thegingernut

  The rest of the week passed quickly. Wednesday was waterpolo. I went home early. Alice didn’t try to retell The Danish Girl by shapeshifting impressions. Maybe it left her shellshocked. I didn’t invite her over on Wednesday that day. As much as I enjoyed her company I had chores to do and hobbies to procrastinate indulging in. (I really did intend to finish sewing that dress from scratch at some point. Just as soon as I finish whittling those homemade panpipes. Where were those again? How could I lose them, my cabin is tiny!)

  On Thursday I brought my ptop into school with a DVD copy of the first season of Scrubs. I assured the history teacher that it was recent enough to be useful as a teaching tool about the outside world. Surprisingly she was able to recognize a few modern things like phones from more recent books that she had read. I actually lost my lunchbreak because nobody wanted to stop watching. I didn’t get out till the battery died. I was te for PE and very cranky. I just went home and slept afterwards.

  By Friday Leah had recovered enough to participate in the outdoor games again and I decided to skive off PE to watch her. So did Rose and Alice, the former because she was concerned about her friend and the tter because she just didn’t like the subject very much. I can rete.

  Her game was something to behold. Most of the people on the field were on the rger side, and many of them were beastshifters like Leah. I saw several Wolves, Bears, Big cats, Bovines, Ungutes, Lagomorphs and a scrappy little goat boy who caught a charging bear three times his size with a savage headbutt that left the bear unconscious for several minutes.

  Alice was not kidding about people getting their limbs ripped off. Leah got her entire arm bitten off to the shoulder within the first forty seconds of the match and it only resulted in a time out. FOR HER! Watching her arm grow back was like one of those time psed pnt growth videos. She was back on the field in under two minutes!

  Today’s event was Soccer and I’m not completely convinced the game has rules. Sure the was a sphere of leather that everyone seemed at least tokenly interested in. I think goat boy got ripped in half for it at some point? I don’t know how the ball didn’t get shredded with all those fangs and cws in py. I tried to get a better look. Then I gave up and just asked Alice.

  “Oh, their ball is like a leather skin over solid concrete” she said casually. I watched Leah kick it so hard it sailed across the field, which was more than three times regution size. Goat boy headbutted it away from the goal and out of bounds, thwarting her attempt to score.

  “Are we safe?” I asked. “Not even slightly. I can’t remember the recommended distance but its something like 10 football fields away” replied Alice. “Why aren’t you scared!” I excimed. “I have a healing factor. Basically all shapeshifters do” said Alice with a shrug. I turned to Rose. “I’m pretty sure I could deflect a ball with my telekinesis if I had to” she snapped. Then she made a shooing gesture. She was staring intently at Leah. I wonder if she has a crush on her? That would expin a lot in hindsight.

  I got up and left. I did not sign up to stand in the spsh zone of a freaking cannonball! Alice soon followed. I don’t think she cared much for Rose without a mutual friend for social lubricant. Rose too. She could get in deep trouble if she was caught so close to the field. For people who couldn’t regrow limbs like me and her it was extremely dangerous to be so close to the action and the school knew this and the rules reflected it. It would be like more mundane highschool students sneaking onto an active construction site, or maybe a quarry.

  “I’m going to talk to the Elders tomorrow” I said. “Have they not come to see you already?” asked Rose. “They’ve been looking for you you know!” she added. “Must be my power. Could you let them know I’ll meet them at the ke tomorrow? I really don’t have the energy to people today” I said. “Aren’t we people” asked Alice. “You’re friends. I tolerate them slightly better” I joked. But in truth I was quite tired from all the excitement of seeing Leah py soccer, so I bid them both adieu and made my way home.

  The elders were easy enough to find. A bunch of old people fishing by a big freshwater ke. I approached till I was a quarter football field away and then made my presence known with a false cough. An elderly dy with salt and pepper hair and ughter lines looked over her shoulder and called out in greeting. “Would you be the troublemaker from out of town we’ve all heard so much about” she clucked. My heart sped up again. “It was never my intention to cause any trouble miss. Its just like everyone here I’ve got someone to hide from, and we just happened to pick the same hiding spot” I said.

  She humphed. “That’s the truth but not the whole truth ssie. You can’t fool old Mags you can’t. I’ve always been able to smell a rat” she snipped. I let out a sigh. “Some time before my birth, my father found his way to this town. He was here for want of some food and beer and a pce to sleep that wasn’t a car, for the night was te. The town’s folks were so rude to him that he’s compined about ‘that rude town in the mountains’ every chance he’s gotten every day since” I said. “Have I said one word of a lie?”

