‘The Lady M’ by Cat Girczyc

The first time that I can remember noticing men was in Old Québec. I was stealing eggs from that wonderful innovation, the chicken coop, and I met a man in a brown robe who felt he owned not just the chickens but all of the eggs as well. I’d since become civilized, or perhaps that was my protector Jack’s influence. Jack was a good sugar daddy to me, but now I wanted kits. 

Am I long-lived? Yes, but I do hibernate — for decades. When I’m human, the mirror shows me a tall, elegant woman with black hair and a broad white streak. I looked about thirty years old when I met Anton Bogdanovich Petrov in the antiquated Sylvia Hotel bar next to English Bay and my favourite hunting ground, Stanley Park. 

He was as handsome a human as they come. A long, lean, muscular man with bright blue eyes and curly blond hair. He claimed to be related to Russian princes of the century before. Even I knew there had been no Russian princes alive to procreate at the time of his birth in the late twentieth century. So initially, I kept my distance.

“C’mon and have a drink with me, my mysterious beauty,” he’d tease me in his accented English, night after night. I saw him regularly that summer. He sat by the window, next to my favourite table by the mirror that reflected English Bay. It had been a long time since I’d had a new friend, and I was wary of friends. He had a lot of friends, many of whom didn’t look like friendly people.