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“Dream, listen to the people. Drink your drink.”
Death had dragged Dream to the Waking World of all things, down to a lowly tavern of England. Well, Dream guessed Death had to know Europe like the back of her hand after the Plague. It had been a peculiar time for the Endless. Death, Destruction and Despair had had so much work. Dream was not on the first line, he was only busy with the increased nightmare activity. Desire was pouting somewhere, no one knew where. So it made sense Death knew where to take Dream for a drink in Europe. What didn’t make sense was the why. Why would she feel he needed to spend more time with humans? They already spent one third of their lives in his realm, he saw them enough. He should go and spend more time with the cetaceans or the little birds that sleep one half of their brain at a time. He did not know them as well as he should, as they rarely entered fully in his realm, always keeping a foothold in the Waking.
But well, he’d accepted to come, so he’d make the effort.
“What the hell, Hob, stop doing this or the next time I’ll kill you by accident!” the tavern wench yelled at a large tawny cat who had jumped over the counter, where she was slicing ham that the animal clearly intended to steal.
“What do you know of Death, idiot human? I’ve seen Death and she likes us. You humans die, we cats, we do as we wish. I’ve made up my mind, I’m not going to die.”
The cat was growling and hissing, and though the girl didn’t understand him and only tried to grab him to prevent him from eating the ham. The cat evaded her, and hissed, and she had to throw a piece of the fat at him to make him go. His prize in his mouth, the cat proudly came toward Dream’s corner of the inn.
“Is it true what the cat says, my sister? Have you a fondness for cats?”
Death laughed.
“It’s not untrue. Cats are…cats. You know, they call you to open a door, you open the door, and they watch you for 5 minutes before deciding they’d rather go the other way around. Well, they’re the same with my gift. They call for me, I come and extend my hand, and nine times out of ten they just look at me, and leave. That’s why they say cats have nine lives. Statistically, it’s not far from how often cats make my job difficult.”
“Why would any sensible creature crave an eternity of this?” Dream wondered. He knew cats, better than most animals. They spent an inordinate amount of time in his realm.
“You could find out?”
“How?”
“I could grant him his wish.”
“Do that, and he will be begging for death within a century, I assure you.”
Cats were short lived creatures for a reason. For a cat, to want to live even ten times the average of their species’ lifetime, would be improbable.
“This will prove very interesting,” was all Death answered. “Are you going to tell him, or should I?”
“I shall.”
Dream approached the cat, who was busy savouring his loot by the fire.
“Did I hear you say you have no intention of ever dying?”
The cat suddenly looked up, fur already raising and back arching at the newcomer.
“That’s right. I shall die whenever I want to, and not a day before.” Hob the Cat answered. He resumed his tame behaviour, once it was clear Dream was not here for the ham.
“Then you must tell me what it’s like. Let us meet here again, Hob the Cat, in this tavern of the White Horse, in one hundred years. You shall know in your dreams when it is time.”
The cat slowly closed his eyes, looking straight at Dream.
“I will see you when the dreams call me, then.”
1489
Hob the Cat was a very, very old cat. He didn’t look like it, he did not look a day older than his prime. His tawny fur was still perfect, his eyes and claws sharp and his reflex deadly. He’d been surprised, when the dreams had come. He’d forgotten the strange creature who had asked to meet him a long time ago in the White Horse. But the White Horse had been Hob’s home when he was a kitten, he’d been born in the comfortable straw of the stable. His instinct would always bring him back to the inn, should he need it.
He’d been in the tavern for a few days, fighting against the tavern’s cat for his right to stay, when the stranger arrived. The man came by and sat next to the fire where Hob waited, a pint of ale in his hand. Hob hopped on the table and settled there, next to his glass. Close enough for petting, should the not-quite-human wish for it.
“Why did you want to meet?” Hob the Cat asked. “I did not understand what it was that you wanted, last time we met.”
“I am here because I’m interested.”
“In a cat?”
“In your experience. You live your life as you choose. Then on this day, every hundred years, we will meet.”
