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Baqa finished pouring the last of his spices into the clay pots he preferred over the wooden cases many of his fellow merchants liked to use. The wooden display cases were lighter, but he often forgot which spices were in which case the previous day, leading to unintentional mixtures that upset his customers. Though the pots were heavier they were easier to clean and, in the desert city, cheaper as well.

He turned away from the thoroughfare in front of his pavilion and stretched away a worrying tightness in his back. Soon he would turn the business over to his son and... well, he didn’t know what would happen then. His eyes alighted over a familiar storefront and he glanced at the balcony jutting over the street, but the beautiful Katta that sometimes smiled and waved at the merchants as they arrived in the morning wasn’t there today.

If only he was a decade or two younger. He heard footsteps behind him and began to turn about. The first customer of the day. “Hello! Welcome to Baqa’s seeds and spices shop. How may I help you this morning?”, he automatically rattled off as he turned to greet his new arrival.

“Hi Baqa, it’s me!”, Shema replied, as Baqa hadn’t clearly recognized her.

“Hey, Shema! Fancy seeing you here again!” the merchant under the tent said.

“It’s a pleasure seeing you again too, Baqa. I wanted to get some stuff from you”, she replied with her usual friendliness.

It was one of her frequent supply-buying trips. The Katta’s Tail Inn, the hostelry she ran, was actually in the central market, against the norms at the time she and her husband purchased the building. It was a simple matter to walk out the front door three to five times a week, making sure it had all the ingredients to properly serve the acclaimed dishes they would create for travelers. She was of the opinion that to be seen doing such a thing during her business hours was rather unprofessional, so she was many a merchant’s first customer of the day. She was very proud of the innovative recipes she’d come up with, and compliments never seemed to cease, encouraging her to keep special care on every detail of the kitchen work at the inn. Her shopping frequency also made her pretty dear to the salesmen who she’d usually buy from.

“Of course”, Baqa replied with a smile. “What are you looking for today?”

“I need more sunflower seeds. I know I recently bought a lot but we had an… an accident.”

“What happened?”

“Well, we… I mean, Shameen, left it on an uncovered pot and the wind blew most of them away.” “Ah, that husband of yours. I keep telling you: You should leave him and marry me instead.”

Shema laughed. This was a common jest between the two of them; a weird yet friendly way of complimenting her that she never felt comfortable fully responding in kind.

“You know I couldn’t… but I might think about it if you get me two full pounds of sunflower seeds.”

“Anything for you, my dear Shema.” Baqa picked up a fabric sack and started pouring big spoonfuls of sunflower seeds, from one of the jars at his feet. “You know, if it wasn’t you, I’d swear you were buying this for a spell. Why do you need so much?”

Shema laughed. “Baqa, they’re delicious! We mix it in several recipes and use much of it mixed with other ingredients to keep them dry… unless we leave them to the wind.” Shema’s mind caught on to Baqa’s comment. “A spell? Can you do spells with food?”

Baqa shrugged and handed her the bag, “I’ve been told it is possible for simple things so long as you follow the steps. Perhaps even Kattas can do magic after all and I don’t mean just your dances”, he winked. “I have an older cousin who was selected by the Mystics’ Guild years ago.” He frowned and peered at the center of the plaza. “He’s even supposed to be here this morning, promised he’d stop by before the crowds started swarming…”

Shema smiled half-heartedly. Baqa no doubt meant well, but she was too familiar with the Mystics and their ignorance of anything too complicated to fit into a mortar and pestle. All she had was one question and they wasted months of her time...

Her reminiscing was cut short by Baqa’s gruff voice. “Oh, there he is. Shudah! Come here!” he was shouting at someone resting by the fountain. Curious, Shema watched as an old Katta in a long, loose robe laboriously raised him or herself up and started limping towards them. They seemed troubled by a large satchel hanging at their hip, attached via a chest-strap that appeared to be the only thing keeping the robe on their body.

His fur was grey-ish in a tone that Shema couldn’t tell if it was because of his advanced age or his natural color and his eyes, perhaps a lovely blue in his youth, were dull and clouded, making them seem almost as grey as his fur. Still, he carried himself with pride, even with the limp, and smiled at the two of them as he drew closer, revealing several missing teeth.“Hello dear, it is indeed a pleasure to make your acquaintance”, Shudah said in a worn, raspy voice. “Any friend of Baqa is a friend of mine. Are you interested in luck charms? Medicine?”

