Written by Fulgur
Illustrated by Crosschan

Chapter 14

Housewarming

"Hey, what's happened?"
I woke up because someone was prodding me. I opened my eyes to find Soot standing over me. She didn't look particularly happy.
"Yes?" I asked.
"My head is swimming," she complained. "I remember something about my sis..."
I watched as her face turned into a mask of horror. She grabbed me by my collar and held me high in the air.
"What happened, Zack? Tell me!"
"Don't shout, please," I said. "You'll wake up Rosey."
"Rosey?" She looked at the sleeping little girl.
"Fia... is dead, right?" she said, hesitating.
I nodded. "We couldn't do anything. But the monster that killed her is dead, too."
Soot nodded. "Very good. But... the girl..."
Suddenly she hugged me and started crying.
"I've always hated my sister's guts!" she squealed. "She was always stronger, she used to just grab me and set me and spank the hell out of me, I thought she hates me too! But... but... she named her daughter after me! Now I understand, Zack, she was just trying to help me and when I finally figured it out, she's dead! That's just not fair! What am I going to tell that girl?"
I couldn't say anything. I've never seen Soot so miserable.
Rosey woke up. She ran to Soot and hugged her legs.
"You are Auntie Rosaleen!" she squealed. "Mommy told me a lot about you!"
Soot turned around. Despite all her feelings, I still had a suspicion she wants to pummel the little girl for calling her the hated name.
"Your name is Rosaleen, too, right?" she asked.
The girl nodded. "But Mommy always called me Rosey, Auntie."
Soot staggered. "Please... don't call me that. Call me Soot. I'm... more used to it."
The girl nodded solemnly. Then tears appeared in her eyes.
"Mommy is dead, is that right?"
Soot hugged her and started to cry.

The breakfast was made and eaten in silence. Grace brought the other girls up-to-date with current events. We told them the truth, basically - that Feltar killed Spectre and was, in turn, killed by Shawn. Soot was the only one who thought it strange.
"How did Shawn get here?" she demanded. "No ship would get here faster, and..."
I didn't know either. I didn't want to tell her about the glass ball. Or about the lines. Because those lines - that was most definitely a dodecahedron. Did Shawn have a help of yet another Geomancer?

It was May who started to talk.
"What happened here was terrible," she said. "We went here because we thought we can escape the pursuit, but we were wrong. And two people died because of that."
She took Rosey's hand and hugged her.
"We are responsible for what happened," she said. "Rosey, we will do whatever we can to help you. What would you want to do?"
Rosey thought about it. "I would like to live here," she said in the end. "I like this house. I like this island. But... I don't want to be alone. My Grandpa and Mommy are... dead... so..." She started to sob again. "Please... would you... stay with me? Auntie Soot and... everyone else?"
"That would be great!" cried out Linda. "We would have our own house!"
"A house with two rooms?" objected Grace. "With Rosey there are seven of us! It would be too pressing to live here."
"I want to stay here!"
I looked in surprise. It was Merta.
"I... I can't leave this girl," she explained. "But I don't want to leave everybody, either. So... I don't know what to do!"
She started crying, too. This started to get out of the hand.
"OK!" I shouted. "Please! First, we must go to the town. We still have some money left, we have to buy food. And... we must tell the townspeople about the deaths. I'll go. And you, Soot. And Rosey, you have to go, too."
Rosey nodded.

However I disliked manipulating people's minds, I had to admit that Raia did a commendable job. Losing a parent is a terrible thing to happen, but it seemed that Rosey just fast-forwarded through all the bad stages and ended up in acceptance. She had tears in her eyes whenever her mother was mentioned, but she was behaving as if she died many years ago, and not only yesterday.
I've noticed Linda stealing from the house.
"Where do you think you're going?" I asked her.
Linda shrugged. "I was afraid you will buy some food I don't like," she said. "Some... vegetables." She spat out that word. "I'm a strict carnivore, you know."
"We can buy you some fishes," I said.
She purred. "But I want to choose! Please, please, take me with you!"
I sighed. "But you get dressed properly. No tail or ears showing. And nothing funny, or..."
"I know," she nodded sourly. "You're no fun, really."
"Why does she have a tail and cat ears?" asked Rosey curiously.
There was no option of making up excuses. "Oh... she's a cat, in part," I explained. "It was... some sort of magic. But please - it's a secret. We don't want everyone to know."
"I always wanted a cat!" beamed Rosey. "Auntie Soot, can I keep her?"
Soot had to laugh, despite being called "Auntie". "Well, I don't think Linda would let you, for starters. But if you want to be friends with her - sure."
"Can we be friends?" asked Rosey Linda.
Linda looked at her. "Hmmm... are you a human kitten?"
"That's rude!" pouted Rosey. "I'm a child, not a kitten!"
"If kitten is a cat child, then you are a human kitten," teased Linda.
"Am not!"
This time, all of us laughed.
The long journey to the town has started.

