“Come on Angela,” I grinned. “Like…just make me do your dishes or something.”

“God dammit Steve,” She rolled her eyes at me, brushing her auburn hair away from her face and shaking her head. “I told you, I’m not into the whole bondage thing, okay? Just drop it.”

“That’s a load of crap,” I laughed. “I found that ball gag in your closest.”

“What were you doing in my closet, perv?” She raised an eyebrow. “and yes, I have a ball gag, doesn’t mean I’m going to start dominating you or whatever.”

“Come on, please? I just want to like…experience it once.” I was eighteen and really, really desperate. I’d spent most of my childhood just wishing I could find a girl who would do it to me. Like, literally just once. Why was every girl so submissive? Angela was a girl I’d just met a few weeks ago on a dating app and just like always, I’d kinda been up her butt to dominate me. I’d probably said it a few too many times, and she always told me it wasn’t her thing, but I kept pushing. Hey, maybe the fiftieth time would be the charm right. We were sitting in her living room, at twenty-three years old she owned her own home, a pretty big one, actually. I forget what she said she did for a living. I glanced back at her, the same goofy grin on my face, but she wasn’t smiling or laughing, she was glaring at me.

“You know what? Fine,” She said flatly.

“What? Really?” I perked up. “You…mean…what do you want me to do?”

“You like that ball gag so much?” She said, still glaring at me. “Go put it on and come back out here.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice, I jumped up off the couch immediately and rushed toward her room. I found the ball gag in the same box at the bottom of her closet and I hurridly opened my mouth and tried to shove the ball in, but it was harder than I thought. I’d never worn one before and I honestly thought it would be easier to put it on. When I finally forced it past my teeth I suddenly realized just how badly it hurt. It clamped my jaw open and as I pulled the strap shut, the leather began to dig into the sides of my mouth. I’d always fantasized about wearing one of these for hours, or even days but I didn’t know if I’d be able to stand even five minutes in this thing. No matter, she wanted it in, and she was going to dominate me. I needed to man up and get out there. I stood, wincing from the pain and tried to swallow but my throat wouldn’t work properly, the gag was holding it open. Okay, maybe I could pull the gag off and swallow like, one last time.

“Steve, hurry up! Get out of my room!” Angela snapped from the living room. There was no time. I made my way to the door and walked down the hallway. Unlike the trip there, I was now wincing with every step. My jaw was throbbing uncontrollably and I could feel tears forming on the edges of my eyes. Why did these things hurt so bad? Why did no one online ever mention that they hurt? I saw Angela waiting impatiently at the end of the hall and as I came closer, she inspected the ball gag, making sure it was tight. I’d actually tightened it all the way, because why wouldn’t I?

“So what all do you fantasize about?” She demanded. “Let me guess, you want me to make you kneel, right? Come here.”

She took me by the arm and led me to her kitchen; it was a large open concept one with white tile floor. She pointed to the floor and I obediently dropped to my knees, placing my hands behind my back in a common slave position that I’d seen online. I wanted to be excited about this but the pain building in my jaw was making it increasingly difficult.

Angela was gone for a long moment, I obediently sat on the tile, not daring to move. I’d begged her to do this, now I had to follow through with it or she would just tell me to go home and I might never see her again. A few moments later she reappeared, holding in her hand a coiled leather whip. Oh my god she had a whip.

“I know some things about you, Steve,” She said, lowering the whip to her side and placing her other hand on her hip. “I know you troll women online, asking them if you can be their slave. You know how many I’ve met who have said to stay away from you? Do you know how creepy that is?”

I wanted to answer but of course, I couldn’t. How did she know all this? Who had she been talking to?

“One thing I really hate, Steve, is a creeper, and you’re definitely one. I’m going to give you exactly what you’ve been asking for. Let me ask you a question though, have you ever been whipped? Like ever? I’m going to show you, and you’re going to stay right there in that position. Don’t move, don’t try to fall to the floor, do nothing. Just kneel.”

With that she cracked the whip, allowing the end of it to strike my chest, just above my nipple. It hurt, oh my god, it hurt worse than anything I’d ever felt in my life. I let out a muffled scream as the pain sliced my chest and radiated outward, but I didn’t move from the kneeling position. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. It was as if her command had frozen me in place; I had no control over my body. I looked up at her in absolute horror, and she stared down at me with no emotion whatsoever.

“One of the girls you talked to, Megan, she sent me a screenshot. You told her you wanted to be whipped for hours on end. Your words, not mine. We’ll work our way up to hours, but right now, maybe we’ll just do ten minutes, how’s that sound?”

