Ridiculust Ch 13

Sarah had been busy this morning. After watching Roger get sent upstairs by Debbie, and Debbie then leaving to go to her place, she had continued her conversation with her sister.

"Yes, Julia, that was us in the park saving the willow tree."

"It was very impressive. The three of you seem to have a lot of power to play with, and you work pretty well together given that you've only known Roger for a bit more than a day and a half. I'm starting to get calls from people wanting to see the town and meet the magicians."

"We don't have much more time before they start descending on us in hordes, wanting things. Speaking of which, Debbie is now talking to the trees, and says that the Guardians need to be healed before they meet the same fate that the willow almost did."

"They're the Guardians, now?" asked Julia, somewhat skeptically. "Somehow, it doesn't surprise me. That grove of trees has always been a special place, and now we could be learning why."

"We need to get as many people as possible from the town to go to the park tonight. The three of us have power, but we need more if we're to clean out the rot from all of them at the same time. They're huge!"

"Like the Lughnasadh concert, only more so? With more, um, love afterwards?" Sarah laughed at the note of hope in Julia's voice.

"You got some action Friday night? I think that the whole town got busy after the concert!"

"We were watching TV when there was a bright, colourful flash that filled the room. We had no idea what had happened, and went to the window to look outside, but it was the backyard and we couldn't see anything. I started feeling warm and had no idea why, and when I turned around, there was Matt with his pants around his ankles and the biggest, hardest boner I'd ever seen on him! I have no idea how I lost my pants, but we were going at it on the carpet for about five minutes before we blew ourselves out. After we'd recovered our senses, we went back to the bedroom, got rid of the rest of our clothing and spent the next couple of hours in no-holds-barred fucking. Then we slept for eight hours, woke up and did it again. If what you will be doing brings back that magic, I'll help in any way I can!" Sarah chuckled lewdly.

"Thanks, Julia," she said. "I've got other people to call and things to do. I'll meet you at the restaurant for lunch and will get Roger and Debbie to join us." They hung up. Back when Julia had told Roger that Sarah was "quiet and introverted", she had been lying through her teeth, correctly figuring that it wasn't the time to reveal her sister's hot-blooded personality to a total stranger. Giving salaciously detailed descriptions of encounters with boys dated all the way back to their adolescence, and after Sarah had returned to town with her new husband John to teach at the high school, they continued the practice. John and Matt had gotten along well and, being smart and observant, soon figured out their secret.

Being the practical sort, figuring that anything that got their wives hot would get them more time in the sack, they formed a mini-conspiracy to give them lots to talk about. Trina had opened her shop soon after John and Sarah had arrived, to no small amount of scandal, but the fuss soon died out when the morality of the town didn't plunge into the toilet. She supplied them with a helpful book that improved their skills over a year or so, providing a return much greater than their investment. When the ladies finally figured it out two and a half years later, they didn't know whether to be angry at their husbands or grateful that they'd taken the time and effort to improve themselves. At their respective homes, totally impenitent shoulder and back massages performed by men who knew exactly what their "clients" liked led to frantic sex that left them all ruined and Julia pregnant with Emma.

Hearing Roger in the shower, Sarah collected her shoes, purse, sunglasses, and a pale blue baseball cap with her school's logo on the front and went out the front door, closing it quietly behind her. She looked up Chip Marshak's number on her phone and tapped it to dial.

"You're on the air with Chip. Mrs. Burns, this is a pleasant surprise," he said, courtesy of his call display. "What can I do for you today?" He was 45 and, despite his name, a Jamaican by heritage, had been with the radio station, through thick and thin, for 15 years, having worked his way up from late night announcer and DJ to assistant manager and occasionally filling in for others on their shows when they were sick or on vacation. Today was an example, with the Sunday morning call-in show. Like everyone else in town, he'd been through her Math classes, in his case 'adequately, but without enthusiasm.'

"Hello, Chip. Congratulations on the promotion! You're the heart and soul of the station."

