I found out on Friday the 22 of May in 2026 that E.E. Nally, one of our prolific writers in the Whateley Academy stories, passed away on April 30^th, 2026. It’s with great sorrow that I bring this news to you all. I had chatted with him almost every day or two for quite a while but he had fallen silent somewhere in the middle of February. I thought maybe he was in the hospital and unable to communicate with me but, as I feared in my imagination, he had gotten worse and eventually passed away. Presented below is the start of his final story as well as a farewell from the man himself. I don’t know if we’ll ever get a chance to finish the story but I felt it was only right to give you all a glimpse of where it was going.

A Whateley Academy Second Generation Story

Sky Fall

by

E. E. Nalley

This is the end.
Hold your breath and count to ten.
Feel the Earth move, and then;
Hear my heart burst...again...
Adele, Skyfall

Prologue

Saturday, September 14th, 2013
The Still, Headquarters of the Atlantean League, Kennesaw, GA

They say a place takes on the 'air' of the purpose it is put to.  When a very young Elaine Nalley discovered The Still, it was dark, damp and creepy; it was a bootlegger's hideout, a secret cave under the respectable house of the bootlegger's public face.  It was a place where scofflaws plied their illegal trade and hid from the Law.  There was an air of bad people, doing bad things that gave it a feeling of the illicit and the criminal.  Some years later, after much cleaning, modernizing and in general changing the 'vibe' of The Still, it had been put to the use of being the Headquarters of the Atlantean League, become the secret base of young people dedicated to the salvation of the world and the defeat of a great threat to Life itself.

The dark, damp bootlegger's cave had become a hidden fortress of Good from which Evil was vanquished.  While The Still remained damp and the constant fifty two degrees Fahrenheit that made it a perfect place to age Irish Whiskey, now the place felt bright, determined, and in solemn  remembrance of the Agents of Good that had paid the ultimate sacrifice to save the World.  Once the lights were burning brightly, the Tres Amigas made their way to the casting area that had been set up in the little nook where Elaine's great grandfather had stashed one hundred and seven million dollars in one hundred year old single malt rye whiskey.

Kayda sighed as she fetched the properly prepared ground sea salt and began to draw a diagram on a single, perfect slab of Georgia Marble that had been installed specifically for the task it was being put to.  “Alright you two, if you really intend to go through with this absolutely terrible idea, get naked.  This spell gets cast in your birthday suit.”

Tansy smirked to herself.  “A likely story,” she shot back.  “I think you just want to ogle my wife and I.”

“I'll have plenty of thoughts about the two of you,” Kayda snapped.  “None of them will be sexual.”

“Ah think Ah've just been insulted!” Lanie managed around a chuckle as she pulled her tank top over her head and began to fold it, while the cool air made her nipples stiffen.

Tansy's smile widened and she kissed the red head on her cheek.  “Looking at those perfect melons of yours, I'm certain you've been insulted,” she purred. 

“Is everything sexual with you two?” Kayda demanded.

“What else is there?” the lovers demanded in perfect sync that held the unnatural linking of identical twins in both pitch and tone.  “Wait,” Elaine declared and looked her wife in the eye.  “If we are going to do this, we're going to have to ask Grizzly and Mustang to trade places.  You not having Grizzly was how Wyatt figured out our Halloween gag.”

Walcutt's face wore a thoughtful expression.  “I...I think I can pass the two of them between us.  But we should ask them...”

Yes, Grizzly opined as she appeared outside of the circle, next to the two girls.  You should ask us.

And our answer should be 'no,' Mustang added as he appeared next to Grizzly.  Then he turned to his hostess and added, I shouldn't have to warn you how reckless what you're contemplating is, Tansy!

The great She Bear gathered her hostess into one of her loving, full body hugs.  I know why you're doing this, my love, but the risks...!

“Grizzly,” Elaine replied solemnly.  “If Night Death is freed, and that toxin of his is released, most of the life on this world will be snuffed out!  Not as bad as The Bastard would have been, granted, but close!  Think of mah children...!”

Your cubs are never far from my thoughts, Grizzly retorted, but gently and without disdain.  She took her hostess face in her massive paws.  Promise me you will take every precaution.  Swear it on our bond, and I will assist Tansy in passing the two of us between you.  She looked up at Mustang who grimaced, and finally nodded his assent.

“Ah swear,” Lanie assured her.  “In, get the antidote, out and straight home.”

