The Soul Does Not Perish
by: Lilith Langtree
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The Soul Does Not Perish (Part 1)
by: Lilith Langtree
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“Come on, man. I’ve already gotten some seriously bad rolls. Cut me some slack.”
Evelyn’s lips pursed. “I’m not a man, and after that role, neither are you.”
She thought she was funny. Most of the time, she is, but this was the third time in a row that I had to play the girl in the game. The other guys were already making fun of me, saying that I purposely roll low on the percentage dice, like that was even possible. At the beginning, just to keep things unbalanced we agreed that there was a ten percent chance that we’d have to play a character that was of opposing gender, and alignment. That was so we’d actually roleplay instead of just coasting along.
My preferred alignment was Lawful Good. I believed that there was a place for everything and everything needed to be in its place. Some people call that anal retentive, I call it organized and proper. Since we nixed the Evil alignments from the possibilities, I had to play a Chaotic Neutral Female.
Chaos: what happens, happens. It’s nature’s way. Whatever. It’s unsanitary and disorganized. To top it all off, my Ability scores pushed me into picking a class type that I can’t stand: a Druid.
I’m getting ahead of myself.
Welcome to Dungeons and Dragons, West Coast style. At least that’s what we call it. Instead of just playing game after game as normal, sane people play, we jumble things up… you know, Chaotically. Every third game is totally random. The Dungeon Master is high roll on a six-sided die. Evelyn won that.
The characters are rolled statically. That means when you whip out your blank character sheet, you roll the dice and fill in the blank. There’s no re-rolling to fit into a certain Class or any best out of three rolls. Whatever you rolled, you rolled. That was it.
Keeping that in mind, every Ability score you get pretty much determines what class you can be. If you rolled low on Strength you might as well forget being a fighter. If you rolled low on Dexterity then forget about being a thief, and so on. My rolls firmly put me into the Class I was telling you about before: a Druid.
I could have picked a Wizard, but Derrick was faster than I was and called it first. Derrick’s the one that was sitting in front of us on the flight over to Hawaii. Well, him, Carrie, his girlfriend, and Zach, her little brother by a year.
My parents have a house on the island and every summer since we were kids, we got to go there for our summer vacation. This was the first time we got to go alone. Since we were still too young to go clubbing or anything really fun, we’d spend half the day on the beach and the other half gaming.
No, we’re not insane. We’ve done the tourist thing several times already. If you’ve seen one palm tree and a semi-active volcano, you’ve seen them all. This was our time to do what we wanted to do, and we wanted to game.
Anyway, once I’d perused the equipment list for my fourth-level character, I jotted down everything that I thought would be useful, which was pretty much standard stuff. Then I copied down all the spells that my Druid could possibly know, labeled my skills, feats and so forth.
Long story short, I finished the required stuff and then created my character’s personality, name, physical information, the usual. If I had to play something diametrically opposed to my personality, I was going to do it in style.
That’s when the electronic bonging sounded throughout the plane and a voice came over the P.A. system.
“Ladies and gentleman, this is your Captain speaking. There’s a serious storm front dead ahead, so we’re going to make a slight detour that will delay our arrival time by about fifteen to twenty minutes. We will probably be experiencing turbulence as we fly through the weakest portion, so I’m turning on the fasten seat-belts sign.”
“Great,” I mumbled. I really hated going off schedule. Timelines were there for a reason. People owned watches for a reason: expectations. When expectations were broken and proved false, the order collapses, chaos ensues. I hate chaos, and airlines are one of the biggest perpetrators. The others are doctor’s offices.
When’s the last time you went to see your doctor for your eight-fifteen appointment and you actually saw him or her at eight-fifteen? Never… ever. It should be a physical law of the universe that once you tack on the letters M and D after your name that your sense of time is altered. Why do they even wear watches? I’ll tell you why. It’s so they’ll know when lunchtime and closing time are. They’re never late for those events.
“Attention in the cabin,” said the overly flamboyant cliché gay flight attendant. “Would you please put your tray table in their full upright position and turn off any electronic devices during this time. Thank you.”
I frowned. The one thing that was keeping me sane through the flight and I had to put it away just to sit there. Pulling out a small case from of my backpack, I opened it up and set each die in their proper foam molding with the highest number side facing up. While I was doing this, Evelyn randomly tossed her dice in an old purple Crown Royal felt pouch that was missing its drawstrings.
Once my dice were secured properly, my character sheet went into a small binder. I had already punched three holes to the left-hand side and reinforced each hole, on both sides, with adhesive circlets so the paper would be less likely to tear. Then I set it in the pack. Before putting it back under the seat in front of me, I noticed that dust bunnies were adhering to the side of the material.
I growled to myself. Well, I thought it was to myself.
“Something wrong?” Evelyn asked.
I sighed and withdrew a travel pack of tissues from my jacket pocket. “It’s like these people never clean the interior of this plane. Look at this… dust!”
My friends, long ago, had gotten used to my attention to detail. That didn’t mean they agreed with my exacting standards.
“Chase, do you really expect the ground crews, who have all of fifteen minutes to straighten up the plane after each flight, to dust underneath the seats?”
Picking off the dust bunnies with my tissue, I made sure the worse of the damage was mitigated before rolling up the tissue and hitting the attendant call button.
“Yes. Do you know what dust is?”
She blinked. “No.”
“Well, there are several kinds of dust, but I’ll only tell you about this particular type. It’s what’s referred to as domestic dust, commonly found indoors. Creatures live in it Evelyn.”
“Creatures?” she laughed.
I nodded. “They’re called Dust Mites. They exist on all indoor surfaces and even suspended in the air. They feed on minute particles of organic matter, the main constituent of house dust. Organic matter, Evelyn. That means dead skin cells. Dust mites flourish in the fibers of bedding, furniture, and carpets. They excrete enzymes to digest the organic particles, and excrete feces, that together become part of the house dust.”
With a grimace, I waved my hand in front of me. “That means these creatures are yacking and pooping in the dust, and you’re inhaling it with every breath you take. If you don’t take preventive measures with proper cleaning and use of fresh HEPA filters in your vacuum then you get things like this.”
Holding up the tissue, I looked disgustedly at the rolled up wad.
“May I help you?” The effeminate flight attendant asked.
I handed him the wad of tissue. “This plane seriously needs cleaning.”
He raised his eyebrows at me and nodded. “Oookay. Thanks.”
Evelyn patted my arm, looking at the attendant. “Sorry, Chase is a very clean person.” Then she leaned into me. “Did you forget your meds this morning?”
I rolled my eyes, pulling my pack closer to me, trying to give her a convincing glare. “No… I… I took them.”
She didn’t believe me for a second. “Chase,” she whined slightly. “The doctor prescribed them for a reason. “Do you have them in your pack?”
I shook my head. “They’re in the checked in luggage. Do you think the baggage handlers misplaced my luggage? It’s probably down there in the hold. God knows how few times that place is cleaned.”
With a sigh, Evelyn laced her fingers with mine. “Let’s try not to think about it too much. Think of the beach or gaming tomorrow.”
You probably think I’m psycho or something. I’m not, though my psychiatrist prescribes Sarafem for me anyway. You may know it by its more popular name, Prozac. He says my behavior is explained as an obsessive—compulsive personality disorder. Anti-depressants suck. He says that it’s supposed to help me interact with my friends and strangers better if I’m not thinking about how dirty everything is.
I think he’s been sampling his wares too much.
The lights flickered inside the cabin and the plane shuddered.
Clutching my pack tighter to me, I looked out of the window to my right. There was rain, lightning, dark clouds as far as I could see, which was probably to the wingtip. There weren’t any gremlin-like creatures digging at any of the engines so I felt we were relatively safe. Planes were built to take lightning strikes; otherwise they’d never be able to fly through storms. Still…
Ten minutes later and I felt as if I’d visited an amusement park and rode some of the more nauseating rides they had. The plane shuddered, dipped, rose, rocked, and swayed. Motion sickness was something I’d never experienced. I’d always had a stomach of steel, but even this ride was testing the limits of my constitution.
Evelyn looked positively green and was holding one of those little paper bags they stuff in the magazine pockets on the seat-back in front of you on planes. Seeing her in distress, I tried to take her mind off of what was happening.
“So, what adventure did you pick for us?”
Her fear-filled eyes darted to me and I saw a mild smile tick the edges of her lips. She knew what I was doing. “It’s a…”
A loud crack of lightning interrupted what she was going to say. I jumped; since the flash of light was on the right side of the plane and made it rock significantly. When I looked out the window, I saw something that disturbed me greatly, or rather the lack of something. The housing to two of the engines were missing and flaming badly.
In response, I slammed the shade closed and looked back at Evelyn. Her face was white, gone was the green pallor that held her in its grips. The plane dipped noticeably and a second later my left arm was locked in a death-grip of massive proportions.
“Don’t worry,” I said with as calm of a voice as I could manage, given the situation. “These planes can run just fine on two engines. That’s one of the reasons for the redundancy, just in case. Believe me, I’ve read all about this.”
Several people were crying, and I heard the occasional yelp when more lightning made itself known.
Evelyn was barely holding herself together. I felt for her, but losing your sanity during a crisis was probably the worst thing that you could do.
“Nine million to one, Ev. Those are the odds. Your odds are better getting hit by an asteroid from space. Even if the worse were to occur, ninety-five percent of… well, ninety-five percent of the people survive.”
Her eyes were trained on me, concentrating on everything I was saying.
“I picked this seat for a reason.” Thumbing to the side, I grinned. “Emergency door… not that we’ll be needing it, but still. Preparation and a calm mind always save the day. We’re in the best seats in the house.”
Another lightning strike hit and the plane pitched hard. I sucked in a mouthful of air and closed my eyes. The screams were out of control and the lights flickered again, staying off longer this time. When they came on again it was at a much lower intensity than before. That wasn’t good.
The flight attendant jumped to his feet a few moments later looking decidedly panicked.
“Crap.” It looked like we were the one in nine million that particular day. “Evelyn, get your pack on, now.”
She looked back and forth between me and the guy shouting crash position instructions at us.
“Now, Ev. There’ll be debris scattered around the cabin and our backs will be vulnerable. The packs will help protect them.”
I shrugged into mine. Once I was secure, I helped Evelyn with hers, making sure the straps weren’t too tight just in case she had to pull out of it.
My mouth wouldn’t stop moving. “Assume the position, and try to relax your body. Don’t tighten up or you’ll injure yourself even more.” At her incredulous looked, I explained. “You ever wonder why drunk drivers always walk away from an impossible car crash? It’s because they are drunk and relaxed. Their bodies go with the flow. They may be injured, but not nearly as bad as they could be. Just bend over, grab your ankles and go limp.”
I flipped open the visor and looked out. We were below the clouds already, but I still couldn’t see much because of the rain.
“I can’t swim,” Evelyn said.
Looking back at her I steeled my resolve. “You know I’m a certified lifeguard. We’ll have time to get out. Don’t panic and let me do the swimming for both of us. Oh, and grab your seat cushion on the way out. It’ll help.”
She nodded. Five minutes later and all I could hear was crying and mangled versions of the Lord’s Prayer. My chest was tight with tension as I kept an eye peeled out the window. That’s when I saw it. Trees and the side of a mountain.
“Down! Now!”
Right when I grabbed my ankles, we hit. Metal screamed along with the passengers. Something tore off the side of the plane, but I couldn’t make my brain analyze what it could have been. We bounced and then a terrible noise rent the cabin. The air went humid immediately and I knew the hull was breached. With a hard jolt everything came to a stop.
I turned my head and saw Evelyn looking at me.
“What did I tell you? Welcome to the ninety-fifth percentile. Let’s get out of here.”
We popped our seat-belts and I twisted the release lever and pushed open the emergency hatch. The slide ballooned out and dropped to the ground below. It wasn’t much of a fall, between five and ten feet, but still. The first thing I saw when I looked out was the lack of a wing about a quarter of the way down from the fuselage. That explained some of the sounds I heard.
Stepping to the side, I pointed to the tree off the beach. “See that thick tree right there?”
Evelyn nodded.
“Go behind there and see what you can see. I’ll make sure the others are okay.”
She shook her head. “I want to stay with you!”
Someone pushed past us and jumped on the slide.
“You smell that?” I indicated outside. “That’s jet fuel. Get away from the plane.”
Her eyes widened. She didn’t look happy, but nodded. Someone else stumbled past as I made my way back inside. Looking over the seat, I almost lost my lunch. Derrick and Carrie were dead. I’m not going into particulars about how it happened. Zach had a deep cut across his left eyebrow and he was out cold.
Voices started coming up again now that people were figuring out what happened. There were some screams, lots of crying, and some calls for help while I worked on Zach’s safety belt.
A rather large man with smears of blood on his face pushed his way down the aisle when I held up my hand and halted his progress. “This guy’s alive, but knocked out. Take him with you.”
He started to object, but I lifted Zach with a heave and dropped him onto the guy. They shuffled past and I watched them slide to safety.
And so it went.
~O~
The plane never caught fire. No matter how much you see a single spark causing a massive conflagration in movies or on TV, it’s not really likely in real life unless you’re drenched in fuel and decide smoking would be a good idea to calm your nerves.
I helped a lot of people out and had to pull a few away from dead relatives while they were injured and screaming. At one point, I threw up after tugging on someone resulted in pulling away something that I’d rather have not seen.
That’s when I’d given up the ghost and decided to make the best of a bad situation. Grabbing the packs of my deceased friends, as well as Zach’s, I was the last one to leave the plane.
“Chase!”
Evelyn was shivering by the time I’d made it to her. “Where’s Derrick and Carrie?”
I shook my head with regret. While I held her for a few moments, I ran through different scenarios in my head, trying to keep my mind away from debilitating grief. Eventually I pulled away and dug into Derrick’s pack for a small mag-light.
“I need you to stay here and keep an eye on the packs.”
“What? Why?”
Shrugging down the beach, I pointed. “The storage hold was ripped open. All of our luggage is spread out over a quarter of a mile of beach. I need to get it while I can.”
Closing in on her, I lowered my voice. “The best time to do this is now while everyone is still in shock, if you get my meaning.”
I went by the adage, prepare for the worst because it’ll usually happen. Worst case scenario: we’d be trapped on some deserted island in the middle of nowhere and there would be some freaky Lord of the Flies thing eventually.
Evelyn nodded and I made my way through the rain. It was still day time, but the dark clouds and rain made it hard to see much more than fifty feet in front of me. In just under a minute my clothes were completely soaked through and I felt dirty. It wasn’t necessarily the best situation for someone of my delicate sensibilities to be in. That meant I was miserable.
I found Derrick’s suitcase, checked the tag and pulled it along with me. Zach’s was next, then my two suitcases. Evelyn’s and Carrie’s were last and strangely enough laying on top of one another. I took off my belt and lashed the handles together then drug them behind me through the sand.
By the time I’d made it back, some of the others got the same idea and were passing me on the way. Under the trees, we were out of the worst of the storm. That didn’t mean that we were nice and comfortable though. Evelyn had Zach’s head in her lap and was doing her best to hide his face from the rain.
~O~
That was three hours ago.
~O~
The clouds and rain broke about one in the afternoon and then the sun was right behind it making the air thick with hot unbearable humidity, but at least we could see the worst of everything. Someone, a female someone was still crying on the beach, looking up at the wreckage of the plane.
Most of the men were already gathered in a huddle trying to work out who was in charge. Evelyn insisted I was there to put my two cents in the conversation.
Bickering, I hate it.
Instead of listening to any more nonsense, I made off to the rest of the unclaimed luggage.
The big guy that helped take Zach off the plane yelled out at me. “Hey what are you doing?” It was like I broke with the way that things were supposed to work in his little world.
Turning around I looked at him while the rest of them watched the byplay. “Shelter, fire, and food, that’s what we need to concern ourselves with, not who’s going to be the big cheese.”
Pointing at three guys who were nodding along with me, I said, “You three, check the plane for anything useful. The rain’s washed away the jet fuel so it should be safe enough now, but be careful just the same. Behind them were ten guys. “You guys. We need to get the bodies off the plane before…” Glancing over to the women, I lowered my voice. “Before they start rotting. Bury them as close to the tree line as possible, in the sand and mark the boundaries, so they can be found later, and so we won’t stumble on them.”
The big guy wound his way up front. “Who put you in charge, kid?”
“Nobody, but standing around comparing the size of our dicks isn’t doing anything but wasting daylight. If you want to be in charge after we get settled then fine, whatever.”
“Stuart, back off man.” A blond-haired guy about Stuart’s age said. “The kid makes sense. Let’s just get this done. I’ll go start on the digging. You guys want to help?”
A guy in a torn business suit looked at me, sort of lost. “What about us?”
I nodded. “You guys forage the jungle. Dead wood, fruit, berries, anything usable, bring back to the beach. Set the dead wood in the sun so that it can dry out for a fire, as much as you can find.”
Two more remained: an older man in his fifties and a young kid. I noticed a family resemblance.
“You two want to help me go through the rest of the luggage and see if there’s anything useful?”
The older guy reached out a hand. “I’m Pete; this is Brett, my grandson.” With a smile he gave me a firm handshake.
“I’m Chase. Come on.”
~O~
The percentages were off. Only thirty percent of the passengers lived. That left us with nineteen guys, not including me, and eight girls. The flight wasn’t full. Thank god.
Someone found the Air Marshal or his leg anyway. That left the owner of said leg in the possession of a Sig Sauer P229, which he stuck down the front of his pants like an idiot.
“Can I see that for a second?”
The thirty-something black-haired guy looked at me dubiously.
With a roll of my eyes, I said. “I grew up around weapons. I wanted to check it out and make sure it’s in good working order. Keep the clip if you want.”
Not seeing a good enough reason to refuse, he looked around for the release for the clip and then handed the semi-empty pistol to me. I jacked the round that was in the chamber onto the sand.
“Forgot one.”
His eyes widened a little, and as he leaned forward to pick it up, I popped the slide off and tossed both pieces as hard as I could into the ocean.
“What the fuck! You little shit!”
He pushed me backward hard enough that I lost my balance and hit the sand, butt first, before he made off in the direction where I threw the partially disassembled weapon.
Pete smiled and shook his head before helping me up. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Chase.”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing worse than an idiot with a gun. I’m sure his balls will thank me eventually.”
Brett stifled a snort.
There was a lot of clothes and toiletries it the suitcases, not much else. The plane provided a lot more useful items: blankets, pillows, cushions, a flare gun with two additional flares, several first aid kits, and sundry other items.
By burning the some of the seat backs we actually got a decent fire started before nightfall. That’s when the last of the foragers returned.
I sorted through most of the things they brought in. “Toss the red berries. They’re poisonous.”
The suit-guy looked pale. “Uh…”
I shook my head. “Go make yourself throw up somewhere. Don’t worry. Unless you ate a whole lot then the worst you’ll have is a stomach ache and the runs for a day or two.”
When I looked back at the rest, I noticed everyone was staring at me. It was Brett that spoke up. “How do you know so much?”
Evelyn set her hand on my shoulder and smiled a little. “Chase is like a human encyclopedia. He remembers everything he’s ever read, and he reads a whole heck of a lot.”
Pete grinned at me in grandfatherly way. “Then we’re darn lucky to have you here.”
Even Stuart conceded that in his own way, by nodding but not looking at me. The blond-haired guy that held Stuart off caught my eye. “So what’s next?”
After looking at the high tide, I scanned the horizon. “We prepare to signal any passing planes or ships. Find a high point and build a bonfire that’s easily lit; the same on the beach. Use the palm leafs to spell out help and SOS. Always keep a fire lit, even during the day. Keep some plastics nearby to throw into the fire. It’ll smoke black that way, making it easier to see from a distance.”
“The overhead compartments on the plane would be good for that,” offered Stuart. I nodded, giving him a thumbs-up.
One of the guys that had said anything, but helped out with burial detail leaned forward. He was wearing dirty jeans and a tee shirt, a little overweight with salt-and pepper hair. “We need to check out the island. We might not be alone.”
A couple of the women nodded. “Maybe some rich guy bought an island and built a vacation home and maybe he has a phone.”
I shrugged internally. And maybe birds will fly out of my butt.
Don’t ask me how I knew, but we were alone, very alone. I hadn’t even conceived the idea that there was even the possibility of intelligent life nearby.
Instead of being a pessimist, however, I just nodded. “Your biggest chance of finding someone would be along the beach. Look for docks, piers, foot prints in the sand, drag marks. If you find any then search inland after that, along any obvious trails.”
Stuart looked at me curiously. “You’re not going to look?”
I shook my head and raised my bottled Coke, one of the things found in the airplane. “These aren’t going to last forever. We’ll need a fresh water source, very soon. Plus I want to check out the local wildlife.”
A shaky, middle-aged woman, the one who was constantly crying throughout the whole ordeal, finally said something. “Wildlife?”
“It’s a decently sized island, Ma’am. Odds are that there is going to be wildlife of some type: small mammals, snakes, water fowl, and insects life bare minimum. Does anyone fish? I saw a few rod and reel sets with the luggage.”
“They’re mine,” A new voice popped up. “Or rather one of them is. The others belonged to…,” he shrugged off the rest.
It seemed like almost everyone there had lost somebody, some more than others.
With a sympathetic nod, I continued. “Would you mind showing some of the others? We’ll need a meat supply and I don’t think it’s going to come from the jungle, at least not enough to sustain us.”
A few of the guys and one girl raised their hands indicating they knew how to fish.
~O~
We checked on the wounded, which strangely enough consisted of only a broken arm for one guy, and Zach who had a possible concussion. With the aid of a nurse practitioner who was on her way to start a new job in Hawaii, they were well taken care of. Well, at least as well as was possible under the circumstances.
The night brought some strange dreams.
I was running through the jungle, with a large chunk of wood in my hand that resembled a staff, of all things. I could only hear the sound of my breathing, which was steady and even. Dark streaks of mud coated my arms. They looked thin, like I’d lost weight or something. I remember being concerned about reaching something in time, but other than that nothing else.
The sun breaking on the horizon woke me up. Pete was tending the fire and noted the movement when I approached.
“No coffee to offer you just yet,” he said. “I haven’t figured a way to make the thing work without electricity. That and it’s in about five different pieces at the moment.”
I shook my head and sat on one of the thick logs that we were using as bench seats. “I don’t drink coffee.”
Sitting there, I stared into the fire thinking about my last shower and how clean I’d felt at the time. Even without rolling around in it, I felt tiny grains of sand on my entire body, like I’d never be clean again. It was a horrible sensation.
“I’m sure you don’t want to be here, but all the same, I’m glad you are,” he said.
Cocking my head slightly, I saw him looking at me.
“You’d think that a guy of my advanced years would know a little about everything, but I was raised in the city. The closest I’d gotten to roughing it was staying at a Motel 6 one time in Colorado.”
He was joking, but I could feel the truth of his words. He was no outdoorsman.
I looked up into the sky and frowned. He followed my gaze. “I’ve been up most of the night and there hasn’t been a single plane in the sky,” he said. “We’re probably outside of most travel routes.”
I was forced to agree. “We changed course before we hit the storm. Hopefully they were able to tell whoever was listening about that.”
“You don’t think that’s the case.” He’d said it very matter-of-fact, like he knew I doubted everything I’d just said.
Instead of answering his not so hidden question, I stood and brushed off the seat of my jeans. “I need to change before I set off.”
As I passed him, he reached out to me, but stopped before touching my leg. “You don’t have to take all of this on your shoulders, Chase. There are older, more experienced people here.”
I stopped and looked back at everyone, seeing them uncomfortable on the ground, knowing they didn’t get a good night’s sleep. “They think that someone’s coming. I’m not so optimistic.”
He didn’t wait before inquiring further. “Then why did you suggest the bonfire and the messages on the beach?”
My gaze returned to the older man who ceased poking at the fire with a stick. “They need hope. I’m not about to take it away from them.” I squatted down and looked into his ice blue eyes. “You haven’t seen any planes, because Search and Rescue are looking in the wrong place. After forty-eight hours most of the teams will be called back. After seven days they’ll call off the search. Our friends and relatives will mourn us and life will go on with us being entered into a statistics book somewhere and a blurb on the news at the end of the year.”
Pete swallowed and saw that I believed the truth of my words. “You… read that somewhere?”
I shrugged. “I know statistics and I know Coast Guard SOP. It’ll all be very tragic, I’m sure. But in the end, we’re on our own.”
He forced a smile to his face. “Well, you’ll pardon me if I hope for a better outcome.”
Standing back up, I kept my eyes on him. “You might suggest that a few of the guys get together and check out the mountain for possible caves. It would be better than sitting out here during a rainstorm.”
I could tell he was happy to be off the subject of not being rescued. “Anything else?”
“Fishing, more wood and fruit gathering, scour the plane again and think outside the box about how we can use things in there to make tools, knives, anything useful.”
He grinned at me. “You’re not trying to make me leader of all of this are you?”
I shrugged. “Who better?”
“You?”
A laugh popped out, but I kept it low. “Can you actually see the other guys being ordered around by an eighteen year old know-it-all? They dealt with it yesterday because they were still in shock. Once all this sinks in it’ll be survival of the fittest. It’s human nature.”
He didn’t answer right away, but looked at me thoughtfully. “You seem very wise for being so young.”
I blinked and thought about what he’d said, but shook my head. “I’m wasting daylight. I’ve got to go.”
Privacy was a think of the past, so I changed behind a wide tree. After making sure the coast was clear, I opened my second suitcase and found my travel kit and my knife. It wasn’t anything extreme, just a utility knife akin to the Swiss Army’s I’d see at the store, but it was a good quality knife. That one went into my pocket and the travel kit into my backpack.
Checking in on Zach one more time before I left, I lifted up the makeshift bandage and saw the raw jagged cut above his eye. It was already puffy and red along the edges. Infection had set in and since he hadn’t woken as of yet, I was beginning to doubt if he ever would.
I didn’t believe in God. The concept that an old man with a flowing white beard sat up in the sky directing the way the world works was beyond me. Call me what you will, it doesn’t matter. What I did believe in was myself and my friends, so you’ll excuse me if I reached out to someone I considered an imaginary being and asked for assistance.
Laying my hand on Zach’s head, I closed my eyes. “I don’t know if you’re out there, but if you’re listening… well, I think you’ve caused enough trouble for these people and for Zach in specific. He’s only sixteen. He hasn’t even been laid yet. Cut him a break. And if you’ve got time, I could really use a nice bath and about fourteen gallons of hand sanitizer. Your world is really dirty… amen.”
Okay, I’m not the best at praying. I freely admit that.
When I gave Zach a last look, the color had come back to his face. Maybe it was my imagination or perhaps the lighting was better now that the sun had fully crested the horizon. Before anyone else woke up, I picked a direction and started my hike.
~O~
About once every five minutes or so, I stopped and listened to the sounds surrounding me. The world wasn’t naturally mute; there was always something that made a sound: insects, birds, the light breeze blowing through the trees, but nothing else.
Eventually, the ground started sloping upward.
After about two hours of trudging through a bug infested jungle, I stopped and pulled out a piece of fruit for breakfast. It was citrusy and I really didn’t care to classify it at the moment. It was finished in a few minutes and I leaned back against the tree and closed my eyes for just a few minutes.
I’d like to think I was fairly athletic. I mean was a lifeguard, not full time, but still. I ran four miles most days and did moderate weight lifting once or twice a week if I could manage the time. Maybe it was the stress that was making me lethargic.
That’s why I fell asleep.
It was the cool slickness gliding across my shoulder that woke me. At first I thought it was a vine being moved by the moderately stronger wind, but after the way it changed direction and started to move forward, I knew it was something decidedly creepy of the snake verity.
The worst thing I could do would be to freak out, but I definitely couldn’t just sit there. When its head came into range of my peripheral vision, I saw that it was a constrictor and not a very big one, not enough to eat me anyway. My hand whipped up and I grabbed it behind his head, before I twisted around and stood, holding the thing.
It was about four feet long and its beady eyes were looking straight into mind.
“You need to find something else to crawl on, buddy. I’m off limits.”
Setting him down, pointing the opposite direction, I stepped back out of striking distance. He slithered a little ways and then turned around and looked at me.
“Go on, shoo.”
When I bent down to retrieve my pack, he was still there, watching me. I got my bearings and took off. If he didn’t want to shoo then I would. I wandered around for what seemed like all day, but there were no convenient picturesque waterfalls emptying into vast crystal clear ponds. Obviously, whoever created this island hadn’t seen any lame castaway movies.
So I’d brought my toiletries kit for nothing.
And sand was starting to chafe my butt.
And I wanted to sleep in my own bed, with clean sheets, in my own home, with a cheeseburger. Only I’d eat the cheeseburger at the table, because I hate people that eat in their bed and get crumbs on the sheets. How do they sleep at night?
On top of it all, I was thirsty.
I wrestled out of my backpack and threw it at the base of a tree, looked up at the clear blue sky and screamed, “Can I just have some water here!”
Being knocked to the ground by a massive wave of water wasn’t my intention, but that’s what happened. One second I was looking up in anger and the next, it seemed like an entire bathtub full of water smashed right on top of me.
With a groan, I pushed myself up from the muddy ground. “Okay, apparently I’ve pissed off somebody in power. Was it the world is dirty comment?”
I shook that thought straight out of my head. With my luck it was probably a passing jet, emptying its lavatory contents on my head. That would be my just desserts. It was too much. Derrick and Carrie dead, Zach well on his way, trapped on a stupid island with a bunch of stupid people and everyone looking at me like I knew everything, like I knew what we were supposed to do.
Leaning forward, I put my forehead on my knees and lost it. It hadn’t even been a full day since we’d crashed and I was sitting there in the middle of an uncharted jungle crying like a baby.
Five, maybe ten minutes went by and I didn’t wake up from the awful dream which meant that it wasn’t a dream and I was wasting time that the others didn’t have. There were enough sodas for another day and that was it. If I didn’t find a decent water supply then it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. We’d die in only a few days.
Wiping away the tears, I ran my fingers through my hair to get it out of my eyes.
“Great, I need a haircut too. What else can go wrong?”
My foot slipped in the mud from the impossible downpour and I fell to my side. Slamming my hand into the ground, I cussed and climbed to all fours, except when I looked up, there was something about three inches away from my face.
It was gigantic, at least six or seven in length, feline, and had black fur. If I didn’t know any better I’d say it was a black panther, but if it was then it was a mutant. All the breath in my chest rushed out and I could take another in. I was dead. One swipe from its clawed paw that was bigger than my entire hand and I was dead. One bite from its massive tooth filled mouth and I’d be mostly decapitated.
Its head tilted a little at me, taking me all in, and then it looked into my eyes. For a single second, I’d forgotten everything I’d ever known. The great cat’s pupil’s dilated briefly and then returned to normal.
Then it licked me, full across my face.
“Ugh… gross.”
Its tongue was barbed like a normal cat’s, so it was like rubbing a salvia-coated pot scrubber up my face.
I finally found my breath. “Look, if you’re going to eat me, can you not do the finger licking good thing and just get it over with? I’ve had a really bad day… well, a really bad two days now.”
In answer, it set its rump down, then stretched out completely, and started this deep rumbling thing that sounded suspiciously like purring. With another rush of air out of my lungs I realized that it wasn’t going to eat me… at least not yet. That gave me an opportunity to get out of there.
My hands moved back, maybe an inch or so. The great cat was watching my every move. Perhaps it was some sadistic way of playing with its prey; cats sometimes do that. They get bored like any other creature I suppose. However, I didn’t like the idea of me being the prey and it letting me get almost out of reach and then it hops up and says, “Psych!”
Maybe I should have waited until idiot-boy shot his balls off and then claimed the pistol. Then I’d have something effective to defend myself with. A nice sword would have been nice, something to counter the wickedly sharp claws. Hell, I would have been satisfied with pretty much any weapon at that point.
A loud crack sounded high in the trees. The panther looked up and I followed its gaze to see a something speedily making its way toward my head. I dodged it, barely. The cat didn’t even flinch.
Before me, embedded a few inches in the ground was a piece of wood, a branch I guessed, about six feet in length. There was still bark around most of the dark wood, and in the places it was bare, it didn’t look rotten.
“What the hell is going on around here?”
The sudden freak rainstorm out of the clear blue sky was highly improbably, but barely within the realm of possibility. The mutant black panther that decided I wasn’t a decent snack was explainable. Lastly, the six-foot hunk of wood, that was mysteriously pretty damn straight for natural growth, which happen to fall right next to me when I was hoping for a weapon? It was too much.
Trying to put my analytical mind to work led me to what I was doing right before the blast of rain. “I was screaming for water.”
My eyes turned to the lounging panther. “That doesn’t explain you.”
It didn’t seem too eager to talk about its motivations or lack thereof, so I cautiously stood, taking my pack with me. The panther followed my every move, but didn’t seem to care one way or the other about what I was doing, only that I was doing something.
The errant branch came away from the ground easily enough, and I backed away, out of the area, until I was well out of the cat’s sight.
Once I got my bearings, I quickly made my way back to the beach and the relative safety of our impromptu civilization. By the time I returned, I was tired and majorly dirty.
Evelyn’s eyes widened when she saw me. “You’re a mess, what happened?”
Leaning the newly named walking stick against the tree that we’d claimed, I dropped to my knees and started going through my suitcase to find some clean clothes.
“What didn’t happen, you mean. Freak rainstorm, trees falling apart, jungle cats, fifty thousand different species of insects all trying to get their two cents into the conversation of life, mud, dirt, grime… I need a bath, even if it is in salt water. We’ll talk after.”
Pieces of the plane, blocking most of the beach, made a decent bath stall. I made liberal use of the new bar of soap I brought along with me. Yes, I brought my own soap. The idea of using a shared bar sent shivers down my spine. You just don’t know what someone cleaned last with it. Not that I was the model of sterility at the moment. There could have been anything in the dirt that I was rolling around in: bird feces, dead insects, panther drool, anything.
I paused for a few moments to dry heave. Apparently the fruit I’d eaten for lunch was long gone, because nothing came up.
It took me twenty minutes to scrub everything off of my skin and another ten to clean the clothes I’d worn, before I felt moderately normal. There was still sand everywhere, but I could actually run my fingers through my hair without ripping chunks out.
After spreading the moderately clean clothes across a torn portion of the fuselage so the sun could dry everything, made my way back to Evelyn. Imagine my surprise to fine Zach leaning up again the tree sans a thick bandage and sporting a weeks old scar running above the entire length of his left eyebrow. The swelling was totally gone and there was no sign of infection.
“Zach? Holy shit.”
Evelyn bumped me from the side. “I know, right?”
“Hey, Chase,” he said somewhat subdued.
“He woke up that way this morning, like nothing happened. He didn’t even know he was injured.”
That’s when we were interrupted by Pete. “Pardon the intrusion. Chase, may I speak with you privately for a moment?”
Dragging my eyes away from Zach, I nodded at newfound friend. “Yeah, let me grab my other shoes first. There was no way I was voluntarily walking around without protection for my feet. We were mere yards away from a crash site; there was no telling what type of shrapnel was underneath the sand.
The only other thing I had to wear was a pair of loafers and some swim shoes. Considering I didn’t want to ruin the only other pair of decent footwear I possessed, I chose the latter then joined Pete by the surf.
“What’s up?”
He looked back at the others. Some of the guys were constructing makeshift lean-tos from wing portions that were torn off in the crash. The good weather wasn’t going to hold forever.
“Judging from your general dishevelment, can I assume you didn’t find any water?”
I shook my head. “No.”
His face turned grim. “Brian is trying to turn the others against you.”
I blinked in confusion. “I’m sorry, who’s Brian?”
“The guy that found the pistol you dismantled and tossed in the ocean. He’s found most of the parts already.”
With a chuckle, I thumbed back at the jungle. “Well, he’s wasting his time. The sea water will have that metal rusted within a few days and none of it will do any good without the recoil spring which is about a mile and a half back there.”
Pete sighed, a little relieved. “Good. But that still doesn’t get you completely off the hook. Some of the others are more than a little angry about you disposing of our only means of defense.”
He went so far as to throw air quotes up for the last part.
“Well screw them. I’m doing my thing, my way. If the others want to waste their time in a circle-jerk pounding their chest, go ahead and let them.”
Pete didn’t look like he approved of the language, but held his tongue. “Just watch your back, Chase. He’s looking for any excuse to make you look bad.”
“Did you see what I looked like when I came back? Believe me, I couldn’t look much worse.”
~O~
Lots of fruit, nuts, berries, and a few fish made up dinner for the evening. We rationed out what was left of the sodas and bottled water, storing the empty bottles to the side in case we found anything drinkable. Two groups emerged from the jungle about thirty minutes apart, looking decidedly beaten.
No joy for shelter and none for water either.
A bunch of the girls had gotten together and made a few collectors for rain in case we lucked out. Needless to say, we weren’t a very invigorated bunch sitting around the campfire that night. Random people were talking and I wasn’t paying too close attention to who was who.
“I’m already sick of eating fruit.”
“There’s not much else. We can’t really run down to the local stop-n-rob for some bait to fish with, and we lost two lures already.”
“I said I was sorry about that.”
“Drop it already.”
“There is wildlife out there, if we actually had a way to kill something.”
The last voice I recognized. It was the gun douchebag, Brian. I looked up and saw him eying me with something akin to hate, so I mouthed off.
“Still got your balls, Brian? You’re welcome.”
He pointed at me accusingly. “You had no right.”
“I had every right. I’d like to not get shot in the middle of the night by someone that doesn’t know how to handle a firearm properly.”
“I know how to shoot!”
“Is that why you had it stuffed down the front of your pants with the safety off?”
He stalled for a second, so I pressed on.
“Did you even know where the safety was, or what kind of pistol it was? Does your knowledge of firearms consist of watching reruns of NCIS?”
“You had no right!”
The others were just watching the byplay.
“It was a Sig Sauer P229, pretty much standard issue for most law enforcement departments within the Federal Government and next to useless as a hunting weapon except at very close range. It’s made for killing people, Brian. Pardon me for not wanting to be your first victim… well, after your balls anyway. But I’ll make you a deal. If you find a nice rifle or even a good bow and arrow set, I promise not to take them away from you and throw them in the ocean.”
That brought up a mild snicker from Stuart.
“I thought you were on my side,” Brian said disbelievingly.
Stuart shrugged. “That was before I knew you were stupid enough put the barrel of a loaded weapon beside your dick, with the safety off. Plus, Chase makes a decent argument. Short range weapons aren’t really good for much except killing each other.”
Brian made to look like he was going to protest further but Stuart pressed on, looking at me and pointing. “Look, what’s done is done. I’m not going to stress out over something I got no control over, but you threw away a resource without talking to us about it. That’s a dick move.”
“Then I guess I’m a dick,” I said. “But just so we’re all clear. I won’t put up with threats to me or my friends. I’ll deal with them in whichever way is most expedient. I don’t really care if the you or the group wants to sit down and have yourselves a little powwow to make yourselves feel better. I actually want to survive.”
Stuart puffed himself up a little. “I think we need to lay down a few rules here.”
There were a few people that nodded in agreement.
“Well, that didn’t take long at all,” I said.
He gave me a penetrating and curious look. “What didn’t?”
“Laws.”
Evelyn set her hand on my shoulder. “Chase.” Her voice was conciliatory, like she wanted to hear them out.
“Ev, this is the part where the strongest of us lays the law down or suffer the consequences.”
“I didn’t say that,” Stuart said in defense of himself. “We need some sort of organization.”
“Why?” I asked. “We just got here.”
The crying lady stood up. “Would you all quit arguing! We should be preparing ourselves to be rescued, not fighting about who gets to be in charge.”
Leaning back in one of the seats we scavenged from the plane, I quirked my lips to the side in amusement, but kept silent. Pete was looking at me with a knowing stare. He didn’t seem too pleased, but he restrained himself as well.
One of the previously silent guys leaned in. “What about that black box thing that’s in the plane?”
Some faces turned and a middle-aged woman took the bait. “Yeah! It sends a signal out right? They’ll find us that way.”
Pete looked at me for confirmation and I shook my head minutely. Search and Rescue would have zeroed in on the transponder signal first thing. If they weren’t already there then that meant something went wrong. Odds were, if we were to be rescued then it wouldn’t be because of that particular piece of technology. The transponder was heavily shielded and had its own power source. It was made to survive a crash, and I had no idea why it would have been knocked out, but I was running under the assumption that it had been.
Pete brought the conversation back to a more realistic topic. “What’s our next move?”
There didn’t seem to be a volunteer for that subject. There were only so many things that we had the ability to do. So he brought me back into the lead position.
“Chase?”
I gave everyone a quick glance. The vast majority looked to me again. “Same as today. The priorities haven’t changed: water and shelter.”
Stuart nodded. “I agree.”
And the sheeple followed.
TBC...
Pic Credit: Tomb Raider (Edios I think)
Author's note: This is a secondary novel I've been working on in between stories and during blocks, etc. I'll be releasing it on a slower pace than I normally do. It's already 60000+ words. So there's a lot to go.
The Soul Does Not Perish (Part 2)
by: Lilith Langtree
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Author's Notes: Okay, I suck at trying to release chapters over longer spans of time. Here's numero dos.
Running again; I couldn’t tell if it was toward something or away. The jungle gave me its leave, moving slightly out of my way as I bounded with long strides past tree after tree, leaping over the fallen without breaking my rhythm.
Something was different this time; the drums. Boom-Boom-Cha, Boom-Boom-Cha. It reminded me of an old Queen song, but I knew it meant something else.
Out of the thick leaves something joined me, matching my pace, but I was too focused to pay attention as to what it was.
Boom-Boom-Cha, Boom-Boom-Cha.
Boom-Boom-Cha, Boom-Boom-Cha.
~O~
Zach wanted to accompany me the next morning. I wasn’t so amicable. “I don’t trust the others not to do something stupid. You need to stay here and guard Evelyn.”
“I need to do something, Chase. I can’t just sit here all day.”
I could feel for him. Digging into my jeans pocket, I pulled out my utility knife. “Here. Find some sticks, no more than two inches thick, and about five or six feet tall. Sharpen the ends to a point, as many as you can.”
He didn’t seem to be too happy, but it gave him something useful to do. I grabbed my walking stick and backpack. “Watch out for Brian today. He’s going to do something stupid here pretty soon.”
My running shoes were still wet from the day before so I stayed with the swim shoes. They were high quality, but not really made for hiking. I was hoping that they’d at least last me a few days.
We bagged up an equal amount of empty soda and water bottles on the off chance that one of us would come across something drinkable. A swimming pool full of Gatorade wouldn’t really go amiss. Each of us had half a bottle of water left, and if it didn’t rain or one of us didn’t find something then we were screwed.
Oh, the moisture collector they tried to rig up? It didn’t work, well not in the way it was intended. As a trap for insects it was top notch.
~O~
Thirty minutes into my hike, and I knew I was being followed. Whoever it was, sucked at stealth. I moved ahead quickly and concentrated on leaving as little evidence of a trail as humanly possible. When I’d found a good enough tree, I scrambled up and hid myself behind some gigantic elephant leaves.
It was the douchebag, Brian. In one hand he held what looked to be a jagged piece of the airplane hull wrapped in cloth on the end he was gripping. His face was red from overexertion and sweat was dripping. He was ten yards away when he came to a stop, looking around for what I guessed was my trail.
I came to two possible reasons as to why he was tailing me. One: he was offering his help in our search for water and or shelter. Two: he was going to attempt a little revenge.
“Where the fuck did you go you little bitch?” he whispered to himself, or so he’d thought.
I suppose that answered my question.
“You know, bitches are typically female,” I said from my perch well above his reach.
Brian jerked in my direction and frantically looked around. The idiot hadn’t even bothered to look up. His weapon was held out before him in a grip so tight his knuckles were white. I was guessing his experience with improvised knife fighting was picked up along with his vast firearm training. Perhaps he’d seen some prison movie or something, or maybe prison porn movies. I found the latter more likely.
“You might as well come out. If I have to hunt you down, I’ll just make it last longer.”
