by Paula Dillon

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My name is, or rather was, Alan Jamison and my story started in early October. You see, my parents are kind of strange. I bet that there are a bunch of kids that say the same thing all the time about their parents, but mine are really, undoubtedly, certifiably, honest to God strange. In this age of modern science, my parents are paranormal investigators.

It isn’t all-bad. I get to go with them and see some strange things and go to some interesting places. When my parents are so hopeful that this lead, or next, will reveal something startling, or earth shattering, I get to interject some common sense and logic. They hate it when I burst their bubble, but I have to admit, they accept what I have to say without question, when I am right. How many teens out there can say that about their parents?

Me, I am sixteen, five feet five and a buck twenty-five. Not quite the Adonis that most teens hope to grow up to be. I am a bit of a loner, although I do have a few geeky type friends. I don’t see my self as a geek, but I am a wiz at computers, the Internet and science, so I fit right in with them. With girls, I am a bit of a loss right now. While I am not ashamed of my parents, I am a little afraid of how a girl would see them. It hasn’t really been a problem though, due to the fact that I am not a hunk of male flesh. So the girls on the hunt, easily overlook me for their dream date.

My parents are Trevor and Elizabeth Jamison, ages forty-one and thirty-nine. Dad graduated from Berkley (you guessed it a PhD, in paranormal studies. Mom graduated from UCon with a master’s degree in archeology (especially on the mysticisms of the ancients). They met at a dig when their purposes crossed paths. It was love at first ghost, you could say.

It was early October and my parents announced that they were going to spend four days at a haunting, on the thirtieth of October, to the second of November. There was this home, that ten years ago, was the scene of a family massacre. Four members of the family were found dead, the mother, two daughters and the son. The father was missing and unaccounted for; even after a ten-year search by the authorities. It was assumed that he was a family annihilator. What excited my parents, were reports that the house was now haunted and it was said that nobody has been able to spend any great length of time in the house. Nor has anybody been able to demolish the home, to rebuild on the site.

I had two jobs on these trips, first, I am really, really good; did I say I was really good; I am better than that at researching things on the Internet. You can search for almost anything on the Internet. The problem is not getting enough information, but getting too much information; 99.99% of it is so totally not related to anything close to what you hope to find. If you know how though, you can sift all the chaff, to get to the wheat germ of the matter.

My second job is to help keep my parents from going off half cocked, only to find that science and logic are just waiting to burst their bubble. I am their Occam’s razor. I have to admit, but don’t tell my parents, that I like being their anchor to reality. I guess it is a bit of child being the parent thing, but I am not into a lot of that psycho-babble type stuff.

Anyway, I got on my computer; working with my rents on these types of things, means I have one hot computer and a smoking ISP. My computer would make those without super computer access at Stanford or MIT, jealous.

I started a dozen spiders, crawling throughout the Internet, to dredge up information on: Family, Home, Community, Local and State police reports and finally… Paranormal activity in the area.

I quickly found the news reports from the papers and electronic media reports and went over them, printing out the pertinent details for the rents. I found a TV talking head that had some Harvard or Yale psychologist that had done a psych profile on the various family members. I made numerous notes on what he said and found his telephone number, in case we wanted to contact him.
 

*          *          *
 
Over the next few days, I developed quite a dossier. The rents read it over and planned out their approach to the house.

They had spent hundreds, of thousands, of dollars on gadgets and ghost busting gizmo’s. Nothing I couldn’t have jury-rigged for a few thousand dollars at my local Radio Shack; but hey, they have almost Carte Blanche support from many paranormal investigation groups.

They had to have all the magnetic flux, ecto-plasmic, spectral analyzing, infrared, photo mass spect whatevers that any other group had, to keep their credibility in their community. Oh, they also had dowsing rods, (really scientific) lots of dowsing rods. They kept a lot of geeks in Jolt cola and kept them laughing to the bank.

Don’t get me wrong, those gizmos did measure things, like electrical fields, distortion in magnetic fields, radio frequencies, differential distortions in the infrared range (temperature distortions) and other known scientific measurements (not sure about what the dowsing rods are suppose to detect). It is how they interpret the data, which gets hokey.

At least none of their gear contained unlicensed nuclear reactors!

The last two days before our trip, we loaded their gear into their ghost buster mobile (no it isn’t an old Cadillac ambulance, but a half ton Chevy van).
 

*          *          *
 
On the thirtieth, we took two vehicles. (You didn’t expect there to be enough room for all those gadgets and three people in the van did you?) We got to the house and set up all the sensors, to get baseline measurements on the house and the neighborhood.

I had gotten the older girl’s room. The little boys room had a four-foot long racecar bed. Karen had just turned seventeen and the room befits a teenage girl’s idea of a perfect room ten years ago, I guess. This room was the least changed room in the house. The short-term tenants, over the years, have described their feelings for this room; from antipathy to abject terror.

To me, I might die from a sugar and spice overload - the room was just too cute. The walls were a mix of pastel colors that hadn’t faded, aged, or cracked much at all. They must have been painted with some good quality wall paints. There was a canopy bed, a dresser, vanity, a walk in closet and a bathroom, which adjoined to the next bedroom.

