Chapter 9

"Oh Dear!" the Smith groaned in distress at the table. "What is it, my Sweet?" he asked, as he quickly rose to see what was the matter. He never did make it to the bedroom, as his wife led a small boy and girl out into the main room. She was followed by a girl a few years older than the pair of youngsters, and Clare and Cathleen.

"Look at them, Henry!" the wife demanded, excitedly. "This morning, they could hardly hold their heads up, and now they are as well as you, or I. How could this happen?" she asked in awe.

"I do not know, my Sweet," Henry answered. Meanwhile, I was looking at Clare and Cathleen. The marks on their wrists were no longer black, but had turned a dark green. I moved over to Clare to check on her.

"Are the two of you all right?" I asked.

""Oh yes, Michael. We are both fine. The children are fine now also," she answered happily.

"What about the marks?" I asked noting their change in color.

"They are all right. They don't bother us, and will soon be complete," she told me.

"Complete?" I asked in confusion, not understanding what she meant.

"Yes, they have a good start already," she assured me, as she pushed up the sleeve on her right arm to reveal what looked for all the world like a tattoo of a series of vines and leaves in bright green growing up her arm nearly to her shoulder. The vines formed 'C' and 'S' scrolls and heart shapes. Each shape had one or more leaves, and they traveled almost all of the way up both of their arms.

"They will change color and fade some in time," Cathleen told us, as she too raised one of her sleeves to reveal nearly the same tattoo. If I was shocked at all of this, the Smith's wife was in a panic on seeing the marks.

"An Earth Mage!! Two Earth Mages!!?" she squealed in a panic on seeing the marks, and drew away from the two girls while making a sign to ward off evil. "That's why my children have recovered!!" she exclaimed in panic.

"It's all right. We cured them of the sickness," Clare told the stunned woman, who looked even more perturbed at this news.

"We have nothing to pay you with!" she moaned in tears. "Don't take my children," she pleaded.

"We wanted nothing, but to help you," Cathleen told her gently. "We are not interested in your children, only in the ones that we will eventually have," she finished quietly.

"Please, Ladies. Be seated at my poor table, and join us in what is available," Henry offered.

"Yes. Even Green Magic makes one hungry," Clare admitted. The children were fed also and the broken plate was picked up. I used a spell to return it to its previous state before we returned to the shop to finish the work on our riding horses feet.

The horses were finished just before dark. Most of the snow from the previous night had melted that day, but the coming night would prove to be a cold one.

"Have you a place to stay tonight?" Henry asked, as we finished.

"No. We have been camping out," I told him without explaining why.

"There will be nowhere suitable tonight," he assured us, but then had an idea.

"There is a house in the village that is empty. The owner passed away, and his son has not arrived yet to claim it. It has been empty now for several months. You are welcome to stay there tonight, and continue your journey tomorrow. Perhaps the weather will be better then," he told us.

"All right. Thank you. How much do we owe you for the work on the horses?" I asked.

"No. No. I could not accept any money," he told us sincerely. "My children are very dear to me, and I was afraid that I would lose them. The young ladies healed them, and you shared that fine ham and the wine with us. That is more than payment enough," he finished. We went to the house to collect the women after saddling our horses and hitching the other two to the cart.

While Pat cut more slices from the ham for the Smith's wife, I took Shannon aside to talk to her.

"Give these coins to the Smith's wife. He wouldn't accept any payment for the work he did. He said that the ham, wine, and healing his children were payment enough. Still, he lost money shoeing our horses today, and it's only right to pay him. The other things were ours to give," I told her

"Yes, I can do that," Shannon told me before looking at the coins that I had handed her. They were a couple of the bronze ones.

"These are too much for the work that he did. You are very generous, Michael," she told me.

"It's all right. I'm about out of the brass coins," I told her.

"All right," she acknowledged, and went to talk to the Smith's wife. We soon had everything loaded, and Henry showed us to the empty house. There was a lean-to behind it for the horses, and we unhitched, unharnessed, and unsaddled them while the girls checked out the house. We also fed and watered the horses before putting some blankets that we found there over them to ward off the cold of the night.

The house, itself, was as plain as the others in the village, but it was clean inside. There was firewood by the fireplace, plus some cheese still covered with wax, and two bottles of wine in the cupboard. Pat and I unloaded the cart and brought everything inside. The girls had the fire started in the fireplace, and the house soon began to warm up. After dinner we sat around the fireplace for a time, and Pat and I began to question the girls.

"What have you learned from the 'Book of Dreams' so far?" I asked them.

"It has instructed us in Magic. We didn't think that we could learn to use Magic, but it has been very insistent," Shannon told me.

"But we are so stupid!" Sheena added. "It had to begin with what babies know and can do." She seemed very embarrassed at this admission.

"At our Grandfather's in Frankfurt, there were Novices who were only a little younger than you are. They are not allowed to use the Magic that they have learned until after they have passed their first Guild test in Magic," Pat told them.