“Well, not really”, answered Shema, awkwardly. “Baqa said Katta could use food to do magic, but I don’t see how this is possible.”

“Oh, they can, given they have the right elements and follow the right steps. Magic is just energy, really, and food has an energy of a sort, does it not? It is easier for humans, they can draw the energy out of the world itself, if they know how”, Shudah huffed. Katta, no matter how skilled, could do little better than throw something flammable on to a brazier and hope for a friendly spirit to notice while the human next to them was flinging balls of fire and levitating small children, much to their amusement. Granted, most humans were no better than Katta, but the potential was with them at birth.

“Huh”, Shema seemed less afraid of the stranger now, as curiosity was taking place on her face. “But I’ve talked with the Mystics myself, long ago...“, she continued, as a quick memory saddened her expression. “They told me that Kattas do not have innate magical energy.”

“That is true, my dear”, Shudah explained, “but we can still do magic if we invoke the right spirits. How do you think we Mystics perform our magic? We’re also Katta.”

“I… I guess I never thought of that.”

“Are you interested in any particular kind of magic?”, he asked eloquently, but disinterested, like he was repeating the question out of habit while already knowing the answer.

“I… I don’t know. What kind of magic is there?”

“I’ve got good fortune spells, bad fortune spells for your enemies, money attractors, love spells… I don’t think you need help with that one. How about a simple luck invocation for free? It might make Baqa forget to overcharge you next time!” he laughed and winked at the merchant. The Mystic’s laugh reminded Shema, a veteran innkeeper, of the heart-stopping sound of someone choking.

“Hey!”, she smiled, flattered at his skillfully offhand compliment, “We could all use a bit more luck, yes?” as Baqa theatrically growled and turned his back to the old Katta. Shudah chuckled and reached into the bag at his waist, rooting around for a few moments before withdrawing a small, rolled-up piece of parchment.

“One simple luck invocation, formerly due to be incinerated by the humans’ magic guild, but now gifted to you”, Shudah declared, “Though I cannot promise it will make an honest merchant of my cousin here!” He laughed unpleasantly again, but quickly grew serious. “In fact, my dear, I cannot promise any results. Still, this is simple and can be done with food, though probably not seeds. Not enough energy in them, see? Try meat, burn it to a crisp, the Other Side responds best to the gift of life, to put it bluntly. Come to the Mystics’ Guild if you would prefer guidance.”

Shema started to reach for the scroll, but hesitated a moment. Perhaps this wasn’t a good idea. But it was just a simple thing, right? She chided herself for being foolish and delicately took the scroll.

“Thank you Mystic Shudah, I will be careful!” Shema gravely replied, then smiled at the two Katta before her. “But now I have to go! The inn is due to open soon and I have other purchases I need to make! Goodbye, good morning, and I hope to see you both later!” The final words were delivered at a rapidly increasing distance as she hurried away to other stalls, other merchants, and other conversations.

Baqa and Shudah watched her trot away. “Do you think she’ll actually try it?”, Shudah rasped. He rarely visited the market plaza, preferring the smaller street markets near his home, and had been caught off-guard by the female. His eyesight wasn’t what it once was, but even blurry the toned figure and perky breasts at her age made him suspect she was childless. Her luck had only a few years left, he thought.

Baqa laughed as he studiously entered Shema’s purchase into his collection ledger. “Come here more often, you’ll see that one create her own luck with every smile. Shameen is a lucky Katta!”

Shudah shrugged, suddenly irritated. He didn’t know who Shameen was and Shema painfully reminded him of the wife he lost far too long ago. “Come now! I’m not getting any younger standing here! Let’s get on with it, I have to deliver these scrolls to the palace this morning!”

Baqa glanced uneasily at the satchel. “Dangerous?”

“Yes, but don’t worry, they won’t do anything by themselves! Now let’s go, I haven’t eaten yet today!”

? ?

Shema dropped the bags on the kitchen’s largest table, panting. She had gotten too distracted talking to everyone and now the inn was scheduled to start serving breakfast in ten minutes with all her purchases needing to be put away. She could probably get by this morning with what was still in the pantry and leave the bags for one of her employees to put away later.

The scroll crinkled in her pocket as she bustled about the kitchen, setting up cooking stations for her staff and mentally taking inventory of her existing stock for the next shopping trip. She withdrew the little piece of parchment and unrolled it. A small piece of paper was rolled up with the scroll, she picked it up and silently read the scroll.