The bathroom had a footed, iron bathtub, with a showerhead on a vertical water pipe, a toilet, two washbasins, a large mirror above it and two full-length mirrors on either bathroom doors.

The other bedroom was worse than the older girl’s bedroom. I was going into diabetic shock just looking in the door.

The walk-in closet was also shared by the two rooms. The racks were still full of the seventeen-year-old girl’s clothes and the thirteen year-old girl’s clothes, which were more than a little dusty.

I unpacked my bags and stored my clothes. I found enough room to put my clothes away. A guy just doesn’t need a lot of room for four days worth of clothes.

The rents had dumped their bags. Together we spent the next four hours exploring every nook and cranny of the three-story, 120 year old, Victorian house. According to the blue prints I obtained, it showed two floors of living quarters, other necessary rooms, an attic apartment and storage area, and a basement. The house had been wired for electricity in 1929 and then rewired in 1957. It had been re-plumbed three times, over that same time period.

I had an electronic measuring tape and tried to account for every square foot of the house. All I had to do was stand in the room, press a button and instantly I knew how big the room was, plus or minus one half inch. While the walls were a little thick, (10 inch exterior and 8 inch interior) there was no room for a secret passage, or a hidden room.

In the kitchen, we planned out the placement of the passive sensors, cameras and other gear. I then went about setting up and testing all the meters and sensors. I was lucky, in that all the equipment was wireless and used RF to send data to the central receiver and computer. After everything checked green, we ate dinner and laid down for a nap.

95% of your ghost sightings happen at night. My question is why are the ghosts so rude as to make their appearances, when people should be sound asleep? As long as I am playing the game with the rents, you know, ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do’.

The first thing I did when waking at ten at night was, you know; but the second was to check the data collected on the laptop. All the sensors were still green and no anomalous data was detected. I switched over to the live feed from the cameras normal, spectra and IR. Mom passed out hot coffee and energy bars. Then she began her chanting, burning incense and other weird things. Dad went around with his meters, checking things.

I would play my video games and check the monitors occasionally. They were set to give an audible alarm upon detecting an anomaly anyways.
 

*          *          *
 
Paranormal researchers generally always glean some sort of anomalous data — that’s the fire that drives them! They point to the data because it can’t really be explained logically. (I think the guys who make that stuff, intentionally add bugs to their equipment, which create those anomalies.) I knew that it was just what it appeared, their equipment hiccups, or burps, or other malfunctions. Our data, though, was clean.

On a haunting, we generally live on Mom’s coffee and junk food. Tonight, Mom’s coffee hit me pretty hard and I had to make a pit stop.

When I came out of the restroom, I saw a luminous figure of a girl. I began to wonder if Mom was on her peyote kick again. You know grinding up the peyote and adding it to the coffee grounds. She had done that to me once, hoping it would open my inner eye, or some mumbo jumbo. It took me three days to get over that trip.

The girl looked just like the photos of the murdered girl. I followed the girl in the hall. I grabbed the mike of my HT (hand held radio) and called in a check.

“One clear,” Dad said.

“Two clear,” Mom said.

That meant, Mom and Dad, had nothing to report.

What ever I was following went around the corner and through the wall. The point where she disappeared was in front of a wall that extended away from me. Nothing was in front of me but 12 feet of wallboards and 2 x 6’s.

I hurried downstairs to the kitchen and checked the data. Nada. I rolled by the camera for upstairs. I saw myself and nothing else. Weird!

I thought it over and decided to keep this sighting to myself. It had to be a hallucination. I would hate to tell them that I, a skeptic, had seen a ghost. First, it could hurt their feelings. They might think that I was kidding them and then bombard me with a thousand questions.

I concluded that I didn’t know what I had seen, or if I had really seen anything at all. I felt like I was lying a bit to my parents, but it also confused me a bit too. I really would hate to think that I might have seen a ghost. It goes against everything I believe in.
 

*          *          *
 
The next night was Halloween, or as my Mom called it, ‘All Hallows Day’. At about 10:40 pm, I called in that I was doing a sensor check. I often did those, so it wasn’t that unusual. I went up and down the hall upstairs and looked in every room. I checked the room I was staying in last. As I came out of the room, I saw the same luminous figure floating towards me. It was acting like I wasn’t there. Instead of floating past me, it turned and passed right through me. For some reason, I passed out.

I don’t know how long I was out, but I only remembered waking up, laying on the floor. I tried to push myself up, but my chest jiggled. My shirt was incredibly tight across the chest.

“Oh… my… gosh! I got tits!” I thought.

“Tell me about it,” I heard inside my head.

“ What!?!” I exclaimed.

“You don’t have to shout, in fact you don’t have to talk. I am in your head.”

“It’s twelve, Alan,” my radio barked.

I grabbed my mike and said, “Base…” hearing my voice, I cleared my throat, coughed a bit, and said, “Clear,” in as gravelly a voice I could. I still sounded way too feminine.

“Allergies getting to you sweetie? Two, clear.”

“Yeah, you need to take a pill Alan. One, clear.”

