Changespell 01 Dunn Lady's Jess

by Doranna Durgin

  "You think I'm going to believe that?" Derrick scoffed. "I'll get it, Carey—if not tonight, another day. Getting that spell is the only thing on this world that I care about."

  "Life's a bitch," Mark muttered without sympathy.

  Carey said bluntly, "I lost it. Lady and I were separated when I fell, and she didn't have any idea how important it was. You want the spell? Fine. Go look in the woods—I already have."

  "No," Derrick said, his head shaking, barely visible in the darkness. "It's a good story, but too easy for you. It's here somewhere. It took me a few days, but as soon as I remembered where I'd seen that woman's face, I knew you—and it—were here."

  "Fine," Carey shrugged. "Then how about I just kill you and get you out of my way."

  "Um . . ." Mark said, "Carey . . ."

  "I don't think so," Derrick said, his voice full of smug certainty. "I've still got your stone—but it's not on me. Without it you've got no way home."

  "If I were you, I wouldn't count too heavily on that." Carey readjusted his grip on the gun and it was enough to spook Derrick; he dove into the shrubs in front of the porch, and the only sign of him after that was footsteps on pavement until, far down the road, a car started and squealed away on abused tires. Keg gave one last indignant bark and went to Mark, whining anxiously.

  "I thought Derrick shot him," Carey said with some relief.

  "No, gunfire scares him. I'd say he's been hiding." Mark rubbed the dog's ears and stared down the empty road. "That guy's provided us with two guns. I think tomorrow before Jaime gets home, I'll go get some ammo."

  Carey thoughtfully hefted the weapon in his hand, then held it out to Mark. "When you do, maybe you should show me how to use one of them."

  Mark gave a single guffaw, and slapped Carey's unsuspecting shoulder. "Bluffed him out, did you? Yeah, don't worry about it. I'll show you how to use 'em—provided they aren't so fancy I can't figure 'em out myself."

  * * *

  Jess sleepily lifted her head as the tire noise and feel of the road changed; it was well after dark on the day Jaime called Sunday—as if the sun wasn't out the other days of the week, too—and they were just moments from The Dancing. She stretched and yawned hugely, and Jaime moaned, "Oh, don't start," right before she gave in to the yawn Jess had inspired.

  "Almost home," Jess said encouragingly.

  "Right," Jaime agreed. "Where we have to unload Sabre and Silhouette, and haul in our things—"

  "Mark and Carey," Jess interrupted decisively. Her self-confidence had taken a great bound upward this weekend, which she had negotiated without attracting undue attention, and without making any errors that left Jaime in the lurch. Armed with a watch and a simple written schedule, she had had the horses tacked up on time, groomed to perfection and ready for several classes each. In between her duties she had plenty of time to wander around the show grounds and soak in the people, their behavior and language. She'd proudly decided that very few of them knew horses as well as Jaime, or for that matter rode as well. And on that score, she decided, she was as well or better equipped to judge than anybody else, even if she was new to this world and this body. She yawned again, big and satisfied, then clapped her hand over her mouth. "Sorry."

  "Never mind," Jaime said. "Here we are!"

  Suddenly Jess was wide awake, and had somehow managed to forget that she hadn't yet defined her new relationship with Carey. After all, the only reason she'd left him again so soon after his liberation from the hotel was her disturbing confusion about who and what she now was to him—and what he was to her—and her reluctance to face him without Jaime's support.

  He and Mark were out in the horseshoe-shaped driveway before the truck had stopped rolling, and she hopped out of the truck to greet them, uncertainties forgotten for the moment. "We did good!" she announced, grabbing both of Mark's arms in her excitement and using him as a human pivot.

  "He-ey!" he said, a laughing protest, as she left him to give Carey a snatch of a hug, there only an instant and then gone to one knee to greet Keg.

  "We did good, Keg!" she told him, as he solemnly offered his paw.

  "Lady, you'll bounce yourself all the way up to the fifth heaven if you aren't careful," Carey said, still looking a little stunned by the hug.

  She stopped short, cocking her head a little, the gesture that had evolved from her attempt to prick her ears. "You used to say that to me," she realized. "When I was . . . when I was . . ."

