Memory

the usual suspects, copyright Mr. Simon Barber

Used with permission

edited August 2011 c.e.

Spontoon Priestess Oharu Wei was currently deep in conversation with the Pinwater and Miller families, when looking over at a sound she noted the arrival of her superior. A glance though informed her that she should complete her work with these two families, as High Priestess Saimmi had turned to watch as Oharu’s two apprentices practiced their ritual Hula. Returning her full attention to the two families she listened as each spoke. For they had come to arrange the marriage of their children, and wished the mouse to officiate. This was unusual, as each village had their own Priestess while a certain few Priestess’s were assigned to no village. But Roxanne was elderly, a trip to Sacred Island during the season this wedding would occur could very well be her last. Thus the responsibility had come to unattached Priestess’s. Added to that, that both families had found respect for the Cipangu born Priestess.

Not quite half an hour later Oharu bid her guests fair well, then turned her attention and her full respect to the younger feline whom she willingly bowed her head too. Saimmi, she discovered, was involved in showing Nuimba and Ote’He the subtle movements of what Euro’s would call a Pagan Winter Solstice ritual. Watching the felines movements, Oharu noted several delicate moves that she herself was unaware of. Finally Saimmi stepped away from the younger badgers to approach her servant.

“They will be happy” Saimmi asked softly as Oharu bowed before her. “With a non-native joining their children forever?”

Returning to a standing position Oharu gave the Great Mother a curious look. “It is but this life, not for all time” she responded. “I am their choice since Roxanne Stonewall is too ill to travel anymore. I fear we will lose her by next summer.”

Saimmi nodded in agreement. “Her time approaches” she agreed. “You have spoken with her?”

“Two months ago Great Mother” the mouse answered. “For eleven days. She is a strange minded woman.”

“For a civet” Saimmi agreed. “Her ancestors are from Cornwall, that is a part of Britain. They are a proud people, yet Roxanne had no difficulty bowing her head to Te’ree. Even though that Great Mother was a Hyena. Have you water?”

Oharu indicated her meeting place with one paw. “If you will but wait Great Mother. I shall provide such.” She knelt, gathering up her water bowl before she started down the path to Great Stone Glens tiny waterfall.

Saimmi watched in silence as her servant made her way down to that small waterfall, noting with pride the deference a Shinto trained Prestress gave to one of Spontoon’s oddest spirits. For the spirit of Great Stone Glen resided in a large splinter of stone. One that had fallen long before the ancient temple had been craved from its basalt cliffs. From what Saimmi understood from her European style education, that splinter of stone had been blown out of Spontoon’s very heart when the islands last major eruption occurred. There were many stones like it in and around Spontoon, including a trio just off the shallow eastern shore of East Island. Euro scientists had explained that they were simply volcanic bombs. Ejecti of a great, ancient eruption that had reduced a once mighty mountain into separate islands. To Saimmi though, they all appeared as sentinels, columns of stone inhabited by spirts of long ago, spirits who still watched over the land they so much loved.

Broken stones they may have been at one time, yet as all things spirits needed homes. Thus the Great Stone Glen was home for a spirit, one who predated the reptilian natives who had created the Great Accident. It was also one of the oddest, being a voyeur. A voyeur not of the body, but the soul and her, or his (no one was certain) favorite priestess was exactly the type of soul this spirit yeaned to see. Saimmi withheld a chuckle as Oharu, while spilling the tradition cupful of fresh water at the stones base, had yet further words with her patron. It was common for a Priestess and some spirit, or Kami as the mouse referred to them, to enter a conversation from time to time. But that the mouse actually argued, and won on occasion, was a consent source of humor for the feline. Though in truth, when she first became aware of it, the idea that a priestess would argue with any spirit had shocked her.

Oharu and her patron spirit though, they were so different. If anything Saimmi would say that they were friends. She remembered the threat that Oharu had laid before that stone when it demanded that the mare Nikki be thrown off Spontoon forever, preferable as a lifeless mass of flesh that the crabs might enjoy. That argument had taken Saimmi’s breath away. That the mouse had won, and made it stick now caused pride to grow within Spontoon’s High Priestess. Obviously they had too long treated their patrons, their guides with too much deference. When she had mentioned this to her own Spirit Guide, the one who lived within the compound that all High Priestess’s lived within, its answer had been abrupt, and eye opening.

“We are not Gods, so why do you treat us as such? We are but your guides” her homes patron spirit had answered.

