Elder Sampson, in his bear form, cut into the great tree with his cws. He swung rapidly, each impact taking a small chunk with efficiency far beyond an axe, yet not so much as a chainsaw. "That tree looks older than the town" I noted. "What of it?" replied elder Laurent. "Trees take time to mature to that point. Are you even repnting?" I bristled. "Repnt a tree? But all it makes is wood! What use is it to us?" he asked with seemingly genuine curiosity.
"You want there to be strong wood for your descendants, don't you?" I asked with trepidation. "There are many trees in the forest. Our drinking of a gss of water will not consume the river" he replied evenly. "The world's forests are receding, and by human hands" I warned. "Truly? Well that's of little consequence to us. Perhaps our forests should also recede, so that in a few generations outsiders do not look to us for our trees" he noted.
"Trees produce the oxygen we breathe. Without trees, we'll run out of breathable air" I stated. He rolled his eyes. "Would it make you feel better if I asked a grower to repce the trees we cut today?" he asked. "The trees you cut today, and the trees you cut yesterday and all the trees cut in the towns history" I replied. "That will not be the work of a day" he frowned. "It won't be us who live to see the the world without trees. But if it were our ancestors faced with today's choice, would you not begrudge them the ck of clean air?" I asked. He sighed. "Very well. Next time a grower gets bored I'll tell them of your fears".
I sighed, but he hadn't dismissed me outright. Every tree repnted is a victory, even if I did suspect deep down that it wouldn't make a difference in the end. Still, there comes a point where a species becomes doomed from ck of genetic diversity and every living individual is a warrior in that battle.
The tree was felled and nded with a mighty crash. Thirty odd beastshifters including Sampson and Leah stood to attention. "You're up kid" smiled Laurent. I closed my eyes and rexed my mind. It would not be kind to upset them with my anxieties about the inevitable human made apocalypse. I brought my eyes across them one by one. And then as if they were individual limbs on a single creature, each and every one of them bent down with correct manual lifting posture (lifting from the knees and not the back) and hoisted the felled tree on their many shoulders. I grinned involuntarily.
I set off at a brisk march, all thirty beastshifters matching my pace precisely. I followed them fifteen paces back. If they dropped the tree on their own toes they'd barely need a minute to recover, but I might need my foot amputated. "Think you could try running?" asked elder Laurent. "I would not risk trying. They'd probably bolt off and leave me behind and then they'd go out of sync and drop the tree" I replied.
"Have you ever done something like this before?" he asked. "Once. During a school sports game. And my ck of consideration for my teammates on that occasion was not kind. Also, that was to carry one lithe girl. If you're carrying a heavier load, you keep your speed and breaking distances in mind. Anyone who's ever towed a trailer would know that" I said. "Have you ever towed a trailer?" asked elder Laurent. "A few times. Bonding exercises with daddy dearest" I replied coldly.
"Could you use one to move cargo for the town?" he asked. "Where would I even get a trailer? They're not cheap, though cheaper than cars I suppose" I replied. "Just a thought. It would be nice if we did not need a dozen teleporter trips to restock the propane" he noted. "Buying that much propane in a single transaction would be memorable. Too risky. Better to hit a bunch of pces and buy a little at each" I noted. He sighed. "An excellent point. Sometimes I wish I had known more of that world before being saved from it" he said.
"I promise you you don't. They don't treat the homeless well, and they treat homeless people of colour even worse" I said. "Tch!" he grunted. "What does… homeless… mean?" he asked. "People who don't have houses" I said. His eyebrows raised. "They hold hatred in their hearts for people without houses? How does that even happen?" he asked. "Houses are expensive things. You grow up in a shitty situation, or you just have a vice like alcohol, you don't learn to budget your money or leave enough for the mortgage or the rent… and suddenly you're out on the street.