"We should clean this up a little," said Grace. "This house is a mess."
"Grace..." asked May. "You... didn't faint yesterday, right?"
Grace's face fell. "No, May. I... I've seen everything."
"What happened to the... bodies?"
"Spectre's body just... disappeared. As for Feltar..." She sighed. "Zack dragged it to the woodshed. He didn't want Rosey to see it."
"Shouldn't we... you know, bury him?"
Grace hesitated. "We should wait for Zack to return. Please, don't remind me of that man right now."
Both girls looked over to Merta. She was engrossed in her book.
"What are you doing?" asked Grace.
"I'm studying," replied Merta. "I... I just fainted yesterday! I was no help at all! I must learn some more spells."
Grace looked into the book.
...There are five bodies that represent four elements and ether. They are called Platonics. Apart from them, the experienced Geomancers were said to control powers of thirteen Archimedeans and countless Prismatics and Antiprismatics. The best of them all were said to harness the power of mythical Polychora, of which no further information is known...
"Sounds weird," said Grace. "What are Archimedeans?"
"There are pictures of all of them," said Merta. "But it doesn't say what they do. And I'm afraid it will take me a long time to learn them. And there must be many other possible shapes!"
"Let's see... the ones you can do are these - the five platonics," mused Grace. "There is tetrahedron - four points and six lines. Octahedron - six points and twelve lines. Cube - eight points and twelve lines. Icosahedron - twelve points and thirty lines. And the dodecahedron - twenty points and thirty lines. And as for those others..."
She stared in the book for a while.
Two had  just twelve points and eighteen (or twenty-four) lines. Then, there was a line of four complex pictures with twenty-four points, with line count ranging from thirty-six to as much as sixty. One picture had thirty points and sixty lines. One had forty-eight points. Four had sixty, with line count from ninety all the way to one hundred and fifty, if you could trust the numbers written below them. And the greatest of them all had one hundred and twenty separate points connected with one hundred and eighty lines. Grace could faintly see squares, hexagons, and... oh yes, decagons in the diagram.
"Some of those are definitely not suitable for use in battle," she mused. "What about these two with twelve points?"
One of them was a hexagons with four triangles and three more hexagons inside. The other one looked like a square partitioned into five squares and eight triangles.
Merta reached for the chalk and hesitated. "I don't know what's going to happen," she said. "Maybe... I should go in the front of the house..."
"Good idea," nodded Grace. "Be careful, please - we have a lot of work to do here."

"Do you think," asked Soot as we were marching through the forest, "that I could ever be a mother?"
That question hit me completely unprepared. "What? Uh... Well..."
"I mean, Rosey will need a mother now," continued Soot. "I never... saw myself that way."
"You could be a wonderful mother," I ensured her. "If you learn to tame your temper a bit, that is."
She frowned. "Damn. I just knew it will be something like that."
Linda and Rosey were behind us, they apparently really took to each other. I just turned around to check on them, and...
"Linda!!!" I bellowed.
The catgirl dropped from the tree. She was holding Rosey in one arm.
"Yes?"
"Drop... her... down," I hissed. "You can't carry her up the trees!"
"Really?" Linda sounded really puzzled. "But she can't climb at all. How is she supposed to get there, then?"
"Linda, no debating. Do something stupid like this again - and you are going across my knee for a hard spanking!"
"How do I know what's stupid?" whined Linda.
"Just don't let her do anything she wasn't allowed before," I shrugged. "That might be safest, I guess..."

Merta set to work.
First, she drawed a hexagon on the ground. That was a new thing - all the shapes she knew so far only used triangles, squares and pentagons.
Then, she drew an inward-pointing triangle on three sides of the hexagon.
Then, a fourth triangle, inside the hexagon, and finally, she connected the corners of this triangle with other three triangles.
And then...

"You are still spanked?" asked Rosey as she was walking with Linda.
"Well..." Linda hesitated. "Yeah, but it's no big deal."
"Mommy spanked me a lot," said Rosey. "I hate it."
"Yeah - me too."
They smiled.
"Do the others get spanked, too?" asked Rosey.
"Oh?" said a voice from nearby. "Why do you ask, I wonder?"
Linda and Ropsey yelped and jumped. Soot managed to get close without being noticed - noticeable feat when taking Linda's formidable sense of smell into account.
"Auntie Soot!" squealed Rosey.
"Call me 'Auntie' again, and we will show you some discipline!" threatened Soot jokingly. "Really, I don't think this is of any concern to you." Her eyes were talking to Linda. Please don't tell her please don't tell her...
Linda smiled. "Some of them might," she acknowledged. "But I can't tell you about that. It's a secret."
"Ughhh..." grumbled Rosey.
I couldn't suppress a smile. "We are almost there!" I announced. "Try to not get lost now!"