“Because you want to know what it’s like, to live the life of a cat.”
The not-quite-human assented. He was weird. Who ever cared about cats? About what their life was like? No one. Cats come and go, in and out of the lives of humans. Humans who thought they outlived Hob, and who did not recognize Hob when he was still around by the time they were greying, and thought he had to be another, younger cat.
“I’ll tell you what it’s like. It’s fucking brilliant. It’s always the same. There are rats to chase, females to swive, other cats to cuddle with. Humans to feed you and give you a place by the hearth. With any luck, they’ll find a way to get rid of fleas.”
Hob the cat started scratching furiously behind his ear with his left leg.
“What have you been doing for the last hundred years?”
“Same as before, chasing rats, mainly. The world is…immense. I travelled with humans on a boat, over the sea, to go to places where the trees and birds are strange. But now, I’ve started a new trade. I’m the Library Cat.”
Hob was very proud of this position. He’d fought hard to be the best. The monks loved him. Some came to the Library only to see Hob and scratch behind his ears.
“I love books. I love sitting on them, lounging on them. Sometimes I lounge on an unfinished one by mistake and get chased, and I leave dark pawprints behind on the paper. It’s very fun.”
“So you still want to live?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Until the next dream, then?”
“Oh yes.”
And with these parting words, he was gone. He hadn’t even petted Hob once! Hob was a very good cat for cuddles. He was very careful with his grooming. He’d done everything he could to encourage him to extend his hand. The not-quite-man had had his hand on the table for the whole meeting. He’d wanted contact, this much was obvious. So why?
1589
When the dreams had come, this time, Hob had been expecting them. Hob was not as good at counting as humans were, but he started to get the idea of numbers. One, two, three, many. He’d counted around two or three human lifetimes between the meetings. So he’d known this one was coming. He was only relieved they’d come after the birth.
Hob had to run away from home to come. It was a good thing his home wasn’t very far. He wouldn't make his mistress distressed for long. With a bit of luck, she wouldn’t even notice he was gone for a few days.
When the stranger entered the inn, Hob was ready, licking his paw by the window. He’d even brought a gift this time, a fine little lizard he’d caught taking the sun on the hot tiles of the White Horse’s roof.
“Hello, Hob,” the stranger said, sitting next to Hob.
“That takes me back some few years. It’s Robert Gadling now, old stranger.”
“You’ve had good fortune, I take it.”
“The gods have smiled on me as they smile on all cats. A lizard?” He proposed to the stranger. “No? It’s good. Last we spoke, I was a Library Cat. That lasted a while. I came back as my own son, and did that three times in a row. Humans cannot tell one cat from another, or I guess they’re more ready to believe I’m my own son rather than that a cat could outlive them. That’s not all, here!”
Hob preened, showing off his red leather collar.
“You are now looking at the cat of a fair Lady of the Court. My mistress Eleanor takes good care of me. She pets me, and brushes me, and lets me sleep at her side. I never lack food or company. The house is so clean there are not even rats, at most a few mice around the kitchen. And recently, she had her first litter. I helped a lot. It was a bit strange that she only had a litter of one, but what do I know about human biology? Creatures with so little fur are bound to be weird. The little one is a strong one, though he develops so slowly. He took three whole seasons just to learn how to crawl. Humans are somewhat dim, I guess I hadn’t noticed before because the grown ones look smart enough.”
But Hob could notice the attention of his stranger was already elsewhere. The two humans in the corner were talking louder, one of them standing as he made the sounds that humans used between themselves. The not-quite-human, though he could understand Hob perfectly, likely also understood the humans.
“I’ve saved the best bit for last. Death herself told me that since last summer, I’m the oldest cat to ever live. Isn’t that awesome?”
Hob’s stranger was not listening anymore. He was already up and approaching the humans. One of them, the one who was not wounded, looked at the not-quite-human like he wanted to be eaten by him. What a stupid idea, Hob thought as they left.
The lizard was still sitting where Hob put it. Well, I would be a shame to waste a perfectly good lizard, Hob said to himself as he started nibbling at it.
