Adjustments

Jinx gaped at Mick in outright disbelief. "What? That's impossible!"

"You heard me. She's pregnant. What's so impossible about that?"

When Jinx, dumbfounded, didn't reply, Mick continued. "Jinx, she's pregnant and it's got to be your doing. Spare me the astonishment, okay?"

"That can't be true." protested Jinx, and Mick took offense.

"Of course it's true! Do you think I'm an idiot? Do you seriously expect me to believe you've never done anything but cuddle and tickle each other's ears? Maybe those posh folks in Rainmoor pretend to find their babies under cabbage leaves, but this ain't Rainmoor and I don't hold with such tripe. You can't fool me, Jinx, I know these things, and you got no business acting innocent. Why, there's been times when I could just look at Elanor from a certain angle and know what was on her mind, and it wasn't knitting, I'll tell you that. If you don't know what I'm talking about, look before you leap."

"Mick, it ain't right to talk to a King that way!" protested Alan.

"Well," said Mick, "I just wanted to make the point. Anyways, Elanor's pretty far gone, and there's no mistaking that. I don't know exactly when you can expect the new arrival, but it won't be long."

"Mick," said Alan, "she best go easy on the hunting for a while. Queen Elanor?"

Elanor stared at him in confusion. "Do you mean me?"

"I surely do. Queen Elanor, I'll do what I can to help out with the hunting, seeing as you shouldn't be tiring yourself, in your condition..."

"What do you mean, my condition?"

"You're pregnant."

"What's pregnant?"

This time it was Mick and Alan's turn to be thunderstruck. Finally, Mick said, "You really don't know that? Where on earth have you been all your life, my dear?"

"Well, in the Lonely Place mostly. I was brought to Rainmoor when I was very little. I'd just barely learned to hunt, and I didn't know anything. I learned a lot of things in the Lonely Place, but nothing like this ever happened! I'm getting fat, and my nerves are shot, and I get upset over silly things. Is that what pregnant is? Can you fix it so I don't have to be?"

Mick let out a long, low whistle. "I'll be damned. I'll be damned. Jinx, did you understand what I was talking about?"

"Yes. I just didn't think it could happen to me."

"I'll be damned. You folk are gonna have to make some adjustments, I'll tell you that..."

"I have to stop hunting?" asked Elanor plainitively.

"Maybe sooner, maybe later. Elanor, do you know what babies are?"

"Yes. In Rainmoor, some of the consorts had them. Is that why I'm getting fat?"

"Sure is."

"How could that happen? They were always tiny little humans! I've got tiny little humans inside me?"

"No, no! You'll be having kittens, my dear. Have you ever seen kittens?"

"No. Wait, yes, I have, actually. There were some small, tame cats in Rainmoor, and some of them got fat and later I saw them with little baby cats around them. Were those kittens?"

"Yep."

"Oh. They were really cute." said Elanor, and thought for a moment. "Wait a minute! If being pregnant means having little baby things inside me, where do they come from? And how do they come out?"

"Same way they got in."

"What?" said Elanor, at which point Mick explained in detail exactly what was involved for the whole process. Elanor listened closely, and was more and more dismayed.

"I will not! That would hurt! Jinx is all I can handle, and you're saying these kittens are how much bigger? Never mind, I don't care how cute they are! I don't want any!"

"Now, dear," said Mick, "there ain't much you can do about it now..."

Elanor looked back and forth between Jinx and Mick frantically.

"I'm sorry, Elanor!" said Jinx, earnestly. "I didn't think this would happen!"

Elanor let out a strangled moan and rushed out the door, vanishing into the woods.

"Oh, no!" said Jinx. "Is she about to..."

"No, she's not. I promise you that." said Mick, and the squeal of a small woodland creature being killed came through the forest. "She's just upset. Can't say as I blame her, if I was her I'd be having kittens over it too. You'd best wait until she calms down a mite." Another squeal rang out.

"She keeps that up, she ain't gonna need my help for hunting." said Alan.

"It's a habit of hers," explained Jinx. "When she's upset, she goes out and kills things."

Another squeal rang out, more distantly.

"Hell, if she keeps that up I'll be needing your help for hunting. I never heard the like."

"She doesn't usually get that upset."

"Jinx," asked Mick, "what did you mean when you said you didn't think it could happen to you?"

