From "Fetch Felix," in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1991, pp. 146-147:

I was angry with my friend.
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe.
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience.

. . .

        I want my fylgja, I want my Fetch, I thought. My representative. My agent.
        The papers slithered together in one movement onto the floor and began to quarrel like dry leaves whipped by a tiny whirlwind. Quarrel quarrel quarrel, a little funnel of words on white.
        I watched the shape as it began to take form on my cotton throw rug: long, heavy, golden; the bright and dark body stretching to its full length on the floor; its coat gaining in brilliance and heaviness; the ringed tail twitching gracefully; the enormous paws flexing, razors springing out and retracting without sound.
        It moved its tremendous, indifferent head in my direction--two points of amber glowed out of its Halloween mask. It yawned, the eyes disappearing into slits as it unclosed its shiny coral maw. Yellow incisors an inch and a half long. A feral stink filled the room, sharp and perilous. This was no hallucination.
        With a whine that was part rumble, part purr, it got to its feet in a fluid motion of black stripes and crouched. My bed buckled violently with its weight, the wood frame creaking in protest. I backed up against the wall and stared into is slanted eyes and the vivid Rorschach face of my fylgja. Great or lesser, wild or domestic, all cats have the same mannerisms: it stretched its massive neck and sniffed curiously at my hair, its black nostrils expanding and contracting audibly. I could feel the tickle of whiskers on my cheeks and smell its carnivorous breath; goose bumps broke out all over me. As if satisfied, it gave another deep whine and dropped down heavily, its huge hooks kneading my blanket in content. Its head towered over me.
        There I was, a mortal woman, in bed, cheek to jowl with Panthera tigris. No playmate for the ailurophobe.
        "Fetch Felix," I whispered, and it looked at me. I stretched out my mental hand; I dared not stroke it with my corporeal one.
        "Go catch mice," I whispered.
        It gave me a knowing, almost cynical glance. Then it rose, turned ponderously, and leapt off my bed, which sprang up, relieved of its burden. The last I saw of it was the sensuous feline saunter of its black and golden haunches, tail down, as it disappeared around my bedroom door and into the dark hallway.
        Immediately I sank back against my pillow in a half-faint. All anger and energy had been drained from me, leaving in their place a curious peace. I hated no one; all I wanted was to sleep.
        I did. Well into Sunday morning.

Sally Caves

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