“I will,” I croaked.

“Now, who the hell are you?” I thought.

“Language. You already know who I am. I am Karen Rutherford.”

“What the hell are you doing in my body?”

“Hell if I know and watch your language. I was going to ask you the same question. I was going to float past you, but then I thought, I would give you a thrill and pass right through you. I passed into you, but it was like I hit a wall, as I tried to pass out of you.”

We had a little under an hour to find a way out of this fix. I was sure that I would be busted at the next check.

“You’re a ghost?”

“Yeah and you’re a freaking genius.”

“Language,” I said.

“Doesn’t count, I’m dead.”

“Get out of my body!”

“Don’t you think that I might have tried that already? I ain’t thrilled about this either. Although, having someone I can talk to, is kind of nice.”

“At least give me back my body.”

“I would if I could, do you think I want some teenage boy looking at my body?”

“I’m not looking at it.”

“You will.”

“I won’t.”

“Peeing and bathing?”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

“Oh my, how did this happen?”

“I think you already asked that?”

“You are dead, killed by your father,”

“No, I was not killed by Dad. I was killed by my ex-boyfriend.”

“Did he kill your whole family too?”

“Yes, even my dad. I think.”

“They never found the body of your dad and his blood wasn’t found in your home. It was assumed that he was a family annihilator.”

“No, dad was the first to die; I believe he was killed elsewhere.”

“You can’t just leave my body can you?”

“No, I am sorry. I have already tried too.”

I gotta think this through. “What, am I going to do?” Alan thought.

“Yes, we need to think this through,”

“Quit reading my mind,” Alan thought.

“I can’t! For good or ill, it’s my mind too,” Karen thought.

“I guess we will need help. Much as I regret this, we’ll need to tell my parents.”

“Your parents are different, but they are right this time.”

“I know, I will never live this down. I want to see what I look like first.”

I stood, which was a little perplexing, due to a difference in my center of gravity, and walked to Karen’s room. In the bathroom, I looked at myself in the large mirror. I didn’t look like a female form of what I thought I would look like.

“You don’t look like I did either, Alan.”

“I know, I can see the family resemblance to Mom, but I look a little like you in your pictures.”

“I know, I think we look like a child of ours might look like. I think we look pretty good.”

I took a closer look at me. I was about the same height as I had been. My shirt had lost four buttons where the breasts had appeared and the shirt barely covered them. The shorts that I wore were stretched tight across the rump and were pulled up my crack, but they were loose at the waist. I began to realize just how uncomfortable I was in them.

“Damn, I don’t have anything to wear?”

Karen started giggling, as Alan thought that.

“What is with you?”

“Your thoughts, they sounded so like a girl.”

“What?”

“You thought that you didn’t have anything to wear.”

“I don’t, these clothes are too tight. I don’t wear baggy or ill fitting clothes.”

“My clothes are still here, they should fit you.”

“I don’t want to put on a dress, or a skirt.”

“You don’t have too, but I bet we would look good all dolled up. Just because I’m a girl, doesn’t mean I don’t have pants or shorts.”

Karen walked over to her closet and selected a scoop-neck T-shirt and a pair of black stretch pants.

“You’re controlling… my body!”

“Hmm, I didn’t think about it, but I guess I am. We can’t face your parents looking like this. And besides, I know what I’m doing.”

She took their body over to the dresser, got a pair of panties and a bra.

“Do we really have to wear those?”

“Yes, as long as we are together in this body, we will dress properly. Now close our eyes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want you to see us naked.”

“Why?”

“Please? We may be able to separate tonight. I don’t want your last thoughts about me to be of our naked body.”

I closed my eyes. Weird! I couldn’t see but I felt and sensed Karen dressing us. She could see when I couldn’t!

“My bra is a little too small, we are bigger than I was, but the panties fit alright.” Karen thought.

“Oh brother! My Mom has a big chest.”

Karen then pulled on the T-shirt and pants, “Ok, open your eyes. I like our hair. You grew it longer than most guys,” she said, pulling the elastic band off of our pony tail. She then brushed our hair.

“Don’t knock my hair. I did it to agitate the rents.”

“You liked it long too, I can see that. We need to get it cut and shaped though.”

“Why? It’s my hair.”

“It is our hair, now. We Will Take Better Care Of It Now, won’t we?” She thought, rather emphatically. “Now let’s go meet Mom.”
 

*          *          *
 
We went down stairs and hunted down Mom. Being Halloween, she was decked out in all of her Goth splendor. She was out back, chanting in a circle and she had her eyes closed. I was really afraid to approach her, but Karen kept giving me mental nudges. Suddenly, she got a strange look on her face and opened her eyes. She looked intently at Alan/Karen in the dim light of the candles, she had lit.

“Oh my, you are Alan, but you are more than that, aren’t you?”

“Mom,” I said, sheepishly.

“Who is that with you?”

“Karen Rutherford.”

“Ah yes, the older child. You must tell me, what happened.”

We told my mother all that we knew. She asked us a bunch of questions that neither of us knew the answers to, then got on her radio and said, “Two to one; meet me in the kitchen.”

“Roger, two.”