  "Full of yourself," Carey supplied. "When you ran up to me in the pasture at a full gallop and stopped right up in my face."

  "Did you like that? I did."

  Carey shook his head, but it was in amused agreement.

  "C'mon, guys," Jaime said, climbing stiffly out of the truck. "Horses to unload. Gear to carry in. More excitement than you've had all weekend, I imagine."

  Mark laughed out loud, and Carey gave him a grin as the two shared some secret joke.

  "What?" Jaime asked blankly.

  "Later," Mark said, moving around the back of the trailer to swing the doors open. "It's a short story, but I think you'll want to give it all your attention."

  With four sets of hands and legs, the unloading went quickly, and by the time they were finished, so was Jess' burst of energy; Jaime sent her into the house with their suitcases while Mark and Carey moved the truck and she herself put the horses to bed.

  Jess dumped her suitcase in her room and Jaime's at the bottom of the stairs, and collapsed on the couch in front of the television Mark had, as usual, left on. She automatically changed the channel to one of the several stations that often ran nature shows and sat there, grateful to be back and just then realizing she'd come to think of this place as home.

  But home, she told herself, was a completely different place, where she was a completely different creature. She closed her eyes and was instantly drawn into intense visions, of running free and of taking Carey from wizard to wizard, feeling the power in her sturdy limbs. Then, relieved to find she could still draw so easily on those memories, she just as quickly left them behind and her attention focused on the strange new object on the coffee table.

  It was heavy and metal, and it had a sharp, acrid smell to it. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands, recalling that Mark had named another similar thing a "gun." It was a weapon, she thought, from the way they'd all reacted to it at the hotel, but she couldn't see the threat in it. It wasn't sharp, and it wasn't a very good shape for throwing. But it was here, on the coffee table, where it hadn't been before.

  With sudden alarm she wondered if Derrick had been here. He was the only one she'd ever seen with one of these things. She sniffed the gun without thinking, but her puny human nose—so inadequate it didn't even have whiskers—told her nothing more than she already knew. She frowned at it, in such intense concentration she didn't realize she was no longer alone.

  "Jess!" Mark said, lunging after the gun just as she grew bold enough to explore its various moving parts. He snatched it from her, and she was so startled she sprang away from him, eyes wild, ready to bolt.

  "Lady," Carey said evenly from behind Mark, command in his voice; she huffed, relaxing back into her more human reactions.

  "Why?" she asked pointedly.

  "It's dangerous," Mark said, pushing out the middle part of the gun and shaking out the pointed cylinders within. "Jess, we've got two of these things in the house now. I want your promise that you won't touch them."

  Why could they touch them but she was not allowed? Though the question instantly came to mind, Jess swallowed that small rebellion and instead asked, "Promise?"

  "It's easier to tell you about breaking promises," Mark said. "If you tell me you'll never touch this gun, and then you wait until I'm gone and you pick it up, that's breaking a promise."

  "It's a Rule," Jess offered uncertainly. "Carey teaches me no kicking, and I don't ever kick. You tell me don't touch, and I don't ever touch. If I say I promise, then I mean I'll follow the Rule." />
  "That's about right," he said, which should have given her a sense of accomplishment for having mastered yet another concept of this perplexing world. Instead she wasn't sure she wanted Mark to have this power over her. She wanted to argue, and swish her tail, and paw her front hoof against the ground; one bare foot came up and rested briefly on its toes, tapping ever so slightly.

  "Mark—" Carey started, looking at that foot, but Jaime's arrival cut the warning short.

  She dumped her knapsack by the suitcase at the foot of the stairs, stared at the gun in Mark's hand, and said shortly, "Where'd it come from?"

  "Why didn't you tell me Derrick had been here, and would recognize you?" Carey shot back at her.

  Stunned at first, Jaime quickly realized the implications of the question. She covered her face with both hands, massaged her temples, and sat gracelessly on the bottom step by the suitcase. "I just didn't think about it," she groaned, pushing loose strands of hair away from her face and back toward the thick barrette that clipped it into a ponytail.

  "Well, it turned out okay," Mark said, looking at the gun. "Wonder how he keeps coming up with these things?"