"With only ten people here, it's hard not to be," he replied in his smooth baritone voice, from which it was clear where Pat had inherited his. She could hear the smile in his inflection. "And I hear that congratulations are in order to you for helping to save not one, but two trees yesterday. You've made quite the recovery from your earlier ... indisposition."

"Yes, I have," she replied quietly as she walked down her front walk. "My life has been turned upside down twice in the past week. I want to take this opportunity to apologize to everyone in the town for my behavior while under the influence of the demon Mandy. But without the timely assistance of Roger Matheson, I'd still be trapped and I owe him all the gratitude I can muster."

"For those of you out there who haven't heard of Roger, he's one of the creators of the unusually persistent hit 'Oompa Loompa Love', and now has a nickname I'm not allowed to repeat on the air," Chip said with a chuckle.

"Anyways," Sarah said quickly before any more editorial comments could be said, "he and another friend of mine and I saved the willow tree in the park last night. We found out from the town's arborist that the other trees in the grove likely also have the heart rot that nearly killed the willow. We need anybody who can make it to the park tonight to come to the grove for a special concert that we hope that we will be able to persuade the Purple Chimps to play."

"All sorts of strange things happened Friday night after that concert in the park," Chip replied lightly. "You wouldn't happen to know what caused them, would you?" The audience could almost hear the smirk on his face as he sat in front of the microphone.

"Let's just say," Sarah replied in the voice used to bring rowdy students to order, "that magic is definitely coming back to this world, and that love is the strongest magic of all. We all love those trees, and to lose them would be devastating. We need all the love that the people in this town can offer to help save those trees, and on the night of the full moon, we can do this! Thank you for listening, and I'll see you tonight." She hung up before Chip, whose real name was Charles, could say anything more that was embarrassing. She could feel the heat from her blush in her face as she strove to put her thoughts in order. She sent a text message to Debbie reminding her of her promise to contact the Purple Chimps.

Sarah walked at a moderate pace, enjoying the beautiful morning. The gentle breezes ruffled the lawns and flowers and rustled the leaves in the trees, and she idly wondered if they really talked to each other as Debbie said they did. That brought her thoughts to Debbie and the weird coincidence that she was Roger's first girlfriend long ago. The stories about him were promising, though. He still seemed to be one of those rare creatures - a gentleman. They definitely had a strong connection, even though it was only a few days old, and she figured that the next chance she got, she'd renew that connection in her bedroom, nice and slow. At least at first, she added wryly. But to do that, she'd first have to ruin Debbie as she'd promised / threatened this morning. But as skilled as she was at using Pink Magic to drive her over the edge, she also knew that Debbie was a little devil between her legs and the outcome would probably wind up being as it was in the past, with both of them being ruined. Then what would Roger do with them? The thought of Roger's hot, hard, tingly cock pounding her Debbie-ravaged pussy with its electric sparks zapping her sensitized clitoris got her hot. Fortunately, the sun was bright enough to mostly hide the glow from her erogenous zones, and she had to divert her thoughts to other topics before the dragon woke and she went back home and ravaged both of them. "What's going on with me?" she asked herself. "I haven't had thoughts like these since I was in my twenties." That was when her pussy was only interested in getting its next meal of John-shaped sausage.

By this point, Sarah had crossed the bridge over the river and was at the northern reach of the park. About twenty feet away from the sidewalk and an equal distance from the river was a large silver maple tree, in whose shade a group of eight people, most of whom she recognized, was doing the slow, graceful movements of T'ai Chi. This would definitely help her to calm down and re-centre herself, since she had studied both it and karate for several years.

She walked down the steps that were near the foot of the bridge, gave a little bow to the leader, and moved to the back of the group. As she'd hoped, the exercises, the sounds of the gentle breezes in the tree, and the warm August morning helped calm her jangled nerves into a state of rare serenity. The stress and tension drained through her feet into the ground and she found herself moving with less stiffness and pain than she had for years.

"Sarah, my dear, you're radiant! Positively glowing!" said the leader, a medium-sized white guy in his mid-thirties named Murray. She looked down and saw that she was glowing slightly in her colours of red, blue, and yellow, which were shifting around slowly and serenely.

