“Jasmine, sweetie,” Angela said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Go upstairs, please, into mine and Meredith’s room. I want you to stay there until we come to get you, okay?”

“Wait, what?” I turned to her, an expression of shock and confusion painting my face. “I don’t understand, I want to know what’s going on.”

“This isn’t for you to hear,” Anabelle said, her face stony. “Do as your mother says.”

“I’m not a kid!” I argued “I…”

“You are a kid,” Meredith informed me. “and you need to do as you’re told now.”

I stood there for a full ten seconds, are that everyone was staring at me expectantly. I didn’t have to follow their commands; I felt compelled to do it, but I didn’t have to. I closed my eyes and sighed, finally giving into their demands and walking upstairs of my own volition. I could feel their eyes following me as I ascended carpeted stairs and trudged down the hallway to the master bedroom. Once inside, I left the door open and stood just inside the entrance, hoping I could at least catch a fragment or two of the conversation, but I heard absolutely nothing. Of course I didn’t; me eavesdropping was probably something they’d planned for. I couldn’t hear a thing from up here. I resigned myself to sitting on the king size bed in the center of the room and staring off into space. Occasionally I came back to reality and looked around the room; it was a very simple space really, the walls were white, just as with the rest of the house, but it was lit with a low watt halogen bulb, giving off more of a warm glow than the harsh lighting found in several other areas of the house. There were few, decorations, and if their closet hadn’t been open I could have easily mistaken them for two women devoid of personalities.

Inside the closet I could see so many clothes, tons of them. Dresses, tops, skirts carefully and neatly hung on steel hangers. Back when I was a guy, a lifetime ago, this kind of closet would have turned me on. The memories of sneaking into my sister’s room and wearing her clothes whenever she was gone really came flooding back as I sat here. What would it have been like if I were a guy, right now, and I’d been sitting in this room with all of these clothes? Yeah, Angela would have probably set me to work cleaning her house intentionally, and probably for way more than eleven years. On the other side of the closet were my clothes; they hadn’t given me my own room yet, and when we did sleep, I was usually curled up in between them. A little weird? Probably if I were a guy, and a human, but with them I felt safe and protected.

“Jasmine.” I looked up, she was standing in the doorway, dressed in this flowy white tunic top, low cut, pink floral print. I’d remember it until the day I died, I think. I would remember this moment, and maybe the moments before it. The moments when everything was normal. “I need to talk to you.”

“You’re leaving, right?” I guessed. “You have to go find Eustace.”

“Yes,” She said, moving closer to me and taking a seat beside me on the bed, wrapping an arm around me. “Anabelle and I are leaving, but Meredith…she’s staying here, with you.”

My eyes widened in fear, I didn’t know if I could handle the idea of being stuck here with Meredith. I guess Angela noticed, she chuckled a little.

“It’s not as bad as you think, I promise. While we’re gone I want you to work with her, I want you to train. I want you to become so much better than you are. She’s going to be hard on you but I think it’ll be better for you in the long run.”

“Are…are you coming back?” I asked here sincerely.

“Yes sweetie,” She reassured me. “I’m coming back, and next time, maybe you can come with me.”

“I can?” I perked up a little.

“Let Meredith teach you, stop dropping your arrows, let her run you ragged, if she thinks it’ll help. Listen…Jasmine…a decade ago we dated for three months, I remember matching with you on that dating site…intentionally, I might add. I made a profile that I knew you would like—”

“What? How? How did you know what I’d like?” I raised an eyebrow. What was she even talking about?”

“Fae have…a lot of different jobs in the mortal realms dear, one of mine is to set events in motion, events that make a difference. You were meant to do something and-“

“You mean like a prophecy?” I asked, a little too excited, probably.

“Honey,” She laughed. “If it’s a prophecy, then everyone has a prophecy. Everyone is meant to do something, big or small, I was just here to help you along the way. Unfortunately…it didn’t work out well because I accidentally set you to work cleaning my house for a decade. I don’t think it was a big deal, I think everything is fine but…you were supposed to be out of commission for three months, which…you were. That’s why we had sex every night for three months. Don’t ask me what the reasoning was. The part that came after? Oops.”

