No sooner had Danny stood up when suddenly there came a knocking at the front door downstairs. The ring pulsed a few times sending a strange warmth through the new little girl's hand and she froze there where she stood and her mouth open wide as if some inner being within her was about to speak. The odd sensation quickly passed however and she blinked her eyes and shook her head as if she suddenly awoke from a strange little daydream.

She ignored the knocking on the door, for what could she do or say to anyone that might be out there? If it was a relative or friend of the family she certainly would have been informed by mom or dad about it before they went away on vacation, and if it was one of Danny's school friends, she wasn't so sure she wanted them to see her like this. Not that they'd ever believe this darling little girl was ever a teenaged boy anyway.

She walked over to her sister's wall mirror and saw her new self for the first time. She was a cute little blue eyed, auburn haired little girl in a white play dress and shiny black flats with little brass buckles. She thought that perhaps she was five or six years old but even so she still felt pretty short for that age. She walked up to her sister's door and presently noticed she could stand fully underneith the doorknob with a few inches room to spare. Her legs weren't all wobbly like a two or three year old. She felt she was probably four or five or maybe she was just a little bit short for her age.

The room was a bit of a mess with the seashells and river rocks and jewelry scattered all over the floor so she spent a little while cleaning that all up and putting the boxes back in the closet. It was alot more difficult putting away heavy boxes as a little kid, so the job of filling the boxes was done mostly on the spot right in there in the closet. With this task finally over with, she vacumed the room to hide the evidence of all the broken pieces of sea shells she'd otherwise have left behind.

Pushing a vacume from such a small height was a weird experience for Danny but she managed as best she could under the circumstances, and luckily enough the mess wasn't nearly as bad as she thought.

She put the vacume away and left her big sister's room. There was no way she was going to tackle closing that window way up high in there without taking a break after all this work. So she went downstairs and watched some television for awhile and ate some cereal.

There was a knock on the front door again and this time she was curious enough to go and see who it was.

She didn't open the door, nor could she so easily, for the chain lock was pulled shut and far out of her reach now. So she climbed up on the couch and had a peek through the front room drapes.

It was a tough angle from here to the porch but what Danny could see there was a man and a woman out there. The man wore a black suit and black top hat, and the woman wore a gray dress with a white shawl pulled around her. It was still a bit foggy and cool outside.

The couple were talking and Danny hopped down off the couch and ran over to the little mail slot at the front door and lifted it a crack to listen.

"She's in there all right," the gentleman said annoyed. "And she'd better open the door if she knows what's good for her."

"Oh Merlok, you shouldn't be so impatient," the woman said trying to calm down the man. "She'll tend to it when she's ready."

"That's not hardly the point here, Jana," Merlok said rapping his cane on the door once more. "If we don't get the essence soon it will spoil and this will have been all for nothing. Years and years of waiting and for what? So the essence should spoil before I should get my hands on it and harvest it?"

"Calm yourself, Merlok," Jana urged. "If the ring is undamaged we have a full week before the essence goes bad."

Merlok grumbled and said,"Safety first, however. I do not wish to take chances. This ring has gone missing for a number of years, as you recall, and now that its been activated again I wish to handle this with the utmost urgency."

Jana suggested,"Use a spell and unlock the door, though I do sense that the girl is nearby, perhaps even listening to us even as we speak."

"My darling little wife," the man said. "Perhaps it hasn't occurred to you where we are at this very moment but if I go around using magic on everything it's liable to rouse suspicion."

"We are still concealed by the fog bank," the woman pointed out.

"Right as ever, my dear but there are other sorcerers who might be keen to know why a spell such as this was cast in a restricted area. As it is, I will probably lose my spell casting license for the teleportation spell that brought us here."

"Then what's your fear, oh great husband of mine?" Jana teased. "Open up, little girl inside. We know you're listening. Open the door like a good little girl and let us in."

Merlok shoved the tip of his cane through the mail slot and peered inside. "By Jupiter, she is!" he exclaimed turning back to his wife and adding. "You must have ears like an eagle, my dear, and eyes like a fox, for there she is!"

"That's eyes like an eagle, and ears like a... well nevermind," Jane said. "Just get her to open the door now, that's all."

"Let us in, like a good little dear," the man said to Danny. "And let's discuss this situation before anything more happens to you."

From what Danny heard though she was a little too fearful of trusting the couple. After a few more moments consideration she demanded,"Only if you change me back into a boy!"

Danny fearfully peered out at them through the brass mail slot.

The woman gently brushed in front of her husband and knelt down and turned her head sideways for a look inside and said with an amused smile,"She's got pretty blue eyes, just like you said she would, Merlok."

The man shoved his wife aside and rapped his cane upon the door and peered in through the mail slot. He had big gray eyes and a big brown bushy moustache. "You'll remain a girl for good if you don't get this door open this instant, young lady!" he impatiently burst out. "Now open the door!"

"But I can't reach the chain," Danny cried back.

"Ultimuto relokchantre... fay!" the man shouted and the chain slipped free of the latch and the door handle turned on its own and the door opened a notch. Before Danny could react or run away the man and woman forced themselves in the house and grabbed hold of the frightened little girl and picked her up and set her upon the couch.

The gentleman in black opened up a black leather briefcase he'd been carrying and pulled out a strange gadget about the size of a small shoebox. The gadget had lots of brass gears and glass tubes and a row of miniature glass jars screwed on underneith. He made haste with the task he set out to do and immediately fastened the odd looking device to the ring upon Danny's finger.

The gadget seemed to know what to do without any sort of activation required or anything, for there were no visible buttons to control it with. A tiny metal pin shot out and jabbed the coral stone atop Danny's ring. The pin chopped a few times until securely breaking through and latching on tightly as a mechanical pump just above started churning wickedly up and down on its axle and drawing a dark blue fluid up and through the metal pin and in through a network of tiny glass pipes.

The process took no more than a minute and when it was done the gentleman unfastened the gadget from Danny's ring and set it back in the briefcase. "In case you were wondering, my darling little girl, I have extracted and secured your former male essense which I will use at my leisure to further carry out my experiments," he said and plucked off the magic ring from her finger and put it in his inner coat pocket for safe keeping. "Under normal circumstances I would offer you adequate payment as compensation for your... losses... but since this particular ring had been stolen from me there is little I am willing to do to help you. However... my wife would never let me just toss you out into the street like this so until we can find a more suitable home for you it has been decided that for the sake of your safety and in your best interest, we will take you in under our own roof for the time being."

Without further discussion the gentleman waved his hand and said a few magic words and the three of them teleported away and arrived someplace else.