Night of Endless Portals

Amanda and Pearl insisted the menfolk wait until classes ended that morning. Kain chafed under their orders, but he also complied. If the moms had conducted their classes in the main room with the others, Kain’s pacing might have bothered me.

As it was, I hardly noticed him. Today’s practice belonged to Amanda alone and she ratcheted up the difficulty by several factors. I had a half dozen runes to study and the added pressure of finishing them before lunch.

“I’m not sure I can do this, Amanda.” My brow actually sweat from the effort of learning the full course of runes Amanda required. “Why is this so much harder than yesterday anyway? I mean you gave me several hours for one rune yesterday.”

“You’ve never been a teacher, have you?” Amanda smiled at me, a change from her usual high-speed, low-drag attitude. I shook my head, but before I could clarify, she said, “your best students, the ones with real potential, sometimes need a push in the right direction.”

“You’re saying I have real potential?” My mouth fell open in surprise. “You’re messing with me.”

Amanda wagged her finger. “A good teacher is always honest with her students. And yes, you don’t have my gift with the runes, but you definitely have a knack for magic. Once we get you to a place where you can work on the runes, I think Pearl and I should start teaching you proper. You and the little one.”

“Tia? She’s talented?” My head threatened to start spinning any second now.

“She’s more talented than you, me, and Pearl all mixed together.” Amanda winced. “Pearl told me she had to keep dousing Tia’s runes with salt water because she kept empowering broken ones. That’s no bueno there.”

“Huh. That’s… I should have guessed, right?”

Amanda shrugged and pointed at the wooden tablet in my lap. “I don’t know how you could have. But for now, apply yourself harder. That you have talent only means the learning part is easier. It also means I intend to cram a good deal more learning into you today. I’d like to start using your runes and healing today if we can.”

Once I had a definite goal in mind, I found it a good deal easier to motivate myself. An hour after Amanda’s pep talk, I’d memorized and successfully carved four of the five runes she demanded. “Is there a limit to amount of runes I can carve in a day?”

“Yes. And if you don’t get a good night’s sleep, don’t eat three squares, or if you get sick, you won’t be able to carve as many.” She pointed to the edge of Roo where my shawl fluttered in the still air of the room. “Malia told us about you sharing your energy with the others. That suggests you have a healthy little tank for magic. You could really help us out here.”

“Can I help now?” I showed Amanda my drawings. After yesterday I’d taken pains not to accidentally empower the rune.

She accepted my wooden plank and bit the corner of her lip as she examined it. “This is damn fine. Better than I have a right to expect. Wanna see if they work?”

“Oh yes ma’am.” I’d only recently discovered my sexual identity. Years of dissatisfaction had piled up and made my new body a significant relief. But magic? From the moment my parents had started filling my head with their fantasy stories — or true predictions, whatever you wanted to call them — I’d dreamt of being a wizard, standing on a tall peak and calling down fire like the costumed wizard from my dad’s favorite comedy. When I lost the wonder and convinced myself my parents had made everything up, a big part of my bitterness against them came from my dream shattering. It might have shattered, but the shards lingered and had dug themselves deep in my psyche.

With Amanda’s assistance, I drew out several runes next to each other. As if I wrote a sentence, I let the ink flow from rune to rune. Amanda didn’t stop me or throw salt water on my runes, so I assumed I’d done them correctly. When I finished, I looked up. “Now I put light into them, right?”

Amanda’s eyes widened. “Why do you say it that way?”

“Kain said that priests and priestesses work with the light. I assumed I’m a priestess. Am I wrong?”

Shaking her head, Amanda clicked her tongue and said, “No, not at all girl. In fact, you just surprised me a little.” There was something Amanda had not said, some fact or piece of information she withheld. But I’d already stretched my luck with Amanda and her wife. I didn’t want to anger her further. When I remained silent she said, “Okay, try applying a gentle current of light to your runes. Be slow and careful, you don’t want to overpower them.”

“What happens if I do?” The wooden slab in my hands shook at my question.

“The runes will burn out and the wood will probably catch on fire.” Amanda grinned and winked at me. “I’ve never done it because of my knack, but Pearl set fire to dozens of our slabs of wood learning how to do this right.”

