Mysterious Changes - Part 8

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Mama believes that all girls should keep a journal. Perhaps that's so. I've agreed to do it so long as she allows me to keep it private, and that she agreed to. That means private from her, too. If she knew what I was writing in it, she'd have me declared mad, but I swear it's true every last word of it.  Mama says most girls start their journals by telling about their early lives before they began their journals.

She says it helps to focus the thoughts to review what came before prior to writing what now is in the journal. Very well; that's just what I'll do, but it's that part of my journal that would make any reader think me mad.

We came to this lonely place three years ago from Ohio. Papa had a farm there, and my memories of the place are that it was prosperous. But our farm was in the south part of the state near Cincinnati.

Papa began to worry about the possibility of war between the states, with nearby slave state Kentucky on one side and free Ohio on the other over the slave issue. Papa didn't care about slaves one way or the other, so he thought it best to sell out and move further west where a war over slavery would be of little consequence one way or the other. Whether he was right or wrong has yet to be seen, but the newspapers tell of the certitude of war now that Mr. Lincoln has been elected.

So I have to think Papa did the right thing in spite of the consequences to our family.  My brother Jasper and I were excited about our new home, and as all boys do, we set out early on to explore the countryside around our new dwelling.

That's right, I said boys, for when we moved from Ohio, my name was Alexander Carver and I was as much a boy as my brother.  I remember the day as if it were just yesterday. Jasper was fifteen and I was thirteen.

We were all that there was of Carver's offspring, an older brother and younger sister had not survived, the results of cholera and smallpox respectively. The day before we had finished helping Papa clear some of our new land of stumps and rocks that would dull our plow.

It had been hard work for us both, and as a reward, Papa had given us a day to explore. It was a rare treat for us, so we vowed to take advantage of every minute.  Late afternoon found us along the little creek that flowed perhaps a mile from our house.

We had spent the waning hours of daylight capturing frogs, teasing them, and releasing them into the gentle, cool stream. We talked as brothers do, discussing what we would do with our lives. Jasper was much like Papa, bonded to the land. I think he never wanted to do anything but be a farmer.

As for me, there was a war coming. I couldn't wait to get a little older so I could go fight. It wasn't that I thought much about slavery either, but I was a young boy and young boys are always eager to fight.

Jasper laughed at that. He said if war came, our boys would whip the Southerners in no time, so I'd still be too young to fight since the fighting would be over before I could grow up. We were still arguing about this when we spotted the rock.  The rock caught our eye because, unlike the rough gray rocks along the streambed, this one was black and shiny so black that it was almost as if the light itself couldn't escape it.

It looked as if the rock had been buried on purpose along the edge of the stream, but the stream had changed course a little through the years, and the rock was mostly exposed.  While it was too large for us to lift, it captured our imagination at once. After all, we had just finished helping Papa tame the land of its rocks. What was one more? Jasper and I found broken tree limbs and proceeded to dig around the stone to expose it.

I remember very clearly that it was just sundown as we uncovered the rest of the rock, and Jasper tried to lift it away from the stream. Jasper was always big and strong, and I think he might have actually been able to move it some if he had not been taken then.

Yes, I said taken. I watched in horror as my brother began to change. Oh, he was the same size and shape as before, but his features had begun to change.

His hair became black as coal and his skin turned darker, his facial features changing until he appeared to my consternation to be an Indian.  Perhaps I should say here just how terrifying it was to see my brother become an Indian. Not only was the fact of his transformation troubling in itself, but the uneasy peace we had with our red brothers just three short years ago had taught us to be wary of the savages.

Now I was alone with one who had only moments before been my brother.  He uttered something to me; his voice was not quite right and his words unfamiliar. "I don't understand," I told him, wondering if I should run.  He then closed his eyes as if deep in thought. I have since come to believe he was actually searching through my brother's memories.

When he spoke again, it was in English. "Where are my people?" he asked.  I may have been only thirteen, but I kenned what he was saying. I took him to be the spirit of some Indian long gone. As bravely as I could, I told him, "They've gone all of them.

They're mostly on the reservation now."  It took him a moment to grasp that. Again, I think he tapped into Jasper's memories. "Then your father is on this land?"  "He owns it, yes."  "Then tell your father to let me go."  "You let my brother go!" I demanded as bravely as I could. As I said, I was only thirteen and always ready for a fight.  He reached out before I could react and grabbed my hand. I felt a strange tingle go through my entire body. "Wakan Tanka," he said. I can't remember any of the other Indian words he used, but I'll remember those for the rest of my life.  Then he let go of my hand and I felt really strange.

It was like every part of my body just didn't know what to do with itself. Oh, I could breathe and all, but every part of me just started moving around. And when it was all done moving, I was changed. I was a girl.

It's funny, but I didn't notice some things then I might have noticed if I had been the age I am now. I knew I was a girl, as impossible as that seems. My hair was long and blowing in my face and I felt smaller and weaker.

