Roughly five minutes later, they were standing in the front hall of Dave's house on Lancaster Avenue, kicking off their shoes and babbling in excited canary voices. Even with the door closed, they could still hear the banshees wailing around the gables. Dave sloughed off his parker, listening to the windows shake in their frames. It was already dark outside, and it couldn't have been later than four thirty. It didn't seem natural, even this late in September. None of it seemed natural, now that he thought about it - the clouds, the storm; the vicious, lancing winds. What was going on?

"Coming down like a machine gun now," Dave observed, looking out through the door's leadlight paneling, "sounds like its raining bullets." Hailstones the size of golf-balls had started impacting on the veranda, exploding into smaller fragments. Bad as the rain had been, Dave was glad they hadn't been caught in the hail; he honestly thought they mightn't have made it home. It was almost as if the storm had tried to stop them reaching the front steps.

Janey coughed beside him, bending over to cover her face with both hands.

"What time is it?" she asked, straightening up. She started wringing out her dress once more, pulling the hem up to the top of her thighs. Her legs were long and well-shaped for a girl her age.

"I dunno," he replied, then remembered he was wearing a watch: "it's about ten past four." He looked through the leadlight once more, his expression pinched with concentration.

"I never seen the sky go black during a storm before."

"David? Is that you?"

Roslyn Henson, Dave's mother, appeared at the far end of the hallway, a tall, slim thirty-something with dark brown eyes and chestnut hair tied back in a short ponytail. She came down the corridor wreathed in an aura of freshly baked cookies. Dave turned to answer her, hoping she wasn't angry.

"Yeah, Mom. Janey's here too."

"What happened, why are you so late?" she asked in a voice tinged with worry, "did you get caught in the storm?"

"Yeah, we were playing down at Memorial park when it started raining," Dave explained, hanging up his slicker on the coat rack, "then we got stuck in this bus shelter -"

"You should've called from the park," Roslyn fussed in obvious relief, "I would have come out to get you. Well, at least you didn't get too -"

She paused in mid-sentence when she saw Janey standing behind him, quivering like a shipwreck survivor. The girl managed to raise half a smile, but her cheeks were blue and her dress was streaming on the floor boards.

"Oh, Janey. You must be soaked to the skin, honey," Roslyn cooed, reaching out to touch the girl under the chin, "come on into the living room, we'll put you in front of the fire." She took Janey's hand by the fingertips and led her down the hallway.

It was an oddly affectionate gesture Dave had seen several time before. He knew his mother had grown genuinely fond of his friend over the past twelve months, seemed to regard her almost as a member of the family. He'd found their instant karma rather baffling at first, but at least it meant he could have her over anytime he wanted (and he knew there were many parents in Ridgewick who wouldn't have let a tranzi in through the back door).

Dave fell in behind them as they headed down the corridor, listening to their chatter but not really following their conversation. He was keeping one ear cocked towards the storm. That weird howling noise was somewhat muted now, but he could still hear it through the closed door and it was setting his teeth on edge. God, he was glad they'd escaped the bus shelter when they had.

Janey coughed as they walked into the living room, doubling over in a rush of moist blond curls. Roslyn led her over to the fireplace, glancing down at her in some concern.

"That's a nasty cough you've got there, sweetie. Let's get you out of those clothes before you catch cold."

"OK."

Janey looked over at Dave to see what he was doing, but he was heading for the arm chair over by the TV, the remote already in his hand. As she watched, he sat down and started flicking through the channels, barely aware of their presence. Seemed rather distracted, as a matter of fact.

Arriving at the fireplace, Mrs Henson sat down on the sofa and drew Janey up in front of her, holding her by both hands now.

"No wonder you're coughing so hard," Ros told her sympathetically, "your hands are like blocks of ice."

"The rain was f-freezing, Mrs Henson," she stammered under her breath, "c-colder than that s-snow we had last year, I th-think."

"Well, don't worry. Once we get that dress off, you'll warm up in no time." Reaching forward, she began undoing the buttons down the front of Janey’s dress then paused, looking over towards her son.

"David?"

Dave glanced over at his mother, eyebrows raised in mute inquiry.

"Could you go upstairs and get a blanket for Janey?" Roslyn asked, absently undoing the next button, "she's freezing to death over here."

