The House

By Dawn Natelle

I suspect the last section of this will lead to some discussion and supposition in the story: Dawn.

Chapter 4 – Christmas Gifts

“So what did you get?” Sun said excitedly.

“We should look for the missing ingredient for Red Oak first,” Grey said. “He even had me looking as I was approaching the camp. A bit of a pain with a backpack on, and two bags from the store.

«It is fairly easy to find earlier in the year,» Red Oak said. «But now that the above-ground parts are all wilted, you have to dig down and find the bulb. If a cut in it makes your eyes water, then you have the right plant.»

Something clicked for Grey. He reached into his backpack and pulled out the bag of vegetables from the store in Tweed. “Is it something like this?” He held up an onion.

«Yes, that is it. I’ve never seen one so big though.»

“It is called an onion. It won’t be a local wild one though. Will it still work?”

«If it makes her cry as she cuts it, then it will work.»

“Oh I’m pretty sure that it will work, then,” Grey said. “How much does she need?”

«A quarter of that one. And can you save another quarter? She may need to make a second batch of the mixture in a week to 10 days.»

“A cut onion will not keep that long,” Grey said. “But I bought two, so we will just save the other one. Uncut it should not spoil.”

For the next hour Grey made his stew in one pot, and Sun worked on making the mixture under the guidance of Red Oak. He looked over, and saw that she was crying pretty profusely, catching all the tears in the pot she was mixing.

«The tears are important,» Red Oak explained. «They hold the mixture of the other ingredients together. It looks a little dry, but I think we should do a test.»

“What is it supposed to do?” Grey asked.

«It is an old potion for old squaws that grow hair on their face. It will kill hairs inside the pores of the skin. I hope it will remove Sunflower’s beard.»

Sun squealed in delight: “I want to try it.”

«First spread a little on your arm. It will sting. If it is unbearable wash it off with water.»

Sun spread a small portion of the mixture on her lower arm, spreading it about two inches wide and six inches long. You could see the sting register on her face, growing into actual pain. But she held out for nearly two minutes before finally letting out a howl as she splashed water on it.

“Look, the hair is gone,” she said with both glee and a wince. Grey looked at her arm, and the spot where the paste had been and indeed it was completely hairless.

«No hair will ever grow again in that spot,» Red Oak said.

“I need to do my face,” Sun crowed.

“Not if it hurts that much,” Grey insisted.

“I don’t care. Even if I can only do bits at a time, I will put up with it to get rid of my beard,” Sun insisted.

«We can try to add some more liquid. The mixture should be more of a paste, not gravelly like it is,» Red Oak said. »Tears would be best, but with no more onion that won’t happen. Try a little of the water the vegetables are boiling in.»

Grey dipped a mug into the boiling water and scooped out a bit. He handed it to Sun: for some reason she had to mix the potion herself. Red Oak told her to add a third of the liquid in, and mix it up.

The potion now looked more like a paste or poultice, and Sun mixed it until it was cooler. Then Red Oak had her smear it on all of her face and neck. Grey pointed out a few spots where she had missed, and then helped her get her sideburns even.

She finally was finished, and wiped her gooey hands on her arms to use the last of the paste from them.

“Not so painful as before,” she said through gritted teeth. Grey was just glad it was her and not him going through the pain. She endured though, leaning back and closing her eyes. Eventually Red Oak spoke «That is enough. The material is starting to crumble. It will not do anything more. You can do a second coating if that was not enough.»

While Sun had mixed the water into the mixture, Grey had walked over to the spring and filled water in two of the big aluminum pails from the store. It was into one of these that Sun plunged her face, washing away the mixture. Her face came up completely hairless.

“You are pretty,” Grey said. “I didn’t notice before, when there was always stubble. But you have a much smaller nose than most men, and your chin is kinda pointed. You really do look pretty.”

“Thanks,” Sun said, turning red at the compliment, but still pleased that she looked more feminine now.

«Don’t your arms hurt?» Red Oak asked.