_To bring life forth. _

_Draw a circle of power and circumscribe a five-pointed star, with the first point towards the East. Light a candle on each of the five points while consecrating yourself to the spirits, asking for the grace of fertility. In each of the five sacred points, include one of the following sigils, starting from the East-heading point and moving clockwise. _

_Slaughter a goat and spray its blood onto the magical circle. While naked, kneel in the middle of the circle and hold the goat’s head against your womb, ensuring that it faces upwards, and recite the following words: _

_“I lie here humbly and I give myself to you, servants of Karynth, and I implore you to bring life forth through me.” _

_Pray in silence and meditate on how life must be given for it to be received. _

_So be it. _

Shocked, Shema quickly put the scroll down and reached for the paper that had come with it. This was not the right scroll and certainly not simple at all! It seemed like this was deeply dangerous. Sacrificing animals? And who was Karynth? There was no way she was doing this. But the ritual was meant to “bring life forth” and directly involved the womb, so perhaps this was the answer to her problem. Maybe Shudah had known even though her visits to the Mystics to inquire about her apparent inability to bear children ceased years ago. But the part about the goat and blood spraying everywhere was disturbing. She made a point to always purchase meat slaughtered on the same day, but she never had to witness how it was made.

The piece of paper that came with it was small and poor quality, designed to be purchased and used in bulk without much thought. She kept a stack at the front desk to write directions for foreign guests. The writing was obviously done in haste:

_Classification: Life Manipulation. The human mystics refer to this as ‘necromancy’. Tell them this and they’ll pay us a disposal price. Too dangerous. Remember Kerra and her family. _

“Too dangerous...”, Shema muttered. She was lost in the thoughts of the possibility. Bring life forth through me… having a baby? Maybe she could finally have a child of her own?

She shook her head. Time only flows in one direction and right now it was flowing against her; the guests would expect breakfast to be ready soon and her staff would be starting to arrive any moment. She took the scroll and the paper and slid them behind a sack of flour no one was likely to need today. Work awaited.

? ?

The many routines involved with running an inn kept her busy, but Shema kept thinking about the scroll and the possibility of finally becoming pregnant. The possibility of “bringing life forth”? Was this really a way to have a baby? She hadn’t remembered how much she desired this since she gave up looking for options. After trying for a very long time with Shameen and not having luck at all, she was convinced something was wrong with her. Even the Mystics couldn’t find the reason and after entertaining several requests from her, gently suggested she accept her fate, leaving her with no answers. She felt very alone in this… should she resort to magic? But the note had said it was too dangerous. Who was Kerra and what happened to her family? She couldn’t remember hearing anything about someone named Kerra, but there was no way of knowing how old the scroll actually was.

On any regular day, she would have just discarded that scroll as another piece of garbage from a seller trying to get into false promises. But Shudah had given away the scroll, albeit the wrong one, and Baqa had vouched for him, sort of.

For now, she had to focus on the day’s activities. There was a day ahead still full of work. She decided to keep the scroll and consider her options. It couldn’t hurt to hold on to it for a little while.

? ?

Shema stood on the balcony and serenely gazed at her city. The moon was bright tonight, affording her a clear view of the plaza. Aside from a few Katta hurrying home and a watchman it was nearly deserted. Shema enjoyed her evening ritual: simply standing on the balcony and reflecting upon the day as she listened to the city gently ease itself to slumber.

She looked to her right and peered through the entrance to the market at the road leading to the wharf. Empty at this time of night. During the day humans came down the road after being disgorged as secondary cargo from ships and barges carrying goods and food for the city.

The inn kept her much too busy to pay attention to news from “outside”, though she did hear snippets of conversation from her human guests. With her Inn located directly inside the Market her humans were mostly traders more concerned with goods and transport than whatever events were driving more of their kind to Shapier.

“And one particular adventurer...”, she thought, smiling, remembering how he made his pipe smoke briefly mimic one of her dances the last time she saw him. But she shook her head and shooed him out of the front of her mind for the moment.

Shameen would certainly regale her with more news and tales than she cared to hear if she asked him, so she didn’t. Still, it was difficult to not notice, and smell, the unkempt humans that streamed past the Market during the day. Many simply disappeared into the human-majority area of the city, others came hoping to work in the mines or on the farms, unaware there was little work available. These hopefuls tended to end up on the street, begging and stealing from Katta and humans equally.