I wanted to run. I needed to get the hell out of this house but I couldn’t, my body wasn’t responding, all I could do was stare up at her with pleading eyes as she began to crack the whip. I felt it hit my skin again, but this time there was no reprieve, it struck me again, and again, and again. She alternated from my chest, to my legs, to my arms, and even my neck. I screamed hard into the gag, not for her to stop, just to scream. Sobs were erupting from my blocked lips, tears streamed down my face harder with every crack of the whip. It wasn’t end, it just kept going, and going, and going. I tried to close my eyes, maybe that would help, but the moment I shut them, they flew open again and refocused on Angela.

“Don’t close your eyes,” She said calmly. “I want you to see it coming.”

Just when I thought the pain was too much to bear, she suddenly halted the whip and informed me it had been fifteen minutes.

“Next time we’ll go for thirty,” She smiled. “You should be happy now, this is what you’ve always wanted!”

It was what I’d always SAID I wanted, but as I looked at my clothes, tattered from the whip, I realized it was anything BUT what I wanted.

“You’ll notice the whip didn’t leave any marks on you,” She said. “Just a little trick I use. Stings really bad though. Now let’s see, I have another screen cap from another girl…aww this is so cute, you told her that you want to her laundry, AND you want her to make you do it over, and over until you get it right. Oh heh, you also said you wanted to do it in handcuffs. That’s cute. Well, I have a ton of handcuffs here, so I think I can accommodate you.”

I shook my head violently. I wanted the gag out, I wanted this to be over.

“You can move again for now,” She said, a hint of warning in her voice. “Do as you’re told or we go for an hour with the whip. Go to my bedroom, top dresser drawer. At the back there’s a pair of handcuffs. Once you have them on, take my laundry hamper, separate the darks and lights, get it all done, then fold it. Get moving.”

Still sobbing, I limped down the hall to her room, rushing to the dresser and pulling open the top drawer. At the back, as promised, I found a pair of handcuffs; not the toy kind you get as a gag gift, a real pair of tactical police handcuffs made from stainless steel. I should have been excited, I’d always wanted a woman to handcuff me but I was in so much pain, all I could feel was dread. I decided to put them on loosely, maybe then they wouldn’t hurt as bad. I slid my left wrist into the cuff and tried to shut it as gently as possible. I slipped, and the cuff slammed shut tight against my wrist. I grimaced; that was going to hurt. I slid the next wrist in and shut the manacle only to have it slam shut again, each cuff as tight as possible and pressing against the sensitive bones in my wrist.

“Hurry the fuck up!” Angela shrieked at me. “Get out here or I’ll beat you again!”

Whatever was going on here, this was not my fantasy. I rushed back into the hallway with her hamper in front of me, my wrists now throbbing in tandem with my jaw. This had to end soon, I couldn’t handle this. A few seconds later I found myself in front of the washing machine, separating the darks from the lights, finally loading up the washing machine and switching it on. I had no idea why or how I knew how to work her washing machine.

“Okay,” She said from the door of the laundry room. “Next on your list, you told Heather – your own cousin that you wanted her to make you scrub her kitchen floor with a toothbrush. Follow me.”

In the kitchen, a bucket of soapy water and a toothbrush were sat on the tile right where I’d been kneeling.

“You can start from the far end and work your way to the back,” She told me. “Get the ground too. In your messages you told her you wanted her to make you do it over and over until she was satisfied. So, once you finish, start over, at least until you hear the laundry buzz, then go switch it over.”

My body responded automatically to her commends, I was just a passenger behind my own eyes. I could still feel every movement; I could feel my body becoming sore, my fingers being rubbed raw with every passing moment. The pain in my jaw worsened and I wanted more than anything to take the gag out, even for a second. Just one second, that was all I wanted. After what must have been hours of scrubbing and crying, I saw her familiar black pumps appear in front of me. I wanted to look up at her but my body wouldn’t comply.

“Stand up, “ She said simply. “On your feet.”

As soon as I stood, she took me by the arm and led me to her bathroom. Flipping on the light she stood me in front of the mirror. I would have screamed if I could. Staring back at me was a girl, about my own age, long blonde hair held with a black bow and dressed in a low cut maid uniform. Most importantly, the ball gag wasn’t there. I reached a hand up to my mouth and felt nothing but lips and teeth, but I could still feel my cramping jaw. I could feel the straps digging into my cheeks, I could still FEEL the drool working its way to the edge of my lips and my throat that refused to swallow. I couldn’t feel it with my hands; the strap was gone, the ball was gone. All I could see was this soft, young female face.

