Private Mountain
by Erin Halfelven
Bobby Meehan has inherited a family curse. It's a great curse, Bobbi loves it, but there must be some sort of catch...
Since Wanda has been unable to deliver more of The Fairy King right now, I took a similar idea and went somewhere else with it. I'm not sure what to do next; if you have any ideas, leave me a comment.
by Erin Halfelven
Bobby Lee Meehan knew he could hear puffing and panting that he wasn't making himself but he couldn't see anyone following him up his Private Mountain. It wasn't really private and not much of a mountain, just a rubbly hillside behind his parents' house where he went when he wanted to be alone. He didn't like the idea of someone following him, intruding on his private spaces.
He wondered if it could be his best friend Gomo Vasquez but he knew that the bigger boy had gone into town with his older sister, Lucy. Bobby's parents had told him that he couldn't go, that he spent too much time with Gomo anyway and why didn't he have any other friends? They meant, why didn't he have any white friends but they wouldn't say that. Well, his Mom wouldn't, his Dad sure might. Gomo lived less than a block away, physically but a chasm existed between his blue-collar, immigrant family and the Meehan's affluence and privilege.
Bobby could still hear the panting so he squatted down in the shade of a big rock and waited to see who might be following him. Gomo would surely never make that much noise; his grandmother was an Apache Indian and Gomo actually practiced sneaking up on people. Bobby had been pretend scalped several times and he smiled to think about all the games they had played in the brown hills behind their homes.
He snorted to cover up expressing the emotion he suddenly felt. Gomo had turned fourteen in April but while they would both be in eighth grade this fall, Bobby would only be thirteen, tomorrow, the 20th of July. He wondered if Gomo would buy him a present while he was in town with Lucy. He wondered vaguely if that might be why his parents wouldn't let him go with his friends; some benevolent conspiracy to surprise him. He couldn't work it out though, his Mom would hardly look at the Vazquezes let alone plot a birthday surprise with them.
The puffing and panting had gotten louder, presumably meaning closer but Bobby had a good view of his back trail and could see no one. The spookiness of the heavy breathing suddenly seemed to suck all the heat out of the desert afternoon sunshine. Bobby stood, his back against the rock, his feet digging into the dirt a little for traction in case he needed to run.
"Yer a hard'un to catch up, Robert Meeghan!" said a voice near his kneecap.
Bobby yelped in surprise and had sprinted a good twenty feet up the trail before he realized that he still hadn't seen anyone.
"Och! Blast and damn you for a rabbit and make a stew of yer meat and a pie of yer innards!" said the voice in an oddly accented and strangely cadenced version of English.
Bobby looked back, stepped off the path, tripped over a creosote bush and tangled briefly with the prickly limb of a paloverde before getting turned around for a good view. He still saw no one. "Who is it? Where are you? Why can't I see you?" Bobby screeched, poised to run again.
"Now don't be running off, ye blitherskite! I've had enough trouble catching ye up." Suddenly, a small man stood on the path in the shade of the same rock Bobby had been standing beside. A very small man, he appeared to be less than two feet tall, dressed all in browns, reds and greens. Fierce blond mustachios saved him from looking like a certain cereal mascot but the thought still occurred to Bobby who probably watched too much television.
"Lucky Charms?" breathed the boy in wonderment.
The tiny apparition scowled. "I'm no bloody leprecaun; I'm a self-respecting firbolg and a member of the Seelie Court, never you doubt that!" The little man pulled himself up and managed to look quite fierce.
Bobby swallowed hard. One part of his mind considered sunstroke as a possible explanation while another part wanted to babble incoherently. As a sort of unhappy medium, he managed to stammer, "How do you know my name? And what's a furbog?"
"Firbolg," corrected the little man. "And that's me. One of the Fair Folk whose true name you must not say but you may call me, Cullain Toomey." Then he added, "Not that our acquaintance is going to be long enough for extensive pleasantries." The strange little man gestured at the plants near Bobby's feet which wriggled and extended themselves to wind woody twines about his ankles.
Struggling to move only caused Bobby to trip and sit down heavily in the stony dirt. He opened his mouth to scream but another gesture from Cullain Toomey effectively silenced him. His voice came out in tiny, breathless whispers, "Help! Mom! Daddy! Gomo! Someone!" No one would hear him.
Toomey shook his head. "'Tis a bad business, delivering a curse onto the head of a child but there it is, 'tis why I am here. Don't take on so and 'twill soon be over."
"Curse?" whispered Bobby. He began to cry. Had he tripped and hit his head? Accidentally eaten poisonous plants? Did he actually lie somewhere in the dry landscape out of his head with the brainfever of sunstroke? "Please, go away! Leave me alone."
"Sure and I can't, you see? I've got my duty to the queen. Queen Maeve that is. Your birthday falls on the full moon after Midsummer which was also a full moon this year. It's your birthday by your calendar and his by our moon calendar. You're the 21st inheritor of your family curse, you see?"
"No," wept Bobby. "I don't see. Am I gonna die?" His energy sapped by terror, Bobby lay back among the stickergrass and wept.
Toomey snorted. "What sort of curse just kills its victim? Not a very good curse at all. No, you have to suffer," the boy winced, "and suffer appropriately."
"What?" Bobby managed.
"Almost 400 years ago, your ancestor, one Alasdair Powers, offended the Queen who would have offered him her heart. He spurned her and then he did what ye must never do to one of the Wise Ones."
"What? Is this real?"
"Real as a cockleburr in your hose! He laughed at her. Your ancestor laughed at the queen of the fair folk for offering him her love. So she cursed him. And being an immortal--deathless, cruel and unforgiving--she cursed all his male descendants who share his birthday, too. Which brings us to here and now and me and you."
"Aghh!" Bobby cried out but it was still no use, his voice couldn't have been heard a dozen feet away. "No, please, don't."
"I maent refuse the command of my queen, but don't take it so hard," Toomey said, trying to be a little conciliatory. "Mayhap you'll come to prefer it."