"Sure Mom," Dave replied, replacing the remote and hopping off the armchair. Chamberlain Regional News droned away in the background.

"And while you're up there, could you get some extra clothes for her too?"

"Okay," Dave said with an off-hand tilt of his head, and stepped through the living room door. Ros watched him leave with a quizzical glance, surprised he hadn't put up more of a fight. Odd behavior indeed for a boy his age: hardly seemed to notice there was a twelve year old girl getting undressed in his living room. Well, no matter; the excuse had worked, the errand would keep him out of the room for at least five minutes. She turned her attention back to the girl standing in front of her. Time to get her out of that frock before she turned blue.

"Still cold, Honey-girl?"

"Yeah, a little," Janey replied.

"Well, let's take off that dress and get you warm," Roslyn said, and slid the sleeves off the child's rounded shoulders. Janey raised no objections, she'd long since come to regarded Mrs Henson as a second mother (much as she'd adopted Dave as an older brother). Four years ago, she would have refused to let anyone touch her. But four years ago, she'd been a completely different person.

Roslyn lowered the frock over her waist and hips, dropping it to the floor. Janey hugged herself against the cold, flinchingly aware of her state of dishabille. Giggles threatened to bubble up from her tummy as she imagined how she must have looked. What if Dave came back and saw her like this? It was OK for Mrs Henson to see her stripped down to her underwear, but Dave was a boy. She suddenly realized why Roslyn had sent him from the room, and smiled to herself in silent amusement.

In the meantime, Ros had picked a crocheted quilt off the sofa and was draping it around the girl's shoulders. Janey meshed herself in the soft woolen fabric, making sure that she was decently covered. Despite the almost supernatural chill pervading the atmosphere, she'd finally started to warm up, drawing closer to the fireplace as the kindling sputtered and cracked. Gazing into the embers, she found herself wondering if she should phone her Mother.

"Mrs Henson?"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Could you call my Mom and let her know I'm OK?"

"Yes, of course," Roslyn replied, reaching over the coffee table for the landline, "why didn't I think of that myself?" She smiled at the girl as she typed in the number, then waited several seconds for the call to go through. Her smile faltered as the dial tone continued to ring. Staring at the handset, she pressed 'recall' several times, then placed the phone down with a frown of vague confusion.

"What's wrong?" Janey asked.

"I don't know," Ros said doubtfully, "couldn't get through...someone answered, but then there was some kind of weird noise on the line."

"Noise?"

"Yes..." Roslyn mused, mostly to herself, "almost sounded like..." She paused, shaking her head as if to clear it, then looked out through the front windows. "No, that couldn't be right. Must be the storm."

Janey's face fell.

"Mom'll be worried about me," she fretted, putting an anxious hand to her face.

Roslyn blinked several times, glancing across at Janey as if she'd momentarily forgotten she existed.

"Oh, don't worry; you're in good hands. I'll drive you home as soon as this storm dies down a little."

"You'll do that?"

"Sure I will, sweetie," Ros beamed, touching the girl on the tip of nose. Her tone was light, but she felt a subtle wave of unease in the back of her mind. The tempest had set off alarms deep within her subconscious, activating her maternal overdrive. Relays were switching in her cerebellum, signals shunting back and forth through long-forgotten pathways. Serotonin flickered between synapses. At this moment she viewed Janey as one of her own offspring, and she would have faced hell, high water and eternal damnation if necessary.

Why? Well, that's a rather long and convoluted story.

Roslyn Henson was thirty-three years old and had lived in Ridgewick all her life. She'd been in her late teens when the Blaxland Disaster made national headlines, and like many of her friends, she'd witnessed the arrival of the first transsexual children - though none of them had realized it at the time. TISM doesn't manifest until the eighth or ninth year, and sometimes not until the advent of puberty. Roslyn considered herself very fortunate in this regard. David had never developed transfeminine characteristics (and probably never would at this late stage). It was like winning the lottery in a way; she'd delivered a perfectly normal baby, quite an unusual event in this particular town.

Unfortunately, the pregnancy itself hadn't been free of complications. Dave had arrived slightly premature - not enough to endanger his health, but more than enough to endanger hers. A breech birth had exacerbated the situation to critical levels, and her doctors had opted for a C-section. Several minor disasters ensued in a virtual cascade of agony, but at the end of her ordeal, the nurses had handed her a beautiful, red-haired baby boy.