“I want you to concentrate on the moment just before you put that gag in your mouth,” She said. “Just remember those last few seconds when you could still close your mouth, when you didn’t feel that throbbing, searing pain, because it’ll never be that way again. Everyone who looks at you will see this beautiful young lady, but they’ll have no idea that behind this face you’re screaming and crying. You spend your entire life trying to get women to dominate you, to the point of scaring them. I’ve live a thousand years, seen plenty of guys like you. From now on you body will just walk on a path through my house. You’ll clean everything constantly. You’ll scrub floors, you’ll vacuum, you’ll fold laundry, you’ll make me dinner. Oh just imagine being able to smell the food but never being able to eat it. God I’m getting off just thinking about that. Remember the last time you tasted food or drank water? In a few hundred years dear that’ll be a distant memory. That’s right dear, I live forever, and now so do you. Get to work, slave.”

My body turned away from the bed just as I finished dusting the sleek wooden headboard. It was like this, every day. Was it every day? I’d lost track of time a while ago. My body was just on repeat, working its way down a never ending chore list; never sleeping, never stopping. During the first few weeks I’d tried to think about who Angela was, how she had this kind of power over me. As the days and hours waned on I just stopped caring. My body was exhausted, my muscles were throbbing, the pain in my jaw still hadn’t subsided. I guess it wasn’t mean to. Her ball gag rested firmly against my parched tongue and forced my teeth apart, sending an inconsolable sharp pain down my jaw, and as of a few days ago, a dull throbbing had developed behind my eyes, eventually transforming into a full on migraine that wouldn’t stop. If I’d had any control over my body at all, I would have laid in bed for a few days, probably a week, but I hadn’t so much as sat down once in the last…how long had it been?

My body immediately began wiping down the furniture in her room, thoroughly dusting, meticulously moving items and putting them back. From the corner of my eye I could see the light from her bedroom window; the outside world was out there. Just beyond that wall, sunlight I would never feel again. I wanted to look at it, I wanted to turn my head but at this point I couldn’t even control my eyes; they stayed focused on the task in front of me.

“Hey hey,” I heard Angela’s voice come from behind me. Was she speaking to me? She hadn’t talked to me since that day in the bathroom. What was going on? I perked up a bit internally, I’d wanted human contact so badly. I’d walked through these halls so many times, cleaned rooms for hours and days on end without seeing a single person. It was almost like I’d been trapped in my own form of purgatory, manufactured and administered by Angela. “How’s the cleaning coming?”

She knew damn well how the cleaning was coming. My body stopped, it turned toward her, my hands clasped in front of me and my eyes downcast. It was the first time my body had stopped in a long time, maybe the closest thing to rest I would ever get. To my surprise, she suddenly placed her hands on both my shoulders and guided me backward until I sort of plopped down on the bed. All at once, I felt a massive relief of pressure from the muscles in my legs, my body practically sighed in relief. As soon as I was in a sitting position, she sort of guided me downward, laying me sideways on the bed. My muscles burned, even if I had been free to move, I’m not sure I could have.

“Okay, um…” She said, her voice a little bit confused. “I don’t know how to say this but…you’re not supposed to be here.”

Not supposed to be here? What the hell? She’d done this to me, she’d made sure I couldn’t leave, I’d been walking through her house cleaning and scrubbing for months, she knew that!

“So here’s the thing…the method I used to control you? It doesn’t actually hold for long. As soon as you want out bad enough, you should be able to just take the gag off and leave. I was trying to teach you a lesson. I gave you the immortality because I didn’t want you to starve to death but in like…a week you should have been able to walk out of here. So …there are like two possible explanations. Either you just stayed her and kept cleaning afterward, or…you’re a natural sub and you couldn’t actually disobey me. I’d really like to think it’s the former because I’ve only met a handful of natural subs in my life and I’ve been alive for a LONG time.”

I tried to figure out what she was talking about but it was really, really hard to concentrate on anything other than the pounding in my head.

“Whatever it is,” She said. “The immortality and them um…well the feminine appearance would have gone away as soon as you left the house. I can change you back into a guy but you’re still going to live forever. Sorry about that.”

