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Octet By Ellie Dauber (c) 2003 So it came to pass that Anne-Magis and the Council became the overseers of the Land. And the people prospered, sometimes in spite of themselves. Desiring to increase the riches of the land, Anne-Magis decreed that there should be milestones to celebrate the works of the people. At these times, a talesmith would be chosen to create a new work for all to enjoy. And it happened that, one day, Anne-Magis presented herself by mystic messenger to the talescribe Edauber. "Soon, the milestone of the 8,000th story will be upon us, Edauber. I would have you be the one to prepare that tale for people of the realm?" "I am, of course, honored," Edauber said, bowing low. "I shall do my best to deserve to have my work numbered among the glorious tales that have been the earlier milestones." "I have no doubt that you will," Anne-Magis said. And with that, she vanished. But Edauber had doubts. "So many of my works are short pieces, and a milestone tale should be long, long enough to be savored." For many days, she pondered this problem. Yet no solution came to her troubled mind. Was she worthy? Should she forge ahead, or should she contact Anne-Magis while there was still time for the commission to be passed to another, one who could bring forth a proper tale. She sought solace one night at a feast-hall that provided a host of foods from far, high, Chian to its customers. As she ate the Chicken of the High Lord Tsao, a solution came to her. "A feast," she thought aloud, "may be a single fine course, pleasing to many. Yet, there are at least as many tastes as there are people. Might it not be better to serve up many smaller meals in that hopes that all will find one thing, at least, to their own delight?" Working from this idea, she found that the stories came easier. And, now, at the appointed time, she -- I, Edauber, -- humbly present this feast of some eight "removes" or "courses" for your consideration. Although all are tales of mystic transformation for I can write no other sort well enough to present, may each of you discover some small morsel that pleases you. First Remove: Djinn Game III The beach was covered with litter from the storm. Fred Scofield muttered to himself as he walked along it. He'd found a long thin piece of driftwood that he was using for a walking stick, and every so often, he vented by taking a swing at something half-buried in the sand. "Bad enough, Spring has to cancel at the last minute," he said. "I drive up, figuring I could find myself a playmate up here for the weekend, and that damn storm hits ten minutes after I get here." Spring Harper was the woman Fred was currently seeing. She compensated for her mundane life as a stock analyst during the day by having a rather _imaginative_ sex life in her off-hours. Unfortunately, her boss had dumped a two-foot pile of paper on her desk at 3 PM on Friday and told her to have a full report on it for a meeting at 10 AM Monday morning. Fred poked at a small, gray crab that hurriedly scuttled away. "If I wanted to sit alone eating cold pizza and listening to the rain, I could have stayed in the city." He was about to chase after the crab - - just to have _something_ to do, when he saw a bit of shiny metal lying there in the sand. It was some kind of ornament, a green stone -- jade, perhaps -- and the size and shape of an egg, inside an ornate silver filigree. It looked very expensive. "Maybe this weekend won't be a total loss after all." There were patches of mud and sand stuck to the egg. Fred pulled out his shirttail and began to clean it. The egg began to hum softly. A glow spread through it, pulsing to match the hum. "What the hell?" Fred dropped the egg in surprise. He stared at it as it lay in the sand, the hum getting louder. Suddenly, a thin column of dark gray smoke began to rise from the egg. It formed into a vaguely human shape and began to grow lighter in color. At first, the smoke was turning blue, but it stopped and, instead, became a light shade of pink. Then, miraculously, the smoke compacted into a human figure. A very _female_ figure. Her hair was a sea of auburn, flowing in waves down to her waist. Her skin was the color of dark honey; her eyes, the black of a moonless night. Her face was pleasing, heart-shaped; her lips were full, pouting, and begging to be kissed. The rest of her was a mass of feminine curves. Her breasts were two great pillows that strained against a pale green halter. Her waist was narrow enough that a man might put his arms around it. His eyes were drawn at last to the curvature of her thighs, gateways to infinite pleasures hidden yet revealed in matching translucent harem pants and a small satin panty. She stared at the man for a moment, then, in a voice like the tinkling of bells, she said, "I am... Jamala, oh, my master. For the freeing of this humble slave, you are granted three wishes." Forget the wishes. Fred _wanted_ her. He wanted to see that hair spread out on a bed as he drove into her. He wanted to feel those lips around his maleness. He wanted to suckle at those breasts until he tasted their honeyed milk. He wanted... "I want to make love to you." "Is that your first wish, Master?" Damn, she made it seem so mechanical. "Ye... No! I want you to be with me because you want to, not because I ordered you to." Jamala put a hand on her chin and seemed to be studying him. 'Well,' he thought. 'I'm not a bad looking guy, or so Spring tells me. I can still fit into the speedos I wore on the Rutgers swim team ten years ago. I can fill them out pretty good, too, if I do say so myself.' She seemed to be reading his mind. Her eyes lingered at his crouch, and she smiled. Her tongue poked out and slid against her upper lip. "You are most handsome, Master, and mightily endowed, but it is not looks -- or size -- that make the lover; it is skill. I am of the Green Djinn and over 2700 years old. I have been with some of the greatest lovers known to your history. How can I know that you are to be counted among them?" "I... I don't know." He grinned. "Why don't you just take a chance? I don't think you'll be disappointed." Jamala had seemed to be no more that 5 foot 6, half a head shorted than him. In an instant, she _loomed_ 50 foot tall or more. Lightening seemed to crackle in the air around her. "No, my Master. You do not want to take the chance, for you would not enjoy my being _disappointed_." Her voice boomed down at him. "I... I guess not. What do we do, them?" She was suddenly normal sized again, smiling happily at him. "There is a way, Master. If you _wish_, I could cast you back through the years to relive your every sexual encounter. Our minds would be linked, so that I might experience your skills. In this way, I could know." She leered at him. "And know you also, Master, such an experience can be very _arousing_." She said that last word almost as a purr. "All right. Do it." Then, as an afterthought, he added, "but only encounters with real women: no fantasizing, no jacking off with a Playboy when I was eleven, and _nothing_ Oedipal." "Of course, my Master. You have only to make the wish." "I wish it," he said firmly. He began to feel lightheaded. Everything went black, and he felt himself falling. *** He landed with a thump. It was his room in the house on Spruce Street in Middleburg, the one they'd lived in till he was fifteen. Sure enough, there was a 1987 Playboy calendar on the wall, right by the Farrah poster. There were books on the desk across from his bed, ninth grade English Literature, the top one said. "She did it," he whispered, unsure what would happen next. Then he... giggled? The door opened, and his 14-year old self walked in. Freddy, his younger self, was carrying a bottle of his parents' whiskey and two glasses. He was in his undershorts and socks. "Is this okay?" "'S fine," Fred said. His voice was high and soft, a girl's voice. "I really shouldn't be doing this." Fred looked down at his body. He saw a pair of breasts -- 32-B, maybe -- in a white cotton bra. Below that were a narrow waist and a pair of rounded hips in a matching white panty. There was no bulge at the groin. 