Helen

Teachers on the Wyrdtalent Earth consider the dissection and reanimation of a frog a great lesson in magic (controlled dispersal of matter; returning constituent parts into a whole; the resuscitation of dead flesh; complex animation) and biology (take apart the frog to see how it ticks and then put it back together; see the alchemical process of life at work).  Most everyone on the Wyrdtalent Earth has some degree of talent.  Maybe a full third can be mages (mastery of spells and a style of magic that can be chosen by the lucky initiate); another third enjoy magical talents (narrow, inflexible, but often potent magical powers that resemble a wizard’s spell but can be used far, far more often); and the final third are Physicals (people, typically men, with enhanced physical abilities).  All these folk have some degree of spellcasting ability but most—even most mages—require magical tools to cast spells with success.

Then, of course, there were the oddballs.  Like me.

As I said before, I have negative magical talent.  So, when I grabbed the staff—by no means a precision magical instrument on this Earth—and began waving it about, everybody at my table leaned back as far as they could and held their breath.  They would have loved to duck under the black, spell-absorbing table which, while not guaranteeing their safety, would at least enhance it.  However, Butterfield would have none of that.  He insisted I perform these magical experiments to master “control”—an opinion echoed by our principal (who honestly did have my better interests at heart).  But Butterfield also insisted that everyone “sit down and stop making spectacles of themselves.”  Meaning they must sit where they were and hope I didn’t blow their heads off. 

I’m convinced Butterfield did it because he enjoyed the way I was blamed for the inevitable lab accident.  To the considerable relief of Jack and my two other lab partners (and fellow football players), I had managed—with only one small incident (Butterfield had had to extract a frog eye out of the desk)—everything but the restoration of a frog leg.  The tension at our table reminded me of last week’s away game against Black Park.  The score was 30-24, their favor.  Fourth down, seconds left, twenty-yard line, pass only, no open receiver.  I scramble for the touchdown, dodge two, break a tackle.  The kid with four times normal speed closes …

…and at the one-yard line makes the tackle.  The gun sounds.  Black Park wins.

So my lab partners and teammates, still stinging over the loss, were tense and feared that I—I who had made life or death decisions as a surgeon, led armies, and fought dragons—might not be able to handle real pressure.  It didn’t help that the pungent smell of formaldehyde was churning the cafeteria food in my stomach. Worse, I was buying into my teammate’s doubts.  A stupid classroom exercise forced sweat from my brow. 

And that’s when it happened and I lost focus altogether.

It was not the sudden sense that a Greater Legacy had passed from one Coreal to another although, mind you, that did happen.  Such a power transfer occurs maybe once every century and the primal echo reverberates through neighboring planes.  Fortunately, in planer terms, the Legacy transfer occurred far away.  I blocked that out. Nothing was more important at this moment than this frog leg.

When it happened my concentration evaporated because how can you concentrate on a bunny when a Tyrannosaurus Rex is crashing down on you?

In fact, I don’t remember anything that happened for the next thirty seconds.  My mind went blank and I was stunned senseless.  Never in all my life (a life longer than any but a dozen others) had I been remotely near the Transcendence of a Regal of Eden. 

In the parlance of the plane I was on, well, it rocked my world.

The last Transcendence, Isaac’s, had been twenty years ago and I had been a quarter-of-a-multiverse away.  But my nose had bled for at least eight hours.  I think Démia said she’d been bedridden by mine for two weeks. 

But this…

This…  Well, this Transcendence transformed the blood coursing through my body into lead and then into gold and the back again to blood.  This was an aircraft carrier running over a rowboat.  This was a dragon crashing into a sparrow.  This could have shut me up in the middle of an orgasm!

For a second I thought I could sense where she, the Transcendent child, was.  But then a clumsy change of State shifted her.  Still, that would leave an easy trail for the poor sucker that had to follow it. 

She?  And I didn’t recognize her?  Wait, did we have a completely new family member?  Was that even conceivable?   All of us had been born in the Garden.  Well, Isaac and Zoe had been in the womb, but still.  Were we missing someone?  Oh. Oh right.  We were.

Wow this was big news and I would have loved spreading the gossip around the family except then I’d be asked to chase her and that would certainly be a thankless job.  Besides, was I not the eternal little sister?  She’d have her chance to baby me soon enough. 

Well, the fit passed and the real world crashed back into my life as the real world always does.  In the real world I heard a loud scream.  I spun my head in the direction of the screaming figure—one of my lab partners, Carl—and thought I’d castrated him.  That’s how shrill a sound he emitted.  He was on the other side of the table from me holding his arm out like it was a snake.  Which was almost correct.  His right arm was changing into a human-sized frog leg.  With his left hand he was trying to hold the spell back with predictable success.  Meaning none at all.

Oops.

Transmogrification spells are extremely dangerous and reversing them is difficult.  There’d be hell to pay if he transformed.  The entire class was stunned and this was well beyond Butterfield’s skill.  The only person who could end the spell was me.

I leaped over the table, flipped, and on the way down chopped my leg like an axe on his transmogrifying arm.  He dodged but he was far too slow.  The spell shattered into a thousand pieces that scattered in all directions.  Students hopped up onto the tables to avoid the shards as they bounced and skittered along the floor.  Yes, the spell shattered, but so did the bone in Carl’s arm.   His screaming stopped because some pains are so intense they knock you right out.

A half-dozen kids shouted the same expletive and one of those kids was me. Carl collapsed but I caught him and dragged him away from the spell pieces.  The floor where he’d be standing was now a patchwork of frog skin.

“What the Hell just happened?” demanded Butterfield, speaking all of those words in only half-a-minute, a record for him. 

“Helen just turned Carl’s arm into a frog’s!”  Jack said. 

Butterfield looked at Jack.  “Well, don’t stand there with your mouth open, boy,” he said, speaking at an even faster pace.  “Go get the school healer.  And you,” he said, his voice slowing down as Jack rushed out, “you get your butt to the principal’s office.  Now!”