  "His little weasel-bait friend," Carey growled. "Same place he got the drugs he used on me. He found that guy within two days of our arrival here. I guess there are some things our worlds have in common."

  "Slimeballs. Great," Jaime said tiredly. "Just what did happen?"

  Carey shrugged, and no longer seemed interested in making an issue of Jaime's oversight. "He came looking for the spell. He didn't get it."

  "We found a great place to hide it, though," Mark said. "Stuck it back in the crawl space under the porch." Then his eyes lit up. "He got it open, Jay, did a spell on that seal and it peeled right off! Magic does work here!"

  "At least, I can draw on Camolen's magic," Carey allowed.

  "You can do spells?" Jess demanded. "You can take us back home?"

  Carey looked at her for a long moment, openly studying her. "Is it so awful, being human?"

  Jess was just as thoughtful. "No," she said. "But it is hard not being a horse."

  Mark put a comradely arm around her shoulders, the unloaded gun dangling casually along her arm. "We'd miss you, human or horse."

  "Can you?" Jaime asked bluntly. "Get yourself home, I mean."

  "I doubt it," Carey said. "But I'm going to study the spell anyway. It's better than sitting around waiting for Derrick's next try."

  * * *

  Jess wondered if they'd noticed. For although she suspected it was skirting the edge of the rule, she didn't hold herself to a promise they'd discussed but she'd never given. She did, however, decide that the gun must be a dangerous thing; she needed to understand it before she made any final decision about it. Maybe she would decide it wasn't something she wanted to handle—but somehow it seemed very important that she come to that conclusion on her own.

  Which is why she went with Mark and Carey to the far edge of the paddocks, back by the tree line where they'd earlier hauled some rejected, moldy bales of hay. Armed with a pad of paper, a pencil, and a whole page of words to practice writing, she settled down cross-legged while Mark explained the gun to Carey, and replaced the pointed cylinders he called bullets. As she carefully formed the letters of her name, mentally identifying each one, he held the gun out before him and pulled the trigger.

  Jess and paper exploded into motion. Blank pages fluttered, airborne, while Jess scrabbled away, not waiting to get to her feet before attempting speed.

  "Ninth heaven!" Carey said, his voice holding the edge of anger that meant he, too, had been frightened. Then, quickly, he regained his composure and called, "Lady," a mixture of command and assurance.

  She exerted control over her reflexive flight and stumbled to a stop, spinning to face both the threat and Carey. It was the gun. It was the gun. The gun, and not any direct danger. Carey held out his hand and she slowly returned to them, determined to override the equine instinct with human reasoning, although her legs weren't quite convinced and trembled uncertainly beneath her. She reached Carey and he touched her arm, holding it in a brief but pacifying contact.

  "Sorry, Jess," Mark said sheepishly. "Even got Carey with that one."

  Carey shook his head. "I've heard the noise on your TV, but I had no idea it would be so loud."

  "The gun," Jess said faintly, and then cleared her throat and stood a little taller, declaring firmly, "Too loud."

  "Yeah," Mark agreed, eyes widening at some sight behind her. "Better get your papers before they blow away."

  Jess jerked around, well aware of the havoc the perpetual mid-Ohio winds could cause. She ran after the loose papers, playing a little, rounding them up like a stallion gathers his mares. By the time she'd gotten them all and found the pencil, Carey had the gun and was pointing it at the target on the hay bales. Clutching her papers, Jess waited for the thunderclap of noise, and couldn't help but flinch when it came. But she didn't run. And when Mark led Carey up to the target, she was right on their heels.

  "See?" Mark said, poking his finger into the hole that was there. "That was the first shot. I don't know where yours went," he added somewhat apologetically to Carey.

  "I can't believe it moves so fast," Carey said.

  "The bullet comes out of the gun, and makes a hole in the paper?" Jess asked, looking closely at the target.

  "It makes a hole in whatever's in its way," Mark replied grimly. "Including people."

  Maybe this gun wasn't something she wanted to touch, after all. Jess retreated to the long grass and smoothed her paper out on her knee. She watched the two men as she nibbled wood away from the broken pencil point to expose the lead, and went back to work. But she watched and she listened, and letters weren't the only things she learned that afternoon.