1689
“Don’t touch me you fucking dung wit! Get out of my way!”
Hob screeched, as another human blocked his path. He jumped, all claws out, right at the face of the man, and used it to jump higher, as high as he could, up to the chandelier. It swang madly under his weight, and Hob had to use all his sense of balance and agility to keep climbing up.
Under him, the humans kept screaming, swinging a broom to dislodge him from his perch.
“Let him be. It’s my cat.”
The most strange thing was not that apparently, the humans and Hob could both understand what the stranger meant. No, the strangest was the warmth and longing in Hob's chest, when he heard him say “my cat”.
The not-quite-human shooed the humans away, and made a sign to Hob to join him down. No thank you, Hob thought. Not yet. Not until all the humans weren’t around anymore. He didn’t trust any of them.
“Hob, you may come down now. I shall not let them harm you in any way.”
Hob was ready to believe this. He tried to head back. But the chandelier kept swinging, and Hob could not find a good footing. He was going to fall.
In the end, Hob had to let himself fall in a somewhat controlled way, bounced over the back of a chair, upending it, and crashed on the table.
His fur was matted beyond help, and he was wet from the drenching rain outside the inn. He looked every inch what he was, an alley cat.
“I knew you’d be here.” Hob said, licking the paw he’d wounded earlier this week in a fight for territory three streets south. Then he saw the cup of milk that sat on the table, and immediately started sucking it up.
“Do you know how hungry a cat can get, if he doesn’t die, but he doesn’t eat?”
Hob shrank as much as he could, trying to save the little body heat he had.
“I lost it all. My home, my family. My Eleanor. She died in childbirth. The kitten too. And my Master Robyn, died as well. One day he didn’t come back home. I have no idea what happened to him, only that they brought him back and he died in his bed without ever waking up. I was with him until Death came. I didn’t go out much after that. The humans tried to drown me. I think they thought it was my doing. I stayed too long with this family, I was too old for a cat. They noticed. They put me into a bag, and threw me into the river. After that, I did not want to live around humans again. I lived in the forest. It was terrible. Too many predators larger than I was, and my life with humans had made me soft. I came back to the city, where the rats are fatter. But life in the streets was worse. I’ve hated every second of the last eighty years, every bloody second, you know that?”
“So do you still wish to live?”
The not-quite-human has this glaze humans sometimes have in their eyes. With experience, Hob knew it was a sign of sadness. Why was the stranger sad?
“Are you crazy? Humans don’t get to decide when I die. I’m the one who says when it’s over, and it’s not!”
The not-quite-human looked…surprised. Hob was not good enough at reading their body language to decipher more.
“Now can you provide some food, cause I’m about to eat the fucking table.” He requested instead.
And Hob was right to do so, because the stranger provided food like the best of humans.
1789
Dream entered the tavern of the White Horse, and for once he did not see Hob at the first glance. Hob had often chosen a corner where he could look out for the entrance, when he arrived first in their previous meeting. This time, Dream had chosen to arrive early, in the afternoon. Maybe the cat was not there yet.
After a round in the main room to check for the cat, Dream went upstairs to continue his search. In the case he did not find the cat, he would settle in a calm corner and wait.
Until caught a bit of fur and the shape of an ear peaking above the arm of a lady. Had Hob come with his mistress this time? If he had, Dream was glad to see the cat in better shape. But as he approached, he heard Hob screeching suddenly.
“Run! It’s a trap!”
Dream heard heavy footsteps behind him, two sets. The lady turned her chair toward him. She was dressed as a minor noble, with stays and a light dress adorned with flowers and deep burgundy skirts. Lady Johanna Constantine, from a famous line of demon hunters and an exorcist herself. On her lap sat Hob, fur raised and ears pointed rear. One of her hands held the cat by the back, while the other pointed a sharp knife against his throat.
“Not a step further.” She warned.
Hob hissed, and her grip on the cat tightened.
“The gentlemen behind you are Michael and Tobias, smugglers by trade. Although, they’re only too glad to augment their earnings by slitting throats.”