I actually chuckled out loud to that one. “Brian,” I said as I moved the elephant leaf out of the way. “If I come down there, I’m going to take that really bad knife of yours and cut your balls off. Imagine how embarrassing that be when you make it back to camp and try to explain that you really didn’t try to act cool and stick another weapon down the front of your pants.”
It was mostly bravado on my part. I had the advantage at the moment. He couldn’t climb the tree properly without doing something with the knife, and he couldn’t put it down without evening the odds. Plus I had my walking stick to whack him with.
He was just now figuring this out. “You’re not making it back to camp tonight. I can wait you out.”
“Really?” I put a finger to my lips. “The way I see it is that you’re sweating an awful lot and all that running you had to do to catch up must have made you reaaaaaaaly thirsty. Have you finished your allotment of water, Brian?”
His lips thinned and I knew he had. “Plus there’s the wildlife out here. I’m nice and safe in the tree and you’re...”
A flash of black raced through my field of vision. The next thing I knew, Brian was crumpled to the ground screaming.
“…not.”
The panther from yesterday had him pinned. A set of its front claws were embedded in Brian’s chest and its gigantic mouth was worrying his knife arm. It didn’t take more than a couple of seconds to separate Brian from his knife… and most of his forearm.
I was transfixed on the panther’s movements. No effort was wasted; nature’s simplicity in itself. The giant paw flexed and I saw the claws dig deeper until Brian shuttered to a halt. That’s when I noticed my breathing was coming in short pants. Licking my lips, I watched as the panther turned around to look up at me.
The strangest thing was I wasn’t scared.
After withdrawing its claws, it padded over to the base of the tree and dropped Brian’s severed hand, still clutching the knife, at the base and then returned to its meal for the day. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. It was a him panther, which was obvious now from the angle I was watching from.
He was beautiful. Sleek elegance, deadly intent, infinite grace, all packaged under black fur, firm muscle, and deadly claws.
I don’t know what made me do it. I seriously don’t. But I climbed down from the tree, ignoring the prize, this beauty gave me, I crouched on the ground about halfway to the body, watching the feline work.
“Were you protecting me, boy?”
He looked up at me briefly before returning to his own prize.
I know. I’m probably grossing you out at the moment, but I couldn’t look away and I couldn’t move until he was finished. I’ll just say that he pretty much ate what normal predators ate and left the rest. What I’m getting at is, there wasn’t much left.
He padded back to the tree and nosed the severed knife wielding hand back at me.
“Uh, no thanks. I’m not really that hungry quite yet.”
But he wouldn’t leave it alone until I tore off a couple of elephant leaves and wrapped it up for storage in my pack. I am so never going to be able to get that clean.
After taking his time with proper panther grooming, he settled down and watched me. It was like a repeat of the day before, except I didn’t have the time to waste.
“Sorry, boy, I hate to watch you eat and run, but I’ve got to find some water for some very thirsty people, or we’re all going to die.”
He blinked at me and stood before trotting off the way he came. I watched him for a moment, until he stopped and looked back at me.
Again, I don’t know why, but I went ahead and asked. “Do you know where the water is?”
He took a couple of steps and looked back at me once more. I shrugged. “Okay then, lead away.”
~O~
The panther started slow until I caught on that he wanted to increase the pace. Pretty soon, I was running full out trying to keep up. There were times that I almost stumbled, but eventually I found a rhythm which conveniently matched the heartbeat I was hearing in my head. I’d tuned everything else out until that was all there was: me, the panther, and running.
I would have never found it on my own. I don’t think anyone would have. We went up the side of the mountain at first and then jogged over and went back down again where a large bolder sat at the base. From the front, it was all major undergrowth that would be next to impossible to wade through unless you were armed with a seriously large machete.
He dropped down behind the bolder where an opening was in the side of the mountain. I followed. I had to crouch to make sure I didn’t bang my head, but it wasn’t for long. The mouth opened up into a really large natural cavern, and at its center was a really large pond or a small lake the edges of which disappeared into the darkness.
There was a little light that filtered down from four different places, and I could hear water dripping in the distance.
The panther went up to the edge of the water and drank its fill before returning to sit beside me. I knelt down and for the first time, touched him. My fingers side over his head and behind his ears.
“Thank you.”
Satisfied, he got back up and found a perch above the entrance. It was then that I understood. This was his home, his lair, and he’d brought me there.
“I won’t tell anyone where this is, boy, but they need water.”
His mouth opened up, impossibly wide and then closed before he lay his head down and closed his eyes.
I wanted nothing more than to jump into the water and just lay there for an hour, but the others might object to Chase flavored drinks. Taking my time, I went through bottle after bottle, submerging and filling each. It was fairly cold and very refreshing when I emptied one over my face and through my hair.
After securing the bag to my pack, I made my way out, only taking a few moments to pet a currently comatose jungle cat. I hoped he didn’t get heartburn after eating the douchebag.
The hike back took about an hour, since I knew where I was going finally. I didn’t take the most direct route, knowing that if I made a natural trail then my panther’s secret would be out, plus the others would find the water. At the moment, I had leverage.
It was the welcome I received when I’d gotten back that annoyed me. Evelyn was leaning over Zach, moping at his face. The others watched me warily. When Zach saw me, he cringed a little. I saw that his nose was swollen and looked like it had been bleeding.
When I set my pack and the bottles down beside the tree, I squatted down and asked, “What happened?”
“They took your knife, that Stuart guy,” Evelyn said. “Zach tried to stop him, but…”
I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. I reached into the bag and passed over two bottles.”
Evelyn’s eyes widened and she rushed to open hers and swallow about a quarter of it in one shot before I slowed her down. “Easy. We need to move and you can’t do that if your stomach is cramping. Start packing.”
She got the gist of what I was suggesting. “Are you sure, Chase?”
I nodded. “I’ve got a climate controlled cave with an endless water supply and natural protections. They won’t be bothering us.” Looking back at the group, I saw a few of them already up at seeing that I had found water.
“Did any of them try to stop Stuart?”
“Three of the girls, those over by the fire. Pete and his grandson…,” said Zach.
“Brett. Good. I’d hated to have left them behind.”
I shifted two bottles into my pack and took out the present I had for Stuart.
“What’s that?” asked Evelyn.
“You really don’t want to know. Now start packing.”
I leaned my walking stick against the tree and picked up the bag of filled bottles, pulling two out in the process. Making my way over to Pete and Brett, I held them out.
“We couldn’t stop them, Chase. I’m sorry,” said Pete.
I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. I found shelter. Pack your bags and anything you want to take with you.”
His eyes widened and then shifted to the others. “You’re not leading everyone are you?”
“Nope.”
He sighed and nodded with resignation. “Perhaps they’ll come around eventually.”
The three girls were my next stop. “Thanks for trying to help.” They greedily drank at the bottles. “I’ve found shelter and water if you want to join us.”
One of them was the crying lady from before. “What about the fire and the rescue teams?”
My eyes flicked up to see Stuart and his group were watching us, but not really doing much else. “There’s not going to be any rescue. By day’s end, they’ll be shutting down the rescue portion and moving on. We’re on our own.”
I could see denial behind their eyes. “But I’ll be setting something similar up at our site, just in case.”
The crying lady shook her head. I could see I wasn’t getting through to her. One of the others, a young brunette in her twenties looked somewhat resigned.
“You’re leaving now?” she asked.
I nodded. “Right after I get my knife back.” They didn’t look too hopeful about that happening, but I gave them a small smile anyway. “Go get packed if you want to come with.”
There were eleven bottles left and quite the number of people behind Stuart, waiting for theirs. When I approached, I already saw a number of them holding their hands out, expectantly.
“My knife, I want it back.”
His hand instinctively went to his right front pocket. “It’s everyone’s knife. You can’t have a resource and not share it with the others.”
I gave him a calculating smile. “Is that the new law?”
He only nodded in return.
“You know, Stuart, when you send someone to kill me in the jungle next time, you might want to arm them better.”
The blond-haired guy that got Stuart to back off from the beginning started looking around. “Where’s Brian? Stuart, what did you do?”
I gave the blond a look. “He gave him a shiv made out of the plane’s hull and had him follow me this morning… or at the very least encouraged him.”
“What happened?”
Stuart took a step forward, closing the distance between us to about five feet or so. “He’s lying. Brian’s hunting for shelter and water like everyone else.”
With an underhanded toss, I lobbed the wrapped present to him. The elephant leaves fell open on the way over. It got a little loud after that. Even Stuart looked surprised. Several of the others backed away. The blond guy looked at his friend with disgust, turned and walked away.
“My knife,” I said.
His paled face lifted to me. “I didn’t… I didn’t send him after you.”
As much as I wanted to deny it, I believed him. “Fine. Then this is how it’s going to work. Gather your water bottles and give them to me. Each morning you’ll find them filled on the beach. In return, I’ll want fish. If anyone tries to find out where we are, I’ll know and you might or might not find yourselves in the same straights as Brian here. I highly suggest staying away from the south side of the island.”
Stuart’s eyes narrowed. “You found a cave, didn’t you?”
I nodded. “Yep. Find your own.”
He wasn’t happy. The muscles in his jaw tightened and his fists clenched. “I’m keeping the knife.”
Without waiting for anymore talk, I took out a bottle, unscrewed the top and upended it on the sand.
“Give him the stupid knife,” one of the guys said.
Dropping the bottle, I reached into the bag for another. Right when I started unscrewing it, Stuart lunged. I tried to dance out of the way, but he wound up clocking me hard on the shoulder, knocking me to the ground. I lashed out with the heel of my foot, as hard as I could right below his knee. A loud pop sounded and Stuart went down screaming and clutching at his dislocated knee.
My shoulder felt like a pile-driver had at it, so I scrambled away as best as I could. He flailed at his back pocket withdrawing a sharpened stake. It was crude, but it would be effective if he reached me. Luckily, I had two functional legs.
A loud growl sounded behind me, and Stuart’s eyes went wide. I didn’t spare a glance back, because I already knew what was there.
Holding my hand out, I waited. The panther eventually made its way over and brushed his head underneath. There was a constant low growl emanating from his throat.
The others were already making tracks far away, leaving Stuart to his own just rewards.
“Now, you can give me my knife or I can wait until my friend here rips out your throat and then I can get it myself. Your choice.”
I got my knife back.
~O~
The ones that joined us included the blond guy, Dane. The crying lady bowed out. Janie and Sara, the two new girls walked along with Pete and Brett, while Zach and Evelyn flanked me, and the panther disappeared into the jungle.
“Was that really Brian’s hand,” asked Zach.
I nodded. “What’s left of him is about twenty minutes in that direction. There wasn’t much.”
“How did you…” Evelyn started. “The cat.”
“I really don’t know. He surprised me the first time I came out, but he didn’t act like he wanted to eat me or anything. Then this morning he came out of nowhere and took down the douchebag. After that he led me to the cave and the water.”
Evelyn gave me a really weird look. “How did he know to do that?”
I shrugged. “I asked him.”
“You can talk to animals now?” she asked with a little bit more disbelief than I thought the situation deserved.
“He understands me. I don’t really understand him. So, if that’s your definition of doing a Doctor Doolittle…”
She was silent for the rest of the hike.
When we arrived at the cave, the panther was asleep on his perch, but he opened an eye for a moment to make sure it was me leading the bunch and not a mid-afternoon snack waltzing in.
“Oh my god, it’s like air conditioned,” Sara almost squealed with a bounce.
Zach couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. It made me smile a little. There was nothing like an exuberant blonde with large breasts to perk any guy up.
Pointing along the sides of the cave, I noted, “There are a lot of recesses in the walls. I suggest that for your beds. We can scout around for stuff to pad it. I plan on going back to the plane for cushions for myself.”
There were nods of agreement and everyone picked out one for themselves. Evelyn chose one near mine and Zach coincidently chose one near Sara.
Once everyone dropped off their packs they gathered around looking at me like I was the leader. Since I’d found the new digs, I could see their train of thought.
“Look, I don’t have rules or laws. We can divvy up the chores equally if that’s cool with everyone.”
Dane raised his hand a little. “I’ll go get some deadwood and start a fire.”
Pete nodded. “I’ll help you. Brett, why don’t you and Zach take the girls and find something to eat, but don’t try anything that you don’t recognize until Chase okay’s it first.”
Janie, the brunette, edged up, looking at me like I was the second coming. “I’m not really jungle certified, yet. What can I do?”
I took that to mean she didn’t feel safe enough to help the others, and with a giant panther on the island, there was no telling what else could be out there. “I was going to explore the cave and see if there were other ways in. You’re welcome to come with me.”
She looked around, somewhat tentatively. “Okay. Do I need anything?”
I shrugged. “Just yourself.”
That brought a quick smile from her.
~O~
Somewhere along the line Janie’s hand found mine. I think it was the third time we were surprised by a small cavern full of bats, well not entirely full, maybe a few dozen, but still. After an hour or so of backtracking because of dead-ends, we’d come across my paradise: a natural hot spring.
Both of us stared at the steamy water that was trailing off through an opening in the side of the mountain.
You must understand something at this point. It had been almost three days since any of us had anything resembling a hot bath. My scrubdown in the sea water didn’t count. The sand that coated our skin, especially in places that it shouldn’t be was more than an annoyance. And frankly, we reeked.
All it took was a glance and a nod at each other before we both stripped down to nothing and eased into the perfectly hot water. I retrieved my travel kit and pulled out a fresh bar of soap, handing it over.
Janie might have squealed a little when she saw it. Her exuberance totally erased any thought of modesty that might have existed. I was right there with her.
Fifteen minutes later and I’d scrubbed every inch that was within reach. We even did each other’s backs, before setting the soap aside and simply enjoyed the water.
“You won’t tell the others that we did this together, will you?”
My eyes were closed, as my head hung backward on the lip of the pool, but I smiled. “Already regretting?”
She giggled. “Not really. It was worth you seeing me naked and not having to take turns. This is heaven.”
“Well, we’re even. You saw me too. Don’t worry about it. I don’t scrub and tell.”
“Really?”
I nodded and smiled again. “Besides, you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. I should be thanking you.”
That’s when I felt her hand slide across my chest. My eyes fluttered open and I saw her face was only inches from mine. She smiled very seductively down at me. “Feel like a proper thank you?”
My lips parted as I sucked in a breath when her hand dipped down to grip a very sensitive portion of my anatomy. “You really don’t…”
I didn’t even get it all out before her lips dropped on mine. By the time she’d pulled back, I was raring to go and she was breathing heavy.
“I really do.”
With a swift motion, she straddled me and worked me up inside her. The water did nothing to help matters. Whoever says they love having sex in a hot tub hasn’t really had sex in a hot tub. Water washes away the natural lubricant making it a much rougher ride than normal, if you get my meaning.
But that didn’t matter at the moment, not when I was fully inside her. We stopped all movement and just sat there relishing the feeling. Janie shuddered and then gasped out loud before leaning back and dipping her hair in the water again.
“Oh god, I needed that.”
What? She came already?
Her grin turned wicked. “Now, are you ready for the main event?”
~O~
After the mud fiasco of the previous day, I’d taken to store a pair of shorts and a shirt in my pack. She got the shirt, I got the shorts. After rinsing the swim shoes, I slipped them on and we made our way back.
Before entering the main portion of the cave, Janie stopped, pulled me back and then pressed herself onto me. A really nice kiss later and she smiled. “Thanks Chase, really. I almost feel like a new person.”
Her fingers danced down my chest tweaking playfully at my left nipple. “And if you can keep this between you and me then I’d like to maybe make our bath time a regular thing.”
Considering we tested the limits of my endurance, three times actually, I was all for sealing my mouth shut. To show compliance, I mimed a closed zipper on my lips. It goes to show exactly how exhausted I was since I followed Janie straight into the cavern afterward. Her teasing should have brought a reaction out of me, but I was limp as a spaghetti noodle. After so many hiking trips and the work out we’d just had, I wanted nothing more than to curl up and relax for the rest of the afternoon.
“Holy cow, you’re clean!” Sara nearly crapped herself right there. She ran up to Janie and sniffed. “And you smell good too!”
Janie looked back at me and grinned, so I took the lead. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have hot running water.”
That brought gasps of excitement from the rest of them. After a brief explanation, Janie got dressed and escorted a group of them back to the spring. I totally enjoyed some of the fruit that the others gathered and then totally crashed out in my hard rock alcove.
~O~
No running, no drums, only sweet oblivion.
~O~
A shaft of sunlight met me when I opened my eyes. I winced and turned away to let my vision adjust to the low light of the cave. The bare rock wasn’t the most comfortable place to sleep. The acquisition of several seat cushions was paramount amongst the things to accomplish for the day.
Brushing my hair out of my eyes, I grimaced. There had to be something in the fruit that had been found around the island. My hair was growing like crazy. I don’t normally wear it really short, but it had never touched my shoulders either, like it was doing right then.
I worked a kink out of my back before slipping my swimshoes back on. They were already too loose, stretched from constant use. I could probably use some thread from my sewing kit to tighten them up a little, but I’d wait until it was necessary. There’s only so much thread and no store around to buy more.
My muscles were a little sore from overuse the day before and my hips a little tender from overuse with Janie, but that was a good kind of tender. Routing around in my clothes suitcase, I pulled out a tight tank and a pair of jeans. I wasn’t pleased to find myself tightening my belt by a notch more than normal. All the running around and limited diet apparently had made me lose a little weight. Even the tight tank wasn’t very tight anymore.
That was a concern. I wasn’t fat, not at all. So if I was losing weight up top that meant it involved muscle mass. We needed red meat, or at least more meat in our diets. That meant hunting.
Pete was up before me again, sitting at the small fire, poking it with a stick. I guess it was an old guy thing to do. He poked a lot. When I approached, he looked a hundred percent better than the day before. It’s amazing at what a hot bath and shave can do for a person.
I sat myself on the ground and warmed my hands on the fire.
“What’s the plan today?” he asked.
It was weird how used to running the show had become for me. I sighed and thought of what needed to be accomplished. “Foraging. I’ll run the water down to the beach and pick up a bunch of seat cushions, and then we scout around here and see what we can come up with. We need real meat. Fish is okay, but something heartier would be better.”
He nodded. “If you want to leave your knife behind, I’ll start on some spears.”
I didn’t even question Pete’s motivation or the others I’d brought along with me. After passing it over, I made a few more suggestions. “If you can get everyone to do the first day duties all over again, we should be in a better position later today to actually make some headway.”
He nodded in agreement. “Do you think we should find out what everyone’s strengths are and assign duties?”
“No assigning anything. Everyone should learn what they aren’t good at from the others, become more self-reliant.”
Pete grinned. “Then you’re going to be a very busy teacher, Chase.”
I filled up the twenty some odd previously empty bottles and piled them in the sack before seeing the panther. He had been watching me the entire time.
Reaching up, I scratched behind his ears. “You mind sticking around here and keeping an eye out for my friends?”
His pupils dilated a little before he nudged me with his nose.
“Cool, thanks…” I smiled at him. “We need to get you a decent name. I can’t keep calling you boy.”
~O~
The run through the woods was a little slower than normal, since I was carrying what amounted to a case of bottled water. You try it and see how much it throws you off balance.
In time, I made it to the beach and saw that things had reverted to their original state, just with less people. When Stuart saw me, he pushed himself upright with the use of a makeshift crutch. His face was red and he was sweating hard. Life must be a serious bitch without pain killers and a dislocated knee.
They’d probably popped it back in since the nurse practitioner wound up staying with them, but it still had to hurt.
Stuart’s stake was back in his hand, like I was going to come close enough for him to use it. Whatever. A couple of the others noticed me and one of the guys approached, scanning the tree line for the panther, I suppose.
Handing the bag over, I said, “Dump it and give me your empties. I’ll be in the plane.”
He didn’t bother with small talk and simply followed orders like a good little drone.
Once inside, I noticed the heat was oppressive and there was a smell of something gone bad hanging in the air. Starting at the back, I worked a couple of seatbelts loose and started working them through the handholds on the cushions so I could carry more. It wasn’t a matter of weight since they were fairly light, but they were bulky as well. In the end, I’d managed twelve per hand.
The plane had been stripped of a lot, but I could already see things I could use. I shrugged. That would be for the next trip. I had too much already.
When I made it back to the doorway, there were a number of people waiting, including gimpy. I still had to jump down, but until I’d ascertained their intent I wasn’t going anywhere.
“What?” I asked with as much authority as I could manage.
The guy that took the water from me before stepped up. “One bottle of water a day isn’t enough.”
I shrugged. “It’s all I can manage. Where are my fish?”
He frowned. “We only caught five yesterday. We’re trying different bait, but there are only so many hooks we can drop at one time.”
From the look on the faces of the others, I knew he wasn’t bullshitting me. I sighed and looked down at the floor of the plane. They were dirty, dehydrated and hungry. Pretty soon, even common civility was going to go to the wayside and someone would do something stupid. For my friend’s safety, I had to help them.
“Fine. Give me a few minutes and I’ll work something else up. Get into the shade; you’ll stay hydrated better if you’re cooler.”
I set the cushions down on the floor and walked the aisle thinking about how to capture a whole lot of fish at once. It would be great if I had some netting, but that isn’t really standard issue on airplanes. On my third pass through the rear galley, I noticed a floor panel with a latch on it. The problem was, it was locked, and no, I had no idea how to pick a lock.
The guy was still standing there when I returned. “What’s your name?”
“Wallace.”
“Well, Wallace, anyone have something that can double as a crowbar?”
~O~
We couldn’t find anything that was thin enough yet strong enough to fit between the seams of the hatch so we could pop the lock. From what Wallace had told me, the people they buried, had their pockets gone through before they were covered and no keys were found on the stewards. That meant the flight crew were the only ones that were likely to have them.
With all the upgrades to the cockpit since 9-11 getting though the door from the inside was virtually impossible without explosives. We’d never gotten the flight crew’s bodies out. That meant they’d been baking in the sun for more than three days. That’s probably where the smell was coming from.
“I need some volunteers. Six guys, strong stomachs, a long sleeve shirt, a tee shirt and if anyone has some perfume it would really help.”
He gave me a weird look. “What are you, MacGyver?”
“Who?”
He shook his head. “Never mind.”
I got my volunteers. One of them gave me a boost to the top of the plane and I walked down to the nose while some of the more curious people watched from the tree line. I could smell it much better from the top, or I should probably say much worse.
The main windows were broken out, for the most part. With my walking stick I knock a few pieces out of the way so I wouldn’t cut myself, then I tossed it over the side. Taking a moment to dab some perfume under my nose, I capped off the bottle and tossed it too, then I covered the lower half of my face with the tee shirt. Steeling myself for what I was going to see, I took several deep breaths and slid down and through the open window.
Not wasting any time, I opened the cockpit door and two by two the guys rushed in and carried three dead bodies out. With the door open, and the bodies gone, the smell was bearable. I shrugged out of the long-sleeve shirt and tossed it back in the cabin while I went to work seeing what I could salvage from the cockpit.
There was another first aid kit, which I claimed, since we didn’t get one of the others. Oh, and goodie, another gun. Before anyone saw it, I stashed it in my pack. There was nothing else worth of note.
The pilot had the key.
The hatch led down to the baggage area which had these neat nets to hold everything in place. The crosshatch was too big, but doubled-up, they’d make a decent, if not extremely secure net. We found some more luggage that didn’t fly out the back during the crash. Wallace and I went through them, one representative from each of our factions.
“Whoa,” he said and stepped back from one.
I looked down at the suitcase and laughed. “Apparently we have some bondage lovers on the flight.”
He kicked it over to me. “You can have that one.”
I didn’t bother arguing with him. He didn’t really think outside of the box; I did.
“Score!”
I looked up and Wallace was holding a fairly nice knife that would do Rambo proud. With a nod, I agreed. “Good, now maybe Stuart will ease up off my ass.”
There were some gifts that someone was bringing across the ocean with them that we tore into. A laptop with a dead battery, a spice rack which we divvyed up, and various sexy selections from Victoria’s Secret. I called the hiker’s pack, which Wallace started an argument on, but I won with the excuse that I could bring more bottles of water if I had a better way to carry them. I didn’t bother to tell him that it wasn’t empty.
Once I’d secured my pack to the back of the newly acquired one, I arranged the cushions on my walking stick that I balanced on one shoulder and the bondage gear suitcase was held with my left hand.
In other words, I was seriously loaded down and it took me forever to get back to the cave. Dane and Brett came to rescue me about three-quarters of the way back. They were out foraging and heard me cussing.
Dane relieved me of the suitcase and Brett the cushion-laden walking stick. “I’ll go with you tomorrow. Oh, and we’re having roast boar tonight.”
I did a double-take at him. “Really?”
He nodded with a shit-eating grin. “You’re not the only one with mad nature skills. Brett here bagged himself one that has to weigh thirty pounds or more.”
Brett’s face was glowing red by that time. “It was charging me. I had a spear that grandpa made.”
I laughed with relief. “I don’t give a shit. You rock!”
~O~
Everyone listened to the sob story about the other camp, while I went through the hiking pack. It was standard day hiking stuff: compass, first aid items, ten snack bars, rope, small cooking stove, travel cups, map of Hawaii, toiletries, some clothes, a rain poncho, and another Rambo knife except less Ramboish. There was a large plastic ziplock bag with several useful things like matches, sewing kit, etc.
It was a decent haul.
“What’s in the suitcase?” asked Zach.
I grinned. “Something, considering your age, you probably shouldn’t see.”
He gave me a minor glare of death before I relented. “Fine, but I didn’t bring this here for its intended purpose. I plan on using the materials for other things.”
Unzipping the suitcase, I turned it around and opened it in full view of everyone. Pete’s eyes got the widest, before he went all old man on me.
“Chase, there are impressionable minds here.”
I shrugged and turned it back around. “There’s a lot of leather in here that I can make things with, like slings for one.”
“What’s a sling?” asked Sara.
“It’s what they used before guns came along. You put a rock or whatever in the pouch portion swing it around and let one end go. Takes a lot of practice to do it right, but it’s effective.”
Evelyn leaned in and held up a really big vibrator. “What are you going to make out of this?”
I grabbed it and threw it back in. “Cruise missile.”
She laughed.
Spirits were up a little with the promise of a hot entrée for dinner. Dane took Brett and Zach out to skin and gut the boar while Evelyn and I foraged for incidentals. The panther stalked behind us and then took off down a natural path to hunt, I suppose.
“Hey Chase?”
“Hmm?” I turned around to find her looking at me oddly.
“Uh… have you…” It really wasn’t like Evelyn to stammer if she wasn’t nervous about something. “Have you noticed anything different about yourself?”
I shrugged. “Like what?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the situation.”
Turning back, I closed in on her and maybe invaded her personal space a little, so she could see I was serious about wanting to help her. Evelyn had seriously dark brown eyes with one tiny fleck of green in her left. You had to be really close to see it.
She seemed more nervous with me that close. Even though we were close friends, we’d never been intimate, maybe because we knew each other too well. Don’t get me wrong. Ev’s a babe and I love her like a sister. Sure there were a few times I wished our relationship could be more, but over the last year we had cemented each other a into firm friends category.
“Talk to me Ev. What’s up?”
Her hands pressed onto my chest and then slid around as she laid her head on my shoulder for a brief hug. “I’m worried about Zach.”
I took a step out of the hug so I could see her better. “What’s wrong? Is it the head wound? I thought that healed up?”
“Exactly!” she said. “In one day? It’s not like I’m not grateful. I thought he was going to die, but for it to just heal like that. And there are other things.”
Hooking my thumbs in my pockets, I looked around until I found a decent place to sit. Then I led Evelyn over and we made ourselves comfortable under a tree out of the afternoon sun.
“Okay, so what am I missing?”
She seemed a little embarrassed. “It’s not… I’m betraying his confidence by telling you, Chase.”
It was then that I saw her problem. “Alright, how about if I promise to keep whatever it is a secret? I can’t help unless I know what’s wrong and if it has something to do with the wellbeing of our little group then I need to know, right?”
All Evelyn needed was a decent rationalization. “Right. Okay, you promise?”
I nodded.
She looked at me for a few moments before pulling at a few weeds in the ground. “Ever since Zach woke up after the crash he’s been obsessed with you.”
Both of my eyebrows shot up. “What?”
Ev palmed her face and shook her head slightly. “He’s always watching you and not in a hero worshiping way. That’s what I thought it was at first, but I see the difference now. Plus, there’s other things.”
Not knowing what to say to that, I just let her continue.
“Every time I look up, something’s changed. Did you notice he doesn’t shave anymore?”
I cracked a smile. “Ev, he’s sixteen. Even I don’t shave every day. In fact I haven’t since we’ve been here.”
Her face showed her concern as she searched mine. “Really?”
Reaching up, she ran a hand across my chin. “Chase?”
I did the same, running a hand over my entire face. I’m the kind of guy that has to shave portions of my face, because I’ve never been able to grow an entire beard. My dad was the same way until he was about thirty, or so he told me. Basically I needed to shave my chin and side burns about once every two or three days. Even then, it’s more like fine hairs instead of stubble. But at the moment, I was smooth like I’d just ran a blade.
Shaking my head, I brushed it off as unimportant. “It could be anything, Ev. If our diet changes drastically enough then our bodies are going to compensate in strange ways, sometimes.”
She pursed her lips. “Okay, then can you tell me why he’s wearing his sister’s underwear and looks like a lovesick puppy whenever you’re in the room?” When my eyes bulged in shock, she pressed on. “Or maybe you can tell me why he’s speaking Latin in his sleep, or I find him doing these weird exercises when he doesn’t think anyone’s watching.”
Some of that could actually be explained. We don’t know everything about everyone we know. Maybe Zach was a closet crossdresser who worked out different than other people, but the Latin thing threw me. We all went to public school. The only foreign languages they taught were French, Spanish, and German. There was talk about adding Russian or Farsi, but not Latin.
I couldn’t begin to guess where he’d been exposed to the language so much that he was actually speaking it.
“And then there’s you,” she declared.
“Me?”
Evelyn nodded. “When’s the last time you took your meds?”
I swallowed. “The day before we left.”
“Right, and look at you now, sitting in the dirt. The Chase I knew before would be having a fit right now. The panther… how in the world did you domesticate a wild animal like that in less than a day? It’s impossible. You talk to him like he understands you… and for some reason I really think he does.”
“Ev…”
“And you’re shorter. And your hair! Hair doesn’t grow that fast!”
I held up a hand and hopefully her oncoming hysteria. “Hold on. I’m shorter?”
Grabbing my hand she pulled me up with her as she stood. “I’m five-ten and you’re six feet even. Now tell me why we’re looking in each other’s eyes.
I rolled mine. “Because you are in regular shoes and I’m in swim shoes. I’m not shorter, you’re taller.”
Evelyn’s eyes narrowed. She immediately kicked off her shoes and looked around for even ground. “There, come here.”
I closed in, like before. It was easy enough to see that I was taller than her now, but not like before. One of us had definitely changed heights, and the logical answer to this was that Evelyn had grown since the last time we compared ourselves. The alternative was not realistic at all.
Informing her of this made Ev reconsider her observations. “You think I’m overreacting.”
Shaking my head I set my hands on her shoulders in an attempt to calm her fears. “I think that you have nothing to concentrate on without your computer and games. You just might be more focused on others.” That was a better way to say, you’re imagining things.
The look of self-doubt on her face was disconcerting, so I tried to redirect her focus. “We’re all stressed out right now. So, here’s what we’re going to do.”
Raising my hand, I made the sign of the cross over her and tried to look vaguely priest-like. “In the name of the gods of the island, I hereby dub you Evelyn, our entertainment director. It’ll be your duty to make up stress relieving games… oh, we can roleplay! All of our gaming stuff made it through the storm well enough.”
Her eyes lit up at something to do. “Really? Don’t you think that I should help out with other things more important?”
With a shake of my head, I smiled. “Nope. Entertainment is just as important. If we keep going on like this then we’ll be at each others throats before long. Work something up, Ev. You’re the goto person for this. I know you’ll do great.”
TBC...
The Soul Does Not Perish (Part 3)
by: Lilith Langtree
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Author's note: Kudos to djkauf for betaing this for me.
Janie made it a point to join me for another fun filled hour or two in the hot spring. One thing she had introduced me to that I found all kinds of pleasure in was her attention to my nipples. Yeah, I know that’s a little weird for a guy to admit, but I really liked what she was doing.
The only thing that I wasn’t so fond of was having sex in the water itself. I was starting to become really sore down there. When I suggested that we try it some other way, Janie declined. There was an advantage to being in a raised temperature control environment. She was thinking way ahead of me in that aspect.
In the hot water, sperm production is lowered considerably. There wasn’t really a convenience store to jog down to and pick up a package of condoms, so doing it in what equated to a hot tub was the next best thing. She did say that she be ovulating soon and we’d have to stop for about a week or so, just to be safer.
There was no way to be absolutely safe if there was genital in genital sex involved, but she lowered the odds significantly.
“Then why risk it? You can still get pregnant.”
Janie was relaxing against me after our third time.
“Because I have to have it. Ever since the crash I’ve been so incredibly horny. The first few nights were torture. Then you came out of that jungle and fought Stuart. I knew I had to have you.”
I chuckled softly. “So this was all a plot to get me into bed.”
Her fingers brushed back and forth over my left nipple which sent shivers down my spine. “Uh-huh.”
She pulled away and looked down at my chest give me a mild wincing look. “I think I better let these alone for a while. They’re getting puffy with all the attention.”
I glanced down and saw she was right. They were both a little red and swollen.
~O~
The meat for dinner was fantastic. It was a little burned for our first time, but we’d work out the cooking kinks with practice. I really didn’t care. It was meat and my body called out for something of substance.
One thing of note: that evening, Zach sat by me.
Ever since Evelyn told me about his obsession, which I’d come to think of as hero-worship, I was more aware of his actions. Every so often he’d brush up against me or make an excuse to touch me. It didn’t freak me out or anything. Zach was the brother of one of my best friends and a good friend in his own right. If he felt the desire to wear his sister’s panties then who was I to call him on it? If he really did have a crush on me, it didn’t mean that I had to return his affection.
Friends fell for each other all the time. It was also one-sided a lot of the time. Thus, unrequited love came into being.
Though I did take another look at his scar, it looked several weeks old already. That was one thing I didn’t have an answer for.
I didn’t take into account that Zach caught me looking. He smiled a little and blushed before looking down. I’d better not do that anymore. Encouraging him would lead to nothing but badness, since I was firmly in the heterosexual category; just ask Janie.
~O~
Two nights in a row without any weird dreams; maybe I was on a roll.
When I dropped off the water, they were pleased to find that the hiking pack I had came with its own hydration system. It meant another gallon and a half of water. We hunted down anything that would hold the excess and I loaded up the pack with the empties from the day before.
Stuart wasn’t pleased to see Dane accompanying me this round, but he held his tongue while he whittled away at a growing number of spears. The big surprise was the fish we got in return.
Wallace seemed overly proud of their ability to hold up their end of the bargain. “The net’s way too heavy to throw, so we each grab a corner and hold it out until the fish come around. It took a few tries but we found a system that works.”
The general attitude of everyone looked improved, especially with the news of extra water being available.
Dane was holding an overhead compartment tray with ten fish on top. Considering how they held out the previous day, I was surprised they were being so charitable. Perhaps it was Wallace’s influence. Either way, he was happy and I was happy. Things were looking up.
The nurse practitioner made an appearance before we left. She introduced herself as Sylvia Hernandez and then gave Dane the hairy eyeball until he excused himself so we could speak privately.
“I was wondering if you could take a look at Stuart for me.”
Of all the things she could have said that was pretty much at the bottom of my imaginary list. “What?”
“He’s running a constant hundred degree temperature and his knee is swollen more than it should be for injury that he has.”
Seeing the disbelief on my face, she shed a little light on why she was asking me of all people. “I can’t help him. You might be able to. I was awake when you helped Zach.”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything for Zach.”
Her eyes narrowed a little, measuring me. “Chase, I’m a woman of faith. I’ve seen things during my time in the Lord’s service that I simply cannot explain in scientific terms. Truthfully, Zach should be dead.”
The pack I was holding dropped to the sand.
“There was little doubt in my mind that he had a severe concussion and a mounting infection that morning. By lunchtime he was awake and his wound had healed over in the time it would ordinarily take two weeks to recover from given the proper care.” She paused dramatically. “I could not give him anywhere near the proper care.”
“What makes you think that I had anything to do with it?” I asked.
Sylvia laced her fingers over her belt. “I watched you kneel down and check his wound that morning. Then I watched as you set your hand over his forehead and say something. After you left, maybe an hour passed before I checked on my patients. Zach’s infection had already disappeared and he showed signs of normal sleeping patterns. What I’m getting at here, Chase, is that you healed him.”
My jaw was working, but nothing was coming out of my mouth.
“I’m now asking you to help Stuart in a way that I can’t.”
Finally my voice decided to end its vacation. “I’m not a cleric.”
Don’t ask me why I used a D&D term. It was the only thing my dumbfounded brain could dredge up to describe what she was implying.
Her brows furrowed. “I didn’t say you were. However, I do think the Lord is working his will through you. Without you, all of us here might very well have been on our way to a slow and painful death.”
Reaching out, she took my hand. “Come, at least try to help.”
I looked over to Stuart and saw his face. He was pale and sweating profusely, but focused on his whittling. “Not with that knife in his hand. He tried to kill me in case you’ve forgotten.”
Sylvia nodded and went to talk to Wallace. Dane made his way back to me. “What did she want?”
I looked to the side. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
He shrugged. “Never know.”
Before I said anything else, a couple of the guys swiped all of Stuart’s finished spears and the knife. He looked too exhausted to care. When we approached, his eyes had already gone half-lidded.
“Stuart,” she said. “I’ve asked Chase to have a look at your knee.”
That got his attention. He seemed to be fully awake, but still weak. “Like hell.”
Sylvia looked down at him disapprovingly. “Then I shall refuse you anymore pain medication.”
His eyes ticked to hers in anger then he looked away without saying anything else. When she nodded to me, I knelt beside him and withdrew the blanket that was covering his leg.
“Jesus,” I whispered.
Sylvia cleared her throat and I received the full brunt of the look that Stuart just got.
“Sorry.”
His knee was at least half the size again of what I remember it being before I’d dislocated it. Holding my hand over the worst of it, I felt the heat radiating from his skin, and in the hot sun that was saying something.
Looking up at him, I saw the pain he was in. Despite the fact that he tried to shove a homemade stake into me, I didn’t want to kill him, but if his leg was anything to go by then that was going to happen pretty soon anyway. Infections were serious business in the jungle with limited medical supplies at hand.
Setting my hand as lightly on the knee as possible, I felt him flinch a little. Then I spoke to myself, not wanting the others to hear.
“Hey, it’s me again. Thanks for your help with Zach. I appreciated it. Do you think you can do that healing thing again with Stuart? I know he’s a jerk, but he doesn’t need to go out like this.”
Nothing seemed to be happening, so I closed my eyes and tried once more. “I need his fever to go away and his leg to heal. If I tore any ligaments or damaged any blood vessels or whatever, then I need them to be fixed and healed properly. Can you do that please? I’ve really got enough to worry about than his death at my hands… or my foot rather. Uh… amen.”
I was afraid to look down again, so I lifted my head and looked into Stuart’s eyes. Or I tried to anyway. He was passed out. Turning to Sylvia, her eyes were wide. She was crossing herself, and muttering something in Spanish.”
Taking a peek downward, I moved my hand out of the way to find Stuart’s leg, not swelled and hot to the touch, but normal.
~O~
“Not one word to anyone, Dane. I mean it.”
I was lugging another staff full of seat cushions back to the cave.
He laughed. “You think you’re going to keep this a secret? Once someone bumps into one of the others, they’ll know. You’re better off telling them yourself.”
“What, that I can heal wounds by laying hands on them? Yeah, that’ll go over real well.”
He shrugged. “I was a witness, and there were four other people looking on as well. Not to mention Stuart will be back up on his feet by the time he wakes up. That’ll be a big clue that something out of the ordinary happened. Face it… you’re screwed.”
I didn’t say anything in response to that.
“Plus, you’ll have to enter the priesthood, and that means you have to stop humping Janie, celibacy and all.”
My head snapped around. “How…?”
He snorted. “You’re not serious are you? Everyone already knows. She screams like a banshee and that cave echoes like nobody’s business.”
Wonderful.
~O~
“You prayed?” said Evelyn with a moderate amount of disbelief. She knew I was an atheist, or agnostic at the very least given my actions over the last few days.
I nodded.
Everyone was looking at me like I was a freak.
“I watched the whole thing,” Dane confirmed. “One second Chase closed his eyes and the next, Stuart’s leg started deflating and then he passed out.”
Zach was touching his scar. “You did that to me. I thought it was a dream.”
“What?” I said.
He looked up at me, kind of like he was in awe. “I remember everything was crazy in my head, thoughts running through it randomly. Then I heard your voice. Except it wasn’t really yours, but I knew it was.”
After rubbing my eyes, I asked, “What do you mean it wasn’t my voice?”
“I was delusional, Chase. Fever, remember? I thought it was a girl’s voice.” Zach looked down, clearly embarrassed. “It’s like how Dane described it: one second my head was a mess and then the next, I was just dreaming.”
Pete finally piped up with his little fountain of wisdom. “Clearly something is going on that is out of the ordinary.”
“Your Druid,” Evelyn said. Her voice sounded sure about something, but unsure at the same time, like she was experimenting with how it sounded.
“Pardon me?” I asked.
“The character you rolled up. It answers everything that I’ve been seeing.” Evelyn lifted her hand and started ticking off her fingers along with examples. “Your hair, how comfortable you are in the jungle, how you never get lost, the freak rain storm, the panther, your staff, how we can drink water without boiling it first…”
Janie looked at her. “What are you talking about?”
“Chase is a Druid.”
The only person that seemed to think she was right on the money was Zach. Even Pete said, “I think you need to put your books away, young lady.”
A gnawing feeling in my gut started to increase.
Evelyn stood up. “I’m serious. Chase, do something. A Zero level spell should be easy enough. Create Water. You’ve already done that one, but it didn’t have anywhere to go. Try it on the bottles.”
It wasn’t that I thought Ev was crazy. I was terrified that she might be right.
“I think someone’s been out in the heat for a little too long,” said Janie.
Zach shook his head. “No, she’s right. Chase, try it. The worst thing is that we’re wrong and nothing will happen.”
I eyed him. “Then what’s the best thing?”
He looked on like a wide-eyed zealot. “Are you kidding? Wild Shape, Summon Nature’s Ally, Firestorm, Finger of Death…”
Ev interrupted him. “Finger of Death would go against his alignment, that’s evil.”
Zach blinked. “Oh…yeah. Don’t want to do that one.”
I unzipped the pack and dumped the bottles to the floor of the cave. Either I performed Druidic magic or the others were going to wrap Evelyn and Zach up in makeshift straightjackets.
Grabbing my walking stick, I pointed it at the bottles and thought, “Create Water!” but what came out of my mouth was, “Partum Unda!”
The bottles completely filled. There wasn’t even room left for a single bubble of air, and the hydration system in the pack topped off as well. Then I heard a splash on the water’s edge, like whatever was left after filling the containers dropped into the closest natural receptacle, the underground lake.
Zach punched the air. “Yes!”
I dropped to the ground, not from anything physically wrong. This was thunderbolt strike to reality for me. Fact, statistics, physics, hard incontrovertible proof, that’s what made up my world. To have all that thrown to the wayside and for someone to throw something as dubious as magic was at me was… was…
“Chase?”
Evelyn was kneeling in front of me with a concerned look on her face.
“Huh?” I thoughtfully answered.
“You okay?”
“No, I’m definitely not.”
She took my hands and tugged on them. “Come on. I need to talk to you in private.”
My shoulders fell. “There’s more?”
A pitying look appeared on her face, but she didn’t say anything else with the others watching. In due time, we made our way out of the cavern and about a hundred yards or so away. The panther followed along, keeping pace with us until we found a decent area to stop.