She gently reached toward the back of my head and I suddenly felt an immense relief of pressure around my mouth as the ball gag strap was released. In the next moment, she took two fingers and wrapped her hands around the ball, extracting it from my mouth. I screamed. It wasn’t a scream of terror, it was a gargled, disjointed noise as the pressure in my jaw alleviated all at once. The scream turned to a moan, almost a sob as I cried tears of joy. I immediately tried to speak but my lips were numb, my mouth dry. I hadn’t had anything to drink in…I don’t know how long.

“Okay, just breathe,” She said, laying one of her soft hands on my cheek. “don’t try to talk, it’ll be okay, come on.”

The feeling began to return to my lips, I tried to speak a bit, but the words just wouldn’t form. They came out as incoherent gasps and I simply choked on every single word.

“Stop,” She said sternly. “Just lay there and breathe.”

She rose from the bed, I felt it move slightly as she stood and exited the room. I obediently laid with my head practically plastered to the comforter. My arms were sprawled out in front of me, I could feel my legs burning. A second later she walked back through the bedroom door, passing through my field of vision for the first time. She was wearing this simple blue dress with a U-shaped neckline and brief sleeves, but the way it showed off her curves turned me on in a way I can’t even describe. Seriously, I was that much of a horn dog. She’d tortured me for months and I was still attracted to her. I’m pathetic. She sat back on the bed and held a bottle of water to my lips. The cold liquid irrigated the contours of my mouth and trickled into my throat. I immediately choked and tried to recoil but my body wouldn’t respond – not because she was controlling me but because my muscles were completely spent. I didn’t have a body anymore, I was just a soul trapped inside of a malfunctioning meatbag.

“Okay,” She said. “You lie there, I’m going to uh…figure out how to get you back to being a guy. It shouldn’t take long-“

“Angela,” I gasped, finally able to form basic words.

“Huh? What’s up?” She asked as she stood from the bed again, straightening her skirt as she did.

“Please don’t…don’t change me back,” Murmured. “Please don’t…”

“It’s not going to hurt,” She reassured me. “And I’m not going to leave you here for—”

“No Angela, please,” I begged. “Just…please…ok pleas…”

“Um…okay, sweetie,” She frowned. “But we should probably get you something to wear other than a maid uniform. Also there’s something I need to tell you. When I left the house, I really expected you to leave after like a week. I really, really did, I promise. So I…didn’t come back for a while. I figured you’d be with another girl and having kids by now or something. You really weren’t supposed to be here.”

“It’s only been a few months,” I muttered, still trying to get used to moving my jaw again. “Why would I have kids…”

“I just wanted you to learn to respect women,” She said, kind of apologetically. “I thought it would be good for you. This wasn’t supposed to happen at ALL, you have to understand…”

“What are you talk—” I started to say, but I stopped short as my jaw went slack again. I was overdoing it.

“Okay, Steve, I….okay, I don’t know how to say this so I’m just going to um…say it. When you came in here it was like…2019. It’s…2030 now. It’s been eleven years.”

“What the phu……f…fuu---” I started to scream, but my cry of horror evaporated into thin air as my jaw failed again.

“Um, who the hell is this?” A new voice chimed in. I rolled my eyes up toward the door and saw a raven haired girl standing just inside the entrance to the room, dressed in a tight white t-shirt and jeans.

“Oh, right, hell, it gets worse,” Angela sighted. “Steve, this is…Meredith my girlfriend. Meredith this is Steve…my…boyfriend.”

“You have a boyfriend?” Meredith raised an eyebrow as she observed my limp, lifeless body on the bed. “That looks like a – oh yeah, I see now. You had a boyfriend and didn’t tell me?”

“It was like a decade ago,” Angela shrugged. “I kind of left him here to teach him a lesson. I used a low level mind control technique and told him to clean the house, like a Roomba.”

Meredith took a step forward, striding over to the bed and bend over, placing her hands on her knees to support herself as she peered into my eyes. The first thing I noticed were her freckles, and then the paleness of her face. It looked like she hadn’t seen the sun in years.

“A low level mind control technique, huh?” She smirked a bit. “Why didn’t you just walk away, dumbass?”

“Steve might be an instance of an actual submissive,” Angela said thoughtfully. “Most people, like ninety percent of people have an instinct to fight back; even people who say they like to be controlled, they have it in them to walk away when they don’t like it unless you physically restrain them. I think I’ve met maybe fifty people in the last thousand years who literally don’t have the ability to say no.

“Hm…” Meredith said, looking me over further. She laid a hand on my head and brushed my hair out of my face. “I think we know of some people that would pay a lot of money for an actual submissive, it’s hard to find people that will just follow orders without question.”

