Shapechanger's Birth Read online

  The American origins of the orphanage had one delightful effect which she discovered in late November. Americans celebrated a holiday called Thanksgiving.

  By now she was doing kitchen duty like all the rest and volunteered to help cook the Thanksgiving feast. It gave her great satisfaction to fix food for what she was coming to think of as her new family, all hundred-plus of them.

  Among other pleasures of the celebration was a skit that told of the first Thanksgiving. Everyone was vastly amused when Mister Timmons, the American Indian, came out dressed as a Pilgrim. They laughed even more when Parson Simmons came out dressed as an Indian.

  The orphans of the mission were well if cheaply clothed and fed. They were not overworked. Though they worked long hours, the hours were no longer than those of the Quaker missionaries. When the orphans got sick, the missionaries had modern medical talent and supplies, supplemented as needed by medicos from Kilrush.

  Still, that autumn bad colds and flu made miserable a number of those who lived in the mission. Mary helped the sick as well as she could, as did most of the older orphans. That was the pattern. Older helped younger, and younger helped younger still.

  Mary found that she now had a healing touch. Or perhaps that a skill she had always had was magnified. Before her death, not one of her own seven children had died, an unusual case where she had grown up.

  Whether it was an old skill enhanced or a new one entirely, now when she sat by a child's bedside and held her hands, or lay in the bed and cuddled the child, when Mary hoped the girl would get well, she did so within a day or two.

  Cuts and bruises also healed quickly after her touch. Under her cool hands pain quickly diminished. She was very deft at cleaning and bandaging cuts. She did not let on, of course, that her witch sight let her see/feel/taste a wound and see into the wound as if she were a tiny bird flying into it. And that her witch hands let her tend those wounds as no ordinary human could, cleaning them and pressing the sundered edges together in exactly the way that would best help her patient's bodies heal their wounds.

  With Christmas coming up Mary gave much thought to the presents she could give. She bought trinkets from the stores with her saved-up allowance. She also made things like sweets and mittens and other small presents. With her experience as a seamstress before her death and her extra-human witch hands she could cut and sew these items very quickly and precisely.

  Though she could only do this at full speed when no one was around. Anyone watching would have assumed that she was a supernatural being like the brownies, who were supposed to do marvelous things if left a bowl of milk in the night.

  In the process of making gifts she discovered another use for her witch hands. In addition to dissolving objects, and cutting them when she narrowed the dissolution effect to a razor's width, she could also glue things together. She simply partly dissolved two separate surfaces and pressed them together, then ceased the dissolution effect. It only took seconds for the two surfaces to bond together, becoming one piece.

  Experimenting, she found that her extra-natural "glue" worked best on material that had been alive. Or was alive. She thought she could do this with flesh as a quick fix to wounds. There, however, it would be better to clean a cut and carefully align the edges and let the person's or the animal's body heal the damage. She should glue flesh together only if the wound was immediately life-threatening.

  She could also glue things together that had never lived, such as stone and metal. The harder the object the longer it took to dissolve it. But she could dissolve anything, even iron, she discovered.

  All these abilities could be very useful. It meant, among other consequences, that she could never be kept in a jail.

  Though, now that she thought about it, she decided that it would be better to use her witch sight and witch hands to pick the lock on the door than to cut or dissolve part of the jail door .

  When the time came to share gifts Mary received several herself. One was from several of the younger girls, including Barbarous Barbara, who had pooled their meager resources to buy a book. It contained fairy tales similar to the battered one from which she had been reading earlier in the year.

  As Spring wore on Mary's reputation as a healer grew and she was graduated to working on boy's ills as well, with such suitable safeguards for her safety and modesty as the Quakers thought needed for all the girls given this extra responsibility.

  Having raised three boys and a husband, Mary was amused at this. But of course everyone thought of her as fifteen, though everyone recognized her as unusually mature for her age.

  And tall. In the last few months she had put on a growth spurt, one deliberately decided upon and carefully monitored and controlled by her esoteric powers. So, though she grew taller and the proportions of her limbs changed, she remained as graceful as ever. Though more graceful than she let anyone see. Had anyone seen her move in all her power and grace they might well have thought her a supernatural being.

  One aspect of her guided growth no one but Mary could perceive. She was slowly making her bones denser, stronger, and more flexible to support the extraordinary strength and speed of her enhanced muscles.

  The boys were more prone to illness and injury than girls. Probing with her esoteric senses as she fixed them up she could tell that men's bodies were a bit more fragile than women's.

  They also were more prone to injury because of their tendency to fight. Mary thought this tendency healthy overall since it was men's duty to protect others. But it could be carried too far. She administered a few sharp reprimands where appropriate.

  Most boys moderated their behavior after a few encounters with "Granny" McCarthy's tongue — or a smart box upside the head precisely calculated to cause the least harm and the most pain. Soon no one wanted to mess with Granny McCarthy.

  Almost no one. Some of the injuries were caused by bullying. Reprimanding the bullied had no effect on the bully.

  After the third such injury caused by the same individual Mary lost patience.

  That night a little before lights out she slipped out of the girl's dorm and into the boy's. She carried a tree branch that she had used her witch hands to trim into a smooth, nimble switch.