It had shocked her, then left her laughing for half the day. Now she watched as the Cipangu borne rodent made her way back up that still rugged trail, her body moving as fluidly as the water that she carried. That she would have to spend this woman again and again sorrowed the feline, for Oharu had married Belle not but a few days before. It was highly possible that the rabbit would be a widow in a pawfull of years do to the felines needs. Yet that was the way of things, and Belle had known that before marrying the mouse.

“Water, Great Mother” the mouse announced as she returned, first rinsing out one of the waiting wooden cups then filling it with fresh cool water. Giving the feline that first cup she then repeated the process for herself, setting the carved wooden water bottle between them. “How may I serve you?”

“Amelia and her friends leave the day after tomorrow” Saimmi announced, coming to the heart of the matter most quickly.

“Yes Great Mother, they will. This is late for a Songmark graduate I am told. Certainly for four.”

“So, Belle has had time to talk to you?” the feline asked.

Sipping her water the mouse looked up over her cup, gaging the situation and the High Priestess’s mood. “Between gasps for air, yes” she answered flatly, amused when a touch of color came to the younger felines ears. “Belle, Prudence and Carmen left this morning. They will return within the month. Unlike Amelia and her friends, they have bonds to bring them back.”

“Yes, they do. Oharu, we must have Molly back” Saimmi continued, ruining the lightness of the mood. “Missy Pohovic, Yessica, Ghayde, Dai Kura and Chinya have all had the same fire dream. As have I. Without Molly Procyk alive, in two years Amelia will be destroyed. Not long after her passing so will the other three. Each by different fates, but each will fall. Once Amelia falls, the others are easy targets for what chases them. It appears that it is Molly’s destiny to forever be the feline’s protector from mortal danger.” She paused to taste her water, thus allowing her words to settle within the mouse’s mind. “We do not have time to replace either Amelia or Helen, absolutely not both. I admit that the other two are of no interest to me. They are though, to others. Our sister in Songmark reports that Maria is to be extremely important in the future. A future that runs through the darkness, and beyond.”

“I see. But, Molly is dead” the mouse answered, staring at her cup as she spoke. “Murdered at Amelia’s personal command in Kuo Han.”

Water splashed into the mouse’s face, shocking the older priestess in a way that no words could have. “Great Mother” she gasped, looking up to see the anger in Saimmi’s own face.

“Amelia could not know what Molly’s fate was to be” the feline continued. But there was a strength in that voice that frightened the mouse. “Do not ever again say that she ordered the doe’s death. Yes, she would do so, were there no other way to achieve a critical goal. But not here. Not this way. Death was the doe’s fate the moment she stepped upon Spontoon. We all knew it, you knew it. You saw it. Which is why you did not battle that filthy buck for her heart. A battle you would have easily won, and which because of that victory would have destroyed you upon her death.” Saimmi tossed her empty cup into the mouse’s lap. A gesture of disgust. “You fought death himself for the doe’s life and won three times. Do not ever again blame another for what the Fates have chosen. Three small words from you would have saved her life yet again, yet you did not speak them.”

“I... I understand Great Mother. I. I. I apologize” Oharu answered in a voice nearly devoid of emotion. “Yet I may do what? Molly is truly dead. She does not even exist within the Spirit world. It is as though she were never born.” She carefully poured her own water into the thrown cup, offering it back to her superior. It was a mark of absolute servitude. “I am not a Goddess Great Mother, I have not even the abilities of a Kami.”

“True, but you have Molly held secretly within your own mind, do you not?”

“Molly?” the mouse asked, confused at the question. She absently wiped at the water dripping from her facial fur as she thought. “I, yes. When she first died. When I thought I had lost her yes. I pulled her too me. I could not bear her loss, even knowing that I could not keep death from her for long. But it is only her, not her memories. I could not hold all of her more than a day or two. It would have destroyed me, it would have destroyed the both of us.”

Saimmi sipped her new water, noting that Oharu had not poured herself another cup. Obedience in all things, and in ways that the Spontoon born and raised High Priestess was still learning. Would probably be learning until the day this mouse breathed her last. “Pour yourself water” she ordered, tipping her own cup to pour out what was in it. “And myself. We will start anew. I have allowed my anger to cloud my thoughts.”

