Ovinnik

In the days of the farm, I was something of a king. I'd perch up on my throne, the highest beam in the rafters of my threshing house, waiting for the end of the year, when I'd be given my favorite thing in existence by my peasants who feared me: pancakes.

The best are fluffy and warm. Evenly golden brown throughout. Perfection. The older woman who tended to me on my farm knew how I liked them best. She was my favorite.

Then, on the turn of the year, when she made me her offering of sweet bliny, her frail fingers threaded through my fur, and I felt it.

The icy cold chill of misfortune.

There was a grave misconception about me, you see. No amount of delicious pancakes fed to a demon cat in your barn can change your fate. I was simply a messenger of it.

She died shortly after that, and the sunspots in the barn where I'd nap never got quite as warm. I moved on to the next threshing house, not before burning my old one to the ground of course.

To be clear, my fires were never undeserved— Wheatberries in a bliny? Really?— but soon I began to run out of threshing houses. A century was a blink of an eye for me, and before I knew it, peasants didn’t farm any more.

I figured it might be just my home country, so I went to France. They had barns but the pancakes were as thin and flimsy as a mouse tail. I went to Belgium, but their barns were barely sheds, and what the hell was a waffle anyway? From there I’d roam the countryside, only to be chased away from each barn I entered like a common, feral thing.

Peasants just didn’t have the respect they used to for higher beings.

Each new year I’d nurse the meat I’d gnaw off a disgusting rat, waiting for the flesh under my fur to prickle with a cold or warm sensation, to validate what the year would bring me, but without a peasant to touch me, I felt nothing.

Years later, I heard a rumor from a bird or a weasel about a wonderland. A place with farmland as far as the eye could see. Dry, hot, and prone to fires. Pancakes so fluffy and thick you could nap in them.

I chased this dream, across ocean and land, until I found the paradise the others had spoken of—a magical place called Texas.

Barns had changed since the last time I dwelled properly in one. They were no longer used for housing cattle or storing grain. Here, in a city called Austin, they were used for marriage.

Marigold Barn was on the outskirts of Austin, but that did not deter peasants from coming in great quantities, dressed in interesting frocks, to watch two of their comrades stare a different peasant, as he went on and on about love for ages.

I’d watch from the highest rafter, hidden by the chandelier, reciting the phrase I’d learned now from memory.

“Love is patient, love is kind.”

After, the boom of thunder that would never subside, loud and thumping. It was startling how none of the peasants were frightened of it. They seemed to like it in fact, drinking their peach-colored elixirs, loose and giggly as they flailed around in what had to be a strange mating dance.

Then the thumping would stop, there’d be more talking. More listening. And that was my cue. I’d go deep into the woods, command my limbs to elongate, my fur to fall out, my muscled arms and toned legs to bulge, and I’d emerge in peasant form, just in time for my favorite part of the wedding.

They’d cut a big, giant three-tiered pancake. One that Mama made them from across the street. Normally I’d say this type of cake was too sweet for my liking, but not Mama’s. It was the best thing I’d ever tasted.

I was always first in line for the cake, clad in a suit I’d steal from the closet of the groom’s quarters. They’d be too distracted with brown elixir or a sports event to notice a cat dragging a suit to the woods with his teeth.

The first wedding I attended, someone asked who I was. I growled at them and was kicked out of my barn before I got my second helping of cake.

The next wedding, I transformed into a woman, but I could not keep up with all the different similar sounding names, the uncomfortable frock, the touches from strange drunk men, and what a “Vampire Diaries” was.

With men, it was simpler. If I were approached while my mouth salivated for a piece of Mama’s cake, I’d simply say,

“Hi, I’m Nik. I work in business.”

That seemed enough to suffice most, especially with a heavy Russian accent, but woman would often pry further. They would ask me to dance, for my "number" or "tweeter handle," and my answer would vary depending on the tidbits I’d pick up from observations during the day.

“I recently purchased a bitcoin,” I smiled politely.

Each night, after the cake, I’d disappear into the woods, turn back into a friendly barn cat, and sleep on Mama’s stoop. Maya would prepare me a saucer of milk, and she’d pet me. My body nearly glowing from warmth.

Maya was the first peasant in half a century to touch me. She called me sonrisa, because when she scratched behind my ears with her delicate fingers, I couldn’t help but curve my lips upward and let my eyes flutter closed.

“Cats don’t smile,” Mama would say to Maya.

“This one does!” she argued, pointing to my face, dazed with contentment.

“Black cats are bad luck, Maya,” Mama warned. Mama didn’t like me, which is why I had to endure wedding after wedding for my tribute. If it weren’t for her baking skill, I would have burned the place down long ago.