  “All that sounds about right I reckon. Where’s your mother?” she asked. “A funny farm in upstate Deware” I responded shortly. Her eyebrows creased. Magnificent eyebrows they were. You could knock someone out with those eyebrows. “So who’s looking after you?” she said with a concerned tone. “I look after myself miss” I responded robotically. “Another half truth” she said. “Don’t lie to me young dy, I already said that don’t work”.

  “There is nobody taking care of me. I take care of myself as well as I can, which isn’t always well enough” I said. “So you’re an orphan then?” she asked. “I wish I was an orphan. If I was really an orphan I wouldn’t have to hide out here. I’d have never darkened your doorstep”

  “I’m sorry to hear that love. Ain’t true though. I’m guessing you can’t really bring yourself to wish your father dead. Ya ever consider reconciling with him. Families shouldn’t fight you know” she mused.

  “My father is a Christian zealot who cut me off from every friend I’d ever had and isoted me in a cabin in woods far more remote than even this little town because he was convinced there was a government conspiracy to turn me gay. I don’t know what he’d think of me being a witch but I will say I wasn’t allowed to read books where witchcraft was so much as mentioned even before the government conspiracy stuff. He beat me often to teach me to tough my way through pain. He was by any account a terrible parent and he fucking scares me, okay? No I’m not reconciling with that lunatic!” I took a few angry breaths to settle myself.

  “Whoa! Easy kid” chuckled one of the other elders. A stocky gentleman who was missing a few teeth. “If yis feel that strong about not going back we won’t makeya!” he soothed. “Do you hold any ill will toward the town or its people?” asked another elder. This one had darker skin. He also appeared to be the youngest, perhaps fifty to Mags's 80. I thought about it. “I’m still a little mad at Rose and Leah for trying to kill me” I muttered. Mags let out a cackle of ughter. “That’s another lie. Why lie about that, it makes you look bad” she chuckled.

  I sighed. “I guess you know my own feelings better than I do somehow. Fine, I bear the town no ill will or whatever. I mostly just want to be left alone” I said. Mags smiled. “She speaks true” she called. The other elders nodded to themselves. “Well in that case, you can stay as long as you like. Its like you said: We all got someone to hide from. No reason we can’t be good neighbours” she said.

  “Just a moment Maggie” said the dark skinned one. “What is your name young one?” he said. “Vanessa Wolfe” I responded. “Why would you lie about yer name of all things?” asked Mags. “Well for one thing it means if any of you meet that horrible man and he asks you about some stranger you’ve never heard of you can’t sell me out. But mostly I never liked that name anyway. I prefer to be called Vanessa Wolfe, no matter what it might say on my tombstone” I said.

  “Very well miss Wolfe” said the dark skinned one. “My name is Elder Laurent. My power is to cause explosions within line of sight. This dy is elder Maggie. She has the power to spot any deception even if you try to twist your words to tell a technical truth. This gentleman is elder Nichos. He’s the best teleporter in the whole town. That dy there is Ange. She makes forcefields. And that’s Sam. Short for Sampson. He’s a powerful beastshifter who can fell a hundred year old tree with a single kick, and that’s in his human form”

  Elder Nichos looked to be the eldest elder. The wispy patches of hair he had left were snow white and grew wildly like little dust devils of snow. Elder Ange was a short sourfaced woman who seemed to have decided that smiling gave you wrinkles. Her hair was bleached blonde. I briefly wondered whether she was using her influence as an elder to get her hands on hairdye or if she used a more rustic alternative. Sampson was absolutely huge. Probably 6′ 7″ and broad as a barn. He wasn't wearing a shirt, and his body was wrinkled and covered in grey hair and liver spots and small, painful looking scars. I recalled that Leah didn't have a single scar on her even after I sshed her up with a knife and I wondered just how bad the injuries must have been to have left someone with such powerful healing so marked. Bullets he never bothered to dig out maybe?

  I nodded. “Cool. Its nice to meet you all” I responded. “Is it true you have a power of your own, or is that a lie you told to put us all at ease” asked Laurent. “I have a weak mind control power. Its got a number of applications but I mostly use it to stop people from noticing I’m there” I said. “Is it dangerous?” asked elder Laurent. I thought back to Leah, face down and dead in a pte of mash potato and steak. “Yes, extremely” I responded ftly. Elder Maggie raised her eyebrows. “She speaks the truth” she said with a note of concern.

  “Have you ever seriously injured someone with your powers?” asked Elder Laurent. “Yes. Jessica had to see the school nurse after I disabled her powers at an inopportune moment and she fell and hit her head” I recounted. “Oh, thas nothing to worry about, she’d have been fine regardless” ughed elder Maggie. I fixed her with a concerned stare. “She hit her head. People die from that Elder Maggie. She could have easily died” I said. “Yeah well, she didn’t so its fine. Also, just Mags is fine dear. We don’t stand on ceremony here” she responded dismissively. I sighed.