Merta was looking at the object that materialized in her arms. It was stubby, having four triangular and four hexagonal faces. It didn't seem to do anything except quietly hovering at one place when she let go.
She tapped one of the hexagonal faces...
A blinding beam of light shot off the opposite triangle and burned a hole in the ground - mere inches from her foot! Merta yelped. She turned the object to aim away from her and pressed the hexagon again.
Now there was a perfectly circular hole in the trunk of a nearby tree.
Merta dropped the object on the ground and tried to press the top triangle.
Immediately, the ground in the vicinity of bottom hexagon started radiating intense heat - when Merta lifted the object, she saw a hexagonal patch of dirt transformed into ceramics.
So... this shape was derived from tetrahedron, right? Tetrahedron was fire and this - this seemed to be light. And heat.
As a final test, Merta lifted the object high in the air and pressed a hexagon.
As the beam of light was shining to the skies, the object slowly started to shrink. It shrunk and shrunk - and then it was no more.
"Incredible!"
Merta turned around. May applauded her. "That was great!" she exclaimed.
"I think I'm onto something," smiled Merta. "It's not hard to draw - and I think that I can draw one beforehand and just store it until I have to use it."
"Which shape was this?"
"The book calls it 'truncated tetrahedron'." Merta shrugged. "Way too long. I think I will just call it 'tut'."

"We should see the Mayor," said Soot. "About my sister, the house... Rosey... Zack, will you go with me?"
I nodded. "And the girls?"
"They come with us, of course."
"What?" said Linda. "I want to see the fish market!"
"And I want some sweets!" added Rosey.
"Later," I sighed. "The Mayor might want to see you too, Rosey."

The Mayor was a little man around forty. He was always nervously smiling.
I've given him the bare gist of the matter - Soot was daughter of the old man and sister of Fia, and both of those were dead.
"I know about the unfortunate death of your father," he nodded. "Your sister spoke of it. But I had no idea she did, too..." He looked worried. "Perhaps it was a disease? That could be trouble."
"No," shook Soot her head. "No, it was..."
"A monster ate her," said Rosey all at sudden. "But that monster is now dead, too."
"What?" The Mayor blinked.
"Rosey," said Soot quietly. "Go with Linda. Go play outside."
When they left, she looked at the man with a determined look.
"My sister and my father died because of me," she said. "We don't look it, but we have enemies... powerful enemies. They got to the island before us."
"I see," said the Mayor slowly.
"I thought we might try to lead a normal life here," said Soot with a sad smile, "but that's not possible. They will go after us again."
The Mayor closed his eyes for a moment. Then he shook his head. "Well, I..." He looked at me. "You are... Zack, aren't you?"
How did the man know my name? I nodded. "Yes, sir."
The Mayor took an envelope from his desk. "Read this, would you?"
I didn't recognize the writing. The message was cryptic, too:
A young man named Zack will come with a legend. He's instrumental to us. I'm on my way - expect me in three days. I'm calling in the old favor.
The letter was signed with word Tain.
"This letter was on my desk in the morning," said the Mayor. "I won't pretend that I understand everything, but I can't allow you to leave this island. Not right now."
"Mrs. Tain?" I whispered. "What does 'instrumental to us' mean?"
"I don't know," shrugged the Mayor. "Whoever the 'us' are, I'm not one of them. But... there is an old favor I'm owing Mrs. Tain. I have to..."
"It seems to me that everybody owes something to her," I mused.
Soot gasped. "Does it mean that we... can stay?"
"For three days," nodded the Mayor. "Until Mrs. Tain arrives. I hope there will be no trouble until that, though."
"None," nodded Soot. "We will try."
"I guess the house is yours now," continued the Mayor. "Or, to be more precise, it's half yours and half Rosey's, as Rosey has inherited her mother's part. Of course, there's a matter of a guardianship. I'm not sure what..."
"I'll take care of her for now," said Soot. "Until I leave this island. Could I do that?"
"Yes, as the nearest - only, in fact - living relative..." He sighed. "But..."
"I'll watch over her," I offered. "We won't make any trouble."
"People who say that usually end up the greatest troublemakers," said the Mayor. "For now, you have three days. Good bye."
He returned to his papers and we went outside to rejoin Linda and Rosey.
The only trouble was that they were not there.