Join hands with us, Grizzly commanded as she took Tansy's hand and Mustang's human form completed the circle.  Begin, Princess, she instructed and Walcutt focused her power between them.  There was a sickening sensation of reality turning on its head and for a split second, there was no barrier between Tansy Walcutt, Elaine Cody, Grizzly and Mustang, then Elaine felt her connection to Grizzly fade down to the smallest and most delicate of threads.  The emptiness where she had been felt as if her own heart had been hollowed out of her chest.  She gasped and cried out in agony, then, suddenly, the shamelessly masculine feeling of Mustang entered her breast.

In the twinkling of a eye she ran free through the wilds of the American South West, felt the joy of covering the mares of a herd she hadn't had and above all felt strong and enduring in a way that was completely different from the strength that Grizzly shared with her.  Across from her, she heard Tansy's own cry of loss and then the deep rumbling comfort of the She Bear.  “It...it's like being a fur coat,” she gasped as the spirits vanished and only Tansy and Elaine were holding hands.

Consumed with a very male need to comfort her wife, Elaine pulled her close and pressed a searing kiss on her mouth that would have led to intense love making if the two had been alone.  When they parted, she grinned at Tansy and declared, “Now Ah know why you're horny all the time!”

“You have no idea,” Tansy purred as she reached out and touched her lover's nose with the tip of her finger.  “So, hurry home and let me show you!”

“Are you two done?” demanded Kayda peevishly.

“No,” the girls declared in sync again.  “Never.”

Kayda humphed and scowled at them.  “Strip and get in the circle before I change my mind about this.”

Part One

October 28th, 2016
G-Mart 2250, Berlin, New Hampshire

“Oh...shit,” Whispered Lanie.  Her eyes went wide as all the locks of her memory gave way and everything fell neatly back into her Exemplar recall.  Worse, she remembered being Jennifer Kelly, falling in love with Sarah, their relationship, and with that came the crushing shame she had betrayed her husband, her wife and the woman who had become her lover over the last two years.  “Oh shit!  Oh Shit!  What have Ah done?” she whispered to herself.

“Miss?” the clerk asked again.  “Are you alright?  I can call...”

Lanie turned to him and dazzled him with the charm and beauty only an Exemplar Southern Belle can.  “Thank ya'll so much, Ah just had a moment.  Ah'm alright, promise.”

“A...ok,” the clerk finally declared.  “If you need anything, I'll just be over here.”

“Thank you,” she assured him.  Reluctantly, he wondered off and Lanie turned her gaze on the image of her wife on the bottle of hair dye in her hand.  Make your blonde, SUPER the package promised.  “Oh, Tans, what have we done?” she whispered.  After a long, lingering look at the image of Tansy on the box, she returned the bottle to the shelf and went down the row to a shade of crimson she knew matched her natural hair color and plopped it into the cart.  Then she pushed it down the aisle and stared at a fairly decent sketch of herself as she had been a thousand years ago on the display of books.  “Laneth?  Ah'm scared, mother.  Help me, Ah have so much to set right...”

At last you're awake, her own voice, colored with a thick highland brogue whispered across her mind.  High time too. She felt her ancestress look through her eyes and sniffed in disdain.  My own private diary, out on display next to a fish monger's wares!  To think that my suffering and struggles and hopes and dreams be reduced to tawdry fantasy for every housewife and washer woman!  Awa' an bile yer heid!  I knew I should never have let that monk at them!

“You're not helping!” Lanie hissed quietly. 

We warned you, Mustang added.

“And you!” she added, mentally turning on the spirit.  “Why didn't you...?”

Whoa, the Spirit commanded.  Stop right there!  Exactly what do you fantasize I could have done for you?  From that mental dungeon you locked me away in? He demanded, getting mentally eye to eye with his 'temporary' hostess.  It was my endurance that I shared with you that let you cling to life so your regeneration could heal you!  You should have died three years ago!  Laneth and I both have spent years haunting your dreams, trying desperately to help you remember and you only pushed us further and further away!

“Ah...Ah thought Ah was a criminal,” she stammered.  “Maybe even a killer.”  Lanie blinked and suddenly she was on a highland moor over looking a Hill Fort with a central tower that wasn't quite a castle, but had many ambitions.  “Morlock,” she whispered, then turned over to see her ancestress astride the great black hunter she had loved who was, now, also Mustang.  She was dressed in the emerald and mustard cotehardie gown that was her favorite. 

“And what is so wrong with being a killer?” she demanded, looking down from the massive black horse.  “What do you imagine I was, but a killer?  I was Bean Sith!  War was my trade and call for it was without end!”

“You lived a thousand years ago!” Lanie retorted.  “This isn't the Iron Age anymore!  We have laws!”

The Banshee snorted her amusement of that and looked at her with a gimlet eye.  “The grand daughter of a bootlegger and a scofflaw protesting her allegiance of the Law?  Lie to yourself if you please, but not to me, Daughter!  I know your mind and the Soul we share!  The knee you bend to The Law is entirely dependent on whether you find it convenient to!”

