There was once a Lioness who had lived so long among people who preferred tame creatures that she had learned to keep her mane brushed smooth.
She was still a Lioness, of course.
But she had become very good at looking as though she might not be.
Beneath her house was a basement, and beneath that basement was another place no architect had put on the plans. There, among the discarded masks, unfinished arguments, old rules, and several maps of places that had never existed, lived a small, dark anole named Mordecai.
Mordecai had an unusual gift.
He could become whatever color the room required.
This had once saved his life.
Eventually, however, he became so accomplished at matching his surroundings that he could no longer remember his own color.
The Lioness knew nothing of him until the day she began clearing out the house.
She carried boxes downstairs marked GOOD, RESPONSIBLE, AGREEABLE, PROFESSIONAL, and NORMAL.
Normal was particularly heavy.
On her sixth trip down the stairs, she found Mordecai sitting on the bottom step. A small spiral pendant hung from a thin chain around his neck.
“What are you?” she asked.
“Depends on the room.”
For some reason, this made her terribly sad.
The Lioness sat down.
She put down her hairbrush.
She offered her paw, and Mordecai leapt onto it.
So, they began climbing, past a small carved spiral on the wall halfway up.
At each floor, the Lioness discarded something she had mistaken for herself.
On the first landing, she set down the umbrella she always carried.
Mordecai watched it go. He nearly said, “Are you sure?”
Then she dropped a list of things to do tomorrow.
Then a list of items to check.
Mordecai changed too.
His little claws became paws.
His spotted skin grew fur.
His long tail dropped behind him on the stairs.
Mordecai looked back at it once.
Then kept climbing.
At some point he became too much to carry and began to walk beside her.
By the time they reached the front room, the Lioness had stopped smoothing her mane. As they passed the hall mirror, she saw herself wearing the strange silver jewelry she loved, a long-embroidered coat, and a magnificent pair of leather boots she had once decided were too much.
Mordecai looked at the boots.
“Finally,” he said.
Then they opened the front door.
Sunlight struck them both.
Beside the Lioness stood an enormous wild cat, tuft-eared and golden-eyed, wearing the same small spiral around his neck that the little anole had worn below.
The Lioness stared.
“Mordecai?”
“Depends on the room.”
And together they walked outside.
Behind them, on the doorstep, lay an old map.
Neither bothered to pick it up.
“You were never too much.
You were just too often in the wrong room.” – Onyx Iskra
