It was a hospital,
but it didn't look like SF General - the linoleum was too new and clean, and
the nurses and orderlies actually looked competent and not perennially
overworked. I tried to get their attention, but in the sacred tradition of
hospital staffs everywhere, they were busy. I looked around for someone who
looked like a doctor, but again, there was never one around when you really
needed one.
I shuffled along for a bit,
trying to find someone who could tell me where I was and what was going on. I
must have walked all of ten yards before I gave out, which should tell you what
kind of shape I was in. I found a waiting area and gratefully sat down. One of
the amazing things about being sick is how it makes you appreciate the little
things like being able to walk down the hall without getting winded.
As I sat there,
trying to build up the strength for a grueling marathon trek of maybe ten feet,
I noticed that some kind of commotion had erupted. But not to worry, this was
an Intensive Care Unit; micro-emergencies were probably part of the everyday
scene here. I heard someone say, "Bryony is missing!" I guess that
they lost track of a patient. I should be so lucky as to have someone looking
for me.
I was sitting there
getting my meager breath back, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up
and saw an attractive blonde woman of maybe some forty-odd years, dressed in
well-cut tweeds. She looked down at me with worry in her large gray eyes.
"Bryony?" she asked. Maternal worry radiated out from her.
I shook my head.
"Sorry, lady. I just woke up. I wouldn't know this Bryony if she came up
and bit me on the nose."
Her eyes went wide
with shock. "Bryony? Oh, my god."
"Hey, I told
you, I haven't seen anyone running around with a tag saying 'Bryony'."
She turned and ran. "I hope you find her!" I yelled after her. "Oh
well, maybe after they find her, I can get someone to tell me what's going on,"
I muttered to myself.
With that, I gave a
deep breath and struggled to my feet to renew my quest for a clue. Then a swarm
of nurses (and if you've ever seen a bunch of nurses and orderlies working in
concert, you know what I mean when I say 'swarm') buzzed around me, swept me
off my feet and hustled me back to my room. Then that blonde woman came up and
said, "Now, don't worry, Bryony, everything's gonna be all right!"
I started to make an
objection, when I suddenly caught sight of myself in the reflection of a
polished steel cabinet. My reflection was of a slight, young blonde girl, of
maybe sixteen. She - that is, I - was rather pretty, allowing for the fact that
I'd just gotten up from a coma of god-only-knows-how-long.
Oh God - _I'M_
Bryony. Somehow, I wound up in this girl's body!
They hustled me back
into the bed, and a nurse stuck me with a needle full of something. The blonde
woman, Bryony's (MY?) mother sat by me, holding my hand as the sedative took
effect. The last thought that ran through my head as I went under was, 'Oh Man,
I am in SO MUCH trouble!'
*****
When I woke up, I
was alone again, but my head was a lot clearer. I checked my left wrist. There
was one of those white plastic hospital identification bracelets there. It
said, 'HAWTHORNE, BRYONY', and then a lot of alphanumeric gibberish. I hate to
be cliche, but the next place that my hands went was to my chest. Yep, tits. Nice
ones, too. Not double Ds, or anything, but nice enough for someone who looked
like she was in high school.
Now, this is the
part where I'm supposed to get all weirded out about losing my manhood and
being stuck in a girl's body. Sorry, but that wasn't my problem. No, if
anything, my problem was sort of like when you get something really great in
the mail, only after you've unwrapped this really great thing, you realize that
the post office made a mistake, and that they sent it to the wrong address. And
here's this really great thing that your really want really badly, that belongs
to somebody else.
Your response is
probably, 'What, are you some kind of weirdo?'
Well, as a matter of
fact - Yes.
I've always dreamed
of becoming a woman. It's the reason that I got interested in the occult in the
first place. My soul always felt like a stranger in my male body. Winding up
like this is what I've always wanted, with all my soul.
But not like this.
This body already
belongs to somebody. Somebody named Bryony. You don't just go around
nabbing other peoples' bodies. One of the things that I learned early on, is
that contrary to what you see in horror and fantasy movies, there is a very
delicate balance of ethics that is constantly working in magic. You do _not_
get something for nothing, and tricking the universe is a very hard thing to do.
Down through history, sorcerers and wizards have accomplished great things,
only to realize that they'd run up a huge karmic debt in doing so, with
disastrous results. Being in this young, healthy, pretty young female body is
what I've always wanted. But, I have to somehow find the real Bryony, wherever
she is, and give it back to her. Because, if I don't, the consequences will be
much worse than simply losing this lovely body. Tradition states, that what you
do comes back to you, threefold.
But, in the
meantime, I've got to find Bryony. And I'm going to have to do it all by
myself. I don't know anyone in The Craft who can help me, and if I tell her mother
that I'm not her daughter, I'll wind up in a looneybin.
Hold on. Let's use
Occam's Razor. Keep it simple, until complications arise. I am in Bryony's body.
The immediate implication is that Bryony is in my body. Her spirit, if
it hadn't died, had to go somewhere, and my body has a current vacancy. I
always put up wards against unwanted spiritual intruders as part of my magickal
workings, so there isn't much chance of some astral opportunist hijacking my
frame. So, there are two options - either Bryony is in my body, or she died,
her passing somehow trapped me in her body, and my old body has been untenanted
for all this time. If the latter, my body is D-E-A-D dead.
But, if Bryony
passed over, then I'm not really trespassing, I'm just keeping her body warm. So,
there's no karmic penalty. I have to find out what's happening with my old body.
My landlady, Mrs. Padecievski.
I know her telephone number by heart and she sometimes fields incoming phone
calls for me. If I can get to a telephone, I can ask for 'Mister O'Brian', and
she'll tell me if 'he' is in, or if he's suddenly died, or if he's been carted
off to the looneybin. Don't ask me what I'm going to do if Bryony has been
admitted to Napa State Mental Hospital. No, don't go borrowing trouble, get the
facts first, then make plans.
*****
"Hello? Is this
the residence where Mister Mark O'Brian lives?"
"Not anymore."
"Why? What
happened? Is he all right?" Ten thousand nameless dreads filled the pit of
my stomach.
"Oh, he's all
right. He just lit out one day about a week ago, without saying so much as 'Boo!'
Or paying advance rent, which he always did before. If you catch up with him,
tell him that I'll hold his stuff for a month, and if he doesn't either return
or at least pay for some storage, that I'm selling his stuff."
"Uhm,
don't worry about that. Hold onto his things. I'm sure that he'll pay you any
back rent that might accrue. Y'see, I'm calling about a family emergency-"
"He has family?"
"Well, it's
something like that. Anyway, if he's already left, then he should be showing up
soon. I'll tell him to give you a phone call when he shows up."
*****
Well, that settles
that. Bryony's in my body, and probably on a plane to wherever this is,
probably steaming mad. Well, now all have to do is wait for her to show up and
make herself known. No, I also have to live with her mother and whatever other
family she has, without making her look too weird. Oh well, at least I'll be
able to live a girl's life for a week or so. The really hard part is gonna be
giving this up.
<Hmph>
Maybe this is all part of some kind of Mentor's test, to see if I'll do the
right thing. At least I'll keep that in mind; it should take away a little of
the sting of losing this body.
Jeez! I can't even play
with myself in good faith! This sucks!
*****
Arthur Hawthorne
swung his legs from the edge of the hospital waiting room chair. Waiting for
hours is _not_ what eight-year old boys are best known for. He slid off the
chair and went exploring, which eight-year-olds are much better at. Of course,
all there was to explore was hospital stuff, and they wouldn't let him anywhere
near the really interesting stuff. Then a tall, athletic young man of
about twenty came looking for him.
