Curse of the Sacred Fountain -2- by Melanie Brown

Melanie Brown

Copyright © 2024

Part 2

I felt myself slowly growing conscious. It wasn’t so much waking from a long sleep as it was just a growing awareness. I slowly started to notice things, like the too-bright lights above me. Lying in an uncomfortable bed. Realizing I must be in a hospital because of that infernal machine that goes beep—and other annoying things like the inflation of what must be a blood pressure cuff. And I’m always cold.

And then the voices. The constant barrage of voices from all sides. At first, they were muffled and otherwise indistinct. The voices slowly began to coalesce into understandable words, the constant prattling of nurses.

I desperately wanted to wake up. Wake up from this seemingly endless nightmare. What was the last thing I remembered? Oh… it was drinking from the fountain of youth. The fountain of youth!  I’d found it! I also remember watching a member of our team violently disintegrate into a blob of flesh after he’d drank deeply from the fountain. I’d only taken a sip. It was ghastly tasting.

I struggled to regain consciousness… until… until I heard the voices of my niece and her idiot husband.

“I don’t see any change,” said the idiot husband, who had a little boy’s name.

“Billy, the doctors did say to expect a slow recovery,” chirped my niece. “Remember, they don’t really know what caused the coma in the first place. They think my uncle has always been this way.”

“No one would believe us.”

Denise chuckled. “Would you?”

Sounding serious, Billy said, “I heard from your uncle’s law firm this morning that Eric’s family is going to file suit against his estate.”

Against my estate?  Am I dead?

Denise laughed. “Let them. The agreement Uncle Neil had him sign is ironclad.”

Billy said, “They want to see a body.”

“I’m not going to hand over a rotting bowl of goo to them. Besides, that’s still buried in the Amazon jungle,” said Denise matter-of-factly.

I groaned. I couldn’t help it. It just came out.

“Your uncle is stirring. How do you break the news to him?” asked Billy.

“Me? I think it should be you.” declared Denise.

“How do you figure that? It’s your uncle!” snarled Billy.

Without seeing it, I could tell Denise had just placed her hands on her hips and said, “Well, if you hadn’t stupidly fallen off the mountain and hurt your precious ankle, we would have been there to stop him from drinking the water!”

“So it’s my fault?” exclaimed Billy.

I rolled over and glared at both of them. “Can I go back to being dead?”

Denise ran up to me and gave me a hug. “Uncle Neil! You’re finally awake!”

Billy grinned at me. “Good to see you awake, Neil.” I never gave him permission to call me by my first name.

I tried, but I still couldn’t raise myself up. Frowning at Denise, I said, “Why do I get the idea that something is wrong?”

As if on cue, a doctor entered my room. He smiled cheerfully at me and then turned to Denise. “It looks like your daughter has fully awakened. In a couple of days there should be no problem in taking her home.”

Looking concerned, Denise said, “We can’t take her home today?”

The doctor’s expression turned serious. “Oh no. We have to run tests to ensure there’s no brain damage or other issues.” The doc listened to my chest and took some readings from the machine that goes beep.

Denise ruffled my hair… I have hair? She smiled at me. “You’ll be back home soon.”

The doctor said, “I’ll be back later to check on her progress.” He left the room.

In a loud whisper, I growled, “Just what the fuck is going on?”

Looking embarrassed, Denise looked up and said, “Nurse. May we have some privacy please?”

“Of course, Ma’am.” The nurse left.

I sat up in my bed and folded my arms. “Okay, spill it.” I paused a moment. Sarcastically, I said, “Mom.”

Denise smiled weakly. “Oh yeah. That. I adopted you. Wait, wait. It was either that or hand you off to some other family while I took your estate, sold it and vacationed in the Bahamas. Even though I was the heir, the estate has been transferred to you. Well, to a trustee. You’ll get your estate on your twenty-first birthday. Don’t get mad at me. This was all drawn up by your legal team.”

“Back up! Back up!” I shouted. “That’s all well and good, but twenty-first birthday? What’s happened to me? What the hell’s going on?”

Denise took a deep breath. “You better sit down for this.”

I scowled at her.

“Well, uncle. You did it. You found the fabled fountain of youth. You are fifteen years old, along with some unexpected side effects. You are now a girl. Hey, Billy and I are going to leave if you’re just going to throw things at us!” She put the box of Kleenex I had tossed at her on the shiny metal table beside the bed.

She went right back to talking. “Anyway, you’re now a fifteen-year-old girl. That causes all kinds of problems. Neil Forscher is now legally deceased.  I’m the heir to your holdings. Your legal team created a new entity for you. After your adoption, you are now legally Nell Fenwick since it was actually Billy who adopted you. Your legal team put your estate with a trustee.”

Shaken to the core by this news, I asked, “Why a trustee? I can manage my own affairs.”

Denise shrugged. “They were afraid you’d fall in love with some stupid high school football player like I did and run away.”

“Hey!”

“I love you, honey.”

I narrowed my eyes at Denise. “And why would I have any contact with a high school football player?”

Denise smiled weakly at me. “Child Protective Services said I have to enroll you in high school, or they’ll take custody of you.”

                    *

What a fucking mess!

I had thought that, at most, the fountain would return me to my college days. I never dreamed of this level of physical change—and poor Eric whats-his-name. Denise, along with that stupid husband of hers, have surmised that since he drank so much of the fountain’s water, it de-aged him past the point of his birth. Part of what they buried in the jungle was a placenta. They took a picture, and it was a disgusting mess. The water itself was a poisonous mix of minerals and chemicals like cyanide.

And now I’m a fifteen-year-old girl. And my own niece’s daughter, to boot. I looked out the backseat window of her car as she drove us to her home. I guess my home as well. My own home has been put off-limits by the trustee. I’m banned from using my private jet or my yacht. They’re up for auction to pay taxes along with my “final” expenses. When I suggested to Denise that she should have just let me die, she called me silly. She thinks I should be excited at the prospect of being a teen girl.

Oh, and the doctor said I could expect to have a period in the next three weeks. On the way out of the hospital, multiple teen boys stared at me.

I look in the mirror, smile and say, “I’m a teen girl.”

End of Part 2