A Wild Conversion

by Katherine Gilbert

  It was an odd term to use, having been raised her entire life with her grandfather alone.

  Randolph’s partner was sitting slumped in a chair, for as much as Benjamin and his cats tried to comfort her. Her light green eyes were mostly empty, and it was difficult to tell whether what animated her were some lingering fragment of her soul or simply the remainder of some old spell.

  When they all looked at her, she started singing half under her breath, as though it were a nursery song, “Oh, Randolph says, ‘be good—for me.’ Randolph liiistens true. Randolph says, ‘per-form—for me.’ That’s all you can do.”

  It was a horrible, eerie sound, like a child’s voice in an abandoned graveyard.

  Looking back to the rest of them, Benjamin squeezed his daughter’s hand. “The compulsions are gone, but that’s all I can unearth in her.”

  He seemed so sad, wouldn’t meet Emma’s eyes.

  “It’s like all that’s left are some abandoned programming cues.”

  Tillie’s sigh brought them all back. “Unfortunately, that’s going to take some time to determine.”

  Sadly, that made sense, as the poor woman had been under compulsions since before she could walk.

  Tillie’s gaze returned to Emma. “Goodwinter Distaff, would you allow William and Jane to live with you? William is very experienced at magical deprogramming. If Lily can be brought back, he’s the one who can do it.”

  Uncertainly, Emma stared at the man. Fifty years of distrust were difficult to dismiss.

  “I suspect Jane will be happier living near her brother, as well, and he can watch over William, if you still don’t trust him.”

  Emma didn’t need to point out that she certainly didn’t. Apparently, Tillie understood where Frederick was going to be living, too—not that they had discussed it, but it did feel right.

  The woman went on. “Having a loving family near her, even if they’re family she doesn’t really know, should help.”

  Tillie’s gaze went to Benjamin’s cats, seemed to be changing the subject radically.

  “Do you think they’re ready to be re-formed?”

  Emma glanced at Natalie, who shrugged, as her grandfather answered. “I think several of them want to go back to who they were, but there’s at least two who prefer being cats.”

  He looked hopeful, as he asked the next bit.

  “Maybe you can undo the magic enough to let them decide to return if they want?”

  Tillie nodded, gazing deeply into the cats around the man’s feet. Most of them sat up, looking at her expectantly, while one rolled around on its back.

  Soon, three of them were changing, becoming larger, losing their fur. Soon, two naked women sat up primly, while a naked man cavorted on his back.

  The naked man started rolling all over, which made for an extremely disconcerting sight. “Ohhh, it feels good to stretch again! The floor feels even better without fur.”

  Thankfully, Errol had managed to produce some clothes for them, which the two women put on without a fuss, but the man pouted.

  “No! Like naked!”

  He rolled on his back once more.

  “Clothes are borrrrring.”

  “Sammy,” Benjamin warned. He looked up at his granddaughter. “Sorry. This is my brother, Sammy, your great-uncle, I guess.”

  He focused on the unrepentant man warningly. Sammy had hair as dark as Emma’s and was long and lean, so there was a disturbing amount of him to roll around.

  “He was always a handful.”

  Naked and unconcerned, Sammy continued to roll.

  It took a few more minutes, and a warning from Tillie, before they finally convinced the man to put on some clothes. He gave in with extremely bad grace, mumbling all the way. Even once he did, the clothes were rumpled and left open in various ways, although thankfully all the vital bits were now covered.

  Benjamin ignored him, turning to the two women, who watched Emma, still and interested.

  “This is my sister, Elizabeth, your great-aunt, and my mother, your great-grandmother.”

  Both the women nodded in time. Clearly, had they still been in feline form, they would have been swishing their tails. They looked so much alike that it was no doubt they were mother and daughter, with short reddish hair and light blue eyes. While Emma’s great-grandmother seemed to be about fifty, although she was undoubtedly much older, Elizabeth didn’t look any older than Emma, which made her wonder if being a cat had a preservative effect.