When I sat down, the panther came up alongside me and nudged my face with his.
“Peace, friend,” I heard in my head more than I the rumbling purr that came from the cat’s throat.”
Of course. I was a Druid. That meant I could talk to animals and they could talk to me. That was one of their more popular talents.
“Now you talk to me?” I frowned, but scratched behind both of his ears to show him I didn’t hold a grudge.
“You were not ready before. Now you are.” He looked over at Evelyn while she watched our interaction. “Speak with your female. I will guard.”
Ev looked really interested, but waited until the panther moved away and leaped up into the closest tree. “So what does he sound like? What’d he say?”
“He going to guard us, and I’m supposed to talk to you.”
She looked like she was arranging her thoughts before she started. “I think it’s happening to Zach too.”
I blinked and then looked back toward the cave, not that I saw anything through the thick jungle. “He’s turning into a Druid?”
Ev shook her head. “No, a Bard.”
I squinted at her like she was going nuts. “Are you kidding? Who cares if he starts telling stories or breaks out in song? I’m in trouble here, Ev.”
She sighed. “An Elven Bard.”
I might have just smacked myself in the head with my walking stick. I couldn’t have been more stunned. “Zach is not an Elf. He doesn’t even have the ears.”
“Yet.”
“What do you mean, yet?”
After biting on her lip for a moment she said, “I think it has something to do with your actions.” I started to say something but she cut me off. “When we first crashed, you were you. Nothing had changed, but as you did more stuff, things started happening.”
Leaning back on a tree, I tried to compose myself thoughtfully. “Ev, what the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m saying you practiced your craft, Druid stuff. Running through the jungle, helping others, encountering wildlife, using your magic, even if you didn’t know it, you’ve been doing it. Like you were starting off at a Level One and working your way up.”
Movement from above caught my attention. Looking up, I saw the panther settling itself on a lower branch, looking at me.
“Listen, friend.”
“Zach is sitting in the cave or just hanging around here not doing much but foraging. His face has already changed a little, just from doing that. Can you imagine what would happen if he started making a bow and doing Elven crap?”
Evelyn was already stressed, but I couldn’t see ignoring the obvious questions. “How do you know he’s going to be a Bard?”
Her eyed snapped up at me. “That was the character he rolled before the crash.”
I laughed sardonically. “Let me get this straight. Zach is an Elf Bard, and I’m a Human Druid because that’s what character we created. Going by that mode of thought, since you were the DM, you should be turning into God.”
That seemed to make her mad. Evelyn’s teeth clenched and she stood up abruptly. “You think I’m wrong? Fine, then explain to me why you’re growing breasts, Chase.”
With that, she stormed off back in the direction of the cave.
“What? I’m not…” I looked down at the tight tank I was wearing. Two little nubs were poking out right where my nipples were. Grabbing a hold of the neck, I pulled it out and got a better look. “Oh fuck.”
My Druid was a Human female.
~O~
I hadn’t gone back to the cave. In fact, I went in the opposite direction. Far in the opposite direction.
The panther showed up with my regular pack in its teeth. I grimaced briefly and thanked him. My two bottles of water were inside which I made use of briefly before shouldering the pack and moving on.
Eventually, I started running, and then before I realized it, I started Longstriding. It’s another Druid gift. A regular person can only move so fast in the forest or in my case, the jungle. Longstriding gave me the ability to move twice as fast as a normal person as if there wasn’t anything in their way at all. Plants, trees, underbrush had no effect on me, because I instinctively moved through the thinnest portion available. That and the plant-life seemed to be bending out of the way all on its own.
The panther kept pace with me the entire way.
I don’t know how long I ran, an hour maybe two, before I realized what I was doing. A thin sheen of sweat covered my body, and the weird part, I wasn’t even breathing hard.
Looking around, I saw the mountain in the distance, but it was pretty far away. “Where are we?”
“Listen, friend.”
Calming the beating of my heart, I took a breath and then closed my eyes. The sound of waves crashing told me the beach wasn’t that far away, toward the northeast.
We made our way at regular speed through the last of the jungle until sand crunched underfoot. The panther held back and a low growl came from its throat. That’s when I saw what he’d spotted.
A yacht anchored no more than fifty yards off the beach. I immediately scanned the area and saw a tent set up to the left, quite a way down.
Looking down at the panther, I said. “Pace me through the trees, boy. We don’t want to scare them before I get a chance to talk.”
Making my way to the surf, I headed in the direction of a foursome. Two were sitting under the tent while the other two were playing around in the waves. It wasn’t long before they spotted me. One of the sitters stood and called out to his friends then the two men started walking my way.
They were dressed in moderately rich beachwear; seeing as how they were being transported by a yacht, that didn’t surprise me. Once we’d closed the distance, the older of the two, probably in his fifties called out.
“I thought this was an uninhabited island.”
I chuckled to myself. “It is.”
He glanced to the younger guy who I noticed bore a passing resemblance. They must have been related. Considering their age, it was probably Grandfather and grandson.
“My name is Chase Moynihan and I’d like the use of the radio on your boat, if you would be so kind.”
The older guy frowned. “You don’t have your own?
I shook my head. “No. On the other side of this island are the survivors of flight 372 out of Los Angeles. They’ve been here for a little less than a week and they’d very much like to go home.”
~O~
The taste of Coke was something that I’d missed and the Browns were more than accommodating once they’d gotten my story. We boarded their yacht. The panther didn’t want to come along and said that he would meet me back at the cave when I came to tell the others.
That saved me from explaining to the Browns about my befriending a black panther in the middle of an uncharted island.
The homecoming on the opposite side of the island, as you can imagine, was greeted with great revelry. Even as the yacht was being anchored less than a hundred yards from the beach, some idiot was running over to the SOS HELP pile of branches and leaves trying to light them on fire, like we hadn’t seen them already.
The others cheered, but kept their distance from me. Sylvia however approached with reverence.
“Did I or did I not say you were a gift from God?” she said as she crossed herself.
I shrugged. “Sylvia, I found out I’m a Druid. It’s not exactly the kind of thing your god smiles upon, being pagan and all.”
She smiled wistfully at me. “No matter what you call yourself, Chase, you are gifted and all of those kinds of gifts come from only one place.”
Looking back at the Browns and the welcome they were receiving, I saw Stuart. He was back on his feet again and looking healthy. A calm look came over his face and he nodded a single time to me.
“I need to go tell the others. Make sure you don’t leave without them.”
Sylvia looked at me strangely, but nodded. “We’ll wait.”
I have no idea how the panther made it back before me. Maybe I was just slowing him down all this time. The sun was just setting when I arrived.
Evelyn looked relieved. “Thank god! When he came back without you I got scared.”
Pete smiled at me. “We were just about to sit down for dinner, Chase. Join us.”
I shook my head. “Then you guys would miss the boat.”
Pete froze and then dropped the fish-on-stick that he was carrying.
“Pack your stuff. It’s time to go. Coast Guard will be here within the hour.”
~O~
I didn’t have any problem walking through the jungle in the dark, but the others were tripping over every errant branch and bump in the dirt. We stopped and I looked at the top of my staff.
“Lumen!”
A ball of golden light ignited pushing the darkness back.
“Can everyone see?” I asked.
I got nods from the others. Zach moved forward with a great smile on his face. “I knew what would happen right when you did it. I understood what you said. Do you think I could do it too?”
I reached out my hand and grabbed his wrist. “Zach, no, please.”
He squinted his eyes, looking at me. “Weird, maybe it’s the light, but you look different.”
Turning away, I started walking. “It’s just the light. Let’s go. I don’t know how long I can make this last.”
He was right behind me. “It depends on your level. It’s ten minutes for every level. I played a Druid once. But if it goes out, you can always do a Produce Flame, or a Flaming Sphere, or even a Flame Sword.”
As soon as he said the names of the different Druidic spells, I pictured them in my head and knew I could do perform each one. “What about others, higher levels?”
“Daylight’s a third level spell, and uh… I don’t think there’s a fourth level light spell.”
“It doesn’t matter, name one.” Asking him about the magic served a dual purpose. One, it kept him busy thinking about the game and not on trying out his Bard magic, which prevented him from advancing the change to an elf, and two, it let me have an educated guess about what level of Druid I was.
“Oh, um… Reincarnate would be a fourth level. He grabbed my arm. Chase…holy shit. My sister! The others!”
I stopped and looked halfway back. “Would not want to come back in a random body, Zach. They could wind up in a raccoon. Would you want that?”
He deflated. “No.”
By the way, I knew the spell. “What else?”
He shook his head. “Fifth level, Call Lightning Storm. Sixth level, Spellstaff.”
We continued on.
“Seventh level, Windwalk. Eighth level, Earthquake.”
My stride slowed. “Hold on what was the last one?”
“Earthquake?”
I didn’t know that one, well I knew it from the game once he reminded me, but I didn’t know the incantation. “What’s another eighth level spell?”
“Animal Shapes, Finger of Death, Reverse Gravity.”
I didn’t know any of them. If I remembered the spell knowledge to character level numbers properly that would put me at a thirteenth or fourteenth level Druid. How had I become so powerful in such a short span of time? I hadn’t even been adventuring. I’d earned maybe a few hundred experience points, maybe a thousand, barely enough to get me to second level.
As we neared the beach I could hear the surf. “We’re nearly there.” I stopped abruptly. My voice had cracked, sounding like it did when I was thirteen. Pain lanced through my midsection and I doubled over with a grunt. Zach grabbed me and stopped me from faceplanting to the ground.
“Come on, sit down, man. You’re overexerting yourse…”
As soon as my butt hit the ground he got his first good look at me.
“Holy shit!”
The others gathered. Pete kneeled down and held my forehead up so he could get a decent look. “Chase, what’s happening? You look…”
Evelyn was beside him. “Like a girl. It’s the magic. It’s transforming him. It’s why he didn’t want Zach to do any. He knew this would happen if he did anymore magic, but he also knew at least one of us would hurt ourselves in the dark.”
“Ev,” I grunted again in my new feminine voice. “You suck.” Leaning my head against the tree, I gasped at a sharp pain between my legs. “Always have to be right about everything.”
I looked at her and the tears that were falling from her eyes. “Chase, you have to end it here, on the island. Once you leave you can’t change anymore. You can’t be caught in between.”
It was useless to ask how she knew this. She was the DM. It was her job to be all knowing.
Knowing she was right… again, I said a silent prayer to my lost masculinity. “How?”
She looked at the others. Janie was covering her mouth. Sara was gaping at me. Dane looked really troubled, and Brett looked scared. Zach held my hand and I could see he was holding something back.
“You have to do something big. Something powerful to push you over the edge,” she answered. “Zach, what’s the wildest spell, something high level?”
“Seventh level,” I squeezed out.
“Fire Storm.”
I shook my head. “I’m not burning down the jungle. I’m a Druid.”
He smacked his own face for me. “Sorry.” If I didn’t’ know any better, I’d swear he was constipated, he was trying so hard to be useful. “The only thing I can think of that’s not destructive is Greater Scrying.”
With a nod, I held my tugged on the hand he was holding. “Help me up.”
My clothes felt loose on me, everything but the really tight tank. My breasts had grown considerably. A squeak of sound came from my mouth at being hauled up by Pete and Zach.
Before I had a chance to chicken out I gripped my walking stick. “Agnitio!”
The island exploded into my mind. I knew every square inch of land, every creature that walked, stalked, and flew, I knew that the Coast Guard had already arrived and had several spotlights pointed at the jungle where I normally come out. I also felt it, the thing that did this to me, to us. The thing that created the lightning that blew out the engines on the plane and killed my friends.
Everything, I knew everything.
~O~
My breath was coming in rapid gasps. The guys were holding me down and the pain was subsiding.
“It’s over,” I said. My voice was pitched even higher. I lay there waiting for my breathing to calm down and the residual pain to fade before I felt good enough to stand. “Help me up.”
It was much easier this time around for them to lift me. When I was on my feet, I grabbed my jeans to keep them from falling off. Long hair flew in my face and Ev brushed it away.
“Jesus, Chase.”
It felt like I’d been through the wringer. Using magic drains you. Top that off with spontaneously changing sexes and I felt like I could sleep for a week.
“You can’t go out there looking like this,” Ev pointed out. “There’ll be too many questions.” She looked to the other girls. “Sara, she needs one of your bras and a top. Janie, a pair of shorts. I’ve got the shoes. Guys go away. Hold it… take Chase’s luggage. And if I catch even one of you looking I’ll…”
Dane held up his hands in surrender. “We got it. Nobody’s looking.”
The girls went to work. I barely had a chance to see what I looked like before they had me dressed. Janie looked at me painfully as she tied my hair back so I didn’t have to deal with it.
She leaned in. “I’m, so sorry, Chase.”
With a hug she backed away. Well so much for any new girlfriends.
Everything fit fairly well. The bra was a little tight. I could see why Evelyn picked certain clothes from each of them. Sara had the biggest breasts, well she used to anyway. Janie had a really thin waist and a butt that would stop traffic. Ev had the closest shoe size to me. It was still a little big, but maybe by half a size.
“You feel okay?” she asked.
I nodded. “Let’s go home.”
~O~
When we reached the beach, the others were waiting for us. Everyone got a gander at the new me. Needless to say, there were some shocked people.
Dane stepped up since one of the rescue people was on his way over. “This happened to Chase because of us. Everything he did was to save our butts, so if one of you squeals then just remember there are some of us here that will find you and kick your rat ass.”
Pete backed him up with Zach and Brett right alongside.
“Nothing happened here on this island. Nothing at all, just some people helping each other survive.”
That’s when we were interrupted by the rescue guy. “You guys ready to head back to civilization?”
Halfway to one of the launch boats, I stumbled in the sandals, and guess who caught me before hauling me up in his arms like I was a feather pillow.
“I’ve got her,” said Stuart. He looked down at me with a mix of sorrow and amazement. “You’ve done enough for us. Let me do this.”
Honestly I was too tired to care. Evelyn took my staff and I passed out in his arms.
~O~
A news crew was there, but thank god that no cameras were allowed. Representatives from the airlines were kissing our butts from the boat to the transportation that was arranged for us. The entire way, Stuart was never more than a few inches from me. He’d even pushed a reporter away when they tried to get a little too up close and personal.
Who would have thought: all I had to do to earn some respect from him was to almost kill him, save his life, and then turn into a defenseless girl. Easy, right?
Everyone exchanged numbers and/or email addresses to keep in touch. Something about surviving the worst experience in your life makes you actually care about people you barely know.
After the doctors checked us out, we were offered fancy rooms to relax in, but Zach, Evelyn, and I just wanted to go home. A limo dropped us off and made sure we were inside before leaving.
Air conditioning was a blessing. The hot bath with soap and shampoo was a godsend. The new body, I hadn’t a clue.
Fumbling through the mechanics of washing myself, I explored a little and found out that, yes, I was a girl. Shorter, busty, a butt so thick I could probably jump out of a second story window and as long as I landed on it then I’d be fine, all of that and no dick.
You know the messed up part? I wasn’t even groomed in the slightest. My legs were just as hairy as before, well, thinner hair but still. Pits, yep.
I just didn’t have the heart to start living like a girl was supposed to so I dried off and slid under the covers.
My dreams were of the jungle.
The next morning I didn’t have anything clean to wear, so I just donned my robe and went to the kitchen to start the coffee. Yes, the kitchen was stocked. My parents are loaded and it’s a summer beach house. We had people that do that for us.
I stopped with my finger on the power button. My parents. How was I supposed to explain that their son was dead, but he really wasn’t? Instead, they got this different model of child, who was magically powered. That was one of the first things I did when we got home, tested my magic. The Light spell just about blinded me.
“Morning,” Evelyn said as she entered the kitchen. “Oh my god, what did you do to your hair?”
I reached up. “Nothing. I washed it. I even used conditioner.”
She sighed. “And you obviously slept on it without bothering to dry it.”
The bagels didn’t look very fresh so I opted for an omelet. “Pardon me for not knowing every chapter in the guide to being transformed into a girl handbook that someone failed to give me last night.”
Okay, so I was a little snippy, and I hated the sound of my voice. It was all smoky and seductive.
“Sorry,” she said. Then her eyes dropped to my legs and then closed. She turned around and went over to sit at the breakfast table.
“Can the girlification wait until after breakfast?”
“I didn’t say anything,” she said in her defense. “You’re right. There’s no need to push. Oh, by the way, your parents will be here in about six hours.”
The omelet pan clanged on the stove as I whipped my head around.
“I called them last night,” she said. “All of our parents are coming over. They saw the rescue on the news last night and booked the first flight out before I’d even called, so don’t give me that look.”
Busying myself with the food was the only distraction I had.
“So, do you want to look like junglezilla for your unveiling or would you like to look somewhat normal?”
There was no way in hell I was letting her take me to the salon. I’d muddle through on my own. How hard can it be to shave legs?
Evelyn took my measurements and we talked about what kind of clothes I’d wear which wound up being jeans, shorts, boots, and shoes with no heel. She could pick out the shirts I’d wear. I didn’t have a problem with that and truthfully, I had no fashion sense. I knew enough to not look like an idiot when I was a guy. It’s fairly easy as long as you know how to color coordinate which I did.
Another bath and I worked on cleaning myself up properly. I went through three razors. It was ridiculous. To this day I still don’t know how women do it.
Because it was so bushy, I did work on my… ahem, area down there. I didn’t remember it being so thick before. It took me an hour and half to do that. Having to go back so many times because I’d missed a small patch was more than I was used to. When that was done I washed my hair again. I just wet it and reconditioned it.
When I made it back out to the living room, Zach was staring out the patio window.
“Whatcha doing?” I asked.
He jumped and turned around. When he saw me in nothing but a bathrobe, trying to comb my hair out, his eyes bugged and he looked away.
“Sorry.”
I shook my head. “Zach, it’s okay to look. I’m not flashing anything… at least I don’t think I am.”
Testing the waters, he half-turned and just watched me out the corner of his eyes. “You look so different.”
I shrugged. “I knew what I was doing. Don’t feel bad over this, Zach.”
“You wanted to be a girl?”
“No, definitely not, but if it meant that I could protect you and the others then it was a good trade off. Odds are we’d still be on the island and near to being dead if I wasn’t…” I waved a hand around looking for the right words. “All Druidy.”
Frustration was mounting as I struggled with my hair. I was definitely getting it cut off.
“I used to help Carrie sometimes. I could do that for you if you want?”
My shoulders dropped in relief. “You don’t mind?”
He shook his head. “I’ll be right back, sit on the floor in front of the couch.”
Reaching for a pillow to set on the floor I just laughed. I already had a pillow built in my ass. I did grab an afghan. There was no need in scaring the boy to death looking up my robe.
Zach returned with two brushes then made himself comfortable. The nirvana kicked in. I never knew how good it could feel for someone that knows what they’re doing to brush your hair.
He took it slow at first until all the tangles were out and then it was just long, slow, sure strokes. I don’t know how long it took him, because I was seriously in the zone, but by the time Evelyn had returned, it was dry.
She made herself comfortable in my room clipping tags for the stuff she was sure about. I had to try on other things that she was iffy on. Apparently a butt like mine is difficult to fit properly in jeans. They really had to be tried on in the store.
Two pair out of six fit me right. The others made it feel like I was stuffing a basketball into a sock. The bras were perfect -- 34-D in case you’re wondering. She said I could wear certain C-cups, that I was right on the edge between the two. Panties were pretty much generic. If I wanted frilly then I’d have to buy them myself -- which I didn’t.
She got one pair each: sandals, tennis shoes, boots, and flats. No heels in the lot, except for the boots and those were normal boot heels.
“Ev, thanks. You did great and nothing was over the top. I appreciate it.”
She shrugged. “I’m giving you one month to get in the swing of things, Chase. Then I’m going to bug you just like I do all of my other girlfriends.”
“I can live with that.”
After changing into a pair of jeans and a scoop-neck top, which she assured me matched, I stood in front of her. “How do I look?”
She grabbed my hand and dragged me across the hall to her room. “Okay, look in the mirror and tell me what you think you could improve on.”
I grimaced a little knowing what she was going to suggest. “I don’t quite have a unibrow, but it needs work.”
She nodded and pulled out a pair of funky looking tweezers with little finger hole things, like scissors without the sharp parts and grabby parts put in their place. “Here, you see where the inside point where your eyes begin? Pluck everything in-between, nothing else, okay? I don’t want to draw eyebrows on you because you went crazy.”
I looked at her, lost. “You want me to do this?”
Ev smiled. “Honey, I’m not your beautician. I’ll help you, but you’re doing the work. Besides, I’ve been going full force since this morning. You’ve been in the bathtub and flirting with Zach.”
My mouth worked a couple of times before something came out. “I was not flirting. He was helping me with my hair.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Chase, I want you to think about something for me, okay?”
I nodded.
“You saved Zach’s life. You watched over him and became his hero while you were a guy. Then you up and sacrificed your gender so that he wouldn’t turn into an Elf. Then here you are, a sixteen year old boy’s wet dream, sitting between his legs and letting him play with your hair.”
I moaned and leaned forward covering my face with my hands.
“You have to be very careful with him, Chase. His hero-worship has turned into a full blown crush of epic proportions, and he’s still a minor.”
That jolted me out of my agony. Sitting up I looked at her very seriously. “I don’t like him in that way.”
She nodded. “Just watch yourself, Chase. He lost his sister and a really good friend. Zach is very fragile right now.”
“What should I do?”
Evelyn looked thoughtful for a few moments. “Be aware of the distance between you two. Don’t sit too close. Don’t touch him if you can help it. Anything casual can be seen as flirting. Don’t stare at him too much. Treat him like I treated you when you had a crush on me.”
If I could have fallen over, I would have. She smiled, “Now get to work on those brows. They won’t pluck themselves.”
~O~
Once I’d pulled out half the hair on my face, Ev showed me how to arch them properly. Eventually she suggested makeup, but I nixed that idea. I wasn’t quite ready to take that step. Mom and Dad would just have to deal with me the way I was.
When I emerged from the bedroom after slipping on the sandals, Zach was there again, except this time he was watching a news clip about the rescue. It was the weekend and evidently the twenty-four hour news channels didn’t have anything better to do than run specials about the heroes of flight 372.
There were a few interviews with some of the survivors. As agreed, they kept everything low-key. It was a community effort, everyone helped as they could. We purposely split up because of the water situation. Some of them had to stay on the beach while the others stayed with the water.
All in all it was very generic.
Then they started flashing pictures of the people that were lost.
Keeping my eyes on the screen, I sat beside Zach on the couch as passengers that we didn’t recognize and some that we did, flickered to and then away. By the time Derrick and Carrie’s faces were shown, I realized that I was crying. There was even a sniff or two from beside me.
Before I knew it, Zach passed me a tissue and I tried to joke my way out of the situation. “It’s a good thing I didn’t let Ev put makeup on me.”
He didn’t agree. “You’re beautiful even without it.”
My hand froze at my eyes. I pulled the tissue away. “Zach…”
I didn’t know what to say, but that didn’t stop him. “I know. I’m sixteen and you were a guy up until yesterday.” He shook his head. I knew the look of futility in trying to say the right thing. “I’m just saying you’re beautiful. Can’t it just be simple like that?”
With a silent nod, I looked down at the tissue I was holding. “You’re a good man, Zach. I wish you didn’t have to go through all of this crap.”
He edged up on the couch, a little away from me, like he was going to get up. “Evelyn told me everything, about the Elf thing and why you did what you did. I just wanted to say thanks. I like gaming, but I don’t think actually being an Elf is something that I’d enjoy.”
“It’s not a problem.”
He reached out and took my hand. “It is a problem. You could have let us walk in the dark. You could have not done any magic since you found out what it did to you. You could have let me do some to save this from happening. The news reports are a big lie and we both know it. Well I’m here to say that I know what you did, Chase. Whether or not you want to admit it to yourself, you’re a hero, the only hero that was on that island. I appreciate it is all. So thank you for what you did. Maybe one day I can do something half as important.”
Zach stood and left the room. That’s when I saw Ev standing in the hall fanning her face. “Damn, that boy is going to make one hell of a man in a couple of years.”
“Too late. He already is.”
TBC...
The Soul Does Not Perish (Part 4)
by: Lilith Langtree
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Author's Note: My posting over the very near future will probably be sporadic. 'll try to get the rest of these out at once a day until caught up. Past that, I don't know. Someone close in my life has developed ovarian cancer and I was with her most of this morning. The next few days will be demanding on my time to say the least.
Chapter 4
Usually when I needed time to think, I played video games or dusted my room. This time, I was out on the patio with my staff, formally the walking stick. Since my Druid revelation, I realized exactly what it was. Magic users didn’t necessarily need a staff or a wand or whatever to do their magic, but sometime using it as a focus helped them concentrate better. If there was one thing I lacked, it was concentration.
I was never any good at it. I simply thought about things too much. Over analyzing was a personal habit; that being good or bad has yet to be determined.
In other words, I needed the staff at that point. It was firm and real, something tangible in the new world of intangibility.
Over the course of the few days I’d had it, the splintered ends became rounded. It had thinned in certain places and thickened in others, and after the Create Water spell I intentionally called, Druidic symbols began appearing, burned into the wood. This culminated during the Greater Scrying spell. Sometime during my transformation, my staff changed along with me. It was on the thin side now; I suppose to match my thin figure. It was also virtually covered in runes.
Each one represented a specific spell that a Druid was able to cast. From the head of the staff through most of its length, they were burned in, etched for lack of a better word. That was confusing.
The Scrying spell I used wasn’t for that purpose. It was to spy upon a certain person or creature at any distance. It wasn’t for the all-encompassing Druidic data download that I received. It wasn’t for scanning the entire island. And it certainly wasn’t for merging however briefly with that thing that caused this whole fiasco to begin with.
Something bumped my leg while I was lost in my thoughts. I leaned forward and looked down to see an overgrown black cat circling and rubbing itself on my jeans. I reached down and brushed its hair.
“Hey there, kitty, you remind me of someone.”
I’d left the panther on the island, of course. It would be impossible to explain and truthfully, he was probably better off without me.
“You cannot be rid of me so easily, friend.”
My mouth stretched wide and I set my staff aside before lifting the black cat onto my lap. “Is that you in there, panther?”
He purred at me as I stroked the length of his body over and again. “We are companions. We cannot be separated for long, even by great distances.”
Something came out of my mouth. It sounded vaguely like a giggle, but I’m not ascribing to any particular descriptive term at this point.
“But how did you turn into a small cat… well, you’re still big for a common cat, but you aren’t a panther anymore.”
He stretched up, placing a single paw on each one of my breasts and looked me in the eyes. “I am all that I was. You grant me the ability to transform as I grant you some of my traits.”
I kept forgetting about some of the really cool magic that a Druid can perform. Natural abilities that come with an increase in level and power were now within my grasp. I can transform my body into that of pretty much any creature. If I wanted to be a cat or a bird, I could. It’s called a Wild Shape.
“So you’re in disguise. That’s brilliant.” Leaning forward I brushed my cheek against his. “I missed you.”
“As I did you, friend.”
Evelyn stepped out to the patio, holding a cup of coffee, and grinned. “Who’s your new friend? He’s a cutie.”
She petted the cat’s head and briefly scratched behind his ears.
“He’s the panther using my Wild Shape ability.”
Ev’s eyes widened in delight. “Oh my god, that is too cool for words!”
I nodded with a smile. We spent a little while giving the cat a lot more attention. I’m pretty sure he was in his own little nirvana, much like when Zach was stroking my hair. Then I rolled my eyes. Of course, that’s where I got it from. The panther had already gifted me with some of its traits. However as far as useful abilities go, it was pretty much down there on the lame scale.
“The plane landed. Our parents should be here soon.”
I swallowed. “Do I look okay?”
Ev gave me a dubious eye. “You’re freaking gorgeous, Chase. You make me sick. Don’t ever ask that question again. Even when your hair was fried this morning, you still looked better than any girl should look under the same conditions.”
Looking down, I stroked the cat some more. “I don’t look anything like I used to.”
“That’s not true.” Evelyn sat up and set her coffee on the patio table. “It’s mostly in your face. You could be your own sister. If that makes sense, I mean.”
Giving her a doubtful face was my only response, so she redoubled her effort.
“You’re looking at this all wrong, Chase. You’re not a female version of the boy you were, you’re like a genetic sister would be if you actually had a sister. You used to resemble your mother a lot in the face, now it’s more like your father. You have his angular jaw and…” She stopped and giggled. “And his cat-like eyes.”
I’d need a mirror to verify that, but I guess I could see what she was talking about from my own memory.
“You’ve definitely got your mom’s hair. Did I tell you that I hate you?”
The cat lifted his head and looked toward the front of the house. Ev and I looked at each other.
“They’re here,” she said. “Look. Why don’t you go have a walk and let me tell them about what happened. Come back in about thirty minutes and make sure you have your staff. They’re going to need a demonstration.”
It wasn’t because I was a coward, well maybe a little bit. I just couldn’t live with the disappointment on their faces. I might as well have died on the island. The cat jumped down and I stood, brushing off the errant hairs.
“I need my pack.”
Evelyn frowned. “I got you a purse. Use it.”
Rushing to my room, I stuffed my wallet and a few essentials in the purse before I heard the knock on the door. Ev rushed me out the back while Zach answered the door.
“Go hurry!” she said.
“I’m going down to the corner store.”
She nodded and then closed the curtain about half way.
Looking down, I said, “You coming, kitty?”
The cat jumped up to the hand rail and walked along with me. The familiar thump of my staff let me create a rhythm that I grew comfortable with the further I got from home.
A jeep drove by with a bunch of shirtless boys filling it, some of them hanging out the side. I heard whistles and an attempt to say something at high speed that sounded vaguely like words. I was glad I wasn’t wearing shorts. Baring skin to those idiots would have only encouraged them more.
The corner store was ten minutes away, by foot. A couple of younger teen boys were out front reading through a magazine, drinking Cokes and eating candy. It was pretty much what I used to do with Derrick while we grew up.
One of them looked up and froze when he saw me. I smiled and gave him a nod as I walked past. Before I entered the store I heard, “Whoa, babe alert!”
That brought a smile to my face. It wasn’t because of them locking their eyes on my butt. It was because that was the exact same thing that Derrick used to say to me.
The cashier’s eyes were on me as I entered and the cat waited at the door. I toured the aisles and stopped at the cooler to retrieve a Coke. Figuring I’d wasted enough time, I made my purchase and exited.
The boys were busy petting the cat which was probably an excuse to get to talk to me. I remember all the stupid things I used to do as a hormonal thirteen year-old.
They looked up at me, grinning. “Your cat’s gigantic. What kind is he?”
“I think he’s got some panther blood in him.”
The boy’s eyes widened until he realized I was playing with him.
“Come on, kitty; time to go.”
Their voices were hushed but busy as I left and followed the same road back to the beach house. When we approached, I sent the cat ahead to let Evelyn know that I was there. It was easy to be stealthy while wearing sandals.
Voices were raised. I could hear my father, not exactly yelling, but definitely louder than normal.
“Evelyn, it’s not that I don’t think you all believe what you saw, but magic isn’t real. Maybe it was hallucinogenic plant spores or something in the water.”
Ev came back at him. “Then why is Chase a girl still?”
“Evelyn…” That was her mother scolding her. “Enough of… oh, where did this cat come from. Did one of you leave the door open?”
That’s when I stepped through.
All eyes were on me at that point. Evelyn sighed. “Finally. You took long enough. I was done ten minutes ago.”
Setting my Coke on the table beside the door, I watched as Dad stood up from one of the many armchairs looking at me oddly.
“I hear we might need a demonstration?” I said.
“Please,” Evelyn begged.
“Something flashy I think. Come to the door.”
As I exited, I could hear the older adults start in on the question to Zach and Ev. The who is she and what’s she doing here sort of questions. The one answer I was interested in was the one that came from my dad.
“She looks like my mother. Well, a much younger version anyway.”
Looking around, I saw that we were completely alone. Waving everyone out, I pointed up. “Totally clear sky, right?”
The only clouds up there were a couple that were mere wisps amongst the blue background.
“Does anyone see any storm clouds?”
Evelyn’s father frowned. “This is ridiculous.”
Lifting my staff in the air I pointed it off shore. “Levitas Tempestas!”
Within a matter of moments dark clouds started forming themselves out of nothing, they were thick and grew thicker by the second. Thunder rumbled above, but I concentrated and pushed it off shore where there were no ships or boats to harm.
Every rune on my staff lit up, steadily growing brighter and brighter. The energy that I was calling with the storm was heady at the least. I felt a charge run through me, making the tiny hairs on my arms stick up.
Turning around, I looked at the others. “Do you believe now?”
They looked at me, in total confusion.
“Impingo!”
A hundred yards off, into the Pacific, a blast of lightning struck the water. Static electricity filled the air.
“Impingo!” Another crash further out.
I yelled out the incantation for five more strikes, one after the other, before I eased back, pulling the energy back into me and dispersing the black clouds. Within a single minute the sky was right back to where it was only minutes before.
Even Zach and Ev looked impressed. The others looked terrified.
“Everything that Evelyn told you was true,” I said as I approached the patio, walking up to Mom and Dad. “I’m Chase. I used to be your son, now I’m your daughter.”
With that announced, I walked past them through the house and to my room.
~O~
Laying the staff on my bed, I sat on the floor and the cat came to stand in the clearest portion of the room. In an instant, his body shifted and in its place was the great panther I knew from the jungle.
“Peace, friend.”
I sighed and stretched my legs out. He came and stretched out beside me, laying his head on my lap.
“You are their cub. They worry for you and the power you possess.”
With a smile, I stroked his neck. “You’re all knowing now?”
“It is a simple thing to see.”
When I nodded, I heard a soft knock on the door. Trapped as I was underneath the panther, I called out. “It’s open.”
Mom’s eyes widened when she saw the panther.
“It’s okay,” I said. “He won’t hurt you.”
She didn’t seem so sure. I saw Dad looking over her shoulder, so I prodded the panther. “Turn back into the cat. Quit freaking my parents out.”
With liquid grace he stood and in the next moment, the large regular-sized cat was in its place. He jumped up on the bed and made himself comfortable on one of my pillows.
I watched as Mom swallowed and then edged into the room. They both stood there as Dad closed the door. Then we stared at each other for a few moments. I was getting edgy and wrung at my neck.
“Chase?” asked Mom.
My eyes darted to her. “It’s me, Mom. I know I look different, but it’s still me inside.”
Dad slid his arm around her shoulders. “You have to see things from our perspective…” he left it hanging there. Usually he’d end that type of sentence with the word, son.
“What do you want me to say? We can play twenty questions and you can ask things that only I would know. Or you can believe what you saw with your own eyes and heard from Evelyn’s story.” Thumbing back to the cat on the pillow, I said, “How often do you see a black panther turn into a cat?”
They still looked unsure, like they wanted to believe, but were still blindsided about what they saw. I stood up and came eye to eye with my mother. It looked like I lost a few inches in height. I thought I had. Everything seemed a little bigger now, but it wasn’t proof enough to me until I was faced with the reality that was.
“The last thing you said to me before I left was don’t forget to call as soon as we landed and not to wait until we got to the house then you said, bye sweetie, I love you.” Turning to my father, I continued. “You were in the garage looking for the sewer snake because you clogged up the toilet that morning. You shook my hand and told me to be safe and stay out of trouble.”
Throwing my hands out, I let them drop by my sides. “There, unless you want to get into serious specifics about other things, I got nothing else for you.”
Mom didn’t wait for me to finish before she stepped forward and hugged me. The wall I’d been holding up since they got there came crumbling down and the breath rushed out of my body. Mom’s arms were like steel vises and they’d never felt so good. Tears ran freely down my face. I’d thought I’d never see them again and that they’d never know I was alive.
Dad joined in soon after, and for the first time since the first bolt of lightning hit the plane, I felt hope.
~O~
“You said I look like Grandma?”
Dad chuckled a little. “You’re eerily similar. I’ve seen pictures of her as a teenager. She’s going to be stunned when she sees you.”
I dabbed at my eyes with a tissue. “That pretty much falls in line with what Evelyn said about why I don’t look anything like myself. She said it’s genetics and not just the female version of me.”
Mom hadn’t let go of my hand since the hug. “She seems to know a lot, from what she said anyway.”
I nodded. “Yeah, well I got the female Druid, Zach was turning into an Elf and Ev was the Dungeon Master. They’re supposed to be all knowing, so it makes sense that she’d be more intuitive than the rest of us.”
Dad shook his head, and then palmed his face, dragging his hand down. “I just don’t understand, what in the world could do this.”
With a deep breath, I told him a little of what I knew from the scrying I performed.
“I haven’t told the other this, so keep it to yourselves for now.” When I saw them give agreeing nods, I began. “A long time ago, I’m talking two to three thousand years or so, magic was active in the regular world. With the rise of intelligent, civilization, it began to recede a little at a time until eventually all that was left was an uncharted island in the middle of the Pacific.”
Dad glanced at Mom to see if she was buying my story then he looked back at me. “Magic, real magic?”
I nodded. “It’s been sitting out there, conserving itself, building its energy, waiting for someone that had the talent and perseverance to wield it again. The game… D&D was just the catalyst. When we got close enough to the island, it recognized something in me and in Zach, Evelyn too I guess. So it took steps to bring us to the island.”
Mom covered her mouth, finally realizing what I was saying, and then Dad twigged. “You’re saying it crashed the plane on purpose?”
With regret, I nodded. “It killed twenty-three people including Derrick and Carrie, all so it could get me, Zach and Evelyn to the island. It even went so far as to endanger Zach’s life so that I would heal him, and kick start the whole transition process. It was just a matter of time, after that. If we hadn’t been rescued, Zach would probably be well on his way to becoming an Elf. He’s already changed some, but it’s just cosmetic.”
Dad blinked. “What? He looks just the same.”
Giving him a short shake of my head, I explained. “Take a closer look at his skin. He’ll never need to shave again in his life. I haven’t seen the rest of his body yet, but I’d be willing to bet that his hair is pretty much gone, or at the very least not growing anymore. Elves don’t have body hair.”
Mom squeezed my hand. “What about Evelyn?”
“I don’t know. As far as I can see, her change was subtle, a mental thing only.”
At this point Dad was doing his finger tapping on his lips routine which meant he was deep in thought. “So, what happens now?”
I looked down at my hands, one of them being squeezed by my mom. “I’m a Druid. It’s embedded itself in me.”
“What does that mean?” he asked. “Are you supposed to run off to Ireland and live in the woods or something?”
“No, it’s… I’m…” I was becoming tongue tied. “There are different kinds of Druids. Some live in the forest and defend their Sacred Groves, others defend unspoiled nature, some are friends to animals of all types, protectors of villages, and some are advisors to people in power like kings. I’m here for a little bit of all of them. Since I’m the only Druid in existence, I’ve got a big job ahead of me.”
Mom let go of my hand and slid it around my shoulders. “I don’t understand, sweetie.”
“Neither do I,” I admitted. “The thing that lives on the island, it wants magic back in the world. It’s angry that so much technology has taken over and people have forgotten about what is possible with their imagination and will. I’m here to change that.”
Dad huffed. “I think that thing that lives there needs to be smacked around a few times. What it has done is reprehensible. Chase, you’ll do what you want to do.”
“I can’t. It’s either me or it’ll find someone else. More people will die if I don’t act. We can’t exactly tell the government and make sure no other plane goes in the area. It’ll find a way to make it happen.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“It’s a true neutral being, Dad. It doesn’t care about good or evil, only what it has to do in order for things to go its way. If that means a thousand people have to die to make this happen then it will gladly kill them. If it means that it saves a million lives then it’ll do that too. Can you see what would happen if a cruise ship decided to change its course, how many could die?”
“I don’t like this,” Dad said. “You being forced to do this, whatever it is…”
“I’m doing this of my own free will. I choose this because the alternative isn’t something that I’m prepared to ignore. But, make no mistake, it’s my choice.”
~O~
We all went out to dinner, minus Zach and his parents. They were busy making arrangements for their daughter’s body to be taken back to the mainland and insisting that their son return home with them. Zach was less than helpful.
He wanted to stay with me and Evelyn too. He was under some assumption that whatever happened, I could protect him. His parents weren’t so sure. In fact, they didn’t want him anywhere near me. With the death of their only daughter and the display they saw from me, they thought being about ten thousand miles away wasn’t enough, but it would have to do. They were moving to Tennessee.
I understood. If I had a kid and they wanted to hang out with me, I’d probably strangle them. Even as understanding as I was, I didn’t want to lose Zach.
They were leaving the following morning. That left the night for us.
“I don’t want to go.”
“Zach, I’m not so sure that they’re wrong.”
He picked up a broken sea shell off the beach and tossed it into the ocean. “Well, I am.” He frowned in the direction of the house where his parents stood guard, watching us so he couldn’t run away, I’m sure.
“Look once we get to Tennessee,” he said the word like it was just fifty miles north of hell. “I’ll find a tree. All you have to do is find one similar and do a Transport via Plant spell, pick me up and we can come back. I can go with you; all I have to do is touch you.”
It was a good plan. They’d just assume he ran away. Who would actually think he’d be able to join me anywhere? There was only one problem. “Your parents just lost their only daughter and you’re going to take away their only son as well?”
Zach ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s not fair.”
I agreed. “No, it’s not. It sucks that you have to be punished for living, and in a little over a year, you’ll be free to do whatever you want.”
He paused and started searching my eyes for something. Looking back at his parents one more time, Zach shoved his hands in his pockets. “The way I see it is that you’re a thirteenth or fourteenth level Druid, right?”
Apparently it was time for a topic change. “Uh… yeah.”
Zach nodded thoughtfully. “That makes you an Archdruid or possibly even a Great Druid.”
I shrugged. “Well I’d like to think I’m pretty good, but great might be exaggerating a little.”
He rolled his eyes at my attempt with humor. Totally ignoring what I said, he moved on. “That means you need Acolytes.”
I wasn’t exactly familiar with the term, but as I thought about the position, it came to me. Going over the particulars in my head, I already found a flaw in his plan. “You’d have to be an Initiate of the Ninth Circle, eleventh level if I’m not wrong.”
As one increases levels they ascend Circles. Basically it’s all one big circle-jerk.
“Exactly.”
I blinked. “Wait, what?”
“I was listening at your door when you told your parents about the thing on the island.” He saw the expression on my face. “I was worried about you and I was about to knock when I heard you talking. Afterward, I had to think, so I left you alone.”
Once I figured out where he was going with this I confronted him. “We don’t know that it’ll work, Zach. What happens if I do the zappy on you and you turn into an Elf?”
He took a breath, looking all noble. “Then I turn into an Elf.”
I turned around, shaking my head. “No.”
“It’s not your decision, Chase. It’s my life.”
“You’re sixteen, Zach.”
“I’m almost seventeen and you’re eighteen, so what?”
Whipping back around, I planted my staff in the sand and tried to look threatening. “Do you even have a clue what it means to be an Acolyte?”
He shrugged. “Pretty much.”
My eyes narrowed. “You will have no secrets from me… none. You have to do what I say. There’s no room for argument. If that means I send you to Zimbabwe to work for a month, you’ll have to go. If you don’t then you’ll be banished and I won’t be able to see you… ever again.”
He countered my arguments. “I’ll also learn from you. I can help you. Plus, at that level, I can do this from Tennessee for the next year. If you need me or I need you, I can do the Transport via Plant spell. This way I’ll still be there for my parents, but I can be there for you too.”
He had the advantage of time to think about his arguments. Me, I had squat. “We need privacy. Meet me back here at midnight.”
His grin almost split his face, so I had to break that off of him immediately. “Zach, if you’re happy all of the sudden, don’t you think your parents will know you’re up to something?”
“Oh, sorry.”
I sighed. “When you go back, don’t look mad or broken. They’ll keep a closer eye on you. Just act disappointed, maybe give them a pleading look or two, but don’t overdo it.”
