Chapter 29

The following character returns from the first story:

Frank Donahue

Uncle Frank, retired printer, 5'-11" tall, thin, still 73 years old after all of these years, balding with a little gray hair, blue eyes, glasses

Brian

Chief Druid and Senior Master Sorcerer, a tall older man of indeterminate age, somewhat thin with a long white beard and hair

Etain

Druid Priestess and Senior Master Sorcerers, a tall older woman of indeterminate age, she still has a fine womanly shape but is a little thin, long brown hair with silver highlights

It was Sunday the 30th of July that the Eternal Flame returned. We had just finished services in the Grove a few minutes before He/It appeared. Two large metal bound wooden chests appeared in the Grove at the same time.

"I have brought your share of the fine that I imposed on the Persians for their use of Illegal Magic, and for trying to take over a part of the Union. I'm sure that you can put it to good use," the Eternal Flame told us with a laugh in his usually serious voice.

"Thank you, Flame," Grandfather Mark told It.

"I have one other gift for you before I depart," It told us next, and we could all feel Its Magic at work.

"I have used a spell to remove or block all of the anguish and trauma created by your work in removing the threat in the Other Reality. None of you will be bothered by that now," the Eternal Flame told us before It vanished again.

"Let's open these up and see what we have," Grandfather said after that. My Dad and Pat's cut the locks off of the chests with the deft use of their Power Rings before opening the chests. The first contained jewelry and coins made of gold and other precious metal.

The second chest contained bars of gold. They were stacked very tightly in the chest which was a little over two feet wide, two feet high, and just over three feet long. Our Dads made an attempt to lift it by the sturdy handles on the ends, but that wasn't happening. Everyone was just staring in wonder at what we had received.

"Holy Cow!" Uncle Sean said in shock. just before he got that far away look, as he did some mental calculations. He had used his spread fingers to do some quick measuring of the chest.

"Lord love a duck!" he said in surprise, as his gaze returned to normal. "That chest is about 12 cubic feet in volume more or less, and if my memory hasn't failed me gold weighs just over 1200 pounds a cubic foot, which if my math is correct, works out to that being something like five hundred and seventy million dollars in value, more or less, given the current value of gold." Everybody just stared at him, and the chest. There was a collective intake of breath from everyone present.

"Don't forget the chest with the jewelry and coins!" Aunt Gail, his Sister, reminded him.

"No we won't forget that," Grandfather Mark stated with a smile. "And everyone will get an equal share of the money that we get when we sell the contents of these two chests. Until then if any of you need money, see me. I know that there are Weddings coming up," he told us very perceptively, and he wasn't looking at our female Cousins at the time.

"Where should we put this?" my Dad asked after a short break when we had all recovered from our shock somewhat.

"I would imagine in our basement with the rest of the family gold," Grandfather answered. "That would seem to be the logical place."

"Mike, Pat - give Sean and me a hand transporting these chests to the basement of your Grandparents' house," Dad told us.

"Okay," we agreed before turning to our women.

"We'll meet you at home in a bit," we told them before turning to aid our Fathers. Pat and I took the chest of gold while our Dads moved the chest with the jewelry and coins in it.

The basement of our Grandparents' house was still the dusty somewhat damp place that it had always been. We all materialized there with the chests and placed them near where the rest of the family gold was glamored and warded. Our Grandparents appeared a few seconds later.

"We need to get someone to appraise all of this jewelry and these coins," Grandmother Margie said after they had materialized.

"Only a small portion at a time, Margie," Grandmother Katie told her Sister. "We don't want to put too much of it on the market at once. That would lower the value. The same goes for the coins. At worst we could have the coins melted down. The gold and other metals in them won't be a problem to dispose of. The gold itself won't be a problem either. A million dollars worth at a time wouldn't even be noticed," she finished.

"Yes, and I'm sure that everyone will want some spending money with the weddings coming up, and babies being born," Grandfather said with a smile.

"If we can't find a local appraiser, I'm sure that someone on the Boston Council knows someone who could do the job," Uncle Sean told us.

"Let us check with some of our colleges at the University first. They may know someone locally who is an expert on Middle Eastern jewelry and coins," my Dad said.

"All right. Go ahead and do that," Grandmother Katie told him. "We can always contact the Boston Council if needed." Pat and I left for home while our Parents and Grandparents discussed who to get to evaluate the jewelry and coins.

"You're fabulously rich!" our women squealed when we materialized at home.

"We will be fabulously rich," I corrected them. "Remember that Grandfather said that the treasure would be equally divided. I assume that he meant among all of those who took part in the battle," I told them.

"Do you mean that we will get part of it too!?" Shannon asked excitedly.

"Yes. We were all there, and were all doing the fighting," Pat assured them. Gretchen and Petra looked very disappointed at these words.

"What's wrong?" Clare asked noting their reaction.

"We were there, but couldn't do any of the fighting," Petra said sadly.

"You are our Co-wives," Cathleen told her immediately. "What we have you have. There will be plenty to go around."

"How much is 570 million dollars?" Clare asked puzzled.

"It is enough that if you spent a hundred dollars a day, every day of the year, it would take you... !" Pat stopped there while he calculated it, "It would take you over 1561 years to spend it all!" he finished.

