Introduction: This story is the third, the penultimate, in a series within a series. The overall series is the “Cynthia Chronicles”. This story is directly connected to “Simoné and the Second Time Around” and “Marti and the Doppelganger”. The latter left many unanswered questions. Some of those will be answered, some probably not. There are many references to previous stories in the series. If you are confused by some of them, just put it off to my senility. The Cynthia Chronicles takes place in a universe very similar to ours. Unfortunately, it might be too similar.

For any who read “Myrna and the Genetic Disaster”, this is the same story, only with the political rantings and scientific explanations removed. There may also have been a few edits and additions.

This is the fourth part of ten.

Rhonda and her mother discuss being magic. Rhonda tells her as much as she would like to be magic, it’s not possible. We rejoin Simoné and the others in American Samoa as their vacation continues.

“Ronnie, have you ever thought about what it would be like to be a witch?”

“Of course I have, Mom. I think it’s pretty impressive what you and the others can do. I think it’s important, too.”

“But what if something could be done to make you a real witch?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“First of all, as far as I know, there has never been a case where The Wizard has taken a carrier and turned her into a witch. If he could do it, he would have done it long ago. There has to be more to his genetic manipulations than just switching chromosomes. He is able to do quite a bit in the way of morphologic changes in people. He is able to change men into women, and women into men; however, the only men he can change into witches are men who are carrying the witch trait.

“No Mom, I’m fine with the way things are. I’m going to have a wonderful husband who will be a wonderful father to our children. There’s a fifty percent chance our daughters will be witches, and a fifty percent chance our son’s will pass on the trait. All of our daughters will be carriers. You know the math.”

“I am interested, though, in why The Wizard brought Arnold and his family here. Little Misty seems quite attached to me. She’s as sweet as can be and spent the night snuggled up to me. I know I’m not a witch, never will be for that matter. But the strange thing is it’s like she’s my familiar. I mean we can converse. Heck, I can converse with all of them. So can the rest of us for that matter. Their family is special, and that’s pretty obvious, but why?”

“I think The Wizard wants them protected,” Sara responded. “He didn’t do this on a whim. I think he sees Arnold and his family as being associates of witches in the future. I’ll have to ask Miranda what she thinks. Perhaps the best thing to do is just study things, and not worry about it. Your father is fine with them living in the shed. He asked Arnold to make sure their latrine was down the hill. Arnold already had a spot picked out. He promised to move the location every month.”

“I agree with that. There’s something else. You do remember meeting Charli and Tommie?”

“I sure do, they were both able to communicate with animals before their transformations. Myrna said that ability was not located on the X or Y chromosomes. We don’t have a strong ability, but Arnold told me they were able to understand me before I could understand them. Myrna might be able to trace back to see if we have common ancestors with Charli and Tommie.

Back in American Samoa

“So this is the beach where Aleki found you?” Simoné asked.

“Yes, I was in pretty bad shape. I remember someone picking me up and taking me somewhere. A very special lady took care of me. The McDonalds were such wonderful people. The orphanage is still over there. His Wisdom brought up the valuables from the shipwreck along with Douglas’s remains. I’ve donated the treasure to the orphanage. They’re doing great work. Aleki and I ran it for many years, until he retired. We had a wonderful life. We helped prevent the influenza epidemic from reaching the island. Things were tight for a while, but we saved thousands of lives.

“By the way, thank you for teaching me that spell. It certainly is easier changing my appearance than making people forget what I look like.”

“What do you think of this suit?” Simoné asked. “This is the one I was wearing when Ivana found me.”

“At least you were wearing something.”

Simone started laughing, almost uncontrollably. “That’s the same thing Bev said when we met in The Wizard’s shop on Nessebar.”

“Well, you had it coming. I still can’t believe you talked me into wearing this thing. At least I won’t sunburn.

“Ivana is sure good with the children. It was a bit of a shock when I first found out you were married to her. Now I understand so much more.”

“Mom, she was desperate to have children. She tried at least four times, and lost every baby in early pregnancy. It has a lot to do with love. Then The Wizard helped us. As you can see, that hasn’t been a problem for us. Four is fine right now, but who knows, we might have more.

“Mom, have you thought about having more children?”