'Tammy Griggs,' he thought. 'I'm Tammy Griggs, and this is the day we both lost our virginity.' He panicked. 'Genie... Jamala... what's going on?' 'I am most certainly _not_ a mere genie,' said a voice in his mind. 'I am of the Green Djinn and worthy of respect. Your wish was that I know if you are worthy to be my bed partner. How can I learn this by seeing how _you_ felt during the act of sex? No, my Master, I can only learn by discovering how you made _your bedmates_ feel, and for me to learn this, you must experience it with them.' Fred thought that he heard a chuckle, then there was only a silence within his mind. All thought stopped when Fred felt the burn of alcohol in his throat. The whiskey Freddy had poured settled in his stomach making a nice warm feeling. He felt Freddy's arm around his waist, pulling him close. Their noses got in the way, and they fumbled with the kiss for a moment before Fred/Tammy felt Freddy's lips against his own. The kiss was gentle... sweet. He felt his arms rising up to encircle Freddy's neck. His breasts were warm, tingly. His crotch felt... warm, warm and... empty. Freddy's fingers fumbled with his bra. 'Well, I get the hang of it eventually.' He felt his... Tammy's arms move behind him and unhook it. He smiled and let it fall from his body. Freddy kissed him again, leaning forward. His/Tammy's body was pushed back onto the bed. He giggled as he fell and tried to move to a sexy position. Freddy was suddenly on the bed with him, kissing him on the mouth, on the breasts. He felt his... Tammy's body squirming with excitement. Freddy reached down at started to tug at his panties. Fred felt Tammy's fear that they might rip. "Wait a minute," he/she said impatiently. His/her body raised itself slightly off the bed. Freddy pulled the panty down. Tossing it away with a triumphant smile on his face. Freddy was on top of him/her. Something moved against Fred/Tammy's upper thigh. "Better let me," he/she said. He/she reached down to guide his penis. It seemed so strange to Fred to be touching someone else's penis, even though he knew that it was really the younger version of his own. It slid in easily. His/her vagina was wet and ready. "Oh," he/she said at the odd feeling of being penetrated. For Tammy, it was something she'd expected, actually looked forward to -- if it was the right boy. Fred had never known, never expected to know anything like it. 'Did it have to feel so _good_?' he thought nervously. It did, and the feeling got better and better. Fred felt transported. His younger body seemed to be pumping _megavolts_ of sexual energy into Tammy's body. It was Fred as well as Tammy that shouted "Yes, yes!" before the words dissolved into a high pitched scream. The scene shifted. He was Tammy again, but it was about two weeks later. They had made love the second time at her house. Her parents came back just as he/she climaxed. Freddy heard them and tried to stop, but he/she wouldn't let him pull out. Freddy almost killed his older self by stuffing a pillow in his/her face to muffle the noise. The orgasm that second time had felt even better than the first. He was never Tammy again. Her parents had found them upstairs. They were fully dressed but still upstairs. Freddy was blamed, and Tammy wasn't allowed to see him again. Then Fred was the succession of the girls he'd dated through the rest of high school. By his senior year, Freddy had earned a reputation as a cocksman among a certain segment of the females in the class. Fred found himself being fucked the back seat of cars, in various bedrooms and basement family rooms. He was amazed at the pride Myra Hertzog felt in being taken on the floor of her father's legal office, when they snuck in there one Saturday. She'd always pretended that she hadn't meant it to happen. Fred barely noticed that the revulsion he'd felt at first was smaller each time. He tried to change things, to force the body of the girl to push his younger self away. He couldn't. After a few times, he was getting so caught up in the pleasure that he just stopped trying. It got even better during Freddy's college years. The girls had been more adventurous and more skilled. Fred was fucked in quiet corners of the library, in dorm rooms, and even classrooms. He found him/herself on his/her back in his frat house, and in the "guest" beds at a couple of sororities. Fred found him/herself on his/her knees giving head. Yes, he'd learned to enjoy that, too, at college. Fred felt the cramping of his/her period just as Freddy came in the mouth of one steady girlfriend. He didn't care; Freddy had played with his/her clit, even ignoring the blood, until he/she _had_ to do something. He felt the increased pleasure of threesomes. Whether it was a spare boy or a spare girl didn't matter as long as the orgasms came. They were something Fred was looking forward to now, and Freddy never seemed to disappoint. On into his twenties and the sleek women he'd known... and loved. Fred's mind lingered over each encounter. He was enjoying it now, enjoying the kissing on his mouth, his breasts, his... his pussy. Foreplay was wonderfully different for each woman he became. He thrilled as his body warmed, as the nerves "pinged" with arousal. It was incredible to feel his nipples grow hard, his pussy grow warm, and wet, and empty. Then... then Freddy, _wonderful_ Freddy, would fill it. He would pump and pump. He would reach down and play with Fred's clit. Sometimes he used a finger or his limber tongue. Whatever he did, the orgasms would build and build until the moment of ultimate, pleasurable release. It was that way when he shared the experience with Meg, and Sally, and Tamara (his bit of brown sugar), and... He lost track of how many "ands" there were. Until he was Spring Harper. There was that last time, was it only four days ago when Freddy had walked into her office just before five. They had a date for dinner, but Freddy hadn't wanted to wait. Freddy took Fred/Spring in his arms and kissed her. Freddy's tongue forced its way between his/her teeth and played with his/her own. Fred felt his body warm, heard it moan. He felt Freddy's hands pushing his/her dress up, pulling his/her panties down, and taking him/her there right on the desk. The office wasn't empty, and the risk of getting caught just added to the pleasure of it. Fred was still screaming, still feeling the orgasm, when he found himself back in his own body. He was standing on the beach looking at Jamala. "You are a most skilled lover, Master. If you still want my body..." she let the words trail off. She was a beautiful as before, but Fred felt different about her now. "I do; I do," Fred said eagerly. "I want your body -- or one like it. I-I want to experience that sort of sex for the rest of my life. I...I want to be a woman, a beautiful woman." he blurted out the words, almost surprising himself. No, it wasn't a surprise. He had just experienced what might be described as a fifteen-year long multiple orgasm. Who _wouldn't_ want to be a woman after something like that? The sensation that followed was like being dipped headfirst in warm honey. Fred's hair grew long and silky, reaching down to just below the shoulders. His face soften as his cheekbones rose and his nose straightened and grew smaller. His lips seemed a bit larger, though. His Adam's apple shrank away, so that his voice was now a pleasant contralto. His body shrank and became thinner. What body hair he had disappeared except for the woman's inverted triangle in his crotch. A woman's curves came in, now. He felt a pulling at his chest. His pects became breasts, growing out until they were a 36-C, pushing out his shirt. His waist