Jinx sighed. "I was sort of invented by this wizard for some reason. The wizard was a human, but my mother was a tiger. After he threw me out, Sir-Irwin came along and saved my life and sort of adopted me, but Sir-Irwin ended up getting killed. He had taught me how to talk and walk on two legs and everything, and I learned all that because I wanted to be human..."

"That's as close to a story as I ever heard you tell," said Mick, "but it don't answer my question. Why didn't you think you could mate with Elanor?"

"I'm not really human, but I'm not really a tiger either. I'm something in between, because of this wizard. I did grow up with humans, and there were a few times when lady humans got very excited over me, and ended up making love to me. They never said anything about making babies, though, and nothing like that ever happened. Anyway, I didn't think I could mate with anything and make babies, because I'm not anything natural."

"Well, I declare!" said Mick in wonder. "That's a mighty strange story, Jinx. Seeing as you were telling the truth about killing the King and all, I'm inclined to believe you, even so. Don't you know why this wizard made you?"

"Wizards never make sense, even worse than humans. I would actually like to know, though. I would like to know why the wizard made something just to kick and hit and chase away. I would like to know why the wizard threw me away in the end, and whether he made any more things like me, and why he killed my mother."

Mick gasped, stunned at the detached, casual way Jinx said this. Alan was staring at Jinx as well.

Jinx tried to explain better. "It would make more sense if she was attacking him, but he was always careful to only hurt me when she wasn't watching. She was always upset and confused when I got hurt, but she never figured out why. I don't think she ever did attack him, so it doesn't make any sense that he killed her."

"How do you know all this?" asked Mick, aghast.

"When Sir-Irwin taught me to talk, he wanted to know where I came from. It took a long time, but eventually I understood what had happened. I didn't know that the thing like me which suckled me was a tiger. I didn't know that the other thing was a father, or that it was a human. When Sir-Irwin was trying to learn where I came from, he kept asking whether I had ever seen another tiger around the place. Finally he explained that, in order for me to be alive, another tiger had to have climbed onto my mother and stuck its penis into her, so there had to be another tiger. He said that was called making love, and it was how babies were made. When I told him that there wasn't any other tiger, but the human did that a lot, Sir-Irwin got really upset..."

"I'll be damned. I'll be damned." said Mick. "So you know what happened, but you need to know why. Is that it?"

"Yes. Can you help?"

"I reckon I can, Jinx, but just how bad do you want to know? Give me a few days, and I can set up what you'd call a regress with a passenger. Do you really want that? I wouldn't blame you if you chose to just leave the past alone. It's a damned uncomfortable way to learn things. It's a damned uncomfortable way to learn things."

"What is it? I don't follow you."

"You got that backwards. I'd be following you. Regress means you'd go back and relive all that, and the passenger is me. If you just regressed, you still wouldn't understand anything, but with me there watching it would be different. I'd be along for the ride, and I could understand things you wouldn't. Uh, Jinx, before I make up my mind to this, did this feller ever torture you?"

"Not exactly." said Jinx.

"Did he ever do anything to you with spiders?"

"No, why?"

"I can't handle spiders. Jinx, when I say I'd be along for the ride, I mean it literally. You'd never know I was there, and I'd be stuck with whatever happened. I'd be feeling everything you felt, as if I was you, but I wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it. There usually ain't much call for this hex, and when there is it ain't always pleasant. Once more, did this feller ever torture you? I can't say as I'm real comfortable with 'not exactly'. What's 'not exactly'?"

"Not really, at least not that I can remember."

"Oh, wonderful! That's always a good sign! Maybe we best forget this, Jinx. Do you really have to know? It sounds damned nasty, take my word for it. Why don't you tell me some of the worst things you can remember, so's I can make up my mind not to do it?"

"Please, Mick?" said Jinx, surprised at how strongly he felt about it. "I really need to know. Please?"

"Oh, hell! All right. And don't tell me a damned thing! If I know what's gonna happen, it'll just make it worse..."

Alan spoke up. "You done right, King Jinx. It'll ease your mind. I know."

"Oh, you know." said Mick crankily. "You know. Alan, when I did you, I swore I'd never use that hex again, it was so bad. Seeing as Jinx's life looks to be nine times sicker even than yours was, would you keep your comments to yourself?"

"You're a brave man, Mick."

"I'm a stupid man. I'm a stupid man. Every time I turn around, I get stupider. Jinx, give me a few days to get ready, I'll come around when I'm stupid enough to."

He tramped out the door. Jinx asked Alan, "What did he do to you?"