"Hey, Squirt! Dr.
Royal says she wants to talk to all of us!"
Arthur grinned and
ran over to his big brother. Even a casual observer could tell that the boy
idolized his college age brother. Ethan put a hand on his kid brother's
shoulder, then indulgently pushed him in the direction of Dr. Royal's office.
When Ethan herded
Arthur into the office, Dr. Royal took a long look at the assembled Hawthorne
family. It was the first time that she'd seen all of them in one place at the
same time, unless you allowed for Bryony. They looked more like the cast of a
Family Sitcom than a real family in these fragmented times - a father, a
mother, two sons and a grandmother. She even understood that there were a
couple of aunts and uncles, who wanted to be here, but couldn't.
Oh well, best to get
on with it. She just wished that she could give them some really good news.
"All right, I've asked you all here because I want to be able to answer
any questions that you might have. This is going to be a very delicate time for
all of you, and I don't want any misunderstandings to make it worse."
Mrs. Wayland, the
grandmother, spoke up. "I understand that when she woke up, Bryony didn't
recognize her own mother?"
"Yes, that's
right. We don't know why it happened, but Bryony is showing the classic
symptoms of Complete Personal Amnesia."
Ethan barely managed
to stifle a guffaw into a snort. "Oh, Please! You called me away from
college, just to cope with one of little Bryony's harebrained scams?" Arthur
backed up his big brother with a derisive snicker.
Laurel Hawthorne
irritably swatted her elder son on the arm with the back of her hand. "Hush!
This is serious! I was there! She didn't recognize me, not for a second!"
"Oh, come ON,
Mom! This is Bryony we're talking about here! Bad things never happen to
Bri, she causes them to happen to other people!"
Dr. Royal jumped in.
"I don't blame you, Ethan. Amnesia happens far more often on TV than in
real life. I suspected that she might be pulling something, so I arranged for a
Stress Analysis test to be run-"
Ethan perked up.
"You put Bryunder a Lie Detector? And _I_ wasn't there to ask questions?"
He bit his lip and shook in mock frustration. Laurel swatted him again.
Dennis Hawthorne,
Bryony's father, spoke up. "Is this about those pictures that you asked us
for, Penny?"
Dr. Royal nodded.
"We hooked up Bryony to a machine that measures the change in the voltage
on a person's skin - a simple, non-invasive version of a lie detector - and
showed her a lot of pictures. Some of those pictures were of your family, some
were of people that I know that she knows, like some of her teachers, students
at her school, your pastor, your neighbors, and other locals whose pictures I
could scare up. I also threw in pictures of celebrities, politicians,
historical figures, and of people who Bryony has no way of knowing. I showed
them to her one at a time and asked her if she recognized them. The idea is
that if she did recognize any of them, that there would be a voltaic reaction
that the machine would pick up on. If she lied about recognizing them, the
reaction would be greater."
"And?" was
the general question.
"As far as we
can tell, she didn't lie once. She was under a good deal of stress, but the
only real reaction that she had to any of the pictures was of yours, Laurel."
"Mine?"
"Yes, but
remember, you have been identified to her as her mother - her reaction to your
picture would be stronger, if she felt any stress about not recognizing you."
Mrs. Wayland spoke
up again. "She didn't recognize any of us?"
Dr. Royal sadly
shook her head.
Dennis Hawthorne
asked, "Well, what does she remember? Does she remember what she
was doing out in those woods that night?"
"Uhm, well,
this is where it gets really interesting... You see, in reality Amnesia doesn't
work the way it does on TV. Memory isn't lost through a simple conk on the
head, which can then be conveniently restored with another conk on the head. Memory
is lost either through gross physical brain damage-"
Even blase Ethan
took an apprehensive intake of breath with that possibility.
"-which, Thank
God, doesn't seem to be the case here, or by the person unconsciously
repressing all those memories to block out a traumatic experience. I think that
the latter may indeed be what's happening. For instance, of the pictures of neighbors
and locals that I showed her, she didn't recognize any of them. Though for some
reason, she seems to think that the Principal of her high school looks like the
Mayor of San Francisco. Do any of you know what he looks like?" The
Assembled Hawthornes shook their heads. "She did very well on historical
figures, though. She had rather high reactions to Presidents Kennedy and Nixon,
and to Martin Luther King, for some reason. Now, here's a really interesting
point - on the show business types, she did very well on old movie stars, like
Katherine Hepburne and Humphrey Bogart; but her reaction to more recent
celebrities, like the boy-band Outta-Synch, was almost nil."
"But that's ridiculous!"
Laurel wailed, "Bryony loves Outta-Synch! She has all their CDs,
and her room is almost papered with posters of them!"
"I was afraid
of that. You see, her thinking process doesn't seem to have been affected, only
her personal associations. This suggests that Bryony experienced some kind of
terrible trauma on Halloween night, and that she's blocking it out so well that
she's completely repressing everything connected with it. Tell me, do you have
any idea of what might have happened to her that night?"
"No, not a clue!
A County Deputy, who was checking the area for drunks after the Halloween
parties, found her out in Collins' Wood late the next morning. Her best
friends, Ivy and Heather, said that she left the party at Rowan's house at 11,
and said that she'd be head right home. We don't have any real idea of how she
got to Collins' Wood."
Doctor Royal sighed.
"Well, in cases of traumatic blocking like this, it's mostly a matter of
the patient feeling safe enough to remember. If she's kept in safe, familiar
surroundings, either things will start to come back to her over the next few
weeks, until she suddenly feels up to remembering it, or she'll begin to put
the pieces of her life together and simply block off that one particular
episode."
Laurel perked up.
"Familiar surroundings? You mean that we can take her home?"
Doctor Royal nodded.
"As tempting as it is to keep her under observation, the best thing would
be to put her in a place where here memory is constantly being prodded. She
seems to want to remember. If her unconscious accepts that it's safe to
remember, eventually she will."
"What about
school?"
"Definitely. Remember,
while she has to feel safe, we don't want to create a situation where she's
being coddled because she's 'the poor amnesiac girl'. If not remembering
is safe and rewarded, she won't remember. Odds are that she'll pick up little
clues just from the way that people relate to her that will be more helpful
than if we keep showing her pictures and demanding that she remember. Right
now, she's being very brave, but you can tell that she's actually very
frightened."
*****
I tried to mask my
nervousness. The Hawthornes were taking me 'home' today. Home. It's been so
long since I've been anywhere that even remotely seemed like home. But it isn't
my home; it's Bryony's home. It just seems so wrong to be going
there, in her body, to live her life. But the real problem was that this is
what I wanted most in the world - a life as a girl, with a loving family. This
is how the Devil works: he offers you things that you want with all your heart,
and the price is just a trifling thing. But the real cost is that you have to
do something that you know, deep in your heart is wrong, totally wrong. And
you will have no right to this precious thing. So, to keep it, you must keep
doing things that you know are wrong. Eventually, you either lose the precious
thing, because it was never really yours to begin with, or you discover that
the precious thing that you wanted so badly isn't what you thought it was. And
there you are, with nothing - no honor, no self-respect, and no soul, all for
something that you couldn't keep. No, I'll have to live her life, but keep
myself apart from it, so that when Bryony does come back, I'll be able to give
her life back, and walk away.
