Man, it's been an intense month. After acquainting Dog with Mary (Dog told me her name is Mary, not Crystal), we decided that, public transportation in the Triangle being what it is (virtually nonexistent), it would make sense for us to move temporarily to the house in Raleigh that Mr. Forteau was providing. We took Triangle Transit into Raleigh, with Dog in human form in public, a very rare occurrence. Mary was quite taken with the trip, as was Dog, who kept trying to pull the cord to stop the bus while we were doing 65 miles per hour down I-40. Mary at least just stared at the passing traffic, fascinated.
Three transfers, one shapechange, and a few blocks' walk later, we were at the house on New Bern Avenue, near downtown. It didn't look like anything special, but once inside, it took on the odd quality that Forteau's house has, that of having too much space inside to fit in the shell outside. Besides the eight (!) bedrooms, well-appointed kitchen, and four bathrooms, there was a huge library that had to have at least 10,000 books.
Casey, Nathaniel, Cab, John, and Eric had each taken a bedroom; Renee had her apartment and Daedelus, apparently not trusting either us or Mr. Forteau, had gotten a hotel room at the Holiday Inn Downtown. I looked into the first unoccupied bedroom on the second floor to see that the room had both a king-sized and double bed, deep plush carpeting, a cozy-looking loveseat, and a big-screen television. I smiled, knowing exactly which room was intended for us. Mary skipped in and started jumping up and down on the double bed, then wandered off to look at the rest of the house.
I shut the door and flopped onto the king-sized bed. I was surprised to find that it was a waterbed - waveless, thank the heavens. Dog jumped up next to me and swiftly changed to human. I kissed him lightly on the forehead and said, "Well, what do you think?"
He made a show of looking around the room, then nodded. "It'll do, I suppose."
I swatted him and he swatted me back, then he started tickling me. I started giggling and tried to tickle him back, although it was an exercise in futility - Dog isn't ticklish. I finally stopped him the only way I knew how - I grabbed his hands, leaned closer, and gently kissed him on the nose. He paused, them put his arms around me. "You don't fight fairly," he mumbled. I laughed and favored him with a long, slow kiss as his hands began unbuttoning my shirt.
Suddenly I stopped and held his hands. "Um, should we lock the door?" He turned and looked at the door for a long moment, then nodded. "There. Don't worry about it. Now, where were we?" He leaned over and kissed my chest, and I lay back, stroking his hair.
-----
A little while later, after I had taken a shower and was down poking around the kitchen and admiring the well-stocked cabinets, I heard a wail of despair from my room. I ran to the door, slipping on the hardwood floor as I caught myself on the doorjamb. "What? What?"
Dog, back in canine form, sitting on the bed and staring at the television forlornly. He looked from the static on the screen to me and said, *There's no cable!* I giggled for a moment, relieved that some weirdness hadn't manifested in my bedroom, then sobered when he favored me with a look of reproach.
"OK, I'll see what I can do. Uhhh, let's see, normal routes would take too long - and I don't like leaving footprints that lead where we are. Daedelus isn't around, but Nathaniel's good with gadgets. I'll see if he can do anything."
I approached Nathaniel and explained to him that we needed to hook up the cable. He looked confused for a moment (but doesn't he always?), then said, "Ohhh! Television!" Uh, yeah. He wandered off for a moment, then came back with his tools, muttering. I went back to the kitchen and started slicing vegetables for a stir-fry. I heard a cry of glee from my bedroom and surmised that Nathaniel had indeed succeeded in hooking up the cable.
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The next month was spent exploring the library. It seemed there were many books on a vast array of subjects, arcane and mundane. I found a section of books which dealt with the mechanics, patterns, and energies of lifeforms. I was well-acquainted with the simpler aspects of the topic, but these went deeper. I confess I neglected all around me terribly, I was so wrapped up in those books. I spent at least eight, and sometimes fourteen or fifteen hours per day with my nose in those books.