~O~
I counted the minutes and tried to think of a suitable way out of doing this, but Zach had covered all of his bases as far as I could see. It was the last part of his argument that sealed it for me. He would stay in Tennessee until he was eighteen. After that I would feel no guilt for taking him away from his parents.
A tapping at the door alerted me. I looked at the cat.
“It is your woman friend.”
“Oh.”
After she came in I gave her a what’s up look.
“If you’re trying to make people think you’re not up to something then you might want to turn off your light.”
“Sue me. I’m not used to lying to people.”
Evelyn hopped on my still made bed and started scratching my cat. “So, swords at dawn? What’s going on?”
“I’m making Zach my Acolyte tonight.”
She digested that for a few moments. “I guess I’m not invited.”
Shaking my head, I shifted a little. “It’s a Druid thing.”
“And you can’t tell anyone or have outsiders at the ritual, yeah, I get it. That sucks.”
Five more minutes and I had to leave. “Can you cover for us if his parents wake up? Tell them I’m blessing him or something, protection spell, so he’ll be safe.”
Ev’s lips quirked to the side in amusement. “Isn’t he afraid of turning into an Elf?”
I cringed. “You think he will?”
She shook her head. “He won’t. You’ll be pulling magic from the island and channeling it through you. That means it’s your intent that matters most.”
“How do you know all of this?”
She shrugged and then started doing baby talk to the cat. “Who’s the cutest kitty in the world?”
“Make her stop.”
“Ev, you’re annoying a black panther and I have to go.”
She frowned. “Fine.”
I made sure she was in her room before I turned my light out and opened the window to slip out. The cat was right behind me and shifted to a panther before hitting the ground. Zach’s room was on the other side of the house so I didn’t know if he made it out or not. The panther led the way to the beach, staying in the shadows where possible.
Fear that he hadn’t made it was whisked away when I saw him already waiting for me. He was wearing shorts and a tank top. Oh, by the way, I was right. His legs were smooth. I hoped he didn’t get any crap for that in gym class when he reached his new high school. Who was I kidding? He would be able to call down a lightning strike on whoever messed with him.
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
“Two or three minutes. Not long.”
The panther led us away from prying eyes, wherever they may have been. A cove a couple hundred yards away was our destination. It was private and fairly loud so we couldn’t be overheard.
“Are you sure you want to do this? You remember the down sides to being an Acolyte?”
Zach nodded. “I’m sure. What do we need to do first?”
I pursed my lips. “Strip.”
His nervousness level shot off the charts. “What?”
I was already slipping off my sandals and unbuttoning my jeans. “This is a Druidic ritual, Zach. That means no clothes. If you can’t do that then…”
He swallowed and looked around. “Uh… no, I’m cool.”
Damn. I was bluffing. The naked thing was all bullshit. I actually thought he’d bail when he found that out, but before I could tell him that, he dropped his shorts… and panties and stepped out of them. That pretty much required me to follow suit or look like the biggest ass in the world.
So I swallowed my embarrassment and slid my jeans off, followed by my top and bra. My panties were last. Thank god I shaved. That would have been awkward. Hey I have more bush than you! Yeah, that would have gone over well.
Zach was poleaxed. A dazed expression was etched on his face, and I felt the heat of his stare run down my body. Trying to keep this businesslike was going to be difficult. Judging by the way he was looking at me, it was probably the first time he’d seen a naked girl, and of course it had to be me.
“Zach.” I tried to snap him out of the daze he was in, but I had to repeat myself. “Zach!”
He flinched and his eyes focused on mine. Now he was mortified. “Sorry.”
It was difficult for me to not notice his reaction — I’m talking about down there — but I kept my eyes on his. The next portion of the ritual came out of my mind and I nearly stopped the whole thing right there. In for a penny in for a pound.
“Kneel on both knees.”
The cool sand shifted between my toes and I felt my connection to the Earth. The light breeze felt nice against my skin as I stepped forward and set my staff between us. Perhaps he’d look at that instead of the something else that was now at his eye level.
“Take hold of the staff, Zach. One hand.”
He reached forward and grasped it. That’s when I saw that he’d closed his eyes. It seemed as if his noble side had finally made an appearance. I appreciated that more than he would know.
“Zachery Ewellynn do you swear by the magic that you hold dear to be loyal and obedient, to listen and learn, to keep no secrets from me, and to guard my secrets.”
The runes on my staff lit up. Zach flinched but held firm. “I do.”
“Zachery Ewellynn, do you swear by your loyalty to me your term of service shall last until midnight at the time of your eighteenth year of life.”
The runes flashed again and he was faster with his answer. “I do.”
Something from me reached out, far off in the Pacific to the island where my talents were awakened.
“Zachery Ewellynn, do you swear to take my mark and renounce fealty to all others and proclaim your fealty to me during the time spent in my service.”
The staff flashed a third time, it’s brightest yet. “I do so swear.”
The connection was made between the presence on the island and me, and through me, I felt a rush of power enter Zach. His grip on the staff intensified, then his head snapped back and he looked up at me, pain in his eyes.
I dropped the staff and took hold of him. His body shook as I pulled him to me, his back to my front.
“Shh, it’ll be over in a minute. Shh.” I brushed his hair back, stroking it gently. It took a few minutes for the spasms to slow and then stop. All the while I brushed my fingers through his hair and held him.
When everything seemed back to normal, I felt him, a small presence in my chest. It wasn’t some sort of soul bond or anything new-agey like that. It was simply something that I recognized as belonging to me. I would always know where Zach was at. I would know if he told the truth, and I would always know if he was loyal to me. They last part I didn’t question. The second part kind of merged with the last, and the first part was kind of neat. It made me feel better about having him so far away from me. I’d always be able to find him.
“You okay?” I whispered.
He nodded. “I’m just committing this moment to memory. I never want to forget it.”
I knew he was serious, but I also knew that my arms around him and two breasts pressing against his back was part of what he wanted to remember. Such was the way of a teenage boy.
He turned his head and looked at me somewhat seriously. His eyes flicked down to my lips, and I twisted them to the side.
“You’re sixteen. I’m eighteen.”
Zach’s disappointment didn’t seem long spent. “Does that mean you’re not freaked out about the idea of kissing me?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but stalled. Instead, I let go of him and started to stand up. “You’re my Acolyte. That would be improper.”
Moving over to my clothes, I brushed off the worst of the sand and started to slide my panties on.
“That wasn’t a no,” he said.
“And that’s all you’re going to get, so it’s best not to think about it. Get dressed.”
Without a second thought, Zach stood and started dressing. He didn’t try to hide the fact that his panties were sexier than mine. There weren’t any more secrets. If I was to accept him, then I would accept all of him. I’d already done that, and he knew it.
This time, I wasn’t able to avoid looking at him as he dressed. Let’s just say that he was in very good shape for a teenager, and leave it at that, shall we?
Zach was still brushing sand off of his legs when I finished. He had more to hide than I did, and he wouldn’t be able to take a shower until the morning.
“Should I call you master or mistress?”
Realizing that those were the proper terms for our relationship, I decided against it. “Call me Chase, just like before. New rules for a new age. People would probably freak out if they overheard you calling me mistress. I’d rather not be thrown in jail for statutory rape if you don’t mind.”
He nodded seriously.
On our walk back to the beach house I briefed him on what Evelyn was going to tell his parents if he got busted.
“When you get to Tennessee, I’m sure you’ll be able to spend some time out in the woods. Find a staff, call your animal companion and get to know each other. Practice your spells, but keep it sane. I don’t want to hear about freak lightning storms on the news every day.”
He agreed. “We need some way to talk. Just in case.”
“I’m your patron now, Zach. I’ll provide. Keep an eye out for packages in the mail. Until then you have my email address and phone number.”
We stopped by my window and hugged. He was a little taller than me. That would change over the next year. It felt nice looking forward to that.
Pulling back he snuck in a kiss to my cheek and then turned away heading to his own window to sneak back in. I sighed, not in a dreamy way. It was more of a what am I going to do about him way.
When I slid into the window I found mom sitting on my bed with a disappointed look on her face. “How long have you two been sleeping together?”
The panther jumped through the window in cat form.
“We’re not sleeping together.” I closed the window and pulled the curtains. “We were saying goodbye.”
She gave me a very doubtful look.
“Really. I did some magic that will offer him some protection, but that’s it.”
“Is that why you’re covered in sand, Chase?”
I nodded and pulled off my top. “Yes. It is. See, no hickeys anywhere, no sweat, and no scratches. My lips are not red and puffy from kissing. I’m still a virgin in this body, Mom.”
She was staring at me. Oh. I’d forgotten that she hadn’t seen the goods yet. After a few moments she blinked and refocused.
“You can get pregnant now. You know that.” I didn’t bother giving that any thought because it didn’t deserve any. That didn’t keep her from talking. “We need to get you an appointment with my gynecologist and start you on birth control.”
It was like talking to a wall. “Mom, would it make you feel better if I spread my legs and let you look? I’m clean, nothing happened. And forget the doctor. I’m not running out to find the first boy I meet just to bed him.”
She was on edge and that just pushed her over. Lowering her head into her hands, she burst into tears.
The whole conversation was just thrown into the works when I finally realized that Mom had probably spent the better part of a week scared that I was dead and then I turn up vastly different that I was before. It would probably make me a little crazy too. I didn’t want to sit on the bed and get sand everywhere, so I kneeled in from of her and set my head in her lap for an awkward hug.
She leaned down and returned it, brushing my mounds of hair out of the way.
In due time, she calmed and apologized before leaving. It was somewhat abrupt, so I tried not to think about what was going on in her head. After a quick shower to rid myself of the sand I slipped into bed and promptly fell asleep.
~O~
They were gone when I woke up, Zach and his parents. I felt for him and found they were already over the Pacific, well past the island, and bearing down on Los Angeles. I was disappointed, or perhaps hurt would be a better word that his parents might be blaming me for what happened. It was irrational, sure, but they’d also lost a daughter recently and people tend to be irrational at times like these.
Instead of moping around, I donned a pair of shorts and one of those shirts that girls always wear with the tiny straps that were almost always too tight. Another thing to mention, since I was on the subject of clothes. Why is it that girls shorts are always tiny? I was used to wearing knee draggers and the next thing I know, both of my thighs are on display for the world to see. Not that I was a big prude or anything, I did just strip in front of Zach last night for a magic ritual, and I really like watching girls legs appreciating how much skin they always showed.
Rolling my eyes, I realized exactly why their clothes were so revealing. If you haven’t figured it out then I’m not saying.
Taking my hair out of its bindings, I fluffed it up to a respectable facsimile of what it looked like the day before and the shuffled out to the kitchen.
Mom was there already whipping me up something to eat as Dad was sipping on his coffee and eyeing me with a strange look on his face. Evelyn was talking to her parents and gave me a little wave from the living room.
After pouring a glass of juice, I retreated to the table and attempted to wake up. Dad kept eyeing me oddly until I got fed up in my semi-conscious state.
“What?” I didn’t snap the words out, I was just curious about what he found so strange. Hopefully it was something other than me being a girl. I thought I’d received more than enough gawking at the day before.
He shook his head like it wasn’t anything important. “It’s strange seeing your old mannerisms in an unfamiliar body. You act the exact same way as before.”
Mom slid a plate in front of me. “Yes, we need to work on that. You have a lot to learn about being a girl now.”
Oh god, somebody shoot me. I did not need to learn the mysterious ways of the female creature. It didn’t matter how I crossed my legs, or properly extended my pinky finger when sipping my coffee. I wasn’t going to become some little Barbie doll for my mother to have something to do.
“Evelyn’s helping me. You don’t have to worry about that.”
Mom sat and nodded. It seemed as if all the worry about me being dead was thrown to the wayside since they’d confirmed I was still alive and kicking. Now they had all new things to deal with. “Your grooming is acceptable, but you need some work.”
Another reason to thank Evelyn for making me shave my legs. Mom has a serious problem with women that try their best to look like men. She grew up in a very conservative home where girls had long hair and rarely wore anything other than dresses, and then only because there was physical labor involved. Her nails were always immaculate and she was rarely seen outside of her bedroom without makeup.
With me sitting there in shorts with my legs spread apart, slouching in the chair beside her was probably setting off every red alert bell in her head. It was readily apparent that I was soon to become Mom’s new pet project.
Looking over at her, I tried to be gracious. “Mom, I have more important things to worry about right now.”
Her serious face was already firmly in place. “The subject’s not up for discussion, Chase.” She lowered her voice so only Dad and I could hear. “From what you told us last night, you are in a position of power. Nobody respects those that don’t respect themselves enough to put on a proper face to the public.”
My brow did something funky as I stared at her incredulously. “What public?”
“Chase,” Dad interrupted. “Listen to your mother. She knows what she’s talking about.”
She pointed at my plate. “Eat your breakfast, sweetie, and I’ll explain.”
Reluctantly I settled myself in for the siege.
“Some people think all that’s important is the message that people give. Substance is what matters, everything else is secondary. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Appearance is most important. Charisma is most important. If you walked into a room, half your battle is determined within the first thirty seconds.”
I was about to argue, but she pointed at the plate again.
“You know I’m right, Chase. How often have you formed an opinion about someone simply from the way they dress and groom themselves? Always. It may not be fair, but it’s a fact of life. We can go out and I can point to someone. You’ll give me an opinion about what kind of person you think they are: rich, poor, sanitary or not. Do you understand what I am saying?”
I nodded, and finished my eggs. I was about to push the plate away when Mom reminded me to eat my toast.
“Now think about this. If you saw a stunningly attractive woman enter a room with tight jeans and a tight top and no makeup, what would you think of her?”
It was obvious where she was taking this. I was that woman, but I wasn’t going to take her bait. “Fine, Mom. I understand. But you’ve also got to understand that I can’t be overly feminine. I’m a Druid. That means physical activity almost all the time. High heels and cocktail dresses aren’t going to be in my future.”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t presume. You’ll need your own personal style, something that exudes power, but also reminds those around you that you are a woman and are not to be treated with disrespect.”
I received a knowing and devious smile after that. Somehow I knew I was in for a very long summer.
TBC...
The Soul Does Not Perish (Part 5)
by: Lilith Langtree
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Author's note: Kudos to djkauf for betaing this for me
September rolled around and my brain was mush. Three months of intensive power training in the ways of feminine control had turned me from tomboyish sexiness to what I’d come to refer to as Lady Lara Croft chic. Sue me; I’m still a gamer at heart.
I hadn’t worn single pair of jeans since that morning where Mom laid down the law.
I was eighteen. Legally, I could have told her to bite me and then went off on my own, but that just wasn’t the kind of relationship I had with her. I loved my mom. I respected her opinion, and I always tried to make her proud of me. That was the only thing that got me through the summer.
She’d taught me, all over again, how to walk, talk, and hold myself properly at all times in order to gain the respect she thought I deserved. The amount of shopping that was done was mind numbing. Every choice she made was practical, functional, and utterly feminine.
My hair was eventually cut and styled to her liking. It was still long, because long hair attracted attention and was the basis for pulling people’s eyes to what it framed, namely my face and breasts. Gone were the days of hopping out of the shower, giving my short hair a couple of rubs with a towel, a swipe with a comb, and being on my way.
After the summer, I spent no less than an hour and a half preparing for each day before I dared set foot out of the bedroom. By the second month, if I came out looking anything less than perfect, I had to start all over again. That included makeup as well. Needless to say, I got a lot of practice during that last month.
Evelyn and Mom worked with me on body language and the power of the female face. Every look, every gesture, the slightest quirk of my lips or raise of an eyebrow was torn apart and reassembled for maximum effect. According to Mom, I should be able to confer with my face alone. Any man should know exactly what I wanted and needed to go out of his way to make sure he received whatever message I wanted sent.
As a point, she waiting until my father returned from a golfing day, still sweaty and slightly burned from the heavy sun. He hadn’t been home for more than a few seconds before he saw a look on her face. Her lips moved minutely and her eyebrow lifted the barest of millimeters. He wound up nodding and said he’d be ready to go to dinner in thirty minutes and he’d make reservations for somewhere nice.
I just sat there dumbfounded asking how in the hell she had managed that.
“Your father and I have been married for years, Chase. We know each other better than we know ourselves. I’ve trained him and he’s trained me in nuance. It’s all a matter of positive and negative reinforcement. If he makes me happy then I make him happy. If he makes me unhappy, then he doesn’t…”
I held up my hand seeing where that was going. “I don’t want to know.”
That brought a smile to her face. “You are a woman now, Chase. I expect to hear all about every aspect of your life. That includes your love life.”
Needless to say, the broken woman that arrived at the beach house was banished back to whatever corner of my mother’s mind that she kept it hidden.
Once she dubbed me decently prepared, I was let loose.
You might be wondering about my status as a new female, previously being a guy and all. That was a little tricky. It involved a married Hawaiian Senator, a young stripper, a hotel room, a proclivity for bondage, and a camera. No, I didn’t initiate any of this; I just took advantage of it.
Within two days I had a whole new life, still under the same name. Mostly it was just a matter of changing everything that read M to F, a couple of pictures, and the process for a new passport. I was assured that the passport would fly through. Even Senators can’t speed up certain bureaucracies.
Was it morally wrong? I was on the fence about that. Obviously I couldn’t go on with male ID and I had no way to prove I was who I said I was. Even Druidic magic had its limits. I couldn’t change reality. There were no wish spells. That was specifically under the purview of Wizards. So, I would have to file my actions under the heading of necessary evil, which went right along with my Chaotic Neutral personality. In case you hadn’t noticed, that had changed as well.
While I could have taken my parents and Evelyn home through a transportation spell, it was better to make sure they arrived under normal means. Ev’s parents had long since returned to L.A. and I had a chance to make sure my I.D. worked under federal scrutiny.
Our main homes made it seem like I’d walked into a time warp. I stood at the door to my room. It was just the way I’d left it. Everything was in its place and it was decidedly male.
“I had Marta set up the guest room for you,” Mom said from behind me.
Turning to her, I tweaked certain areas on my face that was supposed to tell her what I was thinking. She smiled with pride. “No, you’re not a guest, Chase. We’ll turn this into the new guest room. I didn’t want anyone touching it until you’ve had a chance to go through it.”
“Thank you, Mother. It will have to wait. After I change I’m heading to Tennessee. Zachery has been uneasy this last week. I need to find out why.”
Notice the new formal way of speaking? That was the second thing that Mom pounded into my brain. People are intimidated by others that speak better than they do. I still thought in my own voice, but I tried to speak in hers.
“Will you be back by tomorrow?”
I shook my head slightly. “Doubtful.”
She nodded. “Well, dress your best for your man, Chase.”
A touch of the old Chase slipped through. It always did when she teased me. I rolled my eyes. “Mom, he’s not my man! He’s six… seventeen.”
Mom loved to catch my slip-ups. “That will be an additional thirty minutes on elocution lessons, this evening, Chase. I trust I will not have to check up on you?”
Blanking my face so that I wouldn’t show any frustration, I said. “No Mother. I’ll do them before I go to sleep.”
“Very good, sweetie.” She reached over and patted my face then leaned in for an air kiss. “Stay safe.”
~O~
I checked myself for the fifth time in the mirror. My makeup was light but effective, hair was straight and spilled across my shoulders, the outfit I was wearing was black wool shorts that dropped about halfway down my thighs and were covered up with a top that resembled a three-quarter length coat. The boots I wore came up above the knee with a low heel. They would look a lot better with higher heels, but I still had to keep in mind my status. The part that reminded the world that I was female was the four inch patch of skin that would show between my shorts and boots when I walked. If I stood still, it looked like I was totally covered.
Why that specific look in September? It was cold in Tennessee.
At my current level, being a Druid, I could strip down to a bikini and walk around in the snow. The temperature wouldn’t bother me, but it would look supremely weird.
Kitty was lounging on my bed. Oh sorry, that’s what I wound up naming my panther that spent more time in cat form than in his original. He was going to be remaining behind for this trip since I wasn’t going to be that long.
Grabbing my staff, I stroked the entire length and spoke a Wood Shape spell, transforming it into a ball-headed walking cane. Its mass still remained as well as the color and the Druidic runes. It was simply more stylish.
Shouldering my purse, I picked up my travel bag and rolled it behind me as I made my way downstairs.
Mom had placed herself firmly by the back door where she knew I’d be exiting. A single eyebrow rose at my choice of clothes, followed by a knowing smile.
Oh brother.
“Mother, he’s not my man.”
She sipped at her tea. “Keep telling yourself that, dear. One of us might eventually believe it.”
Without another word, I left and approached a large oak. I knew Mom’s eyes were on me as I continued without thought, speaking the words to allow me passage to the closest living oak to the school where I knew Zach attended. A rush of energy crackled across my skin and the next thing I knew I was walking out of a very thick oak a few hundred yards from the front of the building.
It was just after two o’clock local time and they would be let out in thirty minutes. From my vantage point on a hill, I spotted Zach’s car and made my way through the brush carefully to make sure it gave way so it wouldn’t harm my outfit.
Within ten minutes I’d arrived in the parking lot and found Zach’s Hide-a-key under the rear bumper where I knew he hid it, popped the trunk and deposited my luggage. After returning the key, I made sure I wasn’t ruffled and moved to the front doors.
I had to hand it to the upgrades of schools across America. Security kept a watchful eye on me the entire time I was there. The front portion of the school was as far as anyone that wasn’t a student or faculty member could pass. A few parents were already there to pick up their children. I was watched briefly by everyone there.
Paying close attention to how I carried myself, I stood in the center of the room, facing the door that I knew Zach would exit through. Reaching out, I located him on the second floor close to the front. The knowledge of his exact location wasn’t available, but that wasn’t the purpose for the magic. It was simply meant to get me in the vicinity of my Acolyte. Back in the day large gatherings and high populations weren’t evident, so I suppose that a more exact spell wasn’t needed. It didn’t matter.
I could still feel his anxiety, an unpleasant tightness in my chest that seemed to increase as the minutes passed. The bell that released the students almost startled me, however I kept my composure as seconds later the doors slammed open and teenagers started emerging.
My face went stone-like daring anyone to brush me on their way past. All of the training Mom gave me paid off. Everyone that passed took one look at me and gave me a wide birth. Maybe it looked like I was someone important; maybe it was the outfit, whatever it was, I was thankful for.
Then he emerged and stopped a second after. Zach’s face lit up like it was Christmas and his birthday all at once. The tightness in my chest immediately eased, until he was pushed from behind.
“Move it, faggot.”
I shifted to the side and the crowd gave way in my wake. The guy that pushed Zach wasn’t much bigger than him which made me wonder what had been happening during his time here. As he passed me, his head was still turned around which meant he didn’t see my cane smack him in his shin. I did it as unobtrusively as possible.
Books flew and the guy took a header into the tile. Everyone within watching distance started laughing, and I moved on.
“Chase,” Zach breathed as he closed in.
I was right in my assumption that he’d grow. It already looked like he had gained two inches on me and I was grabbed up into a hug and spun to the side.
“Hi, Zach,’ I said with a smile.
“God you look gorgeous.”
He kept getting jostled by people bumping into him from behind, so I took his arm and tugged. “Come on, before we get run over.”
Zach held open the door for me and we were in the clear after a short while.
“What are you doing here? Not that I’m not happy to see you, but I thought you weren’t coming until Christmas break.”
I squeezed his bicep lightly. “I was worried about you. Why have you been so tense in the last week?”
He slowed a little. “You can feel that?”
Checking to make sure we didn’t get run over, we stepped into the parking lot. “Remember, no secrets. That means I know when you’re happy and when you’re sad too. There haven’t been too many times that you’ve been happy as of late.”
He warily looked around. “Right, no secrets. Look, can we talk about this somewhere else?”
I gave a slight shrug. “I doubt your parents will be happy to see me. Where do you suggest?”
As we approached his car he looked thoughtful. “Hungry?”
“I could use a cup of tea.”
“Cool, there’s a Starbucks not too far from here. It’s usually not too busy.”
When we arrived at his car, I stood patiently until he figured out that he was supposed to open my door. Needless to say, Zach’s face turned a pleasant shade of red. Mom was right. Training was needed. I mentally shook my head. No, no training. He wasn’t my boyfriend or my man. There was absolutely no reason to train him.
I made myself comfortable on the passenger side as Zach slid in to the driver’s side and started up the car.
“I know you wrote that your mom was doing the girl training, but damn.”
I raised an eyebrow at his cursing, but I understood. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Sorry, yeah. You look like you’re in your twenties, all sophisticated and polished. Makeup and your nails are even done.” His face started going red as he was gushing. “Sorry. I’m just… wow.”
I gave him an appreciative grin. “Starbuck’s, Zach.”
“Right.”
It was a short trip. He opened my door for me and offered a hand out. With liquid grace I spilled out of the car and took his arm again. Giving Zach my order, made him stall. Tazo Passion Brewed Tea in a real cup not in one of those takeaway cardboard things that muted the flavor. I thought about it as I found a clean table and tried to make myself comfortable. Was I a snob already?
It had almost become second nature to be picky around my mother. Her way of looking at things was if you can’t have the things you want, the way you want, then they aren’t worth having. I used to call that being a picky snob. But if I was willing to pay for them why couldn’t I have things the way I liked them?
Meh.
Zach was next in line and I sat there watching him. It was hard to think it had only been three months since I’d seen him. His arms and chest had filled out and his butt didn’t look too bad in those overly tight jeans. I closed my eyes and tried to banish those thoughts away as quickly as they came. I still thought of myself as liking girls. I didn’t know where that put me on the whole sexuality spectrum in terms of labels. I only knew that when I looked at a guy I really didn’t think about what their body would feel like under my hands, like I did with girls.
When I opened my eyes again I saw Zach kind of pointing at me and talking to the guy behind the counter. The barista nodded took his money before preparing our drinks.
Zach moved to the end of the counter and waited patiently, occasionally throwing glances back to see if I was still there, I guessed. That’s when I noticed the design of the back pockets of his jeans. I recognized it from somewhere. There was no threading or label to indicate the manufacturer, but still. Rolling it around in my head, I sorted through all the clothing stores I’d gone through during my first couple of weeks of imposed Mom shopping. Then I figured it out.
Forever 21. They were Devine Rights of Denim Skinny Jeans. Zach was wearing girl’s jeans. I noticed the curve of his butt and how his waist nipped in at the top. They definitely worked for him.
The shirt he sported was men’s cut. There was no way he could fit in anything else. His shoes were black hiking boots that came just above his ankles. All and all it was a good look for him, much better than the baggy jeans and random-tee-shirt-with-a-saying-on-it-number-ten.
A cup was set in front of me as he set his down. “Do you want sugar or anything?”
I shook my head. “No, thank you.”
He went and retrieved several packets for himself and a couple of stir sticks to mix it up. Once he’d finished preparations, I could see Zach was stalling as long as humanly possible, so I cleared my throat and peered into his eyes.
“I’ve been getting pushed around at school.”
My jaw hardened and my eyes narrowed. A protective reflex reared its head in my chest. “Why?”
He looked out the window and licked his lips. “Mom wrote a note to the school that got me out of gym class for a few weeks, but without a doctor’s order, I can’t skip.”
“Your body hair,” I concluded.
Zach nodded.
“So the other guys think you’re gay?”
He nodded again.
That explained why the punk pushed him at the school, and I’d flattened him. That meant Zach was going to catch hell the next day.
“I’ll take care of it with the school.”
He looked back at me when I announced that. A look of mild relief showed on his face, but then the grimace returned. “It’s a little late for that. All the other guys already know.”
I sipped at my tea, letting the taste of rosehips and passion fruit spill across my tongue. It was soothing and allowed me to think better.
The front door opened and three teen boys entered, making their way to the counter.
There was no doubt in my mind about Zach’s sexuality. He seriously wanted me; that was evident on his face. I didn’t bother to ask if he was gay or bisexual. It was a non-issue. The rules of the school backed him up. If he was attacked because of his perceived sexuality then the others would be expelled and possibly be brought up on charges, but I also knew how often that actually happened. Other reasons would be substituted for the attack so it would never go that far.
“Ewellynn? You gonna introduce us to your sister?”
I saw the look on Zach’s face when he saw the three guys standing at the end of the counter leering at me. It was pure unadulterated hatred. Off in the distance I heard the sounds of storm clouds brewing. It’s not wise to mess with a Druid that feels he needs to protect something. Zach wasn’t one to worry about himself. He’d take the abuse to keep the status quo, but with me there, anything could happen.
Looking down my nose at the one that spoke, I reduced him to a cockroach in my mind and let that expression set on my face. “Zachery is not my brother, he’s my lover. I’ll be offended if you don’t remember that in the future, boy, and you don’t want me offended.”
He paused for a moment seeing the intensity of my stare, but recovered well enough to fake a laugh. “Aww, man he’s screwing his sister. I knew those L.A. fags were nasty.”
The barista spoke up at that point. “None of that crap in here, Jimmy.”
Gripping my cane I spoke low. “Vocima!”
All three of the guys looked back at me after being scolded. “What’d you say?”
I smiled evilly. “Enjoy the crabs. I know I will.”
Zach snorted. He’d known immediately that I summoned an Insect Plague of under their jeans. It was just a matter of time before they realized it. Phthirus pubis otherwise known as pubic lice or the STI crabs, are somewhat difficult to get rid of. They tend to infest anywhere there is hair on the body, but most often in the pubic region. Normally they wouldn’t notice right away, but I made sure the large strain I infected them with was vigilant in their duty.
They started squirming and my smiled turned threatening. “You’ll find shaving will be the only way to get rid of them.”
They started scratching a little here and there. “What are you talking about?”
He barely got the sentence off before they started biting with vengeance. The one speaking started to wince then made his way out of the coffee shop.
“God, I wish I had thought of that,” Zach said with a smile.
When they left, I returned to my tea. “It shouldn’t last too long, but by then they’ll have infected their beds, carpet, clothes. You’ll need to keep an eye out and make sure they keep to the ones that are causing you trouble.”
He sighed. “You’re here for like thirty seconds and solved most of my problems with one spell.”
“Most?”
His lips firmed. “Can I keep certain things to myself, at least for now?”
It seemed important to him so I agreed. Silence settled between us until I’d finished my tea.
“Are you staying around town?”
I nodded. “For a few days at least. I wanted to look up Pete and Brett. They live in Nashville.”
“Yeah, I trade emails with Brett every once in a while. He always asks about you.”
That pleased me. “How are they doing?”
“Pete’s come down with a nasty cough last week. He’s been in bed trying to fight it. I offered to come down and see if there’s anything I could do, but he’s proud and all.”
“I’ll check it out.”
He smiled with relief. “Good, thanks. Getting away from my parents is almost impossible. They keep thinking I’m going to run away.”
Reaching over, I took his hand. “They’re worried about you, Zach. Give them some time.”
Focusing on his coffee, he blurted out. “There’s a homecoming dance at the beginning of November. Would you be my date?”
I blinked. We really need to talk about a way to signal a major topic change. Zach was becoming increasingly unpredictable.
“A dance?”
He nodded, still not looking at me. “You couldn’t get in trouble here. I checked out the laws online. We’re only a year apart now and the age of consent is eighteen, but that doesn’t include a four year gap of age. So you could be twenty-one and it would still be cool.”
Letting a little smile slip out, I said, “I don’t think dancing is grounds for arrest in any state, well, at least not the homecoming kind anyway.”
Zach’s face flushed red. It was an endearing trait.
“You don’t have any girls lined up at school?”
His eyes rolled up. “Uh, no. They’re pretty much brainless. I went on one date and vowed never to pick one of them again.”
I was kind of surprised at how much it annoyed me that Zach actually went on a date. “Okay.”
When he focused on me and not on his coffee anymore I felt the full brunt of the heat he was holding back. “You’ll be my date?”
“Email me the specifics. This isn’t marriage, Zach; it’s a date.”
He quickly picked up on that and nodded. “Right.”
Checking my watch, I said, “I need to get moving if I’m going to make it to Pete’s. You wouldn’t have an address would you?”
Zach pulled out the iPhone that I sent him and emailed it to mine. “There you go. I know they have a big Douglas fir in their back yard. There’s one not too far away from here.”
“That would be good, thanks.”
~O~
When we got there, Zach checked out the area and made sure nobody was watching before giving me a hug. “You’re coming back, right?”
“I’ll be back tonight. You have my bag in your trunk.”
That statement wiped away any fear that I he thought I was leaving. “Cool. Call me when you get back and I’ll pick you up.”
Giving him a nice smile, I turned to the tree and gave the transportation incantation.
When I emerged from the fir, I heard a clang of metal against cement. Looking to my left, I saw Brett bending over a wooden planter with a stunned expression on his face. I gave him a wide grin and approached with confidant stride.
“I leave you alone for three months and now you’re gardening.”
“Chase?”
“I got your address from Zach. I hope I’m not coming at a bad time.”
He bent over and retrieved the gardening claw he dropped, tossing it in the planter. “No, come on in. Grandpa will be ecstatic to see you.”
Brett wiped his hands on a cloth and opened a sliding glass door for me. Their home smelled like cinnamon candles and was decorated like an old couple lived there, but I already knew Pete was a widower. Brett washed his hands at the kitchen sink.
“Grandpa’s not feeling too well, so he’s been in bed.”
Concern grew on my face. “Zach said something about that; it’s been over a week. He hasn’t gone to the doctor?”
With a solemn look he shook his head. “Grandma, died in a hospital. He doesn’t trust them.”
I sighed. “What are his symptoms?”
“It’s mostly in his chest. Cough, tightness, sometimes he gets a fever.”
I wanted to curse, but somehow Mom would find out. “You can drive, right?”
He nodded.
Spotting a pad and pencil on the counter, I jotted down a list of items. “Is there a health food store around here?”
“A couple of miles away.”
“Good, get everything on this list and bring it back here as quick as you can. The fewer preservatives in the ingredients, the better.”
He cringed a little. “I don’t have any money. Grandpa hasn’t been well enough to go to the bank.”
Reaching into my purse I pulled out three twenties. “Here, go.”
All I had to do was follow the sounds of the coughing to the open door. Pete was sitting up in bed, reading a book. When he saw me, he inhaled quickly which set off another round of hack-a-lung. I set my purse down on a chair beside the door and went in.
“Pete, you stubborn old man,” I scolded him.
He scowled. “Did Brett call you? I told him to leave you alone.”
Sitting on the bed I reached up and felt his brow. “You’re an idiot. The next time you don’t want to go to the doctor you better call me. I can be here in minutes. And you’re burning up.”
“Chase…”
“Shush. Listen to me and lean back. Try to slow your breathing and let me do my thing.”
Laying my hand lightly on his chest I noticed his pajamas were made of cotton. Clutching my cane in my left hand I gave the incantation of healing. It wouldn’t do any good for the infection he obviously had, but it would heal whatever damage had already been done to his lungs.
“How does that feel?”
His breathing sounded the slightest bit improved. “Better, less tight.”
“Good, I sent Brett out for some things. I’d appreciate you listening to me when he returns and not giving me any problems.” When he gave me an odd look, I explained, “Since you decided not to go to your doctor, you don’t get the shot or the pills, instead you get some really nasty drink and a something smelly to rub on your chest, oh and your room is going to reek of eucalyptus.”
He frowned. “I don’t like doctors.”
“And you’ve got reason. Brett told me about your wife.”
Pete didn’t look like he wanted to talk about that particular subject, so I changed it subtly. “Brett is getting bigger.”
“He graduates this year, and then he’s off to college.”
“Good for him. Not so good for you I take it?”
“Bah, he doesn’t need to hang around an old man all of his life.”
A sick Pete isn’t a happy one. “If you keep this attitude up, I’ll have to come around more often and bug you.”
We kept up the conversation until Brett returned at which point I excused myself and went to the kitchen. He watched me mix up the ingredients in three separate bowls, while tried covering his nose.
“That smells awful.”
I smiled. “It tastes worse. If you ever get sick, go to the doctor and I won’t have to do this for you. There.”
One of the bowls was emptied into a pitcher, the other two I left in the bowls I’d mixed them in. “He gets eight ounces of this every four hours wake him up if you have to, and make sure he drinks all of it until the pitcher is empty. I pointed to the yellow paste. This one gets smoothed out over his chest, once in the morning after breakfast, and once at night after dinner until it’s all gone. I’ll show you how thick to make it in a minute.”
Moving the last bowl of greenish liquid to the forefront, I said, “This goes into the humidifier. Two teaspoons. Run it constantly for three days.”
He looked overwhelmed. “This will make him better?”
I nodded. “It’ll make him cough up all of the crud that’s in his lungs. It’s going to sound awful, but after that he’ll be okay. The juice is to make the infection go away.”
After preparing the humidifier I grabbed it and the poultice. “Pour him a glass of the juice then put the rest in the refrigerator. It tastes better cold.”
When I returned to the bedroom Pete eyed the bowls. “What’s that?”
“Your punishment. Open your pajama top.”
I plugged in the humidifier and went to sit by the bed. That’s when Brett brought the juice in and handed it to Pete.
“Drink that, all of it.”
He looked at the contents with a dubious expression. “What is it?”
“Do you really want to know? I’m a Druid, Pete. Healing is in my blood. I wouldn’t mess you over. In three days you’ll be back to your old self if you follow the instructions I gave Brett.”
I’d never seen someone actually hold their nose and drink something before. It was pretty funny. He gasped at the end. “That’s awful.”
“Good. Maybe you’ll go to the doctor next time. Now open your shirt, I have to show Brett how to do this.”
We went through the process and Pete buttoned up his shirt after. I washed my hands and came back to smell the eucalyptus in the air.
Leaning over, I kissed Pete on the head. “I’ll be back in three days to make sure everything came out. You might want to get a small trashcan. It’s not going to be pretty.”
I could see he was already breathing better and looking sleepy from the potion.
“Get better, Pete.”
On the way out, I left a few twenties on the counter for Brett until Pete was able to make it to the bank.
~O~
Zach showed up where he dropped me off and then drove to a nice hotel where he escorted me to the room and insisting on carrying my bag. I got the eye from the desk clerk. Looking older and being with an obviously younger guy was probably enough to make the gossip circuits in the little town.
When we entered the room, he placed my bag on the dresser beside a small television, while I refreshed myself in the bathroom. It’s kind of hard getting the smell of the poultice off your skin. My hands would smell like mustard for the night, at least. I really had to invest in a box of rubber gloves or something. It seemed like a smart choice considering my new profession.
When I came back out, Zach was casually peering out the window. “Too bad Evelyn couldn’t make it.”
I shrugged and sat down to remove my boots. “She just got back home after three months. She misses her other friends. I wasn’t going to begrudge her that.”
“I know, I’m just saying.”
Looking over at him, I saw his restlessness. “What’s on your mind, Zach?”
He glanced back. “Can you take a look at something?”
After I pulled off my second boot I nodded. He started unbuttoning his shirt and I stilled my body, trying to figure out what he was doing, and hoping he wasn’t trying to move our odd relationship to the next level. It didn’t take long to figure out.
The further down he progressed, the more of his chest was revealed. The thing was, his skin was marred, or I guess I should say marked. Slowly standing up, I edged toward him and saw that there was an imprint of a small hand, the fingers spread slightly. The color was a dark green with brown highlights here and there.
“It that a tattoo?”
He shook his head. “This was there the morning after the ritual. I thought it was your mark… like you said during one of the phrases, I guess.
I lightly touched his skin and found the texture normal enough. On a whim, I spread my fingers and covered the tattoo with my hand. It was a perfect fit.
Zach inhaled, and I felt his heartbeat underneath my hand, steady, but slightly elevated. Looking at the angle, I moved behind him to check something out, but I left my hand on his chest.
“It’s how I was holding you afterward. That’s where my hand was.”
“I figured,” he said. “What I wanted to know was what the runes meant.”
Circling back around, I don’t know why, but I let my hand trail across his skin. Maybe I enjoyed the way it felt, but I wasn’t going to admit that to him or even myself at that point. I saw what he meant. Above each finger was a small symbol. They weren’t exactly runes, and I knew at that point he was still an Initiate and not technically a Druid until he reached the twelfth level. When that happened, he would know what they meant.
Druids didn’t really have an alphabet, since they never wrote down anything of note. Instead they had runic symbols that were used to indicate certain points they wanted to get across whenever other Druids visited their area. This comprised of simple phrases like: Trail Safe, Water Poison, Protected Trees, and so forth.
I pointed at the pinky symbol. “This one means Loyalty.” The ring finger was next. “This is Truth. The next is Duty.”
Stalling at the next, I looked at the one above the thumb and the main rune in the center of the palm. Separately they each meant something along the same lines, traits that are important to an Acolyte: Devoutness, Sacrifice, and Union, respectively. Like I’d said before, Druids didn’t have a formal alphabet.
Keeping that in mind, whenever certain symbols are used together they can mean different things. Think of it like this: in English three words can sound exactly the same: To, Too, and Two. Each has an entirely different meaning. The spelling is determined on the way it is used in conjunction with the words that are adjacent.
With Druids, the following symbols are consistent with the union of Master and Acolyte. However, between a man and a woman, they symbolize something else entirely.
Even the placement of the mark is important. Most Druids would have their mark on their forearm for easy identification when traveling. That mine was above his heart was significant in other ways.
“Chase?”
“Hmm?” I looked up into his eyes and saw his curiosity. “It’s nothing. I was just thinking.”
Backing up, I rubbed my fingers together, trying to rid myself of the feeling of his skin. It was becoming increasingly distracting.
“You’re right, that is my mark. It’s nothing to worry about.”
He nodded. “So it’ll go away after my service is over.”
I didn’t answer, because I wasn’t so sure.
Zach just stood there with his shirt off looking… I had to get my mind off of what I was thinking so I changed the subject.
“Have you made yourself a Grove?”
Sacred Groves are an important part of each Druid’s union with nature. It’s one of the practices that were keeping the entity on the island at bay. Magic was being introduced back into the world, a little at a time, through these places. Being a sort of holy nature shrine was their purpose. There, Druids could come and commune with nature, pray, whatever. Their practice of rites and constant use of magic awakens the grove and spreads its influence.
I made such a place in Hawaii. I was planning another in L.A. Zach was supposed to make one here in Tennessee, and then later we would travel to Europe to reawaken older, greater groves.
“I was having a little trouble with it actually.”
That was strange. “How so?”
Zach set his shirt on the bed and closed the distance between us a step or two.
Why won’t he put his shirt back on?
“I marked the area like you indicated and spent an entire day there, but nothing really happened. I’ve gone back to check it out a number of times. It seems peaceful enough, but not much else.”
Think the problem over, a came to a couple different problems. “The ground might be corrupted like someone was murdered there or the like. You have to consider the history of an area before you do these things. Even someone dying there in the Civil War might make it harder. I’ll go with you tomorrow and we’ll check it out.”
He nodded. I couldn’t be too sure, but it looked like he was almost posing for me. The tight jeans left very little to the imagination since I remembered that night on the beach not too long ago.
“Well, I better get some sleep; long day and all.” My composure was totally shot.
Zach grabbed his shirt. “Right, you just flew in, probably have some serious jet lag.”
I nodded. Any excuse was good enough if it got him out of my room and hopefully out of my head.
Before he left, I got a brief hug which stayed with me long after I showered, braided my hair and dropped off onto the unfamiliar bed.
~O~
My dreams over the last three months have been odd, to say the least. At first, I was still a guy doing guy things. Nothing had changed. I remembered times being in the jungle and before, while other times I was clearly a girl acting in traditionally female ways. It was disconcerting. My mind still hadn’t given up on certain male aspects that had been instilled since birth.
I was a realist in most ways. Life was full of things that just cannot be controlled, try as I might. A lot of those impulses were purged along with my masculinity in the jungle. My personality, which I considered Lawful Good, insisted on everything being it its place in all aspects. Since I’d become a Druid, and forced into being Chaotic Neutral, I’d been fighting my inner self.
Being a free spirit is lonely. I had no desire to head off by myself, doing whatever I wanted when I wanted. Perhaps living under one roof with Evelyn, Mom, and Dad for three months had shifted something. What I’m getting at is I didn’t know what or who I was anymore.