Merta has commenced to try the second shape. So... a square, divided into five squares and eight triangles. She tried it.

Rosey moved towards the stall. She didn't feel she was doing anything bad - she was told to go play "outside". True, Auntie Soot probably meant the corridor, but surely this was outside too! She managed to sneak away from Linda, too.
Now, all she had to do was to wait until the stall owner looks the other way...
Suddenly a hand grabbed her and raised her in the air.
Rosey squealed, and managed to slip away. She turned around.
It was Linda and she looked very angry.
"Where do you think you're going?" she hissed. "You were supposed to stay with me!"
"That's no fun, Linda," objected Rosey. "There was nothing to do. Besides, nobody told me I can't go out of the building."
"Yes," countered Linda, "but you knew it was bad, otherwise you wouldn't sneak out that way! And what are you doing here, anyways?"
"I won't say," pouted Rosey. "That's not your business."
Linda arched her back. "Not... my... business?"
With a swift move, she grabbed Rosey under her arm and leaped towards an alley. She liked towns, but she felt most secure in alleys. Three jumps - and she was on the roof. With Rosey.
Rosey didn't understand what's happening. Not until Linda sat on the roof, dragged her over her knee and started to lift her skirt.
"Yeeek!" cried Rosey. "What are you doing?"
"I'm spanking you," replied Linda matter-of-factly. "That's what you get for being such a brat!"
Rosey started panicking. She meant it! Right now, she felt a warm breeze on her bottom, so she had to..."
"No!" she yelped, this time in real fear. "I'm sorry, Linda! Please, don't spank me! Not on the bare!"
But to no avail, as first sharp *SMACK!* has landed on her bared bottom.
Rosey was no stranger to being spanked (Fia was a strict disciplinarian and she had lot of training with her sister), but Linda was strong and her hand could deliver a barrage of stingers in an instant.
Rosey cried, begged, and howled, but Linda was mad and she was not pervious to any arguments. She had set to a task of making Rosey's bottom at least match her name, and she was doing well.
Until another hand clamped her wrist.
Rosey felt strong hands lifting her from the lap of pain and she hugged her saviour and cried and cried.
And when Linda saw the expression in Soot's face, she knew she was in deep trouble.

The house looked much cleaner. Grace was a maid, after all, and she had experience with much bigger house. It wasn't that hard to clean this place.
She turned around when May ran in.
"You have to see this!" she gasped. "This is... unbelievable!"

The ground was littered with smaller and greater shapes. They were made of triangles and squares.
"What are they?" asked Grace.
"Cuboctahedra," answered Merta promptly. "There were some false tries, but I finally understand how they work! You draw it on the ground, you see, and then you get the shape made out of whatever is underneath it - and there will be a hole left under!
Yes, some of the shapes were moved aside, showing square holes in the ground.
"Those holes are not like cubes," explained Merta. "They are permanent. So... we could easily dig under the house - make it bigger!"
"You may say 'easily'," doubted Grace, "but it would still be an awful lot of work."
"We could do it!" persisted Merta. "True, it would still be necessary to remove the material..."
"We'll wait for Zack," said Grace. "We don't even know if we can stay here!"