"Even split thirty-five ways, it will be over sixteen and a quarter million dollars each!" I told them after a little calculation of my own.

"That's still a lot of money - yes?" Shannon asked.

"Yes, that is a huge amount of money. We will never be able to spend all of it. Just the three of us will be entitled to nearly fifty million dollars, and that is just from the gold. They don't even know what the value of the jewelry and the coins are yet," I told my future wives.

"Good!!" Clare said. "That means that our children will be well cared for, and we can have as many as we want."

"I don't believe that money will be the limiting factor," Pat told them, which got him stares from all of the women.

"Have you considered what it will be like if each of you has just three children?" he asked.

"What are you asking?" Sheena demanded of him.

"If each of you has three children, which aren't too many, that will mean that each family will have nine children, and there will be eighteen children in our two families. Are you prepared to watch over more than eighteen children?" Pat asked. All six women stated at him in shock.

"We ... we never thought of it that way!" Shannon ventured in a shaken voice after a minute's thought. "That is a lot of children!"

"Yes, isn't it?" Pat answered with his usual grin. The women were more subdued for the rest of the day after that.

On Monday morning, the 31st of July, Pat and I went to to see Grandfather. Apparently we weren't the first.

"Could we get an advance on our share of the gold?" Pat asked once we were seated in Grandfather's study.

"I thought you might have been here yesterday. Your female Cousins were. They wanted to go shopping for wedding dresses, but it was Sunday," Grandfather told us.

"We need to get maternity clothing for Gretchen and Petra, plus other personal items," I told him.

"We will need to pay for our marriages in the Otherworld soon also," Pat added.

"Yes, your Parents were here to discuss that very subject last night with Margie, Katie and me. They were worried that you were all still too young. Your Grandmothers pointed out to them that they didn't consider sixteen to be too young when they were sixteen and wanted to get married. It wasn't something that they wanted to be reminded of," he told us with a big grin.

"The real clincher, though, was the two pregnant girls. They finally agreed that if you are going to get married, that you should marry all three girls at the same time so there was no sign of favoritism," he finished. Pat and I stared at him in amazement for a time. We didn't know what to say.

"You will still need to talk to them, but they are ready to agree. Oh, I have also already added $5,000 for each of you to your credit card account. You should be able to find maternity clothes with that," he told us. Our Grandmothers appeared right after that.

"We have reserved one of the smaller buses for today. We'll go shopping with you. We know where to get good maternity clothes as well as other clothing and things. Your ladies deserve a little shopping trip after all of the trouble last week," Grandmother Katie told us.

"We'll pick you all up in an hour or so," Grandmother Margie told us. Pat and I hurriedly transferred back home to alert our women.

The shopping trip lasted for most of the rest of the day. Gretchen and Petra were shocked at the bus, the traffic, the stores, and the amounts of goods that they saw in the stores that we visited. Our other women were familiar with all of this already, and assured the German women that these things were normal here. Pat and I were bored for most of the trip, but enjoyed the 'thank you' the girls gave us on the way home.

None of those in the family worried about what had taken place, or had problems with what they had done in the Other Reality again.

It was the evening of Friday, the 4th of August, that our female Cousins broke the news on returning from the Other Reality. Their weddings would be held on Monday, the 14th. It seems that the 13th was considered an unlucky day even there. This was good news in a way, as final registration at the University was on Wednesday, the 16th, so our Aunts and Our Parents wouldn't have any trouble attending.

We had talked to our Parents on Tuesday about getting married. They played hard ball for a time, and extracted promises from us that we would all finish our educations, and that Pat and I would take over for them as the heads of the PhD program once we graduated. They were growing tired of teaching and wanted to retire. No mention was made of pregnancy, which we thought strange, but with two of the women already pregnant, they may have thought it to be a losing argument.

It was agreed that we would be married on Saturday, the 19th of August. The eight of us would go to the Otherworld early on Friday, the 18th, and our Parents and the remainder of the family would join us later that day after they finished their chores at home and at the University.

On Thursday, the 3rd of August, Pat and I went to the Otherworld to see Brian and arrange for our weddings. We appeared in the Grove of the Otherworld at about 9:00 in the morning, and waited for Brian to appear. After fifteen minutes or so he appeared alone.

"Greetings, O'Connells! It has been a while since any of you have visited us. I believe the last time was for a number of the younger children to be tested for Senior Master. Have you all been well, and what may I do for you?" he finished.

"Master Brian, we have come to arrange for our marriage here in a bit over two weeks," I told him respectfully.

"I see, and how many will be involved in this wedding. The number always seems to vary," Brian commented with a smile.

"We will each be marrying three ladies, Master," Pat told him, but was very serious.

"Three!?" That is unusual even for your family. What are the ages of these young ladies?" he asked.

"Two are 17 going on 18, two are 16, and the final pair are 15 years old," I told him.

"I see," he answered and appeared somewhat concerned. "How old are each of you?"

"We'll be seventeen in a couple of months," I told him.

"I see. Which of you will be marrying these girls that are fifteen?"

"We'll each be marrying one of them," Pat told him, but couldn't resist smiling. We went on then to describe our relationship with the twins.

"Oh yes," I added as an afterthought, "Gretchen and Petra, the seventeen-year-old's, are pregnant." You would have thought that I had dropped a bomb from Brian's reaction.