  Standing just inside the doorway, Mary surveyed the room. No one had yet noticed her and the boys carried on as usual, some studying, a few already asleep, some chatting in small groups, a couple wrestling in a friendly way. Across the room she saw her target, holding court before a half-dozen other boys.

  The boy closest to her noticed her first.

  "Hey!" he said, hastily slipping a shirt on over his naked chest.

  "You aren't allowed here!" a boy further on protested.

  Mary ignored them and began to stalk across the room, letting a little of her extranatural power and control show. The crowd before her melted away. Those who did not know the unwisdom of crossing Granny McCarthy instinctively recognized the folly of standing between a tigress and her prey.

  She stopped in front of the big boy who lounged on his bed while around him other boys stood or sat on chairs and other beds. She put her fists on her hips, one of them holding the switch. It projected back and down from her waist like a sword. No one there failed to recognize the warning in some dim way.

  "Billy, I'm disappointed in you. You could be the best of them. Instead you act like some asshole English lord."

  He sneered at her. "So, it's Granny McCarthy."

  "Here's what you are going to do, Billy. You are not going to beat up anybody else, or threaten anyone else, or say 'boo' to anyone else — ever."

  "Or what?"

  "Unless — they attack you. Then you can defend yourself. But I had better be convinced of that."

  He fondled his crotch suggestively. "You need to be taught a lesson, bitch. Get out of here now or I'll give it to you."

  One or two of the boys around his bed laughed. They were nervous laughs. The Quakers were strict about the slightest disrespect of boys to girls. A boy could
get pitched out of the orphanage over it. Even the dumbest boy there recognized what a disaster that would be.

  "When I want your pitiful prick, you asshole, I'll tell you. Get up. "

  The boys were stunned. They might talk like this but girls did not.

  Even Billy blinked at her language but he quickly rallied. He stood up slowly, letting his height uncoil toward the ceiling, his man-sized bulk spread out.

  Mary had been bullied by her brothers. For a time. Even the biggest of her brothers eventually learned not to.

  She pointed the switch toward the head of the bed. "Bend over it."

  "I'm going to bend you over it. And give you what you deserve."

  Mary's anger flared and she switched it off. She wondered if he was stupid enough or fool enough to mean it.

  Billy snatched at the wrist of her switch hand.

  Mary could have let him capture it and try to control her — only to find that she was much stronger than he and vastly more in control of her body and its leverage. But the superiority of greater strength over lesser was not the lesson she wanted to teach.

  Instead she pivoted out of the way of his snatch like a toreador avoiding a bull and struck the back of his hand with the switch. It was just a flick. With her full strength the switch would have cut like a knife.

  He inhaled sharply and recoiled, cradling his hurt hand in the other. There was shock on his face, and not just at the pain. To him — and everyone else there — she had struck with the speed of a mongoose and just as quickly pivoted back into place to stand exactly where she had been.

  To Mary, her senses and muscles turned up to extranatural speed and power, he had seemed to move slowly.

  Billy roared and lunged forward, both hands outstretched to grab whatever part of her that he could. Mary stepped aside and struck him lightly on one cheek, not quite enough to bring blood. He screamed in pain and rage and turned to try again. She avoided him and struck his other cheek.

  Many of the boys watching gasped. Both red welts on Billy's face exactly mirrored the other.

  Not every boy was as perceptive. One of Billy's cronies behind Mary rushed forward.

  Mary felt the floor boards flex under her feet at his first step, the whisper of feet on wood, felt on the back of her neck the air behind her displace toward her. She whirled around and out of his path and struck him on a cheek as well. He screamed and rushed past, fell onto Billy's bed and cradled his face in his hands, weeping.

  Billy was made of sterner stuff, or else anger had washed all sense from him. He came at her again, arms wide to catch her if she went to one side or the other.

  She did neither. She leaned forward and extended her switch to touch him just under his nose. As he drove forward she pulled her hand back, but exactly enough to put painful but not fatal pressure on his face.

  If she had not, the sharp tip of the switch could have traveled up one of his nostrils into his brain. What penetrated his mind instead was pain like fire on one of the most sensitive parts of his body. He stopped his advance, reeled back, and reached for his upper lip with both hands. Mary slashed the outside of both arms, this time hard enough to draw blood.

  Billy screamed and reeled back, tripping on his bed, falling. Mary slid forward and pushed him so that he fell on the floor face down in front of her. Reaching down she jerked the loose waist band of his pants down to bare his hairy buttocks. She whipped those several times not quite hard enough to draw blood, then stepped back.

  She pointed her switch at another boy who she had identified as a friend of Billy's.

  "Take care of him."

  She pointed at another boy and told him to do the same for the other boy.

  As the two injured were led away Mary turned to look at the rest of the boys.

  "YOU will not bully THEM. That would make you as bad as them. You can fight, you can protect yourself. But not bully. It's evil, and I will not put up with it. Now get to bed."

  Shortly thereafter the youngest male missionary came in to turn all the lights off. He was amazed and puzzled to find that all the boys were tucked in bed with the covers pulled up to their chins. Or in a few cases, over their heads.