"You--you're not real," Bobby accused. "Curses and fairies and all that, it's not real."
"Smart child," nodded Toomey. "But being unreal is no disadvantage if you can do magic." The little man smiled, touched his nose and pointed at Bobby. "This won't hurt at all," he said. "which considering, is truely amazing." For the boy, everything seemed to go black.
* * *
Bobby woke with a start, the dream had seemed so real. His room seemed strange for a moment with silvery moonlight coming in the big window and competing with the bluish nightlight in his bathroom. The big mirror over his chest of drawers showed a ghostly version of his room but nothing seemed out of place. Bobby got up out of bed and made the short trip to the bathroom, still not sure he was completely awake.
He decided that he should sit down to do his business, thinking that he might be too sleepy to aim well. The flow came in a flooding splash rather than a tinkling stream but he didn't think too much about it. After peeing, he felt damp down there so he took a handful of tissue and patted himself dry before pulling up his underpants and pajama bottoms and going back to bed. The digital clock on the dresser blinked 4:15 at him.
Once in bed and covered with the sheet, he slid a hand into his pants and put two fingers under the end of his penis. He wiggled and stroked for a moment, it felt very good but something didn't seem quite right. Had he always had a groove on the underside of his dick? His finger followed the groove while his mind sleepily puzzled over the anomaly until his fingers found the soft, damp hole right where his balls ought to be.
Bobby felt suddenly wide awake. He knew very well that he had had balls and an ordinary penis yesterday morning. He felt of himself again and his flesh stiffened a bit in response to the repeated probing. But it wasn't anywhere near long enough or big enough--it didn't feel at all right.
His heart hammered in his chest. "No," he whispered. He sat up in bed and flicked on the bedside lamp. He peered into his pajamas and stared at the shrivelled little stub where his dick should be. It couldn't be longer or bigger around than the end of his little finger and it had no hole in the end of it. Surrounding it, mostly below it, wrinkled flesh looked rather like his ball sack should, sparsely covered in pale downy hair. He couldn't really see anything below that, had everything moved further back besides--what else seemed to have happened?
He couldn't find his balls but his fingers did find the damp slit they'd found before. He snatched his hands away. "I've got a pussy?" he asked no one. He pulled his pajamas and underpants off, then the t-shirt, too. He never wore the pajama tops. "Am I really awake?" he wondered.
He turned on a few more lights, then stood on the bed where he could see all of him in the dresser mirror. He'd never seen a girl naked before but he certainly didn't look much like a boy now.
Even her chest had changed, two small cones of soft flesh surrounded her nipples. "Ack!" she squeaked. She felt them, they were very tender and sensitive and seemed to itch a bit. She put her hands behind her back for a moment and bit her lower lip to keep from crying out. This couldn't be happening she told herself.
She tried to get a better look at her groin but the mirror had the wrong angle and sat too far away from the bed. Her gyrations would have been funny if anyone had been watching but try as she might, she couldn't see exactly what had been done to her.
Even biting her lip didn't really help and she began to cry. "It's not fair," she wept. "I didn't do anything to any old fairy queen, it's not fair." After sniffling and snuffling a bit, she went to the bathroom to get some tissues. On impulse she turned the light on in there and stared at her reflection. Did her hair look a bit longer? Not much, but maybe. Her face did seem different, less chin and eyebrows, hollower cheeks, fuller lips. "Damnit!" she squeaked then blushed to hear her own cursing.
A draft from the A/C made her nipples crinkle as she plodded back to her room. She rubbed them absently then snatched her hand away because it just felt so weird. "Oh, please," she whimpered. "Change me back, please change me back." But no one answered; the strange little man--in what now looked to be a memory rather than a dream--did not appear. "I don't want to be a girl!" she whimpered.
Then she scampered to the bed and pulled the sheet over here because she heard her mother in the hallway. Maybe she wouldn't open the door. Right.
* * *
Eunice Meehan did not have feelings. She did not suffer from strange premonitions and quiet alarms in the night that woke her with the conviction that something was wrong. She was much too sensible a woman for such odd, spiritual going-on. Nevertheless, she had got up at twenty past four on her son's birthday morning. While she was up, she might as well check on him, right?
When she reached the hallway, a light under the door to her son's room confirmed that he must be awake. And if he was awake this early, something must be wrong. Perhaps she had heard him make a noise and that had wakened her. But none of this women's intuition bullshit.
Her son Bobby had the second master bedroom in the big house. The bedroom suite she shared with her husband Chaz had big double doors at the far end of the upstairs hall. The two other bedrooms upstairs shared a bathroom between them. One she used as a craft room, the other had been filled over the years with assorted unused pieces of furniture. She ignored those doors and strode to the end of the hall and opened Bobby's bedroom without knocking.
It didn't occur to her that maybe she should give the boy a little warning or the expectation of a little privacy.
Bobby lay on his bed with the sheet pulled up to his chin and all the lights in the bedroom and bathroom on. He didn't say anything but just stared at her. She noted the pajamas and underwear on the floor. Oh, my God, she thought, I almost caught him jacking off. It would be funny if it wasn't disgusting. Such a sweet little boy he'd been but now he would begin turning into a big hairy insensitive brute like his father.
But four o'clock in the morning was no time for even a brand new teenager to be awake. She began a circuit of the room, turning off lights. "Your birthday will wait. Go to sleep," she ordered him but to her surprise, Bobby burst into tears.
She stopped beside his bed and pulled her robe around her to make sitting easier. Then she felt of his forehead with the back of her hand and wiped away the tracks of tears. He didn't seem to have a fever. "What's wrong?" she asked.
He shook his head and wouldn't look at her.
"Okay, don't tell me," she said and stood up.
"Momma," his voice sounded squeaky and childlike. "Momma, what happened...yesterday?"
She stared down at him. "You wanted to go into town with that Mexican boy and we said no, so you went off and sulked all afternoon somewhere."
"After that," he asked.