"Same thing he's fixing to do to you. You wouldn't think it to look at me now, but I used to only have one leg, and I didn't have no parents, and I wouldn't get near people atall. Mick growed up my leg to be even better than the other one is, and I ended up getting him to go with me into my past, on account of I didn't remember any of it. He didn't like how come I got no parents, he didn't like even worse how come I wouldn't get near people, and he really didn't like the way I lost my leg. He told me all about it, when he was finished, and swore blind he was never going to mess with mysterious strangers again. I reckon he's changed his mind."

"You had your leg chopped off, and he had to feel what it was like?"

"Not exactly. He told me, if it was up to him, when he heard the people coming he'd have just stayed in the bear trap..."

"There are traps in the woods?" asked Jinx, alarmed, automatically looking out the window to check for Elanor.

"Not any more, there ain't." said Alan, his eyes gleaming. That made sense. It was hardly surprising that this wild human had gotten rid of all the traps after having been caught in one. Jinx wondered what had happened to the trappers, but refrained from asking about them.

"I hope you're not aiming to put more traps in the woods, King Jinx. I don't know what I'd do about that." continued Alan. "If you do, can you give me enough time to get out of town?"

"Stop calling me that! That's not my name!" snapped Jinx, fed up. "And I wasn't planning to put any sort of traps in the woods. Even if I did, you'd just break them anyway, so why bother?"

"I'm sorry, uh, Jinx. Ain't never had a King for a neighbor before, and I'm trying to get used to it."

"The whole reason I came here in the first place was to get away from all that!"

"Well, I can understand that. I just didn't think such a thing could happen. Maybe all this means changes for the best. You're not fixing to divide up the woods into estates, are you?"

"What are estates?"

"Estates is when the King takes the land away from us and gives it to his lords. The next thing you know, they're building castles and villages and roads, and hunting game for sport. Before long, they're turning the folk into soldiers and fighting the other lords nearby to try and get their estates bigger, and if you don't like it they build jails. Well, if you're lucky they build jails... I don't know why any King would hold with such things, but maybe he gets out of touch from living in Rainmoor all his life."

"Why would I ever want to do things like that?"

"I don't rightly know. I was hoping you could tell me, being a King and all. You don't want to do that? What about taxes, tithes, that sort of thing?"

"I have to pay taxes? I thought I could get away from all that by living out here."

"No, no! Everybody has to pay you. You don't know much about being King, do you? All taxes go to the King."

"What for?" asked Jinx, interested.

"Damned if I know. Just for being King, I suppose. I never thought it was a 'what for', I just figured taxes meant you gave all your money to the King, and the King kept it."

"I like that part. Maybe being King isn't as bad as it seemed. Do you have any taxes I can have?"

"Hell, no! Ain't nobody around here pays taxes. I hope you ain't serious, Jinx."

"I guess not," said Jinx, disappointed. "Is there anywhere else that I can go, where people will give me all their money?"

"It don't work that way, Jinx. You don't just go around with a big sack."

"How does it work?"

"I ain't telling. The folk around here would never forgive me if they knew there was a new King, who didn't know what taxes were, and I was damn fool enough to tell him. Jinx, you don't need such things anyhow. In these parts, people take care of each other. You don't have to be King for that."

"Oh." said Jinx, still trying to figure out how he could get all the people to give him money. Maybe he could leave the people here alone and have the people in the cities give him all their money. It would serve them right. "I do want to stay here, and be friends with the people who live here, so never mind."

"That's good to hear. Even if you did try to levy taxes around here, you wouldn't get anything, so don't worry about it. I reckon you're in the right place, if you want to be let alone. Don't tell anybody you're the King, or you'll never see them again... well, maybe not. I imagine most folk wouldn't believe you, anyhow."

With that, Alan left. He had been showing increasing nervousness, and clearly needed to get back into the woods where he felt safe. Strangely, none of his discomfort seemed to come from being around Jinx: it was more like he felt threatened being in a house. Jinx found that odd, but somehow reassuring, since he felt the same way about magic as Alan felt about being shut up within walls. Jinx wondered what Alan's house was like, if he had one.

"Jinx!" cried Alan, from somewhere outside. "Jinx, come quick! It's Elanor!"

Jinx froze, and then he was charging outside, looking around frantically. Alan was waving his arms a few hundred feet away, and the look on his face was terrible to see. When Jinx got there, he found Elanor, and understood.

She was doggedly struggling toward the house, leaving a trail of blood behind her, and feebly arguing with Alan, who was pleading with her to lie still and rest.

