‘April,’ wore a gingham dress. Her hair had been tamed into a long braid, similar to the one I’d worn yesterday. She wore no makeup, and had tennis shoes that looked a bit too large.

‘Ernest’ had fared a bit better in the clothing department. He wore a brown suit with a white shirt. His teeth looked less yellow than they had yesterday and he’d shaved both his head and his face.

“Desdemonia,” Ernest said upon seeing me. “My old Nemesis.”

“Oh, cut the crap. Everyone here knows what happened,” I said.

“I want to see my daughter,” Desdemonia said. “They said she was here?”

I nodded. “There’s been a bit of a development,” I said.

After taking them out to the wolf enclosure and telling them everything that happened, Desdemonia looked stunned.

“Are you able to communicate with her, at all?” I said.

Desdemonia shook his head. “No, but Elder Langtree’s greyspace is different from mine.”

“I noticed.”

“I can’t talk to her either, Mother.” Langtree said with April’s light voice.

“Oh, cut the crap,” Desdemonia and I said at exactly the same moment. Then we burst out laughing.

“You two are scaring me,” Mitzy said.

It was the first time I’d laughed since being thrust into this body. It felt good to laugh again, and I savored it a few moments.

“Feels good to laugh,” Desdemonia said after examining the pair in greyspace.

I nodded, suddenly biting back tears again.

“So my daughter is trapped as a female wolf mated to your father who is trapped as a male wolf.”

“Unless we do something about it,” I said.

Desdemonia shook her head. “Open your third eye.”

I closed my eyes and Desdemonia did the same. He took my hand in his. You can see this, no?

Yes, I replied.

Tell me what you see around them.

I examined the wolves with my third eye. I could see a white aura surrounding them both, connected together.

White aura. Connected.

Yes. Look at the other wolves.

I cast my Sight into the other pens. They all looked similar with white auras. Some were connected to others, some to many others, but they all had similar white auras.

White auras. Connected to others.

Yes.

What does it mean?

What color was April’s aura yesterday.

I frowned remembering. Pink, even though she was in my body.

What color is yours, even now?

Orange, I sent.

And mine?

I looked over Elder Langmore’s body. The aura was dark blue mixed with black.

Dark blue mixed with black.

And Langmore?

I examined him with my inner sight. April’s body usually had a lovely pink aura when April was in it. Now it was black as pitch.

Black, completely.

This is what happens when you accept black magic completely for many many years. The original aura is lost. Mine will become black as well in the coming years.

But what does it all mean?

She sighed and spoke aloud. “April is lost. So, unfortunately, is your father.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They no longer have a human aura in any sense. If we were to perform a translocation now, it would result in a mindless automaton. An animal cannot animate a human body. Believe me, it’s been tried.”

“Yep, yep!” Ernest said, after playing with April. He tossed a ball again, to have her dash after it. My dad also was beginning to show interest in the ball.

“What about Pete?” I said.

“Well, you tell me,” Desdemonia walked over to the Werewolf pens. Werewolves of all shapes an sizes leaped against the iron walls slats of their cages with feral glowing eyes.

I paused in front of Pete’s cage as he snapped and snarled in my Father’s original Were body. Closing my eyes, I entered greyspace.

The werewolves all had auras. Pete’s was a deep red, but other werewolves were green, blue, yellow, the works.

“They all have auras,” I said.

“Yep, so if they were translocated, there’s a remote possibility their mind might be able to be stabilized, but it will never be ‘Pete’ again, it would be someone new.”

I felt the beginnings of a headache again. “Oh, it’s all so confusing,” I said.

Desdemonia put a hand on my shoulder as we walked back to the wolves. Mitzy, Jeff and April were all now playing with both wolves. Jeff had finally got my dad interested in a rubber yoke and was engaged in a rather fierce tug of war. Mitzy and Ernest laughed and chased April in a game of tag.

“If it weren’t for the dire situation, I’d almost find this charming,” I said.

“Let’s go sit on the bench in the office area and let the children play, dear.” Desdemonia said. “We have things to discuss.”

I nodded, and gratefully made my way inside. It had gotten chilly outside and I hadn’t worn appropriate clothing.

“I take it this establishment wishes to monitor them for some time before releasing them to be adopted or into the wild?”

“They told me wolves mate for life,” I said in a shaky voice. “And yes, they want to make sure the lunar cycle is broken.”

“Oh it is, but I can understand their concern.”

I began to cry again. Desdemonia put his arm around me.

