Just after the group headed for the parking lot...
Heather McCormick had just about slipped back on her old gray hoodie when her brother's voice carried over the room, calling her to join him. She'd explained the key situation to Jorge and Lyall who were sharing duties of getting everyone room keys while Emily continued to get entries from people around the room for the guestbook.
Approaching from the left sliding glass door was Seamus who currently wore khaki pants and a black shirt with the words 'Fatal Frame' printed against the backdrop with a woman's silhouette on it in white. The front of him had splashes of white goo that had hardened in the last few minutes from his experience on the football player's bus earlier... 'experience', in this case, being a euphemism for orgy.
His green eyes met his sister's similarly green eyes and he looked worried. They weren't twins, though the family resemblance was unmistakeable. Just before Heather could ask what was wrong, Seamus's fluffy fox tail stiffened. He spoke in a serious tone: "Family meeting." He took a breath. Evoking that phrase amongst McCormicks usually meant a serious topic was being broached. "It's mom," he said. "I... I think she's in shock?"
"It's freaky," Heather admitted. "But did you explain the 'lust wave' situation?" she asked as she followed Seamus. He'd turned on his heels and started heading for the back patio. "Whoever you gave head to, that doesn't change your real preferences."
"OK, firstly, I got head, not gave," Seamus quickly corrected the record. "And secondly, this isn't about me, it's about her," her brother explained as he pulled aside the somewhat rusted sliding glass door. "Mom got hit with a wave too, which I guess you didn't notice even though you were on the same bus with her," he declared a little more accusingly than he meant.
"Pardon me for not naming an anim—wait." Heather shook her head. "What's mom turning into?"
"See for yerself sis," Seamus motioned towards their mother Shannon who was standing out in the grass near the cliff edge while she had Achak, the school mascot, on a leash.
Jutting out from the top of her black yoga pants was a rather large shark tail. The elastic band was intact and the tail was fed through underneath it. The white underside and grayish blue top of her scales complimented the brighter silver and blue stripes that were vertical up the outermost part of her pants' legs. Her caudal fin seemed sturdy and wouldn't stop swaying back and forth.
"Mom." Heather stated. She almost made it a question, but clearly it was her mother. "You OK?" she asked. The siblings could clearly make out the same gray-blue coloring along the backside of her heels visible from the top of her sneakers. That color was also over the top of her left arm, while the underside was the white... whiter even than Shannon's naturally pale Irish skin.
She turned to face her children approaching, the lower portion of her blouse at the front unnaturally pressing forward, hiding her claspers from view. "Yes," she said. "I mean..." She turned her head back to look out across in the direction of the lake below. The lights on the back porch made some limited reflections on the otherwise dark waters below. "No, I guess not."
"Mom," Heather repeated, louder. Shannon turned back around to face her daughter. "It's happening to a lot of people," she offered. "I mean... look at Seamus," she motioned. Her brother smiled and turned to the side, happily wagging his plush red-orange fox tail, the white tip making it easily trackable in the dim light of the night. "Or Ted," she said. "Ted's got it the worst, I think."
"Matter of perspective, dear," her mother spoke sadly, her shark tail moving slowly back and forth above her heart-shaped ass. "I feel..." she trailed off. "I don't know what I feel," she realized. "Mutilated? No. Scarred? Maybe 'scarred'," Shannon nodded. Her eyes met Seamus's. "But how are you doing... Well?"
"I feel pretty great mom... sorry." He'd started with a lot of mirth in his tone, but it was derailed when he saw the sadness in his mom's eyes deepen. "We'll figure this out... and we'll undo it."
Shannon looked down at Achak as he now sat next to her. His fur's color had returned and the low-content wolf-mix husky sat still for the first time since leaving the bus.
Their mother took a long breath, considering her words before speaking: "You know I've done my best to understand your situation," she started, looking at Seamus. "I gave birth to a fox in human form... the kinds of stuff my grandparents would warn me about," she smirked. "A child of the wood, they'd say, but they meant 'fey' more than anything." The sadness never left her tone even as she smiled. "But look at me... I've gotten more than a tail, and you will too..."
Seamus glanced at his sister. Heather's eyes met his again and spoke: "She's trying to see the bright-side, I take it... her Therian son becoming his true self. But in doing so, he'll lose his humanity and run into the woods, forgetting us," she offered. "Trust me. I've been thinking the same thing."