"...nonsense, Jinx can heal me, I need to find him..."

"You can't even walk!" protested Alan.

"I can so!" argued Elanor, and got halfway to her feet in a fit of stubborn bullheadedness, promptly collapsing again. She shook her head in an attempt to clear it, and began dragging herself toward the house in a determined fashion. "I'm almost there, you stupid human. Leave me alone, I'm trying to find my mate."

Alan looked helplessly at Jinx. "Do something! She ain't listening to me!"

"Elanor!" said Jinx, crouching in front of her. "Lie still, you're making your injuries worse."

"Oh." said Elanor, finally noticing his presence. "There you are. Where have you been? Don't just stand there looking upset, fix me!"

"What happened to you?"

"There was this pig thing. I tried to kill it, but when I reared up at it, it got me with those little horns they have..." said Elanor. She coughed, and spat out blood.

Alan turned white. "A boar hog. She took on a boar hog. Jinx, stay with her, I'm getting Mick." He ran off as fast as he could, shouting "Mick! Mick!" Elanor didn't seem to notice.

"The weird thing was, it didn't even try to eat me." continued Elanor, feebly. "I fell down, and it sort of sniffed at me and went away. I headed straight home, but I started falling over a lot and ended up sort of crawling most of the way..."

"Where did it get you?" asked Jinx desperately. "I have to heal you right away, so show me!"

Elanor looked more or less at him, with no sign of recognition."No, I can't show you. Can't you see I'm busy? I'm trying to find my mate, so leave me alone!" She struggled to her feet with grim determination, took one wobbly step, swooned and collapsed.

Jinx laid his hands on her and desperately tried to heal her, hoping the healing facility he'd gotten from Rainmoor was up to the task. He felt the disconcerting flow of magic rushing through his arms, and unlike previous times he'd used it, this time it didn't stop, and he just hung on, growing faint with exertion, focusing only on healing Elanor, and the magic gushed through him unceasingly.

When Mick arrived, he had to tap Jinx on the shoulder to get his attention. "Jinx! How's she doing?"

"She doesn't recognize me!" answered Jinx, distraught.

"She'll have lost a lot of blood, that's why. We'd best work quick. Help me roll her over on her side. Carefully!"

They did, and Jinx cringed to see the dreadful wounds in her belly.

"Good thing you've been hanging on to her with that Rainmoor hex, or she'd be gone by now, but it was never meant to deal with this. I sent Alan back to get materials, and hurried out here, in case you didn't know you had that hex, but you obviously do know. See how the edge of this wound is trying to heal itself?"

Mick was pointing with his finger, but Jinx couldn't look.

"Oh, settle down, boy! You did good. You did good. We ain't gonna lose her now. It looks messy, I know, but if it was real bad she wouldn't have got this far, I'll tell you that. You best get back on the job, though. That hex of yours is replacing the blood about half as fast as she's losing it..."

Jinx did so, but had to keep questioning him. "Can you save her? And what about her babies?"

"Her, yes." said Mick seriously. "I'll have to wash out the wound, and sew it up, and then the healing spells will be able to handle it. I don't know about her babies, and I intend to find out. She may have solved that problem for herself, whether you like it or not. How the hell did she get so much crap in there, Jinx? Them wounds is goddamn filthy!"

"She was trying to get home, but she was too weak to walk, so she dragged herself on her belly."

"She did what? Of all the... She ain't got the sense of a dead fish, you know that? She dragged herself on her belly! I'm going to have a little word with her about that when she's well enough to listen."

Alan ran up, carrying a small bag. "Is this it?"

"Yes, Alan, it is. Now, would you go back and get the bag with a snake painted on it? It seems Elanor here wasn't happy with her injuries, and decided to rub dirt in them to make them more challenging to us poor, overworked healers..."

Alan was already gone, and Mick turned to Jinx. "How about getting her into the house? You take her front legs, and I'll take her hind legs."

"Shouldn't she lie still? Alan wanted her not to move."

"He's a good boy. However, having looked at her I'm sure no bones are broken, and she's already done everything she could to make her injuries worse. You just keep on with that hex of yours, that Alan didn't know about, and it'll be fine."

Alan showed up as they were carrying her inside, and Mick had him fill up pots and cups with water. Jinx kept on working his healing power, grateful that he had something to do.

"Jinx," said Mick as he cleaned out Elanor's wounds, "I'm impressed. I have never seen so much crud in a wound before. I swear, she must have been packing it in with her little paws or something. Somebody needs to tell her that dirt ain't a good bandage... Oh, hell!"

