More Whateley Academy tales can be found on the Whateley website, whateleyacademy.net
With everything I've ever done
I'd give it all to everyone for one more day
Another night I'm walking through
Another door I walk intro
I can't break
It's a winding road
It's a long way home
So don't wait for someone to tell you it's too late
Cuz these are the best days
There's always something tomorrow
So I say let's make the best of tonight
Here comes the rest of our lives
Best Days - Graham Colton
Friday, June 15, 2007 - Late Afternoon
Sioux Falls, SD
"I know it's only four, and you could drive for another four or five hours," I protested strongly, "but after ...," I hesitated, wincing at the memories of our little misadventure. Or big misadventure, if Debra's view of the situation was to be believed. We'd taken Lanie's car from Whateley through the standing portal to the Salt Flats in Utah, and had driven - with some distractions - to Sioux Falls. As usual, I was wearing one of my tight buckskin dresses, befitting my Lakota heritage and appearance, with my long black hair in two braids suitably adorned with Lakota-themed accessories. I liked how I looked in that attire - exotic and beautiful. I think my friends were right - I really was used to my changes.
'Baby Girl', Elaine Nalley's customized, restored Mustang, sat inside a large, empty warehouse, with Elaine - Lanie - leaning against the front fender in a carefree posture, wearing shorts and a buttoned shirt that was mostly open and tied beneath her large bosom, exposing a light blue tank-top underneath it. It was a 'car porn' poster-girl pose, and it could have graced any month of a mechanic's calendar showcasing hot cars and hot girls.
Tansy Walcutt, just as casually dressed but somehow looking more like a runway model than either Lanie or I even in such attire, stood a bit aloof, while I stood beside my girlfriend Debra Matson, our arms around each other's waists affectionately and possessively. The warehouse was the property of the Sioux Falls League group of superheroes, one of the entrances to their secret underground headquarters and occasionally a storage space for equipment.
"We've got a long drive to Atlanta," Lanie countered, "and Ah'd rather get on the road. Besides, Tansy has to fly from Atlanta back to Whateley for summer classes," she added.
"Which don't start for a week, so you have plenty of time," Debra - a member of the Sioux Falls League with the code-name Cornflower - rebutted. She was a stunning beauty, with long, silky, blonde tresses that were the epitome of sexy, wavy hair, and gorgeous cornflower-blue eyes set in a face that was somehow both gorgeous and approachably-friendly at the same time. "Kayda's mom is coming down later this evening to spend a little time with us before Kayda jets off to Louisiana to meet up with Addy and Headrush, so we can have a pleasant 'ladies night' tonight." She smiled warmly at the two girls. "Besides, you haven't met Vanity Girl, Wish List, or Card Trick yet."
Tansy stiffened a bit; she most likely had met Wish List and Card Trick the year before when all were at Whateley, and no doubt she was nervous about how they were going to react to her.
"Come on, stay," I pleaded with my best friend, cuwe ki, my older sister - which was at least how we felt about our relationship. "I know you're a bit tired, and a nice home-cooked meal ..."
"We're going out tonight," Debra interrupted me. "Your mom wants Japanese again tonight." She smiled. "Your mom really is developing a taste for sukiyaki and sushi."
"Hmmph!" I snorted. "Figures she'd do that - after I left for boarding school!" My feigned fit elicited giggles from Lanie and a wry smile from Tansy.
"No, really," Lanie protested, "we should get on the road."
"Lanie," Debra dropped her arm from my waist and slipped out of my embrace, "you've been driving for hours ...."
"Kayda and Tansy took turns," Lanie protested.
"Let's take a walk so you can stretch." She took Lanie's arm and the two strolled across the warehouse, away from Tansy and me. I could see that Debra was talking to Lanie, but they were too far away, and the noise of the fans in the warehouse made it impossible to hear their private conversation.
"I wonder what that's about," Tansy commented with a slight smirk.
I shrugged. "I don't know." A few weeks ago, I would have been put off by what seemed to be a haughty attitude from Tansy; now, though, after our little interesting road trip, I thought I had Tansy figured out. Despite outward airs which could be interpreted as a sense of superiority and entitlement, Tansy was lonely inside. From stories I'd heard in Poe, something had changed in her; I didn't know what, but she was different, at least when I took the time to get to know her.
Debra and Lanie stopped, and Lanie kept glancing over at me, which made me a little uneasy. Or she was glancing at Tansy; that thought made me even more uneasy for some reason. Eventually, Lanie nodded, and the two walked back toward us.
"Well?" Tansy asked with a knowing smile.
"Debra," Lanie said with a resigned tone, "made a strong argument for staying a day to rest."
I glanced suspiciously at Debra, but she had a sweet, innocent smile. "After your injuries ..." she started to explain.
"Which have healed, since Ah'm a regenerator," Lanie protested.
"It wouldn't hurt to have Dr. Winkler have a look, just to make sure." Debra glanced at Tansy. "And yours, too," she added warmly. Still holding Lanie's arm, Debra put her arm around my waist again. "Your car will be safe here," she assured Lanie. "Let me show you our modest little headquarters."
I couldn't help snorting derisively at her description. The headquarters was anything but modest, having been fashioned from very well-equipped and appointed, top-secret military emergency command bunker - where officers with stars would have resided and operated. Of course it hadn't spared creature comforts then, and the League hadn't found a need to change any of that.
Friday, June 15, 2007 - Late Afternoon
Sioux Falls League HQ, Sioux Falls SD
"Kayda!" Mom called, rushing through the door into the bunker to me, arms already outstretched. We had only just gotten into the bunker 'foyer' if you could call it that; Mom must have been right behind us. "You look great!" she said with a smile, but that quickly faded into a concerned motherly frown. "Considering!" she added, glancing unhappily at Lanie as if she was to blame for our little misadventure. Danny stood behind and to one side of her in the doorway, trying, I think, to be unobtrusive in his gawking, and from the look on his face, I gathered that he was already somewhat embarrassed. Since Tansy and Lanie were easily 9s by the Whateley Scale, he had to be dealing with seething teen hormones by the gallon, and their presence - in the shorts and shirts they were wearing - probably intimidated him. That, and he was probably highly aroused and didn't want them to know. Mom had intended to be in Sioux Falls to greet us when we arrived, but Aunt Ida had to deal with a family emergency, so she couldn't get to our farm until late afternoon, which delayed Mom's departure.
"Ah swear, Mrs. Franks," Lanie said defensively, anticipating Mom's reaction, "Ah tried to keep us out of that little fracas!"
An impish smile flitted across Mom face before she worked it into an indignant frown. "So then it was your fault!" she feigned an accusation to Tansy.
The look on Tansy's face was precious. Goggling at mom, horrified that she was being so accused, it took her a couple of seconds to recover. "I'm sorry there was trouble, Mrs. Franks, but I ..." she half-stammered, before realizing from Lanie's and my huge grins that she was being played.
"I really appreciate that you and Lanie were there to help keep Kayda out of trouble," Mom admitted, walking over to give Tansy a hug. "Or should I say, out of worse trouble. She attracts more than her share, sometimes."
"You can say that again!" A strong, masculine voice echoed from behind us. I immediately recognized Tractor's voice, and I dashed to give him a welcoming hug, which he seemed a little surprised to receive and hesitant to reciprocate. Vanity Girl, right beside him, was eager to welcome me with a hug though.
Behind the couple were Wish List and Farm Boy. "Where's Card Trick? And Twinkletoes?" I asked out of curiosity. "I wanted Lanie to meet all the gang!"
"Twinkletoes is in Salt Lake City visiting his brother and nieces, but Card Trick is around here somewhere," Tractor replied easily.
"Everyone," I cut in, "these are my friends from school, Elaine Nalley - who goes by Lanie, and Tansy Walcutt."
"Lanie?" Wish List squealed as she darted to give the redhead a big hug. "Goodness girl, I hardly recognize you!"
Lanie smiled as she returned the hug. "Ah had a little growth spurt last summer."
Wish List's expression hardened a bit when she looked at my other traveling companion. "Tansy," she said stiffly, holding out her hand toward the blonde bombshell in a forced gesture of unwilling politeness. I could tell she didn't like or trust Tansy, and I knew there was a story behind that somehow.
Despite Wish List's cool reception, Tansy took the high road. "Gina," she replied to Wish List, her voice warm and friendly. "You're looking well."
I decided to cut off any possible hostilities based on whatever past the two had. Stepping between the two, I took both their hands. "I'll tell you about things later," I whispered to Wish List. She seemed mollified by my confidence in Tansy, at least enough to not make a scene.
"They're the ones who were with Kayda in Lanie's crash combat final," Debra explained; mom paled at her choice of phrasing.
"Eagle Claw," Farm Boy said reflectively as he stepped to shake hands with Lanie. She seemed a bit taken in by him, her cheeks flushing red as her breath visibly quickened a tiny bit, even though I'd warned the girls about his glamour. "You three did a hell of a job on that. Winning a no-win scenario?"
"And you," Vanity Girl looked squarely at me, "three combat finals? What do you think you are, an upperclassman?" She shook her head reprovingly. "And after you were injured in the first one?"
I winced; no doubt Mom was going to have even more words for me. "I couldn't let Lanie face a final on her own!" I protested.
"Injured?" Mom asked me with a worried frown. I didn't reply, but just grimaced at the tone of disapproval in her voice.
"I've got copies of them from a friend in the sim department," Tractor said to Debra with a wicked grin. "Kayda was injured in her first final, and despite that, participated in," he glanced warily at Lanie, "her final, although I'd like to know the story behind that."
"And despite the injury," Farm Boy said with more than a hint of respect in his voice, "the three of them made a pretty good team." He got a wry smile. "I'd like to know exactly what you were screaming while you ... nutted ... the ... um ... bad guy." Despite his smile, he and Tractor both involuntarily flinched at the memory of what they'd seen in that final.
I glanced at Lanie, who was glancing uneasily at me, with Debra looking back and forth between the two of us, both Lanie and I blushing rather significantly. Fortunately, politely, no-one said anything.
"We've got the finals recorded," Vanity Girl added, perhaps sensing something awkward, to get the conversation back on a safe track, "so we can watch them tonight. I know you'll want our opinions of ...."
I couldn't help grimacing. "Uh, I'd rather not. I heard more than enough from Gunny and Ito!"
"Well, I wanna see them!" Danny piped up, peeking out from behind mom.
"I wondered if you'd come along!" Wish List said when she spied him. She practically dashed to his side, wrapping an arm around him and starting to rub his hair. As his cheeks flushed red with embarrassment, his body shifted slightly; he grew fuzzy fur on his face and exposed skin, his nose changed a little, and triangular ears sprouted on top of his head as his regular ears vanished.
"You ... you're a shifter?" I stammered in disbelief; Wish List, too, was shocked as his body changed.
Danny looked like he was about to cry. "I don't know," he admitted. "It just ... happened!"
"It happened again?" Mom was quite distraught at his change.
"Again?" I goggled at Danny, trying to figure out the implications of what Mom had said.
"Isn't he cute!" Wish List said as soon as she was sure he wasn't changing any more. As she began to rub his shoulders, Danny, to complete his humiliation, started purring involuntarily at her attention, which really made me giggle. At least Valerie - Card Trick - with whom Danny had been and still might be seriously infatuated, wasn't here to make things any worse for the brat.
"It happened before?" I demanded of Danny and Mom.
"A couple of days ago," Mom said with a wincing nod. "Danny had a headache that suddenly went away when ... this happened!" She was almost in tears. "Does this mean ... he's going to stay like this? That he's a shifter or something?"
Tractor chuckled at Danny's embarrassing situation. "They came down here, we tested, and we pretty well ruled out him being a shifter. The form was only temporary."
"But ... what then?" I asked, as puzzled as they sounded.
"We think what's happening now is a partial display of his spirit's form," Vanity Girl explained. "So it might be possible for Danny to display multiple forms."
"Like mine?" Lanie volunteered. "And Wyatt's? But ...." She shrugged.
"Like Lanie's spirit," I said with a firm nod. "I wonder what it means that Wihinape has at least two forms in dream-space." I thought for a moment. "And this just started - how long ago?"
"The first one was ... um ... Tuesday," Mom interjected before Danny could speak.
I looked quizzically at him, and he nodded glumly. "Does this mean I'm going to change more?"
I shook my head, grimacing. "I don't know." I glanced around, seeing his worried, even slightly frightened expression, and the concern on Mom's and Debra's faces. "Can we go talk a little bit?"
"Sure," Debra agreed quickly. "Why don't you show Lanie and Tansy around a bit?" she suggested to Tractor, while she wrapped her arm around my waist and led me, Mom, and Danny to a quiet study.
"Okay," I said as I sat down in a comfortable stuffed chair in the quiet study, "how much have you changed?" I could tell he'd lost some muscle mass because his arms looked a lot less bulky. "Show me."
Glancing uneasily at Debra, Danny pulled off his shirt. He was obviously struggling not to be embarrassed in front of her and me.
I gasped when I saw him; his body was sleek, muscular but in a very .... I started when I realized his body seemed more cat-like - and not the fat tabby-cat lounging by the fireplace kind of cat-like. Graceful, muscular, well-toned like a ballet dancer - he looked like a mountain lion in human form. I couldn't help glancing down at his waist, which he noticed, to his embarrassment and mine. "Okay, so you've changed some. How ... much?" I asked, wincing, knowing that if he was changing in that way, he was going to get highly embarrassed again.
"Um," Danny stammered, fighting to stay calm and in control, "I don't think any. At least not that I can tell."
"Okay," I said, noting a bit of relief on Mom's face.
"Is that about what you look like when you're not ... fuzzy?"
Danny nodded slowly, wiping one eye; no doubt he was terrified of what the changes meant to him, and a leaking tear wasn't unexpected.
"Are you still changing? How fast?"
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm still changing, but it's pretty slow, I think." He looked down, and I knew he was feeling humiliated at having to show us. "Can I, um, put my shirt back on?"
"Sure." I glanced at Mom worriedly.
"You don't look like a weightlifter," Debra spoke confidently, "but you do look very toned and in shape. Kind of like a bishi-boy or something. If you look like that when you're not fuzzy, I mean."
Mom frowned at the term. "Bishi-boy?"
"Bishonen," I explained to Mom and Danny. "It sort of means beautiful boy, and it's used to describe a boy whose physical attractiveness is ... bisexual in nature."
"Some people think bishi-boys look gay," Debra corrected me. "In some areas, bishi-boys are very popular with girls and ladies," she added to try to calm Danny.
Danny scowled. "But not here," he protested.
"Anything else? Besides your eyes, your fuzz form, some general body toning, and purring?" I got back to a more clinical discussion to avoid tormenting Danny more. The poor kid looked like he'd been condemned to death, and it wasn't my nature to overdo torturing him - at least not right at that moment.
"No," Danny answered hesitantly.
"Yes," Mom corrected him. "He's had some recurring headaches."
"Recurring headaches? Not just the one?" That got my attention. "How bad? How frequent?" I asked, sitting a little more upright and attentive.
Danny winced, but Mom spoke before he could. "He said they were pretty mild after he first manifested, and maybe one every eight or ten days," she explained. "Nothing an ibuprofen couldn't handle." She shot a worried glance at Danny that spoke volumes. "But ... we took him down to Mitchell to get checked, and Doc Martin gave him Vicodin for the pain, and the headaches are happening every few days - at least once a week." She read my expression. "What?"
I glanced nervously at Debra. "Um, it's probably nothing," I hedged, "but ... that's one of the signs of hallow-spirit mismatch."
It was Danny's turn to look at Mom, fear on his features. "So ... does that mean ...?" he started to say.
"I don't know what it means," I answered quickly and firmly, determined to squash any speculation on his or Mom's parts. "I think we'll have to dream walk with Wakan Tanka and your spirit Wihinape ..."
"Slut-kitty," Mom practically spat. She hadn't been thrilled the first time she'd met Wihinape, and her impression of Danny's spirit hadn't improved.
"Wakan Tanka told me there's a ritual to ... measure ... Danny's hallow, so we can see how mismatched Wihinape is to your hallow." I saw a mixture of hope and dread on both Danny's and Mom's faces; if there was a mismatch, it was pretty certain that he'd change. If there wasn't, it wasn't proof that he wouldn't change more.
I looked at my kid brother, sitting, looking pitiful and miserable. "Can I talk with Danny alone?"
Mom and Debra nodded, and with a worried glance over her shoulder, Mom followed Debra out, closing the door behind herself.
"You ... didn't exactly answer Mom's question," Danny accused, looking warily at me.
I sighed. "Okay, Danny," I said slowly, "I'm going to be honest with you. Headaches like Mom describes are a symptom of mismatch. Have you had other pains? Tightness in your chest? Abdominal pain? Muscle aches and pains?"
Fearfully, eyes wide-open with fright, Danny nodded a little bit.
Another heavy sigh slipped out. "Then it's highly probable you have mismatch syndrome," I finally admitted. "Those are all symptoms. If that's true, it means you are going to change more. But how much more?" I saw the look of fear in his eyes. "No-one - even at Whateley - can tell."
"Am ... am I going to turn ... into a girl?" The boy was nearly in tears.
"I ... I don't know," I answered honestly. "We'll dream-walk to consult with Wakan Tanka, and see what Wihinape thinks, but ... even they can't predict what will happen." I slid over beside him and wrapped him in a hug, which, even though he was a brat, he desperately needed. "I don't know if you'll change into a girl, or a mountain lion, or if you'll get kitty ears, or a tail, or what. But no matter what, I'll be here for you. Okay?" I tried to smile reassuringly for him.
"Okay." His answer was less than convincing.
"Now, you still have a thing for Valerie?" I decided to distract him a bit from his troubles.
Danny blushed, and as he did so, the fuzz, which had seemed to start to fade, appeared again. It was amazing to watch; eventually, I'd probably get used to seeing him grow cat ears, a nose, and light cat fur all over his body, but for now, it was quite novel. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to realize there was a story there.
"What happened?" I pried.
"Um," he said hesitantly, "there was a girl, who, um, came by the farm last week."
"Okay."
"She ... wanted to see a farm and learn how to milk a cow and stuff," he continued. I could tell from his tone of voice that it was embarrassing and at the same time, the memories of the girl were exciting to him. "Her name is Cassie - and she's a mutant, too, and she's got pretty pink hair and ..." He realized he was rambling and stopped. "I ... kind of helped rescue her from her supervillain dad."
"Oooh," I purred at him. "The knight-in-shining-armor approach, huh?" This made him blush even more - which was a cute shade of pink beneath his tawny fur. "Was she cute?"
"Yeah," he admitted. "He wanted her to be a villain too, but she didn't want that, so she was hiding out with her aunt, and ... she kind of wandered out to the farm."
"Did you kiss her?"
"Um, she kissed me." He looked down so I wouldn't see the look in his eyes.
"And ...?"
The sad, slow headshake wasn't what I expected. "With her dad in jail, it was safe for her to go back home with her mom." He sighed. "I don't even know where her home is. And ... and I'll probably never see her again."
"And Valerie?" I poked again.
"Um," Danny looked away from me toward the wall. "She's ... nice."
"You still like her?"
Danny sighed. "She's ... I don't know. It's embarrassing when she pets me and I purr and she says it's so cute, but ... it's real nice, too. And ... yeah."
I couldn't help chuckling. "Danny, looking the way you do right now in your fuzzy form? You're going to have girls all over Whateley saying how cute you are!"
"I don't want to be cute!" he protested with a wail. "I ... I want to be, you know, a macho kind of guy, not a cute kitty-boy!"
I hated to have to admit it to the little pest, but I had to give him some encouragement. "Danny, you aren't a buff muscular macho he-man type anymore," I began, "but you are very well built and toned, and I think my friends would all say you're attractive. Just not in a he-man way."
"I don't want gay boys thinking I'm attractive or pretty or ..."
"I'm talking about the girls," I quickly countered. "Even some of the Poe girls would find you sexy."
He looked up at me, his eyes brimming with hope - maybe for the first time since he'd started to change. "Do you really think so?"
Friday, June 15, 2007 - After Dinner
Sioux Falls League HQ, Sioux Falls SD
We were all sprawled around the 'family room', with me and Deb sharing a large, overstuffed chair, while the heroes and Mom and Danny sat on the two sofas. That left two other large chairs, one occupied by Tractor and Vanity Girl. With a shrug toward Tansy, Lanie eased herself into the chair, scooting hard to one side to make room for Tansy, who joined her. I couldn't help feeling a pang of anguish at that seating arrangement.
By ill fortune, Danny ended up in the corner section of the sectional sofas, caught between Card Trick and Wish List, and it took precisely ten seconds for the two comely heroines to pet him, flirt with him, and get him embarrassed enough to fuzz, after which they cuddled close and began to pet him until he was purring contentedly.
"What shall we watch?" Farm Boy asked, trying to sound wise and philosophical, but from his grin, I knew he already had a plan.
"I want to see Kayda's combat finals," Mom said with determination. "If she's going to have to fight for grades, I want to know what that's all about!" Based on the reaction, nearly everyone else agreed, no matter how much Lanie and I protested.
"Let's start with Kayda's first final," Valerie suggested. "And let one of the girls narrate what we're seeing, so we get the inside scoop."
Lanie, Tansy, and I glanced among ourselves, with me and Lanie definitely shaking our heads 'no'. Tansy shook her head with a smile. "You two might not like my style of narration."
As Farm Boy queued up the recording, Tansy explained the setup - a kidnapping, unknown number of mooks, unknown powers in the villain, and there were two of us competing to be the one who made the rescue. The video started, and it didn't show a lot, mostly because I was invisible. I thought I'd have to jump in to explain where I was going, but Tansy did a good job of tracking my invisible actions. Then I saved Chou from the thugs in front of the store, led her around the corner, and we spoke. "Is this where you decided to partner?" Wish List asked.
"Yeah," I admitted. "We'd both scouted enough to know we couldn't win alone. So ...."
"Good strategy to adapt to the circumstances," Farm Boy said approvingly.
Tansy added some color commentary to our attacks - first on the stooges in the alley, and then Chou's bow attacks on the front guards and my tomahawk attack on the regenerating goon. She included the critique that I should have done the work with the bow, because Chou's weapon would have been better suited for close quarters and I was better with the bow. She sounded like she'd listened in on our debrief, because she sounded almost exactly like Gunny and Ito. My cheeks burned at her analysis; though it lacked the punch Ito and Bardue had put into their critique, it still reminded me of a major tactical failure. Tansy continued her narration, occasionally pausing the vid to highlight a particular item. Eventually we got through the escape, right up to the point the ANT launched at me as the horn sounded, grinding me into the dirt. "And that's where Kayda was injured," she concluded.
Honestly, Ito and Bardue were pussycats compared to my so-called friends; they ripped my performance into shreds, finding each and every miniscule flaw and error. But they also found a lot of things that I'd done right, and they made sure to tell me; that left me feeling content that I hadn't screwed up everything in the final. As Mrs. Carson had told me, while I had to consider what I'd done wrong, I couldn't lose sight of praise for what I'd done right.
Next up on the hit parade was Lanie's final - the crash that Tansy and I volunteered to help Lanie with. Once more, the microscopic dissection of tactics and performance was conducted, leaving me glancing uneasily at Lanie. From the critique, it sounded like we hadn't even survived! And naturally, when asked, Tansy explained - with full color commentary - what had happened when the guy threatened to rape her and I appeared to stop him. I noticed that the guys had their hands across their crotches at that point of the film. Mom was very concerned - to the point of demanding that I should never, ever participate in these barbaric combat finals again!
It took the whole team - minus me - to convince mom of the utility of the finals. She wasn't about to listen to me since she was mother and I was her child.
Deb had the most compelling argument. "They show the students and the instructors how well prepared the students are to deal with surprises, and force feed them a little humble pie at the same time, disabusing them of the notion that just because they're mutants and understand their powers, that they're somehow gods or invulnerable. So the fights are tough, the scenario always changes, and you never know who you'll be teamed with or have to fight."
"But ..."
"June," Debra said soothingly, "without the martial arts training, Kayda would have had ... serious problems this last term." She was a master of understatement. "Combat finals are a way for the staff to see what they're learning." She put her hand on Mom's. "You don't want our girl out in the world not knowing how to defend herself, do you?"
"No," Mom said, looking like she was being outmaneuvered, which she was. "But ...."
"Ah've done this a few times, Mrs. Franks," Lanie piped up. "There are safeties on the simulators, but the sims are realistic so they're a challenge."
The group made the case for combat finals for several minutes, with every Whateley alum pointing out the benefits, but based on the dubious look on her face, I don't think we convinced Mom. Danny, however, got more and more excited to learn to fight so he could participate in the arena, too.
Mom sat through the third final, the one where all three of us fought in Venus Inc.'s crash. The analysis of that situation was even more brutal than Ito and Bardue had delivered to us, starting with our team compositions. From that point, in their estimation, our performance had gone downhill. At the end, though, they once again noted the positive things we'd done, and the potential victims we'd saved. With the memories of that fiasco still relatively fresh, their compliments rang sort of hollow.
Then, just for fun, we watched Generator's final, which had everyone laughing despite most of them having already seen it, and Headrush's Great Pie Fight final. Then the heroes were highly amused to see a Cape go in with a Seed to rob a Goodkind National Bank to pay the ransom, and then, while robbing the bank, G-Force hit on the ANT dressed like a teller. Even Mom was laughing at that one.
Tractor had recorded all of the combat finals, but it was late, and after a day of driving, Lanie and Tansy and I were more than a bit tired. Debra seemed to be a little tired, too. We could watch more of them later if we wanted.
As we staggered down the hall into the bedroom area, Lanie slipped an arm around my waist and pulled me to her. "You were right," she said, leaning her head against mine. "Ah'm a lot more tired than Ah realized, and this is a perfect place to stop and rest."
I couldn't help smiling. "They're good people. They're my friends."
"If we weren't on a schedule so Tansy can get back to Whateley for summer school," Lanie added wistfully, "Ah'd enjoy relaxin' here for a few days." She spied Mom going into the bathroom. "Well, here and at your folk's place," she added. "Ah haven't seen your farm or home yet."
"We'll do that next break," I replied with a grin that turned into a yawn. "And I've got to spend time at your home, too. Night, cuwe ki."
"Night, mitaka ki," Lanie replied, giving me a hug and a kiss on my forehead.
Friday, June 15, 2007 - Late Evening
Sioux Falls League HQ, Sioux Falls SD
"I don't get it," I said to Debra as we snuggled in her bedroom. "I wasn't complaining, mind you," I added quickly in my best 'naughty voice'. Unlike the last time I'd visited the League, no-one cared that Debra and I were sharing a room. "Why ...?"
"No need for any pretense anymore," Debra said with a shrug as she gently stroked my head. "You're sixteen, it's legal, and everyone knows."
A knock sounded on the door, and I bolted upright, but Deb pulled my negligee-clad body tightly against her. I had the distinct feeling she expected whoever was knocking. "Come in," she answered the knock.
The door opened hesitantly, and a redhead poked hesitantly into the faint pool of light from the lamp on my nightstand. "Ah hope Ah'm not interruptin'," Lanie said meekly.
"Not at all," Deb answered with a smile. She gently urged me to sit forward, and she wriggled from behind me. "I was about to go to bed."
Lanie giggled. "It looked to me like you already had!"
Ever the mature one, I replied in a responsible, adult-like manner and stuck my tongue out at her, while my sweetie hurled a small pillow at Lanie. "You ... rascal!" Deb chuckled at her.
After dodging the pillow projectile, Lanie smiled, but I could see something was wrong; her smile seemed a little forced. "Um, Kayda?" she asked hesitantly. "Can we talk?"
Instantly, Debra's little side-conversation earlier that afternoon loomed large in my mind; I wondered what the two of them had discussed, and I couldn't help wondering if that had anything to do with her desire to talk. I know I had an uncertain look on my face when I glanced at Debra, but she just kissed me and smiled reassuringly. "Go on," she said softly. "I'll come back in a bit to ... tuck you in." She scooted to the edge of the bed, leaned back and gave me another, slightly longer kiss, and then padded softly and confidently from the room.
I pushed myself back so I was sitting upright on the bed, my back against the headboard, and then looked at Lanie. I saw the glint in her eye, and I couldn't help glancing down to see how exposed I was in my sexy nightie. Clutching a pillow to the front of my chest, I looked back at Lanie. "What do you want to talk about?"
"Besides you spoilin' the view?" Lanie said with a wry grin. "Um, Ah noticed that you were a little uneasy toward the end of our trip, and Ah couldn't help wonderin' why."
I winced; I knew what was bothering me, but it was embarrassing, and seemed rather self-centered. "Um, I ... I guess I ... got kind of tired, and after that ... adventure ..."
Lanie strode confidently to my bed and sat on the edge of it, taking my hands. "Bullshit," she called me on my bluff. "Somethin's botherin' you, and Ah'm not leavin' until we talk about it. And Ah bet Ah know what it is. So does Deb."
I let my chin drop so I was looking at the bed, not her. "It's ... I ... I don't know."
Lanie was strong; I'd forgotten how strong she was until she lifted my chin so I was looking eye-to-eye with her. "Mitaka ki, I know you better than that. What's wrong?"
"I ... I'm scared," I finally admitted, lifting my chin off her hand and looking away as tears started to flow. "Okay?"
"Of what?"
"Of ... of Tansy," I admitted, sobbing as my emotional dam burst. "That ... that she'll ..." I couldn't finish because I started openly crying.
Lanie gasped, and then I was gathered up in her arms. "Oh, Kayda," she said softly, "You don't have to worry. You'll always be mitaka ki, my little sister!"
"But ... but ... Tansy ... she's spending a lot of time with you, and she's ... I mean, while we were driving, she was talking like ...."
"Tansy is confused, and she's trying to find out who she is," Lanie explained. "She wants to find real love, not someone who's using her while she's using them." She wiped at my tears. "Ah don't think she ever had a real friend, at least not until you and Ah came along, so it's natural she's a little ... clingy."
"A little clingy?" I asked, mouth agape. "She's ... she was practically begging you to make love to her! She's like a puppy dog who doesn't want to leave your side." I felt tears flowing anew, and I looked down. "And ... and even though we're not ...." I shook my head, "we had something special, and it feels like ... like that doesn't matter and she's taking you away from me."
Lanie leaned forward, pulling me into a tight hug so I could cry on her shoulder. "Kayda, Ah'll always be here for you! You'll always be mah special sister!" After a moment, she kissed the side of my head. "You and Ah shared something that Ah'll never share with Tansy! We're soul-sisters!" she added. "You and Ah will be neighbors in Poe and we'll be in a lot of classes together, remember?"
"I'm ... I never had a best friend," I sobbed, unable to control my waterworks as I gave vent to my fears. "Not until you. And ... and I don't want to lose that!"
Through the contact of our cheeks, I could feel Lanie smiling. "You're mah BFF, too," she said soothingly. "And Ah'm not going to let anything - not even Tansy - come between us." She clutched me tightly. "Ah ... Ah love you, Kayda," she whispered. "As mah best friend, as mah soul-sister, as mah one-time lover. And ...." She hesitated.
"And what?" I asked, leaning back so I could look her in the eyes.
"And if we didn't have Deb and Wyatt," she said softly, "Ah'd want to claim you for mah own." She hugged me tightly again.
I clutched her tightly, letting my hug speak for me, because I was afraid to say what I felt, which was exactly what Lanie said.
After hugging for a few moments, Lanie wiggled around the bed until I was on my side and she was spooning with me, cuddled tightly against me to reassure me through our non-sexual but intimate contact. Eventually, as I slowly drifted to sleep, I realized that at some point Deb had slipped into bed with the two of us, sandwiching me between the two women I loved.
Saturday, June 16, 2007 - Early Morning>
Sioux Falls League HQ, Sioux Falls SD
The smell of breakfast was a better alarm clock than anything; sausage and bacon aromas wafted through the entire complex, overcoming even the scent of coffee brewing. Like a magnet, the wonderful scents drew everyone toward the dining area, some more zombie-like than others. Debra and I giggled when I saw Wish List stumbling forward, eyes half-closed; all she needed to do was raise her arms and mumble, "Brains!" and the physical image would match my mental one.
Vanity Girl had snuck up behind me, and she snickered when she heard me giggle and saw where I was staring. "Yeah, it's like Dawn of the Dead around here until some people," she glanced over her shoulder at Tractor, who also seemed a bit out of it, "get enough caffeine in their systems."
"Oh, hush, woman!" Tractor muttered at Vanity Girl. "Just 'cause you have energy in the morning!"
"And some evenings, too, in case you forgot," she purred at him in a very sultry voice, which made him blush a bit, and made me blush more, especially when VG glanced at me and chuckled.
Valerie came bouncing into the dining area, chipper and energetic and smiling, and when she saw Danny, her smile broadened. "Good morning, Danny," she beamed, practically skipping to his side and playfully rubbing his hair. "How's our kitty this morning?"
"Okay," he said, trying not to get embarrassed and 'fuzz out'. Given the others gathering and the attention focused on him, it was a losing battle, and the ears and fur appeared, which only heightened his embarrassment.
"Oops!" Val said with a grin, and then she gave him a quick hug as she petted him, which caused him to purr, much to his chagrin.
"Where's Mom?" I asked Danny and the others. I didn't want her to miss time with Lanie before she and Tansy headed to Georgia, after which Tansy would fly back to Whateley for the summer term.
Farm Boy stuck his head out of the kitchen area. "She's in here - cooking!" A broad grin spread over his face. "And based on how good her cooking is, we might just keep her here!"
"I don't think Dad would like that," I shot back.
"Might not be a bad idea," Danny observed softly, having escaped Val's embarrassing embrace. When my eyebrows arched, he sighed. "Things in town are ... tense. There's talk of a formal Humanity First! chapter forming."
My jaw dropped. "What?"
"Yeah," Danny continued. "A couple of guys - old man Harkins among them - were even hassling Dad." A grin spread across his face. "Dad got him, though. He needed a part for a PTO in his tractor, and Dad wouldn't sell him one."
I scowled. "He'll just drive to Huron or Mitchell ..."
Danny smirked. "Nope. Dad's got such a good reputation that when he called the other dealers, they agreed that if Harkins called, they wouldn't be able to find the part he needed, either."
I couldn't help laughing - that was my dad. The others found it kind of funny as well.
Mom interrupted before Danny could say more, carrying a large tray of food. "Deb, you'll have to eat last so everyone else gets some." My girlfriend start to pout, to which Mom just laughed. "Don't worry - there's a huge bowl of scrambled eggs and hash browns in the kitchen. But first ..." She took a cover off the tray, exposing crepes, eggs Benedict, toast, fresh fruit, hash browns, and other breakfast goodies. My eyes settled on the breakfast burritos on one end of the large tray as my mouth began to water; Mom made the best breakfast burritos on the planet!
"You didn't have to cook for us," Vanity Girl protested as Mom put some on her plate.
"But we're not complaining," Tractor grinned.
Wish List nodded enthusiastically. "And we won't be so ungracious as to turn down your culinary treats."
Lanie looked at her plate and then at me. "Do you always eat like this?"
I winked at Mom and then turned back to Lanie. "Nah. Most of the time Mom cooks good food instead of peasant scraps like this." Tansy was in the middle of a sip of coffee, and consequently, she sprayed the table when she chortled at my comment, and she shot me a look that said, 'you got me.'
"This isn't her good cooking?" Lanie gawked at me. She turned to Tansy. "New plan. Ah'm stayin' with mah soul sister for a while. Ah assume there's air service from here that'll get you back to Whateley?"
"You better watch it," I giggled. "Mom is apt to take you up on that! And then your mom will be upset with me! Besides," I imitated Lanie's gestures and mannerisms and placed my hand over my heart like a southern belle, "Ah'm flyin' down to Louisiana to spend time with mah other friends!"
Tansy was watching us with a strange expression that was something between a bemused smile and a calculating sneer, and that made me nervous. Was she enjoying our friendly banter, or was she plotting how to cut me out of the picture? Was I being too paranoid? She had been very helpful and friendly after our combat final, and during the trip, she seemed almost ... meek? If her comments and stories from that trip were to be believed, she'd changed a lot; Lanie certainly believed so. But she also needed friends, which included a best friend. And she'd more than hinted that after dozens of disappointing trysts with men, she thought she was ready to try things on my side of the street. Of course, that meant that she was interested in Lanie ....
I stopped that train of thought. Lanie and I had talked and cuddled like the soul sisters we were. It was possible for Lanie to have other friends without displacing me as her BFF. I hoped.
"Kayda?"
I started, realizing that Deb was talking to me, or more precisely, trying to get my attention. "Um, sorry," I muttered. "I was ... thinking." I saw Lanie's expression. "About our trip here," I added quickly but I suspected rather unconvincingly.
"Did you even hear Lanie's question?" Deb chided me lightly.
"Um," I stammered, wincing, "I was ...." I could feel my cheeks burning at being so distracted. "No, I didn't."
Lanie rolled her eyes. "Typical sister. Your cuwe has something important to say, and you don't pay any attention!" When my blush deepened, she laughed. "Ah asked, do you think it would work if Ah drove up here at the end of the summer, and then we drove back to the portal at the Salt Flats to get to Whateley?"
The idea had more than a little appeal to me. "Um, that sounds like fun," I replied, feeling more and more enthusiastic about spending time with cuwe ki. Then another couple of thoughts intruded, spoiling the good mood. "But Danny's going to Whateley this fall, and he'd have to ride along."
"He can ride in the back seat," Lanie said easily.
"And ... to be honest, my last drive to Whateley wasn't exactly fun," I said hesitantly.
"I'd worry about you driving here from Georgia all by yourself," Tansy interjected. "But ... I could fly down and we could make another road trip out of it!"
"As adventurous as this last one was?" Mom asked, casting a dubious eye at Tansy. "I'm not sure that's a good idea."
"I agree with you, June," Deb added with a firm nod, staring at me with 'the look' in her eyes. "I don't want you getting hurt."
"It can't be any worse than the Mishibijiw," I countered firmly. If Lanie was going to invite me on a road trip, I was going to go on a road trip with her, if for no other reason than to keep my place as her BFF. "Or Snakey. Or Officer Matthews. Or ...."
"We get the point," Debra interrupted me firmly.
"Or mah combat final," Lanie added with a grin, which earned her a reproving look from Mom and Deb. The others around the table were smiling or chuckling at the conversation.
"Well, we've got a while to think about it," I replied to Lanie, staring Debra eye-to-eye and practically daring her to try to stop me. Of course, if she did ask me to not take a road trip, I'd agree, and she knew it.
"Are you keeping up with your history studies?" Tractor mercifully changed the subject before the idea could get an outright veto from Mom or Debra. Of course, that led to a lot of observations and comments about my studies, which in turn led to a conversation about Whateley subjects in general. Through it all, Ping Pong, Wish List, and Card Trick were still very cool toward Tansy.
After breakfast, Tansy and Lanie packed their things; most of the goodbyes were in the main room of the headquarters. Deb and I decided to escort them to the warehouse and Lanie's car. As soon as we got in the little transport car, I turned to Tansy. "I'm sorry they weren't very nice," I apologized.
Tansy shook her head sadly. "That's alright," she said, a wistful tone in her voice. "I earned every bit of scorn and mistrust and skepticism that they - and a lot of others - have toward me." She pasted on a sad smile. "With some people, I'll never overcome that, no matter how hard I try." She shrugged, trying to appear indifferent, but it was plain to see that she was troubled by the fact that some people would never allow her to recover. "It's my punishment for being such a manipulative bitch."
"Well, not everyone is like that," I said, gently touching her arm. When I glanced at Debra, I could see that my girlfriend had a wary look. "Right?" I asked Debra.
Deb glanced away quickly, and then after composing herself, turned back. "I ... I have to confess that I'm one of the doubters," she said softly. "Or more precisely, I was." She shook her head with a wry half-chuckle. "When I heard you were going with Kayda on this road trip, I was ... rather upset."
"But...?" Tansy left the question hanging awkwardly.
"I talked to Lanie," Debra answered, "when Kayda told me about the trip." She glanced at the redhead. "Lanie convinced me that your change of heart is the real deal, not some masquerade you've put on for some ... nefarious ... purpose."
The little transport vehicle stopped, and we disembarked, Lanie and Tansy carrying their overnight bags. "Um," Tansy started hesitantly, but stopped, her expression betraying that she was thinking of a subject that was probably awkward.
Debra read her expression immediately. "Yes," she answered confidently, putting her arm around my waist, "Kayda is my girlfriend."
"But ...." Tansy started, glancing between the two of us and Lanie. "At ... on campus, in the hut ...." She was trying to make sense of things. "Last year - you and Songbird," she stammered to Lanie. "I ... I could feel ...," she said to me, confused. Finally, she simply blurted out the question puzzling her. "Are you three ....?"
Both Debra or Lanie laughed aloud. "They wish!" Lanie managed to get a suggestive eyebrow-lift in toward us, which made Debra laugh even more.
"Nothing salacious like that," Debra explained. "You know that Lanie and I are friends from Venus Inc. And she's got Wyatt." She grinned. "But if those two ever break up, I don't think Kayda would mind making a little love-nest with the two of us!"
"Like Ah'd share if Ah had Kayda in bed with me!" Lanie retorted with a laugh. The combination had me beet red, my cheeks burning with embarrassment; I didn't know how they could be so casual and carefree joking about that.
To avoid more commentary from the peanut gallery, I led the group up into the garage, where Lanie and Tansy threw their bags into the trunk of Lanie's car.
"Be careful, cuwe ki!" I admonished Lanie as I gave her a hug and kiss.
"You, too!" Lanie echoed. "Don't get into trouble in Louisiana or France!" Her eyes were watering a little bit, just like my own.
Debra and I switched places, and I gave Tansy a hug. "Good luck," I told her.
Tansy leaned back a bit and looked me eye-to-eye. "Don't worry," she whispered, "I'm not going to take your best friend away from you." My jaw dropped; how had she known that such was my fear? "Lanie has a heart big enough for more than one friend, and I know she'd hate me if I tried to push you away." She laughed softly and melodiously. "The old Tansy might have done that, just for spite, but not the new Tansy."
The two got into Lanie's car, and with a roar and screech of tires as they pulled out of the garage, Lanie set out on the remainder of her journey home, leaving me standing with Debra watching them drive off, one arm around each other's waist. After the previous week with the two, it was a little melancholic to watch them go.
Once the huge warehouse door was closed, Debra and I climbed back down to the tunnel, to the waiting vehicle. "You love her, don't you?" she said with certainty as she settled in the seat close to me. "More than just as a friend, I mean."
I started to deny it, but I couldn't. Debra was right. "Um, yeah," I muttered softly. "I ... guess so." I looked up quickly into her eyes. "But not as much as I love you!"
"If I wasn't around ...?" she continued.
I winced at her line of questioning. "I ... I'd ... probably want to be with her," I admitted in barely a whisper. "But ..."
Debra put her finger across my lips to silence me. "I figured as much."
"Are ... are you mad at me?" I couldn't keep my voice from trembling with fear of her reaction.
"No," she smiled at me. "I'd have been surprised at anything less. She is very loveable."
"And cute," I added.
"Yeah." Debra agreed. "And I wasn't kidding when I said I'd enjoy quality time with both of you. Lanie is just that sexy and friendly and fun."
Saturday, June 16, 2007 - Mid Morning
Dream Space of the Ptesanwi
It was a nice, warm, sunny afternoon, with only a few cottony puffs of clouds scooting across the azure sky. Mom, Debra, Wakan Tanka, Danny, and I sat around the fire circle, over which cooked some venison, while we all sipped the herbal tea. Since my flight to Louisiana was early the next day and we didn't have anything to do for the rest of the morning, I'd suggested that we meet in the dream world to get answers about Danny - if Wakan Tanka had any answers.
"Where is she?" Mom asked with a deep scowl. "You said she'd be here."
I shrugged and looked at Danny. "She told me she'd come!" he retorted. 'She' of course was Wihinape.
"I'll go look for her," I said with a sigh. Being a medicine girl and dream-walking guide was turning out to be more a game of hide-and-seek than anything else, and it was getting tiresome.
No sooner had I risen to my feet than Wihinape, in cougar form, slunk silently between two tents toward Danny. Mom flinched and let out a yelp of surprise and fear before she controlled herself. No doubt, she was not used to dealing with an animal spirit. I smiled to myself; in all our dream walking, Debra had met a lot of animal spirits, and she managed to not be startled. I sat back beside her and squeezed her hand appreciatively.
"Where were you?" Danny demanded. He might have been a little brat, but I was proud of how he was trying to be assertive with the spirit that now dwelt within him. "You said you'd ..."
Wihinape turned, and as her body flowed from cougar to woman, a chunk of raw meat fell from her mouth. "You are eating. Should I do no less?" she asked. Around her mouth was blood from her meal, and Deb turned away, holding her hand over her mouth. Seeing a person gnawing on raw meat wasn't something she was used to. From working on the farm, though, Mom and Danny and I just shrugged off the sight. Butchering livestock was a lot messier, and we were accustomed to that chore.
"Would you at least put some clothes on, slut-kitty?" Mom demanded, glaring at the nude woman who was confidently and sexily strutting to Danny's side.
Wihinape looked at Mom, her expression a mixture of amusement and annoyance. "Why should I? Do I wear human garments when I'm in my other form? When I hunt?" A pout crept onto her features. "And my name is not slut-kitty!"
"You must be patient with the humans," Wakan Tanka said to try to soothe tensions. "Humans usually wear clothing, and nakedness is usually taboo."
"That's stupid," Wihinape grumbled. Nevertheless, her image shimmered and she appeared in a dress that looked remarkably like mine, or rather, it would have if my neckline had been significantly lower and I'd been wearing a push-up bra. "Is that better?" she asked sarcastically.