She was just about to turn around and head to bed when she heard the upset, guttural tones of a human male from across the plaza. The man was walking from Side-Dock Street, but he was not alone; a member of the City Watch was staying closely behind him, evidently escorting the human somewhere.

The watch’s gait marked him as a Katta, but as the two of them walked closer to the fountain’s magical lights Shema realized the Katta was a female, which was a bit unusual. Curious, Shema continued to watch the pair walk across the plaza. The human was unkempt and his clothing was torn at the knees and the shoulders, making Shema suspect he had arrived from the northern lands with clothing not suited for the heat of Shapier’s day. Ripping off portions of clothing appeared to make sense to many humans, but she wondered how they dealt with the cold nights. Much better to wear little during the day and bundle up at night, as she did.

Shaking her head at the foolishness of humans, she started to turn back to the bedroom when someone coming out from Side-Dock Street behind the pair caught her eye. The ‘something’ looked to be human and was evidently trying not to be seen or heard. Her heart quickened, was it the human’s friend coming to assault the Katta and rescue the man? Shema gripped the railing of the balcony and drew in breath to shout a warning. But then a small figure appeared, clutching the would-be assailant’s hand.

“A child!” Shema was so shocked that she spoke louder than she meant to and covered her mouth, first looking to see if the group across the plaza had heard her, then when it appeared they had not, back over her shoulder to check if her husband had. His snoring was reassuring enough for that.

Alarm turned to sympathy. The man must be the child’s father and the sneaky figure, if it was a female, was probably the child’s mother or a partner found on the streets. The female and the child followed behind the man at a safe distance, ignored (certainly not unnoticed!) by the watch-Katta until the entire group had crossed the plaza on to Dock Street and out of Shema’s evening.

Shema frowned. Her city had been much… neater when she and Shameen bought the run-down warehouse that became ‘The Katta’s Tail Inn’ several years ago. The idea for the name was hers and it took some convincing before Shameen agreed to it. He had wanted ‘Merchant’s Rest’.

Just a week ago three humans had accosted her near the Docks, making rude comments and gestures before trying to pull the jewelry off her body. The men had not considered that the fishmongers would take offense to this and were held at knife-point by several angry, stinky Kattas until watchmen arrived to escort them to a jail. In gratitude Shema had purchased all their goods, necessitating a public banquet to avoid spoilage that had been very well-received by every attendee except Shameen, who complained about the cost.

“A banquet at the Katta’s Tail certainly sounds more interesting than one at Merchant’s Rest”, she smiled with amusement as her eyes swept the plaza, finding all to her satisfaction. Quiet and empty now, with just a hint of talking and laughter from wealthier Katta living up on the Hill.

As she turned to go to bed she felt the scroll in a side pocket of one of her garments. Giddy, she glanced backwards into the bedroom at the bed. Shameen was breathing slowly and heavily, deep into slumber. She already knew he could never find out about her plan. She quietly walked back into the bedroom, drawing the balcony curtains behind her, and undressed for bed. She was tired, but her mind continued to race. What would being pregnant feel like? Would Shameen still have desires after her body changed? How would her dancing be affected? If she couldn’t dance, how would the inn be affected?

Mercifully her body put her to sleep quickly, allowing her mind to rest.

? ?

As the days passed by and Shema came back to her routine, she couldn’t keep the scroll out of her head. The excitement of having something so powerful was energizing and frightening at the same time. Part of her cautioned against the risk of any possible problem, but another part of her was looking to experience and push on that excitement to see how far she could go. After all, Shudah said that she was perfectly capable of doing magic herself, right?

To bring life forth. She couldn’t stop thinking about that. She kept mumbling those words to herself. It sounded ambiguous, but the mentions of fertility and her womb made it clear that it could allow her to bear children.

This thought was the most exciting one of all. She had worked so long with the Mystics to figure out the source of her infertility, but they never found an explanation, leaving herself feeling broken. She couldn’t blame herself but she also could not blame anyone else. It seemed like family just wasn’t meant for her and her deep desire for her and Shameen to be surrounded by children mocked her every day. Now, this scroll came into her life, with recipe-like instructions to make it happen. The Mystics never asked her to try any magic… could have this been the answer all along? And Shudah had said she should be able to execute it.

