Chapter 12

Margie has the Narrative:

Robert returned close to sundown, well after we had finished the evening meal. Grace and Owen called it supper, as did many in this time period. Later in the twentieth century this would change to dinner, but that is what they called the midday meal. Names do change over time.

At any rate, I had saved food for Robert. While he was gone, I had felt his joy at flying again, but also his anger when he discovered that those men had disregarded his warning, and his determination to punish them for what they had done. Following that, I had felt his sorrow that the young woman had been abducted, and his pride at being able to help her without revealing who and what he was. Lastly, I had felt his joy to be back in the sky again before returning to the house. He gave me a long passionate kiss when he came in.

Robert made short work of his meal, as he had expended a lot of energy as Crendenor. He was also very much in need of me, and his thoughts of having sex set my own juices to flowing.

“We should return home for the night,” I told him, as he finished eating and before I used a spell to clean the dishes and utensils that he had used.

“Yes, to our own bed,” he replied with a smile, as we joined hands and disappeared from the house at the end of Plantation Lane. We reappeared in our bedroom in our house in the O’Connell Realm, and were out of our clothes immediately, but I needed to stop and talk to Robert before we went any further. He spoke before I could, however.

“You’ve gotten much larger,” he said pointing to my baby bump.

“Yes, I was going to mention it before we started,” I told him.

“Are you ... all right? Are the twins giving you any trouble?” Robert asked, and paused, “I should have asked before this, but no one in my immediately family has been in this kind of situation in a long time. Red Cloud should have married by now, but he hasn’t and neither has Janeen,” he said in a quiet voice.

“Your Brother and Sister will find mates at the appropriate time,” I told him, but didn’t know how I knew that. Instead, I moved into his arms as best I could with my big belly, and we kissed and held each other for a long, long time. When we finally got to it, the sex started out in the doggie position, but we wound up in bed in the spoon position ... the second time. We both slept very well that night ... following a long, hot, steamy shower.

The June problems weren’t over however, and the next one that came up was caused by of all things ... DEER! Deer were getting into the farmer’s crops and causing damage. They were eating the tasty, to them, young plants, and it was happening in all of the fields surrounding Plantation Lane, and not just the O’Connell’s fields, but those all around Statesboro.

This was a problem that the small cats couldn’t handle although they were no longer all that small anymore. The female was an excellent mouser, and her brother took his share of the various pests in the fields and around the house and its buildings also, but this was a problem that would require a much larger cat to solve it.

The problem had become serious enough by late June, that some of the O’Connell’s tenant farmers were talking about staking out their fields at night and shooting the deer that came to eat in them. This was not a good idea, as there would be little or no coordination and something besides deer could wind up dead. At my insistence, Owen called a meeting of his farmers for the afternoon of Sunday, the 23rd of June in Statesboro. We met outside of the church that Owen and Grace attended there.

The meeting started in the shade provided by the church building when all of those concerned had arrived. In addition to the eight farmers and a couple of their Wives, Joe, Grace, Owen, Robert, and I were there. Owen opened the meeting.

“Thank you for taking time out of your Sunday to talk about our mutual problem, namely the deer in our crops,” Owen said to open the meeting.

“It won’t be a problem much longer,” Mr. Shoot the Deer, a tall heavy set man with bushy hair said, “I intend to be out there with a rifle tonight and shoot any deer that I see in my field.”

“I’m sure that all of us have considered that,” Owen told them, before adding “It could be a dangerous practice.”

“Dangerous ... how and to whom?” a second farmer asked, and this was where I took control of the meeting.

“If you have eight men out there in those fields with rifles in the dark, what happens when you see a deer?” I asked.

“You shoot it,” several men answered immediately.

“Yous shoots at it,” Joe added. “Ma’be yous hits it, and ma’be yous doesn’t. Ma’be it ain’t no deer,” he added in a soft voice.

“Exactly, in the dark, it’s very difficult to estimate distance, or to tell what you are shooting at. It could be one of the other farmers out in his field. How many of you are expert shots in the dark?” I asked. They had no answer for that.

“It’s nearly the full moon now. We should be able to see pretty well,” one of them said.

“And when the moon is less full?” I asked.

“Well... ?”

“How long do you propose to sit out in your fields at night? A week ... a month ... or until harvest time?” I asked them. “And who will tend your fields during the day? You can’t do both ... not for long anyway.”

“What else can we do?” someone finally asked.

“And who are you, anyway?” another asked.

“Gentlemen, this is my Cousin, Margaret O’Connell. It was Margie and her Husband who are responsible for the removal of the weeds and brush from your fields so you could plow them easily,” Owen told them in introduction.

“Really?” several of them asked.

“You ain’t planned on using fire to solve this problem is you?” another asked.

“No, not fire,” I told him. “What I am asking is for you to give me a week to solve this problem. The solution will be a permanent one, and you won’t be bothered by deer again this year and possibly not in the future,” I told them.

“What are you going to do?” asked the one who wanted to shoot deer.