A flash of insight flowed over me at her words. Neither woman would have been capable of using runes without Amanda’s “knack.” I suspected she’d been able to identify the legitimate runes from whatever reference she used and apply them instinctively. It was different from the barrier I called on when threatened because of Roo, because those things worked automatically, without any thought from me.

I let my eyes lose focus and stared at my runes. They held their places and didn’t try to trot off the page, at least not yet. As I stared at them, I called up a tiny bit of light, a sliver as thin as I could imagine. It spring to my hand like a tiny dart and I directed it to the runes before me. The light faded into the rune carving and before I could celebrate, the runes burned themselves into the wood. The fire didn’t stop at the edges of the runes, but spread out from the carving to the rest of the slab.

I dropped the wood as Amanda doused the whole thing in salt water, putting the fire out and gasping as she did. At first I thought I’d done something horribly wrong as Amanda started crying. But I corrected myself as I realized she was laughing. “What did I do?”

Amanda covered her mouth and shook her head. After a few seconds of amusement, she managed to control herself. “I wasn’t laughing at you, but at my own stupidity. Let’s try to use your blood in the ink. I think that will help the rune channel the energy better than the oil and ink.”

“Really?”

“Honestly, this is my fault. I should have guessed at how much power you would put into the rune when you tried. You called up the smallest amount of light you could, right?” Amanda rooted around the room with her back turned.

“Yes ma’am…” I sighed at my own words. “I guess I could manage a slightly smaller amount of light if needed. But yeah, I made it tiny tiny.” When Amanda turned around, she held a curved white handled knife in her hand. It glimmered in the candlelight and sent chills through my back. “What’s that for?”

“I told you, we need a little blood. This is called a Boline knife, and its used to cut things when necessary.”

“And if I’d rather not?”

Amanda shrugged. “I won’t cut you if you don’t want. But this will make the magic happen faster.”

Dang it. She’d noticed my fascination with the runes and magic in general. And she tempted me with it in exactly the right way to make me cave. “Fine,” I offered her my hand and looked away, “but I don’t wanna see it.”

Amanda winked at me and brought a small silver cup to bear. “This is called a Quaiche, and usually it’s for whiskey. But we can use it for any water of life.” She tapped my shoulder with the cup. “I know you can heal, but on the off chance that doesn’t work, I don’t want your hand bandaged up and unusable, neither do you, right?”

“Oh, you’re gonna do my shoulder?”

“It will be like a shot. If we had hypos, I’d use them instead. But the old ways will have to suffice.” Amanda swirled the Boline in a tin cup full of alcohol. “Whenever you’re ready?”

I squeezed my eyes shut and turned my head away. The fact I didn’t chant owee the whole time she drew blood was nothing short of magical. In truth, the prick and cut hardly hurt. As part of my new body, my pain tolerance had gone up. Nice.

Having my blood drawn went fine, right up until Amanda showed me the shallow cup containing my blood. For about a second, I was great. Then the whole room tilted. Amanda moved like a superhero with cat-like reflexes. She laid the cup on the table and grabbed me before I fell off the bucket they used as stools.

“Here now, sweetie, you’re fine.” Amanda patted my head and stared into my eyes.

The moment she caught me, the room had stopped tilting. Its gentle spin remained, but it had graciously slowed down so I wasn’t about to throw up. Amanda shifted to fanning me and shouted for Pearl, who shot into the room. “What is it, Manda?”

“Our little ducky here isn’t good with blood. My mistake. Be a love and get us some water?”

Pearl made an angry sound with her tongue, but stormed out of the room while Tia and Malia flooded in.

“Are you okay, Harriet?” Tia poked my cheek.

At the same time, Malia traded off with Amanda to cradle my head in her arms. “You’ll be okay, hon. This is like the wendigo, isn’t it?”

I suffered through Malia’s recounting of my intestinal weakness at the sight of raw flesh. If not for Malia’s tone and the way I adored her voice, I might have passed out proper. Pearl arrived with the water as Malia wrapped up her story. In the tiny ring of silence after she dropped the water off, I heard Pearl’s scoffing: “…made a terrible woman. Pah!”

Tears squeezed out of my eyes again, but no one else in the room seemed to have heard Pearl’s words. At least that way I didn’t have to explain my tears. After I’d been fanned and sipped some water, I could sit up on my own.