“Yes Great Mother” the mouse agreed. As she went through the simple motions Oharu wondered what this was about. Yes, Molly was dead. Forever lost to anyone. A God could recover her soul yes, and may have, if it had amused them. But Molly as Molly, she was gone. In truth she had saved Molly, in a way. Her personality, that which made one what one was. When the Marsh Typhus had struck down her first, and thus greatest love, Oharu had been shattered. That she had managed to return her body to the living, using a simply breathing technique that she had learned in Hawaii, had brought life back into her own soul. But she could not expect to win long against Death. Thus she had enveloped the doe’s mind within her own, drawing from the dying body a copy of what made Molly Molly. She did not hold the memories of her loves mind, only her personality. What Euro doctors would call the forebrain information. Not that Oharu could in any way understand that term.

As she again offered the mug of cool water to her superior the feline again surprised her. “I have spoken with Urako. She is Priestess of Shinto now, yes?”

“She has taken her Masters place, since his passing. Yes” Oharu agreed as she looked into her own water. What was Saimmi up too she wondered? This was going all ways at once and she could make no sense of beginning or ending.

“Urako and I, we spoke long on this Oharu. In your path, a Miko holds within her an evil spirit taken from another until it can be dealt with at her temple. This I understand, though there is nothing like this in our paths. An evil spirit, this is like you or I with all its knowledge, all its personality. Urako tells me that this is correct. Is this, as you know such?”

Oharu nodded yes. “It is, but only a Miko. For a Miko is pure of both mind and body. Trained as well for many years. Yet while holding such, she is open to any attack. For it is all that she is able to hold so much within her. It does fill her mind completely. Great Mother, a simple maiden cannot do this. Molly is no evil spirit, no demon, though I admit that her mind has its share of dark places. She is not, in herself, an evil woman. Simply, I fear, somewhat mad.”

Saimmi smiled a soft, friendly smile as she contemplated these words. “You still love her then? Even after taking Belle as your wife?”

“Molly is my first love, my deepest love” the mouse answered. “Though the Gods, through their spirit servants did open my heart to Belle, I do still love Molly. I will always love her. It is I fear, my weakness.” She sipped her drink, pushing down a stray strand of her grass skirt. “These do itch so” she whispered. “I am though, no longer so madly in love with her as to surrender my soul to her as I once would have. Perhaps. Perhaps not my life either. She lost that.”

“Could you then” the feline continued, reaching over to gently take Oharu’s cup from her. “Pour into your mind the knowledge that now resides in Miss Cabots mind?” As she spoke, Saimmi carefully poured Oharu’s water into her own cup. The doing so filling her own cup to the brim, no more. “Then pour that knowledge, and what is Molly, into another vessel?” She poured half the water back into Oharu’s cup as she finished. “As I have done with this water.”

“It can be done” the mouse admitted. “But who would throw away their life simply to allow Molly to live again? Who would throw away all that they are, simply to allow a mad woman to walk under the sun again?” Oharu accepted her cup from her superior, looking at it. There was more to that little ritual than any outsider could understand. Saimmi was sharing herself with the mouse. “There are other problems. As you poured our water together, Molly and my minds will mix. Should it take more than a day to do this it would be a disaster. Even so, even but an hour or more. First our strongest memories would cross until finally there would be no Oharu. There would be no Molly. There would simply be... us.” We would be mad Great Mother. Completely mad. There could be no hope of sanity between us. Our only hope would be to be put down by those who loved us before we harmed others. I will not do this to Belle. Nor will I be party to the death of another no matter how willing they may be.”

“You then deny my request?” the feline asked.

Instead of answering Oharu remained silent. She was, Saimmi knew from experience, delving within herself. For her answer would determine the fate of not simply Molly, but herself, a third party and the four of Amelia’s dorm. Her answer would decide the fate of not one or two people. But seven. Perhaps even more as Amelia and Helen were deathly important to Spontoon’s future. More than either understood. Perhaps more than anyone yet understood. Still that was to be seen, for that future had not yet occurred.

Finally the mouse looked again to her feline superior. “You have a body” she said. It was not a question, it was a statement of fact.

“We have. It is the Chinese snow leopard currently living on Main Island” Saimmi explained. “Two priestess’s and a Wild Priest have given the same report. Whomever she was before, that soul has departed. Nothing, not even a single memory of whom she was remains. She is being held not far from here and reacted exactly as a wild animal would to being caged. A very good veterinarian is keeping her sedated, but he says he can safely do so no more than twelve hours or her health will suffer. It has been an hour already.”

“She is but a wild animal then” the mouse whispered. Just as easily the mouse returned to her thoughts. When she again looked up there was a sad expression upon her face. “I will do this Great Mother though I much council against such. Most strongly do I do so. For within my thoughts I can see no good come from this action. Warn Amelia, warn her friends of what follows them. But to loose again Molly, mother she will not be as she was. She can never be as she was. Yet, what she will become I cannot say, other than her madness is a powerful force. It may rule her.”

