I'm sorry I seem unable to post a chapter on a regular time table but some many things are claiming my time. I do appreciate that you have stayed involved in the story. In this chapter Sam takes Atalanta to spend Christmas on the Reservation with the Donners. It is a quiet chapter but things always seems to happen when Atalanta is around. I do hope you enjoy this story.

Chapter 27
The Medawihla Indians didn’t really celebrate Christmas as such but did honor the activity of harvest changing over to one of rest, renewal, and reflection. The brightly colorful reds and greens of the plant I carried under one arm testified to a last ditch effort to bring the Donners an appropriate gift.

Mom had suggested it yesterday during our phone call, “Atalanta, are you looking forward to visiting the reservation tomorrow?”

“Yes, they’re nice people,” I responded non-committally.

“Atalanta what’s wrong?”

“Nothing …much,” I admitted, “but I’ve been thinking it might be nice to bring the Donners a gift of some kind. But I have no idea what to get on such short notice.”

Mom almost immediately suggested poinsettias, and the immediate sense of relief I felt said it was the correct choice. Finding none on campus I enlisted Mrs. Carson’s help to travel to Dunwich to locate the holiday plant.

Mrs. Carson was hesitant to allow me outside, instead she sent someone into town for the plant I now carried. Overnight a cold front brought darkening skies, blustery winds, and colder temperatures necessitated that the semi-tropical plant was carried protected inside my long coat that whipped in the breeze.

“So tell me Atalanta,” Sam began, “how you got Mrs. Carson to run your errands,” she continued, nodding at the potted plant I was shielding.

“The same way,” I smirked pointing at my duffel she carried, “that you have my luggage.”

Our eyes crinkled with laughter as we trekked through the forest to the Medawihla reservation where I would stay with the Donnors during Christmas.

As we walked up the Donner driveway Sam turned to me suddenly serious, “Stay safe, keep out of trouble, and take this,” she said handing me a cell phone. “Keep this with you at all times and check in with me at least once a day.”

I turned the phone over in my hands, seemingly studying the device while I considered this new demand.

“If it makes you happy, sure I’ll call.”

“It will,” she assured me. “I’m responsible for you, and as you know your trip here from your home wasn’t uneventful.”

“You have a point,” I admitted placing the phone in a coat pocket as we walked onto the porch.

Ben Donnor opened the door inviting us inside. I took the poinsettia from under my coat and placed it on the center of the kitchen table.

“Have a seat,” he invited us to sit, “something for you to drink,” he asked Sam while turning to hand me a cup of coffee.

“Thanks.”

“Nothing for me,” Sam declared wryly pointing at her stomach, “been acting up lately.”

“You need more battery acid in your diet,” Ben grinned in return.

“You may be right,” Sam conceded. It had been years since Hive had designed her new more efficient energy and repair system that included items not in standard American diet. She sometimes missed the taste of food but it was a small matter overall.

I heard Eloise’s footsteps as she walked the hall into the kitchen, “Oh, how nice,” she said seeing the bright Christmas plant on her table.

“I didn’t know what else to get but I thought I should bring something to show my appreciation.”

“We are glad to have you.” On seeing my duffel she picked it up and motioned me to follow her, “I’ll show you to your room and you can hang up your clothes.” Wordlessly, I dutifully rose and followed her to a room near the back of the house, at the end of the long hallway.

“Sorry this is not more centrally located but as council elders we often have visitors that drop in and stay the night, or several nights. This way they won’t be disturbed and if they need fresh air its right outside,” she continued pointing at the outside door several feet from my room for the next few nights.

“Does it lock,” I wondered aloud.

“Yes but we hardly ever lock it; the kids use it to come and go but they each have a key if you want it locked.”

I nodded, “I don’t think so, I don’t even know why I asked,” and I turned to follow her into the room.

The king size bed faced the door, at it’s head a nightstand. On the opposite wall was a combination desk and dresser, and beside it a chest of drawers with a small closet at one end. The patterned curtains and the hooked rug by the bed were the room’s only personal touches.

“You can put your personal things in there,” she indicated the desk/dresser combo, “and you can hang up your clothes in there,” she pointed at the closet and added, “After you get done in here come on into the kitchen.”

Nodding I unzipped my duffel bag, “Thank you, I will.”

