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The Gammas By The Professor I don't know the exact moment when it all began. It could have happened long before we noticed it. It could have started with something innocent - something that we never even imagined as a clue. But even if one of us had noticed anything odd, I don't think it would have been sufficient warning to stop what happened. Maybe that was inevitable. I like to think so. I don't like to think that I missed a sign that would have been the warning we needed to prevent what happened. I'm sure the rest of the Gammas feel the same way, regardless of how things turned out. So all I can do is start with when we did notice. Or I suppose I should actually start from the day before we noticed. It was the last day we... well, it was the last day before everything changed. That day was a Friday - the last weekday free before classes began at Missouri State. But most of us had been on campus for two weeks, preparing the Gamma House for Rush Week. It was our first chance to occupy the new house, and we used the time to good advantage. By the time Rush Week began, the house shone like new. We ended up having one hell of a Rush Week, pledging twenty new guys - the largest pledge class on our campus. Of course, by large campus standards, that wasn't a very big pledge class, but there were only seven local fraternities on our campus, and the largest of them had only forty-five actives and a new eighteen-man pledge class. Our twenty pledges, added to our active strength of thirty, made us the second largest house on campus. I was proud of that pledge class, and with good reason. As Rush Chairman, it had been my job to reel them in, and that's just what I had done. Of course, we had a great group of guys who really pitched in. And it didn't hurt that we had moved into new digs. The old Gamma House - the one where I had spent the last three years - was a dump and a firetrap. And of course, with nothing to be proud of, we had trashed the place even worse. Plus the house was so small that a third of our members were forced to live in apartments, and that's always bad for building fraternity spirit. But the whole house had pulled together when an alumnus we had never even known about who lived in a nearby town made us an offer we couldn't refuse. All we had to do was raise ten thousand dollars and he'd come up with the rest of the money we would need to get a better house. It was a loan, of course, but at a very favorable rate. We'd be able to pay it off over forty years, too. The result? We worked our butts off, washing cars and cleaning up anything that needed to be cleaned up. We held slave auctions and even got our girlfriends to host a bake sale. It was close, but we did it. A week short of the imposed deadline, we had collected just a shade over ten thousand dollars. So that fall, we moved into the Becker Mansion. Our generous alumnus had actually bought the house so we could get it fixed up and ready for occupancy that fall. He even paid for most of the repairs, casually adding the amount to that generous loan. The house was perfect for our needs. It was a large brick house once owned by one of the town's most prominent banking and business families. The place was huge - large enough for all of us to live in, when you took in the basement and the carriage house. We were in hog heaven. In fact, I was in the process of just lying back thinking about how great my new room was when Eric Carson, the Gamma President and my roommate, popped in the door. "Hey, Denning, go to the bank with me!" Rush Week was over and I had just a few days to relax before classes started. I really didn't want to do anything but lie on my bed and stare at the freshly-painted ceiling. I yawned from my bed, "What are you going to the bank for?" He flashed a stack of papers. "I need to take these to their loan department. This is the payoff for the house. Mr. Morgan's cashier's check is in here. As soon as the bank gets this, the loan is paid off and the house is all ours." "Okay," I agreed, rolling out of bed. To be honest, as a business major, I wanted to look at the paperwork. I kept thinking there had to be a catch. I could see our benefactor, Mr. Morgan, keeping title to the house until we had paid it off, but no. He had agreed to sign over the title to the Gamma House Association in return for a personal note - an unsecured note at that. Of course, it was rumored that Thaddeus Morgan had more money than God, and he was a Gamma. I suppose the money was just pocket change to him, and this was a way for him to aid his old fraternity. I had met Mr. Morgan just once. He had invited all of the fraternity officers and our alumni Gamma House Association to a cocktail hour at his home in nearby Jacksonburg. His home there put the Becker Mansion to shame. And why not? Rumor was he owned half the county and had a mortgage on the other half. He had greeted us all cheerfully, his attractive young trophy wife, Carla, thirty years his junior, on his arm. I remembered thinking how sad she looked, as if being on his arm was not what she had expected out of life. I supposed that proved that money wasn't everything since I suspected the cost of the dress she wore that night would have paid my tuition for a year. To be honest, I hadn't liked her husband. He was like a snake, always poised but ready to strike when the mood served him. There was something sinister about him. Still, his gift to his old fraternity was not one to decline just because I didn't like him. Our alumns thought the man walked on water. I suppose in a way he did. Besides, we were desperate. I mentioned that we were the second largest house on campus, but once we had been the largest. Other fraternities with nicer houses were catching up to us, and one had already surpassed us. By school rules, all the fraternities and sororities on campus were local houses without any national affiliations, so we had no national financial strength to fall back on. Without Mr. Morgan's munificence, the Gamma's days on campus were numbered. "Boy, I still don't believe our luck," Eric said. "A new house." "Just remember," I reminded him with a phrase we had learned back when we were pledges, "good things happen to Gammas." As I accompanied Eric to his car, I reflected on how fortuitous our acquisition of the Becker Mansion had been. Good luck really did happen to Gammas. The house dated back to the Nineteenth Century. It sat just off campus, as well it should, since the land Missouri State now occupied had originally been part of the estate. Slave owners, but loyal to the Union, the Becker family had prospered after the war, doing in Marbury County what the Morgans had apparently done over in Jacksonburg. By 1885, they were ready to build their very own monument to the family's prosperity - the Becker Mansion. The house had been the social center of the growing town of Austin Valley for much of the Twentieth Century. From the drawing room, decisions flowed that influenced the entire nation as Governors and Congressmen sought the favor of the Becker empire. But now the Beckers were gone, and the house had sat mostly empty for a generation. Occasional renters complained of strange noises and unpleasant dreams - or so the stories went. It didn't take long before the house had a reputation of being haunted. No one in the college town of Austin Valley was particularly interested in buying the place, so the price was right. Let's be honest - it was downright cheap. We - or rather Mr. Morgan - had commissioned a construction firm to partition off the house's many bedrooms and studies into two-man rooms. Extra bathrooms were added as well, and the basement was upgraded to give us a Chapter Room and still more living quarters. The carriage house added room for another half dozen members. The whole price of remodeling was picked up by Mr. Morgan and added at the same generous terms to