Setting her cup aside Saimmi stood. “Drink, we leave for South Island now. Oharu, what you may do, do. Place within her all that you may to insure that should she go mad that, her madness will be only a short thing. You love her, this you must use to your advantage. I order you to place within her your own love. That in her darkest hour she will always know that one does still love her. No matter what she has become, no matter what she does.”

Emptying, then setting her own cup aside the mouse stood as well, her height much less than that of the one she bowed too. “I pray to the Gods only this Great Mother. That we are not setting into action yet another Great Mistake. She was fated to die, she died. I saw nothing in my fire dreams of her living again.” Shivering Oharu looked out towards that needle of stone where her friend the Kami lived. “I think we are in unexplored jungle now, and what we may find could be useful, or deadly.” Silently following the feline Oharu left the Glen without a word, keeping her own counsel this action. For deep within her heart she feared the worst, yet beside that fear was the hope of Molly living again.

For it was not the body that Oharu had fallen in love with but the soul. It mattered not to the mouse what body that soul resided within. Normally.

On South Island they met Amelia and her friends. Though Oharu stood away from them, she could feel the power both Amelia and Helen now held within them. Their power, and the skills which held that power in check. Though she said little during that meeting, for she must keep her own soul quite at this time, she very much wished to talk with both women. To learn more about them, and to weave her power within their own. For one day one, or both would require that which the mouse was intended to be. The great battery that they would draw upon to feed their own powers in battle. That there was another in Songmark the mouse knew, yet there was time enough to mesh with her. These two though, oh if only they had a week, even just five days. Her soul yeaned to know more about them, for they were her sisters. What greatness they must hold to so easily weld the power of a Warrior Priestess.

Yet it could not be this time. Miss Cabot had agreed to what must be done, and the small party walked away, to find Urako and her Miko waiting them at an ancient shrine.

“We could not allow this without our guidance” the vixen said in greeting. “Dear sister Oharu. You did not think that this was your burden alone?” She laughed softly. “To reach so deeply, and hold such powers in balance? Do not think yourself so great dear sister. You are not an Ancient one. At least not yet.”

“Perhaps then when I die” Oharu asked, her own voice pleasant. For she had feared doing this alone, knowing that disaster would be but a breath away. A thin breath. To have these two to guide her meant that success was now within easy grasp. But success in what she still wondered. At least Miss Cabot would only sleep, she would be the least affected of all of them. Though Oharu had decided to secretly place an anchor within this Doe’s soul. In case her warrior sisters might need her.

“I will be honored to pray to you Oharu” the vixen answered seriously. “For your guidance, for your help. Now we must prepare.” Turning to the doe the vixen held out a cup. “Miss Cabot? We have brought a drink. It will cause you to sleep but an hour, a touch more if you are tired. This must be, that my sister may reach into your mind to copy into hers those memories that she needs.”

Miss Cabot accepted the small cup that Urako held for her, holding it carefully as she looked around her. “Why not simply cast me out” she asked seriously. “Would it not be safer for all of you?”

It was Oharu that answered her. “I am the vessel” she said. “I am the only one on these islands who can, and will do this. I will not kill you Miss Cabot. Throwing you out of this body, that is murder even if it is by your own desire.” She reached out to touch the doe, to touch Molly who was not Molly. Yet was. “It is not a choice I make Miss Cabot. It is what I am. I cannot kill another thinking being. Not even to save the life of she I love most. Not even, should I bear one, a pup of my own. I cannot. Thus this is our only path.”

Miss Cabot smiled, then drank the sweet drought. “I trust you mouse. You are the one who loved her, are you not?”

“I am” the mouse admitted.

“Then my soul is safe within your paws. I know this from her own memories. Now, what should I do?”

Many hours later several powerful members of Spontoon’s religion assisted a near mindless mouse to a certain glade. There, on a bed of leaves, lay a sleeping snow leopard. This the mouse did not see for she was as if drugged, barely able to move her own legs to help her travel. Behind them came Urako and her Miko. Urako was herself exhausted, yet knew that what rest she could allow herself was very limited. For within the others mind memories already had begun to touch, to mix. They would have but a pawfull of hours before irretrievable damage occurred. Damage that even should the ritual be successful, would leave both less than they should be. “I need but an hours sleep” the vixen explained as a bed was shown to her. “Not a moments more. We all must rest, Oharu most of all.” Then, as the others made to rest the vixen fell into a deep sleep. An hour would pass before the second ritual could begin. An hour of strange dreams for the mouse known as Oharu.