She shrugged. "You must have come back sometime because you were in your room asleep when I asked you if you wanted dinner. You didn't answer so I figured you'd eaten while you were out. Did you wake up hungry?"
He shook his head again.
"Why are you asking me? Don't you remember?"
"Not really," he said so softly she almost didn't hear him.
She snorted. "You're too young to be getting blackouts--or flashbacks."
He closed his eyes and began to cry again.
"Jesus," she muttered but sat back down and held his hand in both of hers. With his other arm, he held the sheet against his chest. Feeling absurdly tender, she bent down and kissed him on the forehead, something she hadn't done in a very long time. "You're not supposed to be getting upset about birthdays at your age," she told him. "Besides you're a guy, you don't really hit the bad ones till you're fifty."
For some reason this comment made him cry harder. "For gosh sake, for gosh sake, what's turned you into a waterworks?"
He shook his head and muttered something.
"What?" she demanded.
"I said, 'hormones,'" he said.
She laughed and stroked his hair. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were about to start your period. That'd be a first, huh?"
He looked suitably horrified and she laughed longer and harder than before.
"Mom, Momma," he said, "what do girls do when they have a period?"
"They bleed," she said.
"I know, but what do they do about that? Is it messy?"
"This is a damn funny conversation, especially for not yet five in the morning on my son's birthday. It's a damn big mess so we wear a Kotex or a tampon." She didn't ask him how he even knew about periods, hers were legendary. Damn, she thought, I'm less than a week away myself.
With that though, she stood and moved away from the bed, turning out more lights. "Go to sleep," she ordered him again. "I'm going to get you up later and we'll go out for cinnamon French toast. Okay?" He didn't answer but she let herself out of the room and closed the door behind her firmly.
When she got back to her own bed, Charles pulled her against him and began to sleepily grope her breasts. She knew better than to resist, that would only wake him up and he'd be even hornier. Spitting into her hand, she took care of the problem with a few dozen strokes then settled into the contented spoons position. For some reason, she shed a few tears herself then fell asleep before the morning sun could find her.
* * *
After her mother had left, Bobbi lay quietly for a few more moments. "I'm not a girl," she said aloud finally. "I'm not a girl and I'm not about to start my p-p-period!"
She cried some more then she tried cursing. "Damn," she said but it made her blush and she gave that up for a bad job. "I'm not a girl," she repeated. "I don't want to be a girl!"
After a bit she asked the walls, "Why do I have to be a girl? What did I do that was so terrible? I'll kill myself if I have to be a girl!" But she knew she wouldn't; death scared her much worse than having periods, and besides, it would probably hurt. She knew that periods could hurt but dying probably hurt much worse.
"I should have told Mom," she said. "I could have showed her, I'll have to tell her sometime. I'll have to tell Daddy and then everyone, even G-g-gomo! Everyone will know I'm a girl!"
Thinking about Gomo did something very weird inside her; thinking about telling him about what had happened scared her so she tried not to think about it at all. Thinking about telling her dad scared her even more. She felt very strange about her father, anyway. She knew she loved him but he scared her now, or had he always scared her?
What if her father and mother wouldn't love her anymore since she had turned into a girl?
And just what could she tell them? If she told them about the curse and the little man, they'd probably lock her up. Maybe she was crazy, that would explain a lot. "'I've always been a g-g-girl, you just never noticed,' -- that's not going to work!"
She got up and went to the bathroom to get a drink of water this time. She washed her face without turning the light on then wondered if she should put something on before going back to bed. "All I've got is boy's clothes," she realized.
And then she realized something else. "I can't wear boy's clothes!" The idea felt actively creepy, disgusting and just wrong. "Oh, no-o-o-o!" she whimpered. "I can't even wear boy's clothes anymore? What did that little monster do to me?"
She ran back to the bed and pulled all the covers up over her head.
Now that she thought about it, this was a boy's bed and a boy's bedroom and the idea that that felt so wrong began to freak her out. The clothes and toys in the closet were all boy's clothes and toys, even the old ones she didn't play with anymore. The video games for her game console, and the DVD's she normally watched were all to the taste of boys. Did girls even play video games?
Her parents didn't let her have her own computer for fear of her getting on the internet and being exposed to smut but like almost any twelve-year-old boy, Bobby had managed to acquire a couple of the racier men's magazines hidden away under some old sweaters in the bottom drawer of his chest. The very thought of having to touch those magazines now, just to get rid of them, made her sick to her stomach. "Well, I can't wear the sweaters anymore, either," she thought.
She peeked out from under the covers and glared around the room. "You rat b-b-b...." She couldn't say 'bastard'. "You rat! You better not be laughing at me, Mr. Lucky Charms!" No one responded.
"Wottamygonnadooo!" she moaned then kicked all the covers off the bed and lay there naked for as long as she could stand it. Somewhere inside her, some part of her knew--good girls did not sleep naked.
Finally she got up and went through her things--his things. After compulsively tidying several drawers of things, she found a pair of yellow shorts that had no fly. They didn't look too boyish so she pulled them on. A long white t-shirt, the longest one she could find almost reached the hem of the shorts. She pulled and tugged to make the shirt longer, then sighed and went back to bed.
Exhausted, she fell almost immediately asleep.
Notes:
Private Mountain
by Erin Halfelven
Breakfast at Perky's and some surprises, but are the fairies done with poor Bobbi?
Chapter 2
A little after nine that morning, Eunice rapped sharply on Bobbi's door before opening it. "French toast shuttle leaves in twenty minutes," she said. "All birthday boys who want breakfast should be ready to leave by then."
Bobbi smiled as she woke up. A French toast breakfast at the local Perky's was one of her favorite treats. Or had been. She suddenly remembered what had happened yesterday and during the night and the change in her expression caused Eunice to pause on the way out the door.
"'S'matter?" she asked.
"Oh, Momma!" Bobbi choked out. "I...I..." How could she even begin? She glanced down at what she was wearing. The stretchy t-shirt and yellow shorts didn't look too odd but knowing they were boy's clothes made her the slightest bit itchy.