the personal note. Eric wheeled his like-new Corvette into the parking lot of the Austin Valley National Bank. I was curious as to why Mr. Morgan hadn't used his own bank to finance the house, even temporarily, but he had chosen this bank instead. The loan officer, Mr. Leary, said just about the same thing. "It just doesn't make any sense, financing with us," he muttered as he looked through the papers Eric handed him. "We thought the same thing," I said. He looked up at me. "What did you say your name was?" "Dan," I told him. "Dan Denning." "Well Dan, I'll tell you something about the transaction you don't know. Thaddeus Morgan paid two points over what he would have needed to at his own bank to finance this fraternity house of yours. It's almost as if he didn't want his name on the deed for some reason." "Maybe it has to do with taxes," Eric suggested. Mr. Leary seemed to consider that. "I suppose it's possible," he conceded as he handed us the clear title to the house, "but I don't know how. Still, he didn't get to be as rich as he is making foolish transactions. Although I'd be glad to see him do something foolish for once. He's caused enough trouble for this area for as long as I can remember." I had the distinct feeling that Mr. Leary didn't like Thaddeus Morgan any more than I did. "What sort of trouble?" I asked. Mr. Leary leaned back in his chair. "Well, it's been no secret that he's wanted to extend his little empire to our community. With the Becker family gone, there's really no one to stop him. Did you know the Beckers used to own this bank?" We shook our heads. "But I suppose he has his reasons," Mr. Leary sighed. Well, whatever his reasons, Eric and I thought they were good for the fraternity. "It'll be the first Pledge Orientation Weekend where I don't feel bad about having the pledges sleep on the floor," Eric laughed as we headed home. "I know what you mean," I told him. Pledge Orientation Weekend would last from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon. Basically, it was two days of meeting the actives and learning fraternity lore. Then Sunday afternoon, there would be a party - stag - as the pledges had the opportunity to meet the actives over a few beers. There was no hazing session - those days were long gone - but it was intense. Part of the process included sleeping on the floor of the Chapter Room both nights. In the old, cramped house that had been quite a logistics nightmare. In the new house, it would be no problem. On the other hand, I had my own fond memories of my Pledge Orientation weekend. In a fraternity, you're always closest to those you went through pledge training with. Guys like Eric, Brandon Welch, Matt Levine, Gary Joyce, Chuck Jennings and Tom Hall and a few others were my closest friends in the house. We held most of the key positions, except for the ones we doled out to our junior protoges. And we were closer to each other than we were to our biological brothers. Only one other memory is strong from that final normal afternoon. It was a short one - inconsequential in and of itself. But considering what was to happen later, a memorable one. We ran into Paul Westfield as we were leaving the bank. Eric knew Paul from the Inter-Fraternity Council. As presidents of their respective houses, they had worked together since last spring. I had known Paul for much longer though. We had been friends back in grade school in St Louis. Frankly, we ran in different circles though by the time we reached high school. Paul was more from the right side of the tracks. His father had been blue collar when we were in grade school, but he had gotten an education and rose to be a mid-level manager at Ralston-Purina, one of St Louis's larger employers while my father was still just a plant employ with the same company. So by high school, we had grown apart somewhat. Still, we had played football together and downed a few beers together over the years. Hell, we had even gone after the same girl once right after we got to college. "Congratulations on your new house," Paul called out to us. "Thanks," we both said. I added, "You'll have to come over and see it sometime." "I'd like that." And with a wave, we were gone. It was an incident I would have forgotten soon afterward - if everything hadn't changed. The rest of the active chapter and all of the pledges were waiting for us when we got back. Everyone cheered when Eric held up the deed. The house was officially ours. It was the beginning of a new era for our fraternity, we all thought. We just had no idea at the time of what that new beginning would be like. "Where the fuck did this come from?" Eric mumbled the next morning. "Where did what come from?" I groaned. We had been up late with the pledges the night before, and I was too tired to answer questions. Besides, I had had some sort of weird nightmare where I was being chased by something in the dark. I couldn't recall the details though. "This," Eric said, holding something up. I didn't have my contacts in, so it was a little tough to see, but... "It looks like a teddy bear." "It damn well is," Eric agreed. "Now how did it get in my bed, roomie?" I rose up. "You think I did it?" I swung my feet out of bed and felt them collide with something soft on the floor. Fuzzy pink slippers? Eric saw them and laughed. "Well, it looks like you're off the hook. Somebody must have slipped in here and dropped this stuff off." "Yeah," I agreed. "But who and why?" "Maybe Levine put the pledges up to it," Eric suggested. Matt Levine was our Pledge Trainer. He had been up with us most of the night, and he had a reputation for being a practical joker. "Maybe," I conceded, "but it isn't his style." By the time we got down to the dining room for breakfast, we found out that we weren't the only ones to find strange objects in our room. Brandon Welch was holding up a bra. "And whoever it belonged to didn't even have decent tits!" he was laughing. A couple of the brothers were laughing. He looked at us, his brow furrowing under close-cropped blonde hair. If we hadn't known Brandon well, it would have been an uncomfortable look. A tackle on the football team, Brandon looked like he could tear you in half and suck the marrow out of your bones. I guess it was that look that helped him make All-Conference. "So, did you guys find anything in your room?" "A teddy bear," Eric reported with a laugh. "Fuzzy pink slippers," I added, turning a little red as I parked at a dining room table with a cup of coffee in hand. "Ooh!" Brandon called out derisively. "You should have worn them down to breakfast." "Not my size," I said laconically. "Well, Chuck got French cut panties," Brandon said with a nod to our house lecher. "They smelled good, too," Chuck said evilly. We laughed. "And Gary found a makeup bag..." "Yeah," Gary laughed, "but there was no instruction manual with it!" We all laughed with Gary. The five of us were all seniors, and we had been pledges together back in our freshman year. Only seven of us were left from that class, and we had all made it a habit of eating breakfast together whenever we could. Missing that morning were Matt Levine, the Pledge Trainer, and Tom Hall. Matt was busy with the pledges in the Chapter Room, and Tom was going to be registering late for the semester. He had taken the summer to study in London and hadn't made it back yet. He had high hopes of being a doctor, and the London gig would look good on his resume. "So what's going on?" I asked. Since the rest of the guys had apparently been discussing our unexpected acquisitions for a while, I thought they might have some idea where they came from. "Matt says the pledges had nothing to do with it, but I don't believe him," Chuck offered. "I think he took them out after we were all in bed and raided a girl's dorm. Then they put the evidence in our rooms to get us in trouble." "Not likely," Eric said, drawing himself a cup of coffee. "That kind of a stunt might