“Let’s get your boots on first,” said Harlette. “That ought to give you the strength to stand up. I’m surprised you lasted this long with nothing to keep your energy in.” She headed for the closet, leaving me lying in the entry hall.

I shook my head and said, “Okay.” Whatever. I really did feel low on energy but how would wearing boots help?

“She snacked on a giant earlier,” said Muffins. “Big evil-looking moose puncher on the next floor up. That’s why the bonfire they lit was so bright.”

Moose puncher? Snack? I didn’t know which to be more annoyed at, the implication that I was a cannibal or the one that I was a moose. I’m too little to be a moose. Bambi. I’m more of a Bambi.

I waggled my feet in annoyance again. If I weren’t lying helpless on the floor, I could have worked up a real pissed-off attitude.

“I think I met him downstairs, he let me into the building, if it’s the same guy,” Harlette said from inside the dressing room. “You feeling a little piratical today, Kate, honey?”

“Yo, ho,” I said. She didn’t get it but I heard Mr. Styx laugh, drily. It sounded like a boy scout trying to start a fire with only one stick. Mummies have a sense of humor? I kind of felt grateful that I couldn’t see him from my position on the floor.

Muffins crawled up on my thigh and butted my tummy with her round little head, purring like a nutbar. I tried to pet her but my hand ran out of energy and I sort of smooshed her down against me. I could feel the purring as much as hear it. “You keep doing that, I’m going to go to sleep,” I said.

“Kate, oh, Kate,” said the kitten, still purring. “What did you get us into?” Her little feet pushed against me, flexing, the points of her kitten-sharp claws just touching my skin.

“Wish I knew,” I said. A yawn interrupted another thought on it’s way to my brain. Even though the idea actually had something to do with brains, I knew it was gone; just a dehydrated wisp of a notion left. The kind of thoughts Mr. Styx probably had, whispery things that wouldn’t let you sleep and kept tickling your feet....

“Hosiery,” said Harlette. She ran a fingernail up an instep to my calf and down the other leg. “You going to wake up enough to let me help you get dressed?”

I sighed and nodded, about all I had the energy for. The kitten in my lap gave a little sigh too and shook herself awake.

“I’m just about used up,” said Muffins. “Not enough of me to keep both of us up and moving. Hell’s Buttery Biscuits but I’m tired.”

“Your cussing always sounds like an infomercial,” I said, giggling a little.

“Can you think of anything more damnable?” asked Harlette. She had rolled a lacy, silky, something onto her hands. “Point your toes,” she said.

I did and moments later I stared down at my legs, encased in shimmering–nylon, I suppose, though it looked like silk–with a lacy froth high on my thighs.

Muffins yawned and stretched and got her claws away from the danger of making runs in the fabric. She trotted to the end of the little hallway and looked toward the bed. She froze there, staring, her stiff little kitten tail sticking up like a handle. “Is he singing?” she asked.

We all heard it then, a rhythmic sigh with percussive tooth snappings on the downbeat. “The fucker is singing,” I said. I felt goosebumps popping out all over me when I recognized the tuneless rhythm and style.

“What is he singing? It’s a freemason waltz!” said Harlette. She stopped working the pink-and-lavender-suede boot that only the gayest pirate blade would have ever worn onto my left foot and stared down the hall, too.

I had to clamp my own teeth on the answer. Mr. Styx was singing “Clementine” in a fake Southern accent with howlings and yodels, a Huckleberry Hound impression like my father used to do. And he couldn’t carry a tune any better than Dad but at least he had the excuse of no vocal cords.

And I knew this how? I could hear Dad’s lugubrious voice in my head, singing a duet with a pile of kindling. But I couldn’t see him, couldn’t remember what he looked like.

“Hell’s Sweet Lemon Drops, that’s annoying,” said Muffins.

“It’s micro-fashion annoying,” agreed Harlette.

Mom would have thought so too. I tried to sit up straighter, taking in as deep a breath as I could manage. “Knock it off out there!” I squeaked.

The “singing” stopped. After a beat we all heard a dry-whistled “Hhhr-hhhy!” as apology.