"Yes," Mom snapped at her. "At least my son's eyes aren't about to pop from their sockets!"
"We are concerned," I got right to the point, "about you fitting in Danny's hallow. He's been having headaches and muscle aches, which is a symptom they teach at my school about spirits not fitting the host's hallow."
Wihinape frowned. "Your hallow is too tight," she said, leaning against Danny. "But we'll make it work," she smiled, "won't we, sweetie?" She leaned her head on his shoulder, which, given that she'd just taken a bite of raw meat, seemed a little off-putting to Danny.
"Are you pushing out against his hallow?" I asked bluntly.
"Not on purpose," Wihinape replied, to which Danny winced. He knew as well as I that if she was pushing against the hallow, she'd cause deformation of his body. "But it does get very uncomfortable at times." She looked up into Danny's eyes and smiled. "When he's a kitty, it's more comfortable."
I glanced at Mom, worry etched on my features. It sounded like she was changing him, despite her promise not to.
Wihinape read my expression. "I'm trying to not change him," she said defensively.
Wakan Tanka nodded. "They may not believe you, Wihinape, but I do."
"What about ... that ritual?" Mom blurted out, grasping at straws to find a way to preserve her son from bodily changes.
Wakan Tanka and I both winced simultaneously. "Wihinape," I explained to her, "there is a shaman ritual to expand a person's hallow ..."
"That'd make it more comfortable," she said. "Do it."
"It's not that simple," I grimaced.
"That figures," she grumbled.
"When the ritual is performed on a person already with a spirit," I hesitated, knowing she wasn't going to like what I had to say, "the spirit is ripped from the hallow ...."
"No!" Wihinape declared, standing suddenly, her hands defiantly on her hips. "Absolutely not!"
"With my instructors' help," I pleaded with the annoyed cat-woman, "you can be placed back in Danny immediately."
"No!" she repeated, more angrily. "Do you know how painful it is to a spirit to be yanked from a hallow?" She glared at me for even proposing such a thing. "I've seen spirits torn asunder when they were yanked out of their hallows! I will not risk such a thing!"
"I could do the ritual without your permission," I countered her objection, upset at the way she was treating Danny as if he were her possession.
"And risk injuring him?" she asked, a triumphant smirk on her lips. "In the spirit world, we can see much that is beyond your reckoning. I've seen spirits torn from their hosts, and witnessed harm to both the spirit and the host. Would you do that to your son?" she demanded of Mom. "Would you risk injuring him?"
Mom had been starting to rise to defend Danny, but she sank back to the ground, her face ashen. "N ... n ... no!" she muttered softly.
I slowly sat down, too, and after glaring at us for another moment, Wihinape took her seat. "If I were ripped from my host," she said solemnly, "what makes you think I could find him again before another spirit occupied his hallow?" She leaned her head back on Danny's shoulder, and he squirmed uncomfortably. "Or that I'd want to come back if my host let such a thing happen to me?"
"So ... Danny is going to have to spend part of his time ... as a kitty?" Mom asked hesitantly.
Danny flinched at Mom's words; he already knew how Wihinape was going to respond.
"If he doesn't, I may not have control of what changes happen," the cat-woman answered. "Even in kitty form, though, it's a little uncomfortable." She shrugged. "Perhaps I will adjust, in time."
I gulped nervously at her comment, and Debra squeezed my hand to reassure me. Unlike Mom and Danny, Debra and I had classes in supernatural and extra-dimensional beings, and I had a class in avatars and their spirits. Spirits did not adjust their form; their nature set their form in the spirit plane and it didn't change - not unless the nature of the spirit changed. The spirit's form wasn't a physical characteristic, either. Wihinape could never adjust her form.
"I promised that I would try to not change him," Wihinape added. "I intend to keep that promise if I can."
Debra and I exchanged nervous glances; she had no more control over how she affected Danny than I had over the weather in a month's time. If he was going to change, he'd change, and nothing I, Wihinape, or Danny could do would influence that fact. Not without the ritual, and as I'd found with Peccary and Lanie, that could have lasting, negative implications for my brother.
Saturday, June 16, 2007 - Mid-Morning
Sioux Falls League Headquarters, South Dakota
"Can we use the lounge for a bit?" Debra asked Tractor and Farmboy. They were sitting in their favorite comfy chairs with a movie that they weren't really watching on the screen. I was beside Debra, and Mom and Danny were behind us.
Tractor looked up at us and shrugged. "Sure." The guys pulled themselves up from their chairs and trudged to the door, leaving the room to us.
Mom sat down beside Danny on a sofa, an arm around his shoulder to be supportive, while I took a chair, and after closing the door, Debra sat as well.
"I think it'll be best if you put 'Complex' under Danny's sexuality," Debra suggested to Mom.
"And under gender, mark 'Male' and write a note that Danny has a female spirit and is still changing," I added.
"That should ensure he's put in Poe."
Danny's eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets. "With ... with the ... gay boys?" His voice trembled with fear.
Debra nodded, but shot him a disapproving look. "Just because they're gay doesn't mean they're going to uncontrollably molest you!"
Mom gulped; she probably had the same mistaken stereotype in mind. "If you change," she said, trying to put on a positive spin, "they won't be interested anyway!"
"But the girls will?"
I sighed. "You say that like it's a bad thing. Look, I was attracted to girls before, and I still am now. It'll probably be the same for you."
"But ... I'd have ..." Danny looked down at his chest, whimpering. "And ...?" He was a pitiful sight, like he was about to break down in tears. "But .. but I want to stay a boy!"
Debra looked sympathetically at him. "So did Kayda," she said calmly. "But sometimes, you don't have a choice. How a person handles adversity is a measure of their character, not their physical appearance."
"I don't want my son to change!" Mom protested, as if that would do any good. "Slut-kitty promised him she wouldn't change him! So he shouldn't change."
"But if I'm in Poe and I don't change, I'll have a gay roommate?"
"No," Debra and I said at the same time. "They always put changelings together," I continued. "With the remodel happening this summer, there'll be more than enough rooms."
Debra turned toward Mom. "That's why it's very important that you note that Danny is still changing and has a female spirit. That'll keep him with the changelings."
"They always keep changelings together," I added. "You could very well end up rooming with Hank."
"Hank?" Mom and Danny both asked.
"Friend of mine," I started to explain. "Female to male changeling."
"But ... if I change ...?"
"They'd move you. Besides, Hank has a girlfriend. And his roommate last year, his best friend, was constantly changing - part of the time a boy, part of the time a girl. Hank never had any problem with it."
Danny seemed a little reassured by what we were telling him. Mom, though, was still unconvinced. "Won't he be rooming with his best friend again?" His forehead wrinkled with concern and puzzlement when he saw the look on my face.
"Heyoka was ... murdered," I said softly, feeling my lip tremble at all the bad memories dredged up by that simple statement. It had been a hell of an ordeal for a lot of us, and in my opinion, Hank was still suffering emotionally. And I was a little, too.
"He's the one whose murder they tried to frame Kayda with," Debra added for Danny's benefit.
"Oh." Danny's eyebrows arched; the question in his mind was practically visible.
"And no, it wasn't because Heyoka was a changeling," I interjected quickly. "It wasn't because someone thought he looked gay. It was because he was Lakota, and there was a Crow boy there who hated us for being Lakota."
"Oh." Danny accepted my explanation.
"Given how he looks, isn't he going to have trouble with ... gay-bashers?" Mom asked meekly.
"With my friends and power," I said bluntly, "you won't have any problems."
"Besides, if someone does, all of Poe will stick up for you," Debra added. "Poesies stick together."
"And if you change partially ..." I began.
Mom's eyes widened. "Partially?"
"We've got two girls in the dorm .... Well, Alex is a hermaphrodite, and Ayla's really a guy, where it counts, anyway. The rest of Ayla - he prefers to think of himself as a 'he' - looks very female. None of the girls pay any attention to him in the restrooms or showers."
"You've got a guy showering with you?" Mom screeched.
"Poe is ... different," Debra explained patiently. "In a cottage of gay, lesbian, and changeling students, they have to still keep up appearances, so girls room and shower with girls, and boys with boys - even if most of them are gay or lesbian."
"You'll be on the changeling wing, so if you do change, you won't have girls lusting after you," I said.
"But if I don't? Does that mean I'd be showering with ... the gay boys?"
Danny and Mom sat silently for a few moments; I could see that something was eating at Danny, but he probably didn't quite know how to ask. "What are you thinking about?" I asked to nudge the conversation.
"What's ... what's it like?" he asked. "If ... I change?"
I glanced uneasily at Mom and Debra, but they couldn't help with the question; I was the only changeling.
My mouth opened, but I suddenly realized I didn't have anything to say. I hadn't thought about it for so long that I honestly didn't remember. "It's ... scary," I finally admitted. "Not knowing what's happening to you. And then when you do know, it's even scarier. Afraid you won't look completely like a girl and people will know from just looking at you. Afraid you won't act right, and people will know. Scared to death that you'll be found out and laughed at or mocked or beat up or shunned." I gulped as memories came back.
"You got those parts down pretty well," Debra smiled at me.
"I ... I don't want to wear ...," Danny looked down, embarrassed enough that he started to turn into kitty-boy, "you know - girl's clothes, and panties and ... bras and stuff!" He sniffled piteously.
"Danny," I said firmly, waiting until he looked up at me. "We don't know if you're going to change or not. So it doesn't do you any good to worry about that now, does it?"
"But ... you said I probably would change some!" He looked back and forth between Deb and me.
Debra and I winced. "Yeah," I answered hesitantly. "But we don't know how much. So don't worry about those things yet."
"I don't want to look like Wihinape," Danny pouted. "Not like her human form."
"What's wrong with my human form?" Wihinape asked when I suddenly found myself in dream space with Danny and Wihinape.
"I don't want to look like you," Danny protested to the cat-woman. "Guys will be after me!"
"What's wrong with that?" she purred.
I was concerned that I'd been so quickly yanked into dream space, almost like I was expected to referee a discussion between Danny and his spirit. "You didn't need to pull me here," I complained to the cat-woman.
"I thought it would be helpful," she said innocently. "You are a shaman."
"Don't do it again!" I commanded sternly. From the look on her face, she reluctantly agreed. "You two have to work things out yourselves!"
"It's not fair!" Danny blurted out, looking slightly more distraught.
"What?" Mom asked, to which Danny blushed and looked down at the floor.
Debra was prescient enough to have a clue; she slid over beside Mom and whispered something in her ear. Startled, goggling at Danny and blushing a tiny bit, Mom quickly stood. "Um, I ... um ... I'm going to the restroom." She beat a hasty retreat from the room, closing the door behind herself.
"What's not fair?" I asked, not having clued in like my girlfriend had.
"Danny's still a virgin," Debra said with certainty, which caused him to look down; I could practically see his cheeks glowing from the embarrassment. If he hadn't already gone kitty, he would have probably set a record for changing into his kitty-boy form.
"Ooooohh," I said softly.
Danny forced himself to look up at me, anger in his eyes. "You ... you had a girlfriend. When you were a boy, I mean. And you got to have sex ... with Julie. And ... and other girls."
Deb glanced at me. "How many other girls?" she asked in a semi-accusing tone.
Danny looked down again, and I heard him sniffle. I slipped to the sofa and pulled his head onto my shoulder, startled that he was trembling with .... I realized suddenly that he was sobbing! "I ... I don't want ... to like guys!" he stammered through his tears. "Not ... that way! Not to ... to ...!" He couldn't complete the thought.
"Oh, Danny," I said, wrapping an arm around him, "if - and I said if - you turn into a girl, you don't have to be attracted to guys! Look at me - like I said before, I was sexually attracted to girls before, and I didn't suddenly change to liking guys! It may be the same for you."
He turned toward me, moisture glistening on his furry cheeks. "Do ... do you think so?"
"We don't even know how much you'll change. Don't worry about that right now. It might never happen."
"Danny, you're going to be at Whateley, in Poe, with a lot of kids who know exactly how you feel. And Kayda will always be there for you, right?"
"What if ... I forget ... who I am?"
"You won't."
"You did!" Danny accused.
"What?" I was stunned by his accusation. "I haven't forgotten!"
"It seems like it," Danny said, almost bitterly. "It's like ... you were never a boy! I don't want that to happen to me!"
"Danny," I tried to assure him, "I haven't forgotten. It's just ...." My voice trailed off.
"Kayda's change was pretty traumatic," Debra said. "Every changeling is different. It may take you longer to adjust, because you won't have gone through the same ... experience Kayda had."
"Danny," I said again, my tone a little firmer, "we don't know if you're going to change more, or how much! Don't start worrying about something that might not happen."
"But ...?"
"And if it does happen, you'll have a lot of people to look after you and help you adjust."
Danny stared at me for a few seconds, trying to see if I was just mollifying him. "Okay," he finally said softly.
Sunday, June 17, 2007 - Early Afternoon
Alicia's Home, near Baton Rouge, Louisiana
No sooner had the car parked than I crawled out of the back seat of the Thacker's Suburban. I'd been sitting in a confined seat in a plane, then spent over an hour in the vehicle, sandwiched between Addy and Alicia, as Alicia's dad drove rather recklessly from New Orleans to the Thacker homestead outside a bitty town called Livonia, west of Baton Rouge. It had proven much easier to fly to New Orleans than to Baton Rouge, and the Thackers thought nothing of driving to fetch me. Addy and Alicia followed me out of the Suburban, and before Alicia's mom could say anything, I fetched my luggage from the back.
"I appreciate you picking me up," I said politely to Mr. and Mrs. Thacker before Mrs. Thacker could order one of her two sons to help with my luggage. Mr. Thacker, or Dave as he insisted that he be called, was about Dad's age, but the similarities ended there. He was smaller, less stocky than Dad, and the line of curly brown hair was receding from his forehead. His eyes sparkled with mirth, and where I expected a backwoods Southern accent, he spoke softly and with only a faint accent. No jeans for him; he wore Dockers and a polo shirt, almost like it was business casual - or like he was trying to make a good first impression on me.
Mrs. Thacker, on the other hand, spoke with a Cajun accent that was thick enough to cut. Equally joyous as her husband, she was as dominant in conversation as he was quiet. At least for the ride to New Orleans, she'd worn a modest dress; Alicia told me she usually wore a dress, unless she was doing chores outside. She seemed to believe, according to Alicia, that a woman not in a dress wasn't really a woman.
The two boys were a total nuisance. Rusty and Mike, eleven and thirteen, were in the gangly, awkward pre-teen and early-teen stage of development. Both were already taller than their mom, and Mike was easily going to be taller than his dad. They'd had a gazillion questions about Native Americans until their parents finally shut them up. Afterwards, they sat silently gawking at me as if they expected me to snatch a tomahawk and scalp them. I don't suppose it helped quell their curiosity that I had a tomahawk at my belt on one side, and my magic knife on the other. Their presence dampened the conversation considerably; lots of subjects among us girls were answered with, "I'll tell you later," - later being a euphemism for 'when there aren't any boys or parents listening in.'
"Let's take your things to mah room," Alicia said eagerly, putting a hand on my forearm to guide me as we escaped the oppressive presence of the brothers, who I could already tell were even brattier than Danny. The three of us practically skipped up onto the porch and then through the large house, up a flight of stairs, and into Addy's room.
"Ah hope you don't mind," Alicia said apologetically, "but I figured we'd all sleep in one room, like a sleepover."
"No, not at all," I answered quickly. There were two beds - one twin bed for Alicia, a trundle bed which obviously Adalie had been using, and a futon sofa folded down into a bed for me. I dropped my bags on the hardwood floor and flopped down, sprawling on the bed and stretching for the first time in hours. "Ahhh," I purred. "This is heaven compared to airplane seats!"
"Okay," Addy said, sitting down on the trundle bed, "what 'appened on your little trip?"
"What makes you think something happened?" I asked, feigning innocence.
"You wouldn't talk about it in the car," Alicia chuckled. "So spill it!"
"I know you didn't want me to go with them," I began hesitantly, "but Tansy, Lanie, and I had a good trip. Mostly." I winced, thinking about the swirl of activities on the road trip. "There was a research lab in Colorado, and a mercenary called War Horse stole some gadget," I began a narrative. From the pair's reaction, they were in a state of shocked disbelief, which seemed to grow as I told the story. "So we got it back, but he got away," I finished the tale. "And then we met a guy from the government who took it, barely said 'thank you', and sent us on our way."
"If it was that important," Alicia said with a frown, "Ah think they should have given y'all a reward!"
"That's what Lanie said, too," I chuckled. "But Tansy reminded us that we were lucky they didn't run us in as mutant accomplices, and that discretion was always a good strategy."
"And what else?" Alicia asked with a leer, expecting perhaps some lewd details.
I shrugged and smiled. "And we drove to Sioux Falls. We stopped in the Black Hills, though, and I showed them Mount Rushmore, and Crazy Horse, and ..."
"You didn't do that buffalo trick again, did you?" Addy interjected with a frown.
"It's not a 'buffalo trick'," I shot back, scowling, but then the scowl faded, replaced with a sheepish grin. "Yeah, we got close to some of them." My cheeks reddened a bit. "A park ranger kind of yelled at me a bit for endangering myself and Lanie and Tansy - even though I told him I'm a shaman and I have the spirit of Tatanka!"
Addy and Alicia shook their heads in disbelief. "Girl," Alicia said slowly, "you're going to get in serious trouble one of these days."
"And there was a Lakota family with some kids - they named their youngest Running Buffalo, so I let the boy meet a real Tatanka!"
Addy turned to Alicia. "Why do I suspect that she did a ritual to bind a buffalo spirit to the boy?"
Alicia laughed. "Because you know her as well as Ah do." The looked back at me expectantly.
"Um," I winced, "yeah, I kind of did."
Addy goggled at me in surprise. "The same ritual you did with Elaine? The one that made her 'allow so she could 'ave a spirit?" I nodded. "But ... didn't Mrs. Carson say ...?
"That' I'm not supposed to do that again?" I finished. "Yeah. But Lanie and Tansy agreed they wouldn't tell her."
Alicia chuckled, shaking her head. "I bet she finds out anyway."
I grimaced; I suspected that she would find out and I'd be in trouble. But technically, since I wasn't on school grounds and not in school at the time, she didn't have grounds to punish me. "So what have you two been up to?" I decided to change the subject.
Addy groaned like she'd been sorely put upon during her time there. "Mrs. Thacker and Alicia's aunt 'ave introduced me to every boy in the family!" she said in an exasperated tone. "And one of the gatherings was a dance, with that awful Zydeco music, and most of the boys wanted to dance with me!"
"Ah told you Aunt Flo was a match-maker!" Alicia giggled. "She wouldn't let up even when Addy told her she had a boyfriend!"
"You'll get your turn," Addy grinned. "It will take the attention off me, n'est ce pas?"
"Oh, great!" I moaned unhappily. "That's all I need - a bunch of horny teenage boys drooling after me!"
"Ah'd suggest y'all change out of your dress, then," Alicia advised with a chuckle. "Somethin' like jeans and a T-shirt, maybe. 'Cuz if y'all are wearin' that dress, boys from all the neighboring parishes'll be here droolin', too!"
"Oh, great!" I muttered in despair.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007 - Early Afternoon
Alicia's Home, Louisiana
"Ah think we got enough fish," Alicia drawled, setting her pole down in the boat carefully so she didn't hit either Addy or me. She'd just finished putting a nice bass on a stringer hanging over one side of the fourteen-foot jon boat.
"Eeep!" Addy screamed as she clutched at her pole. "I think I 'ave a bite!" The fiberglass pole bent as whatever had taken her bait swam away from the boat. The reel whined as line played out.
"It's a big one, that's for sure," Alicia said with a grin.
I put my rod down in the boat to watch, ready to help Addy if needed. It wasn't her first catch, but this was definitely her biggest. The little boat rocked a bit as she fought against whatever she had on the line.
For five or six minutes, Addy played the fish, reeling it in, not letting the line go slack, until it broke the water a ways from the boat, then dived down again. It was a respectable-sized bass, and Addy grinned at what she'd caught - if she managed to get it to the boat. Alicia had the net ready as Addy reeled the fish closer and closer.
A sudden massive thrashing roiled the water, and Addy's pole was nearly ripped from her hands. Desperately she tried to hold the rod against the new force as something big thrashed again and again, a huge something splashing through the surface and creating quite a disturbance.
With lightning-like reflexes, Alicia dropped the net into the boat and whipped out a knife, slashing and cutting Addy's line in one stroke. Before the stunned girl could ask what she'd done, Alicia, refolding her pocket-knife, explained. "Gator." My eyes were as wide as Addy's. "Probably four and a half or five feet." Alicia shrugged and pulled the stringer of fish into the boat. "Best to let them have the fish. And get these in the boat before he comes back for a captive snack."
"Gator?" Addy stammered, wide-eyed. "As in alligator?"
"Yeah," Alicia answered matter-of-factly. "These backwaters are full of 'em. Sometimes they spoil the fishin'." Having retrieved the dozen-and-a-half or so fish we'd already caught, Addy gingerly stepped to the back of the boat, to the small outboard motor. "If'n Ah'd have brought mah gun, we coulda had gator tail for dinner!" she lamented. Then she got a wicked grin. "Ah didn't think y'all would like wrestlin' an angry gator."
"Um, no," Addy said. She was a little pale at the thought of an ancient lizard-like predator swimming and eating in the waters she was in - even if we were on a boat. I wasn't too keen on the idea either.
In short order, Alicia started the motor and steered the boat back to the bank where we'd launched it, and with the three of us and a winch, we had it in the back of the pickup in no time.
I found it odd that, even without a license, Alicia's parents didn't seem to mind her driving around their property - or the neighboring lands, but then again, in South Dakota, kids generally started driving long before they were old enough for a license. And Alicia had learned from her dad - the ride back to the house was as 'adventurous' as Mr. Thacker's drive from New Orleans, if not slightly wilder.
Once Alicia parked the truck at home, Addy and I went to the boat to unload it, but Addy stopped us. "Don't bother. Dad and the boys are plannin' on goin' out huntin' gators' tonight, so it's best t' just leave it." She hefted the stringer of fish from a cooler of water in the truck.
"Hunting alligators - in that tiny boat?" Addy's jaw almost hit the ground.
"Yeah. It's fun," Alicia replied with a broad grin. "Course, the big ones are kinda hard to wrestle into the boat, and ya gotta make sure they're good and dead, cuz a big gator thrashin' around in a boat ain't a whole lot of fun. Even in the small ones, their tails pack a pretty good wallop!"
"I think if they want us to go," Addy said nervously, "I'll stay 'ere."
I nodded my agreement with her sensibility. "Me, too."
"Well, it woulda been fun," Alicia sighed.
"Now what? Is your mama going to ...?" Addy started to ask, changing the subject quickly.
Alicia grinned. "Nope. We're gonna clean 'em," Addy paled and flinched a bit. "Rule around here - ya shoot it or catch it, ya clean it." From the corner of her eye, she saw a blur running from the house toward us. "Mike, y'all go away!"
"Ah kin help!" the tow-headed boy, about thirteen, said with a toothy grin. He was probably one of the taller boys in his class, and quite lanky, with a mop of dirty-blonde hair.
"We don't need your help," Alicia protested. "Go away!"
"Ma said I kin help," he said, glancing my way. "She figgers these city gals don't know nothin' 'bout cleanin' fish."
"Just go away!" Alicia complained. She looked at me and rolled her eyes at the boy's insistence on being a pest.
I grinned and winked at Alicia, which caused her eyebrows to lift. "Tell you what," I said to the boy, putting on a 'helpless girl' look and sounding sweet, "if you can clean and filet two fish faster than I can, you can stay and help."
Alicia gasped; she no doubt figured we'd be stuck with the brat. Addy just shook her head and rolled her eyes.
The boy was good, I'll grant that, but I'd had so much practice fileting fish growing up, and lately with my sacred knife, that he was only halfway done with his second fish when I tossed my knife to stick into a tree trunk near the truck. "Done," I said smugly.
Mike looked at my fish in amazement, a crestfallen expression creeping onto his features. "How ... how can y'all filet that fast?" he stammered. "City girls ain't supposed t' be able ..."
"I grew up on a farm," I said with a grin, "and I've been cleaning fish since I could hold a knife." I watched him finish up the second bass he was working on. "Now, why don't you run along and let us finish this?" I asked sweetly.
I thought Alicia and Addy were going to bust a gut laughing as Mike slunk off dejectedly. When he was out of earshot, Alicia turned to me. "Y'know," she began, "Ah think he's got a crush on you."
It was my turn to roll my eyes and groan. "That's all I need!"
Alicia and I set to fileting the fish, while Addy stood back, looking a bit ill. When Alicia noticed, she glanced over her shoulder. "Ain't y' gonna help?" She held out a bloody knife toward Addy, which caused the French girl to recoil as her stomach churned. "Ah take it you've never cleaned a fish before?"
"Non!" Addy said, looking a little green. "The times we went fishing with papa, 'e 'andled all the cleaning and such."
"It's a handy life-skill," I countered with a smile. "If you can catch, clean, and cook a fish, you should never go hungry."
"I will 'andle our share of the cooking part," Addy insisted, "if you two take care of the cleaning part."
"We might as well," Alicia giggled. "Mah roommate is a little slow, and by the time one of us manages to teach her how to filet a fish, the other would be done with the rest of 'em."
Addy's response was typical for the three of us when we were kidding around - she stuck out her tongue. "I will 'elp your mother with the cooking," she announced with her pert little Gallic nose stuck up in the air. "Besides, I did my share of catching them."
"And a gator!" Alicia chuckled. "Course, he doesn't count since we had t' let him go." She smiled wickedly. "You do realize that ma will probably cook these blackened with good Cajun spices, don't you?"
Addy looked worse than when she'd been asked to help clean the fish. "Merde!"
Thursday, June 21, 2007 - Early Afternoon
Alicia's Home, near Baton Rouge, Louisiana
The footsteps echoed through the earth spirit long before the person came into view, and I smiled to myself as I drew back on the bow once more. Naturally, I'd brought my weapons- a term at Whateley convinced me I'd never go anywhere without them, and I'd decided to practice a little. While Mr. Thacker had offered to lend me his compound bow, I strongly preferred the natural feel of the wood. The paper plate target was hung on a tree about forty or fifty yards away, and I could feel the energy of the sky spirit flowing about me, telling me which way it would carry my arrow. Drawing a deep breath, I exhaled slowly and let the arrow fly.
"You're pretty good with that thing, young lady," Mr. Thacker said approvingly after my arrow embedded itself in the target, joining a cluster of six other arrows that had unerringly struck home. "But I've always found a gun a little handier."
I glanced to the side, where Alicia and Addy sat, eating cookies and watching me shoot. Alicia grinned broadly and nodded at me, having a good idea of what was to come. "Is there a tree you'd like to have taken down?" I asked Mr. Thacker.
His forehead wrinkled in confusion. "Come again?"
"Kayda," Alicia said, "see that dying pine tree - about ten yards to the left of your target?"
"Yeah?"
"Take it down," Alicia chuckled. When I glanced at her, she nodded firmly, smiling.
"What? With a bow?" Mr. Thacker asked, astonished at the foolishness of his daughter's comment.
I silently incanted over an arrow, infusing it with one of Molly's and my 'special' spells, and then nocked it in the bow. Drawing the arrow, I felt the sky spirit, adjusted my aim accordingly, and then let the arrow fly.
The flash and silent fireball of essence exploding outward from the arrow consumed a large chunk of the tree trunk, and the top of the dead tree noisily crashed through its neighbors to the ground. Addy and Alicia giggled delightedly at the destruction I'd wrought, while Mr. Thacker stood, goggling at the sight.
"Can you hunt with that?" Mr. Thacker asked slowly. "Not with the exploding ones, I mean. To kill game?"
"Daddy," Alicia drawled, "Kayda hunts with her bow in the simulators all the time. She can one-shot a buffalo with that thing!"
Mr. Thacker's jaw dropped. "A ... buffalo?"
"From horseback," I clarified. "It's a little more challenging that way."
"Do you think you can take a deer?" he asked, careful to not sound condescending. I simply nodded; after hunting buffalo from horseback, a deer would be easy. Besides, the Nations had hunted deer and elk in the simulators.
"Alicia, why don't you girls get ready, and we'll go out on a little deer hunt. Your mom wants to serve a nice venison roast for dinner Saturday, and we're fresh out."
"It's not deer season, Mr. Thacker," I speculated.
"Well," he drawled, "I've got a fair chunk of land, and since I treat it like a wildlife preserve and don't let anyone else hunt on it, I've got an arrangement with the parish sheriff and the wildlife folks that they kind of look the other way when I take game."
"I see," I said hesitantly. It sounded like he was poaching wildlife and had sort-of bribed the authorities to let him.
"And I'm careful to never take a female animal when she might have young," he added.
"Kayda," Alicia assured me, standing and putting her hand lightly on my arm, "it's just like the way the Medawihla tribe manages their wildlife." She smiled. "Besides, you haven't lived until you've had mah mom's venison roast!"
"No doubt smothered in those spices and 'ot sauces you put on all your food," Addy interjected sarcastically.
"Well, now," Alicia drawled with a huge grin, "what's Cajun cooking without Cajun spices and Cayenne pepper?"
"A little tabasco sauce and cayenne pepper never hurt anyone," Mr. Thacker chuckled.
"Yes, but you don't know 'ow to put on only a little!" Addy retorted. Those who didn't know the two might think it was a serious spat, but I could sense the playful kidding in their interchange.
"You can't tell me that mah gumbo is too spicy, can you?"
"You almost killed 'alf the Euro Promotional League with that stuff!" Addy countered, and despite her tone, there was a playful twinkle in her eye that Mr. Thacker and I didn't miss. "Mrs. Carson wanted you to register it with security as a dangerous weapon!"
"I'm going to get ready," I excused myself quickly, lest I be drawn into a debate about Cajun cooking. I wasn't overly fond of excessively-spicy food, but I wasn't about to tell my hosts that.
Half an hour later, give or take, we assembled by the garage, where Mr. Thacker got bows for Alicia and himself, and a few arrows each with good, razor-sharp hunting points. I had my bow and arrows with flint-knapped points; the simulators showed they could be just as deadly as a steel tri-bladed hunting point. We rode out onto their property in two six-wheeled ATVs. Given that we were in swampy, wet, bayou country of Louisiana, the amphibious nature of the vehicles made perfect sense.
After parking the ATVs, we walked to a pair of tree stands - Mr. Thacker taking one, and the girls and I taking another, larger stand. While I'm certain Mr. Thacker was deathly quiet in his stand, I could read the earth and sky spirits, so I could talk to Addy and Alicia about the natural world, what animals were near us, spotting them long before either girl did, and telling them Lakota legends of the various animals. I suspect that, even though it was a very pleasant day, if slightly hot and humid, Addy really didn't enjoy the outing. Alicia, though, relished the time outdoors, even though no deer came within a half mile of our stand.
After two and a half or three hours, the sound of an ATV motor pierced the silence, so we scrambled down from the stand and followed the noise, meeting up with Mr. Thacker and the ATV a little over a mile from where we'd been sitting. He'd bagged a very nice buck, field-dressed it, and had walked back to the ATV so he could haul it back to the house. We helped him load the animal on the ATV, then Addy rode with Mr. Thacker while Alicia and I walked back to our ATV. Though we didn't get anything, it was a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon, and Mrs. Thacker delivered a meal to remember.
Friday, June 22, 2007 - Early Afternoon
Alicia's home, near Baton Rouge, Louisiana
"But ... I couldn't!" Addy protested.
"Why not?" Alicia demanded of her roommate. The three of us were sitting on the porch, a broad, shaded traditional porch with a hanging swing and several comfortable chairs to lounge in. Half-empty glasses of lemonade sat on small tables near us.
"I ... I just couldn't!" Addy replied, not quite able to elucidate a real reason.
"There's nothing to be afraid of," Alicia tried to soothe her, looking at me for help. "You fought in a combat final, for goodness sake! This is a lot safer!"
"Addy," I jumped in, "I've been shooting since I was about six. It's safe if you follow some simple safety rules, and it's a lot of fun!"
"Dad's got a sort-of range set up, so it's safe to shoot! Come on! It'll be fun!" Alicia urged.
Seeing Addy's resistance fading, I took her arm, determined to not give her a choice. "Let's go. You might really like shooting!" I glanced to Alicia. "What are we going to shoot?"
"I figured we'd take the Beretta and Glock pistols in nine mil, and maybe a couple of dad's rifles. He's got a couple of old Russian rifles that are a blast to shoot, and a nice Remington 700 in .270, and maybe an AR-15. Those things are easy to shoot and don't have much recoil," she added, mostly for Adalie's sake. She glanced over her shoulder. "And no," she snapped at her younger brothers, who were hanging back by the door into the house, "you may not come along!"
"Aw, come on!" Mike, the older brat, whined. "We can help!"
I glanced at Alicia with a wicked grin. "We might need someone to run downrange to change targets!" As expected, the boys groaned with disappointment; no doubt they expected to 'help' us learn to shoot, especially Mike.
"Y'know," Alicia drawled to Mike after winking at me, "y'all could have a little shoot-off, t'see who's better!"
"Um, er ...," Mike stammered, his eyes reflecting his fear of being embarrassed again. "It's more fun shooting, um, when we don't get, um, competitive, you know?" He was really digging for excuses to avoid a shoot-off that he might lose without having to admit being afraid of losing.
"You ain't comin' with us!" Alicia insisted sternly. "Addy's never shot before, and I ain't gonna have you two pests distractin' her with bad advice and foolish behavior!"
"But ...." Mike started to protest.
"If'n Addy likes shootin', then we'll probably go out again, and if y'all behave between now and then, we might let y'all come with us. Now, Rusty, go get us an ATV from the garage. Mike, you can help - load guns and ammo in the ATV."
The boy was disappointed that he wasn't going to get to shoot with us, but at least he had the consolation of helping with something, which meant he got to spend a little time 'proving' how helpful he was while making moon-eyes at me and Addy.
Addy was such a neophyte to guns that she winced at merely the sight of an AR-15, while to Alicia and I, it was no big deal. I paused to admire the Russian Mosin that we were going to shoot; it was a crude gun compared to the AR, but as Alicia told me, it had a reputation for being rugged and reliable - and that model had been in service since eighteen-ninety-one! Alicia kept the Remington 700 in its case for the trip out; Mr. Thacker was a little particular about not jostling it around and upsetting the scope alignment.
Addy's eyes widened more when we got several .50cal ammo cans, each labeled with an ammo caliber; Alicia explained that her dad kept one for each different caliber of gun to keep the ammo separate. It was a very sensible idea; I'd have to mention it to Dad next time I talked to him. With the pistols, Alicia put one in a carrying case and slid the other into a holster she'd strapped on her waist.
Addy stared at her, a bit nervous. "I'm sorry," she explained hastily, "but my papa never 'ad guns around the 'ouse, and ... and I'm not used to them."
"We're gonna fix that," Alicia said with a huge grin as she slid behind the driving controls of the ATV. I let Addy hop in front, because the rider in the back seat would be sharing the seat with ammo cans and those probably would have made Addy even more nervous than she already was.
"Ah started shootin' when Ah was about six," Alicia commented as she drove the ATV through trees. "It was a .22 rifle, but it was shootin'."
"Yeah, me, too," I added. "And I was about nine or ten when I got a high-caliber rifle." I smiled at the memory of shooting it the first time - it had a lot more recoil than I'd expected and I was left with a bruised shoulder, but I refused to let Dad know that it hurt. I think he did figure it out, though, because the next time we went out shooting, he watched closely how I held the rifle and corrected me a bit, which really helped. I was determined to start Addy correctly so she didn't have the same lesson I'd had. We wanted her to enjoy shooting, not hate it.
When Mr. Thacker said he had a range for shooting, he made it sound like an informal little affair of a couple of targets in front of a rough berm or hillside. The range was anything but informal. He had constructed big berms as backstops for rifle shooting; I guessed they were at fifty, one hundred, and two hundred yards range, and the firing position had a concrete pad with permanent overhead cover and a couple of shooting benches. To one side, ninety-degrees from the rifle range, was a pistol bay, enclosed on three sides with berms and with its own covered shooting position.
Alicia noticed my surprise at the layout. "Yeah, Dad loves shootin', so when they found gas on the property and Dad got a little bit of money, he decided to do it right. We come out here all the time with our cousins and friends."
"Dayum," I mouthed softly. "I'm gonna' have to talk to Dad about getting a setup like this."
Alicia grinned from ear to ear. "Wait til you see his reloadin' setup! And Ah'll show you his entire gun collection!"
We unloaded the gear, and Alicia asked Addy the obvious question. "What do you want to start with?"
"Rifles," I suggested. "My dad said it's easiest to start bench rifle, and then go from there. Pistol recoil can take a bit of getting used to."
Addy looked back and forth between the two of us, confused. "Whatever you think," she answered.
"Start with the AR?" I asked, to which Alicia firmly nodded. Between Alicia and me, we gave Addy a short-course in sight picture and sight alignment - and probably confused the snot out of her - and then went through the basic safety rules and principles of shooting and put on our earmuffs and safety glasses. I expected that Addy would have a hard time with the breathing and trigger-squeeze sequence, since she was a speedster, but we'd have to see. I don't know what Alicia thought, but to me, it was very important that Addy hit the target with some rounds from the first magazine so she wouldn't become disenchanted or frustrated.
"There isn't a lot of recoil," I advised her as she got the rifle positioned and started on her sight alignment. "But it's noisy, so don't be scared."
"Noisier than a brick fight?" Addy asked with a grin.
"Point taken."
Addy took her first shot, and far from flinching as Alicia and I had expected, she squealed with delight, and again when she saw that she'd at least hit the paper. Granted it was only 25 yards, but it was a good first effort.
Alicia signaled me to shoot while she instructed and assisted her roommate, so I took the Russian Mosin-Nagant and went to another bench. There was a target at one hundred yards, so I calmly loaded the magazine and cycled the bolt, then prepared for my first shot.
Alicia hadn't been kidding when she told me the rifle had something of a kick! I shouldn't have been surprised; it was a relatively light gun - at least in comparison to Dad's M-1 Garand, and the rounds we were shooting were military surplus and probably had a little extra 'punch'. Setting the rifle down, I looked through a spotting scope to see where I'd hit. At a hundred yards, my first shot was high; I automatically noted how far so I could compensate with successive shots. And working the bolt was a bit of a surprise, too - it took a lot of effort to operate that beast of a gun.
But it was fun! A LOT of fun! I'd have to tell Dad so he could buy one for me. And a bucket-load of ammo! After adjusting for the sights, I put a magazine-worth of rounds into a circle about two inches in diameter - with open sights.
Addy was very rapidly improving her skill - no doubt thanks to her exemplar trait, but also because she seemed to be enjoying the heck out of the sport. She pretty quickly moved to a fifty-yard target, and by the time I was done with the Mosin, she was shooting at a target at a hundred yards - after Alicia had put a red-dot sight on the rail to help her aim.
And then Alicia and I started getting competitive. After changing targets, we took turns with the Mosin at one- and two-hundred yards, and then we repeated our informal competition with the Remington, although for that, Addy set out targets at three- and four-hundred yards. Hard as it was for me to admit, "Annie Oakley" Thacker was a much better shot than I was. I knew I'd never hear the end of it!
While the two of us had our little shoot-off, Addy tried the Mosin, and contrary to my expectations that she'd find its recoil a little off-putting, she loved the gun. She didn't want to quit shooting it when we said it was time to fire the pistols.
Since Alicia had helped Addy shooting rifles, I helped her on the pistol range. We started at five yards with the Glock, which doesn't seem like much, but for a novice like Addy, it was best to not have too many challenges at once. She picked up quickly that the basics of rules, sight alignment, and the five steps of a shot were the same, and after I showed her stance and grip with a mag-worth of rounds, I loaded a single round for her.
The shot startled her, and she almost dropped the gun, but then she started giggling with delight. A few more shots, and she was on the paper, although her aim wasn't consistent because she was anticipating the shot. While Alicia continued to shoot, I took Addy aside, and after clearing the gun, I showed her a trick for learning trigger control - by balancing a dime on the front sight and going through trigger squeeze, dry-firing the pistol without disturbing the dime. Addy was frustrated at first, but after a few minutes of determined practice, she was consistently dry-firing without knocking the dime off the sight. Satisfied that she was improving, we went back to the target.
When they tell you that an exemplar has outstanding muscle memory, believe them, because it's true. That simple exercise had instilled enough muscle memory in Addy that she was consistently hitting within an eight or nine-inch circle, so we moved back to ten yards. Again, she was hitting the paper consistently - we were using the silhouette targets, and she was putting a good fraction of her rounds in center-of-mass such that her rounds would stop a baseline. Eventually, Alicia realized that I was probably bored, so we traded places.
I hadn't had an opportunity to shoot since I'd manifested, and while I saw Addy's rapid improvement, somehow it didn't register that I'd have equal advantages now because I was an exemplar, too. My shots were consistently well-placed, though I really didn't see any difference from the last time I'd shot with Danny and Dad, probably because we spent a lot of time shooting pistols.
Naturally, Alicia and I had another shoot-off, and she grudgingly admitted that with pistols, I was a little bit better than she was, but then she reminded me of her superior performance with the rifles, especially at long ranges. With a smug smile on her face. Okay, it was more than a smug smile, it was positively a triumphant grin.
Much later, back at the house, Alicia called in favors her brothers owed her so they ended up cleaning the guns for us, while we washed up and then sat on the porch drinking lemonade. Addy was talking a million miles an hour about how much fun it was shooting, especially with the pistols! I suspected that Addy's dad was going to be shocked if she enrolled in Combat Pistol in the fall like she was talking about doing. As would Ms. Hartford, Sensei Ito, and numerous other people. I really, really wanted to see the looks on their faces.
Saturday, June 23, 2007 - Early Evening
Alicia's home, near Baton Rouge, Louisiana
I gawked from the swinging chair on the porch at the number of cars pulling into the yard, like a veritable convoy of kinfolk. "How many relatives do you have?" I blurted out.
"Bah! This is nothing!" Addy scoffed at my comment. "You should 'ave been 'ere last week! There must 'ave been a 'undred at the reunion!" She looked at her roommate. "'Ow many cousins did you say you 'ave?"
Alicia grinned; after a week with Addy and having answered that question, she was prepared. "Thirteen on Ma's side. Twenty-one on Pa's. And Ah've got nineteen nieces and nephews so far. Ah think. Plus a couple more on the way." She shrugged. "Ma's the baby of her family, and Pa's second youngest, so Ah've got nieces and nephews older'n me."
"Good grief!"
Alicia giggled. "We're Catholic," she said, as if that explained everything - which in fact it did for me, as I'm sure it was for Addy last week. "The current generation is slowin' down a bit from Ma's and Pa's generation, though. Otherwise Ah'd have probably fifty nieces and nephews."
I had an amusing thought, and I burst into laughter, which drew odd looks from the two. "Imagine Mrs. Carson's reaction if even a fraction of your cousins, nieces, and nephews all manifested about the same time!"
"A whole floor of Dickinson or Melville for Thacker relatives!" Alicia was nearly holding her sides thinking about it. "Ito'd retire!"
"And Madame Carson, too, I think," Addy added.
As we went downstairs so I could be introduced to the 'herd', a couple of ATVs drove noisily out of the yard. Addy and I raced to a window in time to see Mr. Thacker, Mike, and three other men and another boy were riding full tilt out onto their property. Guns were slung over shoulders or strapped to the ATVs.
Alicia noticed my curious stare. "Hogs," she said. Seeing that I didn't quite get it, she expanded on her explanation. "Feral hogs. Tear the hell out of the fields, so when any family come over, Dad and a few of the quote menfolk unquote head out to try to kill some of 'em." She made the silly little airquote gesture around the word, punctuating the sour expression on her face and indicating her disdain for the male-centric hunt routine.
"That sounds like fun," I groused, noticing the number of cousins - many with girlfriends or boyfriends based on how some seemed to be clingy couples - who were congregating in the family room and on the porch, as well as starting an impromptu football game.
"It's not," Alicia said in an ominous tone. "Feral hogs are mean. Really mean. And they can really do a number on a person. A neighbor, Jean Baptiste, had his leg torn up pretty bad by a hog - bad enough that he lost it."
Addy turned a little green, matching the T-shirt she was wearing, while I nodded. "Dad's got a few pigs. I know how mean a sow with piglets can get."
"And y'all still think that'd be fun?" Alicia gawked at me.
"Just like hunting bison from horseback is fun!" I grinned.
"Well, they've gone out huntin', so all we can do is make the best of it."
The 'best' of it, I realized with a groan, included at least four older teenage male cousins or possibly nephews, and then, to make matters worse, as the herd of kids began to coalesce on the porch, they noticed me and Addy.
"Hey, Adalie," one of the boys, about eighteen and of average height with brown hair, called out to Addy, "nice to see you again!"
"Good evening, Troy," Adalie replied icily. "And for your information, I still 'ave a boyfriend, and I'm not interested in changing that situation."
"Ah'm hurt," Troy replied with mock indignation. No doubt Addy had met him during the previous week. "Ah respect that. Ah just wanted to say hi, and hoped you or Alicia would introduce me to ..." he was gazing at me like a hungry man looking at a buffet, "your very pretty friend." He made a move to take my hand, perhaps to raise it to kiss.
I pulled my hand away from his grasp as Alicia spoke. "Troy, this is mah friend from school, Kayda Franks." She rolled her eyes when she glanced at me. "Kayda, this is mah cousin Troy." She glanced at the other three. "And mah cousins Nick, Reme, and John."