What did she have to lose? If the spell didn’t work nothing would change. This seemed like a no-risk scenario. With that, Shema’s rationality convinced her of giving it a try. She felt relieved at having made a decision and happy not to have dismissed it initially.

She thought about eliciting help, but after a few moments decided that this would be something she could not share with others. It was possible that they would not approve and would decide to denounce her to the Mystics. She did not know the repercussions forusing the scroll, but suspected they would not be pleasant. And she would have to explain to her husband why she had kept it a secret. Doing magic seemed okay for Kattas, or so she had been told, but she didn’t know how her close social circle would react. After all, it wasn’t common at all to hear about Kattas doing magic. Shameen was the one she could trust the most, but he would never approve of such a thing. She could clearly hear his voice in her head. “Nonsense”, he’d say. “Kattas don’t do magic.”, he’d add, without even entertaining the possibility of an alternative explanation. If it didn’t work, she knew it’d be worse. “I told you”, he’d keep repeating. Eventually, a long time after, he’d keep bringing back the subject, saying she should “stop paying attention to these silly things”... maybe it was best Shameen didn’t know about this either. No, the safest thing to do was to tell no one else.

If Shameen was to be kept in the dark too, getting all the ingredients -- at least, it sounded like a bunch of ingredients -- would be a difficult effort. She recounted what she would need to make the spell happen.

The scroll. No problem. She would have it close to guide her.

The goat and its blood. That was just plain cruel. If the spell required a goat’s head and blood she could get them separately. It was going to be easier and the result should be the same. She could buy a few vials of blood and say it was for pudding. Goat milk and meat was a regular item at the inn and she knew the butchers kept the heads to sell the brains, an item she never felt particularly eager to prepare meals with. She could purchase a goat’s head without much trouble; it would be unconventional for her, but she could say it was for an experimental dish.

Then, for the symbols and steps, there was no way she would get enough privacy at the inn to do it. Perhaps it would be a good idea to rent an apartment under the guise of using it as temporary storage for a shipment or one of Shameen’s crazy deals. This would not raise any suspicions as it wasn’t the first time they had done this. It wasn’t also entirely false, she would be expecting a shipment after all, so she wouldn’t feel bad about saying it. Renting an apartment to barely use it with a spell felt like doing a favor to the owner. She was helping Shapier’s economy!

Shameen could not know. It was best for her to wait until he would go into one of his multi-day business trips and set everything up there.

And so, she had a plan in mind, and just needed the right time to execute it.

? ?

The next few days passed quickly. Shema rented a small apartment from the plaza’s haberdasher for “when the shipment is ready”, paying in advance for the use of the place. To make it less suspicious she paid for two days, with the option of additional days, which would be a good fallback plan if she couldn’t clean up in time. She first set out to buy the vials of blood and the goat’s head. She received a few inquisitive looks, but her usual charming extroverted friendliness was enough to whisk any suspicions away after she explained that the goat’s head was for “a crazy dish Shameen told me about”. She bought a knife and some wooden blocks so she could carve the symbols without damaging the apartment’s plank floor. She planned to construct the magical circle and the five-pointed star with yarn so that when she was done she would just have to clean up some blood and carry the goat’s head out with her. Placed into a sack, the head could be disposed of at the inn with the sheepish explanation of having ruined the dish. This wasn’t going to be difficult.

Two days passed after she rented the apartment before the opportunity appeared. Shameen announced that in the afternoon he would be leaving to a town nearby and would be out for a day and a night. It was the perfect occasion since she only needed one evening to perform the ritual. After helping him prepare in the morning and bidding him a safe journey, she set her plan in motion.

After gathering the ingredients, she walked to the apartment to store them for the rest of the day. She took small street ways on her way there to avoid drawing unwanted attention. She passed a few merchants and a few strangers, and had to work around a homeless human woman that was sleeping on the ground in the small alley adjacent to the apartment. It was not common to see poor humans in the parts of the city Shema frequented and outright homeless ones were a nuisance, however rare. This woman’s presence was rather inconvenient, being so close to the entrance, but not particularly a risk. Shema stopped for a moment and gazed at her, curious. The woman was curled into a ball, sleeping, making her face impossible to see and she wore only a shoulder-less doublet that hung over her body like an old net. Young, perhaps, but it was hard to tell what with her wheezing as she slept. Hopefully, she would be gone by the time Shema needed to come back and execute the ritual. On second thought, she asked herself why other humans would not help each other when in need. Kattas wouldn’t leave a friend out on the street and a homeless Katta was a sign of a dysfunctional neighborhood. But then again, humans were different in many aspects.