get us kicked off campus. Matt is such a straight arrow, being in ROTC and all, I don't think he'd ever go along with a stunt like that." "I agree," I chimed in. "I was thinking earlier that this just isn't his style." The front door opened and closed, and Jack Cates and Monty Willis stumbled in, still panting from their usual two-mile morning run. They were laughing as they greeted us and got themselves coffee. "Hey," Jack said to us, "you know those two big guys that live down at the end of the block?" We all nodded. We knew who Jack meant. They were real string bean types - both on the basketball team. "Well, they're homos!" Jack laughed. "What?" Brandon roared. As far as he was concerned, if they were athletes, they couldn't possibly be gay. "No fuckin' way, man." "No," Monty argued, "Jack's right. We were running past their place this morning while they were getting ready to run. One of them said to the other one, 'Look at the asses on those two.' They said it loud enough for us to hear." "Maybe they just thought you had fat asses," Chuck zinged them. "Funny," Jack growled, but there was no rancor in his voice. We all appreciated a good slam. And the underclassmen like Jack and Monty usually cut the seniors plenty of slack. "You call this a fat ass?" Monty asked, pointing at his butt. I had to admit, Jack and Monty were in terrific shape. They ran twice a day. "Well, they aren't homo," Brandon muttered. As if things hadn't started out weird enough, Matt Levine, the Pledge Trainer, entered the dining room. He didn't look very happy. "Okay," he began before we could even greet him, "which of you guys has been fucking around with the pledges?" "What are you talking about?" I asked. There was something in the back of my head that told me more was out of kilter than I had first imagined when Eric had showed me the teddy bear. "I'm talking about all that girl's shit somebody put next to the pledges," Matt said seriously. "They don't think it's funny. It's downright insulting. They think we must have a few fairies in the house." "Wait a minute, Matt," I stopped him. Then I told him about what the rest of us had found that morning. I don't think he believed me at first, but when everybody chimed in, he had to take us seriously. He shook his head, running his hand through his reddish hair. "So somebody must be playing a colossal gag on us," I surmised. "Shit!" That was from Monty who had just wandered into the living room. We rushed in to see what the problem was. Things had suddenly gone from interesting weird to Twilight Zone weird. All of us had walked through the spacious living room that morning on our way to the dining room. We had all tried to ignore the furniture we had put there. It was all leftover shit from the old house, so none of it fit. In fact, the cheap, worn couches in deep blue had looked completely ridiculous in the tasteful white oak living room. But the deal with Mr. Morgan had not included new furniture, so we were stuck with the old junk... ...or so we thought. The living room had been completely redone. A new oatmeal colored carpet covered the floor, and on it, tastefully arranged, were couches and chairs which were new and completely unlike the heavy, masculine furniture we were all used to. No one spoke at first. There wasn't even an uttered "holy shit" in the room. I think we were all too stunned. This just wasn't possible. Eric just stood there with his mouth open, so he wasn't going to be much help. "Matt," I said quietly, "you'd better get the pledges up here right now." Things had just gone from weird to weird cubed. If everything hadn't been so vivid and detailed, I would have thought I was still asleep and in the middle of some strange nightmare. But this was no nightmare. Or maybe it was - it just wasn't the sleepy time sort. Soon the new living room was filled. We had gotten everyone up, and everyone had gathered in the living room. Some of us had managed to get dressed before coming down, but a fair number sat around in boxers and T-shirts. We had moved chairs in from the dining room and the coffee pot was working overtime. It turned out everyone had a story about something in his room that didn't belong there, and it wasn't just the little stuff we had found earlier. Chuck had found a pair of women's panties in his room, but Jack Zimmer had found an entire drawer loaded with women's lingerie. Ted Walters and Dennis Allen had gone to bed in bunk beds and had awakened in twin beds. Dane Stephenson hadn't been able to find his prized leather bomber jacket, but there was a white leather jacket with leather fringe - many sizes too small - draped over his chair. We took roll call. Of course, all twenty pledges were there, and most of the actives. As mentioned before, Tom Hall hadn't come back to school yet, and a couple of other guys had left after the sessions with the pledges for a little weekend trip to Kansas City. That meant there were forty-seven very unsettled guys in the room, and each one of them had found something in his room that didn't belong there. But for the four guys living in the carriage house, it was even worse. "When we started over for the main house," Frank Atwood, one of the residents of the carriage house said, "we walked out the door over there and found ourselves in the back door of the house." We all looked at him as if to say, "So?" "Don't you get it, guys?" Frank asked. "We weren't outside. It was like we were just transported inside the house." There were several groans and a couple of muttered "bullshits." Brandon was standing by the front door. "So maybe if I try to walk out here, I'll end up in the carriage house?" he asked sarcastically. As if to make a point, he turned the doorknob. Then he looked suddenly worried. "What's wrong?" I asked him. "I can't get the fucking door open." At first, I thought he might just be clowning around. But then I saw the panic in his face as he pulled with all of his considerable strength. "It won't open, man." "Maybe it's locked," somebody suggested. "From the inside?" somebody else asked. "It must be jammed," I offered, getting up from my chair to help him. The two of us gripped the doorknob as best we could and pulled. The large oak door refused to budge. "Oh shit!" Gary said suddenly. "Look outside." We had been so intent on determining what was happening in the house that we had paid no attention to what was happening outside of it. I knew it had been a warm and sunny Saturday morning when I had stumbled down for breakfast, but Now it was gray outside. And it wasn't the gray of an approaching fall rain - it was just...gray. There was nothing outside - no trees, houses, lawns... nothing. "Get a window open," Matt suggested. "Are you crazy?" Eric yelled. "That may be poisonous out there." "Poisonous?" Matt laughed. "What are you talking about?" "It can't be poisonous," Frank told us. "Houses aren't completely airtight. We'd have been exposed to us by now." Good old Frank, I thought, always the engineer. "Well, let's get one open," Matt urged. "I think we need to get out of this house." There was no particular logic behind that thought, but I think we all agreed with it. Whatever was happening was happening in and around the house. If we could just get away, we might be able to avoid whatever was about to happen next. And although none of us had said it out loud, we all felt this was just the beginning; something else was about to happen, and it was not going to be pleasant. "This one won't open," one of the pledges told Matt. "Neither will this one," another pledge called out. It took us only a few minutes to find that none of the windows would open, and that each window showed nothing but a gray, featureless cloud, lit from some diffused source outside our vision. "Now what do we do?" someone moaned when we had gathered again in the living room. Brandon, always a man of action, didn't wait for someone to answer the question. Instead he picked