Eunice stood right there in the doorway. "What's wrong, Bobby? Tell me."
Bobbi swallowed hard. "Momma, did you ever wish you had a daughter?"
"What?" Eunice stared. "What did you say?" Thirteen today and the kid could still throw her curve balls.
Bobbi gestured vaguely. "I can't...I don't..Oh, Momma!" She leaped out of bed and ran for the bathroom, suddenly anxious to confirm that things hadn't changed again, that she hadn't just had some sort of extended hallucination or dream, that she wasn't about to make a total fool of herself over something that wasn't real.
Eunice watched Bobby disappear behind the bathroom door, still bemused. "It might have been nice to have had a daughter," she muttered. "But does this mean the kid's turning fruit? Oh, that's just going to tickle the hell out of Charles." She shook her head and sighed.
Some odd noises came from the bathroom. Eunice ignored them and turned to go, "I'll meet you down at the car. Don't take too long." She thought she heard Bobby call out an okay so she left to get the A/C in the car running.
In the bathroom, Bobbi again sat to do her business, sniffling a little. It was all true, though her appearance had changed very little she no longer had the original equipment of a boy. "I'm really a girl," she whispered. "But how long is this going to last? Maybe I'll change back." She didn't really think so but she could hope, couldn't she?
"If I change back, things will be twice as mixed up if I've told anyone about it. And it will be so embarrassing, more than twice as much." She blushed just thinking about it. "But if I'm stuck like this...for the rest of my life...well, it really doesn't matter how soon I tell anyone does it?"She nodded in affirmation. "I've just got to keep the secret."
She automatically patted herself dry, pulled up the yellow shorts, then checked to see that her mother had left the bedroom before stepping out. "I'll have to wear my regular boy clothes or she'll ask questions," Bobbi thought. She sighed, repulsed by the idea; it was going to feel like crossdressing and wasn't that a weird thought
Looking through her underwear, Bobby's underwear, she found a pair of briefs that had gone through the wash with a red towel or something. They were now definitely pink and she'd never worn them since their unfortunate accident. Giggling a little at the absurdity of it, she stripped off the shorts and put on the pink underpants. They fit a bit tightly but even that felt a bit better; just knowing they were something a boy wouldn't wear somehow made it better.
She sighed and rolled her eyes, a gesture she didn't realize she copied her mother in. "This is going to be hard." In the t-shirt drawer, she found a similarly pink, slightly small undershirt. Tight enough that it actually helped skoosh down her little nubbin breasts so they didn't show so much through the big yellow shirt she put on over the pink one. "Momma won't know I'm wearing two shirts," she told herself since the top one was very loose and hung quite far down.
She stopped to look at herself in the mirror. With just the overlarge t-shirt showing and her bare legs, she thought she looked rather cute. "Oh! Stop that!" she warned herself quietly. "I'm not supposed to be cute, I'm supposed to look like a boy!"
After some searching, she found a pair of jeans she liked. They seemed a bit snug in the seat and thighs and loose in the waist. Her parents had never let Bobby wear the trendy extra-loose, baggy jeans. She examined her rear in the mirror. "It is bigger," she decided. "Maybe no one will notice." She sighed.
She looked at herself in the mirror again, turning this way and that. "I look like a girl wearing boy's clothes," she whimpered. "This isn't going to work."
Taking up a brush, she began to fuss with her hair. Nothing she did seemed to restore her appearance to what it had been only yesterday though she couldn't really say what precisely had changed that much. "Everyone is going to know," she pouted. The expression caught her attention in the mirror and she spent a few moments trying on different pouts and frowns.
Finally she giggled at a particularly devastating one. "Gotta try that one on Gomo," she noted. "What am I saying? Oh, cr-crud!"
"Bobby!" her mother's voice called from downstairs. "You didn't go back to bed, did you?"
"No, Momma," Bobbi called in a high voice. "Just getting my shoes." Quickly slipping her feet into a pair of pale blue shower sandals, she hurried down to the garage.
* * *
Eunice smiled at Bobby as he slid into the seat beside her. "Took you long enough," she accused.
"I'm sorry, Momma," said Bobbi.
Eunice's eyebrows went up. "Wanna go to the mall after breakfast? You can spend your birthday money."
"Sure!" Bobbi chirped before she thought about it. Then she froze up. There were a lot of things she'd like to buy and the birthday bounty this year was three hundred dollars but she'd have to spend the money on things Bobby would have wanted. And what she needed was clothes. She felt as if her head were about to spin.
* * *
The local Perky's didn't have a big crowd for breakfast during the middle of the week so they were able to get a seat right away. "Enjoy your breakfast, girls,"said the hostess as she lay the menus down and huried away.
Bobbi froze. His mother grinned at him, "You need a haircut."
Bobbi nodded cautiously and buried her face in the menu. That had never happened to Bobby, why did it have to happen now, she wondered. I don't want a haircut, she told herself but if I'm going to look like a boy I really should get one I guess. Foo!
Eunice chuckled. Bobby's expression had been priceless. "I want a mushroom omelet," she said out loud.
A waiter hurried toward them. "Good morning, ladies," he said. Eunice grinned and Bobbi cringed. "Um, have you decided?" the waiter asked, sensing that he had said something wrong. His name tag read, "Ken" in big red letters.
"I'll have the mushroom omelet, side of fruit and coffee," Eunice said.
"Cinnamon French toast and fruit," Bobbi mumbled, not looking up.
"How do you want your eggs?" ken asked.
"Scrambled." How could she look at him, she wondered. He thinks I'm a girl. Well, I am, but he thinks he knows I'm a girl. I think.
"Anything to drink, miss?" Ken pressed on, thinking Bobbi was just being shy. He smiled to look less threatening.
Eunice snorted. Then shook her head. Bobby's hair wasn't that long.
Bobbi glanced up at the waiter. He had dimples. Transfixed, she stared at him.