She was sitting in a restaurant, a kind that Oharu had seen only on Casino Island. Yet this was different, and outside the buildings great window many vehicles passed by. Many more than existed upon all of Spontoon. Across from her sat an average looking vixen. Megan. Megan Misty Marten came the name, unbidden. Magen wore a smart looking dress, one perhaps a year out of fashion, large round glasses and an apparently constant expression of curiosity. It was, the mouse realized, a memory. A memory of Molly’s past and she would have to live through it until its ending. For it would become her memory now as well. Apart from her own, always known to be the doe’s memory but as vivid as a true memory just as well.

“Dumas writes well” the vixen was saying between bites of her food. “I enjoy very much this Three Musketeers he has written.”

“Heavy stuff” Molly answered, for Oharu’s mind was but a viewer of this memory, as one would view a movie. Having no control or effect upon it. “Tah much fer me. So yah start college when?”

“My grades are adequate for the state college” Megan answered. “I would much prefer Vassar of course. Sadly, neither my grades nor fathers income will allow me that.” Pushing her pasta about the vixen seemed to be thinking of something. “You will still attend this Songmark Aeronautical School for Young Ladies?”

“Yep. Leave inna few weeks” Molly answered. “Pops thinks I’ll learn somethin useful. Main reason ah think he’s sendin me is cause its getten hot around here ah-hin.”

“More mob wars?” the vixen asked. “Oh Molly, if you would just, just step away from these things. They are doing you no good and I so fear for your life. You are my most precious friend and I could never bear to lose you.”

Molly laughed, reaching out to touch her purse, an item that she carried only when with Megan. “Ah got ah friend here tha’s gonna keep me safe Megan. Trust me there will-yah?”

Megan blushed under her fur. It was only a slight blush, one the doe obviously missed but to Oharu’s keen eyes it told her the full story. “My dearest friend” the vixen answered. “I will always trust you. With my life, should it be required.” She giggled then. “We make such the odd pair, do we not? I, the cultured girl who’s father knows nothing of the street. You, the base young woman who knows so much. Why, he would have a heart attack to even think that I might know you. That I would come to such places to eat, to simply talk to my best friend.” She giggled again, covering her mouth with one paw as she did so. It was a delightful movement the watching mouse noted. One calculated to cause interest. Yet again Molly missed, or ignored the clue.

“You will write me of course, will you not? I will start college almost the same time as you. Why, you will be a successful young lady a full year before I complete my own education. Then I will be able to hire you to fly me just everywhere. Shan’t I?”

“Why noh” Molly agreed. Oharu could feel a smile on the does lips, though she could not see it. “Was ah great thin tah bump inta yah on that trolly” the doe continued. “Why, yah was so frightened havin missed yer stop cause oh’ yer reedin. Findin yerself inna wrong sideah town.”

Molly leaned forward, to speak more softly. Fatboy Slim was eating at the table just behind them and certain words should never be overheard by a Boss. That Megan was with Molly protected the vixen. But should someone like Slim even think that there was an opening to grab such a high society girl, he would do so in an instant. “Truth be tol, anyon els’ahd sold yah tah onna tha houses. Buh yer so nice, ah yes. I’ll write yah. Once ah week, withou’ fail. My word.”

Oharu studied the vixen as Molly spoke, observing the images burned so deeply into the doe’s mind. Megan’s eyes had widened slightly at the implied danger, then softened as Molly gave her promise. Why, the mouse asked herself, was this one conversation so deeply burned into Molly’s mind? There must have been dozens, no hundreds of other conversations with the vixen. Yet why was this one etched so deeply.

“Good” the vixen husked back, leaning forward, bringing her own face closer to the doe’s face. “I shall see you at four, in front of the Biograph. They are presenting The Thin Man and I believe that you may enjoy it. Or at least the cartoons. It shall be my treat this time as you purchased our meal.”

“Ah right. Four then.” Molly stood then. “Ahn be careful. Words out its gonna get bumpy soon.” She left then, hearing only faintly Megan’s farewell of “Goodbye then, for now.”