Eloise hesitated beside me as if she wanted to say something else before abruptly leaving the room. As my fingers lingered briefly on the sheer smooth fabric of my underclothes I was again struck by the differences in clothing between boys and girls. Knowing that difference is what drove home the point of the change that I had gone through. These feelings were becoming rare, but I suspected I would always have them. But that was all right as Alan had done nothing wrong and deserved to be remembered by someone. I smiled as I put away that ‘ratty old shirt’ as Mom called it. It was a flannel shirt that was a favorite of Daddy’s that I claimed after his death.

Closing the drawers, I unpacked my skirt, dress, jeans, chemise, two tank style tops, one white blouse, and a peasant tunic hanging them up for the wrinkles to fall out. As I removed my jars and containers of makeup and lotions from another compartment in the bag, I placed them on the dresser top. I could not help reflecting on the amount of clothing and accessories I brought for three days.

I smiled mischievously as my hand found the several jewelry items at the bottom of a side pocket in the duffel. I took off my hat and hung it from a mirror corner and my coat on a peg beside the door, retrieving the two cell phones from their coat pockets.

Sitting down in front of the mirror I began to brush out my hair and then pinned it up using the lethal instruments Manny had given me. From another compartment I produced a necklace and fastened it around my neck and matching bracelets on my forearms. With my hand on my throat I tested the latch and watched as the 2 inches of honed steel glided from its sheath.

Snapping it back into place, I held up my arms and marveled at the intricate spiral artwork designed into the bracelets. The left one held 18 inches of steel piano wire, while the right one contained a cutting edge on the ring tethered to that bracelet by a thin rope chain. As I replaced my boots with sneakers I wondered why I chose to wear the covert weapons. Shrugging, I took a last look in the mirror, grabbed the phone Sam had given me and turned to leave the room.

“You’re such a girl,” Sam teased me after seeing my wardrobe change.

Instantly striking the classic modeling pose I returned mocking, “Eat your heart out,” while sticking out my tongue at her.

“Now children behave,” Eloise scolded, her smile widening as she did. “You look nice dear.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed briefly as she viewed my jewelry accessories, “Nice pieces, Christmas gifts?”

“Manny got them for me last year,” I admitted.

“You have your cell phone?”

I nodded producing the phone Sam had given me.

“Good,” she replied and then explained to the Donners what she expected of me, “…and if I don’t hear from her, all of you will hear from me. Understand?”

Harsh, yes, but she had learned long ago life was even harsher,; especially if you left something to chance.

After a few more minutes of small talk Sam got up from the chair to leave and we followed her to the front door where she wished the Donnors a Merry Christmas, and to me an admonishment to call her. I impulsively hugged her feeling a slight return of pressure and a smile.

I promised that I would, and watched her stride purposefully down the sidewalk and soon out of sight. Turning, I found the husband and wife team seated in the kitchen watching me intently. Walking back across the room I sat down across from them and waited patiently.

Eloise spoke first, “For about two months I have had visitations from your owl, Harvard I believe you called him.” I nodded silently wondering what she wanted.

“Owls have a reputation among us of being a messenger both of good and ill; mostly of bad news. I don’t necessarily subscribe to that view but a lot of people do.”

I waited silently and patiently.

“A few years back we had the attack of the Voodoo Wolves, Nikki showed up at the beginning of that war. She was our warning, and a help in fighting them off. The owl showing up was to tell me you were coming. The question is, why? Do you have any thoughts on how or why you were transformed? Or what your role is here?”

Wood, water, fire, metal, earth; words from the Art of War flowed into my being. I shook my head while scanning my environment for a hint at what those five elements from Sun Tzu meant for me at this time. Wood was all around me in the house and the furniture, there was fire in the fireplace for warmth, water flowed in the pipes and metal was evident in utensils and appliances. I frowned briefly at earth, until I realized that meant biological; life, and there were three life forms in the room.

Again I scanned the room this time noting the elements displayed in varying amounts; amounts that varied in other circumstances. The five elements formed the whole contributing differing amounts according to need and function.

But how did this whole fit together?

I recalled chapter 11 of the Art of War: The Nine Situations and listed fifth was intersecting highways where two or more kingdoms came together. I knew Whateley leased their grounds from the Medawihla Indians, and I of course could be the third kingdom.