"Miss? Anything to drink?"
"Orange juice." Why did the waiter have to be so good looking? Had she ever seen a waiter who was so cute before? Would she have ever noticed before?
"Large or small?"
"Huh? Oh, large, yes, please," Bobbi babbled, aware that her voice didn't quite sound like it usually did. She blushed.
"It's...Bobby's birthday today," said Eunice, wondering a bit why neither of them had tried to convice the waiter of Bobby's true sex.
"Oh ho!" Ken smiled and his dimples gleamed. "Well, there just might be a cupcake with a candle on it for the birthday girl." Now why did the kid flinch at that? She must be really shy. "How old are you today, hon?"
"Thirteen," said Bobbi in a tiny voice.
Eunice laughed.
Ken smiled. "You're a teenager now. Well don't worry, you'll live through it. I did." He winked and Bobbi thought she might faint though she wasn't sure exactly what she was most embarrassed about.
After Ken left to get their drinks, Eunice asked quietly. "Why didn't you tell him you were a boy?"
Bobbi shook her head. "Too embarrassing."
Eunice chuckled. "You think that was embarrassing, he's going to flirt with you every time he comes to the table now. It's your thirteenth birthday, he'll want to show you that he thinks you're all grownup."
"Grownup? I may throw up!" squeaked Bobbi.
"Don't. You'll get us thrown out of Perky's." She laughed again. "It's pretty funny, hon. Well, to me. But with what you're wearing and how long you're hair is, he probably can't tell. And maybe he heard the hostess call us, ladies. Plus, I think he thinks you're cute."
"Momma!"
"Well, you would make a cute girl,"Eunice said judiciously. "And you did ask me this morning if I'd ever wanted to have a daughter."
Bobbi blushed.
"I think I'd like that," Eunice continued. "Goodness knows it gets tiresome being outnumbered in the house." She watched Bobby as she talked, thinking, he really does look very girlish today. What is it? "Did you pluck your eyebrows?" she asked suddenly.
Startled, Bobbi shook her head. "No, ma'am. Does it hurt?"
Eunice frowned. "A bit."
Ken returned with OJ and coffee. "Here you go," he said unnecessarily. "And here's a cupcake with pink frosting for the birthday girl. Sorry I couldn't fit 13 candles on it but this candle is really candy so you can just eat it." He winked at Bobbi again.
"Thank you," she said politely, blushing.
When he'd left again, Eunice asked, "Were you flirting back?"
"No!" squeaked Bobbi.
"It sort of looked like you might be," Eunice commented.
"Well, I wasn't. I don't even know how. N-not that I'd want to with, with him."
"Honey, are you gay?"
Bobbi shook her head, appalled.
"You can tell me, I'm your mother. If you're gay it won't kill me." It might your father, she added silently.
"I'm not gay, Momma," Bobbi said, sounding very sure. If I were gay this would be easier, maybe. But I'm not gay, I think I like boys and since I'm a girl that means I'm not gay. She bit her lip to keep from saying any of that out loud.
Eunice's cell phone rang at that moment. "Charlie," she said after looking at the number. "Hi, hon?" she said into the phone.
Bobbi kept quiet. She felt a very real fear about her father finding out that she had been changed into a girl. Charles Meehan was definitely a man's man and he wanted his boy to be very much like him. He wanted this fiercely enough to have communicated it to Bobby in a hundred subtle and not so subtle ways. Shooting lessons, fishing trips, baseball, football even hockey games.
"Yeah, we're having breakfast at Perky's." She nodded. "Okay, hon. Sure. Bobby?"
Bobbi looked up.
"Wanna go to Don Diego's for dinner tonight?"
Bobbi nodded, knowing it was her dad's favorite Mexican place. No better than other's for simple Mexican food but they also did a good steak which Charles Meehan preferred. "Is Daddy going to wear his black mask and cape?" she asked, innocently.
Eunice grinned. "She wants to know if you're going to carve a 'Z' into your steak?" Eunice rolled her eyes and laughed, "No, I meant Bobby. Sorry, no. Yeah, we'll be home and ready to go by 6:30. Okay, hon." She put the phone away, looking a bit puzzled.
Bobbi sat transfixed wondering if Dad had noticed Mom's accidental pronoun, or even if Mom had noticed. It certainly had sounded as if they both had.
"What were we talking about?" Eunice asked.
Before Bobbi could answer, Ken arrived with the food. "Cinnamon French toast for the birthday girl," he said. "With fruit and scrambled eggs on the side." He put an enormous platter with six slices of thick French toast sprinkled with powdered sugar and cinnamon in front of Bobbi. A smaller plate holding the eggs and several slices of melon with strawberries went to the side.
"Hey!" Bobbi protested. "This isn't the special! I can't eat all of this!"
Ken laughed as he served Eunice from the tray. "Do your best, hon. I'm only charging for the special but the chef felt generous since it's your birthday."
Embarrassed, Bobbi mumbled thanks while Eunice chuckled. "I'll help eat a piece or two," offerred Eunice.
Ken put the boat with the syrup selections handy and asked, "Anything else, ladies?"
Bobbi shook her head, blushing. "More coffee in a while," said Eunice, taking a sip.
"You got it," said Ken. "Have a good breakfast, princess," he added to Bobbi as he left.
Neither said anything for a moment then Eunice commented, "Well, you've got him convinced but for the life of me, I'm not sure how."
* * *
"You did what to a thirteen-year-old?" asked Maeve.
Cullain Toomey winced. His queen didn't seem too happy this evening, for it was evening in the Timeless Isle, as contradictory as that sounded. Around them, the beautiful and terrible Fair Ones lounged and took their ease sipping nameless nectars in a glossy green glade. The Queen, the most beautiful and terrible of them all, sat on her mother-of-pearl covered throne in a little bower made of flowering thorn bushes. She looked ravishing, or at least, possibly recently ravished.
