This is a long chapter, because I haven’t posted for a few days

I fingered my amulet, unable to get this influence crap out of my head. What bothered me most was the “why?” question. I mean, whoever had done it had made me happy, for crying out loud, which just made no sense.

Then again, how much control could someone actually have? Could they only effect emotions, or could I actually be controlled to do something I didn’t want to do? Mom didn’t know for sure. Unfortunately, magic is incredibly variable. No one knows what the true limits are, as each witch has different strengths and weaknesses. It’s believed that the only real limits may lie in the imagination and confidence of the witch. So yes, real control was possible, if unheard of.

That was not only scary, but it really made me angry, and when I’m angry, I have serious problems concentrating on my classes, which is absolutely not helpful. I had to really work to keep my focus on school. I almost pulled Grandma’s amulet off, but I decided to wait until lunch. If somehow the influence should start to get to me again, I wanted Debbie to have my amulet ready, just in case.

Mr. Roberts’ Physical Science class seemed to take forever. Ionic reactions just couldn’t keep my interest, but I managed to look interested for long enough that Mr. Roberts didn’t notice anything. I walked to the cafeteria, passing Tim, who had just ended his lunch period. We smiled and said a quick “Hi!” which was all we had time to say, but just seeing him was enough to really improve my mood.

Debbie and I made our way through the line and took our lunch to our favorite spot outside by the tree. I ate my so-called “pizza,” shoestring grease fries and mixed veggies, then, while Debbie watched, I took off my amulet and handed it to her. Almost immediately I felt a wave of giddiness come over me.

“Okay, Emily, you need to put the amulet back on; I can see a definite change already.”

I smiled. “It’s okay, Deb, I feel great! Better than I have all day, in fact!”

“It’s not real, Em. You need to put the amulet on, honey.”

“All right, all right, I’ll just-“

As soon as I had the amulet on, I felt a definite change, almost as if a weight was taken from me. I closed my eyes and focused on creating a shield to help the amulet do its work, not knowing if I was really doing anything at all. If I had known where the source of the influence was, I would have tried to send some kind of “feedback” back to that source.

Now that was an interesting thought.

“Debbie, do you think it might be possible to link with this “broadcast” and send some kind of feedback through the link? Maybe that would stop whoever is doing this?”

‘It sounds good, but since the amulet does cancel the effects, let’s talk to Mrs. Andrews after school. If she doesn’t know the answer, I think we should see your Grandmother. Thinking logically, it wouldn’t be her creating this. She made the amulets for us, so why keep trying to influence someone who you know is protected?”

I smiled. “You’re right, Debbie. We haven’t even started the list, and we can pull one suspect off of it! You’re so good at this!”

She laughed. “I’m no Sherlock Holmes, Em. We can’t take Grandma Liz completely off the list, because it’s still possible she’s involved somehow. Mrs. Burns told me back in 6th grade that you should follow the KISS principle. I’m just thinking like that, and-“

“KISS principle? Is this from some song or something?”

She giggled. “Not that Kiss! It stands for ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid!’

“Huh?” I said, obviously demonstrating my incredible intelligence.

“It means that you look for the most obvious answers. Your Grandmother isn’t a logical suspect, so maybe we don’t eliminate her as a suspect, but we definitely move her off the “most likely” list.”

“Oh, kind of like Occam’s Razor-the simplest solution is the most likely. Yeah, that makes sense. I’d just never heard it put that way. I had Mr. Sherwin for 6th grade, unfortunately.”

“Oh, you were the one with the penguins!”

“Yeah, that was me. I watched a lot of nature shows, and I saw one about the Galapagos Islands. Mr. Sherwin was trying to explain why penguins and polar bears wouldn’t be anywhere near each other in the wild. He said that penguins were only at the South Pole, and I said that they were also in South America and at the equator. We argued, and he tried to insult me and told me to prove it. I went to his encyclopedia, opened it to the Galapagos Islands, and showed him the pictures. Then I showed him pictures of the penguins on the Falkland Islands. Everyone was very surprised that I was right, even though Mr. Sherwin tried to make me look stupid.”

“I heard he didn’t like you much after that.” Debbie said.