I looked down and saw I had on a dress, and it was blowing up against my legs. Something was irritating me on my chest on my, if I dare say it here, nipples. I knew I was shaped like a girl there. The same was true of what had made me a boy it was all changed now too.  "Tell your father to let me go," the Indian spirit in my brother's body told me again. Then he touched the stone and I watched while my brother started to look like himself again.  That gave me some hope.

If my brother changed back, maybe I would, too, but it didn't happen. I remained a girl. I was too scared and too shocked to help Jasper, so as soon as he looked like himself again, he collapsed on the ground.

Finally, I tried to rouse him. I put my hand on his and realized how much softer my skin was than his. I hadn't known a girl's skin could be so soft. Eventually, he came around. He didn't believe me at first when I told him who I was.

Apparently, he remembered nothing of the time when the spirit possessed his body. I finally convinced him as to who I was, and he began to apologize to me.  "It wasn't your fault," I told him in my new girl's voice, and it wasn't.

Jasper and I were brothers, and we might tease each other and even get into fights, but we would never knowingly hurt each other.  We tried everything we could think of to get me changed back.

Jasper had me grab the rock, but nothing happened. We called out to the spirit to help us, but it didn't do any good. At last, we decided the only thing to do was go home and tell Mama and Papa.   "You don't need to read the whole thing now," George told us. "But I think you can see why I believe you."

"We studied about Amelia Carver," I said dully. "I know she never got to be male again because she died a woman." And I probably would, too.  "I need to study that journal," George returned, holding out his hand for the volume. "If there's any way to beat this, spirit, I'll need to see what else Amelia can tell us."

I was reluctant to surrender the book. I knew from history that Amelia never became male again, and from her journal, I knew that three years later she still remembered her male life.

But what I really wanted to know is what happened to her after those opening passages. Did she always retain the knowledge of her previous male life, or did age rob her of that identity when she became an adult as it had robbed our parents of my boyhood? To lose who I had been would be like dying, although I might have a better chance of accepting my new life if I forgot the old one.  George noted my hesitance.

He leaned forward and looked at us carefully. "I understand your reluctance to give me the journal. I'm sure there's a lot it can tell you. But timing may be important, and there may be something in there that tells me what we need to know to stop any more lives from being, changed.

Do either of you know what a trickster is?"  We both shook our heads at first and then I remembered something I had read. "Isn't a trickster another name for Coyote, the Indian god?"  "Not exactly," George replied. "But you're close. He's not so much a god as a force of nature sort of a primal force. Some Native Americans called him Coyote you're right about that.

But in this part of the country, he was typically called Hare or Rabbit. He has other names, too Raven, Spider, Mica, Azeban, Suku, and a whole lot of other names I've forgotten or never learned."  "I remember, too," Ron broke in. "He was always playing tricks on people hence his name. But he wasn't a body swapper, was he? I thought he was a shapeshifter."  George smiled. "Either the schools in Leeds are very good or you two are exemplary students. Yes, Ron, you're right.

The Trickster was a shapeshifter or so we think. Unlike many Native American legends, we almost have too much information on the Trickster. Nearly every tribe in America had one in their myths, and just like the names were different, so were some of the attributes. By the way, tricksters also appear in non-Native American myths as well.

Loki among the Norse and Hermes among the Greeks had a bit of the trickster element in them.  "As for the body swapping versus shape-shifting, it's possible the trickster or tricksters did both, or it could be that the Native Americans who kept the legends got it wrong.

After all, a trickster who takes over the body of a bird or shifts shape into one still looks like a bird."  "You mean there may be more than one of them?" I asked with an uneasy feeling.  "Until today, I wouldn't have believed there was even one of them," George told us. "But now that I have reason to believe one may exist, perhaps there were many of them. Most Native Americans speak of a Spirit World.

Western culture has nothing quite like it. Native American languages and our understanding of their nuances are insufficient to describe the Spirit World. Usually, we just equate it to the Christian concept of Heaven, but there's a lot more to it than that.

Native Americans believed there was a world just outside our own, and that they could communicate with it. There were spirits in everything good spirits and bad spirits, just like there are good people and bad people. Some ranged by day and others only at night.

Some helped men and some hindered them."  "And you think Amelia's journal will help you discover what sort of a spirit we're dealing with?" I prompted.  George nodded. "In a word, yes. This spirit  call it a trickster or whatever you will isn't quite like any other one I've ever read about."  "You mean the others you've read about didn't change sex," I tried to clarify.  "That's right.

They changed their own sex, or maybe they body-swapped. But once they did that, they played a role and tricked others in that form."  "Do any Native American legends involve changing someone else's sex?" I asked, hoping that there was something in George's vast base of knowledge that would help.  "It isn't common," George told us. "It does happen though.

Some Native American tribes believed that the gods made the original women by changing some of the men. Shamans are a form of sex change, but it's more spiritual than physical. The only story I remember is one about a river spirit that changed a brave into a woman because he peed in the river she protected."  "Don't let the EPA find out about that one," Ron quipped.

Ron and George laughed, but the best I could manage was a smile. I felt very sorry for that poor brave. He had peed in a river and the spirit had presumably made sure that the only way he could do that again was by squatting in the river and getting his,  her feet wet. I would henceforth have the same problem, it seemed.  I passed the book to George. "I want to read it all when you're finished with it," I told him.