Since Zach revealed the mark on his chest, I’d been even more confused. The jungle entity was pushing me in one direction, my sense of what was right pushing in another, and my connection to Zach yet another.
When I awoke, the only thing I could deal with was a shower to clear my head. Considering where Zach and I were headed, I donned a one piece neoprene leotard. It pretty much was a swimsuit if it needed to be. Formfitting low-rise leather pants went on, leaving some skin exposed since the one-piece was cut pretty high. Then a matching leather jacket went on over that.
With my back pack on and my hair in a ponytail and my feet in black knee boots, I’d could swear I was complying Lara Croft. I felt ridiculous. It made me wonder if Mom was bogarting my Playstation 3 and my Tomb Raider games, or maybe she was watching one too many Angelina Jolie films. I would swear she was modeling me after her.
I did have to admit, once my makeup was finished, I looked rich, dangerous, and hot.
When I was halfway through with my complimentary breakfast buffet in the hotel restaurant, I called Zach and told him to get a move on.
Sipping on my tea, I watched the other customers as they entered, overfilled their plates with food they probably wouldn’t finish, and sat down to feed at the trough. One thing I hadn’t been able to shake was the annoyance at people wasting things.
Druids, even the hard core nature lovers, didn’t begrudge people hunting or clearing areas for planting crops, except when they overdid it. Just the thought of people hunting for sport sent a rage through me. When I was a regular guy, I couldn’t care less what people did, as long as they had the proper permits.
So sitting there watching people pile twenty rashers of bacon on their plates, eating three, and then setting the plate aside put me on a slow boil.
One part of my head let me know they paid for it and they had every right to do with their food what they wanted, but the other part, wanted to go up, grab a fistful of bacon, and force feed it to them.
When I realized what was going through my head, I made a hasty exit, waiting out front, in the moderately cold weather. It was probably in the lower fifties, meaning it wasn’t freezing, but for someone that had just spent the summer in a sweltering jungle and then on a beach in Hawaii, it felt like it.
Expending a little magic, I regulated my body temperature to adjust. At that point I could take off my jacket, but that would look a little strange. Instead, I just unzipped the suit to relieve the pressure the neoprene was putting on my breasts. It wasn’t to show them off or anything, though that was a minor side effect of the action.
Zach almost ran up on the curb when he saw me. A last second course correction let him avoid it and only scratch up the sidewalls of his tires a little. After I closed the passenger door, he was still gaping.
“You look just like…”
“I know. It’s my mother’s idea of adventure-girl chic.”
He bit the inside of his lip before asking, “Did she get the fingerless gloves too?”
I pursed my lips and unzipped the pack to pull them out. “No guns though, and my sunglasses aren’t circular.”
“We could stop off at the Sunglass Hut in the mall if you want.”
The look I gave him, made Zach concentrate on pulling out of the parking lot a little more somber than when he arrived.
The drive through the wilderness, even by highway, was pleasant. The portion of Tennessee we were in had a lot of mountains, not by gargantuan proportions, but they were still pretty big. I felt much more at home there than I did in the thickness of the jungle.
We got off the highway and took a few lesser well cared for roads until they eventually ended altogether.
“How’d you find this place?” I asked.
Zach found an area to park the car where it was out of the way. “Dad took me out camping when we got back. It was some sort of bonding thing, like I was going to forget all about you and Evelyn if I was relying on him for everything.”
When he popped his seatbelt loose, I watched him grimace. “I spent most of the time telling him about everything you did, and he spent that time trying to say anyone would do the same thing given the situation.”
“By your tone,” I said. “I take it you didn’t agree.”
“No.” He huffed. “You were there, Chase. Everyone was more concerned with looking up in the air and trying to be top dog. He thought I was exaggerating or you did some sort of hoodoo on me.”
I smiled. “I did, but not the kind he thinks I did.”
Zach’s hand moved to his chest and I saw his demeanor soften. “Come on. We’ve got about an hour’s hike to the site.”
He pulled out a much bigger backpack than mine while I returned my staff to its original length and appearance, then put on my gloves. As I was tightening the wrist straps, Zach held something out for me.
“I thought you might like one.”
Dangling off of his hand was a black web belt with various items attached. A little tickle in my chest told me he was nervous, but happy. I smiled at how he was looking ahead.
“Ever since the crash,” he said in explanation. “I wanted to be prepared when I’m away from the city. It’s not much and I know you’re probably doing the same thing, but…”
I smiled and took the belt, unbuckled it, and fitted it around my hips. Off my right side dangled one of those Rambo knifes and then a few little pouches, plus a canteen. “What’s in the pockets?”
He shrugged. “Um, couple of lighters, seeds of various types, digital map of the world on a PDA. I rigged the battery to last about a month or so. Maybe when we get back I could get you some holsters with those sweet thigh straps and a couple of pistols.”
I raised an eyebrow at that, then he smiled letting me know I was being teased.
~O~
When given a little encouragement to let loose, we started Longstriding through the forest. An hour’s hike, mostly uphill, took a third of the time. Zach was barely breathing harder than normal and I was raring to go for another hour or two. It was almost disappointing to find the grove so soon.
The ground leveled off a little before stretching up the mountain. The area was strangely absent of trees, about fifty feet in diameter with grass that was the fading color of autumn green.
I frowned, barely feeling the amount of contentment I knew I should be sensing. Zach led me to each of the warding stones and I made sure all the runes had been etched correctly, which they had been.
“You see what I mean,” he said.
I nodded. “I don’t sense anything bad, just a lack of… spirituality I guess.”
“Can we recast the Hallow?”
With a shrug I nodded and moved to the center. Zach followed. What we were attempting to do was consecrate the ground with Druidic magic, making it a holy site for our small circle. It was one of the things I was supposed to do around the world to naturally nudge the Earth back to a more magical time. With enough Sacred Groves, magic would return, children would be born with talents; magical creatures would find their way back in being.
It was a good thing and bad as well. There were some seriously scary magical creatures. Druids were big believers in survival of the fittest and that everything deserved a chance to live.
Back to back we stood, each holding our staffs out before us. Reaching out through the connection we shared, I put us on the same page as far as timing went, so that we said the incantation at the same moment.
The result was much more satisfying. The rune that corresponded with the spell glowed on my staff and I felt a wave of magic spread out in all directions, encountering the warding stones and then through the small glade.
The color of the grass deepened and I felt certain things come alive. Water from under the ground was pushing its way upward and small portion of the ground gave way to be replaced with natural sweetwater that would strengthen any wildlife that drank from the spring. A protective aura shone along the edges that I knew would keep out those that would mean harm and invite those that required safety. Several bushes bloomed berries and two trees bore nuts in abundance.
The grove had awakened.
~O~
Pleased with our deed for the day — I still don’t know if it was a good one or not — we started heading back downhill toward the car. The thing was, I got lost.
Normally this wouldn’t be a really big deal. We each had our cells with us, and since the jungle madness episode of my life, I always carried the basics with me wherever I went: compass, light, knife, and sundry other items.
Still, this wasn’t the point.
Ever since we had crashed on the island, I always knew where I was. Always. No matter where I was on that island, I could always find my way back to the cave or the wreckage. Even when I entered into unknown portions of the jungle I had my mental GPS running.
Zach and I hadn’t even gone twenty feet out of the Grove when I stopped and looked around. The trees were wrong, not the wrong type, they were in the wrong place. I distinctly remembered things that weren’t in evidence.
“Uh, Chase?”
I frowned. “You noticed too?”
“Where are we?”
Turning around I was able to tell where north was easy enough; that was still with me, which made me uneasy about why I couldn’t figure out why everything was different.
“Screw this.” Reaching out, I laced my fingers with Zach’s. “I’m going to Wind Walk us above the trees and then down the hill. We’ll figure out what happened later.”
He nodded uneasily. I don’t think he liked that I didn’t know what went wrong. I may have been his idol or whatever, but I was still human. I made mistakes.
“Ventus Ingressus!”
White mist started swirling around us, from the ground up until we were fully covered then out feet left the security of the Earth. Up we shot into the air, dodging branches and a passing bird until we cleared the tops of the trees. Higher we rose into the sky, so I could get a bearing, find the road we came in on, or at the very least saw the town in the distance.
“Chase… where’s the road?” he said. I’d heard the tone of that voice before. It was in the jungle whenever we encountered something that scared the crap out of someone. I had yet to hear it from Zach; the others, yes, but never from him. “And where’s the highway. We should be able to see if from here.”
We were easily a few hundred feet in the air. The forest extended for miles in every direction. While I did see breaks, like the one below us in the Grove, the entire area, as far as I could see, was uninhabited. The mountain was the same, for the most part.
The same general shape was there, but certain portions looked to be added that weren’t there before. Outcroppings of rock were most apparent.
I fought the panic that I felt rising in my chest, mostly because I knew it was coming from Zach, but mine was there as well.
Turning to him, I saw him look down at me. His eyes were wide and confused. “Zach, look at me. Have I ever let you down?”
He shook his head, but his eyes were watering up.
“Then trust me when I say that I’ll figure this out. This is just like the jungle. If we panic then we’ve lost, and we’ve already proven that we are not losers. We kick adversity in the ass and send it packing every time, don’t we.”
He nodded.
The fear in my chest started to ease. There was still great concern, but it wasn’t debilitating anymore. I smiled up at him.
“Now, we know that way is north and the highway should be over there going northwest to southeast. It’s not. What’s the only thing that has changed since we stepped out of your car?”
“The Grove,” he said.
“Right. Let’s go back and find some answers.”
TBC...
The Soul Does Not Perish (Part 6)
by: Lilith Langtree
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Author's note: Kudos to djkauf for betaing this for me. There is some minor content from source SRD included in this chapter. I think you'll be able to figure it out from the way it's presented. Copyright: Wizards of the Coast.
I moved us over a little and then dropped us at speed until we were about twenty feet from the ground. When we landed, I released the spell and swayed a little. Zach braced me.
Remember what I said about high level spells taking a lot of juice? Wind Walk is a seventh level spell. There are only nine known levels, so I felt a little drained. It wasn’t too bad though. If I had held the spell for the full duration, which would be around fourteen hours for me, I’d be tired. Five minutes worth was like walking on a treadmill and then stopping abruptly. It throws the equilibrium off until you adjust.
“I’m fine.”
Looking around, I memorized everything with a critical eye. Nothing was out of the ordinary, except that it was a magical grove.
My next idea was already being implemented by Zach. He had his cell out and was frowning.
“No signal. But Dad and I had signals when we were here last.”
I pulled my cell out; same thing. Powering it down, I stowed it in my pack. “Turn yours off. Save the battery.”
“But…”
He stopped second-guessing me and followed instructions, looking lost without the ability to surf the internet randomly.
Without a second thought, I dropped to my butt and crossed my legs in a single motion, laying my staff across my legs and closing my eyes. I heard Zach follow suit.
It was a Druid thing. Sorry if you don’t approve, but I had to commune with whatever was out there, God or whatever. I call it the entity since it was more tangible than the white-haired flowing bearded guy in the Bible. I considered the entity a deity if nothing else. If it was powerful enough to do the zappy on me and I could use it to power up Zach then it was a heck of a lot more powerful than I was.
I didn’t commune often, mostly when I was troubled, or was trying to figure out what to do next. There wasn’t a time when it ever answered me directly, but it allowed me to meditate on a problem and usually solve it.
This was one of the major pluses of having a Sacred Grove; being in a place of power made the whole process much easier. That’s the reason I slipped right in after clearing my mind.
When I entered the mild trance, I usually wound up returning to the jungle since it was the only other place on Earth I could go that was juiced up. Zach’s Grove would have been another. This time I wound up flying — spiritually, I mean — up into the air and east, over the Atlantic. I was high enough to discern the landscape well enough. It was northern Europe, specifically England and Ireland. To the southeast, in the distance, was France, but nothing was how it should have been. Instead of the bright lights of London, I saw only darkness.
There were sprinkles of lights here and there, but nothing that would indicate any major city like there should have been.
What I did notice were dozens of places where magic shone brightly. I was immensely puzzled. There weren’t supposed to be any other Groves anywhere. I’d planned to travel to England and wake up some of the old places of power, but that was for later.
One place in specific shined brighter than all the rest. I closed in on it, only enough to identify a few tree types and a semi-major structure that even I recognized.
Returning to my body was much faster since I knew where it was. When I opened my eyes, I saw Zach watching me, or more to the point, my breasts. Clearing my throat brought him around and he looked anywhere but there. Leave it to a teenage boy to be lost in the wilderness, with no sign of humanity anywhere, setting his priorities on a pair of barely exposed breasts.
“I’ve found some life.” I got his attention with that announcement. “It might not be the kind we’re looking for, but we’re going to investigate it nonetheless.”
He nodded, stood, and held his hand out to help me up.
“We need to find a juniper tree.”
Zach pointed to the west. “There’s a couple over that way.”
Following his line of sight, I spotted the pair he indicated. Moments later we were holding hands again as I incanted the Transportation through Plants spell and we stepped through to Wiltshire, England.
The temperature was slightly colder by a few degrees. Since it was night time, I figured we’d lost a few hours somewhere. England was only five hours ahead of Tennessee, or at least the portion we were at anyway. The air was very humid as if we’d just missed the rainfall, but it was cleaner than anything I’d ever breathed.
Wildlife skittered at our abrupt presence.
Zach looked around. “Where are we?”
“Southwest England, Wiltshire to be specific.”
“Oh, cool…” Then he thought about it. “Uh, this is the closest life you could find?”
I shrugged. “Sort of. Reach out, can you feel something?”
He closed his eyes and concentrated. It didn’t take long at all, nor should it have. “There’s a Sacred Grove nearby.” Snapping open his eyes, he looked at me with curiosity. “I thought there weren’t any left?”
“That’s what I thought. There are dozens in England, Ireland, and Scotland. I didn’t get as far as France, but this one is by far the biggest of them all. If there’s a connection to what’s happened then I’m betting we’ll find it here.”
There wasn’t much of a forest, more of a cluster of trees, but when we made it to the edge, I heard Zach suck in a mouthful of air.
A few hundred yards in the distance, stood a few thatched-roof structures that might have been homes or simply temporary living areas. Beyond that was a multi-stone structure that even the most ignorant of school-children was familiar with.
“Please tell me that’s not Stonehenge,” he said.
That wasn’t what I was concerned about. It was the condition it was in. By the early twenty-first century, Stonehenge was a hodgepodge of giant standing stones with the occasional horizontal stone connecting the vertical ones. It was in ruin from thousands of years before. However, the one we were looking at appeared to be whole and by the activity inside and around the structure, currently in full use.
“That’s Stonehenge.”
I caught him rolling his tongue around his mouth in thought. “Is there a reason that it looks a whole lot nicer than the one I’ve seen in pictures?”
“Probably.” Before he could ask, I went ahead with my conclusions. “Judging from the thatched roof buildings… if you can call them that, and the clothes those people are wearing, plus the condition of the stones, I’m guessing we’re somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve hundred B.C to four hundred A.D. sometime during England’s Iron Age. The highway in Tennessee isn’t missing; it just hasn’t been built yet.”
~O~
Zach had a pair of mini-binoculars that I was using in an attempt to garner some more information. There were a few people that were coming and going through all hours of the night, virtually all of which were cloaked men.
Some sat in the inner circle of stones looking like they were praying. I felt pulses of magical energy right before each of them got up and retreated to a hut or their bedroll outside of the main area. Once dawn came, there was much more activity.
Zach and I snacked on jerky and granola bars, and drank from canteens conserving what we had. There was no way of knowing when our next real meal would be. We would have to make our move soon. With the sun rising higher in the east, our position was bound to be noticed sooner or later.
“What are we waiting for?” Zach asked.
“Him.” I pointed in the direction of the largest of the huts.
Passing the binoculars to Zach, he took a look at who garnered my interest. A middle-age looking man in dark robes, carrying a wide staff with very familiar looking runes etched into the wood, made his way from the hut to the circle of stones.
“He looks powerful.”
I nodded. “I’m guessing an Archdruid or maybe even a Great Druid, by the look of his staff. That puts us on equal footing. If he’s higher than that, then we’re screwed.”
You have to understand the Druid hierarchy. There are only a select few high level Druids. There are the initiates through various levels; hundreds of them could exist at any one time. Most don’t aspire any higher. At the top of the heap are regular Druids; there are only nine of them, each in charge of certain portions of the known world. Archdruids amount to three people who have fought their way up the ranks.
Then a single Great Druid sits at the top, in charge, answering only to the political position of Grand Druid.
The positions can only be attained though combat or if someone dies naturally; mostly it’s through combat.
I had no desire to fight anyone, but it would be readily apparent that I was powerful enough to challenge anyone short of the Grand Druid himself. But since that position was only acquired through appointment, he wasn’t going to be threatened by me. However technically, he could order me around.
Zach nodded with immediate understanding.
I zipped up my neoprene top and then closed the jacket. The only women I’d seen were heavily cloaked, which either meant that they were cold or the others didn’t like the casual revealing of skin. With the coat closed, I looked like I was dressed neck to toe in tight black leather. That alone might be enough to ruffle some feathers, but I didn’t have a handy robe to cover up with.
“Ready?”
Zach gripped his staff and tried to put on a serious face.
“Just remain calm. Remember, you’re my Acolyte. Stay no closer than a step behind me, but no further than three. I want them concentrating on me.”
“Right,” he answered.
From the relative safety of the trees I stepped out and confidently strode across the empty grassland. We were noticed almost immediately. Several of the men whom I internally labeled as initiates of lower circles adjusted their posture to appear threatening, yet welcoming at the same time. Their message was clear: approach, but if you’re going to start some shit then we’re going to hand your ass to you.
The first Druid took note of my staff and I sent a pulse of magic through it letting him know that it wasn’t a fake. It’s a simple way to answer questions of status among those that are too low to recognize a person’s power at a glance. It also told those around that I thought they were inferior to me.
I know, normally that’s probably a bad idea in normal society, but that’s the Druidic way. Given their druthers, they’re a somewhat snobby bunch. In response to that pulse, all of the ruins on my staff cycled quickly from top to bottom. After seeing the final few runes flash, two of the rear echelon turned and ran off to the circle of stones. My guess was they needed to inform the great poobah that he wasn’t the only power around.
Zach and I stopped at the edge of the outermost circle where the first initiates were waiting for me. I noticed most of them were surprised that a woman was a higher rank than they were. Either that or there was something on my coat that attracted their attention to my breasts.
From what I knew about Druids, they had nothing against women entering their circles, but they rarely rose above the most basic of levels, content to help out with minor magic for crops or as a healer. I was most definitely an oddity in that respect.
Their leader emerged from the stone circle and eyed me suspiciously. He spent a few moments speaking with the two that alerted him, I suspect to tell him what they witnessed, before he started our way. The man walked with power. It was obvious to me that he’d been in charge for a while. I couldn’t tell you why; it was just a feeling.
As he approached, I saw his magic pulse through his staff. I followed suit. It was kind of like two animals posturing, both alphas in their own right. Since I held my staff tilted in front of my body, it indicated that I was in a defensive posture and wasn’t challenging his rule. If I was holding it vertically to the side then a fight was going to start, and considering how many others were there, that would be pretty freaking stupid on my part.
He came to a stop about ten feet in front of me. Oh, by the way, please excuse the flowery talk. The Druidic language isn’t really meant for twenty-first century slang.
I nodded my head a single time as a minor show of respect. “I bring greetings from the western lands across the vast sea. May my Acolyte and I share the comfort of your Sacred Grove?”
If there was any question as to my validity then it was tossed to the wayside by my words. Druids have their own secret language that is known only to them. If anyone blabs the secret, they don’t live to tell about it and usually wind up being used as a sacrifice of some sort. It’s not all that pretty.
He eyed me up and down then once again for Zach. A nod followed. “Come.”
Simple and to the point.
Maybe it was my imagination, but I could swear my butt was burning as I walked past the majority of the men present. The jacket only came down just to the top of the pants so it left a lot to see.
There is dual purpose for allowing Zach and me access to the Grove. Like I said before, it was the brightest Grove in all of England, Ireland and Scotland. That meant it was most likely a Greater Grove possessing a large amount of magical protections and inherent powers blowing away the little Grove that Zach and I made in Tennessee. Kind of like a one story two bedroom house compared to the Empire State Building.
I felt the majesty of Stonehenge as we passed through the inner circle. A rush of contentment filled me, my weariness left me, and I could feel the presence of the entity, stronger than I’d ever felt before. A cool, but pleasant wave pressed over every inch of my body eliciting a small gasp when it entered me seeking the reason for my presence. I knew what it tasted within me: an older, wiser, and may I truthfully say a much bitterer version of itself.
The Great Druid stood by the entrance stone, leaning his staff up against the large face as he held his other hand to the opposite side. I copied him and rested my staff there to mirror his.
Looking at Zach, I held up a hand. “Wait here, rest.”
I knew he didn’t want to leave my side, but he would follow instructions. It wasn’t like I was going to be out of his sight. The place wasn’t that big. The big boss led me to a relatively clean mat that was laid across from the one he was starting to sit down on, so I followed suit. He looked toward the entrance and a girl was rushing in holding a kettle of steaming something or other and two really ugly mug type things. She sat them on the ground in front of us and poured hot water over dried leaves. I was guessing it was some sort of tea, but the condition the leaves were in prevented me from identifying what they were from sight alone.
She handed me a single mug and then the boss the other. Since poisoning someone within the Sacred Grove was frowned upon I felt pretty safe and sipped at the steeping liquid.
“The lands to the west across the great sea? We know of no such lands.”
Considering who he was, I decided not to bullshit him. Personally, I could spot a lie a mile off. “They have yet to be discovered and won’t be for another…” I paused for a moment remembering that they didn’t measure time the way I did. “Another thousand summers.”
The Great Druid paused in mid sip and really concentrated on me. He looked over at Zach and then back at me again. “This explains much.”
Color me somewhat surprised that he wasn’t freaking out.
“Tell me,” he said. “Is it customary for women to hold our rank in summers to come?”
I relaxed when I knew he recognized my position in the grand scheme of things and didn’t feel threatened by me.
“Customary, no. What you see, my Acolyte and I are all that is left of the Druids. I have been tasked by the being I call the Entity, to awaken the power that is held in the Earth.”
God, I hated talking this way. I had to pause at every other word to figure out what he would understand in the translation.
The Great Druid set his mug aside and I followed suit. Frankly the stuff that was served was seriously rank. “You are welcome within the Sacred Grove to complete your quest. You must do this with haste. The Romans approach.” Pausing for a moment he looked at me with hope in his eyes and then turned away. “You must speak to no one concerning your true reasons for being here. I will instruct them to not question you.”
I rose and I know he felt my gaze upon him. “I’m sorry for what is to come.”
He turned his head and looked at me with contentment. “There is no need. The Druids will continue on. You will see to this.”
Quicker than I thought possible, he grabbed his staff and left the Grove.
Who would have thought that someone from the ancient past would understand the complexity of temporal paradoxes? Perhaps he was much wiser than I was.
“Zach, come on.”
He scrambled up from the ground while I watched the Great Druid gather his followers. I took off my backpack and then took a swig of water to rid my mouth of the nasty taste of the tea.
“What’s up?”
“Get comfortable. We need to commune with the entity of this time period, ASAP.”
He looked at me with concern. “What’s the rush?”
“Romans. Remember them?”
The look on his face told me he didn’t really pay much attention in history class, but then again not many people did. “They invaded England in force around forty-three A.D. That was the beginning of the end for the Druids. I know when we are at and it makes perfect sense now.”
Zach paused in taking his coat off. “Care to tell the rest of the class, because I’m stumped.”
I motioned to the mat across from me and then sat down. “When the Romans invaded, they pretty much crushed any opposition. The Druids were considered barbaric and summarily killed. Every human has to sleep, even us.”
“Oh.”
“The entity chose to punish the world and withdraw itself, or it retreated to unpopulated areas to preserve itself; the reason doesn’t really matter. The point is that it left and took magic with it. My guess is that the future entity knows the reason and chose to return us to this time for a specific purpose. I don’t know enough to make a decent attempt at guessing why, but there is a reason, hence the communing.”
I unzipped the neoprene a little to relax and then crossed my legs before closing my eyes.
~O~
When I did this before, in the future, it took me a little while to slip into a proper state of mind. Not too long, but I did have to concentrate. Within the Sacred Grove that was Stonehenge, all I had to do was close my eyes before I was whisked away into the magic.
Zach was right behind me as I soared into the sky, above the spattering of clouds. In moments he’d caught up and we both paused in the air and Zach reached out to grab me so he wouldn’t overshoot the spot. We twirled around and I burst out with a laugh. His grin distracted me for a few moments, before I felt my face heating up at being in his arms. I pulled away and laced our fingers together.
Stonehenge was well below us. I could still make out the structure, but the white light that shined around it was making even that more difficult.
“Concentrate on the entity and why we are here. It’s never actually talked to me, so don’t expect anything in return. Just let it do its thing and hopefully we’ll get an answer in some way.”
Putting everything I had into the effort, I pictured the world as it was in my time. The pure mundaneness of everything, then I mixed in our experience in the jungle and the reawakening of magic. Zach butted in with my making him my Acolyte and his experiences. Then we both thought of today’s events. When we came to the end, we stopped.
The entity was listening and it wasn’t pleased. I could feel its rage within me, filling me with hate and vitriol at what the Romans were doing, but then it calmed and I felt its nature reasserting itself. I had no doubt that it was what I considered True Neutral. The Romans were the natural order of things. Magic had its chance and now it was time for the mundane world to emerge, for good or for bad, it could not judge.
I frowned. It was difficult to tell whether it was going to do anything about the situation or just let us be stuck there in the past with no way home.
Images of a library came into my head. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. A single man sat, hunched over a desk, occasionally dipping a feathered quill into an inkpot and then scratching out something in a very large book. I looked around to see some of the titles on the unending amount of shelves, but just looking at the spines sent pain through my head to the point that I thought my brain was going to melt.
When I reopened my eyes, the man was looking up at me as if I’d appeared out of nowhere. He focused on me and then looked a little annoyed.
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
I made to say something in return, but I was silenced before a word came out of my mouth.
“Yes, yes, I know why you’ve come, but the fact of the matter is the answer is already within your grasp. You have but to open your eyes, and you shall see.” He gave me a shooing motion and looked back down in his book. “Now go and do not return, young Druid. I will not be pleased if you do.”
A sledgehammer hit me square in the face and I dropped backward onto the ground of the Grove. My equilibrium was totally thrown off and fireworks were blowing behind my eyelids.
“Chase!”
Apparently my ears worked just fine. I felt a pair of strong hands lift me into a sitting position and the wash of magic race over me a few seconds later. The pain centered between my eyebrows, lessened and then disappeared. My eyes fluttered open and I saw Zach leaning in, wiping my upper lip with a cloth of some sort.
“Are you okay?” he asked in a very concerned voice.
“I’m fine.” It was embarrassing, for some reason, having him fretting over me. It made me feel weak, which I’ve always hated. I didn’t smack his hand away, but I pushed it down lightly. “Really, I’m cool. Relax.”
The sign at the corners of his lips told me he was frustrated that I wouldn’t let him help me, but he relented and backed away. That’s when I saw the Great Druid at the entranceway to the Grove. When he saw me regain my composure, he entered.
“We do not see many injuries within the Sacred Grove.”
His voice was expectant of an answer to why my nose was bleeding. Pushing myself up, I stood and faced him.
“I encountered someone during my communion.”
Zach stood and watched the byplay.
The Great Druid gripped his staff. “This is not uncommon.”
I shook my head. “It is for me. I’ve only ever interacted with the entity.” Before he had a chance to ask, I elaborated. “This man was a… scribe, and I was in a room full of tomes.”
It was annoying that I could say it was a library since he’d have no idea what I was talking about.
The Druids brows furrowed. “Was this man, writing with a feather?”
I nodded. “He told me I should not be there, told me something about the answers I seek, and then I was banished very hard.”
Understanding relaxed the Druids brow. “You’ve met the Keeper of Lore. No Druid I have met knows his true name. His ways are different from our own.”
That was obvious. Druidic history is an oral tradition. Taking time to make paper and actually write things down is against our nature; well, against most Druids nature. I’m perfectly happy with a nice laptop to transcribe my daily journal.
“Did you find the answers you seek?”
I looked down in mild frustration. “Not really. I do know that I’m on the correct path to finding them.”
Zach didn’t look pleased. “The entity sent us two thousand years in the past for nothing? Are we stuck here?”
I didn’t get a chance to answer before the Great Druid butted in. “All things in our lives happen for a reason, Initiate. It is not our place to question those above our station, only to see their will is done. This is a basic lesson that you should have learned in your first circle.” His attention moved to me. “Have our ways changed so much?”
“We have only been learning for a little over three moons,” I said. That finally got a reaction from him that was out of the ordinary. He looked over at my staff again.
“How have you progressed so far in so little time?”
I gave him a playful smirk. “Magic.”
He didn’t seem that satisfied with my answer.
“The entity took a lifetime of learning and put it in my head. I did the same for Zachery.”
Looking past him I saw several of his initiates out in the field to the south east like they were planting things. “What are they doing?”
He looked back. “Preparing for the enemy. Our lives may be ending tonight, but the Romans will know true pain by the sun’s rising.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I wish I could help wasn’t exactly a true statement. Instead, I bent down and retrieved my jacket. “We better go and leave you to more important duties.”
Zach took my cue and retreated to his jacket and pack. The look on the Great Druid’s face was somber. He knew we couldn’t get involved in the upcoming battle even if having another Great Druid there could prove the turning point.
He seemed to be mulling something over in his head and by the time I was securing my pack he’d come to a decision. “Come with me.”
I shrugged at Zach and grabbed my staff on the way out. Pausing at the entrance to Stonehenge, I memorized the stones and the surrounding area. I didn’t want to forget what it looked like in its true glory.
We followed the Druid to his hut and waited outside as he entered and spent a minute or two inside before coming back out. In his hands was something that I wasn’t expecting: a book. Don’t get the wrong idea, Druids aren’t anti-books or anything. They can read just as well as any other person during the time period. That usually means only those that are in religious sects. They just never write anything of their own because they’re secretive.
“It is the duty of the Great Druid, above all others to guard this writing. If I am to go on to my next life tonight, I would rest easier knowing that it is safe and out of the Roman’s hands. Ease the burden on my heart by accepting the duty unto yourself.”
Instinctually, I wanted to reach out and take it, but I paused for a moment. “What is it?”
He undid the crude cloth that it was concealed in and showed the cover to me. Stitched into the simple brown cover was the shape of an hourglass, and in the upper left hand corner was the Druidic symbol for Tree. I’m not telling you what that is because it’s a secret.
“Do not try to read the contents. Many have already tried and each has died in different ways, mostly by becoming the Unclean.”
Unclean was an old term that meant zombie, undead, wraith, any number of horrible creatures.
I seriously didn’t know if I wanted to take that with me. Bringing something to the future that could start some zombie apocalypse wasn’t high on my priority list.
“Why not destroy it?” I asked.
“The most powerful spells have no effect.”
Oh hell… it’s an artifact.
I knew exactly why we’d been send to the past, and it wasn’t to chat with some earlier version of the entity or to get whacked in the head by an irate librarian.
~O~
I’d accepted the book and stored it in my backpack before Zach and I made tracks to the juniper we’d traveled through. With a brief incantation we entered the tree and exited the one that was near our Grove in Tennessee. I spent all of three seconds looking around and knew we were back in our proper time period.
The first thing I did was turn on my cell. While I waited for it to boot up, Zach watched patiently, well, as calmly as he could to see if my suspicions were true.
I had a signal and the time was roughly the same as when we left. We hadn’t even lost the day we’d accumulated in England.
“We’re home.”
His eyes rolled up into his head and I heard a sigh of relief from him. He chuckled right afterward. “It’s always an adventure with you, Chase.”
I shrugged downhill. “Come on, I seriously need a bath.”
~O~
Zach dropped me off at the hotel and I immediately stripped out of the leather pants and neoprene top before soaking for a good hour in bath salts and washing the grime of the Iron Age out of my skin.
Room service was next. I didn’t want to wear anything but my bathrobe that night. Even through it was only mid-afternoon, I was tired, and after I ate, I spent the rest of the day and night dreaming of the battle that took place on the grounds of Wiltshire that evening.
If only that Great Druid had a little more experience, the Romans would have had an entirely different welcome waiting for them. But if that were the case, Rome would have never conquered the north and history might have turned out entirely different.
The next morning, I found the second outfit my mother packed for me. No, apparently I can’t be trusted yet to pack my own clothes, not this early in the girl-game.
I blame Hollywood, the ones that made Under Armor a high commodity for the elite to wear, even when they weren’t working out. While I’m sure it’s a wonderful product for those that like to go out and show off every conceivable inch of their well worked-out bodies, it’s just not made for all day wear. I’m talking about the compression-wear. That’s the type that, when you put it on, squishes everything.
That’s what I got to wear. Oh, it wasn’t all simply compression-wear. I got a decent fleece coat to cover my top a little, so I wasn’t flashing everything outright. At least the top was something other than black, not that pink was any better, but it was different. The bottoms were still black. The running shoes had little pink highlights throughout.
How in the world this outfit was supposed to make people think that I was powerful and not to taken lightly was beyond me. Maybe it was simply a ploy to stupefy them into incoherence so I’d appear to actually sound smarter than I really was. I freely admit, once I was dressed, as a male, I would have been struck dumb at the sight of me.
Let’s just say that I received the best service at breakfast and leave it at that, shall we? I don’t really want to go into how many times the server came by the table to see if I needed anything else… and it was a girl.
The first thing I did that Sunday morning was go shopping for two leather belts. Nice, huh? Once I’d trimmed them down and punched new holes in them so they’d buckle properly, I wrapped them around the book, actually around the cloth and the book. Through the third punched hole, I slipped a nice padlock that held both of them in place.
It wouldn’t stop a determined person from gaining access, but then again, nothing would. This was strictly so nobody that I cared about would accidentally flip through the pages and turn into a zombie moments after.
I should explain about artifacts a little. They’re magical, obviously. The Holy Grail, Excalibur, The Darkhold, all of these are artifacts. These items are imbued with so much magical power that in the wrong hands can be more dangerous than giving an armed tactical nuke to a five year old.
Oh sure, Excalibur was King Arthur’s sword, it had to be safe. That particular sword, if held in the hands of a warrior, could defeat any opponent. The scabbard, in which it was held, if worn by a warrior, will ensure that he cannot be killed by mortal means. So if you had the sword and the scabbard, you were pretty much unbeatable.
In case you’re wondering, Arthur wasn’t wearing his scabbard when he fought Mordred, and that little bastard of a son/nephew was the child of a very powerful sorceress.
One thing to keep in mind when messing around with artifacts: while they may grant you untold power, they can also mess up your day for years afterward.
I had no doubt that the entity wanted me to open that book up and just read away with no thought as to the consequences. I’m not a big fan of eating brains, thanks anyway. As soon as I could, I was dropping that puppy in some wet cement, wait for it to dry, and then dropping it in the deepest hole I could find. Maybe the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean would suffice. That’s over six miles deep. Maybe an active volcano would be better. Until then, it was staying with me wherever I went.
However, that didn’t stop me from doing research on the little bugger. Perhaps if I found out why it was so important, I’d be able to reproduce the effect in a smaller, less lethal way.
There would be no record to find about its origin with the Druids, but considering how I got changed into a magical being in the first place, I caught a cab to the best place for research in the city, the local gaming store.
Yes, I have a photographic memory. That doesn’t mean I’ve read everything that there was to read.
Sunday’s are hit or miss with gaming stores, sometimes they opened late or not at all, but I’d lucked out. There was gaming in progress. I spotted them through a minute amount of space between the billions of posters they’d wallpapered the front windows with. Light kills in these types of stores.
At first they were reluctant to open the door, but it’s amazing how annoying someone can be if they take a minor thing like a quarter and tap on the glass; the sound carriers forever. It’s even more annoying if you’re inconsistent with the tapping. Tap-tap, tap-tap-tap, tap, tap, tap-tap-tap.
“What!”
It took less than two minutes for the guy wearing the wookie shirt to open the door in a huff, and that huff lasted all of about two seconds before the hyperventilation began.
“Uh… the nail salon is next door. They open up in thirty minutes,” he said.
I smiled wide. “Well, it’s a good thing I need some D&D books while I wait then, isn’t it?”
I don’t think the words were processing in his brain quite yet. Okay, I’ll give Mom props for being right about the outfit. Very few males could resist a pretty girl in tight clothing, and even then they’re mostly gay.
He started looking a little sick to his stomach. “The manager’s not here to open the till. I don’t have any money to give you change.”
Shoving down my own nausea, I used the time-honored tradition that virtually every girl has used at one time or another to get what she wants. I stuck my hand in my jacket and pulled out a twenty. “Here, just let me look and it’s yours.
He didn’t have to think twice, when he snagged the bill and opened the door wider so I could slip through.
Once he locked it back up he turned around. “What are you looking for?”
“D&D, any reference to artifacts, specifically books with hourglass symbols on the cover.”
He looked thoughtful for a minute. “Might be something from one of the older editions. I’m pretty up on current items and that doesn’t sound familiar.”
Leading me over to the portion of the store that had some older source books that I guess they never sold, he said, “Look through these and I’ll ask one of the guys that I game with. He’s old, he might know.”
“Thanks,” I said as I pulled out a copy of Tome of Magic.
No joy. Unearthed Arcana had squat as well. I was about to search through the second edition Dungeon Masters Guide when a guy, about thirty years old that wasn’t in too bad of shape and wearing a “My staff is bigger than your staff” tee shirt came over. My body got the once over, and then a twice over before his eyes finally found mine.
“Toby said you were looking for book artifacts with hourglass symbols?”
I nodded. “You know what it is?”
That’s when I notice he was carrying a laptop which he set on the counter. The page I was looking for was already displayed. I leaned over the computer and started reading.
History
The Books of Lore where first conceived by the great lord of the book Gillean. He brought them into being for his own use, not anticipating that one day mortals might exist on the world.
Soon after the world was created Gillean lost track of his books, dropped upon humanity he decided to leave them be for now. Watching what mortals did with these books.
The books were scattered across the world, hidden by location and appearance. None have surfaced since, but many have come across them. None are willing to share their miraculous find; none are brave enough to use the books power. They are slowly being forgotten by the world.
Description
The physical attributes of these books will vary from book to book. All books will look like ordinary books until opened. Once opened, not many live to tell of what then occurs.
Each book still had a slightly different appearance due to mainly the title and the area of the book. The books are simple books really. They have a pattern making hourglass shapes on each side with a box in the corners. All books have some kind of rune on the cover marking which book it is. They also have a symbol surrounding the rune marking which type of the ten books it is.
The books when open look strange indeed. At first you will not be able to see the runes, even if you look directly at them. There will be a feeling inside of you, if you are strong enough this will simply be a strange tingling. If you are not strong enough however, the feeling will be of the ultimate pain, your soul will be getting slowly devoured. Once and if this is overcome the inside of the book is written in the language of Soul Song.
Each book contains the most beautiful story you have ever heard in your life, but you can never remember it afterword.
The rest was purely Dungeon Master information about saving throws and the different types of books that were available. Considering the symbol on the corner of the book I held was a tree, I narrowed it to two specific categories: Nature or Life. That left a lot of latitude that could be open to interpretation.
There were a number of powers for the lucky winner, but considering what I’d already experienced of the real life stuff, I didn’t bother with the game’s version. Remember the scrying spell that didn’t do what it was supposed to? Plus, I’ve already bunked up some of the fallacies put forth by regular gameplay. I didn’t need spell components to do my magic; I simply spoke the incantations. I didn’t need to practice magic in the Sacred Grove for decades; I simply spoke the incantation to bring it to life. Most noticeably, I didn’t have to prepare my spells beforehand; if I knew the spell and had the power, then I could cast it, several times if I wanted to.
D&D was limited. That led me to believe that the rewards the book might have could be equally as wrong. However, I memorized it all anyway, just to be on the safe side.
“Who’s Gillean?” I asked the guy who was distracted staring at my butt.
“Huh? Oh, uh, he’s the ultimate god of neutrality. The story goes; he sits in his library and writes twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, since the beginning of time. His library is supposed to contain everything that’s ever happened, in book format.”
Ah, well that makes sense I suppose. I got whacked in the head by a god. Not many people can say that and still be alive.
“Excellent. Thank you for your help.”
He smiled rather goofily. “No problem. Look, um, if you’re not doing anything tonight…”
I held up my hand. “Sorry, I have a boyfriend, and I prefer small staffs, but thanks.”
He looked a tad confused until I tapped his shirt.
~O~
When I was let out of the store, my cell tweeted at me. It was an email from Brett letting me know that Pete was on the mend. I forwarded it to Zach just to keep him in the loop since I knew he was worried about our mutual friend.
While I waited for my cab, there were a few honks from passing idiot rednecks in their trucks that I had to ignore. A side note: if you give people like this any attention whatsoever, then they take advantage of it in one form or another. It’s best to just ignore them and move on like they didn’t exist. Of course this advice can be used by regular girls as well as those males that are magically transformed to females on deserted jungle islands in the pacific. You know who you are.
I was beginning to think that Clarksville was a one taxi town.
Finding a relatively clean bench in front of a barber shop that didn’t open until noon, I started scanning through the internet to catch up on any news that I’d missed.
That’s when I received an email from Mom.
Chase-
The following people have called for you: Janie Book, Stewart Farris, Dale Peters, and Sylvia Hernandez. They mentioned that they were on the island with you and that it was very important that you call them back as soon as possible.
It was very odd that they all called one after the other and they sounded quite stressed over the phone, especially the Janie girl.
I’ve included their numbers at the bottom of the email.
Let me know if you are going to be any later than tomorrow. If you are then I need to change our appointment at the salon.
Love, Mother
I hadn’t had a chance to send out my new email or number to anyone but Ev and Zach. Truthfully, I really had no desire to chat about old times with the other survivors, and I was still too embarrassed to even think about calling Janie. I can just imagine that awkward conversation.
I still thought about her and it took me a couple of months to get over the resentment of losing her as a possible girlfriend. Due to my previous personality traits that some people found offensive, I never really dated for long periods of time.
Once the girls got what they wanted, then they pretty much dumped me. Remember, I was a lifeguard. I looked good, and no I’m not being egotistical when I say this.
Getting dates was easy enough. It was keeping the girls after they experienced my exacting standards that I had trouble with.
Looking to get this over with, I decided to deal with the most difficult of my calls first. That way I knew the rest were bound to be better.
“Hello?”
I recognized her voice as soon as she answered the phone and it brought back the times we were in the hot spa, just talking between bouts of teenage sex.
“Janie? It’s Chase. My mom said you called?”
“I need to see you.”
No hi, how are you, what have you been up to, how about those Dodgers. Just straight to the point. “Okay. Where are you at?”
“Santa Barbara. Do you have a pencil?”
“Yeah, hold on a second.” I put her on speaker and pulled up my Post-it app in my iPhone. “Go ahead.”
“11363 Los Alamos Place.”
“Is everything alright, Janie?” The tone in her voice led me to believe that it wasn’t.
“No. Look, how soon can you get here?”
I rubbed my forehead for a moment. “I need to check out of my hotel first. Is this a house or an apartment?”
“House.”
“Do you have any trees in your back yard?”
“What?”
“Tree’s. Tall things with leaves.”
I heard her huff. “I know what a tree is. It’s just a weird question to ask. Yes, there’s an old Sycamore in the yard.”
“Okay, I know it’s going to sound strange, but be in your back yard in exactly one hour. Make sure nobody else is there. I need to check out and drop off some stuff at my house then I’ll be right there.”
She sounded somewhat disbelieving. “In my back yard?”
“Yeah, remember that magic stuff? I’m really good at it now.”
“Oh.”
