash in a distant room. Rey runs towards it with Ben close behind. She stops short in the doorway of the spell room, greeted by the sight of Kylo in the middle of the floor, three jars of flower petals spilled out all over the floor and stuck in his fur. Kira sits on the crafting table, licking her paws serenely without a care in the world.
“Yeah, not chaotic,” Ben says with a laugh, pushing past Rey and collecting his cat.
Rey scowls but says nothing. She expects Ben to just leave, not that he has what he wants, but instead he ventures further into the room, to the small electric stove she keeps in the corner to brew her potions and draughts on.
“What are you -”
Ben holds his hand out over the pot and she can feel his magic vibrating through the air, pulsing gently like a heartbeat as the sour smell of malicious magic clears from the room. He shifts Kira in his arms and withdraws his hand.
“Did you just… fix it?”
Ben shrugs. “Seems a shame to waste hard work,” he says.
“Thank you, Ben,” she says.
“Don’t mention it, uh -”
“Rey. My name is Rey.”
“Right. Rey. Well.” He shifts again as Kira wiggles in his arms.
“Right, yes.”
She sees him out without further incident.
----
Kira doesn’t come back. Kylo doesn’t go out again, either. For the first week, he sat in front of the door, pawing at it whenever he could get Rey’s attention. She made sure to lock him in the bathroom, with a towel wedged under the door, whenever she went out, much to his displeasure. After that first week, all he does is sit in the living room, curled up in the corner of the room, doing nothing.
It starts to weigh on Rey, too. Witches and familiars share a soul-deep bond, something deeper than most other beings are even capable of having. A familiar is a manifestation of the witch’s magic, an extension of their souls. If the familiar isn’t happy, the witch isn’t happy. And vice versa, of course, but it’s very rare for the familiar to affect the witch so acutely.
“I just don’t know what to do, Maz,” Rey says, pacing her kitchen. “He’s barely come out of that corner all day.”
Maz hums on the other end of the line, her voice crackling a little over the receiver as Rey twirls the cord around her fingers. “What’s changed?”
“Nothing,” Rey says, “no new retrogrades, no new omens. It’s been the same as usual.”
“What about with you?”
Rey shrugs. “Nothing of note.”
“You know familiars often react before we do. Are you sure there’s nothing coming up that might be upsetting?”
Rey shakes her head, then realizes Maz can’t see her and answers. “Nothing’s coming up. Except for my period but he’s never been upset about that before.”
“What about that other familiar down the road?” Maz asks.
“What about her? Do you think she got Kylo sick?”
Maz laughs. “No child. Familiars don’t get sick. You did say he’s been spending a lot of time with her, didn’t you?”
“No, I said she kept coming around keeping me up at night because I wouldn’t let her in.”
“And what about that witch she’s attached to?”
“Ben? What about him?”
“What do you think of him?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with Kylo.”
“I did say that familiars know thinks before we do,” Maz says, a smile in her voice.
“You can’t be serious.”
Maz laughs a little. “Child, I don’t make the rules.”
“Just because my cat has a fascination with his cat -”
“No, the physical manifestation of your soul has a fascination with the physical manifestation of his soul.”
Rey rolls her eyes. “That sounds too much like predestination for my tastes.”
Maz barks a laugh. “Fate’s like that.”
“I’m hanging up now,” Rey huffs.
“Just get them in the same room as each other. I’m willing to bet my till on it.”
“Goodbye, Maz.”
Maz laughs again. Rey doesn’t wait for her to say goodbye before hanging the phone back up on the wall.
She does, however, wait another day before she makes a move. She knows that Maz is probably right, and all things considered Ben isn’t that bad. He’s attractive and interesting. He helped her out with her draught. And he’s the only other witch around, which means she could have someone to talk to about spell work and such. Hell, she might even have someone to go to festivals with now, if they get along well enough. And there’s no rule that says they have to be anything to each other. Their familiars are just… interested in each other. Just interested. It doesn’t have to be anything.
Rey gets her boots on and wraps a scarf around her neck. The sky is a molted grey, promising snow, but she’s already decided she has to talk to Ben. If it snows, she’s not going to want to get out of the house any time soon.
As soon as she opens the door, Kylo is racing past her, darting through the dead grass and bounding over the gate before she’s even got the door shut. Rey chases after him but doesn’t catch him before he’s sitting in the middle fo the dirt road, winding around and nuzzling into Kira’s white fur.
Rey stops to catch her breath as Ben comes running up the path, struggling to get his arm through the sleeve of his jacket. He stops short when he sees her.
“Rey!” He pants. “Hi! Um, before you say anything -”
“I let mine out, too,” Rey says, gesturing to the purring tangle of cats in between them.
“Oh,” he says. “You did that on purpose?”
“Well, I intended to. He just sort of -” she again gestures to the cats.
“Right. Yeah. Her too.”
“Look, Ben -”
“So I was thinking -”
“Yes?”
“No, you go ahead.”
“Has Kira been… mopey?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s one word for it,” Ben says.
“Kylo, too.”
“So do you think it’s - um -”
“That our cats are…”
“In love with each other?”
Rey sputters a little. “I - wouldn’t go that far, yet.”
Ben raises an eyebrow the looks back down to where Kira is licking behind Kylo’s ears.
“Okay, maybe,” Rey admits. “But that doesn’t mean - you know - we’re not.”
“Of course not!”
“Okay, good!”
“Good.”
Rey nods, resolute, even as she rocks back and forth on her heels.
“So, I have pie. At my house,” Ben says.
“Good. Pie is good.”
“Do you like pie?”
“It’s fine.”
“I was thinking, maybe, you could come have some pie? At my house. You can bring Kylo.”
Rey snorts. “I don’t really think I have a choice there, do I?”
“What? Of course, you do. I’m not going to force you to have pie.”
“I meant bringing Kylo.”
“Oh, right,” Ben says, ducking his head.
Rey snorts, walking over the distracted cats before slipping her hand onto Ben’s arm. “What kind of pie?” She asks.
“Cherry,” he says with a smile.