Molly had walked but a dozen or so steps away from Leandro’s Restaurant when she heard a powerful engine roar. Her own reflexes kicked in then, her body hitting the sidewalk even before the heavy thunder of .45 calibur machine gun fire filled the street. Window glass shattered and there were screams even before the vehicle passed by. Molly though looked directly into the eye of a battered coyote holding a smoking tommy gun as a vehicle roared past. Her reaction was completely without thought and her own .45 automatic roared as the car raced away. “One Eye Bill” she whispered as the coyote’s face exploded in a fountain of red. He was one of Four Fingers men. A hit on Fatboy Slim no doubt. Then it struck her. Megan was still back there. She liked to read after lunch, she would have been...

The fear that she felt as she ran back to that shattered establishment had no equal. Even when her own father had been shot three years ago such fear had not touched her heart. Not understanding the depth or reason her fear ripped away at the doe’s soul. Diving into the building wreckage she searched, finding Megan’s shattered body lying in a pool of blood. Her beloved book clutched closely to her.

“MEGAN!” the doe screamed, landing beside her friend.

Slowly the vixens eyes opened. “I am cold” she whispered as Molly lifted her, drawing the blood covered body against herself. “I fear I shall be unable to keep our date sweet Molly. I appear to have a previous engagement that I was unaware of.”

“No... NO!” the doe screamed. “Yah can’t die. I won’ let yah.”

“Molly” the vixen continued, as though the doe had not spoken. “I have not yet been kissed. Please, do not. Let me die unkissed.” A soft cough followed and the vixens breathing became labored. “Please.”

Through her tears Molly pulled Megan tighter against her, kissing those dying lips. When she drew back the vixen managed a tiny smile. “Thank you my sweet friend. I have. ...secretly.... ..loved you.... ...since we met. ..now.... I.. .have loved... you. ..to... my death...”

An emotion that Oharu could barely stand rolled across her when the doe realized that her friend was gone. “Ah’ll venge yah Megan. Ah will. Ah pox on both their houses.” Softly she carefully laid the vixens limp body back onto the floor, looking around her at those who were helping others. No one had noticed, no one. Fatboy Slim and his boys were gone, probably out the back door. Had Molly not returned Megan would have died alone. Making her way to the payphone she roughly threw out a hysterical hound trying to call her husband, then dropping a nickle into the slot called her father’s boys.

Soon she was at an address that she had never expected to see. It was Megan’s home. While her fathers Gunsils waited quietly, Molly alone carried Megan’s dead body up to the front door. Carefully she laid that body into a chair on the front porch, then pressed the doorbell. By the time anyone answered that door, a blood stained Molly and her fathers men were already gone.

“Now what” Long Pete asked.

“Now” Molly said in an ice cold voice. “I kill some men.”

“Yep” the bulldog answered without emotion. “Thought so. Gonna be ah long, knife filled night.”

The memory ended, though Oharu knew that there would be others. So that was what had so hardened the doe’s heart. Had she known this, so much she could have helped her. Had she but known, but she hadn’t and the time for healing was too far past even had she known. For Molly’s heart had hardened long before she arrived upon Spontoon. Long before the mouse herself was aware of what she was. And the doe still did not understand that feeling.

“It is time” came Urako’s voice. She was speaking Cipangu to help the mouse retain her balance. Besides, she knew very little Spontoonie in any case. Oharu opened her eyes slowly, to find the concerned vixen sitting across from her. Urako was wearing nothing, as was required for this ritual. “There is still time to end this” the vixen whispered. “You are weak, neither of us have trained in this thing. To hold a demon for a time then cast it away yes. To hold a woman and return her to another body? Sister, I fear for your mind. Let her slip away, no one could fault you. You have made her whole, thus she will be reborn now, I have seen this.”

Waking completely Oharu looked about her. Asleep only a few feet away from her was the Chinese Snow Leopard known only as Megan. Knowing now the truth of Molly’s friend the mouse much wondered at her reasons to grant the cat such a name. Beyond the cat sat ten unclothed females of various species. Each ready, and willing to grant the power needed for this unusual and very dangerous ritual.

“Who pays the price for this” Oharu asked, ignoring Urako’s whispered word as she began the ritual. Her voice though steady was without true strength.

“Songmark” answered the yellow furred hound to Oharu’s left. “As is part of the debt we owe Spontoon and our daughter Molly.”

Turning, Oharu looked fully upon the Afghan she often playfully referred to as her pet. There would be no play. Not here, not this day. “You agree that there is no other way?” she asked.

Miss Devinski nodded her head in affirmation. “Songmark will not lose another daughter. Not as long as we have any say in the matter.”