We hung up. The cab finally arrived and I had to rush to make sure I made it on time. A quick call to Zach let him know that I had to bolt earlier than expected, but I promised him I’d be back soon, not to mention the dance I’d promised to go to. What was I thinking?
By the time I’d made it to back to the school and through the tree, back to my house, I had about fifteen minutes to find a Sycamore tree. Luckily they were fairly prevalent in California.
I dropped off my suitcase and received a look from my mother that told me she disapproved of me running around, even if it was in a running outfit that she chose for me.
“Sorry, Mother, but this is important. The girl I met, Janie. She’s in trouble and thinks I can help. I didn’t think it would take this long to get back.”
She gave me a placating nod. “I understand. We’ll just have to work on your planning issues. Things take longer for women to accomplish properly and with grace…”
“Sorry, Mom, I have to go.”
She followed me to the door. “That’s another thirty minutes tonight with your lessons.”
I cringed again. “Sorry.”
“You keep saying that. Try to be home for supper, dear.”
I nodded and closed the door behind me. It took a good five minute run to make it to the park at the end of the block, but by the time I got there I had three minutes to spare.
During the interim, I checked my backpack and made sure the Book of Lore was secure. I had to maybe buy a safe or rent a safety deposit box to store the thing in so I didn’t have to lug it around everywhere. It wasn’t a gigantic tome like some I’ve seen described in D&D, but it was enough to be annoying.
Checking around the area I saw that I was relatively, there was nobody looking my way anyhow. So, I uttered the incantation and entered the Sycamore and exited through the one in Janie’s backyard.
Growing up, you make certain assumptions about certain neighborhoods and cities. When you think of Beverly Hills, you associate those that live there to be uber-rich. When you think of East L.A. you think low income high Hispanic population. Me, I lived in Brentwood. For the most part, it was an older rich neighborhood, but nothing like the vast estates you’d see on some Rich & Famous show on TV.
When I thought of Santa Barbara, I associated it with the same kind of neighborhood I lived in. It was anything but.
Janie’s house was seriously old and not kept very well. The surrounding houses and conditions of the yard I was in, made me think seriously lower income.
“Wow, you really can do that stuff good.”
Following Janie’s voice, I turned around and saw her at the back door of her house. She was holding a TV tray in her hands, in front of her with a couple of glasses and a bowl of chips.
Her hair was down and she was wearing a dress that looked a little loose on her. Frankly, from what I remembered about her clothing back on the island, it didn’t appear to be something that she would normally wear, but who was I to judge. I was wearing things all the time that I would have freaked out over on four months ago.
“Hey.”
She looked me up and down, and then frowned before moving to the aged patio table and chairs.
“I made some lemonade. It’s Country Time.”
I wasn’t really thirsty, but nodded and followed her lead. We sat and I tried to figure out what the problem was from just looking at her face, but that was a lost cause. The only thing I could tell was that she didn’t look very well rested. In fact she looked a little pale.
After she filled the glasses, her eyes flicked to me. “Looks like being a girl took to you pretty well.”
I shrugged slightly with my head. “I knew what was happening. I dealt with it.” There was a momentary pause and I added, “I’m not really one to fall down and cry over something that I have no control over.”
Janie smiled wistfully. “Yeah, I remember that about you. You do what has to be done. Still, you’re gorgeous.”
“So are you.”
She chuckled sardonically. “I’m not sleeping well, I’m anemic, and… anyway, I don’t look gorgeous.”
Reaching my hand halfway across the table, I tried to look as compassionate as I could. “Janie, what can I do to help?”
She licked her lips and looked at me. “I have a doctor’s appointment in an hour and a half. Would you go with me?”
A doctor’s appointment?
“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
Janie appeared even more nervous and kind of pulled in on herself. “Nothing bad like that. It’s my first trimester ultrasound.”
My brain must have went on lockdown at that last word, because I had to actually see her lean back and pull her dress tight across her belly, her distended belly.
A short breath shot out of my mouth and I swear a slight breeze could have blown me off the chair.
“You’re pre… pre…”
“Yeah. I guess the hot water/low sperm count theory didn’t really work.”
The look on her face was telling me that she expected me to yell, or scold her or something like that, so I just waited until I could get my brain to reengage.
“Before you ask, I hadn’t had sex for two months before the flight and I haven’t had sex since you. You’re definitely the fath… uh… well, it’s our child.”
I swallowed. Mom was going to kill me, slowly, maybe with a spoon or some other blunt instrument.
“I’m keeping it,” she said.
My eyes finally pulled away from her belly and saw the resolution and fear on her face.
“I’m not going to freak out, Janie.” I managed to spit that much out. “And yes, I’ll go with you. I’ll help you out however I can.”
Her chest shuddered as she exhaled and I saw the signs of a small smile. “Thank you. Now I have to go pee. I’ll be right back.”
Bringing the glass of lemonade to my lips, I sipped at the rim. It was awful. She was back in a little over a minute.
“Sorry, they told me to drink a lot of water and not to pee, but I’d never make it to the office.”
I suppose that would make sense. A full bladder would mean the uterus would lift and they would be able to see the baby better.
“How far along are you?”
My brain was farther gone than I realized, because I couldn’t remember how long it had been since the rescue, and for someone that very rarely forgets anything, that’s saying something.
“Yesterday begins my fifteenth week.”
Fifteen, yeah, that sounds right. Fifteen.
Something didn’t sit well. Janie looked a lot further along than just fifteen weeks. That’s technically in the second trimester, but still she should just have a little swelling, but I suppose each person was different in the way they developed. Then I started clicking on other things.
“You’re not sleeping, and you’re anemic?”
She nodded and sipped at her drink. “Yeah, it’s not really uncommon in my family when the women are expecting twins.”
My stomach dropped.
~O~
I called a cab, since her car didn’t look all that safe. It made me wonder how she could afford to fly to Hawaii in the first place. The doctor’s office was semi busy with a lot of lower income pregnant teen moms in attendance. That led me to believe that Janie was on some sort of assistance program which didn’t really sit well with me.
In low whispers, we spoke in the corner of the waiting room.
“Janie, are you really attached to this doctor or anything?”
She shrugged. “It’s what I can afford. My church is helping out a little. They found this clinic for me.”
“Afford? Are you working, with the anemia and everything?”
“I have to help pay the bills, Chase. I was saving up to move out, but that…” she motioned to her belly.
I nodded. “Look, if you want, we have extra rooms at my house or even a pool house if you want your privacy. I’ll take care of the bills.”
“Chase… I’m not… that’s not exactly why I called you. Yeah, a little money would really help out and I’m not going to turn it down, but you don’t have to go this far.”
That brought a smile from me for the first time since I saw her again. “I’m not trying to buy you off. I come from a very well off family. I have the money and you’re carrying our babies. Would you like a doctor that can look at you and see you as a person instead of a patient? Would you like not to work and be healthy and not worry about anything but yourself and them?”
Janie looked down at her lap like she was thinking things over.
“Just think about it okay. You don’t have to give me an answer right away.”
A door opened and a lady in flowery scrubs stepped out. “Janie Book?”
I stood immediately and gave her a hand up. She wasn’t that far along yet, but it made me feel like I was doing something useful. We were escorted to a room with a raised back bed and a monitor on a cart to the side. I recognized the ultrasound machine since it was pretty much the only other thing in the room.
The tech came in and covered Janie’s legs with a light blanket before asking her to raise her dress up. Even though I’d seen Janie more than nude before, I averted my eyes to let her get situated before the tech squirted some gel on her lower abdomen and flicked on the machine.
I was watching the display when I felt my hand being taken by hers. Looking back, she gave me a brief smile which I returned.
My knowledge didn’t extend so far as to being able to read the images on the screen, but the tech pointed out a head and I could finally make out what he was talking about.
He took several measurements before moving to the second and taking even more measurements. I didn’t know what they were for, but I made a promise to myself to make damn sure to read up on everything I could find on the subject.
“Do you want to know any of the details,” he asked Janie who didn’t spare a second before nodding her head.
I never understood why certain people didn’t want to know, but I figured that they probably couldn’t understand why people would want the opposite.
“For fifteen weeks, they’re right where they need to be in size and health. They’re going to be identical twins.” He smiled back at Janie’s big grin. “Do you want to know the sex?”
Janie’s eyes widened a little. “You can tell this early?”
“Normally we would have a hard time of it until twenty weeks, but I know. They aren’t bashful.”
She looked at me and I nodded. “Tell us.”
“They’re going to be boys.” He pointed to a certain place on the screen. “This one here has his legs open and you pretty much can’t get a better shot than that one.”
I’m going to have two sons.
My throat felt thick as Janie’s hand gripped tighter to mine.
The tech handed her a tissue and then gave one to me as well. I dabbed at the trails on my face and sniffed afterward. Who would have thought that I could get so choked up over something like this so quickly?
~O~
When the cab dropped us off at her house again, she took the little copies of the ultrasound that they printed off for us and tore them in half to give me five while she took five.
“Let me talk to my mom about your offer, Chase.”
I nodded. “Yeah, okay. I need to talk to mine too.”
Leaning in, she kissed my cheek. “Even if it doesn’t work out right, this means a lot to me, that you’re willing to offer.”
Shaking my head, I tried to look determined. “It’s not an offer, Janie. I’m committed to helping whatever that means. Can I go get you something? You’re supposed to have cravings right?”
She giggled. “That’s not until later, like the third trimester. I thought you knew everything.”
My cheeks heated up and I felt my ears burning. “Give me a week and I will. I’ll probably annoy the hell out of you with how much I’ll know.”
TBC...
The Soul Does Not Perish (Part 7)
by: Lilith Langtree
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By the time I made it back home, it was edging on four-thirty. I’d stopped by a book store and bought the basics. The rest I’d learn online until I knew exactly what I needed to know about pregnancy and what to expect.
Mom greeted me and told me to wash up and change for dinner, which I did. Since her training regimen started, I’d been required to dress for meals. I didn’t have to go overboard in formalwear but it had to be nice and feminine, meaning it had to be a dress or a skirt.
I sifted through my closet where apparently someone had been shopping for me had stored some clothes and decided on a dress that if I wasn’t mistaken, was a soft knit top with rouched shoulders that flowed into a curve-hugging banded skirt. The color was a soft black or a really really dark gray. It was vee-cut in the front and the back which showed off only a little bit of my new assets. So I wasn’t cringing in angst for having to wear it.
My main mode of dress was still pants of some type and pretty much any top. I liked to be mobile, and there are certain things that you just can’t do in a dress.
Two inch heeled sandals went with it. Yes, I could wear heels. I insisted on them being low, no matter how much mom wanted me to learn to walk in higher ones. I was still tall — five-eleven if anyone’s keeping track — and I had no desire to be taller than most of the guys that I bump into in public.
A few accessories and a touch up on the makeup and I was ready by five.
Mom gave her approval and fluffed my hair in back a little. “Very nice, Chase. I knew that would look good on you. Sometimes you are so easy to shop for, especially when it comes to outfits like this.”
It was the slacks and non-stretchy things that I had issues with. Let’s face it. Curvy women have a harder time looking for clothes, since most girls are looking for the skin and bones ideal body. Personally, I just liked girls that were fit. It didn’t really matter what shape their bodies were. Well, to a point. Humpbacked women need not apply. While I’m sure they might have wonderful personalities, or whatever, I was realistic enough to know what attracted me.
What was annoying was that my ideal seemed to be changing a little. And I’m not going into that issue at the moment, so you’ll have to deal with it.
Dinner was a polite affair. I only got corrected once on my posture and Dad complimented me on the dress. I think he liked the fact that it came down to just below my knees the most.
When we got up, Dad led the way into the living room and poured a small amount of Port for each of us. I really wasn’t a big fan of wine, much less wine mixed with brandy, but Mom wanted me to be able to drink it and not make a face if the occasion arose.
We usually took this time to catch up on each other’s day. I know we’re an odd family. I didn’t immediately run off and lock myself away in my room to chat endlessly on Facebook or play video games until ungodly hours. Dad and Mom didn’t seclude themselves to their own rooms or in front of the TV for the rest of the night.
Ever since the island, we’d really tried to be a family. This, of course gave me ample opportunity to present my situation when it came to be my turn to share for the evening.
“What did your friends have to say, Chase?” asked Mom.
I cleared my throat and tried to think of a delicate way to say, guess what, you’re going to be grandparents at thirty-eight years old!
“I only talked to Janie today.”
She didn’t seem to be pleased at that, but that was a different issue. “This was the girl that you connected with?”
I nodded. “We did more than connect, Mother.”
They both stilled at that announcement. Conclusions were thoroughly jumped at that point. It was Dad that finally broke the silence.
“Do you have something to tell us, Chase?”
I couldn’t meet their eyes except for the briefest of seconds. “You have to understand the situation, Dad. Emotions were running high and…”
He held up his hand. “I think we understand what you went through. We’ve been over it enough times.”
I turned my head and looked at a painting on the wall before focusing back on them. “Janie’s pregnant — fifteen weeks.”
Mom set her glass down, but I could see it shaking a second before she released the stem.
“She just now decided to tell you?” said Dad. It sounded slightly accusatory.
“She was scared, Dad.”
“Paul,” said Mom. He looked at her and then closed his mouth. After crossing his legs, he closed himself off from further comment, and Mom took over.
“Is she well?”
I shrugged. “She had a doctor’s appointment. That’s why she called, well one of the reasons. Janie wanted to tell me, and that gave her the opportunity.”
“What have you two decided to do?” she asked.
I didn’t understand the question. “What do you mean?”
It was obvious that she felt very uncomfortable asking the question. “Is Janie having the child?”
Oh.
“Yeah. That wasn’t even brought up. I went with her for her ultrasound, and learned a few things.”
Dad was busy rubbing his forehead, so Mom kept on. “Such as?”
“Janie is anemic and she’s working. From the looks of things she didn’t appear to have a lot of money. I’m guessing she’s on some sort of assisted thing. Her church is helping out and I’m guessing maybe Medicaid or something.”
At this point Dad was palming his face. “She didn’t know we were rich, Dad, and she isn’t grubbing for money. I volunteered, and I also want her to quit working and move in here or maybe the pool-house. She looks bad and I want to help.”
Mom distracted me. “Did you receive any ultrasound pictures, Chase?”
I nodded. “Yeah, they’re upstairs.”
“Go get them for me.”
I looked between her and Dad for a second and realized what she was asking. She wanted a few minutes alone with him.
That meant I took my time about retrieving the pictures. When I reached my room, I noted that my suitcase was unpacked and repacked with other clothes. I didn’t bother looking at them too much, only to note that there were heeled boots involved.
While I was there, I went ahead and changed out of my dress and heels then pulled out a pair of capris and a form fitting button down that matched, I think. Mom’s one concession in the denim department was if I would wear heels with the outfit. So some sandals went along with it and a light brown trench coat to top it off.
Considering Janie’s news, I wanted to be ready to answer Sylvia and Dale’s call and there was no telling where they lived.
The backpack came along with me downstairs. Mom saw what I was wearing and raised her eyebrow.
“Going somewhere?”
“I need to call the others back, but I can wait.”
Unzipping the front pocket I pulled out the pictures and handed them over. Dad was noticeably missing.
Mom’s face went soft as she looked at them.
“Fifteen weeks. I suppose they couldn’t tell the sex?”
“They’re boys,” I said as I sat down.
“Boys… as in plural?”
Oops. “Sorry, yeah, twins.”
She breathed nice and even for a few moments. “Well… one surprise after another. You don’t do anything by half-measures do you?”
I gave her a weak grin in response.
“Call your friends. If you have to leave, make sure to call tomorrow morning and invite Janie over. I want to meet the girl that is going to make me a grandmother. We’ll talk about her moving in later. Your father has had enough surprises.” She waved the pictures at me. “And now I get to break another to him.”
She paused as she stood up. “Chase, you’re an adult, now and when you were on that island. As such I expect you to be wise about your decisions and think about what would have happened if you were still in the jungle. Bringing a child into this world is an enormous responsibility. Could you have lived with yourself if something would have gone wrong… something that could have been easily corrected in civilization? How would you have felt if something happened?”
Mom saw the look on my face. Regret was plastered all over it.
“You have a lot to be responsible for, now and in the future. I’ll always be available to help you if you ask, honey, but the times that I’m not there, you need to think responsibly. There are always consequences for the things you do.”
~O~
Dane wouldn’t tell me what the problem was; just that it was probably my specialty. Considering that he lived twenty minutes down the road and wasn’t currently trapped on a deserted jungle island, I didn’t have a clue as to what he was talking about. Maybe he had gardening problems.
He didn’t have any trees in his back yard so I had to settle with the forest on the edge of his neighborhood. Since I was in heels, he volunteered to pick me up at the closest street. I should have just changed into something different. I knew better.
When I saw the antique Porsche parked on the side of the road and the familiar figure inside, I headed in his direction. The passenger door popped open and there was Dane, leaning back to the driver’s side of the car.
“Need a ride?”
He had a comfortable smile which I returned as I got in.
“You’re not pregnant are you?”
He looked at me weird. “I’ve got to say that’s a question I’ve never been asked before. And no, I’m not pregnant.”
“Good.”
He drove us two blocks over and pulled into the driveway of what I hoped was his house and killed the engine. “I’m not going to pull a lame surprise on you here. Stuart is inside.”
I raised my brows just a little. “The problem is with both of you?”
Dane shook his head. “Just him actually. I called right after because I thought you might still hold a grudge…”
“Because he tried to stab me with a homemade stake? Nah, why would I hang on to that trivial bit for fifteen weeks?”
“Fifteen weeks? You’re keeping track?”
I shook that thought off. “No, it has to do with something else. Never mind. I don’t hold a grudge. I just hadn’t gotten around to calling him back. I still have to call Sylvia too. All of you called at the same time.”
He looked to the front door. “That’s… not completely shocking to me.”
“What do you mean?”
Instead of answering, Dane opened his door. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
We made our way up the front walk where Dane pulled his keys out and unlocked the door before going in. I followed close behind. The house was neat, and decidedly bachelor-esque.
“I talked to him about going to the hospital, but I really don’t know…”
It was obvious that he was at a loss for words, and I was trying to figure out what it could be. All sorts of thoughts started running through my head. Some funky post-jungle fever third butt cheek growth, or something equally as weird. Instead of trying to imagine the worst horror story outcomes I just followed Dale until we reached what I guessed was one of the bedrooms.
The door was closed when he came to a stop and turned around. I thought he was going to warn me about something, since he held a finger up, but he changed his mind and shook his head.
A small knock later and he leaned into the door.
“Stuart. Chase is here.”
I heard a noise from the other side which I guess was some sort of code between the two of them since Dale opened the door.
I was right, it was a bedroom, but it looked like it doubled as an office as well, with a futon and computer desk present. Stuart was at the computer muttering to himself. The thing was, he looked bigger.
Don’t get me wrong. I think I’ve already told you about how he was the biggest person on the island after we crashed. By that I mean he probably could have played football in high school or college, well-muscled and fit. From the look of his right arm and back, it looked like he’d been doing nothing but working out since that day.
“Stuart?” I said.
He swiveled on the office chair toward me. That’s when I got to see the rest of him.
My eyes widened at the change. “Whoa.”
I didn’t think it was possible for muscles to grow that quick.
“What happened?”
He looked at Dale for a moment which got him a return nod.
“Ever since I’ve been back, I’ve been getting bigger.”
“No shit,” I said as a side comment. It was obvious that he was bigger. “Have you been taking steroids or something?”
He shook his head. “No, just my regular protein drinks before my workout, but I stopped that after the second week. I thought it was just my body catching up after the weirdness on that island.”
I nodded in understanding.
“I stopped working out soon after that.”
With a blink I said, “And you just now thought to call me?”
The look on his face turned slightly angry, but subsided quickly after and switched to embarrassment.
“Can you help?” asked Dale.
Honestly, I didn’t have a clue about what I could do. Spontaneous muscle growth isn’t really one of the things that Druids are qualified to handle. Injuries, no problem; need your garden boosted, I’m your girl. This was something out of my range of expertise.
“I really don’t know. Druids are healers among other things. This looks like something entirely different.
Instead of standing there, I went through my mental checklist of the spells I knew that might apply. I could try to heal him even though there didn’t seem to be anything technically wrong, like a chest sucking wound. I could…
“Oh, let me try something.” When I approached, Stuart pulled back a little, but I guess he saw I wasn’t wielding a weapon, just my hands. “Just relax. This shouldn’t do anything to you. It’s kind of like a diagnostic scan of a kind.”
He noticed my choice of words. “Shouldn’t do anything?”
Giving him a slight smile, I said, “With magic, I try not to make any promises until I’ve actually used a particular spell.”
“What is it?”
I understood the need to know the unknown, especially if it was going to be applied to me in particular.
“It’s a Detect Magic spell. Ordinarily it’s used to see if objects carry any magic inside them, but I guess it would work the same if magic is actively working inside a living being. Like I said, I actually hope that it doesn’t produce any effect. That way we can rule that out as a possibility and concentrate on the mundane. If that’s the case then I would suggest going to the hospital.”
He considered that for a few moments. “What if it is… magic.”
“Let me do the spell and we’ll see.”
Stuart leaned back in the chair which pushed out his massive pectorals. Holding on to my cane, I lifted it up and kept my voice low so I didn’t inadvertently freak him out.
“Deprehensio Veneficus.”
Instead of the blue glow that I was expecting, which would mean nothing was present, a lime green glow encompassed his body. Seconds after, I pulled the energy back in.
“Okay. It’s magic.”
Stuart closed his eyes and grimaced. “Great… this shit’s never-ending.”
“Can you get rid of it?” said Dale.
I shook my head. “I could dispel the presence, but I have no idea what that would do. It could stop any further growth, make it revert, or even make things much worse.”
Thinking about what Dale said on the way inside, I had another idea. “I’m going to step out and make a quick call.”
Stuart opened his eyes and looked hopeful. “There’s someone that you can call?”
“Maybe. I’ll be right back.”
When I made it out to the living room, I pulled my cell out and looked up Sylvia’s number.
“Chase? Thank the Lord you’ve called.”
“What’s happened, Sylvia?”
There was a pause that made me think she was collecting herself before she answered. “Was there something that was done to any of us on that island?”
Well, there was the common denominator.
As I was talking to her I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. On the back of the couch was a white and gray ferret making its way across the top to the table next to beside.
“Foodfoodfoodfoodfood… sparkly…sparkly…” It stopped and started batting at a miniature snow globe.
I cocked an eyebrow.
“I’m beginning to think so. I’m over at Dale’s house and Stuart is starting to do a serious Schwarzenegger impression. What’s happening with you?”
Her voice lowered to a whisper. “My patients… part of my duties is to pray for them. Chase, all of them are recovering.”
“Well, that’s good. That doesn’t mean it’s something weird or anything. It could be coincidence.”
Silence set over the phone for a few moments. “I work at a hospice.”
For those of you not in-the-know, the kind of place she was talking about was where terminally ill people go to get loaded up on morphine because they have terminal conditions: cancer, TB, AIDES, things that weren’t caught early enough and it was basically too late to do anything about it; you name it they help out. Sometimes the pain is more than they can take. It’s not a sinister as it sounds. There’s just nothing more that can be done and they go there to die as peacefully as possible.
What Sylvia just described was the use of a spell called Heal, typically used by a Cleric, one who devotes herself to a certain god and is granted powers by that god. Additionally, Heal is a pretty hardcore spell, seventh level.
“Sylvia? Look, um… it’s up to you if you want to use that ability of yours, but we need to talk before you try to do other things.”
Her voice returned to normal and it sounded nervous. “What other things?”
“Oh, like accidentally cursing people or starting fires. You have to be real careful about what you say and think until I can get there. Try to keep it pure.”
I got her information and told her I’d be there very soon. It was back in Hawaii, so I knew I could use any palm tree and get pretty close to her.
When I hung up, I rubbed my temples. “I think I’m starting to get jet lag… or is that plant lag?”
“Foodfoodfoodfoodfood…”
“Dale! Your ferret is in here starving to death.”
He came out a few seconds later. “What ferret?”
I groaned. Without even bothering to ask, I held my cane up in front of him. “Deprehensio Veneficus.”
“Hey! What the hell?”
A green glow encircled his body. “It’s happening to you too.”
He tried jumping back and brushing off the green without any success. “No no no. This can’t be happening. Do something!”
I held my hands out, helpless. “What am I supposed to do?”
Stuart was right behind him looking at the glow. “Welcome to my world.”
“Foodfoodfoodfoodfood…” the ferret kept repeating.
Dale’s eyes went wide as he looked down at the animal. “Did you hear that? It’s a talking ferret!”
I needed to get out of there. “Guys, I’m going to get Sylvia. It’s happening to her too and of all the people that might be able to help, it would be her.”
Dale was nearing a panic. “Well, hurry up.”
“I need a ride back to the forest, and you need to feed your animal companion before he starts getting crazy.”
Digging into his pocket, he tossed me the keys to the Porsche.
Sweet.
“What do I feed him?”
Looking over at it looking up at Dale, I shrugged. “Ferrets are carnivores. Try some chicken until you get the chance to go to a pet store. Oh, and insects too.”
~O~
“Holy shit!” Some guy yelled right beside me when I stepped out of the closest palm I could find near the hospice where Sylvia was working.
The bad part? It was the camera guy standing right next to him.
Luckily the camera was pointing at the ground. The quickest of scans let me know the place was swarming with news crews. The word had apparently gotten out the patients of the hospice were being miraculously cured of their terminal illnesses.
“Where did… how did…?”
In defense, I dropped a confused look on my face. “What?”
He pointed at the tree. “You came out… I saw…”
Looking at his cameraman, I gestured toward the speechless guy. “You might want to sit him down and get him some water. He seems delirious.”
The cameraman blinked and it looked like he was questioning what he may have seen out of the corner of his eye. After all, what he thought he saw had to be impossible.
“It’s probably the heat,” he said.
I fanned my face. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” While it was rather humid, it couldn’t be more than eighty degrees that night. “Well, you two take care of yourselves. Don’t get dehydrated. You can start seeing things.”
After that I made a calm but quick exit.
There was no way I would be able to go through the front door and avoid the cameras, and I would bet some serious money that anyone that entered or left would be under some intense scrutiny. I worked my way around the back thinking I could slip over a wall, but there were people there as well.
Pulling out my phone, I dialed Sylvia again.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Chase. There’s a serious madhouse out here. I can’t get in the old fashioned way.”
She sounded concerned. “We’re under a lockdown until the morning when the owners of the hospice arrive.”
I was afraid of that. “Okay. Do you have access to a private open window?”
There was a long pause. “Yes, the third floor at the back of the building. Give me a minute.”
It was more than a minute when I saw a pair of French doors open wide. The light was off inside, thankfully. She was thinking ahead and tried not to create too much attention.
“How’s that?”
“I got it. Cool. Don’t be freaked out about what’s going to happen next, okay?”
Her breath caught. “What’s going to happen?”
“You’ll see.”
I pulled away and hid in the shadows beside another building.
Taking a cleansing breath, I concentrated on something I had yet to try up until this point. There was something inherently scary about changing my body into another creature. It’s a defining ability of the Druids. At the lower levels they can change into smaller animals like birds or squirrels, and as they progress with experience they can take on large animals. What I wanted was something that could fly, was small, and very fast, so it wouldn’t be noticed.
In the span of three or four seconds the entire world increased in size by a dozen times. The surrounding area came into sharp focus, but my hearing stayed about the same. Looking around, I felt my tiny hummingbird heart pounding away before I tested my wings. This was an altogether surreal experience.
There was no learning curve involved in a Wild Shape. Once you achieve the desired animal, you instinctively knew what to do to survive, and avoiding the stray cat looking at me from a windowsill across the way was goal number one.
I took to the air and circled higher at fast speeds until I caught the sight of the open window across the street. I made a fast beeline straight to it and in a few seconds I was inside and Sylvia was standing there with her eyes wide and me hovering right in front of her.
Another three seconds and I was reformed back into my normal self.
Even though I knew everything was alright, I still patted myself down to make sure all my body parts were still there. Sylvia spent the interim, crossing herself and muttering something that I couldn’t hear.
When I looked back up I said, “Hey, long time no see.”
“How… how did you do that?” she said with a strained breath and wide eyes.
“Magic. Druid, remember?”
“I thought you were kidding, or… or trying to rationalize…”
I gave her a questioning look. “Are you serious? I spontaneously changed sexes on that island and you didn’t think that something was magical about it?”
She shook her head and walked away. “I didn’t know what to think. I tried to forget… but then…”
Sylvia’s mind was seriously blown. “Then you started to heal people with a touch and a prayer. So why did you call me?”
Finding a chair, it looked like the life dropped out of her legs when she dropped down onto it. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
I really didn’t have time for her little mental breakdown at the moment. “Look, Stuart kind of needs your help. Is there a decent sized plant around here? A live plant I mean.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to take you to him.”
She looked at me. “Why do you need a plant?”
Take a leap of faith here, I decided not to tell her and just show her instead. “Trust me. Have I let you down so far?”
She looked at the floor for a moment and then shook her head.
“Good. Now come on, show me where that plant is.”
~O~
They had a seriously nice atrium there loaded with a lot of natural plant-life. I’ll spare you the part where I had Sylvia close her eyes and keep them closed until we emerged from the forest not too far from Dale’s Porsche. It was mostly me trying to calm her down. She thought I was still in Hawaii and that for some reason Dale and Stuart were there as well.
That’s when I figured out she tended to pray in Spanish.
While she was muttering to God or whoever in a foreign language, I placed a call to Zach.
“Hey where are you? I’m at your hotel and they said you checked out already?”
I cringed a little. “Sorry, an emergency came up and I had to bolt.”
“What happened?”
“Stuart, Dale and Sylvia are, um… I don’t know, but there’s magic involved and now Sylvia is a Cleric and Dale might be a Ranger or something, maybe a Druid like us. I don’t know what Stuart is.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I know, right?”
“Whoa.”
“Anyway,” I said as I pulled up into Dale’s driveway. “I need you to contact all the other people that were on the island and find out if anything funky has been happening to them. Evelyn’s got a list of numbers if you don’t have it.”
“No, I’ve got their stuff. What am I supposed to say?”
I felt for him. He was a teenager in high school and I was laying this responsibility on his shoulders. “Just find out if anything weird is going on with them specifically and to contact you or me if it is. Make a list of what’s happening and we’ll try to figure out if we can help.”
He sounded a little nervous. “Can I come where you are?”
My heart started aching and I knew he was frightened. The only place he felt safe was with me. “What about your parents?”
“It’s the weekend, and it’s Labor Day on Tuesday. School’s out until Wednesday… I’ll make something up. Please, Chase?”
I hated lying, even second-hand lying, but I hated him feeling this way even more. “Okay. Bring your gear. I don’t know what we’ll be facing and I want to be prepared.”
I gave him the information he needed to get here. It would be a minor hike for him, but it was a good neighborhood so I didn’t feel bad about not being able to pick him up.
Sylvia gave me a minor smile after I hung up. It was kind of nauseated looking, like she was trying to deal with everything and trying to keep her lunch down at the same time.
“Come on, I’ll explain everything inside.”
~O~
Dale was arguing with the ferret. It wasn’t the sanest conversation, mainly because ferrets aren’t that intelligent to begin with. They run mostly on instinct if that wasn’t clear earlier with the foodfoodfood-shineyshiney thing. Stuart bobbed his head at us, but kept watching the byplay of his friend’s frustration.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
“I have no idea,” Stuart replied. “But it ate an entire chicken breast and he’s been arguing with it ever since. It’s all one-sided from my end. Hey, Sylvia.”
She short-waved at him, again with the wide eyes. I think she was stunned into silence because of his size.
“Hey, uh, Dale… Dale.” I frowned because he was being distracted by his companion. “Ferret, shut up.”
The little brown creature looked at me, but closed its mouth and curled itself into a ball on the top of the couch.
Dale turned around a looked at me with disbelief. “How’d you do that?”
“I’m a Druid.”
“And I’m a Cleric?” Sylvia asked, somewhat unsure.
Instead of trying to explain everything, I pulled up the information specifically the Cleric spells that were usable and handed my phone to her.
“A Cleric is a person that is devoted to a certain god and is granted a certain amount of power to perform… uh, holy magic, I guess, would be the easiest way to explain it. They’ve got a lot more latitude with certain areas than I do.”
Stuart raised his eyebrow at me. “You mean she’s more powerful than you?”
I almost snorted, but I didn’t want to be rude. “Think of it like asking a heavy wheel diesel mechanic to work on a Prius. Sure there are going to be similarities, but for the most part, he’s out of his area of expertise.”
“I can do all of these?” Sylvia asked, pointing to the screen of my phone.
“I have no idea. But the spell you used to heal those people is sixth level. That’s pretty high up there… eleventh level Cleric if I’m not mistaken. What I want to know is how you managed it without being on the island.”
She shook her head. “I have no idea.”
“How’s she supposed to help us,” asked Stuart.
There was the question. I wasn’t sure if the magic that was attached to the guys was a curse or not. I mean turning them into real life fantasy characters wasn’t exactly a bad thing per se. Most curses are just flat out evil, like rotting skin or the like. What I needed to know was if trying a Dispel Magic or a Remove Curse would make things worse or not.
Ignoring Stuart for the moment, I thought I’d try to gather a little information first. “Sylvia, would you sit on the couch please and whip out your rosary or whatever holy symbol you carry with you.”
She threw me a look of displeasure at my choice of words, but listened to me. I took my phone back and kneeled beside her.
“I want you to perform a Commune spell. It’s fifth level and should be within your range. If you think about it, you should be able to figure out how to do it. I’m going to take a wild guess and say you need to pray to your god.”
The displeased face was still hanging there. “Any particular reason?”
“Yeah, you’re going to ask him or his minions… angels, whatever, some questions.”
Her lips separated for a moment. “You’re serious.”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s how the spell works. You should receive an answer to yes or no questions pretty easily. Here are three questions you’ll need to ask: should we attempt to end the magic that is affecting Dale and Stuart? If that’s a yes, then ask if Remove Curse is the one we need to use, and if that’s a no then ask about Dispel Magic.”
She looked over at Dale and Stuart then back at me. “You realize this is blasphemous.”
“No, it’s not. Your god is personally bestowing power upon you. At this moment in time, you’re holier than the Pope, mainly because you are probably the first Cleric that has existed over the last two thousand years.”
Her brows rose.
“Think of this this way, Sylvia, right now, you’re God’s buddy and his voice on Earth. You need to know if you’re messing with something that he put in play or if you need to smite the magic that’s doing it, in his name.”
She seemed to get it at that point. “Okay, can you give me some time alone please?”
I nodded and gestured to the front door. “Dale, get your ferret.”
He looked at the little creature with annoyance, but picked it up and reluctantly set it on his shoulder. We stepped outside the front door and I handed his keys back to him.
“Thanks for the loan. I should have known better than to wear heels tonight.”
Stuart gave me dubious eye. “Yeah, what’s up with that? Not that they don’t look good on you, but you were a dude not too long ago.”
I shrugged. “I’m in Girl Boot Camp and my mother is the drill sergeant. One of her rules is if I want to wear something less than ladylike then I have to wear heels or some other overly girly thing to offset the whole tomboy look.”
When I looked back at Dale, I noticed he was white as a sheet. He pointed at me. “We’re not going to…? I mean…”
I frowned. “I have no idea, Dale. You could turn into a girl or an ogre for all I know, but if Stuart is anything to go by, I’d say you’re safe for now. If you notice boobs starting to come in, I’d say you need to be worried.”
It was pretty good timing, because right when I said that, the ferret dove inside his shirt, probably tweaking a nipple along the way.
“So, what’s it like?” asked Stuart.
“What’s what like?”
He shrugged. “You know… being a girl now.”
“Oh.” I looked back inside and saw Sylvia with her eye closed and her lips moving quietly. “It’s okay at times, but I really miss my dick.”
That ground the conversation to a stop momentarily.
“How’d that happen anyway?” Stuart was just a freaking chatterbox.
“Evelyn thinks is has to do with a D&D character I rolled up before the crash.”
“You made yourself a girl?” Dale didn’t seem to grasp the subtleties of the game.
“There was a percentage chance my character would be one. I lost the roll.”
“So now you’re a chick,” said Stuart.
“Yeah, Stu.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m a chick that can call a lightning strike down on your ass, so don’t piss me off.”
He held up his hands like he didn’t mean anything by the statement. “No offense. Sorry.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed at an ache in my lower abdomen. Great, on top of everything else, I’m getting my period.
I was seriously considering taking the next week off.
Another fifteen minutes went by before Sylvia called us back inside.
“So what did God have to say?” I asked.
She pointed a finger at me. “Be more respectful, Chase.”
“Uh-huh. So?”
Her eyes found the other two and I saw the corners of her lips drop. “I’m not supposed to interfere with what’s going on.”
“What?!” Stuart’s hands clenched and his muscles bulged as he nearly yelled that word out.
Holding out my cane, I pointed it at him. “You need to back off.”
It didn’t look like he was really thinking about what he was doing when he swiped at my cane, trying to knock it away, but instead of advancing any further, he turned around and growled in frustration.
“I can’t stay like this!”
Sylvia stood and ignored my hand that suggested she shouldn’t get too close.
“Stuart,” she said as she circled him to talk face to face. “I wasn’t able to find out the reason, but the world is changing and the gift you’ve been given isn’t necessarily a bad one to have.”
The anger started to seep out of him and the misery settled in. “My life is ruined.”
“Why, because you grew some muscles and got a little taller?” she smiled with playful disbelief. “I’m sure there would be a lot of guys out there that would argue with you over your situation.”
He half turned to Dale an me, frowning, but Sylvia kept right on being the person she was. “And I’m not too sure what Chase thinks, but I kind of like the new you.”
My eyes widened at the mere thought of Stuart being attractive. I mean he wasn’t ugly, but big and bulky wasn’t my thing. Zach was more my speed: firm, defined, smooth but kind of hard at the same time… if I was into guys, that is -- which I’m not. I still like women just fine. Janie was the kind of girl I like, except she’s obviously not a lesbian, dammit.
A knock came at the door and everyone looked toward it like it was more bad news.
“It’s probably, Zach. I’ll get it,” I said.
For once, I was right. With all the revelations of really odd news over the day, it was really nice to see someone that I felt comfortable with. Opening the door enough to slip outside, I closed it behind me. In a second, Zach wrapped me up in his arms with a hug. I went along with it, because truthfully, I needed one.
When he eased up, I noticed he hadn’t stepped away and instead held me there, his face mere inches away from mine.
“I thought I did something wrong when I got to your hotel room. I’m glad it’s something else.”
His breath smelled minty fresh and I could scent dark berries with a hint of vanilla on his skin. My hands were still resting around his neck and I had a sudden urge to touch him which I resisted. Instead, my hand hovered millimeters over the nape of his neck.
“I’m sorry I had to leave so quickly.”
Zach shook his head slightly. “I understand.”
When I stepped back, he released his hold, but slid his hand along, underneath my arm sending a shiver across my skin raising goosebumps in its wake.
He looked at me oddly for a moment and then down. “You’re wearing heels.”
I started to feel a little self-conscious about that choice. “They go with the outfit.”
“Yes they do, and they’re very sexy as well.”
My ears and face started to burn as I realized I was thinking about everything I was wearing. Granted the Capri’s weren’t slutty tight, they were form-fitting along with the button-down that hugged the upper portion of my body.
“We better get inside.” I had to get out of his intense stare.
Before I had a chance to say anything, Zach opened the door and then threaded his fingers through my left hand, tugging me gently along. The odd thing was I really didn’t want to pull away.
When we stepped inside, I saw that Dane was missing and Sylvia was hugging Stuart. It was a really weird sight, because she was so tiny next to him. She barely came up to his pectorals and her arms made it about a quarter of the way around his massive chest.
“Whoa,” Zach said as he came to a stop.
Sylvia had her head turned toward us when she opened her eyes. Her gaze settled on Zach and then dropped to our hands linked together, and then she smiled with something akin to satisfaction. That’s when I pulled away and tried to find something to do with my hand, like set it on my hip.
“See Stuart, with love everything will be fine,” she said.
He turned to look at us, confused. “Them two? But she used to be a guy.”
Holding up a finger to make her point she replied. “But she’s not anymore.”
I was in drastic need for a topic change. “Zach, did you contact everyone?”
The goofy grin on his face disappeared. “Uh, no. I sent out a mass email and then I thought I’d try to call when I got here.”
Dale’s head came from around the corner with a look of relief on his face. Then he frowned. “It’s my house and I’m the fifth wheel.”
I ignored him. “Well, why don’t you get on that. We need to find out if this is happening to others.”
Zach nodded and went across the room to help himself to the breakfast table as a base of operations. I followed him with my eyes and watched as he pulled out a small tablet from his backpack. He was wearing another pair of Forever 21 jeans. They hugged every inch of his butt and legs ending in something new to his wardrobe, the boots.
I recognized those immediately, because I owned the exact same pair. A set of Bullboxer Trick Pony in black. They were very unisex, but they were also exclusively women’s boots. It made me wonder what kind of socks he was wearing, or if he had knee-high hose on underneath.
My eyes rose up to his butt and I didn’t see any panty-lines, which made me wonder if he was wearing a thong and what the material was made of: mainly if he was a cotton or satin kind of guy.
“Chase?”
My eyes darted to Sylvia like I’d been caught staring at the cookie jar, plotting a heist.
Instead of teasing me, she held out her hand. “Come, we need to talk.”
My face was heating up again as she looked around for a place where we wouldn’t be overheard, I guessed. In order get it over with as soon as humanly possible, I pulled her toward the room Stuart was in earlier.
Once the door was closed, she turned on me. “I’m happy that you’ve found someone so soon, considering your situation.”
I shook my head. “Zach is my Acolyte, he’s not… we’re not…”
Apparently she ignored my protests. “It’s obvious, the way he looks at you, Chase, and the way you were looking at him when he wasn’t aware…” A grin appeared on her face.
Turning around, I went to look out of the only window in the room. “It’s not like that.”
I couldn’t exactly tell her I was looking at his wardrobe choices for the evening. That wasn’t my secret to tell.
“Then tell me, Chase, what’s it like?”
Instead of answering, I groaned.
“Honey, you’re a young woman in her prime and he’s a very attractive young man.”
“I’m not gay,” I said as I spun around.
She blinked at me and then smiled. “I never said you were, and in any case, you’re making my point for me. A relationship between a man and a woman isn’t considered gay.”
“There’s no relationship. We’re friends and Zach is my Acolyte.”
Sylvia looked a little confused. “You said that before. What does that mean, beyond the obvious?”
Concentrating on the wall that stood between us and the breakfast area where Zach was probably making his calls I explained. “I made him a Druid, and we have a kind of commitment bond that’s strictly professional.”
She raised an eyebrow at me.
“It means that I’m training him like a teacher and student thing. There’s just magic involved instead of a written contract.”
She considered my words for a moment. “Why are you resistant to the idea of there being something between you two?”
Instead of answering I threw the question back at her. “Why are you trying to hook us up?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No it’s not, and if you don’t mind, my private business is my own.” Officially calling an end to the subject, I changed topics. “What did you learn from the Commune spell?”
Sylvia didn’t seem satisfied, but she let the subject drop. “Only that I was to use my gift to heal people and not to interfere with what was going on around you in regard to what you’ve started.”
“Me?”
“You.”
“But… but… I didn’t do anything.”
She crossed her arms underneath her breasts and looked thoughtful. “You’ve been sitting at home, not using your powers at all?”
I shrugged with a little guilt. “I’ve only been doing Druid stuff. I haven’t even been in contact with anybody from the island except for Zach and Evelyn… oh and I saw Pete and Brett, but they aren’t all magiced-up like you three.”
I cringed. “And Janie too, this morning. She was fine.” I left the part out where she was pregnant, but she definitely wasn’t showing any signs of being magically enhanced.
That’s when my phone rang. I pulled it out of my back pocket and looked at the caller ID: Adams, Sara along with an area code that I had to think about before I recalled from memory. It was in the Seattle, Washington area.