“Does your wife need anything?” one of the workers said. “I could bring her some tea, or coffee?”

“Tea would be wonderful,” Desdemonia said.

I finally collected myself and the young woman brought me a cup of tea. That sounded delicious, and I poured in two sugars and a bit of cream before sipping it slowly. It warmed my insides up, and I immediately felt better.

“I loved tea,” Desdemonia said.

“You didn’t want a cup?”

He winced. “Something about it doesn’t sit right anymore.”

I nodded, taking another sip. It shouldn’t sit right with me either, but hey, when in Paris.

“So,” I said, afraid to ask this question. “Is this forever?”

Desdemonia smiled. “Nothing is forever in the world of magic, dear.”

“I know you were getting ready to move into April’s body,” I said. “I find that detestable.”

Desdemonia sighed. “Yes, well, that was years in the making.”

“So you’re not going to try to take her body now?”

“I know you’re new to magic and magical entities,” Desdemonia said. “What happened yesterday…well, was a magical event without equal. I’ve been alive almost four hundred years and I’ve never witnessed something like that. Ernest has been alive almost two thousand years and never witnessed such a cataclysm of wild magic.”

“Is it due to the Who, or whatever you were all talking about?”

“Possibly,” Desdemonia said in a thoughtful voice.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said.

“First,” Desdemonia said. “Even if I wanted to take her body I couldn’t. Ernest is quite happy being a young eighteen year old woman. It’s a perfect result for him.”

“And he’d need to give you permission?”

He nodded. “Yes. But not only that, it would take weeks of preparation. Translocation is not something that can be accomplished like what happened yesterday. That’s the amazing thing about that event. It’s also why I can’t just snap my fingers and put my daughter back in her body. It takes weeks, and that’s with a willing participant.

“And with an unwilling?” I said.

He shrugged bony shoulders. “Months, years, decades, eons. It depends on the situation. Months if the person who is unwilling is non-magical, years if they have a minimal of magical talent, decades if they are even of moderate talent, and eons if they are as strong or nearly as strong as I.”

“And Elder Langtree is strong?”

“Oh yes.”

I thought about that. “So we’re stuck then.”

“I didn’t say that. I just said I can’t easily take April’s body as my own.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“You and I could swap, for one thing.”

I looked at his tall thin elderly body. I mean, being in Desdemonia was one thing, but at least she looked a bit healthier than Elder Langtree. I couldn’t imagine being stuck in such a frail, old body.

“I wouldn’t mind being a man again, but—“

He sighed. “I am not much of that. I doubt this thing does anything other than dribble piss every fifteen minutes.”

“Right?” I said, standing up. “It’s like I’m constantly needing to use the restroom. Speaking of which…”

“I’ll meet you back here.”

After using the ladies’ room, I found Mitzy, Jeff, and Langtree had come back into the office area.

“We’re ready to go,” Jeff and Mitzy said. Jeff gave me a sidelong look at Langtree in April’s body and mouthed what the fuck.

“Let me go say goodbye to them real quick,” I said.

“We’ll be in the Scout.”

I went back to the wolf enclosure as quickly as my body could waddle. It was becoming easier and easier to operate this body, feeling less strange by the moment. I was disconcerted by what Desdemonia had said, and felt sad that April and my Father were trapped as animals.

When I got to the enclosure, they apparently were getting ‘busy.’

“Oh, ick,” I said, wanting to scrub my eyes out, and left them to their intimacy.

I made it back to the office area where Desdemonia had returned.

“April tells me the other children wish to leave,” He said.

“Yes, and I was going to say goodbye to April and Dad but they are…um, occupied.”

Desdemonia sighed. “Unfortunately, that just further seals their spirit into the bodies they currently possess. It’s too bad really, if April hadn’t caused the reversion into true wolves, we might have been able to revert them in the other direction.”

“You think that’s what she did?”

“Oh definitely,” Ernest said as we walked out to the parking area. “She probably saw the path to reversion but didn’t understand that instead of a human retro-action she was performing a Canis retro-Action. Given her dual nature, I’m not surprised she made a mistake like that.”

I thought about that. “Could we still perform a ‘retro-action’ on them?”

Desdemonia and Ernest both shook their heads. “Nothing to revert ‘t0.’ They’d need to have at least some humanity.

“But Pete?”

“We could possibly restore Peter to a version of humanity, but as I said before it’s very likely his mind has been torn by the nature of the feral Were.”

“My Dad and April’s weren’t,” I said.