“When I married Aleki, I didn’t know about you and your sister. We had six. They’re long gone now, as are my grandchildren. Well of course excluding these four. All of you have been such a wonderful surprise. As for children, I think eight is enough. But who knows, according to you and others, I could have children for another four or five hundred years. If I met the right man, I might want to have more children, but right now, that doesn’t seem like a good idea. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to have another relationship. I’m tired of hiding. If I’m doomed to live another six or seven hundred years, I want to enjoy them. I don’t think Douglas or Aleki would mind.

“I don’t have to worry about the things Doug and I worried about in 1877. I am going to visit all of our relatives as often as they will have me. I want to go to Jim and Terri’s home and spoil their children as any aunt should. I would love to take a trip that followed the path you took to get to your wonderful home.

“Vienna was very important to you, wasn’t it? What was his name?”

“Ah, Johannes. He was such a sad man. He wrote such beautiful music, and we made some wonderful music together. I know I helped him. I’ll treasure that fan he signed for me forever. I put a preservation spell on it. When it’s time, I’ll donate it to a museum, but I will always hold it dear to my heart.

“I was wondering. Did you ever think that you and Beth would be related?”

“Not for a long time. She was just the first of my kind I could remember. She had gone off to college, but her heart was here, and she came back after graduation to help her parents. The fact she and Elekana had gone to the same school in California probably had something to do with it. When her daughters showed up with the same powers, I started putting two and two together. Then Lanu went to that camp in California. How wonderful that had to have been, discovering she had an American cousin.

“Ah, here comes Beth now. The only way I can tell them apart is Marissa’s American accent and the clothes they wear. I must say, she has certainly accepted the American swim suits.

“Did you know that she and Marissa used to be brunettes?”

“You have to be kidding,” Simoné replied. “No dye job could ever look that good. I don’t care how good their hair dresser is.”

“We were never able figure it out. She went to bed as a brunette with a better than average figure. The next morning she was a blonde with a stunning figure. Most didn’t know the change had happened. None of us who were aware of the change had an idea until Lanu came back from that summer camp. That had to have been one of the luckiest things to have happened.

“Of course, none of us knew about The Wizard, or we might have been very suspicious. We should have been. It’s really interesting that he never had a clue about Beth. He knew about me after the fact, but never seriously thought about looking for me. Lanu and Marti took charge, and now we are back together. I guess the interesting question is where do we go from here? Marissa never looked for her ancestors, nor did Beth.”

Beth and the children settled down on their towels.

“Nicolae and Margaret swim like fish, and Georg isn’t far behind. Where did they learn to swim like that?” Beth said with a rather surprised voice.

“Well, we do have a rather nice pool at the hotel. They were drown proofed early on. We also take them to the beach at Constanta. The surf, unlike here is seldom very big. They love the sea.

“We’ll tell them about all of us when they start asking questions. Fortunately, same sex marriages aren’t as unusual as they once were. All they will know is that we love each other and them very much.

“Speaking of swimming, here comes Ivana. I can’t believe she wanted to swim out all the way out to that little island.”

By this time, Ivana was drying off after having showered under the fresh water shower.

“See that young fellow coming this way? He has ice cream for everyone. He seemed rather fixated on my cleavage. I thickened up my Russian accent just a bit, and told him if he could take my order looking in my eyes the entire time, there would be a nice tip for him. He wavered a bit, but I gave him a nice tip, anyway.”

He got quite an eyeful as he passed the cups of ice cream to everyone, Raisa excluded. She was getting her own treat. The young man was probably from the mainland. His breast obsession was obvious.

“He is certainly carrying that tray in an unusual way,” Beth chuckled.

“So, how was your swim out to the island?” Margaret asked.

“Interesting,” Ivana chuckled. “I wasn’t the only one to swim out there. It seems that a couple of American teenagers swam out there, also. They were in a nice little shaded spot. The boy was trying to pressure the girl into having sex. It wasn’t the first time for them. It was just that he didn’t have any protection. I got a package of condoms for them from that pharmacy. They’ll never miss them. I gave them both a little lecture about what “no” means. Their relationship is pretty solid, but they need to be careful.

“I told them to bring the condoms back to shore and dispose of them properly. They won’t remember me.”

Wanda has a nice conversation with Ginny Chronister. Tamesha is going to visit and there is no doubt they are going to carry their relationship to the next level. Ginny opens up a bit about her previous life. Rhonda and her mother have a similar conversation.