narrowed and his hips grew wide. His ass grew out into the teardrop of a woman's ass. His arms and legs developed the supple roundness of a woman. The final -- truly final -- change came last. His penis grew erect for the last time. It reached its full length before it began to shrink away. His testicles shrank and withdrew into his body to become ovaries. The empty sacks tightened, reduced to a pair of lips that surrounded the nub that was the last remnant of his manhood. The nub became even smaller as it settled down into the slit that was forming between his legs. Fred Scofield was now a woman. "How do I look? How do I look?" she asked eagerly. Jamala smiled and made a gesture. The air in front of him shimmered and became a sort of mirror. Fred stared at the reflection. She was beautiful, but... "Why am I still in these clothes, and where is my make-up and all that?" "Master... Mistress, your wish was for the body of a woman. That was all. You are still Fred Scofield. You wear his clothes because he wore them, and you wear no make-up because he did not." "The hell with that. I wish... I wish I was a girl, that I was _always_ a girl as far as the rest of the world is concerned, dressed and made up for the _male_ lover I want here with me as soon as possible." "And that is your final wish?" Jamala smiled. It was the sort of smile a hawk would have as he swooped down on an unsuspecting squirrel. "Yes, yes. That's what I wish." Jamala nodded. "Then let it be done." She clapped her hand. A flood of memories washed into Fred's mind. She still remembered being a male, but those memories were less clear. The clearer memories were of being a little girl, of her first bra, her first date, her first... the first time a boy had kissed her, had made love to her. And she remembered that people called her Frieda, not Fred. At that same instant, Frieda's clothes began to change. Her sport shirt lost its sleeves as it shifted from dark blue cotton to a pale blue Lycra. It was sheered now, and the push-up bra that her T-shirt had become could be partly seen through it. At the same time, her Dockers moved up her legs. They merged into a single tube of cloth that reformed into a blue beach skirt, with a matching pair of short shorts beneath it. Beneath them, what had been a pair of men's briefs was now a sheer thong panty. Her sandals were still sandals, but they had a one-inch heel now. She felt something on her face and looked in the mirror again. "These clothes, they're beautiful and... make-up. I'm wearing make-up." She was, lipstick and blusher. Frieda primped in front of the mirror, admiring her reflection. Then she pouted. "But I wished for a lover, too, a man to make me feel..." She shivered and hugged herself in anticipation. "As my Mistress wishes," Jamala said. She clapped her hands. "Behold my true form, then." The Djinn began to grow taller. Her curves filled out into hard angular muscle. Her hair shrank down into a thin layer of stubble, even as a beard grew out from her chin. Her breasts withdrew back into the hard pectorals of her chest even as the halter that had held them became a man's vest. Her pants remained, but they were the solid cloth of a pair of male pants. They even had the bulge at the crotch that hinted at what is so often found in a male's pants. Frieda was looking at that same bulge. She licked her lips in anticipation as she felt the familiar tingling in her breasts and groin. _Jamal_ stepped forward, taking the eager woman in his arms. Tricking a human with their own wishes was the favorite sport of the Green Djinn. This human had given Jamal the chance to play a truly historic prank upon _him_. Not only that, but now _she_ offered herself as a personal reward. Jamal took the eager, new woman into his arms and disappeared into the egg that was the gateway to his own realm. The End Second Remove: Snapshots Retirement is a time to pull back, to take a much-earned and welcome rest after more than forty years work. But for those people whose work has _become_ their life, it's an early death, the end to any useful purpose, while they still have the minds and the heart to continue. For Lillian Wagner, it meant the sorrow of watching her newly retired husband, Ed, sink into the despair of imagined uselessness. Things, however, aren't always as bad as they seem. Ed and Lil will find a reprieve in a very common place that just happens to lie at the edge of... the Twilight Zone. *** The sky was a deep, almost slate gray. The Harbor Heights Community Center moved its annual Fall Flea Market into the Center auditorium because of the threat of rain. A chipper young woman in a blue "Volunteer" T-shirt sat behind a table next to the open door. "Hi, and welcome to the flea market," she said, adding, "There's a $2 admission fee." "I don't see why we have to pay money just to get in." Ed Wagner said, as he reached for his wallet. Ed was a tall, slender man with thinning gray hair cut just a bit on the long side. He wore jeans and a gray sweatshirt "Oh, shush, Ed," said a short, slightly plump woman standing next to him in a pale yellow housedress. Lil Wagner wore her own gray hair in a ponytail that went halfway down her back. "It's for a good cause, and you know it." "I suppose. Hell, I don't even know why I let you drag me to this thing." He handed the volunteer a $5. When she gave him the change, he quickly pushed the single into a slotted can marked "Contributions." Lil smiled at the small charity. "Because you're bored to tears, you old fraud. You've done nothing but sit around the house, since you retired last month. You need to get out and do things. Retirement isn't the end of the world." "Next thing, you'll be telling me that I've still got my health." "Well you have." She squeezed his arm. "You're still my big strong 'Mr. Man.'" Ed took her hand in his. "And you're still my 'Sweet Lilly'... but, if I'm so fit, why did the company force me to leave." "Because you turned 65, and that was the mandatory retirement age." "I know. It's just that I... I feel like I wasted my whole life, never accomplished a damned thing at work. I'm like that guy Jack Nicholson played in that SCHMIDT movie." "Now _that_ is nonsense. Didn't they make you spend your last three months with the company training Andy Becker and Matt O'Hara, the men they picked to take over for you? How can your work have been a waste, if you had to train _two_ men to replace you?" "I don't know, but don't think that I haven't been tempted to drive over and check out the company's dumpsters." "At least that would have gotten you out of the house." "You're one thing that I didn't waste my time on." He paused. "I can't think of a better way to have spent my life than being married to you." He gently squeezed her hand. "Nor I." She squeezed his back. By now they were inside the auditorium. "Now, let's see what sort of 'treasures' we can find." "Shall we stay together?" he asked after a moment that they both spent looking at the number of tables. "Ed Royce has some fishing lures for sale over that way." He pointed off to the right. "I don't think so. I see a table full of cookbooks that I want to look at. You go buy a better way to catch 'em, and I'll see about getting some new ways to cook 'em up." Before they could separate, she added, "Let's meet at the food booth..." she pointed to an area near the front of the room where volunteers were selling hot dogs, burgers, and soda, "...in an hour." "Fine. We'll show each other what we found, and I'll treat you to lunch." She kissed his cheek. "You always did know how to show a girl a good time, you big spender." "Anything for the right girl." *** Ed took a sip of Coke -- diet Coke at Lil's insistence. "So what did you find?" "A cookbook on indoor grilling, and it has a _big_ chapter on fish, so that new lure of yours better work. I got another one on Thai cooking, so brace yourself for something new at mealtime." Cooking