Harlette laughed, a gurgle that sounded like high quality gin being measured for a seductive martini. No trace of panic or wonder in her voice.

I wanted to scream, There’s a talking cat and a mummy doing cartoon voices in here! But I didn’t have the energy, and it really didn’t seem that important. We’re all nutbars, I decided. This is the locked ward at the state hospital and the reason I can’t move is I’m in a strait jacket.

Muffins turned and bounced toward me, a calico ball of kitten delight. “You’re awake?” she asked.

I nodded. I knew what she meant. Not just awake as in not asleep but awake as in aware of things. And I was very much aware that everything around me was real, however much I didn’t want to believe it. But something else had changed.

I could already feel a new source of energy surging up from the arch of my left foot, forcibly flexed and constricted by the boot. As if the foot were now a rock in a waterfall, diverting some of the flow in an arcing rainbow.

Harlette worked quickly to get both boots on me, lacings tightened all the way up past my knees where the floopy “pirate” tops flopped over. The boots felt amazingly comfortable, despite the stiffness and constriction. They were my boots and I had worn them before, I knew this.

“How’s that?” Harlette asked.

“I’m good,” I said, my voice sounding stronger, even to me. “It’s like magic,” I added because I knew it wasn’t just ‘like magic’, it was magic. As magical as a talking kitten and a mummified rapper.

She gurgled another laugh, then helped me up so I stood braced against the wall while she laced a matching corset made of velvet, leather and steel around my middle. The boots bent and turned my feet so that I stood almost on tiptoe. The tall heels gave me six more inches of height, and yet, I didn’t feel any discomfort from wearing them.

I felt like a bottle being filled with some invisible fluid that was kept from running out again by my new restrictive clothing. How did that work, anyway?

But the most amazing things were the new sensations. I could rell Harlette’s mint green aura, Muffins’ polychrome gunpowder, and even through a wall, Mr. Styx glowed black-and-tan, ink-and-paper. The numinous Sun shone through all the floors and ceilings above us, the ultimate source of light and life and everything good.

At a distance, I could even see the Moon, behind the limb of the Earth; a week past new, She would be rising as the Sun reached zenith. The Planets, too, far away reflections of the Sun’s glory. And tiny Stars, unbelievably far and yet so bright. The universe sparkled all around me and every spark tried to whisper secrets in my ear.

Harlette stood behind me, tightening my laces. Holding my hair up, out of her way, with my arms over my head, stretched up and onto my toes, I still had no problems with balance. It seemed marvelously natural, something I had been doing for a very long time.

The corset and heels together made me arch my back, thrusting my chest forward and my rear, up and back. At the same time, built-in cups that didn’t quite cover my nipples pushed my boobs together and higher, making me feel as if I ought to be nailed to the prow of a ship, breasting the waves.

The faster, shallower breathing I had to do increased this illusion; at the same time I imagined becoming lighter, hollow, where the power I sensed flowing in from somewhere could be held within me. I didn’t need a boat, I had become my own vessel. Okay, I winced at that mental pun, but it felt true.

My waist shrank as Harlette pulled the cords, tighter and tighter. She checked every few iterations, using her hands to see if she could span my tiny middle. By contradiction, the smaller my waist got, the larger the power-containing volume inside me became.

Harlette tied the cords off with bows. She held up both hands, middle finger and thumb tips touching to make a single circle. “Nineteen and one quarter inches,” she said. “Perfect.”

I turned around, taking little steps to do so because my waist and ankles would hardly bend. I kept my elbows at my side, using my hands and forearms to keep my balance; it seemed the right way to do it..

The restrictions and limitations of my costume freed and empowered me. Dressed like this, I could not run, I could take only small steps but my senses had expanded and energy filled me. What could I do with that power, I wondered?

I tried the stunt with my third eye, looking into Harlette and searching out the truth about her. My two eyes, which I had not realized I had closed, popped open. “You’re a boy!” I yelped, startled.

“No shampoo, Einstein,” she said. “Sex magic at the higher levels always requires someone who has crossed that river.”

“Oh,” I said. “Sure....” I trailed off. I remembered being a boy, but.... Had Kate also been a boy at some time?