  Sammy could have been 18.

  “I’d introduce you, but I’m sure they’ve been following everything.”

  All of this was a bit sudden for Emma, and she could feel Natalie’s shock, as well.

  Emma continued to stare at her grandfather. “Have you always known who they were?” It would explain his intense devotion to his cats.

  Looking down, he rubbed the back of his neck. “Only since you killed Hester.”

  Emma was going to interrupt to explain what had really happened, but he went on.

  “The rest of her compulsion sort of vanished with a ‘poof!’ once she was gone.”

  Staring at the cats and ex-cats around him lovingly, he continued.

  “She had me locked up, but after her death, I was freed, and my family found me. I sought out Brandon to get him to summon the Council.” He sighed. “Not that Philbert hadn’t done that on his own.”

  Emma brought him back to the immediate point. “So you remembered who they really were then?”

  Benjamin nodded, looking over his missing family, both feline and human. “They were transformed when I came home from the ball, where I got stuck with Gloria. The compulsion Hester put on me that night ran so deep, though, that all I could remember was that I really missed my cats.”

  This did explain how his feline companions had lasted all these years. Emma had never thought over their longevity before, but she supposed that had been part of the compulsion, as well.

  Interrupting her thoughts, Tillie put in, “Usually, if a witch transmogrifies someone into a creature with a shorter life span, that person would die when the animal would.” Her gaze over the ex-animals was tender. “But I suppose Hester wanted to keep them alive as a sort of torment for Benjamin and changed around the spells.”

  “Yeah,” Benjamin agreed, looking over his mother and sister lovingly. “She never did get me very well. Until Emma, they were the one thing which kept me going.”

  This made sense of many things, but part of it raised another question. “What about my grandmother?” Emma looked over to Tillie. “Is she part of this, too?”

  Staring at her sympathetically, Tillie sighed. “I’m afraid so.” Her gaze went across the room. “Would you like to tell them, William?”

  The man seemed less than pleased. “I’m afraid I’ve had my own compulsion over her since I’ve been here, although just enough to make her remember me as her brother. Other than that, I let her do the things she wants, so I can follow Hester’s plans more closely.”

  He shrugged.

  “I’m not really a Philbert, but it was a place where I could insert myself. Hester enjoyed having coconspirators.”

  This was probably a good thing. Otherwise, William was her great-uncle and also, in a sense, her brother-in-law. Her mind spun trying to follow the family threads. Better to have things a bit less incestuous than that.

  Still, she wondered. “What’s going to happen to her?”

  Tillie answered. “She’s being questioned elsewhere. She can tell us if there are any compulsions left we haven’t taken apart.”

  Still, this only brought up another mystery. “Who’s doing the questioning?”

  Just how much of the Council is here?

  “I did,” the voice proceeded a newcomer into the room. Then, a short, interestingly-plump lady in perfect 19th-century dress came in—and her arrival caused an uproar for at least two of the men Emma loved.

  Frederick rose, letting go of Emma’s hand, happy and surprised. “Pen,
” he smiled.

  She came over to him, and Emma remembered her from the water calling.

  “How did they get you back through time without Hester?”

  His aunt shrugged. “You forget I’m her twin. Some of our magic is linked too.”

  She came over to ruffle his hair before putting her arms around him and giving him a prodigious squeeze.

  “Ah, my little Freddie.”

  Frederick was smiling, holding her tightly as well, before she leaned away to look at his eyes.

  “I’m glad to see you’ve finally started to come into your birthright.”

  She stared up into him contentedly for several long moments but then seemed to remember something, glancing over to Emma, before leaning down to stare at her. “This is your partner as well as one of your teachers, huh? That’s always an interesting combination.”

  Staring into Emma’s eyes, she made her feel like a prize chicken whose feathers were being counted.

  “Mm, interesting choice. Very interesting.”

  She looked back up at her grand-nephew.

  “She’s far too beautiful for the likes of you, you little scamp.” Smiling, she pinched his cheek.

