Chapter 26

I also had another idea during this time. It was to publish the diaries in both their original Gaelic and an English translation. It also occurred to me that there were many books of Magic that were not readily available, and could stand reprinting. Of course these would only be for sale to those with appropriate levels of the Talent. The more advanced books would only be printed in Gaelic, but lower level ones could be in English. I even began envisioning how I would want them to look, based on books I had used. At the time I had little idea of how to produce them. That was something for future study and consideration.

We went to help my Mother for Thanksgiving this year as usual, but again didn't stay for dinner with my siblings and their families. My Mother was disappointed, but she did appreciate our help with the preparations, and my wives returning for cleanup the next day.

It wasn't until we returned on the 21st of December that I found out that Uncle Dan had been there during Thanksgiving dinner, and had read the riot act to my siblings and their spouses. Mom told us that she had never seen her brother so upset. Certainly Dad and my siblings hadn't either. Afterward Uncle Dan had stomped out of the house, telling them that he never wanted to see such an uncaring and ungrateful bunch again.

Apparently my relatives were shocked and didn't know what to make of his behavior, especially when Dad told them that Uncle Dan was correct. This shocked them even more, as they were well aware that the two of them never saw eye-to-eye on things. For the remainder of Thanksgiving, they were very quiet and only my sisters stayed to help Mom clean up after dinner.

During the next week, my other three uncles called each of my male relatives and demanded that they be at my parent's house that Sunday afternoon at 2:00 PM or else. Mom told me that the three uncles made it very plain to my brothers and brothers-in-law that they had never had any reason to doubt anything I had ever told them, and that the four of them were idiots. She also told me that those weren't the exact words they had used, but she wasn't going to repeat the words that they had used.

Apparently my aunts were there and also told them what a bunch of idiots they were. My aunts also mentioned how nice my wives were. I now knew that everyone in our extended family knew that I had two wives.

This year our daughters were a year and a-half old, and wanted to help Mommie with everything. They especially liked helping make the Christmas cookies, and of course sampling them. Emer and Fand were still enchanted with the baking and the smells of the hot cookies and pies. They enjoyed the sampling of the cookies just as much as our daughters did.

We did the purchasing and decorating of the Christmas tree and house again this year. We went to midnight services with our four daughters, who slept through most of them, but they did hear their mothers sing the Christmas carols and the initial hymns. The four of them did cause quite a stir among those who saw them for the first time.

We stayed for Christmas dinner, and my brothers and brothers-in-law were very subdued when they arrived. Paul seemed to have assumed the role of leader, as usual.

"Uhm ... Mark," he began, "we ah ... we have reconsidered what you told us, and what Uncle Dan said also, and we're ready to believe you, but... !" He stopped there for a few seconds.

"Uncle Dan told us that you have some kind of tunnel to your house. If we were to see that, we could really believe what you told us," my brother William told me, breaking into Paul's silence.

"All right," I finally agreed after some thought. "I'll show it to you, but it's covered by the same spell that I used previously."

"OK!" they all agreed. I led them back behind the stairs and opened the closet door. We all walked through the portal to our house in Statesboro. The four of them just stood there with their mouths hanging open.

"Damn!" Paul said in astonishment. The others didn't say anything. I showed them around the house and the rest of the property before returning to my parents' house.

"Either you are some kind of scientific wiz, or that really is Magic," William told me after we returned.

"Why didn't you show us this before? It definitely makes it easier to believe you," Ken, one of my brothers-in-law, asked.

"Because only Mom and Dad were supposed to know about it," I told them. "Mom told Uncle Dan, and he had to see it too. I don't know what Uncle Dan used to convince our other uncles to get them to help him." I had a private suspicion that Uncle Dan knew more Magic then he admitted to.

"They didn't seem to be too sure what our beef with you was, but they were definitely behind you one hundred percent," Paul told me. The others all agreed, and they had definitely been impressed. This increased my suspicion about Uncle Dan.