“Oh, he didn’t like me long before that! This was before my growth spurt. He thought I was too ‘bookish’ and weak. He almost didn’t let me pass-until my Mom set him straight.”

“I’ve seen your Mom at school before. She’s scary when she’s mad!”

“Yeah, and she was scary a lot when I was a kid. I guess we pushed each other’s buttons a lot, and my Grandma was kind of my protector. She could at least calm Mom down when I did something stupid, which apparently was a habit of mine.”

“Were you really that bad?”

“Grandma says I was too smart, and that I got bored easily. I think I was just trying so hard to be Mr. Macho all the time. Boys are really supposed to do such stupid things, and I was really never-“

I suddenly realized that I had said too much, and the look on Debbie’s face said that she had figured it out, too. Now I really blushed.

“Emily Elizabeth Randall!” She said, and I cringed. I hate it when someone uses my full name. It always means trouble! “You mean to tell me that you weren’t happy as a boy?”

“Shhh! All right? Dang, Deb, you don’t need to announce it to everyone!”

“What did your Mom think about that?”

“She never knew about it. I’ve kept it to myself forever. You are the only one I’ve ever said anything about it to...ever!”

“So your mother didn’t know that you were transgendered?”

“Oh, I don’t think I was ever really transgendered. I was pretty happy with being a boy. I just thought some of the things I was supposed to like were stupid, like sports. Okay, maybe I thought about it a few times. I was just so different from the boys, but I never really went further than a few fantasies, I swear!

Mom used to say that I was just gentler than the other guys. I used to get picked on a lot because I was small and skinny, and I could talk to the girls about stuff, but not the boys. I mean, I always liked animals and I was obsessed with horses. I drew them, I talked about riding and I dreamed of having my own palomino. Mom wouldn’t let me have a horse, though. She said I wasn’t responsible enough, because I missed a lot of practices for football and soccer.”

“Why didn’t you just tell them you weren’t interested?”

“Are you kidding? I’m pretty sure that’s what my Dad wanted a boy for! He always talked about how much fun he had, and how much I would love to be an athlete! He probably bought me my first football right after I was born, so...I had to do everything I could, and I had to really work at it. Special high protein, low fat diets, practicing or working out all the time, no playing because I might hurt my arm... No, Debbie, my parents had a definite picture of the child they wanted.”

“You never really wanted to be a girl?”

“Oh, heck no! Okay, maybe I thought about it a couple of times. I just couldn’t be the boy my dad wanted. I loved camping, riding my bike, that kind of stuff. I just never really liked sports-but then I had a growth spurt and suddenly...I’m good at them!

Dad was so proud when I made JV quarterback, and then people started talking about giving me all these scholarships. I wanted to go into engineering, to build and create important things, so scholarships were very important to me. I had my life figured out, and I was finally happy with the way things were going.

When I suddenly became Emily, all of that vanished for me. All of my dreams and plans were suddenly taken away. It was so scary and everything seemed so different. Now, instead of making airplanes or nuclear power plants, the thing my family wants me to make most is babies! As you probably know, I wasn’t at all happy.”

“I swear, Emily, I never wanted to hurt you!” She said with tears running down her cheeks. “Okay, I was so selfish that I didn’t think or even care about Gabe when I broke up with him and enchanted Tim. I was so stupid! I think Gabe and I were much better together than Tim and I, but now...I-I’ll never know!”

Debbie turned and started to walk away from me. I noticed her shaking and breathing hard, and when I went to her, she really broke down and started wailing.

“...all my fault, it’s all my fault. (sob) I ruined everything!”

I hugged her and let her get it out. “Shh, it’s all right, Debbie. I know it was just an accident, okay? I’m okay, and yes, I still love you...it’s just a little bit different now.”

She only picked up on part of what I said, I think, but she stopped crying.

“Y-You l-l-love me? B-but...” She wiped her eyes and looked at me, almost shocked.

I put both hands up, almost like pushing her away. “Whoa girl! Don’t get me wrong, Debbie. I’m definitely not a lesbian. Maybe it’s the spell, I don’t know, but I’m very definitely heterosexual. But I still love you as my BFF, okay?”