“Mom, is there anyway for me to get my body back?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how this happened. I had a foreboding about tonight a little while ago, but… I just don’t know. Let me think on it for a bit.”
 

*          *          *
 
We all met in the kitchen. It took Mom the better part of an hour to convince Dad that I was Alan. He was a little upset to think that his son was now a member of the fairer sex. Karen and I had a hard time convincing him that we hadn’t done that on purpose.

After he cooled off, he started thinking logically. He began questioning us about the murders. Karen told him that the murder wasn’t committed by her Dad, but by her ex-boyfriend, Tim Harper.

Karen didn’t know why she was still here, but she knew she wasn’t ready to go into the light.

“Well then tell me, are you the spirit that has chased everybody away from here?” Dad asked.

“Yes I am. This is my home, not theirs.”

“You didn’t chase us away.”

“No, I didn’t. You didn’t come in here to erase my families’ presence here. Everybody else came here intent to move my stuff out, repaint, restore and forget I was ever here. Besides, Alan was kind of cute, I liked him.”

“You didn’t register on any of our sensors.”

“Don’t ask me about any of that. I was wondering what all those gizmos you put out, were for.”

“I had a sense of foreboding, but I couldn’t connect it to anything till Alan/Karen came near me, Trevor. My Mom alarm then went hyper.”

“Mom alarm?” Alan/Karen asked.

“You know, a mother’s sixth sense that something is wrong, I can’t explain it.”

“Well, back to the murders, if your ex-boyfriend murdered your family, where is your father’s body?”

“I don’t know, my Dad went out to speak to Tim. We never saw him again. He was going to escort him off of our property and was following Tim’s motorcycle up the road, in his pickup truck. He never came back. He did have some shopping to do, so we weren’t worried.”

“The next thing I knew was, Tim snuck into the house and he shot Mom and Cindy downstairs. Rick went down to rescue them and was shot on the staircase. Tim cornered me upstairs and finished me off, with a knife.”

“Are any of your family still here?”

“No, they all crossed over.”

“Why are you still here?”

“I was too angry when I died, I guess. I never saw the light. I still hope to see that Tim pays for what he did, I guess.”

“Well, we know Tim’s still alive and living in town. The police probably just assumed that since the father was missing, that he probably did the deed. We need to find the body and find some evidence of Tim’s involvement.”

“Tonight’s a bust, so let’s all just get some rest. Maybe tomorrow things will be back the way they were,” Dad said, hopefully.

“Yeah… right.” I thought to myself as I became aware of our chest again.
 

*          *          *
 
Back in our room, I asked Karen, “Do you want me to close my eyes again?”

“No, we need to see our body to bathe and other things. It looks like we will be together for a while.”

We then headed into the bathroom where we undressed. We had a slim but curvy body, in my opinion. Karen thought our backside was a little big, but I would have drooled over a girl like this. “Our breasts are huge,” I thought.

“They are big, probably a full C cup, maybe a bit larger, but not that big. I was just a small B cup when I died. I like the way we look, we are very good looking.”

Karen began brushing our hair, while I looked us over. I have never seen a live, naked, girl before.

“Really,” Karen thought.

“Really, I have seen some pictures in some magazines, but not often.”

“If we stay this way long, I will give you a tour. I like our muscles, did you work out?”

Our legs and arms had a wiry muscular look to them. We weren’t ripped, but we were well toned. I had to admit, they looked good.

“I take Aikido and Jujitsu.”

“Gee, if I had been you, I might still be alive.”

“I am a geek, if I had not done something, I wouldn’t have survived this long in high school.”

I did have to pee, but Karen helped out there.

Finally, she dressed us in a pair of panties and an oversized sleep shirt.
 

*          *          *
 
The next morning, I awoke breathing hard and gasping. One hand was between my legs, my fingers were playing with me and the other was massaging my breasts. Karen giggled in my mind, as an intense pressure building in my abdomen, began to slowly radiate throughout my body. I had no idea how long this went on, but it seemed to take forever. I was lost in time. I was on the verge of passing out from this wonderful sensation when I felt the dam burst inside my, no, our brain! The incredible sensation I felt surpassed anything I had ever felt in my short life as a male!

“Well, that works,” Karen said, giggling.

“What… the heck…was that?”

“You just had an incredible orgasm, my dear sister. That one was better than I remembered it being.”

“Oh-my-God! That was unbelievable!”

“Get up you! We need to take a shower and clean up.”

We showered taking our time. Karen shampooed our hair and was disappointed that I didn’t have any conditioner. She then took my razor, to shave our legs and underarms.

“We need to get some new clothes today and we need to do something about our hair. It’s ok for a guy, but a girl wants to look her best.”

We dressed in the appropriate underwear, trouser socks, a pair of loose fitting, tan, chinos, a white cotton, button up, blouse and a pair of brown, penny loafers. Karen sat at her vanity, some of her cosmetics weren’t fit for use after ten years, but she did find that her pressed powder, mascara and lipstick were still ok. I complained, but she just gave the mirror a raspberry.

“We need to get our ears pierced. I have a lot of earrings we can’t wear, because our ears aren’t pierced.”