up a small wing chair and heaved it at the nearest window. There were yells of surprise as some of the brothers were forced to duck. They weren't ducking from the shattered glass and wood frame of the window, though. They ducked because the chair bounced harmlessly off the window, as if it had been made of rubber. "My god, we're trapped," Gary mumbled. "Try the phone," Eric ordered a pledge, but before he could do it, Chuck spoke.. "I've already tried it. The house phone is dead, and so is the one in my room." Some of the other brothers told the same story. Even the cell phones were dead. "How about the internet?" somebody asked. "It uses the phone lines, so no joy," someone else responded. "Well, someone will come looking for us," Dane suggested. "Not for a while," I pointed out. "It's Pledge Orientation Weekend, remember? Nobody has a date or any obligation outside the house until Sunday evening. Even those of us who have part time jobs have the time off." "Dan's right," Matt agreed. "Even if they can't reach us by phone, they'll just think we're busy with orientation." "So what do we do?" Jack asked. For some reason, they were looking at me for an answer. I suppose it made sense. I had the reputation of one of the smartest - if not the smartest - guy in the house. I didn't always see it that way, but a 4.0 in business and a natural for a slot in a top law school next year made me one of the guys who was expected to have an answer. I gave them the only answer I could think of. "We wait," I said. Yeah, sure - absolutely brilliant - but I didn't know what else we could do. "Uh...wait for what, Dan?" Brandon wanted to know. I shrugged. "To see what happens next." I had expected an argument, but I got none. I suppose no one could think of anything better to do. We had tried to get out of the house and failed. We had tried to communicate with the world outside the house and failed. The house and things in it seemed to be shifting about, but for what reason we had no idea. It's hard to come up with a rational answer for something that is absolutely irrational. The meeting broke up into small clusters of brothers and pledges after that. Some went into the kitchen for coffee while others went in search of something stronger to drink. Others just stood around talking, trying to figure out among themselves what was happening and why. "I knew there had to be something to those stories about this place being haunted," one of the pledges said. Another shook his head. "Haunted houses don't change the furniture and leave teddy bears around." "How do you know?" yet another pledge asked. "Have you ever been in a haunted house before?" I felt a little sorry for the pledges. Most had just met each other the night before, and all of them were on unfamiliar turf. Most of their possessions were still in their dorm rooms. They didn't even have a place to try to shut all of this strangeness out. I was happy to see Matt introducing them to the actives. It would make them feel as if they belonged. The good thing was that everyone was remaining fairly calm. There were no hysterics or antagonistic behavior. I think it's because that whether seniors like me or new pledges, we saw ourselves as Gammas. Good things happen to Gammas, we always told ourselves. That sort of attitude gave us the psychological support we needed. Eric and I headed back to our room. It was generally conceded that Eric, Matt, Brandon and I formed something of a power clique in the house, and of the four, Eric and I were the top of the pile. I suspected most fraternities are really run the same way. So it was important that we brood in private and not in public. That was exactly what we planned to do. Eric found a bottle of bourbon and poured some in a couple of glasses. He cut them with a Coke and handed me one before slouching down into a chair near the one I had fallen into. I took a sip. "No ice." "It cuts the booze too much," he replied. Then after taking a sip of his own drink, he asked, "What do you think is happening?" I looked around the room. There had been some changes. The room looked a little brighter. The curtains had taken on a lighter shade and the room had become a little neater, except for the bra that was hanging over a half open drawer. "I think it's getting to be pretty obvious, don't you?" I asked him. We didn't seem to be able to say it. Hell, it was hard enough just to think it. The house was feminizing itself, making it look as if a sorority and not a fraternity resided there. Male objects disappeared or altered around us. We didn't see them reshape themselves, except maybe in the very corner of our eyes, but we knew it was happening. "So what happens to us when all this is finished?" Eric asked softly. "Then we don't fit here anymore," I answered, taking another sip of my drink. I was actually grateful he hadn't added ice. The burn of the alcohol was somehow comforting. Then I added, "So we'll have to be changed to fit." As I said it, I considered the impossibility of what my words meant. I looked down at myself. I was five-eleven and fairly well muscled. Oh, I wasn't a jock. I had only played a couple of years of football in high school - I was too light to be very good. No, I was a class brain, but good enough looking and personable enough that no one ever held it against me. But I considered myself very masculine. I had never had a gay thought in my life. Granted, I was between girls at the moment - my steady from the last semester had gone to Kansas City for Nursing School - but I was absolutely certifiably heterosexual and male. But that might change, I told myself grimly. Eric was quiet for a minute. Then he asked, "Are you sure?" "Of course I'm not sure," I replied, taking another swallow of my drink. "But look at the clues. Jack and Monty get hit on by a couple of straight basketball players. I suspect they didn't see two guys. And look at all the shit that's changing around the house. Look at that bra over..." My voice trailed off. Now there was a pair of French cut panties draped on top of the bra. I tried not to think about what it must be like to wear stuff like that, but I had a strong feeling I'd soon find out. "I... I don't see how it could be possible," Eric began. "Neither do I," I admitted. "Let's just hope we're wrong." We weren't wrong, though. That much became obvious when we went down to dinner. The cook didn't work during Pledge Orientation, but she had left meals already prepared. Pledges served up bowls of chili and put slices of cornbread on our plates with metal serving tongs as if nothing was wrong. Oh, the scene appeared normal enough, and a casual observer who had never met any of us before might remark on how slender all the young men were, or how they had such soft, clear skin for boys, or how each of them could have used a haircut. But we were looking at guys we had known, in some cases, all the way through college. We knew that Brandon should be taller and filled out more. We knew that Gary used to have a mustache, as did Pete and Ron. We knew that Chuck had been taller and that Matt's nose should have been bigger. And I knew that my fingers never had appeared so dainty or slender before, and that I had trimmed my nails only the day before so they shouldn't look as if they had been growing for a couple of weeks. But we didn't talk about it much - or at least we didn't talk about what we knew was happening. No one jumped up and screamed, "My God, I'm changing into a woman! Help me!" Nobody said it, but I was sure there were a number of silent prayers to that effect coming from the room. Instead, we ate in relative silence. Matt broke the ice, though. "Dan, how long do you think it will take?" "I don't kNow" I replied quietly, taking another bite of chili. Usually, it would have tasted good to me, but now I was eating it only to fill the hole in my stomach. It could have been made out of cardboard and glue and would have tasted no