"What?"

"That ain't all dirt. Damn it! The bastard got her guts open! How the hell did she crawl so far with so much damage? This ain't good. Keep that hex going!"

Elanor was unconscious, but she'd been feebly struggling and moaning as Mick worked on her. Now she went limp, hardly breathing, and Jinx panicked.

"She's dying!"

"Like hell she is." said Mick grimly, and he laid his hands on her and muttered gibberish for a moment, joining with Jinx in his fight to keep her alive. "Alan! Get the needle and thread out, quick!"

Mick began rapidly sewing Elanor's insides back together. "I was going to ask you whether you wanted me to check on the kittens, but it's too late to fool around with that. The womb seems to be untouched somehow, but I can't tell whether they made it through all that yet."

Jinx watched him as he stitched away. There was a horrible fascination in what was happening. He'd spent enough time hunting for food that he was familiar with animal insides, but he'd never really thought of himself and Elanor as having them. It was a rude shock to look at Elanor and see a glimpse of the same organs and guts and things. And instead of the simple task of taking them all out, Mick had to put them back somehow.

"Damn it, Jinx, focus! You're drifting, and I can't do this without your hex to hold things together!"

"I'm sorry! Is she going to be okay?"

"Shut up and heal!"

Jinx shook off his mental weariness and focused on healing Elanor, concentrating so hard his vision blurred and his hands shook. He vaguely heard Mick speak from time to time, saying "That's more like it" or "Keep it up, we're almost done", but he paid no attention.

Finally, Jinx noticed with a shock that the numbing flow of magic through him was lessening. He opened his eyes as it slowed to a trickle, and saw that Elanor's belly was intact again, and that Mick was sitting peacefully watching him.

"Much obliged to you," said Mick, "for taking on the brunt of the healing. I generally have to do that part as well, and it takes a lot out of me. You done good. Some things I didn't even have to sew together, I just held 'em together and they healed up right away. You didn't even notice when I was finished, so I didn't tell you, since you was focusing so well."

"What about her kittens?" asked Jinx. "Did you check to see if they were okay?"

"You mean 'kitten'." said Mick. "There's only one, and if you're interested it's a boy, and he's doing fine, or so I assume. At least, he's alive and kicking..."

At that point, Elanor stirred and opened her eyes. She stared blankly at Mick for a moment, then tried to get to her feet, but he pushed her back down firmly.

"Oh, no, you don't, young lady!"

"Where's Jinx? I need to find him!"

"He's right behind you, dear, half-dead from all the work he had to do healing you. Now, I'm going to ask you a question, Elanor. It just so happens your kitten survived the experience. There's just one, and it's a boy, and you're farther along than I thought, because I was expecting you to have a litter of three or four. Now, do you want this kitten, or not?"

"Yes, I do! That's why I was trying so hard to get back to the house. I didn't know what to think about it until that pig thing got me, because I was too upset, but when it ripped me open with those horns I knew how I felt..."

"Do tell!" said Mick. "So you decided the best thing to do was drag yourself through the dirt and make your wounds six times worse?"

"I just thought of the little baby Jinxes inside me getting stabbed by pig horns, and kept going. Anyway, I got there. There's only one? A little baby Jinx? And it's alive?"

"Yes. You've made up your mind, then? You want him?"

"Oh, yes!"

Mick exploded. "Then you damned well better take care of yourself! This little situation was your fault, and you know it! I feel like an idiot for not having stopped you in the first place, but I thought to myself, what harm could it do if Elanor runs around a bit? The next thing I know, Alan's rushing over to tell me you took on a boar hog! Not only that, but you reared up at it and let it go for your belly! Ain't you ever seen a boar hog before? How could you be so dumb as to open yourself up for its worst attack?"

Elanor started to cry. "I'm sorry! I didn't know! I promise I'll never attack a pig again!"

"No, I'd go a step farther than that, my dear. You're not going hunting, not even for butterflies, until you've borne your baby Jinx. I reckon I'm your doctor now, seeing as I had to put your insides back to where they belonged, and you're going to lie around being pregnant if I have to make Jinx sit on you. This little one has had enough trouble already, and you don't have the faintest idea what risks you're taking, do you? Elanor, what would you do if you were up in a tree chasing a squirrel and went into labor?"

"Climb down, and go straight home?"

"No, I don't think so. You'd fall."