They wheeled me out
to the lobby, where I waited with Ethan and Arthur, the brothers. I noticed the
newspaper stand in the lobby and snuck a look at the front page. The Hartford
Courant, Nov 8th. The
Eighth. With the three days that I've spent in the hospital recuperating, that
means that I spent five days in a coma. But, to be honest, from what I've
heard, they found me out in some woods after spending all night out in the cold
air with frost on the ground. So, I spent at least a few days recovering from
hypothermia. Now, I can't call Mrs. Padecievski and ask when 'Mister O'Brian'
left, but since Bryony woke up in a nice warm (if cramped) apartment, she must
have left at least a couple of days before I left. So, she's had four days to
get here. _If_ the Hawthornes live in Hartford, and not in one of these little
Frank Capra hamlets that I tend to associate with Connecticut.
But still, four
days? It only takes a few hours to fly from the West Coast to the East Coast,
and a couple of more hours on a train from New York or Boston. And she
shouldn't have any problem getting here; she woke up in my body with my credit
cards in my wallet. My credit cards? What, is she enjoying a shopping spree in
New York with my credit cards, and she's only gonna show up when she's maxed
them out? I shuddered at the image of a middle-aged man making a blitzkrieg
through the Junior Misses' department at Neimann-Marcus®.
Then a well-aged,
discrete dark blue Mercedes-Benz drove up. Oh yeah, these people had money. And
the kind of money that had mold on it, too. These were the kind of people that
didn't waste money on the latest frills and fads. They chose things like
clothes and cars very carefully, and held onto them for years.
The older brother
helped me out of the wheelchair and into the shotgun front seat of the
Mercedes, and then joined little brother in the back. "Where's Mom?" I
asked.
"Your mother
and grandmother are waiting back at the house."
The guys kept up
some cheery chatter among themselves, but I couldn't really pay attention to
it, I was too interested in the scenery. I'd never been to Connecticut before,
and the leaves were just getting into the trademark New England display of
botanical glory. Of course, that's what I was expecting. Now, I'd never really
thought of Connecticut as a State, per se; I'd always thought of it as more
a big suburb that was over represented in the Senate. But it turned out that
Hartford was a real, no-foolin'-around-folks city, and it took the better part
of a half hour to get out of the city limits. Once we were clear of Hartford's
sprawl, the scenery was much more like what I'd been expecting. We drove for
another hour or so, and pulled off the turnpike at one of those little postage
stamp towns. We drove through a town that appeared to have tastefully refused
to change since 1932, complete with a town square with a cannon that must have
been at least two hundred years old.
When we pulled off
of the main thoroughfare, I started to smell real money and it didn't stop
until we drove up to a house that I'd bet my new back teeth had been in their
family for five generations. The house must have been three stories tall, not
counting an old-fashioned half-submerged basement and a gambrel-roofed attic,
and the garage was a separate outbuilding. I found out later that there was a
groundskeepers' cottage discretely hidden out back. When it had been built,
over a hundred years ago, it had been built for the kind of people who didn't
just have servants, but had staffs of servants. Maybe not large
staffs, but still staffs. I vaguely wondered from my reading of 19th Century novels if they had a 'Servants
Hall'.
'Dad' stopped the
car just in front, and the brothers helped me out of the car. 'Mom' and 'Gran',
who were waiting on the front porch, which was glassed in against the
Connecticut winters, came bustling out, welcoming me 'home'. I was herded like
a wayward goose into the house proper, past the front parlor and into the
living room.
One way that you can
tell real Old Money from the people who try to make out like they are, is that
the McCoy doesn't try to look like it. If they have wooden ducks, then they are
legitimate wooden ducks that were (or are) used for duck hunting, were carved
sometime during the Harding administration, and are kept with the rest of the
duck hunting gear, not used as decor. If they have models of racing yachts,
then they are the actual models used during the design and construction of a
real boat, belonging to them or an ancestor. If they have antiques, then they
are pieces of furniture that have been in the family for generations, and are
kept around because they are comfortable, well made and paid for. The
grandfather clock in the hallway had either belonged to the Hawthornes' Great-great-great
grandfather, or at least to a Great-grandfather who had picked it up during the
Depression, when such things were going cheap. The newest things in the house,
as far as I could tell, were the electronic appliances, and I got the
impression that they weren't happy about the rate at which that such things
went obsolete.
A plump, merry-faced
middle-aged woman who couldn't have been more Irish if she'd been wearing a
shamrock pin met me in the hallway. She looked at me with a combination of
welcome, relief, concern, apprehension and wonder. She placed a gentle hand on
my arm and said in a warm voice, "Welcome home, Bryony."
"Thank you...?"
I let it hang there.
A flicker of 'Well,
so!' crossed her eyes. "Mrs. Haggerty." She left it at that, and went
toward the back of the house.
With that, I was
herded into the living room, and we all sat down. A pair of Alsatian Shepard
dogs named Tristan and Isolde came up and smelled me experimentally. The
conversation was a trifle strained, what with the obvious topic of discussion
being the stranger-not-stranger-and-all- the-stranger-for-it in their midst. They
talked about Aunt This and Uncle That, and Mrs. Theother down the street. Ethan
talked about his classes at Yale; it seemed that he was missing some primo
cramming time before term finals to be here. Mrs. Haggerty came in with a tray
of hot cocoa. It was really good cocoa, but I think everyone was a little
relieved when 'Mom' suggested that I go up to my room and change for dinner. I
was halfway up the front stairs before I remembered that I didn't have the
slightest idea of which of the doors lead to Bryony's room. They were all
pretty much identical, and there weren't any 'Bryony's Room' or 'Arthur's Room'
signs. I stood there at the head of the stairs for at least five minutes,
unable to think. Why was I so scared?
Mom rescued me when
she came up the stairs. "Bryony, why are you standing here?"
I gave her a look,
and she picked up on it immediately. "Oh, of course." She took me by
the crook of the arm and led me down the hall to one of the doors. Bryony's
room looked pretty much as I feared it would; well, not completely. Thank God,
apparently Bryony doesn't go in for ruffles and lace, or for squads of plush
toys. There were a few stuffed animals and dolls, but not the velour zoo that
I'd been fearing. Still, it was all pastel blue and white, plastered with
posters of insipid boy bands and kittens and unicorns. There was a surprisingly
professional vanity table with a triple mirror and a full length standing
mirror. There was also a desk with schoolbooks and notebooks and a very up-to-date
computer on it.
I looked through her
closets and found what I imagined were pretty standard girl things. Well, there
was a full-length triple mirror, but other than that, nothing out of the
ordinary. Okay, Bryony apparently dressed a little more flashily than I thought
a nice Old Money girl would.
From there, I
drifted to the vanity table. I sat down and took a long hard look in the mirror.
Yes, I'd done it a lot in the hospital, but there is something very
existentially unsettling about looking in a mirror and seeing a stranger's face.
Not to mention all the other stuff tacked on. The face - well, I couldn't
really call it my face, now could I? - was a perfect, delicate oval,
with porcelain fine features, large round blue eyes and a cupid's bow mouth. It
had that slightly over-sharp WASPy beauty that I tend to associate with the
East Coast Old Guard. Now, if this had been one of those amateur TG fiction
stories that I admit that I am addicted to reading on places like Fictionmania
or Sapphire's Place, I'd have a cascade of golden ringlets that fell to my waist,
an hourglass figure, and a pair of watermelons strapped to my chest with
doorbell like nipples that jolted with mind-searing pleasure when I lovingly
stroked them. The hair was a straight dirty blonde that fell to the jaw, the
figure was okay for a sixteen-year-old, and there were a couple of respectable
B cup breasts. As for the nipples, well, I haven't worked up the nerve. The
girl in the mirror was definitely cute, but not Playboy material.