“No doubt,” Angela nodded. “I’m going to make a store run. Steve here might not need to eat per se, but after eleven years of not eating ANYTHING he’s got to be in bad shape.”

“Might help him get up and moving,” Meredith nodded. “I’ll keep him company while you go shopping.”

“Or is it…’she’, now?” Angela turned to look at me. “Why don’t you want me to change you back?”

“I…” I started to say, and then a stray thought ran through my mind. “Why…could I still fee the gag after you changed my body? Why did it still…hurt?”

“That’s your first question?” Meredith snickered. “It’s because your ‘other’ body is still there. When she changed you, you sort of melted away into an alternate dimension. You’re still there, this is just what’s being presented. It’s the same with any body, really. When the body dies, the energy that is connected to it is released and moves on to another body. Here on Earth…or somewhere else. For you it’s different, your body doesn’t die.”

“I don’t understand,” I tried to raise my head a little. “Why doesn’t it die?”

“Changing your essence and your body to make it…immortal…” Angela said, almost as if she were irritated. Maybe she’d explained this a few times before, just not to me. “It’s like uh…glue. You can wipe it away after you first put it on, but it kind of hardens after a while. I didn’t expect you to be here long enough for it to set it. Sorry, that’s really the best way to explain it, at least to you.”

“When can I go home?” I looked at her pleadingly. I wanted out of here, there was nothing I wanted more.

“You don’t have a home to go to anymore,” She said, laying a hand on my arm. I winced at the contact. “Your apartment isn’t even there anymore, I passed it on the way up here. It’s a shopping mall. You don’t have a job, at least I don’t think you do…unless they grant eleven years worth of sick leave.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” I wanted to cry; I thought I’d only been here for a few months, but it had been eleven years. Literally eleven years.

“Even if it hadn’t been that long, even if your life WERE intact,” Angela said to me. “I wouldn’t let you leave. You’re a natural sub, you can’t say no. Think about it, how easy is it for you to say no to people?”

I had to think for a moment, did I have trouble saying no to people? I think…maybe she was right.

“I don’t…I can’t…I don’t remember,” I muttered, trying to sit up and grunting as my muscles failed me.

“If you really can’t say no to people, if you really are a natural sub,” She said, staring at me intently with her piercing blue eyes. “Then you’re just going to do whatever anyone says, normally not a problem but we live in a dangerous world and…you have the taint of immortality on you. It’ll bring people to you like moths to a flame. No, you’re staying with us, not giving you a choice.”

“You…can’t do that,” I protested, trying to sit up again.

“You just spend eleven years cleaning my house because I told you to,” Angela gently pushed me back onto my side. “You’re mine now, deal with it.”

“Go get the food,” Meredith sighed. “I’ll stay with him. He’s not going anywhere.”

Angela smiled a bit and strode out of the room, leaving me with Meredith who grinned and easily pushed me over toward the middle of the bed. She immediately laid down beside me, facing me and resting her head on her hand, her black hair filling down around her forearm as she set her face mere inches from mine.

“So, Steve, is it?” Her words here kind of spoken in an upward inflection. “So tell me something, did you kiss my girlfriend?”

“Well yes but—” I started to protest, but she quickly pressed a finger to my lips and I fell silent.

“Did you…touch her?”

“You weren’t even with her!” I said, now truly terrified.

“I’m with her now, though, aren’t I?” She said, staring at me with a very serious look on her face. “You have to be punished.”

“Oh god, Meredith, I’ve been punished enough, please…”

“Shhh,” She giggled and clamped a hand over my mouth. “I’m glad she’s going to keep you around, because I’m going to do all sorts of horrible things to you, and you’re just going to sit there and take it. You’re not going to tell her either, are you?”

I shook my head violently, I didn’t dare protest, I could end up in another house, wearing another ball gag and no one would ever find me.

“Let’s start with the basics, get off the bed, kneel on the floor.”

My body immediately responded to her voice, I couldn’t even stop it. She laughed as I dropped from the bed and onto the soft carpet, my muscles begging for mercy. I was in too much pain to move under my own volition but at her command, my body just went along with it.

“You look at lot better down there,” She said as she sat on the edge of the bed, bouncing a bit as she did. Suddenly she shoved one of her pink sneakers into my face. “Untie it, and then make out with my foot like you made out with my girlfriend.”