“Have you always been this squeamish?” Amanda waited until the others left before she asked.

“I don’t think so? But then again, I haven’t had many opportunities to find out until now.” I set the cup of water on the other side of the rune table from the cup of my blood. “Why?”

“Kain said he explained taboos to you. With your… change and magical potential, you might have two of them.”

“Oh, you mean no meat and severe squeamishness might be my taboos?”

Amanda shrugged. “It’s possible. You told me you’ve healed your friends though, right?”

“Yeah, when Alaric was injured I managed to keep him alive until we found help.” Sort of found help, considering that the people who helped us also ate Alaric’s arm.

“Well, I don’t know the details then. But you might consider this as a magical affliction. And it might only affect blood under certain conditions. Then again, you might just have a delicate constitution.” Amanda squeezed my hand and released it with a few pats. At least she was being nice to me.

“What do we do about writing the runes?” I set the cup of water to the side and tried not to focus on my blood.

“First, I’d appreciate it if you tried to heal your shoulder. That’s the most important thing right now.” Amanda pointed to my right shoulder and I barely resisted looking at my wound.

“Right, I should try it. Here goes…” I closed my eyes and imagined looking over my arm. The slice Amanda had made in my skin loomed as large as a crevice in my mind. With my eyes shut to the true nature of my injury, I was more than able to seal the wound on my arm. What had been a crevice soon narrowed to a gully, then a crack, and then disappeared as if the earthen flesh had never been sundered in the first place.

“Wow. That’s incredible!” I opened my eyes at Amanda’s words and risked a glance at my shoulder. Sure enough, there wasn’t even a scar to remind me of my vaporish near-collapse.

“I never thought I could do something like that.” It was cool. As amazing as my ability to stave off poisoning or to recharge others’ stamina, this was the stuff of fantasy and legends. I could heal without leaving a mark. Our chances of surviving as a community just shot up sky-high.

“Ready to try the runes again?” Amanda lifted up the cup with my blood and kept it out of my sight. After a few seconds and the tinkling of metal on metal, she produced a dark red-tinted ink. “There, don’t even think of it as blood, right?”

I chanced a glimpse of the liquid, and sure enough, I didn’t see it as my own blood. Complete with quill provided by Amanda, I used the crimson ink to draw the same series of runes I’d tried last time. I was no artist, but the runes came easily to hand, as if I’d more than memorized them so far.

When I finished drawing them, I didn’t need Amanda’s confirmation that I’d done them right. They had already started to wobble and move in my vision. Before she prompted me, I let my eyes lose their focus and directed an even smaller ray of light into the rune.

This time they flared with inner power, glowing red enough to my inner sight to light up the whole room. We could have developed film in this radiance. After a few seconds, the last of my ray sank into the rune and they brightened enough that I wanted to shield my eyes. I knew if I did that, the runes might go nuts again and I would lose my progress so I kept my eyes focused on the runes.

When I focused on them again, they’d gone wild with their whirling and turning. Amanda’s mouth hung open and she shook her head. “I’d given you a rune for “flying monsters.” I’ve never been able to empower it and I thought it might be a good object lesson in humility. But I guess I’m the one who needed the lesson.” After a second, she shook her whole body and managed to collect herself. “Well done, Harriet, you did it!”

Amanda stood up and gave me a hug, hooting as she did. Pearl and the others ran in to check on the commotion, and likely to see if I’d passed out this time. But they found Amanda’s celebrating instead. Malia and Tia joined in the hug while Pearl stood in the doorway looking as though she’d swallowed a bunch of bitter herbs.

I was too happy to have Malia’s arms around me to stick my tongue out at Pearl or celebrate her irritation.

Amanda noticed Pearl lurking and waved her over. “Hon, do you know what this means?” Pearl’s thin-lipped frown didn’t budge as she shook her head. “It means we can protect a larger radius I bet. And Harriet was able to heal herself. We can try mixing blood in now and make more potent runes. Plus, she managed the “winged monsters” rune I couldn’t swing.”

Pearl raised her eyebrows and made a “hmm,” noise. But Amanda’s excited announcement didn’t go further than that. Despite Pearl’s milquetoast reception, Amanda ordered up a small jug of the spirits Alaric had been living on for the last few days. “The boys already left, but that means more for us!”