I ran a brush
through my hair for a few minutes, and gave up on it. I went over the to bed
and plopped down on it. I lay back and tried to analyze what I was feeling. After
several minutes of Freud-quality soul searching, I decided that my problem was
that I felt like a chump for not just cutting loose and enjoying all the simple
treasures that were being laid out so temptingly for me; at the same time, I
felt like scum for wanting to. I was damned if I did and damned if I didn't,
and double-damned for being caught in the middle. Maybe this is some really
subtle 'Twilight Zone' kind of Hell.
There was a knocking
at the door. Feeling a bit presumptuous, I said, "Come in."
The door opened, and
Bryony's grandmother poked her head in. She looked at me and her eyebrows went
up. "Oh, Dear." She came in a sat by me on the bed. After a bit, she
said in a flat voice, "It's hard, isn't it?"
I opened my mouth,
and a thousand different things got jammed in my mouth. I shut it, took a deep
breath, and said, "I'm not who you think I am." With that, it became
of torrent of words that spilled out on its own. "I'm not Bryony. I know
that I look like her, but when I look around, I don't see anything that's
really mine, not even this face! There's nothing of me here. I
feel like an impostor. I feel like I'm supposed to sleep in somebody else's
bed, wear someone else's clothes, and live someone else's life! I'm
wearing someone else's body! I'm not Bryony, and what's going to happen
to me when she finally shows up?" I was hyperventilating by the time that
I finished.
"Oh. I see. So,
you're not Bryony." She laid a gentle hand on my shoulder and somehow I
felt a lot better. "Very well then, Stranger, who are you?"
"I...I can't
say."
"I see. Well
then, stranger, let me welcome you to our home. My name is Marjoram Wayland. I'm
Bryony's grandmother. Bryony isn't here right now, so I don't think that it
will hurt anything if you use her room. After all, you are going to have to
sleep somewhere, and we forgot to make up one of the guest rooms."
I gave her a 'oh,
give me break' look.
She smiled, and
wrapped an arm around my shoulder. "Why are you so afraid to relax and
just let yourself get comfortable?"
"This isn't my
home. It's Bryony's home. I'm not Bryony, I'm _me_. If I do get comfortable,
what is gonna happen to me when Bryony comes back?"
"I can't answer
that. But tell me this. Will going around on pins and needles really do you any
good? You're worried that you aren't somehow real. Well, you're as real as
Bryony was, maybe more-so. But how are you going to know, if you don't let
yourself live? You're going to have to find out who you are, whether that's the
girl we knew as Bryony or not. Maybe you'll turn out to be someone who's a
litte bit of Bryony and a little bit of..."
I just bit my lower
lip and looked helpless.
"Very well. Let's
see now, Bryony's middle name is Amanda. Let's call you Amanda for now. Well,
let's just see what happens, Amanda, and let whatever happens happen. You just
have to have a little faith in yourself. You have to believe that you'll know
what's best when the time comes, and that you'll have the strength of character
to do it." She turned the half-hug into a full-blown hug.
It's amazing how
wonderful a simple, caring hug from an old woman can be. And she was right. I've
handled painful situations before. When Bryony gets here, I know that I'll have
the guts to let go of this. And in the mean time, well, I've always wanted
something like this - what would it hurt? I'll live the fantasy for a while. At
least when I'm back in my own body, I won't feel like a putz for not seizing
the day and all that. The questions about orgasm alone would be enough to drive
me nuts. Besides, if I try to fit in, Bryony's family will be that much more
likely to believe it when she 'suddenly gets her memory back'. Hey, that's my
story, and I'm sticking to it.
I hugged her right
back. "Okay then, what do I call you?"
"Purely for
appearances sake, you can call me 'Gran'. Likewise, you will refer to my
daughter as 'Mom', and my son-in-law as 'Daddy'. You may call my two grandsons
'lunkhead', 'big lummox', 'smart alec', 'little pest', or 'barf-face' or
whatever the situation calls for, as the need arises."
With that, we got up
off of the bed, and Gran guided me through getting dressed for dinner. I wound
up in a red bulky knit sweater, a blue skirt, white hose, black penny loafters
and a blue hairband keeping my hair in place. That done, we went downstairs to
help Mrs. Haggerty with making dinner.
Apparently, the
Hawthornes weren't the stiff, ultra-formal kind of Old Money. The women were
expected to help out in the kitchen and around the house, and the menfolk were
expected to handle the traditionally male jobs. They dressed for dinner, but
not formally - Informally might be the word, as opposed to the slovenly way
that most Americans come to the table. Food was passed, not grabbed, but the
conversation was free and unstructured. Gran introduced me to the family as
'Amanda', claiming that 'Bryony wouldn't be with us for a while'. She
introduced me to each member of the household, along with some little tidbit
about each one.
For instance, Ethan,
the older brother, played Lacrosse at Yale. _Lacrosse_? Who plays Lacrosse?
Ethan went on for a bit, explaining the game. From little comments that he
made, it was clear that Ethan wasn't buying the 'Amanda' story for a second.
"So, 'Amanda',"
he started, "what do you think of Bryony's room?"
"It's nice."
What was I supposed to say? I'd only seen it for a couple of minutes!
"And what about
the posters? What do you think about that band 'Outta Synch'?"
I shrugged. "I
don't know what they sound like, so I can't really say anything."
"Well,
personally, I think that they sound utterly lame. And they can't dance to save
their lives. And I think that the lead singer Teddy is a fag." He
delivered the last bit with a real punch and glared at me, as if he dared me to
debate the point.
I shrugged. "How
would _I_ know?" I calmly resumed eating.
Ethan looked mildly
taken aback. "So, when are you going to go back to school?"
I looked at 'Mom'. She
said briskly, "The doctor thinks that having Amanda attend school might
jog a few old memories." She looked at me and gave a rueful smile. "It's
not that we're trying to get rid of you, it's just that the more that you
remember, the better, right?"
"Gee, aren't
Mid-terms coming up? If you can't remember anything, it's gonna really do a
number on your Grade Point average. That might ruin your chance of running for
School Council." He delivered the last bit as if trolling for a reaction.
I shrugged again.
"I'm gonna have too much to handle to do a School Council thing, anyway. Do
I have any other Extra-Curricular activities? I may have to drop them as well."
'Mom' gave me a look.
"Are you sure about that, Bri-Dear?"
"Well, at least
take a sabbatical, until I can start remembering things."
"It's just that
y- Bryony put so much effort into her extra-curricular activities."
"Eh, How
_much_ effort are we talking about?"
With that, 'Mom'
started to rattle off a list of every 'cool' activity that an upper-crust
school might offer - Honor Society, Year Book, Pep Club, School Paper, Debate
Club, Students for World Peace, Young Diplomats, and on and on...
"Gaw- Goodness!
What was she thinking? All that to get into _Yale_? With credits like
that and a 'B' average, you could get into Star Fleet Academy! When did
she have time to EAT?"
'Dad' smiled. "Well,
y-Bryony was very busy. Always doing something."
"At least tell
me that she was only a member of all those things, that she wasn't an
Officer or anything that actually required work!"
"Sorry. Officer
in all of them, President, Editor, or Chief in a lot of them."
"Any chance
that they'll let me take a Leave of Absence, without Prejudice?"
"Why would they
be prejudiced against her?" Little Arthur wondered aloud. "Just
'cause she can't remember nothin'?"
"No, son,
'without prejudice' means that she wants to be able to take some time off from
those clubs, and still be able to return to her jobs in those clubs, once she
gets her memory back."
"Not a chance,"
Arthur said around a mouthful of stewed carrots. "Once they get you outta
the door, they're gonna weld it shut!"
Ethan leaned in
predatorily. "And why is it so important to you that you be able to
keep all the 'jewels in your crown', hmmm?"