was a longtime hobby of Lil's, one that Ed had learned to put up with through the years. Only about one new recipe in four actually tasted good to him, but it made her happy. Another hobby of hers was collecting salt and pepper sets. She had about sixty, sixty-one, now, and she held the newest one up for him. "See, Mickey Mouse is the salt shaker, and, Donald Duck is the pepper, of course." "Oh, of course." He tried not to smile at her earnestness. "Anything else?" "Well..." Her voice trailed off as she reached into the paper shopping bag that held her purchases. "I did get this." "An instant camera? Now why did you buy this?" He took the pale gray camera case from her hand. "Because they're fun," Lil said stubbornly. "And we never did replace the one that _accidentally_ fell off the dock at Dingman's Lake last year." "That _was_ an accident. Besides, I got Harry to take the blame." Harry was their son, a chemical engineer, who lived way out on the West Coast near San Francisco. "By the way, I'm thinking of taking him and Harriet up on their offer to fly us both out there for Xmas." "Oh, let's do it. We haven't seen them or the kids in so long." "I thought you'd say that. How about we call them tonight and say yes?" "Now I'm really glad I brought that camera. We can use it on the trip. It'd be terrible to get home and _then_ discover that none of the pictures we took there came out." "Hmmm, I'd better test it first." He looked closely at the camera case. "It's a knock-off. I never even heard of the name, 'Polasruid', probably doesn't even work worth a damn." "Maybe... but the man I bought it from said that we'd be amazed by the pictures it could take." She shrugged. "And if it doesn't work, I'm only out $1.50." "That's probably $2 too much, but we'll try it when we get home." *** "Okay," Ed said. "You just sit there on the steps and give me a big smile." Lil walked over and used her handkerchief to dust the three steps up to the back porch. When she was satisfied, she sat on the top step. "How's this?" she asked, looking up at him demurely. "Perfect." He focused on her through the viewer and pressed the button. As he did, he saw her quickly stick out her tongue at him. "Just lovely," he added. Lil stood up and took the other packages into the house. Ed counted to thirty, as the directions in the camera case explained. Then he pulled out the film packet and put the developing photo face-up on the step to finish its processing. At first, there was only a blur. Slowly shapes appeared, and, after a few more seconds, the scene was almost recognizable. He could see Lil sitting on the step, but her image was that half-finished, washed-out metallic image that photographers call "solarized." At that moment, Lil came back outside. "How did --" She froze in place. In an instant, her body took on the same half-done look as the photo. "Lil!" Ed dropped the camera and ran to her. She couldn't be moved. It was as if she were a part of the porch. She just stared at him with unseeing eyes. "Oh, Lord, what have I done?" Ed collapsed down onto the step next to the picture. As he sat, trying to figure out what to do, he glanced down at the picture. It was changing; color was starting to leak back into the silvery areas. He looked quickly at Lil. Yes, he could see traces of color on her, too. "It's... it's still developing," he whispered in amazement. "And when it's done, Lil will be normal again." He leaned back against the step, waiting for it to be over. Colors were coming back into Lil, but they weren't the colors that had been there before. Her skirt had changed from yellow to a dark green, and it seemed to be cut tighter against her figure than before. It made her hips look rounder; her legs looked better, too. Lil had always been slender, now, she seemed more... curvy. She looked taller, too. Ed stood next to her. Yes, she was. Lil had been a head shorted than he was, but now, she seemed to be almost as tall. He looked closely at her face. As the silver faded away, so did her glasses. Her face was a bit rounder, her nose smaller. And she looked so... so _young_. "What?" The silvery effect was gone. Lil, whatever she had become, was moving again. "Da... Ed, what just happened to me? I... I feel so strange." "I can't even begin to guess, hon. Go in the house and take a look at yourself in a mirror." "Okay." She gave her hair a flip. It was shorter now, hanging free down around her shoulders, and the gray he was used to had given way to a deep chestnut. Lil had been a blonde when she was young. Ed's hair had been that very shade of brown. And she hadn't noticed that her hair had changed. If was as if she'd always worn it like that. What was going on? He followed her into the house. "Dad, I'm young again. I... I can't be much past thirty." She was standing in front of the mirrored wall in the dining room, posing her new body. Ed was confused. "Lil, why did you call me 'Dad', and when... when did the wall get mirrored?" "I... I remember that it wasn't mirrored this morning, but... somehow, I remember that we had it done about a year ago. I... Dad... Ed... I remember being your daughter. I'm Lil, but I'm... I'm Leah, too, Leah Wagner, your daughter." "If you're Leah, then where's Lil?" Her face went white. "I'm... she's... she's dead, Dad. She had a heart attack and died in her sleep about two years ago." There was a sudden rush of memories. Ed remembered waking up that morning and... and -- _NO!_ -- and finding Lil dead. He remembered -- oh, Lord, please, no -- he remembered the funeral. He'd taken early retirement, and Leah had moved back in to take care of him. "The camera!" he yelled "Thank G-d I bought it. It changed things, changed everything." He ran for the porch. "Maybe... maybe if I take another picture..." Leah ran after him. She'd... Mom had bought... No, she remembered now that Dad had bought the thing. It was all so confusing, but she wasn't changing back. "Dad, no." He had the camera in his hand. "No, you... you want to be dead?" "Dad, I'm not dead. I'm me." She put her hand on his. "I think the Leah part of me is getting stronger. I still remember everything about... Mom, but those memories are of someone else, someone I loved, but someone else." "Then I've lost you, lost you all over again." He collapsed down onto the step, his eyes wet with tears. "No, you haven't, Dad." She sat down next to him and put her arms around him. "I'm young again. I've got a life. I've... even got a job." She had just realized the fact. "A job?" His curiosity was getting the better of his grief. Just how far did this magic go? He put down the camera. The bag he had brought it home in was a foot or so away. Impulsively, he put it back in. He could always get it later when Leah -- when Lil, dammit! -- agreed to try and change back. "Yes, I'm... I'm office manager at the Maplewood branch of the Whitmore Bank. I, hey, I make pretty good money." "I'm happy for you," Ed said wryly. "Be happy for yourself, Dad. If it can make me young, then it can do the same for you." "For me... no, that's... that's not possible." "Oh, sure, and I'm your daughter who used to be your wife." "This has to be a bad dream," he said, standing up quickly. "Where are you going?" "If I'm dreaming -- and I know that I am -- I should be in bed." He turned and walked into the house. Leah grabbed the bag with the camera and followed him in. He headed through the house and up to the second floor. As she walked through the house, Leah noticed other differences. Her briefcase was on the dining room table, right next to her laptop. Lil had never touched a computer, but Leah suddenly was aware of knowing the entire Microsoft Office Suite. A fashionable camelhair coat -- hers -- hung on the coat track by the front door. What amazed her most was the family portrait hanging on the wall over the fireplace. It had been painted almost twenty years ago, but now a young girl, her younger