"Thank you, Murray, for leading this session. I really, really needed to calm down after the crazy things that have been going on in the past few days," she replied. They gave him a round of applause, which he accepted graciously. "Can you feel the grove calling you?" she asked the group. "I'm feeling a sort of insistence that I go pay it a visit, even though there's nothing I can do right now. I want you and everyone you know to come to the park this evening to help us heal the rest of the trees."

"I feel a little bit," ventured a small East Indian woman named Neha. "It seems to be casting a spell over the whole park. Everyone seems to be mellow and happy."

"Neha here has come onto the power of being able to see past lives," said Murray, "some of which have been very interesting indeed. Having all gone through your Math class at one time or another, we were curious to find out about yours." They all looked at her expectantly.

"Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to know," Sarah replied with a grin. "Maybe it will give me an idea of where all of my power comes from." Neha, her dark brown eyes shining, extended her hands to take those of Sarah, who briefly wondered if the sense of serenity was genuine or had somehow been subtly placed on her. Then she froze in place as she felt a weird sensation in her head, like a lock being rotated in four dimensions a few times. Suddenly, she was in the middle of a battlefield, firing a rifle at German positions while a comrade in an American medic's uniform worked frantically to save the life of a friend whose leg had been badly torn up by enemy fire. Then she was charging up a steep slope at Vimy Ridge, screaming unintelligibly while a medic ran behind her, looking for wounded to tend. She was a Zulu warrior leading an attack at Isandlwana, an infantryman defending Queenston Heights with General Brock, where a medic tended unsuccessfully to the General's mortal wound, and a sapper who was working on the fortifications.

On and on it went, war after war, all over the world, all over time. She was a Japanese warrior defending a dock with an iron-tipped quarterstaff where villagers, under the direction of a priest, were being evacuated while under attack from a rival's army. Agincourt, Hastings, fighting Viking raiders, Roman legions, Babylon, all the way back to standing over a friend who was closing the eyes of a hunter, killed by the mammoth that they'd finally brought down. There it ended, seven minutes after it had started, by which time both of them were pale as ghosts, sweating, shaking, and crying uncontrollably. Neha collapsed into Murray's arms and Sarah sat down suddenly, while the others stared wide-eyed in shock. Only their crying, the rustling leaves and gentle murmur of the other people in the park could be heard.

It took another five minutes for Neha to regain enough composure to talk. "She is really, really old," she said in a quavering voice. "I lost track of how many lives she's lived. In all of them she was a soldier or warrior, male and female, blood and fighting everywhere. So much pain, so much death..." She broke down again as Murray, now seated too, held her protectively in his arms. It took Sarah several minutes to integrate what she could remember of the torrent of memories, but one thing was clear to her - there were several people who kept recurring in them. Not all at the same time, but at seemingly critical junctures, one of them was there supporting her, the most frequent of which was the medic, who now must be Roger, and the engineer, who was probably Debbie. A third often appeared as an administrator, general, or teacher, whom she presumed was John. She stood up suddenly, and the others hastily backed away, and when she looked in her right hand, there was a six-foot quarterstaff, glowing in her colours of red, blue, and yellow, with flames apparently flickering at the ends.

"Neat special effects," she said, closing her eyes and going through vaguely-remembered forms, at first tentatively, then with more confidence until she looked like she'd been doing it all her life. She finally stopped, breathing heavily, and continued, "You will come to the park tonight?"

"Ye-yes, we will be there," someone stammered as the staff dissolved into sparkling mist.

"We will need your help. All of you," she said, then turned and marched off towards Julia's.

"That was unexpected," said Murray thoughtfully as he and Neha stood up shakily, "yet somehow not surprising." The others murmured and nodded, and the group broke up. Lost in memories that were not hers, Sarah walked on autopilot down the path that led to park's main entrance. As she passed by the Chinese food truck from which she and Roger had bought food on their first date, one of the women called out to her.

"Earth calling Sarah! Come in, Sarah!" She snapped out of her reverie, quickly looked around to orient herself, then saw the food truck and smiled. Then her stomach growled menacingly.

