Amylia sat behind the wheel of the rental car, barely saying a word as the two of us drove. It had been a quiet drive for the last hour with the mood being somewhat somber.

I was in the passenger seat, absently playing with my latest piece of jewelry, a very nice bead bracelet that aunt June had given me as a present last night. Each bead was the size of a marble and made of titanium, as well as coated with old metal and symbols to make them look more interesting. Each bead was also a reusable token.

Aunt June had once told me that it was impossible to make reusable tokens that small, that they couldn’t be made sturdy enough to withstand the magics involved in creating them. However, aunt June was one of the world’s foremost experts on creating small reusable tokens, and she’d spent the last month working hard to make it possible. She’d done all that just to this for me, a reward to show how proud she was of how I’d handled myself during the attack on the Academy.

It had been just over a month since Gregor and his people had launched their attack against us. Most of those invaders had been cursed and released, knowing that they would now have to avoid magic and even other Touched. They would be forced to live nearly as normal unless they wished to risk nausea and pain.

Gregor of course, had been given a different punishment. He’d been dropped off on a small island that had been warded to keep him in and to keep other people away. It would be a prison he would not be able to escape from, especially since he no longer had magic to use.

However, Gregor’s true prison was his own skin. He’d experimented with Were transformation magic without truly understanding what he was doing, and as a result, he was now trapped as a troll for the rest of his life. I felt a dark amusement at the thought that the man who had nothing but contempt for Were should now be forced to permanently live in a hideous Were form.

It had been just over a month since the attack, and in that time, many things had changed. Dr. Merchant had been invited to the Academy twice times to give lectures on Were culture and history. But even more shocking, the Academy now had its first pure Were student.

Traci had been invited to the Academy as an exchange student and had accepted, much to the delight of Eve who had begun dating her. Darek, Trey, Jake, and Kaylie might have gotten similar invitations for what they’d done during the attack, if it wasn’t for the fact that they were all a little too old.

I was more than happy to have Traci join my group of friends at the Academy, though it had created a few awkward moments as well, such as during the last full moon. Fortunately, both Eve and Todd were pretty understanding of our friends with occasional benefits status.

Monica had begun dating Trey as well, though it was mostly a long-distance relationship with weekend visits. I liked Trey, but he was a few years older than Monica and I thought he might be just a little too old for her. However, they made each other happy and I certainly couldn’t argue with that.

After the events of the attack, Monica and Teressa had made up and became friends again, though Monica still spent quite a bit of time hanging out with us as well. Fortunately, Teressa had called our feud off, though there had been no apologies or official declaration of a ceasefire. Instead, she had just been leaving me alone and ignoring me, which suited me just fine.

I smiled as I thought of Todd and our now rather active sex life. After several weeks, we finally even did it with me in succubus form. I’d had to hold back a great deal, but Todd had really gotten a kick out of it, especially since I was able to use my talent to enhance his body and performance, which allowed him to keep up a little more.

Even Amylia was getting a touch of romance since I’d seen the way that she and Dr. Merchant looked at each other. I knew that they kept in frequent contact, and I suspected that this may even be why Dr. Merchant had been invited to the Academy as a guest lecturer.

Just then, Amylia distracted me from my thoughts by announcing, “We’re here…”

Amylia pulled the car into our destination and then parked it. We got out and looked around for a moment before she silently began leading the way, looking at the notes Dr. Merchant had given her.

A minute later, we found what we were looking for…a tombstone with the name ‘Robert Erland Dupree.’ Beneath that, it had the engraved words, ‘Beloved husband and father.’

Amylia just stood there for two minutes, staring at her son’s tombstone without a word. Tears were coming down her cheeks and I took her hand, holding it to give her comfort.

“Robert,” she whispered. “I missed over half your life. I missed your wife and children. I never got to see the man you became.” She just stood there with the tears flowing. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I wasn’t a better mother…that I didn’t have the courage to be honest with you. If I had, then things would have been different.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” I assured her gently. “Gregor…”

“Gregor played his part,” Amylia agreed grimly. “But I played my own as well. If I’d told Robert that I was a hybrid and that there was even a chance he would be a Were…then he might not have panicked during his transformation. I should have stopped Gregor… I failed Robert.”

I gave Amylia a gentle hug to give what comfort I could. She’d been living with this guilt for two hundred years and now it was all coming out.

“But he lived,” I reminded Amylia, feeling awkward as I did so. “I mean, at least long enough to have a family who loved him.”

“There is that,” Amylia agreed, giving me a gentle smile. “And he left me a new family that I’ve enjoyed meeting and learning to know.”

I nodded at that and stared at the tombstone. “Hi,” I said quietly. “I’m Erin, and I guess, I’m your great great granddaughter…with a few more greats.” I stopped at that, not knowing what to say.

“I remember when Robert was little,” Amylia told me quietly. “He was so excited to watch me show him my spells… And though you wouldn’t believe it, Gregor was a proud and happy father…” Her expression saddened even more at that.

For the next twenty minutes, Amylia told me about Robert and what she remembered of him. She told me stories of his childhood and how she caught him kissing one of the neighbor girls. She smiled in fond remembrance as she described his reaction to being given his own horse for his fifteenth birthday. When she was done, she seemed to be in a much better mood, as though sharing her memories of Robert had helped to ease some of the pain.

Amylia stared at the tombstone again with a somber look in her eyes. “It’s time to do something that I should have done a very long time ago.”

“What’s that?” I asked her curiously.

“I have to make up for my mistakes” Amylia responded with a look of determination. “I have to do something to help prevent this kind of thing from happening again.”

I blinked at that, feeling a little confused. Then cautiously asked, “How do you do that?”

Amylia gave me a faint smile and answered, “I’ve been talking with Edward about an idea I had… He’s agreed to become my partner in this…” Then she looked at me with a slightly larger smile. “We are going to open a summer camp…a camp for both Were and Touched children. It will be a place where they can get to know each other, to learn that they are not really so different as they think. It will be a place where Were and Touched can learn to understand and accept each other.”

“That sounds like a lot of work,” I commented.

“Yes,” Amylia agreed. “But it will be well worth it. And perhaps, we can even find some Sier children to attend as well.”

“That does sound pretty cool,” I told her, giving her another hug.

“I’m glad you think so,” Amylia told me with a look of amusement. “Once the Robert Dupree summer camp is up and operational, we will need some good camp counselors…and I can think of no one I’d rather have than you.”

With that, we turned and walked back to the car. Amylia was smiling faintly and almost seemed to radiate a new sense of purpose. I just smiled as I went along, feeling proud to have her as my grandmother and feeling amazed that things had turned out this way.

After my Changing day, when I first woke up to discover that I’d become a girl, I hadn’t been able to imagine a future in that form. I hadn’t been able to imagine a day when I would actually come to prefer my new gender. But I had, just as I had found new friends and family I never would have expected. As I had learned though, you couldn’t truly predict what the future would hold. Trying to do so was like trying to touch the moon.

“Come on grandma,” I told Amylia, feeling proud to be her descendent. “Let’s go get started.”

The End