Back to her own business. There was still a lot of the day left, so she left the ingredients at the apartment and prepared mentally to return to her daily activities. No one would bother the apartment and she had the only key so there weren’t any concerns of being discovered. Even if someone peeked in a window she could always say that the items were for her kitchen. Even so, she made sure to have all windows covered before closing and locking the door behind her, warily glancing at the homeless human as she hurried back home. After arriving at the inn she proceeded with her day as usual, the many daily concerns and challenges of running an inn keeping her mind focused on work.

Finally, after the day had settled and all tasks had been taken care of, Shema wasn’t any bit tired. On the contrary: she felt excited, nervous, and exhilarated. She was going through with the ritual, she was finally going to bear children, the thought of which was absolutely thrilling. At the same time, something inside her kept telling her she should not do it. It felt wrong, but that made it even more tempting. Even if she messed up the only damage would be to her purse.

She waited until night had fallen and headed to the apartment, excitement making it difficult not to break into a run. She had trouble fitting the key into the lock, but she knew her own nervousness was getting in the way. Curiously, the homeless human was still there, seeming still to be sleeping. Had she woken up since Shema had been at the apartment?

Shema sighed. “I’ve got this.”, she whispered to herself and opened the door. Entering the room, she lit a few candles to see the place better. The moon was again bright, but keeping the curtains closed to curious glances was a higher priority. She would light the candles for the ritual anyway.

She went through the scroll’s instructions one more time. For the magical circle, she took a ball of yarn, and unthreading it, traced a circle and the star inside it. Her natural talent with crafts came in handy, as while it wasn’t perfect, it was certainly accurate in shape. The spirits should not care, after all, how she was doing the ritual as long as she got the same result, she thought. She used the knife to carve the sigils on the wooden blocks and placed them next to the candles, which she arranged around the circle as the scroll instructed.

It was difficult to keep the scroll open and follow the instructions since it would keep rolling back up again. She took a few scrolls and books from the apartment shelves and used them to keep it open. She kept the other scrolls nearby so she could put everything back in the exact same place where it was before. She would make sure to leave no trace of her work after trying this.

With the objects arranged, she knelt down in the circle and stripped off her clothes. She was supposed to read some incantations and throw blood on the floor, then hold the goat‘s head against her stomach. This sounded crazy. Did any of this make sense? There was even a note in the scroll about “consecrating yourself to the spirits”. Maybe she should not even do this, just get back to her daily life and accept the loneliness.

After all, the reason she decided to go through with it is for the slim chance that it would work, allowing her to truly bear children of her own. It would be such a nice sensation, to finally carry a child, see them grow... a daydream she had visited many times in the past. It would have her ears and her father’s eyes. It would learn to talk at a young age and say things she’d reprimand them for, and then ask Shameen to watch his language. Shameen would probably reply that those words came from her and she’d have to accept that she was usually more explicit than him. They would laugh it off and agree to be more careful with the little Katta’s education.

Again. She was dreaming about it again. Just another session of getting lost in the fantasy of what could have been, or could be, but only if she was able to get pregnant. She felt guilty at that thought: “Only if she could.” It wasn’t her fault, was it? There was nothing wrong with her. Yet, if there wasn’t, why couldn’t she have children? What was missing so she could finally be a mother? What did she need to do? She had tried everything, she had even consulted the mystics, and no one had given her more than mere speculations, stories, and superstitions.

Here she was, with yet another superstition. Just in case it might work.

She started sobbing silently, then remembered that she was alone and could afford to cry as loud as she wanted. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she held her head in her hands.

Was she not worthy of having her own children? She had desired to have a big family of her own for a long time and Shameen was the loving husband she always desired to be the start for it. Yet, they couldn’t make that dream come true. Was she broken? Was she cursed? Was it something she had done somehow?

She sniffled and sobbed loudly, nothing could cover that emptiness in her heart. She knew she wouldn’t be forever, that her days at the inn were meaningless without an heir to take on the business one day. As a tradition. As a family activity. Not merely a business, but a loving vocation she wanted to teach and pass on. But there was no one to pass it on to.

