Apocryphal Family Tree: The Rough Draft

Lenny cares for Winnie while Winnie's recuperating from death

Lenny is worked into the rotation for caring for the convalescing Winnie. As her body heals, how old her body looks begins to drop. Winnie looked to be in her late sixties or early seventies when Lenny first met her in January. It's now mid-April, close to Lenny's birthday, and now Winnie lays in her bed wrapped in bloody bandages, but her face looks closer in age to Lenny's mother, in her mid-fifties.
"We can tell how bad the damage is based on how quickly or slowly the age reversal happens. Sometimes it happens so fast that I got to sleep with an old maid and I wake up to a whipper snapper."
No one ever talks about young Winnie. Is she the same as old Winnie but her body is more flexible? Is she like a hormone-filled teen going through puberty again?
Lenny unwraps Winnie's arm and washes the wounds before rewrapping the arm with freshly laundered clothe. Winnie has a whole closet full of medical dressings. With the shape Winnie was in and Glenny Mae brought her back they went through nearly a full load just to soak up the blood, which was impressive and also Lenny found out that Winnie's body can run on basically no blood because even though she couldn't produce enough blood to make up for what she was losing and she'd definitely lost enough blood for a mortal human to be dead, her heart kept pumping.
When Hopper came, she came bearing gifts: two bags of something her doctor friend had cooked up. It was some kind of blood substitute they'd use in organ transplants but it was still being tested in the lab. Glenny Mae was very appreciative of advanced medical supplies and a few days later she mentioned that Winnie was definitely faster than she previously had in similar situations without the blood substitute.
"I won't make any promises, but I'll ask her if I can draw some blood when she comes to so you can test it. Consent is so important." Glenny Mae said.
Lenny also became intimately knowledgeable on getting blood stains out of fabrics. Bleach alone wouldn't work. Pretreating it and then soaking in a tub before the big wash with bleach worked well. While the washing machine and dryer were contaminated with goth running bleach, Lenny washed her clothes in a basin out back with some boiled water mixed with cold tap.
It was the washing of her clothes that gave her the idea: she should try to summon them somewhere that they have a connection to. Summon water beings by water, summon her dead relative former apprentices by standing on the ground where they are buried. She'd have to go to the homestead for that and if she's going there she might as well grab Nor on her way back.
While they told stories at night, Lenny got into the habit of mending her clothes. She really wanted to start sewing her own but she did not have the skills. Hopper saw what she was doing and said if she ever wanted to learn better sewing skills from someone who knew who to work an industrial machine, to let her know. Lenny immediately jumped on the offer and Hopper smiled.
"When you came to pick me up, remember the man with the gorgeous wavy black hair and piercing just about everywhere on his face?"
Lenny nodded.
"That's DUDE. He can 100% help you with this sewing stuff. Dude made my spectacular outfit."
Hopper lifted up her loose sleeve to reveal a tight black sleeve that had devices that hooked directly into her skin. Lenny's eyes went wide. Hopper dropped her sleeve.
"Gotta make sure when I jump, my clothes come with me. It's kinda terrible when I show up somewhere public and super naked. I love myself and my body but it's for me to share with others when I choose. These hook-ups make sure that at least one layer of my clothing is vibrating at the same frequency as me and therefore goes with me." Hopper smiled.
When Lenny went back to the room Winnie looked the youngest she'd ever seen her, even in photos. Apparently no one was allowed to take pictures of young Winnie because she looked like she was in her late teens. Once her body regressed back to being sixteen, the age of her first death, her body would be ready for Winnie to come back. Technically it was ready anytime now but it wouldn't be fully healed until it ticked back the clock all the way to where it was when the powers first took hold.
That night after dinner while everyone sat around the cozy March night fire and busied their hands Lenny asked if they had any Winnie stories. Lenny being the newbie meant they all had regaled her with tales of everyone else had heard once or a dozen times before, but Lenny realized this afternoon that know of their stories involved Winnie for more than a sentence. Winnie already knew Glenny Mae's story and she had a feeling she knew why the old woman kept coming back, but what about Saint George and Sasquatch? Hopper was also obvious: she was here to find out what genetic mutations Winnie had in her genes that allowed her to survive as she does. There's no such thing as magic, only things science can't explain yet. And Hopper would do her damndest to put science into everything so there'd be no magic left. Not that Lenny thought that Hopper could or that Hopper thought of what she was doing as taking the magic out of things. Take the magic out of everything. Somethings just happen or just are.