self, stood next to Harry. "Where the hell is everything?" Ed's voice echoed down the stairs. Leah ran up to her... father's bedroom. He was standing in the middle of the room, just staring at things. "Where are all your clothes, where's your make-up, and jewelry?" The answer came to her mind. "Dad, I'm not your wife anymore. We don't sleep together. I sleep in... in _my_ old room down the hall." She took his hand and led him down to what had been her sewing room that morning. "See." Now the room was a woman's bedroom. The bed had a yellow chenille bedspread. A rosewood dresser was against the wall with a dressing table next to it. There was an exercise bike in a corner. Leah remembered that she tried to pedal at least fifteen miles a week. The narrow storage closet of the sewing room was now a double closet with a mirrored door. "This can't be happening." Ed stared a moment, then sank down on her bed. "It can't. It can't." "Yes, it can." She pulled out the camera and snapped a picture of him sitting there on the bed. He looked up when he heard the click. "No!" he yelled. He jumped up and ran from the room. Leah grabbed the camera and ran after him. He ran into his own bedroom, trying to close the door behind. She dodged and managed to get in. "Now we'll make you young, too." With a smile of anticipation, she pulled the film packet out and put the picture on the bed table. "You'll see, Dad; it'll be great, your being young again, too." "I don't wa..." He froze. In an instant, his body was covered with the same silvered effect. Leah waited. After about thirty seconds, some color began to show on Ed. Leah glanced down. The same thing was happening to the figure in the picture. "Soon I'll have a husband again, a young, virile husband." As she said it, she felt a warmth in her groin that she hadn't felt for _so_ very long. Then something began to go wrong. Ed was getting thinner, smaller. His slacks were getting tighter on his body, and as they did, they were showing curves that shouldn't be there. The silver was gone from a part of his head. His hair was the same brown she remembered, but it was longer, almost down to his back. His face was moon-shaped now, with a small nose and much fuller lips. Was that lipstick on them? She shouldn't be... She? Leah realized now what was happening. "Oh, my Lord in Heaven, he's turning into a girl." It was almost over, just a bit of silver left on her body, just enough to allow for a pair of breasts to grow on... her chest. Only they weren't growing much. Ed -- no, Edie -- was only fifteen. The retired man had become a young girl. She was only five foot one, with chestnut hair tied in a ponytail and hanging down almost to her waist. Ed's jeans and sweatshirt had become a pair of pale blue Capri pants and a matching camisole top that showed off her blossoming figure. As Leah watched in amazement, she suddenly realized that the room was changing, too. All of that furniture from her room was replacing her parents' bedroom set. The bed was a queen-sized one, though. She knew that she liked the extra room. She blushed as she also remembered that she occasionally shared it with someone, a Jack McGraw, whom she now remembered much _too_ well. "Earth to L... to Mom." The voice shook her back to attention. Mom? She looked at Ed... Edie. "Are you satisfied now." The new girl stared at the person she was remembering now as her mother. "I'm my own damned granddaughter." "Granddaughter?" This was crazy. "Why didn't you become your son -- or, better yet, your son-in-law?" "Aw, Mom, this is magic. It -- like -- doesn't have to make sense, you know." "I know." Leah noticed that Edie's language was becoming more like a teen's. Her body language was changing, too. She was slumping. "Maybe we can change you into a boy or something." "No, I... I kind of like being a girl." She shook her head. It was true. She was starting to feel very comfortable in this body. A part of her didn't like it, though, but that part seemed to be getting weaker. Her memories of Ed Wagner's life were becoming something she knew third hand, not something she had lived. "Well, I guess, maybe, I could try it... for a while, anyway." "Fine." Leah looked around. "Where... where's the camera?" There was no sign of it. "It was here a minute ago." Edie's eyes went wide. "So was Grampa Ed. _He's_ the one who bought the camera, but now I... I remember that he died about six months after you... after Grandma did." "Think, Edie, what did we do this morning?" She remembered, but she wanted to see if her... her daughter had the same new memories. "You... you did some housework, and I watched TV. You said we might go to that flea market this afternoon, but I wanted to go to the mall with Lainey." Lainey Ross lived two blocks away. An hour ago, neither of them had known of the girl's existence. Now, she was Edie's lifelong friend. "We're... we're stuck." "No!" Edie panicked and instinctively ran back to the other bedroom. It was her room now, painted in wild colors with posters of boy bands up on the walls. She saw clothes, jeans, panties, blouses thrown here and there -- Mom was always on her case about that and her book bag on her desk, the desk with the Central Peyton Junior High banner in the wall above it. She looked at the mirror above her dresser. A cute, young girl stared back at her. Behind the image, she saw the image of Ed Wagner... her late grampa. He just had time to wave and blow her a kiss before he faded away. As he did, Leah and Edie felt their memories fade -- no, shift. Even the experience of changing seemed more like a dream now. They would remember Ed and Lil Wagner -- even remember _being_ them, but now they accepted their new lives and their new chances. *** Ed and Lil Wagner were just planning on buying some odds and ends to occupy a bit of time with their hobbies. Instead, they found the greatest of bargains, new lives at a low price, all at a very special flea market that's open every Saturday... in the Twilight Zone. The End Third Remove: Kidnapped I guess I should start at the beginning. My name is -- _was_ Bart Kabakjian, but everybody called me "Brick." Partly it was because of my bright red hair -- which I still have, see. Only now, it's glossier and a whole lot longer. Anyway, they also called "Brick" was I was the best defensive lineman in the Lakeland District High School Conference, the best anybody' seen in years, and a lot of folks said that I was a shoo-in for All-State, even if I was only five-seven. When I planted myself, nobody, and I mean nobody got by me. Yeah, I know I don't look much like a defensive lineman now. Besides, Lakeland's not even in this state. Well, there's a long, sad story behind that. *** It was a rainy Sunday afternoon, and I was killing time with some buddies on the game arcade at one of the malls. We'd been there for a couple of hours, when the super sized Coke I'd drunk hit me, and I went to take a whizz. I was almost to the john, when this guy steps in my way. He was a big guy, maybe six-six, and he looked like he worked out pretty regular. He was in his thirties, with long, dingy brown hair, and he was wearing something like a brown bathrobe over this long white tunic that came down almost to the ground. Anyway, this guy grabs me by the shoulders and says, "Ishtar, is that you my daughter?" "Do I look like a daughter?" I asked, shaking him off. I was wearing a muscle shirt and a pair of jeans that showed off my "package" pretty good. Hey, you never know when you're gonna run into some hot babe. I liked to be ready. So this guy says that his Ishtar had disappeared a few weeks ago, but the signs -- whatever the hell they were -- had said that she'd return in some new form. Since my hair was the same bright red as hers, he figured that I _was_ her. "You're crazy," I said and started walked away. He followed me -- followed me right into the john. That made me nervous. He could be some kind