The Princess of the Castle Cats and the Missing Moat
Bo is a princess in charge of a castle full of soft, sleepy cats, but one morning the moat has simply gone. A gentle, unhurried tale of noticing small things and putting them right, with warm stone walls, whiskery company, and a moat that finds its way home.
Made on Nightstory, and shared. The child's name has been changed.
The Quiet Morning and the Empty Ditch
In the tower room at the top of the castle, Bo woke up slowly. The sun was already warm on her quilt, and her red boots stood waiting by the bed, with her little triceratops tucked inside one of them. But something was wrong. The castle was too quiet. No water lapped at the walls. No ducks called out. No frogs. Bo sat up. Every cat in the castle was pressed to the tall window — ginger cats and grey cats, black-and-white cats and tabby cats, and one fluffy white cat in front, her tail curled like a question mark. Bo climbed out of bed and went to look. Below the drawbridge, where the moat had been, there was only a soft muddy bed. A few silver fish lay in the last shallow puddle, flipping their tails. "Oh," said Bo. "Where did our water go?" The fluffy white cat looked up at her and blinked.
A Trail of Pawprints and a Trickle of Water
Bo pulled on her red boots, and the little triceratops came too, riding in her apron pocket. The cats flowed down the stairs ahead of her, a soft river of fur, and out through the arched door into the walled garden. The grass was wet with dew, and there, pressed into the dark earth, was a line of pawprints, small and round, going one by one between the lavender bushes. Beside them ran a thin thread of water, no wider than a ribbon, slipping quietly over the stones. The fluffy white cat walked in front, her tail held high. She stopped, and looked back, and waited. Bo followed the pawprints past the rosemary and the climbing roses, and the other cats padded behind her, whiskers forward, paws soft on the path. The trickle turned along the castle wall, where the moss grew green and cool. "You know where it goes," Bo whispered. The white cat blinked, and walked on.
The Willow Branch and the Leaves
At the edge of the garden, where the wall grew low and mossy, the stream came down from the green hill. But it could not reach the moat today. A willow branch had fallen across it, and behind the branch, leaves had drifted into a soft brown dam. The water pooled there, patient and quiet, waiting to be let through. Bo put her triceratops on a flat stone. Then she took hold of the willow branch with both hands and pulled. The ginger cats pulled too, paws braced. The grey cats pulled. The black-and-white cats pulled. The tabby cats pulled. The branch shifted, and shifted, and slid free. "Now the leaves," said Bo. The cats brushed them away with their tails, swish, swish, until the very last leaf let go. And the water, which had waited so politely, began to slip through.
The Moat Comes Home
The water hurried down the little channel and slipped over the edge into the ditch. It spread out left and right, thin as a spilled ribbon, then wider, then wider, until the moat lay full and shining around the castle walls. The silver fish rode in on the gentle rush, flicking their tails, and the ducks paddled back one by one, and a frog plopped onto a lily pad and folded his hands. The cats walked along the wall and sat in a row to watch, tails hanging over the stones, and the fluffy white cat sat in the middle with her paws tucked in. The sky turned the soft purple of a plum. Bo's eyes grew heavy, and someone warm and gentle carried her up the tower stairs, and her red boots came off one, then the other, and her triceratops was tucked in beside her. Below the window the moat went lap, lap, lap. The cats curled into warm circles on the steps. Bo yawned once, and closed her eyes, and the castle settled quietly around her like a blanket.
The end.