“You’re concerned about a repeat of the Voodoo Wolves?”

“The Bastard is more like it,” Ben replied frowning, “and we don’t want to repeat making hasty and ill informed decisions, like we did before, regarding some students at Whateley and enlisting their help in the Voodoo attack.”

“The Bastard?”

“Yes,” Eloise interjected, “he was directing those attacks.”

“And you think he might be behind the attacks on me?”

“We think it likely if you are here to help in our war with him,” Ben admitted.

I tugged at an earlobe, “Manny did say an awakened natural draws opportunities to us, so there is no doubt if he attacks I’ll be drawn in to it. While the train attackers and the motel guys were H1 and the MCO agents, the other two attempts were by mercenary types and could have been hired by anybody, including this Bastard guy. Or his understudy,” I added remembering the name; Red Bastard Properties that Manny provided me as the owner of the house in Boston.
“Humm,” Eloise responded to this new information, “It could be one of his minions or not connected at all. But at any rate we had help with the last one; from Nikki and a few of the other Whateley students that turned back that attack. Nikki will help us again if she’s here or learns of it in time but you’re liable to be drawn into it as well. We’d rather you not be blindsided if that happens.”

“What do you know about him?”

“We know he’s old,” Ben began, “and that he’s a servitor to possibly the GOOs, and that his strength or powers comes from when he infects someone. The more followers he has, the more powerful he is. He also feeds on fear.”

My hand moved from my earlobe to just over my breast: something didn’t add up. “Anything else beside he wants to destroy you and he creates corrupted weres?”

“We know he’s located somewhere in California or Nevada.”

“What about his other activities,” I prodded and added at their blank stares, “You said his power in part at least is strengthened by converts and followers, which suggests cults or illegal activities; prostitution, drugs, and slavery being likely ways to recruit victims and minions.”

Ben and Eloise exchanged sheepish looks before Eloise confessed, “I think we became too tightly focused to consider mundane methods of recruitment. Nikki, as well as us, have a history with the Bastard that goes way, way back in time and I believe we were blinded by that history.”

“Nikki and I both have contacts that should be able locate these types of activities, then trace them back and locate any in the vicinity of California or Nevada that meet our criteria. Attack his perimeter and we might weaken him and draw him out. That goes whether he is your Bastard or mine,” I added smiling.

We talked a little longer before Ben and Eloise offered to show me around the town which I accepted, spending the afternoon with the Donners. As tribal Elders they were well known and it felt like I was introduced to the whole village.

“I’d like to go for a run any place around here that is a challenge,” I asked once we were back at the house.

“You could run the valley,” offered Ben.

“I like the freedom that less traveled paths offer me. What about there?” I replied indicating the cliffs to the north adding, “I doubt they are any more rugged than the mountains back home and I ran those in the dark with no problem.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Eloise returned, “but I understand if you need to. How long will you be gone?”

“An hour or less,” I replied studying the cliffs, “it can’t be more than 10 miles there and back.”

“I don’t know,” Ben interjected, “averaging 10 miles an hour in that rough terrain is pushing us in our Were forms.”

“I was giving allowances, meeting someone and stopping to chat,” I smirked back.

“Go on then but don’t forget your phone, and be careful,” Eloise warned me.

I thanked her and went inside to change into my running gear consisting of boots, hat, and the long coat sans the jewelry.

“How do you run in that,” Eloise asked when I returned to the porch indicating my duster.

“The coat, why that’s my handicap and besides I have an image to protect,” I replied my eyes sparkling as I sprinted across the porch leaping the steps to land softly in the gravel still in stride quickly gaining the street and soon after disappearing behind a neighboring house.

The husband and wife team watched the young girl disappear behind the neighbor’s house and reappear at the town crossroad, and moments later she slid behind a row of buildings. They silently watched as she reappeared halfway across the valley and nearing the cliffs.

“Looks like she’ll pass by ol’ Russ’s place,” Ben noted as he turned to go inside adding over his shoulder, “I think I’ll call ol’ Russ and give him a heads up and have him keep a lookout for her.”

“You do that,” Eloise agreed, “and I’ll start supper.”

Ben nodded as he dialed the phone.