Stormfeather Ch. 11

It's the other choice that might give you some problems. You can ask Sabrina here if he's a wild thing or a terrible monster or whatever you want to. She's slept within twenty feet of him for two nights and she's spent three days in his company with me. I think that she'd tell you that you're nuts. She thinks that he's a nice man, and he thinks that she's wonderful and they make each other laugh sometimes."

Sabrina nodded. "I don't know what that talk was earlier, Ximena, but I can tell you that I like him a lot. I heard something once about a nahual, and from what I've seen, Arn's not whatever that is."

"It doesn't matter, Amy," Ximena said, "I'm sorry about all of that."

Amy shook her head, smiling, "No, you don't understand. I want you both to know that besides my great aunt and Arn, the two of you are the most important people in the world to me, and I'm actually really happy that you're both here, and that I have my friend Sabrina here now so she can do something with her life away from the place where she was almost a prisoner. We can have a wonderful time, no matter how she decides to start, either here for a time, or if she wants to have a place of her own. It doesn't matter. There's just one thing."

There was a long pause while Sabrina saw a bit of tension between Amy and Ximena. The housekeeper looked away for a few moments to watch Arn , marveling a little at the way that he was put together and how he moved.

Finally, Ximena finished her tea and looked at Amy again. "I was right, wasn't I?"

Amy smiled, "You can believe what you want to," she said, "I certainly won't stop you. My only problem is what you'll do, depending on what you decide to believe. If you want it from me, I can offer you the truth. I just don't know if you can accept that and believe me when I tell you that there is no danger that either of you could possibly be in, that's all."

"What do you mean, Amy?" Sabrina asked.

"Well, from your point of view," Amy smiled, "what I'd say to you is just impossible and can't be believed at all, so I'd accept it from you if you think that I'm crazy. Ximena here has a strange lingering thought that my husband is a nahual -- a man who can turn into an animal. When I told them about what I'd dreamed at first, Ximena came up with that, and my great aunt said that what I'd dreamed about is something that is known as a werewolf in European legends.

So I'll fill in a little of the picture for Ximena and at the same time, I'll draw one that will leave you thinking that I'm nuts," she laughed. "You heard Arn say that these things at our feet belonged to his father, and they did. As you might expect, these weapons here are older than Arn is. Only the leather parts aren't. Arn was born a regular child and grew up to be a man. He had a wife and she was murdered along with his mother. He hunted down the killers and was almost killed himself. He planned to just die then -- he was wounded enough. But he was found by someone who took care of him and nursed him back. She was someone -- or something who had never heard my great aunt's word for it or yours either, Ximena. They only call themselves travelers."

She smiled as she poured them all some more tea, "Do you like the story so far?"

"Go on, Amy," Ximena said, "I'm trying, aren't I? I'm still not getting ready to run for the priest. I'll hear you out."

"Well I'm glad of that, Ximena," Amy said, "We've known each other for so long. I'd at least hope that I could be allowed the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, the traveler bit Arn. The magic that I told you about from my dreams came from his father before any of this, so he already had the ability, and his mother had some as well. She taught him how it could be used. None of it came from the traveler. She only bit him after he was almost well from his wounds. Then she left him and he searched for her for a long, long time. She did tell him that all of them must go to one place at some time in their lives. That place turns out to be on the farm where I grew up, but none of us knew that."

She nudged the axe, and it clanked against the sword. "These things are ancient, older than Arn, but not by all that much. He searched for the other traveler for about a hundred years before she called to him. He never found her because he stopped feeling her call, but he searched for seven hundred years after that.

Arn is over eight hundred years old," Amy grinned. "You can think I'm loco, Sabrina, and Ximena now has more to wonder about, and I don't really care. The only thing that I'm really worried about is the possibility that you'll both believe me. Because then," she sighed, "I'm really afraid that I'd lose two people that I really care about. You're not in any danger, but if you take what I've told you to be the absolute truth, then you probably won't want to be near either Arn or me.

But it's your choice. If you want to leave because of this, Ximena, then go with my love and best wishes whenever you want. The same goes for you, Sabrina. I want you to teach at the school, and I've always loved you to death as my friend, but if you're afraid of him, I'd understand."

There was a long minute of silence between them before Ximena spoke, "Just tell me, Amy, for God's sake, is he a nahual or isn't he?"