"Oh dear!" Shannon exclaimed. "We'll never be able to do any Magic then."

"We don't work by their rules," I told them. "In our Reality, we, our Sisters, and our Cousins were all doing Magic before we were four years old. It did take us a while to learn to use it at that age though," I finished.

"So we can use the Magic that we have learned?" Sheena asked much more excitedly.

"Yes, but it might be good to check with Mike, or me before you attempt anything major," Pat told her.

"Yes, we can do that!" Shannon agreed. The O'Toole sisters had been very quiet throughout all of this, and I now turned to them.

"What have you and Cathleen learned?" I asked Clare in a very quiet voice, as she still tended to become frightened when spoken to loudly.

"We have learned about Green Magic, but we don't have anyone to ask about it," Clare answered uneasily.

"Your Green Magic is different from our Magic. Pat and I can just barely feel it when you do something, and we are right there with you. If you have questions, you can try reading the "Book of Dreams', or talking to the Eternal Flame," I told the two of them.

"We don't read very well," Cathleen said in embarrassment.

"The 'Book of Dreams' will teach you all that you need to know to read it and other things. It can also teach you to read and understand things in nearly any other language as well," Pat told her, and pulled the shy girl to him for a hug and a kiss.

"We ... we could actually talk to the Eternal Flame if we have a question, or don't understand something!!?" Clare asked in shocked disbelief.

"Yes, certainly!" I told her. "It would be glad to help you with anything," I finished before I too pulled Clare to me for a hug and a kiss.

That seemed to be the signal and the other girls moved up against Pat and me for some hugging and kissing as well, effectively ending the questioning. Shortly after that, we all prepared for bed.

Sleeping here presented its own problems. There were two bedrooms off of the main room, and also a storage / wash room. There was no tub here, but there were several large buckets. Pat and I heated the water in the buckets by Magic, as they were wooden, and we all washed up in separate groups. It was the first chance that we had to wash up since leaving the Duke's apartment.

One of the bedrooms was obviously for the Master of the House. It had a large bed, and a cabinet containing clothes in sizes for older people. The other bedroom also had a large bed in addition to a small one. The clothing in the cabinet there was for younger people and children.

Again by whatever process they used, the girls had decided which bedroom they would use. I wound up in the Master's bedroom with Shannon and Clare. They had already put our clothing and blankets in there.

The bed here left something to be desired as far as the mattress went, and it went down a lot, nearly to the floor.

"The ropes must be tightened," Shannon told me after we had checked the mattress.

"Tightened?" I asked.

"Yes. The ropes have stretched, and are no longer tight. They need to be re-tightened and retied before we can sleep on them." she explained pointing at the ropes crisscrossing the bed. I looked and saw a rope running through a series of holes in the bed frame, and running from one side of the bed to the other as well as one that ran from the head of the bed to the foot. It looked like it would take a lot of work to re-tighten them.

"How about I use a shrinkage spell on the ropes instead?" I asked. Shannon looked at me in wonder.

"I never would have thought of that, but won't they just stretch again?" she asked.

"Yes, but we are only going to be here for one night, and they will be tight for longer than that," I assured her before using the spell. It tightened the ropes right up.

The mattress was a little lumpy from where the previous occupants had constantly slept on it, but we dealt with that. Since it had been two nights since we had left the Duke's apartment both girls were ready for sex again. Clare got to go first tonight. We were hugging and kissing as a preliminary when I felt her doing something with her Green Magic.

"Clare, what are you doing?" I calmly asked her, so as not to upset her.

"I'm getting ready," she replied. "I want a baby!" she told me next.

"WHAT!?" I shouted in shocked dismay, and quickly realized that with her kind of Magic, she probably could create the right conditions to get pregnant very easily.

"NO!!" I told her more quietly after that, but saw that I had frightened her, and decided on a more reasoned approach.

"Clare Dear! We are fleeing the Duke and his men, who may be pursuing us at this minute," I stated.

"Yes, they are pursuing us," she said quietly in a very certain voice, startling me again, but I continued to try to persuade her not to get pregnant now.

"It isn't a good time to get pregnant," I told her before adding, "You aren't old enough yet either."

"I'm more than fourteen and a-half. I'll soon be fifteen. I don't want to be an old maid. I want a baby and a husband, and not to be hurt by others again," she finished in a mumble, as the tears and the sobs started. She was soon crying pitifully.

"Sweet Clare, we must wait until we are far away from the Duke and his threats. Then we can get pregnant," Shannon gently told the crying Clare.

"Wow! Wait a minute!" I told both of them. "Both of you need to wait until you are at least seventeen before you get pregnant. My Mother and Aunts were all at least seventeen, or eighteen before they got pregnant,"I told them. "They would understand your getting pregnant then, but not at fourteen and fifteen."

"But that's over two years from now," Clare moaned through her tears. "I'll be an old woman by then."