10)

Three kiddos stared out at me, wide eyed, until I tapped at the door just above the latch and they, at least the girls jumped. Aran just looked over at the latch and told his eldest sister “Lock handle.”

I’m pretty sure knob was the right word, but lock handle was accurate, and enough for Sara to get the message and lock the door giving me a glare as I make a show of rolling my eyes at her and heaving out a exaggerated sigh.

Turns out grandkids are fun.

So how do I do this? I had already found out verbal commands didn’t work, but they don’t know that.

I held out my hand dramatically while waving at it with my other hand. “Change!’

They all looked at my hand expectantly, before looking in order of age, scornful, encouraging, and disappointed.

“Nope, that didn’t work, let’s try something else.”

I remember the feeling of my bones warming up and going soft, and pictured the lazy eight, letting it turn before my eyes, and willed my hand to changed.

Well, it did change, I had pictured it as a ridiculous looking big old paw on the end of my arm, instead I had something that looked more like a hairy ape’s hand, but with inch long claws on the tips of my fingers and thumb, all curved in on the tips like they were made to tear into something rather than just give me a better traction when running on all fours.

Like weapons.

Going to have to think about that later.

I didn’t go full wolf, but the changes went up my arm, all the way to the shoulder, making the bones stronger, and my muscles thicker, like I had changed to be able to use the claws without dislocating my arm. I could feel the warmth In other arm and the rest of my body, like it would not take much effort to change my other arm, or the rest of me into something halfway between wolf and old guy.

Something to explore later, along with the whole, this barely hurt this time, thing I had going on, right now I had three little kids staring at me half fascinated and half terrified.

Like I could pass up this opportunity.

“Graaaw!”

I jumped forward and slapped both hands, well one hand and one misshapened hand paw abomination up against the glass.

I’m still pretty sure the veranda door would have held me or anything else shaped like a wolf out, but it turned out they didn’t hold up anywhere as well against the powers of a freaked out tween witch.

What went through my head was, “Yep, that was bad idea, but this is my screw up”, fortunately what didn’t go through my head was the doors. Instead I hit the glass, then the glass hit me.

Along with the steel reinforced doors, the even more steel reinforced door frame, shortly followed by me hitting the plinth on the veranda with the middle of my back with a crunching sound from my spine, as my head smashed into the big clay pot I had put on the plinth in place of the statue the original owner had planed up.

I hoped the Wandering jew cutting I had put in there survived, it had come from a plant that started from a cutting I had given my mom back when I was in a high school science class, it was a attractive plant even if the sensitivity police hated the traditional name.

I had always found the name invocative and mysterious, so I wasn’t going to let anyone take it away from me. In any case these are the thoughts that go through my head after getting launched twenty feet across my side pouch, breaking my spine and taking a hard hit to the head.

The kids sounded pretty distressed but more concerned if I was hurt than if they were in trouble. Good kids, good instinct.

They started moving the remains of the door off me, with Ami carefully picking up some of the shard of wood and glass and telling Aran to keep back, and Sara grabbing the bent frame of the door, bracing herself and heaving the entire thing upright before letting it drop away from me.

I think that was about two hundred pounds of steel and wood. Guess she has magic of her own.

“Don’t move him, he may have a spinal injury, and his head smacked into the Inch plant pot.

Inch plant? Even starting to feel the all the pain I had been too in shock to feel, that really hurt.

The kids stood around me, Sara twisting her hands together, Ami waving her arms in the air, and Aran stepping in to pull at my hand.

Then my whole body twitched as my spine snapped back into place and all three of them jumped.

I could feel bits snapped back together in the back of my head as I whispered. “Sorry I scared you Ami.”

Kid planted herself into my side, crying with her arms wrapped around tight over my still unbreaking ribs. Ow. “I appreciate the hug kid, but maybe leave a little room for my ribs to snap back, on second though you might want to get clear entirely, I think I'm about to cough something up.’

She popped up with a "epp" sound, Sara danced around nervously, and the boy started to clap.

“Again.”

Dammit kid, keep that up and you might push Sara up to number two.