"You go to high school with Alicia?" Troy asked smoothly, shifting his hand to lean on the railing as if that was his original plan. "Ah just graduated, and Ah'm going to LSU next fall. Baseball scholarship," he added with a smug smile. There was no question that he was trying to impress me. "Where are you from?"
I was glad I was wearing a modest T-shirt and jeans instead of my buckskin dress; as it was, his eyes drifted down to my boobs several times. "A small town in South Dakota," I answered, trying to be as unfriendly in tone as Addy had been. "I grew up on a farm."
"Farmer's daughter, eh?" he replied with a leer and a chuckle in his voice. Seeing my expression of extreme displeasure at his suggestive comment, he dropped the light laugh. "Are you originally from a foreign country like Adalie?" He put on what I'm sure he thought was being charming. "You look like an exotic, foreign model."
"No," I replied coldly. "I'm Lakota, from South Dakota."
"Do all Lakota girls look like you?" Reme piped up smoothly and eagerly.
"No," I replied, glaring at the boy sternly enough that he flinched a bit, "some of the girls are really pretty."
"I think we need to make a road trip!" John said as an aside to Nick, not even trying to be discrete as he drooled at the prospects of pretty Lakota girls.
"In case you're wondering," Alicia chimed in, "Kayda has someone special in her life, so she's not available."
The look on Troy's face led me to believe that Alicia's comment was a direct challenge to him; his appearance took on that of a predator, a boy who knew he was attractive to girls and who expected to get his way with them. I felt an ominous shudder.
Saturday, June 23, 2007 - Late Evening
Alicia's home, near Baton Rouge, Louisiana
The summer evening breeze felt invigorating as I padded slowly through the field, my senses alert to the sky and earth spirits. I felt free, like I hadn't in hours, not since the hordes of aunts, uncles, kids, girlfriends and boyfriends, and Alicia's grandma had descended on Alicia's house like a swarm of locust. It was smothering in a way I hadn't experienced in a long time; boys my age or a little older trying to hit on me, aunts and uncles and smaller kids fascinated because I was Lakota, Aunt Vicky trying to play matchmaker to get me spending time with her son Troy - ah, yes, Troy. A shudder coursed up and down my spine. What an arrogant asshole!
Since he'd first spotted me, I was certain - from my experience of having been a boy and listening to locker-room swagger - that he'd decided he was going to bang me. And he was convinced, no doubt, that he would succeed; for a baseline, he wasn't an unattractive guy, and he did have that confidence and air about him that all the guys used to envy and try to mimic. He had game. There was no question in my mind that he'd been a stud in his high school, and college would only see him increase his notch count. Unfortunately for me, he'd decided I should be one of those notches. It wouldn't have been so bad, but after Aunt Vicky heard my family background, she'd no doubt decided that I'd be right for her precious Troy.
Maneuvered repeatedly into talking with Troy, suggestions of sitting to chat on the porch swing, even offers to take me to a movie or dance, I'd wearied of it quickly. Hints and even blunt statements that I had a 'special someone' didn't make any difference. I thought about revealing my like of girls, but I knew that seducing a lesbian was a huge fantasy of many a boy, and I didn't want to take a chance on making Troy even more aggressive, to say nothing of the possibility of scorn and rejection from the extended Thacker family.
Worse was the fact that, like they did with so many such gatherings, Mr. Thacker had cleaned out his vast garage, and besides serving the food from there, a stereo in the corner played obnoxiously-loud music - including that awful Zydeco stuff - and many of the kids danced with boyfriends or girlfriends. I think the dancing was mostly because there was precious little else to do.
When Troy had tried to drag me by the hand to the dance floor, I panicked. Yanking my hand free, I bolted into the house, no doubt leaving a lot of the family gawking and wondering what had happened. Grabbing my bow 'in case', I ran into the woods to escape the oppressive gathering, to get away from people into nature to de-stress. I guess I'd subconsciously known what I wanted to do to - hunt.
I was hunting. The earth spirit told me that there were animals ahead of me, and the sounds confirmed that they were hogs. The feral hogs Alicia had been talking about. A surge of adrenaline coursed through me, and I felt alive.
Sensing the sky spirit, I began to slowly circle around the noise, using the earth spirit as a guide to be as silent as possible, my senses alert. The straps holding my tomahawks in their 'holsters' were unfastened, and I had an arrow nocked. For some stupid reason, as soon as I was downwind of the hogs, I pulled a small case from my pocket. Opening it, I smeared some of the greasy contents onto a finger, which I then smudged in two vertical stripes on each cheek below the eye. Even if it was just hunting hogs, I felt like I was going to war. I felt a thrill course down my spine like I'd never felt before. It was ... exhilarating.
Once the little case was put away, I checked the earth spirit, and frowned. These hogs were wary as hell, and smart. Though I'd been silent as death, they'd sensed something, and had moved. Again, I moved quietly, stalking them. Now that I was closer, I could see ripples in the tall grass of the field, betraying the hogs' movements. My eyes watching the field carefully, I let the earth spirit flow through me.
There were two groups, or more precisely, one very large hog by itself, and twenty or thirty yards distant from it, another large hog with several smaller ones. A mama sow and her litter. I decided immediately that I was not going to mess with the mama. The other one, separated from the mama and her piglets, could be a solitary sow or a boar. In either case it was alone.
Far off, faintly, I heard Alicia and Addy and a few others calling my name. There were also the sounds of at least two ATVs running. My friends hadn't been nearby when Troy had pulled his asshole move, so it would have taken them time to hear that I'd run away from Troy, then to look around the garage and house, and finally to discover that my bow was missing.
I had to hurry my hunt before they spooked the hog.
Slowly, quietly, carefully, I stalked through the grass, half-crouching to minimize my visual presence. Everything seemed to slow, and I had to force myself to not focus exclusively on the hog, but listen to the spirits telling me all that was around me. The sow and her litter were moving a bit closer to the solitary hog, which was about twenty yards away from me.
I straightened slowly, and I could see the hog in the grass, a brute of a pig rooting around the grass and destroying the field. I drew back, silently mouthed a prayer to Wakan Tanka, and let the arrow fly. Even before it had hit, I drew back and sent a second arrow on its flight.
The squeal of the hog was thunderous in the silent evening. It had seen me, or at least my motion, and with two arrows sticking from its body, it turned and charged toward me, snorting and squealing with a combination of rage and pain.
The bow fell on the ground, replaced in my hands by my tomahawks, and just in time. A swipe with one weapon gashed the face of the hog while I dodged to the side of its mouth and dangerous teeth; almost in one motion, my dance to the side turned into a spin and I swung my second tomahawk down and around in a semi-circle that terminated in the lower side of the hog.
Squealing in its death throes, driven by instinct, it tried to turn on me, its attacker, but I danced out of the way again, swinging as I moved. The arc of my tomahawk ended at the hog's skull, where the fast-moving, metal blade split skin and bone. The hog collapsed for good.
A snort behind me and the earth spirit caused me to turn; rather than flee, the sow was coming at me. Timing it just right, I did a somersault over the charging hog, striking at its head and back with one weapon as I did so, but not in a blow that would be fatal. Now shit had gotten real; I was dealing with an injured mama sow. Even before I'd landed, she'd turned and was charging at me again. Adrenaline surged through my veins as I felt the thrill of the dangerous battle. Dodging to the side, I threw one tomahawk, which embedded in her side, and almost in the same motion, drew my ever-present knife. At some point, she'd gotten teeth into my arm, but I was too pumped to let that slow me. A combination of knife and tomahawk learned from Toni's kata ended the life of the second hog. To be certain that they stayed down, I slit the throats of both hogs
I stood, clad as a hunter, bow in one hand and tomahawk in the other, on the prairie. "Kukuse!" I called out.
A heavy snorting sound answered my call, and a huge hog with serious tusks charged at me, stopping at the last moment when I held my ground fearlessly.
"Why does the Ptesanwi call me?" Kukuse, the spirit of the boar, asked humbly.
"I wish to thank you for the gift of meat I have taken."
Kukuse nodded. "You fought well, giving my children a fair fight. It is good to see you hunt like this, not the white man's way with the fire sticks. You are brave, and it is an honor for my children to feed your tribe. Go in peace, Ptesanwi."
It took a moment to re-orientate myself coming out of my dream world. Spreading my arms upward, I tilted my head back, and a high-pitched, ululating cry sounded over the field.
Saturday, June 23, 2007 - Late Evening
Alicia's home, near Baton Rouge, Louisiana
"What the hell do you think you were doing?" Alicia practically screamed at me as her mom tended to my injured arm. The sow's bite had been a lot deeper than I'd realized; adrenaline had dampened my feeling during the brief battle.
"I ... I needed to get away," I said softly, a little embarrassed at how much consternation I'd caused my friends and their family.
"When Pa heard your war cry, he was certain you'd been tore up by a hog!" Alicia continued chiding me. "Or a gator!"
"I'm sorry," I apologized, feeling more and more guilty about running off and then engaging wild hogs in a night-time battle. "I ... I just ..." I sighed, not sure how to tell Alicia and Addy with their mom and aunt present.
Out in the garage, the music still played, but I don't think anyone was dancing. Not after they'd discovered me missing and then had found me, bleeding and sore, in a field with two large dead hogs. The boar was almost two hundred fifty pounds - a very large pig, and the mama sow was over one-fifty.
"Kayda," Alicia said, wincing as she glanced at her mom and aunt, "Ah told Ma."
"What?!?" I demanded, my eyes wide open. That was all I needed - for her entire family to know I'd been gang-raped!
"Ah ... had to tell them," Alicia winced again, "that you were beat up and almost killed by the guys back home when you manifested. So they'd understand why you didn't like Troy's flirting."
My heart started beating again; she hadn't lied, but thankfully she'd only told part of the story.
Aunt Vicky stooped before me. "Ah'm so sorry, Kayda," she said, her voice profusely apologetic. "Ah had no idea! If Ah'd known, Ah'd have made sure the boys understood you weren't available."
"Ah suppose the story about you having a boyfriend is just a cover?" Alicia's mom asked. There was a look in her eye that made me suspect that she knew she was giving me an out.
"Yeah," I admitted with a heavy sigh. "Until I get over it, I can't even think about ... trusting boys, let alone going on dates or anything."
Alicia shot me a quick warning glance that I might have gone a bit too far with my explanation. "Kayda's got several friends that are boys, like RPG and Adrian on her training team, but they're both spoken for, so everyone knows they're just friends."
Alicia left with Aunt Vicky, leaving me alone with Mrs. Thacker. I was quite nervous because I feared she might have guessed one of my secrets - that I was attracted to girls and not boys. It was best to pre-empt her guessing. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Thacker," I said contritely. "I ... I shouldn't have run off like I did. It's just ... Troy was being too pushy."
She chuckled. "Yeah, he's like that. He's either gonna get himself killed by a jealous boyfriend or husband, or he's gonna meet a strong girl that'll have him totally whipped and followin' her around like a lost puppy."
I couldn't help but chuckle at the mental image that conjured - Troy obediently following around someone like Majestic or Cytherea or Jadis who'd have him licking their boots and saying 'yes, ma'am' to their every little whim. And if he pulled that kind of Don Juan stuff with Hippolyta, she'd rip his balls off and dance on them.
"Is it true what Alicia says, that y'all fought a big snake demon? And she beat up a mugger in Boston?" Clearly, the Thackers weren't sure how many of Alicia's stories to believe and how many to discount as flights of her imagination.
I chuckled. "Yeah, it's true. We train pretty hard because people generally don't like us mutants and we're almost always in danger. They teach us how to fight to survive."
"So last week when Adalie told Troy she'd feed him his own intestines after breaking every rib one-by-one ...?"
I laughed aloud at that one. "I don't think she'd go that far, but she has been training with Alicia and me, and she knows how to fight pretty well. She put a hurt on a guy in her combat final - a guy who beat the crap out of her in the fall."
Mrs. Thacker just shook her head. "Pa and Ah are gonna have t' make a trip up there. Ah gotta see this school of yours."
Monday, June 25, 2007 - Morning
Near New Orleans, Louisiana
I should have taken a tranquilizer - although with my regen, it wouldn't have done much good. Still, anything would have helped deal with Mr. Thacker's wild driving which scared me more than some of the sim fights I'd been in.
"Um, Ma?" Alicia said hesitantly as we neared the airport exit. From her tone, I knew there was something she'd been meaning to tell her folks but had been putting off until the last minute. Which was now.
"Yeah?"
"Um, Ah told you about Kayda's training team, right?"
"Yes. What about it?"
"Well, y'see," she hesitated, "Ah'm kinda on the team, too."
"What?!?" Mr. Thacker roared. "You're on one of them training teams? The kind that fights each other?"
"It's good training," Alicia protested. "If Ah'd have had that kind of experience, the mess in New York wouldn'ta happened! Or Ah coulda fought mah way out of it better."
"But ... from the way you describe Kayda's fights, it sounds awful!" Mrs. Thacker protested. "Ah don't want you gettin' hurt doin' things like that!"
"Ma, Kayda's on three training teams, and she's doin' alright!" Alicia pleaded. "Kayda, tell her it's okay!"
Great! She'd just put me on the spot. "I'm afraid that what Alicia says about the danger we'll face post-graduation is true," I replied. "I mean, look what happened to me." I shuddered at the merest mention of being beaten nearly to death twice; Mrs. Thacker noticed.
"But ... a team?" Mrs. Thacker asked. "Ah don't want her bein' no superhero!"
"And Ah don't wanna be a superhero, Ma! It's not about that! It's about learnin' t' defend mahself."
Mrs. Thacker looked at me, her eyes narrowed a bit. "Are you bein' a bit of a bad influence on Alicia?"
"Ma, it's not like that! Pa, you know what happened in New York - how that nutjob was gonna' sacrifice me to a demon! Ah didn't know how t' fight! Ah coulda been killed!"
"You'll get yourself killed if you get into fights!" Ma protested.
"But at least Ah'll know how t' fight so Ah have a chance!" Alicia countered. "If Ah don't learn, Ah won't have any chance."
"The simulations are very carefully supervised," I interjected, "and the lessons are planned to help learn to survive. Like Sensei Ito says, it doesn't do any good to spend all this money on a fancy education if we get ourselves killed the day after we graduate because we don't know how to survive."
"But ...." Mrs. Thacker started to protest.
"Ma," Mr. Thacker interjected strongly, "she's gotta learn."
"But ..."
"If it was the boys, you wouldn't be objectin' now, would you?" he continued.
Mrs. Thacker started to reply, but shut her mouth as she thought. Finally, after several minutes of considering what had been said, she turned to me. "Is it really safe?"
"I've gotten hurt a lot worse in the real world than I have in training," I replied honestly. I very specifically didn't mention Snakey or Officer Matthews or Magic Mikey or the other incidents. "And Alicia is learning very well. In fact, I bet that if she went one-on-one with a hog, she'd win if she had my tomahawks."
The Suburban pulled up to the drop-off curb at the airport. The three of us girls and Mrs. Thacker got out, and after we retrieved our luggage, Mr. Thacker drove off to a temporary parking spot, like maybe a cell phone lot or something.
At the security gate, Mrs. Thacker gave Alicia a huge hug. "Y'all be careful now, okay?"
"I will be," Alicia promised her. "Ah've got mah two best friends to help keep me out of trouble."
In turn, I got a hug. "Ah'm glad you came down t' visit, but Ah'm sorry about the other night," she apologized softly.
"I had a good time," I replied casually.
"You keep Alicia out of trouble up at your home, okay?"
I chuckled. "We live on a farm. There's not much that can go wrong!"
Mrs. Thacker turned to Addy. "Thank you for being such a good friend to mah girl. And thanks for helpin' her with her French! She sounds so ... sophisticated, so worldly!" She smiled. "Ah'm actually jealous."
"I'd do almost anything for my best friend," Addy replied. There were, I suspected, some tears in her eyes; from the interactions, it was obvious that she'd come to think of Alicia's family almost as a second home to her.
Several hugs later, the three of us strode down the concourse, having passed through the MCO checkpoint without any problem. "Thanks for putting me on the spot," I said sarcastically to Alicia.
"Ah didn't know what else to do," Alicia said, blushing apologetically. "You're so good at dealin' with adults, and ..."
I wrapped an arm around her waist and gave a small squeeze. "Just kidding. Although I'm starting to worry that you might start thinking of me as your own personal 'fixer'!"
Alicia and Addy giggled together. "With your ins with Mrs. Carson," Alicia said through her laughter, "you might be the best fixer on campus!"
"And you might find some blowback from all the trouble I seem to get in with Mrs. Carson," I shot back with a grin. "We've got time to get a bite to eat before our flight boards. I'll buy."
Monday, June 25, 2007 - Mid-Day
Near Kayda's Hometown, South Dakota
The serpent curled its huge body into the small tunnel it had carved out to protect itself from the blistering, crippling rays of the sun. It had been waiting patiently for several days for the shaman to return. It was only a matter of time, but the snake-demon had little in the way of patience.
"Father," he called out psychically to Unhcegila, held captive so far away at HPARC.
"Yes, my son?" the answer came.
"The shaman isn't coming! I should hunt for him!"
"The shaman will be there. You must continue to be patient."
"We are hunters, father! Waiting so long is ... difficult!"
"The shaman will come. And then you will take what I need - the Sacred Sphere. Your brother continues to work to free me, and he must be even more patient than you so he doesn't set off the traps around my prison. If he can do it, can you do less?"
"No, father," the snake demon said, feeling a little embarrassed, which was the whole point of his father's statement. "I will wait."
Monday, June 25, 2007 - Mid-Day
Rosebud Indian Reservation, South Dakota
Little Doe sighed, stretching her tired, sore muscles that were cramped from sitting most of the day. It would be good to finish their business, an emergency discussion of all shamans about the sudden dangers they all faced. Three shamans in South Dakota and two more in Canada had been killed in violent, vicious attacks. It was more shamans than died in any typical year. Something was after them, and they needed to know what, and how to stop it. So far, though, inter-tribal bickering and politics had stymied any attempt at agreements for the collective good of ALL the people. It would be good to leave all of this behind and get home to see her granddaughter and to be with her family. Tomorrow, whether the assembled shamans had reached an agreement or not, she would go.
More Whateley Academy tales can be found on the Whateley website, whateleyacademy.net
Sunday, June 24, 2007 - Late Night
Kayda's Home, South Dakota
Danny Franks staggered into the kitchen looking haggard, and pain was evident on his face. Groans of agony punctuated the silence as his mom flipped on a light and then stared, wide-eyed and mouth agape, at her son.
The boy recoiled from the ceiling light, holding his hand up over his face and turning away, while tears leaked down his cheeks. "No light, please!" he insisted in a raspy whisper. "It hurts!"
June Franks flipped off the overhead light and dashed to her son, wrapping him in her arms and clutching his head tight against her breast. "Another one, Danny?" she asked, feeling the helplessness of a mother with a sick child.
"It hurts, Mom," Danny cried softly, tears now streaming down his cheeks. "Make it stop, please!" he begged."Do you want to try Grandma's herbs?" June asked softly, holding the boy's head. She winced as her hands felt soft, furry tissue above where his ears should have been, but biting her tongue, she said nothing at the evidence that Danny's changes were continuing.
"Uh, huh," the boy mumbled softly. "The Vicodin isn't working."
Slowly, tenderly, June led Danny to the sofa and eased him down on his side. Softly stroking his tear-stained cheek, June hurried back to the kitchen and, since the opening between the two rooms was a large archway with no door to shield Danny from light and noise, turned off the main kitchen light, working instead from a dimmer light in the pantry. As quietly as she could, she opened a cupboard door and pulled down some small glass jars, each with a handwritten label. Hearing him cry out in his extreme discomfort, June opened one of the jars, recoiling from the sweet, pungent aroma which issued forth from the coarse, brown, liquid-soaked herbs inside. Eschewing the stove, she grabbed a ceramic coffee cup, filled it about halfway with water, and then popped it into the microwave.
She was watching her son when the microwave beeped that it was done, and before she could turn back to the now-hot water, Danny opened his eyes to complain about the noisy beeping. June gasped when she saw the shine of the pantry light reflected in eyes. Another sign of his changes - the distinct colored reflection of Danny's tapetum lucidum, the same reflective layer found in cats, including mountain lions. No matter how many times she saw that unnatural reflection she gasped in surprise; her son was not supposed to have eyes like a cat.
With pain in her heart, June turned back to the microwave, and working quickly, added a spoon of the wet herbal mixture to the water. This was a last-ditch attempt to stave off her son's pain; she knew what grandma had given them. As a Lakota shaman, Little Doe knew how to make all sorts of herbal potions, including a very highly-regulated mixture that was an extremely powerful narcotic with some hallucinogenic properties. Normally, it was given to a Lakota person when they went on a dream quest, where the person needed to be totally and completely distracted from their physical body so they could fully experience their dreams. As such, the brew neutralized almost all pain even better than the strongest medicine June knew of. And if they weren't Lakota, and her mother a registered shaman, they could have never gotten the powerful mixture. But June knew none of its other properties.
A twinkle of light dashed through the cup, and the vapors changed to an intoxicatingly sweet aroma with hints of sage and lavender; June thought for a moment that Kayda, her now-daughter, probably knew how to make the same brew along with the other magics she could work. She banished the stray thoughts; Kayda would be home in the afternoon, and right now, she had to focus on her other child.
Hurrying to Danny's side, she squatted down beside the sofa and tenderly lifted his head, wincing at the twinges of discomfort and pain evident on his face as she moved him. Holding the cup, she helped him navigate it to his lips and sip - once, twice, three times. In moments, the tears stopped flowing, but June worried about the glazed look entering Danny's eyes. She helped him take another few sips, and then, putting the cup on an end table beside the sofa, eased him back down to his side, propping his head with a small throw-pillow.
When his breathing was regular and soft instead of gasping in pain, June pulled an afghan off the back of the sofa and draped it across Danny, then settled into a chair near his head. Even if it was late, and she was tired, she had a motherly vigil to maintain, as she'd done so often in the past when one of her children was ill or injured. She was not about to change that habit.
Sunday, June 24, 2007 - Late Night
The March of Dreams
Wearing a traditional Lakota man's outfit of buckskin tunic and pants and moccasins, Danny found himself on a prairie with rolling hills and waving knee-high grass. He looked around, taking in the magnificent vista of the azure sky, dotted with small puffs of clouds skittering rapidly to the east, a magnificent yellow sun beating down with warm, welcome rays. In the distance, over a hill, the scattered tiny clouds had formed into something different; the thunderheads towered over the other clouds, and beneath them, a part of the horizon was clouded and dark and fuzzy as afternoon rain poured down to refresh the ground below.
Danny had been in dream space before, so he wasn't startled, but he'd always had Kayda to guide him. Now, though, he was alone. Unless ...
He looked around again. "Kayda!" he called - once, twice, three times, letting his voice echo and die down between calls as he awaited a reply. But there was none.
Overhead, there was a scream, and Danny looked up, startled. His amazement grew even more when he saw an eagle circling above him, looking down at him. As he stared, the eagle circled lower, and dropping its talons, it approached his arm, flaring out its wings to slow itself as it passed him, and then with a mighty flapping of its wings, dragging itself back into the sky to circle and approach again, repeating its motion.
And suddenly Danny knew. As the eagle approached again, he lifted his arm, holding it outstretched and trying to be fearless and calm, which was difficult knowing that the eagle's talons could rip his arm to shreds. The eagle grasped his arm, but instead of tearing into his flesh, it gripped his arm tightly, fluttering its wings until it perched upon his outstretched arms. Danny gazed in wonder at the magnificent bald eagle, looking so stately and proud as it stared right back at him; it was heavier than he'd expected, but he forced himself to hold his arm steady.
"She who you seek is not here," the eagle said to him.
"My sister - Kayda?" Danny asked hopefully.
The eagle shook its head. "Why do you ask? It is you who seeks, not I. If you do not know who you seek, how will you know if you've found her?"
Danny frowned, puzzled. "I ... need to find my sister. She's ..."
"She is the Ptesanwi," the eagle replied. "And she is not who you seek."
"Then ... who? Who is it I seek, if you know so much?"
"The one who has answers to your questions. The one who can explain to you. The one who can help you."
Danny furrowed his brow in thought a moment. "Wihinape? Where is she?"
"Does the mountain lion hunt on the plains?" the eagle asked simply.
"No," Danny answered hesitantly. "She hunts ... in the hills and mountains."
"And there it is that you will find her."
Danny's brow furrowed again as he looked around. "Even if I had a horse, it is many days' ride, and I don't even know where I am," he objected.
"You are in the march of dreams. Everything is as near as your hopes, and as far as your fears," the noble bird replied enigmatically. He saw the confusion writ large on the boy's face. "Speak true, young warrior. You fear to talk with your spirit."
"No!" Danny protested. "I ...."
"If you did not fear it, you would be close to where she hunts," the eagle replied fiercely. "Since you are far from where she hunts, you fear speaking with her."
The boy flinched; what the bird said was wise - and likely true. "But ... she has the answers I need!"
The bird nodded. "And you fear to hear the answers. You are afraid that she will say that which you do not want to hear." There was silence as Danny contemplated what the eagle had told him. "You must decide, young one - which do you fear more? Hearing a truth that you don't want to hear, or suffering because you fear the truth?"
Danny stared at the bird, thinking. "I ... I guess ... suffering," he finally admitted.
Even as he spoke, the prairie, with the sunshine and clouds and distant rain, dissolved around him, fading away as a new image asserted itself. In seconds, Danny found himself standing by a mountain stream, the mountain breeze cool on his cheeks and the smell of pine sweet in his nostrils. The eagle was no longer on his arm, either.
A throaty growl to his left caused him to spin in place, his eyes seeking the source of the noise. Standing on a large rock, downstream of where he stood, was a large, sleek mountain lion, staring at him as if in shock.
"Wihinape?" the boy asked cautiously.
"How is it you come here?" the big cat asked, bounding in two leaps to his side. "You are not a shaman."
"Uh, I don't know," Danny stammered. "Unless ... Grandma gave me some herbal stuff for pain. She said it's used in dream quests?"
Wihinape smiled, and her form flowed to that of a buxom cat-girl of about fourteen, but clothed this time. "Then that means you seek answers if you are on a dream quest."
"I ...." the boy thought aloud, not quite sure what to say. "I don't know what I want."
"You want to know what's happening to you," Wihinape purred. "You want to know if you're going to change more."
"I ... guess so. Yeah."
Wihinape nodded. "You are changing," she said sadly. "I cannot stop it."
"How ... how much?" There was genuine fear in Danny's trembling voice.
"I do not know," Wihinape answered, and then turned away, looking down. "I have failed you, brother of the Ptesanwi," she admitted in a soft voice. "I promised I would not change you, but I am failing to keep that promise."
"But ..." Danny didn't quite know how to handle this; some reflex had him reach out to the girl's shoulders.
She shook her head, pulling away from his touch. "I cause you pain. I cause you regret. I .., I have failed you." She let out a very heavy sigh. "There is only one way I know to stop your pain, that I can keep my promise without hurting you."
"What?"
"I do not fit your hallow," the cougar-woman said sadly. "I ... must leave you. Otherwise, I cannot keep my promise. I cannot stop the pain, nor can I stop the changes happening to your body."
Danny's jaw dropped. "That'll hurt you! You said so yourself when we met with Kayda! It could ... destroy you!"
"No, I ... told a lie to Ptesanwi to stop her," she lied, and her false statement was totally transparent; she wasn't fooling Danny, nor was she fooling herself. "When I leave, it will stop your pain."
"Um ... but ... Kayda said it will hurt me if you leave!" he finally said.
"The Ptesanwi can heal you from that pain. She cannot heal you if I cause you pain or if I cause you to change."
"Kayda said that happens a lot - that the shock of losing a spirit can make a person insane! I ... don't even want to think of ... going insane ... or of what it would be like if you left," Danny stammered, "I ... I don't want ... I don't want you to ... get hurt."
"If I don't leave, you will be the one who gets hurt," Wihinape replied softly.
"And you, too!" Danny said forcefully. "We'll both get hurt if you leave!"
"You are hurting if I don't leave," Wihinape countered, shaking her head sadly. "And you are not happy with me, or what my spirit might do to change you." She sighed heavily. "It will be for the best if I leave." She turned to face the boy, determination burning in her eyes. "You must summon the Ptesanwi, so she can perform the ritual, and in that way, save you from the pain I cause."
"I ... I don't want you to go!" he finally said, shocking even himself with that admission. "I won't let her do that!"
Wihinape turned, and Danny could see that she'd been crying. "Then we will find a way, somehow." For the first time since their joining, Danny hugged the cat-spirit, finally admitting to himself that despite her teasing and sometimes whimsical, sometimes mischievous ways, he'd grown fond of her and was afraid of losing her.
Looking over Danny's shoulder as he hugged her, the cat-spirit smiled.
Monday, June 25, 2007 - Late Afternoon
Franks' Home, South Dakota
The door burst open into the house, and I practically bounded in, a suitcase under each arm and joy in my heart. I glanced around, looking expectantly for my brother Danny, but I didn't see him. "We're home!" I announced loudly in case he didn't know as I got out of the way so the other three - Addy, Alicia, and Mom - could come in from the sweltering June heat and humidity.
"Ah didn't figure it'd be as hot and humid this far north as it is back home," Alicia said as she dropped her suitcase on the floor beside her. "Ya kinda expect it in the swamps and bayous down home, but not here!"
Mom chuckled. "True, but it cools off a little more in the evenings here, and we get a lot of snow and cold in the wintertime to balance things out. Now, Kayda, why don't you show the girls to the guest room?"
"I know where it is, Madame," Addy replied quickly. "I can show Alicia without you 'aving to trouble yourself."
Mom tilted her head down slightly and rolled her eyebrows upward in her 'motherly-disapproval stare', which Addy had experienced over spring break. "Now, now," she chided the French girl, "remember - you are not to call me Madame, rapelles toi?"
Addy smiled, slightly chastened. "Oui, je me rapelle."
Alicia watched the exchange with a slightly concerned look on her face. "Then how are we to address you?" she asked, bewildered.
"You can call me June, dear," the older woman replied.
"Or Mama June," Addy said with a giggle. "Come," she turned toward the family room, through which the stairway up to the bedrooms was found. "Let's get our luggage out of the way."
"Oh, Kayda?" June said as I bent over to pick up my suitcases, "We put up the old bunk bed in your room with your bed, so the three of you can have 'sleepover' nights without having to tramp up and down the hall all night."
I beamed. "Thanks, Mom," I said with true affection before following my friends upstairs.
"Oh, and Kayda?" Mom called out after the girls, "try to be quiet, please. Danny is resting. He had a very bad headache last night."
I returned to the archway between the kitchen and the kitchen-dining room. "Again?"
Mom nodded. "Real bad. Vicodin wasn't doing anything, so I had to give him some of your grandma's special mix."
My eyes nearly bugged out. "Mom! That stuff is ... really, really potent!"
"Mom told me how much to give him," she reassured me. "Enough to take away his pain."
"Well, that explains it," I muttered. Seeing Mom's quizzical expression, I explained. "In dream space last night, Wabli told me that the 'brother of the Ptesanwi' was looking for me, but he really wanted to find Wihinape. He was dream-walking. That's what Grandma uses it for mostly - dream quests." I winced when I remembered what Wakan Tanka had told me about the potion. "Do you know what that stuff does?"
Mom bit her lower lip. "Besides take away his pain? No, Mom didn't tell me anything else."
"It's mildly hallucinogenic," I said cautiously. "No wonder he was dream walking!" I read my Mom's expression. "As far as I know, it's not addictive, and it won't cause any damage to him, either physical or mental."
Half an hour later, after unpacking, flopping on the beds and having some girly chat, complete with giggles, we came back down, dressed much more casually than we'd traveled. We all wore jeans and a T-shirt, although I had my ever-present tomahawk and knife. We came around the corner into the kitchen, and I grinned. "Hi, Daddy," I said with a huge smile and a bounding hug for Dad. It was no longer awkward to call him Daddy, which was a very girly way of talking.
"Hi, sweetie," Pete Franks replied easily, sweeping me off my feet and twirling me around in a very loving hug. "I'm glad you're home!"
"So am I," I replied enthusiastically. "Daddy," I said as Dad put me down, "you know Addy. This," I gestured to Alicia, "is my friend Alicia Thacker."
Dad stepped to her and shook her hand. "Pleased to meet you. Are you one of the girls who kept Kayda out of trouble last week?"
Addy and Alicia grimaced simultaneously, glancing at each other. Mom noticed, and turned to me, a stern motherly expression fixed on her features. "Kayda! What did you do?"
"We went fishing, and I did a little hunting!" I said meekly, divulging the truth, but not the whole truth.
"Kayda!" Dad snapped, knowing somehow that I'd omitted some details.
"She shot a couple of feral hogs," Alicia began hesitantly.
"Okayyyyy," Mom said warily, gazing my way with a stern expression and knowing instinctively that there was a lot more to the story. "And?"
"One of Alicia's cousins wouldn't stop trying to hit on me, so I took my bow out hunting."
"Bow-hunting feral hogs?" Dad exclaimed, mouth agape.
"At night," Alicia added.
"Kayda Louise Franks!" Mom began, but Dad slowly smiled.
"Did you get him?" he asked.
"Two, actually," I replied. "I had to use my tomahawk and knife to finish them off after the bow-shot." I did my best to ignore my mother's gaping mouth. "They're tough!" I added. "I one-shotted bison in the simulators, but those hogs take a lot more damage to bring down!"
I could tell that Mom was winding up to let me have a 'tender, motherly lecture', but a noise behind us interrupted her. Everyone spun to the noise.
Danny stood in shorts and a T-shirt, looking quite haggard and uncomfortable. "Can you please keep it down?" he asked with a fatigued expression, his eyes only narrow slits and visibly cringing.
I was shocked - he looked really, really bad. I couldn't help turning to him and wrapping an arm around him out of my concern. "Are you okay?" I asked.
"No," he whined softly. "My head hurt really bad last night!"
"Did Grandma's stuff help?" Mom asked, striding to his side.
Danny looked at me. "I ... I think I dream-walked last night," he said hesitantly.
"You probably did," I said reassuringly. "The stuff Grandma made for you is used for dream quests. Do you feel better now?"
Danny nodded feebly. "Some. It still hurts, but not as bad." He sat down at the kitchen table, and Mom got him a cool glass of water.
Dad sat across from Danny. "I'm thinking of selling the dealership," he said out of the blue.
I was stunned. "But ... why?" It didn't make any sense.
"Roger and I got a hell of an offer, and with both of you at Whateley next year, not having the dealership would give us more time ... to travel and visit," he replied.
That made sense. "Okay."
Alicia sat down beside me, staring at Mom, like she had been for a while. I noticed, and it seemed a little weird, but I decided to say nothing, even when her gaze followed Mom getting a pitcher of iced-tea from the refrigerator.
"I'm thinking about maybe getting some hired help," Dad continued. "Without you two," he looked at me and Danny, "it's a little too much for me to handle the farm by myself."
"Where are you going to find help?" I couldn't help but ask. "With Danny and me being ...." I didn't need to complete the sentence; things in town were getting a little touchy because of our mutant status.
Dad shrugged. "For the summer, I can probably arrange some kind of internship with SDSU, but after that?"
"Kayda," Alicia interrupted, still with an eye on Mom, "how long has your mom glowed like this?"
I recoiled, my eyes wide with surprise. Mom exchanged a glance with Dad which I noticed, and Addy frowned. "Um, Alicia," I said hesitantly, "Mom's not a mutant. She's not glowing!"
Alicia gawked at me, and then she started giggling. "That's not what I'm talking about!"
"Then ... what?" I was confused. Based on their expressions, Addy and Danny were as confused as I was, too.
"She's ... glowing!" Alicia repeated, rolling her eyes in exasperation as if her meaning was obvious. "The way a woman glows at ... a certain time!" It still made no sense, and Alicia could see that I was still confused. "Kayda, how old are your parents?"
"Um, mid-thirties," I said without thinking. That didn't help me; it seemed totally unrelated. "Wait," I said, struggling to put the pieces together. It didn't ... and then the pieces suddenly did fit together. My jaw dropped as I turned to Mom. Dad had risen and circled behind her, holding his arms around her from behind, and the two of them were smiling. "You're ....?" This was not possible! Was it? "You're ... pregnant?" I squealed in disbelief. Addy, too screamed happily and rushed to hug Mom.
"How far along ...?" I stammered, confused.
"About seven weeks. We just got it confirmed," Mom explained, "and we weren't going to tell you for a while, but ... since Alicia figured it out ...."
Alicia grinned. "Ah've got enough cousins that Ah've seen a lot of pregnant aunts - enough that Ah know that special 'glow' pregnant women get, so Ah kinda figgered out what was goin' on."
"But ... when?" I asked, and suddenly more pieces clicked together. Seven weeks - that was about during my ... ordeal ... with Jamie's murder. And when they were traveling to get to Whateley. And the morning when it was all over and they might have had reason to celebrate. I gasped - this was definitely TMI.
"One thing," Dad said, smiling at me, but I could tell the smile was a little forced, "do you think you can talk your spirit into keeping this one a boy? If it's a boy, I mean?"
I know Dad didn't mean anything by it, but Danny flinched from his words, knowing as he did that Wihinape was changing him, and dreading that it would result in him being a girl. Dad noticed, and he slipped his arms from Mom and clasped one beefy hand on Danny's shoulder. "Not that we've given up on you, sport," he said softly. Light reflected as tiny sparkles off the tears in Danny's eyes at Dad's support.
With the narcotic pain-killer making him drowsy, Danny stretched out on his bed sleepily, gently setting his head on his soft pillow. His headache was still there, and if anything, despite the medicine, it was getting worse.
With a soft snoring, Danny drifted completely asleep. With permission from her host, Wihinape stretched out, feeling blessed relief from the misfit hallow in which she was awkwardly crammed. Stretching her arms and legs, she worked out the cramps in her limbs.
With a start, Wihinape realized that she felt arms and legs moving, that she felt the blankets sliding off a body. Amazed, she looked down - and gasped. Then she started crying. In stretching as she had, she'd pushed her host's body too much.
Standing up, she spied the mirror on Danny's dresser, so she strode cautiously to it, studying the body in the reflection. She admired her eyes in the reflected image, and she knew he'd changed enough that she was seeing clearly even though it was dark in the room. She reached up and stroked the boy's hair, absently wishing that she was running her fingers through her own long, flowing strands of tawny hair as they fell down her back and front.
Feeling the pain coming back, she squirmed her spirit in his hallow, and suddenly she felt her fingers running through much longer hair. Opening her eyes wide in surprise, she stared at the long tawny hair her fingers were playing with. A glance in the mirror showed, to her shock, her long hair on the boy's head.
Slowly, it registered on Wihinape that there was something wrong with her hands. She gasped as she pulled them from her silky hair and held them up, staring at the finer, delicate hands with long nails reminiscent of claws. They were her hands, just like it was her hair.
Wihinape sat back on the bed, agonizing over what she'd done, desperately trying to figure out why he was changing despite her best efforts to not change him. She'd promised him, and it was happening anyway. Suddenly, something that had been there all the time caught her attention. The headache! It was now just a bad ache, not the overwhelming pain it had been.
Frowning she concentrated on listening; sounds no longer echoed painfully in her ear like they had. Standing up, she crossed to the window and swept aside the blinds, gazing out at the relatively bright, silvery moon. Not even the moonlight increased the pain. Puzzled, she stood staring at the moon, wondering what had changed.
Changed! She stared at her hands and wondered. Thoughtfully she concentrated on her hearing, recalling what it should be - tuned to nature, sensitive to the faintest of vibrations, able to hear the slightest noise of a critter creeping around. When she heard the unmistakable sounds of a mouse scurrying in the attic above, she smiled as she realized the pain was reduced even more.
Realizing what was relieving the pain, she closed her eyes and pushed against the tightness she had felt ever since she had bonded with Danny. With a purr of delight she stretched, reveling in feeling of her body moving the way she remembered. She arched her back, feeling her breast bobble on her chest as the last vestiges of the headache vanished.
Stepping back to the mirror, Wihinape admired the tight, muscled, flexible body before her, reaching up to run fingers through her long tawny hair, turning side on to pose sultrily before the mirror. Smiling in delight, she moved to the window and playfully posed in the moonlight, standing tall, stretching luxuriously, and purring with pleasure, her tail twitching in a way she hadn't felt for a long time. In the sheer delight of feeling a physical body once more, she forgot about her promise to the boy and turned, relishing the sexiness of the reflected image, luxuriating in the feel of real flesh and muscles that she hadn't felt for so many millennia. Yes, she thought, licking her lips and smiling at the tiny canine teeth that were made visible, she was still very sexy.
"I'm worried about Danny," Mom said as we sat on the screened-in porch in the front of the house. With a cool evening breeze and comfortable lounge chairs, it was a nice way to spend a summer evening. "I think we're going to need to take him to the hospital,"
I sighed, looking at Mom sorrowfully. "A hospital can't help him."
Mom stared at me for a few seconds, and then she nodded. "But ... they're getting worse! I don't know how much more of this he can take!"
"I know," I said, feeling my own worries. Danny was a brat, but he was my brother, and I really hated to see him suffer. Even more, though, I hated that I was helpless to relieve his pain. We could give him more of Grandma's dream-quest potion, but that would leave him zonked out like a druggie, and nobody wanted that.
"So, how bad is this thing with Danny and his hallow?" Mom asked, taking a sip of tea herself.
Steadying myself with another sip of tea, I set the mug on the table, cradling it in both hands and staring at it. "It's bad, and it's not so bad. Danny ... Danny is actually a pretty decent Avatar. The problem is that Wihinape is a pretty powerful spirit too. She's as powerful as Tatanka," I admitted. "Danny ... It's complicated."
"Is it as bad as that poor boy you tried to help by expanding his hallow?" Mom asked.
I cringed at the memory. "His spirit was too powerful for him. It ... Wihinape ... Danny ...." I shook my head, not able to find the words to adequately explain. "It's different."
"Different how?" Mom pressed.
"Danny and Wihinape are pretty well-matched. Maybe too well," I mused. "The problem is that even my spell can only stretch a hallow so far before it affects the body."
Mom looked at me and whispered. "And this is how you hurt your friend? Your cuwe ki?"
I nodded, unsuccessfully fighting tears. "I took her gift! Her gadgeteering genius! She can't do anything anymore and it's all my fault!" I bawled into her shoulder as Mom held me tight and tried to comfort me.
When Addy and Alicia came out onto the porch, I sat up and wiped my eyes. "Maybe at Whateley, we can find some way to help him," I offered. It was a faint hope, but it was something for Mom to clutch at.
"Do you think so?"
I bit my lip, and Mom noticed, even in the dimly-lit porch. "I don't know," I admitted finally. "There's a lot that we don't know about avatars and spirits," I explained, "and lately, there are a lot of spirits showing up that, frankly, don't fit any of the older theories they used to have."
"Like yours?" Alicia suggested between sips of iced tea - which she had initially found appalling, because unlike Southerners, we didn't sweeten our iced tea nearly enough!
"Yeah," I replied. "Like Wakan Tanka and Tatanka. And Lanie's and Wyatt's spirits."
"Was that like Fey's spirit, too?" Addy asked, to which I nodded.
"The old theory was that spirits were just ... a kind of energy. Now, though, there has been a surge of spirits that are ... sentient, intelligent. Their powers are much broader than the old theories postulated. And they can manifest themselves."
"And you're saying that slut-kitty is ...."
I shook my head, sighing. "Mom, you have to accept the fact that Wihinape is with Danny. She's a part of Danny. It doesn't help for you to have nicknames like that."
Mom stared at me for a moment, and I thought she was going to go all stubborn on me, which she excelled at sometimes. "Are you saying ....?"
Her question went unfinished when we all heard a noise on the roof above us. Mom started to move, but I held up my hand to still her and the girls. I felt something, like Danny's spirit. Only it felt wrong.
Whatever was on the roof leaped, rustling into a tree close to the porch, and as we watched in silent astonishment, a nearly-naked teen girl climbed, cat-like, down from the tree. Pausing to shuck off the boxer shorts she was wearing, she padded lightly across the lawn toward the trees that sheltered the house from the wind.
"What ...?" Mom asked, astonished and fearful.
"Shhh," I hushed her, pointing to the naked girl. A quick, very soft incantation heightened my vision so the scene seemed as bright as if it was mid-day, and I repeated it for Mom, Addy, and Alicia.
The girl stopped by the tree-line, now very visible to us because of the magic spell, and with a great stretch, her form shifted, flowing fluid-like. In seconds, in place of the teen girl was a tawny-brown mountain lion, which turned toward us, looked for several seconds, and then scampered into the trees.
"What ...?" Mom began, afraid of asking the question on her mind for fear of the answer she knew was coming.
"That," I said with sickening certainty, "was Wihinape." I looked back at the tree line to where the mountain lion had vanished. "Or rather," I corrected myself, "that was Danny's body manifesting Wihinape."
Mom raised her hand to her mouth, a tiny whimper slipping from her throat, as my words confirmed what her eyes had told her. I clutched her hand tightly, reassuringly. "Well," I said, trying to sound objective, but failing miserably because it was my little brother, "now we know."
Monday, June 25, 2007 - Late Evening
Eastern South Dakota
From a small cluster of trees, a pair of beady eyes narrowed, focused laser-like on the house, as the enormous tail coiled in preparation. A wicked grin showed evil, scimitar-like teeth in a huge mouth beneath the intent, snake eyes, and the creature's fingers, capped in razor-like claws, flexed in anticipation.
A light in the house turned off, and the snake-demon moved, silently, stealthily, taxing his own patience; the prey was within his grasp. It was no time to get hasty and ruin the hunt. As he settled within a few yards of the house, he looked around. There were other dwellings in this strange village, but luck was with him - the house was on the edge of the white man's village.
