Chapter Nine
Reversing Roles

 

“That’s the legend, anyway,” Charlie said after Jonathan had asked her about it the next day. “Now get your paws off the table or I’ll get the spray bottle.” He did as he was told and fwoompf-ed back into his human form. He’d been drawn to the smell on the kitchen table which had turned out to be cheese. “Oh, good, you’re dressed.” Jonathan nodded as Charlie fussed around, but she seemed to be trying to not make a lot of noise. “Please don’t go into the living room just yet. The new arrival is still kind of out of it. Hasn’t eaten yet.”

“New arrival?!” Simon poked his head around the corner with a slightly manic glint in his eyes. Charlie held an accusatory finger in front of his nose. He went cross-eyed to look at it, and Jonathan giggled quietly to himself. 

“No,” Charlie said. “None of that. He’s… younger than you lot are, and he’s very vulnerable right now.” Simon seemed to deflate only a little bit, and he scampered over to the table and snatched a bread-roll before Charlie could swat at his hand. “And he had to go through the ritual last night.” Jonathan raised his eyebrows. 

“Had to?” he asked.

“People… familiars like you… when you get hurt, you’re a lot more… how do I put this… resilient? You’re a lot sturdier,” Charlie said. Jonathan was a little bothered by her assuming he didn’t know what resilient meant, but it couldn’t be helped. “He agreed, and that let us save his life.”

“So he wasn’t going to make it, then?” Simon said, hopping onto the counter and kicking his legs. Charlie shot him a glare. “What?”

“That’s a very… inelegant way of putting it, Simon. Yes, it was touch and go there for a bit. I only got there at the very last second, but he’s alive now. That’s what matters.” Charlie started cutting open the bread rolls and buttering them. “But he accepted becoming a familiar only because he misses his family, and we can’t just let him see them, so we need to be careful around him and not give him any false hope. Things could go very bad very quickly if he tried.”

“Bad how?” Jonathan asked, sitting down on the chair. He’d wondered a few times what would happen if he did try to go out into the world and tell people that he’d technically basically died and could turn into a cat. 

“Well, it would just be a lot of work to clean up, and it would be very sad for everyone involved,” Charlie said. “His parents wouldn’t remember, and he’d be kept under supervision to keep him trying again, until he’s old enough to be trusted not to reveal the world of the magical.” She sighed and put the bread rolls on a plate, and poured some juice in a glass. 

“Will he ever be able to see them?” Simon asked with his mouth full. 

“Yes,” Charlie said, “after a fashion. I can explain more if you want to, but it’s mostly technical. There’s a lot of forms, and it’s very invasive. Everyone has to consent… agree, essentially, and even then it’s not an ideal solution.”

“Why?” Jonathan asked.

“Because we can’t risk this kind of information getting out. Imagine… evil people finding out about magic and using it to hurt people. And then there’s the fact that everyone would get scared knowing people like us exist, and maybe lashing out because they’re scared. We can’t make exceptions, I’m afraid.” Charlie sighed. “No matter how scared you children might get.”

“That kinda blows,” Simon said.

“I’ll have none of that language when he wakes up. And get down from there. I swear I told you,” she pointed at him and Jonathan, “both of you, not to be on the kitchen furniture. Anyway, yes, it’s going to be hard on him, so I want both you boys to set an example, and make him feel at home. It’ll be rough when you get to School, and he’s going to need people he feels safe around.”

“Okay, Charlie,” Jonathan said and shuffled his feet for a moment. A few things were going through his head. A part of him wanted to go in there and see how the boy was doing. 

Another, far more unpleasant part of him, the part his parents had drilled into him, felt it had figured out what Charlie was doing. She knew going to the Waxing Weather School was going to be stressful, and that having someone to take care of would distract him and Simon from how disorienting that would be. Charlie, that part of his brain said, was banking on the fact that he and Simon would try to keep themselves strong for a younger boy. And that part already resented being forced to babysit someone. He wasn’t having it. He didn’t want to be like that, think of people, especially young and vulnerable people as burdens. If someone was scared and vulnerable, that wasn’t their fault. 

“What’s his name?” he asked and picked up the plate. Charlie saw what he did, and for a moment, Jonathan thought she was going to take it from him or tell him to put it down. But she just nodded and handed him the glass of juice too. 

“His name is Dennis. Dennis Wilmot. He’s thirteen, and he’s very scared.” Jonathan nodded and walked over to the wooden door of the comfortable living room he’d woken up in himself not too long ago. 

“Why does he get to go see the new kid if I can’t?” Simon asked behind him, Charlie clearly keeping him from following. 

“Because,” Charlie chided him, lowering her voice so it didn’t carry through the house, “Jonathan is clearly taking this seriously. Besides, he’s a lot gentler than you are, and the last thing that boy needs is a ferret hopping off the furniture to freak him out even more.”

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“Boo,” Simon said, but didn’t argue any further. “What do you mean, gentler?”

“He doesn’t have the same kind of teenage boy energy you do,” Charlie said, and Jonathan smiled to himself at that. For some reason, the thought of having ‘teenage boy energy’ was distinctly strange to him. He was one, but that didn’t feel right. That sounded like it would include a lot of yelling and getting into scrapes, which really wasn’t his kind of thing. “Now, jog on. I have to get his paperwork in order to leave for School in two days. Are you packed for School yet?”