Along with the worst news she could otherwise have imagined.

Was it somehow related to the Blaxland Disaster? Probably not; her pregnancy had been a text book case-study right up to the eighth month. It wasn't unheard of for a woman to lose the ability to conceive following a difficult delivery. Nevertheless, it had come as a crushing blow after everything she'd endured to bring David into the world.

Much as she loved her son, Roslyn had always harbored a secret, unspoken regret over the circumstances of his birth. Because she'd wanted more children. A whole tribe of them, in fact: raging and roaring 'round the house; scuttling beneath her feet and getting into the cupboards when her back was turned. Children rustling through the undergrowth, children sliding down the banisters and swinging off the chandeliers. Children of every make, shape and size. Tall and thin, short and round, good and bad alike, she'd wanted them, each and every one.

Most of all, she'd wanted a daughter.

Which was probably why she'd taken such a shine to David's little girl-friend.

Okay, she wasn't exactly his girl-friend - wasn't even a girl for that matter - but Roslyn had never met a child quite so endearing. Janey Watson had a delicate, ethereal appearance; her eyes were so bright they seemed to illuminate everything she looked at. More than that, she was kind and sweet and radiantly happy, the way a little girl should be. Roslyn had come to love her over the past year, much the same way she loved her nieces and younger cousins - maybe a little more than that, in recent weeks. And with a mother's unerring intuition, Ros understood that her feelings were being returned.

She placed a hand on Janey's cheek, brushing moist blond curls back from her face. She had the most beautiful eyes she'd ever seen, huge and deep and liquid blue. Her mouth was a tiny red pout surmounting a dimpled chin, her nose a bump between rose-tinted cheeks. The kind of face capable of inspiring Renaissance poets to Elizabethan raptures. That was typical of transfeminine children; they weren't simply effeminate, they were hyper-feminine in appearance.

From what Ros had read, TISM mimics female biology to the finest detail, right down to the reproductive system. Some tranzies were known to retain a vestige of their former identity, but Janey wasn't one of them: her transition had been absolutely flawless. Looking at the girl now, it was difficult to believe that she'd ever been a boy.

Ros glanced up towards the ceiling, hearing her son's footsteps ambling about from room to room. He'd be back in a minute. At twelve, he was both too young and too old to see his little friend undressed, but she'd worry about that when he came downstairs.

"He's certainly taking his time, isn't he?" Ros asked, raising a comical eyebrow in Janey's direction, "maybe he got lost up there –"

Before another word could be spoken, a strafe of lightening flickered beyond the window, followed by a blast that quaked the house to its foundations. The ceiling trembled, the lights blinked out of existence, and Janey leapt into Roslyn's lap with a startled cry. Coiling her arms around the woman's neck, she buried her face in Rosy's shoulder, struggling to control her whimpers. The thunder was so close now, almost inside the room with them.

"You scared of the storm, Honey?" Roslyn asked, unnerved by the light-show herself. Sounded like the roof was going to collapse, that time.

Janey nodded, biting her lip to keep from sobbing.

"Nothing to worry about, baby," Ros soothed, smoothing down her rain-matted hair, "the lightning can't hurt you in here."

Janey nodded in tactic agreement, but her eyes circled around the living room like small frightened birds. She could hear the night raging against the walls like some vicious, black animal and the sound terrified her. It was trying to claw its way inside; any moment now, the front door would explode off its hinges and the beast would rush snarling down the hallway, its red-coal eyes as huge as storm beacons –

"Honey, you're still shivering," Roslyn said, gathering the child so close they were practically breathing through each other's mouths, "come on, let's get you closer to the fire." She started chafing Janey's slender limbs to get her blood flowing.

Outside, the storm tore through lawns and gardens, uprooting trees and lifting roofs in its wake. The keening winds slammed at the doors and windows, seeking entry through slot and jamb and keyhole. The skies were totally black now: not a single shaft of moonlight penetrated the swirling clouds. It was a wild, hellish night, the stuff of terror and nightmare. Of all of this, Roslyn Henson was largely unaware. She'd found the daughter she'd lost the day her son had been born, and nothing else mattered to her at this point. Mother and daughter lay together, nestled together in a warmth deeper than that of the fire.

Neither one noticed when the dogs began to howl.

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