"Hey, the
'Amanda' and 'Bryony' act aside, it's all still me, right? It must have
meant something important to me, to spend all that time and effort. If I trash
my own past, it'll be that much harder for me to go back to it. If I know that
it's all still there, I won't be afraid to remember." Actually, I felt
that I had an obligation not to screw things up for Bryony any more than I
absolutely had to.
Ethan grinned evilly.
"Ahh, but might it also be true that if your precious little empire were
somehow threatened, that you might feel the need to stage a premature
comeback, instead of just kicking back and enjoying the vacation?"
Suddenly it hit me
that Ethan was baiting me. But why? I mean, what kind of creep would make fun
of an amnesiac, who can't defend herself? Unless...he doesn't believe that I
can't remember. There's no way that he could know that it's not his sister hiding
out behind these eyeballs. Then it clicked. He thought that his sister was
faking amnesia, and he wasn't about to let her get away with it. Not
unreasonable. After all, this entire scenario was a little too 'Gilligan's
Island/Addams Family/Pick-your favorite 60's SitCom' to really take seriously. But
things were going to be sticky enough as it was, without him trying to trip me
up every step of the way. Not to mention that it would make it easier for
Bryony, if all my gaffs and blunders could be blamed on a distinct and separate
personality. Come to think of it, I had absolutely NO idea of what Bryony was
really like. She's driven, if all the extra-curricular shit is any clue. But
the decor of her room suggests that she has a pretty average fantasy life for a
sixteen-year-old girl. Hold on; what do _I_ really know about how sixteen-year-old
girls think? For all the time that I spent fantasizing about it, I never really
went out and researched it. (Damn good way to get arrested!)
Well, the best way
to handle a problem is to make it somebody else's problem. I smiled evilly back
at Ethan. "Okay, smart guy, how do _you_ suggest that I handle this? You
seem to know Bryony pretty well - what would she want me to do about all
these clubs and things that I'm not equipped to handle?" He looked at me
flabbergasted. "Well, C'mon! I'm sitting here, reaching out for clues as
to what I'm supposed to think and feel, and all that I'm hitting is thin air! If
you're gonna make noise, at least make intelligent noise!"
Ethan started to
make some more noise, but 'Mom' interrupted with a stern *ahem!*. "Now,
Ethan; if you tell her what you think Bryony was like, then she'll just
try to fit your description - or try to be the exact opposite. Amanda, all you
really have to do is remember specific things. You don't have to _be_ Bryony. You
have to discover who you are, not who we think you are."
Frack. Back to
grasping at air.
Well, it was a
little nicer, now that at least it was out in the open. The Hawthornes were
getting used to the idea of having someone who looked just like their daughter
in the house, and I wasn't cringing at every misstep. After dinner, I helped
'Dad' and Ethan with the dishes, and then went and got creamed at some shooter
video game by Arthur. I caught Mrs. Haggerty giving me an occasional look, but
other than that there was nothing terribly off. At about 10, 'Mom' reminded me
that I had my first day back at school tomorrow. I gave 'Mom' and 'Dad' dutiful
pecks on the cheek, and went upstairs.
Then I ran smack dab
into the first real obstacle between fantasy and reality. In my fantasies of
being a girl, I always assumed that all girls have some kind of innate
knowledge of grooming and such things.
Yeah, Right.
Bryony's vanity table had six drawers full of stuff that I had
absolutely NO IDEA of what to do with! What IS the difference between a
moisturizer and an exfoliant? Which do you use first? Do you use them before
going to bed, or when you get up in the morning, or once a week, or WHAT? Do
you do skin care stuff before you take a bath or after? When do you do the anti-acne
medicine? And that's just the skin stuff!
Okay, maybe I might
let myself get a little homey with the Hawthornes, there's no way that Bryony
could hold that against me; but there is no way that a sixteen-year-old girl is
going to forgive me if I accidentally give her acne scars.
Feeling like an
idiot, I crept downstairs and managed to catch Mom's eye. Keeping it quiet, I
took her upstairs and explained the situation. She gave a wry smile of maternal
amusement, and guided my through each step of Bryony's nightly ablution ritual.
The _Pope_ doesn't put as much effort into getting ready for the Christmas
Midnight Mass!
I won't bore you
with the whole dosey-do, but it wound up with me scrubbed, medicated,
moisturized, bathed and almost ready for bed. Mom ended the ritual by brushing
my hair one hunndred times with a stiff brush. There is something very
comforting about having your hair gently brushed for you by someone who you
know cares about you. Then Mom gave me a tight goodnight hug and left me to go
to bed.
As I lay there,
truly alone for the first time in over a week, I finally gave in to temptation.
I started by touching my breasts. After all, they were my breasts, if
only for the time being! There was no incredible rush of sensation like you
read about on those TG fiction sites on-line, but there was a definite feel to
them. As I played with them, the intensity and quality of the sensation
increased. I deliberately kept my pace slow, and built up to a really good
feeling. Most guys don't understand that a girl's body is like a British car - you
have to let it warm up and get everything running. When my breaths were coming
in short pants, I reached under my flannel nightie and pulled down my panties.
Well, I had a female
orgasm. I could get all rhapsodic about it, but I've tried to write down what
it felt like fifteen times, and it wound up reading like a paragraph from some
cheesy soft-porn romance novel every time. But MAN, am I glad that I let down
my hair to let myself experience that!
And so, I settled
into someone else's life. And not a bad life it was, either. I got to know
which of the dogs was Tristan and which was Isolde. I discovered that 'Dad' had
a taste for the novelists of the early 20th
Century. And while I eventually got the hang of all the beauty care treatments,
Mom kept brushing out my hair. Indeed, brushing each other's hair out became an
end of the day ritual, when we'd talk, just us girls.
The next day, I
started school at the Armitage School a few miles away from where the
Hawthornes live. The Armitage School is one of those upper-crusty places where
they pride themselves on being better read than the proletariat. Very heavy on
the Greek philosophers and all that. The building itself had probably started
life as a mansion of some Gilded Age shoddy millionaire. The uniform required a
blue blazer with the school 'coat of arms' on it, a gray tweed skirt, a floppy
bow tie, and of course, knee socks.
High School. Once
again, my fantasies came running face first into uncaring reality. Armitage may
have been a fancy upper-crust high school, but it was still an American high
school. And I didn't do that well in high school the first time. I mean,
the closest thing that _I_ have to knowledge about modern teenagers are
memories of old John Hughes films - and even _I_ didn't buy them back then!
Actually, my first
few days weren't as bad as I worried; weirder, but nothing traumatic. Nobody
tried to shove me in a locker or any of the other New Kid problems. People gave
me lots of strange looks, but if Bryony was as big a wheel around school as I'd
heard, then the news of 'her' amnesia must have made the rounds already. People
gave me plenty of space. Lots of space. Nobody talks to you kind of space. Well,
unless you count the inevitable opportunistic creep who came up and draped his
arm over my shoulders and made 'Bess, you is my woman, now' noises. And there
was the near constant subdued whispering that ceased the second that I looked
in that direction.
This went on for a
couple of weeks. But there was a material development about a week before
Thanksgiving. I was in Literature class, plowing through the New England poets,
along with everybody else. Mister Karrenbrock called on me for a recitation of
something by Emily Dickinson. Now, I have always regarded Dickinson as a
coddled neurotic who would have lived a happier life if she'd had to go out and
get a real job, instead of living off her trust fund (or whatever they had back
then), brooding and writing self-indulgent poetry. So, I've never read that
much of her stuff, let alone memorized it. But when Mr. Karrenbrock said, "Elysium
is as far as to", I was happily prepared to say, "I don't know,"
and take the bad grade; instead, my mouth opened, and, "What fortitude
the Soul contains" - and the rest of the dreary missal came tumbling
out.