differently to me. "Do you think it will... hurt?" Dane asked from down the table. I shrugged. "How should I know?" Then noticing Dane's stricken look, I added, "No, I don't think it will hurt. Nothing has hurt so far." Why did they all have to look to me for the answers? Sure, I had a great grade point, but nobody had ever turned me into a girl before. I had no idea what it would be like or how long it would take. I vowed to myself that I would have to stay strong to help my fraternity brothers. Some of them looked as if they could barely hold things together. Hell, I could barely hold things together. I couldn't remember a quieter meal in that room. Those who spoke did so scarcely above a whisper. Few even managed that. Eric noticed as well. Some of the brothers were looking at him for leadership, but he looked as if he didn't know quite what to do. Nothing in the fraternity handbook ever prepared him for something like this. Still, he rose to the occasion as best he could. "There'll be an officer's meeting in the Chapter Room in ten minutes," he announced, rising to take his bowl to the kitchen where the pledges were waiting to do the dishes. I followed him almost at once, and I didn't have to turn around to know that the chairs scraping along the wooden floor belonged to the rest of the fraternity officers. We kept the door to the Chapter Room open, just in case anyone else wanted to join us. We were all there - all except Tom Hall, of course. With Tom missing, eight of the nine officers were there, and all eight of us had grim faces. I don't think there was a man in the room who didn't realize what was about to happen to us. A close inspection of any of us would have been enough to convince anyone. We were all slightly shorter, slightly slimmer, and starting to look a little like our sisters - if we had any. We all appeared to need haircuts; even the guys with longer hair to begin with looked a little shaggier. What few beards or mustaches remained were taking on a wispy look, and some had disappeared entirely. "Okay, Eric," Kevin Good, the fraternity's vice president said, "we're all here. Now what are we doing here?" "Look around," Eric replied. "Everybody looks like they're about to die. I've never seen this house so down." "Well, what do you expect?" Jess Delbert, the treasurer said. "We might as well be about to die. We're gonna be changed into... into..." "Women," Chuck finished for him. "We're all gonna be changed into a bunch of fucking cunts. Say it, Jess. You're gonna be a cunt." "So are you!" Jess shot back. "We'll see how you like being a twat!" "All right!" Eric yelled. They stopped their bickering at once, each looking a little sheepish. At his best, Eric could bring a herd of stampeding cattle under control with a few sharp words. And he seemed to be hitting his stride now. "Insulting each other isn't going to change what's happening." "So what will?" Brandon asked. "We've got to do something." Eric looked at me. Damn, why did he always do that? Eric could control people easily, but he just wasn't an original thinker. With credentials like that, he'd probably be President of the United States some day. So okay, I was the guy who usually came up with the new ideas. This wasn't going to be the exception to the rule. "The first thing we need to do," I began, "is not panic." "Hitchhiker's Fucking Guide to the Galaxy, man," Chuck snorted. That actually got a nervous chuckle from the rest of us. I let it go since it was the first time the frowns had disappeared from anyone's face all day. "Yeah, just like that," I said with a faint smile. "Nothing we do is going to stop whatever is about to happen from happening. But we've got to stick together like fraternity brothers." "Even if we're sorority sisters," Matt quipped. That got another little chuckle. "Then once it's happened, I think there's a good chance everything might return to normal." "You think it's normal to be a girl?" Gary asked, looking at me as if I had just propositioned him. "Of course not," I replied. "But whatever or whoever caused this won't want anything to seem out of the ordinary. Think about it. This is magic. I know... none of you believe in magic, but you'd better start believing in it. Nothing but magic explains this." "So why would whoever is doing this want things to seem normal?" Brandon asked. "Because," I replied, "whoever is doing this won't want it known that magic like this even exists. Others might want to use it or steal it or stop it. So they have to make everything seem normal. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that once we've... changed, nobody notices but us." "How are they gonna do that?" Kevin wanted to know. "That's like asking a monkey how to build an atomic bomb," I snorted. "How should I know? This is magic. I know; don't say it. There shouldn't be any such thing as magic, but how else do you explain what's happening here?" No one tried to answer that question. "So once things return to normal - or the new normal - we can start working on a solution," I continued. "But that means we might be girls for a long time," Brandon pointed out. "Maybe even forever," I agreed much to everyone's discomfort. "Look, we're the officers of the house. We've got to keep everybody calm until this thing has run its course. Then we can work at changing everything back to normal." "Maybe we should call Mr. Morgan if... when this isolation lets up," Eric suggested. "Good idea," I replied. "Odds are good he may know something that would help us." The meeting went on like that for another half hour. When we adjourned, we hadn't really accomplished anything concrete, but we had agreed to stick together and ride this storm out. A couple of the guys complemented me for being so calm under fire. I didn't have the heart to tell them I was a nervous wreck. I had to keep fighting the impulse to stick my hand in my pants to see if my dick was still there. After all, I didn't want to be changed into a girl any more than they did. A tiny fraction of my mind said that we might not be changed into girls after all. I wanted to believe that, but it didn't seem likely. Eric and I tried to call Mr. Morgan, but all we got was static. The phone was completely dead. We even tried as many cell phones as we could, but no luck. We were still completely out of communication with the world it seemed. So we spent our last night as men doing terribly mundane things. There wasn't much alcohol in the house, so it was a fairly sober group. Still, we made the most of what we had, drinking, playing cards, watching TV or just talking. We did a lot of reminiscing. I felt sorry for the pledges. They had no idea who most of the people were that we had been talking about, but they listened and participated as best they could. They were a good group of pledges. I hated to think that they might never know what it was like to be Gammas. Probably the weirdest incident happened around ten that night. Items continued to appear or disappear around us, but we had managed to hang on to a couple of decks of cards for a long poker game. Jack Cates had just won a hand, bluffing Fred Davis out of a few bucks. "Pussy," Jack grinned as he raked in the money. "Yeah, and you're gonna have one, too," Fred reminded him. "Monty thinks the big guys down the street want to break your cherry - as soon as you get one." "Yeah, well I'll bet you get fucked first, wise ass," Jack retorted. "Hey..." Chuck said suddenly. "I've got an idea. We'll start a pool. The first guy to get fucked as a girl wins the money." "No way, Chuck," Brandon laughed. "You'd get yourself fucked just to win the money." We all laughed. It was weird graveyard humor, but it was better than sitting in our room waiting for the inevitable. "Okay," Chuck said. "Let's do it another way. Everybody sign his name on a slip of paper. Then we'll draw a name out of a hat and whoever picks the one who does it first wins the pot. Everybody