Giving the woman a tiny smile the mouse turned her attention back to the body before her. “Who stands that this body has no mind” she asked again.”

“I” Dia-Kura answered. “All known ways have been used to find she whom this body belongs too. None were successful. I stand to say that this body contains nothing more than the mind of a jungle animal, and a very young one at that. I place my own life in bond that this is so.”

Oharu sighed. She had hoped that the answer would be different. Instead. “Then let us begin” she decided. Success or failure, it really didn’t matter. What would happen the Gods already knew. In the mouse’s heart though, there was dread. “Urako?”

And thus it was that the murdered Molly Procyk returned to the path of mortals. But it was as Oharu feared, for the Molly that returned was mad. Completely mad. With skills learned from Songmark the Snow Leopards body soon escaped those who were there to help her. Not though, without viciously striking down the one mouse who most loved her.

A day later Oharu awoke. Beside her sat the fifteen year old Miko Fumiyo. “How great the disaster” Oharu asked, unsurprised at the harshness of her voice. For Molly, when eventually woken had struck out at the mouse. Attempting to crush her throat.

“Complete” the vixen answered. “She is mad. They hunt. You are forbidden, all as you suspected. As you warned.” She offered the mouse water, which Oharu gratefully accepted. “She must live as they know. But she must be sane.”

“And she is not” Oharu answered the mouse. “I feared it was beyond my skills. I warned them. I was right.”

“But the need was so great” Fumiyo finished.

“The need was great” Oharu agreed, closing her eyes to sleep again.

“What a pretty piece of tail” a large boar laughed as he advanced upon the doe Molly Procyk. In one paw he held a long section of pipe, with the other he beckoned his friends.

It was, Oharu realized, Molly’s great fall that she was now remembering. Her capture aboard the THREE MOONS and near shattering at these creatures paws. Silent, unable to do anything about events, she watched as this second dream played through.

“Ah’ll work” Molly offered. “Ah’m just broke. Ah need tah get tah Spontoon. Please?”

She was unaware that her boarding of the THREE MOONS had been observed. That the crew were ancient paws at such things. That they had waited twelve hours before ‘stumbling over’ the stowaway. At THREE MOONS standard cruising speed of ten knots, that had put them one hundred and twenty nautical miles from shore. Too far for the doe to hope to swim and far outside any possible help.

“Yo’ll work yes” a one eyes ferret hissed. “As doxy. Yo good, we maybe let live.” Then they were on her. Though Molly fought with everything Songmark had taught her, everything her fathers torpedoes had shown her she was overwhelmed in less than half a minute. Quickly stripped of her clothing, which was thrown overboard as she watched, she was bound then dragged towards a waiting open hatch. Her last view of the daylight was of a disinterested dalmatian woman wearing a battered Captain’s cap talking to a bulldog, ignoring her screams for help.

Oharu tried to ignore what followed next. The beatings, sex and other vile treatment were close to what she herself had experienced. At least Molly did not have her teeth knocked out. No, no delicate hammer with a carefully placed length of bronze was used on her. Nor was she hung, at least not by the neck. Yet this crew proved far more imaginative than the one that had ruined the mouse. Far more imaginative. Finally the doe was washed in cold seawater and salt-soap. Scrubbed clean with a brush that took fur with it. Only then was she dragged above deck, to discover only darkness. For it was night now, a cloudy night.

‘They will murder me now’ Molly thought. ‘Still a better fate than Cuba, and Songmark will never know.’ But her friend Amelia’s face came to her and she knew that she would miss that foolish British housecat. Yet death it was not to be, for she found herself standing before a hatch that said Captains Cabin. A rap on the hatch with a bit of wood brought its occupant out.

A very drunken vixen looked out at the battered doe and her two guards. “Mah turn?” she asked in a slurred voice.

“Captin” the wolf on Molly’s right answered. “As agree. We get tha first thre nighs, yah get till one wek to ‘er next harbor er three weeks from levin port. Iffin yah wan her tha long.”

Studying Molly carefully, as only someone drunk could, the vixen sniffed. “”Clean?”

“Hosed ou Captain. All ports” the wolf reported.

“Ah. Why can’ we get ah male mor often” the vixen complained. “Ah don like girls.” She turned her face to Molly, the reak of very cheap alcohol heavy in her breath. “Skratch mah itcxh righ, you sleep inna bed tahnigh. Unnersatnd?”

Sickened even through her battering and exhaustion Molly managed to answer. “I understand.” Her voice though was weak. Weaker than it had ever been to her hearing.