She then added a few pieces of jewelry, a ring, a necklace and a bracelet. We looked our self over and she pronounced us fit.

Out in the hall, we could hear the parents snoring. They weren’t stirring yet, so we left them alone. We went on into the kitchen and fixed some coffee and breakfast. The smell of cooked bacon resurrected the dead, as Mom and Dad came staggering down.

“Didn’t change, did you?” Dad said.

“No I didn’t, Dad. Karen and me, we need new clothes. Some of her stuff fits, but most of it doesn’t.”

“I just remembered, we can’t take anything away from this house. We signed an agreement,” Mom said.

“Not even my things?” Karen asked, indignantly.

“Not even Karen’s things. She is dead, remember? It affects our credibility. We never take anything away from a site, that we didn’t bring, without permission,” Dad said.

“But, I had some really nice things.”

“It can’t be helped, dear. If we violated our promise, we might find ourselves unable to investigate another site ever again. I hope you will understand that this is important to us, especially since we have now confirmed that spirits do exist.” Mom said, a little too gleefully to her son.

“You’re not going to expose me, are you?”

“NO! We wouldn’t… we couldn’t do that… we might lose you to our cause if we did.” Dad said emphatically. His face was filled with concern. “We hope that Karen can provide us with some ideas on how to confirm a haunting,”

Mom’s reaction scared us the most. She had an excited, almost feral, gleeful, expression on her face, “Oh, this will be so much fun! I never had a daughter to take shopping!”

“Go ahead and take our son into town and get him some clothes then.”

“We ought to refer to her as our niece and find a girl’s name for her. Calling her son might raise a few eyebrows.”

“Niece?” I asked.

“Everyone that knows us knows that we only had a son. If we show up with a daughter, it would raise questions.”

“Your right Liz, what shall we call her?”

“Karen,” Karen volunteered.

“No, you look too much like the dead Karen, that wouldn’t be a good idea,” Dad said.

“We were going to name you Kathryn, if you were born a girl, Alan,” Mom said.

“Kathryn is good, I guess.”

“So, you will be Kathryn Long, our niece.”

“So, that would make Aunt Agatha my Mom? Oh lord!”

“What’s wrong with Agatha?”

“Nothing, but I thought you were a little different Mom. Aunt Agatha is way out in left field.”

“Aunt Agatha just may be Alan’s best hope of returning. She isn’t really all that strange. She is a white witch. You didn’t believe in spirits yesterday, if I remember correctly.”

“You’re right, Mom.” I sighed.

“I have to write down this time and place, so I can remember this moment forever, and that is Aunt Elizabeth to you, young lady.”

Mom called Aunt Agatha and explained what had happened to us with her, as we drove into town and told her she now had a daughter. Aunt Agatha was more gleeful about the situation than Mom was. That was absolutely crazy! She just had to talk to me and rub my nose in the dirt a bit. I really do love her, but…
 

*          *          *
 
Shopping was an experience to be remembered. Karen and Aunt (Yes I remembered Mom) Elizabeth went crazy, especially Aunt Elizabeth! I always thought it was Mothers that wanted their daughters to wear longer skirts. One skirt that Mom, make that Aunt Elizabeth, handed us to try on couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9 inches long below my crotch! We couldn’t do much without showing off our panties. Even Karen, who liked the skirt, was shocked. I put my heel down on that. Yeah, bummer. I was wearing heels, 3 inch heels, to be exact. 12 - 14 inches were the shortest skirts I would allow. But I have to admit, our legs looked really great.

It was a good thing we had the van. I don’t think Mom had really thought through just how we were going to get all this stuff and our gizmos home. We now, had a respectable wardrobe. At least Karen and I got some shorts and pants each in a style that we liked.

Victoria’s secret was a real eye opener. Karen giggled, as we blushed, trying on all that feminine finery. Karen was wrong, we were a 34D and not a C cup after all. Mom, I found out (alright Aunt Elizabeth) was a 38DD. It was more information than I really wanted to know about too! Wearing pantyhose was a unique experience, if I still had my penis, I would have been… well, you know! The thrill of the nylon sliding up my now hairless legs was exciting. Karen had to rain on my parade by giving me mental pictures of a hot day, with sweaty, clammy, icky pantyhose, pantyhose that have slipped down our legs and a scene of pantyhose with runners in them. Ewwww!

I couldn’t believe how hard we hit a jewelry store. Most of the stuff was cheap imitation stuff, which just looked like silver, gold, pearls and other precious metals and stones, but Mom insisted that I get a real pearl tennis bracelet, diamond stud earrings and some silver rings.

Strangely, I was beginning to really like shopping. I have seen all the pretty clothes that girls wear of course. Even though I had never had a desire to dress like them before, I found that the clothes felt and looked really incredible on me. Everything was so soft and sensuous.

I wore an outfit that both Karen and Mom liked. A pleasant top, black patterned pantyhose, a short denim mini skirt and of course my shiny black, patent leather, pumps, with three inch heels.