“Oops?” I grinned. “I mean…that’s one way to put it.”

“Look,” She sighed. “You were…a different person back then. A really, really different person. I know you’re young, really young but I was so disgusted with you. I think it’s fair to say I hated you. You were so arrogant, you…treated me like an object, you demanded that I control you, I mean let’s face it, some of the things you asked me to do to you were downright disgusting.”

As she took pause in her words, I stopped to contemplate what she was saying. Was I really that bad? Had a really pissed her off that much? It was kind of hard for me to remember who I was back then; what kind of a person I was. Maybe I really was as bad as she way saying.

“I have to leave soon, but I want you to know how far you’ve come, and now I really understand who you are. You…have a beautiful female spirit, a feminine soul. You were trapped in the wrong body, for one reason or another, there’s no telling why the universe does the things it’s does, but one thing really is certain. Your desire for submissiveness, your inability to say no, it’s…really because you’re so young, because you’re a new soul. The whole thing was a recipe for disaster, Jasmine. I want you to know right now that there is nothing, absolutely NOTHING wrong with being submissive. I need you to understand that. Submissive people can be some of the most beautiful people, Jasmine. Your desire to serve others, your need to be loved, it all brings such a light into the world if you’re looking at it through the right lens but…Jasmine, you need to know when to be submissive, and you need to know when to be assertive. You need to know when to protect the people you love because one day we’re going to need you more than you need us. I hope it isn’t soon but...the tables always turn. That’s the way it is in the world of gods and demons.”

“I really don’t want to think about that,” I admitted. “I just…”

“We’ve taught you a lot of things love, we’ve taught you about our word, we’ve taught you how to fight, to an extent, but now we need to kick it into high gear. So on that note, I want you to think back, to the time before, about your family.”

“You ARE my family,” I said adamantly. “I don’t…want to think about them, please don’t make me remember them…”

“You had a sister,” Angela smiled at me, squeezing my hand.

“Uh, yeah, a little sister, named Meghan, she was twelve.”

“Eleven years is a long time love. You’re not the only one who had some run-ins with the supernatural. She had some experiences of her own, and right after we discovered you, cleaning in here like a maid, we went to find out what had happened to your family. It turns out…well…Meghan was very, very interested in what had happened to you. We’ve been keeping her updated.”

“Wait, what?” I demanded. “Why wouldn’t she have just come here? Why-“

“Because she’s busy, Jasmine,” Angela squeezed my hand again. “Just like you. But she’s coming here, while I’m gone, she wants to see you.”

“What happened to her?” I furrowed my brow. “Why is she interested in me? What does she know?”

“Soon enough, my lovely daughter,” Angela smiled and patted my knee as she stood up and offered me a hand. “I need to leave shortly, let’s go downstairs and see Anabelle.”

She led me out into the hallway, onto the landing and down the stairs where Anabelle and Meredith were waiting. For the first time I noticed that Anabelle was holding a cat, a typical black one, slender, and angry looking.

“Jasmine,” She smiled to me as we descended the stairs. “This is Mr. Giggles, I want you to keep him safe for me while your mother and I are gone, alright?”

As I approached she held the cat out toward me, I hesitantly reached out and took him into my arms like a bundle. He mewed as I held him to my chest.

“I…guess I can do that,” I said. “How long will you be gone?”

“I don’t know,” She admitted. “But Mr. Giggles here will keep you company!”

“And so will I,” Meredith told me. Her voice was confident but her face told a different story. What was actually going on?”

“Okay,” Angela wrapped her arms around me and gave me a quick peck on the forehead. “I have to get going.”

I watched as she moved on from me and embraced Meredith, giving her a much more romantic kiss.

“Keep in touch,” Meredith told her.

“Always,” Angela said as she and Anabelle walked out the door, leaving Meredith and I standing in the foyer.

“Come on,” Meredith said to me. “We have to get to work.”