She looked at herself, naked, sitting, and crying in a “magical circle”, whatever it was meant to be. Another superstition. Another lie. Or maybe not. She couldn’t be sure until she triedit. What if there was some truth behind it? Would she choose to ignore it? She felt trapped and ridiculous. Mostly trapped, between a fate she didn’t choose and options that never helped.

As her sniffling became quieter she heard some background noises. It was a wailing, maybe an animal. Maybe a child. She could hear a baby crying, farther away. She felt the urgent need to go wherever it was, comfort them, to be there. The crying stopped, no doubt receiving the love and care she needed to give. She could be the mother they needed, but she wasn’t. And there was no baby for her, no child she could call her own to spoil and love.

Shema broke down in tears again, heavily crying to herself in that empty room. She wanted to have a family too. She’d try everything and anything to get her closer to that. It was worth any pain, any struggle, or any ridiculous magic.

Now she was determined to go on with the ritual. It was worth it and she was decided. She spoke with a trembling voice, reading carefully from the scroll:

“I consecrate myself to the spirits, asking for the grace of fertility.”

She placed the sigils with the candles on each of the points of the star, and took the vials of blood, having them drip on the floor around her. She took the goat’s head, which didn’t feel or smell so fresh after staying in the apartment during the afternoon, and held it against her lower belly.

The goat’s eyes were brown and dull, but she could swear the eyes of the goat were glowing yellow. Maybe it was the reflection from the candlelight, but it felt like it was looking at her, mockingly. She felt ridiculous again and refocused herself to the task at hand.

She continued the incantation in a firm voice: “I lie here humbly and I give myself to you, servants of Karynth, and I implore you to bring life forth through me.”

She felt a cold breeze envelop her, then a freezing drop in temperature. The candles went out and the goat’s eyes were shining a bright, sickly yellow. Terror gripped her and some instinct told her this was going terribly wrong. Panic welled up inside of her.

*“Stop! I changed my mind, this isn’t-” *

Her vision went completely white just as a sharp ringing in her ears smothered any other sound. She couldn’t hear if she was screaming and then realized she was no longer breathing. With realization came escape. Everything went black.

The Katta slid sideways onto the apartment floor, unconscious, naked, and alone, still clutching the goat’s decapitated head. Its eyes continued to glow for a few moments after her collapse, then returned to the dull, sad brown they were in life.

? ?

Shema woke up on the floor of the room. Naked. Spattered with blood. Cold. Uncomfortable. She slowly sat up and looked around her. After her eyes adjusted to the dark, the faint glow of the moon outside between the curtains was enough for her to see her surroundings. She was lying next to the goat’s head, which smelled no better than it had. There was the blood on the ground that she had spilled, the scrolls and books, the yarn in the shape of a magical circle. Maybe not a circle anymore, it was broken on a side close to her feet. She likely moved it when she fainted.

Why did she faint? She remembered the cold and a headache. And the dead goat’s eyes’ shining. She looked again, but there was no glare in them this time. Could it have been the ritual? Maybe it was just an idea in her head, after all, that shining could have been anything. Maybe this whole thing was just a stupid idea.

She checked herself and felt mostly okay. She did not appear to be hurt and the only pain was in her left leg, but she had fainted on top of it. Maybe she felt lighter? Relieved, maybe, to have tried a new solution to her problem? She wasn’t sure. She felt different somehow, but she couldn’t quite put a finger on it. Maybe the ritual had done something. Or maybe it was the feeling of having actually gone through with it? Any embarrassment and dangers had passed, maybe that was it. Or maybe it had been too much emotion for a single day and she just needed a good nights’ sleep. Anyway, if it had succeeded she wouldn’t know for some time and if it had been a waste of time nothing would happen.

She needed to be careful and not get her hopes up -- this had clearly been a mistake and she needed to get rid of the evidence before it came back to haunt her. It was better to put this behind her now.

She looked around at the mess she had created and sighed. She had certainly succeeded in creating more work for herself. A rotting goat’s head, sticky blood, yarn, and knife markings. It would take much of the night to clean it up completely.

She threw her clothes to the far corner of the room, stuffed the head into its sack, and started cleaning. The faster she could go back to the inn and get back to her daily life, the better.

? ?

Shema woke up, the floor was cold and sandy. Strange, as she remembered the floor being wood. Opening her eyes she realized she was outside on the street and the sun was starting to rise. How had she arrived there? She recognized the place, it was right outside the apartment where she was storing the elements for the ritual. She remembered executing the ritual, and fainting… and then nothing else.