“Hello?”
“Chase?” a male voice said.
“Yes, who am I speaking to?”
“Uh… I’m Robert… just Robert. Sara got your email and…” The phone came away from his mouth, but I could still hear him in the background. “This is too much. I can’t do this.”
I heard Sara’s voice in the background. “Robert, don’t go!”
The sound of the phone dropping came over the line. It bounced around for a moment before I heard it being scooped up. “Chase! Are you still there?”
She was sobbing the whole time. “Sara, what happened?”
I covered the phone and whispered to Sylvia. “Go get Zach, hurry.”
“Sara, I can’t help if I don’t know what’s happened. Take a deep breath and try to calm down.”
Zach was in the room in seconds looking to me for direction. Covering the phone again I said, “Find Sara’s address, something’s happened. Get me a list of local trees in the area of her house if you can.”
He was fast at work on his phone.
“Sara, I’m going to come to you, okay.”
Her sobs lessened a little. “You’re in the city?”
“I can be there in minutes. Trust me. Can you tell me if there are any trees in your yard?”
It took me a minute, but I was able to talk her into telling me about an apple tree down the block. Zach retrieved her address and I hung up.
Adrenaline assisted energy ramped through me and for the first time all day I felt in control of myself, like the old Chase.
“Zach, get everyone to the beach house in Hawaii. You know where the key is. I have a feeling we’re going to need the room. I’m going to get Sara and we’ll meet you there.”
He nodded without a second thought.
“Sylvia, I need you to get the guys to go along. When you get there, get them to help you set the house up again. Zach knows where everything is.”
She looked at me with a very serious face. “You’re going alone?”
I nodded. “This might be bad and I don’t want anyone in the way. She’s really upset.”
A nod was given in receipt. “Good luck.”
~O~
I had to find an apple tree which was a lot harder than it would seem. Eventually I tracked one down and had to hop though a couple of trees to get to one, but eventually I stepped out into the darkness of Sara’s street. Once I figured out which house was which, I started running down the sidewalk, cursing myself again for wearing the damn heels.
“Never again.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out which house was hers. There was a guy in the driveway loading a couple of suitcases in his truck and the front door was wide open. He turned back and started heading inside when he saw me.
“Robert?”
His body language turned defensive. “Who are you?”
“Sara’s in trouble and you’re leaving her? You’re such an asshole.”
His jaw worked silently as I crossed the lawn and went through the open door. It only took a few seconds to figure out where the crying was coming from upstairs.
“Sara?” I called out. “It’s Chase. I’m here.”
She didn’t answer back, but I found the right room and knocked lightly on the door, before slowly opening it. What I found was something that I wasn’t expecting. On the bed sat a little girl that couldn’t be more than four or five years old. Her hair was jet black and her skin was seriously bronzed-colored.
She looked up at me. Her eyes were swollen and red from crying. “Chase?”
The breath left my chest in a rush, but I recovered a quickly as I could. “Sara?”
The little girl nodded. “What’s happening to me?”
I rushed to her side and she held her arms open to me, immediately bawling her eyes out onto my shirt.
“It’s okay, sweetie. We’ll figure something out.”
I stood and lifted her with me. She wasn’t wearing anything but a t-shirt which I assumed was one of hers from when she was normal-sized. Her legs wrapped around the top of my hips, and shifted my hand underneath her butt, which kind of felt oddly fleshed out for a four year old.
“Do you want to go with me to Hawaii and be with the others?”
Sara pulled back, sniffing, but starting to get herself under control. “Everyone’s like this?”
Shaking my head briefly I said, “It’s something different for Sylvia, Stuart, Dale and Zach. Each of you is different from the others, but nobody’s going to make fun of you or abandon you there.”
She looked around the room and I saw her face turn even sadder. “I don’t have anything that’ll fit.”
Hugging her to me, I smiled. “You don’t worry about that, honey. I’ll get you something.”
In return, she hiccupped and set her head on my shoulder. There was a muffled crash downstairs and my face turned to stone. Grabbing the blanket that was on the bed, I covered Sara as best as I could and started out, making sure everything was turned off along the way. Once I was downstairs Sara was already asleep.
Setting her down as gently as I could on the leather couch in the living room, I covered her up and went to find out what was going on.
Robert was struggling with a widescreen TV trying to get it into the bed of a truck.
“I really hope that’s your stuff in there.”
He spun around and lost his grip at the same time which spelled curtains for the really big TV. Several cracks appeared across the screen. He cursed and started toward me.
“That was fifteen hundred dollars.”
My eyes narrowed. “Was it yours?”
“Half of that house is mine, and everything in it.”
That meant they were either married or living together which only made me angrier. “You need to leave now.”
The look on his face was pure contempt. “This is my house. You’re the one that needs to leave before I call the police.”
I smirked. “And tell them what? How you’re abandoning a little girl in the house? A little girl with no identity? Yeah, I’m sure the guys down in lockup will love having you around. Last chance to leave, Robert, before I get really angry.”
He pulled back his arm with an open hand like he was going to slap me, except her didn’t have a chance.
“Pestifer vultus!”
He only managed to look surprised for about half a second before he shrunk down to a little white ferret at my feet. Before Robert could gather his wits, I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and held him up… or her up, rather. It was a girl ferret I changed him into. He started screeching; unfortunately I understood what she was saying.
“Help! What did you do to me? Help!”
I shook her around with my hand. “Shut up and behave! You like knocking girls around? Well, you’re going to be a nice little ferret until you learn your lesson.”
“Help!” she screamed.
It was starting to become annoying.
“Dominor bestia!”
I frowned at the now docile ferret. I didn’t like imposing my will on any creature, but until Roberta chilled out I couldn’t reason with her, so a Dominate Animal spell was needed for the short term. Once that was done, she found a place on my shoulder and settled in for the ride.
Going around the house, I made sure everything was turned off and secure, then I slipped my hand under Sara’s head and gently lifted her into my arms. She wined a little in her sleep then snuggled her face against my neck before breathing evenly again.
Gripping my cane, I decided to go with a Word of Recall spell. It was high level magic that would transport me and whatever I was touching to a very familiar place. I just couldn’t be bothered to hop around everywhere in search of a decent tree or plant to travel through.
“Beach-house!”
Yeah, there wasn’t an incantation. That spell is strictly intent driven. One moment we were at Sara’s and the next I was standing in the living room of the house in Hawaii.
“Oh, that was so awesome,” said Zach. “Word of Recall, right?”
Throughout it all, I could always count on Zach to geek out. I smiled and held up a finger to my lips. Everyone else was frozen at my appearance. Sylvia had her hand covering her mouth, but then she pointed at the girl in my arms.
“Is that Sara?” she whispered.
I nodded. “I’m going to lay her down in my bed. I’ll be right back.”
Zach followed along to try to be helpful, which he was. It took only a second for him to work his way in front of me and turn down the bed. Once I rid her of the blanket, I laid her down in the middle of the bed.
She woke up slightly and mumbled, “Chase?”
I brushed her hair back. “Shh, sweetie. I’m right here. You’re safe and in bed.”
Sylvia was behind me and reached out. “Sleep little one. Sleep.”
I felt the telltale sign of magic and Sara dropped out like a light.
“Thanks.”
~O~
Everyone had a drink of some type in their hand and we were trying to get through the latest drama. Stuart looked back at my room with anxiety on his face, but it was Sylvia that asked the question.
“What happened to her?”
“I think she’s a Halfling. Sara didn’t get any younger, she just changed into a much smaller version of herself; with virtually no breasts.”
Zach nodded. “I think she’s Athasian, or something similar. The skin and hair colors are about the same.”
Rubbing at my temples I tried to wrap my head around what to do next. “She’s going to need some clothes.”
It was Dale that asked about my new pet. “Why do you have a ferret on your shoulder?”
I looked to the side to see Roberta looking at me. “This was Sara’s boyfriend or husband, one of the two. He thought it would be fun to try to take a swipe at me. So I thought your ferret might need a girlfriend for a few days.”
That brought Stuart’s attention to me. “You turned him into a girl ferret?”
Zach smirked at the implication. “Man, that’s a low level Baleful Polymorph. You really don’t ever want to get on the bad side of a Druid. We can do all sorts of nasty things to you.”
TBC...
The Soul Does Not Perish (Part 8)
by: Lilith Langtree
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Author's Note: Kudos to djkauf for betaing this for me.
Zach and Sylvia took a cab to the local twenty-four hour Wal-Mart and purchased a couple of outfits and a few necessities for Sara to hold her over until she could make her own decisions about what she wanted to wear. Dane and Stuart made liberal use of my dad’s liquor cabinet while we discussed what we were going to do. Needless to say, we didn’t get much accomplished.
Eventually I showered, changed into a nightshirt that I’d left behind, and then slipped into bed beside a thoroughly zonked Sara.
The next morning I was awakened by the smell of coffee brewing. Even though I don’t drink it, I still like the smell in the mornings. Sara was firmly snuggled up in the curve of my front with the blanket tightly gripped in her little hand.
I had no idea what I would do if I had been shrunk that much, probably exhaust myself by crying my eyes out much like she did the previous night.
My minute movements must have struck something in her mind because her eyes fluttered open a moment later. Sara startled and pulled away, spinning her head around to see me. I watched as emotions played across her face and then she settled in misery.
“It wasn’t a bad dream,” she whispered.
I shrugged. “I still wake up like that sometimes.”
We lay there, not moving too much, until I decided that I needed to get her mind on dealing with the situation instead of sliding into self-hate which was only a step away from where she was currently.
“Do you feel any different in your head, Sara?”
She looked at me in confusion.
“I mean, do you have any desires to eat flowers, or run around naked, or speak any new languages? Things like that.”
She looked like she was concentrating on my question and then shook her head. “Not really, no.”
“We’ll work on that later then. Right now we need to get you up, showered, dressed, and functioning again.”
Seeing the look on her face from the previous night, I slipped out of bed and went over to the dresser. “Sylvia and Zach went out and got you some clothes. They had to buy them in the kids section, but it’s nothing stupid. I made them promise not to get you any Justin Bieber shirts and nothing too cutesy.
She gave me a mild turn of her lips in return.
“There’s a bathroom across the hall and I’ll keep everyone away from the area until you come out, okay?”
Sara nodded.
I dressed in some of the clothes that Evelyn bought me when we first got back. That consisted of black denim shorts and a white camisole with regular sandals. I’m sure my mother would have been scandalized, but until I got back to the house I was kind of limited in the wardrobe department.
Zach was up and already making breakfast. Dane was trying his best to separate his ferret from Roberta. From what I was hearing the male say, I was betting that Roberta didn’t get too much sleep just trying to stay a step ahead of her horny male counterpart.
When I turned around to see how Zach’s progress was going I watched as he was holding a ladle of pancake batter over a hot plate, frozen in place, looking at my bare legs and most probably my butt that was barely covered by the shorts I was wearing.
“I think your pancakes are burning.”
“Huh?” His eyes snapped up to mine and then it clicked as to what I was saying.
As he tried in vain to save the two that were starting to send up black smoke, I moved over to the refrigerator. It was stocked with a minimum amount of food-stuffs since I planned to return here often. I opened it up and bent over a little to retrieve the orange juice.
When I heard Zach groan, I straightened and tried to act like I didn’t hear him. After pouring a small glass, I returned it to the fridge and then leaned in to Zach.
“I need to make a call and then jump home for my suitcase. Will you be okay?”
His arm snaked around my waist and I received a brief hug. “We’ll be good.”
His lips distracted me for a moment, and maybe his jawline, since they both were so close. Slowly, I raised my eyes to his and I could feel the desire, not only from them, but in my chest as well. He was figuratively on fire and I was the cause of it.
“We need to talk soon,” I said.
The corners of his eyes tweaked slightly, unsure.
“After breakfast.”
I nodded. “Make sure nobody teases Sara. She’s really sensitive right now. Come down on them hard if they do.”
Zach licked his lips and I watched, kind of distracted like, before I realized what I was doing and pulled away. Quickly making my way out the back, I grabbed my phone and scooped up Roberta.
“Behave, and you can go home.”
She stilled when I cradled her on my left arm, and found the closest palm tree. I aimed for the park down the street from my house and dropped him on the ground. After saying the counter to the Baleful Polymorph, I was staring at a very very freaked out Robert.
He looked at me like I was the Antichrist and froze at the spot he was in.
I pointed my cane at him. “If I find out that you are taking anything else out of that house except for your clothes and a few necessities, I’ll turn you into a dairy cow and drop you off at the nearest field with a randy bull in it. Are we clear?”
A wet spot started to appear at the front of his jeans.
“I guess we are. You’re in L.A. by the way. Have a nice day.”
Just to show off, I entered a tree in the park and disappeared in front of his eyes.
~O~
“Chase, what are you wearing?”
I shook my head. “I don’t have a lot of clothes at the beach house, Mom. That’s why I’m here, to change and pick some up.”
She shook it off and nodded. “Your father and I have decided to extend your offer to Janie, if we ever get to meet her that is.”
I smiled. “Mom, it’s only been one day, and there are things going on. I’ll bring her by as soon as possible, okay?”
She frowned. “Go get out of those shorts. Don’t let your father see you in them; he’s stressed enough as it is.”
With a grin, I left the kitchen and snuck upstairs.
My suitcase was by the door were I left it, so I entered the walk-in closet and started sifting through the mounds of clothes that my mother bought for me. Conveniently, they were sorted by outfit with the footwear underneath, so I didn’t have to worry about mismatching. That was one less problem to deal with.
The right side of the closet was for typical girl stuff, i.e. dresses of all types. On the left was everything we compromised on, my adventuring clothing. I was more than satisfied with what I wore on the trip to Tennessee. The neoprene swimsuit and leather pants held up well and were comfortable. The trouble was I only had one set in black. So, this time I opted for gray.
There were two others in brown and a subdued blue. I had no idea how someone would go about making blue leather pants. I assumed there was dye involved somewhere along the line.
After stripping out of the shorts and cami, I donned the neoprene and leathers. While I was putting on my socks and boots, I called Janie and put it on speaker.
“Hello,” said an older female’s voice.
“Hello, may I speak to Janie, please.”
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“Chase.”
It took a minute for her to make it to the phone. By that time I’d already slipped on one boot.
“Hey Chase.”
“Hi. Are you busy?”
“No, I’m cool. What’s up?”
I licked my lips and just dove in. “My parents want to meet you.”
There was no sound at first then she came back sounding somewhat nervous. “How’d they take it?”
I shrugged and smiled. “Surprised, but pretty good. They want to personally extend the invitation I offered you yesterday.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. So, what do you think?”
I heard her sigh a little. “You’re in L.A. right?”
“Uh-huh. Is that a problem?”
Once the boots were buckled I found the belt that Zach got for me and secured it around my hips.
“A little. I didn’t want to be too far away from my parents.”
I relaxed after that. “Janie, you know that trick I did through the tree in your back yard. I can do that with you too. We can be at your parent’s house in like ten minutes whenever you want.”
“I’ll think about it. I’m not promising anything.”
I’d take what I could get for now. “That’s all I’m asking. How about that visit with my parents?”
She giggled a little. “Sure. I have to work today and tomorrow, but I’m free on Tuesday.”
That still didn’t sit well with me, but she was in charge of her life. I didn’t have much say in the matter. “Tuesday’s fine.”
“Good, oh… did you happen to get Zach’s email last night?”
Her voice sounded concerned. “Yeah, what’s up with that?”
“Stuart bulked out like the Hulk and Dale’s turning into a Ranger. Sylvia has magical holy powers and Sara…”
“Sara?! What happened?”
“Sara shrank. She’s a Halfling. Is everything alright with you?”
“She’s a what?”
I sighed and scratched the top of my head trying to think of a way to explain. “She’s like a normal person, only smaller. She’s maybe about three to three and a half feet tall.”
The noise of the receiver on her end dropping sounded. I heard it clattering around and then it went quiet.
“Chase, are you still there?”
“I’m here. You okay?”
“Yeah, I just dropped the phone. Is there anything I can do?”
“Sure, don’t panic. What I’m seeing doesn’t seem to be harming anyone, just changing them. If anything happens to you that is out of the ordinary, call me immediately. I don’t care how small.”
I debated with myself whether or not I should have said anything in the first place. Janie didn’t need to be worrying about this with the babies and the anemia. However, I knew I would be seriously pissed if someone knew something might happen to me and they didn’t say anything.
“Okay,” she said with a timid voice.
“Try not to worry, seriously. Whatever happens, I’ll be there.”
“I know.”
“Good.” I paused for a moment. “Look, I need to get back to the others and try to figure this thing out. Call me, even if you just need to talk.”
“Okay.”
~O~
Once I switched watches I went back out to the bedroom and looked at myself in the mirror. “I like black better.”
Turning in place, I opened my makeup cabinet, which served to store several things. No, I don’t have so much makeup that it warrants an entire cabinet. There was perfume too, and hair ties, and clips; you know… girl stuff.
I dabbed a little Rapture behind my ears and on my wrists before setting the bottle down trying to figure out who I was attempting to smell good for. That answer came easily enough, to my dismay.
Okay, fine. I think Zach is entering the yummy category in my head that I normally keep reserved for girls. There was just something about him that turned me on a little. Maybe it was because he found me so attractive.
I never really had someone pursue me before. Not that he was doing a lot of active pursuing, but still. Zach could be read like a book, and everything he was doing was obvious and cute. I hated leading him on, but what was I supposed to do about it?
No matter what Sylvia said, the whole situation still felt gay to me.
Had I accepted that I was a girl and probably would be for the rest of my life? Yes. But in my head, I still considered myself a guy, or at the bare minimum, guy-ish.
Looking at my face in the mirror, I decided that I needed some makeup… just a little, because Mom would want me to wear it. Just a little eyeliner and a tad of eye shadow, plus some mascara, and some lipstick. See, that wasn’t too much.
When I capped off the lipstick I felt another cramp and knew before the end of the day that I would be into my first day of my period. It was like clockwork. For safety’s sake I dropped by the bathroom and attached a liner to my panties.
So far, in my limited experience at being a girl, this was the worst part. To add insult to injury, I had to carry around what I considered medical supplies in the form of tampons and liners. In case you guys were wondering what going through a period is like, I can describe it for you. This isn’t exactly right, but it’s the closest thing I can think of experience-wise.
It’s late at night, and you’ve been on a drinking binge, just enough to give you a light hangover, but nothing debilitating. You stop off at your favorite convenience store on your way home for a snack and those Twin Chili Cheese Dogs staring at you from the cooler, that you always thought looked gross, look mighty attractive, probably because you’re drunk.
You take them out and overcook them in the store microwave and snatch a Big Grab bag of Jalapeno/Sour Cream flavored Doritos on the way to the counter. The five minute ride home is just enough to polish everything off if you eat it quickly.
You know you’ve done this or something similar in your youth, so shut up.
The next morning it feels like something crawled up your butt and nested in your lower intestines. So you spend the most of the morning on the toilet trying to relieve the cramping.
That’s pretty much what having a menstrual cycle is like, only you can’t get rid of the cramps as easily. I won’t go into the mess, since this isn’t that kind of story, but use your imagination.
With a bottle of Midol stuck in my suitcase along with a box of tampons and liners, I was ready for adventure!
~O~
I wasn’t so stealthy coming down the stairs and Dad spotted me in the outfit. The morning paper, that he was reading, went limp in his hands, and I could see the anguish on his face.
“Do you have a coat to cover up with?”
I shrugged as I made it to the bottom. “I’m going to Hawaii today. It would look kind of weird to wear a coat in eighty degree weather.”
Thank Buddha that Mom came out of the kitchen just then, with a cup of tea in her hand. She gave me a once over and nodded. “You’re getting better matching your makeup with your clothes, honey. Be safe.”
Dad looked at her like he couldn’t believe she was going along with my wardrobe choice. Well, that was for her to deal with. I was out of there.
The heat started in as I stepped out of the tree and I had to stop to adjust my body’s internal thermostat to compensate. I did not want to sweat and ruin my makeup.
Zach met me at the back door where he was sipping at a soda. The appreciative look on his face told me my efforts getting ready were noted.
“Everyone up?”
He nodded. “Fed and watered as well. Sara went back to your room. Nobody said anything mean, but they couldn’t help staring.”
I rolled my eyes. “Alright. Let me see if I can get her out and then we can talk.”
Zach looked eager and a tad bit nervous at the same time. “Okay.”
The guys gave me the eye as I passed though the living room. Something to note along the way, Sylvia was happily snuggled up against Stuart on the couch. With her legs tucked underneath, she looked ridiculously tiny next to the muscle-bound behemoth. Talk about your odd couple.
Even though it was my door, I tapped on it and announced my presence before entering.
“Hey Sara.”
She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, looking forlornly out of the window. Her head turned just enough to see me.
“Hey,” she said quietly.
The clothes Sara was wearing were obviously for kids, but at least they fit fairly well.
“You have breakfast?” I said as I started unpacking the suitcase into the closet.
She nodded.
I tried to hold back from giving my opinion since out of all of us, she seem to have gotten screwed the worst. Yeah even me. I was a girl, but at least I was a normal-sized girl.
“Zach thinks I’m an Athason something.”
With a nod, I confirmed his assessment. “Athasian Halfling. They’re a…” Oh, how to say this and have it not sound awful. “They’re a sub-culture of Halflings. They mostly keep to themselves and live in highly humid areas where tall trees are around, or jungles, rainforests, places like that.”
Sara’s eyes drifted to me. “Is that why I feel uncomfortable here?”
I hung up a blouse and looked back at her. “You feel uncomfortable?”
She nodded. “These clothes. They’re okay, but I hate them.”
I was afraid of this. From what I had seen, Sara seemed to be taking on the racial traits of the Athasians which really wasn’t a good thing.
“Do you feel like you’d rather wear a lot less? Like maybe a bikini?”
A look of relief fell over her face. “Yes.”
With a nod I said, “I’ll make sure you have a bunch of them.”
Her eyes pooled and I saw her smile for the first time. I really wish I hadn’t.
Keeping my composure, I thumbed toward the front of the house. “I’m going to go send someone to the store, okay. Can I get you anything from the kitchen?”
She shook her head. “No, Zach made me some eggs and bacon, and ham, and sausage. And that’s really weird because I was never a big meat eater.”
“It’s probably your metabolism… changes and all. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.”
When I closed the door behind me, I breathed out a calming breath and proceeded to the living room. Giving Zach a shrug of my head we went out to the patio.
“Everything alright?”
“No,” I said. “She’s showing a lot of Athasian traits. Have you seen her teeth?”
Zach averted his eyes and looked like he was thinking.
“They’re sharp, like razor sharp. Aren’t Athasians cannibals?”
He shook his head. “No, they don’t eat each other, but they eat other races. It’s a conservation thing they don’t waste meat. As long as she has a good supply of food she should be fine.”
“You’re sure?”
He looked at me with suspicion in his eyes. “What are you considering, Chase? Taking her back to the island and leaving her there?”
Well… “No.” Then I relented. “Maybe as a last resort. We have to be really careful here, Zach. She could be a serious danger.”
We were interrupted by Sylvia at the door.
“Chase, I have to get back to the hospice before they notice I’m missing.”
I nodded. “Okay, I’ll take you.” Looking back at Zach, I noticed the frown on his face. “Can you see if one of the guys will go to the store and buy a bunch of bikinis for Sara?” Then I thought about it. “Never mind. That might look weird. I’ll do it. We’ll talk when I get back.”
~O~
I wound up taking Dale and Stuart back as well. Their opinion was if there wasn’t anything that I could immediately do then they wanted to get back to their life. It didn’t look like Dale was going to be experiencing any physical changes so he was pretty much off the hook, but Stuart said that he was making plans; for what, I had no idea.
So it was just Zach and me… and Sara, the pygmy cannibal.
I’m sorry, but those teeth really creeped me out. Not to mention that every hour that went by, she seemed to be reverting more and more into the Athasian mindset. She wasn’t exactly feral, but it wasn’t far off. Her speech started becoming chopped and her sentences noticeably shorter.
No, Zach and I still haven’t had a chance to talk yet.
We were on the patio watching Sara as she played on the beach. Obviously, the thought of losing her humanity wasn’t high on her priority list.
“What are we going to do, Zach?”
His hand slipped around my waist and I leaned into his shoulder for some small measure of comfort. “I have no idea.”
Peace, friend.
My head snapped around and there was Kitty in his panther shape making his way up the stairs to the patio.
“Kitty!”
He padded up to me and I knelt to hug his neck. “Where have you been?”
Away. My mate grew angry with no kits to tend.
I giggled against the palm of my hand. “Had to take care of business, huh?”
“Big kitty,” I heard a quiet voice to my right.
Sara was there, on top of the railing to the deck, squatted, ready to pounce. Her eyes were wide with wonder. It was then that I noticed how childlike her face was. The rest of her body, if larger, could be mistaken as adult, but her face was as young looking as her height would lead you to believe.
I waved her down. “Sara, you remember the panther from the island, right?”
With no effort, she hopped down to the floor and kept her squatted position. Her eyes moved to me briefly and then she edged up until mere inches away from the panther.
Kitty turned his head to Sara and sniffed her for a moment and then nuzzled her neck at which point I think he made a friend for life. Sara’s face lit up and she hugged the panther.
I will take her, friend.
“What?”
This is no place for one such as her. She needs others of her kind.
“You know where others are?”
I do. They will welcome her, care for her. She will be safe and happy.
Looking at Sara, my heart broke for her and what she was becoming, but at the moment, I was impotent in my ability to help her.
“If I find a way to reverse this, can she come back?”
You will know where to find her, friend.
Turning around I looked up at Zach. “What do you think?”
Without saying anything to me he worked his way around and knelt next to her. “Sara, honey, would you like to go where there are others like you… to the jungle?”
Her smile went very wide, unnaturally wide to show almost all of her deadly sharp teeth. “Big kitty come too.”
I nodded. “Kitty can take you there.”
In a second she was on Kitty’s back, looking like she wanted to ride, and truthfully she was small enough.
“Does she need anything? Zach, get her other bikinis and my blade. She needs a weapon.”
Tears were already running down my face as I drew in close and gave Sara a hug. She clutched at my hair and neck. When I pulled back, I sniffed. “If you need anything, anything at all, you find the big kitty. He’ll bring you to me.”
I will watch over her, friend. You will call if you need me.
Zach returned with a plastic bag with all five extra sets of bikinis for her and my knife inside. She took it and threaded her arms through the holes and settled it on her back.
“Bye Chase, bye Zach. Go kitty!”
The panther stood and hefted Sara to a better position before leaping over the railing to the sounds of his rider laughing all along the way until they disappeared into the brush.
I wiped at my cheeks. “I failed her, Zach. I’m failing them all.”
His hands encircled me from behind. “No, you’re not. You didn’t do this to them and you’re doing the best you can.”
I wasn’t so sure.
“You’re only one person, Chase.”
Turning my head, I looked up into his eyes and saw that he truly didn’t blame me for anything. The compassion he exuded, I felt in my chest along with other things. My gaze dropped to his perfectly straight nose and then a little lower to his full lips.
Before I realized it, he’d closed the distance and his lips were barely a few millimeters from my own. He was leaving the decision to me, offering his comfort, but I had to accept it willingly.
Our eyes locked and I searched for something undefined and tried my best to find the same thing within me, tried to make sense of what I was feeling, and why I was feeling it. The thing is, it didn’t matter.
I pulled away.
Certain parts of my body started aching and it wasn’t because of early-onset arthritis.
Turning around, I faced him and stood. He mirrored my every move. “Zach, I used to be a guy.”
I got one shake of his head. “I don’t care.”
“You’re my Acolyte.”
He smiled slyly. “I still don’t care.”
My eyes widened as I saw him take a single step forward. I pointed over his shoulder. “Look… cheese!”
I swear, that trick never works.
“I’m not much of a cheese kind of guy.”
Backing up a couple of steps, I bumped against the patio door. Zach didn’t advance; instead, he pulled his tee shirt over his head.
Oh hell, now that’s just not fair.
“That’s because… um, you’ve just tried sliced American cheese. There are other kinds that are much better. There’s Livarot, and Chaource, and um… Valençay.”
“I love it when you speak French.”
“No, those are French cheeses.”
“Uh-huh. Was there something you neglected to tell me about this marking, Chase?”
He was tapping his chest where a magical tattoo of my hand was marked into the skin over his heart.
“No?”
I don’t think he believed me.
He nodded and passed his eyes over my shoulder, considering something. I hoped it was what to order for lunch and not other things to eat… meaning me.
“Okay, we’ll play it your way. But there’s something I need to tell you and something I need to know.”
A peep didn’t escape my mouth, because frankly, I was scared to death of saying anything.
“You’ve probably figured out that I’m in love with you. This isn’t just a lust thing I’ve got going on here.”
I swallowed; my mouth was suddenly very dry.
“Yeah, I’m seventeen and most teenagers don’t know the first thing about real love. It’s hormones, and curiosity that is up front in their brains. But I’ve been through too much, Chase. I could have died on that island and probably a few times since. Throughout all of that, you were there.”
His eyes locked with mine and I could see the intensity of his stare.
“I can’t seriously think of what it would be like without you in my life.” With both hands, he pointed to his head. “You’re in every waking thought I have and you’re in my dreams. My hands ache to just touch you. It doesn’t have to be sexual, just a finger or a brush against your skin to remind me that you are real and not just a dream.”
Running a hand over his face, he chuckled. “Now that I think about it, that sounds kind of stalkerish. I’m sorry if I’m coming across that way.”
He backed off a step to give me breathing room, and to stick his hands in his pockets. “I just need to know one thing. If you say no then I’ll back off and leave you alone. I won’t ask you again and I’ll do my best to act normal around you.”
I still didn’t say anything even though I knew what was coming.
“Do you… even just a little bit… do you love me too?”
“I…,” I stammered.
“I… what?”
“I don’t know.”
He took a deep breath and I knew he was holding back a massive amount of frustration.
“Can you maybe give me a hint about where your head is around this issue?”
I felt an overwhelming desire to run away to the massive state of avoidance, I think that’s somewhere in New Mexico, I could be wrong.
“I don’t know if I can love a guy. I was perfectly heterosexual only a few months ago.”
He shrugged. “You can still be heterosexual, or bisexual. I don’t really care. It’s not an issue with me.”
Trying to find anywhere to look but at him was becoming a problem. “Look, I could say yes, and then jump in your arms. We could kiss and then I could promptly vomit at the thought of anything further. I couldn’t do that to you.”
He smiled and almost laughed. I saw him visibly hold back. “Well, I won’t take it personally if you do that.”
The grin reached his eyes and I saw that he was thinking of something, and it was probably really bad.
“How about we try that? I kiss you, and if you get sick then I’ll back off.”
See why I shouldn’t talk; it only leads to bad things.
This time around, I just zipped my lips, which in retrospect was probably an even worse idea.
Two steps brought him right up against me. Instinctively, I licked my lips as did he. Then Zach did it again: he moved in and hovered the barest fraction of an inch away, making me commit to a decision one way or the other. It wasn’t fair. Why could he just kiss me and I could figure out what I needed to know that way?
Screw it.
I shot my hands up and gripped his neck, pulling him in the rest of the way, sealing my lips on his. In a second, I opened my mouth and deepened the seal, our tongues meeting in the middle and his gaining entrance only after a brief battle.
Damn, he tastes good! Crap, I’m kissing a guy! What’s his hand doing… oh, that feels good.
Before I realized it, Zach pulled away left me there wanting a lot more. I focused and blinked, but I still hadn’t let go of his neck. Without a second thought, I pulled him back down and grabbed a hold of his belt, tugging him into the house.
My body was humming along, picking up the pace of its desire to be quenched of the three months of built-up frustration it had endured.
Zach’s hands dropped to my butt and he lifted me up until I wrapped my legs around his hips and squeezed him as tight as I could. The leather and the neoprene suit, not to mention his jeans, made feeling him through all of that material somewhat difficult, but I could tell he was more than ready for anything that I could dish out.
He was seventeen, ‘nuff said.
Breaking the kiss, I buried my mouth on his neck and bit him roughly. “My room, hurry.”
One thing I had to give him, he could take direction very well.
On the way, I unbuckled my web belt and tossed it while I worked on his neck and earlobe with my teeth and tongue. He tasted so good, like dark berries kissed with vanilla. Whatever body wash he was using spiked my senses, driving me insane with desire. My nipples were hard under the neoprene and I could feel myself moisten. It was a good thing, because I didn’t think that I could deal with any foreplay at the moment.
“Oh god, Zach.”
I grabbed a handful of hair and started kissing him again. There was too much I wanted to taste and all of it was mine for the taking.
The door slammed open and in three steps he let go and I dropped on the bed. My breath was already heavy as I scrambled to unbuckle my boots. He was already toeing his off as he fumbled at his jeans.
Now I saw the advantages of wearing a dress; way less stuff to take off. Just drop your panties and bam, you’re ready to go.
My boots went flying across the room and I stood up, biting his chest along the way to his eager lips. He grunted and moaned until we were reunited again. Then everything slowed.
The manic power that came over us changed to something else, a moment of tenderness where he cupped the base of my neck and my hands were on his waist, holding on with purchase.
We separated. “Chase, I’ve wanted you for so long.”
My breath came in short pants. “Well, I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into, because it’s too late to back out now. Now get your pants off. I’m seriously horny.”
He grinned and I followed my own advice.
“Dammit, I knew you were wearing sexier panties than I was,” I said when I saw his Fishnet and Lace cheeky panties in black with pink lace available from Victoria’s Secret for the low low price of eleven-fifty or three for thirty from their Sexy Little Things collection. And yes, sometimes having a photographic memory is odd at times.
He froze for a moment. “Is that a problem?”
Looking up at him, I grinned. “If you’re still wearing them in about thirty seconds it’s going to be a big problem because I’ll start without you.”
I lowered the zipper on the neoprene suit and slipped it down my body, reveling in the feeling of finally being out of all my clothes.
That didn’t last too long because I was taken up in Zach’s arms again and a second later I was on my back with my legs around him, trapping his body against mine. Immediately, I grabbed another fist full of hair and tugged down until his mouth was on my breast.
“Oh shit, that feels good.” It was a hundred times better than when Janie did the same thing; of course I was probably a hundred times larger in that area at the moment.
Zach lavished attention to one and then the other, and that was all I could take. He started going lower, which was sweet, but I pulled him off.
“Next time okay? I need you inside me right now or I’m going to scream.”
Before he had a chance to situate himself I rolled him over. “Me on top. It’s my first time in this body.”
He nodded and scooted up relaxed and looked like he was enjoying the view.
I laughed. “You like?”
“Very much.”
That’s when I grasped him and looked down.
Oh shit. This is really going to happen.
On the beach, when I made him my Acolyte and we saw each other naked, I got to see him briefly at full mast. What I didn’t consider was the dark. He looked a lot bigger in the light of day. In reality he was probably just a little bigger than I was when I was still a male, and I topped the yardstick at six inches.
No, he wasn’t porn star big and for that I was thankful.
“Chase, if you want to wait…”
I looked up and met his eyes. He would wait for me, until I was ready, really ready. The deal was I was ready right then and there.
“I told you it was too late to back out. Now you’ll just have to suffer.”
Rubbing him back and forth on me, I felt the heat that he was radiating down there and I wanted it badly. Positioning him in just the right spot, I lowered myself just a little until he was pushing inside.
This might be a bad idea. I should have bought a damn dildo like my mom said.
It took forever for me to adjust and I could see the look of tension on Zach’s face. His eyes were closed and I was sure he was trying to think of awful things like dead puppies or something so he wouldn’t be a stereotypical teenage male and shoot off before I’d even fully taken him in.
God it was so tight, but I was tenacious if I was anything.
Lower and lower I settled, rising up every now and then just a little bit to spread my natural moisture around him for an easier go if it, but eventually reaching my goal. It had to have been three maybe four hours since we started, or it felt like it anyway.
“Jesus, Zach, can you possibly be any bigger? I feel like I just impaled myself on a summer sausage.”
“Don’t move. Please,” he begged.
Oh, I knew that look. I froze and tried my best not to twitch in the slightest until he eased back down off of the plateau of no return. The problem was I didn’t want to lose the moment, so I closed my eyes and performed a little self-exploration while he was recovering.
It’s amazing how sensitive a girl’s breasts are during sex. It felt like live wires were attached to my nipples and that they were a second and third sexual organ.
When I felt Zach start to move a little, I opened my eyes to see him staring at what I was doing. That brought a grin to my face.
“Enjoying yourself?” I asked.
“Immensely.”
“You okay now?”
He nodded. “How about you?”
I shrugged. “Still adjusting.”
“You feel so good, Chase.”
“Well I’d like to take the credit for that, but that’s all nature’s doing. Enjoy it; I’ll probably never be this tight again.”
It’s been my experience that laughter is needed during sex, just as long as it’s not directed at the male member. It relaxes both people, especially when it’s the first time for one or both of the participants. It’s also good for a distraction. So when he was chuckling, I lifted up off of him.
I think I’m really going to enjoy sex as a girl.
“Oh shit… Chase. I’m not going to last long. I’m sorry. Every time you move, it’s like heaven.”
Oh well. It’s not like there won’t be other times.
When I reached my apex, I smiled and pushed down, engulfing him again. “Just let go, Zach. That’s the good thing about you being you. Recovery time is fantastic.”
He opened his eyes after another bout of self-containment, and I grabbed his hands to pull him up with me, so I could see him eye to eye.
I wrapped my legs around his waist and kissed him lightly as I started working him below. I wasn’t a pro at this, but I remember what got me off as a guy and I used every bit of that knowledge to make this the most erotic experience for him as was possible. When I saw he was close, I pulled away and hugged him to me.
“Now, Zach… now!”
He pulsed and I gripped him as hard as possible. It sent a thrill of pleasure through me that might have been a mini-orgasm, but I wasn’t placing any bets.
“God Chase, I love you. I love you.”
Then he tensed and groaned loud, shuddering with the experience. I held on for the ride.
When he started to come back down off of his high, I worked my lips to his ear and bit lightly on the lobe before saying, “I love you too.”
~O~
We spent the next twenty minutes just lying there. I never slipped him out of me, leaving him there for as long as possible so I would commit everything we just did to memory for the rest of my life. Eventually nature ran its course and the party was over so to speak.
Zach’s face was red and I knew he was feeling embarrassed, so I scooted up and kissed him again. “Baby, I know what it’s like to be in your position, literally. I was a virgin. There’s virtually no way on this green earth that you could have made me orgasm on the first try. Nobody’s that good. So chill.”
He rolled his eyes. “I wanted everything to be perfect for you.”
Slipping down, I kissed his chin looked him in the eye. “It was perfect. And guess what?”
“What?”
“If this is just a sample of what it can be like then you’re going to be a very busy and tired man in the future.”
He smiled and started to get a familiar look on his face. “I’m ready if you are.”
Reaching back I felt him, hard and eager again. “Down cowboy. I have to recover from the abuse that monster did to me. Give me a few days.”
You would have thought that I ran over his favorite gaming dice or something. “A few days?”
“Yeah, I’m starting my cycle today, considering what we just did, probably very soon.”
It took him a second to catch on. “Oh. Okay.”
“I’m going to take a shower. Scrub my back?”
~O~
With the aid of a little soap and my hand, I took care of his need to try to make shower-time into broken neck time. I was never a big fan of sex in the shower for that reason alone. We played quite a lot and I actually received some relief with a little coaching on my part and Zach’s hand. It was going to take some time and guidance, but I would show him how to do it right.
My experience on the male side taught me one thing. Communicating during times like these is paramount. My first two girlfriends were scared to death of sex, and wanted it to be as quiet as possible. It took me forever and a lot of research on the internet before I became a decent lover. I admit it. I was lame at the beginning, but not anymore, and I was going to make sure Zach knew everything to do, and vice versa.
It sucked that I had to start all over again and relearn everything, but I was dedicated student and I also had the added advantage of knowing what turned guys on; hence my referring to his member in terms of a summer sausage. Guys like that stuff and it wasn’t like it was a great sacrifice on my part to say it. Confidence is key.
When we got out and toweled off, the clothes went back on.
Oh, by the way, I was right. Minutes after exiting the shower, I started my cycle. Good timing, right?”
Three days, and that man is mine again.
That’s when I groaned. Mom was going to have a field day with this one.
I had to hunt down all of my clothes. They were everywhere. Once I was back in proper dress, I leaned against the door and felt a pleasant ache between my legs. I couldn’t believe I did it. I’d taken one of the last steps in accepting my femininity. There was no doubt in my mind that I was starting to enjoy being a girl.
There were some pitfalls, yes, but for the most part I hadn’t changed all that much. Sure, I didn’t need my meds anymore, and I didn’t freak out when I saw the occasional dust-bunny. The clothes thing wasn’t really an issue with me. They served a purpose like anything else in the world. And I found myself someone to enjoy the more fun things in my life with.
Things were looking up.
Oh, I almost forgot one of the best things about having Zach around. He cooks. When I left my room, I saw him in the kitchen, shirtless with his jeans barely hanging on his hips, and he was barefoot. There was an animalistic side of me that wanted to possess him, and I had. He was mine. So I let him know it.
Easing my way in the kitchen, I slid my hands around his torso from the back, with one stroking his abs and the other finding my mark on his chest and covering it. It would remind him that it was me that marked him and I was very possessive with what was mine.
“Whatever you’re cooking smells almost as good as you,” I said.
“You’re going to make me get a big head.”
Lowering my hand, I squeezed him lightly down below. “Too late for that. You’re big enough as it is.”
See, it’s the little things.
We had grilled cheese sandwiches. Zach thought it was appropriate. I thought it was cute that he remembered.
Halfway through the meal I saw him smiling to himself.
“What?”
He shrugged. “I just never thought you’d see me as anything more than a friend. Even when you said you’d be my date to homecoming…”
I twisted my lips to the side. “So I was in denial and you teased me with your hot sexy body until I broke down and gave in.”
Zach stared down at his plate looking like he was in deep thought, so I got up and rounded the table. His chair was cocked-eyed in relation to his plate so I slid my leg over and sat down on his lap, facing him. Picking up his sandwich, I tore off a little piece of it and held it up to his mouth.
He opened and I set it on his tongue with a smile. “You’re mine now,” I said as I set my hand on my mark.
“You’re mine,” he said.
I picked up his hand and set it over my heart without saying anything. Leaning in, I kissed him and it was like starting anew.
~O~
By dinner time we’d received word from everyone else that had been on the island and everything seemed to be fine with them. There was the odd question to be answered like if anyone had come down with some strange illness or something of the like, but that was it.
As much as I didn’t want anyone else to be affected by whatever was causing the changes, I had really hoped for a high level wizard or a sorcerer, someone that could mix a potion or perform a spell that could change Sara back to her original body.
Zach and I got dressed up and we went out to dinner that night. He was in a nice shirt and slacks and I wanted to look good for him so I picked a sexy dress and even wore heels without complaint.
Throughout the meal I could feel my body humming again. Now that I’d sampled the merchandise, I wanted him in the worst way. I wondered if this was what Janie felt like on the island.
And yes, I was on birth control. While I had every intension of not engaging in sex with a guy, my mom wasn’t as confident. Within a week of being rescued I was popping a pill on a daily basis. I just hoped Zach didn’t have too much homework on Wednesday night, because I had the full intension of kidnapping him and doing the deed right, several times in fact.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked before sipping at his iced tea at the end of the meal.
“Wednesday night.”
His brows bunched in confusion.
“Make sure to take your vitamins and have a good dinner, because afterward…” I let my foot slip up his leg and watched as he stiffened for a moment.
His hand went underneath the table and stoked my bare calf which felt pretty nice. “I’m probably going to have homework,” he teased.
I shrugged. “Too bad. I need my Acolyte to serve me, probably more than a few times. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long hard night of sweat and toil.”
He swallowed and his eyes went to my neck as I stretched it out.
