Lady of the Rings
by Brandy Dewinter and Ellen Hayes
(All rights reserved)
Chapter 3 - Strange New World
Build: 11
I had always enjoyed walking. The operative word was "had." This
new body didn't walk right. Those wide-load hips swung like a barn door
in a breeze with every step.
Working as a counterweight were the lumps on my chest. Every step.
Every single damn step. I hated them already. At least my shoes fit,
and my legs seemed as long as before. If I could just get a good rhythm
going, I would have enjoyed the walk. I sure would have. Damn that
wizard. And damn these bumps too.
When I first saw the sign to Gainesville, wherever that was, at 6
miles, I figured I would just walk the distance. It wasn't long though,
before the struggle of working against myself with the motions of this
unfamiliar form made me pretty tired. A couple of cars had passed, one
even slowed way down but I carefully ignored it. Now, I wished I had
accepted a ride.
That wish seemed a lot more effective than the dark ones I had aimed
at Andreas the Asinine, for it was only another few minutes and a truck
pulled to the side of the road. Saints be praised, a beer truck!
And me with no ID. Damnit!
"Going somewhere?" The driver was about forty, long past his prime.
Not that forty is all that old, but there's forty and then there's forty.
"I, um, was heading into Gainesville." That voice wasn't really me.
It gave me the creeps every time I heard it.
"Bit of a hike for a slip of a girl like you," he grinned.
"Well, a bit more than I planned," I admitted. Kiss my ass, I
thought.
"Hop in, that's my next stop."
I climbed up into the cab of the truck, and leaned back against the
seat. Cracked vinyl never felt so good. The truck had surprisingly
thick cushions for such a beat up seat cover. Or, maybe I had the
cushion. Damn that wizard!
"What's a pretty young thing like you doing on a lonely road like
this?"
Oh God. Not this, anything but this...
I ignored the comment. I also ignored the fact that he was interes-
ted in my new form. At least, I tried to ignore it. His lecherous leer
was burning into my skin, clearly penetrating below my clothes (in his
imagination). It made me want to puke. I was gonna strip the skin from
that wizard and pack his putrid body with salt. It was all his fault.
And, of course, I end up with someone who probably still lived with his
mother, and she wouldn't screw him either.
"You're not from around here, are you?" he kept pushing. With lines
like that, the world was safe from further examples of his genes.
"No, I've been hiking around for a while."
"With nothing but the clothes you're wearing?" he seemed to pounce
on my apparent helplessness.
"Somebody lifted my pack the last time I relaxed." Close enough to
the truth.
"You're sort of out of luck. Can I help?" The offer wasn't nearly
as kind as the words would indicate.
"Thanks, no." I'd rather set myself on fire, actually. "I just
need to get to a phone and call my dad, he's with the FBI, and tell him
I got robbed." Nice lie, I thought to myself. Then I leaned back
against the cushions again, closing my eyes to forestall further conver-
sation. He took the hint, about the conversation, but offered another
hint of his own.
I felt something on my leg.
His hand.
"I can break that for you, if that's what you want," I offered in a
voice that was intended to be flat and scary, but came out melodious and
sweet. It still worked, though. The jerk jerked his hand back and I
went back to resting, this time with my eyes open.
We drove along in silence for a few minutes, then saw the outskirts
of what I assumed was Gainesville ahead of us.
"So pretty lady, where can I drop you off?"
"Anywhere is fine," anywhere close, soon. Let me out of here.
"I'll be glad to take you anywhere in town. It's not a big town,"
he persisted. Give him an A for persistence. I wished I had a gun. Or
a can of bug spray.
"That diner up there will be fine," I insisted, trying to get a bit
more force into that ridiculous voice.
He pulled over and stopped. I was out of the cab so fast he didn't
have a chance to say anything more. Not that I thought I was going to
miss anything. My thanks were called out from the doorway to the diner,
barely polite, but I could afford at least a little manners once I was
safe in the restaurant. His gaze didn't show the least bit of guilt.
Instead, he looked at the body I wore while licking his lips in a way
that brought me so close to hurling I had to turn away. I really
thought I'd lose it so I headed for the bathroom with frantic deter-
mination. Oh, please, God, I begged silently, don't let me hurl in front
of all these people...
The problem was psychological, not physical, and once my subcon-
scious realized I was safe in the diner, the nausea went away. I found I
did need to visit the facilities though, and almost made the wrong
choice. Walking with that aggravating lack of rhythm reminded me just in
time and I went through the now-appropriate door.
The new body caught me by surprise, again. I was frantically thin-
king up excuses for being in the wrong restroom when I realized it was me
in a mirror.