I wanted to ask her what the fuck but my hands began to immediately untie her sneaker. It was on the floor and I was peeling her sock off before I knew what had hit me. No, this couldn’t be happening. Sure I’d fantasized about something like this happening a decade ago but now, here before her, trapped in this room, I didn’t feel excited, I felt small. I began without any hesitation whatsoever.

“She’ll probably be gone for an hour,” Meredith assured me. “It’s good exercise for your tongue. Oh, and don’t worry, this is just the beginning. I have a lot more planned.”

“And I am back with groceries!” Angela said cheerfully as she walked into the room. I had resumed my original position on the bed and Meredith was pretending to be busy with her phone, acting like she hadn’t just forced me to lick her feet for the last hour. I kind of wanted to say something to Angela, in fact I was pretty sure I could have, but I just didn’t want to. I was tired, I was hungry, my body felt like it had been hit by a truck. I just wanted to lay here on the bed and drift off to sleep. “Wake up over there or it’s going to feel worse later!”

I begrudgingly opened my eyes to see Angela pulling items from a grocery bag and placing them on the bed before me. One of the items that caught my attention was a green glass bottle of lemon juice. Straight lemon juice, I’m not talking about lemonade.

“What?” I asked, trying to sit up again as she pulled a sack of tomatoes from the bag. “Why lemon juice?”

“You like it now,” She explained. “Your tastes are going to be a little…different because of what was done to you. Sorry about that.”

I laid there and watched her pull out a cup of yogurt, three onions, and a container of hummus.

“Couldn’t you have gotten a steak or something?” I muttered. “I just spent eleven years cleaning your house.”

“We don’t EAT meat, Steve,” Meredith chided.

“We’re vegetarians?” I didn’t like the sound of that, I seriously wanted a hamburger.

“Pretty much,” Angela said nonchalantly, handing me a tomato and the bottle of lemon juice. “Sit up to eat, you won’t die from choking but I want you to make it into your mouth, k?”

Meredith gently helped me to rise from the bed, allowing me to fold my legs out in front of me. She smiled and told me it would be okay which was a stark contrast from how she’d acted before Angela had finally come home from the store. I made eye contact with her, watching her as she gently worked out the wrinkles in my dress before smiling softly and handing me the bottle of lemon juice with the cap off. She placed her hands under mine and helped me to lift it to my lips, keeping a hold on it as the liquid splashed onto my tongue and poured down my throat. I’d expected it to burn or at least be extremely bitter, and while it was bitter I actually liked it. It tasted amazing, like it was the best thing I’d ever tasted. What was happening to my body? I tried to push the bottle up higher, Meredith and Angela giggled a bit and allowed me to drink a little more before taking the bottle away. As they lowered it I suddenly felt better, my muscles were a little less sore, and the pain in my skull was starting to subside. What was in that stuff?

“Now,” Angela said, slicing a tomato and handing it to me on a plastic plate. “ You need to tell us about this new form of yours. Why don’t you want to go back to your body?”

“Does it matter?” I asked, shoving the tomato into my mouth. “I mean you said that all of our bodies are just fake anyway.”

“It matters,” Meredith nodded, placing a hand on my knee. “They’re fake yeah, but they represent very different aspects of the soul. There are male and female souls, it doesn’t have anything to do with genitals, obviously, but you could actually be transgender. There are two types of transgender in this world really, one is where a person was just given the wrong body, either on purpose or on accident. The other is where your soul is actually formed in such a way that it conforms to the characteristics of both genders. The second is way less common than the first because it’s easier to give someone the wrong body on accident than it is for the universe to screw up.”

“If it’s really screwing up,” Angela added. “It could always be on purpose and you know it.”

“Yeah, well…” Meredith trailed off. Clearly they had two different opinions about that.

“So what about you?” Angela said, looking directly at me. “Why do you want to stay like this?”

“I guess…” I started to stall with my words but then I realized that after eleven years, and sitting in front of these two women, however they were, I didn’t really have anything to hide. “I always wanted to be a girl…I wanted it forever, but my parents were…”

“Your parents are fundamentalist Christians,” Angela finished. “I remember. They hate anything that’s not white, straight, and Christian. I was actually really fascinated with you back then because you really didn’t follow their path. Most people who are born into families like that…don’t change unless they’re just different or if they have a reason to be someone else. Maybe you did.”

“Not exactly girlfriend material for you though,” Meredith said, running a finger through my hair as I blushed. “Way too submissive for you. Why would you date her back then?”