"I delivered your curse to the latest descendant of Alasdair Powers to fulfill the condition of having the first full moon of summer on his birthday. As Your Majesty required." Toomey kept his tones formally polite, as befit a Royal Messenger reporting to his monarch.
"Yes, but you hadn't told me this cursed one was only thirteen," complained the Queen. Most unfairly, thought Toomey. After all, Queen Maeve had the power to command the winds to tell her all the secrets of the world. That she didn't know some particular fact was hardly his fault.
"I could take the curse back, I suppose," observed Toomey.
"No, that would never do. We aren't in the business of removing curses. But this boy, now girl, cannot have committed the peculiarly masculine crimes for which the curse was originally pronounced, can he? He'd have to be pretty precocious to be breaking hearts, insulting ladies and deflowering maidens at his age."
"I suppose not," admitted Toomey. "But you didn't specify that Your Majesty's future victims had to be guilty of something when you first cursed the ancestor. Is Bobby Meehan the youngest to be so cursed?"
"I doubt it," said Maeve, "but it doesn't seem fair, does it?"
Toomey shrugged, carefully. "No. Is life supposed to be fair?" It wouldn't do to seem to be contradicting Her Majesty, the Queen of Whimsy. Being contrary could be a capital crime in the Court of Queen Maeve.
"Oh, don't be boring," Maeve warned--another capital crime in the Timeless Isle. "We shall make it up to him...her."
"Your wish is my command, of course, Your Majesty."
"Grant Bobbi Meehan a boon, a Fairy Boon, that she might not be unhappy in her cursed state."
"Would you care to be more specific, Your Majesty?" Toomey risked being accused of being boring again in the pursuit of his duty.
"She shall have Luck and Beauty and Love, one wish for each. What more could a mortal girl want?"
Toomey mulled that over for a bit, a very generous boon it seemed. "And what if she solves the curse, undoing it?"
"Then she will undo her wishes, too!" Maeve snapped. "Now go away, you tiresome little man."
Toomey left quickly, he had dodged the mistletoe again. He sighed, while it was only a step from anywhere in the world to the Land of Faerie, the magic didn't work the same way in reverse and he had a long walk ahead of him again.
The old saying has it that the third time is the charm. Is it really a good idea to tempt fate when you're already under a fairy curse?
Private Mountain
by Erin Halfelven
Chapter 3 - Sharp Dresser
For fairies, time is a flexible resource. It can be stretched or compressed to fit one's needs and convenience. Of course, if one isn't careful or paying close attention, time can slip through the grasp of even the canniest of fairies.
"Do this, Toomey. Then do that," Cullain Toomey muttered to himself as he set out along the green byways that fairies use to travel the wide world. As usual when unobserved, his accent tended to drift from Connaught to Cheapside, where he'd actually been born back in the days of gaslight and horse manure. "Oh, be a Seelie Knight, me mum said. Hobnobbing with the Fair and Fortunate. Running wee errands like fetching ice to cool her ladyship's drink from Mt. Kill-you-tomorrow. Nobody mentions the flippin' enormous hyenas they have in bloody Africa, do they?" He sighed, "I knew about the bloody lions, but what Unseelie horr'r thought up them hyenas?"
He groaned. "Now it's go to bleeding America and curse this child of an ancient curse on the First Full Moon of Summer. Then it's, oh, he's too young--she's too young!--to be cursed for something she didn't do, so go back and give her a fairy boon! Isn't that the idea of a family curse? That someone has done something so bleedin' awful as to make their innocent descendants suffer for it, too? I ask you?" He glared at an innocent kitten willow by the side of the path. The downy plant looked as if it had been eavesdropping, he thought, but it made no reply to his challenge.
Toomey snorted. "Powers preserve me from the Curiousity of Cats, the Friendliness of Dogs, and above bloody all, the Sheer Bloody-Mindedness of Bloody Hyenas!" he exclaimed in pained memory. He did a little dance for emphasis, shaking his fists at the sky and his feet at the earth.
Then the little man stopped stock still suddenly, staring. "Was this flippin' signpost here when I come this way before?" He glared about him suspiciously. Fairy woodlands stretched away from him on either side, full of strange fairy plants and animals, and no doubt, the even stranger denizens called fairies. Some of whom were not above trying to pull a trick on a traveler, even on a Seelie Knight.
Squinting a bit, Mr. Toomey read the sign, "America do Sud, this-a-way." He pointed. "America do Nord, that-a-way?" He pointed with the other hand, crossing his arms across his chest. Then he scratched his chin with one long, bony index finger after the other. "There's two of 'em?"
While Mr. Toomey wandered his dyspeptic, copasetic, peripatetic way back toward Bobbi Meehan's private mountain, many things could happen in the mortal world. Many things that Mr. Toomey might have prevented had he the will and the presence of mind; indeed, if he were present at all his very presence might have prevented them.
For now that Bobbi's existence has been illuminated by a fairie curse, other supernatural beings may take notice.
* * *
Bobbi and her mother left Perky's by the door into the mall after a satisfyingly high calorie breakfast. Eunice laughed, thinking about the restaurant staff mistaking her son for a girl. "We'll have to spell your name with an 'i' on the end," she teased.
Bobbi blushed, thinking that that would be cute. "Maybe I could draw a little heart over the 'i'?" she suggested, giggling, then she cringed a bit.
That was too much for Eunice. She giggled and snorted enough to embarrass Bobbi for a whole different reason. "Oh! Your father would...." but she stopped herself realizing that she might have to deal with Charlie Meehan's prejudices herself if what she suspected about Bobby turned out to be true. She wiped her eyes and sighed. "Oh, dear," she said quietly.
"Momma?" Bobbi asked quietly.
"What, honey?"
"You won't tell Daddy what happened today--in the restaurant?"
"No, I don't think I will," Eunice agreed. "But as long as we're arranging to keep secrets, is there anything you'd like to tell me?" She looked at Bobby with the patented, You-Might-As-Well-Confess-Now Mother's Gimlet Glare.