of fag for all I knew. I could block anybody, but I wasn't much of a brawler. He was a foot taller and much heavier -- and a lot of that looked like muscle. I didn't think that I could take him in any sort of fair fight. I decided not to fight fair. I'd try and sucker punch him in the gut. Then, when he doubled over, I'd run past him. Mall security was only a couple doors down from the johns. It was a good idea, but he had a better one. As I turned to punch him, he sprayed something in my face. Everything went black, and I felt myself falling over. *** Next thing I knew, I was in a small, dark space getting bounced around, the trunk of somebody's car. There was no way to tell how long I'd been out, where we were, or where we were going. Then, the spray he'd used and the bouncing got to me. My stomach churned some, and I threw up all over myself. A lot of the puke got onto the floor of the trunk, and I hoped that they'd never get the stink of it out of the car. They drove maybe another half-hour. My stomach settled down -- I guess it was that spray stuff that got me. The bouncing got worse, so I guessed that we were off the main highway, on some back road. When we finally stopped, the driver didn't seem to be in any hurry to let me out. I was cramped, wearing my own puke, and I still had to whizz. Man, did I want out of there. All of a sudden, I hear voices, the weirdo from the mall and some woman. They sounded excited, but I couldn't really tell what they were saying. I did hear that name, Ishtar, a lot. One of them popped the lock, and the trunk swung opened. I tried to get out, but my feet were asleep. I'd have fallen, but the guy reached in and picked me up like I didn't weigh anything. He made a face, when he saw the puke all over my shirt, but he just shifted me in his arms and started walking. The woman was wearing some sort of shapeless, green tunic. She had long, red-brown hair done up in a thick braid that hung down almost to her waist. She wasn't wearing any make-up that I could see, but she had big, dangly bracelets on each wrist and a sort of matching necklace with some kind of weird symbol, a jagged Y between two crescents and a circle above. It wasn't anything I recognized. She was small, maybe five-three, and kind of pudgy. She shouted, "Ishtar, welcome back, daughter." The guy put me down. I was still shaky, but I could stand -- sort of. The woman gave me a bear hug that almost lifted me off the ground. I steadied myself and pushed her away. "Look, lady, I told this guy, and I'm telling you, I'm not this Ishtar chick. I'm a Bart, Bart Ka -- " "Don't lie to your mother girl," the guy yelled. "She's had a hard enough time since you went away." "I told you, I'm n-- Ow!" He'd grabbed my arm and twisted it behind me. "This is for your own good, girl." He pushed me down into a sort of squat and "duck-walked" me into their house, a ramshackle old wreck of a place. Their front room wasn't too bad. A couple of mismatched old couches and some chairs all facing towards a big, brick fireplace. There were paintings on the walls, creepy-looking landscapes with oranges and purples. Over the fireplace there was a picture of the man and woman, looking a bit younger and wearing regular clothes instead of those robes. In between them -- in the picture, I mean -- was a pretty girl, maybe ten or twelve, with hair as bright a red as my own done up in pigtails. They both saw me looking at the picture. "She remembers; she remembers," the woman said happily. "Which will make her return that much easier," the man said. "Go get what we will need." The woman nodded and went into another room. The guy turned and looked at me. "Why don't you get out of those filthy clothes. They stink to high heaven." It was the first thing he said that I agreed with. My shirt and my jeans both smelled of puke. They were starting to get sticky, too. I peeled on the shirt. "Just drop it in the floor," the guy said. I did. I kicked off my sneakers and started to take off my jeans. Just then, the woman came back in. She was carrying a pile of clothes and stuff. I grabbed my jeans and pulled them back up. "Modest, isn't she," the woman said. Before I could answer, she handed me this long, dark green tunic. "Put this on, if you must. Then you can remove those pants." I tossed the thing over my head, putting my arms through the sleeve holes. It was a tight fit, but I got it on. As I pulled it down past my waist, I undid my jeans again. After I got the tunic down to my knees, which was as far as it would go, I shook my hips and felt my jeans slide down my legs. I stepped out of them and kicked them over to where my shirt was. The woman sniffed. "Oh, Ishtar, it's so good to see you in your own clothes again." "And soon you will be fully restored to us," the man said. He grabbed my arms and pulled them behind my back. "Now, Lira, now." The woman put a necklace like her own around my neck. Then she opened a bottle of some weird brown gunk. "I'm not drinking that!" I yelled. "Drink," the man said with a laugh. "Drink the sacred oil of Asanth." He laughed again. "Do it, Lira, now." The woman lifted the bottle and poured it out over my head. The liquid was warm and sticky and smelled _really_ bad. As I felt the stiff dribbling down my face, she put another necklace on me. Then she poured some more of that stuff into my chest. "Let it begin, oh, Gaia," they both said. "Let the magic restore our daughter to us." All of a sudden, my body began to tingle like crazy. I felt my hair flow down over my ears, past my shoulders, and on down my back. The tunic began to get looser. "It's happening," the man said. "Praise Gaia." He let go of my arms. I looked down at my body. I was a lot thinner. All those muscles I'd spent years working to build up, just sort of smoothed out, faded away. My arms were slender, graceful. My hands were much smaller, my fingers longer. So were my nails; they grew out about a half-inch and looked like they were manicured. "This is crazy," I said, and stopped. My voice was getting higher. I felt something in my chest. Two small bulges were pushing out the front of the tunic, getting bigger until they were a pretty nice looking pair. I could feel -- I could _see_ -- the nipples pushing against the fabric. I looked down the neckline and saw them, nice, round, and perky. "Shit! If I've got tits, I've got..." I slapped my hand against my groin. I could barely feel the bulge of my "jewels" inside the tunic. And the bulge got smaller and smaller until it wasn't there at all. I felt my waist pull in, my hips seem to stretch and get wider. The tunic hung down well below my knees by now. I lifted it a bit and looked at what were now a pair of really sweet, feminine-looking legs with just the right amount of curve to be interesting. My feet were a lot smaller, too. I think I could have gotten both of them into one of my sneakers. "I-I'm a girl," I said in disbelief. "You are as you should be, our lost daughter, Ishtar, returned to us in the flesh as promised by Gaia." He said it firmly, like it was written in rock or something. Now sleep and let your spirit return as well. Before I could say anything, he pulled out that spray and gave me another shot of it. *** I don't know how long I slept this time. When I woke up, I was lying on a bed. I sat up. There were pictures of birds and flowers on the wall, and I could see a rack with two or three dresses and a couple of those tunics hanging from it. A dresser was against one wall. A drawer was open, and I saw some panties and bras. Then I started to remember things. The green tunic was for everyday, just like the one I had on. The blue was for formal worship. There was a doll on top of the dresser, Rissie, her name was. The guy's name was Paulus. Our... their last name was ap Taffyd. "How the hell do I know this stuff?" I got off the bed. I was still wearing those stupid necklaces, but the damned oil was gone -- wiped off, seeped in, I didn't care. I started walking towards the door. I noticed that I walked differently, more gracefully, with a swing of the hips, like I'd been doing it for years, like a girl. I stopped and shook my head. This just got crazier and crazier. Was I really this Ishtar? Was Brick Kabakjian just some crazy dream? My wallet, my ID was in my jeans. I can find out from them. I walked out the bedroom door and back into the front room. Paulus and Lira were by the fireplace. They had a good little blaze going. When I got close, I saw what was left of my jeans in the heart of the flames. Paulus looked up and saw me. "We have no need of that false life now, daughter." He was smiling. So was Lira. Not a nasty smile, more like relieved, like some bad time was over. For them I guess it was. *** "Grass," I muttered, "nothing but dammned grass." I'd snuck out of the house in the middle of the night and followed the road that head away from it. I'd been walking for over an hour, and it was just this narrow dirt road between fields of what looked like overgrown grass, "wheat, half-grown and starting to form kernels," a weird memory popped into my head. I froze when I heard the rumble of a car's engine. I looked quickly in both directions, but there was no sign of lights. I didn't want to take a chance, so I ran for the hay. Paulus came around a curve in the road just in time to see me running. He'd been driving without lights, so as not to give me a warning. He stopped the car and ran after me. I made it to the hay and ran in. He came after me. He knew how to run in the thick strands of it. I didn't. I grabbed an arm and held. I twisted and turned but I couldn't break free. "Papa, you're hurting me," I screamed. Papa? I stopped trying to break free. Why did I say that? "Your spirit grows stronger, Ishtar." He wrapped an arm around my waist and carried me back to the car like a sack of potatoes. "You don't remember it yet, but our fields go on for a half score of miles. When we get home, I'll just take those sandals of yours. That should keep you from trying to leave us again." *** "Why did you do this to me, Lira?" I asked. It was two or three days later. We were cooking dinner. Paulus -- I worked very hard at _not_ calling him Papa -- said that he expected me to help with the chores if I wanted to eat. "Because you are our daughter. You left us, and we missed you so very much." "But I'm not her. I know you think I am, and you used some kind of magic to make me look like her, but I'm not her. Please, change me back. I won't tell anyone, I swear by Gaia..." Another slip. Brick didn't know anything about Gaia, but Ishtar did. Lira just smiled and kept on chopping vegetables for the stew. We were... _they_ were vegetarians. Gaia didn't want her children eating each other, so she created plants that would sustain us. And there I went, sounding like them again. "It's a quarter moon tonight," Lira said finally. "We'll have a prayer session after supper." She began to hum some tune I'd never heard before. And I began to hum it along with her. *** "Mama," I screamed. I'd been sweeping in the kitchen, when I suddenly felt something odd between my legs. Nobody was around, so I just lifted my tunic and felt down there, inside my panties. When I looked at my hand, there was something red and sticky on my fingers, blood. "Mama!" Lira came running in from the yard. "That's the first time you..." She stopped and saw the look on my face. Then she saw my hand and chuckled. "Still say you're a boy, Ishtar? A boy doesn't have a time a month when he bleeds, but a girl does." She took my hand. "Since you still don't remember how, I'll show you how to take care if it." As we walked to the bathroom, I vaguely remembered that this had happened to me before. *** We were in the yard, tending to Mama's herb garden, bedding it down for the winter. I still remembered being Brick, but it seemed so long ago, like something from a story. I walked and talked like Ishtar. I'd had a period like any other girl. When I dreamed about boys, I wasn't one of them, I was the girl they were with. For the love of Gaia, how could I have ever imagined that I was really a boy? I must have sighed out loud. "Troubled my daughter?" Papa asked. "Just remembering something from a dream," I said. "Only a dream?" Mama asked. "Maybe it was more once, Mama, but it seems like a dream now." Mama smiled and gave me a big hug. "She is back with us now, Paulus, back for ever and ever." Papa smiled and joined in what became a wonderful group hug. I was home. *** One of the things we didn't have on the farm was milk. Papa drove to a store someplace every few days for milk, coffee, and other things that he or Mama needed. After a long while, they decided that I could go along if my chores were done. Hanson's General Store wasn't very big, but it seemed to have everything we needed. "Here's half of the list," Papa said, handing me a slip of paper. "I'll meet you by the counter." I took a small basket and started off. I was looking for teas -- Mama loved Irish breakfast tea -- when I saw him. It was a boy, about seventeen, a tall, skinny guy wearing a store apron and stocking shelves with cans of peaches. He stopped when he saw me. "Well, hello there, missy, can I help you?" I suddenly felt like I was naked. I blushed and looked down. "No, th- thank you," I said quietly as I hurried past him. Papa was standing at the end of the aisle. "You handled that very well, Ishtar." He had an odd look on his face, happy, like I'd just passed some kind of test or something. I went to get the rest of the things on my list. The last item was milk. I opened the cooler that it was kept in. There were pictures on some of the cartons. One looked familiar. I lifted out the carton for a better look. It was me, the old me who never really existed. "Bart Kabakjian," the writing under the picture said. "Age 16. Last seen, March 7, 2002." My head began to spin. I started to remember things about Brick. Things I'd wanted to forget because they made him seem real and I knew he wasn't: the time he almost drowned when he tried to swim across Lake Callaway, the joy of making jv first string in his seventh grade, what his -- my? -- parents looked like, his big sister, Mary, who was away at college. "He was real," I said in a whisper. "He's... and I'm... I'm him." They'd done something to me. The magic that changed me somehow gave me enough of Ishtar's memories to confuse me. They just added to that confusion until I started to believe. Should I run or report them? No, I decided. I'd play along. I still knew how to act like Ishtar. I'd find out how they did it, and change back. _Then_ I'd bust them. I put the milk carton back, no sense giving things away. I took another that had a picture of some girl I'd never seen on it. I hoped she was in better shape than I was. Then I got the rest of the things we needed, butter, orange juice, and some flour. Mama was going to bake biscuits. *** That night, I had an idea. If I had some of Ishtar's memories, maybe I could remember what had happened to her. I closed my eyes and concentrated. I remembered coughing, being very sick. I heard the word "carcinoma." Mama cried, but Papa said that he had faith that Gaia heal me, that she wouldn't let me die. Somehow, I knew he'd been wrong. I felt sorry for them, but not sorry enough that I wanted to stay with them. *** It was Samhain, the fall harvest holiday. Papa said that spirits wandered on this night, and we had to be careful. "They're looking for a weak soul whose body they can steal," he said. "Then that person's true soul wanders lost through the world of dreams." "But you could bring it back, couldn't you, Papa?" I asked. "Just like you brought me back." "There are ways," Papa said, "but there are risks. The one who tries may become lost, even if the magics he uses are powerful ones." He patted the Book of Thoth and Ja-Thoth, the