  Emma was a bit taken aback by such an approach, asked through their link. Does she always treat you like a six-year-old?

  Yes, he agreed, but he was grinning.

  This left the question of the man who had been supposed to be her partner, Benjamin now standing in the center of the room, stunned.

  “Penelope,” he breathed. Thanks to Hester’s curse, he hadn’t seen her in a very long time.

  The woman patted Frederick’s head, as he sat back down, and then turned to her would-be partner. “Benjamin,” she smiled and then threw herself into his arms.

  They shared an extremely, embarrassingly passionate kiss there in front of everyone.

  Emma noticed, as she was trying not to watch, that Errol was grinning like a mad fool and Tillie was smiling to herself.

  A moment later, Tillie seemed to catch Emma’s look. “Errol used to be . . .” She sighed. “Never mind. Hester steered this community so erroneously that you wouldn’t even have heard of it. Anyway, he used to connect those who were supposed to be together.”

  Natalie voiced what Emma was thinking. “Is that a magical power?”

  Tillie shrugged elegantly. “It’s not inborn, but lovesight can be learned if you have a sympathy for people.”

  She went back to watching the passionate, ongoing kiss.

  “It’s always nice to see the results.”

  While, on many levels, Emma agreed, she also thought the results were rather embarrassing.

  Waiting out the reunited couple, Tillie went on. “Hester didn’t just erase the memory of so much that’s vital to the magical world here. She also nearly brought you back in time. Look at the way you still dress.”

  Both of them seeing her point, Emma and Natalie did. Frederick, at least, had an excuse.

  “She even chased out every family who wasn’t solely white years before you were born. It’s like Leave it to Beaver with magic and nineteenth century dress around here!”

  Not being able to argue, they just looked at her.

  Tillie let out a frustrated noise. “You don’t even understand the four different kinds of conversions!”

  “Um . . .” Emma started, feeling a bit lost. “I thought every witch’s conversion was individual, so it couldn’t be taught.”

  “That’s true,” Tillie agreed.

  It was odd having this conversation, while her grandfather was canoodling not six feet away.

  “But they still fall into four basic types. There’s Event, Gradual, Spontaneous, and Wild.”

  This seemed a rather odd subject for a time like this, but she realized Tillie was doing it to distract them, while Penelope and Benjamin got reacquainted.

  “An Event Conversion, like yours, is triggered by the magic’s need to respond to some outward stimulus—usually to protect the witch in question. It tends to leave the new sorcerer drained and lightheaded. Gradual can take up to three years, although a month is more normal.”

  Emma and Natalie looked at each other.

  “Unfortunately, there hasn’t been one of those around here for over seventy years, as Hester found a way to siphon off the magic of anyone who showed such slow promise, like Benjamin. Event Conversions are impossible to control from without, so she couldn’t damage them.”

  Nodding, Emma listened, rather glad for the distraction. Watching a grandparent’s extremely passionate embrace was not for the faint of heart.

  “Spontaneous are very rare, as they’re caused by a sudden, traumatic event, but are over in a matter of seconds.”

  Tillie’s eyes went to Frederick.

  “Wilds are by far the most unusual.”

  “And the most dangerous?” he asked, although Emma noted that he didn’t seem sure. He was holding her hand tenderly once more.

  The woman shrugged. “Like any of them, they can be, but they also tend to fall into one of the three other categories, as well. Yours looks to be a Wild Gradual, which is by far the safest of those.”

  She smiled at the two women.

  “Besides, along with Benjamin there, you have three good teachers.”

  Emma wanted to ask about that, as she had no idea that she was really teaching the man much of anything, besides some basic modern and magical vocabulary. However, this was when Benjamin and Penelope finally let some daylight show between them.

  Relieved, Emma let out a breath. While quite pleased to see the man who had so tenderly raised and loved her happy at last, she wasn’t really interested in knowing even the outermost part of the conjugal details.