Saint George was the first to offer up his tale. It was back when Winnie was apprenticing for Marie Laveau. He was a veterinarian then, practicing in town. Winnie would swing by once a week or so for remains. Putting pets to sleep wasn't really a thing back then but he'd usually have a few corpses for her every week because even back then not everyone had a yard to bury their loved family pet in or something went downhill too quickly and the horse couldn't make it to the glue factory. He's not sure what rituals already dead animals could be used for and he'd never asked. He'd always come around to check in on her since he was already a Catholic saint and felt like he could help her achieve that goal. Granted this time it was different because he existed and was sainted at a time when people believed in dragons and miracles were as simple as keep a basin of clean water and wash your hands to keep disease away and during the incorruptibility of a corpse helping gain you points in favor of canonization.
With the mention of the dragon, Lenny opened her mouth then closed it and sat on her hands. George asked what'd gotten into her. She said she wanted to ask but it seemed rude, like asking a femme-presenting person if they're pregnant or bringing up someone's diet or fertility plans. But since he'd brought it up, yes please tell me about your dragon slaying days please yes.
George smiled. It was not as fantastic as all that. The others in the room audibly rolled their eyes. The unspoken, "you just had to ask, didn't you?" Made the air thicker in an uncomfortable and rather unpleasant way.
George told his tale. It was full of flourishes and asides. There was no dragon. There was an evil man who enjoyed setting things on fire and all it took was breathing a single dissatisfied sigh for villages to go up in flames. He could see how the rumor got started.
Sasquatch butted in, "It was you. You started the rumor. You also wanted sainthood via canonization because that's somehow more real than folk sainthood. Your words."
George after shocked. "Moi? How dare you, xir, accuse me of such awful things. I'm a saint."
"And Nick is the saint of sex workers and thieves. Sainthood doesn't mean innocence."
"Nick wasn't and isn't a sex worker or a thief."
"But it is who he kept in his company."
"You are distracting from my origin story, and I will not have it," George said. He smiled as his voice boomed.
George finished the tale. Lenny sat quietly holding her cup of tea, mending completely forgotten for the moment. She hadn't known most of the tale, it turns out.
"Have you ever been to the house dedicated to you in Barcelona?" Lenny asked. She wondered what kind of energy boost he got from that kind of attention and belief, even if fleeting.
Sasquatch chuckled. George deeply frowned.
"Which one of these jerks put you up to that question?" He asked.
"What‽ none. I love Antoni Gaudi and wondered how it affects your power, having a whole house dedicated to you," Lenny said.
"I don't get any power from that house," George almost whispered.
"Lol wut?" Lenny said.
"I don't get any power from that house. It's not mine."
Lenny wanted to pepper George with questions that mostly began with "But why?", however she could see that this required the patience and care she took when brushing all the tangles out of her hair. She needed to figure out how to apply proper pressure to get the desired result. She realized that this may be a situation that required cutting out the tangle altogether and asking Sasquatch what's up later.
"That's confusing and sounds like it sucks for you," Lenny said.
"It is and it does," George said.
Story time seemed over for the night and everyone said their fare thee wells and went to bed. A few minutes later a creaky floorboard announcer the arrival of a visitor at Lenny's doorstep.
"Did you go into the George the dragon slayer house in Barcelona?" Sasquatch asked.
"No. Broke college student who decided that dinner sounded good. But the outside is gorgeous," Lenny said.
"If you'd gone inside, you'd have experienced a different Saint George origin tale," Sasquatch said. "And for each version of the story with a lot of belief behind it, there is a George to go with it."
"Each version? Isn't there one version, like there's one truth?" Lenny said.
"But there isn't one truth either. There's your truth and my truth and Winnie's truth, and so on and so forth."
Lenny looked at Sasquatch blankly.
"Think of it as such: every generation adds their own truth to an orally told story. That's part of what makes an oral storytelling tradition so great. The older generations let transphobia creep into this story too much but we can redo that part of the story so it's now more inclusive. And now that story, with a trans man leading the way, that has been told for generations and believed in has a new iteration on Earth."
Lenny's face went on quite the emotional journey. "How many George's are there‽"
"Oh, probably dozens." Sasquatch stretched and thought. Out loud he said, "I wonder if there are even a dozen of me."
Winnie hadn't asked before because she wasn't sure how to ask.
"Are you a human embodiment of a Sasquatch?" Lenny said.
"What‽ No. Ha! I never," Sasquatch babbled on, "first time for everything."
"Would you mind telling me your story then?"
Sasquatch told his story. Always very hairy and tall, even before he transitioned. The nickname was only about a hundred years old, when the Sasquatch sightings began to take off, and it didn't mean anything. Hear me universe!
I used to be an Oreiad, a tree nymph, but someone who didn't know that Johnny Appleseed is a real cis man who lived and died and was a Christian missionary started telling a story where Johnny Appleseed is a trans man. I think back, that's the story I've heard. The universe craves outlets for the energy it receives. I was an alive trans man Oreiad attached to an apple tree. I became the embodiment of that Johnny Appleseed and recipient of that belief.