Dream did not lose time looking behind at the two thugs. He did not want to lose sight of Hob.
Seeing Dream immobile, Lady Johanna petted Hob’s back lightly. The cat tensed even more.
“They tell of a tale in these London parts,” she continues, “that an immortal cat meets the Devil every century in this tavern. I myself heard this legend as a child, and came to see the cat. Two years ago, I came back here, and I saw it again. The same cat, that could be recognised by a very characteristic dent in its ear.”
She points toward Hob’s ear, which had been missing a part since the day Dream had first met him. An injury from before the cat was spared Death’s gift, and that would remain with him for as long as he would want to live.
“That is when I understood the legend was true. You return to this pub, every hundred years, to talk with the immortal cat. A gift of immortality that you will now share with me.”
Dream doesn’t bother to answer.
“Well, have you nothing to say?”
“I am no Devil.” Dream answered, because he would have fun later, telling the Morningstar how exorcists took him for the ruler of Hell. “And it’s just a cat.”
“Fie. I know the cat is not mortal. What manners of creatures are you then?”
Instead of answering, Dream switched to Hob’s language.
“Are you hurt?” He asked.
“No.” Hob answered stiffly. “I think she did not know whether I could not die, or whether I was only granted eternal youth. She did not harm me.”
“Good”
At the same time, Constantine narrowed her eyes.
“You’re talking to it right now. Enough pleasantries. There is so much you can tell me, so much I can learn. You are coming with me.”
“No, I think not.”
“You will, if you want your pet to remain intact.” She threatened, pushing her blade to sit close to the cat’s throat.
Around his neck is a collar and a leash, tightly wound around the hand that did not hold the knife. Behind Dream, the thugs have gotten closer, one of them pushing his dagger into Dream’s back menacingly.
That was the moment Hob decided to strike. He dug his teeth in the hand holding the knife, taking full advantage of her being distracted with Dream. It was all Dream needed to push away the hand holding the knife in his back and go for his pouch of sand.
Constantine screamed and tried to take her hand back, but Hob was holding fast. She shook him to dislodge him, and the blade went flying. Dream saw her other hand grabbing her teacup on the table and breaking it over Hob’s head.
Hob howled and let go of the hand. But he had given Dream an opening, and by the time the cat lost his grip, Dream was already blowing his sand all around their three adversaries. The three of them dropped like flies, assailed by nightmares.
Slowly, Dream approached the dazed cat on the ground, and picked him up in his arms.
“Did you send dreams to them too?” Hob slurred.
“Nightmares, yes. You need not have come to my defence.”
Dream sat on the abandoned chair, and set Hob on his lap to undo the collar.
“Clearly. Still, I didn’t want to be here alone in a hundred years time.” The cat answered, still drowsy after his blow to the head.
“How do you feel?” Dream asked.
“I’m perfectly fine. I can’t die, remember?”
“Aye, but you have been hurt, and captured. We must be cautious. Tell me how Lady Johanna came to find you and bring you here.”
“She found me about a month ago. I had been lurking for some time, knowing our meeting was to be soon. I did not pay enough attention, I was overconfident. She caught me during a nap here in the White Horse. After that, she just kept me in a room without windows.”
“Did she hurt you?” Dream inquired.
If she had, he would have more nightmares in store for her.
“No, as I said, I do not think she believed I could not be killed. Or at least, that is my guess. She was a boring jailor, but not a mean one. She was not interested in me, only in getting to you.”
“I regret that you were targeted as a way to reach me.”
The cat didn’t answer immediately. Instead, it dug his claws a little deeper in Dream’s coat, and purred softly, eyes closing.
“I don’t suppose you care to find another pub?” The cat asked in a low voice.
“No. She may have told others about your existence and our meeting tonight. You should disappear for a time, let humans here forget how you look. You must be cautious.”
“Always.”
After a last stretch, Hob jumped from Dream’s arm to the floor. The dizziness that had plagued him earlier seemed already settled as he landed deftly on the carpet.
“Till the next dream, then?”
“Till the next dream.”