book we -- they -- had for a bible in their faith. "Amen," I said. Mama and he both said it, too. After they went to bed, I snuck out and got the Book from where Papa kept it. I read it through, cover to cover, over the next few nights. It had a lot of crazy stuff in it, even a few restorative spells, but nothing that even vaguely sounded like it would work real magic. They just sounded like somebody playing at doing magic tricks. It had to be something else, but what? I didn't think I was going to have time to look for it. The last night, the light suddenly went on in Mama and Papa's room. "Who's out there," he yelled. "I've got a rifle in here." I shut the Book and put it back in its place. "Just me," I called, trying not to sound scared. "I-I just wanted to get... to get a little slice of that apple pie." Mama and I had baked the pie that day. She let me do most of the work, and it had turned out pretty good, if I say so myself. Papa laughed. "Girl, you're gonna swell up like a watermelon, if you keep sneaking out to eat in the middle of the night." Mama must have said something because them he added, "But since it is your first pie, I guess you're entitled to an extra piece. Just leave some for your Mama and me." The light went out in their room. "I will," I said. I took a breath, my first one since their light had gone on. Then, just to be sure, and because it _was_ good pie, I went into the kitchen and had a slice. *** A few days later, Papa and I went back to Hanson's. As we walked in, I noticed a state police cruiser parked in front. A tall cop was standing by the counter, drinking some coffee from the pot Mr. Hanson always had going. Papa gave me half the list again. Milk was the first item. I went and got a carton. Then, just as I got near the cop, I pretended to trip. I fell, landing on the carton. Papa ran over. "What happened to you?" "Don't hit me again, sir, please don't." I screamed at Papa, trying to sound like I was terrified of him. I curled up in a ball there on the floor. "Don't be silly, girl." Papa knelt and put his arm around me, so he could lift me up. I screamed, even louder than before. "No, please, no, don't touch me there. I'm... I'm a good girl, please." Everyone in the store was looking at us now. The cop put his coffee cup down on the counter. "Sir, could you stand away from the young lady, please?" He sounded polite but very concerned. "The girl's just playing a game, officer," he said. He stepped back. "Ishtar, daughter, what are you doing?" "I'm not your daughter," I screamed. I was actually beginning to feel a little hysterical at this point. "I'm not; I'm not." A second cop joined the first. "Why don't we all go down to the station house and settle this. I'll radio it in." He walked outside. When he came back a few minutes later, he asked Papa. "Where's your car, sir?" "The black Chevy out front, why?" "I'll just drive the young lady in that, sir, and you'll go in the back of the cruiser if you don't mind." "We will speak of this later, Ishtar," Papa said, glaring at me. Then he realized how it must look. "My daughter is given to pranks, officers. You mustn't take her serious." "We take any accusation of child abuse very seriously, sir. If she's lying, we'll be more than happy to release her. If not..." He stuck out his hand. "May I have your keys, sir?" *** "Tell me the story again, Ishtar." The police lieutenant sat looking at me. She was a tall, slightly plump woman, with just a bit of gray in her dark brown hair. A short man in a gray suit sat next to her. He was Dr. Reese, a child psychologist that they'd called in after they heard my story the first time. "My name is Bart Kabakjian. I'm seventeen. I played football for the Curryville Wolverines. Mama and Papa -- Mr. and Mrs. ap Taffyd kidnapped me back in March. They used some kind of magic to change me into a girl and make me think I was their daughter, Ishtar. I only just came out of whatever spell they had me under. I want to get changed back, and I want to go home." "Home," Dr. Reese said. "That would be the house you claim to have in... Curryville. I suppose it's a nice, big ranch house, much nicer than that place the ap Taffyds live in." "It's an apartment, if you have to know," I said. "Why are you worrying about stuff like that? It's 344 Clifton Street; we live on the ninth floor. We moved there from a smaller place when I was six or seven." "And your -- Bart's parents are..." The lieutenant asked. Her name badge said "Tayune," but she said to call her Jo." "Jack and Carla Kabakjian. Before you ask, I have an older sister, Mary. She's away at State College now, engineering major. Anything else?" Dr. Reese looked at a slip of paper. "Podestra... n'luthto... e... ah... fervina..." The words sounded sort of familiar. "That's some kind of prayer, I think. It sounds a little like what Mama... Mrs. ap Taffyd says sometimes." "What was the final score in the Curryville-Meade Run football game last year?" Dr. Reese asked. I had to smile at the memory. "Eighteen... thirteen, Curryville. We were down by one, and they had the ball, about a minute left to play. I hit their man just right, and the ball pops out of his hands. Roger Schiarlotti catches it and gets about ten yards before they bring him down. We switch teams, and on the next play, Jerry Atwood throws a beautiful pass to Mort Kessler. Mort catches it on the twenty-three and runs it in to score. We missed the extra point, but it was enough." "Satisfied?" Jo asked. "Yeah," Dr. Reese said, "except it's physically impossible." He threw up his hands as if in surrender. "You can't just do some mumbo-jumbo and change a boy into a girl." "They did," I said. "They put me in her clothes and jewelry, poured some weird oil over my head and -- ZAP! -- hello, Ishtar. I was a girl." The two looked at each other for a moment. "Describe the jewelry," Jo said. It sounded like it was important. "Umm, a necklace with the symbols of Thoth, ja-Thoth, and Gaia on it." I picked up a pencil and drew a picture. "Oh, yeah, and a second one with a little angel -- what do they call them? -- a cherub, like a little cupid, on it." "Do they still have that necklace?" Dr. Reese asked. "I-I don't know. Why?" It turned out that the necklace with the cherub was magic, something called the Medallion of Zulo. The thing even has a few dozen web sites, but they mostly treat it like some urban myth. Jo and Dr. Reese didn't think it was a myth. Neither did the ap Taffyds. When Paulus said that they'd had a sign, he meant that they'd found the Medallion and discovered what it could do. The real Ishtar had died of some kind of bone cancer that kids get. They'd buried her in secret and grieved till they were just about out of their minds. Ishtar was home-schooled, so nobody had missed her. When the Medallion touched me and Ishtar's robe, it turned me into her double, fingerprints and all. It seemed that if a person wore the Medallion for a long time after they changed, they got the some of the memories and such of the person they'd changed into. After Paulus knocked me out with that spray, I had worn it for almost six hours. No wonder I walked and acted like her. The problem was that the thing had a knack for disappearing. They'd hidden it in one of the outbuildings on the farm, but when Paulus happened to check about a week later, it was gone. Nothing else was missing. It either vanished by itself, or somebody had come specifically for it. Either way, I was stuck with Ishtar's body. But I was Bart Kabakjian again. My parents, my _real_ parents were so happy to have me back, they didn't care what I looked like. Mary warned me not to be taking clothes from her room, while she was away at school. Then she gave me a big hug and offered to take me shopping that afternoon. I went. I certainly needed to. Those clothes that I wore as Ishtar were terrible, so plain, and they didn't fit very well, and I -- yep, I knew who I