One of the noisy, smelly iron buffalos of the white man charged past a hundred yards away, but the snake-demon ignored it. It was time.
He exploded from his coil toward the dwelling, using his own head and body as a battering ram to smash through the flimsy structure in a hail of wood splinter and flying insulation and plaster. The shaman was abed, as he fully expected, but his attack surprised the shaman totally ... even more than he'd hoped. There was no time for even the simplest of protection magic before the shaman's body was torn asunder in a fusillade of teeth and claws. And then the shaman's life force was no more. The snake demon grinned with pure evil; at last he had succeeded.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - Early Morning
Franks' Home, South Dakota
The girls and I were seated in awkward silence at the table as Mom struggled to cook breakfast. Needless to say, she was highly distracted, because of the events of the night before had her pretty rattled. None of us knew what to say; how does one talk after seeing one's little brother manifest a very sultry cat-woman and then turn into a mountain lion?
"At least he ... it ... came back last night," Mom said to try to make conversation.
"Yeah," I said. "I ... felt it, in my dream space, so I woke up." I looked at Mom, who looked tired and emotionally wrung out, and I could see that she'd been crying, probably a lot. I got up and went to give her a big hug, which she probably needed. "Mom," I said softly, "remember what you told me?"
Mom shook her head, starting to sob again. "No."
"You said, 'No matter what you look like, it's still you inside. And I still love you.'"
Mom looked at me, her eyes moist with tears. "You ... you remember that?"
"Mom," I said earnestly, "that's what helped get me through a lot of my problems - knowing that, no matter what, you still loved me because I was still your child on the inside, even if the outside changed."
She nodded, fighting her tears. "He ... he looked so peaceful in bed this morning. Like he'd slept the best he had in days." She looked directly into my eyes. "But ... it was him! Not her. Not that ... animal!"
I sighed; I didn't want to do this part. "Mom, do you remember when I changed?" She nodded. "It didn't happen overnight, did it? It took a while. And my change was accelerated because of my burnout."
"So ...?" Mom started to ask before her voice choked off.
"If it's like the vast majority of mutations, it may take Danny a long time to change. Every time she manifests, it's probably going to change him a little bit more," I explained. "Spirit-induced change takes time."
Mom nodded on my shoulder. Then she shook, and I couldn't tell if she was trying to laugh or cry. "I always told your father that I wanted a daughter," she finally sputtered, actually half-laughing and half-sobbing, "but this is ridiculous!"
We hugged for a few minutes with Mom crying on my shoulder - long enough that neither of us noticed Alicia and Addy getting up and taking over the cooking duties.
When Mom lifted her head, she gasped. "What do you think you're doing?"
"We are cooking breakfast," Addy replied.
"You're guests!" Mom protested, wiping the moisture from her eyes on the back of her shirt-sleeve. "You're not ..."
"Non?" Addy countered with a broad grin. "When I visited last time, you told me that I was to think of you as family. In a family, all 'elp with chores, n'est c'pas? So we are just 'elping!"
"So y'all can just sit down and let us finish," Alicia drawled.
"But no 'ot sauce!" Addy interjected with mock fear. "Can you make the crepes, and I'll make the filling?" she asked her roommate.
"See what I have to put up with," I giggled to Mom. It was just what she needed; the friendly humor broke through her funk.
Mom and I both realized someone was watching us, and we both turned, though she was a little more startled than I. Danny was standing in the kitchen archway, and for the first time since I'd been home from school, he looked rested and relaxed.
Mom bounded to him, enveloping him in a smothering, motherly hug. "Are you okay?" she asked in a worried voice.
Danny tried to squirm out of her protective, motherly hug, without much success because she was so practiced at it. "I'm fine!" he complained. "My head doesn't hurt." From within Mom's protective shield, he glanced at me. "Whatever you did last night worked, because I slept good and I don't have a headache."
I winced as I glanced at Mom, seeing her grimace when she looked at me. "Um, Danny," I started hesitantly, "I didn't do anything."
He was bewildered. "But ... you had to have done something! I don't have a headache!" he protested.
"Danny," I started, and then gestured for him and Mom to sit down. "How much do you remember about last night?"
"I had a bad headache, and Mom gave me some pain meds. Then I went to bed," he replied. "And I got up this morning."
"Did you have any dreams?"
His brow furrowed as he thought. "Um, yeah. I think." With his eyes closed to shut out distractions, he struggled to recall. "Um, Wihinape took me out and showed me how she hunts, when she's in her mountain lion form. We ... we stalked a calf, I think, but I told her not to kill it because we ... we weren't hungry." He wrinkled his nose, opening his eyes. "And ... I didn't want to do that - to kill something like that and eat it."
I grimaced, pretty sure I knew what had happened. "Danny," I pressed the issue, "what's your worst fear right now?"
My kid brother frowned. "Um, changing?" he said softly, fearfully. "Into her?"
I nodded. "Last night, you did change into Wihinape's form. Forms," I corrected myself. "Both of them."
Danny's eyes widened, and in disbelief, he looked at Mom, hoping she'd reassure him that what I'd said wasn't true. Unfortunately for him, all she could do was grimace and nod. And when he saw Alicia's and Addy's confirming nods as well, he started to tear up. "I ... I couldn't have!" he protested. "I was in bed ... sleeping! The stuff you gave me ... it kept me asleep!" I was afraid he was going to start bawling.
I forced myself back out of dream-space, hoping that every time Wihinape wanted a conversation with Danny, she wasn't going to accidentally yank me into the discussion.
Danny opened his tear-filled eyes, looking down at the floor. "She ... she said she stretched, and that she did manifest." He looked up at me in desperation. "Is that what she's going to make me look like - like her human form? Or her mountain lion form?"
"I don't know," I answered once more. "There aren't many cases of sentient spirits, and fewer gender-mismatched spirits." I hoped he didn't read through my lie. Jamie, Nikki, and I were all cases of gender-mismatched spirits, and we had all changed gender. Danny was already scared enough by all this and I didn't want to add to it. "Grizzly, Lanie's spirit, has been both male and female over many millennia, but Lakota spirits are different. I don't know if Wihinape can change gender like Grizzly does"
I paused to sip from the coffee which Addy had just set before me. "Danny, I want you to try to manifest Wihinape again."
"No!" he shouted in response. "I ... I can't! I don't know how!" he protested. "And ... what if I get ... get ... stuck?" he added, sniffling. "I ... I just can't!"
"Let me ask her something first, then," I suggested. When Danny nodded, I incanted, touching his forehead, and we slipped into dream-space.
I looked at Mom, who was watching me carefully. "She will manifest."
"I don't want her to!" Danny protested again. His objection didn't matter; his body began to shift, and in moments, his body was that of Wihinape in the cat-woman form. In that form, his ears were furry, tawny triangles atop his head, with long, flowing tawny tresses hanging down just past his shoulders. We were used to the cat-pupils, since he had them all the time now. "Satisfied?" he asked, wincing at how he sounded and glancing unhappily down to see a very curvy female body pinched and squeezed in his clothes, especially in the chest and rear-end. Almost like it was a cliché, he started to lift his hands toward the unfamiliar mounds on his chest, but then, blushing, he forced himself to not touch them.
I suppressed a chuckle; I'd been through the same experience, and I understood only too well how teenage male curiosity worked. "Who is in control right now - Wihinape, like last night, or Danny?"
"Me," Danny mumbled, in tears. "But I can feel her - like being in this form draws her closer to me."
I figured he was freaking out. "Calm down, Danny. You changed back last night, so it'll be okay." I hoped. But I didn't say that part aloud. Instead, I quickly got a coffee cup of water and then opened my medicine pouch, quickly making the calming tea. "Here."
He looked uncertainly at me, and then drank the brew. The result was almost instantaneous; his worry wrinkles disappeared and the panic in his eyes vanished. "Better?" I asked, to which he simply nodded in reply.
"At least you have clothes on," Mom said sarcastically.
"We saw her shift your body to a cougar, too. Can she do that now, too?"
For a second, Danny seemed distracted, and then he nodded, standing - and wincing once more at how it felt to move in the unfamiliar female body. Again, his body flowed quickly into that of a mountain lion, albeit with clothes on. "Like this?" he asked.
I nodded, while Mom, Addy, and Alicia sat or stood back a bit, eyes wide open at having a full-grown mountain lion in the kitchen, even if they knew it was Danny and was wearing his pajamas.
"Okay. Now change back."
Watching a mountain lion screw up its facial expression in concentration was amusing - or rather, it would have been if it hadn't been my kid brother. After several seconds, his eyes opened. "I ... can't!" he complained, his voice cracking in distress.
"Let Wihinape do it," I urged him. "She knows how to do it."
Danny nodded, and then his body flowed back - through the female form, until he was sitting on his haunches on the kitchen floor. He looked down at himself, at his hands, chest, and feet. "I'm ... I'm me again!" he said joyfully. "I didn't get stuck!"
Mom swept him into a hug again, grateful that her son was back to being her son. I, on the other hand, studied him carefully. Through my shaman magic, I looked for any tiny little change in him, but I didn't see anything obvious. And I was starting to formulate a theory about his interaction with his spirit. But I wasn't an expert; my theories and ideas would have to wait until we were at Whateley and I could talk to the power experts - and even they might be baffled.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - Afternoon
Franks' Home, South Dakota
"That's odd," Mom said as she hung up the phone with a puzzled expression.
"What?"
"Mom isn't answering her phone," Mom answered.
I shrugged. "She probably forgot to charge it while she was traveling and it's out of juice." Grandma wasn't a technophile by any stretch of the definition.
"I don't think that's it," Mom answered immediately, a little worried. "I tried her home phone, too."
"She's probably at the store or the post office," Danny suggested. The four of us - three girls and Danny - were enjoying some fresh-baked cookies and we were amazing Danny with Whateley tales.
"I thought of that," Mom replied. "I checked with the phone finder app. Her phone is at home." She worried her lower lip for a bit. "Something isn't right," she decided. "I'm going over there."
"I'll drive," I suggested. I didn't get to drive my truck at Whateley, so I was taking every opportunity to drive while I was home.
Alicia and Danny hopped right up into the truck, but Mom and Addy struggled a bit; my truck was lifted about four inches, with big tires and wheels, so the cab was quite high off the ground and I hadn't installed a side step rail yet. Honestly, it would have been difficult for me, too, if I wasn't an exemplar. I'd have to get rails on it.
"And you said my dad was a crazy driver," Alicia chuckled as we drove toward Grandma's. She lived just on the edge of town; she either said she lived in town or in the country depending on who she was talking to and how rustic she wanted to sound.
"You should have ridden with Lanie," I shot back with a grin. "Ever been in a car doing two-hundred twenty?"
"Non," Addy shot back immediately, "and I 'ope to never be in one!"
"Way cool!" Danny chimed in excitedly. Since I was friends with Lanie, he obviously was hoping to get a chance to ride in Lanie's car when we got to Whateley.
"Two twenty?" Mom asked, astonished. "You didn't tell me that part!"
"It wasn't a big deal," I said with a shrug. "It's flat, straight roads and not a lot of traffic. You can ...." I stopped, my eyes riveted forward. "That's strange," I muttered.
Grandma's truck was in the driveway, so she was home, but what had caught my attention was debris we could just see on the opposite side of the house from the driveway and garage. "What the hell?"
Mom was focused on the same debris field; it looked like splintered wood and siding, and as soon as I stopped the truck behind Grandma's truck, she was out and running toward the house.
Slamming the shifter into park, I leaped from the cab and chased mom; fortunately, I was much faster than she was, and I caught her as she was reaching for the doorknob, key in hand. "Stop! Something's wrong here, Mom!" I fairly screamed at her.
She looked at me, quite startled that I'd basically pulled her off the porch by force. "Kayda!"
"Mom, there's something very wrong here!" I repeated. "I feel it. Wakan Tanka feels it!"
"What ...?" she started to ask.
"Go wait in the truck!" I ordered, a lot more sternly than I'd ever spoken to Mom before. When she stared blankly at me, I continued. "Mom, please!" I guided her back to the truck and helped her in. Actually, it was more like forced her into the truck. It was her mother's house, after all. "Stay here. Keep her here, no matter what! Lock the doors," I directed the others before turning back to the house. I had a thought and glanced over my shoulder. "Alicia, start the truck and get ready to drive out of here if you have to. Fast. As fast as you can."
Instinctively, I brought up my shield and then took my knife and tomahawk as I worked around the house toward the debris. The closer I got, the worse it felt. I looked at the house, at a large, gaping hole which had been torn directly into the side, with the roof, absent support, drooping into the hole. It was as if a bomb had gone off outside the house, blowing most of the debris inward, into the house.
And suddenly, with a very sickening feeling, I knew what had happened. It was the same as the shaman's death I'd investigated with HPARC. It had the same feel, which was the same demonic sensation as I'd felt when we'd fought Snakey.
Cautiously, I crept into hole, my eyes adjusting to the lighting, and then I turned, sank to my knees, and threw up, overwhelmed by the blood and guts and body parts splattered about the room.
Dad was in the truck with Mom, comforting her in her extreme anguish, while I stood outside the house, phone in hand. Alicia had taken Danny and Addy back to the farm in Dad's truck, and I'd called Whateley Security and HPARC, and finally, the sheriff. I couldn't let Mom in to see the mess; there wasn't anything identifiable left of Grandma anyway, and with the obvious demonic energy contaminating the house, it was too risky.
The sheriff came up with his siren blaring and the lights flashing, screeching to a halt behind my truck. It wasn't Sheriff Clarkson, but a new one who'd been elected in haste after Sheriff Clarkson and his deputy had been jailed by the state police a couple of months earlier. But it wasn't any improvement; in fact, it might have been worse. Tom Dinkins was a close friend of Doc Robinson - who was well-known for his hatred of mutants - and just as much a muto-phobe and bigot. Unlike Clarkson, Dinkins was openly a member of Humanity First!
"Get out of my way," he snarled at me when I stepped to intercept him and keep him from the house.
"You can't go in," I said bluntly.
"I can go wherever the hell I want," he snapped back. "Are you obstructing an officer in his official duty?" His hand slipped down to his sidearm, and he sounded almost eager for me to protest so he could arrest me.
Dad joined me, providing a little backup. "I have every reason to hate you bigoted sons of bitches," Dad replied, "but even an asshole like you doesn't deserve to have his mind scrambled by remains of a Lakota demon!"
The sheriff was starting to move forward, but he stopped as Dad's words sank in. "What?"
"This was an attack by a Lakota snake-demon," I explained. "It's ... essence ... can warp a person's mind. If you go in there, you'll end up insane. Or worse."
"How do you know?" he demanded.
"I'm ... a shaman," I replied, knowing he was going to not believe me. "I've fought this type of demon before. I've seen the results of his attacks before. If you go in there, the residual demon energy will leave your mind empty - if you're lucky. If not, you'll never be sane again."
I could tell he didn't believe me. I pulled out my phone, selecting a number. "You know of the Homestake Paranormal Activity Research Center?"
"I've heard of it," the sheriff answered cautiously.
"They've investigated and documented several cases of attack by this type of demon. They're specialists in this. And even they can't go near this without some serious magic protection. Call them if you want verification." I held out my phone toward him.
He was quite obviously mulling over what I'd said, trying to decide what to do.
"It's your brain, not mine," I said with a shrug and more than a bit of snark.
"And I suppose you're not affected?" he asked sarcastically.
"Yes, I am," I retorted calmly, "but knowing shaman magic, I can shield myself and others from the demon taint."
Sheriff Dinkins squared himself. "Then use it. It's my job to investigate."
Nervously, I glanced at Dad, who nodded grimly. "Okay." With a couple of memory reminders, I incanted the spell on the three of us. "It's only good for fifteen minutes or so - at least if you want a margin of safety."
The sheriff started toward the door, but then stopped. "You go first."
"Damned brave of you," Dad muttered angrily. Nevertheless, he went with me to the porch, where we unlocked the door and walked into the house.
Surprisingly, the kitchen was untouched and normal, but when we turned to the living room, we saw utter devastation inside the house. It was like everything had been very deliberately and methodically torn apart. Wincing, I led Dad and the sheriff down a short hallway toward the smashed master bedroom. Grandma's study and the guest room were likewise torn apart, smashed almost beyond recognition.
I hesitated in the hall; I could see through the door which had been smashed open by something large, large enough that it had shattered the door casing and part of the wall to make a passageway large enough. It was about the size of the snake demon I'd already fought and defeated. Light came into the bedroom through the broken wall.
Cringing, I stepped cautiously forward into the bedroom, knife in hand and feeling bile rise as I fought to not be sick again. Dad took a step in, looking around for only a second before he turned and ran to throw up. Behind him, the sheriff sneered, only to join Dad hanging over the edge of the porch wracked by dry heaves after emptying his stomach.
I went back out, putting my hand on Dad's back. "We have to get away from here. I don't know how much longer my magic can protect us."
Nodding in understanding, gasping for breath to try to fight off the intense nausea, he grabbed the back of the sheriff's shirt and tugged him with us away from the house.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - Late Afternoon
East River, South Dakota
Hidden in a burrow he'd had to excavate - partially under the burning rays of the morning sun, Unhcegila's second son curled his body around the precious object. It had taken longer to dig a hole, but he had no choice, since the only man-made tunnels were too small. The result was that he was tired and his skin still burned from the morning solar exposure. But he had it.
"Father," the snake demon called when he'd saved up enough energy to channel a psychic message.
"Yes, my son?"
"I have it," the snake-demon said simply.
There was a long pause. "Are you sure?"
"As certain as I could be. It has a magical taste that seems like what you told us existed in ancient times," the snake-demon reported.
"And the shaman?"
"Dead."
Unhcegila, sequestered in the suspended animation section of HPARC's deep subterranean caverns, grinned, and then began to laugh in triumph, an evil, disturbing, mind-bending sound. "My other son makes progress. Soon I shall be free."
"I felt the presence of her," the son added. "I could have killed her."
"You were wise to not try. She is stronger than you know," Unhcegila chided his son. "How long will it take you to return to the mountains?"
"Two or three days. It is slower moving with the object, and it takes me time to dig a new burrow to protect myself from the daytime sun, and the days are long."
"I will use the time to think of a place for you to keep the object until I can be freed."
Wednesday, June 26, 2007 - Morning
Near Grandma's Home, South Dakota
I was grateful for Alicia and Addy; they were troopers, fixing dinner and breakfast and just generally helping out, because Mom was so distraught she couldn't do anything. Dad wasn't as bad, and he'd gotten Uncle Roger to run things at the dealership so he'd have a few days to help Mom cope with things.
I hadn't felt like eating. I'd barely had anything for dinner the night before, either; none of us had. The whole family was in shock, and Mom worst of all for obvious reasons. It was impossible to believe that Grandma Little Doe, so bright-eyed and full of wisdom and cheer, was gone, and so violently killed by a Lakota demon. "I'm going to ... to make sure things are safe, and to meet the HPARC people," I explained, even though I really just wanted to find a place to curl up and cry. I was starting to feel like it was my fault; if I hadn't become the Ptesanwi, I wouldn't have attracted the attention of the demons, and Grandma would still be alive.
Driving numbly, crying all the way, I didn't really remember the trip, only that I was at the house where a Deputy Sheriff was watching a perimeter Sheriff Dinkins had marked, on my recommendation, to make sure no-one entered the building. There was a helicopter in an adjoining field, marked as belonging to the Army National Guard, and a few people were walking around the perimeter, using odd instruments and taking pictures.
Hazel Two Bears heard me coming and was in the driveway to greet me even before I shut off the motor. I sat in the truck, bawling uncontrollably for a few minutes, before Hazel opened the door, which for a diminutive woman, was quite a feat. I ended up in her arms, crying on her shoulder for I don't know how long.
"It's not your fault, Kayda," she said, somehow guessing what was on my mind. I suppose my shocked expression didn't surprise her. "There have been several deaths of shamans under rather ... violent ... circumstances," she admitted. "There's no reason for you to believe that this is because of you."
"But ...." I sputtered, confused at how she'd guessed and not in the slightest bit convinced. "If ... I wasn't ... If I'd been ...."
Hazel shook her head firmly. "Kayda, don't." She held my shoulders and gently pushed me back so I was staring into her eyes. "Do not second-guess yourself. That way leads to paralysis, inability to make decisions, constant worry about what the future will hold."
"It ... it was Unhcegila's son," I cried softly. "Just like ...."
"And it was Unhcegila's son who we think killed three other shamans and several non-shamans," Hazel said. "There is no pattern to the attacks. We've analyzed it every way we can. There is no pattern!"
After a while, I walked with Hazel over to Dr. Schmidt, who was talking with Sheriff Dinkins. I'd been so buried in grief that I hadn't noticed his arrival.
Dr. Schmidt turned to me, not quite sure whether to greet me as a friend he hadn't seen for a while, or to offer his condolences. The expression on his face was a mixture of both. And then he glanced at the Sheriff and winced. A feeling of icy dread cut through me at the look on his face.
"Kayda, there's something you need to do," he said hesitantly.
It took a second to figure out what he might be talking about, and then it hit me like a hammer. "No!" I mouthed, abhorrent at what he was implying. I looked at Hazel to deny what I thought he was going to ask, but she had the same grim expression.
"Kayda," Hazel said softly, wrapping her arm around my waist and holding me close to her, "I know this is hard, but you're the only one who can do this."
I don't ever want to remember the details. All I know is that was the worst two-and-a-half hours of my life. I don't know how many times I renewed my protection spell. I have no clue how many times I went in, or how many times I staggered out, vomiting or convulsing with dry heaves. At some point during my gory task, Dad showed up, but it wasn't until it was all over, when I decontaminated the grisly contents of the body bag and handed it to the Sheriff and it was safe that he came over and wrapped me in a hug that I very desperately needed. What got me most, I think, was finding her wedding ring and part of her bearclaw necklace.
There was a tree out behind Grandma's house, a large elm tree that had stood for who-knows how many years. It used to have a tire swing hanging from one branch for Danny and me to play on. Now, it was a tree I could lean on and cry, wailing my anguish at the whole thing. I was later told that Aunt Ida wanted to come and comfort me, but Dad knew - somehow - that I needed to be alone.
It didn't matter what Hazel had said; it was my fault. Unhcegila and his snake-demon sons had slept for over a century - until I manifested and got Ptesanwi's spirit. His snake-demon son had attacked me, not anyone else. Now, it had killed Grandma - because I was the new Ptesanwi. I put my head on my updrawn knees and cried and cried, and cried some more.
Eventually, I realized that there were people watching me. Lifting my head, I expected to see Dad and Hazel, but instead, there were nearly a dozen men, Lakota warriors all judging by their dress and face paint, all standing, silently watching me. I started when I recognized a couple of them from that night on spring break - so long ago, it seemed - when I'd found them watching over me, providing silent protection against the possibility of attack from my home town. They were Ghost Warriors.
"Can ... can I help you?" I managed to stammer, wiping at the tears rolling down my cheeks. If they were up to no good, my intense grief and self-recrimination had left me in no condition to fight.
One of the men glanced at his companions and took a half-step forward. "We heard the news, and have come to mourn Grey Skies."
"What?" My jaw hung open at his words. I'd heard one of them mention Grey Skies at Spring Break. After a moment, I shook my head. "I ... I think you're mistaken," I replied cautiously. "It's my grandma. Grandma Little Doe. Not this Grey Skies you're talking about."
The man looked at his companions, puzzled. "No, it is the shaman Grey Skies," he replied with conviction. "We met her here many times."
It was my turn to be confused. "Grandma - was a shaman? Calling herself Grey Skies?" But why? It made no sense to me at all; she had a secret life she'd kept from me - and probably Mom? But why? What did it mean?
Retrieving and decontaminating the ... remains ... of Grandma wasn't enough; now I was working through the house, all by myself in that scene of blood and devastation and mayhem, finding and removing all demon taint that was on the structure, furniture, knick-knacks, clothing, and anything else inside the house. It was tedious and thoroughly unpleasant, and I felt like I was surrounded by death. It was also quite fatiguing; every so often, I'd go outside and sit to drink some tea. Sheriff Dinkins had left, but one of his deputies was there, and he looked at my beverage like he suspected it was drugs.
In her study, the last room I had to clean, I came upon a acrylic case and pile of books which had been knocked from a shattered shelf of books and other references. I paused over that, remembering my curiosity at the strange, rough, brown ball it held, with no labels or plaques or anything on the case to identify it. I'd asked Grandma many times when I was younger, and she always gave me a wry smile and said that it was her 'softball'. With a laugh, she joked that it was a prize from her school days, when they had to improvise for their games. And then she'd get a semi-serious look and say that someday, maybe, I'd get the honor of keeping the softball. For some reason I couldn't identify, it felt ... strange. Not foul like something contaminated by Snakey's demon taint, but ... very different. And in a way, familiar.
I was still pondering the strange feeling, and was about to look for the softball when I heard a phone ringing. For some reason, that little bit of modern technology and noise was a welcome relief, so I turned from the task and started following the sound. I found the phone in the broken rubble that had been a nightstand by Grandma's bed; it stopped ringing just as I picked it up. Out of curiosity, I looked at the display on the now-silent phone.
"Chief Bear Claws"
My heart leaped into my throat, and I nearly fell over in shock. In disbelief, I tapped on the phone display - Grandma had never gotten around to locking her phone - and found that there were five missed calls from the same number, and a message.
I shouldn't have, but my curiosity was too great. With a couple of taps, I had the message playing, also from the same number - Chief Bear Claws, the old retired chief that had made me feel suspicious at Spring Break.
"Grey Skies, this is Dan. I had another phone call from that school's security. They implied that they know I had a connection to the events, but so far, I think I've thrown them off the trail. I need some help, or they might trace things to you."
Events, security, that school, Chief Dan Bear Claws, tracing things to Grey Skies - that meant - Whateley - and all of M2's attempts to get rid of me. My whole world spun; I think I screamed as I collapsed.
Wednesday, June 26, 2007 - Noon
Franks Family Home, South Dakota
I came to with a start, and for a moment, I was confused, but as I sat up, I realized I was on the living room sofa in my own home. I looked around and found Dad and Aunt Ida watching over me, very concerned. "What ...?" I started to ask.
"Are you okay?" Dad asked immediately. "When you screamed ...."
I had to collect my thoughts. "I ... screamed?" It didn't make sense. "I ... was in ... Grandma's house?" I wasn't sure if it had been a nightmare, or if it had been real.
"I found you on the floor in the bedroom," Dad explained. "You must have fainted."
My eyes popped wide open, and I stared at Dad. "Was ... was there ... a cell phone? With me?"
"Grandma's phone," he answered, bewildered. "It was in your hand. You were holding it like you were trying to crush it!"
"Nooo!!!" I wailed again, confronted with the reality that it had not been a nightmare. My grandmother Little Doe - she had been the one behind trying to get me to leave Whateley! To what end? To go live in safety on the reservation - as the Ptesanwi? Why? Unless - she thought I'd bring prosperity to her tribe? "No, no, no!" I cried again, burying my face in my hands. My own grandmother - had been behind the actions that nearly got me killed! I passed out again.
"Kayda?" A hand was holding mine, and the voice was soft and sweet. I could smell the faintest hint of perfume, but the pieces weren't going together well.
I struggled, and my eyes fluttered open, my bedroom room slowly coming into focus. More importantly, the faces over mine came into focus - Addy and Alicia were there. Or was it another dream or nightmare? My world had been turned so upside down that I didn't know. I launched myself at Alicia, who was closer, wrapping my arms around her and burying my face in her shoulder; if she was real, I needed a friend to cling to.
"Are you okay?" she asked me, genuine concern only too apparent in her voice.
"N .... no," I muttered slowly, feeling another round of tears about to overwhelm me.
"What's wrong?" she asked, concerned.
"Oh, Alicia," I blubbered, "I ... I found out ... Grandma ... Grandma was ...." I was having no small amount of difficulty forming a coherent sentence through my emotional turmoil and crying. "Grandma ... Grey Skies ... Chief Bear ... Claws," I continued to try to explain, but it was disconnected words with no rational connection. "Whateley ... M2."
"Shhh," Alicia gently cradled my head, patting my back with the other hand. "Calm down Kayda." She held me until my wailing and crying abated a bit. "Slow down. Now what's going on?"
"Grandma - she's Grey Skies!" I blurted out, and the pronouncement started another deluge. "She ... Chief Bear Claws ... M2 had his number!"
"What?" Addy was confused by my incoherent stream. "Your grandma is Little Doe!"
I shook my head, sniffling. "She's ... the Ghost Warriors ... called her Grey Skies."
"She's Grey Skies? The one who had the Ghost Warriors protecting you during Spring Break?" she asked.
"She ... her phone ...." I stopped to wipe my cheeks on her shirt. "Her phone had ... a message ... from Chief Bear Claws." Even saying that much was like being stabbed in the heart once more. If it was true, then what she'd done felt like the greatest betrayal in history. "He ... he said that school called ... about the incidents, and M2, and ...." I couldn't continue.
"M2 - he's the kid who tried to kill you?" Alicia asked. I nodded mutely, crying. "And ... he's somehow connected to Chief Bear Claws?" Again I nodded. "But ... how does this connect to your Grandmother?"
"The Ghost Warriors said ... she was Grey Skies. The Chief ... called her ... Grey Skies," I repeated. "He left a message ... that security called. They ... think he's linked ... to M2 ... and the events." Every word felt like it was another twist of a knife of betrayal - held in my Grandmother's hand.
"Okay, Kayda," Alicia said, almost in disbelief. "I'm going to get on the phone to Whateley security." I nodded without saying a word. "Chief Delarose can investigate better than your Barney Fife of a sheriff."
Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - Afternoon
Franks' Home, South Dakota
Addy and Alicia helped me down the stairs to the dining table, where Dad sat with Danny, watching me very cautiously. Hazel and Dr. Schmidt were also at the table. Alicia helped me sit, and then sat beside me.
"Are you okay, honey?" Dad asked with a very worried expression.
I nodded slowly. "How's Mom?"
"She's sleeping," Dad reported. "Doctor Martin called in a prescription for something to calm her down."
"When you screamed, we thought ... something bad had happened," Hazel said solemnly. "And we didn't dare go inside, in case ..."
"Then ... how ...?"
Dr. Schmidt smiled and shook his head. "Never underestimate the determination of a concerned father."
I looked at Dad, totally surprised, and he nodded. "What happened with you? I found you clutching your Grandma's phone like ... like it was a life vest."
I glanced at my friends; I couldn't tell Dad and Danny. Danny wouldn't understand, and it would shatter any memories of Grandma that Danny was going to need to get through her loss. And Dad? If I told him, he'd eventually tell Mom. Mom didn't need to deal with that as well as losing her mother. "I ... I don't really remember," I stammered. Seeing looks of concern from Dad and Danny, I lied, "I ... felt something really bad ... in the spirit world. Like ... the snake demon." I shook my head sadly, hoping that I was convincing. "It was like flashback ... to when we fought him in Dunwich. I guess ... it overwhelmed me."
Dad nodded sympathetically - I figured he was buying it. But I got a curious look from Hazel; I guessed she wasn't. "Is the house safe?" Hazel asked, changing the subject but still giving me a strange look.
"Yeah," I nodded. "The study was the last room. I was ... trying to figure out why it felt like ... some weird magic," I continued, wrinkling my nose. "Not ... tainted, but ... strange." I sighed. "And it seemed ... almost familiar somehow."
"Where did you feel this?" Dr. Schmidt asked, curious.
"In the study," I replied.
Hazel touched my arm lightly. "I think a little fresh air will help you here," she suggested. I knew exactly what she meant.
"Okay." A little unsteady, I walked outside with Hazel holding my arm and helping steady me. We walked to the horse-corral near the barn, leaning on the fence to gaze at the animals.
"Now, Kayda," she began, "what aren't you telling your Dad?"
I started, surprised at the blunt question. "I'm ...."
Hazel laughed softly. "I'm a mother and a grandmother. I know when young people are hiding something."
With a heavy sigh, I decided to level with her. "I think ... Grandma Little Doe was really a shaman called Grey Skies who had the Ghost Warriors helping me - and maybe intimidating or threatening the kids in my town who ...." I cut off, unable to say the words, shaking my head instead, as if to shake out a bad dream. "And her phone had a lot of unanswered calls from Chief Bear Claws out in Mission," I continued. "The odd thing is that he left a message that I think means that Whateley security had talked to him about the incidents ...."
"Those would be the attacks on you, right?"
I gawked at her, surprised that she'd heard, and then chided myself. Because of who I was, of course she'd know what happened to me. She had her sources. "Yeah. And he was asking for help from Grandma to throw them off the trail."
"So you think your Grandmother was trying to get you to leave Whateley?" Her eyebrows narrowed. "To come home, and then probably to go to the reservation to be the Ptesanwi for the people?"
"Yeah," I said, wiping at more stray tears.
"No wonder you're upset," Hazel said sympathetically. "I presume you're not telling your Mom and Dad?"
"Especially not Mom."
She nodded. "Probably smart." She turned to look at the horses again. "What is this about some magic feel?"
"I don't know," I shrugged. "I was cleaning up in the study, and I found the display case for Grandma's softball - at least that's what she always called it. It ... had some weird feeling to it - not demonic, but ... different."
"Softball?" Hazel's eyes were round. "Did you know your Grandmother was the keeper of a sacred artifact?"
It was my turn to goggle at her. "What?"
"I don't think anyone remembers where it came from," she said, "but there is a Sacred Ball which a shaman of renown has always kept. I think that's what your Grandmother had."
I frowned, and then figured where I'd find an answer. Touching Hazel on the forehead, I said a little incantation.
"Pick up your phone!" I urged softly, ignoring Hazel, Dad, Danny, and my two friends. I hadn't explained anything to them, but had just quick-timed to my phone and hastily dialed a number. I had a mission to focus on, a task that had to be done, and that was a distraction from Grandma's deception and betrayal. It was what I needed at that moment.
"Hello?" the voice sounded a little tired.
"Nikki? It's me, Kayda."
"Kayda?" Nikki sounded surprised and concerned that I was calling her out of the blue. "What's up? Is something wrong?"
"Lots of stuff, but I absolutely can NOT tell you on the phone," I answered. "Listen, you have to get out here ASAP. It's very, very, very important!"
"But ... I'm in the middle of ...." the red-head started to object.
"Nikki, this is VERY important! On a scale of one to ten, this is a fourteen! Please!" I urged her. "Do I have to have Mrs. Carson call to tell you how important this is?"
There was a gulp on the other end. "Um, I'm going to have to work on getting tickets ...."
Hazel jogged my elbow. "Tell her we'll have an Air National Guard jet pick her up. She's in Kansas City, isn't she?"
"Are you in Kansas City?" I relayed the question.
"No, I'm in Washington, DC, and ...."
Hazel was already frantically texting on her own cell phone. "That's even better."
"Hang on a sec, Nikki. Dr. Two Bears is checking on something."
After a moment, Hazel said, "Tell her to text her location to this number," she rattled off a phone number, "and they'll send a helicopter to take her to Andrews Air Force Base. There'll be a jet waiting for her. And tell her to take a Dramamine if she's prone to motion sickness - those recon jets can get wild at supersonic speeds."
"Where will they land?" I asked Hazel.
"They said the closest airport than can handle their jet is Mitchell. And it's just under an hour flight time."
"I'll ..." I saw the determined looks from Addy and Alicia, "we'll meet you in Mitchell in about a little over an hour. I'll explain in the ride up from the airport."
"Okay. See you in a bit." She hung up her phone.
I clicked it off and read the confused expressions on everyone's faces. "Grandma was the keeper of a very old, very important relic. We have to make sure Unhcegila doesn't get ahold of it."
"But ... Nikki?" Addy asked the obvious question.
"I'm not certain," I replied cautiously, "but if it's what I think it is, and Wakan Tanka's explanation fits, then it may be the only one of its kind left in the world, and Nikki is the only one in the world who would know what to do with it."
Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - Early Evening
Near Mitchell, South Dakota
"Are you going to talk to us, Kayda?" Alicia asked as I drove down highway 37 at a slightly insane speed.
I could tell the two girls were very concerned, but I didn't feel like talking. And we had Danny, since Dad wanted to focus on Mom at that moment. Grandma had betrayed me - horribly so. I could have been killed! What was I supposed to feel after discovering that?
"We are not going to let you keep sulking," Addy said bluntly. "I know 'ow 'ard it is to lose someone special ...."
"Someone who tried to manipulate you into leaving your school?" I burst forth angrily, unable to control my anger and shocking my truck-mates. "Someone who tried to get you to be a good little Indian and go to her reservation as a tourist attraction? Someone whose actions almost killed you several times?" I was way past grief over Grandma - I was furious. Hatefully angry.
My outburst was met with silence for several miles. "I ... I didn't know," Addy apologized. "I'm sorry."
That broke through my shell - she'd lost her mother, not grandmother, and she was trying to help me, but in my anger at Grandma, I'd let loose at her and Alicia. "No," I said contritely. "I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that."
There was more silence, and I could see the totally gob-smacked expression on Danny's face. Now that I'd let the cat out of the bag, he deserved to know. "Grandma apparently wanted me to go to the reservation," I explained to him, trying to hide the bitterness and recrimination that wanted to come out, "to be Ptesanwi and help bring prosperity to the tribe." I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly in an attempt to control my anger. "She got a retired chief ..."
"The creepy Bear Claws guy from Mission?" Danny asked immediately. I had to give him credit for his memory.
"Yeah. She had him contact M2 - Magic Mikey - at Whateley, to try to make me leave." I cringed inwardly. "He ... did some things that ... almost killed me a couple of times." I couldn't suppress the shudder. "And he got tangled up with Speakeasy ...."
Addy's eyes were wide as saucers. "The one who tried to frame you for murdering 'Eyoka?"
"Yeah." I drew another deep, slow breath. "So ... yeah." I didn't know what else to say.
"No wonder!" Alicia said, gently putting her hand on my forearm to show her concern and support. Addy sat in the back, shaking her head in disbelief, while Danny sat silently, overwhelmed by what he'd just heard.
As I turned off of the highway toward the airport, a very sophisticated, new military reconnaissance jet swooped low overhead on its landing approach. "Just in time," I said, eagerly changing the subject. No sooner had we gotten out of the truck than the same dark-colored jet stopped on a hardstand, and even as the engines spooled down, a swarm of National Guardsmen chocked the wheels and got a ladder, while another, larger swarm carrying weapons deployed around the aircraft, all the way up to the security fence separating us from the jet. They were not giving us warm, welcoming looks, but nervously fingering their weapons.
The figure crawling out of the back seat looked small for an Air Force pilot, even though it was clad in a green flight-suit and wearing a helmet. No sooner had the person stepped on the ground than the helmet came off and she shook her head to free her fiery-red hair. A female member of the Guards came over to help her out of her flight suit, while two guys fought over retrieving a small bag from the cockpit area, their eyes fixed on the girl. I giggled, glancing at Addy and Alicia. "Some things never change."
Danny stood, gawking at Nikki as she wiggled out of the flight suit, her curves going to and fro as she pulled the restrictive garment off. Satisfied, she brushed her clothing to smooth it, then with a smile, took the small bag from the two gawking airmen. Their eyes were riveted on her every step as she strutted our way.
If there hadn't been heavily-armed guards at the gate stopping me, I would have run to give her a hug. As it was, we had to wait until she passed out of the controlled access area the guards had placed around the jet that was probably top secret or something. "Nikki!" I said, hugging her the moment she emerged from the gestapo-like cordon around the secret jet, elated that she was here.
"This must be that little pest you always talked about," she said with a smile, looking at Danny, who was stuck in a mouth-agape stare at the incredibly-beautiful Sidhe girl.
"Yeah, this is Danny, my kid brother."
"What's all this about?" Nikki asked.
"Let's get in the truck. I really don't want ... other ears ... possibly hearing this." We climbed in, Alicia surrendering the front seat to Nikki. I glanced in the mirror to see Danny sandwiched between Addy and Alicia, looking a little shy. In seconds, the two girls were teasing him enough that he fuzzed with embarrassment, which delighted them and embarrassed him even more. I suspected that he wasn't going to go back to normal for a while.
As soon as we turned onto highway 37, I started to explain. "My grandmother was a shaman, and a keeper of a ... of some kind of sacred relic." I glanced at Nikki and saw I had her full attention. "According to Wakan Tanka, it comes from the time of the Sundering."
That got those violet eyes of hers wide open, and she was bolt-upright in the seat. "Did you say the Sundering?"
"According to Wakan Tanka, it was stolen from the Bastard by a shaman, and kept secret - and safe - for something that was supposed to come."
"Describe it please!" Nikki urged, trying hard to keep the excitement out of her voice.
"It's brown, pretty rough in texture, like ... scaly? And a bit oblong and about maybe a little smaller than a softball."
"Do you think ...?" She was afraid to complete the thought.
I sighed. I was going to have to tell Nikki. "A ... snake demon ... like we fought, killed my grandmother a couple nights ago," I began.
"I'm so sorry," Nikki said sympathetically.
"Don't be," I snapped back when the rage at her resurfaced momentarily. "I found out some things about her that I wish I'd never known." I trembled with anger as I forced myself to take another deep breath. "Anyway, she was the keeper of a relic, and when I was ... cleaning up ... the mess ...," a shudder of revulsion went through me at what I'd had to deal with - which I wouldn't wish on anyone, "I found the remains of the case she kept it in."
"What made you think ...?" Nikki started.
I anticipated her question. "The case had a magic residue, a feel to it. Probably rubbed off from the ... thing." I took my eyes off the road long enough to look at her. "And I recognized the feel - like Sidhe magic. Like your magic." She was nearly speechless. "Yeah. It's either a Sidhe relic, in which case you need to help get it, or it's a ..."
"A World Tree seed!" Nikki said, eyes wide with wonder. Then she frowned. "Wait, you said 'get it'."
I nodded grimly. "The snake demon that killed Grandmother probably has it. We have to get it before it can hide it in Paha Sapa - the Black Hills. If it gets there, the inherent magic of the place might make it very hard to find. And I don't want snakey's dad Unhcegila ever getting control of something potentially that powerful."
Nikki nodded. "Agreed. Just one thing."
"What?"
"Drive faster."
Thursday, June 28, 2007 - Very Early Morning
Franks' Home, South Dakota
"I'm coming with you!" Danny insisted stubbornly.
"Danny, you don't understand," I countered. "This is very dangerous. I can't let you risk it!"
"Dad said you had to watch me!" he shot back.
"I'll drop you off at Aunt Ida's."
"You can't." He smiled smugly. "Aunt Ida went with Mom and Dad." Our parents were spending the day with Mom's little sister and her family for mutual support and comfort. She needed it.
"Shit!" I swore, looking down and shaking my head, exhaling slowly in frustration. "Okay, I'll drop you off ...."
Danny squared his shoulders. "And just how are you going to track him?" he challenged me.
"With ... with magic," I replied, knowing that, at any kind of range, my magic was quite inaccurate. Tracking him was going to be tough.
Danny muttered something, and immediately his form flowed - through the female slut-kitty form all the way to mountain lion. He looked up at me with a feline sneer. "Wihinape says she's better than your magic at tracking," he said smugly, which sounded partly like a sultry feminine purr. I wasn't going to tell that Danny, though. Yet.
I sighed with exasperation. "Okay, you can come, but on one condition." Dad was going to kill me. Last night, he'd accepted - grudgingly - Hazel's word that what I was after was exceedingly dangerous to the whole state and probably the whole country. If Unhcegila got the world tree seed, he'd have a source of power beyond possibly even Fey! He'd also admitted - also grudgingly - that I was the only one who could fight Snakey and not be driven insane.
"What?" he asked, eager to go but wary of what conditions I would impose.
"You stay away from the fight," I said sternly. His face fell, and then I could practically see the gears turning as he worked to figure out an angle around my directive. "I'm not kidding, Danny. One glance from this snake-demon can melt your mind! He's really, really nasty! You have to stay away from the fight." The more I thought about it, the more worried I was. Snakey had two nights of travel, and we had to find him somewhere in the desolate, less-populated, barren lands of South Dakota west of the Missouri River. And then I had to fight him, and I didn't have backup this time; I was the only one who could face him and not go insane.
Thursday, June 28, 2007 - Early Morning
Near the Missouri River, South Dakota
"Well?" I stood on the sill of the cab with the door open, so I had a little more height to get a better view.
The mountain lion glanced my way and gave me a snort of disdain. "Don't interrupt me!" Danny snapped. "I'm not very good at this yet!"
I headed off the response that had started to form. Wihinape was right - he wasn't very skilled, but she was helping. And she was right about her tracking ability compared to my magic. I had a vague, general sense of the snake demon - somewhere west. Or northwest or southwest. That was as close as I got at this distance. Wihinape, though, could sense the very faint traces of his foul smell on the terrain.
Danny stopped, nose to the ground. "He was here," he said. "And ...." Thoughtfully, he loped off into a pasture, easily clearing the barbed-wire fence that surrounded it. A few seconds later he was back, looking rather nauseated. "Don 't look!" he cautioned us as he stepped behind the pickup. A form flowed upward as Wihinape shifted his body.
We'd started at the house, with Danny changing into a cougar and explicitly chasing the scent, while we tried to keep close to him driving along the roads and section lines. But he was fatiguing and couldn't keep up a fast pace. We found him sitting beside a section line, looking tired and miserable. While he shifted back to human boy form, I listened to what he'd said about the trail and did a little plotting on my phone's map application. We'd covered a few miles, enough that we could see snakey's travel direction was almost a straight line.