“You stated the young one’s mind was inaccessible. You’ve managed to pass back some images and nothing more, correct?” Ernest said.

“Yes.”

“The feral conversion is incredibly hard on the human mind. It would be more of a justice to allow the retroversion into Canis, than Homo-sapien.”

I sighed in frustration as we approached the Scout. “I don’t know. All if it makes my brain hurt.” I stopped at the Scout where Jeff and Mitzy waited patiently.

“We still have a lot to talk about,” Desdemonia said.

“Not today,” I said. “I’m going to go home and rest. This has been a lot for me.”

“Magic can—“ Desdemonia started but I interrupted him.

“Magic is what got us into this!”

“Yes, and magic can—“

“Magic can take a flying leap right now,” I spat. “I’m going to go home and take a bath and hopefully scrub the image of my Dad screwing the person as an animal form out of my brain!”

Desdemonia waved his hands in a very Elder Langtree manner, and continued walking through the parking area.

I climbed into the Scout, and buckled the safety belt.

“That was weird,” Jeff said.

“Right?” Mitzy said.

I said. “In so many ways. And on so many levels.”

Mitzy put up a hand. “I’m sorry, I just can’t take that creepy guy inside April. She was bad enough to begin with, I hate to think what that creepaholic is going to do inside April’s body!”

I shook my head, putting fingers to my temple. My headache was getting worse.

“You okay?” Mitzy said rubbing my back.

I nodded, hoping my head wouldn’t roll off my shoulders. “Headache,” I said.

“Ohh, you poor thing.” Mitzy put her hand on my brow and started massaging it gently before moving to the back of my head and massaging where my head met my neck…or Desdemonia’s head met…oh, hell. I was getting tired of trying to work it all out.

“I actually said I’m going to take a bath,” I said. “It just sprang into my mind that’s what I need right now. Isn’t that weird? I can’t remember the last time I had a bath.”

“I think it’s a perfectly natural thing to want,” Mitzy said. “With some nice bath salts, some candles…”

“Ohhh, Marry Me,” I said softly.

She giggled and kissed my head.

I closed my eyes, and dozed as we drove back.

I couldn’t quite get the image out of my brain of the two wolves going at it in a loving way. It was almost as stuck as them fighting yesterday after the conflagration—

…The smell of rotten eggs, things decaying, and burning rubber flooded my senses. I could see something below me, something with burning yellow eyes that moved, undulated, something that had tentacles rising up into the air, latching onto me and—

I startled awake.

“Oh good!” A feminine voice near me said. “You’re finally awake!” Not Mitzy’s voice, and we weren’t in the Scout…

I opened my eyes.

April regarded me from about two inches away. “I was afraid you’d cracked your head when you slipped!”

“What…” I said, rising up and looking around us. We were in a…bathtub? I glanced down at my hands and saw—

My hands. Seth’s hands. My familiar, baseball-catching, essay writing, keyboard-typing male hands. Not Desdemonia’s chubby feminine fingers, my hands.

“What the fuck is going on?” I said, looking side to side. We were in an enormous tub with soft lights and music playing. I inhaled and smelled lavender oil and incense burning.

April gave me a small smile, just for me. “You slipped and hit your head on the tub, stupid.”

“April?” I said, unable to contain myself. “Is that really you?”

“Of course it’s me.” She slid her naked body next to mine in the steaming water. “Who else would I be.”

Candles upon candles were arranged around us. The tub was porcelain, the kind with feet. We must have been at her house because I certainly didn’t recognize it as anywhere I lived.

“Where’s Jeff and Mitzy?” I said, frowning. “How did I get here?”

“Awww, she kissed my nose. “You really did bump your head, didn’t you?”

“Bump my—“ I felt the back of my head, and dabbed at it. It was sore and I could see blood on my fingers.

“Damn, this is surreal,” I said. “April, how did we get here?”

“Well, after that terrible day we had, Mother told us we needed to consummate our love in order to release ourselves from the Binding.”

“And—“

She nodded, snuggling up to me, her hands traveling down there and giving me a gentle fondle.

“And we were able to release the binding?”

She nodded. “With the help of Elder Langtree and Mother of course. Wow, you don’t remember anything? I’m kinda hurt.”

“Was my dad there?”

She blinked. “Your father? No…honey, your father’s been gone for years. Your mother called you earlier though, remember? You said you were at practice—

“Wait, my Mother?”

April nodded her head, writhing against me. “Maybe I can figure out a way to jog your memory,” she said, and kissed me.

It was no ordinary kiss.