“Not yet!” Simon said cheerfully, and then, a few seconds later, “Oh, okay.” Where Simon got all that energy, Jonathan didn’t understand, but he certainly didn’t mind. It made the Unfamiliar House a lot more lively, and without his voice bouncing off the walls, it would feel much more like a large, stuffy house than it currently did. 

Jonathan pushed the door open and then carefully closed it behind him. The blinds were down and the lights were dimmed. If he’d come in during the night and had gone through the familiar ritual, it would make sense that he’d be tired. Especially if he’d been hurt. It took Jonathan a moment to adjust to the darkness. He kind of wanted to see if he could make just his eyes transform, so he could keep his night vision, but he didn’t want to risk going full cat and dropping the plate. 

There was a small figure on the couch, where he’d been before, too. Too small, Jonathan realized, for a thirteen-year-old boy. He put the plate with bread rolls down gently so as not to startle… Dennis, right? It didn’t matter. As soon as the plate touched wood, two ears perked up from under the blankets. In the dim light, it was hard to see any kind of colouration, but they were clearly very fluffy. Underneath it was a white muzzle, tipped with a black nose. It sniffed a few times, and then Dennis sat up. 

“Oh my goodness,” Jonathan whispered. He didn’t often see puppies this… fluffy.

“Hello,” the tiny dog said. He sniffed again. “Who are you?”

“Hey,” Jonathan said as he sat down across from Dennis. “My name is Jonathan. What’s yours?” He’d briefly considered just addressing him by his name, but in his position, he didn’t like the idea of someone already knowing a lot about him. 

“I’m Dennis,” Dennis said and sniffed again. “Sorry, I can’t stop smelling… um… everything. It’s really hard to stop. Can I eat those?” Jonathan smiled and moved the plate a little closer. As far as he understood it, because familiars were magic, they didn’t have to be all that careful with what they ate, even when they were in their animal form. 

“Yeah,” Jonathan said, “they’re for you. How are you feeling?” Dennis lunged forward, leaning his two forward paws against the table and immediately trying to fit a whole bread roll in his mouth. Chewing-while-dog seemed to be a bit of a challenge. “Maybe it’s easier if you turn back?” Jonathan asked. Dennis shook his head left and right quickly, but then paused, and spit the roll back out. 

“Okay,” he said, and sat back down, sitting up straight on the sofa. He was so small. “Um… This can take a moment. It’s really hard.”

“I know,” Jonathan said, smiling encouragingly. “Take your time.”

“Oh!” Dennis said, looking excited and perking up. “You’re like me?”

“Yeah. I can turn into a cat, actually.” It was good to see that the boy was clearly not scared of him. The last thing he wanted was to be seen as threatening. “You’re some kind of dog, right?” Dennis nodded enthusiastically. 

“Yes! The lady told me I’m a malm— mamel— lama—”

“A malamute?” Jonathan tried. He didn’t know a lot of dog breeds, but the especially fluffy ones had always stood out to him. Not that he’d ever seen a malamute that small, though. Dennis was a particularly small specimen, but Jonathan wasn’t going to tell him that. The boy responded with more happy nodding. 

“Yeah! It’s really cool. I can scratch behind my ear with my foot! Well, I can try, but I fall over, look!” Jonathan looked as Dennis did, exactly as he predicted and fell off the couch. “Oof.” With the sound of rushing air, Dennis turned into a boy. Well, a human boy. He picked himself up off the ground with a sheepish smile and sat down on the couch. “Uh, hi,” he said, and waved. He was… well, distinctly thirteen. Curly black hair, lots of freckles, and a pair of glasses he’d clearly been wearing for a while, being slightly too small. 

“Hey,” Jonathan said, and gestured at the plate again. “Go ahead. You should eat something. Charlie made them for you.” 

“Oh, that’s really nice of her!” Dennis said and grabbed one and chomped down. He stared at the plate in front of him while he ate, and Jonathan let him do so in peace, awkward as it was to not be doing anything. After a bit, Dennis washed the food down with a sip of juice. “You know, I was really badly hurt last night,” he said. He sounded almost proud. “That’s why I can be a dog now. I took a really bad fall, but Charlie showed up and told me she could help me..” Jonathan nodded for a moment, not quite sure what to say. “But like, I’ll be able to see them soon, right? Mom will be so worried. She always fusses when I take the long way home from school, and then Dad pretends he wasn’t worried, and I don’t like making them upset. When can I go visit them? They’ll be so surprised when I turn into a dog!”

“I…” Jonathan said, and froze. What was he supposed to do? He looked over his shoulder at the door, and then back at Dennis. “I don’t…” He looked in the boy’s hopeful eyes and realized he couldn’t dash the boy’s hopes. “I’m going to be honest, Dennis,” he said, “it could take a little while.” He already saw the slumped shoulders, and made a decision. It didn’t make perfect sense, but, well, not a lot did anymore, right? Besides, Dennis’ parents finding out about magic wasn’t going to be the end of the world. He lowered his voice, in case Charlie was about to come in. “But I promise,” Jonathan added, “I’m going to help you see your parents again.”

The puppy on the couch barked with excitement and fell off, wagging his tail.