Dinner this Christmas was very lively, and much more pleasant than the last one here had been. Emer and Fand had stayed here this time also, and had eaten earlier while the children ate. The older children didn't know quite what to make of them. The younger ones loved them, as they sang to them, played games with them, and told them stories. All of the Moms loved them, as they didn't need to watch the little ones or worry about them. The Fairies watched all of the children while the adults ate.

We returned on Saturday, the 26th, to help Mom with the cleanup after the big dinner. My wives seemed to be in very good spirits this holiday season. We went to church in Statesboro on Sunday the 27th, and my wives even joined the choir. Our daughters had remained at home.

Emer and Fand left for a short visit to the Otherworld on Sunday afternoon and returned on Thursday afternoon, New Year's Eve. They brought a small cask of O'Connell's Irish Ale with them for us to celebrate New Year's with. Our daughters were asleep for the night by 9:00 PM, and we all celebrated in the sitting room with Emer, Fand, and Theresa. The ale was as good as we remembered it being.

Friday, the 1st of January 2016, we were very late getting up, as we had partied until well after midnight. Somehow the Fairies had gotten up before us and fed our daughters, who came running into our bedroom to wake us at 10:00 that morning. They were too short to get up on the bed by themselves even with the help of the step, so we were seriously shocked when all four of them joined hands, and floated up onto our bed with a high pitched squeal followed by much giggling.

"How did they do that?" Margie asked in shock, as her twins snuggled up to her.

"I don't know, but I have a suspicion?" Katie answered, as her twins climbed all over her. Later we talked with Emer and Fand.

"No!!" Emer told us emphatically. "We never showed them how to do that, or taught them any spells. They have seen us float out of the room, or up to get things out of reach, however."

"Oh dear!!" Katie said in shock, "that means they figured it out by themselves."

"Yes!" Margie agreed, "but it took all four of them cooperating together to do it."

"What have we started!?" Katie asked in wonder.

"We need to have a serious talk with our daughters," Margie told her sister. "You need to be there, too, Mark," she added. What was I going to tell them, I wondered?

After breakfast, we took our daughters into the music room to talk with them. It took quite some time, because it required more than just telling them not to do that. At 19 months old, they didn't understand what they had done. They just wanted to do things, in this case get to their Mom, and had figured out a way to do what they wanted. They were very smart and ingenious little girls. Eventually we persuaded them to not do that again unless we gave them permission.

Classes resumed for the new semester on Monday, the 11th of January. We had gone in to get our schedules and books on Tuesday, the 5th. This was our last semester, and graduation was close now.

I had spent as much time as possible over the holidays working on the first story, and was close to finishing it. This last semester was lighter than the previous one, and I anticipated having enough time to finish the story. I had entitled it "Chauncey O'Connell: An Irish Indentured Servant in the Colonies, 1762 to 1770." I had drawn most of the material from the first O'Connell diary, and used a part of the O'Day diaries to add some color and background to the story that I had created from the facts there.

It was early February when my sweet wives began having morning sickness again and announced that they were pregnant - both of them. They knew what to do this time for the morning sickness, and which doctor to see. They seemed to be genuinely happy to be pregnant again. They wanted to give me sons to carry on the family name, they told me.

It also seems that some of their liberal female professors had been railing against men, and for the rights of women, mainly for their right to live with other women. My wives knew this would aggravate them no end, and they couldn't wait to start wearing maternity clothes. They didn't swell up as quickly this time, which did diminish their joy somewhat, however they did take every chance they got to tell the other students that they were pregnant, much to their professors' consternation.

By early March, I was nearly finished the first story, and had a copy shop run off sixteen copies of the title page and first two chapters of the story. I left six copies with my parents to have Dad, Uncle Dan and my other male relatives read them and give me their opinion of what they thought of them. The remaining copies went to Sean in Boston. I had called him, and asked to have some of his people read and comment on them, since the story started in and around Boston.

The comments from my relatives were the first to come in over spring break in March. Dad and Uncle Dan thought they were well written, but had no idea as to their accuracy. The same was true of my brothers. My two brothers-in-law were into Historic Reenacting and Buckskining. They had read them and shown them to some of their more knowledgeable friends in the sport.