When we went home, it didn’t take much encouragement to get him into my bedroom. Even if I wasn’t going to have sex during my cycle, I wanted him in my bed with nothing between us but my panties. I did have to take care of a problem of his or he’d never get any sleep, but that didn’t take very long. I hoped that was a temporary issue.
By the time the lights went out, Zach was laying back and I was tucked neatly along his side breathing in his wonderful scent
~O~
The next morning we had breakfast and a mild makeout session before we both left to return to our respective homes.
Mom’s penetrating eyes saw immediately that I was hiding something of note. That’s why she followed me upstairs with my empty suitcase. This time I refilled it and changed clothes so I could go pick Janie up.
“You look very content, Chase. Is there something that you want to tell me?
I stood at the doorway to my closet as I buttoned up my blouse. If I tried to mask it then she’d pick right up on my issues, so I decided to just tell her outright.
“Zach and I are together now.”
Her eyebrows went up with interest. I could easily see she was excited, but she kept it low-key for the moment. “How do you feel about that?”
Grabbing a skirt, I slipped it up and over my hips. It was loose and stretchy so no zipped was required. Right after I situated myself, I stopped and looked at the wall, while thinking about the last kiss we shared.
“I’m okay,” I said with a pleased smile. “Probably more than okay.”
That knowing look if hers was all over her face when I looked back at her. “Are you still a virgin, Chase?”
I grabbed the flat-heeled sandals before returning to the room and sitting down in the chair across from where Mom was sitting on the bed.
“No. It was my decision and Zach gave me plenty of chance to back out.”
She gave me a dubious look, but I pressed the issue.
“Mom, I know Zach. He was sincere. He would have had to go relieve himself immediately, but he would have waited if I wanted, even right up until the last moment.”
She saw the truth of my words and seemed satisfied. “You’re still taking your birth control, correct?”
I nodded. “Every morning before I brush my teeth.”
“Good girl.”
Mom looked me over and then frowned at my toes. “Let me have your polish. You need a touchup and we need to have our nails done. Do you think Janie would be interested in joining us? I could make the appointment for three.”
A quick call later and I didn’t have to do much arm twisting.
While Mom was smoothing the polish over my chips, I think she delighted in making me squirm just a little.
“So, how was your first time?”
I rolled my eyes. “It wasn’t my first time to have sex, Mom.”
“In this body it was. You can tell me or I can keep this subject up all day long. I’m quite annoying when I want to be.”
With a sigh, I relaxed in me chair. “It wasn’t storybook perfect or anything. I mean it hurt, but not too much. It was like I was distracted by how much he was… stretching me open.”
That brought a naughty smile from her. “Oh, gifted is he?”
My ears were burning as I spilled. “A little larger than normal, but nothing I couldn’t handle.”
When she capped the bottle off, she waved her hand over my toes. “Be thankful for that. Big is good sometimes, but for longevity I much prefer average.”
It was the weirdest thing in the world talking about this with my mother. My conversations with Dad amounted to, “Are you being safe?” “Yeah.” “Good.”
We never talked about breast size, depth and tightness of vaginas. I mean seriously who talks about this stuff outside of their age group?
“Do you love him?”
My eyes widened at her question. “Mooom.”
“Chase, are you in love with Zachery?” her determined voice had reasserted itself.
My face joined my ears in heated revolt. “Yes.”
She stood with a large grin on her face and patted my knee. “Do your father and me a favor, honey. Two grandchildren are more than enough for now. Try to wait a few more years for any new additions.”
I waved that idea right off. “No need to worry about that. That’s one experience I’d rather put off for as long as possible.”
Mom giggled. “You’d be surprised. Once you hold your own baby in your arms, see his face for the first time, and feel him suckle on your breast, your perspective changes.”
“Well, I’m thinking maybe when I’m forty or something.” It was a joke, but there was a tinge of seriousness added to it. There was no way I was ready for that step in my life.
“Speaking of which, you might want to consider breast feeding yours and Janie’s babies.”
I spun around in my chair to see Mom by the door looking serious.
“Feeding one child can be tasking, Chase. Two… may pose problems. There are things you can do to produce milk to help out the mother of your children. Lord knows that I would have loved a break every once in a while. A woman gets sore after constant feeding.”
Looking down at the floor I realized I needed to do some serious research. “Okay, I’ll think about it and talk to Janie.”
“There’s less than twenty-five weeks to go, Chase. The earlier you start, the easier it is on your breasts.”
My eyes widened at the though. “You mean I’d need to start now?”
“You can wait until later. They use a different drug and there’s a real good chance your breasts will hurt during the process. But if you use a different, long term drug then it’s more natural. You remember Cathy Simpson down the street. She adopted and told me all about it.”
I nodded. “I’ll talk to Janie about it today.”
TBC...
The Soul Does Not Perish (Part 9)
by: Lilith Langtree
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Author's Note: Kudos to djkauf for betaing this for me.
Janie meeting with my parents wasn’t as stressful as I thought it was going to be. Mom made her feel really welcome and Dad didn’t appear to be as uptight as he’d been over the last couple of days. We had a nice lunch and went to do the whole nail thing afterward.
Frankly I didn’t see the thrill of paying someone to shape your nails and put polish on them, but Janie was very happy with being pampered.
We toured the house and Mom extended the offer which Janie was polite and grateful for and still said she wanted to think about it.
I tried to see it from her point of view, but seriously, if you had the chance to not work in the service industry, and have a private doctor with all of your bills paid, wouldn’t you jump at the offer?
There had to be another reason she was holding back that I wasn’t aware of.
Maybe I was the problem?
Okay, that sounded a little egotistical, but still. In my world, everything revolved around me.
When I dropped her back off at her house, she was pretty impressed about how long it took to travel back and forth without a car.
Since we had the privacy, I chose that time to bring up the outstanding issues. She could see that I was a little nervous and treated me with kid gloves.
“My mom asked if I had considered breast feeding the babies after they are born.”
Janie rolled her eyes and laughed a little. “Is that what you’ve been worried about? Yes, of course I intend to breast feed.”
“No, I meant me… to help you out. Since they’re twins and everything.”
Her eyes widened in genuine surprise. “Oh.”
She licked her lips and seemed to be considering it. “Would that be something you’d be able to do?”
I nodded. “It’s the same process adoptive mothers use. I just needed to know because I’d have to start working on it as soon as possible.”
“This is so weird,” she said. “I was there and I saw you change into a girl, but I still can’t wrap my head around you being the father of our babies. You’re a real girl, I mean with everything?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, in fact I’m on my period right now, so full plumbing and everything.”
Janie’s mouth dropped open. “Seriously?”
“Uh-huh.”
Things became quiet for a while after that, I assume so she could absorb what I just said. Eventually she did break the silence.
“Chase… I have something to confess.”
I sat up and gave her my full attention.
“I didn’t tell my parents about what happened on the island, only the basics.”
That confused me. “I don’t understand.”
Her face reddened a little. “I told them I met a boy before the flight and we hooked up. Then I told them he died in the crash.”
I was stunned. “But…”
“My parents are very religious. You wouldn’t understand. If you showed them what you could do, they’d think you were a demon or possessed by Satan. I’d lose my babies. Daddy wouldn’t put up with it.”
“How are you explaining me?”
“I named the father Chance, and you’re his sister.”
I’m sorry. I get where she’s coming from. She’s in a difficult situation, but I was offering her a way out. And to take the last real evidence of my masculine identity away from me like that… As far as she’s concerned, I died and I was simply Aunt Chase. Fuck that.
Thunder sounded in the distance and it echoed across the sky. I gripped my cane and watched as my knuckles turned white with the pressure.
“You can’t do that.”
“Do you want me to lose my parents or the babies?”
“I think the choice is pretty obvious, Janie: our unborn children or fanatical zealot bible thumpers. You’re a freaking adult; act like it.”
She looked up at the sky and the dark clouds rolling in. I didn’t have to see them to know exactly where they were.
“Just because your imaginary world came to life, Chase, doesn’t mean that theirs won’t. They’re my parents; don’t insult them.”
Pushing myself up from the table, I paced on the grass and felt the sudden rise of humidity.
“There’s something you forgot to take into account, Janie.”
She looked as me, worried. “What?”
“Our children were conceived on that island, and I was already changing at the time. The odds of them being magical…” I chuckled. “Well let’s say that your parents are going to have a field day when they start talking to the local wildlife.”
When I saw her go pale, I pressed the issue.
“What happens then? Will they drown them in the bathtub, or cut their throats when they’re asleep in their beds? All in the name of banishing Satan, of course.” I returned and stood by the table, looking down at her. “I won’t allow that to happen.”
Janie looked away. I could tell she was torn up about it, but frankly, I had little compassion for someone that would do some of the things she’s doing.
“If your parents mean that much to you then give me the babies and walk away. I’m not going to twist your arm here, Janie. There are a lot of other much more pleasant options we can go through, but I’ll be damned and dead away before I let them near my children, and I have the ability to back it up.”
My eyes went skyward and hers followed. I think she was starting to get the point.
“I’ll think about it.”
“I want an answer no later than this time tomorrow. You’ve been sitting on this for three months. You’ve had more than enough time to think.”
Turning around, I walked back to the tree I’d been using and then turned around. Raising my cane, I pulled in the energies I’d been sending out and the clouds started to thin.
“You don’t have to move into the house, Janie. I’m not looking to subjugate you. But I will expect you to do everything you can to protect our children, even if it means cutting your parents out of your life.”
~O~
I wanted to go somewhere and just rage at the world. I was so angry that everywhere I appeared dark clouds followed in my wake, eventually making the area suffer a downpour. I could counter the storms but they would only come back again. That’s when I decided to head to the Sacred Grove that Zach and I created.
When I entered the grove, I felt peace wash over me.
Dropping my cane I made my way over to the sweet water and splashed my face, afterward drinking deeply. Energy returned to my body as I sat down and set my cane across my lap.
Not that I didn’t trust her, but… well, I didn’t trust her.
“Agnitio!”
I don’t know if you remember this one. It was the Greater Scrying spell I used back on the island that gave me my knowledge and finished my masculinity off. In the game D&D it is used to spy on certain creatures or people. Remember Disney’s Snow White, the evil witch that used a magic mirror to spy on the heroine? That’s a scrying spell. In the game, I would need a pool of water to watch over the subject. In real life, I saw them through their own eyes.
Janie was sitting at her kitchen table and her vision was blurry as she looked down at the surface. When she looked up, I saw who only could have been her father sitting across from her.
“Daddy, she’s rich and I could quit work. You know I’m not feeling good.”
He didn’t look placated. “The doctor said you would be fine if you took the vitamins.”
“They’re not working. I’m so tired all the time, and I’m on my feet six hours a day. What if it hurts the babies?”
He shifted and looked resolute. “Then it is God’s will. You had relations with a boy out of wedlock. Your sickness is your punishment. You’ve brought this on yourself.”
The desire I had to reach through the sight and smack the guy upside the head was almost overwhelming. While I couldn’t physically do that, I was able to send a spell through that might accomplish the same effect. The problem was deciding on which one to use.
Perhaps I could call an Earth Elemental and bury him under a hundred pounds of dirt and rock. Or maybe Summon Nature’s Ally and have a Dire Rat knock on his door, oh… or maybe a Tyrannosaurus Rex. That would make him shit a few bricks and think the apocalypse was coming for real.
Too bad I couldn’t just curse him, so whenever he said the word god he’d have explosive diarrhea. That would be cool. But sadly that was the Cleric’s domain and I highly doubted Sylvia would be game to do me the favor.
Janie got up from the table and ran to her room, slamming the door and stopped short of throwing herself on the bed.
The scene tugged at my heart slightly, but I stopped myself from going to her until I saw some sort of commitment, one way or the other.
It took fifteen minutes for her to pull herself together enough to sit up and look around the room.
“Come on, Janie,” I whispered.
I saw her reflection in the mirror attached to her dresser. She’d been crying for a while, but she looked determined to do something. Janie wiped at her cheeks and stood, heading toward her closet. Two suitcases were pulled out and put on the bed. That was enough for me.
Breaking the spell, I passed through two trees and emerged from the one in her back yard. Looking over I saw the light on at the end of the house where I deduced her room was.
Again, I was wearing next to useless shoes for the occasion, but at least they weren’t heels. You’d think I’d learn my lesson by now.
I cast one spell on myself and another on my fully formed staff. Planning ahead I pulled up several spells that would be useful in the situation as I didn’t want to actually kill her father, only punish him for harming someone under my protection.
When I got to the back door that adjoined the kitchen, I knocked lightly.
The door opened and her father was standing there, equal in height to me.
“I’m here to see Janie.”
I think he was confused as to why I was in the back yard, but he got around to dismissing me as soon as he could. “She’s under restriction. Go away.”
He started to close the door, but I held my hand out and it came to a shuddering halt -- gotta love that Bull’s Strength spell.
“I’m sorry. Perhaps I wasn’t clear. It wasn’t a request. Now move before I move you, and deep down I’m really hoping that you’ll stay right where you are because I have a nice staff here that I’d love to shove up your ass.”
He tried again to close the door, but my magically assisted strength more than held up.
“I’m calling the police.”
I nodded. “Fine, go right ahead.”
He turned away and I saw an old style phone on the wall. “Repo fatum!”
Hundreds of centipedes appeared on the wall, floor, and surrounding cabinets. I looked at them and gave the order. “Keep him in this room. Don’t kill him just yet.”
They multiplied and started moving over the ceiling surrounding Janie’s father. The only clear path was in front of me which led out of the kitchen. When I last saw him, he was backed into a corner looking like he was trying to scream, but nothing was coming out.
“Parietis postulo!”
Behind me, the entire doorway and much of the surrounding wall started sprouting vines as thick as my wrists with hundreds of finger-length deadly sharp thorns protruding in every conceivable direction.
When I reached the proper door, I knocked.
“Yes?” Janie sounded scared, like she was caught in the middle of doing something she wasn’t supposed to.
“It’s Chase.”
She opened the door a second later with wide eyes. “How did you get past my father?”
I gave her a are you serious? Look. “He’s… occupied in the kitchen. Unexpected guests. Can I help you pack?”
Again she looked at me with surprise. “How did you…? Never mind. Yes, come in.”
I looked at all the clothes she was taking. “Just take what you really want to have with you, Janie. I’ll make sure you have all the necessities, clothes, shoes, toiletries, whatever.”
“Really?”
I nodded. “You can have a whole new wardrobe if you want. I was serious about wanting to make sure you have nothing to worry about.”
With gusto in her step she turned over of her suitcases and dumped all of her clothes on the floor, only picking a couple of items up and putting them back in. Following her direction I filled the second case with stuff, mementoes, books, keepsakes, while she did the same with the first one.
Once she was through she looked around one more time and sighed. We’d filled a backpack apiece as well. She carried one backpack and I got the suitcases and the other pack. It was really nice to be exceptionally strong for once. I felt like arm wrestling Stuart. Who knows, I might win.
When we reached the kitchen door, Janie looked at the barrier I put up.
“Wall of Thorns. Unless you’re a Druid or a high level Ranger, you’re not getting through that.”
There was a scream from the other side of the door and I cringed at the sound. “You might want to stay here for a second. It’s a pretty gross scene in there.”
She looked at me wide-eyed. “What is it?”
“Creeping Doom.” At her blank stare I expounded. “Maybe a couple thousand centipedes are surrounding your father and keeping him in the kitchen. I told them not to kill him. They’ll listen. That doesn’t mean a few won’t sting him.”
Before she had a chance to berate me I held up my hand. “Don’t worry, I can cure the poison. I’m not here to harm him, just to give him a taste of what he gives to you.”
Her lips pressed together and she waited for me to do whatever.
I banished the Wall of Thorns and opened the door, banishing the centipedes as well. Mr. Book was kneeling on the floor, holding his seriously red hand and crying.
“Go to the tree. I’ll fix him and be there in a second.”
Janie set her hand on my forearm. “Chase, don’t hurt him. He’s still my father.”
I gave her a single nod.
When the door closed I sat the suitcases on the floor and approached the broken child abuser.
“Damn, that looks like it hurts.”
He looked up at me and then backpedaled away until the refrigerator stopped him from making any more progress.
“Now you know what it’s like to be terrified in your own home. How does it feel, Mister Book?”
He whimpered.
“This is how it’s going to work. You’re going to forget you ever had a daughter and that you mentally abused her with your bullshit. You’re going to forget about the centipedes, and me forcing myself in here tonight. You won’t ever look for Janie or me or our babies, because if you do… if I even think that someone I see remotely looks like you, I’ll be back, and this time I won’t hold the Creeping Doom from having their meal.”
Cocking my head, I smiled. “Do we have an agreement?”
He nodded quickly.
“Good. Now hold your hand out so I can keep my promise to Janie and not let you suffer from the stings.”
~O~
I threw up another Wall of Thorns along the back of the house just to be annoying.
“Why’d you do that?” Janie asked.
“Just to cover our backs. It’s not permanent.”
Truthfully, I didn’t know when it would end and either fade away or collapse. Eventually it would. It really didn’t matter anyway, because they still had the front door.
I took Janie back to the house and set her up in the room across from mine. The pool house was offered for her privacy if she wanted, but it was declined. Before she retired for the evening I received a hug of appreciation.
The shower I stepped into was more than welcome. I popped a couple of Midol beforehand so they’d have a chance to kick in by the time I made it to bed. As an afterthought, I felt the tiniest bit of guilt from subjecting Mr. Book to my hormonal induced Revenge of the Druid interpretation, and I could see why women never made it high in the ranks.
Most likely they were held back and never trained well. I mean can you imagine the power of a truly high level Druid with cramps, no Midol, and someone to take her frustration out on?
The Romans might have never made it back to their homes if the Druids had put women in charge.
When I returned to my room after drying and braiding my hair, I opened my makeup cabinet and withdrew a bottle of body lotion. If Zach could turn me on with his berries and vanilla then I was going to fight back with Japanese Cherry Blossom.
By Wednesday around lunchtime, I was going to be clean and clear and ready for some serious undercover activity.
Once the lotion was sufficiently rubbed in I slipped beneath my sheets and nodded off thinking about how many ways I could take him. Needless to say, my dreams were more than fun that night.
The next morning I took Janie to the mall and let her go crazy while I looked for something just right at Victoria’s Secret. When I shopped with Mom, I avoided the place like the plague had set in at the front door, but I had a whole new reason to visit.
There was absolutely no way he was winning the sexy panties contest that night. I might have bought a few other things as well, but that’ll come later.
When we stopped by Bath and Body Works I made the rounds and sniffed while Janie picked a couple of things up. Then a scent caught my attention. I grabbed the tube of lotion and opened it up taking the smell in to me as it brought back memories of the beach house and the taste of Zach’s skin.
“Deep Kiss. Of course.”
“May I help you find anything,” the sales lady asked.
I handed her the tube. “One of everything in this scent. Put it in a gift basket.”
That wound up being quite a lot. I thought maybe five or six different things, but it wound up being eleven different ways to apply that scent to a single body. I hope I didn’t drown the poor boy.
I wound up doing the same for myself in Cherry Blossom. We were glad Mom lent us her SUV to take the haul back home.
“Who’s the gift basket for?” asked Janie.
My grin widened. “Zach.”
“Panties Zach?”
My smile disappeared. “He’s my boyfriend.”
“Oh,” she cringed. “Sorry. I thought he was gay and I thought you liked girls.”
“He isn’t and I still do, but…”
“I can see that. He kind of straddles both sides, I guess.”
Where in the world did she get that idea? “What are you talking about?”
She shrugged. “Well he’s short and not very masculine…”
Janie stopped talking because I was laughing. “You haven’t seen him in a while have you?”
“No?”
Now I got her curiosity up. “He’s about six-one now and really firm.”
“Really? In just three months?”
I shrugged. “He hit a growth spurt and he’s been working out or something. Every time he takes his shirt off I go catatonic. And I guess you’re right about one thing. He was turning into an Elf on that island and one of the traits is no body hair. So I guess that’s kind of feminine.”
“Really?”
That seemed to be her new favorite word.
“Uh-huh, and it feels so good against my skin. He’s so smooth.”
Janie huffed. “Stop talking about it. I’m getting horny and I’m guyless right now, and for the foreseeable future.”
Glancing over at her, I gave Janie a look of sympathy. “Do you want to stop by the toy store? I don’t mind.”
I think she got my meaning. “Seriously? You’d buy me a vibrator?”
I giggled. “Believe me; I know what it’s like to be frustrated.”
She laughed along with me. “Well if you ever want to share Zach, I’m up for a little adventure.”
The thought of that running through my head made me gulp. “Uh…”
“I was kidding… sort of.”
Making a left turn, I glance at her. “Let’s get you to that toy store ASAP.”
~O~
It took until mid-afternoon to put everything away. Janie wished me luck on my sex-date and I went to get prepared.
After I waved bye to Mom, I told her I’d be back by lunchtime, I stepped through to Tennessee. The cab I called dropped me off at the hotel I stayed at previously and paid for the honeymoon suite. It really wasn’t all that different from a regular room, just a bigger bed and a few extra amenities. Oh, and it smelled nicer.
By six-thirty, I knew Zach was through with dinner because I could feel his anxiety mixed with excitement. So I phoned him.
“I thought you’d never call.”
“Zach?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m in room three-oh-one, and I’m not wearing a whole lot at the moment. Do you think you can do something about this itch I’m having?”
~O~
You don’t get the details about that night, but I’ll give you the pillow talk near the end of his visit.
“It’s isn’t that I’m not grateful,” he said. “But why did you buy me all the panties?”
I was still tonguing his chest after our last bout, but I rose up enough to answer him properly. “Because I thought it might be difficult to buy what you want, you being a guy and all. The stigma attached isn’t pleasant.”
He studied my face as he asked his next question. “And you don’t mind that I wear them?”
“They’re just clothes, Zach. If they make you feel good then I’m all for it. I think you’ve proved your manhood to me several times tonight.”
He seemed relieved. “I have other things too.”
Wiggling my way back up his body, I kissed him and then sat up, straddling his hips. “Like what?”
“Jeans, shoes, stuff like that.”
“No lingerie?”
Zach frowned a little. “It’s doesn’t fit right anymore.”
“Well, you have grown quite a bit over the last few months.”
When I saw he was getting a little down, I poked him. “Hey.”
He lifted his brows at me in question.
“If there’s anything you want then you tell me okay? And I don’t mean just gifts. If there’s anything you want to experience, you tell me. I’m pretty open-minded if you haven’t noticed.”
He shook his head. “You’re everything that I want.”
I reached behind me to find him somewhat lacking in attention.
“I think it’s dead, Chase. Four times in two and a half hours has put him to sleep for the night.”
With a dramatic sigh I smiled naughtily. “Well I guess it wouldn’t do any good to tell you that Janie wants a threesome with me and you. Too bad.”
“What?”
I shrugged. “I was telling her about you and I, and she asked if I would share. Oh… lookie here I think you still have some life in you after all.”
“That’s not funny, Chase.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny. Funny is what happened when we tried to do it up against the wall and the people next door called the front desk.”
~O~
I did manage to coax that last one out of him with a little dirty talk. I know it always got me going when I was a guy.
Before he left, I rubbed some of the scented body butter on him so he wouldn’t chafe. He was still walking funny as he closed the door. The next morning, I was definitely walking with less of a bounce in my step, but I was one hundred percent satisfied and content.
Once thing I wanted to take care of before I went back home was to awaken another grove. Because of the excitement over the last week, I was behind my self-imposed schedule. Every week since I’d returned to the mainland, I wanted to awaken at least three across the world. This was so that magic could be evenly distributed to the entire world and nobody would be hit with it all at once.
I didn’t know if it was a good plan; I’m sure there could be fault found with it, but at least it was a plan and gave me goals to achieve.
So I had Hawaii, and Tennessee. I needed somewhere in Western Europe to hit next and then maybe India and Japan. I know they’re all not perfectly equidistant from each other, but it was close enough for me.
A little research on the internet set me in the woodlands of the Iberian Peninsula, where I found a decent area and started etching the warding stones. A good hour later, I set them in place and cast the spell. Everything worked perfectly.
Before leaving I drank a half a canteen full of Sweetwater and watched as the fountain trickled down the bank into a quiet stream.
It was so incredibly peaceful that I was tempted to just stay there for the rest of the day. However, I had duties, and a doctor to see. Mom made me an appointment with my new physician. I obviously couldn’t see my old one since I liked to avoid those probing questions about my sudden existence.
And so the next three days went. Everything was surprisingly mundane. The only thing I did out of the ordinary was a two hour trip to India and Japan to set up groves there. I’d work on the southern hemisphere the following week.
Janie was still getting settled in and used to the routine of how we did things at the house. The only item that she was surprised about was the lack of major rules to follow. Mom and Dad didn’t expect her to be all proper like they did me, which I envied somewhat. The only thing they insisted on was including her in everything we did as a family.
In case you’re wondering, yes, I’m taking drugs to simulate the hormones used to produce milk for the babies, and no, I’m not sloshing around asking people if they’d like cream in their coffee. They don’t work like that. They trick the breasts into thinking that I’m pregnant so after a certain amount of time, poof, breast milk, just like every other woman out there that has to carry around a life inside them.
The problem was that I started a little late, so I would probably produce less milk when the time comes. That’s where Zach is going to come in handy, I’m sure. In the last month I’m going to need to go through a lot of, um, suction, and the machine that you can buy just don’t really compare with human lips, mouth, and tongue. You really wouldn’t believe what’s involved. It’s not just a couple of times a day.
The whole thing is simulating the feeding patterns of newborns so that the flow becomes right. As those of you with children know, that means every two hours. Every TWO hours.
I’m sure I can get by with some mechanical assistance and manipulation with my hands, but the delivery date is in February.
Any way you looked at it, the process was long, intricate, and will probably be very frustrating, but I was determined to take part in this. As every day went by and I read a little more, I knew I’d do anything for them.
I just hoped that this Druid thing didn’t get in the way.
~O~
When the weekend came, Zach’s parents insisted he spend it with them since he was gone for the Labor Day weekend. He was ticked, seriously. I was too, for a little while. Instead of dwelling on it, I snuck into his room on Saturday night and gave him a welcome surprise.
Come Sunday morning I started on a little quest to observe those of us that were fortunate to make it off the island. Something wasn’t sitting right with me regarding why certain people weren’t affected while others had their lives drastically altered by something.
The entity on the island was of no help in this. The only thing I gathered from my last commune was its pleasure at what I was doing. Magic was seeping back in the world drop by drop.
Tourism to Hawaii was at an all-time high, mainly because of Sylvia’s work at the hospice. Nobody had twigged to her abilities and she still prayed over those that were sick, considering it her calling in life. So sick people were packing each flight and in some cases, literally camping out just for a chance to enter the holy building.
My rage-induced tour a few days ago made the news as reports of freak storms were covered in the wilderness of America, but that was just a note in some academic’s book of statistics somewhere.
To some people, no news was good news. To me, no news meant something was brewing and I needed to be there to make sure it didn’t boil over and endanger those that were close to me, those I protected.
I spent all day Sunday tracking five of the twenty-eight that survived the crash. I already knew the disposition of nine of them, that included me by the way. They spent their days with their families doing average ordinary things.
Only fourteen more to go.
~O~
Monday saw me in Big Sur hunting down someone that I didn’t pay too much attention to back on the island. All I remembered about him was his wanting to wear his torn business suit all the time, even in the heat.
There was nobody at his estate and the wildlife in the area was fairly thin considering that it was pretty much a national forest. There should have been loads of animals, rodents, birds, and the like. While I did see the occasional bird moving around, I didn’t even catch a glimpse of anything on the floor of the forest.
That made me nervous.
I climbed high in the redwood I was in and found a decent-sized branch so I could concentrate long enough with a scrying spell and not fall out of the tree in the process.
What I connected with didn’t make things any easier to find Jebediah Banks. When I connected with him, I thought I’d failed since there was only darkness, but when I started to withdraw, I heard sounds; footsteps.
Within moments the complete darkness gave way to the slightest bit of light and the sound of a girl cursing.
“Is somebody spying on me?”
My eyebrows lifted in surprise. I didn’t say anything in response, mainly because that’s not the way scrying works. It’s a one way connection unless I had psionic abilities, which I didn’t. At least I didn’t think I did. The subject never came up.
Something sparked in my vision and I heard a word of Latin uttered before the connection broke and I was thrown back where I was.
“Ohhh crap.”
My cell was in my hand a moment later waiting for Zach to answer.
“Hey, sexy, I was just thinking about you.”
“Zach, we might have a problem,” I said.
“What happened?”
Raking my fingers through my hair, I tried to make sense of what I’d experienced. “I’m in Big Sur checking on Jebediah Banks. I did a scrying spell and just saw darkness, but someone knew I was there.”
There was a slight pause before he answered. “Someone?”
“Yeah, female. She asked if someone was spying on her… you don’t think Jebediah turned into a girl too?”
I could almost see him shrug the way he does all the time when answering me. “That’s a good possibility, and it was probably dark because wherever he or she is, is dark, like underground.”
“I’m in a mountainous region. You think it’s a cave dweller?”
He didn’t answer, but asked another question. “What else happened?”
“She threw me out.”
“Really? Wow, that limits what class they are. Only magic users would sense your presence if at all. So, Cleric, Druid, Wizard, or Sorcerer. I’d lean toward the latter two.”
Rubbing my forehead I asked, “Would Darkvision come through on a Scrying spell?”
“Not necessarily. Crap, that means maybe an Orc, or Drow.”
“Drow? Great. That’s what I need.”
“I can be there in just a little bit.”
“No, I don’t want you sneaking out, Zach.”
He groaned. “You’re wicked powerful, Chase, but it’s not really a good idea to go at this alone.”
“And your parents would kill me if they found out I was putting you in danger.”
“It’s not their decision.”
I chuckled. “Until you turn eighteen it is. Don’t argue with me on this, Zach. Besides, I have no idea where she is and it’s a really big area.”
It was easy enough to tell he was angry about being left behind, but until I could verify exactly what Jebediah Banks had turned into I didn’t want anyone nearby, especially those that I cared for.
“Will you call me as soon as you find something out?”
I sighed with relief that he wasn’t going to put up a major fight on the issue. “You bet.”
“Please don’t forget, Chase. I’m nervous enough as it is.”
“I won’t.”
Another two beats went by and he came back. “I love you.”
That brought a pleased smile to my face. “I love you too. Bye.”
When I disconnected, a quick scan of the area still revealed nothing out of the ordinary. That’s when I looked down at my phone.
“What the hell, it couldn’t hurt.”
Tabbing though the various screens, I pulled up Banks’ information and dialed his cell. Surprisingly enough it was answered after two rings.
“I was wondering who it was that had the power for the scrying spell,” the now familiar female voice answered. “The irrepressible and irreverent Chase Moynihan, savior of flight 372. How have you been, Chase? Fed anyone else to that Dire Panther of yours?”
I blinked. Dire…?
God I was so stupid. That’s why Kitty was so freaking big. He must have been a young Dire Panther.
“Uh… no, actually. Is this Jebediah?”
She scoffed at the sound of the name. “Good god no, I left that name behind last week. Call me Delilah.”
Trying to keep the wariness out of my voice was difficult because I was so suspicious. “I take it you were somewhat untruthful about your return email to Zach last week.”
Delilah chuckled low and seductively. “Nothing happened that I didn’t want to happen. Do you know how maddening it is to be stuck in the wrong body for your entire life? Oh, well I guess you do. Silly me.”
I wasn’t buying the lack of recall on her part.
“The others were scared about what happened to you, Chase. The men were terrified that it was going to happen to them on the Coast Guard cutter for the trip to Hawaii. But me, no, I just sat there and stared at your perfect face and body with envy. What made you so great that you were chosen and not me?”
Taking a leap of faith here I was guessing that Jebediah was a closet Transsexual, and quite angry about it. “It wasn’t my choice.”
Her voice backed down to a more civil tone. “No, I suppose not. Who in their right mind would even think such a thing was possible?”
“Not a lot of people.”
“And rightly so,” she said. “So what do you want, Chase Moynihan? Why did you track me down and why are you spying on me?”
“I wanted to verify that everyone was alright.”
Her laugh was loud and somewhat condescending. “Oh, how delightful. Now you care?”
I didn’t answer that one.
“Go away, Druid. You aren’t welcome here.”
That answered a few questions for me. She knew what I was, she knew about the existence of magic, and she was most likely a user herself.
“There are others that have changed,” I said in an attempt to draw the conversation out a little longer.
“I assumed as much when your lackey contacted me.”
A minor surge to defend Zach surged in my chest, but I siphoned off the vitriol for my return. “May I assume that you’re a Wizard or a Sorcerer?”
Delilah didn’t answer right away. “Perhaps.”
“Do you think that we could work together to change some of them back to the way they were?”
There was a longer pause this time which I didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing. “I have what I want, Druid. Why should I concern myself with others?”
“You said it yourself, about being trapped in a body not of your liking.”
She made a sound of noncommittal. “What’s in it for me?”
That pretty much told me that her alignment wasn’t on the good side of the spectrum. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I was Chaotic Neutral, not Good.
“What is it you want?”
Delilah seemed ready for this one, which meant that she was playing a game with me. “Materials, precious stones — the bigger the better…”
That confirmed her status for me. Magic users could do a lot of things with the right precious stones. I think she realized that she gave away a little too much too soon.
“… and other things.”
“You live in Big Sur, Delilah. You have to be rich.”
I could almost hear the annoyance in her voice when it returned. “There is only so much I can accomplish in public. If you want my aid, then you will supply me with my needs.”
She seemed reluctant to admit that much, but I didn’t doubt that it was an act.
“Why don’t we meet up and we can discuss what those needs are.”
Her seductive chuckle returned. “If we meet up, Chase Moynihan…”
“Yes?”
“Nothing. Go away, and don’t come back without an offering. Those are my terms.”
At that, she hung up.
~O~
Without knowing anything else about her, I was betting that she was a Drow. If you don’t know what that is, then you might look it up. In very basic terms it means cave-dwelling-Elf. They are an offshoot of regular Elves that are varying degrees of Evil. I didn’t receive the famous Chaotic Evil monologue that is was cliché with the type. You know what I’m talking about: the I will destroy you and all your goodie-two-shoes friends and subjugate you to my will in my ultimate plan to take over the world speech that you hear in movies and read about in books.
What I heard was someone that wanted to be left to her own devices. Depending on what those devices actually were would determine what I could expect from her in the future.
For the moment I went with Neutral Evil, or even Chaotic Neutral like myself. Yes, she might fall into my spectrum. The difference between us is that I will protect what is mine by using others to do so if needed. Delilah will protect what is hers by hoarding and living the life of a hermit.
I hoped.
The other choice is she would take what she wanted and damn the consequences, even if those ends used Evil to further her goals.
Her demands weren’t difficult for me to fulfill. I was guessing that she might even be using the task to test the limits of my power by insisting on spell components.
What am I talking about?
Druids, once they reach a certain level, can control the elements. I’m not speaking about the periodic table of element that you’d find in your closest chemistry classroom. I refer to Air, Water, Fire, and Earth, Elementals to be more specific. Druids could call them to fight fairly early in their training. The higher level the Druid achieved, the bigger the Elemental that could be called.
However, upon reaching the sixteenth level I could actually use my Wild Shape ability to turn myself into an Elemental, specifically Earth, much like I did when I turned into a hummingbird for Sylvia. More would come with time and experience.
There were two things I could find in the area right away. Gold — it is California after all — and Jade. Big Sur was almost famous for its jade digging along the coast. The Gold would take longer.
“Voco vis socius!”
The ground rumbled beneath me and in handful of seconds a humanoid creature started forming out of the rock, and soil. It didn’t have any eyes or ears, but the two arms and the thick trunk of the thing’s bottom might be called legs.
Holding my hands out, I mimicked a sphere about a foot in diameter. “True gold. This much. Bring it here and put it on top of the ground.”
Another two seconds and it collapsed back into the mountainside to complete its task.
I called another Earth Elemental, this one a bit smaller for more meticulous work and tasked it to find jade in the same amount and bring it to me.
When they were both off I sat down where I was and called what creatures remained in the area. It took a while, but several showed. I had a suspicion that they traveled some distance and didn’t particularly want to be there.
Speaking to wildlife isn’t as easy as it sounds. Like the ferret, they aren’t very smart, but with enough work I was able to narrow down the area that Delilah called home, and it wasn’t too far away.
I found the general area and then started questioning the plants and trees. Yeah, I can do that as well, and they are even more difficult. After a few false leads I was able to locate a hidden opening in the ground beside a large redwood covered by live brush.
When I returned to my original spot, the gold and jade was waiting for me. It wasn’t all one big ball, but there were sizable chunks of gold to be found in about the volume that I indicated. It was then that I knew I’d never have any problem with money for the rest of my life. Taking a couple of handfuls of each, I put it in my pack, thinking about how I could use it to make a gift for Zach.
Once the sun had dropped far enough into the horizon, I pulled out my cell and made another call.
“Back already Chase Moynihan?”
“I have something that you might be interested in.”
She sounded surprised. “Already?”
“Gold and Jade.”
It sounded like she was considering them for a few moments. “No diamonds? No emeralds, or rubies?”
It was my turn to chuckle. “Not until we meet face to face. We both know what those stones could be used to do.”
Which was a lot. Some of the more powerful magic required these items as spell components as places to store powerful magic.
“Where are you?”
If she was a Drow, she would smell my presence at the entrance to her cave, so I wasn’t losing any element of surprise in revealing that I knew its location.
“About fifty yards north-northwest of the entrance to your lair.”
I heard her suck in a breath and then a muffled curse soon after.
“Oh, and Delilah, I’ve had a number of months to become very familiar with my magic. If you try to harm me or break your word in any agreement we make, they won’t find a body, just little pieces scattered here and there.”
Her voice came back with anger. “Don’t threaten me, Druid. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”
“I’m guessing a Drow Wizard of moderate power or else you’d have the ability to find your own jewels. Like I said, everything is on the up and up or I squash you like a bug. Unlike you I have the ability to level this entire mountainside and anything hiding underneath.”
Delilah didn’t sound pleased when she returned my threat with, “Agreed.”
I waited for a good thirty minutes before she surfaced. By that time almost all light from the sky had disappeared. The moon was only a sliver and I was reminded about how dark a forest could become.
Drow were gifted with Darkvision which was another way to say they could see perfectly well with no light whatsoever. They were also stealthy like their Elf brethren. That’s why I had the area trees spelled to alert me when she grew close.
I stayed as still as possible for a few seconds longer before igniting the top of my staff in bright flame.
Delilah’s hand immediately came up to shield her eyes as she flinched back about ten feet away from me.
“Oh, sorry about that,” I said with very little true compassion in my voice.
Zach was right. She was a Drow. Her height was maybe in the mid five foot range and her skin black on black. The hair that reached down to her hips was silvery-white and held up in a high knot at the apex of her head.
Then the clichés started. Thigh-high PVC boots and a PVC fetish outfit that screamed porn. I knew the Drow were a very perverse race, delighting in the most decadent sexual practices, but Delilah carried it to the extreme. At her hip was a standard whip hanging down her thigh and on the other side a cat-o-nine tails with little silver barbs on the ends.
On her wrists were leather cuffs with chrome D-rings hanging loose. She was obviously going for a dominatrix look, but failing, badly.
I did have to admit she was exotically beautiful with her pointed ears poking out and a good amount of cleavage on display.
“Lower your light,” she said.
“I’m thinking no.”
“Do you want to do business, Druid?” she snapped.
I dimmed the flame only a little, but I backed away at the same time. “What can you do to help those that have changed?”
Her fingers spread just enough to look at me. “Given time, I can store a Wish spell in an object, preferably a large diamond.”
I scoffed at that and let her know it. “I’m talking within the next few months, not another decade or two when you have the experience.”
The displeasure on her face was palpable. “Within the year, I might be able to create a Ring of Polymorph.”
She was telling the truth, which raised my estimate about how powerful she was, but not by much. “How many charges?”
“How many do you require?”
“I don’t know yet. There are only two people that are having problems, but there could be as many as twenty.”
Delilah considered something, probably how much she could milk from me.
“I require a proper lab built here, electricity, supplies.”
A chuckle escaped my lips. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll have people come and move your furniture into your cave, sell your house, and set up an account online so you can buy your own crap. When you produce something of value, you call me. We’ll do business then.”
She stomped her boot on the ground. “That’s unacceptable. There are certain items I need that can’t be purchased or that I can’t afford.”
“Send me a list. And don’t be stupid about the spell components. I know what’s needed for that ring. If I see anything involving Necromancy you and I are going to have a talk.”
As I started to back away Delilah saw that I was leaving. “Wait! I… I could trade for certain services.”
My eyes narrowed at her. “What kind of services do you need?”
Her body language changed to something akin to embarrassment. “Are there any more like me?”
The sound of her voice was almost natural this time and I could almost hear the loneliness at the edge.
“Not yet, but I only started looking. If I come across anymore, would you like me to have them contact you?”
“What would it cost me?” she asked.
“Nothing. I won’t prey on you that way.”
Delilah sighed. “I’ll do what I can. I’m not making any promises.”
“Fair enough. If you need anything reasonable, then call me.” Motioning to the ground I said, “The gold and jade are yours.”
She took a step toward me and then stalled. “Could you call those movers and the realtor?”
“Sure, no problem.”
~O~
“I think it was all an act,” I told Zach over the phone when I called back to tell him I was okay. “She’s read one too many fantasy books and is trying to emulate the stereotype.”
He laughed. “That’s… just sad.”
“What else has she got to do? She’s definitely not talented enough to last for long in the real world, not until there are more Drow around… and that’s a scary enough thought as it is.”
“What’s going on, Chase? All these races are starting to pop up with the people from the flight, but it’s not enough to really sustain them. In a couple of generations they’ll be dead, and that’s a best case scenario. So what’s the point?”
I shook my head. “I really don’t know, but I have a feeling this is only the beginning.”
“You think it’ll spread beyond us?”
“It’s why we’re awakening the groves, Zach.”
Originally I thought that introducing magic to the world meant that we’d get some Druids, and people would be able to do real magic eventually. Maybe some magical creatures would come back into existence and we’d ease into the whole thing. It really wasn’t working out the way I’d anticipated. People were being ripped from their lives and thrown into chaos.
Color me concerned.
At some point I’m going to wonder if it was all worth it; much like my current situation. There would be some truly evil people with powers not unlike my own and the Earth will be plunged straight back into well before the Dark Ages. It made me curious as to what would happen in the future. Would it all turn into some Mercedes Lackey/Piers Anthony future world where technology and magic become one in some scary dystopian society?
Considering the way the real world works, I wasn’t optimistic.
The only thing I could do was to wait it out and try to put out the fires as they cropped up. I didn’t exactly like the idea, mainly because doing so was changing me yet again. I was supposed to be this self-serving person. I protected what was mind and to hell with the rest. But I think there was more of the old Chase hanging around than was expected.
So my Lawful Good Chase was mixing with my Chaotic Neutral Chase to make something new. I didn’t know if I could deal with being Lawful Neutral. They’re more like judges are supposed to be. I’m didn’t think enough of myself to think that I would be qualified to interpret the way things were supposed to be. I was too opinionated.
Maybe Chaotic Good was more my speed. I had a pretty good grasp of what I thought was right and it tended to be on the Good side of the spectrum, but sometimes it could be pretty brutal.
I wasn’t bluffing when I threatened Delilah regarding attacking me or breaking her word. I had no problem with calling a lightning strike down on her or letting an earthquake loose and let the cards fall where they may.
The problem with the whole thing was, Druids weren’t supposed to take sides. They’re, by nature, Neutral. It made me wonder what would happen to my powers if I fell out of that middle-ground and Zach, by proxy. Since I was the one that gave him his powers, would he revert back to his regular human-self or would he eventually shift into that Elf he was supposed to be on the island.
There were too many unanswered questions for which I had no answers.
“Hello?”
“Evelyn, it’s Chase. We need to talk.”
TBC...