There was a brief moment of silence to the three as the clouds rolled up overhead, churning in color of a mean storm that was slowly dissipating. Besides the occasional sprinkle, heavy rain from earlier seemed to have mostly gone away. Crickets and other woodland creatures were making noises back beyond the parking lot where the figures of Andy, Chris, James, and Zelda were all standing around a VW Beetle.
Taking a breath, Seamus looked back to his mom. "The more fox I can be and keep myself the more I'll feel right," he said. "I already can't imagine life without my tail." He glanced between them, then dropped down into a knelt position, balancing on the toes of his feet. "But wether I'm a fox or not, I think I want to think and be aware like a human... so I am in no hurry," he said. "You won't lose me so quickly."
"And I guess I'll need to talk with Clara in the morning... see if we can teach an old woman to finally swim." Heather and Seamus both lifted their heads, each having neglected the relevancy of their mother being uncomfortable in water. "Clara, right? She's on the swim team?"
Seamus nodded, his eyes turning slightly to one side, then his whole head at once. In the next moment, Shannon's eyes followed her son's and she too turned visualize something.
Heather blinked, watching them. "Guys?"
"Nothing," said Shannon, looking back to her daughter. "I'll be fine. Let me sleep on it and we'll see how I feel in the morning." It was at that moment that Achak turned to put a paw up on Shannon's side. For a moment, it looked like he would beg... but then he just started trying to hump her leg. "No. Down!"
Seamus chuckled, watching his mom push the large dog off of her. "Damn, have his balls always been that big?" he wondered, having a good look from where he was low to the ground.
Shannon frowned. "Seamus, Achak's been snipped for most of his sixteen years," she said, pushing him off with her more rough hand. "He doesn't have—"
"—balls?" Heather asked, moving over to her mother and now actively trying to pull the dog away from her. "He does now," the daughter pointed out as she pried Achak's legs off of Shannon and pulled him away onto the ground. From his back in the grass, Shannon could now see Achak's new and visibly growing balls. Mrs. McCormick managed to get a little wet at the sight of those testicles and his slowly hardening red rocket.
Seamus took the leash from his mother and pulled the dog further from her. "His fur is less gray too," he realized. As he pulled the dog away, Seamus could feel his own shaft hardening in his pants. Without much consideration he could feel his penis reshaping into something much more canine in shape and it just felt right...
Seamus's tail lifted up a little and he blushed. "Whoa... is this a wave?" he asked. "Or am I just going to be dangerously horny all the time now."
"Well—" Heather smirked, "—you are a teenage boy."
Seamus shot back: "Say an animal and see what it does to you."
Heather put up her hands, admitting defeat on that one. It was truth she didn't have a frame of reference nor did she want one. Her head tilted over to one side and she was clearly thinking about it... about saying an animal.
"Don't," her mother said to her, turning away as Seamus wrestled Achak to the ground. "Put if off for as long as possible," she implored.
"OK, mom," Heather sighed. "I was just thinking... dad would always say to face your destiny head on... to choose how you go rather than leaving things to chance." Shannon leaned in and started hugging her daughter, the rough denticle-scales of her left arm being resisted by Heather's hoodie sleeve. "Mom?"
"Your father... your father will come looking," Mrs. McCormick nodded as she looked down at her daughter. "He's sending me messages right now," she said, though she didn't dare show her phone due to the content of the more explicit texts.
"He is?" Heather asked, then turned her head towards Seamus at the sound of grunting. She saw her brother with his arms around Achak's upper body, while he was over the dog's back, humping. "Seamus!"
"What? —oh, shit!" he responded, quickly letting go and rolling off of the dog. He sat on the ground, his green fox eyes looking up at them. His hair had begun turning to fur near his ears as they had gone pointed and black. He shook his head, and the changes started to revert. "Sorry, sorry! Show of dominance!"
Heather took a deep breath. "OK, so you really can't control yourself." Seamus shook his head vigorously.
"It's true," Shannon said, putting her human hand on Heather's shoulder. Her daughter looked at her. "But remember... the world is going on out there," she said. "We've only been missing for an hour or two. Eighty plus people on a school trip won't be overlooked."
"But mom," Heather frowned. "If no one can leave... isn't that just inviting more people to get lost?"