"From what you said to me, that's a man who can turn into an animal," Amy said, wiping a small tear from her eye, "I don't think that it's correct. Maeve said that a werewolf is a human who can turn into a beast. I don't think that she knows what she was talking about either. If a traveler bites you and you live through the change, then you become a traveler yourself. They don't exactly run around biting people, but it happens. If you're bitten, you turn into what they are, and you can also look like the human that you once were."

"Why are you crying?" Sabrina asked.

"I'm not, really," Amy said, "I probably will once you both decide that you don't want to be near Arn, because I'll lose my two best friends."

"But, won't he bite you?" Ximena asked.

It made Amy chuckle in spite of the way that she felt. "He bites me all the time, Ximena, he's my husband and we can't keep our hands off each other, but if you mean whether he'll turn me into a traveler, well that's already happened because I asked him for it, and by the way he gave me all the reasons against it and he pointed out all sorts of things that would change. I want to serve one year as the headmistress at the school and then we'll travel together. We do plan to come back here now and then, but yes, we're both travelers now."

She looked at Ximena with a smirk, "And don't make me do the bogeyman thing again, please."

Ximena's eyebrows began to rise as she looked down, "And this, this wolf is, ..."

"Winky is a red wolf who lost her pack when they were killed out on my family's farm, Ximena. She's a real live wolf who can't do anything but like you because you gave her a soup bone an hour ago. As far as what Arn looks like, well, you already know that because you saw my sketches. That is how he looks, and I'll show them to Sabrina if she wants to see them. That is, if either of you stay here that long and don't run off screaming. I'm the same girl that I always was, if you take the time to think about it."

"So he bit you, ..." Sabrina said.

"Yes," Amy nodded, "I decided that I want to spend my life with him and I asked him to. It took a lot of arguing." she said. She grimaced at the taste of her cold tea. "I'm going to make another pot. This is cold."

"Well," Sabrina said as she got up to follow Amy inside, "Aren't you going to show me? Did he bite you on the ass or what? I'd want to see that."

Amy stopped and turned around in surprise. They were both following her inside. When they got to the kitchen, she looked at them quizzically.

"We believe you," Ximena said, "We're just nosy now and we want to see."

"You're joking," Amy said.

"No, we actually want to see the bite if he left a mark," Sabrina said, "You're the same Amy that I've always known, so it didn't kill you and neither one of you hurt me while we were on the way here."

"He really looks like you drew him then?" Ximena asked.

Amy couldn't believe it, but she was relieved. "Yeah," she nodded.

"What's he look like then?" Sabrina wanted to know.

"Ay," Ximena said to get Sabrina's attention. When she had it, she shook her hand at the wrist as though she'd just burned her hand on something.

"Magnifico," she sighed.

Sabrina said, "So, if he can look like something else what do you look like then?"

"I'll show you my sketches later," Amy said, not really understanding why the others were now so calm and accepting about it. "I look like he does then, only female, obviously, furry, toothy, with funny looking feet and I've got stripes on my ribs."

Amy was trying to sound as though it was nothing, while at the same time, she was mentioning things which she knew would sound outlandish just to test their responses. "You don't really believe me, do you?"

"Well, sort of," Sabrina said, looking out of the window at Arn again, "So, ..."

"Oh, spit it out, Sabrina," Ximena chuckled, "What we wish to know, Amy, is what is it like with him then?"

Just wonderful, Amy thought to herself, she was doing her best to explain, and they were humoring her. She doubted that they really believed much of anything that she'd said.

Amy shook her head as she filled the pot and dumped in the tea. She set the pot onto the stove top with a bit of a bang as she turned to look at the two of them for a moment.

"Well," she smirked, thinking that if they were playing at something here, then she'd at least go along with it a little, "he's taller then, because of the way that his feet are built - plus his ears stand up then too. He's still all lumps and muscles, ... oh, and he's so warm and furry - really nice against my skin - unless I'm like that too. It gets a little warm then."

Amy tried hard to keep a straight face, knowing that they didn't believe her, but the way that they both grinned at her expectantly like pleased and curious cats, ...

Finally, she just laughed and nodded.

"Muy magnifico," she grinned,"not that you'd believe me."

She tilted her head a little, "What do you expect me to say? That I married a man who is really lousy in bed? Hellfire, I'd never admit a thing like that."

She chuckled as she put the lid on the old iron pot, "I'd probably just shoot him and be done."