After about three and a half weeks of this, I finally put it all together and understood what the authors had meant by describing the pattern of life. I was in my room, where Dog was sitting on the loveseat watching "America's Funniest Home Videos" with the sound turned off. Mary was leaning on his chest, asleep, and I was propped up on the bed. I had been rereading a passage of MacKinnon's "Res Corpus" when suddenly a thought struck me. I put down the book and concentrated on my hand. As I watched, my fingernails grew about a half-inch. "Wow. Hey Dog, check this out!" Dog turned, and smiled and nodded indulgently. Well, sure, he'd been able to do it all the time.
"Watch this." I stared at my hand again, and willed it to become a paw like Dog's. Fingers shorter...nails to claws...black fur...*Hey, Reuben, don't you think you'd better -*
WHACK!
Stunned, I sat on the floor where I landed when I had fallen off the bed. What the hell had happened? I looked at my hand, which was now a paw. I flexed, and menacing claws appeared. Well, I did the job right, so why had I...
*Too vulgar.* Dog was standing next to me, examining my handiwork. *It's a good job, although you made the fur a bit too short. But it's vulgar. If you keep the changes within reason and appearance, say, making your bones harder or increasing muscle without changing your body type, you're OK. But if you're too vulgar about it, reality will slap you every time.*
I nodded, and released the change in pattern. My hand returned to normal, although the fur stayed. I tried to change my pattern to exclude the fur, but it wouldn't go away. *It's just paradox,* Dog said. *Give it a few hours and it'll go away.* I nodded, stroking the back of my hand absently. This could be incredibly useful, but it's obvious that it could be very tricky to use without crossing reality.
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There was quite a bit of coming and going over this period, as others wrapped up their research and returned to the real world. On the 26th I spent part of the day talking shop with Cab. She's working within an interesting paradigm - Australian aboriginal culture - but needs to flesh things out a bit. We spent the morning talking about parallels between the mishmash of Native American and Northern European shamanism I am conversant with and her version. We never really did reach a complete correlation, but it was edifying for us both.
I spent the afternoon looking up with a few more abstract topics in the library, then watched a tape of "Neverwhere" with Dog and Mary. I asked Dog if Neil Gaiman was one of Them, but he just gave me a canine grin and remained silent. Hmm. I'll have to think on that.
I was about to go to bed when Daedelus and Casey came into the living room, carrying a cat. I put on a robe and went to see what the fuss was. Apparently, the cat came from her aunt's house. The place had quite a few cats, and had been pretty much untouched since Casey had last been there. Casey kept going on about how the cat ate, but never used the litter box. Interesting. I wonder how you could change the pattern of a small animal to do such a thing? It also means someone has done some tampering over at her aunt's house. Not promising. With these dark thoughts, I went to bed.
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Sunday, October 27
We had agreed to meet in the living room at noon on Sunday to discuss what we were going to do in advance of the Verbena party. As we were just starting the conversation, a huge white stag walked out of my room, through the living room, and out the front door. I jumped up and quickly looked into my room. Mary and Dog were there, Mary looking innocent. Too innocent. I ran to the front door and looked out to see...nothing. No stag, just the usual street. I thought for a moment, then stepped sideways. Sure enough, there was the stag. Except that it was quite dead, and decomposing before my eyes. I shuddered in revulsion, and stepped back into reality.
I walked over to my bedroom and knelt down next to Mary. Dog was very busy studying the wallpaper. "Mary," I said earnestly, "you know that the stag just died?" She shook her head, looking anguished. "You mustn't bring creatures of the spirit world into reality unless you're sure they can continue to live." I shot a glance at Dog, who now was entranced by the carpet. "Promise me you won't do that again before checking with me first?" She nodded, sniffling. "We'll talk later," I said, giving her a hug. She wiped her nose on her sleeve, then hugged me back.
When I returned to the living room, Daedelus asked what the hell had just happened. I gave him the short version of the story, minimizing the blame on Mary, and assured him it wouldn't happen again. He seemed satisfied, and we returned to puzzling out what we were going to do before the party. We never reached a satisfactory conclusion, and things were left unresolved when we broke for the night.