1889
Hob heard Loving Lou stop singing to try and grab a client first. He’d spent the whole day in the White Horse to escape the pouring rain outside. This time, he’d been more careful to be more discreet around the White Horse. He’d befriended Loving Lou, who was a great lover of cats. He’d let her pet him, and comforted her in the nights, when the other humans hurt her with words or with deeds. She was not his mistress, not like Eleanor had been, but she was dear to him.
Lou’s client answered, and Hob could not mistake the deep rumbling voice. As usual, the stranger talked, and both Lou and Hob could understand. He was rejecting her company. Hob knew Lou would take it badly. She needed the money to drink her sorrow away, and she was always hit hard by rejection regardless. Hob did not know why the stranger had refused, because he’d felt since their first meeting that the stranger wanted to be touched, craved the contact. Yet, he’d only touched Hob to remove Lady Johanna’s collar from him during their last meeting. And now, he’d refused the touch of a human as well. Hob hoped the stranger had not refused Lou’s company because of his meeting with Hob. Hob would have been content to watch his stranger have fun with Lou before their talk. Maybe he’d have been relaxed enough to let Hob on his lap, after.
Lou answered aggressively, and Hob intervened. He bumped into Lou’s sheens with affection, before doing the same with the stranger.
“Sorry about Loving Lou.” Hob apologised.
He entered the inn, followed by the stranger.
“Loving Lou, is that what you call her?”
“Yes, she’s a lovely human. She loves cats a great deal. Humans are terrible to her”
“Indeed they are.”
“You know everyone don’t you? You knew Lady Johanna, you know Loving Lou.” Hob wondered. He’d always been curious about the nature of the not-quite human. He was not a human, that much was obvious from his scent alone. The stranger smelled like potential. The way the roses smell just before they bloom. The way food smelled on the stove, making your mouth water.
“I saw her again, you know?”
“Who, Lady Johanna?” Hob spat.
It had been so long before Hob was ready to trust anyone after Lady Johanna. For years, he’d been unable to sleep deeper than a light nap, always alert. For years, he had not let humans approach him close enough to pet him, lest they put a collar on him again. Only recently, he accepted Loving Lou’s company. She’d been patient, and persistent with Hob, waiting for him to be ready to accept company. Hob thought she understood what it was, to have been caught, and touched against one’s will, and not wanting to risk it again.
Hob wondered what had made his stranger so touch-starved, and so reluctant.
“She undertook a task for me, and succeeded admirably, I might add.” The stranger continued.
“Well, I guess sometimes people are better than you think they are. Not me though, still the same as ever.”
“I think perhaps you’ve changed.”
Hob, changed? Nonsense. Cats didn’t change. They were what they were, and remained that way. Though he was a bit wiser than before. More cautious.
“Well, I may have learnt a bit from my mistakes. But…it doesn’t seem to stop me from making them. I think it’s you that’s changed.”
“How so?”
There is a menace in these two words, a thunder announcing rain.
“I think I know why you still come to see me here, century after century. It’s not because you want to see whether I’m ready to seek Death. I don’t think I’ll ever follow Death. By now, you know that about me. So, I think you’re here for something else.”
“And what might that be?”
Here is the threat, the storm incoming. But Hob cannot back down anymore.
“You need a cat. I think you’re touch-starved.”
“You dare…You dare one such as I might need your companionship.”
What did he mean by that? It was not about daring, it had been glaringly obvious since Hob had met him all those years ago. No need to start hissing.
“Yes. Yes I do. Don’t be like humans who always think they’re better than cats. You want company.”
“Then I shall take my leave of you and prove you wrong.”
And before Hob could get any closer, the not-quite-human was already walking swiftly out of the inn, toward the rainy night.”
“I’ll tell you what, I’ll be here next time, and if you’re here then too, it’ll be to take me home with you. No other reason, right?”
1989?
Something was wrong, Hob could feel it in his bones. By now, he had a pretty good sense of time, for a cat. He knew how long it was before the dreams called him back to the White Horse. It was time, yet the dreams were not coming. Worse, dreams had been broken for a while.