Stepping back the vixen waved them in. “Trow er onna bed. Ah’ll let yah know iffin ahm gonna keep her.”

“Right Captin Granite” the bore on Molly’s left agreed, physically tossing Molly’s weakened, unresisting body over his shoulder as he entered the cabin. Soon he had her bound to the bed, though it really didn’t matter to the doe. Three days without clean food or water tended to sap one. Being the playtoy of nearly thirty males of various species and tastes, all Molly wanted to do was sleep. But the vixen Granite had different ideas.

“Don’ lik girls” the vixen repeated as she stripped. “Buh ah itch. So ah tak tha scratch where ah can. Unnerstand?”

“Yes” Molly managed, no longer really caring. So when the vixen came to her she scratched.

What occurred next was nothing that Oharu was unaccustomed too. In fact, were she to have been asked, the mouse would have admitted that it was rather boring. Yet it did seem to have an effect upon Molly, for within the dream Oharu could feel two emotions. A deep hatred for what she was doing, and slightly deeper, an enjoyment. Eventually doe and vixen fell asleep.

It was, Oharu realized as the memory unfolded, the beginning of weeks that the two spent together. Molly at first vowing to ‘teach that vixen a lesson’, then slowly discovering to her own horror that most of what she was doing was for her own pleasure. It was when she found herself again at the crews pleasure that Molly understood.

One can enjoy something and not walk that path. Yet at the same time, one could walk a path and despise every touch. Still the night that they locked her into that rope locker Molly had one last horrible thought. A Sapphic seed had been planted within her and it was growing. She had no way to remove it, and when it finally blossomed...

As the ship approached Spontoon, in her battered condition she did not hear when that rusted lock was broken. Or understand when the key to her heavy shackles was used to unlock them, or even note the bent piece of iron wire that was dropped upon her filthy blanket. It was only later, when the hail of ‘Land Ho! The Spontoon’s’ did Molly’s mind come clear. In her awakened, adrenalin charged state the doe was shocked to discover that her shackles were open and the rope lockers door ajar. But not too shattered to make that impossible mile long swim to land and her freedom.

Oharu awoke feeling refreshed, and now aware of how close her doe love had come to her own shattering. Opening her eyes she found not Fumiyo waiting, but High Priestess Saimmi. Forcing her still exhausted, and now battered body to rise the mouse came to a sitting position. “Great Mother” she husked, her voice a whisper through a dry throat.

Her answer was a mug of cool water with a touch of lemon within it. It both cooled her throat and woke her further with the light pain the juice caused. Soon setting her now empty mug aside she managed an acceptable bow to her superior. “How may I serve you Great Mother” she asked, her voice stronger and clearer now.

“You have done more than expected” the feline answered. “Return to your place. Complete your works. I will have need of you for Cranium Island as our sisters bones still wait.” Saimmi looked at her servant, her shield. “I am proud of you, but you may not search for her. She must come to her senses alone. We will return to her, when it is time. Oharu, I am so very proud of you.”

“Thank you Great Mother” the mouse answered, stretching to bring her body fully awake. “And I may never approach any Songmark girl again?”

Saimmi smiled, a soft, wonderful smile. “Your adopted daughter is Songmark. Your wife is Songmark. Now how may I deny you either? Of course you may return to being the bane of that school. Your little pet needs the distraction, for her shoulders are as heavily weighted as your own. Just, please, do not take her. I am well aware that you could should that be your desire You are much like Nikki in our ways, though a much softer Nikki. I have too many shells though saying that you will not.”

Oharu nodded in agreement. “One would not wish that the Great Mother lose a wager” she intoned quite seriously. “Else the Great Mother may decide to spank a certain Priestess.”

“Oh, you will gain a spanking” Saimmi replied softly. “And you will enjoy it, as you do the ones Belle gives you.”

Oharu blushed, the skin under her faces delicate fur becoming dark red. “You have spoken with Belle?”

“Would you deny me?” the feline asked

“No Great Mother” the mouse admitted.

“Then go. Your students await to return you home. We will talk further, when time has passed for healing. She did try to kill you after all.”

Oharu stood slowly, brushing the robe that was presently her only clothing. “I am no longer that Oharu” the mouse explained. “I would not allow it.” Then she made her way to her waiting students who moved to their teachers sides, and carefully returned her to her home.

Missy Pohovic, Nuimba and Ote’He

Songmark, Saimmi, Molly, Amelia, Helen, Marie, Belle, Prudence, Carmen, Miss Cabot, Miss Devinski.