Alicia had been the one who came up with a way to keep from wearing out Danny - we drove a few miles, then turned north, pausing near where the straight-line path should have led and letting Danny, as a cougar, pick up Snakey's scent. With another mark on the map, we repeated the process. If we couldn't find the scent, then we'd have doubled back and tried closer to the last known scent position. But that would be good news - because it would mean that Snakey was not in the Black Hills yet.
Wihinape wanted to stay in cougar form while we rode, but the first time we passed a car and saw the occupants gawking in terror at the mountain lion in the back seat of my pickup, we knew it'd only be a matter of time before we ran into some county cop who'd be quite upset to see a 'wild animal' in the pickup with us. So we agreed - Danny would do the mountain lion form to track the scent, and then turn back to his normal form for the ride. What I wasn't telling him, but which Nikki had figured out, was that doing all this shifting was getting him some badly-needed practice controlling his shifting.
Of course, he couldn't wear clothes as a mountain lion, and when he changed back, he was buck naked, so we had to arrange a way for him to change without girls gawking at him, which only made him embarrassed and got him stuck in his 'fuzzy' form. That seemed to be his greatest difficulty with shifting - he couldn't really control shifting to or from fuzzy, but tended to become fuzzy when embarrassed, and couldn't really shift out of it until the source of embarrassment went away.
"I'm ready," a female voice said from behind the truck. We turned, goggling as the slut-kitty form, clad only in Danny's shorts, crawled into the back seat.
"What ...?" I started to say, gob-smacked at the display in front of me.
Danny blushed, and I was afraid he was going to go fuzzy on us again - which would set us back by another fifteen or twenty minutes. "Wihinape says she's getting tired shifting back and forth all the way. It's less tiring to shift from ... this," he winced, keeping his eyes from looking down at his semi-nude body, "to mountain lion form." Alicia, Addy, and Nikki were staring at his curvy body with a mixture of amusement and amazement. In Alicia's case, there was probably a little envy mixed in.
I shook my head; if Mom was here, she'd have been apoplectic at the display. And I was worried that staying in that female form as well a shifting to the mountain lion form frequently was going to hasten Danny's ultimate changes - whatever they would be. I decided not to bring that up, but to change the subject. ""At least cover yourself!" Addy and Alicia helped Danny pull on his T-shirt - which although it covered him, really only emphasized the soft, feminine mounds on his chest.
"What was with the green face when you came back over the fence?" I asked as we started to move again.
Danny's grimace was almost audible. "We found ... part of snakey's dinner," he said, his voice unsteady. "He ate ... part of a cow."
"You've seen dead animals before," I shot back.
"Wihinape ... wanted to have a snack."
Thursday,June 28, 2007 - Early Evening
South of Wall on Highway 44, South Dakota
"Oh, shit," I muttered unhappily.
Nikki wrinkled her nose, alarmed at my sudden mood shift. "What?"
"Just what I was afraid of," I muttered angrily. We were on highway 44, south of Wall. "He's in the Badlands."
"Are you sure?" Addy asked, worried at my tone of voice.
I pulled to the side of the road and tapped my cell phone. "Here's his trail." I showed them my map, with the x-marks for actual positions that Wihinape / Danny had detected Snakey, and a line showing his projected path. "Right now, my sense says he's somewhere between northwest and northeast of us. Right in the heart of the Badlands."
"Is that bad?" Nikki asked, wincing because she'd probably already guessed my answer.
"Yup." I looked at my watch unnecessarily. "We've got about two, maybe two and a half hours of daylight left."
"Options?" Danny asked curtly.
"One," I held up a single finger, "we can go further up highway 44, and then circle back up 240, and try to narrow down where in the Badlands he might be."
"By plotting intersecting 'cones' of probability based on your magic sense?" Addy asked.
"See, y'all did pay attention in math class," Alicia said with a chuckle; probably to try to lighten the mood.
"Then we go hunt for him." I said, causing Danny to cringe. He knew the country well. "It'll be hot, dry, and dusty. We'll burn up a lot of energy, and we'll need every drop of water we've got."
Danny nodded. "Which means I'll have to track him?" he guessed correctly.
"I could conjure some water," Nikki offered.
"And it'll be dark soon. So we don't have much time to hunt." I shook my head. The method we'd been tracking snakey had been effective, but it was painfully slow.
"Two, we go up highway 44 and wait to try to intercept him when he's moving again," I said, holding up a second finger. "The problem is that it's very, very unlikely that he went straight through the Badlands. It's pretty rugged terrain, and he's not going to spend energy going up and down the rough hills. So it'd be a guess where he comes out and intercepts highway 44."
Nikki winced. She was very determined to get the seed - if that's indeed what it was - and didn't want to take a chance that Snakey could slip through our grasp.
"Three, we go up to highway 79 and wait for him. The terrain isn't so unforgiving as the Badlands, so it'll be easier to intercept him."
"And the downside?" Alicia asked, knowing there had to be one.
"It'll be very late, or very early tomorrow morning when we intercept him, and if we miss, it's only a few miles into the Black Hills. And then ...."
"Not good," Nikki said needlessly.
"And for either of the last two options, we won't have the sunlight working for us. He can't fight well in the sun. But if it's dark..." I shook my head. "He can see very well in the dark. We can't."
"It sounds like we oughta go huntin' for him," Alicia said in her down-home way. "Least for a couple of hours. If we can't find him in that time, we can fall back to the highways. That'll give us three chances to find him."
"The problem is," I added, "once it gets dark, I'm the only one who can safely fight him."
Addy, Danny, and Alicia exchanged glances. "Then we better get moving," Addy said.
Thursday,June 28, 2007 - Early Evening
The Badlands, South Dakota
"What's it look like?" Nikki glanced outside at the late afternoon sun inexorably approaching the horizon, and then looking back at my map. We'd stopped on highway 44, and then went back up 240, getting 'readings' on his approximate direction.
"This area," I pointed to an intersection of two cones, "is where he's at. I'm guessing it's about two-hundred-fifty square miles."
"Ouch!" Danny said, cringing.
"Yeah, but if we use his general direction from his last location," I scribbled a line on the touchscreen, "he should be only a few miles either side of here." An area of the map lit up. "Which is only about fifty square miles or so." With that, I turned the truck off the small highway, following a rough trail up a ravine between the craggy, sandstone hills.
"This," Danny said enthusiastically, probably to Addy, "is why we have four-by-fours."
We drove for a while, and then I stopped. "Time to earn your pay," I said to Danny. "Get a good drink, and then you've got to start tracking."
With a nod, he drank a couple bottles of water, and then shifted into his cougar form. It looked like it was getting easier and easier for him to do.
"Danny," I called out as he started loping off beyond where I could drive the truck.
"Yeah?" he stopped, turning back to me.
"Promise me that when you think you've found him, you'll keep your distance. No heroics."
"Okay."
"Promise me!" I said sternly. Danny may have been a brat at times, but one thing I knew that Mom and Dad had taught him was that when he gave his word, he kept it.
"Okay," he muttered, unhappy that I was extracting such an oath, "I promise." He turned and loped off, pausing every so often to sniff the air or the ground.
"Addy, turn the truck around. I want you two to promise that if you don't hear from us in two hours, you'll drive to Wall and call Hazel at HPARC for help. And if you see something that looks like snakey coming, you'll drive as far and as fast as you can to get away from him." She nodded grimly.
"Okay, Nikki," I said with a determined frown, "let's go." I pulled on a daypack that had several bottles of water we'd bought during a gas stop in Presho, then slung my bow over my shoulder. A quiver of arrows hung from my waist, strapped to my leg to keep it under control, and my knife and tomahawk hung off my belt. Nikki held her sword, Malachim's Feather, and her own bow was over her shoulders, too.
We followed Danny's tracks for about twenty minutes, then saw them vanish up one of the steep, rough hills. "He's over there," I said firmly. "I'm starting to sense him more. He's close."
"Going up, then," Nikki said before she did a quick incantation. The next thing I knew, we were inside a magic bubble-shield floating up the hill, and after surmounting it, back down the other side.
Danny was waiting for us at the bottom of the hill, looking patiently up the other side of the wide ravine. "He's up there," he said, looking at a dark spot on the side of the hill. I followed his gaze, and saw something that looked like recent excavation, judging from the pile of rubble beside the dark spot.
"Father," the snake-demon called out urgently. "She is here!"
"She followed you?" Unhcegila asked, astonished at the new development.
"It's just her," the snake answered. "I will defeat her easily."
"No!" Unhcegila roared at his son. "You are too close to success. You must get the sphere to me!"
"She will come after me!"
"Then stay in your lair."
Snakey stayed silent for a long time. "Very well, father. My burrow is small. She cannot stand to fight, and she will be helpless. She will not be able to attack me from behind."
"You must be patient, my son. She is in rough, dry country. She cannot stay long without food and water. She will have to leave."
Thursday,June 28, 2007 - Early Evening
The Badlands, South Dakota
"Well?"
I shook my head. "He's there. And he probably knows I'm here. If he's smart, he'll stay put and wait us out, or wait for us to go in to get him."
"I take it that would be a bad idea?" Nikki asked.
"Yes," I nodded grimly. "A very bad idea."
"And you say sunlight hurts him?"
I glanced at the horizon. "Yeah, but we're running out of that."
"Okay, then." Nikki turned toward the dark opening, which was becoming less noticeable as the sun set, and she incanted. Something that looked like a fireball flew unerringly at the cave opening, vanishing into it. Almost immediately, a burst of light shone forth from the cave, like a dozen arc lamps had been lit inside and a lot of light was spilling out.
The unearthly shriek of agony was immediate and nearly deafening, and with it, the demon burst forth from the cave like a coiled snake striking blindly. It tumbled down the side of the sandstone hill, but even before it reached the bottom, Snakey had regained its balance and was sliding purposefully toward me.
After being surprised momentarily, I let an arrow fly, and the special arrowhead exploded in a shower of essence, right between Snakey's arms, causing another shriek of agony, but I couldn't follow up; I had to drop my bow and pull my hand weapons because he was just too close.
"Nikki!" I called out as I dodged Snakey's clumsy first strike," he left the seed in the cave!" It was clear that the seed was not in Snakey's possession at the moment. "I'll keep him distracted."
"I'll get it later," she called out, letting one of her own arrows fly.
Unlike my arrow, Nikki's explosion of essence seemed to fizzle out as it tried to penetrate through Snakey's thick hide. "What the heck?" Nikki exclaimed as I dodged yet another strike, managing to get a solid blow from my knife on one of Snakey's arms.
"Go get the seed!" I repeated frantically.
She thought for a moment, and then scrambled up the slope toward the opening, while I took advantage of him being momentarily distracted watching her to get a good blow into his side with my knife.
With another shrieking roar, he pulled his side away from me, at the same time whipping his tail toward me. I noticed the movement too late; I had only started to incant my shield spell before the tail smashed into me and knocked me across the floor of the mini-canyon.
I think I screamed in pain as my ribs smashed against a rock, but I had the presence of mind to roll away from the impact, which was a good thing, because the snake-demon's tail obliterated the rock I had just hit against. I managed to land a good combination of tomahawk and knife against him.
I didn't have to look to know that the sun was low enough in the sky that it was blocked by a ridge; we no longer had the daylight advantage against the snake-demon. We had to end the fight quickly, or we'd be in darkness and he'd have all the advantages.
Incanting my shield spell, I dashed toward him, ducking and rolling to avoid the swipes of his vicious claws, and came up beneath his massive belly. My knife plunged into his belly, and he shrieked in agony again. Unexpectedly, he dropped his entire body, intending to smash me beneath him. I rolled to one side, and his body hit a glancing blow on the shield, causing me to squirt away like I was part of a game of marbles. The impact on an outcropping stunned me; I rolled to the side, knowing Snakey would probably make a follow-on attack, but things seemed to move in slow-motion, and my ribs hurt.
Dammit, it's always my ribs.
Danny watched, feeling helpless, as his sister was dashed against a rock and collapsed in pain. He knew he should be fighting with her, but he didn't know how.
Confused, Danny let his muscles go slack.
Immediately, Wihinape grabbed control of their feline body. With a powerful leap, they vaulted in two hops down to the ravine floor, and then leaped onto the back of the snake-demon, who was coiling to smash at Danny's sister, who though she was quickly shaking off the effects of that last hit, was still a bit groggy.
Their claws dug into his thick hide, and they scrambled up his back, slashing with every step, causing the demon to halt his attack on Kayda and thrash about to try to dislodge the mountain lion. But their claws were long and sharp, and they stuck to Snakey though it felt to Danny that they were riding a bucking bronco.
Snakey changed tactics, dropping to his belly and then trying to roll and slither, to either crush the mountain lion or scrape it off on a rock, but Wihinape was wise to the ways of prey, and she deftly scrambled off him before he could either crush or smack them, and then she leaped again, dodging his flailing arms with their knife-like claws and slashing at snakey's throat.
The wounded snake-demon slashed again and twisted to bite, but the agile cat had slipped away again.
Holding the precious object under her arm, Nikki scrambled down the steep slope. Light was fading fast, but she could still see Kayda struggling to get back to her feet while Danny - as a cougar - tore at the snake-demon.
With her hands encumbered, Nikki couldn't use her bow, and she was too far away to use her sword, so she quickly incanted, her fingers dancing a spell pattern, and then she stretched her right hand out toward the snake demon. A concentrated jolt of Sidhe magical energy leapt from her hand, arcing like a bolt of lightning to the snake demon.
It should have charred the snake-demon into a crispy pile of ashes. As much energy as Nikki loosed should have nearly destroyed the Lakota demon. But the energy seemed to dissipate in its hide, as if it was a giant magic absorber. Some got through to the demon, and he shrieked in agony, but not enough to stop him. He turned, alerted to a new danger, and seeing the girl holding the sphere he had finally located and taken, he roared in rage.
Puzzled that her magic hadn't worked against the snake-demon and seeing him coil with the obvious intent of launching himself at her, Nikki invoked her shield bubble and catapulted herself upward, lifting herself and her prize out of reach of the monstrosity. She was just in time; the snake-demon crashed into the spot she'd stood only moments before.
Coiling for another strike, the snake-demon turned toward the girl in her bubble, and as she watched his actions, he locked his gaze upon her.
I was back on my feet, just in time to see Nikki vault up out of reach of Snakey, but she was watching its motions, and he turned toward her.
"Nikki!" I screamed a warning, terrified, "No! Look away!"
It was too late - she was looking at Snakey when he locked his gaze upon her.
For several agonizing seconds, I stood frozen in place, watching what I knew was the destruction of my friend's mind from the demon's foul taint.
"Hah!" Nikki laughed aloud, startling me. "You blinked first! I won!"
Unhcegila's son was startled; one of his chief weapons was the ability to drive his foes insane with his foul essence. But that hadn't worked. He'd met the gaze of the red-haired girl, and she laughed at him! He screamed again in rage, coiling to launch himself at the offending female human.
I had the opening I needed; scrambling up the steep, rubble-strewn hillside, I launched myself at Snakey, my knife in my hand, and just before I hit the beast, my arm arced downward, the knife puncturing Snakey's tough hide. I wrapped my other arm and legs as best I could around the beast's body while I poured essence into my knife, and thus into the demon.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Wihinape leap onto Snakey's back, digging her razor-sharp claws into his thick hide and scrambling toward his head.
Writhing and screaming in pain, the snake tried to claw at Wihinape with its wicked talons, but the cat was far too nimble and avoided that as she climbed to his head. Deliberately, her talons clawed into the eyes of the beast, shredding one and then the other, while the snake flailed about wildly, trying to rid itself of the annoying attacks. And all the while, more and more essence was pouring into the body, causing it to convulse mightily as it tore snakey apart from the inside.
Seeing the tables turned, Nikki dropped to the ground, and with one hand wrapped around her precious cargo, the other wielded Malachim's Feather deftly, slicing at the flailing arms of the snake-demon with deadly effect. Having severed one arm at its 'elbow', if you could call it that, she drew back and plunged the sword into Snakey's belly, right between its arms.
Between Wihinape's slashing attacks, my essence, and Nikki's deadly blows with her sword, Snakey convulsed a couple of times and then slowly sank to the ground. Wihinape and I let go, and the remains of the beast rolled ungracefully down the hill, ending in a heap at the bottom.
We walked slowly down the hill, wary of tricks by the snake-demon, but it didn't take long to realize that it was well-and-truly dead.
Thursday, June 25, 2007 - Mid-Evening
HPARC, Lower Levels
"Son?" Unhcegila called out urgently. He'd felt a disturbance in the energy connecting him with his son, and he feared that there was trouble. "Son?" he called again.
There was no answer. He tried once more. "Son!"
When no answer came after two or three minutes, he shrieked in anguish and anger - he'd lost his son, and had lost the sphere which he so desperately needed. The caverns in the seven-thousand-foot-deep former mine rang with the psychic energy of his death cry, setting off alarms in the HPARC control center.
"I hate those things," I muttered, glaring at the snake-demon and wiping my blade on its hide before resheathing it. Then I looked at Nikki. "How ..." I began, stammering. She'd met Snakey's gaze and had been unaffected.
Nikki grinned. "When my magic didn't work, I strongly suspected that he wasn't attuned to Sidhe magic, and thus not to Sidhe. His gaze might drive humans insane, but my body and mind are Sidhe, so it had no effect - except to confuse him for a moment."
I winced. "That was a hell of a gamble." I turned to Wihinape, who was casually licking her paws. "And you! I told you to stay out of this!"
"And let you be killed, Ptesanwi?" she replied casually. "I don't think so."
"You could have been hurt. Or killed. Or driven insane!" I chided Danny, who I knew was in the feline body.
Wihinape chuckled. "You aren't a warrior - yet. You have trained hard, and you fought well, but as you can see, I fought better because I've fought so much longer. Eventually," she added with a laconic smile, "you might learn to fight half as well as I."
I ignored the verbal jibe. "Change back so we can get back to the truck."
"I can travel much easier in this body," Wihinape argued.
"Yes, but you're probably altering Danny the longer you're in this form." I remembered something. "And let him have control of his body."
"Not while he's near that ... thing!" she spat distastefully. "Or did you forget that, when he's human, he'll be affected by the demonic energy."
"Oh, shit," I swore. "That's right." I looked at Nikki. "We can't leave him here like this. If someone finds him, they'll be corrupted."
"Can't you decontaminate him?"
I shook my head. "It took most of my essence to kill him. I don't have enough left."
Nikki smiled, as if she knew a secret. "I can give you all you need."
Friday, June 29, 2007 - Just After Midnight
Highway 34, Eastern South Dakota
"And ... are the combat finals like this?" Danny was still so pumped from the fight that he couldn't possibly rest, even though he was obviously tired. "I mean, when you're fighting in them?" He was eagerly going on and on about the fight with Snakey and how good Wihinape had been, and I could tell that Addy and Alicia wanted nothing more than to sleep.
"Be quiet, Danny," I snapped at him. I was fatigued from driving all day, worn out from the fight, and nearly exhausted from all the spellwork to decontaminate Snakey.
"But ... that was so cool!"
"What did you do with the ... with it?" Addy asked.
"Oh, yeah," I felt like face-palming. I hadn't told them all of that part, and with the excitement about the World Tree seed, it had kind of been forgotten. "After Nikki gave me some essence, I decontaminated him, then we put him back in his burrow so no-one will find him. A team from HPARC will be here tomorrow to retrieve the body."
"Can I call Whateley?" Nikki asked, still cradling the precious seed in her lap.
I pushed a button on the radio, engaging a hands-free phone feature. "Go ahead."
Nikki fiddled with the controls until she had a number that she'd long-since memorized. On the fourth ring, the phone picked up. "Whateley House," the groggy voice answered unhappily.
"Mrs. Carson?" The hands-free phone played over the truck speakers and had a mic in the dash, so we all heard the conversation. "It's me, Nikki Reilly."
There was an audible groan on the other end. "What did you do now, Nikki?" she asked, obviously feeling put-upon by the constant troubles of Team Kimba and Nikki.
Nikki shot me a grimace. "Um, I'm with Kayda, and ...."
There was another groan. "Do I want to know?" Mrs. Carson asked rhetorically. After a second, she continued, "Okay, what happened?"
I spoke up. "Grandma Little Doe was the keeper of a sacred artifact," I explained. "She was killed by another snake demon, and the artifact was taken. When I was ... cleaning up her house, I recognized the magic residue, I called Nikki so we could retrieve it. Before it was used by the wrong forces."
"I see," Mrs. Carson said, her voice now alert. "And this artifact?"
"It's something very, very old," Nikki said cryptically. "From before that time. It's a part of something I thought was gone from the world. I was hoping to find one ...."
"You mean it's ...?" Mrs. Carson knew better than to speak openly of what Nikki had.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Where are you now?"
"Driving back to Kayda's house." Nikki glanced at me.
"About sixty miles from home," I provided a little more accuracy.
"I was hoping you had an idea of where and how we could keep it safe," Nikki explained.
"Hang on a sec. I'm going to get Charlie Lodgeman on the phone."
I glanced at Nikki, giving her a reassuring smile. We'd had a battle, and it hadn't been too bad this time. I was improving. Still, my ribs and left arm hurt like hell, and I hadn't had the spare essence to do a healing. Nor had I told Nikki, but I think she suspected based on how I was moving.
When Mr. Lodgeman got on the phone, the three of them had a lively discussion about the 'artifact' and how to keep it safe, all without ever once mentioning what it was or where they might keep it. It said a lot about the culture of Whateley that Alicia, Addy, and I understood very clearly what and where they were discussing, but Danny looked totally confused. Eventually he'd learn.
By the time they finished the discussion, Danny had fallen asleep on Alicia's shoulder - and he was in his fuzzy form. And I don't think Alicia minded one bit. Even considering he was my brother, he was kind of cute in that form.
HPARC arranged to 'borrow' a C-21A Learjet to fly Nikki and the seed to Whateley the next morning. Nikki managed to get them to delay the flight until the afternoon, because we were all very tired, and after having tasted Mom's chokecherry jam, she was eager to try chokecherry syrup on pancakes for breakfast.
When I pulled into the driveway, Mom and Dad were both waiting anxiously. Danny and I got huge hugs, and then we gave them a quick recap, while Danny fell asleep again on the sofa. Mom was still very, very distraught, but having to focus on guests provided her a necessary distraction. When she wasn't sure she had any one-hundred percent natural fiber bedding, Nikki just smiled and opened a gateway to a pocket dimension, from which she extracted sheets that would work for her.
Mom just shook her head at the demonstration of magic. "I need you to make me one or two of those," she commented with a smile. "I never have enough storage space!"
At Nikki's insistence, we hauled the mattress from the spare bed to my room, and us girls had a sleepover. Because it was well after midnight, and Nikki and I were quite tired, we went to sleep almost immediately.
Saturday, June 30, 2007 - Mid Afternoon
Franks' Home, South Dakota
All of Friday and Saturday morning had been hectic, and Danny and I were rather wrung-out emotionally. We'd taken Nikki to Mitchell to meet the Air Force plane - she got a flight all to herself to travel straight to Whateley, no MID or MCO or any other interference, and I wondered who had pulled the hardest - Mrs. Carson, Hazel, or Nikki's dad. Alicia and Addy helped with chores like gathering eggs, and Alicia was curious about milking our cow - Addy had done that during Spring Break and had no urgent need to improve her meager skills in that area.
We mostly stayed out of the way of Mom and Dad; Mom was in pretty bad shape with grief, especially arranging services for Grandma, and she didn't need a herd of guest teenagers making her life more difficult than it was. Addy and Alicia cooked lunch and dinner for them, and I know both Mom and Dad appreciated the help.
We were at a memorial service for Grandma, me wearing one of my more elaborate and meaningful Lakota outfits, with the paint and my In'oka furs at Mom's insistence that I honor Grandma that way, even though I felt quite out-of-place and I was fuming at what Grandma had done. Mom and Dad were going to take her remains to the reservation, to her home ground, for a regular Lakota service the next week, but that Saturday was a simple service with no casket. With the ferocity of Snakey's attack, I knew for an absolute fact that what was left of her probably wouldn't have filled a paint can - and when I thought of that, my stomach churned uncomfortably.
I wanted to sit in the back of the church, but I had to sit with family, and Dad was very, very insistent. Heck, I wasn't even sure I wanted to be there, given the powerful sense of betrayal I felt the moment our little quest for the World Tree seed had ended, but I couldn't tell Mom or Dad about Grandma's dealings. Mom was too distraught to notice my mood, Danny was withdrawn, and Dad was too busy dealing with arrangements and comforting Mom, but Alicia and Addy noticed.
A lot of Mom's and Grandma's friends filed into the church, passing by the front pew to express condolences to us, although they were a little puzzled by the presence of Alicia and Adalie, who were there to provide emotional support for me. Many of my old friends' families attended, but several of the girls and boys from my class were very noticeably not offering any words to me. Enough did, though - like Rich - that I wasn't totally upset by their shunning.
There was as collective gasp when a group of about a dozen Ghost Warriors, in paint and native outfits and the markings of their warrior societies, accompanied three shamans into the service. They went directly to Mom, and the shamans did a minor blessing ritual, while the Ghost Warriors stood, arms-crossed, scanning the assembly. The shamans were in ceremonial regalia that was almost never used, which showed that they had a tremendous respect for Grandma. No doubt a few of the people gulped at the sight of the warriors. While most people would assume the shamans and warriors wore costumes, I could tell from the markings that these were the most elite Lakota warriors and very, very important shamans.
After their ritual with Mom, the shamans came to give me obeisance, much to my embarrassment and shock of the assembled friends. Then one by one, the warriors did the same, all unashamedly weeping for the loss of their shaman leader.
I blanked out the service. Torn between grief over losing Grandma and rage at how she'd tried to manipulate me, I really didn't pay any attention. We were sitting before the service, and people streamed by to offer words, and the next thing I clearly remember is that we were in the church basement for a reception.
At a break in a conversation, Addy nudged me to get my attention. "What's with those guys?" she asked, nodding her head toward the Ghost Warriors. They all stood rigidly against one wall at the reception, arms crossed and clearly watching over me.
"They're ... kind of an honor guard," I said with a wince.
"I noticed that when some people get near us," she continued, "they straighten and look more ...."
"More menacing?" Alicia asked, glancing at the men.
"Oui," Addy replied. "Why are all the girls looking so un'appily at us?"
A chuckle sounded behind us. "Because they're totally jealous," Julie's voice sounded mellifluously.
I turned and was met by a huge hug and a warm smile. "I thought you were in Minneapolis with your aunt."
"I was," she replied. "But when I got the news ...." She actually considered Mom and Dad to be more like family than her own mutant-hating parents.
"You met Addy at spring break," I said to her, "and this is her roommate from school, Alicia. She's from Louisiana, so if she talks funny, you'll have to excuse her."
"Hey," Alicia feigned outrage, "Ah do not talk funny!"
"Oh, oh!" Julie interrupted. "Potential trouble."
A couple of not-quite-friends were strolling our way, trying and failing to look cool. "Hey, Julie," they said in greeting. "Br ... um ... Kayda." One kept glancing at Addy, while the other was stealing peeks at Alicia. "Nice you could be home, but it's too bad about your Grandmother."
I was thoroughly tired of hearing platitudes about 'so sorry', and 'it's too bad', but I had to go along. "Thanks." Clearly, they were waiting for introductions. "Jeff and Jack," I went along with the little formality, "these are my friends from school - Adalie Vitesse and Alicia Thacker. Jeff and Jack Dawson are from my old class here."
"They're fraternal twins," Julie added in case there was any confusion about how two dissimilar-appearing boys could be in the same class.
"Ah. It's nice to meet y'all," Alicia drawled, really emphasizing her Louisiana Cajun accent.
"Oui," Addy chimed in. "It is nice to meet friends of Kayda who are actually friendly."
"Addy is from Chaniers, France, and Alicia's from Baton Rouge, Louisiana," I explained for the boys, adding a touch of 'foreign mystique' to the girls.
"Um," Jeff winced slightly; I knew he was more than a bit shy. "We're gonna have a get-together at Twin Lakes tomorrow."
"Yeah," Jack contributed a little more confidently. "Grill some burgers and dogs, probably put up a volleyball net. Tom's takin' his dad's boat out, so we'll probably do some water-skiing." He looked at Alicia. "Do you water-ski?"
"We don't do that much where Ah live," Alicia said with a grin. "Gators." The boys goggled at her, wondering if she was serious.
"Besides," Addy added, "tomorrow, the three of us are flying to France to spend time with my family." She smiled, shooting me a wink. "'Opefully, it will be a little less 'ectic than visiting 'ere 'as been!"
Jack opened his mouth to reply, but then his eyes almost bugged out, staring across the room. We all followed his gaze, seeing that most of the people in the room were doing likewise.
"Oh, shit," I muttered softly.
Danny was beside Lisa Clark, a girl he'd had a crush on since third grade. I was surprised that she hadn't been one of those shunning him once it was discovered that he was a mutant, too. But what was even more surprising is that she'd done or said something that embarrassed Danny, because he was in his kitty-boy form, with light fur and cat-ears atop his head. Even across the room, we could hear her squeal of delight. "Oooh - that's so kyooooot!"
Many of the adults were looking on in shock and horror, while Dad just hung his head, shaking it.
"Should we go rescue 'im?" Addy asked.
I chuckled. "Not yet. Look." He'd gotten the attention of all of his class-mates who were in attendance, and while the boys were chuckling at him, almost every girl - including those from my class - was swarming him, all with the same look of curiosity or outright adoration. The girls who were smiling or petting his fur or giggling grew by the minute, as did the background squeal of general delight from the horde at how cute and adorable Danny was.
"'E 'as no clue 'ow popular 'e's going to be next year." Addy deadpanned.
"When Wondercute sees him," Alicia predicted with a wry smile, "he's doomed!"
"Would it be considered cruel to introduce him to Jade?" I asked with a chuckle.
"Imagine if 'e was wearing a 'Ello, Kitty' shirt when she met 'im!" Addy laughed aloud.
"That'd be too cruel," Alicia sighed. "So are we gonna do it?"
I couldn't help but giggle. "It'd be fun," I admitted longingly, "but Mom'd kill me. So ... probably not." A grin appeared. "But I can still think about it."
Saturday, June 30, 2007 - Evening
Franks' Home, South Dakota
I could hear the sounds of Addy, Alicia, Dad, and Danny looking around outside for me, but I wanted solitude at the moment. I had a lot to think about. Grandma Little Doe, so full of stories that delighted two little boys, getting friends who were warriors and shamans to share tales when we visited her home when we were young and she lived in Mission. A grandmother who never had a harsh word for her grandchildren, even when we misbehaved - with a mere glance or word of disappointment, she'd have Danny and me so remorseful that we were begging for forgiveness - and then five minutes later, she'd be baking cookies for us. Sure, she embarrassed me with the young warrior ritual at my birthday party long ago, but secretly, I adored her for how special it made me feel.
Then there was Shaman Grey Skies, a manipulative, cunning woman who was not above lying and deceiving her own kin to advance her own personal goals. Hiring Magic Mikey through her pawn Chief Bear Claws to torment her own granddaughter and drive her from school - and for what? To be a pawn of the old shrew to try to bring glory and prosperity to her tribe, even if it cost her grandchild innocence and liberty?
Every time I thought of Grandma Little Doe, the image in my mind would shift into a sharp, evil, haughty old woman whose very countenance invoked fear. And yet, when I thought of Grey Skies, I couldn't help but think of the loving, kindly grandmother who'd doted on her grandchildren so. It was difficult to reconcile the two faces of the same person - someone I loved and someone I hated. When a memory of Grandma came to me, I found myself crying almost uncontrollably at losing her, ready to retch at the indelible memory of picking up small fragments of my precious grandmother. And then the phone and its damning message, and the tears dried up and I wanted to scream in anger, to hit something, to give vent to the fury at how she'd tried to manipulate me, even putting my life in danger. Had she ever truly cared about me, or was I just a tool to further her own agenda?
And then something would cause doubts about her being evil, and a fond memory would surface, and the cycle started anew.
I don't know how many times I went through that before I became aware that Dad's head was poking up through the access hole, looking at me. I wiped at my tear-stained cheeks as he climbed all the way up the ladder into the barn's cavernous hay-loft, occupied mostly by bales of hay. Without a word, he strode over and sat beside me, wrapping an arm around me and pulling my head to his shoulder.
"I know that was hard for you," he finally said. "And I know your mom appreciates it."
"No, you don't know!" I spat bitterly. "You can't know how I feel!"
"That you can't decide if grandma was a dear, kindly, loving grandma, or a manipulative shrew?" he asked. My jaw dropped as I stared, semi-comprehending, at him, seeking some kind of confirmation that what I thought he'd said was what he'd really said.
"Your Mom and I know," he said softly. "We know all about Grey Skies and Chief Dan."
"But ... how?"
Dad sighed heavily. "Last week, when you were in Louisiana," he began sadly, "we got a phone call from Chief Bear Claws." He nodded at my look of disbelief. "He was afraid of ... of your grandmother, because he'd failed, and he wanted to come clean with us - before ...."
I frowned. "Before what?"
"Kayda, your grandmother was sometimes the sweetest lady in the world, but she also had a cruel, stubborn streak in her." He shook his head. "The Chief had a heart attack two days after he called us. Your mom thinks that grandma did something, because she was a powerful enough shaman to do that."
My eyes were wide open. "Grandma ... killed him? Because ... she was afraid he was going to talk?"
"No, she didn't kill him," Dad answered. "He's in the hospital in Rapid City recovering. It was probably a warning to him to keep his mouth shut."
"I ... I don't understand."
"He said that Grey Skies - your grandmother - was determined to get you to the reservation, to lead the People. She felt that it would be safer for you to be there - because the MCO doesn't have jurisdiction over Tribal Law."
"They almost killed me!" I screeched at Dad. "Several times!"
"I know, honey," Dad said sadly. "I know. And if I'd have known then, I probably would have brought you home to protect you."
"But ... why?"
Dad shook his head. "I don't know. When your Mom and I confronted Grandma about it, she said it was to protect you, but she didn't deny that she thought it would be best for the People." He sighed again. "I think in her own mind, she was convinced she was doing what was best for you and for her tribe." He lapsed into silence for a bit. "She was always very headstrong even if she wasn't the most logical-thinking person."
"Stubborn, you mean."
Dad nodded. "Now, let's go inside. Your Mom is worried about you, and so are your friends. And I think you and she need some time together to talk and try to deal with this whole mess. She's as conflicted as you are, I'm sure." With that, he stood and helped me to my feet.
Sunday, July 1, 2007 - Around Midnight
Dream Space of the Ptesanwi
The moon rose high and silvery over the camp, lighting the entire landscape in quiet, soft light that took away much of the gloom of the night. Even with the fire burning in the fire circle, the light of the moon could not be denied a place in helping illuminate the scene, to chase away the shadows of the night.
Only it was gloomy, of that there was no doubt. Even the flames in the fire were subdued, as if refusing to dance gaily about at such a time of somber reflection.
Wakan Tanka carefully poured tea for the four of us - Mom, Danny, herself, and me - and then distributed the primitive fired-clay cups. We sat in silence, drinking our tea, each lost in thought about what had transpired.
Mom looked totally exhausted emotionally. I felt like my guts were churning as my emotional rollercoaster threatened to overwhelm me, feeling alternately like crying and then like raging against my grandmother. Danny, I think, was totally confused; I don't think he believed what Mom and I had admitted about Grandma's role in trying to chase me from Whateley.
"What do we do now?" I muttered to Wakan Tanka, having absolutely no idea why she thought a dream-walk would be useful.
My mentor sipped her tea. "First, you must admit that Little Doe was flawed like every other human being. There is no such thing as a perfect human."
I suppressed a snort; I knew a few kids at Whateley who thought they were perfect. "What good will that do?" I mumbled.
"As long as you think of her as perfect," Wakan Tanka advised, "your memories of her failings will be much more painful and conflicted."
"So Mom wasn't perfect," Mom said sadly. "I knew that. But ... doing what she did to Bra ... Kayda?" I was startled by her slip of the tongue; she hadn't called me Brandon in a very long time.
"Mom," I turned to my mother, "how am I supposed to forgive her for that? I almost got killed, several times! And Magic Mikey was a pawn of Speakeasy's plot!"
Wakan Tanka looked sadly at me. "And yet, you have fond memories of a loving, caring grandmother, true?" She looked at Mom. "You knew long ago that your mother was stubborn and had her own agenda, true?"
Mom stared into dream space - and we were a family supporting each other. Just like we were supposed to.
Sunday, July 1, 2007 - Early Afternoon
Joe Foss Field, Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Mom wrapped her arms around me in a big hug. "I wish you weren't going right now," she sniffled, a few tears leaking from her eyes.
"How are you doing?" I asked, worried about her. I'd at least had the 'quest for the World Tree seed' to distract me for a bit.
Mom shook her head. "I ... I don't know," she admitted. "I ... I'm confused. I suppose like you and Danny are."
"Yeah. Confused is a good way to describe it." I clutched her tightly. "Remember what Wakan Tanka said - we have to try to remember the good stuff, because she was human, and not perfect, like all of us."
"I know. Have you ... forgiven her?"
Grimacing, I shook my head. "That's going to take a while, Mom," I admitted. "Maybe a long time. Maybe never. She hurt me - a lot."
"I know, honey," Mom admitted. "She hurt all of us."
"Yeah." I answered sadly. "Do you want to meet in dream space some more?"
I felt Mom's nod on my shoulder. "I'd like that. I think I need that. But ...."
"Sometimes we can meet one-on-one," I suggested. "And other times, we can get Dad or Danny or both of them."
"But that'll take time away from you and Deb," she objected.
I chuckled softly. "I bet if you ask her, she'd agree that we need each other now more than she does." I couldn't help but smile. "That's one of the reasons I love her - she's so selfless."
"You're lucky to find her," Mom said, and I could tell she was smiling. "She's a real sweetheart. Your Dad and I love her, too. She's good for you. You two are good for each other."
"I think so," I admitted, blushing slightly.
"Be careful, honey," she said, giving me a kiss on the cheek.
"I will. It's France. It's wine and cheese and funny hats! What can possibly go wrong?" I smiled, backing away from the hug. "And we've got Twinkletoes with us."
Mom chuckled again. "To be honest, if he wasn't going with you, after this last week, I wouldn't want you to go."
I held her hands for a moment. "I'll call and text you, okay?"
"Okay, honey." Mom stepped back to Dad's side, where he wrapped an arm around her waist.
"And you take care of my little brother or sister," I added with a wry smile.
Deb stepped to my side. "I'm going to miss you," she said sadly. "I wish we'd have had more time together."
I walked with her guiding me to an out-of-the-way hallway, out of sight of most people, and the moment she stopped, I launched myself at her, kissing her as eagerly as she did to me.
After an extended lip-lock, we leaned our foreheads together. "I want you to promise me to be careful, okay?"
"C'mon," I said, chuckling. "With Ayla and Twinkletoes, it'll be a nice, peaceful vacation."
One of Debra's eyebrows arched. "You know trouble has a way of finding you."
"I promise. I'll be careful and stay out of trouble," I said, raising my hand in a Boy Scout salute, looking thoroughly serious. That held for about two seconds before I started giggling, and that set Debra off chuckling as well. "I'll be back in nine days," I said. "And then we can spend more time together. And there's always dream-walking," I added with a grin.
Deb smiled sadly. "I think you need to spend some time dream-walking with your Mom," she countered. "Right now, she needs you more. And I was really hoping to spend the Fourth with you and your family."
"I know. But we'll have a lot of time after I get back."
"Hey, Kayda," Alicia called discretely from back with Mom and Dad. "We've got to get checked in so we don't miss our flight."
"You better get going," Deb said reluctantly. "You never know how long the MCO is going to take with screening, and I'd hate for you to miss your flight."
"No you wouldn't," I chuckled.
She kissed me again, and then we walked, hand in hand, back to Mom and the group. "I'll call when I get to Chicago," I promised them. "And I'll let you know how we're doing."
"Okay." Mom swept me up in another hug. "Be careful and have fun."
Dad took his turn hugging me. "Have a good time, honey."
I was so swept up in things that I gave Danny a hug, which annoyed him, and then Addy and Alicia, having obviously arranged things beforehand, leaned to him from each side and simultaneously kissed his cheeks, which embarrassed him - and he went fuzzy, which embarrassed him even more.
Reluctantly, I went with my enthusiastic friends, following Twinkletoes, to the security checkpoint. The MCO agent looked skeptically at me, but when I presented paperwork for my knife and tomahawk, he shrugged and let us through with no hassles. As we walked to the gate, Addy grinned. "I can't wait to get 'ome!"
"Ah'm looking forward to it," Alicia said enthusiastically. "Will we have time to go to Paris? Ah want to find a nice dress or something for Ma."
Twinkletoes turned back toward us. "We'll be in Paris for a couple of days," he assured us. "You'll have plenty of time to shop."
I grinned. "Good. I need to get something nice for Deb." Looking around, I spotted a small eatery. "Let's get a burger and fries. Might be our last chance before we have to eat snails and other strange French food."
"Barbarian!" Addy said, sticking out her tongue at me. "You're going to love eating the treats Daphne makes!
"Ah don't care what we eat," Alicia said with a smile. "Ah just want to see France."
We went into the little eatery. We had at least forty minutes before boarding, so we had plenty of time to sit down and eat. As we sat, I lifted my soda in a toast. "To a new adventure with my best friends."
Sunday, July 1, 2007 - Early Afternoon
Joe Foss Field, Sioux Falls, South Dakota
June wrapped her arm around Debra's waist as they watched Kayda and her friends enter the security screening for Sioux Falls Airport. Once they all disappeared from view, Debra sighed and then turned to give June a smile of thanks.
"Come on," June said with a smile and another squeeze. "Let's go get a coffee. I'm sure you're not going to leave the airport till Kayda is definitely on the plane. Just like us."
Smiling in delight as he watched his wife and oldest child's girlfriend walk off arm in arm, Pete Franks followed them, guiding them to a window seat in the airport's Starbucks so they could see the runway and planes, and then he went to the barista to order beverages. He took coffees and some cookies to the table just as June was asking Debra about her plans for the rest of the day.
"That depends on you actually," Debra said with a smile. "I was hoping to invite you back to the office. Farm Boy and I have a proposal for you, and I have a couple of my friends from school I'd like you to meet."
Pete's eyebrows arched. "Is it the type of proposal we can talk about in public?" he asked softly.
Debra shrugged her shoulders. "My friends got chased off their college campus by H1!, and they need a place to stay while they finish their degrees by correspondence. They want normal lives - they have no interest in hero work. They just want to get married and have a family."
"And the problem is ...?" June asked softly.
Debra winced. "Both of them have very mild GSD, almost unnoticeable, really. They can hide it; Sue nearly got through her whole first year before even her roommate found out. It turned out, unfortunately, that her roommate was the daughter of the local H1! Organizer. Farm Boy and I had to rush down there and get them out. "
"They couldn't go to their families?" June asked softly.
Debra sadly shook her head. "Both of them were rescued from their families by superheroes after they manifested. They have very minor powers, almost unnoticeable GSD, and, the reason we thought of you, both of them want to be farmers."
"Farmers?" Pete blinked.
"Farmers," Debra agreed. "We were thinking that in return for room and board while they finish their degrees, they could help out around your farm and get some first-hand experience before they start a farm of their own. And with Kayda and Danny being in school, and June's pregnancy, we thought you might be looking for some extra help and wouldn't mind having mutants stay with you."
Pete and June exchanged a long look, before Pete smiled and looked back to Debra. "Actually, we had discussed getting help, but to be perfectly honest, most of the local kids of appropriate age to help us out are related to ex-friends of Kayda and Julie. We don't want them around our farm, especially with June being pregnant." Pete scowled at the unpleasant thought of some of those people being on his farm.
"What Pete is trying to say in his usual, verbose, round-about way," June took over with a bright smile for Debra, "is that we'd be delighted to meet your friends and see if they are the type of young adults we would feel comfortable to have living with us on our farm."
Smiling with relief at how they'd been open to the offer, Debra grabbed her phone from her purse as it chirped. Getting a tone from her phone, too, June glanced down before smiling. "They're all checked in and waiting for the plane to board."
"Once they're in the air," Pete said, reaching for a cookie, "we can go meet your friends."
Sunday, July 1, 2007 - Early Afternoon
Sioux Falls League Headquarters, South Dakota
"June, Pete, delighted to see you again, especially not in a professional capacity," Farm Boy greeted them as they followed Debra into the main chamber of the Sioux Falls League's Headquarters. "Has Debra had a chance to introduce our proposal?"
"As it happens, we're looking for some help on the farm," Pete admitted with a nod. "And after what's happened, the idea of hiring one of the local boys isn't very appealing," he grimaced as Farm Boy winced his understanding. "Debra said her friends are staying here. Could we meet them, to see if they're the type of young people we'd get along with?"
With a laugh, Farm Boy gestured to the conference room. "They're waiting for you." He guided them inside. "June, Pete Franks, meet Sue Philips and Steve Drake." The young man was in his late teens, tall and tanned, and the young woman had long, blonde hair under a hat, and piercing blue eyes. Both were dressed casually - with jeans, long-sleeved cotton shirts, and boots, they looked every bit the country teens that Pete somehow expected.
June gave Sue a hug while Pete shook the boy's hand, before they swapped and greeted the other. "She could be your sister," June chuckled to Deb.
Debra laughed. "She's not, although I did use the 'sister' rouse when I went to Ohio State to get her," she explained wryly. "That's the thing with exemplars - a lot of us end up looking like blonde-haired, blue-eyed relatives of each other."
It was very clear to June that Deb and Sue were very good friends, and Pete noticed his wife's pleasant smile. She'd already made up her mind based on Deb's judgment and seeing the two girls' friendship on display. It was only a matter of working out unimportant details before they'd make an offer to the two young adults.