Hob knew the stranger had something to do with dreams, because he chose them to announce his arrival. He had given Lady Johanna nightmares for her audacity. Hob had slept many, many lifetimes in the realm of dreams. And he knew something was wrong with dreams.
It didn’t help him, though. Most likely, the stranger was angry at Hob, because he’d taken Hob’s proposition as an invasion of his territory. Hob had made the mistake to treat the not-quite-human as a stranger. But he was not human, he only appeared so. The stranger could be as territorial as cats or other animals were. Where a human would have welcomed a cat, another creature would bulk at the very idea. It was likely the stranger was angry at Hob, and banned him from the realm of dreams.
But there was nothing Hob could do but show up at the White Horse and wait. Either the stranger would show up, and Hob could apologise for the trespass. Or he wouldn’t show up, and Hob would keep waiting. Cats are hunters, they’re good at waiting.
Hob waited through the summer. He waited through the winter. The stranger did not show up. Hob became the inn’s unofficial cat.
But not for very long. Hob couldn’t measure how long he’d waited in the White Horse, but one day, people stopped coming to it. The building was abandoned. Hob started living there, in the deserted rooms of the inn. He was like a sad ghost in an empty manor. A trace of times long gone. After a while, they took the furniture away. They barred the windows. Hob could still find a hundred ways to enter the building. Rats started taking residence, and Hob was there to hunt them. Hob slept often, trying to elucidate the mystery of the dreams that wouldn’t come.
Hob waited for thirty-three years.
2022
Hob noticed immediately, when the dream came back. He napped a lot, in or around the White Horse. The building was still there, though not visited by humans except one or two with helmets once in a while, and young ones spraying paint on the walls or smoking and drinking around the place.
He knew he had to be ready. The stranger was back, or at least, he’d stopped his grudge against Hob. Maybe something had made him realise he needed a cat. Or maybe someone had succeeded in getting the idea that he needed touch through his thick skull. Death maybe. She was certainly formidable enough, and it was thanks to her that Hob had met the stranger all these years ago. She knew he was in need of cuddles, and she knew Hob could provide them.
Regardless of the cause, he was coming. Hob was excited, like he hadn’t been in lifetimes. Adrenaline ran through his veins, keeping alert. Each time a human came closer to the building, Hob would check on them. He slept with one eye open at all times.
In the end, it was very anticlimactic. A man stopped in front of the building, and spent a long time contemplating it. Hob went to check. It was him.
He looked devastated at the state of the inn. Hob could understand it. An establishment that had stood for so long, many human lifetimes, and humans were ready to abandon it. Another proof that cats and humans had very different perspectives on territory.
Hob jumped from his perch in the trees, and hurried to the hole in the fence. With a happy trill, he joined the stranger.
“You’re late” Hob stated. He’d waited for so long. Several feline lifetimes.
“It seems I owe you an apology.”
The stranger crouched on the ground, and extended a hand toward Hob. Carefully, Hob approached the hand. He could already smell the enticing scent of the stranger, this impossible smell of things that were not but could be. He smelled like the fragrance you caught once, and can’t quite remember. He smelled like the night just before dawn. He smelled like a comfortable bed just before sleep.
Hob wanted to burrow himself in the smell. He wanted it everywhere around him, he wanted to nap in it and wake up in it. He sniffed it deeply, once, twice, three times. Then he couldnot resist anymore, and nestled his head in the offered hand. He rubbed his own scent against the palm, and the stranger let him mark him that way. Humans often didn’t care, and let themselves be marked easily. The stranger, however, was not quite human. He was something else, something more, and he knew exactly what Hob was doing there, what it meant. He accepted it, and when Hob pushed again with his forehead, he took the clue and ran his hand over Hob’s head. Hob purred, asking for more. The stranger obliged him, petting his back, scratching behind his ears and under his chin. Hob came closer again. He was so absorbed in the sensation, he nearly missed what the stranger said next.
“It seems you were right, I am in need of a cat. Would you come home with me?”