“Yeah, I guess I’ll live with that.” She smiled and hugged me, then looked me in the eyes. “Emily, you need to talk to your parents. I mean, okay, they really wanted you to be into sports, but most parents will want something like that, whether it’s education or employment or sports. Parents want you to follow in their footsteps. That’s normal, hon.”

“I was still a huge disappointment, Deb, at least until I had that growth spurt. I was finally the kid that they could be proud of, and brag about to their friends. Now that’s gone, and once again...”

“Emily, I know your mother loves you with all her heart. Do you really think she wouldn’t want you, just because you don’t play sports?” She hugged me tightly, and wiped my tears away. “Okay, I can see that they might have expected a lot of things that just weren’t you, and that you felt pressured, but parents will adjust! They’ll be proud of what you do, or even just what you are trying! You can’t live your life by their script-it just doesn’t work that way.”

“I’m worried, though, Debbie. Yeah, normal people would just deal with it, but people with magical abilities? Maybe they could just make a few little...adjustments?”

“No, I don’t believe that! Okay, your dad wanted you to play sports, but that isn’t the only reason they wanted you! They love you!”

We heard the bell ring. Ten minute warning! We made our way back into the cafeteria and dropped off our trash and our trays.

“I’ll see you after last hour. I think you’re reading your parents wrong, Em, but you really need to talk to them about that.” She smiled at me and headed off to class.

Nothing much happened the rest of the day. Oddly enough, I actually felt better after talking to Debbie. It felt good to tell someone how I felt, but at this point, I still felt that my parents could be involved in “influencing” me, and to tell the truth, thinking about it was depressing.

As I got into my truck to go to my class at Mrs. Andrews’, I tried to think who else I could think of that would possibly want to man1ipulate me. Unfortunately, Tim was the first one that came to mind. Yeah, I knew he didn’t have any magic of his own, but he might know someone that did. His family was quite wealthy, and I had only known him for a short time, but...

Thinking like that made me very sad. I truly hated to think that Tim would have done something like that, but it did fit in with making me happy. If he could get me feeling good every time I saw him, I might be more receptive to doing things I wouldn’t normally.

I pulled up to Mrs. Andrews’ house, but had to clean up a bit. I was a teary wreck. Tim wouldn’t do that to me, would he? The worst thing was that I couldn’t talk to him about it. I had to assume that he had no knowledge of magic. If he did, it gave him a tremendous advantage if he was being malicious. It was so frustrating!

And who else could I screw up my trust with?

I walked into Mrs. Andrews’, not even really paying attention. It took Debbie a minute to get my attention.

“Emily, honey, your eyes are all red and puffy-what’s wrong? Did something happen to you?”

“I realized that Tim made a great suspect, and it just made me so sad...”

“Aww, I’m pretty sure Tim isn’t like that, Em. He’s such a nice guy that I can’t believe he would ever have been so nasty.”

This is true. Tim has a great reputation for being a stand up guy, someone you really wanted as a friend. I started to feel a little bit better.

Then she said something I hadn’t thought of, which sounds pretty self-absorbed.

“Just thinking outside of the box, what makes you think that you are the target?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s entirely possible that I pissed someone off when I had Mom’s spell book. What if you’re just collateral damage, while someone attacks me?” She looked down at the floor, embarrassed. “I was a very selfish person, Em, and it wouldn’t surprise me that I’ve pissed someone off, or maybe stepped all over them while I got my way because of some spell I cast, and yes, I cast a bunch of spells, most of which I don’t even remember.”

“You’re right, Debbie. I was so caught up in myself, I didn’t think about that. I’m sorry, Debbie, I’ll try to be less self centered. There’s just that one problem...”

She looked at me, puzzled. “What problem?”

“Well, it’s just that I’m so darn wonderful, it’s really hard not to think about me. I’m so cute, and smart, and-Oww, dang it!” Debbie smacked me hard, right into my shoulder, the evil wench!

“I’m so sorry, oh wonderful one,” She said, as she bowed with her hands together, as if in prayer. “I just had to knock some of the bullshit loose. It was really becoming annoying.”

We looked at each other and giggled.