I wanted to find something in the journal that told me Amelia reconciled her mind with her body and remained proud of her boyhood and confident in her womanhood.  "I'll have it for you tomorrow," George promised.  "Tomorrow?" I asked brightly. That was better than I expected.  He nodded. "Yes. I plan to spend the rest of the day getting all this sorted out. Then tomorrow, I'm joining you in Leeds.

This is the kind of career, and I'm not going to waste a minute."  I felt true hope as we got back in the car. We had come to the right place. Thank God we had been greeted by George. His curiosity and enthusiasm were just what we needed. If anyone could help us, it was George.  I still felt that the odds of getting our real lives back were long. But I had played enough football to know that just because your team is down by ten points with two minutes to go doesn't mean all is lost.

If there was a way back to manhood, George would help us find it. And if not...  That's what I was thinking about as we headed back to Leeds. Ron chattered away as we drove. He was driving once again, and I thought he was oblivious to the fact that my mind wasn't on what he was saying. I was thinking about Amelia and what her life must have been like. There had been no way back to manhood for her, and she was condemned to a life in skirts.  Of course, her life must have been even worse than mine would ever be.

Frontier women had hard lives. Without modern conveniences, work was unending with all the cooking, cleaning, sewing, and mending. Nobody had heard of sexual equality. Women couldn't even vote. When I thought of it that way, I supposed I didn't have it so badly. I might be a young woman, but I could be about anything I wanted to be.

If I chose to follow my father into the law; there was nothing about my new sex that would stop me. Of course, I wasn't going to be playing much football.  "What do you say?"  "Huh?" Okay, Ron, you caught me, I thought.

I hadn't been listening to a word he had said.  "I said let's get out of the fancy duds and go get a Runza or something. I'm starving."  "Oh sure, okay." I looked around and realized we were nearly back in Leeds. I wasn't really hungry, but I supposed I had to eat.  "We can get out of these clothes first.

I'll pick you up in about an hour."  "Great." I really wanted to get into something a little less ladylike.  "But Sarah"  I turned toward him. "Yes?"  He blushed. "You really did look very, professional today."  I knew he hadn't wanted to say "professional." He wanted to tell me how lovely I looked in my butter-colored suit. I suppose he meant well. "Thanks, Ron. So did you." I suppose I meant well, too.  We pulled up to my house and Ron gave me back my keys. Then with a wave, he ran off to his house to change.

It wasn't until I reached the front door that I realized I had in effect agreed to go out on a date with Ron. Well, I had told him to treat me as if I were still Steve. It would be perfectly natural for Ron and I to go out for a Runza if I were still Steve, and that certainly wouldn't have been a date. I was sure that was how he meant it.  I was alone in the house - except for bedtime the night before, it was the first time I had been alone since my transformation. Had it really only been last evening that I had been changed?

It seemed as if I had been wearing this female body for decades. That isn't to say that it felt normal just the opposite in fact. It was just that the hours of being female had seemed endless.  There was a note on my door when I got to my room. It was from Mom, reminding me that I had agreed to help her judge some of the craft projects at the fair.

That was just great. Steve wasn't expected to do artsy-craftsy stuff but apparently Sarah was. Well, it was just one more penalty for being female, I supposed.  It felt wonderful to get out of my good clothes.

I had no idea women's clothing could be so constricting. The heels were less trouble than I would have imagined them to be, but the shoes were unfamiliar in configuration and rubbed in funny places on my feet.

As for the pantyhose, I had to admit their touch against my soft, smooth skin was strangely pleasing, but wearing them for several hours on a warm Nebraska day had made my legs warm not to mention my crotch. It was with a sigh of relief that I pulled them off, being careful not to snag them just as Judy had shown me.  In moments, I was standing there in nothing but a silky cream-colored bra and panties.

I would have been happy to remain there in my room in nothing else just to stay cool, but I had to find something to wear with Ron for dinner and something to wear to help my mother judge. It was warm now almost hot but it would be cooler later. I opened my closet, inspecting for the first time outfits of every shape, color, and description. I froze. There were too many choices. What was I going to do,  I backed away from the closet, and I'm sure if I could have seen my face, there would be fear in my eyes.

As a guy, I would have decided instantly. I would have picked a short sleeve shirt and a decent-looking pair of jeans off the rack and I would have been all set. As a girl though, the expectations of how to dress changed significantly. I didn't know the rules. I tried calling Judy but she was out, and there was no one else I really wanted to confide in.  Reluctantly I approached the closet. Although I wasn't into dresses, they caught my eye first.

After all, they were the most colorful and occupied a significant portion of my closet. No, a dress seemed a little much. Mom would have liked it and it would have made me more official looking for the judging, but I had had my fill of skirts and nylons for the day. Jeans would have worked for Steve, but I had found that morning that girls wear jeans for looks and not for comfort. If someone ever comes up with denim paint, I think some girls will just paint a pair of jeans on their bodies and they won't look any tighter than mine did for school that morning.