  * * *

  Carey checked the clock over the kitchen sink as he rinsed the last of the dinner pots. Not his favorite chore, but he wasn't being picky these days. Everything—his own personal whims and needs included—was second to returning to Camolen, with the spell safely out of Calandre's greedy little hands. So if Jaime asked him to do dishes, he did dishes. But he'd rather be out in the barn, caring for the horses. Lady would just now be finishing up with their evening meal, while Jaime worked with an advanced student who'd trailered her horse in for the lesson. If he hurried, he'd catch the last half of the hour lesson, and whatever his mixed feelings about being here, he was rabidly interested in Jaime's riding and teaching techniques.

  He slung the dish towel over the oven door handle and hurried out to the barn, past the open hay stall and Lady—and then reversed his tracks and peered in at her. "Lady?" he questioned, unable to figure out why she was on her stomach on the upper level of bales, her arms and head hanging off one end of the prickly mattress, her knees bent and feet bobbing loosely in midair over her bottom.

  "Kittens," she said, somehow perceiving the meaning behind his inquiry.

  He stuck his head into the stall and found there were indeed kittens, young creatures wobbly on their feet, waving unsteady paws after the enticing stalk of hay Lady waved above them.

  "I always liked the cats in the barn," she said, almost dreamily. "I was a good horse, wasn't I, Carey?"

  "Usually," he said, coming around to her head, crouching to pick up one of the kittens. It batted feebly at his fingers, purring.

  The hay stem stopped its twirling, as Lady looked up at him. "What will happen to me when we go home?"

  "Happen?" he repeated, not quite understanding.

  She wrinkled her nose impatiently. "Will I be Jess, or will I be Lady?"

  Oh, that was it. "You're still Lady," he said gently. "You always will be. And when we return home, I'm pretty sure you'll be Lady on four legs again."

  "Am I Lady now?" she asked, more of a contradiction than a question. "I make my own rules now. Lady wouldn't."

  "Magic can't change what you are." Carey laid a hand on her thick dark sand hair for a moment, then let it drop aw
ay. "You'll be fine."

  She accepted the caress, but shook her head in disagreement. "I miss what I was—but to be Lady again, I would have to give up Jess. And now sometimes I think . . . I think maybe Jess is a nice thing to be."

  "And not go on the runs anymore? And what about the courier competitions—do you remember coming along with the Dun Lady when you were a yearling? She took second overall in those games. You were my choice for this year."

  "Was I?" she asked with interest. "That would be fun. Is that why you took me down Arlen's stairs last fall? Were we practicing for a strange game?"

  Carey blinked at the unexpected question, not eager to admit that somewhat dangerous prank was merely macho silliness. "No," he said, through a cough, "that was just . . . a learning experience."

  "I had a lot of those," Jess said somewhat remorsefully.

  Carey smiled, well caught up in memories that revolved around the dun filly he'd raised and trained. "How about that stuffy guy who tried to buy you once—the only courier of some lowling wizard, out to get a backup mount. I'd just started you under saddle, and didn't have any intention of selling you, but . . ." He shrugged, still crouched down in front of her, watching the memory rather than Lady. "Had to go through the motion, you know, for Arlen. So I let him saddle you up, and you'd stepped on his foot three times before you even got out of the barn cavern. And when he mounted, he dug your ribs with his toe, the clumsy oaf—you went straight up in the air, hopped twice, and took off with him—" And though the memory was still clear, Carey got no further, distracted by Lady's laughter. She'd rolled over on her back and was giggling almost uncontrollably, no doubt remembering the creek in which she'd dumped that unfortunate courier. He found himself smiling, then chuckling, and when she twisted her head around to look at him upside down, he was lost, and they were both hopelessly caught up in laughter, set off anew each time they caught one another's eye.

  When they finally wound down, gasping for breath, suspended in a moment of complete ease with one another, Carey suddenly found himself wanting to reach for her and hold her close, to feel the lithe lines of her body against him. With a shock, he snapped back into proper perspective, where this dynamic creature was a horse, and not someone he could ever really call his—not if he wanted to be hers, as well.