Warren the Wizard Ch. 05

The old woman moaned, "Ye think I didn't know that? We needs ya ta fix it, we does."

"I can't, I won't fix it. Some might but I will not kill a child just because having it will be hard on you and your granddaughter."

"Oh, woe is me. How are we going to make it now? It's all we can do to keep food on the table now. If Tilly has to stop working the Inn because of the child we'll be sore put to survive."

"I'm sorry but there's nothing I can do."

Gloria left the small hovel and went to the Inn in search of Warren. When she found him, he smiled then said, "What're you doing here dear? I thought you decided to stay on the island. Which of the men had to bring you over?"

Gloria smiled for a moment at her exciting news about her new found skill of teleportation, then the smile faded when she remembered why she came to town and the hardship the pregnancy would be for the old woman and young lady. First, she said, "No one brought me to town Husband. I received some worrisome news and a request for help from one of my patients. All my study and your teaching finally worked and I teleported here. I can teleport now!"

"That's great. So why the long face?"

"Oh, that's because of the problem I came to treat. You remember the rape injury I had to treat a while back? You tracked down the men and took care of them?"

"Yes, so?"

"Well, the poor woman has ended up pregnant. She, or at least her grandmother wanted me to abort the child. I refused, of course but now they're facing an even more bleak future than before. I was wondering. Can we take the woman with us to the cabin. We can give her room and board in exchange for work..."

Warren smiled and said, "I really don't like the idea of having someone else at the cabin with us. When all three of us are there, it's full of bodies as it is. If you insist I suppose we could make it happen though. I'd rather see her just move to the island and work there, or we could maybe find something here."

"It's not work for her so much as feeding her, the child, and the grandmother. She works here at the Inn nights you recall."

"Oh, yeah. I forgot that. Can we use her here for anything? Maybe open a store to sell our potions, ensorcelled items, small things we or our people have made. She could serve as a receptionist for us when we're here for office hours. We could work out of the store instead of here at the Inn"

"I'm sure we can make some arrangement. I like the idea of opening a store. Maybe we could have one next to the Inn here. There's a couple of empty spots we could build or maybe we could buy or rent one of those empty buildings nearby. I just don't want to upset old Seth. He's been awfully good about letting us work here in the common room."

Warren laughed and said, "Yeah, after he figured out his business went up when we were here. Remember he tried to charge us for working here until that time we left for a few days because his price was too high. Remember he agreed to let us work here for free if we'd just come back?"

Gloria laughed and said, "Yeah, I had sort of forgotten that. He's not apt to be too happy if we move out. Maybe he'll let us partition off a front corner of the Inn for our store."

Seth wasn't pleased at all when Warren approached him about the possibility of them finding a building of their own. He blustered and threatened but really had nothing he could do to prevent the departure of Warren and the potential decline in his business if Warren did find another building to work out of. Finally, in desperation, he actually offered to build them a separate room to use if they'd just keep working out of the Inn.

After some spirited discussion Warren and Gloria agreed to keep working out of the inn if Seth would convert the front room next to the common room to their office and store front. He agreed to making a door from the common room into the store rather than making everyone use the door that opened from the hallway. In less than a week, they had a new store and treatment facility and the Inn kept the business of those waiting their turn to see the Wizard, still using the common room as a waiting room.

After much discussion, it was decided to let Dottie, the pregnant girl, work for both the Inn and the Wizards. She was to be allowed to have her child at work with her after it came. That way, she made more money, could care for the child, and still live in town with her grandmother.

After they settled everything, Warren called a meeting of all their people. He said, "Gloria, Tanya and I are going to move to the cabin. Jr and Brenda will be in charge here and will be responsible for the day to day operations here on the island and in town. The three of us will be on call for emergencies and difficult cases. One of us will check in several times a week to see if you need us.

"I'm tired and need more peace and quiet than is available around here now. I also want to spend more time just doing pure research and I can't concentrate here. Someone's always interrupting me for a problem or with a question."

By the end of the week, Warren and his two wives were moved out. They quickly settled into their idyllic life and relaxed. With the slower lifestyle they spent more time working and studying magic, learning new spells, new uses for old spells and even inventing new spells. Tanya wasn't a magician, per se, but became very knowledgeable about potions, remedies and non-magical items. She just didn't have any true magical ability to her dismay.

As time passed, Warren became more content with his new life and finally stopped trying to find his way home. He now considered Tommy's Crossing to be his home. He occasionally missed and wondered what happened to his parents but they were surely dead after so many years and he wouldn't see them again. He didn't miss the hustle and bustle of life on his earth but he did still miss some of his favorite foods like pizza. He had introduced some of his favorites and they did approximate the tastes he remembered but, to him at least, they weren't the same.

The older he got, the less interested he was in anything except enjoying what remained of his life. He found himself working and studying less, sitting and enjoying life more. He and his wives spent nearly all their time at the cabin now, only checking on the island and town once a week or so when they needed supplies.

Brenda continued to be happy enough at the island but she never totally assimilated into the culture here. She was happiest when she was "on a case" and became the primary "enforcer" when a criminal had to be hunted down and dealt with. She was always an outsider, tolerated but never completely embraced by any of the locals and she never developed any close friendships. No one knew if that was because of her past occupation, the time from which she came or if it was just a personal quirk of hers. She never allowed anyone to see her depth, if any, of personality.

They never saw Gloria's father again and Warren never learned how to travel the dimensions. He did, eventually, learn how to view across the dimensions but was never sure he ever even found his home dimension although he viewed several that could have been it. It seemed, from his research, that every decision made with worldwide impact caused a branch in the time stream. Fortunately, the average man didn't cause such changes unless they made a decision that caused a major disruption to the stream.

Twelve years after they moved to the cabin the end finally came for Warren. He died peacefully in his sleep. To the best of his knowledge, he had celebrated his 73rd birthday a few days before he began feeling serious chest pains, pains that he was pretty sure were heart related but, having no modern medicine to determine if that was a fact and no way to treat it if it was he just took it as easy as he could until the end.

Gloria and Tanya lived a few years longer but basically wasted away without their man. Tanya died first, three springs after Warren, and Gloria died that next winter from what Brenda thought was a severe case of the flu.