"Hi there," she replied, striding up to the little counter. "I'd like another serving of chicken fried rice, please. I'm really hungry all of a sudden!" The food was served up and Sarah paid and grabbed it.

"I saw what you were doing up there," said the woman as Sarah started shoveling the food into her mouth. "I'm Wan Kee, by the way."

"Pleased to meet you," Sarah replied. "But don't tell Roger or he'll make some pun about wonky and everything will go haywire for you. Oh man, this is so good!"

"I'll keep that in mind," she replied dryly. "The forms that you were practicing back there were from a classical practice of bojutsu, though I've never seen them done with a flaming staff." Sarah smiled with the memory of the grace and elegance of the exercises. "It is not commonly practiced in this part of the world. How long have you been studying it?" A polite chittering near Sarah's feet distracted her, and she looked down to see a raccoon, probably one of the ones they'd encountered on her date with Roger, sitting on its haunches looking expectantly at her.

"Those furballs have this place staked out," Wan complained as Sarah broke her edible container in two and carefully handed it to the critter. The raccoon put it in its mouth and hustled off.

"I have not practiced it at all, at least not in this life," Sarah mused. "Someone back there unlocked memories of all of the previous lives that my soul has led, and those forms were among them. Until now, I'd thought that reincarnation was just another of those religious things that people thought of to help themselves feel better."

"I don't mean to pry," Wan lied, "but would you tell me what you remember? This sort of thing has always fascinated me."

"Wars, fire, fighting, and death, reaching way back to the beginning of time," Sarah replied. "From what I can tell, this has been my most peaceful life, and now I know just how lucky I am to have had it. Thanks for the food," she concluded. "I will definitely tell my friends about you!" She marched down the path towards the park's entrance, and Wan retrieved her cell phone from her purse, found a contact in her list, and made a call.

The remainder of Sarah's trip to Julia's was uneventful. She stopped to peek into the window in the door of Trina's, but it was closed and all that she could see was a scene of general disorder. "What happened here?" she asked herself. "Mayhem in Trina's? Who'd have thought it?" It took her less than ten minutes to get to Julia's, where Minnie was the first to greet her. "Minnie! It's been so long since I've seen you!" Sarah exclaimed, bending down to pet and scratch her where she liked it most. Minnie had been able to sense Mandy almost immediately and had made herself scarce while Sarah had been possessed. After a few minutes, the cat disengaged and trotted into the main room, followed by Sarah. Emma popped up from the reception desk, making Sarah jump with surprise.

"Aaah!" they both screamed, with Emma ducking wide-eyed behind the desk again. Sarah was surprised by Emma's reaction, until she looked over her right shoulder to see that she was holding a katana that was flaming along its blade in her colours of brick red, royal blue, and yellow.

"Whoa, since when have you been pulling swords out of thin air, Aunt Sarah?" Emma asked, peeking over the desktop. Sarah had the sword in a classic two-handed stance that looked like she was about to amputate Emma's noggin.

"About 45 minutes ago, I was treated to a replay of my past lives by someone in the park," she replied, relaxing her stance and giving the glowing katana a good look. She could see characters, most likely Japanese, engraved on both sides of the blade. "Apparently, my soul is extremely old and has been a warrior for most of its existence. It looks like it spent some time in Japan."

"That's really cool," Emma replied, "so long as you aren't going to cut my head off with it!"

"I got a quarterstaff back in the park, and I seemed to know how to use it. Let's try with this." She moved into the centre of the room and Emma backed away hastily. Sarah closed her eyes and recalled the forms that her alter ego had practiced centuries ago. Emma watched slack-jawed as she moved as if in a dance through the forms, with the katana making sound effects like Star Wars light sabers, but with the frequency dialed way down. Five minutes later, she finished with the sword pointing directly at the small crowd of restaurant patrons who had gathered at the door and along its wall to watch and, as always, take videos on their cell phones. They all burst into enthusiastic applause, which startled her because she'd been concentrating only on the forms and not noticing anything going on around her. With a "what the heck" expression, she made a bow to the people and her katana dissolved into sparkling mist that quickly evaporated.