"I--I..." Bobbi stammered. On previous occasions she, well, he, had admitted to all sorts of trivial crimes and misdemeanors when subjected to the Glare. "I can't think," she said now. "I can't say it."
"Shall I guess?" Another Mother's Tactic. "You asked me earlier if I'd wished I had a daughter. Well, have you ever wished you were my daughter?"
Bobbi winced. "Something like that?" she said.
"It's your birthday," Eunice mentioned again. "As a birthday present, would you like to find out what it would be like to, well, to be a girl?"
Bobbi nodded before she could even fully take in the question. "I'm...I feel like..." but she couldn't articulate her dilemma, leaving her at the mercy of her mother's guesses about the true situation. My mom thinks I'm some kind of fruit, she cringed inwardly.
Eunice took a deep breath, wondering for a moment where this crazy idea had come from. "Okay, here's the deal. We're going to visit two more shops. If the shop people think you're a girl--without either of us saying anything one way or another--well, then, counting the restaurant, third time's the charm, huh?"
Bobbi swallowed hard.
"Okay?" her mother prompted, nodding.
"Okay," Bobbi agreed. "But how will we know?"
Eunice grinned. "We'll know."
'Third time's the charm' is a very old saying. Another longer version of it is, 'Once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is policy.' Old sayings have a peculiar verity around fairies. So Eunice's choice of a second place of business didn't matter much; however, her decision about a third place for the Bobbi Test would matter a great deal.
"Here we go," said Eunice. "A t-shirt shop." She stopped in front of a colorful display of casual apparel under a sign reading, "Shangri-La and All That - A Magical T-Shirt Place". It wasn't really but the theme fit.
Bobbi cringed but started in.
"I won't say a thing," Eunice promised. "Just go in, tell them it's your birthday and your mom is going to buy you some shirts."
Bobbi nodded. Several times. Then she swallowed and looked at her mother with such an odd, lost look that Eunice wanted to grab her and hug her and tell her things would be okay. Instead she only nodded back. "Go on, try it."
Bobbi sighed and went into the store, really a narrow kiosk built into the mall. Her mother followed. Only the second test of Eunice's impromptu 'Three times the charm,' it didn't really matter much what happened here. But then, none of them knew that at the time.
Bobbi felt certain that she would pass the test, and that certain knowledge scared her. "I am a girl," she thought, "why shouldn't everyone else think I'm a girl?" Scary either way.
The old man running the little kiosk smiled at her or perhaps at Eunice or at both of them. His own shirt had a picture of the band ZZ Top, and the legend, 'Sharp-Dressed Man.' His name tag identified him as, "Roger Beard, Deadhead Plenipotentary," and he wore a small neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper goatee.
"Hi girls," he said cheerfully.
"Um, it's my birthday and Mom, says she'll buy me some shirts?" Bobbi asked, not really noticing that she had already convinced the man of her gender without saying a thing.
"Sure thing, darling," the man drawled. "Some for Mom, too?" He winked at Eunice.
Bobbi almost bolted, thinking at first that the wink had been aimed at her. She glanced at Eunice, who just smiled.
"Not today," Mrs. Meehan said, reflecting that she had been sure that this would happen, and why was that? Shouldn't it surprise her that her son had suddenly developed a talent at female impersonation? But it didn't.
Roger nodded. "Okay, so how old are you, punkin?" He leaned across the little counter to put his face a bit more on her level.
"I'm twelve, no, I mean, I'm thirteen today?" said Bobbi, uncertainly.
The old man nodded. "Yup. Well do you want shirts you can wear to school or ones just for fun? Or ones that will make you Dad say, you're not wearing that out of the house, young lady?" He grinned.
Bobbi and Eunice both chuckled a little nervously. "Just, just ones for fun, sir?"
"Sir!" Roger yelped and Bobbi flinched. "Now, what did I do to deserve you calling me 'sir'? Oh, guess it's because I'm older than your Mom?" He looked sad then winked again. "We've got a sale on, buy two and the third one is free." He waved at the store contents. "That's for everything in the store, but you got to buy two of the same thing--two shirts, or two coffee mugs, or two bumper stickers--to get the third one free. Okay?"
Bobbi nodded, a little confused. She hadn't even noticed that the little shop had such things as coffee mugs and bumper stickers. "I don't drink coffee," she explained.
Roger chuckled. Coming around the counter, he took Bobbi's had gently and led her to the display of teen babydoll tees. "Bet you're a size XS," he said. "You girls like to wear your shirts tight, I know you." He winked again, aiming this one at Eunice who frowned at him.
The old man, perhaps deciding he had pushed things a little too far, dropped Bobbi's hand to take down a bright fuchsia tee with
in gold and purple glitter on it. "How about this for starters?" he suggested.
Bobbi glanced at her mother. Eunice nodded, feeling just the tiniest bit disconnected from reality. A mental image of Bobby wearing the shirt came to her. So wrong, but she--he!--would look so cute in that! Eunice thought.
"Here's another," said Roger. A deeper rose pink, the second tee read in dark purple lettering:
Eunice and Bobbi both giggled at that one. That would probably kill Charlie if he saw Bobby wearing it, thought Eunice. So he'd better not see her! Him.
The pretty feminine colors thrilled Bobbi, she could hardly stop smiling. She knew she had seen her schoolgirl classmates wearing similar shirts last year and right then she wanted to be like all the other girls.
Roger, canny shop owner that he was, knew he'd made two sales alread. He turned to another rack of higher priced items and and picked a longer, dress-length tee in baby pink. A gray and purple cartoon kitten with big green eyes adorned the front of the tee. Red cartoon lettering said:
"Nightshirt tee," said Roger. "Good for at least a twenty percent raise in your allowance." He didn't quite leer but fortunately, neither Eunice nor Bobbi were looking at him. "Or you can wear it as a dress. You wanna try any of them on?"