There was a long pause there while Seamus started swatting Achak on the head. The dog was licking Seamus across the boy's new muzzle as if he was pulling it out of his face. His ears and fur elsewhere had reverted, but new changes were arriving. Shannon pulled hard on the leash to get the dog off of her son. The leash was one of those ones that wrapped around each leg so it didn't choke him.
Mrs. McCormick sighed. "At this rate, my little flower... if we don't get rescued, it doesn't seem like we'll last all that long." She took a breath. "People are going to come looking for us... your father, and the parents of other students... cops," she added. "And wether they get stuck too or not, we'll just have to see."
"Unless the cabin moves," Heather said simply, her eyes watching Seamus as he knelt in the grass. "It's possible this place was elsewhere in the world before," she said, and then took a few moments to explain the situation with Andrew and his feelings of Deja Vü. "So, they went out to go check her car," she finished, motioning over to the group visible out at the parking lot. "Maybe they're'll be something there that can help."
"So... people can dip into transformations and revert?" Seamus asked. He'd managed to hold Achak down without doing anything with him while Heather monologued.
"It was happening with you," Shannon offered, then explained what she'd seen of Seamus's appearance a few minutes ago. Through the course of the story, her mood had improved, almost returning to normal. She looked to Heather. "But if little Andy made it out before, then we could all make it out this time."
Heather nodded softly to what her mother said... but, in truth, she was thinking negative thoughts she didn't want to share now that Shannon was feeling better. Namely that while Andy may have survived the experience, possibly... his parents and little sister did not, as far as they knew.
"Yeah," Heather forced a smile. "You're right mom."
"Hey, mom," Seamus started a thought. "Do you think... what we saw earlier was a leyline like Heather mentioned." He waved his hand in the direction the two of them had looked off to while Shannon had been talking about Clara. "That... redish-green thing."
Heather blinked and looked to her mom. Shannon revealed that what she saw was more cyan than anything and that's why it caught her attention. She looked back to her daughter. "Like... wispy?" the mother asked. "Usually I only see them at the corner of my vision."
"Usually?" Heather asked.
"It's the McCormick and Moloney genes," their mother said. "I guess, now that you're experiencing a magick, you two should know... our family has some feyblood." Heather's eyes widened. "You know when your father invokes the Star Wars line about having a 'bad feeling' about something?" Shannon asked. "That's a part of it. He really does have a sense for danger."
"I use it when I'm on defense," Seamus admitted. Heather's eyes looked over to him. "It easier to cover receivers when you know who's least dangerous." She got into mythology from listening to her grandparents stories... but while she'd always wanted it to be true, all she ever had was a feeling. "You get guidance, right?" Seamus asked, looking at his sister. "You've said that before."
Heather sat at a bench she didn't remember seeing a moment ago. "When I meditate," she nodded. "Sometimes when I ask myself questions about experiences, I... I guess I hear answers," she said. "When Andy was talking about deja vü... it's not like that. It's like... if I was conferring with an ancestor... someone I could only hear if I cleared my mind."
Shannon sat next to her daughter, her long tail out to the other side even as it wouldn't really stop moving completely. "Past lives," she nodded, hugging her with that dentine-covered arm. "We've talked about this," she admitted. "That's why it won't feel strange. It's been in our blood. Now... it looks like we're going to be tapping into some energies."
"Will Seamus and I have it more than you?" Heather asked.
Mrs. McCormick smiled. "Hard to say, my little flower... and my little fox," she motioned for Seamus to come over and sit at her feet in the wet grass. "But you clearly have it," she nodded. "And maybe we're not the only ones. All over the world, different peoples have different connections to the other worlds. I've only just used these ideas to temper my feelings... but it looks like these things are real, so... now I have to think on them."
Seamus leaned into his mom rubbing his head. "Well," he smiled, his tail wagging happily. "I guess we should keep our eyes out for anything out of the ordinary. Who knows what other secrets there are here besides freaky animal sex," the boy smirked. His mother lightly swatted him.
"Don't tempt it," Shannon said simply.
"Sorry."
And with that, the McCormick family sat and spoke together for a few more moments. Andrew and crew finished their talk and headed for the front of the cabin. Heather then took a deep breath. "I wonder what they found?" she asked, watching them carry books and backpacks with them as they moved.
Mrs. Shannon McCormick put her hands out to her children and stood up, pulling them with her. "Let's go find out," she said as she turned around and began moving towards one of rear entrances to the cabin from the patio, closer to where they were. Seamus held onto the leash of Achak as the family moved together, heading back inside.