Feeling cold and stiff, she stood up, but something didn’t feel right. She began to check herself and almost screamed. She had no fur. At all.

She had clothes covering her, despite having been naked, but no fur on her skin. Her fingers were long, bony, and without claws. Her skin was dark with undeveloped hairs. Her arms, her chest, her stomach, her legs… her feet! They weren’t Katta feet!

She was in a human body.

She thought about screaming for help, asking how this could happen -- maybe related to the ritual? But she couldn’t. She knew how this sounded, people would believe she was out of her mind. Maybe if she could reach out to someone who would trust her, no matter how she looked. Shameen. He would recognize her even as a human, right?

But Shameen would not be back for another day. Still, staying at the inn seemed like a good idea. It was her home after all. She could always say she was a friend of Shema and they’d believe her. After all, she knew everything that... she knew, so she could make that excuse believable.

She tried to enter the apartment, but the door was locked. The curtains were still drawn, but the windows weren’t barred, not in this part of the city. She awkwardly grabbed the edge of the window and pulled herself inside. She succeeded, but the exertion took her breath away and left her wheezing on the floor. Struggling to catch her breath she looked around... but nothing was amiss. There was no goat’s head, no circle, no blood, no mess, and... no Katta. Was her body... gone?

Fear unexpectedly brought nausea and she swallowed, only then realizing how terribly thirsty she was. The clothes she had worn to the apartment were also gone, so... what had happened? It did not seem that answers were going to be found in the apartment.

Leaving via the window proved more difficult than entering. Her body was weak. Her arms and legs hurt and every breath sounded wheezy, as if she hadn’t done any exercise in along time. Walking like a human felt so strange, it was more difficult to maintain balance and her limbs felt too long.

As she walked she noticed no one was paying attention to her, not even as she was trying to move around. She was stressed and she was sure it showed on her face, but she was ignored by humans and Katta alike. It felt like being one of those humans that made other humans uncomfortable...

...that was it! She remembered! The woman outside the apartment. She was the one with the tanned skin, the loose clothing, sleeping next to the entrance. How was she inside her? How could she inhabit her body? Was the human now inhabiting Shema’s body?

This made no sense. She remembered entering the apartment as a Katta and executing the ritual, but then fainting and waking up as a human. She arrived at her inn while she was working through her memories, trying to understand what went wrong; how she had been turned into a human. She looked up at her bedroom balcony before she stepped inside. She sighed. Life had been simple mere hours ago. How was she going to explain this to Shameen? Or maybe this body was able to become pregnant? Did the ritual succeed? Marriage occurred rarely, but could Katta and humans even _have_children together?

She felt panic starting to form somewhere in her chest and she gasped for air. She knew she was going to get a lot of questions. It was early in the morning, her staff would not be at the inn yet and the guests probably wouldn’t be awake. The guests weren’t the worrisome part, they would just assume she was a new worker. The staff, however…

It was going to be a day. She braced herself and stepped inside. The first thing to do would be to rush upstairs and get some real clothes. She felt almost naked dressed as she was.

The bell hanging over the door tinkled as she walked in. She heard a voice coming from the back of the inn. She froze in terror as she recognized it.

“I’ll be right there!”, someone with Shema’s unmistakably Katta voice cheerfully called out.

But she was Shema. Human now, but still Shema. There could not be another Shema, could there? Furthermore, this Katta sounded so cheerful, so friendly, like she would always be sure to sound to customers. Was it really her? Was she it? Was her she? Her thoughts became chaotic and nonsensical as her anxiety and nausea spiked. Once again she tried to replay the ritual in her head to figure out what had happened after. This situation kept getting worse and worse. She interrupted herself as the other Shema -- Katta-Shema -- came out from the door that connected the kitchen and the main lobby.

There she was: her body, toned from dancing, her confident voice, her usual stance, her usual friendliness. Shema was in front of her while she had been set apart from her own body. This was besides anything else that she could have planned for. She wasn’t even sure what it really meant. Who was she and who was that? Had Katta-Shema been aware of anything at all? Was she herself an impostor? Was that an imposter? Was she also her? Was the human actually the Katta? None of this made sense!

Suddenly her time for thinking was up and she still had no answers, for Katta-Shema smiled and gave her a small bow.

“Hello! Welcome to the Katta’s Tail Inn. How may I help you this morning?”, a Katta named Shema greeted.