Our last stop was at a salon where we had our hair styled, our nails shaped, our brows plucked, and our ears pierced. We received a complimentary make over after Karen had made up some excuse for our hair being in as bad shape as it was. The lady who was working on our hair, talked non-stop. Wonk wonk wonk! Gah! I had to let Karen do the talking, because it was impossible for me to follow.

Another lady began to work on our toenails and feet. She didn’t talk as much. She filed my nails, added tips, to make them a little longer and polished them with a coral red polish.

When they were both done, a third lady plucked our brows. She didn’t pluck them thin, but she did create an arch to them. She pierced both of our ears, leaving the diamond studs in them which my Mom had purchased. Then came the makeup.

I was absolutely astounded when she turned me towards the mirror. I had only dreamed about girls that looked like me. Karen was right, we looked incredible!

Of course, Mom bought us enough makeup to last four or five months.
 

*          *          *
 
Dad’s jaw dropped when we came back in. I was afraid that he was going to faint, or have a coronary there for a second. I was afraid that we might have gone too far, but he recovered and gave me a big hug. That surprised me, because Dad didn’t hug me that much, you know, it’s a guy thing to not showing any emotion. Karen thought that that was a real shame; everybody needs hugs, especially from their parents.

Dad and Mom got cleaned up real nice and we went out to eat.

We had a secluded table at a nice restaurant and after ordering, we sat around talking about Karen and her family. Karen told them as much as she could about what happened that night.

We began to discuss where Tim Harper might have ditched a car, so it couldn’t be found for ten years. Dad came to the conclusion that the car could have been ditched in a gully, hidden deep in the woods, or sunk in a lake, or a large pond.

“It would have to be a lake,” Karen said. “It is the only place that makes sense to me, now that I think about it. There is one about ten miles away from my home.”

We drove by the lake, as Karen gave them directions. I felt her start to get real antsy, as we approached the lake. There was about a quarter mile of beach front, on the part of the lake she led us to.

Karen wanted us to run down to the beach right then, but I slowed her down enough, to change into a pair of my Nikes. They were a bit big now, but they didn’t fall off our feet.

She walked about two hundred feet and pointed out to the water, “His body is out there Aunt Elizabeth, about thirty feet out from here.”

Dad looked around and didn’t see anybody, so he made a big driftwood arrow, pointing out to the water.

We then headed to the haunt. When we got there, we began to pack up. Dad wanted to leave here in the morning.

Karen did leave most of her things; there were a few insignificant bits that were very sentimental to her, that we had to sneak out. One was a locket, with a family photo and locks of her family’s hair. Another was her old diary, and finally, a ring her grandmother had given her, all of which she had hidden under a loose floor board.
 

*          *          *
 
Karen woke me up in the morning by giving me another incredible orgasm again! Girls play sooo dirty! I didn’t know whether to complain or encourage her. It was fantastic, but I hated getting up earlier than I was used to.

Karen told me that she didn’t do this that often, but she had missed being alive. She said she felt really alive when we reached orgasm.

We showered and she gave me a makeup lesson. For some reason, she thought I should know how to do this. My opinion was that if she wasn’t there, I would probably be back in my old male body, but I decided to humor her. She controlled my body as she applied the makeup. Don’t worry about me, I’m just here along for the ride.

We wore a long sleeve pull over, shirt, a blue, jean jacket, a pair of boot cut, jeans and a pair of her Nikes, today. After we dressed, we loaded our things into the van and the car.

When Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Trevor got up, we ate and loaded up the vehicles. We then checked to make sure we left the home in the same condition that we found it in.

We got home about three hours later and unloaded the van of ghost seeking equipment, but left our luggage in it. We then headed over to see Aunt Agatha.

I had always thought that she was way kookier than my Mom but I loved her dearly. There had been no room in my logical scientific mind, for witchcraft. Now I tossed out that logic and desperately hoped that she might be able to do something about our condition!

She lived just across the town from us, so it was a short drive. She was in her rocking chair on the front porch when we arrived. She was petting her big black tomcat, named Nightshade. She shooed her cat off and gave the rents hugs and kisses before she got to me.

“Alan or should I say Kathryn, you are such a lovely young lady. It’s a big improvement for you, I must say,” she giggled.

“Oh come on Aunt Agatha, you got to help me. I want to be Alan again.”

“I will help you if I can. I wouldn’t purposely leave you like this if I could change you back. You know me better than that. Come, let’s go inside and talk. I have dinner on the stove, cooking.”

Aunt Agatha was a vegetarian - at least she wasn’t a Vegan! She did drink milk and eat cheese, just she didn’t eat meat. She was one hell of a cook too, she could grace a four star restaurant if she had wanted too.

The table was all laid out when we got there, so we sat and she began to serve us. The main dish was a hot and sour soup, emphasis on hot. She must have use habanera peppers. It was delicious and opened up your sinuses at the same time.
 

*          *          *
 
While we ate, we told her the story about what had happened. She asked quite a few questions as well. Dinner took over two hours and was topped by the most scrumptious Almond Amaretto cheesecake ever.

After we finished eating and cleaning up, Agatha sent Trevor off to bed.