“That’s bullshit,” Maya laughed deep in her throat from her belly, reverberating pleasantly in my ears.

I was only bad luck about half the time.

When I first arrived years ago, Maya was a fixture in my life, but recently, as this wedding season died down, and the mild winter began to set in the land, I was seeing less and less of her. Then one day, as I was watching from the window as Mama prepared her strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting, I overheard her and her friend talking.

“Maya's wedding is so close to Christmas,” Mama said to her friend through the kitchen. She quickly signed the cross over her shoulders and kissed her hand. “It will be chaos here.”

“When is the wedding?” the friend asked. I was flush against the window to listen now, like I was using the sill to scratch my hide.

“New Year's Eve!” Mama called back in panic. She wiped her brow as she placed the shortcake into the oven and flipped her whisk machine on full speed. Normally, the sight would entrance me, but today it didn’t. Maya was getting married in my barn, to another peasant.

I’d seen one of the children from my family in the old country marry once. I never saw her again.

All the peasants would come and celebrate Maya, in her white frock. They’d dance for her, talk about her love, and I’d watch from my rafter, alone as I’d ever been.

I suddenly didn’t feel like cake today. Instead, I went deep into the woods until I came upon an old shack. I set it on fire just to feel something close to the warmth of Maya’s fingers behind my ear.

New Year's Eve was historically my day. This was the day when I’d set the tone for rest of the year for Maya and Mama. Mama didn’t like it, but I’d rub my body against her ankles, thankful when I turned warm. I’d do the same to Maya, just to be sure, but today, she was gone before I could check what fate had in store for her.

There was one wedding where the bride herself asked who I was. I told her my same story. That I worked in business. I ride my Tesler across the roads, and on occasion, I rooted for home team in sporting events. She didn’t seem interested in this though, she was more interested in putting her mouth, sour and hot from drink, near mine. I tried to avoid brides at weddings from then on, but Maya was different.

I quickly snuck the suit over my naked body in the chilled afternoon. I looked all over the barn yard for her, but she wasn’t anywhere. Peasants started arriving, taking their seats in the barn. It wasn’t until I remembered her favorite spot on the grounds, the one she’d known so well since birth, that I guessed where she would be. There was a creek not too far from my barn. Quiet and peaceful and filled with fish. Her father took her there before he died, and she’d take me here sometimes as a cat to talk to him.

I wanted to remind her that he was dead, but it didn’t seem appropriate, and I was a cat. I couldn’t speak.

“Hi,” I said loudly as I approached her. She gawked at me with wet eyes, black lines ran down her cheek. She frowned as she gathered the train of her dress and took a step away from me.

“W…Who are you?” she asked as her chin trembled.

“I’m Nik. I work in business. Very hard.”

She quirked an eyebrow.

“Are…are you friends with Bryan?”

I crinkled my nose, then nodded.

“You are sad?” I asked.

She looked down at her hands.

“Cold feet,” she whispered.

This frightened me. Without saying anything further, I grabbed her hands in mine.

“What are you doing??” she asked but it was too late.

I felt it. The cold breath of misfortune. It was a vision as clear as the winter day. Her marriage would lead to misery, pain, and loneliness. I couldn’t let that happen.

I couldn’t change her fate, but I could do everything in my power to delay it.

“Excuse me...” she said, our hands still clasped together. I said nothing back to her. I just smiled. Her eyes went wide with recognition.

The hushed ramblings of the crowd fell silent as I waltzed into the barn. I think they mistook me for the groom. With the eyes of peasants on me, I flailed my arms in the air like some of them did during the mating dance.

“Fire!” I shouted. “Everyone out before fires get you!”

They all looked around frantically, searching for the blaze. I shot my eyes quickly at the flowers in the center of the room. Then the dining cloths. Then my dear rafter. That was enough.

“Fire!” others shouted as the peasants rushed the exit, tripping over their frocks, shrieking in horror, fumbling for their keys to their Teslers. Some ramming them into each other like angry sheep.

I found Maya sometime later, back at Mama’s, the loud fire sirens sounding in the distance as they tried to put out my work.

“Who are you again?” she asked sweetly, a thankful look in her eye. I sat by her on the porch, on my favorite step, and smiled. Her eyes caught the charred fabric of my sleeve.

“I am Nik.”

We were married shortly after that. On our first turn of the year together, Maya made me pancakes for the first time. They were a bit dry.

“Love is patient,” I said to myself as the heat burned behind my eyes. “Love is kind...”