Returning the herd wasn't really all that hard a task. The hard part was keeping the close enough together so that Alice and Abbey could take them through the mirrorverse back to the estate. Now, the deer, now free of Kurse's enslavement, were wary of the wolves that had taken up various positions trying to keep them together, and did not charge. After all, in nature, animals only stood and fought when they had no other option. The wolves on the island maintained only the presence to keep the deer together and leave only one "escape" roue, the sea, where Alice and Abbey would take the herd back home.
"So what is the plan, dear?" Rose asked Robert.
"We want to separate the bucks from the does first," Robert said slowly, "but we don't want them to really run, either, as we aren't hunting."
"Why the bucks first?" Ulysses asked as he came over, still wishing Sarah was with him.
"We'll need to wrestle all of them to get them moving toward the water so Alice and Abbey can "ride" them back to the estate and out the mirror we placed near the edge of the property," Robert explained, "If we move on the does, the bucks may charge to defend their mates, and enough of our pack members have been gored on their antlers already."
"Oh. But wouldn't they all move together?" Ulysses asked.
"A couple of us could make a faint at one of the does," Wendy suggested, "then the others could wrestle with the challenging buck."
"Wouldn't really work if they all charge together," Robert commented.
"Our only other option would be to make them all run and then wrestle down the stragglers," Rose spoke, "essentially hunt them without actually going in for the kill."
"It'll be a lot of running," Ulysses commented.
"Something wolves were built to do," Robert reminded him, "this will take awhile, and it's likely to take the rest of the "day" to do, but we can manage."
"What about the gargoyles?" Ulysses asked, "they're still here."
"Yes, but their material is not conducive to moving the deer without killing them," Rose reminded him, "like a stock car going at 200 miles per hour into a tank. The car will likely be on the losing end of that collision."
"Okay," Ulysses sighed, "So when do we start?"
"Once we've told everyone that they'll be doing some running," Robert commented.
+++++++
The deer meanwhile watched the wolves that they could see closely. Their species was an interesting one, which had startled nearly every scientist in America. They were known as Gold Deer, one of several species of deer that lived in North America, along with White Tailed Deer, Mule Deer, Elk, Moose, and Caribou. But the Gold Deer were different from their cousins, and the differences were more then just their coats of golden brown fur that forever retained that color and didn't shift between an orange brown and a dark tan brown the way Mule and White Tailed Deer did.
The greatest difference was their perceived intelligence and rather human characteristics. While there were Gold Deer that lived throughout North America, the greatest concentration of them seemed to live around Glendale and specifically on the Pack's estate grounds and acres of forest land to the north of the Pack's estate that had been in Jensen's family since the "Big Bad Wolf Pack" was first formed. Some had called this "stupid" on the part of the deer staying so close to potential predators, but testing on one or two over the years found them to be extremely intelligent for deer... possibly even sentient, but the scientists couldn't be sure though.
This was seen how Gold Deer reacted to specific names. Almost as if the deer HAD a name, which of course, all Gold Deer did. They were sentient in mind, if not in a human like form like the leomans and lupmans. Jack and Marcine were the current Prime Buck and Doe... although Jack's father seemed to respond to Jack and Marcine's mother reacted Marcine. Scientists, however, didn't know this for certain but guessed that they had to be intelligent if they could recognize a specific name, but nearly every human scientist usually stopped short of attributing sentience to the Gold Deer, and the Pack and the Pride rarely bothered to think about, as Gold Deer were their main source of food.
Gold Deer also had various natural adaptations that were unique to them. Every Gold Deer produced a pheromone that every species of deer found attractive. Nearly two hundred White Tailed Deer wandered onto the Pack's hunting grounds to investigate the Gold Deer scent. They commonly left when the Pack or the Pride appeared, but they still stayed fairly close. Some scientists guessed that maybe Gold Deer could interbreed with Mule or White Tailed Deer, as the few Gold Deer that left the Glendale area and moved west seemed to attract Mule Deer to their location as well as White Tailed Deer. The Pack had even encountered a couple of Moose following a Gold Deer Doe, but they seemed less inclined to stay near the scent when they learned of the predatory leomans and lupmans that lived in Glendale.
They could also survive on just about anything. Tree branches, tree leaves, ferns, grass, flowers, tree bark, fruit, and nearly any other piece of plant matter they could find was easily digested. And this was the reason why Jack, Marcine, and part of their herd had been taken to the island in the first place. A couple of human scientists wanted to see if Gold Deer could survive on plants they weren't familiar with. It was intended to last only a short time, but the battle with Kurse had delayed the return of the herd to the estate. Now, it likely proved the strength of the Gold Deer's four stomachs, but Alice had voiced the concern that Jack and Marcine might feel betrayed by what had happened... and of course the other wolves were perplexed by this. How could a predator betray its prey?
++++++
As the wolves finished conversing about something and began to slowly advance, with Robert and Opal actually leading the way with Ulysses, Rose, Wendy, and Caroline following closely, and the others taking flanking positions, Jack glanced at them and then at Marcine. He could see this was hunting behavior, and guessed one or more of them was hungry. If they wanted to eat him, Jack had no fear or problem with that, but he didn't want Marcine hurt, and he prayed to whoever deer prayed to that the wolves would honor the sacrifice made by one of his herd this time.
"RUN!" Jack ordered to the herd, not about to just stand there and be slaughtered, though, "Bucks, keep between the wolves and the does! Don't let our fawns die!"
+++++++
"So what happened to them when they arrived in the New World?" Cassandra asked Marie, "they didn't go bad then, did they?"