Their friends had read both chapters and been impressed with the realistic presentation of life in the colonies in the 1760's. Several of them sent me notes with the returned copies praising the story and asking for more. It was very gratifying to read their replies.

It was the end of March before any of the replies from Boston came in. They were very gratifying also. Their replies had more to do with the facts presented about the life of an indentured servant in Boston during colonial days, and the descriptions of Boston in those days. I was very pleased with these responses and would try to get the book published once I was out of school. I continued to work on finishing the first story.

Of course it was spring once again with all that implies, but my wives were pregnant, and expecting to deliver in late September or early October. Therefore we only planted the garden and a few vegetables in the nearest fields this year. There wasn't any drinking on St. Patrick's Day.

When we returned to classes after spring break, the time just seemed to zip by. The remainder of March and all of April just vanished. My wives started wearing maternity clothes in April, although they didn't really require them yet. Final exams began during the first week of May and continued into the second week.

Graduation was scheduled for the second Friday in May. The 13th would you believe? I invited my parents, Uncle Dan, and Aunt Vic to attend. Since both of my wives and I were graduating in the same ceremony, our daughters either had to remain at home with the Fairies, or would have to go with my relatives.

Before I even had a chance to say anything about it, my sweet wives decided that their daughters needed to come to the ceremony with my relatives, and had asked Mom and Aunt Vic if they would bring them. They wanted one last chance to aggravate their liberal female professors.

"Oh yes!" they told me before I had a chance to object. "They have aggravated us for two years. This will aggravate them something awful when they learn that not only are we pregnant, but that we each have twin daughters already," Margie told me with a big grin.

I went to collect my parents, Uncle Dan, and Aunt Vic about 9:30 that Friday morning. They were already dressed in their best clothes and followed me through the portal to our house. Aunt Vic had never seen the portal and was quite amazed. The girls remembered Mom and somewhat remembered Dad. They didn't know Aunt Vic and shied away from her. They didn't remember Uncle Dan either, but as soon as one of them touched him, all four of them were all over him. They laughed and giggled as only two-year-olds (well nearly) can. It was like he was an old friend, and I had to ascribe that to his having the Talent.

My wives and I needed to be at the auditorium by 11:30. I had driven the van up to Athens last weekend, and we had the SUV there also. I took my relatives through the portal from our house in Statesboro to the one we rented in Athens. Theresa met us there. She was going to the ceremony also in her small car. She would guide my relatives in the van. After all of the introductions were taken care of, and we made sure that my relatives had both the diaper and the drink bags, my wives and I left for the campus.

The graduation ceremony itself wasn't very long, but the liberal speaker delivering the commencement address went on and on. Passing out the diplomas took a while, also. Immediately after the ceremony was completed, my wives honed in on their daughters, collected them, and went to aggravate some of their liberal female professors for the last time.

When they returned to our vehicle later, they were laughing, and our daughters seemed confused. There were diapers to be changed again, and juice and animal crackers to be fed to our daughters who were thirsty and hungry.

"What was so funny?" I asked my wives.

"We looked up our old linguistics professor," Katie told me, as she powdered the bottom of one of her daughters in the van. "We told her in our best Parisian French that she had a lousy French accent. She was shocked that we spoke French so well, and by the fact that we were pregnant and already had two daughters each. The look on her face was precious."

"I thought several of the other female professors would faint when we greeted them with our daughters. They were sooo shocked," Margie told me with a smile, as she also worked on one of her daughters.

We all went to eat in a large downtown restaurant after that. The staff seemed shocked that we had four young children with us, but dealt with it. We had a long, leisurely, late lunch. It was nearly 6:00 before we got back home and my parents and relatives were anxious to get back to their homes. It had been a long, but enjoyable, day.

Now that we were out of school, there was still a lot to be done. Being in classes half of the day and being pregnant all day, my wives had put off the interior repairs on the other two houses. Now they contacted the trades required. The plumbers, electricians, heating, cabinetry and appliance people got calls to have them start work on the houses. While there was a lot to be done, we had plenty of time, or so we thought.