I guessed my first impression on height and weight was still about
Right. I had been 5'9" and about 140. Give it an extra five to ten
pounds for the extra padding I was carrying, minus whatever for my puny
arms. Where I had been thin and wiry before, I was svelte now, shapely
in a way I didn't want but could still appreciate.
I had already seen that my hair had changed to deep black, but there
was a lot more of it than I realized, and not just in length. It was a
thick, heavy, tangled mess. Walking in the wind had tied it into knots
that I'd fix as soon as I found some scissors. I didn't want it anyway.
Gandalf the Goblin (Nose) had done me one favor, at least. From
the way the guy had been leering at me, I was afraid I looked like a
model or something. Nope. No makeup (amen, thank God, praise Allah and
Buddha and Jupiter and all the rest), nose sort of thin, lips not nearly
as full as was fashionable. My eyes hadn't changed though, and my
girlfriends, all two of them, had said they were my best feature. One
had compared them to sapphires; the other one to a sky-blue marble she
had in her pocket at that moment. (Cindy had been weird.) If they
looked larger than I remembered, it was probably because the face was
smaller or more delicate or something. Maybe it had something to do with
all the angles from cheek bones and a sharp chin and that nose.
The worst part of it, besides it being me behind a girl's face, was
that it looked vaguely familiar.
The more I looked at it, the more the hair seemed like a mess so I
started to comb it out with my fingers like I had sometimes done with
Cindy's. It was seriously twisted up and I was straining at one snarl
when a waitress walked into the room. Once again, I almost had a heart
attack about being caught in the wrong bathroom before I remembered.
"Are you okay?" she asked. "You ran in here so fast I thought you
might be sick."
"I'm fine. That truck driver just made me uncomfortable," I ex-
plained.
The waitress, whose name tag read eikcaJ in the mirror, leaned a
hip up on the counter before the mirror and snickered, "Yeah, some of
those good old boys think they're God's gift to women." Her look changed
to one of concern. "He didn't... do anything to you, did-"
"No!" snapped out of my mouth. The idea made me shiver.
"Well, good," she said, then grinned. "Come to think of it, most
men think they're God's gift to women." There didn't seem to be much to
say to that - that had never occurred to ME, for instance - so I went
back to yanking at my hair.
Jackie continued, "You need some help with that hair? You got a
hairbrush?"
"No, my things were stolen at my last stop. I don't have anything
except what I've got on." Even as I said it, I realized just how broke
I really was. I was missing the GPS and credit cards, but my situation
was a lot worse than that. I had NOTHING. Maybe if I was lucky, I could
get arrested for vagrancy and have a place to stay-
My fingers snagged in another tangle and I said something in French
my mother hadn't taught me.
"Here, don't do that," Jackie commanded. "I'd kill for your hair.
Let me get a brush." Fine, start by killing me, was my first thought.
Then I thought, no, kill that fucking beer truck driver and you can have
it.
Before I could say that, though, she went out through the door. A
few seconds later I remembered that I had other business in here.
At some level I had been in denial about the most basic transforma-
tion. Maybe if I didn't admit it happened until I woke up, this would
all be a bad dream. Dream or not, it was something I had to deal with.
I was all woman under those jeans. I realized that while I was standing
in front of the toilet and getting ready to piss all over myself because
what should have been sticking out in front was no longer there. That
straw was just too much for me and when Jackie came back into the room I
was shaking with sobs as I sat on the toilet seat.
"Hey, now, it's not that bad. Do you have someone you could call?"
She thought my sorrow was about the loss of my money.
I snuffled into my sleeve and stood up, embarrassed to be caught
crying. At least I remembered to wipe. In a moment I had my clothes
back together, hiding that too-terrible truth, and let myself be
mothered by Jackie over to the mirror.
"Let me brush out the knots for you. Your hair is so pretty. You
just need to keep it under control when it's windy."
"I'm going to cut it all off," I almost screamed.
"No, please, don't let other problems make you do something you'll
regret for months. Everything will turn out okay. There, the tangles
are out. Here you can have a rubber band for it," and she handed me one
of those hair loops that girls shed all the time. "You'll probably want
to keep it out of your face on a windy day like this."
I must've taken too long, because she took the rubber band out of
my hand and grabbed my hair and yanked on it several times and then I
had a ponytail. It looked a lot better. I'd always liked long hair on
girls, ignorance being bliss, but the actual experience was something
else. At least with the ponytail it felt almost like I didn't have it at
all. It also pulled my face into sharper focus, like I needed that. It
looked like I could use a good meal, even besides the despair that still
lurked in my eyes.