Linda followed Soot and Rosey on the ground. She contemplated running away, but in the end, it would be surely worse.
Once she got there, Soot slapped her face. Linda cried in pain.
"How dare you?" cried Soot. "How dare you, you filthy cat!"
"Stop that, Soot," said Zack, watching the whole scene from aside. "Linda might have a reason she did that."
"She was spanking Rosey!" yelled Soot. "Why did she do that, dear?"
"I went away from the town hall," cried Rosey. "And then she appeared and she got real mad and she..."
"Well, you sure shouldn't leave the town hall," said Zack with a sigh, "but she had no business spanking you! Linda, I'm afraid you will get a taste of your own medicine."
Now it was Linda who was panicking. "She enraged me!" she cried.
"You should never - ever - spank anyone in rage!" retorted Zack. "Soot? What do you think?"
"How could anybody spank a sweet angel like her?" said Soot. She didn't sound so angry anymore. "Linda, I think Zack should give you a good, long spanking so you will remember." She pulled something out of her bag. "With this."
This was the first time Linda saw the black hairbrush, but she already had a very good idea what could be done with it. "No, please..." she stammered.
"That's only fair," sneered Rosey. "Maybe you will remember that you cannot spank me!" She sticked her tongue out.
"I can't spank Linda with that hairbrush," objected Zack.
"You can't? Why?"
Zack smiled. "Because you are Rosey's guardian. This is your responsibility, Soot."
That was all the black-haired thief needed. She took Linda and quickly turned her over her knee. She was standing, resting one foot on an old crate.
Skirt went up and...
"Hold her tail, Rosey," smiled Soot. "We shall teach that cat a lesson, right?"
"Right, Soot!" laughed Rosey.
Zack was watching as the spanking started. Linda hated being spanked, squirming and writhing, but to no avail as Soot was holding her firmly. Rosey was holding Linda's tail. And the hairbrush smacks were raining down on Linda's backside.
"You'll pay for this, you brat!" yelled Linda between cries. "I'll get you for this!"
"This is still not enough for you?" asked Soot sternly. "Then take *THIS!* and *THIS!* and *THIS!*"
Linda couldn't do anything but cry now, but the rain of spanks continued.
"That's enough, Soot," said Rosey. "She already got it worse than me!"
"That doesn't matter, Rosey," *SPANK!* "she did something she had no right to," *SMACK!* "and this is her reward for that," *PLESK!*
"But you should stop now, Soot," I said. "Rosey is right, there must be a limit. Soot!" I cried out when the hairbrushing showed no signs of stopping.
I finally had to catch her arm - like she did to Linda, before. "You are beside yourself!" I said. "Look at her!"
Linda was one well-spanked girl. She fell down from Soot's knee, whimpering and trembling on the ground. Her bottom was all red, with traces of blue.
"She spanked in anger," defended Soot herself. "So I showed her how those things might end."
"By beating her senseless?" I cursed myself I didn't stop her sooner. It looked like Linda will have trouble sitting down for at least a week.
"Soot, she didn't deserve that," said Rosey. "She was right, I was bratty to her. Oh, Linda, I'm sorry!" She started to cry again.
Linda and Rosey were hugging each other, crying their hearts out - while Soot and me stood there, feeling bad.

"We're home!" I announced when I entered the house. The big room looked clean enough and the girls were beaming.
"I have learnt two new spells!" smiled Merta. "Next time, I can fight, too! And... we might have a way to enlarge this house a bit, too!"
"That's good," I said. "We will stay here for some time. Three days, at least."
"Dinner is ready!" announced Grace.
Another day was ending.

"Zack?"
I turned around. I was outside the house, as the girls were going to sleep. They didn't want me present for that. Rosey was standing at my side.
"Yes, Rosey?"
"I'm really sorry Auntie hurt Linda because of me."
I nodded. "Linda overstepped her boundaries, but so did Soot. But Linda will recover fast - I hope."
"Zack... you are the boss here, right?"
I laughed. "Hardly. Well, in a way, maybe."
"Could you tell Auntie... that I don't mind if Linda spanks me?"
"What?"
"I was mean to her," said Rosey. "I thought about it and I realized she was right to spank me. Besides -" she grimaced "- Auntie spanks a lot harder."
I laughed. "I will see what I can do."
After Rosey went back, a shadow separated from nearby trees.
"I guess I didn't start my career as a mother in the best possible way, did I?" asked Soot with a sigh. "If that girl is anything like me, she will need to be spanked a lot."
"Will you allow Linda to give her spankings?" I asked.
Soot shrugged. "Maybe. If she asks for permission first. And..." she looked at me. "You don't plan to spank me, do you?"
"I think there was enough spankings for today," I said. "But maybe next time, you should ask me for permission before spanking anybody."
"I will, Zack," she promised sincerely.
Right before I went in the house in her wake, I heard someone calling my name. This time, it was Grace.
"Zack! Zack!"
"What happened?" I asked.
"I went to the woodshed - to check on Feltar's body! Zack - it's gone!"

End of Chapter 14

May's Readers' Corner:
Hmmm... I don't know - was it housewarming - or buttwarming? Well, my bottom survived, once again, and that's for the best!
I'm not sure what to think about Rosey. It definitely seems she might have more in common with her Auntie than you would think!
And I feel with Linda - I got my share of over-the-board spankings, too, as a little girl.
Fulgur got a record today - this chapter makes Geomancer his absolutely longest series todate - and it might be his best one, too. And while he normally tries to not make the spankings central point of the story, this is a special occassion - so he put two in, and they might be a bit harder than usual.
After all, Fulgur's last name can be literally translated as "fourteen" - so this is, in a way, an anniversary chapter.
Oh, you ask about the next chapter? Well, sorry about that. Nobody knows - yet - what it's going to be about. Will there be spankings? Who knows? But I'm such a good girl! If there will be spankings, don't get your hopes up - they won't spank me, that's for sure... right?

May