Making the best of it, Pete turned to Steve. "So, why do you want to be farmers?" he asked. "Most young people these days can't wait to get away to the big cities."
Steve winced. "Well sir, to be honest ..."
"Pete," the Franks patriarch replied sternly. "Pete and June. None of this 'sir' and ma'am' stuff, okay?"
Steve grinned, sensing that they'd already made a favorable impression. "We'd like a quiet life, and we have just enough GSD that it'd be hard in a town or city. On a farm, slip-ups by us won't be seen, and we're close enough to normal for occasional trips to town and church and stuff."
"Slip-ups?" Pete asked curiously.
At an encouraging nod from Farm Boy, Steve rolled up his shirt to the elbow. Turning his arm around, Steve pointed to copper-colored traceries down the back of his arm. "I have these running under my skin," he explained. "They let me store and channel electrical charges. And I can produce a shock about as severe as a military-grade taser." He indicated copper tracers down the back of his fingers ending in little copper pads at the tip of his fingers. "Since I'd have to wear work gloves almost everywhere," Steve explained, "it won't show."
With a nod of respect for that stratagem, Pete turned to Sue. Taking off her hat and flattening down her hair, Sue showed a small pair of horns, and then she pointed to her boots, explaining, "I have cloven feet, too, but with prosthetic boots, no one can tell."
"Any other powers?" Pete asked.
Shaking her head, Sue shrugged. "Just low-level exemplar."
Steve piped up. "Low-level electrical energizer. Nothing dangerous."
"How do you feel about babies?" June asked suddenly.
"Babies?" Sue asked confused, glancing to Debra and Farm Boy to understand.
"Yes, babies. One of the reasons we're looking for help is that our two kids will both be going to Whateley this year, and since I'm pregnant ..."
"Pregnant? Really?!" Sue squealed in delight, jumping up to give June a congratulatory hug.
Sighing at the happy trio of women enthusing over his wife's pregnancy, Pete extended a hand to Steve. "I don't see any reason to wait. How would you like to work as farm hands for us? I'll give you room and board and a paycheck. And I'll teach you what I know about running a farm."
Steve glanced at Sue and saw her slight nod of acceptance. "That's a very generous offer," he said. Then he winced. "Um, there is something I don't know how you'd feel about, though."
"The fact that you two are a couple even though you're not married?" Pete smiled at them. "I was young once, too, you know," he said. A light blush tinged June's cheeks for a moment, even though she was smiling. "If you're up for some light construction, we can fix up some of the unfinished space in the basement as an apartment for you - if you'd like." He shrugged. "As to anything else, your private lives are your private lives."
With a happy smile, Steve reached out and clasped Pete's hand, giving him a solid shake. "I think we'd really like that," he said with an easy grin. "We'll take it."
"Good." Pete turned to Farm Boy. "You got a couple of beers?" he asked. "Maybe there's a game on we can at least watch while we get to know each other better." He saw the look on June's face. "If experience is any guide, I suspect Sue, Debra, and June would rather talk about babies than watch the game. That does seem to be the female thing." He ducked as two napkins and a half-glass of water were thrown his way.
More Whateley Academy tales can be found on the Whateley website, whateleyacademy.net
It's a winding road
It's a long way home
So don't wait for someone to tell you it's too late
Cuz these are the best days
There's always something tomorrow
So I say let's make the best of it
So don't wait cuz no-one can tell you it's too late
Cuz these are the best days
There's always something tomorrow
So I say let's make the best of tonight
Yeah let's make the best of tonight
We'll make the best of tonight
Here comes the rest of our lives
Best Days - Graham Colton
Sunday, July 1, 2007 - Early Afternoon
Chicago O'Hare Airport
I couldn't help but look around as we rode the little intra-airport train from Terminal 3 where we'd arrived on an American Airlines flight to Terminal 5, where we'd meet Ayla for our flight on Air France. I didn't say it, but I was worried about Ayla getting there because in the past, the MCO had screwed with his flights, and it wouldn't be unlike them to mess up his flight from LA to Chicago this time, too. When we landed, though, Addy had a text message - actually several - from Ayla; he was in the Air France lounge waiting for us.
Our chaperone, Twinkletoes - Walt Reynolds - sat a few seats down from us on the train, watching us without being obvious that he was watching us. Across the little car from Alicia, Addy, and me were three boys - probably around seventeen or eighteen - who were trying to look cool, to impress us no doubt. One - probably the leader, judging by his pose and clothing and the deference the other two seemed to give him, was openly staring at me. We were doing our best to ignore the creeps, but their suggestive comments and gawking were getting unnerving.
I couldn't deny that our boots - the calf-tight, sexy, snakey-hide boots - were attracting their attention, and thanks to Mom's nagging, we were all dressed quite nicely. She would not let "her girls" travel looking like bums. As a result, we looked a lot sexier than almost every other girl in the terminal - and yes, I had to admit that I probably looked sexy.
I'll give the leader credit for being cool; he smiled and slid his sunglasses up on his forehead in an obvious smooth 'move'. "You look kinda foreign, kinda exotic, like a model," he said smoothly.
"You're the foreign one, paleface," I shot back very sarcastically.
The guy ignored my comment, or took it as joking or flirting. "I'm tryin' to figure out where you're from." A confident, slightly smug smile crept over his features. "You can tell me all about yourself over lunch when we get to the terminal."
"In your dreams," I snorted derisively. He was clearly trying to isolate me - an obvious move for pick-up artists.
"Frank's so well known here that he can get some really good food that isn't even on the menu," one of his buddies chimed in. "And we'll entertain your two friends," he leered at Addy and Alicia, "while you and Frank have lunch." It was a very amateurish attempt at being a wing-man for the self-confident ass.
I suppose this guy might have a way with some girls, given his 'bad boy' aura. For a baseline, he probably wasn't bad looking, but I immediately knew his game - come on to a girl while at the same time appearing stand-offish, like he was doing the girl a favor by merely talking to her. It worked a lot more than one would think it should; the slightly arrogant, alpha-male, bad-boy attitude was like a magnet for a lot of girls. Unfortunately for these clowns, Alicia, Addy, and I weren't among them.
A couple of months ago, I'd have had a panic attack. Now, though, I was just annoyed. "Not interested," I replied disdainfully.
Give the leader credit, he was obviously a skilled pick-up artist and wasn't deterred by a simple no. "How long until your connecting flight?" he continued smoothly.
"We are not interested," Addy said firmly, her cute, pert little Gallic nose turned up snootily. "Or is understanding that too great a task for your feeble little brains?"
Glaring at us, the leader and his buddies moved down the car, visibly unhappy at our unwillingness to play their game and Addy's pretty blunt insult. I wasn't worried; I hastily did a small incantation to put a temporary shield around the three of us.
When I glanced at Twinkletoes, he smiled, acknowledging approval at how we'd handled the goofballs. It got me to think that maybe he wouldn't be such a bad chaperone after all!
The boys stayed far away from us for the rest of the ride, and they continued to stare at us with anger at the way we'd shot them down, and at the same time, the lust in their eyes was plain to see. Laughing among ourselves, we collected our luggage and strode confidently into the terminal, following signs to the Air France lounge.
Sure enough, when we got to the lounge, Ayla stood by the door, his smile lingering a few extra moments on Addy. Much as he hated the fact that he looked one hundred percent female - except when naked, Ayla was attired as befit a very important businesswoman. Obviously designer suit, probably with Kevra lining and plentiful pockets for holdouts, hair-styled a little more professionally than the usually spiky semi-punk look, and a professional amount of makeup - a totally businesslike look that wouldn't have been out of place in a corporate boardroom - ignoring of course that Ayla looked fourteen and wouldn't be in a normal corporate boardroom. And - surprising us all - Ayla was wearing the snakey-skin boots.
I could easily see that Addy was dying to hug Ayla, and vice-versa, so when Addy approached, Ayla gave her the kind of embrace that women and girls would normally exchange, which then required that he hugged Alicia and me, too, so as to not even give a hint in public of an inter-personal thing between him and Addy. Though I could see that Addy really, really wanted to hold Ayla's hand, she forced herself to show restraint.
I groaned and rolled my eyes when we got into the lounge, not so much at the state of the lounge - I'd been in better - or the other people therein, but at the sight of a ten-year-old girl sitting at a table working studiously at a laptop while dressed almost as professionally as Ayla. And also the calf boots. This was either a strange coincidence or Addy had arranged this behind my back.
I expected that when she saw us, she'd bound over with her characteristic manic energy; instead, she turned, lowered her reading glasses - really? Reading glasses on a ten-year-old? - and smiled politely. "I'm glad you ladies could join us," she said formally as we sat down at the table with her.
Twinkletoes did a double-take at her, and then excused himself to find a quiet corner to call Mage Astre. Ayla led Addy to a very isolated corner, leaving Alicia and me with the madcap mistress of mayhem. "Jade," I said politely. "I didn't realize you were coming."
"Ayla needs an executive assistant," she said, her eyes twinkling in a mischievous way that was quite unsettling. "And Jinn is a very good bodyguard."
Alicia wrinkled her nose and looked around, curious. "Where is Jinn?"
"She's around." She couldn't stop a grin from spreading. "This is gonna be so cool! I mean, it's France! Paris, Notre Dame Cathedral, Versailles!" She suddenly wrinkled her nose. "But I am not going to eat snails!"
I groaned again, inwardly. I just knew something was going to happen. If misadventure touched my life from time to time, it dwelled with Jade.
"So, I take it from the cafeteria mayhem that you guys got things patched up?" Alicia asked hesitantly.
"Yeah, mostly," Jade said, and for a brief second, there was a hint of sadness in her big sad puppy-dog eyes. Everyone on campus knew how badly that disastrous combat final had affected not only Wondercute, but also Star League Junior. There was a rumor that one member of Star League Junior had quit, and that Lindsay had been kicked off Wondercute. Another rumor held that some members of both teams had been confined to Doyle under psychological observation for a few days because Dr. Bellows and the counseling staff thought they were depressed to the point of possibly being suicidal. I had a hard time thinking that Anna would be one of those who'd take it that seriously, but she'd been very morose for a few days, just like the others.
"That was so funny!" I couldn't help but chuckle. Wondercute had announced their return in a typical insane, over-the-top way in Crystal Hall during dinner; no-one on campus could doubt that they were back, and if anything, the final and its aftermath had only made Jade more determined than ever to use unconventional means in an all-out war against the enemies of cute. Everyone, staff and faculty included, had been highly amused by the gag, but I doubted that the victims were quite as enthralled by their antics. What was surprising was that Star League Junior seemed to have gotten a big morale boost from Wondercute's recovery.
Jade nodded. "It's ... Dr. Bellows said it was just what we needed." She looked wistful for another brief interlude. "I wish they could have all come along, because he said that we need time together."
"France is so not ready for Wondercute!" I exclaimed in horror at the thought. Jade was going to be bad enough, I feared.
Jade scowled. "That's what Ayla said, too! Sometimes he's such a meanie!"
I shuddered at the look in her eyes; no doubt one of the 'prankster pair of Poe' was already plotting some kind of gag to retaliate at Ayla for having said such a thing. I decided to change the subject. "Have they got food service in here?" I already knew the answer - I could smell food - but it was an attempt to distract Jade.
"Yeah," she said easily; I think she was as glad to change the subject as we were. "Over there." She pointed toward one end of the room. "Ayla says the food isn't very good, but I thought it was delish."
"Of course Ayla would say that," I chuckled. This was going to be a challenging trip if he was fussy about food everywhere we went. Alicia and I went to the buffet, and from the serving line, we could just see the little nook where Addy and Ayla were getting their 'I missed you' kissing out of the way.
Compared to the few special meals I'd had at Whateley, the food wasn't great, even though it was a cut above an average American meal. If this was representative of the food in France, I was going to be sorely disappointed. We'd barely had any when Ayla and Addy came back.
After finishing the smooching session with Addy, as he sat down, Ayla saw me hesitate while taking a bite. "It's not that good, is it?" he asked as if it was obvious to everyone.
"Oh, God," I said with a feigned look of horror on my face, "I've spent so much time around Ayla that I'm turning into a food snob!"
Addy giggled, and I saw her affectionately squeeze Ayla's hand beneath the table. "We'll 'ave excellent food when we get 'ome and Daphne is cooking."
As the three of us chuckled as we related our misadventures so far on this grand world-tour vacation, Jade sat in her chair, computer open in front of her, studying whatever it was she was studying, which puzzled me greatly. She should have been interested in at least some of our adventures, but she sat calmly, totally absorbed in her 'work'. As our wait dragged on, I couldn't help but frown; had the Wondercute sim affected her so much that she was now acting - perish the thought - normal? Where was the extremely talkative little ball of energy with her Hello Kitty purse and her obsession with cute? Where was the Prankster Princess of Poe, with all her insane, novel pranks to make people crazy? I kept waiting for something, but when I looked at her, she just wore her cherubic smile, even though I was certain I could see her fiendish mind racing to devise new methods of insanity.
We boarded the flight, traveling in a 747 in Air France's first class, which was definitely two or more cuts above any flight I'd ever been on! Of course, being a farm kid from rural South Dakota, my flight experience was quite limited. The seats were grouped in pairs so that we had to split up a bit; naturally, Addy sat with Ayla, Jade took a seat in front of Ayla next to Walt - no doubt so she could be close-by to fill her role as 'executive assistant' or bodyguard if needed, leaving Alicia and me to a pair of side-by-side seats.
It was a late flight, like most flights to Europe, so we'd arrive in Paris at their local morning; each seat had a movie screen in the armrest and also reclined nearly flat for sleeping. The meal service was pretty good, even better than the Air France lounge buffet food, and it surprised me when they served some wine to Addy when she asked.
Seeing my bewildered look, she leaned toward me across the aisle. "This is France, Kayda," she said with a smug smile. "It is no big deal to serve a little wine with a meal."
"To a minor?"
She grinned. "In France, it is not such a big deal." Walt, hearing our exchange, turned and looked with 'the gaze' at Addy, letting her know in a parental way that he didn't approve of her having some wine, even if it was 'not such a big deal' to Air France.
"And I suppose they'll show some really 'artsy' black-and-white film-noir movie for us during the flight, too?" I asked with a giggle.
"Hmmph!" Addy feigned indignation. "You're getting as bad as Alicia! I can tell you've been 'anging out with 'er too long!"
"At least we can pray that it's not a Jerry Lewis movie!" I kidded her.
"My Papa says that 'e is a comedic genius," she said with a snort, leaning back on Ayla's shoulder. When I giggled, she stuck her tongue out at me, and then, unable to sustain her fake anger, she giggled too.
After we had our in-flight meal, we settled in to rest; I had a movie on, and it really wasn't too bad. Alicia conked right out, and across the aisle, Addy lay half-snuggled on Ayla's shoulder, while Ayla worked diligently on whatever he was using his laptop for. I glanced at the next row; Jade, too, had her laptop open, and instead of an anime or 'cute' movie, she looked to be working, too. I had an uneasy feeling that she was up to something. When she realized I was staring, she turned and shot me another innocent little smile. That convinced me even more that she was planning some mad scheme.
I didn't sleep too well for the rest of the flight.
Monday, July 2, 2007 - Afternoon
Bordeaux, France
After landing in Paris, I expected us to take a flight to Bordeaux, but instead, after retrieving our luggage and processing through immigration and customs, Ayla got a limo to take us to the Gare Montparnasse train station, one of six major train stations in Paris, where we boarded a Train Ă Grande Vitesse, or TGV train as they're otherwise known, for our journey to Bordeaux - in first-class seats, of course. I was glad that Ayla was familiar with Paris; I would have never guessed that there were multiple train stations, and we would have probably ended up in Switzerland. Or Denmark.
I was rather surprised that we were taking the train, but when pressed, Ayla said that the relaxing train ride would give our bodies more time to adapt to the time change; in reality, I think Addy had convinced him that train rides were more romantic, and it would give them more time together before we got to Addy's house and her father's close observation.
Once we got to Bordeaux, Walt was anxious to disembark from the train, which surprised me momentarily until I remembered that he was planning to see his old flame Mage Astre, whom he'd let know that he was coming so she could meet us at the station.
I expected a group of superheroes based on how Addy had described the Heroes Glorieux de Bordeaux, but there were no such flamboyantly-costumed groups waiting. In a way, it was disappointing to not have a noted group greeting us like we were VIPs.
"Walt?" a very feminine voice called out hesitantly as we followed Twinkletoes onto the platform. "Walt Reynolds?"
Looking around, my gaze settled on a group of people standing on the platform, with one - a brunette-haired, absolutely gorgeous woman, standing in front of them. Her pert little Gallic nose and her stylish French hairstyle added to the charm of the tight little red dress she was wearing, which clung to her practically perfect figure and was quite out of place among the travelers but would have fit right in at a nightclub or other social event.
Walt looked her way, and he gulped nervously as he nodded. "Brigitte?" he asked hesitantly.
The ice was more than broken; the woman practically leaped at Walt, arms outstretched for the hug she so obviously wanted to give him and that he wanted to reciprocate. Without a moment's hesitation, their lips sought those of the other, and the two one-time lovers kissed as if they'd never parted.
"Addy!" another woman called out as she swept Adalie into a warm sisterly embrace. She was obviously another exemplar, blonde instead of brunette and a couple inches taller, but with similarly classic Gallic features.
The others in the group took turns hugging Addy; there was a large man, who from Addy's stories had to be the hero team's brick - Dix Tonnes, a slender, long-haired eastern-Asian woman called Orchidee Quantique, or Quantum Orchid - which fit her description as a warper, a slight, somewhat non-descript man with a belt-load of hardware who was most likely the devisor Addy had called Fabricateur, and a second man, who even I found somewhat attractive in appearance, who was probably the energizer Flamme Bleu. And the woman hugging Addy had to be Soeur Justice, or Sister Justice. Addy had nothing but good to say whenever she spoke of Soeur Justice; no doubt she thought of the hero in the same way she'd have felt about an older sister.
"Monique," Addy said as she eased herself from the embrace, "I'd like you all to meet my friends from Whateley. Ayla is ... my very special friend," she said, blushing slightly, and when Soeur Justice's eyebrows lifted, Addy leaned close and whispered something to her. That caused the hero's eyebrows to arch even more, and then she nodded in understanding.
"Ayla Goodkind," Ayles said cautiously, knowing that the heroes were probably going to become quite protective since they very obviously looked upon Addy as their little sister. "It's ... complicated," Ayla continued in impeccable French, "and rather personal. The short version is that no, I'm not one of those mutant-hating Goodkinds." It was sort of a lie, but I understood why Ayla was being circumspect; the run-in with the Goodkind-funded MCO had no doubt left the Heroes Glorieux de Bordeaux with a bad impression of Goodkinds. His words had the effect he desired; the heroes relaxed visibly.
Addy continued in English - no doubt for the benefit of Jade. "My roommate and best friend Alicia Thacker, from Louisiana."
Alicia lit up with delight as Soeur Justice embraced her. "It's an honor to meet you," she gushed in French that much tutoring had refined from the ... unique ... Cajun-accented pronunciation she'd had when she first met Addy. "Addy has told me so much about you"
Soeur Justice arched her eyebrow again, and then she smiled. "And our Charge has told me so much about you! I didn't realize that you spoke French so well!" Alicia simultaneously blushed and beamed at that compliment.
"And my teammate and friend Kayda Franks."
I got my embrace in turn.
"And this is Ayla's executive assistant, Jade," Addy finished.
"Executive assistant?" Orchidee Quantique asked in astonishment. "But you are ..."
"Don't make the mistake of underestimating Jade," I cautioned the group with a smile. "She is several years older than she appears, and extremely ... clever. There's also a very good reason that she's known as the Prankster Princess of Poe, and many students and teams at Whateley have seriously underestimated her."
The brick looked at her studiously, and then he grinned. "You? You are the small girl from the arena?" he asked with certainty. Jade glanced warily at Ayla, not knowing how to react because she wasn't in costume. "It 'as to be you! You are the right size, and to be known as a prankster! Surely it was you we saw in the final, non?"
"Like I said," I broke the awkward situation with a laugh, in which Jade was glancing warily at Dix Tonnes while looking to Ayla for advice, "don't underestimate her." My grin and Addy's nod satisfied their curiosity, at least for a public locale.
Walt turned back toward us, an arm firmly around Mage Astre, and she clung to his waist and leaned her head on his shoulder. If there had been any doubts about them rekindling their romance, they'd been firmly answered. "Kayda, Alicia, Ayla, Jade," he said, "this is my very close friend Brigitte Marquet."
"Looks like more than a friend," Jade snorted softly, but still loud enough that Soeur Justice and Orchidee Quantique overheard, causing them to smirk.
"We were in the same class at Whateley, and I interned in the Paris hero group at the same time as Brigitte did," Walt continued.
"So what's your plan?" Soeur Justice asked Addy, changing the subject because Brigitte was blushing a little bit.
"Alicia and Kayda will be here for just over a week," Addy explained. "Ayla 'as to go do some business with the Villabianca family, and then we'll all go back to Paris for a couple of days shopping."
"I think she means right now," Orchidee Quantique corrected her with a light laugh.
"Oh!" Addy blushed a bit at her misunderstanding. "We 'ave a little time before our train to Saintes," Addy answered.
"Perfect!" Mage Astre beamed. "There's a little café up the street that's wonderful! We can all sit and you can tell us about your adventures this last term!"
"But ... we've got luggage," I protested weakly.
"We'll put it in a locker," Dix Tonnes replied, hefting one of my bags and Addy's largest suitcase for us.
I shot a wicked, eyebrow-waggling glance Addy's way; if they wanted to talk about adventures, I had a lot of stories that involved Addy, and I intended to share a lot of them. I wondered how far I could push things before she got upset, although I suspected that with Ayla present, it would take quite a bit.
Monday, July 2, 2007 - Early Evening
Saintes, France
I wondered how Adalie's papa was going to manage things in Saintes, but I needn't have worried. Ayla had gotten three rooms in the best hotel in the small city, which I suspected was below his usual 'presidential suite' level, but Saintes wasn't large and didn't have the class of hotels to which Ayla was accustomed. Not surprisingly, Mage Astre decided to take some vacation time and she stayed with Twinkletoes; somehow, I didn't think his mind was going to be on chaperoning. Alicia and I would stay at the Vitesse family home - Alicia would be with Addy, and I'd sleep in her little sister Amelie's room.
Addy was a bit unhappy, though, that her papa wasn't at the train station to meet us. Instead, we piled into a limo that Ayla had hired for the week and drove the short distance to Chaniers, and after passing through the little hamlet, to the Vitesse estate.
No sooner had we pulled into the drive than a door opened in the house and several people spilled out. Addy, likewise, barely waited for the limo to stop before she was out the door, dashing toward her family.
"Oh, Papa!" Addy was nearly in tears as she flung herself into her papa's arms, "I missed you! I'm so glad to be home!"
"What about me?" the younger of the two girls - probably five or six - demanded impatiently. "Did you miss me, too?"
Addy slipped from her father's embrace and swept up the little girl in a hug, spinning playfully as she held fast to her little sister. "Of course I missed you, Tessa!" she cried; glints of light from the porch reflected off the moisture on her cheeks as tears of happiness seeped from her eyes. "I missed you all," she said, shifting Tessa to a one-armed hold so she could wrap her other arm around the middle child. "I missed you, Amelie. I brought you some things from South Dakota and from Whateley!" she announced to the delight of the girls.
"What?" Tessa demanded, gleefully clapping her hands in anticipation. "What did you get? Show me!"
"You'll have to wait until I unpack," Addy replied with a grin. The grin faded when she turned to the fourth person in the group. "Nicole," she said, her voice devoid of emotion and her posture clear that she wasn't about to hug her father's lover.
Nicole winced visibly for only the briefest moment before she pasted her smile back on her face. "Aren't you going to introduce your friends?" she asked.
Seeing that Addy was hesitating in taking direction from Nicole, I decided to intervene. "I'm Kayda Franks," I said, stepping briskly to Papa Vitesse and clasping his hand.
After a polite moment, Nicole spoke up warmly. "I'm Nicole Beaulieu," she said, stepping forward to give a greeting hug. "I've 'eard so much about you." She looked around. "About all of you! I feel as if I know you already!"
Addy decided to take control of the situation, and still holding Tessa in one arm, she clutched Alicia's hand. "This is Alicia Thacker, my roommate and best friend!" Alicia went through the handshake and hug routine, after which she introduced Ayla.
"Ah, my little Addy's special friend, n'est c'pas?" the elder Vitesse said to Ayla. His words could have been cold and judgmental, but he'd infused them instead with warmth and friendliness.
"I'm Ayla Goodkind," Ayla replied. I honestly expected him to blush, given the choice of wording that Monsieur Vitesse had used. Alas, as usual, Ayla kept an impeccably-straight face. "And yes, Addy is very, very special to me."
"You are the one who has been helping Addy with the project?" Monsieur Vitesse said, eyes gleaming.
"Oui, Monsieur," Ayla replied. "But she did most of the work; all I did was to offer her some advice. She is a very intelligent girl!"
Even in the twilight, we could all see that Addy was blushing. "This," she indicated the diminutive prank princess, "is Jade, Ayla's executive assistant."
"She's younger than me!" Amelie exclaimed indignantly in French. The rapid-fire switching of languages was making my head spin. "How did she get to be an executive assistant?"
Addy was about to speak, but Ayla got the words out first. "Jade is much older than she looks," he explained, "and she is very, very capable as both an assistant and as a bodyguard." He accurately read the glance that Monsieur Vitesse and Nicole exchanged as they surveyed the large group of guests. "Jade, Walt, Brigitte, and I are staying at the Hotel Souvenirs de Familles here in Saintes, so hopefully we won't inconvenience you too much for accommodations. I have the limo hired for the duration of our stay so transportation shouldn't be a problem either."
"Kayda's mom insisted that we have a chaperone, so we brought a friend of the family and an acquaintance of Brigitte Marquet, who we know from my little mess last summer," Addy explained.
"I'm Walt Reynolds," our chaperone introduced himself. "I know Brigitte from Whateley, a few years past." Since his arm was about her waist, it was easy to see that 'friend' was an understatement.
Alicia stared at Nicole for a few seconds. "How far along are you?" she finally asked, avoiding any roundabout or circumspect euphemisms.
Nicole's eyebrows arched and she glanced at Monsieur Vitesse. "I didn't think it showed," she said hesitantly. "I'm a little over five months." Her eyes narrowed. "How ...?"
"You're starting to show," Alicia explained, and I nodded in agreement. It wasn't much, but I could see the beginnings of a 'baby bump' as well. "And I was with Addy when she got the news," she added with a little grin.
Suddenly, I had a strange thought, and, chuckling, I shook as I peered at Alicia. "What?" she asked, perplexed.
"My mom is pregnant, Nicole is pregnant. Maybe there's something going on with our families!"
Addy chuckled. "Oui! Per'aps your mama is expecting as well? So it's all three of our families?"
Alicia's jaw dropped, and then she face-palmed. "No!" she said emphatically. "I would have noticed! Or they would have told me!"
We all got a good chuckle from her reaction - even Jade giggled some, breaking her façade of 'the perfect, stoic executive assistant', if only for a moment.
"Daphne should 'ave dinner ready soon, so we shouldn't dawdle. She does tend to get upset if we are late to the table," Nicole announced, interrupting so that we could go have our repast.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - Morning
The Vitesse Home, Chaniers, France
"Have you got a spell for jet lag?" Alicia complained, looking and sounding as groggy as I was.
"I wish," I replied. "Even with the train trip, my body clock is still set for South Dakota."
"Well, mah body and mah brain think it's just after midnight!"
"Ayla said we'd get used to it pretty quickly," I replied, stifling a yawn. "I had a hard time falling asleep last night 'cause of the time difference."
Alicia tilted her head down slightly, scowling at me as she gazed sort-of upward at me with one arched eyebrow - a look perfected by my mom for just such moments. "Yeah, that's what Amelie said this morning," she grumbled. "Y'all didn't have a private room, y'know."
"Well, breakfast should help," I shot back. "I hope."
"It smells good enough. Probably better than the caf at Whateley."
"It is good," a voice interjected from behind the sofa on which we sat. We both almost got whiplash turning our heads. "Daphne is a very good cook," Tessa, Addy's little sister, added with a smile.
"How long have you been listening?" I asked, raising an eyebrow quizzically.
Little Tessa giggled, kneeling on the floor where she'd been listening in on our conversation. "You two are funny!"
"Why do you say that?" I shot back at her.
"The funny stories you make up, like the ones you told us last night!"
"All of those things really did happen," Alicia corrected her. I think she was enjoying practicing the native language of La Belle France, and after a term rooming with Addy, she'd lost most of the Cajun accent in her French and was not-so-secretly delighted at sounding more worldly and sophisticated.
"You're teasing me!" Tessa said with a frown of disbelief. "My school has rules against fighting, like Addy's old school! No school makes you fight!"
The previous evening when we'd arrived, between the Whateley contingent and the adults, Tessa and Amelie hadn't had much opportunity to speak. It seemed there was so much that Monsieur Vitesse wanted to catch up on, and he and Nicole - and to a lesser extent Mage Astre and Twinkletoes - were very interested in the happenings on campus. Despite her curiosity, though, Nicole seemed to be directing her questions at me and Alicia rather than Addy. It didn't speak well for the relationship between the two of them, punctuated by the fact that she and Addy sat on opposite sides of the room and Addy barely looked at her, let alone spoke to her. The mistrust and hostility were still there on Addy's part.
"Would you like to see my fight?" Alicia asked with a knowing smile. "I'm pretty sure Addy has the videos loaded on her laptop."
"Did Adalie really fight?" When Alicia nodded, Tessa began the little-girl-whiny-begging we somewhat expected. "I want to see it! I want to see it!" She ran around the sofa and began tugging on Alicia's arm. "Show me! I want to see it!"
"After we eat, per'aps," Nicole interrupted from the doorway to the dining room. "Breakfast is ready."
It wasn't hard to see that Tessa enjoyed meals; she seemingly forgot all about Alicia and me and dashed to the table. Ayla and the others hadn't come to the house yet; they were most likely enjoying whatever gourmet repast the hotel served, so the table was only slightly crowded.
As much as Mom and Dad treated my friends like they were family, Monsieur Vitesse did the same for Alicia and me. In fact, that attitude clearly extended to Daphne, who was treated better than some families treated their own. If only Addy could get over her dislike of Nicole ....
Addy had gotten up early to help with breakfast - she claimed that she had 'that awful term of bad Scandinavian cooking' to get out of her system. Alicia and I both suspected that Addy just loved working in the kitchen with Daphne. The results were nothing short of amazing; we had a baked dish of peaches and French toast, a broulee of yogurt and strawberries, and brioche. And coffee - which I passed on but which Alicia gushed praise about. When we sat down to eat, Addy was visibly disappointed that Ayla wasn't present to enjoy her cooking, but Ayla, Twinkletoes, Mage Astre, and Jade arrived shortly after we started eating, and there was a bit of a mad scramble to find seats for everyone.
Monsieur Vitesse leaned back from the table with a contented look on his face. "Unless you 'ave other plans, I would like to show you my 'umble little business." He looked around the table at all of us, but his eyes lingered on Ayla; as a good businessman, he clearly knew who he had to impress most.
"That would be fun, Papa!" Addy gushed enthusiastically, clutching Ayla's hand under the table. She knew that Ayla would be taking notes about the business, and she no doubt had confidence that her Papa would make a good impression. She turned to us. "You'll enjoy meeting Monsieur Leclerc, our chief distiller! 'E's very nice, and 'e always 'as some special treat for us!"
"Oooh!" Tessa and Amelie squealed with delight. "Can we come, too?"
"After you do the dishes," Nicole directed, which elicited a glare of disapproval from Addy. "And assuming that Adalie and 'er friends don't mind."
"It's okay with me," Alicia replied with a shrug. I nodded, as did Ayla and Jade.
"Fine," Addy said resignedly before turning to Ayla with a beaming smile. "I want to show you my special place," she said eagerly, tugging Ayla's hand and pulling him toward the back door.
Alicia and Jade automatically started to follow, but Nicole put her hand on Jade's shoulder to stop her. Once Addy and Ayla were out the door, Nicole explained to the three of us. "It is Adalie's very special spot," she said. "Where she and 'er mama spent time together when she was younger." We watched out a back window as Addy, clutching Ayla's hand, sat down on a small hillock under a large, spreading oak tree, and then leaned back into a soft, green blanket of grass, disappearing from our view.
Nicole shooed the two younger Vitesse girls into the kitchen and then sat down, sighing heavily. "Ayla is very good to her, non?"
"Oui," Alicia and I spoke at the same time. Surprisingly to us, Jade echoed our sentiments.
"She is very 'urt by the loss of 'er mother," Nicole said sadly. "She thinks that I am trying to take 'er mother's place." She shook her head. "I'm so glad you're 'ere with 'er, because this is going to be a 'ard week for Addy, I'm afraid." Seeing our surprised expressions, she continued. "This week ... would 'ave been 'er mother's birthday."
"Oh, damn!" I swore softly. "That is going to be tough."
Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - Morning
Vitesse Cognac Distillery, Chaniers, France
"Interesting that you don't use a pump," Ayla observed as we walked slowly through the underground warrens, tunnel after tunnel holding uncountable oaken casks of aging cognac. No doubt Monsieur Vitesse knew exactly how many of the oaken barrels of the precious amber fluid were in each of the side tunnels and branches of the maze, and no doubt he knew precisely when each batch had been fermented and started the aging process.
"Ah, but the 'arsh mechanical pump would ... bruise ... the cognac," Monsieur Vitesse countered gently, like a master tutoring a pupil, which he no doubt saw his children - and possibly Ayla - as. "And using the siphon to transfer removes less of the lees from a barrel," he added, "so the old-fashioned way, the way all these youngsters think is, how do you say ... fuddy duddy? It is actually more efficient in the long run. The cognac has better, more refined flavor, and it will fetch a better price, non?"
Addy smiled at the graceful way her papa was answering Ayla's - and to a lesser extent, our - questions in a way that was both instructive and demonstrative of his vast knowledge of his business. No doubt she was extremely proud of her papa; it showed in her expression.
"A wise business choice," Ayla acknowledged with a faint smile. "A good businessman knows those aspects of his trade which set him apart from his competition."
"A choice which some of the lower quality brands make that results in an ... inferior ... cognac," Addy said with a smug smile, indicating quite clearly to us all that she both knew quite a bit about the business and was proud of her father's business and product.
As we walked past one area, several men moving barrels stopped, gawking at us. I noticed that they looked warily at Addy, but became something between fawning adoration and idol worship when they were looking at me, Alicia, or Ayla. I couldn't help but snerk when I thought of the shock that would befall them if they knew Ayla's secret.
"What?" Alicia whispered to me.
"I'll tell you later," I whispered back. The worker's expressions became almost fatherly when they saw little Tessa; no doubt the men had a somewhat paternalistic admiration for the cute little girl, and the way she greeted some of them, running up and giving them quick, happy hugs, showed that the familial atmosphere which I'd seen displayed in the household obviously extended to the entire enterprise. There was a gleam of approval in Ayla's eyes.
"Paul and Pierre are preparing the room with new barrels so we may transfer some cognac starting this afternoon," Papa Vitesse explained for Ayla's benefit. "Of course you are welcome to come watch the operation if you like."
"Non, Papa," Addy replied for the group. "This afternoon, we are going to town to visit Madame Rousseau. She is most eager to meet my friends."
"Ah, tres bien," Monsieur Vitesse replied with a warm smile. No doubt after the reception Addy had gotten from the town last time she'd been home, he was pleased that she had at least one good mentor/friend in town and several friends with her. "Per'aps we should stop next to talk with Monsieur Leclerc in the distillery so you will 'ave time to enjoy the afternoon, then. But I was looking forward to showing you my fields," he added as we resumed walking through the tunnels toward the distillery, his voice tinged with regret that we weren't going to look at his grapes.
"Oh, Papa," Addy chided him in a loving, friendly manner, "we don't need to visit the fields! After all, grapes are grapes!" She shot a wink to Ayla just to show that she was teasing her papa.
"Grapes are grapes?" Papa Vitesse replied in an overly melodramatic tone. "Mon dieu! All these years, I try to teach you about growing fine grapes, and you dismiss it with 'grapes are grapes'? Oh, I am 'urt!" From their performance, I gathered that it was a long-standing joke between father and daughter.
"Actually," Ayla countered, "grapes are not just grapes. Even slight variations in temperature, humidity, rainfall, sun exposure, and especially soil composition can change the taste of the resulting wine in significant ways."
Papa Vitesse recoiled in surprise, and then beamed at Ayla. "You should listen to your friend, Adalie. She knows what is important about being a good vintner!"
"You have to excuse Ayla," I interjected with a wink at Addy and a grin to Monsieur Vitesse. "She is a food snob, with an overly sophisticated palate, and a walking encyclopedia of useless trivia."
"Quite true," Addy added, wrapping her arm around Ayla's waist and pulling her close, "and I think it's adorable."
For a moment, I was quite stunned by her overt display of affection, but then I remembered how Deb and I were freely affectionate at my home, where my parents weren't judgmental. No doubt Addy felt the same way. Either that or, as she'd insisted, France was a lot less hung up on sexuality than the US. If that were the case, then perhaps Deb and I should spend some vacation time in France where we could be open about our love.
The massive oaken doors between the tunnels and the distillery creaked slightly as they opened, and beyond was the large, timber-framed building that was the main distillation room. The smell of cognac which had dominated the aging tunnels intensified by an order of magnitude, mixed with the smell of grapes and wine, attesting to the main purpose of the room even if the stills hadn't given it away. Dwarfed by the enormous copper distilling pots, two men were discussing something, just a bit too far away for us to hear, but it was clear that the shorter, slightly rotund, slightly-balding man was in charge just from his dominant body posture and gestures. Both men turned at the sound of the doors creaking and our footsteps on the old wooden flooring, and the shorter man's face took on a huge, friendly grin that made him look somewhat cherubic.
"Ah, Monsieur Vitesse!" His eyes swept over all of us, pausing on Adalie, and his grin broadened to the point it nearly split his face. "Ah, mon petit fille is home at last!" He practically skipped across the distance separating us, sweeping Addy into a warm embrace and then kissing both her cheeks. "Are you home for the summer, or is this only a short visit?" He looked around at us. "And these must be the friends I've heard so much about!" He released Addy from his embrace, and it looked like we were all in danger of being smothered with his affectionate hugs.
"Monsieur Leclerc," Addy began, "permit me to introduce my friends. My roommate Alicia. My friend Kayda." Sensing his curiosity at my darker skin and Lakota features, she explained, "Kayda is Native American. You know - cowboys and Indians and wild west and all that?"
I couldn't help but grimace at the stereotype, even if it did clarify my ethnicity to the older man. "I'm not that kind of Indian," I interjected quickly. "That's just a Hollywood stereotype." I could tell he didn't quite believe me from the way his gaze fixated on my ever-present tomahawk.
"Don't let her fool you," Alicia teased, grinning. "She rides a pony, shoots a bow, and fights with tomahawks!"
Chuckling, Addy continued. "My friend Ayla Goodkind, who is very smart with business. She's the chief executive of the company that will be importing our cognac to America," she added.
"Ah, so she is the one we must impress!" Monsieur Leclerc said with a smile.
Addy ignored his comment. "This is Jade, Ayla's executive assistant."
Leclerc gaped at Jade's title. "Mon dieu!" he exclaimed softly. "The ones running businesses get younger and younger every year!" Then he looked a little more closely at Ayla. "Goodkind, you say? That explains much about your knowledge of business. Perhaps we can teach you something about the cognac business while you're here?"
Ayla could have taken his comments as insulting, but he chose to be graceful and diplomatic instead. "I've been raised around business all my life, so I have significantly more experience than many college graduates."
"And Ayla has a very refined palate," I added with a giggle. "She's quite hard to please at the table."
Addy interrupted the jibes we were directing at Ayla and introduced Walt and Brigitte. "Walt is an alumnus of our school and a friend of Kayda, and Brigitte is an old friend of Walt's from when she went to Whateley as well."
"My mom insisted we have an adult travel with us," I interjected quickly to clarify. "And since he and Brigitte dated when they were in school ...."
Monsieur Vitesse led us to a side room where we sat at a massive, darkened oak table that ran nearly the length of the room. "Pierre," he directed his master distiller, "could you please find a bottle of XO? And perhaps our guests would like to sample a Pineau as well?"
"I don't want to put you to any trouble," Ayla said hesitantly, not wanting to offend the elder Vitesse. "I've had some of Adalie's cooking with your cognac, and the flavor was excellent." I suspected that he probably had sampled very little in the way of alcoholic beverages in his life.
"Oh, but it is no trouble at all!" In very short order, Monsieur Leclerc returned with two bottles while the elder Vitesse retrieved some glasses from a large sideboard, setting two of them before each of us. When the bottles were open, he poured small samples of each into the glasses - more for himself and the adults, and at Addy's unspoken protest, a little more for her.
After taking a sip, Alicia smiled. "Ah could get used t' this," she declared, switching to English; speaking nothing but French was getting a bit tiring. "It's a whole lot better'n the sippin' whiskey Pa keeps around the house!"
I wasn't as impressed. I'd had whiskey and other liquor before - after all, high-school kids in rural South Dakota had nothing else to do on weekends besides starting a party, and many a liquor cabinet was raided to fuel the party, but in all those weekend bashes, I'd never quite gotten a taste for whiskey. Even though, compared to my friends, I was a lightweight drinker, as my little road trip with Lanie and Tansy had shown me. A couple of sips of the cognac were plenty unless I wanted to get lightly drunk. Wine I was okay with, though, and I found the Pineau quite acceptable - but again, I had only a little bit so I didn't get too buzzed or sleepy.
Naturally, Ayla dove into business talk with Addy's father, so while he and Jade and the adults stayed to discuss business, Addy, Alicia, and I sneaked off - ending up, interestingly enough, back in the house, where we helped Daphne prepare lunch and bake some things for dinner that evening. I understood why Addy was fond of Daphne - not only was she an outstanding cook, but she was very personable and fun to work with, to the point that cooking and baking seemed less like a chore and more like a hobby.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - Early Afternoon
Chaniers, France
Despite Ayla's offer of calling the limo, Addy insisted that we walk to Chaniers, and I understood almost immediately why. It was a warm summer day - some might even say hot - but not overly humid, and with a gentle breeze, it wasn't uncomfortable. The area was lush - fields covered mostly with row upon row of grapes, neat, orderly rows of what were most likely fruit trees in small orchards, and stands of trees in the less arable land. Houses punctuated the landscape - white with red tiled roofs that had a bit of a Mediterranean feel. Brigitte and Walt had remained at the Vitesse home, and despite protestations against it, Nicole had insisted that we bring Amelie with us.
As we neared town, I noticed Addy glancing nervously toward one house in particular. Ayla and I exchanged a quick look of concern; Addy had told me - and no doubt Ayla, too - about her rejection by the townsfolk after she manifested, and we knew that there was a story behind her worry, but I figured now was not the time to ask questions about whatever it was. The cause of her worry, though, was soon behind us, and as we strolled into town, numerous people paused in their comings and goings to look at us. Despite my pride in my heritage, I was beginning to regret my decision to wear one of my shirts ornamented with Lakota beading and various Lakota- themed objects of jewelry because I stood out and was attracting more than my share of attention.
Presently, we came to a large, two-story apartment building, and Addy went directly to the main door, pressing a button beside it. "Oui?" a woman's voice answered after a few seconds.
"Madame Rousseaux? It's me, Adalie."
"Ah, Adalie dear!" came the enthusiastic response. "I'm glad you made it! Come in, come in!" A metallic click sounded at the doorframe as she remotely released a lock.
We followed Addy in and upstairs to a door, but before she could even knock, the door was flung open and an older woman swept Addy into her arms. "It's so good to see you, ma cherie," the woman said. From the way Addy reciprocated the embrace, it was obvious that she felt the same way.
"Do come in, please," the woman said eagerly to us all when she let Addy out of her embrace, standing to one side of her open door. No doubt Addy had told her about us, and she switched to English graciously, although all of us but Jade were getting quite good with French.
"I brought you something," Addy said a little shyly, producing a bottle of her papa's Pineau.
"Oh, cherie," Madam Rousseaux chided her gently as she took the wine from Addy, "you didn't have to!" A grin crept onto her face. "But I won't be so ungracious as to turn down a gift, especially when it's your papa's excellent wine."
Dutifully, we followed her into her small apartment, sitting as she gestured us to, while she took the wine into her small kitchen. "I'll put the teakettle on, and just this morning I baked some pastries." She returned and sat in an overstuffed chair which Addy had made sure we left unoccupied for her. Another round of introductions followed, and the older woman seemed to pay particular attention to me, making me feel like I was under a microscope.
"Are you the one who's been teaching Adalie how to defend herself?" she finally asked.
I couldn't help but blush. "No, Madame," I tried to deflect the question, "my tutor and Sensei Ito have been doing the instructing. Alicia and I just provided a little motivation."
"Well, she's improving a lot," the woman said. "And please call me Yvette. Madame Rousseaux sounds too old." She looked back at Adalie. "I heard about your combat final this term. Your performance was impressive I'm given to understand." Adalie was blushing a bit. "In my younger days, I found it very important to know how to fight, and just as important, when not to fight."
Alicia's, my, and Amelie's jaws dropped at the implication, which elicited a chuckle from the older woman. "Yes, in my younger days, after Whateley, I spent a few years playing the superhero, saving France from villainy and all that." She smiled. "Eventually, I tired of the game and became an interior architect and designer."