Amanda passed the cup around and I decided to try the alcohol. After one taboo and possibly a second, I figured I could probably drink. The liquid burned every part of my body it touched. My lips, my tongue, the roof of my mouth, and my throat all melted under the clear drink’s assault. I coughed as my eyes watered. “What in the hell?” At least I didn’t throw it back up.

Malia caught the cup before I dropped it, shaking her head and clicking her tongue as she did. “Freshman girls, man. Can’t hold their liquor.”

“That’s not liquor, that’s like cleaning solvent!”

Amanda and Pearl shared a chuckle at my expense and knocked their shoulders together. “Technically, this is Poteen, but around these parts they’d call it white lightning or moonshine.”

“You’re making moonshine, how?”

Pearl waggled her eyebrows, proud to answer my question. “Magic, child. It’s one of the best parts of witchcraft.” She aimed her thumb toward Alaric. “Without it, we’d be charging your drunk friend in hard labor.”

Malia sucked in her breath. “Good luck with that.”

It was too close to chiding Alaric. “He did save our lives…”

Malia rolled her eyes. “Sure, but how long is that gonna let him off the hook?”

“He lost…” I snapped my mouth shut and shook my head. “I get it, I get it. But none of you are trying to stop him.” From drinking himself to death. I left the words unspoken because no good would come from giving them voice. They were true, sure. But we were already juggling the necessities for survival, no need to provoke Alaric further now.

“Can you teach us to make this stuff?” When Malia spoke, she’d just swallowed the drink down. I could almost see the air distort as she breathed out.

“Maybe when you’re of age…” Pearl snorted.

“Hey, I’m twenty five and in grad school!” Malia tucked her chin and mumbled, “or, you know, I was.”

Amanda gave Pearl a look and the older woman sighed. “Fine girl. Master the runes well enough to lay at least one down and I’ll consider it, okay?”

“Thanks!” Malia threw her arms around me, rather than hug Pearl. As I had last night, I could smell the booze on her. At the same time I imagined she could smell it on me. She snuggled into me, leaving Tia alone in the blankets and purred into my ear. “You’re so soft, Harriet… mmm soft.”

I didn’t quite yelp, but the sound I made came awfully close. It earned me a mocking laugh from Pearl. “Thanks Malia. You okay?”

“Yes, but I’m starving!” She raised her head where it had fallen into my neck. “Mommamomoms… can we eat?”

Amanda shook her head. “We’re fools for letting you kids drink before lunch anyway. Yeah, I grabbed some cans.” She returned with a can of beans for me and more chili for the others. At least today I wasn’t digging into Pearl’s fruit supply.

The beans were better than beans had any right to be. It might have been related to the fact these might be the last canned beans I ever got to eat. Or it might have been the steady stream of moonshine Peal and Amanda fed us over the course of lunch.

I was pretty well lubricated by the time we disposed of the cans, but not so much I couldn’t move. Amanda and Pearl were both slurring their words, but Amanda insisted I join her outside with a brush and the cup of blood-ink.

Too drunk to protest, I nodded my head dumbly and joined her. Outside the wind still howled and carried huge drifts of snow in a dome around the shop. “Is drinking and magic a bad idea?” I’d managed to shout my question over the wind, so I considered that a victory, minor though it was.

“Nope. Drink makes it easier for some folks!” Amanda shouted back to me and motioned for me to follow her. There wasn’t as much snow falling as there had been, but the winds had clearly grown in strength. Amanda was bundled head to toe in her cold weather gear while she led me back to the runes at the perimeter. “This here is your graduation test. I want to you… you to.” She hiccuped at me. “To re-paint these runes and then make four more at the cross quarter points.”

Amanda shivered at her words, blowing into her hands as she spoke. Mid-breath, her head shot up and she took a step back with her hand on my arm. Peering into the snow flurries, a pair of figures approached.

I had nothing with which to defend myself, other than the cup of blood I clutched in my hand like a bird of prey. There was no other way I could think of to keep the snow out without using both hands. After our initial panic, Amanda waved to them and beckoned Jeremy and Kain back into the circle of runes and inside. “We broke out some more poteen, might as well go inside and enjoy it!”