“Ah don't...”

You built a car that can run at three hundred miles an hour!  Mustang accused her.  Where is that legal in the United States?  Lanie frowned at the stallion but had no response to the accusations against her.  Finally, Laneth took pity on her and chuckled.

“Bygones, Mustang,” the Banshee soothed her mount.  “Let them be by gone.”  She sniffed and looked down on her descendant.  “Oh we have plenty to set right, girl, but I'll always help ye.”  She nodded as she suddenly made up her mind as was her habit.  “So, daughter, who do we set right first?”

It's certainly a long list, the horse opined, drawing an irritated heel kick from his rider.

“Hush, Spirit.  There'll be time aplenty for regret and recriminations.  Now is the time for action.  So, who is first, Elaine?”

Lanie swallowed and screwed her courage to the sticking place.  “Sarah,” she declared.

Laneth smiled a coy smile.  “You've always had an eye for the foreign lassies,” she opined with a dry, sardonic wit.

“Oh?” Mrs Cody demanded.  “Are you telling me you never carried on with one of your Sisters of the Blade?”

Laneth looked down her nose from the high horse back.  “As if I'd kiss and tell to you,” she chuckled.

“Ah am you!” Lanie shot back, which made the Banshee lean down over her saddle to smirk at her descendant. 

“High time you realized that, daughter!” she laughed.  “Though it would be my counsel that you make yourself known to your wife.  Better to have an ally that doesn't live only in your head.”

That gave Lanie a long moment of pause then, quietly, she whispered, “Ah...Ah don't know that Ah can face her.  Not now.  Not yet.  She...she gave up her life, her identity, so that mah foolishness wouldn't harm our children.”

Laneth frowned at her.  “That stinks of cowardice to me,” she declared harshly.  “But, as you please.  Come, let's break the bad news to your newest lover.”  She paused significantly and deftly turned Mustang back to face Elaine with a casual gesture.  “Or...do you hope to add your Nubian Princess to your Norman one and the husband who shares my husband's face?”

And they swear they weren't building a herd!  Mustang managed around a braying equine laugh.

Lanie's face burned with a blush as incredible moments of intimacy ran through her mind that made her aroused and shameful at the same time.  “Ah...Ah don't know,” she whispered.

“Best think hard on it, then” Laneth mac Joan, Bean Sith advised her.  “Long, and hard.  Come, let's away.  There's no use to be had lingering in this memory.”  Elaine blinked and was once more in the book section of a Goodkind Mart in New Hampshire.  Shaking her head at her misfortunes, she turned her buggy to the checkout lanes and the reckoning that awaited her at home.

October 23rd, 2016
Cody Apartment, The Village, Whateley Academy

Kayda leaned against Deborah with a silly grin on her face as she watched the Cody children and their friends laugh and play on the playground of The Village.  It was a ruthlessly Old School kind of playground with monkey bars, tall slides, jungle gyms and the little Castle themed activity area at the center of the amusements that she was certain these tykes used as their 'secret club house.'  Though she was also certain the moment they began to outgrow this playground Wyatt Cody would be in a tree somewhere, building them a house to take it's place. 

She felt Deborah shift against her and lean over to kiss her on the top of her head.  “I'm going to get a beer,” she informed Kayda.  “Want one?”

“Sure,” the Shaman replied, unable to wipe the grin from her face.  There was just something fantastically wholesome about watching the children play.  Her eyes fell on Tansy, wearing Lanie's face as she was laughing with Wyatt, and while laughing at his every joke, Kayda knew some large percentage of her attention was actually keeping track of every child on that playground.  And inside her, Kayda saw the light of the daughter that was slowly growing within her womb.

Franks sighed again as she put her hand on her stomach and contemplated what it must be like to have another person inside of you; so intimately a part of you and yet distinct and separate.  Her own monthly would never let her forget she was a woman, but motherhood was a concept she had only the vaguest conceptions of.  The mechanics of how that new life might take root in her she still shied away from, but, she had to admit, the curiosity was growing.

And Tansy looks so happy, she thought to herself.  She thought back to the High School Bitch Queen that her cuwe had saved from herself and then awkwardly fallen in love with.  Now, if we can just find Lanie and save her...!

A piercing cry split the air and drew her eyes up into the sky to see a magnificent Bald Eagle wheeling over head.  The raptor seemed to lock his gaze with Kayda and then it was as if time stopped.  The huge Eagle changed his glide and descended in lazy circles until it alighted a few feet away from Kayda, revealing it was nearly as large as the Lakota woman.  It spread its wings to their full, impressive span and bowed.  Híŋháŋni, to you, Ptesanwi!