  The next morning as she had planned Mary was on call to help take care of the medical needs of the orphans.

  After the first class Pastor Simmons brought Billy and the other hurt boy in. They looked chastened, as if they had just received a lecture on not fighting. Though that was not the reason for their distressed faces when they saw who was waiting in the little infirmary. Billy stopped abruptly, and the other boy shrank back behind his bulk.

  The Parson showed his surprise, though only Mary or his own wife might have been able to see it. He stared at the boys, then looked at Mary.

  She was looking at him in cool inquiry. He looked at the boys again, saw where their gaze was resting. The tiniest smile touched the corner of his eyes.

  "Mary, it seems the boys have been fighting. Take care of them, will you?"

  "Yes, Parson. I will. You can leave them with me. I can handle this." She pointed at the cuts on the two boys arms.

  "Yes, I am sure you can."

  After the Parson left Mary briskly cleaned Billy's arm cuts and put bandages on them. She also deadened the pain with her witch hands enough for the pain not to be too distracting. She needed only a lotion and her own cool hands to soothe the welts on the boys' faces and on Billy's bottom.

  Afterward she straightened up. "There! You'll be fine now. In fact, I think you'll be better than fine."

  They both made hasty noises of agreement and quickly left.

  Mary looked after Billy with approval. He was coming along nicely. Eventually he might shape up to being someone worthwhile. With a little help from Granny.

  The story must have been too good to be kept secret. A week or two later Mr. Timmons, while loaning Mary one of his personal books on mathematics, said, "I hear the boys are calling you Granny McCarthy. Don't let it bother you, Mary. You know how silly boys can be."

  The tone of his voice said he meant to be soothing, the smile around his eyes said something else entirely. Quakers generally did not believe in violence, but this one apparently felt that some people sometimes required — encouragement.

  A few days later when the girls settled in for the night Mary said, "Tonight I'm going to tell you a story that my mother told me."

  On the foot of Mary's bed Barbarous Barbara, as usual, sat alone. Under Mary's influence she was becoming less barbarous, but none of the other girls yet felt certain enough about that to risk taking a place on Mary's bed.

  Except little five- or six-year old Sophia, who tried to climb up on the bed. Barbara leaned over and picked up the little girl and set Sophia between her legs. The little girl leaned back against Barbara's chest, a thumb in her mouth and big eyes looking intently at Mary.

  No one knew who she was or who had abandoned her at the orphanage. Her name was one given to her by Pastor Simmons. Her hair had been so lice-ridden that it had been shaved off, and she did not speak. One of Barbara's hands now was idly running back and forth over Sophia's fuzzy head.

  Sophia could speak. Mary had probed her with her esoteric senses and knew that the little girl had no physical or neural impediment to speech. She could understand speech, and do what she was told or asked, but she simply was not yet ready to talk.

  "In days long past, as you should know if you don't, bards were given honor even above kings."

  At the word bard Sophia's brow wrinkled. Mary looked at her and said, "A bard, as you should know if you don't, goes around the country making poetry and songs about places and people and happenings that they come across. Then they sing or declaim them elsewhere so that people far away will know about them." The little girl's brow unwrinkled.

  "Is Barbara a bard?" This from a little girl lying on a near-by bed cuddling with three other girls near her age. Other girls lay in other near-by beds, and a few had made temporary pallets out of their bed clothes close t
o Mary's bed. Every orphan girl at the Quaker mission listened to Mary's stories, even the older ones who pretended to be reading or sleeping or sewing because they felt too dignified to do kid's stuff like listen to bedtime stories.

  "Why, I believe you are right. Or she could be if she wanted."

  Barbara loved singing and had a marvelous voice. She looked back at Mary with no expression on her face, but Mary knew as surely as if she could read minds that Barbara was thinking How could anyone be stupid enough not to know something so obvious?

  "The king of the bards at one time was Senchan. And he was a very important man. The most important bard of all, he recked. So when he traveled he always brought a dozen or more other bards with him so that everyone would know how important he was. And at every castle its king seated these bards at his own high table, with the bard king in the king's own place."

  As always at this time of the night auburn-haired Bridget was moving gracefully about the girl's dormitory dousing the kerosene lamps high on the walls. She was so quiet and unobtrusive that only Mary noticed her. She and Mary traded faint smiles.

  "One day the bard king visited Guaire, the king of Connaught. Which, as you should know if you don't, is the province of west Ireland, containing County Galway and County Mayo."

  "And Leitrim!" "And Roscommon!" "And Sligo!" came from various girls around Mary.

  "Yes, and I see some people have been studying their geography. Well, King Guaire set a good table, better even than that of Senchan when he was home. And this made the high bard angry. And he sulked."

  Mary made a sour face and turned it all around for everyone to see. Her audience laughed, some of them shrieks that were immediately shushed by other girls.

  "This was on the first day of their visit. And on the second day traveling noblemen and women came from the court of Munster Province, which, as you should know if you don't, is our very own part of Ireland, the south part, where our County Clare is."

  Several little girls began to recite the list of six counties in Munster and Mary held up her hands and shushed them.