  “Have you left town since you arrived” asked Elder Laurent. I nodded. “I drive out to a rger town about once every two to three weeks to stock up on provisions I can’t acquire here. Gas, Medicine, refrigerated pizzas. That sort of thing” I said. Elder Laurent’s face devolved into full blown panic. “Were you seen!” he asked. “Seen yes. Noticed no. I tend to blend into the background even without the whole subconsciously mind controlling people into not noticing me thing” I said. “What if you were followed?” he said. “On winding country dirt roads with hairpin turns? Yeah, good luck with that” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “But the government can track cars!” he excimed. I sighed. “The car is older than I am. It predates that trend probably by the entire time I’ve been alive” I stated calmly. “Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist” ughed Elder Maggie. “What’s done is done. If the hunters aren’t banging down our doors, I reckon they ain’t found her yet”

  “Thanks” I said. “That said, don’t leave again. Y’ll be safe here I on my honour as an elder” she said, not unkindly. I frowned. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. There’s things I need from the outside and some of them are specialty items that can’t be made here” I stated pinly. “Out of the question” snapped Laurent. “You are putting everyone in danger by leaving” he said. “You can’t stop me” I snapped. There was a loud bang somewhere behind me. I jumped and then clutched my left ear, which was now ringing. “Can we” said elder Laurent with a smirk.

  “YOU ARE ON FIRE!” I thought. He began yelling in shock and patting down fmes that weren’t there, before remembering there was a ke behind him and diving in. Elder Ange was suddenly enveloped in a shiny metallic bubble that perfectly reflected all light that struck it like a spherical mirror. Elder Nichos had teleported out just before the explosion. I’m not sure to where. Elder Maggie for her part just ughed. Elder Laurent bobbed to the surface. “Make them go away” he cried. “Realizing they’re not real would be enough to do that” I said pinly. He paused his squirming and then started to curse me out. “Hush Laurie. If ya didn’t want a fight you shouldn’t ha picked one” ughed Mags.

  She then turned to me. “You seem confident in your ability to do some serious damage with your power. D’ya think you could use it to defend yerself?” she asked. “Yes” I responded. “If somein was on yer tail and tryin to find the town, d’ya think you could stop em?” she asked. “Easily” I said. “Would ya kill to protect yer home” she asked. “Its not my home” I grunted. “Well I’m sorry to hear that honey. But could ya kill to protect yer hidin spot?” she said with a sad smile. “If the need arises” I said. Wouldn’t even be the first person I’d killed this week, and though the idea of letting someone stay dead didn’t sit right with me, letting these hunters the elders mentioned find us was not an option. Everyone in town would be killed or worse.

  “Okay kid. Prove to me you have the metal ta do what needs ta be done. Go hunt me something. If you bring me back somethin ya killed, you can leave the mountain with my blessing” she said. I nodded. “Okay”

  I took off into the woods. Killing something for food wouldn’t phase me much. My father had kicked me across that bridge the minute I had the finger strength to pull a trigger. I made it a football field or three into the woods before I spotted a woodpecker. I shook my head. Bit of a waste to kill something that small. Not much meat. I spotted a deer after a few minutes. I considered it as a target but ruled it out on the fact it would be difficult to carry back to the ke and even harder to convince it to follow me for that long. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a Rabbit. “DIE”. It never saw me coming. Quicker than a bullet. I picked up my quarry. I began to double back on my own trail.

  I tried not to look at the body. Just because I understand there’s no meat without death doesn’t suddenly fill me with contentment about the concept. Hopefully one of the elders likes rabbit. If not, I’d just drop it off with the pce in town that cooks most of the hot food. Wait, weren’t some of the beastshifters rabbitesque? Does that mean they don’t eat rabbit in town? Did I commit a massive faux pas by killing one? Ugh. If there’s animals I’m not supposed to kill and Mags didn’t think to tell me I’m going to be very cross.

  The ground began to rumble slightly. I heard the sound of branches breaking somewhere off to my left. I turned my head. There was an enormous grizzly bear barrelling through the woods towards me. I made eye contact. It picked up speed. I vaguely remembered reading somewhere that bears can run 40 miles an hour. There’s an old proverb about what to do if you meet a bear in the woods. “If it’s brown lie down. If it’s bck fight back. If it’s white, night night”. My father had a slightly different proverb about bears. “If you see a bear just fucking shoot it”. Old instincts kicked in. “DIE”.

  The bear tripped over its own feet, rolled for a bit and then came to a stop about half a football field off. I let out a sigh. Great, another dead animal I maybe shouldn’t have killed. Just what the freaking doctor ordered. I hope to hell I wasn’t failing some sort of character test where I was meant to conclude killing was wrong and come out sobbing and throwing my arms around Elder Maggie and begging her to protect me from the scary bits of the world. To Rowling with that crap. I’d been the only one protecting me from the scary bits since I was old enough to be scared.