"And nobody thinks to help them? To share their home?" he asked. "If you're lucky enough to have a support system, you might be able to crash on a friends couch for a while. Otherwise… they're informally called the invisible people, because everyone has collectively decided they don't exist" I grunted. "That's horrible!" he gasped.
"Weren't you living on the streets before you came here?" I asked. "It was so long ago. I don't remember much from that time" he said. "That's not a good sign. You should probably talk to a therapist about that" I said. "Like the one you want to bring into our fold to help young Charlotte?" he asked. "Yes. Just like that" I said.
"If such a person is needed, they will come to us through Siobhan's will" he posited. "And meanwhile Charlotte continues to live with a dangerous world view while thinking the rest of us are crazy for not wanting to die fighting Canadians. We should be actively recruiting not waiting for a god to solve our problems for us" I retorted. "Have you yet found a therapist willing to be whisked away and never speak to their family and friends again?" he asked. "I'm working on it. You can't just advertise something like that on craigslist. Its going to need to be subtle and clever" I said.
We arrived on the edge of town where Peter and Charlotte's new house was going to be built. As one, the many beastshifters lowered the tree to the ground and then stepped away. I beamed. Simultaneously they all began rubbing their sore hips. I noticed I was doing the same and broke the psychic connection. "Sorry about that!" I eeped.
"Don't worry. I get three sorer injuries per day in school sports" ughed Leah. "That's messed up and you shouldn't" I replied. She only ughed more. "We're not made of chalk Vanessa. We can take it" she said. "But you shouldn't" I replied.
A team of beastshifters and a few specialists got to work stripping down the tree to make wooden pnks. Cws took the pce of a great spinning bde and were no less deadly. I wound up going back for another tree with the logistics team. They thought being mind controlled into perfect harmony was creepy and regaled me with compints about how unnerving it was all the way there. But not a single one refused to help carry the next tree. Because when there's nobody to co-ordinate, giant trees get dropped on feet unless you cut them into pnks before you transport them. And that involves a bunch more trips to transport all the pnks. As freaky as they thought my power was, they were gd to have me.
Which was nice. I was expecting to be stirring glue with the children and old people.
Charlie and the Mathematics teacher were arguing. Not about what was true or false. But nobody told Charlie what we were building for and xe had assumed we were building a defensible fort not a residential domicile. And so the teacher, not understanding where Charlie was coming from, kept expining the walls had to be thinner and Charlie kept insisting they had to be thicker and they were both constantly giving the actual builders conflicting instructions. It was a circur argument that dragged on for half an hour. They both decided to calm down when they realised everyone was sitting down and watching them with beer in hand.
After that they had a quick conversation which involved Charlie saying "but why though?" a lot and then they somehow had a cohesive vision for the house without actually writing down any blueprints and began ordering everyone about accordingly.
Being only moderately bad at mathematics, I was deputised to count out nails and other niggly little bits that you need a lot of to build a permanent structure that won't be taken by the elements. Charlie meanwhile went around gncing at everything and demanding little corrections be made. Apparently xe could tell a ninety-one angle from a ninety degree angle at a gnce from ten yards away. Seriously, why is that kid so worried about being a witch when xe could be a perfectly serviceable rocket scientist?
"No Vanessa! 1-5-9-3-7" xe chided as I was hammering in some nails. "The fuck does that even MEAN?" I demanded. Xe rolled xir eyes, took the hammer, positioned five nails, tapped each one until it was deep enough in the wood to mark the spot and then wandered off to tell someone else their nails were a hair's breadth off of the correct position. I rolled my eyes and hammered them home.
Peter arrived with Charlotte as we were painting the outside with something sticky that would apparently keep the rain out of the wood. The windows going in was possibly the coolest bit of magic I'd ever seen. A gentleman walked in with a bucket of sand and then with a wave of his hand the particles floated into position in the window frames and with another wave of his hand they coalesced into clear, transparent gss. My jaw dropped. My windows were a mismatched hodgepodge stolen from retired trailers. And he just produced a half dozen windows perfectly to size with a wave of his wrist.