will pony up ten bucks." "So how do we know the one who does it first will tell us about it?" Gary asked. "The first one will have to agree to tell." It was bizarre at best, but we were all in. By the time everybody had a chance to enter, we had three hundred and fifty dollars in the pot. That meant thirty-five guys decided to play the game. Most of them, I'm sure, were like me. I joined the pool, but I knew that no matter what kind of a girl I turned into, there was no way I was ever going to let a guy screw me. The guys were obviously trying to stay awake as long as possible, as if this was some protection against the transformation we all knew was about to come. Of course, we knew it wouldn't really protect us. There were already too many indicators of our approaching femininity for us to believe that. Or maybe it was just that we each wanted one more night that we could think of ourselves as men. I'm sure more than one of the brothers jacked off that night just to experience male orgasm one more time. Hell, I even thought about it myself, but I was too tired by the time I drifted back to my room. The odd thing was how calmly we were all taking this. Perhaps it was part of the spell. We were surrounded by objects that transformed themselves into feminine equivalents of the more masculine things they had been before, and yet we had almost accepted this as normal. Would we see our personal transformations in the same light? I almost hoped not. I didn't want to be a girl in the first place, so I certainly had no desire to enjoy it. I didn't intend to be the last of the brothers to be up, but it worked out that way. Maybe it was because I had been drinking coffee instead of booze like most of the other guys. Or maybe I just had a morbid curiosity about what was happening. I walked about, noting the changes. Maybe our intuition had been correct. Maybe staying awake did slow down the process. In any case, a few of the pledges looked almost like normal, sleeping girls already. If we were right in our assumptions, we would all be girls by morning. But what was causing it? I wondered as I made my way in the darkness back to my room. We had done nothing to invoke the anger of some faceless gods or sorcerers, had we? We were just a normal bunch of guys who had banded together in a college fraternity. We didn't deserve to be punished for something we had done, either intentionally or unintentionally. Maybe I was just feeling sorry for myself, I thought as I stripped down to my shorts and slipped into bed. Eric was already snoring in his bed, and it seemed as if the sounds he was making were a little less masculine, almost like a dainty snore. Well, at least he had managed to get to sleep. It was probably part of the spell, I thought as I felt sleepiness start to engulf me. I'd simply fall asleep and wake up a girl. What sort of girl would I be? I wondered. I had a sister, but she was quite a bit younger than me. She seemed to be attractive enough though, and well built without any tendency toward voluptuousness. She was... cute. Is that what I would be - cute? I found myself hoping so in a perverse sort of way. And with that thought, I drifted off to sleep. My night of transformation was not a pleasant one. I dreamed fitful, terrible dreams. I was alone in the fraternity house, but I wasn't alone. By that I mean that lurking in the exaggerated shadows of a suddenly gloomy house, I knew there was someone or something there with me. "Who's there?" my dream voice asked. But it wasn't my voice exactly. There was no reply, but something seemed to be moving in the darkness. I felt fear rising within me. I knew in my heart that this was a dream, but the danger seemed strangely real. I backed away from the worst of the darkness, hearing only the sound of my own labored breathing. It was just then that I felt a rough hand on my arm. I was spun about, a scream dying in my throat as another hand covered my mouth. "Quiet," a rough whispered voice ordered in my ear. I obeyed, but my breathing remained ragged. The voice said something else, whispered in my ear, but I couldn't tell exactly what it said. I was limp, too frightened to do what I should do. And what was that? What was it I should have done? I couldn't be sure. I couldn't focus my thoughts. I was suddenly on the floor, naked, a huge figure towering over me, its torso resting on mine as it pinned my weakened arms to my side. It... it was attempting to rape me! It was trying to enter me! But how could that be? I was a male. There was nothing for him to... Pain! My God, it hurts! There shouldn't be pain in a dream, should there? I...I...I... I awoke suddenly. There was light streaming in through the windows. It was morning. It had all been a dream. Maybe even the anticipated transformation had been a dream, too. But no, that was too much to hope for. Just lying there in bed, I could tell things were not the same. I could feel long hair spread across my bare shoulders and across my transformed chest. There were two weights on my chest. They weren't oppressive by any means, but I could feel them there, shifting with my slightest move. And between my legs, there was no sensation that I had ever felt before. There was no morning woody to greet me - only a sense of emptiness. It was done. "Good morning." It was a pleasant voice - a woman's voice - that greeted me. I turned my head to see the new Eric. I knew it was Eric the moment I saw him - her. She was tall and slender as the old Eric had been, but not as tall. Her hair, like before, was an auburn shade, and her green eyes were much as I remembered Eric's eyes. In fact, I think it was the eyes that really said "Eric." I was to learn later that it was true of all of us. She put a comforting hand on my bare shoulder. "How are you doing?" "Okay, I guess," I replied, startled by the melodic sound of my voice. "Can you get up?" "I think so," I replied, pushing up with unfamiliar muscles. It was strange. Every movement was new and different. It was as if my body was less rigid - somehow less solid. Maybe that was part of why women the way they were - graceful and yielding. It may have been a result of the unexpected fluidity. I managed to pull myself up out of bed and looked down at myself. My new breasts had come to rest inside a sheer white babydoll nightie, and I could see they were a creamy white like the rest of my body and accented with small, light freckles. Damn my Irish ancestry, I thought. I could see strands of my hair as well. It was more brown than Eric's, but it too had just a faint touch of red. I was quite an Irish lass, I was. I rose unsteadily to my new feet. There seemed to be less foot surface for me to balance on, but my center of gravity appeared to be lower, centered in my hips. That gave me more balance than I might have thought. I walked over to look in the full-length mirror that had appeared overnight on the back of our door, feeling the odd, gentle sway of my hips and ass as I did. The face that stared back at me could best be described as cute. I wasn't going to be a contender in the Miss America Pageant any time soon, but I wasn't going to break any mirrors either. My nose looked a little narrow and my blue eyes were a little wide, I thought. I couldn't decide if the sprinkling of freckles made me look better or worse. My body, as I had assumed from looking down, was pretty decent, with average or better breasts, a slim waist, and attractive, feminine legs that would look good in nylons and heels - although I nearly shuddered at that thought. Eric came up behind me. She was still a couple of inches taller than me and maybe just a shade better looking. "I looked in your purse," she said. "My...purse?" "Oh yes," she said with a nod. "You have one. So do I. You're now Danielle Sue Denning. By the way, I'm now Erica Jean Carson. I guess whatever did this to us didn't want to waste a lot of time coming up with new names. Do you want to be