“Trying to prove a point,” Angela shrugged. “She was too submissive, she needed to make a change…you know, for reasons.”

“Wait wait, hold on,” Meredith said. “This was an assignment? She was supposed to DO something?”

“Unfortunately,” Angela shrugged. “It wasn’t anything big or consequential, just…a quality of life thing I guess.”

Meredith suddenly burst out laughing. I couldn’t figure out what they were talking about but I could tell by the way Angela was glaring at her that something serious had happened.

“If you’re done being a bitch,” Angela said sharply. “I want you to know that first of all, I agree with you, and secondly, we need to come up with a new identity for Steve here.”

“New name and finding a way to get rid of that natural submissiveness?” Meredith suggested.

“I think I have just the thing,” Angela took me by the hand and grinned. Oh god, what was she thinking? What was about to happen? “Do you think you can walk? Let’s go to the bathroom.”

I stiffened for a moment, the last time she’d taken me to the bathroom, I’d been sent off to clean the house for a decade. What could she possibly have planned now.

“I like this idea,” Meredith laughed as she placed a hand on my back and pushed me in Angela’s direction, down the hallway and toward the huge master bathroom. As we walked in I cringed a bit as I beheld the massive cast iron tub – I was really familiar with it.

“So it’s way easier to do this in front of a mirror,” Angela explained as I stared into the full length mirror next to the sink and examined my feminine form. I was a girl, about eighteen with black hair that hung just past my shoulders. I was thin, really thin. I’d caught glimpses of myself in the mirror over the years but I’d never had a chance to really look at my body, I’d never seen how beautiful Angela had actually made me. As I looked myself over, I noticed that my features had started to change. They were softer, much less mature. Was I getting shorter? I suddenly noticed that I only came up to Angela’s chest. What was going on? The girl I was seeing in the mirror was much, much younger than eighteen. She was more like…twelve.

“Angela what are you doing?!” I shrieked, I started to turn and run, but with a single look, Angela forced me to stop moving and turn back toward the mirror. I still couldn’t disobey her, she could control me with a glance.

“It starts at childhood,” She explained. “We become who we are with experience and I think you’re a new soul. Most new souls grow up and die without really learning anything. We’re going to give you the opportunity to learn, from the beginning, and maybe teach you how to say no. It could take a long time dear, I hope you’re ready.”

“Angela, you can’t-“ I started to protest, but she held a finger to her lips and shushed me. My mouth immediately snapped shut and my head dropped. Squatting down behind me, she placed her head on my shoulder and held my head up, grinning at me in the mirror.

“I don’t think that’s what you should call me anymore dear,” She said softly. “Come on, you know what to do.”

“Oh…my….god….” Meredith began to laugh hysterically. “This is way better than anything I could have imagined.”

“Mom…” I whispered, my lips trembling as all illusions of dignity and independence melted away.

“That’s right honey,” She said, kissing me on the cheek and standing up, placing both hands on my shoulders. “Now let’s talk about your name.”

I stared in the mirror, mouth agape as my face changed from a grown woman to a child of about twelve. She’d forgotten to change the maid uniform with me, so it was sort of hanging there, the skirt falling way past my knees.

“Steve?” Angela placed a hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“How…how long am I going to stay like this?” My voice came across as a mere whisper, I saw Meredith smirk behind Angela in the mirror.

“Until you can change yourself back,” Angela smiled and ran her fingers through my hair, straightening it out. It felt good.

“How do I do that?” I whispered back, still staring wide eyed into the mirror.

“You’re not allowed,” She said firmly, turning me away from the mirror to face her and Meredith. I shot a fearful look over toward Meredith who was now much taller than me and leaning against the tub, one hand on the rim for support. “Let’s talk about your name. You don’t look like a Steve. What do you think you look like?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, taking a quick glance back at the mirror. I think what scared me the most in this moment was how quickly I became comfortable with the role Angela had just forced me into. It felt right, it felt like it was meant to be. It was like…being wrapped in a blanket and held tight. “I can’t really…can you help me?”

“Of course I can, sweetie,” Angela took me by the hand and led me out of the bathroom. We walked down the hall with Meredith in tow until we came to the living room where the large black sectional couch still sat in front of a massive fifty inch OLED television. It was probably outdated tech by now. We sat down on the couch together, and Meredith sort of leaned over us, putting her weight on the back.

“What about Stephanie?” Meredith suggested. “I like that name.”

“She doesn’t look like a Stephanie,” Angela bit her lip. “Have you ever seen a Stephanie with black hair? What about…Margaret?”