“Waŋblí!” she greeted, remembering her manners to stand and return the bow of the Spirit of the Bald Eagle.  “What brings you to me?”

News, Ptesanwi!  Urgent, news!  News of Woe for the Sorcerer's Pledge has been broken!  The Cuwe of the Ptesanwi is awake and has broken her bond!  Solomon's Contract demands judgment to befall the House of Cody!

“Stop!” Kayda commanded as a black fear gripped her heart as she moved to stand before the massive Bald Eagle.  “What Sorcerer's Pledge?  Lanie was under my spell, and there was no contract!”

Wanbli shook his head to stare at Kayda one eyed over his cruelly curved beak.  Not with you, Ptesanwi!  The Pict Daughter has broken her oath with the Spirit Shaman Grizzly!

“No!” Franks declared with utter conviction.  “No!  I deny this!  There was no Oath!”  She looked past the Eagle at the scene of early autumn bliss where Tansy and Wyatt were frozen in time.  “Kodiak!  Grizzly!” she shouted.  “I call forth your testimony!  Deny these lies!”

Suddenly, Tansy and Grizzly were both standing next to her, along with the Kodiak and, she saw making her blood turning to ice in her veins, Wyatt.  Worse, her disguise spell was broken by her poor choice of words and Wyatt was smirking at Tansy.  “Well, long time no see, Tans,” he managed.

Tansy's face contorted in horror at the realization the game was up, but Wyatt reached out and pulled her against him and kissed her gently.  “You two practical jokers really thought I wouldn't know?  I love you both, for different reasons but I always knew you were here.”  He tapped his nose and winked at her. 

“Wyatt, I...” she stammered,  “oh, God, it's all come apart...!”

“No, this is good news!” Kayda told them both.  “Elaine is alive and what's more...”

“What?!” demanded Wyatt, reaching down to take the diminutive shaman by her shoulders and hauled her up to eye level.  “Don't fuck with me, Kayda!  Not on that!”

“I'm not lying!” Franks assured him.  “She is alive!”

Tansy reached out and put a restraining hand on her husband's shoulder.  “It's true, baby.  And, I know this is a shock...”  Wyatt glared at her and she smiled sheepishly.  “Ok, understatement of the decade, but we found out a little bit ago.  That's why I went to New York.  But, Wyatt, she has amnesia...”

“Had!” Kayda corrected. 

Tansy's eyes boggled.  “What?” she cried.

With great force of will, Wyatt set Kayda back on the ground, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and said, “Alright, first, restore whatever made Tansy look like Elaine before the kids see her, and then you three are going to tell me everything, from the beginning.”  He blinked, and once more, Tansy wore her lover's face and hair color.

“Three?” demanded Mrs Cody, to which, her husband gestured at Grizzly, arms across her impressive bosom, standing beside her.  “Oh, yeah, three.”

And there it is, his final bits of writing for Whateley. I know bits and pieces of where it was going from here such as the death of Sarah Williams the Doctor Lanie had lived with for two years and the heartbreaking scene at the end where Stephen, the youngest of the Cody children, shrinks away from Elaine and hides behind Tansy and declares, "You're not my mommy. This is my mommy." The following words from EE himself were to be added to the end of the story and I will let them speak what I know he wanted to say to you all. – DanZilla aka Daniel Zillion aka Chief Author Wrangler for Whateley Academy

This, dear readers, is the end of the tales of Elaine Cody, Tansy Walcutt-Cody and their shared husband Wyatt Virgil Cody.  While these characters will likely show up in other tales, they will be supporting roles at best.  Never again will they share the limelight of this universe.  Do Elanie, Tansy and Wyatt salvage their marriage?  Does Lanie ever reconcile with her children?

I don't know.

That's something everyone who has come with me on this journey must decide for his or her self.  And every answer is as valid as any other.  If you must have a happy ending, you're free to make one.  Or, if you want to see them suffer, that's within your bailiwick as well. As for me, I leave it here, heartache, sorry and the consequences of thinking yourself capable of playing God to this level.

I hope you've enjoyed the ride with me and I look forward to seeing your thoughts in the comments.  And if you can't bring yourself to write something, I understand.  Tragedy deserves somber reflection.

Thank you for your thoughts and comradeship over the years.  For me, the load of all the lost friends I've known over the amazing journey this shared universe has grown a bit too hard bear.  I don't know if I'll retire from Whateley yet.  I doubt it, honestly, but I have been hospitalized for two months, so let that be a bellwether to take care of yourself.

Good night, and good luck.

E. E. Nalley

7JAN26