Mr. Karrenbrock
caught my expression. "What's the matter, Bryony? You got that right."
"Yes! I
remembered! I actually remembered something!"
Karrenbrock gave me
an odd look, not sure exactly how to interpret that. Like most of the faculty,
he took the story of my amnesia with a large hogshead of salt. He raised a
single bushy eyebrow and said, "Well then - what about, 'After great
pain, a formal feeling comes'?"
Again, I used the
same 'mental tag' that I'd used on the other one, and fished out, "After
great pain, a formal feeling comes - The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs - The
stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore, and Yesterday, or Centuries before?"
and the rest of that morbid twaddle. Bryony had gotten very good marks in
school; perhaps she used some kind of mnemonic device, and the things that she
had 'filed' were in the RNA part of memory. With a little practice, I should be
able to figure out her 'filing scheme' and be able to fish out memories filed
away at will. Coupled with my own college education, I should be able to undo
the damage to Bryony's GPA.
I walked out of Lit
feeling pretty good. Then three girls came up to me in a group. I recognized
their faces from my classes, but when I tried to dredge something up in the
'database', I still came up zippo. "Uhm, HI." I smiled.
The lead girl, a
nicely put together girl with russet hair in spaniel ears, looked at me with
concern. "Ah, HI, Bryony. Is it true what you said in class - that
you're starting to remember things?"
"Ahh.. YEAH!
But not everything. Fer instance, I still can't remember who you guys are. It's
like I have this computer database in my head, and if I have something to
identify that I want to remember, I can find it."
"Can you
remember, y'konw, stuff like... Halloween?"
"Nope. Or at
least, I don't think so. I just found out about this in Lit class - I haven't
really had time to sort everything out." I was framing a way of asking the
girls to sit with me and help me 'remember' things (okay, I wanted to pick
their brains for what was what in this school, so sue me), when they formed a
huddle and bustled away. Well, so much for THAT.
Then two other girls
walked up. Again, I recognized them from around school. They were the kind of
girls that I would have really wanted to notice me back in my own high
school days (no such luck!). They were both very pretty, with nice figures. The
white one had chestnut brown hair that fell to her shoulders in waves, and the
black one had her hair pulled back in a long, thick braid that fell to the
middle of her back.
The brunette smiled
at me and said, "So, your memory's coming back?"
"Sort of. I can
remember some things, but it's like looking it up in the library - it's like it
happened to somebody else. Also, I can't remember everything. Heck, I'm not
really sure what I can and can't remember. It just came to me in Lit class when
Karrenbrock asked me to recite that passage."
"So, are you
going to be taking up your old duties on the school paper and such?"
"While I can't
say definitely, I don't see me doing that any time real soon. But, who knows?
Yesterday, I didn't think that I'd remember Emily Dickinson. Not that Emily
Dickinson is someone that I'm all that hot about remembering. Tomorrow, who
knows what I'll remember?" They gave each other an amused look. "Hey,
I _know_ how weird this sounds, but did we know each other before? Well, we
probably knew each other - this is a small school - but, were we friends
or anything like that?"
The black one gave a
lopsided smile. "Well, let's just say that we talked a lot together. Since
you're obviously coming up dry in the name department, I'm Rue St. John - yes,
that's my real name - and this is Holly Burdock."
"And I'm – well,
you already know that. So, what are you two doing after school?"
For the next couple
of days, I hung out with Rue and Holly. They were pleasant company, even if
they weren't exactly forthcoming with new information.
The next thing worth
mentioning happened two days before Thanksgiving. I felt comfortable enough
with Rue and Holly to invite them home. Mrs. Haggerty was glad to see me having
company, though Mom seemed a bit nonplussed when she heard their names. I
introduced them to Tris and Issy, the dogs, and we spent the obligatory time
petting and playing with them. We spent a little time upstairs in my room,
talking about this and that. Then, in a sudden meeting of female minds, we
decided that we wanted an afterschool snack. But, it was two days before
Thanksgiving. The Hawthornes eat lightly the week before, so that there will be
lots of room for everything on the big day. When we got down to the kitchen,
the only thing really noshable was a bowl of salad. You know how it is when
you've got your mouth all ready for something. We set the salad on the kitchen
table and were discussing the caloric intakes of various dressings, when little
brother Arthur walked in and said, "Are you gonna eat that?"
"Yeah, why not?"
"Are you sure?
Mom might be saving it for dinner."
"You're right. Thanks,
Squirt!" With that, we went out to the living room and got grazing
permission.
We were well into
our salads; Rue was going on about her current favorite band (why is it that
all bands these days sound like industrial chemical compounds?), when I felt a
strange burning and itching around my eyes.
Holly looked at me.
"Amanda, are you all right? Your face is getting really red."
I started to say
something, but when I did, all that came out was a rasp. My throat seemed to
collapse in on itself, I struggled to breathe, but I couldn't. I staggered out
of my chair and fell to the ground, gasping like a fish out of water. The last
thing that I remember thinking as I lost consciousness was, is this my fault?
******
Holly and Rue looked
at Amanda dumbstruck. Rue snapped out of it first and bent over Amanda. Amanda
wasn't moving, except for very feeble, strained breaths. Her face was very red,
and hives were beginning to form around her mouth and nose. "Go get her
mother!" Rue snapped.
Holly burst out of
the kitchen and ran to the living room. "Missuz Hawthorne! Something's
wrong with Bryony! She's having some sort of fit!"
Laurel and Gran
hurried to the kitchen, where they found Rue helplessly holding Bryony.
"What did you
do to her?" Laurel shrieked.
"We didn't do anything!
We were eating a salad, and she started to choke! But I tried to clear her air
canal, like they taught us to in First Aid, but there isn't anything stuck
there!"
"She's having
one of her allergic reactions! Mom, go up to my bathroom, and get the light
blue inhaler and a bottle of drops called Vythromil®. Holly, go call an
ambulance, NOW!" Laurel took Bryony from Rue's arms and dragged her over
to the kitchen sink. She did as much as she could, and finally managed to
induce vomiting.
By the time Gran got
back down to the kitchen with the inhaler and drops, the men were standing
helplessly beside Laurel and she furiously used mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to
help Bryony breathe. Laurel stepped back, almost exhausted as Gran put the
drops in Bryony's throat to bypass the engorged tongue and then put the inhaler
in her granddaughter's mouth and waited for the next deep breath.
Bryony was breathing
more easily, but was still unconscious when the ambulance got there. Once the
EMTs had Bryony in transit, Laurel turned to her daughter's two guests, her
face a stiff mask of barely restrained maternal rage. "Okay, I want to
know exactly what happened here."
Rue was taken
flatfooted - she wasn't used to seeing people openly show that kind of laser-focused
rage. Holly stepped in. "Like I said before, we were down here, eating a
salad, and Bryony started getting red, and then she started gasping..."
Laurel stopped her
with a raised hand. She stalked over to the kitchen table where the salads
still were. Bryony's had spilled on the floor. Laurel bent over and picked up a
small pit-like nugget. Holding it between her thumb and forefinger, she walked
back over to Rue and Holly. "This is a water chestnut. Bryony is violently
allergic to water chestnuts. We don't keep water chestnuts in this house. So,
how did this water chestnut get into Bryony's salad?"
"Bryony's
allergic to those things?"
"Honest, Missuz
Hawthorne, this is the first I've heard about it."
Gran jumped in.
