Chapter 18

We caught Kelley in mid-sandwich when we got home. "I've been eating all day", she complained, "and I'm still starving! I think I've grown at least an inch though, and I had to change clothes twice. Finally, I just put this on."

She was wearing one of my flannel shirts, and it looked good on her. I never filled the front of it out the way she did, that's for sure. It looked like her hips were wider, too. She looked great!

She finished off her snack, and asked "Since we have all the elements covered, shouldn't we be doing something productive with what we know?"

The others seemed ready to agree, but I sure wasn't. "No, ladies. Absolutely not! We don't know enough about what we'd be facing yet. Besides that, we need to work as a team. We haven't even practiced that. Add to that that I've just barely scratched the surface of what I might be able to do, and it's a bad idea. Denise and I have already lost our parents to magic users, and I'll be damned if I'll lose any of you. We start when we're ready, and not one minute sooner. Heck, we can't even practice right until the house is done. OK?"

I expected protests, but was surprised when they agreed with me. Before I could question them, the subject of the bed came up. Four had been cozy, and five had been a little snug. Six had filled it to overflowing. Denise had slept on top of me last night. I had enjoyed it, but she complained that I was 'too lumpy'. It gave me an idea, and while the rest of the family finished breakfast, I gave it a try. It kind of surprised me when it turned out to be as easier than I thought.

The look on Kelley's face when we got home from school let me know she had seen it. She didn't let the secret out, though. It didn't take long for everyone to find out. We went upstairs to change out of our school clothes, and I followed the girls into the room. It was kind of funny, really. They didn't even notice, at first. It was Bernie who finally saw the difference.

She looked at Kelley first, and got a subtle 'no', along with a nod in my direction. Bernie just looked at me and remarked "Already making room for more, studley? Aren't we enough for you?"

The rest of them caught on after that, but I made myself resist their pleas to try the 'new and improved' version out. I was kind of proud of it, actually. They didn't know all the tricks our new bed would perform. It only looked like it had grown two feet on each side, but there was more. If the spell worked as I believed it would, it was now self expanding. For each new occupant, it would grow wider by an additional three feet. I kept that little detail to myself.

Kelley's transformation took almost two weeks, but the changes from day to day seemed dramatic. It was like being with a different girl every time we were together while it was going on. As soon as it was complete, we got the papers filed. We didn't only need to travel to the county courthouse though. It also involved a trip to the state capitol. Pierre was a fairly long drive, but everyone wanted to go. We made the trip in May, and it took three days. Everything went smoothly, and Kelley began her new life. The longest process was applying for her Social Security card. Government never was known for its speed. Still, by June she was all set. That included her driver's license, and a new dune buggy.

The weather had warmed up considerably, and we began to ride a lot more. Most of our trips were to the new place. Dad had a gravel road put in between the houses, but we seldom took anything with wheels. That only happened when there wasn't much time. We made the move just after school ended.

The move was pretty simple, since the only thing it involved was some clothes. The real work started after that. I wasn't consulted on all of the other things we needed, just drafted to help move them when they got to the house. That wasn't as hard as it might sound. We had all gotten pretty good at levitation and Teleportation. I did the same trick with the king sized bed that I had done with the old one.

Our summer vacation was busy. We made good on our promise to Charlie, at the reservation. I had increased my ability at healing by quite a bit, but I'd never be in Bernie's league. The state of the people's health on the reservation was bad enough, but what really pissed us off was the economic condition in the area. Jobs were hard enough to find where we lived. Here there simply weren't any at all. They had a lot of problems, but it seemed that this was the root cause of most of them.

The main occupation seemed to be agriculture, and it didn't provide much in the way of employment. There didn't seem to be a solution, that we could see. Even if an industry could be started there, it was so out of the way that transportation would prevent it from being profitable. Bringing in raw material and shipping the finished product would simply cost too much. Even magic couldn't cure everything.

What we could do, was improve on what little they already had. Raising crops was a chancy thing on the reservation. The soil wasn't very good, and the weather was often uncooperative. It took most of the summer, but things should be better now. The soil was richer, and would continue to improve until it reached a set level of nutrients. Water was a bit more involved than playing with rainfall. There were just too many things that could go wrong with weather magic.

For starters, there was only so much water vapor in the atmosphere. If it is directed to one location, that means another will be drier. Making others suffer for the benefit of the tribe wasn't acceptable, so another solution was attempted.

Locating the underground water was a snap, but it was three hundred feet down. Getting to it wasn't the problem. Making it look like something non-magical was. We chose a simple solution, and dug wells wherever they were needed. They would be driven by wind power, and should pass the test.