Bobbi nodded a bit numbly. Roger showed her a narrow booth behind the sales counter where she could change. Obediently, she stepped inside, her fingers trembling a bit. In just a few moments, she would be wearing real clothes, girl's clothes. The yellow left over tee that had belonged to Bobbi seemed to itch, she could hardly wait to get it off.
"Close the curtain afore you do that, darlin', " drawled Roger. Blushing, Bobbi quickly pulled the heavy drape closed.
"She's a teenager, now," Roger remarked amiably to Eunice. "You gone have your hands full." He grinned and somehow contrived to waggle his goatee.
Eunice nodded. "I remember being that age," she remarked.
Roger laughed. "Bet you were a pistol," he said.
Boy crazy, thought Eunice. Well, not at thirteen but before I started high school. Heck, I married Charlie six days after my eighteenth birthday, New Years Eve, middle of senior year. She never had graduated and regretted that only occasionally.
A Christmas baby, her parents had christened her Eunice Noelle Biederbecker. Slightly more than sixteen years older, Charlie had turned thirty-four in October, almost twice her age. Eunice shivered, remembering.
Charlie Mean, they'd called him in his football days. College All Star defensive back, eleven years in the NFL before badly torn shoulder ligaments and other accumulated injuries had convinced him to take one of many offers to go into business.
He'd announced his retirement in mid-November that year after the news from the doctors that he'd need at least two operations and a year of therapy before he could safely continue knocking people down by using his body as a missile. "Couldn't wait to get out of Buffalo forever," he'd told the sportswriters. "Gonna move to Los Angeles; they don't have black ice, blizzards or even football there. I don't know that they even remember what it is. Suits me." It got a lot of laughs but it made a lot of his fans mad.
Not that all of Charlie Mean's fans were people who could be easily discouraged by a little sarcasm. Or even a lot; it just added to the legend of Charlie Mean.
Meehan had been a big improvement over Biederbecker, reflected Eunice. But that hadn't been why she married him.
They'd met the summer before at a party before the Bills training camp started. Eunice's boyfriend at the time, the rubber-armed saves leader of the local college baseball team, 'Noodles' Nussbaum, had wangled an invitation to the blowout for them through his coach.
Either that or they'd gate-crashed the party. Probably crashed. Noodles had never made the Big Show, at twenty-one he'd already been a junk ball pitcher, throwing assorted off-speed pitches, anemic fastballs, and a decent if not stellar curve. Funny that she couldn't remember his real first name, now. She could probably look it up, she knew he was a pitching coach in some non-Association midwestern minor league, Eunice considered. But why? She'd backed the right play, picked the right horse, worn the right jersey when she'd dumped Noodles there at the party and became Charlie Mean's latest 'Mean Squeeze'.
No one, not even Charlie, had known her underage status at first. Things had been hot but had cooled off when the season started and she had gone back to high school. She'd been watching the game in October when Riley Underwood of the Saints broke Charlie's shoulder with an illegal block that earned him a four game suspension.
She called the number she had for Charlie, left a message on the machine, and later that night he had called her back. "Hell of a birthday present," he'd slurred, his voice thick with pain-killers. "How about you come out here and keep me company while the doctors figure out if they can fix this?"
He'd bought the ticket for her with his credit card and six hours later, she took the evening flight to Houston where Charlie had been taken to see the shoulder specialists. In less than a week, it really was Charlie's birthday and by that time she must have been pregnant.
During the affair, her parents had been divided about Charlie and her relationship. On the one hand, Didi, her mother, had also married a football hero after a torrid underage romance. But Stack Biederbecker had been only a few weeks older, not a grown man in his thirties with two ex-wives. For his part, Stack considered Charlie one of the most underrated defensive players in the league, but shitfire!, this was his daughter! Still, he couldn't bring himself to tell her not to do as her heart led her. But it wasn't as if Charlie were a Steeler, the hometown favorite team of the little West Virginia village where her parents had grown up.
On Halloween, she'd slipped up and told Charlie that her eighteenth birthday would be on another holiday, two months away. Charlie had hit the ceiling. Literally, he'd been so angry he'd jumped into the air and punched out the light fixture in the hotel room. He'd used his right hand, not the injured left. He hadn't hit her though. After he stopped shouting, he gave Eunice all the money in his wallet and told her to get out of his sight.
She'd been back home with her parents when Charlie announced his retirement, tearful and worried that Charlie Mean had dumped her for good, now that he knew the truth. By Thanksgiving, she knew she was pregnant and a drugstore test kit confirmed it. Weeping, she'd called Charlie's number and left another message on his machine. He'd sent her $500 dollars and told her in a terse note that she knew what she had to do.
She did it. She bought a ticket to Los Angeles and paid for a cab ride to Charlie's apartment with her last fifty dollars. He'd been impressed. Charlie Mean respected her courage and go-for-it attitude. He played football the same way after he'd been told repeatedly that he wasn't quick enough for offense and nor big enough for defense. "Marry me and we keep the kid," he'd said. Not exactly the most romantic of proposals.
Thirteen years later, Charlie Mean was Chaz Meehan, vice-president of media operations for Numinous Entertainment Group. Eunice blinked, startled out of her remiscence by Bobby's emergence from the dressing booth.
Bobbi stood there shyly in the ankle length pink t-shirt with the 'Too Cute' legend. Her tiny breasts made little tents in the fabric and her hips flared just the slightest bit below her delicate waist. Her face glowed in pleasure and embarrassment. "I really like this one, Momma," she said softly. "Can I wear it while we shop?"
"I guess so, honey," Eunice mumbled, numbly. Now she knew what divided feelings over a child felt like. That's my son, she told herself, and she's beautiful.
Bobbi beamed. It was just a simple t-shirt but it was her first dress, her first female clothing. And it felt so good to be wearing it. There were a lot of other things she would need but it was a start.
Roger Beard beamed at them while Eunice paid for their purchases. It did seem to have made a big difference--Bobbi would certainly not be mistaken for a boy now--but in the long run it really didn't matter. It would all depend on which shop they chose for the third test, because the third time really could be the charm.