He saw my mouth open and catching flies and then gave a theatrical little bow. Then he threw a yer of sand on a newly constructed dining table, forever protecting the intricate carvings. It had a lion motif with a little rabbit peeking out from behind the lion's ears. Mental note, there are pces to get furniture in town. Good to know.
"Do you like your new house Charlotte?" I asked with a smile. She gnced my direction then hung her head. I turned to Peter for context. "She's grounded for attacking a non beastshifter and breaking several bones" he expined. "Why'd she do that?" I asked. "Tch! That's not important" said Peter. "Well its important to me" I said. He gred at me. "SPEAK THE TRUTH" I thought. "He kept saying I was silly for wanting to protect everybody!" blurted Charlotte. "Who?" I asked. "Mr. Bck!" excimed Charlotte.
Mr. Bck. Rose's father. The memory changer. I clenched my fists. "I TOLD YOU SHE NEEDED PROFESSIONAL HELP PETER!" I yelled. "She needs to be fixed now! I can't wait around while you pull strings and drag your heels! She's suffering Vanessa! You know what they say about her in school?" he yelled back. "FIXING THIS WOULD REQUIRE REMOVING SIX YEARS OF HER MEMORIES, WHICH IS HALF HER ENTIRE LIFE AND SHE PROBABLY DOESN'T REMEMBER MUCH ABOUT THE OTHER HALF! YOU'D BREAK HER!" I screamed.
"What's going on here!" demanded elder Laurent. I realized I had been shouting. I realized people were staring. "MIND YOUR BUSINESS". They returned to their various building tasks. I rounded on elder Laurent. "A couple of weeks ago, Peter came to me asking I mess with Charlotte's memories to undo what was done to her in that pce. I expined to him that it was far too dangerous to mess with her memories on that scale. And he's executively decided to ignore my warning and found someone else to mess with her memories instead" I seethed.
Elder Laurent turned to Peter. "I had to do something!" he excimed. "Vanessa, how do you know something terrible will happen if we mess with her memories on that scale?" he asked. "Mother. Funny farm!" I reminded him. "Would it be possible for him to meet your mother from the funny farm?" asked Elder Laurent. I shook my head. "That's a long way to go just to demonstrate the worst mistake of my life" I replied dourly.
"Then I will say this. Witches know the dangers of their own powers best" said elder Laurent. "Mr. Bck said it was safe" retorted Peter. "Perhaps he's right. Or perhaps young Vanessa knows something he doesn't" cautioned the elder. "They're talking about her behind her back at school. They think she's crazy! She can't take it. Can't you see its killing her!" he cried.
"Even for a beastshifter, tearing out the heart to cure an illness sounds pointlessly risky" I bit out. "Something must be done!" snapped Peter. "Indeed" smiled Laurent. "The elders will speak on it. In the meanwhile don't try that again. If a girl who can kill with a thought believes something too risky, I wouldn't go against her judgement" he said. I took a few calming breaths. "Thank you elder Laurent" I bit out. He patted me on the shoulder. "You're welcome Vanessa" he smiled.
"What was that all about?" asked Charlie, as we were walking back to my cabin. "That was my adoptive sister Charlotte. We were in prison together" I said. "In prison? She's just a kid!" cried Charlie. "Well it was more of an indoctrination centre run by a nazi's granddaughter working for the US army" I replied. "What? WHAT? That's so fucked up!" cried Charlie. "Yes. Yes it was. Hence why her Dad wants me to erase it from her memories. But that's too much memory to erase. I'd do too much damage modifying that much memory. No, she needs professional help" I expined.
"You'd need one hell of a professional to deal with all that" noted Charlie. I nodded. "Tell me about it. Don't suppose you know a champion therapist who wouldn't mind being spirited away to the mountains to live in a communist utopia that hates lesbians?" I asked. "Um… No, not really" said Charlie. I sighed. "Well it was worth asking…"