All of that could've been done much faster than it was, but we were still in hiding. Everything we did, was done with as much shielding and secrecy as we could manage. Soil enrichment was the hardest thing to do undercover, and would take the longest to get done. Moving minerals around in the ground was hard to hide, and was only partially successful. The solution wasn't elegant, but should work.

Manure is good fertilizer, but there wasn't that much livestock on the land the tribe had. We did a little manipulating on the ranch, so an easy supply could be had. I won't tell you how hard it is to get a stupid cow to crap in the same place every time, but it took a while. The results would be hauled from our place and tilled in.

We did a lot of work on the equipment, too. Much of it was pretty run-down, and all of it was old. When we finished, it still looked old, but ran like new. If we hadn't done anything else, at least they wouldn't be going hungry. It would take a lot of work on their part, but they'd be much better off. In a couple of years, they could even start selling the surplus.

We would have done much more, but letting our secret out could prove too costly. We didn't get a chance to dwell on the negatives, though. Charlie made good on his promise to us, as well. When we left for home, I had five wives. At least in the eyes of the tribe, I did.

Finishing the house took the rest of the summer. Bernie and Ann did most of the hard stuff, and the rest of us helped when we could. When it was finally done, the underground portion was our favorite part of the house. The huge heated (thanks to Kelley, Ann, and Bernie) pool was unbelievable.

We had been practicing every day, except for the time we spent on the reservation. All of us seemed to be getting stronger each of those days, but there were limits on what we could try. The sheer destructiveness of some of the spells ruled them out. We had nowhere else to practice, and didn't want to destroy our new home.

Things like earthquakes, firestorms, floods, and such, had to be scaled back dramatically. Denise and I did get to practice lightning, but we waited for a convenient thunderstorm to mask it. Lightning on a clear day could attract unwanted attention, even as far out of the way as we were.

I met a new friend in August. I walked out the front door one day, and there he was. I had never seen a wolf that large before. He introduced himself, but said he didn't have a name. That was left to me. Since he was the color of smoke, I used my imagination. Smokey seemed pleased enough with it, so that was good enough for me. The figure on my amulet could've been a photograph of him, it was that close.

Within a week, we had a small menagerie. A huge hawk showed up for Denise, with an owl and a kingfisher. They came for Cheryl and Ann, respectively. The next appearance was a wolverine, for Bernie. Kelly's salamander was the last to make an appearance. All of the creatures were unique specimens of their breed. Besides being comparatively huge, they seemed to have some talents of their own. I just about shit, when Aggie (short for Agamemnon, Kelly's salamander, changed into a dragon!

Size, shape, and invisibility, were the major talents the creatures possessed. Even those were somewhat limited. Shape was restricted to one other creature. In Smokey's case, that was a creature I wouldn't want to meet in the dark. He said it was a Hellhound. It seemed like I had heard that word somewhere, so I looked it up in the library the next time we went to town. I found references to it, along with some pictures. None of them were as scary as Smokey.

We could really practice now. I couldn't imagine any shields stronger than the ones we had. It was a good thing, too. We had reached the point where we could tap power almost anywhere, but it was so strong at our place it was dangerous. We had to be careful how much we used, to keep from blowing our house up. We managed to singe it a few times, anyway.

Cheryl was the one who voiced it, but we had all been worried. Everything we had learned, came from the books we had. Our enemy probably had either the same books, or ones a lot like them. He would probably have a lot more people than us, too. If we stuck to the books, we had no chance at all of winning. It was a scary thought.

That's when we started experimenting. First, it was learning the proper counter to every spell in the books. Memorizing those took a long time. Still, it wouldn't be enough. We had nothing to lose, so we started inventing other spells, as well as getting creative.

That's where a lot of the minor damage came from, but we learned a lot of useful things. Our companions helped quite a bit, too. We had security besides the shields. There were wolves, cougars, birds, and probably half of the other animals in the forest keeping watch for us. The only time we really felt vulnerable, is when we left the place.

Harold: "They're hiding! The bastards must have discovered how to shield their magic. This will make it difficult, but not impossible. I doubt they are knowledgeable enough to avoid leaks. The perimeter shall be tightened until we detect them. It's only a matter of time.

I wasn't looking forward to football as much as I had last year. There were so many things to do! We barely had time to go riding once in a while as it was. School would be bad enough. Everyone's practice time would be cut in half, but it would be worse for me. I'd just have to make do, I guess.

At least the worry of what would happen to our place while Ann, Denise, and I were in college was taken care of. Bernie, Cheryl, and Kelly didn't want to go. They would stay on our ranch, and tend to things. We would visit every chance we got, and since we planned on having a plane and knowing how to fly it, that would be fairly often.