She led Mom and me into the back yard. The garden she had in the back yard was incredible. Even in November, it flowered. In the middle of the garden, she had a stone altar, inside a circle, inside a square. Outside of the circle, all three of us undressed. I was kind of nervous about seeing my aunt and mother in the nude, but still, I persevered.

Aunt Agatha and Mom then set about warding the circle. They called the four elements, earth, wind, fire and water, and then the four archangels, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel to watch over us.

Agatha then began to examine me, after I had lain on the altar. She used a bunch of crystals, among other things, to examine me with.

It took a long time and at some point I had fallen asleep.
 

*          *          *
 
I had awoken to the sound of purring. Nightshade was lying on my tummy purring up a storm. That was strange, because he never had much to do with any of us, but Agatha. I found that I was still naked and the sky was beginning to lighten a bit.

We gathered up my clothes and dashed naked into the room Aunt Agatha always let me use. After showering, I found Nightshade was asleep on my bed.

“Nightshade, are you following me around?”

The cat just mewed at me.

I dressed, did my makeup and went to the kitchen to fix some coffee and a bite to eat. I found some Kopi Luwak. I knew it was expensive, so I only made one cup, in Agatha’s coffee press. The taste was divine.

About half an hour later, Dad came into the kitchen.

“You are still Kathryn, I see.”

“Unfortunately. I don’t know what they did; I just fell asleep. What time did Mom come in?”

“Four or five, I don’t know. I woke when Liz got in bed for a few minutes. She was sleeping soundly when I got up.”

“Yeah, I got a bad feeling that I am going to be stuck like this.”

“It’s not so bad, is it Kathryn?” Karen thought

“No,” I thought. “It’s not too bad.”

Elizabeth and Agatha got up at about eleven. Nightshade was at Agatha’s feet. I stopped and looked behind me, “You’re not Nightshade,” I reached down and picked up the cat behind me. “I know Nightshade is a boy cat, you are definitely not a boy cat.”

“Where did she come from?” Agatha asked.

“I found her asleep on my belly, when I woke this morning. I thought she was Nightshade.”

“She is your familiar now. What is her name?”

I giggled and said, “Belladonna. Belladonna is a member of the nightshade family. The name fits her.”

“Well, we need to talk, after we eat.”

As we ate lunch, we talked.

“I don’t know what caused Karen and Kathryn to fuse together like this and I don’t know how to undo it. I need to talk with some other people of power. I do know that I detected a strong spark of power in Kathryn. Seeing that she is of our bloodline Elizabeth that is understandable. That may have been the root cause of why Karen couldn’t leave Alan’s body.”

“The power is dormant in males of our line, but is handed down to the females. I am guessing that when that spark detected a female spirit, it merged the spirit and molded the body so that the power could manifest. All Hallows Eve may have just been the catalyst - the spark needed to make all of this happen. That is just a guess, but still...”

“So, I am stuck like this, is what you are saying?”

“For now, that is the case. You aren’t devastated are you?”

“No, disappointed maybe. But I like having Karen with me too. If she were to leave, I don’t know how I would feel. I liked being a guy, but I like being like this too. I am confused, I guess.”

Agatha smiled a knowing smile. In her heart, she knew that it would probably be a year before she could attempt to split them apart. And even then she wondered if they would want to be.

“Well, I think that Kathryn should live here with me, in the guise of my daughter. It will be easier for me to create a background for her. Alan won’t be entirely forgotten, but will be on a long trip to Aunt Myrtle, in Scotland.”

Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Trevor spent Saturday and Sunday with us, catching up on the rest of the family. Mom/Agatha created a legend for Kathryn.

I was seventeen, and a senior in school. Agatha was my Mom now; we aren’t sure who my father is. There were several prospects, but we aren’t too concerned about them. It would be like I had been at my new high school for several years now, I was told. I had my drivers’ license in my new name, Kathryn Renee Long. I did insist that I enroll in my old Jujitsu dojo.
 

*          *          *
 
School was a trip. I had friends that I knew somehow, but didn’t really know. The first few days were strange; the people were like giving me their life histories. I doubted they even realized that they were doing it. There were a half a dozen girls whom became close to me and maybe another two-dozen people that I was friendly with. There were even two or three boys that looking hopefully my way. I made it clear though that I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend right now and asked that they give me some space and time. This was more friends than Alan ever had!

In my Jujitsu classes, I really worked hard. I was a little weaker than I had been before, but not by too much. My agility, speed and flexibility were actually better. What I really had to work on was my balance. All my muscle memory was Alan’s. I found that the extra weight on my chest and hips messed up my coordination. I had to relearn things like in how to fall, how to best to use my body weight, and how to throw my opponent down. Being a female was a lot different to being a male.

My first period was a joy. Happy, happy, joy, joy! (Yes, I am being sarcastic here.) Karen really helped me out there. I was on my way home, not feeling really well, when she told me what was going on. I hadn’t really anticipated that, and Karen didn’t know if it was something I was going to have to go through, so we were unprepared. We stopped at a store to pick up what we needed. We bought some extra panties, some tampons, panty liners and Midol.

There was a boy that was leering at us, at the checkout. We were irritated by the way he was looking at us and I could tell that he was gleeful at our discomfort.