“Oh my, with the pain from my face gone I hardly noticed it,” Sun said, plunging her arms into the water and clearing away the rest of the poultice. When she pulled her arms out, they were nearly hairless from wrist to elbow on the tops. The bottoms of her lower arms had not been treated, but there wasn’t much hair there at all. And her upper arms were also fairly hairless up to the shoulders, where they reverted back into a forest of man-ness.

“There is enough to do my chest,” she said. “And perhaps enough to do my back, if you will help, Grey?”

“Anything I can do,” the young man said. With that Sun undid her dress, and removed the sweatshirt that she had on under it to keep warm. It was Grey’s largest and fit tightly on her torso. Grey was a little surprised to see a male-looking chest, with small nipples. He had been thinking of her as a woman so much that he was expecting a flat-chested woman under there.

Sun reached in and took half the remaining mixture and spread it across her extremely hairy chest and shoulders. She only left it for 10 minutes this time. It was not the pain that got to her, but the cold. She rinsed off, and Grey bundled her up in a bearskin next to the fire to warm up again. He looked at the remaining poultice.

“This won’t make me lose my hair anywhere, will it?” he asked.

«Not unless you get it on your armpits or groin,» Red Oak said. «That is the only place you have hair to lose.»

Well, that revelation embarrassed Grey a bit, but he had Sun doff the bearskin and face away from him. He took up the rest of the poultice and spread it all across her hairy back. When he was done, he asked Sun to raise her arms, and then wiped his hands clean on her armpits. He plunged his hands into the second bucket and rinsed off the trace of poultice that remained.

She lasted 15 minutes again until Red Oak ordered Grey to clear the guck off. He used a rabbit pelt like a rag and splashed water on her until the entire poultice was gone. Her hairy back was now clear and smooth. “It looks beautiful now, Sun,” he told her. He didn’t mention that it didn’t look like a girl’s back. Her muscles and the size of it showed the strength and power she still had.

Surprisingly, she didn’t button up her dress, took off the bottom and but ran naked out of the lodge and into the icy river, singing as she went. Grey was slow to react. He had seen her naked groin, and her penis was at least half again larger than his. He finally shook off the image, and got out the bearskin to put around the naked girl who was still singing as she was bundled into the robes and set down by the fire.

“Your voice even sounds higher,” Grey noted. “Or was that just the cold water?” Coming out of the river her genitals had looked smaller, but still bigger than Grey’s.

“I didn’t even think of which voice I was using,” Sun said breaking into another verse of the song she had been singing. This time her voice was even higher.

“That sounds just like a girl,” Grey said.

“Truly?”

“Really truly.”

«It can be more,» Red Oak said. «You can rinse the buckets, but leave the pot her poultice was in. She can eat from that, and the rest of the medicine will go inside of her.»

“What will that do? Remove hairs inside of her?”

«Oh no,» Red Oak said. «All of the hairs inside are needed by the body. But it will concentrate around her throat. That is where the voice lives. The potion will tighten it and make it higher. The last voice she used will become her normal voice and she will not be able to sound like a man even if she tries.»

“That, oh let’s do that,” Sun sang out. “What a wonderful thing that was. We will have to do more next week with the other onion. My legs still look like fur, not skin.”

Grey put the venison jerky into the vegetable pot and then headed out to carefully wash the pails in the river first, and then the spring stream. He hung them upside down on the posts where they were stored, and then came back into the lodge, finding Sun in her dress again.

“It is going to be a while before the stew is ready, so let’s look at what else I bought,” as he went to his sacks. The items from the store were pretty boring, more rice, beans and salt. But then he went to the knapsack.

“Is that bread?” Sun shrieked. “Oh I so want a slice of bread. It has been so long.”

«One slice a day,» Mimiha said.

Sunflower’s face fell. “Oh well, that is better than none. But won’t the bread go bad at that rate?”

“You are the one on a diet,” Grey teased. “I haven’t had bread for over a year, and I’m going to have two slices with each meal. It should be gone in four days.”

He quelled her disappointment by pulling out the bib-overalls. She looked at them with interest and then noticed the legs. “These are men clothes,” she said in disgust, dropping them.