  I heard a cackle from the direction of the downed bear. Elders Maggie and Nichos were poking it. “Oh, she got him GOOD” cackled Maggie. My stomach sank. I ran over to them. “Please tell me that’s not elder Sampson” I squeaked. “Oh rex, he’s a beastshifter. They’re almost impossible to kill. He’ll be right as rain in a few minutes” scoffed elder Maggie. I dropped the dead rabbit. I crouched down by elder Sampson’s head. I pced my hands on its cranium. “WAKE UP”. An owl shot from its hovel in the trees above and took off like it had just met death. “WAKE UP”. The dead rabbit began twitching. So much for being humane. “WAKE THE FUCK UP!”. The dead rabbit jumped a foot in a random direction.

  How long had he been out? How long was I staring into space after I downed the bear? Had the other elders arrived immediately? Had his chance passed while I was worrying if I’d broken local customs? Why had I told it to die? Why not just sleep? Its not like my power had to worry about the correct tranquillizer dosage! Elder Maggie was frowning. “WAKE UP NOW!”. The bear took a deep breath. I let go and colpsed onto my back. The bear started coughing.

  “Damn, I feel like I just got hit by another truck” barked Elder Sampson. I guess beastshifters can still speak while in their beast forms. Cool. I blinked and the forest canopy was repced with clear skies. “Are you well kid” asked Elder Maggie. “Yeah, just used my power too hard” I said. “That was terrifying” she said shortly. “You sicced a bear on me. Me getting startled and accidentally killing an elder is on you” I grunted. “I wasn’t talkin about that. A dead rabbit ran away! An I’m pretty sure I saw half a dead fox get chased by a coyote. That’s not a weak mind control power. You pulled a damn Ciapheus the cold and raised the damn dead!”

  “The dead are raised all the time in the out there. I’m not so special” I chuckled. I sat up, a bit of my energy returning at st. “You needa put every st one of those things back down” snapped Maggie. “Now who’s overreacting? They’ll die again of their own accord. Death does not like being cheated. In fact, Elder Sampson should probably go see a healer before something down below notices he’s gone” I ughed.

  “Now. You said if I killed something you’d acknowledge my ability to look after myself. I think downing a charging bear from a football field away has to count, right? I killed the bear. The bear is here. Resurrections aside I think I’ve earned your blessing to leave. Correct? Or do I need to go back in the woods to kill another rabbit?”

  Elder Maggie sighed. “Elder Sampson was to see how you’d handle an unexpected danger. That was the real test You clearly have both the power and the wits to protect yourself. I’ll also warn everyone that your power is highly dangerous” she said. “Will that make people scared of me?” I asked. “Yes” she replied. Well at least she didn’t try to sugarcoat it.

  “Fine. I prefer my own company anyway. Nothing tells you who your real friends are like being branded a problem” I recalled dryly. “That’s a truth. Sorry that happened to you. And real sorry it has to happen again” sighed elder Maggie. I sighed back. This was not how I was hoping meeting the elders would go.

  “Hey, when I leave town, could I take some friends with me?” I asked. Elder Maggie paused to consider. “Who do you want to take?” she asked. “My friends Rose Bck, Leah Raine and Alice Cooper” I said. “Hmmm… not bad team composition. A beastshifter for recognizance, a telekinetic for if things get ugly. Missing something though. hmm…” Elder Maggie pondered.

  “An escape pn Mags, she should take a teleporter just in case. And an adult at that. Perhaps young Victoria. She badly wishes to explore a bit of the wider world, to the point I fear she may leave of her own accord and get into some sort of trouble. I’m sure she’d be delighted to come.” said Elder Laurent. “Right you are Laurie. Your friends can come if Victoria does” said Elder Maggie.

  I nodded. “Sure, she can come. The car just about has room for five. Can you let her know to be at the st farmhouse on the east road out of town by 6:30 tomorrow morning” I said. Maggie chuckled. “Aren’t you in a hurry. Are you going to bring them back safe?” she asked. “I will do my very best to ensure they arrive home safe and sound elder Maggie” I promised. She nodded. “That’s a good girl. Have fun with your friends. I’ll be telling your essays teacher you’re going so be prepared to write about it on Monday” she chuckled. I gave an annoyed scowl but I couldn’t think of a good reason she shouldn’t tell the teacher about it.

  “Oh, could you also tell Rose and Leah? I don’t know where their houses are” I called out to elder Nichos. “Why didn’t you tell them yourself earlier?” he scowled. “Didn’t want to get their hopes up if they weren’t allowed to leave! Thanks!” I called as I dashed away. I had some preparations to do. “I’ll be calling into you at school on Monday. You better have a thorough report” called Elder Laurent.