I don’t know exactly what had happened next, but I felt that we had done something. The boy had this pained expression and then we could smell urine. The nineteen-year-old boy had wet himself.

Back home, we called up Mom (Aunt Elizabeth) what had happened.

“I should have anticipated something like this, Kathryn, but you handled yourself well. The powers begin to manifest with the girl’s first menses. Most girls don’t usually have that much power, at first. The fact that you do have these powers means I have to get started right now with teaching you.”

“But what about what I did to that boy.”

“He will survive. You didn’t hurt him, you just caused him some embarrassment.”

Agatha began to teach me how to control myself. I really didn’t have to worry about seriously hurting someone, she said, because it wasn’t in my nature to take joy from hurting people. As long as I kept my gentle nature, other people were safe. I did learn how to shield my mind from other people of power like us and how to block out other people’s thoughts.

I did get in a bit of a mess at school, though I didn’t use my powers. I was at my locker, when a boy, a jock of course, ran his hand up my skirt and under my panties on my hip. I reacted pretty fast. I had him on the floor and his right arm into an arm bar. I told him to be nice and I would let him up. Instead he just kept on trying to hurt me. He was the star running back on our football team.

A teacher finally came and I released him. His right arm would take a while to get back to form though. He should have agreed to stop feeling me up, but then again, he simply wasn’t a nice person.

It was a case of he said, she said, in the principal’s office. He claimed that I was a ‘psycho bitch’ and I said he was a pervert. The principal knew I was telling the truth, but was bowing under pressure from the boy’s father and football boosters. Also, his scholarship to UT was in peril.

One of my girlfriends had come to the rescue. She had seen what the boy had planned. He had been a terror to the girls at school all this year. She shot a short video with her phone of his hand up my skirt, till I had him on the floor. Aunt Agatha almost tore that principal a new hole.

Several more girls were encouraged by my actions to file complaints against him. The principal had no choice but to suspend the boy for ten days. I wasn’t too popular with the jocks after that, our team lost in the first round of the playoffs, but to some of the girls, I was a hero.

After Christmas, I did find a boy I liked and we began dating. We weren’t serious or anything like that, but we enjoyed each other’s company.
 

*          *          *
 
Dad (Uncle Trevor) had made a couple of anonymous calls that got the ball rolling on the murder investigation. The sheriff was able to find the truck with the information supplied by my dad.

There was a skeleton found in the truck. It was identified as Karen’s father. He had been shot with the same gun that the family had been shot with. The focus of the police investigation shifted.

Another anonymous phone call later (Karen loved us making that call) by a girl, implicated Tim Harper, who was already a person of interest to the police. Enough information was supplied to perk up the interests of the sheriff, but not enough to identify the caller.

He thought he had ditched the gun, but certain people had scryed its location and had somehow magically returned it to its home.

A search warrant was obtained for Tim’s old home, his new apartment and his worksite. The gun was found and a completely dumfounded Timothy Harper was arrested. Against the advice of his lawyer Timothy Harper confessed in elaborate detail of his crimes. He stood trial and was convicted for first degree murder.
 

*          *          *
 
11 months had come and gone. Agatha had taught me a lot but I still knew only a little. I had graduated from high school and started at a local college.

I met with Agatha, my mom, my dad and a few other ladies of power on the following 1st of October. They asked me what I wished. I thought long and hard on it for two weeks. I could change back, they said, but why. I could go back to being Alan, but I realized that I was happy like I was.

Karen, my friend that is always with me thought nary a word on it. She wouldn’t talk about it with me. I tried, but she said she didn’t want to influence my decision. If I went back to what I was, she would be gone.

When all was said and done it was really no decision for me. I sat holding Belladonna on my lap and said, “I am complete now, why would I go back to being a lesser person. Dad, I am sorry that I will never be the heir that you wanted, or the son that you had. I must choose my own way and my own life. Forgive me please, but I do not want to change back.”

We all had a big cry after that. Karen comforted me inside with her presence and thoughts. I think she was happy, but she still didn’t talk about my decision.

I graduated from college with honors, with a double major in Psychology and Ancient History. I still go on haunts with my Aunt and Uncle. I am not a ghost whisperer, but I have helped a few spirits cross over.

I finally met a man that I had allowed to get closer to me than just being friends with and got married. Two years later, I was in delivery with my first baby.

This was new to both Karen and myself. We had helped each other throughout the ordeal. When the baby was born, we found that it was a girl. The doctors, seeing how the baby wasn’t moving, were afraid that it was still born rushed the baby to another ER and worked long minutes trying to revive it. The docs were about to give up, when I felt Karen give me a mental hug and her spirit left me.

I felt so alone for the first time in years. Tears started to run down my cheeks as I began to mourn two losses that day. That is, until a few seconds later when I heard my baby girl begin to cry. Karen had not abandoned me! She had saved my baby’s life!

The first time I looked into my baby’s eyes, I knew it was her! Karen was alive as my baby!

I unquestioningly named her Karen and promised myself to raise her as the strong confident woman she had been when I had first met her long ago in her house, on that Halloween evening.

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