---

"She can be, yes." Charlotte agreed. "Ironically, it's Stephanie who usually keeps her in line these days. Another reason why Trent brings her, I suspect."

"How would a teenage girl be able to keep her in line?" Mike asked.

Charlotte smiled, "You haven't met her yet. Trust me, she's good at it. Besides, Clarice has odd ideas about magic. To her, the only good way to use magic is through prayer, or through natural ability. She tends to consider practitioners like myself to be unnatural. But those with natural magical abilities that appear spontaneously are, to her, chosen by God. So she tends to listen more closely to someone like Stephanie than most adults would."

"Why do you all even put up with her? She must consider most of you to be unnatural?" Jill said.

"True enough. Trent and Beatrice are the only other ones she has any respect for, since Beatrice's ability is also natural, and Trent doesn't use magic himself. She has a little more tolerance for Kerry and Rose because magic is part of their religion, even though she considers that religion to be false. But Clarice represents all the magical members of the local religious organizations. So we're stuck with her." Charlotte said.

"Are there a lot of magical people in the local churches?" Tiffany asked.

Charlotte nodded, "There are. Or, at least, more than among the general population. Some religious organizations, particularly the Catholic church, have retained some magical knowledge. Only a small number of them know about magic, though. Most of the religious community wouldn't want anything to do with magic and would be very upset to know there was a subset of their own organizations that practice it."

Sarah looked worriedly at Jill, who said, "It sounds like we don't want any of them knowing about magic if we can help it."

"Definitely. Witchcraft, as most of them would call it, is still considered evil by most religions. Christian ones, anyway. Some of the eastern religions are more open minded." Charlotte said.

"So, what all can you guys do, anyway?" Mike asked.

"That's a complicated question." Charlotte said. "For the most part, magic is rather limited. Until recently even the simplest of spells took a great deal of effort. Even now we are extremely limited in what we can do. Mostly we use magic for minor divinations, what you might call blessings which basically grant good luck for a short time, and minor enchantments. Combat magics, like Sarah use, are mostly lost to us. However," she looked at Tina at this point, "we are slowly regaining what we lost. Tina has managed to cast a combat spell, using the glyphs I believe she told Sarah about."

Mike looked at Sarah in surprise, "Really? Can you use them?"

Sarah shrugged, "I don't know, she just told me they exist. She didn't show them to me or cast any spells."

Charlotte frowned as she watched this exchange, "Why do you seem to assume that Sarah would be able to learn glyphs? Tina is the first to even use glyphs in centuries, if not millenia."

"I have a knack for copying magical effects." Sarah replied, shocking her friends, and everyone else in the room.

Tina noticed Sarah's eyes flick toward her friends, and theirs do the same, but none of them spoke. She suddenly snapped her fingers, drawing everyone's attention to her. Realizing she was now the center of attention she blushed and said, "You guys have been having telepathic conversations all along, haven't you?"

"Yeah, we tend to do that a lot anymore." Mike admitted.

"Isn't that difficult to keep up with for you?" Rose asked, looking at Jill.

Before she could reply Charlotte said, "Ah, now it makes sense! Shapeshifting isn't Sarah's power at all, her power mimicry is. She copied that power from Mike, and Jill's telepathy. Between the two of them it would be easy to keep a telepathic conversation going."

"But doesn't Mike just change into animals?" Rose said.

"Sure, but it makes sense that Sarah would use it differently. She wanted to be a girl after all, so naturally she'd learn to swap genders first." Tina said thoughtfully.

She looked up to see that Sarah was looking down at the floor and seemed rather down. When she glanced at her friends she found them all glaring at her. "What?" Tina asked.

Charlotte shook her head, "Tina, you really shouldn't have said that. You basically just outed Sarah as a transsexual. In the wrong circles that could have gotten her hurt, badly. That's not the kind of secret you tell anyone without the person's permission."

"Oh... sorry Sarah." Tina said, staring at the floor.

Sarah sighed, "It's okay Tina, you didn't mean any harm. At least it happened here, instead of in a big group like that meeting tomorrow."

"A good point. This is another instance of something that Clarice would likely have a problem with. Others might, as well. I think we need to all agree to keep this to ourselves." Charlotte said, looking pointedly at Tina.

Tina glanced up and noticed the look, returning her gaze to the floor, "I won't say anything about it ever again, I promise!"

"So, you used to be a guy?" Rose said, confused.

"She was always a girl, no matter what she looked like." Jill said defensively.

Rose shrugged, "I don't understand, but I won't say anything."

Charlotte nodded and looked at Willow questioningly. Willow scowled, "Don't look at me like that! I'd never out anybody!"

Charlotte held her hands up placatingly, "That's good, I just wanted to make sure." Willow grumbled but nodded. Tina wondered what that was about, adding it to the list of mysteries surrounding Willow. Maybe I can get her to talk when she's alone. Rose leaving will give me the opportunity. Tina thought.

"About these glyphs," Jill said, obviously trying to change the subject, "what exactly are they?"

"That's hard to say, exactly." Charlotte said. "They are symbols that represent various magical effects, basically. Why they have power is unclear. Perhaps they are an integral part of magic. Or perhaps some ancient sorcerers worked together to connect these effects with the glyphs. No one knows. In fact, to my knowledge we are the only ones to even know of the existence of glyphs. Certainly I have never heard the slightest mention of them from anyone else."

"So it's some kind of magical language?" Jill asked.

"Not exactly." Charlotte said.

"Actually, that's kind of close." Tina said, liking the comparison. Charlotte frowned at her but she continued anyway, "Only it's more like a programming language. Each glyph is like a bit of code. They don't do much on their own, but if you put them together they make up a program, like a spell. We're still working out how they go together, though."

"I guess you can't teach Sarah if you don't know yet yourself, then." Mike said.

"No, but she's welcome to help me figure them out. Her powers might be helpful." Tina said thoughtfully.

"Tina, what did I say about teaching anyone glyphs before you've worked them out for yourself?" Charlotte scolded.

"I wouldn't be teaching her, we'd be learning together. Progress has been really slow, getting some help should speed things up a bit. I promise to be careful." Tina said.

Charlotte frowned but nodded reluctantly, "Alright, but be sure you are!"

"Can I help, too?" Willow asked hopefully.

Charlotte sighed and shook her head, "I suppose so. Perhaps this will help you find your own way of doing magic."

Mike shook his head ruefully, "It's kind of weird. After all this time getting used to our powers, we find out there are others out there with magical abilities. But it doesn't sound like there's a whole lot you can do with them. At least not yet."

Tina shrugged, "Yeah, it's kind of annoying sometimes. There are lots of things we can do, but mostly really subtle effects. But that's changing. Especially with glyphs. Once we get a handle on them there's no telling what we'll be able to do."

"Would you be willing to teach me this ritual magic you talked about, too?" Sarah asked.

"I would rather Tina not be distracted from the glyphs anymore than she already has been." Charlotte said. "But I could help you with the ritual magic. I'm not sure why you're interested, though. You're own powers are already well beyond what I can do."

Sarah shrugged, "Maybe, but they're also limited. I can do certain things pretty well, but that's it. If I learned your way of doing magic I would have a lot more options."

Mike yawned, "Maybe we should be going. It's getting late."

---

To Be Continued…