“No, but look,” Grey pulled out the roll of denim fabric. This is nearly the same color. You could cut the legs apart and sew a big triangle of fabric between each leg, front and back. Voila, cute maxiskirt.”

“But I don’t know how to sew, and I don’t have the sewing equipment,” she said sadly.

“You can learn to sew. I’m sure Mimiha can help guide you, and ‘Tada’,” he pulled out the sewing gear.

«Oooh, beads,» Mimiha said when she saw the kits. «You can decorate your new skirt, with those, and many other things. In the old days you could make wampum with all that.”

“She still could,” Grey said. “The store likes selling First Nations crafts. If you were to make some strips of beadwork, they will pay. And Mimiha can teach you how to make Dreamcatchers too. Frank said he would like to get some of them.”

Next Grey pulled out the other two bolts of fabric. Sun oohed over the pretty print, envisioning it as a new dress that fit her properly, not like the baggy old sun dress she was still wearing. But then Grey handed her the white print, and she gasped.

“It is so pretty. What will I do with it? It isn’t the right thing for the woods.”

“I don’t know,” Grey said. “It just sort of called to me as being perfect for you. Maybe a nightdress.”

“Oh yes, yes, yes,” Sunflower crowed. “It would be perfect for that. It would be too cold until spring, but by then maybe my sewing skills will be good enough to work on something so beautiful.”

Finally Grey pulled two large balls of yarn out of the bag. “What are these for?” Sun said. “Do I need to learn to knit too?”

Grey mumbled a bit, then said: “They are to replace the towels in your … uh … bra.”

Sun’s eyes lit up as she understood. She turned around, and Grey could see that she was doing something under her sweatshirt. She turned back around and he could see the change. They were smaller: apparently yarn compresses more than terry. But the shape was smoother and Sunflower had a huge grin on her face. “Thanks Grey. They are great. Although I suppose it wouldn’t hurt if I did take up knitting.”

Grey chuckled, then laughed, and finally was rolling on the floor to the point Sun was worried about him getting too close to the fire. Finally he stopped.

“What was all that?” she asked.

“I had a mental image that just broke me up,” Grey said, still giggling. “You were knitting, and the yarn was coming out of your boob. As you made the scarf longer, one boob got smaller.”

“If I start to knit, you will get me more yarn and needles and stuff. I wonder if Mimiha could teach me?”

«Knitting is not a traditional art,» the spirit said. «But I could go into the mind of one of the townspeople who know how, and learn. Then I could teach you.»

“You can do that?” Grey asked. “Go into people’s minds and tap their knowledge.”

«In most cases, yes. The person would never know I was there. I would go in when they are sleeping, and they would dream that they are teaching the art to a young girl. Over several nights the dream would have the girl progress from a beginner to an expert, and this would let me master the art. Then I could teach it to Sunflower.»

“That is cool,” Grey said.

---- ----- ----

The pair spent the next few weeks working around the camp. They got started on a cedar strip canoe and Grey learned that Sun was proficient with tools: perhaps more than he was. She helped get the rusty old tools from the farmer into working order, and those made canoe-building faster than ever before.

“My dad was a trucker,” she explained as they worked together. “I lived with Grandma, but when Dad was between runs we spent a lot of time in his garage. He liked doing mechanical stuff, like making old cars run again. He also was into woodworking, and made fine furniture. He was planning to retire from trucking and do woodworking full time, with mechanics as a hobby. Then he was in the crash …” Sun choked up, and Grey stepped over and put his arms around the big body.

“Thanks,” Sun said, pulling back from the hug. “Grandma died that fall, just five weeks after my 18th birthday. I was alone, and that made me really get into football at Mac. The team was the only family I had, so I did things like the weights and the diet that I probably shouldn’t have.”

They worked silently for a while, and then Grey spoke: “I don’t think I ever told you but I sent an email to my Mum when I was in Tweed. I looked through the Internet and it seems that everyone is okay over there, but I think Mum will be glad to know I am okay. I’m going to let them know more when I turn 19, I think. Maybe even invite them over to see things here. I explained that I am here to replace the baby that my ancestor stole. I hope she understands.”