called Danielle or Dannie?" I shrugged. "I don't care. Pick one." "Then Dannie it is," she confirmed. I turned and looked at her. "You're taking this awfully calmly." "So are you if you think about it." She was right about that. Intellectually I wanted nothing more than a return to my male body, but that didn't stop me from accepting who I was - for the moment at least. What else was I - were we - supposed to do? Run around the house shrieking and crying while we beat out new chests? I don't think it was part of the spell at all. I think it was just resignation. "What about the rest of the house?" I asked her. She sat down on her bed and sighed, "I don't know. I thought I'd wait until you woke up. Maybe if we face them together, it won't be so bad." So we dressed quickly, trying to ignore the new shape of our bodies. We chose jeans and sweatshirts, even though the weather was warm enough for T-shirts and shorts. There was no way either of us was going to display our new bodies in skimpy clothing. It turned out quite a few others felt the same way. Like the day before, most of the seniors and other actives were in the dining room having coffee and eating whatever cold breakfast items they could find. Unlike the day before, they were all girls, and all but one was dressed as we were. The exception was Chuck who wore shorts and a tank top. She seemed the least morose about her transformation. It was actually fairly easy to tell who was who. Just like Eric...a and I, each of my fraternity brothers was identifiable from certain characteristic features. Chuck was still small and slight as he had been before. His dirty blonde hair was a little more lustrous Now but it was still straight and cut fairly short, although not as short as his male self had kept it. She had smallish breasts, but that made her look no less feminine. She seemed almost unconcerned with her change. Brandon was just the opposite. Tall and a little raw boned, she had long blonde hair and almost Nordic features. Although now female, she looked no less athletic than she had as a man. She wasn't unattractive by any means; in fact, she looked like she could try out for the Swedish bikini team of commercial fame. But she was most definitely not the slip of a girl that Chuck had become. Gary had become an attractive brunette, but she had been fairly short before, and a little stocky. Unfortunately for her, some of that had carried over into her new appearance. Again, she wasn't unattractive by any means, but she was just a little wide in the hips and looked as if she could stand a few days in the gym. Matt had become a real looker. It was a little surprising because he had been just average as a man. Apparently there were no absolutes. Or perhaps she would have been more attractive if born a woman because of some unknown roll of the genetic dice. She had proud, high breasts and a narrow waist. Her hair which had been thinning as Matt was long and full, falling in luxurious waves of dark blonde around a perfect face. Matt would have to beat guys off with a very big stick. "Morning, girls!" Chuck said with a quirky little grin. "Sleep well?" I began to wonder if Chuck had slipped a mental cog. He was taking this far too well. I guessed some people could handle change better than others. "I guess as well as can be expected under the circumstances," I said as laconically as I could. Erica just grunted. It only took a few moments to realize that it just been bravado with Chuck. She was fidgeting nervously like a dope addict without a fix. Her grins were artificial and when she thought no one was watching, she'd fluff out her tank top to make her substantial breasts look smaller. I could imagine that she had gotten dressed with the idea of accepting her fate with a smile. But the smile had faded and she was obviously as upset as the rest of us. "Well, one good thing, I guess," Matt said softly as she sat down at the table with her coffee opposite me. "These damned hard chairs don't seem quite as hard with the extra padding." It was true. I felt as if I had a pillow attached to my ass. "Are any of the pledges up?" I asked. Matt looked at me with a grim expression. "A few. We caught one of them trying to kill herself." "What?" She nodded. "Yeah. She had some sleeping pills with her before the change. Apparently whatever changed us didn't see any reason to get rid of those. She had a whole handful and was trying to work up enough courage to down them when Brandy saw her and stopped her." "Brandy?" I asked. Matt nodded at Brandon. "We all sort of decided we should take the girl's names we found on our ID's until... well until we can figure out how to get back to normal. Brandon is Brandy; Chuck is Charley. That's short for Charlotte, I guess. Gary is Gloria. I guess there was no good female equivalent of Gary. I'm Mattie - short for Matilda. Jesus... Matilda. What a crappy name." I didn't know. I thought it sort of fit her, but I didn't say so. "Well, Mattie, meet Erica and Dannie." I offered a feminine hand. When Mattie took it, I noted we shook hands gently as women do. But we did manage to slip in the Gamma secret handshake just for good measure. "So what do we do now?" Brandy asked as she sat down next to Mattie. Once again, they were looking at me. Shit. If I wanted to run the show, I would have challenged Eric for the presidency. Besides, I didn't know what to do. Fortunately, Erica bailed me out. "Maybe we should wait until everybody is up," Erica suggested. Everyone nodded in reluctant agreement. The fact of the matter was that everyone just wanted to do something. It was frustrating to be sitting there drinking coffee and tugging at our clothes. It seemed so depressing to just accept what had happened and start our new lives. We were men - or at least we had been. The thought of quietly accepting the hand fate had dealt us seemed wrong. It seemed as if we waited forever for the rest of the house to wake up, but I suppose it was only an hour or so. Outside the strange fog had begun to clear, and we could see the other houses down the street in the mist. Brandy tried the front door and found it opened Now but none of us had the nerve to step outside in our new bodies. I think we were all afraid someone might see us. After a while, everyone in the fraternity was in the dining room. The group barely fit but we managed. As I looked over the bevy of transformed women, I was thankful that I didn't see a homely one in the pack. It was bad enough being changed into women, but being changed into a homely one seemed as if it would be the ultimate insult. That isn't to say everyone was a raving beauty. Matt - Mattie - was probably the best looking girl, and only a few came close to her. Some, like Gary - Gloria - were a little cosmetically challenged, but they still weren't bad. There were enough male thoughts left inside my head to realize that if I had still been my male self, I wouldn't have found any of them unattractive, and certainly included Gloria. While most of the actives had chosen sweatshirts and jeans or something similar to that, the pledges weren't so lucky. Since they had planned for only a two night stay, they had only a change of clothing with them, and that change of clothing was often more revealing than they would have liked. There was quite a collection of crop tops and short shorts and the like, and none of them appeared very happy about it. To make matters worse, a rumor had gotten loose among the pledges the previous night that this was all planned. "How do we know you weren't girls all along and planned to change us like this?" one of them questioned. She meant it to be a forceful question, but in her new female voice, it was merely shrill and belligerent. Matt might be Mattie Now but she was still their Pledge Trainer. She stood up under the question. "Jake, if I looked like this naturally, do you think we'd have to trick guys like you to get a cute pledge class?" Jake - or whatever her new name was - was a little taken aback by the answer, and by the laughter she heard around her. To her credit, she gave a lopsided grin with her now full lips and snickered, "I guess not." "Okay," Erica said, taking charge of the meeting. "Does anybody have even the slightest idea why this was done to us?" Everyone was silent. Well, somebody had to speak. I guessed I was the one to do it. "I'd say it's some sort of curse," I ventured. It sounded stupid even as I said it, but I couldn't think of any other answer. There was a lot of girlish laughter bordering on giggling. Erica held up her hands for quiet. "Hey, let's listen to what Dannie has to say - unless one of you has a better idea." Nobody did, so I went on, "I know how crazy it sounds, but look at yourselves. What happened to us is magic, no matter how much you want to believe that magic doesn't exist. The question is who - or what - did this and why." "Who, what, why, when, where," Jack - now Jackie - Zimmer ticked off. "Those are the five w's of journalism. That's my major for you new guys." "Well, we know the when, the where, and the what," Brandy said. "Now all we need to know is who and why - just like Dannie said." "Maybe it's the house," Charlie suggested. "Maybe it's...alive." I know I shuddered at that thought. I think some of the others did, too. But I was sure it wasn't the first time that thought had crossed any of our minds. Many of us were addicts of late night horror movies. Intelligent but malevolent were the mainstay of the genre. "But we've been living here two weeks," someone else pointed out. "Why didn't it do this to us the first night?" "Then maybe it's one of the pledges the house wanted," Gloria offered. About half a dozen girls tried to speak at once. "Wait a minute!" I called out. I was happy to see I could raise my voice to get attention without being shrill. On a quieter note, I told them, "Look, we've lived here for a couple of weeks, that's true. But officially, the house didn't become ours until day before yesterday. Eric and I picked up the title at the bank." "So you're saying that was the trigger that started all of this?" Erica asked, a little stricken that her own actions may have started the changes. "It's possible, that's all I'm saying," I clarified. "Oh, brother," Charlie muttered, "a haunted house. That's all we need." "First of all that should be 'oh, sister,'" the former Jack Cates said with a little smile. "And I don't know if haunted is the right word. I don't think a ghost did this. I don't even believe in ghosts." "Well, maybe they don't believe in Jack Cates," Charlie replied, then adding, "Janice." Jack - now Janice - blushed at her new name. "Okay," I said, actually getting into the discussion, "we don't really know what's going on. We need to do some research. Jackie, are you still a journalism major in this reality?" "As far as I know." "Then why don't you see what you can track down on this house? You kNow its history and all that." Jackie nodded. "You want to help me?" "Pick somebody else," I told her. "I think Erica and I need to drive over to Jacksonburg and find out what out benefactor, Mr. Morgan, knows about this house." "You think he had something to do with this?" Erica asked. "He gave us the house, didn't he?" I pointed out. "Even if he doesn't know anything, he may lead us to someone who does." It had crossed my mind that Thaddeus Morgan's gift was a little too generous. And then there was the way he financed the house outside his own resources. It had seemed odd at the time. Could it be that he had known about the curse? It was possible, I realized. Erica looked as if she was going to say something else when the phone rang. We all jumped when it happened, and a couple of the girls even let out a startled little scream. Normally one of the pledges would have answered the phone as part of pledge duties. Not this time, though - Mattie swayed femininely to the phone and picked it up. "Gamma House," she said tentatively. She listened for a moment; then held the phone out as if it were unpleasantly alive. Nodding at Charlie, she murmured, "It's for you." "Me?" Charlie whispered back. "But I can't answer that. I don't sound like Chuck." Mattie covered the phone and whispered back, "They didn't ask for Chuck; they asked for Charlie." I looked at Erica, and she nodded at me. "You know what this means," I said to her. "Sure. This means somebody thinks Chuck has always been Charlie." There were murmurs from some of the others as well. I know what was going through their minds because the same thing was going through mine. There was a little relief since it meant that we wouldn't be viewed as a curiosity and ridiculed by people who had known our male selves. As far as the world was concerned, the Gamma House was a sorority house and always had been. It would make our new lives somewhat easier. On the other hand, it meant that we were dealing with magic that was strong enough to change the world around us as well as what was in the house. It was magic so strong that we might never be able to figure out a way to get our old lives back no matter what. As far as the world was concerned, I was Danielle Sue Denning, and nothing I could say or do would convince anyone outside the house that it had ever been anything else. Charlie stumbled off to get the house phone like a condemned prisoner heading for an execution. I couldn't say that I blamed her. She was about to talk to a boy who knew her new self better than she did. What could she say or do? I supposed she would just have to play along. "Oh God!" Gloria exclaimed with a quaver in her voice. "What are we going to do. I can't act like a girl." "I think you're going to have to act like a girl," I told her. "We all are. Nobody would believe us if we told them what happened. I'll bet our own parents think we've always been girls." "But there are so many of us," Brandy pointed out. "It would be different if one or two of us claimed to have been guys before, but when this many... girls claim to be guys, they've got to believe us." "That would be the worst thing that could happen," Jackie pointed out, brushing a wisp of long hair out of her face. "Think about it. I'm a journalism major. Think about what our lives would be like if the media found out about this." But Brandy wasn't convinced. "But maybe doctors can do something for us." "Such as?" Jackie asked. "Do you think they have a pill that can fix this? Guess again, Brandy." She emphasized the name. "No, if everyone believed us, we'd spend the rest of our lives on display. We'd be a big news story and then a curiosity. I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life explaining to every guy I meet what it feels like to have a cunt instead of a cock." Brandy was silent. Jackie had made her point. "Besides," Dane - now Dana - added, "we're up against powerful magic here." Jackie raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were majoring in religion. You believe in magic?" "I do Now that's for sure," Dana confirmed. "But I always have believed in it a little. What's the difference between a religious miracle and magic anyway? It's just that a miracle is institutionalized and magic isn't. Besides, you know what they say about magic just being science we haven't been able to explain yet. Maybe there's always been a little magic in the world." "Do you know anything about magic?" I asked carefully, not wanting to offend Dana. In spite of what she had just said, I knew she was a very religious person. Dana nodded. "I took a mythology class last spring. It touched on magic in myths. What I don't know I can probably find." It wasn't much, I knew, but it was all we had. "Why don't you look up references to sex changing for us?" "Sure." Charlie came back into the room, and all eyes were on her. "So who was it?" someone asked. I wasn't sure who had spoken since I hadn't learned to recognize everyone's new f