“You didn’t ask how we removed the brush and weeds, don’t ask how we’ll do this,” I told him. “You only need to know that we will take care of it,” I added. They finally agreed, even Mr. Shoot the Deer. We all returned home following that. It was at supper that Owen asked ‘the question’.

“What are you going to do?” he asked, as I finished a larger than normal meal. I was eating for three after all.

“I’m going to travel the perimeter of the fields and mark them with my scent,” I told him.

“With your scent?”

“Yes, I’ll be in my were-form at the time. When the deer smell the scent of a large predator, they will avoid the area and find something to eat in a less dangerous place.”

“You can do that in your condition?”

“Yes, but I may need to spend a few nights out in the area near the fields to scare off the more stupid ones,” I told him.

“How are you going to be on both sides of the fields at once?” Grace asked.

“Obviously, I can’t be on both sides, but my Father has agreed to help me, and he’s even larger than I am being a male Tiger,” I told her. “He’ll be taking the northern side of the fields while I take the southern one,” I added.

“And the west?” Owen asked.

“Robert will be watching the west side of the fields,” I told him.

“But how will that be a permanent solution?” Grace asked.

“Mother is preparing a number of warding stones that will be placed at the corners of each field, plus some to go in the middle of the long fields to keep the deer and other animals out. The spell is a bit complicated by the need to allow horses and mules into the field along with the cats, but she says that they will be ready soon,” I told them.

“How long will those stones last?” Owen asked.

“They are actual stones infused with Magic, and we will check them every few years and renew the spell on any that need it,” I told him.

Later as we prepared to set out for our first night of marking and patrolling the fields, Robert approached me with a question.

“Are you sure that it’s wise to shift into your were-form while you are pregnant?” he asked in a worried voice.

“Yes, it will be all right. The girls already have their Talents and they will be quite safe,” I assured him with a smile. Father arrived just after 8:00 that evening wearing a Wizard’s robe just as Robert and I were.

“How is Mother doing with the warding spell?” I asked.

“She told me that she almost has the spell ready. It won’t take long to create the active stones. How many are required again?” he asked.

“Twenty-four will be required to cover the area adequately,” I told him.

“That won’t be a problem. We can create them in batches of twelve and activate all of them once they are all in place,” he assured me.

We all set out then to begin marking our areas, but first I cast a spell to prevent around the stable to keep our scents from entering it and alarming the horses in there. The cats were already out in the fields looking for rodents.

I transferred to the southern most edge of the fields and began to mark various things like trees, bushes, and rocks as well as the ground outside of the fields to mark my territory. Being something like six months pregnant, I had no trouble urinating to mark my territory. I also rubbed my face on stones to mark them and used my claws to mark the few good size trees in the area.

Earlier that day I had set out some small buckets to hold water near the edge of the fields. It was simple to call water to them to drink, but I needed to be in the Warrior state to use my Magic, and it was inevitable that one of us would leave foot prints somewhere, though I doubted that anyone here would recognize what they were from.

Following marking the area that I covered, I found a place in some small trees and bushes to rest. The nearly full moon had made it easy to see the area that I covered, but I wished that there were some high ground where I could watch the entire area from, but there was none. I would need to use the wind to detect any deer approaching the fields and the markings that I had left. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing from the north presently which would help my Father, but not me. I would need to be particularly alert to detect any deer tonight.

Another unfortunate circumstance was that the moon would set just after 4:00 that morning, the favorite time for deer to have a late snack before bedding down for the day. Still, the wind did begin to shift just around that time, and I caught the scent of a couple of females and a male moving toward the fields.

I quickly moved out of the cover of the trees and bushes, using the darkness and the cover provided by other bushes and tall weeds, to silently move to a place where I could intercept them. I was lying in wait and ready to spring, when to my consternation, the wind shifted again bring my scent to the deer just before they reached where I awaited them, and they immediately took off in several different directions in panicked flight. I roared my displeasure at them before returning to my original hiding place.

One thing that I had noticed in my were-form was that the twins were much less of a burden to me. Since I weighted over three times as much in my were-form as I do in my human-form that wasn’t too surprising. I waited in my original hiding place until the sun came up at about quarter past five, before returning to the O’Connell house for a breakfast of meat and a day spent asleep. It turned out that my Father had been much more fortunate than I was, and he had collected a small buck which he didn’t share with me or anyone else.

“I hear you roar shortly after the moon set,” he mentioned at breakfast.

“Yes, the wind shifted and carried my scent to a group of deer that I was lying in ambush for,” I told him in a disgusted voice.

“The wind did shift quite a bit last night,” he agreed, but that was all that he said on the subject. Robert hadn’t said anything about his night, even when we were alone in the room upstairs. All that we did was sleep that day after a little kissing and hugging.

We repeated the marking and patrolling of the perimeter of the fields for the next couple of nights. On Wednesday, the 26th, the moon didn’t rise until just after 8:30 that evening and was full providing a lot of light for me as Macha, my were-self, to see by. Because it rose so late, it was up all night and didn’t set until well after sun rise.