"Laurel, dear - _I_ brought those water chestnuts into the house. They
were supposed to be part of the dressing for your sister Rosemary's asparagus
dish. I bought them last week, remember? I left them, clearly labeled way in
the back of the 'fridge."
Laurel softened, but
didn't repent. "Then how did these things get into that salad?"
Rue looked at Holly.
"Y'know, I don't remember those things being in the salad when we took it
out of the fridge."
Mrs. Haggerty came
forward. "That's right! I made that salad, and I'd never have used those
water chestnuts in it! Water chestnuts don't even go with romaine
lettuce!"
Laurel flicked her
fulminating gaze over both Rue and Holly, and was apparently satisfied that
neither girl was hiding anything. Then she looked around the room. Her eye
settled on her older son, who was avoiding her gaze "Ethan! Ethan
Evanston Hawthorne! What did you DO?"
"Mom! Honest,
Mom, I didn't do anything! I just thought that Bryony was trying to pull
something with that amnesia gag! I thought about setting a trap for her, but I
didn't DO it! I only talked about it with..." Ethan looked semi-reflexively
at his little brother Arthur, who was hiding with guilt and terror behind his
father.
Arthur began to cry.
At eight, you're just young enough to cry when you're really scared, but old
enough to really feel bad about being a baby and crying.
Laurel, her rage
somewhat abated and definitely under control, knelt down by her youngest child.
"Arthur, did you put water chestnuts in that salad?"
Despite the gentle
tone of the words, little Arthur was still clearly terrified. Eyes thick with
tears, he nodded.
"Why? You know
that Bryony can't stand to eat those things!"
"E- E- Ethan said
that Brywas pulling a fast one. He - he said that maybe if we put some water
chestnuts in her food during Thanksgiving, that she'd spit them out and throw a
tantrum, and we'd show that she was faking. Only - only Missuz Haggerty would
never let us do anything like that at Thanksgivin', so he chucked the idea. But
when I saw them eatin' that salad, I thot that it would be the same thing, only
not messin' up Thanksgivin'!" With that he broke down bawling.
Laurel took him in
her arms and let him cry himself out. "Well, Artie, there's no lasting
damage done. The EMTs said that we got to her soon enough, and she should be
okay. BUT, what you did was wrong and you knew that it was
wrong. SO, I'm going to administer the worst possible punishment for
what you did - I'm going to leave your punishment up to your sister!"
*****
I woke up in a
hospital bed. Deja Vu all over again. At least this time I wasn't all
catheterized. And this time, there was a call button. It turns out that I was
only out for a couple of hours. Doctor Royal came in, flashed a penlight in my
eyes, listened to my heart for a bit, and told me that I could go home again
the next morning. Then the entire family (less aunts and uncles and like that),
along with Rue and Holly all came piling in. Mom trundled little brother Arthur
in by his shoulders.
I gave them the best
smile that I could muster at the moment. "Hey. Sorry about all the drama. Anybody
know what happened? I mean, one minute we're just talking; the next, I'm a fish
on the floor!"
Mom trundled Arthur
to the fore. "Well, dear, you had a severe allergic reaction to some water
chestnuts."
"Water
chestnuts? What were water chestnuts doing in that salad, if I'm allergic to
them? And who uses water chestnuts in a romaine lettuce salad, anyway?"
"Well, that is
going to take some explaining-" Mom started.
But big brother
Ethan stepped forward. "Well, to be honest, what happened was that I
thought that your whole amnesia thing was a crock-"
"Oh? What a
shock! You hid it so well!" I returned dryly.
Arthur jumped
forward, "Ethan didn't do nothing! I did! I put the chestnuts in your
salad while you were asking Mom!"
"But if you knew
that I was violently allergic-"
Ethan stepped in
again. "It was MY idea. Like I said, I thought that you were faking. So, I
was sort of throwing out ideas of how to trip you up, and the chestnuts were
one of them. I thought that you'd either spit them out or refuse to eat them,
and that I'd have you cornered. But the whole idea was that you refuse to eat
them. I never thought that you would really EAT those things. I wasn't even
thinking of really doing it, y'know, it was all just talk. But
Artie here didn't understand that." He put his hand on the boy's shoulder,
as if to say 'blame the one who came up with the fool notion'.
Mom put her hand on
Artie's head and steered him toward the bed. "I've told Arthur that I'm
leaving the matter of his punishment up to you." Artie looked at me like a
convicted man eyes the judge at his sentencing.
"Artie. Come
here." He did. "We haven't gotten along very well in the past, have
we?" He shook his head. "And I've probably played some rotten jokes
on you, right?" He nodded his head vigorously. "So, we're even. I
won't play any more tricks on you; you don't play any more tricks on me, okay?
Now, gimme a hug."
After Artie finished
his 'punishment', I gestured Ethan closer. I beckoned him close with one
curling finger. Then I weakly bopped him on the nose. "That's for being a
wiseass and giving the kid stupid ideas. You're in Yale - you should know
better."
"Really, Amanda!"
Mom murmured. But she was smiling when she said it.
As the family
started to file out, Holly and Rue asked if they could stay and talk with me
privately for a bit. The doctor said that it was okay. When the door closed, I
smiled weakly at them and said, "So, guys - sorry about the scare."
Rue bit her lower
lip, and Holly said, "Weeelll, _actually_ we kinda havta say we're
sorry, too."
"For what? You
didn't put those stupid chestnuts in the salad!"
"Nnnoooo...
but we _did_ think that you were pulling a fast one. Y'see, it really was the
kind of shitty stunt that Bryony would have pulled for some reason."
"If you thought
that, then why were you hanging out with me?"
"Weeelll...
we thought that if you thought that you were getting away with it, that you
might slip up and show your hand, and we'd be there to catch you at it."
"Wow. So, I
guess that we won't be eating lunch together anymore?"
"Only if you
don't wanna hang out with us anymore," Rue said.
"Yeah. I mean,
you were so nice, that I was absolutely sure that Bryony had something
really sleazy up her sleeve. I mean, who knew?" Then they stood
there looking at me with sad puppy eyes.
Hey, what would you
do? "Okay, it's all right. But there's a price."
They eyed me
nervously. "What?"
"Dirt! I want
the straight dish on this 'Bryony' chick! Nobody's tellin' me nothing. I have
to cope with all the trouble that she's stirred up, but I have no idea of what
it is, or who she did it to! I've picked up a couple of hints that she wasn't some
kind of saint." The girls gave out a derisive snort at that. "But I
don't have any particulars. What kind of asshole was she? Was she a bully? Was
she a troublemaker? Was she a manipulator? Did she like to play nasty jokes on
everyone?"
With puckish
expressions on their faces, Holly and Rue nodded. "Not right now. Visiting
hours are too short. When you get back to school, we'll get together and really
give you the 4-1-1."
With that they left.
While I would have loved to have indulged in a little mean spirited Bryony-bashing,
I needed to be alone for a while. There was something that I needed to figure
out. Like, who was trying to kill me. Because just before I had blacked out, I
had noticed something familiar. It was a trace, something like a smell, that
lingered in the energies that had sent me to the hospital twice. A spiteful
trace of malicious intent. Both times, I had been magically attacked.
Now, contrary to Dr.
Strange comics, magical attacks don't take the form of 'bolts of bishru' or 'flames
of the faltine' (okay, I admit it, I'm a fan - so sue me!). They take the form
of streaks of circumstance that 'just happen' to screw you over somehow. The
first attack somehow got me stuck in this body. The second attack prompted
little Arthur to pull the stunt with the chestnuts. He probably would have
realized that it was too dangerous, but the magic pushed him to do it.