"No," Marie sighed, "The witches wouldn't go bad until the 1680s and their final battle occurred in 1691 before the Salem witch hunts began a year later... but Gita, Goldwyn, and Grisele were still very different from the people of the 1600s. Balthilde tried to raise them the way you would see mothers raise their daughters today, and if their story occurred today, Balthilde might have succeeded in saving her granddaughters, but the 1600s was a very different world. One where women were one step above slaves on the social ladder in colonial America, and it was expected of them to be baby machines, and the few that worked worked as maids, nannies, domestic servants, generally the way someone seeking gender equality would have hated to live..."
+++++++
Balthilde had fond herself an indentured servant to upper class Puritan family living in a then small town called Glendale equal distant from a town known as Frostville to the west and another town, Salem to the east...
They were a kind family and didn't treat Balthilde and her grandchildren poorly, but they could also be very firm, and they expected much from their servants. This amounted to slavery at times to Gita, Grisele, and Goldwyn, but Balthilde reminded them that it was to pay back the ship captain for their voyage across the ocean, they seemed to accept that.
"I have a delivery for you to make, Madame Volksheer," the "Master of the House" a man named Ronald Wise instructed.
"Of what, sir, may I ask?" Balthilde asked.
"Just some old clothes my children have out grown," Ronald answered, "the Praying Town to the southwest has recently received new potential converts since King Philip's War ended. They'll need proper clothing."
"Of course, sir," Balthilde replied, remembering overhearing Ronald and a few of his male comrades speak of a Native American they called "King Philip" fighting against the Puritans. Ronald and his friends seemed to vilify "Philip" for refusing to do as the Puritans wished, but Balthilde also saw that Philip was fighting for his people, which the Puritans didn't seem to notice, let alone understand, "May I take my Grandchildren with me, sir? I promise they can help."
"I don't see a problem with that," Ronald told her, "but you'd best be going. The delivery items are by the servants door."
About an hour later, Balthilde walked down a road that linked Glendale with a small Praying Town near it. Balthilde had heard of these towns, places where the Puritans tried to civilize and convert various "Indians" to the Puritan faith. They weren't good places to live and from what Balthilde could sense weakly through her magic, these Praying Towns were part of the reason why Philip launched his rebellion against the Puritans. Gita, Goldwyn, and Grisele followed, carrying baskets smaller then the one Balthilde carried.
"Do all these "Indians" like living there?" Gita asked curiously.
"I do not know," Balthilde answered, "though they may not. I doubt they lived under such conditions and restrictions before the Puritans arrived in the New World."
"Why would the Puritans do this? Aren't they Christian?" Goldwyn wondered, "wouldn't God punish them for being mean?"
"Not every Christian is Catholic," Balthilde carefully tried to explain, "and the Puritans see their actions as part of their own mission to civilize and convert non-Christians."
"So THEIR God demands they treat people poorly?" Grisele asked.
"They do not see what they are doing as wrong," Balthilde spoke, "Quite the contrary. They believe they're doing something good."
"Even though it's wrong? Shouldn't we tell Master Wise that he's wrong?" Gita asked.
"That all depends on one's point of view," Balthilde tried to explain, "the Puritans see themselves as helping the Native Peoples, and that what they're doing is something good. The Native Peoples see it as an attack on their culture and their traditions..."
"Who is right?" Gita interrupted.
"I would believe the Native Peoples are," Balthilde sighed.
"Then why don't they fight?" Grisele wondered, not knowing that the Native American chief Metacom, known as King Philip to the Puritans had fought.
"They did fight," Balthilde answered, "they lost... sadly for them."
"Could you have done something?" Gita asked.
"No," Balthilde sighed, "the conflicts between the "whites" and the Natives will go on for centuries still. It is one of the problems that will plague this land for a long time. And it is too big for any witch to solve... and to try would be cheating."
"Are you sure this land will be free, Grandma?" Goldwyn asked, "so far it seems to be like the Old World. Full of rules and laws and bad things."
"It will, but it will not happen over night," Balthilde told her.
Goldwyn was silent for a moment and then wondered to her self, "can we make them free faster?"
+++++++
The hunt had worked fairly well as they had managed to catch and wrestle two bucks, Jack and another male that was named Tom, though the wolves didn't know this. No one was hurt, but both bucks were very nervous and Robert, Wendy, Jessica, and Rose had all they could do to retrain them as Alice and Abbey approached.
Alice came right up Jack and looked up into his dark deer eyes.
"It is okay, Jack," Alice spoke, "You are in no danger and you are going home. And Marcine will join you soon. I would hope that your fawns grow up healthy beside you and Marcine."
"He can't understand you, Sister," Abbey spoke, "He's a deer."
"I am sure he understands us," Alice said back, "it is we who can not understand him... All that matters is that he is going home."
++++++
"I don't want to wrestle," Zulema said, "I'd get dirty. What about tag or hide and go seek?"
"What's wrong with wrestling?" Saba answered, "normal wolves and lions wrestle with each other all the time."
"You mean with their own kind," Amethyst corrected from her supervising spot, "the mundane wolf and lion do not live on the same continents... well, maybe the Asian Lion does, but the wolf's range is much further north."
"It'd still get dirty," Zulema protested.
"How about a water gun fight?" Nane wondered, "We can use the fountain to fill the canisters. And then we'd all be clean."
"What is it with you and water?" Nneli asked Nane, "only tigers like water."
"Maybe I'm a hybrid," Nane answered.
"Mom was a lion and dad is a lion," Tano told her sister, "none of us are hybrids."
As she listened, Amethyst silently wondered if the two groups would ever figure an activity plan before the the sun began setting again at the manor, not that it really bothered her though. Nothing ever really seemed to bother Amethyst.