I was impressed; I'd heard Adalie talking about Madame Rousseaux's talent as an architect, but she'd never told me that she'd been a hero. Judging from the look on her face, she hadn't told Amelie either, but Ayla had a curious partial smile that seemed to indicate that he knew. Perhaps a little pillow-talk?
Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - Mid-Afternoon
Chaniers, France
I don't understand how anyone coming around the corner could have missed our loud, somewhat boisterous conversation and not nearly run into us. Alas, the music playing in the boy's ear buds was loud enough that he didn't hear the warnings until Alicia and I nearly collided with him.
While his music was definitely the major factor in the near accident, I have to admit that Alicia and I were partly at fault because we were looking around, sharing jokes and comments, and other such actions of distracted walking that we were both taken by surprise.
"I'm terribly sorr ....." The boy's words cut off when he looked at us, his jaw slowly dropping open slightly. A moment later, recognition dawned as his gaze swept over Addy. "Adalie?" he asked, sounding somewhat dumbfounded.
"Hello, Jean-Michel," Addy replied somewhat coolly.
"You ... you are home? For the summer?" he stammered. There was obviously still something there, a tiny spark of what had once been a flame.
"Oui," she answered. "I have family here that I want to spend time with."
"You are ... more beautiful than when I saw you last!" he said, eyes wide in appreciation of her appearance.
"Thank you," Addy blushed. "Are you still going with Lorraine?" She was anxious to change the subject, especially right in front of Ayla.
"Oui," he answered somewhat hesitantly. "After you left ...."
"After I was run out of town, you mean," Addy shot back, but instantly, she regretted her harsh words. "I'm glad you are dating her," she replied diplomatically. "In the time I was at school in New Hampshire, I too found someone special to date."
"I understand." His words sounded forced, and with some effort, he looked around the group - perhaps to introduce himself or give Addy a visual clue that she should introduce us. At least he started looking around at all of us. As soon as he met my curious but disinterested gaze, his eyes locked on me, obviously enchanted by my 'exotic' looks. It was rather creepy, but not as badly as it would have seemed to me a couple of months earlier. "Who are your friends?" he managed to ask, still staring at me.
"These are my friends from school," Addy replied calmly. No doubt any torch she'd once carried for the boy, and Alicia and I had heard many if not all of the stories, had long been extinguished. "Alicia is my roommate and amie." She turned her head toward me. "Ma amie Kayda," Addy introduced me.
Give him credit, he was slick. Without batting an eye, he took my hand, catching me completely by surprise, and lifted it, kissing the back of my hand. "Enchante, mademoiselle," he said smoothly. Despite my very strong preference for girls, I couldn't help but feel a thrill at being treated so gallantly; his light kiss was almost electric. I was going to have to learn that and use it on Debra; the results would probably be fantastic!
"Ma amie Ayla," Adalie continued without hesitation, keeping a wary eye on me in case I had a panic attack. "Her assistant Jade," she added. "They're visiting ...."
Adalie's response was interrupted by a girl nearby shouting. "Jean-Michel! There you are!" She was trying to sound sultry, but was a little out of breath, probably from trotting to meet the boy. The girl was pretty, in a baseline sort of way, but she couldn't hold a candle next to Addy. Alicia had her outclassed, but only slightly, and even Ayla, with his messed-up BIT, was far more attractive than the girl. "I was waiting ...." Her voice cut off abruptly, and the fawning look she'd been directing toward the boy turned to an icy, angry glare. "Adalie," she snapped. "What are you doing here?" If looks could kill, the intensity of the look she was giving Addy would have smitten my friend on the spot.
"Hello, Lorraine," Addy replied sweetly, taking the high road.
Lorraine, too, had been listening to music, and she snatched the miniature speaker buds from her ear and fiddled with the pocket radio and music player. "What ...?" she exclaimed, tapping the device. She fiddled with the controls, then turned back to Addy, rage writ large on her features. "What did you do to my radio?" she demanded.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Amelie cringe and duck behind her sister, a guilty expression on her face. Addy saw her move, too, and after a quick glance at the apparently defunct device in Lorraine's hand, she pasted on a friendly smile. "How have you been?"
Lorraine grabbed ahold of Jean-Michel's hand. "I'm surprised you have the courage to show your mutant face around here after what you did last time!" she said in a totally snarky voice.
I wasn't going to let my friend be insulted and I felt the need to deflect attention from Addy and Amelia, who was still trying to look innocuous behind Addy, so I took a half step forward. "You must be Lorraine Poirier," I said smoothly in passable French, for which I was grateful to Addy for the tutoring the past term. This confused her, as I'd intended.
"Oui," she replied uncertainly. "How could you have heard of me?"
"Addy told us stories of her old ecole," I responded with what I hoped was a friendly smile. "The stories included a rival whose appearance is just slightly above-average, and from her descriptions, it has to be you."
If the others in our group had been drinking, they'd have blown liquid out of their noses. Jean-Michel even smiled a bit, but Lorraine's reaction was anything but friendly. One could practically see veins bulging on her neck and steam pouring from her ears, and she was stupefied at such an impertinent response that she could do little more than stutter incoherently.
"It must be difficult being in the company of exemplars," I continued to pile on the barely- disguised insults. "It's hardly fair for baselines to compete, but your attempts are ... noteworthy."
"Who the hell do you think you are, talking to me like that?" she finally sputtered angrily, her face beet red with anger. She wheeled on Addy, and for a moment, I thought she was going to attack my friend. If she had, she'd have been in for a hell of a surprise. "Your kind isn't wanted around here!" she fairly screamed. "Get out of here! Go back where they don't mind having your kind around! You'll be sorry you came home!" She stomped off angrily, glancing occasionally back at us with a mixture of fear and loathing, her eyes shooting daggers especially at Addy.
Jean-Michel winced at the display his supposed girlfriend was putting on; in front of a group of American visitors, she wasn't improving the reputation of French girls in the least. He looked nervous, as if realizing for the first time that he was in the company of more than one mutant and he found the situation uncomfortable. "Are you all ... mutants?" he asked hesitantly.
Alicia stepped forward a half-step and cleared her throat. "Do you have a problem with that?" she asked bluntly.
Confronted by several drop-dead-gorgeous girls, all of whom were much friendlier than Lorraine had been, he gulped and shook his head. "Um, no," he managed to squeak. He glanced at the smaller girl hiding behind Addy. "Even your ... your little sister?"
Addy frowned, shaking her head. "No, of course not! Don't be silly!"
Alicia took control of the situation, stepping beside Addy, facing Jean-Michel with a sweet, innocent school-girl look. "Adalie was showing us around her charming home town," she practically purred, quite obviously to distract the boy from Amelie and Adalie. "We wouldn't mind your company if you cared to join us."
I had to keep from laughing at her routine; even not being an exemplar, Alicia was a fair sight cuter than Lorraine, and being a boy, poor Jean-Michel couldn't resist her come-hither look and sex-kitten voice.
"Um, no," he stammered, having lost his cool, "that is, I'm not busy, and ... yeah, I can show you around."
Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - Mid Afternoon
Bordeaux, France
"Boss, we just had a report of a possible mutant called in," the officer said urgently, sticking his head in his boss' office.
"So, send a team to investigate," the office chief said, frustrated that his underling couldn't handle a simple task.
"I think you'll want to handle this one yourself," the assistant said.
Delacroix's head snapped up, eyes alert. "What?" he asked, unhappy at the interruption to his daily routine.
"Here's the report," the aide, Favager, said as he handed his boss a paper.
After reading, a wicked grin crept onto Delacroix's face. "We're not letting this mutant slip through our fingers! Assemble a team so we can plan this!" An angry look formed on his face. "I'm not letting those assholes at HGB mess this one up!"
Favager nodded, but a knot formed in his stomach. They'd only just managed to keep their jobs the last time; if Delacroix and his MCO office crossed swords with the Heroes Glorieux de Bordeaux or the Tribunal des Mineurs again, they probably wouldn't be so lucky, and he had a very bad feeling about this case.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - Mid-Afternoon
Chaniers, France
After seeing the sights of Chaniers - which took an hour by foot - we went back to Addy's home for a promised mid-afternoon culinary treat that Daphne had promised, and she sure knew how to make good on a promise. Daphne had made crème puffs, and with a little Pineau - of which I had only a couple of sips because I was such a lightweight - it was a fabulous treat. When I complimented her, Daphne no doubt took it as proof of my interest in French cooking and pastry making, and she responded by telling me she'd teach Alicia and me how to make puff pastry the next morning. It sounded a lot like a polite request from Mrs. Carson - in other words, she made an offer we couldn't refuse. And when Addy smirked - in a friendly way - that she already knew how, Daphne drafted her to make dinner, and judging by the look on Addy's face when Daphne told her the menu, it was obviously going to be a challenging dish for her.
About four-thirty, Addy decided we should all take a little walk; I think she was very frustrated by how Nicole seemed to always be wherever Addy was, and it grated on my friend's nerves. Walt and Brigitte were bound and determined to accompany us, but a lot of pleading and promising to avoid trouble finally convinced them that we could handle a little walk.
Addy insisted on holding Ayla's hand as they walked ahead of Jade, Alicia and me. She really had to be confident that her hometown would be less judgmental than all the anti-gay bigots back home. So far, to be honest, I hadn't seen anything that lent credence to her belief.
Approaching one house, Addy picked up the pace considerably, causing us momentary confusion. Ayla was the first to deduce her concern. "I take it this is your former friend's house?"
Addy winced. "Non. It is the home of ... a family I used to babysit for. They ... when I manifested ... when Henri ... I smelled the smoke of a fire, and rescued the two children who had been napping upstairs while their mother tended her garden unaware. But ... she was very hateful, even though I thought she was my friend. Everyone in the fire brigade and the police treated me like a criminal." She wiped at tears caused by the memories, while Ayla, slowly learning how to deal with girls, squeezed her hand supportively.
"It's not fair," Alicia said bitterly. "You saved the children."
"Oui, I know. But the people in town, they are very ... suspicious of mutants." Addy's words were brimming with sadness.
"Tell me about it," I said, fighting my own bitterness. "My classmates ...."
It was Alicia's turn to offer comfort to me, wrapping her arm around my shoulders.
"I guess we've all had bad experiences," Jade commented, at which Alicia flinched uneasily because her manifestation wasn't even remotely traumatic as the rest of ours had been.
"Despite all of the ... events," I mused, "I kind of miss being at Whateley."
"I know what you mean," Addy replied. "You don't have to worry ...." Her words cut off abruptly and she stiffened when she recognized the figure coming toward us. The girl crossed the narrow road, either to give us room to pass or to keep as much distance between herself and Addy.
"Collette," Addy said woodenly, not quite sure how to greet her former friend after the way Collette had rejected and insulted her.
The girl barely slowed. "Adalie," she replied in just as awkward a tone.
There was something that didn't quite seem right. Alicia and I had heard of the girl's angry reaction to realizing that Addy was a mutant, but her face didn't show anger at all. It was more ... sadness? And something more, perhaps? I noticed that her eyes kept darting to Ayla and Addy holding hands.
I don't know about Alicia, but I had my shield spell ready in case it was necessary to defend my friends. And my hand reflexively slipped down to the handle of my sacred knife.
And then we were past, and it was unlikely that Collette was going to do anything.
"Adalie?" The plaintive cry from behind us startled all of us, perhaps Addy most of all. Almost as one, we turned, my fingers wrapping around my knife handle. But that wasn't necessary.
Collette stood in the road, having turned to watch us walking away. "Adalie?" she asked again, her voice trembling and threatening to crack completely.
"Oui, Collette?" Addy replied hesitantly.
"I ... that is ... um ...," Collette struggled for words. "Um, can we talk? Please?"
Addy glanced nervously at Ayla, seeking reassurance, which Ayla gave with a silent nod. "Oui," she answered.
"I ... I heard you were coming home for the summer," Collette was trying to force small talk, but it was clearly an effort to avoid saying something that she wasn't sure about saying.
"I miss my papa," Addy answered. "And Amelie and Tessa."
"Oh." Collette's crestfallen expression gave away her feelings; she'd perhaps been hoping that Addy still felt something for her, too - despite the vehement words Collette had last had for Adalie. She looked down at the ground. "I ... I kind of hoped ... that ... you might have missed me, too. Despite how much I ... hurt you."
"I ... I was hoping," Adalie said softly, "that perhaps some people wouldn't be so angry just because I'm a mutant. But I knew better than to count on it. Some people will never accept me again."
"I ... I guess ... I can," Collette mumbled in a voice that was barely audible. "But ... I see you've ... you've moved on and ...." She let her voice trail off.
Addy gave Ayla another glance of uncertainty, and then stepped forward toward her old friend. "I ... forgive you," she said to the girl, startling her as evidenced by the shocked expression on Collette's face. "It's what friends do."
Collette's eyes had been misting; now they let loose the water works as she practically collapsed into Addy's arms. "I'm so sorry," she blubbered over and over. "I was so stupid to believe all the nasty things people said about mutants. And when I found out, I ... I didn't think of you saving my life, but all those ...."
"Shhh," Addy reassured her, hugging her tightly. "I ... I did miss you. You were my friend. That's why it hurt so much - because it felt like such a betrayal."
I cringed involuntarily and probably visibly at that; I understood personal betrayal only too well. When I was reminded of Grandma Little Doe in any way, I ended up in the midst of a tangled knot of emotions - profound sadness at her death and simultaneously anger at what she'd done. And that was to say nothing of my feelings when I remembered what my former friends had done to me. I think I understood how Collette's betrayal of Addy must have felt to my friend.
Addy didn't notice, involved as she was in the discussion with Collette, but Ayla gave me a curious look that seemed to indicate he knew why I'd reacted the way I had, and Alicia took my hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. It was enough to drag me out of my emotional trap. It also reminded me that I hadn't dream-walked with Mom the previous night, which left me feeling a little guilty at my oversight.
Collette looked again at Ayla, then around at the rest of us. "Are your friends ... from that school they sent you to?"
Addy reached behind her and without looking, took Ayla's hand, tugging him to her side. "Oui," she answered. "My roommate and best friend from school, Alicia," she began the introductions, switching once more to English. I was getting language whiplash. "My friend Kayda, whose tutor has been helping me learn to defend myself." She glanced at the pint-sized Whateley girl. "Jade is Ayla's assistant and is ... quite ... interesting. And Ayla ... Ayla is ... my special friend, who I've been dating for a couple of months."
Ayla graciously extended his hand toward Collette. "Ayla Goodkind," he said. "I'm glad the circumstances of our meeting aren't unpleasant." Ayla had recognized Collette's jealousy and was trying to diplomatically not exacerbate the delicate situation.
Collette nodded in acknowledgement of Ayla and of the romantic relationship she saw between Addy and Ayla. She was quite visibly trying to find something to say, but words failed her. Addy solved that; she took Collette's hand and led her a few paces away.
"I wonder what they're saying," Alicia mused as we watched the two talk. At least it appeared that their conversation was friendly, or at least cordial, because there were no red faces, no shouting, no wildly gesticulating hands and arms. After a few moments, they rejoined the group.
"I have asked Collette to dine with us tonight," she said, taking Ayla's hand in her own to ensure there was no miscommunication, "to celebrate our renewed friendship."
"And perhaps later this week," Collette said, trying to ignore that Addy was strongly signaling her attachment to Ayla, "you can come to my house and we can go riding?"
"That'd be fun," Alicia said, grinning. "Kayda's a really good rider. I bet she can show you some interesting tricks."
Great. Now Alicia was putting me on the spot.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007 - Morning
Chaniers, France
Just as I took a bite of a brioche for my breakfast, Addy's father interrupted the quiet of breakfast. "My little Adalie has shown me your proposed business arrangement and terms," he said to Ayla.
Addy nearly spewed coffee. "Papa, this is breakfast!" she protested. "It's not time for doing business!"
"Ma petite," Papa Vitesse replied, "I like discussing business while breaking bread. It is efficient, non? And it shows congeniality, fraternité, non?"
"A great deal of business is done over meals," Ayla agreed, "but it's usually lunch, not breakfast, and my experience is that it's usually at a restaurant, not in a person's dining room."
"We must be adaptable to changing circumstances, non?" Papa Vitesse said with a wry smile. "It is the hallmark of a good businessman, and a good vintner as well."
"Very well, Papa," Addy grumbled. We had been planning on hiking around the area a bit and taking a picnic lunch, but now, obviously, her father had upset those plans.
Ayla didn't seem to notice our looks of discontent at our plans being upset; after all, he was here to do business. Jade was as well, and she scrambled from the table, returning a few moments later with her laptop which she set on the table and opened it so she could dutifully take notes and otherwise do the things that an 'executive assistant' was required to do.
Alicia looked at me and shrugged. "Well, Ah guess we'll find somethin' t' do."
Noticing our resigned sighs, Amelie piped up, "We can go to watch Monsieur Leclerc!"
Addy overheard her suggestion. "Go ahead," she said, turning to us. "Knowing Papa and Ayla, we will be here, or in the distillery, for quite a while. As passionate as Papa is about his cognac, and as enthusiastic as Ayla is about business, no doubt they will have a long and very cordial discussion filled with many anecdotes and stories. I would expect Ayla to go into great detail on marketing plans, and Papa will naturally want discuss the history of our distillery and the many awards he has won."
"Now, now, ma petite fille," Monsieur Vitesse said with a smile, "I know you have done much work on this plan, and you, too, have a penchant to talk a great deal at times."
With an enthusiastic Amelie leading, we took our plates to the kitchen, and while she assisted Nicole in cleaning the dishes, Alicia and I helped clear the rest of the table. Noticing that Monsieur Vitesse's cup was empty, Alicia poured him a fresh cup, then served Addy and Ayla as well.
"If you wouldn't mind," Daphne said to me over her shoulder as she attended to rolling out pastry dough, "there are more hot brioches in the warming oven. If you could take them out to Monsieur Vitesse ...?"
I took the tray, and getting some fresh butter, served the four at the table discussing business. The look on Addy's face was priceless - she was both proud of her Papa and of Ayla, and at the same time a bit frustrated that she was now stuck in the middle of business transactions.
"I noticed when we were touring the cellars that you have some very old barrels and bonbonnes," Ayla commented.
"Oui," Monsieur Vitesse said, obviously impressed at Ayla's memory. "Starting with my great grandfather, we try to reserve thirty to forty barrels every year for higher grade cognac. We sell about half of those at fifteen to twenty years age. We have about four hundred barrels that are at least thirty years of age. In a few years' time," his enthusiasm was on display, "we shall be selling only XO cognac."
I scurried back to the kitchen before my curiosity compelled me to listen more; being that inquisitive was sometimes a problem. "They're getting very quickly involved in their discussions," I chuckled to Alicia. "Knowing Ayla, they'll still be there at lunchtime." Drawing a slow breath, I shrugged. "What are we going to do?"
"Perhaps you girls would like to come with me to the market in Saintes," Nicole suggested, having overheard my comment.
Little Tessa, who was hanging around the kitchen pretending to help Daphne, squealed with delight. "And me!"
"Mais oui," Nicole said with a warm smile. I was glad that Addy didn't see that interaction; no doubt she'd be incensed at Nicole - again. "I will have to tidy up a bit and then get a shopping list, so we will leave around ten."
"Good!" Amelie said gleefully. "Let's go talk to Monsieur Leclerc!" She took my hand and practically pulled me and Alicia from the kitchen; neither Alicia nor I were protesting.
Addy's younger sister was perhaps overly curious, because she was spewing a non-stop torrent of questions about Whateley, about us, about our families, and especially about the ostracism we'd faced. Finally, I could take no more. "Why don't you ask Adalie?" I blurted.
The corners of Amelie's mouth turned down slightly, giving lie to her otherwise poker face. "I ... just want to hear your stories," she answered. "To compare with what happened to Adalie," she added a little too quickly. "Um, because I was told that it is far worse in America."
I stopped and took her arm, so her momentum turned her toward me. "Amelie, please tell me the truth. Why do you want to know how hard it can be for mutants?"
I should have caught on quicker, but not being a coffee drinker, I hadn't had a jolt of caffeine to wake me up, unlike Alicia, who figured out almost immediately why Amelia was asking.
"Do you think you're going to manifest?" Alicia asked the French girl.
"Oh, non!" Amelie blurted out her answer, but her expression was almost panicked, as if she wasn't telling us the truth.
"Amelie!" Alicia scolded her, suspecting that her answer wasn't quite the truth.
"Tessa," she said quickly, "why don't you run ahead and see if Monsieur LeClerc is busy."
"Okay." Skipping as she hummed a pleasant tune, Tessa raced off toward the large distillery building.
When she was a dozen meters from us, Amelia tried to look us eye-to-eye, but she failed and let her gaze fall to the ground. "I'm sure I'm not going to manifest as a mutant," she said with certainty, but the pause after her statement and the way she was fidgeting and shuffling her feet wasn't convincing. "Because I already have," she added softly.
"What?" I practically screamed. "You ... manifested? Are you sure? Does Addy know?"
The girl nodded. "Sometimes," she admitted softly, "when I'm startled or frightened, the television or the car or my cell phone will stop working. When I walk away, or calm down, they work again."
"Lorraine's iPod!" I mouthed softly. "That was you?"
Amelie nodded, looking down again. "Oui. I ...can't control it," she added. "Papa is worried about me in a car, because if I am frightened or startled, the car might stop while we are moving down the road, and we would crash."
"Does anyone else know?"
Amelie nodded. "Nicole and Papa know. And some people in town might have noticed that strange things happen to electronic devices when I'm around. I'm afraid that someone will figure out that I'm a mutant, like Addy." She looked up at us plaintively. "I'm frightened! What if people hate me? What if they try to hurt me? What if the Bureau de la Commission Mutant français comes after me like they tried to kidnap Adalie?"
I grimaced; I had no answers for the panic stricken girl. But then a thought occurred to me. "Alicia, do you remember anything about energizers from power theory? I'm drawing a blank."
"Only that they're real hard t' fight," the Louisiana girl replied. "Too bad we can't talk to Dr. Quintain. I bet he'd have an answer."
"That's it!" the words burst from my mouth as my mind raced. "Let's see - at Whateley it's about ... two in the morning," I finished glumly. "Mrs. Carson would kill me if I called now. But we can call later this afternoon. Maybe she can get Dr. Q to give us some exercises so you can get more control over your ... effect."
Amelie looked hopeful. "Do you think so?"
"I'm sure they have something useful," I reassured her. "In the meantime, let's go catch up to Tessa before she causes some trouble."
We needn't have worried; two workmen were in the distillery with Monsieur Leclerc, and they were obviously enjoying a little distraction entertaining Tessa; with her bubbly energy and charm and infectious smile, it was easy to see why they liked having her around.
We walked back to the house a bit before ten - after Monsieur Leclerc offered us a sample of a different year of cognac; it wasn't wasted, because we took the bottle back to Daphne for cooking use. I had only a bit; I was perhaps developing a taste for cognac, but I really couldn't drink like I had before I manifested. Then I'd found some whiskeys and bourbons to be quite enjoyable and not too strong. Now, though, it was a different story.
Nicole gathered up her handbag and stuck her head in the dining room, where Ayla, Jade, Addy, and her father were still discussing the proposed deal. Monsieur Vitesse was explaining something about how many barrels of cognac he distilled every year and how much more he could produce. "We're going into Saintes," she explained. From her body language, she'd no doubt gotten a very disapproving look from Addy. "Do you need anything?"
"Non, mon coeur," he replied affectionately, perhaps automatically, because it no doubt became very icy in the dining room as Addy reacted to his term of endearment for Nicole. It was almost palpable, like a blast of arctic air rolled past Nicole and into the kitchen where we were. "Have a pleasant drive."
"I'm taking Tessa and Amelie," Nicole added, "And Kayda and Alicia." There was a little hesitance when she mentioned Amelie, and now Alicia and I understood why.
The drive was uneventful, and as we ambled about the town, Nicole hung back a little bit from the two younger Vitesse girls and Alicia. When they paused, she smiled and told them to go on ahead. When they were out of earshot, Nicole sighed. "Has Adalie spoken any to you about ... the difficulty she has with me?" she asked sadly.
I nodded. "Some. The one you should ask is Alicia, her roommate. They're a lot closer."
"Oui, I know," Nicole said, and then she hesitated. I got a bad feeling about the direction the conversation was going. "I ... heard about your grandmother. I'm so sorry for that." She winced. "I ... I really 'ate to bring that up, but ... I think that you understand much better than Alicia 'ow to deal with losing someone. Adalie ... 'as never properly dealt with it, I think. I ... don't know what it's like to lose someone close, so I 'ave no idea 'ow to 'elp 'er. I ... need some ideas on 'ow to help her so that I don't come between her and Jacques. I wish I knew 'ow to convince Adalie that I'm not trying to replace her mama."
Shit. Nicole was asking me to play shaman again, and I really wasn't in the mood, especially after the painful reminder of Grandma Little Doe and how I both missed and hated her.
Nicole read my body language. "I'm so sorry," she apologized. "I ... I shouldn't 'ave said that."
"No," I replied with a heavy, sad sigh, "I ... I guess that's part of what I need to deal with myself. I can't expect everyone to know that it's a very sensitive subject for me." I looked away so Nicole wouldn't see me wipe tears from my eyes. "I have to hold tight to my happy memories of Grandma, or I'd be bitter about the bad things she did."
"I suppose that's what Adalie is trying to do," Nicole mused.
"Mom ... made a little, I guess you could call it a remembrance corner, of some of the crafts I'd done with grandma, of some of the happy pictures, so we could focus on the good." I was really fighting tears at that point. "And even that doesn't help all the time." I sighed again. "I'm sorry, but I don't have anything that can help."
Nicole smiled warmly. "Actually, you did! You gave me an idea."
Wednesday, July 4, 2007 - Early-Afternoon
Chaniers, France
"C'mon, Addy," Alicia said cheerfully, "Ayla will be back in a couple of days!"
Slumped in the sofa, Addy flopped to her side away from Alicia. She'd been pouting since Ayla and Jade had left for Bordeaux, from whence they'd catch a short flight to Nice and then get a limo to Monaco where they'd spend the night. In the morning, Ayla was meeting with Charmer's father, the head of Villabianca Wines, for the sensitive negotiations by which AJG Distributors, Ayla's newly formed fine beverage importation and distribution company, would take Villabianca Wines as a client as soon as Goodkind Imports ended their contract. Ayla had a good poker face, but we'd all noticed small signs that he was concerned about the upcoming talks, like a very slight downturn on the corners of his lips, and one eyebrow that was canted a millimeter or two higher than the other.
"Ayla will be back tomorrow evening," I corrected Alicia. "Granted it'll be a bit late, but he'll be back."
"I should have gone with them," Addy fussed.
Alicia decided she was going to put an end to Addy's funk, one way or another. "Ah thought we were goin' t' go ridin' with your friend," she said. "Ah haven't been horseback ridin' since Ah was a little girl." She snorted softly and shook her head. "And that don't count, either. This time it'll be better, and lot more fun."
There was some story behind that. "Why doesn't it count?"
"It wasn't even a horse!" Alicia pouted. "And the damned thing was evil!"
"What happened?" Addy piped up, turning toward the two of us, her eyes lit up with curiosity. Seeing Alicia's reluctance to talk, Addy stepped up the pressure. "Out with it!"
"Yeah," I agreed. "Spill."
Alicia glowered at the two of us. "Ah was only seven, and it wasn't even mah fault," she fussed. "Ah couldn't help it if they gave me the most vicious pony of the bunch!"
"A ... pony?" I chuckled, then burst out laughing. "You had problem riding a pony?"
"Ah was only seven!" Alicia repeated. "And Shetland ponies are evil!" She sighed, realizing that the two of us were going to hound her until she told us the tale. "Ma and Pa took us t' a farm where they had ponies for kids t' ride," she began sullenly. "Ah could tell from the way the pony looked at me that it was evil and it hated me!"
"And?"
"And it decided to jump suddenly and dump me off'n its back, right onto a rock in a small creek!" Alicia said angrily. "Busted mah tailbone and hurt like hell!"
Addy and I couldn't talk for several long seconds, laughing as hard as we were, so hard, in fact, that tears came to our eyes.
"Ah knew Ah shouldn't have said anything," Alicia grumbled as she pouted, which caused fresh paroxysms of laughter from the two of us.
I let that outburst quiet, then as I wiped the tears from my eyes, I forced myself to quit chuckling. "I'm sorry," I apologized through giggles, "but ... it's funny!"
"Ah suppose so," Alicia admitted reluctantly, "but it sure wasn't at the time! Mah butt hurt for weeks!"
"You should have said something when we were at Whateley," I said. "Or on our farm! We could have gone riding!"
"Ah don't know if Ah could stay on a horse without a saddle," Alicia noted, "and Ah thought it'd be kinda presumptuous to ask if you'd let me ride Summer."
It wasn't far to walk to Collette's house; that was one thing I liked about the part of France Addy lived in - everything was reasonably close and walking somewhere wasn't out of the question like it was in South Dakota. We'd brought along Amelie because she was getting bored, and also because Addy was certain that she would be at Whateley next fall and we needed to get used to having her around.
Just as we were about to walk off the main road, someone called out to Addy. "Bon jour, Adalie!" We turned, a bit startled, to see Jean-Michel, Monsieur Leclerc's grandson and Lorraine, Addy's old rival, pedaling their bikes down the road our way. "Are you going to visit Collette, too?" Jean-Michel asked. Even though it seemed a little too coincidental, knowing the history between Addy and Lorraine, I really doubted Jean-Michel was so stupid as to intentionally arrange to meet us with Lorraine present.
"Oui," Adalie replied nonchalantly. I knew that at one time, she'd really carried a torch for Jean-Michel, but no longer, and she had no need to try to appear eager or hard-to-get. "We are going riding." Lorraine's expression was harsh, but softened slightly as she realized that Addy had zero interest in 'her' Jean-Michel. Not completely, though, because the two had been bitter rivals over more than just one boy.
Alicia, however, was interested, and her fawning gaze was unmistakable. "It'd be nice if you could go riding with us," she practically begged him to come along. "If'n it's okay with Addy and her friend, Ah mean." Even in France, that southern drawl, which she exaggerated to the point she sounded like an Atlanta belle, got guys' attention. Jean-Michel was looking appreciatively at her.
"That would be fun," Jean-Michel replied eagerly, which drew a look from Lorraine that was both angry and disappointed.
"Perhaps you have time for riding," she said to him in a snooty, snarky voice, her nose slightly upturned disdainfully, "but I have to help my grandma with her baking, remember? The pastries that you were going to taste-test for me?"
Jean-Michel shrugged off her protest, not realizing perhaps how angry she was likely to become. Once we were gone, she could make his life a living hell. "You bake very often," he said dismissively, "and you're quite talented at it, but ... it'd be quite rude to turn down an invitation from these Americain guests, non?"
With a huff, Lorraine turned and pedaled away, anger writ large on her face.
Collette was waiting for us, and before we'd even turned off the street, she burst through the doors, greeting us happily and hugging Addy enthusiastically. Then realizing what she'd done, she hugged each of us girls in turn to try to make up for her more-than-friendly embrace of Adalie.
We went straight to the horse barn, where Addy and Collette began to saddle horses for our little group. "Which horse will I ride?" I asked.
Collette pointed to a two- or three-year-old gray mare, which looked quite fit and healthy, and had a bit of a spirited look in her eyes. "Adalie told me that you're a skilled rider," she said, "so you can ride Margot."
Calmly, I walked up to the somewhat skittish horse, my hand outstretched toward the side of her face. "Margot," I said softly, "you and I are going to have a fun ride together, aren't we?" She didn't flinch from my touch, and as I stroked her cheek, she calmed down. "We will show them a thing or two about riding as a team, okay?" Inwardly, I felt her spirit, the relative of Sukawakan, and she started slightly. "Yes, Margot," I said softly, smiling, "I understand you like I understand my own horse. You have nothing to fear, okay?"
"Would you like me to saddle her for you?" Collette asked, having finished saddling a horse for Alicia.
"Kayda doesn't ride with a saddle," Alicia replied with a grin. "Only a blanket and a halter."
"What? Impossible!" Collette retorted in total disbelief, looking at Alicia like she was pulling her leg. "Margot can be a little difficult at times ..."
"Like Alicia said, I don't ride with a saddle," I replied with a smile. Addy simply nodded when Collette looked at her questioningly.
I helped saddle a horse for Amelie while Addy put a saddle on a horse for Jean-Michel, and Collette got a saddle-blanket and halter for me. When we were all ready, Collette led us out of the barn into a wooded field; Addy winced visibly, and Collette too when she caught a glimpse of Addy's discomfort. No doubt that was where they'd been riding when Addy had saved Collette and had been rewarded by Collette's anger and fear.
As soon as we stopped to mount the horses, I leapt nimbly onto Margot's back, startling the horse a bit, but with a few gentle words and my hand on her neck, she calmed right down. The others stopped, at least Amelie, Collette, and Jean-Michel, and gawked when I began to walk Margot around a bit, guiding her only with pressure from my hands on her neck or my knees. Once horse and rider had a feel for each other, I turned back to the others. "Shall we go?"
"How ... how do you do that?" Jean-Michel asked, staring open-mouthed at my short display.
"I'm Lakota. We ride horses bareback," I explained simply. When I saw his and Collette's looks of confusion, I chuckled. "Native American. You know, Indian?"
Lorraine Poirier frowned angrily as she watched the horses riding into the field with her Jean- Michel fawning over those ... Americain girls! And with Adalie in their midst - a known, dangerous mutant, like all mutants were! Slowly, she fumed and steamed as one girl, the dusky-skinned one with the long, straight black hair in two ponytails, showed off riding her horse without saddle or bridle! And she leaped so easily onto the horse's back. It didn't seem possible.
At least, she mused, she knew where that other troublesome Vitesse girl, Amelie, was. Peddling a bit down the road away from the Sartre home, she stopped and took out her cell phone. Glancing uneasily up and down the street, she dialed a number which had only recently been added to her phone book.
"Hello?" she spoke in a hushed, conspiratorial tone into the phone. "I need to speak to Monsieur F! He told me to tell you that I'm L. P., and that you'd put me in touch with him immediately!"
She paused a bit as the phone call was routed around the office she'd called. Finally, someone whose voice she recognized answered. "Monsieur F? It's me - LP. I have more information about the girl."
After a pause, she spoke again. "Oui, I ran into her a couple of times in the past two days, and I had my cell phone and iPod with me. As you suggested, I checked them when I was near her, and both times they momentarily malfunctioned."
"Oui, it's her. I know that for sure. And there's something more. The family has guests from America, and I suspect one of them is also a mutant."
"How? She jumped so easily up onto a large horse, higher than any normal girl I've ever seen jump. And she's controlling the horse she's riding ... I think with telepathy. She has no bridle, and she doesn't touch the horse, but it seems to go exactly where she wishes."
"Her name? I ... I think it's Kayla, or something like that. I only met her once."
"Non, I'm not sure how long they'll be riding," Lorraine said with a frown. "But I heard them say they are going to Bordeaux sightseeing and shopping Friday!"
Thursday, July 5, 2007 - Early Morning
Chaniers, France
I knew something was up after breakfast; Nicole chased the lot of us out of the house, urging us to go sightseeing in Saintes, even taking Amelie and Tessa with us. Since Ayla had left us the use of the limo, Walt and Brigitte - Twinkletoes and Mage Astre - escorted us five girls into town. As we drove, with Walt nervously watching the rest of us, I had an amusing thought and leaned closer to Addy.
"If those two ever get serious, I think we're giving them a dose of what it'd be like if they had a family," I chuckled.
Alicia leaned in with the two of us. "What?" she asked curiously, so I repeated my comment. "Just from lookin' at the two of them," she said, "Ah don't think Twinkletoes has ever dealt with teenage girls before."
"Nor has Brigitte," Addy giggled with certainty. As we laughed, both sets of eyes narrowed, wondering, no doubt, what we were conspiring about.
"Let's give them a full dose, then," Alicia practically chortled in a tone and inflection that would have done a supervillain proud, or gotten her an A in Monologuing.
Seeing our little huddle and hearing our giggles, Walt frowned deeply. Maybe he had experienced teenage girls before, perhaps with a little sister? In any event, he was right to be worried. Brigitte, with her hand in his and her head on his shoulder, scowled at us, perhaps intending to silence us with her stern, parental look of authority. If so, she failed miserably.
At first, we behaved ourselves pretty well. Saintes was an old town dating to the time of the Roman Empire, and we started doing the tourist thing at an old Roman amphitheater on a hill to the west of the city center. Unlike the Coliseum in Rome, Saintes' amphitheater was carved into a large bowl-like depression, so it had no massive walls; instead, as in so many Greek theaters, the seats were carved into the slopes surrounding the arena floor. It was really quite impressive, and I knew that I'd ask Tractor about it when I got home, even though I knew it'd result in a 'homework' assignment in Roman history. I couldn't help it; he'd gotten me addicted to history. Well, him and my vivid imagination which liked to look at ruins and fill in a visual image of what something looked like in its heyday.
According to the tourist information, the arena was the site of spectacles and fights just like its bigger cousin in Rome; after combat finals, I no longer had difficulty imagining gladiatorial combats on the floor of the arena. I couldn't help but laugh aloud as I thought of it.
"What's so funny?" Addy and Alicia asked me.
"Just this place," I said. "After this last year and combat finals, I have no problem imagining the sights and sounds of gladiators doing battle on the arena floor."
Alicia started. "Ya know," she mused, "Ah think you're right."
That got my attention - had I really changed my outlook that much? After all, in the arena at Whateley, or on the training fields, we were modern gladiators, mutant training in the art of battle and putting our skills to the test against one another.
"Oui," Addy agreed, probably thinking exactly as I was. "But after combat finals, perhaps we'd find a gladiator combat rather ... boring?"
Near the arena, we toured the church of Saint Eutrope which seemed rather redundant because a little later, we saw the Cathedral Saint Pierre. There was a large stone arch by a bridge, and a nice public park that had once apparently been a military parade ground. Then we got to the city center, which was mostly a pedestrian area and had lots and lots of shops.
That's where the fun began. When Brigitte and Walt were distracted by Tessa and Amelie, Addy, Alicia, and I ducked around a corner, then scampered to another cross-street, getting out of immediate view of our two chaperones. Laughing, skipping, giggling, we were having a ball visiting shops of all kinds, although we were so boisterous that I was afraid shopkeepers were going to lock their doors before we could get to their shops.
Our glee, coupled with a trail of upset storeowners, led Walt and Brigitte straight to us like a trail of breadcrumbs, and they took the opportunity to express their displeasure that we'd ditched them. And then we all had a nice lunch at a quaint little café and all was mostly forgiven.
After lunch, we saw the baths of St. Saloine and a former convent, the Abbaye aux Dames with an impressive little abbey church. Since we'd passed yet another very old church on the way to the abbey, Alicia winced.
"Ah'm sorry about gettin' upset with you in Boston," Alicia said contritely to Addy.
The French girl smiled. "It's nothing." Seeing my puzzled look, she explained, "When we were in Boston, Alicia was a bit upset about my ... lack of interest in the historical sites. She ... got a little cross with me, even after I explained how we deal with historical sites that are over a millennium and a half old."
"Yeah, and seein' all these churches and the arena that were hundreds and hundreds of years old before Boston was even started ... Ah can see why our history might seem boring." She chuckled. "And this is just one little city!"
"Yeah, I can see that." I sighed heavily. "I bet Tractor would love to hear me say something like that."
I hadn't realized that our chaperones were paying attention, although after our little stunt in the city center, I should have figured that they'd watch us a little more closely. "Maybe I should tell him when we get home," Walt said. He had a wicked smile on his face, which caused me to gulp nervously. I knew he would tell Tractor, and that'd cause Tractor to push me harder in his history tutoring.
After the abbey, we all figured we'd go back to Addy's house, but the limo turned north instead, puzzling us. "Where are we going?" Addy asked of Brigitte. In response, she simply shrugged with a look that announced that she had no idea either.
We ended up touring an absolutely stunning chateau at La Roche Courbon; it had a curious mix of medieval fortress and post-medieval palace architectures, with a large, gorgeous garden laid out neatly in a regular geometric pattern that Addy told us was common in formal French, and indeed most European, palaces. The interior décor was, as expected, ostentatious in a way that made me think of pre-French-revolution upper-crust nobility, or 'Lifestyles of the Richer-than-Rich'. Alicia, Addy, and I started joking around like we were uber-rich snobbish girls ordering around servants and such. Other tourists and visitors probably thought we were nuts.
As we walked from the limo into the chateau grounds, I noticed something that seemed quite out-of-place, so I sidled over to Walt and Brigitte. "What's up?" Walt asked, noting my expression.
"Don't be obvious about it," I said, feeling suddenly conspiratorial, "but the car behind the limo - I'm pretty sure that I've seen that blue car several times today."
Walt nodded without looking. "Yup, we noticed," he affirmed. "And when we've been on foot ...."
"The same two guys, dressed in casual business attire," I finished his sentence. "Are we being followed?"
"Very likely Bureau de la Commission Mutant français," Brigitte answered. "I think I recognize the one guy."
"So what do we do?" I was nervous about MCO, be it US or French.
"We go about our business and don't worry," Brigitte replied, surprising me but not Walt. No doubt the two of them had discussed our tail. "We are prepared in case they cause trouble."
"But under no circumstances," Walt warned, "should you separate from us again like you did this morning."
I nodded, gulping nervously. The two men shadowing us changed the game and deflated my enthusiasm like popping a balloon. But following Walt's and Brigitte's advice, I didn't tell the others. No need to worry them if they hadn't noticed because our chaperones were alert and ready. Fortunately, the rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully, but I couldn't help wondering why they were following us. Were they after Addy again, hoping to separate her from us so they could take her into custody again? I kept close to her in case I needed a shield or ghost-walking spell.
Thursday, July 5, 2007 - Evening
Chaniers, France
"After all the walking we did today," I said, sated with a truly magnificent meal, "that hit the spot." Once we'd gotten back the house, my worry flux diminished significantly, and I realized just how stressful it might be for heroes in situations where they had to be on their guard.
"Yeah," Alicia agreed. "Although Ah would have preferred a smidge of tabasco sauce on the meat."
"I've warned you about that sauce, so if you try, I will not be responsible for any harm which Daphne chooses to inflict on you!" Addy said in a feigned stern manner.
"What now? Watch the movie you bought?" I asked. It was late, because we'd spent far more time doing touristy stuff than any of the three of us had really wanted. Poor little Tessa was about worn out; I was honestly worried that she was going to fall asleep at the table and face-plant into her dessert. Ayla and Jade weren't back from Monaco yet; we'd made arrangements to meet them in Bordeaux in the morning.
"Non," Nicole insisted, cutting off any response from Addy or Alicia and surprising all of us with the urgency in her voice. "First, there is a surprise for you." She looked around at Tessa and Amelie. "For all you girls."
I was curious, as I suspect Alicia was, too, but Addy just rolled her eyes disdainfully.
"Come, ma petite," Addy's papa said, "let's go to the living room."
The mystery deepened; one corner of the room was hidden by a sheet. Following Papa Vitesse's direction, the three girls sat on a sofa, getting more and more curious by the second, while Alicia and I stood unobtrusively. I don't think Addy noticed, but her papa's voice quavered a bit, and at one point, he turned briefly away from the girls as they were sitting, one hand lifting to his face; I saw him wiping his eyes quickly.
"Girls," Nicole said hesitantly, "I don't know if you know what today is."
Addy gasped sharply, and then she started visibly trembling. Amelie took a few seconds longer to realize what Nicole was talking about, but little Tessa just looked confused.
"When I was talking with Kayda the other night," Nicole continued, "she gave me an idea, so ...." Biting her lip, she took three large books from behind the improvised curtain, giving one to each of the girls. To my eyes, they looked like scrapbooks or photo albums.
Very hesitantly, Addy took the book from Nicole, and with her hands shaking, she cautiously opened the cover. Almost instantly, tears started flowing down her cheeks, and despite them, she slowly turned the pages. Finally, she looked up, moisture glistening on her face. "I ... I don't understand."
"Adalie," Nicole said to the crying girl, "I want you ... no, I need you to believe me when I tell you that I am not trying to take your mama's place. You girls have memories of her that I can never replace, and I don't want you to forget them." With that, she pulled down the sheet, revealing a large portrait of Adalie's mom on one wall, and on the other wall of the corner was an assortment of framed photos of their mom, alone or with the girls or Jacques, or all of them. Intermingled were the usual mother's treasures - drawings from school, small crafts, and other things that the girls had made to show her how much they loved her. On a corner table was a small statue surrounded by what I guessed were silk flowers in a wide assortment of colors and types.
"Saint Therese of Lisieux?" Alicia guessed aloud, to which Addy just nodded, her gaze fixed on the corner. The Cajun girl leaned closer to me and whispered, "I bet that Addy's mom was named for St. Therese."
Jacques was standing near us, now not even trying to hide his tears. "Oui," he acknowledged, having heard Alicia's guess. "And today would be ... is ... her birthday."
Adalie slowly, hesitantly, set her book to one side, and then as we all watched, uncertain of how she was going to react, she stood and took a step toward Nicole, then another, and then her arms were wrapped around Nicole and Addy was bawling on her shoulder as she blubbered her thanks over and over, while Nicole likewise wept, happy that she'd finally gotten through to Jacques' eldest daughter.
Jacques took my hand unexpectedly. "Thank you," he said. Seeing my confusion, he smiled. "Thank you for giving Nicole the idea of how to make today special for Adalie and Amelie." Dropping my hand, he joined Addy and Nicole in a family embrace which soon added Amelie and then Tessa.