So, there are two
questions at hand: Who is attacking, and whom are they attacking? If they were
attacking me, then why did Bryony get sucked into all of this? If they were
attacking Bryony, why? I mean, why would a sorcerer be throwing hexes at an
ordinary suburban kid like Bryony? There's the crux of the problem - I'm the
type who would have enemies who use curses and such, but I don't have any real
enemies. Mostly because I'm such small potatoes. Bryony is the sort who makes
enemies, but not the kind who throw around maledictions. If I can figure out
who the target it, me or Bryony, then I can start figuring out who the curse
thrower is.
*****
Maybe the Hawthornes
take Thanksgiving a little more to heart than most folks do, or maybe it was
just the barely avoided prospect of losing a family member twice, but Bird Day
was actually very nice. Maybe the semi-traditional touch football game before
the Big Meal helped to defuse most of those inter-familial tensions that ruin
the day for most people. I met the paternal grandparents, a few of those aunts,
uncles, cousins and what all. Given my 'stranger-in-the-family' status, I was
given one lesson after another in the Hawthorne and Wayland family histories. Okay,
they were a little 'Land of the Muffies', but hey, where AM I?
Okay, I could have
skipped sharing my room with cousins Emily and Charlotte, but at least no one
got obnoxiously snockered, and any arguments were discretely carried out behind
closed doors. I've had worse Thanksgivings. Most of them, as a matter of fact.
*****
The extended family
stayed for most of the weekend, but left Sunday morning just before church, in
order to get a good night's sleep at home before returning to work and school. After
helping clean up, I had Sunday afternoon to take care of a little personal
business. In order to cast a sorcerous attack on someone, you either need
something of theirs, the old 'lock of hair and nail clippings' schtick, a
picture of them, or you need to place something on them that you use as a
targeting device. The problem with the first two options is that I was
simultaneously two people - Mark O'Brian's mind/soul in Bryony Hawthorne's body.
Any attack would be confused by the paradox. So I had to be wearing something
that someone had put a minor enchantment on.
I didn't have a
pendulum prepared, so I used the next best thing - the streams of smoke from a
stick of incense. I started in my room for the simple reason that I didn't want
to make up a lot of fool stories. I lit the incense and walked around the room.
I wasn't expecting much. Boy, was I surprised! The flows of energy were very
strong in that room. I eventually managed to isolate three places where the
energy was very focused - the vanity table, a bookcase and the closet.
I chose the vanity
table first. Sweeping over the table, I narrowed it down to one drawer, and
finally to one object: a hair barrette. Looking it over, I vaguely remember
that I'd been wearing it when I ate those damn chestnuts. It struck me that it
was the sort that usually came in matched pairs. But who really notices that
kind of thing when they're getting ready to meet friends? The bad luck had
probably been invested into the barrette by remote, using its mate, and had
simply waited until the highest probability of my getting screwed over royally
had presented itself. I dropped the barrette in a glass of water until I could
arrange a better way of handling it.
Then I poked around
the bookcase a bit. None of the books that were normally stored in the case
were that unusual (apparently, Bryony had gone through a really intense 'Nancy
Drew' period). But, there was another one, lying on its side, hidden behind
several other books, flush against the back of the case. It was a little
larger, if thinner than most of my schoolbooks, and bound in brown leather with
no lettering on the cover. The pages were mostly blank, but about thirty pages
toward one end were handwritten in ink that didn't look mass manufactured. It
was a Book of Shadows, though she called it a 'Book of Moons', which some
people do. A Book of Shadows is one part Witch's spellbook, one part religious
litany, and one part progress journal. Witches - real witches, followers of the
Wiccan path - write down their experiments and experiences in it, and copy bits
from their teachers' books, as part of their training. Traditionally, Witches
are supposed to write all this down in some arcane cipher, allegedly to keep
their secrets from the eyes of the profane. More commonsensically, most Witches
don't bother with the hocus-pocus cloak & dagger; most people aren't really
that interested in spiritual secrets, but messages in strange codes tend to
catch the attention of the suspicious and evil-minded. What she'd written was
pretty straightforward Initiate level stuff, but what really interested me was
the absolute absence of the usual beginner's dreck. Everything that she had was
valid stuff with none of the clutter and garbage with which most beginners'
spellbooks tend to be loaded.
I put the Book of
Shadows aside for the moment and checked out the closet. It took longer, but I
finally found a black box hidden under a bunch of other boxes. It was plain
wood, lacquered black without hinges or any other metal. There was nothing to indicate
what it was, but I already had a strong suspicion as to what was inside. I
lifted the lid and removed all doubt. Inside, in hollows cut just for them,
were a 'wand' of pale wood set with silver, a necklace with a moonstone
pendant, a garter with a silver tab, and a silver goblet. Conspicuous by it's
absence, despite a hollow that gave me a good idea of what it should look like,
was the Athame. An Athame is a ceremonial knife that Witches use. By my guess,
it should be silver, have no guard, and be marked with Celtic runes similar to
the ones that were on the wand, goblet and pendant.
Bryony Hawthorne was
a witch.
This answered
several questions that had been nagging at me, but raised many others. The big
nagger had been why Bryony had been dragged out of her body. The simple
interaction of my Mentor Seeking and a magical attack wouldn't have separated a
mundane from her physical body the way that it did. But if Bryony had been
doing a working of her own - after all, it was Halloween, just the time for it -
then the three workings would reinforce each other. You can only get that kind
of power by accident.
So, Bryony had been
the target of the attack, not me. That made things simpler. I just had to
figure out who had both motive to get rid of her and the magical power to be
throwing hexes around. Still tricky, but at least now I had a vague idea of
what was going on.
But it also raised a
BIG question. Wicca isn't a solitary's tradition, and Bryony was too young to
be so sophisticated. No, judging by the entries in her Book of Moons, and the
quality of her ritual tools, I'd say that dear ol' Brywas apprenticed to a
rather skilled and powerful Witch. Mom jumped immediately to mind. If Gran were
also in their coven (or whatever), they'd have the makings of a classic
Daughter/Mother/Grandmother Dianic trinity of the Maiden, Queen and Crone. But
if Mom is the one who's teaching Bryony the Craft, then why hasn't she twigged
to the switch? If she has caught on, why hasn't she called me on it? Is
Bryony's mentor one of the teachers at the Armitage School? Even so, her mentor
must have an idea that something's happened with Bryony. Why wasn't she - I had
a definite notion that the mentor was a woman - doing anything? Maybe she was,
and she was doing the 'give him enough rope and let the bozo hang himself'
thing. Or maybe she was using me as a stalking horse, to flush out the attacker.
Or, on a slightly less paranoid tangent, maybe she just wanted to see what I'd
do, until Bryony got back.
Okay, so Hercule Poirot
I ain't.
*****
I decided to wait
until something new popped up to put everything in context.
When I got back to
school, there was a definite change in the way that people were treating me. The
story of my allergic attack must have gotten around. The teachers lost that
'oh, give me a break' attitude, and started cutting me some slack. The other
kids kind of fell into two camps - the ones that saw 'Amanda' as someone new
that they'd like to get to know, and the ones that were delighted at the
prosptect of getting a little of their own back at Bryony, no matter how
removed. Things happened like someone putting a box of water chestnuts in my
locker. But there was one little group of three girls, Ivy Ellhorn, Heather
Yarrow and Rowan Woodruff, that were still giving me the cold shoulder.
Rue and Holly had
sort of adopted me as a new friend. They gleefully informed me of everything
that Bryony had been up to. It seems that Miss Hawthorne was the local little
Miss Boss in charge of Everything. But that was mostly for the best, as far as
I was concerned - all I had to do to be popular was