Page 14 of Unbound By Shadows
Cryptologist Society Meeting Thursday
Conway High School Unveils Wampus Cat Indoor Facility
Beast of Exmoor Terrorizes Countryside
Appalachian Legends and Ozark Monsters
Selene heard a pat-pat-pat sound coming from behind her and turned to see the orange cat that always accompanied Queen Thema trot into the room. He mewed up at Selene then rubbed his cheek against her shoe. As she bent to stroke him, she heard the queen’s voice.
“Nim? Where have you gone off to?” Her footsteps echoed closer as she entered the gallery. “Selene! What a lovely surprise. Are you enjoying my portrait collection?”
“Yes, they’re beautiful. Who are they? And what are these?” Selene asked, gesturing to the documents hanging before her.
“Ah, it’s no surprise that you’re drawn to them. Look closer,” Queen Thema answered. She waved her hand. Suddenly, each of the documents glowed.
Selene jerked with surprise at the queen’s hidden skill, then leaned closer.
“They’re from your world.” Queen Thema said. She looked as if she were waiting for Selene to solve a riddle. “I collect them, or my sisters bring them to me. Do you see a theme?”
Selene read a document’s headline aloud, “Monstrous Wampus Cat Spotted in East Tennessee. Hey, that’s… ” A rush of homesickness made her pause. She turned to Queen Thema to finish her thought, but all that came out was a shocked, “Oh!”
For one moment, Queen Thema had looked normal, just as Selene had known her. But in the next second, like the flicker in a movie projection, her face had contorted. It shifted and morphed—her nose elongated, fur sprouted from her smooth face, her pointed ears migrated to the top of her head, and her eyes glowed.
Selene gasped as the queen’s face shifted back to how it was before. Then Thema began to chuckle, the front fangs of her teeth glinting. “Don’t worry. I won’t bite.”
“How did you do that?”
The queen shrugged. “Perk of demi-goddesshood.”
Selene swallowed thickly. “Areyouthe Wampus Cat?”
The queen sighed dramatically. “Your people have many foolish names and myths for The Seven Sisters. In your region, some call me the Wampus Cat. I’ve also been called the Black Beast of Exmoor, the Cactus Cat, the White Death… the list goes on.”
“That was you they spotted in Rugby. With the injured paw,” Selene breathed. Just when she thought the past two days couldn’t get any weirder, here was a whole new layer. “My brother sent me an article about it.”
“My injury made the newspaper?” Queen Thema asked excitedly. “I must try to find it on my next patrol.”
“So, the other portraits in the gallery are—”
“The Seven Sisters of Aurelia!” Queen Thema boomed. “Despite our best efforts to look like something of your world when we visit, we don’t quite fit. It confuses your kind, and so theymake up tales.”
“Why do you look so different from each other?”
Thema bent to pick up Nim and nuzzled her face against his furry neck. “We each transform into something closer to our sacred animal… and our true nature. My story is complimentary compared to some legends about us.”
“What are they?”
“I don’t know them all, but they liken us to terrible things. Devils, monsters, dogs… ” Queen Thema turned to walk through the gallery, motioning for Selene to follow.
She stopped at the portrait of the snarling winged woman. “They compare my sister Aello to a moth—amalemoth—when she clearly has the wings of a Harpy.” She waved toward the fish-tailed woman. “They blame Cebna, who you met last night, for poor fishing and shipwrecks. And Yerena!" She pointed to the furry, bear woman. "Her people value privacy above anything else, but humans are obsessed with her movements.”
“How so?”
“She has a large province with many different portals. But your kind attributes every rustle in the forest to evidence of her presence. And now she has a terrible insecurity about the size of her feet.” Thema made an exasperated sound.
“Her feet,” Selene repeated slowly. “As in… they’re big?
“Mmm. She has to be very careful on her patrols.”