Friday, July 6, 2007 - Early Morning
Chaniers, France
The rest of us were quite refreshed, but Addy was exhausted in the morning, and Daphne had to pack breakfast and snacks for her. Alicia and I had gone to bed at a reasonable hour - reasonable for teenage girls, anyway, but Addy and Nicole had stayed up very, very late. The last we saw them, Nicole was asking Addy about each picture and memory in the scrapbook Nicole had made for her. It was good for Addy to lose some of her hostility and suspicion toward Nicole; carrying around that kind of burden of resentment and hostility couldn't be good. And Wakan Tanka had lectured me many times about the burden of hate.
Not surprisingly, she napped in the limo while we drove to Bordeaux, but Amelie, who had come along, woke her as we neared the airport, and Addy ravenously ate the food Daphne had sent while she tried to hastily fix her hair and apply makeup before we got to the airport. It was a bit silly; there was no doubt in my mind that Ayla had seen Adalie without her makeup on a few 'mornings after', but in the past few months, I'd learned why girls felt it important to look their best.
Addy ran inside to wait by the security exit, while the rest of us in the limo waited outside the terminal. After a few minutes, I started to fidget; the French MCO had a presence in the airport; what if they recognized Addy and were causing her trouble? Based on their expressions, I'm sure the same worry had occurred to Brigitte and Walt, because Walt started to climb to the door. Brigitte stopped him, though; because she was a registered hero, she had a little more pull with the MCO and could get away with providing help to Addy if it came to that; as a foreigner, Walt would probably get into serious trouble if he had to help.
We needn't have worried; Addy emerged from the terminal with Ayla and Jade, the latter two carrying briefcases, while a porter behind them wheeled their luggage on a cart, and Addy clung tightly to Ayla's free hand. The limo driver raced to the rear to open the trunk, and the porter loaded their bags, being rewarded for his efforts by what was no doubt a suitably generous tip from Ayla.
No sooner had Ayla settled into the limo than Addy snuggled up beside him and began to aggressively kiss him. After a bit, they separated and Addy rested her head on his shoulder.
"Not that I'm complaining," Ayla said with a smile, "but what was that for?"
"I missed you," Addy replied, and then kissed him again.
"Oh, get a room!" Alicia said sarcastically.
Ayla disentangled himself from Addy's arms and lips for a moment. "Jade?"
"Our reservations are confirmed at the Yndo hotel. Two suites, two rooms," the pint-sized assistant recited instantly. She was being very diligent about her job, and that made me worry. Seeing or sensing my unease, she shot me another of her sweet-and-innocent smiles, which only convinced me more that she was up to something.
"If you'd like," Brigitte offered, "perhaps Monique and I can show you the best sights in Bordeaux?"
Jade piped up again; it was eerie how she seemed to be reading Ayla's mind. "I've compiled a list of the top dozen sights and attractions, as well as the top shops. There are several cathedrals and basilicas,"
Alicia and I simultaneously groaned, while Amelie and Addy chuckled. Historic churches and cathedrals seemed as common as dirt.
Jade ran down the list she'd compiled, and the results were judged by a combination of how Brigitte talked of the site and how much we either questioned or turned up our noses. Walt just sat beside Brigitte and chuckled, entertained by our running commentary. Since our trip to Paris was early Sunday morning, we decided to take a day trip to visit a chateau nearby that more closely resembled a medieval castle than the palace-like residences that many people thought of. No-one wanted to visit many museums, with the notable exception of the Wine and Trade museum. There was a lot more interest in shopping; the two primary interests were clothing and designer shops in the couture quarter and on the cours de l'Intendance.
With a plan, we checked in at the hotel, and then went to the museum. After a nice lunch at a relatively fancy restaurant - nobody expected Ayla to eat 'common' food - we started our shopping expeditions. Alicia and I enjoyed looking at expensive designer dresses and fancy evening wear. I think Addy was expecting the same based on how surprised she was when Ayla bought her a couple of very nice - and expensive - outfits. At least they were expensive to Jade, Alicia, and me.
Jewelry, fine perfumes, chocolates - we looked at all of them, and despite his looking bored half out of his skull, Walt was a good sport, no doubt because Brigitte was enjoying window-shopping, too. About mid-afternoon, Monique and the other woman from the Heroes Glorieux de Bordeaux, Angelique Zhi Liu, joined us. Poor Walt was terribly outnumbered, but he was being remarkably patient waiting in shops, holding our purses, and so on - mostly because first, he was a chaperone and was serious about that role, and second, putting up with us meant spending time with Brigitte. I couldn't help but wonder if maybe he was also using us girls to test-drive the concept of being a father. Given how he seemed glued to Brigitte's side, that wouldn't have surprised me.
Naturally, Ayla had everything delivered to the hotel, except the dresses that he got for Addy, which would be altered and delivered before we left for Paris.
Friday, July 6, 2007 - Early Evening
Bordeaux, France
We all went to a dance club for some evening entertainment; it was a little awkward because we were under eighteen, and Jade and Amelie looked far younger than most of the patrons. Without asking him, I couldn't prove that Ayla greased someone's palm to get us in but it seemed pretty obvious that he did, and asking would have been rude, so I just let it go, because it might have been a little embarrassing to Ayla, and Brigitte might have felt obligated to officially note what he'd done.
The club was pretty crowded because it was a Friday night, and though the music was good, it was a little loud. Somehow, Ayla got us a table on the second floor, so it was a little less noisy, and after getting drinks - soft drinks for all of us teenagers and wine for Brigitte, Monique, and Walt, Ayla and Addy went dancing. Since I was used to attitudes in the US, I was quite nervous watching the two walk hand-in-hand, but nobody seemed to care, even when they danced close and were practically making out on the dance floor to a slow dance.
"You're thinking of Debra, aren't you?" Walt asked rhetorically.
"Debra?" Brigitte asked him, curious.
"Kayda's girlfriend. She's one of my teammates back in South Dakota, and an alumna of Whateley."
"Ah!"
"Yeah," I admitted with a sigh. "It'd be nice to dance like that," I tilted my head toward Addy and Ayla on the floor, "without worrying about bigots."
Brigitte and Walt took a turn on the dance floor, leaving Alicia, Jade, Amelie, and me at the table. Monique and Angelique had gone home by then, begging off with the excuse that they had work and errands in the morning. After they left, it took almost no time for guys to come by the table to offer Alicia and me drinks or ask us to dance. After turning down a few guys, Alicia finally shrugged and went to dance, leaving the three of us alone. I looked again at Amelie, who was struggling desperately to stay awake, but she was younger than the rest of us, it had been a long day, and she wasn't used to being up this late.
"Maybe we should take Amelie to the hotel?" I suggested to Jade.
"Non!" Amelie protested, but her voice was strained, echoing her fatigued state. "I don't want to go back."
"Go back where?" Addy asked from behind me, having just come off the dance floor.
"Jade and I were just talking about taking Amelie back to the hotel," I replied, much to Amelie's frustration.
"I'll go get Walt and Brigitte," Addy said.
"No, no," Jade and I said simultaneously. "You guys are having fun." Jade and I exchanged glances.
"It's no big deal," I assured the two of them. "It's only a few blocks to the hotel." Ayla struggled with the idea, and Addy didn't look too keen, but I reassured them, "I've got my protection spells if we need them. We'll be okay. You two enjoy yourselves."
The two were torn, so I forced the issue by picking up my purse. "We'll be at the hotel," I said confidently. With Jade and Amelie, we strode confidently from the club.
In retrospect, it wasn't exactly a bright move on our part, but I was confident and a little weary myself. Besides, between Jade and I, we knew we could handle almost anything the city might throw at us.
Favager sat unhappily in his car, watching the club entrance. Eventually, he knew, the girls would have to come out, and they'd be able to get the whole bunch - the troublesome Vitesse girl and her mutant little sister and the Americain girl who was reputedly a mutant. Delacroix had checked, and a few mutants had entered France a few days earlier, so he was confident, especially with the anonymous tip from Chaniers, and thus assigned Favager to bring the girls in..
He perked up a bit, as did the agent in the passenger seat of the blue Citroen sedan. "I see ... two of them," he reported into the radio after grabbing the mic. "It's ... it looks like the Americain girl and the younger Vitesse girl."
"Just the two of them?" Delacroix's voice came through the speaker.
"Non," Favager answered immediately. "There's a third girl - about ten or eleven."
"She's too young to be a mutant," Delacroix made a snap decision. "Have the teams move in. When you have the Vitesse girl, I'll move into the club to offer a deal to the older one."
"Oui." Favager released the handheld mic and thumbed a button on his lapel. "All units, prepare to apprehend the two older girls." He made a quick assessment of the situation. "Let's wait until they're two blocks from the club, in case the older one follows, then we'll apprehend them."
"Jade," I said, suddenly apprehensive, "I think we're being followed."
"Same guys from earlier today?" she asked.
"How ...?" I mouthed, then sighed. Of course she would have paid attention. "I can't tell. It's too dark and they're too far away."
Jade nodded grimly, and Amelie looked between the two of us, a bit frightened by our sudden serious demeanor.
"Excuse me, miss?" The voice came from the street, from a man who'd gotten out of a car that had stopped suddenly very close to us. The man was looking directly at me.
"Stay close," I hissed over my shoulder to Jade and Amelie as I put up my shield. Showing a calm demeanor, I turned to the man. "Yes, can I help you?" I reached in my pocket and pushed a panic button built into the cell phone that Walt had insisted I bring on the trip. If I held it for ten seconds, it would immediately alert him that there was trouble. When he'd given us the phones, both Alicia and I thought it was foolish; now, it seemed quite prescient.
There should have been a soft beep when I pressed the button, but there was no sound. Still watching the man, I slipped the phone out of my pocket. To my great dismay, it wasn't working. My touching the button should have illuminated the screen, but it was black. I had a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach, and I shot a quick glance at Amelie.
"I'm sorry!" she said fearfully, staring at my phone. "I can't help it!"
"Mademoiselle," the man was within a couple of meters, "you are from America, non?"
"Oui. Is there a problem?"
"Perhaps," the man said, still approaching. There were footsteps coming from behind us. "There have been some ... Americains ... who entered France without the proper M-visa," he said, "and there are reports of trouble."
"An M-visa?"
"You have been staying in Chaniers, oui?" When I nodded, he glanced to the side. "Can I please see your identification?"
Jade stiffened for some reason. "There are two men on foot following us. It looks like two more around the corner, and a couple of people at a table at the cafe on the next block who are paying very close attention."
"I have the proper visa," I said confidently, but inside, I was a little less sure of myself since I was in a foreign country, dealing with what appeared to be the French MCO. Based on Addy's tales of that agency, I expected that they played a little rougher than the American MCO.
"May I see them please?" The two who had been following him closed our escape route back the way we'd come, and two more closed from the café. In addition, the other man had gotten out of the car. He moved toward me, but bounced off my shield, surprising him greatly.
"Mutants or mages!" he barked as he scrambled to retain his balance. The other men drew weapons of some type.
I grabbed Amelie's and Jade's hands, and then incanted the invisibility spell. The silver outlines appeared, and the men stopped, puzzled. Then they fired energy weapons at my shield. I don't know if it showed flares on it as the energy dissipated; if it did, the invisibility portion was useless because they'd see the outline of my shield.
"Can you open a hole in the top?" Jade whispered to me. Feeling the magic, I tugged until there was a small hole in the top of my shield; I had no idea what that was doing to the visibility, but Jade launched her Kitty Compact up through the hole.
The men saw the disk appear, and they naturally looked at it just as it exploded in a dizzying torrent of colored, strobe-like flashes, dazzling and temporarily blinding them. "Let's get out of here!" Jade insisted as soon as the lightshow started. She didn't have to ask twice. Still holding Amelie's hand, we used my shield to bulldoze a path through the stunned men.
"To the hotel?" Jade asked simply.
"Yeah." We dashed down the street, pausing when we got around a corner so I could drop the awkward shield spell and cast the normal invisibility spell. Running down a street surrounded by a large, hemispherical force bubble was difficult; we bumped many pedestrians and ricocheted the edge of the shield off many cars, buildings, and other obstacles.
"Whoa!" Jade stopped suddenly, holding Amelie's hand so she was stopped as well. "Power armor!"
She wasn't kidding; there were two power armor suits near the hotel and two more suits moving down the street toward us. We had no idea if they had any detectors which would be able to find us, and we couldn't afford to take a chance. "Damn," I cursed mildly, venting my frustration, "I wish you had better control of your power!"
"I'm sorry!" Amelie cried, practically bawling. "I'm trying!"
Jade pulled us down a small alleyway off the street.
"I know," I apologized quickly. "It's not your fault. I'm just ... frustrated." I squeezed her hand reassuringly and forced a smile to try to let her know I wasn't blaming her. It seemed to be effective; the water-works stopped. We ran a little further, then I halted suddenly, staring from the alley across a street at a large park. "Hide there?"
"Yeah." Jade agreed. She glanced back over her shoulder. "Damn! How are they still following us? Infrared detectors?"
I grimaced. "No, probably magic-sensitive crystals."
"We gotta dump the spells off, then."
"But then we'll be visible to conventional heat detectors." I noted as we dashed through a gap in traffic into the park. "We'll stick out like sore thumbs against the foliage."
We darted through the park, sticking to the paths and avoiding people. Suddenly Jade stopped, grabbing my arm to stop me. "Over there!" she said, pointing.
"The building? Is that some kind of museum?"
"There are enough trees and bushes that you can drop the spells, then we can sneak into the museum to hide. Once things calm down, we can call Ayla and Twinkletoes for help." Amelie winced; she knew that Jade meant that when she calmed down, her electro-magnetic interference field would stop.
We ducked behind some trees where there weren't as many people, and I cancelled the spells. A couple of pedestrians started at our sudden appearance, but a couple making out on a park bench probably wouldn't have noticed if we were wearing pink tutus and clown noses.
"I'm going to send for the cavalry," Jade said enigmatically as we walked quickly toward the side of the museum building. One suit of power armor was flying over the alley we'd been in, and agents were closing in on the park. "Let's get inside - quickly." She led us to the front door.
"What? How are we going to get in ....?" I gawked at her when she touched the handle and the door popped open. She was a devisor, so she had some trick, but I'll be damned if I could see it.
"Isn't there ...?"
"I disabled the alarm when I opened the door," she said with an enigmatic smile. She pointed at a plaque on a wall by the door. "Challenge accepted!" she said almost gleefully.
I looked; the expansion of the Musee de Histoire Naturelle de Bordeaux had been funded by the Helen Goodkind Charitable Trust for the Sciences and Arts. I suddenly had a bad feeling about this.
Ayla led Addy back to their table after a dance, sitting just as Walt brought a fresh round of sodas for the group. As Ayla took his, the surface suddenly erupted in a rather violent motion. "What ...?" Ayla and Addy said almost in unison.
Ayla set his soda down, thinking that it was just overly-carbonated. Almost immediately, the violent motion in the drink stopped for a few seconds, and then it resumed. "What's going on?" Addy asked, quite confused.
Ayla shook his head. "I don't know." As he spoke, the drink frothed again, and then stopped. "Something ... unusual." He frowned and dug in his purse, pulling out his cell phone, fingers dancing across the keypad as he unlocked it and dialed a number. The others watched anxiously, wondering what he was up to. "Not good," he grimaced. "Jade's phone is reported off-line."
"Bad coverage?" Alicia asked, growing more concerned.
"Impossible!" Brigitte answered.
"Kayda isn't answering her phone, either," Walt said, frowning as he put it back in his pocket.
"Amelie's power ... interferes with electronics!" Addy suddenly exclaimed. "But ... it's mostly when she gets anxious or frightened or nervous. At least that's what she said!"
"They could be anywhere, too!" Brigitte said, yanking out her phone. "I'm calling the Heroes."
As she dialed, a salt shaker on the table suddenly tipped, then the group saw something small smacking into the salt shaker, tipping it again. A third time, it fell over, spilling salt on the table. As they watched, a large grain of sand began scratching a line in the spilled salt.
"Of course!" Ayla exclaimed, grabbing the salt shaker and sprinkling more salt on the table until it was coated with a thin layer. Even before he finished, letters began to appear in the salt. "M C O chasing."
"What the hell ...?" Walt started to say.
"Don't ask," Ayla cut him off; Jade's secrets were going to stay that way. "We've got to find them. Let's go." He stood, offering a hand to Addy to help her up."
"It's likely the MCO knows where we're staying," Brigitte commented as the group headed down the stairs from the second floor. "They've been following us all day. I'll have Soeur Justice go to the regional MCO headquarters to see if they're moving somewhere. If they are, we'll follow them."
"This is kind of creepy," I commented as we crept through the museum's main entrance hall. The entrance wall was almost entirely glass, and from the dim light filtering in from all the lights in the park, it was tinted to keep out the heat and glare. The net effect was unearthly illumination of the exhibits and columns, casting shadows of dinosaur skeletons and mammoth bodies against the far wall. Amelie clung tightly to my hand; she was trembling a bit, and I couldn't blame her in the least. It wasn't every day that someone was chased by the French MCO and hid in a spooky museum at night.
We were faced with a number of galleries leading off the main hall, both on the first floor and on the second floor from a wide balcony around three sides of the entrance hall, accessed by two broad flights of stairs up, one to either side.
"We probably should get out of the main hall," I suggested. "If someone looks in ...."
"But which way?" Amelie's voice was hesitant and timid, echoing her emotions. We HAD to get her calmed down so our electronics would work.
"This way," Jade said with certainty, setting off with determination down a hall. If there was any logic to why she chose that particular gallery, it escaped me. With a glance at Amelie and a shrug, I set off after Jade, with Amelie still clutching my hand desperately.
Favager looked at the crystal with disgust. "Nothing!" he practically spat. "They must have quit using their magic."
"Are you sure they're using magic and not some technology?" Delacroix asked skeptically.
"Oui," Favager said emphatically. "They were using magic earlier to hide! I pulled the records of the Americains who entered France with the Vitesse girl, to know what we might be up against. One is able to use magic; her description matches the one I approached a few moments ago."
"They could be using magic from those pesky HGB heroes!"
"Monsieur!" one of the MCO agents called out suddenly from the glass front of the museum.
"What is it, Olivier?" Delacroix asked impatiently. He had almost a dozen agents fanned out searching the park, plus another dozen agents covering the routes from the park to the hotel where they were known to be staying. On top of that, there were four power suits flying overhead cover to make sure they didn't escape.
"The door - it is slightly open!"
Delacroix and Favager perked up. "They are hiding inside," Delacroix said with certainty.
"It might be a ruse," Favager protested.
"Non," Delacroix decided firmly. "If they were outside, you'd detect them with your magic crystal," he said, distastefully spitting the word magic as if it were toxic, "and if they're not using magic, our night-vision goggles would pick up their body heat." He scowled, his features set with determination. "Non, they are inside." He looked at the agent. "Get six agents to come with me to search the museum. Post a pair at each exit in case they flee."
"We'll be very spread out," Favager noted dutifully.
"Get another dozen agents, then! I want that building cordoned off." His scowl deepened to an expression of absolute hatred. "They are not going to get away from me this time!"
"They're coming in!" Amelie cried softly. So much for getting her calmed down; with the MCO following us in the museum, her anxiety had spiked again, and with it, her power which dampened our electronics.
Jade paused in the doorway of a corridor, extracting a few things from a pocket. "What?" I asked.
She grinned wickedly. "A few surprises. In case they follow us." She couldn't have been doing much; it only took her a few seconds, which was obviously not enough time to set up an ambush or booby-trap. I wondered what she was up to.
A pair of agents crept nervously down the corridor, flashlights darting around the hall, looking at shadowed areas, watching for an ambush. Mutants, they knew, were dangerous, and the two had their weapons at the ready, in case they were attacked. So far, they'd seen nothing unusual, but the shadows cast by the lights in their unsteady hands were not helping calm them; if anything, they were getting more uneasy the longer they searched.
"There!" One agent shone his light to the side, to where he thought he'd heard a noise.
"It's just your imagination," the other agent laughed, but his amusement was cut short when he suddenly sprawled forward, having caught his feet on something unseen. His light clattered to the floor and skittered out of his reach, and before he could give his partner a warning, the other man, too, was on the ground.
"They ..." he started to shout, even as his feet were encircled and some kind of thin, invisible cord wrapped him and pulled him tightly against his partner. Alas, he no more than opened his mouth than a sock, tied to the end of the cord, practically leaped into his mouth, and a couple of twists of very fine wire left him trussed up like a Christmas turkey. At least his partner, lashed tightly to him and squirming against the bindings, hadn't been spared the indignity, so he couldn't be made fun of for his circumstances.
"Do you have any idea where we are?" I asked Jade, looking around in near total darkness. If it hadn't been for the magic detection ability the agents had exhibited earlier, I would have cast a night-vision spell on the trio of us. Now, though, it'd be a beacon to the agents pursuing us.
"An Asian exhibit, I think," Jade said, looking around. "Here - let's hide behind these display cases!"
"They're close!" I hissed insistently to the pint-sized terror.
Jade wasn't paying attention, but in the very faint security lighting, I saw that she was staring intently at a display case. Even as a pair of men cautiously walked into the gallery where we were hiding, their flashlights dancing around the room as they searched for us.
Wincing, I began an incantation under my breath, but Jade's hand on my arm stilled me. Curiously, I stared at her; I was going to need to use magic to get out of this one.
Instead, Jade reached up to the display case, laying her hand on the lock, which seconds later sprang open. Gingerly opening the glass, she reached in and did something to the figure contained therein.
The agents must have heard the faint noise, because two cones of light swung our way; I was ready once more to cast a spell to protect us. But before I could, there was a very Asian-sounding cry, and to my utter amazement, the samurai armor hanging on a mannequin leaped off and took human shape, sword in hand, facing the two startled MCO agents.
The agent on the left recovered first; he shot his stun weapon at the armor. I wish I could have seen beyond the bright light to see his face; his expression had to be precious when he realized that his weapon had no effect. He shot a second time, again to no effect, and in the light of his flashlight, we saw the samurai's blade slash through the air.
A shower of sparks erupted from the dismembered device in the agent's hands, and another flash caused a similar reaction in the second agent's weapon. From the sudden odor, he'd probably wet himself; startled, he was slow to reach for his pistol. In the meantime, the samurai slashed again, expertly slicing the belt of one agent.
Both men, one hobbling and trying to hold up his pants, turned and fled in absolute terror, and the ghostly samurai warrior gave chase, making appropriate Bruce Lee-like noises as it moved without touching the floor.
"That's going to attract attention," I grimaced. "Let's get out of here." As quietly as we could, we fled down deeper into the museum.
One of the agents, following the soft noises, padded softly through a connection between the two wings, his flashlight off and his pistol at the ready. Tiptoeing, he skirted the edge of a display, carefully navigating through a cordon of velvet ropes.
Without warning, the ropes leaped up and attacked him, quickly encircling him and tying him fast. He had no time to call out before, bound and gagged, he collapsed to the floor.
Friday, July 6, 2007 - Midnight
MCO Headquarters, Bordeaux, France
Soeur Justice sat on her perch overlooking the MCO building, night-vision binoculars in hand. There was some kind of activity going on - suddenly the building had been lit up and a mad dash of people poured in. "What are you doing?" she whispered to herself rhetorically.
A garage door was flung open, and two MCO vans charged forth, driving madly through the light midnight Bordeaux traffic.
"Ah!" she said to herself as she lifted into the air to give chase, "now let's see where you're flying to!" She thumbed a microphone on her comm gear. "They're moving!" she said urgently.
"Any idea where?" came Orchidee Quantique's voice in her earpiece.
"Not yet, but it looks like they're heading toward the city center."
"The hotel?" Dix Tonne's voice interrupted.
"Possibly," Soeur Justice answered.
"Non," another voice called out, Flamme Bleu. "The hotel is calm; the agents have it staked out, but they're not moving and they don't look agitated."
"I'll keep on their tail, then." Soeur Justice focused on the vans. She released the mic button. "Come on, fledglings," she urged softly. "Fly to your mama."
Friday, July 6, 2007 - Midnight
Musee de Histoire Naturelle, Bordeaux, France
Delacroix, at an improvised command post at the reception desk of the museum, saw a light go off on a panel indicating that an emergency exit door had been opened. "Someone has exited the east doors!" he called into the microphone attached to his lapel.
"It's Le Roux and Huet!" one of the agents stationed outside responded.
"What?!?"
"They are both screaming something about a ghost samurai," the agent reported, sounding more than a trifle skeptical. "They said it was chasing them."
"Have they had too much wine with their dinners?" Delacroix spat in disgust.
"Non, Monsieur," the agent reported. "And ... their equipment belts and clothing has been cut very precisely, even though they have no injuries!"
"What the hell is going on here?" Delacroix angrily muttered to himself after releasing the push- to-talk button.
"That's five down," Jade said cheerfully as we crept through a passage into another gallery.
I pointed to the stairs. "Up? They're not looking there."
"Yet," Jade said, throwing a little cold water on my idea.
"How do you know there are five down?" I asked. Even as I spoke, I wasn't sure that I wanted to hear the answer, even if she was forthcoming. "Never mind."
"Have you got anything that'll knock them out and keep them out for a few hours?" Jade asked.
I nodded. "But I need water and a non-metallic cup."
"There's a water fountain," Amelie reported. I don't know if she was amused or still frightened, but at least she was doing more than just following us.
"I've got a small bottle in my holdouts," Jade added.
I didn't want to know why. There was too much about her that was, frankly, disturbing. Nodding, I put some water into the small vial, then put in herbs and mouthed the proper incantation. "That'll do it," I said. "A tiny bit should knock a man out for six or seven hours."
"How are you going to get them to drink it?" Jade asked with a puzzled frown.
"I won't," I replied, pulling out a small shard of a porcupine quill from my pouch. "A drop on this, and a little poke, and they'll be out."
Jade got another of her patented wickedly evil grins. "I'll take care of that," she said, reaching out for the bottle and the quill. Curious, I gave them to her, and almost instantly, the two flew off, leaving me curious. "A little trick," she said with a smug little smile.
We started into another gallery, but were both astounded when we heard agents rumbling through the gallery we were headed into, and as we turned to duck back out, there was noise down the staircase, indicating we were trapped between the pairs in a gallery of a huge assortment of preserved, mounted wildlife.
Jade got a determined look in her eyes, but I had a sudden idea. "You cover the back entrance," I whispered. I let myself slip momentarily into dream space, and when I came out, I was grinning. "This is going to be fun!" I managed to keep from chortling.
The two agents already on the floor were coming into the room, flashlights dancing around as usual. Hearing a loud snort from one side, both beams turned to the displays, dancing over the various animals.
From within a display of large, European Bison, a shadowy white figure materialized, solidifying as it charged toward the agents. For the briefest of moments, they stared at the apparition, then one pulled his weapon and fired his stunner while the other ducked and rolled to one side, choosing self-preservation over the other agent's display of heroics.
Just before the white bison got to the brave agent, it vanished into thin air, leaving him shaking and gawking at the empty air. Shaking badly, his flashlight played around the room; if not for a small display which we were crouched behind, he'd have most certainly spotted us.
The other man rejoined his partner on his feet, looking around more. "What ... what was that?" one asked his voice cracking with nerves.
"I ... I don't know!" the other man hissed, his voice quavering uneasily.
There was a snorting noise behind the pair, and they turned, totally startled, their lights swinging onto the huge white bison that was pawing the floor a few feet from them, snorting. The flashlights which had been bobbling shook furiously, and as Tatanka lowered his head and took a couple of charging steps, the two dropped their lights and ran, screaming, down the hall.
"That was cool," Jade said with a grin.
"Yeah, but someone heard. There'll be more coming."
"Like the two coming up the stairs?" Jade asked. "Let's get out of here." She paused by one stuffed animal as we exited, and then we quick-timed it out of that gallery, ahead of the pursuing agents by a few seconds.
The abandoned flashlights were still lit, and the pair of agents frowned. Something had happened. One tapped the mic on his lapel. "Lefevre here," he reported. "Something happened up here. It sounded like a fight, and we found standard-issue equipment abandoned."
Delacroix's voice was unpleasant in the earpiece. "Can't you guys apprehend three little girls?" he demanded impatiently.
Lefevre winced, while his partner shrugged. "They had to have gone this way," the partner said. "There's no other way out."
As they strode to the entrance of the animal display gallery, a throaty roar exploded in the air above them, startling them both. Before they could react, a huge stuffed polar bear, fixed in a towering standing pose, toppled forward, growling, reaching for the agents.
Frozen with fright, Lefevre was slow to move, and the polar bear crashed upon him, pinning him between its outstretched arms as if it was going to eat him. He did what anyone in that position would have done - he fainted.
Unseen to the second agent who was running for dear life, a small quill slipped between the stuffed bear and the inert man and then poked a spot of exposed skin of the MCO agent. In moments, he was snoring loudly.
"He's chasing us!" I hissed to Jade.
"Not on purpose," Jade whispered back. "I think he's running for his life." She stopped suddenly, then ducked into a gift shop. A moment later, she was out and we ducked into a side gallery to hide from the fleeing agent.
We'd no sooner gotten ourselves out of sight than the man ran by. Jade was grinning, and I wondered why, but then a huge number of plushy stuffed animals flew out of the gift shop and swarmed over the man, tackling him and holding him down. One stuffed mastodon shoved its trunk into the guy's mouth, gagging him, and after a moment, he was still. The plushy toys fell away from him into an inert pile on the floor. I knew without doubt that Jade and the quill were going to take care of that agent, too. And as we watched, a permanent marker pen flew from inside the gift shop and began to draw; as we walked by, I couldn't help but snicker at the bad curled moustache and stupid goatee which had been drawn on his face. Jade just grinned wickedly, convincing me even more that I never, ever wanted to do combat with her in the sims or the arenas.
Friday, July 6, 2007 - Midnight
Bordeaux, France
Soeur Justice saw the vans stop and as agents spewed out of the vehicles, she tapped her mic. "They're stopping and surrounding the Jardin Public and the Jardin Botanique," she reported. "It looks like they're concentrating on the Musee de Histoire Naturelle."
Dix Tonnes' voice clicked on. "Copy. That's where the fliers seem to be circling."
Mage Astre chimed in. "Walt is guarding the others at the hotel; I opened a gate to teleport them there. Let's gather at the Cours de Verdun near the Esplanade. It's close to the hotel and we can plan our course of action."
"Oui." "Okay." "Good idea."
Friday, July 6, 2007 - Midnight
Musee de Histoire Naturelle, Bordeaux, France
We paused in a gallery of history, where there were many, many historical dioramas. I paused at one; it seemed to show a vast Roman army encampment and a nearby Gallic village. What was peculiar, and what caught my attention, was the figures in the village - one was short, with a long, moustache and a winged helmet, standing beside a very large (fat) figure with blue-and-white striped pants and carrying what appeared to be a miniature obelisk. The third noteworthy one was tall and thin, with a beard trailing nearly to the ground and carrying a sickle of some kind. They seemed familiar somehow.
Hearing agents nearby, Jade fiddled with the display case, popping it open. If she ever decided to be a cat-burglar, she'd be awesome; I hadn't seen any lock or security device defeat her so far. "Okay, let's go," she said urgently as she turned from the display.
The soft background noises - shrieks, deep moans, chains, haunting wind sound - were unnerving to the agents as they strolled through a history display, sounds that had no place in a museum of natural history but which would have been perfectly at home in any decent haunted house. With the other news that had come over their earpieces and the sounds of other disturbances in the museum, the two were understandably uneasy.
A soft creak caught their attention, their flashlights shakily turning toward the offending noise. "Someone left a case open," the first agent said as the light highlighted the display. Curiously, he walked over, his light dancing on the case. "Hey, come look!" he urged his comrade. "Someone has a sense of humor!" He bent forward to more closely examine the little figures.
Without warning, the odd little figure with the winged helmet turned and leaped up, poking him in the nose with the tiny plastic short-sword in the figure's hands. He started to react, just as all of the little figurines flew from the case, their plastic swords and spears poking into the two agents like a swarm of angry bees to the accompaniment of blaring Roman trumpets. The two men tried to run as they swatted and batted at their miniature antagonists which were doing little damage but quite effectively neutralizing them.
Agent Bouchet gritted his teeth as he sneaked into a gallery of Middle Eastern and Persian art. So far, all he'd heard on his comm system was total chaos, and he was tired of it. He was not going to let a couple of little girls make a monkey out of him as they apparently had with some of the other agents.
Something went swish ahead of him, and he played his flashlight - just in time to see a massive dark thing swoop through the air at him. He ducked, spinning on a heel, his flashlight searching for the offending item as his other hand reached for his sidearm. He was met by a huge, soft mass of fabric which smacked into him, knocking him back off his feet. As he scrambled to regain his footing, the flying thing came at him again, this time low at his feet, and with the proper nudges, he pitched forward onto whatever it was.
He was prepared for pain, but he gasped when he landed on something soft. And then it was moving - fast. He tried to roll off, but the carpet - and it was now clear to him that it was a carpet - did something to roll him back into the middle. It hurtled down the corridors, ducking and weaving, and Bouchet clawed his way to the front, hanging onto the leading edge and trying to make out what was ahead of them.
The carpet wove in and out of displays, then flew out of the gallery and over the railing of the second floor balcony. He looked down, seeing the floor six or seven meters below, and he reacted by screaming like a frightened child.
The carpet ignored him, swooping at high speeds around the huge entrance hall, buzzing Delacroix, and scaring Bouchet to the point he knew he was going to die. Once more, the carpet flew high, speeding into a different gallery, dodging display items, until it suddenly halted mid-air, pitching Bouchet unceremoniously into a wall; he landed with a loud 'oof' and then crumpled into an ungainly heap on the floor.
Agent Devaux heard a noise over by the wall - kind of an unearthly wail; his light shone onto the wall, where it landed on a historical painting of Joan of Arc. For some reason, the figure looked pale, even though he'd never been in this museum and hadn't seen this particular painting, but like every Frenchman, he knew the image of Saint Joan d' Arc. As he pondered the painting, the whitish outline seemed to emerge from the image, forming a ghostly but very beautiful image of the beloved saint in three dimensions.
DeVaux stood, riveted in place as he beheld the lovely specter, fascinated more than he was frightened.
Then the apparition changed, the face withering away to a hideous skeletal form, with fangs on the teeth and hollow eyes. It darted from the painting toward him, freezing him momentarily with terror, and then he turned to run for his life.
He'd been so enraptured with the image that he'd never noticed the tiny capuchin monkey creep up behind him and carefully, silently, tie his shoelaces together. DeVaux tripped and pitched face-first to the floor, knocking himself out in the process. A quill poked him in the ass, administering a bit of potion just to make sure he stayed out.
Delacroix stood in the entry hall, rage having overcome him. Agents had fled, or were no longer reporting in, and all because of three little girls! He stormed into one gallery where agents had gone but had not come out; he found the two trussed up with some kind of fine cable, gagged and bound and helpless. Nearly screaming in fury, he started further into the museum, only to halt and turn suddenly when he heard some clattering behind him.
With a quick turn, Delacroix leveled his gun at the noise. But a cloud of glitter blinded him momentarily, and when he got out of it, he gaped at a modest-sized dinosaur skeleton stalking him. Leveling his gun, he pulled the trigger - and nothing happened. Frantically, he racked the gun and pulled the trigger again. Still, nothing happened.
With a terrifying roar, the dinosaur charged at him.
Delacroix turned and ran, speeding like a scared rabbit out of the gallery, through the next one, and out the door, never once looking back.
After Delacroix had run, terrified, out of the museum, the three of us, giggling, did high-fives, while beside us, the animated dinosaur skeleton did a little victory Irish jig. Amelie giggled and gawked, clearly confused but also quite amused by the extraordinarily-bizarre spectacle. At least to her; to Jade and I, it seemed like a normal Whateley day.
Once the moment passed, I pulled out my cell phone. "We're back in business." I dialed Addy immediately.
"Hello, Addy?" I asked, having switched the phone to speaker mode.
"Kayda? What's going on?" She sounded more than a little frantic.
"We decided to visit the museum," Jade called out with a giggle.
"What?"
"Long story," I said with a chuckle. "Amelie, Jade, and I are okay."
"Good! The Heroes Glorieux de Bordeaux are looking for you."
"Well, you can tell them where we are now. We'll stay put so they can find us,"
Soeur Justice and Orchidee Quantique charged into the museum, expecting the girls to be distraught or in danger, or both. The two heroes pulled up short when they beheld the three girls sitting on the floor beside a dinosaur skeleton amidst total carnage, calmly playing cards as if nothing had happened. The most amazing thing to the women was that the dinosaur was kneeling down and playing an active hand in the card game. Soeur Justice circled behind the reception desk and found an electrical panel; with a few snaps, the lights came on.
"Good God!" Orchidee Quantique mouthed in amazement at the mess, which included skeletons, armor, hundreds of tiny plastic figurines, and a variety of other artifacts, all in a state of total disarray. "What happened here?"
"The MCO guys were a little rude, and they made a bit of a mess," Jade said innocently. At the shocked looks on Soeur Justice's and Orchidee Quantique's faces Jade hopped up. "Oops," she said quickly, reaching into the dinosaur. "I should have turned this one off, too." She pulled a device from the skeleton, and as the bones collapsed into a heap, the little gizmo she'd extracted whined, "But we haven't finished the game..." as the voice faded away.
Saturday, July 7, 2007 - Early Morning
Bordeaux, France
"Halt!" a voice called sternly as we strode out of the hotel to get into the limo to go to breakfast.
We turned, and Addy paled. "Monsieur Delacroix!" she mouthed in shock. Without a second thought, I had a shield spell up around us.
Delacroix, holding a nasty-looking weapon of some form, turned his gaze to me. "And you - Mademoiselle Franks? You will both come with me to the MCO office to investigate your violation of regulations regarding mutant activity." The look in his eyes was wild, like he had been pushed past his breaking point. I winced; people that fatigued or crazy were dangerous.
Brigitte was in her hero costume in the blink of an eye, and she stepped forward. "Monsieur Delacroix," she said evenly, "you have no authority to detain these girls."
"She," he pointed at me, "entered France under a false MID, in violation of international treaties!" He turned his maddened gaze to Adalie. "And she is complicit in crimes dating to last summer!"
"Monsieur Delacroix," Brigitte, Mage Astre, said calmly, "please put down your weapon. Right now, you are the one in violation of French law. You know that you cannot detain any minor without authorization from the Juridictions pour Mineurs or the Ministry of Justice."
Delacroix didn't waver one iota. "They will come with me."
A van screeched up to a stop behind Delacroix, and a swarm of armed men emerged. Shit - how many reinforcements had he brought? Then I noticed that the men were all looking at Delacroix. One man who appeared to be in charge marched up to the MCO chief. "Monsieur Delacroix?"
"Oui," he answered. "You've come to help me detain these dangerous mutants, oui?"
"Non, monsieur," said the police chief or captain or whatever rank he was. "I am here to place you under arrest for attempted violation of civil rights of two French citizens and an Americain citizen lawfully in France, and for ordering actions which resulted in tens of thousands of Euros in damage to the Musee de Histoire Naturelle. We have security footage which shows you commanding a team in the museum attempting to make an unlawful apprehension."
Delacroix's eyes nearly bugged out. "But ... I have a responsibility to protect citizens of France from dangerous mutants!"
"Lower your weapon," the captain said sternly.
Agent Favager stepped forward, to the side of his boss. "Mon ami," he whispered gently, "The Bureau suggested that perhaps you are in need of some time off."
"Are they ... firing me?" Delacroix looked quite panicked and a little unstable.
"Non, non, non, mon ami," Favager replied quickly. "You and I - we have worked very hard, and I know that you have not had a vacation from the office for over two years. You need some time to rest. And then you can return to help me protect France, oui?"
"I am not being fired?"
"Non, mon ami," Favager assured his boss, gently pressing the barrel of his firearm down so it was no longer threatening the girls. "The Bureau wants you to take some rest, so that you can return refreshed, ready to fight the mutants that threaten our way of life." With minimal resistance, he took the firearm out of Delacroix's hands.
One of the gendarmes relieved Favager of the weapon, and the Gendarme Captain stepped forward. "Monsieur Favager?"
"Oui?"
"By order of the Aquitaine Juridictions pour Mineurs, you are to take charge of the Bordeaux regional office of the MCO until such time as an investigation is completed. You are to stand down all investigations on ALL mutant activities pending an investigation of the Inspectorate-General of the Ministry of Justice. Do you understand?"
Favager looked like he'd swallowed something particularly foul. "Oui, monsieur."
He turned back to Delacroix. "Monsieur, will you come peacefully?"
Delacroix wanted to protest, to fight for his job, but even his sleep-deprived and rage-addled mind knew that he had no chance given the size of the Gendarme squad deployed. With a heavy sigh, he nodded.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - Evening
Paris, France
"Go ahead and have fun dancing. I'm going back to the hotel," I said to Ayla and Addy as we exited a very fine restaurant. After a fun day on Saturday in Bordeaux, we'd taken the TGV to Paris, and since Sunday, we'd been visiting tourist sites and doing shopping; Addy and Alicia and I particularly enjoyed the shopping. Now it was our last night in France; in the morning we'd take a flight to Chicago, and then go our separate ways.
Naturally, Addy wanted to spend every possible moment with Ayla, and I quietly signaled to Alicia that we should let them have all the time together - alone - that they could. Walt insisted that Ayla's hired limo drop us off at the hotel, and then he and Brigitte accompanied Ayla and Addy out for a night of dancing.
"Are y'all goin' t' tell me the whole story behind the museum?" Alicia asked as we rode the elevator up to our rooms.
"Like I said," I explained again, "Jade is a pretty potent devisor."
"Yeah, but makin' a dinosaur skeleton dance?" Alicia asked, skeptically. "And some of the other stuff Amelie was talkin' about?"
"She's young," I chuckled, "and she was terrified. Of course she was going to exaggerate." Addy had been good enough to not ask questions, and she'd told Mage Astre to help suppress the security video. It could have been devastating to Jade's and my true powers. Fortunately, the HGB understood completely, and with a friendly judge, they got the video secured.
"Speaking of secrets," I said, opening the door into Alicia's and my room, "how did you two get Wihinape's sizes?"
Adalie chuckled. "Your buffalo has a wicked sense of humor."
"Yeah, I figured it was him, but how?" I flopped on my bed, wearied by another day of sightseeing and shopping.
"When you were showin' him off to the HGB," Alicia grinned, "Addy made sure you were distracted while I talked to him."
I sighed, not sure whether to laugh, cry, or be upset with my spirit. "Mom's going to have a cow!"
"Danny isn't going to be too happy, either!" Alicia laughed aloud. "Ah wish Ah was there t' see it when you show him."
"Was Ayla in on it, too?" It was a very fancy, very expensive, ultra-feminine lingerie set with bra, panties, garter belt, and stockings, all in Wihinape's size, that the girls had purchased without me noticing. I'd only noticed yesterday evening - too late to return it, which would have been impossible anyway since they'd conveniently 'lost' the receipt.
"What do you think?" Alicia asked bluntly.
"Yeah, I figured as much." I leaned back and grabbed the TV remote. "Well?"
"Well, what?"
"You wanna do this again next year?"
"Maybe," Alicia answered in an exaggerated drawl. "No snake demons?"
"Can't make promises."
"And y'all will take us along next time you haunt a museum?"
"Yeah." I couldn't help but laugh. "Jade is absolutely crazy."
"Everyone knows that."
"After that little adventure, I don't want to ever battle her, in the arena or the simulators."
Alicia chuckled. "That does seem to be the prevailing sentiment on campus."
After flipping through channels while we'd talked, I shut off the television with a disgusted grunt. "Nothing on." I rose from the bed. "I'm gonna get a soda. You want one?"
"Sure." She levered herself up from her bed. "Ah'll come with."
Wednesday, July 11, 2007 - Late afternoon
O'Hare Airport, Chicago, IL
I gave Ayla a warm hug. "Thanks," I said with feeling. "That was a fun trip." Alicia had already dashed to another gate to catch her connecting flight to New Orleans.
"From what I've heard," Ayla replied, "you three might have caught the 'Kimba Curse'."
"No thanks. You guys can keep it."
"Addy and I have talked about a trip to France over the winter break. Do you think you and Alicia would be interested?"
"Nah," I shook my head. "You two need special time together, and while I can't speak for Alicia, I know sometimes I feel like a third wheel."
"We have a while before Christmas," Ayla retorted. "Plenty of time to think about it. Have a good rest of your summer. We'll see you back at school."
"You, too." I gave him another quick hug, then watched him and Jade walk away from Twinkletoes and me. We'd arrived in terminal 5, the international terminal, and Walt and I were flying to Sioux Falls from terminal 1, while Ayla and Jade had flights from terminal 3.
"Well, that was fun," I said, falling in beside Walt to trudge to our gate.
"Yup," he said simply, a contented smile on his face.
"She's still nuts about you," I said after a bit of silence. "Just like you are about her."
"I know."
"What are you going to do?"
Walt shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I could try to persuade her to immigrate and join the League, or go to Bordeaux and join the Heroes." We walked a bit further without words; his mind was obviously still in Bordeaux with Brigitte. "You are going to tell Deb everything, aren't you?"
"Um," I hedged, "yeah."
"Including the museum? And Delacroix?"
I frowned. "I suppose you're going to tell her if I don't."
"She loves you and worries about you," he said simply. "She deserves to know."
"Yeah, I know." We walked a ways further. "Mom's coming down Friday morning, so we'll probably have Japanese food again."
"Deb'll love that."
Walt suddenly stopped and put his hand on my shoulder, causing me to turn to face him. "I had a fun trip. It's fun traveling with you and your friends. You're ... like a little sister to me," he stammered. "I don't have a sister, but ... I guess you're kind of filling that role."
"And you're like a big brother. All you guys are." I smiled. "Now, how about my appreciative, loving big brother buys us dinner? I'm starved!"