"You look like you could use a good meal," Jackie declared, almost
causing me to giggle in shock. I hiccuped instead, then reached into my
pocket. Oh, shit.
"Oh, don't worry about paying. It's on the house. Come on now,
it's not so bad."
She mothered me some more until I found myself seated at the coun-
ter. That wide bottom felt like it needed about three stools, but I knew
it was rather trim, for a woman. It just wasn't trim for ME.
I glanced around out of the corners of my eyes, and the other
patrons didn't seem to be looking at me too much. Small favors...
As I sat there waiting for the food to come out, I started remem-
bering my survival training. First step: take inventory. No, the first
step was to stop panicking. Well, I'd done that, sort of. So, the
second step was to take inventory.
I had a blue oxford shirt, a pair of jeans (that fit over the hips
and snug against the waist - mine shouldn't have fit this body), a t-
shirt, socks and boots, and a watch. Add a cryptic note and a donated
rubber band, and that was it. Oh, deep and smelly shit.
I put my face in my hands, and rubbed, and almost instantly regret-
ted it, since it made me realize (again) that my body had changed. A
shudder ran through my body. Oh, God, please...
Nothing changed. I should say, nothing changed BACK.
Looking around for something to keep my mind off my problems,
because I was going to turn into a screaming lunatic if I didn't, I saw
a paper on the counter that no one was reading. I snagged it and found
out the date - 14 May and in the year I figured was current after my time
in Gandalf's prison - which was a relief. I also found out I was in
Gainesville, Florida. Oh, whee. Really on my list of hot spots.
I checked out the news from while I was away, and nothing was new,
not really. Same old same old...
In due course a burger and fries appeared under my nose and I star-
ted wolfing it down. I hadn't realized I was so hungry. Before I could
stuff everything into my cheek pouches, Jackie caught my eye and when she
had it she wiggled a finger at me. I chewed my current mouthful as I
looked at her and tried to figure out what I was doing wrong. She took
an exaggerated imaginary bite and I understood. I nodded and took smal-
ler, less ambitious bites after that.
When I was half done, though, I was full. I concentrated on the
fries after that, but I couldn't even finish those. Andreas' torture
list just got another item. Imagine, taking the pleasure out of eating!
Was there no limit to his evil? I had to push the plate back unfinished.
"Thank you," I said to Jackie. A good meal always made the world
seem a little more hospitable. It was still a nightmare, but there's a
lot of difference between a hungry nightmare and a full one. Maybe it
was the protein that made life seem slightly less bad.
"What are you going to do now?" she asked.
"I don't know," I admitted. "Look for a job, I guess." I didn't
mention that my first idea was to hang around an ATM and bash someone.
I had a feeling that wouldn't go over well, no matter how desperate I
was.
"Don't you have someone you could call?"
I shook my head, still very aware of the long tail of hair swaying
counterpoint, and said, "No, not really. I, I can't really go home like
this." Understatement of my entire life. "I, uh, I need to get back on
my feet and at least show I could make it on my own." At least that
didn't sound quite so much like I was a teen runaway. I really did not
want to get picked up...
"Well, there's a circus in town. I hear they're hiring temporary
workers. I even hear," at this she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial
whisper, "that they're not looking too closely at paperwork."
"That sounds like what I need," I smiled at her. It really did
sound good. Really good, and not just the no-papers part. Too good.
Why did I think so? What was there about a circus that seemed suddenly
so important?
"Where is this circus?" I asked as I stood up. Back to hiking, I
guessed. That driver had said this town wasn't too big. Maybe he
wasn't a liar as well as a lech.
"How about if I give you a ride?" Jackie offered. "I'm just about
to go off shift."
"I know I should say no, you've done so much for me already. But I
have to admit, I'd really appreciate it." This time my smile was a lot
warmer. If she put HER hand on my knee... well, let's just say that
she was forty, but nothing like the guy's forty.
"It's nothing, I'm going more or less that way anyway," she claimed,
but I didn't believe it. Somehow, though, I trusted her. She had an
attitude of... well, mothering, that I would have gone ballistic over if
I hadn't been in such dire straits. I was eighteen, and I really didn't
need to be mothered any more.
She gathered up her things, called to the cook that she was taking
off, and shepherded me out the door. Her old Hyundai looked like it was
desperately in need of attention, but it started, and ran (or at least
limped). It really wasn't very far to the circus grounds, as cars
measure such things, but I was glad I hadn't had to walk it.
As soon as we pulled up to the field where they were setting up, I
knew why the circus seemed so important to me. There, right in front of
me, was the solution to my clue and the first part of my quest.
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