Chapter 3
“Meow.”
Charles opened his eyes. He was relieved to see that the cat didn’t mind having her secret exposed to an extent where she didn’t come back. He could sense from her last night that she did feel indeed upset about the collar and being unmasked – or at least that’s what he read in the weird feeling his telepathy got from her. But apparently she still wanted to visit him – or breakfast – or both. So, as every day of the past weeks, he got up and waddled into the kitchen to open the door.
Wanda strut past him and let out a long meow – a demand for breakfast – the wine red collar around her neck the only thing that was different from any other morning. Charles couldn’t help but giggle at that “Now, young lady, what kind of behavior is that huh?” He shook his head as he bent down to pick up the bowl. Seeing the cat up close like that made him freeze in his movement. Instead of grabbing the bowl he reached out to take a closer look at the locket.
It looked… changed. Nonsense, it had to be a different one than last night. But … why? How many fancy metal lockets does one Lehnsherr person have for their cat? But he could tell it was a different one from the way he could now look through in between two metallic strands to see that there was still a note inside. A new one? For inexplicable reasons, Charles’ heart skipped a beat and he quickly unscrewed the locket to get out the little paper.
To his disappointment he came to the realization that it was – in fact – the same note. What had he expected after all? He shook his head at himself and was about to put it back into the locket when his eyes fell to the bottom of the paper, right underneath his own response. There was new text. The same tidy, strong lettering as the last time. “What for?” It said, with a little arrow pointing at Charles’ written “thanks”.
“Yea, exactly …” Charles mumbled and got a pen from the drawer next to him. “For letting me meet this wonderful young lady,” he wrote and put the note back before preparing breakfast – first for Wanda, then for himself.
He was rather busy that day, sorting papers, preparing his planner, getting ready for the new term to start in a few days, and forgetting all about his plan to call the number he had added to his contacts last night. Some time around noon Wanda appeared to grow tired of sitting on the window shelf in Charles' office and made her way back outside.
The professor didn’t think much of it. He was certain she would return in time for dinner; she always did and truth be told once he was working again the amount of quality time spent together would decrease drastically anyway – so they better got used to it.
Charles was proved to be correct when right as he took his pizza out of the oven a familiar little mewl was to be heard behind him.
“Good evening, dear!” He gave Wanda a wink and placed his pizza on the table. “Meoo-oow” was the reply. She was hungry. “So you can leave me to work by myself all day but still demand dinner, is that so?”
Nacho simply looked at him, tilted her head slightly and jumped right onto the kitchen table – curiously sniffing at the pizza in front of her.
“Nononono”, Charles caught the little punk in his hands and lifted her from the table – his cardigan wouldn’t be the first piece of clothing of his entirely covered in cat fur. “No, sweetie, if you want dinner you’ll have to behave yourself, do you understand?”
The Professor was sure that the look she gave him was the cat equivalent of a smirk – the little creature knew too well that he would feed her anyway.
He sighed and let his eyes wander. For some reason they kept lingering on the little locket; something told him to take out the note inside one more time.
“Alright darling, you will get dinner in just a second. Let me just…” he had gotten an expert at unscrewing the little container throughout the past 24 hours and in just a second he held the piece of paper in his hand once more.
He placed it next to the pizza and got up to fill Wanda’s bowl. Once she was munching her dinner – a steady purr constantly filling the kitchen – Charles sat back down to have his own dinner, carefully unfolding the paper with one hand while holding a slice of pizza in the other.
Once again – he didn’t know what he had expected – but when he found that another note had been added underneath his own message his face lit up only as long as it took him to read the words. “That was her doing, not mine.” Oh well okay then, Mister – or Miss? Or Mx? – it was Mister, for sure, wasn’t it? – Lehnsherr, he was just trying to be polite here.
Once again, he got out his pen. He prepared to write something equally snappy – this was meant in a snappy way, right? It was the only option – when suddenly what Raven and Moira had said last night crossed his mind. Maybe he was being a little over sensitive here. After all – this person had no idea who he even was, what would Charles himself have written if he was in their place? The professor found himself realizing that he was just exhausted and hungry from his busy day and that he shouldn’t make this interaction more tense than it had to be.
So he settled for something less provocative.
His eyes wandered across the paper. Whatever he wanted to say, he better kept it short: there was only so much space on the small square and most of it was already taken up by the phone number, the last name, and their previous messages. “It’s getting a little cramped on here.” He simply commented. Why did he even write that? It was in no relation to anything that had previously been written, this was pointless, he could just as well just not write anything at all… their conversation was over. There was so little space on the paper and he wasted it for an absolutely unnecessary statement.
He was shaking his head at his own lack of originality as he folded the paper one more time – it was getting more and more worn out by the repeated folding and unfolding and the grease from his pizza wasn’t helping it – but what did it matter? Why did he keep worrying about all this anyway? Why did the Lehnsherr person want him to contact them in the first place? This was pointless.
Still – he replaced the note and couldn’t help but wonder what his four legged little mail carrier would have in store for him in the morning. He hated to admit it but the little messaging game started to grow on him. It was entirely contradictory to what he had thought at dinner, he was well aware of that, but for some reason when he was in bed and ready to sleep that night he couldn’t help but feel a tiny rush of excitement in his veins – how outstandingly odd.