“You should go to Tweed again,” Sun said. “Maybe your Mum has answered your email. I have no family. I don’t want you to lose yours.”

“I guess I don’t have to go to Tweed,” Grey said. It is Gmail, so any computer will access it. Frank at the store might let me use his computer. But I can’t reply again from here. I said I was going to Toronto, and if they have any detectives on the case, two emails sourced from this area will immediately get them looking around here.”

----- ----- ------

Two days before Christmas the first big storm of the year dumped nearly a foot of snow on the camp. Sun was pretty much confined to the cabin, although she did have to trudge through the snow to the outhouse. But going anywhere else was just not worth the effort. In some places there were drifts five feet high.

Grey did the outdoor work on his snowshoes, bringing in water and wood. In the lodge they worked at opposite ends of the building, making Christmas presents for each other. Grey knew he was getting something sewn, and Sun knew that she was getting something of wood, but neither knew what it was.

On Christmas morning they woke to find another few inches of snow had fallen. Both went to the outhouse, and then came back to the roaring fire that Grey had made, as large as was safe inside a wooden structure. There would be no scrimping on firewood on Christmas Day.

“It doesn’t look like Santa left anything for you,” Grey said when she returned to the cozy lodge.

“He never has. I have prayed for a vagina for about 20 years, and never got one.”

“Well, I can’t give you that, but I hope you will like this.” He handed her a pair of oversized snowshoes that would support her weight on the snow.

“Oh, they are so pretty,” Sun said, looking at the intricate carving that Grey had added to the toe and heel sections of the frame. His carving ability had greatly improved over the past year, and he was proud of the lacy patterns he had added to the shoes. The heels had about 14 inches of lacy carving, and he traced out the work ‘Sunflower’ on each side in the lace. Sun squealed with delight when he showed it to her.

“This is your present,” she said, handing him a deerskin wrapped around something. Grey peeled back the skin and found a pair of deerskin mukluks. “Oh, you shouldn’t have,” he said. “We may need that skin to keep you warm this winter.”

“Well those sneakers you have been wearing are pretty much shot,” Sun said. “And Mimiha says these will keep you warm and dry in winter. There is enough left of the pelt for me to make a pair for myself, and perhaps a pair of makizins.”

Grey pulled on the boots, noticing that there was a beadwork design at the top. “These fit perfectly,” he said, leaning over to give his ‘big sister’ a heartfelt hug, which she returned. The boots went nearly to his knees, and he would no longer have to place wet socks near the fire to dry.

«And I have a gift for Sunflower too,» Mimiha said. «You have been here for just over six weeks, and I want to tell you that you have lost 15 pounds of weight, according to the scales your people use.»

“Thank you Mimiha,” she said. “That is wonderful, and makes me glad that you have been making me stop from eating as much as I want.”

“But not tonight,” Grey said. “I am using the last of the potatoes from our garden in our Christmas feast, and we will both eat as much as we want.”

------- ------ ----

Four days later Sun had finished her own mukluks, and was using her snowshoes to putter about the camp. It was a sunny spell, and Grey was up near the spring stream getting water while she was down exploring on the other side of the camp.

«I must talk with you, Grey Wolf,» Red Oak said.

“What is it,” Grey said.

«We have all the ingredients but one for a treatment for Sunflower. It will make her more feminine. It can’t make her shorter, or her chest smaller, but it will give her female breasts. The weight on her stomach will move to her hips and rear. If she continues to lose weight, she could get a female figure … although still large.»

“What is the missing ingredient?”

«We need quite a lot of urine from a pregnant moose. Probably one of your pails full will last for the entire year. The moose only breed in the fall, and in February and March a cow will be to the point where the urine is ready, right up until she drops her foal.»

“My god. How do I get urine from a moose? I haven’t hunted one yet, but I’ve seen them. They are huge.”

«That will be for Flint and you to work out. You only need to do this if you really want to.»

“I do, more than anything,” Grey said. “Sun deserves it. But … oh my God … how will I do it?”