  Disturbingly, the pair looked like they might start all over again, except that Penelope let out a little, “Oh!” She smiled apologetically at her partner. “I almost forgot.”

  A moment later, her eyes closed.

  “Excuse me. It takes a bit of concentration to manage this.”

  A second after that, a full-grown woman seemed to appear out her ear.

  This was rather a shock to most of them, even if Emma and her companions knew that this was pretty much what they had accomplished earlier.

  Penelope looked a little unsteady. “Oh, thank goodness.” She smiled at the newly-emerged woman. “I love you, my dear, but it is ridiculously difficult to keep in contact both with you and the outside world. I sometimes start muttering out loud when I’m just trying to speak to you inside my mind.”

  She shook her head.

  “Makes it darn difficult to keep people from thinking I’m crazy.”

  Emma met Frederick’s rueful smile for a moment, before looking back to the two women.

  Penelope gestured to her newly-emerged friend. “For those who don’t know, this is Ariel. She’s my youngest sister. Hester targeted her so thoroughly early on that I thought it was safer to hide her somewhere she couldn’t access.”

  The remaining older generation of the Everly family gathered around to welcome the slight young woman, who only looked to be in her middle teens or so, back to the fold. Apparently, being protected in that way also meant she hadn’t aged.

  Once some of the initial hugs and greetings were done, Penelope led her to the sofa where Emma sat. “And this is our dear great-nephew, Frederick, and his new partner, Emma.” She smiled at them. “Without them, we would never have had a chance to come back.”

  There were a few more moments of greetings, much of it stunned, before things settled down.

  Looking to Penelope, Tillie finally brought them back to the point. “What did you get out of Gloria?”

  Pen sighed. “The same sulky refusal to accept blame for her actions she’s had since she was a girl.”

  She patted Benjamin, who now sat beside her, on the hand.

  “Really, my dear, I don’t know how you managed to survive even as long as you did being partnered to her. It must have been hell.”

  He looke
d like he wanted to answer but gazed over to Emma worriedly. The woman was her grandmother, after all.

  Still, Emma just shrugged. She had long understood just how untrustworthy the woman was.

  Pen seemed to see this, simply patting his hand again before going on. “She’s been part of this from the start. She pretty much begged Hester to be included in her program, agreed to be partnered to Benjamin, although I suspect Hester mostly included him to hurt me long-distance. Gloria was quite annoyed when she didn’t manage to breed a sorcerer herself the first time out, like Jane later managed.”

  She looked over to Emma.

  “I think she shared Hester’s slight fear of you.”

  Looking back to Tillie, she patted Benjamin’s hand again before holding it firmly.

  “She’s completely unrepentant. Whatever’s to be done with her, we can’t leave her here.”

  Clearly agreeing, Tillie sighed. “I think we’ll have to send her to a reenforcer.”

  At seeing the blank looks on many of their faces, she sighed again.

  “A reenforcer has a kind of magic which helps a person to see their own faults. Admittedly, it’s extremely uncomfortable to be around, especially if you have many sins to hide. Sometimes, though, a person is able to actually come to terms with who they are and what they’ve done, saving them a lot of torment in the long run.”

  Looking down, she seemed saddened.

  “Other times, admittedly, it’s just a prison of their own pains.” Her gaze returned. “But we can’t allow those who have and will cause others harm out to roam freely again.”

  Everyone understood—many of them clearly a little glad to be rid of the woman. Emma did wonder about Hester’s other coconspirators, although, since most of them were Frederick’s family, she felt a little odd bringing them up.

  Fortunately, Tillie did that for her. “As for most of the Everly family . . .” She looked over to Frederick’s grandfather, great-aunt, and great-uncle. “. . . after having questioned them and those around them, I do not believe that they were a willing part of Hester’s plans.”

  This answered only some of the question, of course, and Tillie went on, addressing the rest sadly. “While I cannot condone your murder of Hester, I will hope that it was done in defense of yourself and those around you, rather than out of vengeance.”