“This isn’t the 1800’s,” Meredith said, rolling her eyes. “I lived through them once, let’s not bring it back in style.”

“You loved the 1800’s,” Angela said accusingly. “You still want to wear those stupid dresses and you know it.”

“I like the renaissance dresses better,” Meredith laughed. “I’m a sucker for anything with a bodice.”

“Charlotte?” Angela suggested, looking at me.

“Still outdated,” Meredith informed her. “You need a baby name book or something. Or I could look online.”

“Oh my god,” Angela turned toward her. “You still have that phone? I told you to get rid of that thing.”

“And you’re not my keeper,” Meredith sort of spat back. “I like taking selfies.”

“If you need to see yourself, why don’t you go look in the mirror?” Angela made a motion toward the wall just beside the television where another full length mirror hung. One thing I’d noticed cleaning this place for a decade was the abundance of mirrors. They had a LOT of them.

“That’s not what mirrors are for, and you know it,” Meredith shook her head. I looked back toward Angela who was deep in thought, no doubt still trying to figure out what my name should be.

“Steve,” Angela said, taking both of my hands in hers and staring directly at her. “Think hard, say the first thing that comes to your mind. What do you think your name is?”

“My name is…” I stopped and thought for a moment. This was a hard one, come on, think. “Jasmine, my name is Jasmine.”

“That’s good,” Meredith nodded. “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

“Are you sure?” Angela smiled. “That’s what you want it to be.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I do.”

“Jasmine is a beautiful name,” She nodded. “From now on, that’s you, unless you want to change it, of course.”

“You know,” Meredith said, stepping around the couch and standing over us. “I’m really surprised you haven’t asked us any questions, you know like, what the hell is happening? Who we are? Why you just spent eleven years cleaning a house…”

“I guess it wasn’t that important to me,” I shrugged. “I could ask you who you are, and you could tell me, but would it mean anything to me?”

“That’s not a bad point,” Angela chuckled. “But you do need to know what’s going on and what you’ve been dragged into, because you’re one of us now. Not intentionally, and I’m sorry about that but it did happen, so we need to address it head on.”

“Can we get her some clothes first?” Meredith suggested.

“Oh can’t you make me clothes?” I asked. “Like you made this dress?”

“I didn’t make the maid uniform,” Angela explained. “I had it already, I just…put it on you, sort of. Um, I’m not really artsy so I don’t make clothes. We have to actually go shopping.”

“That’s a good idea, actually,” Meredith suddenly extended a hand, which I took and allowed her to pull me off the couch. “I’ll take her shopping real quick, get her some actual clothes.”

“That’ll really help,” Angela nodded. “I have a few things to get done around here. The house, well, you know it hasn’t been lived in for like a decade so I need to check the plumbing and make sure all the utilities are still turned on. Can’t really live without our Netflix, can we?”

“Forget Netflix,” Meredith shook her head. “I need Hulu, I’m still watching The Good Doctor. Okay, come on, Jasmine.”

I stood up and followed her, though I couldn’t tell if I was doing it on my own or if I was doing it as a part of her command. I wasn’t sure it mattered. Instead of leading me to the front door, she led me to the full length mirror near the television and pressed a hand to it.

“You’ve probably noticed all the mirrors,” She said. “Angela doesn’t like phones because she thinks the selfie cameras are going to replace mirrors. They’re made of a hyper conductive material that allows is to travel from point to point. Today we should be able to pop out in the dressing room at the Target in town, really easy. Just go ahead and put your hand on top of mine.”

“We’re…going to travel through the mirror?” I asked incredulously.

“Hand on mine,” She repeated. I didn’t ask any more questions, I placed my smaller hand on top of hers and shivered a bit as the air around us grew cold, then gradually warm again. It wasn’t a sudden feeling of movement, nothing much happened really, but in the mirror I saw the room behind us fade away and was suddenly replaced by what I could only describe as a concrete bunker with a few well lights mounted in the ceiling shining down and creating pools of light throughout an otherwise very dark space. I spun around and stared at the white concrete walls in a panic, where were we? This wasn’t a dressing room at target. I immediately looked to Meredith who was staring down at me with a very cold, very composed look on her face.

“Go to the center of the room and kneel,” She told me, no emotion whatsoever. I obeyed. My body obeyed. It didn’t have a choice.

“You know,” She said as I dropped to my knees wincing as they made contact with the cold concrete. I straightened my skirt out so I was at least covered. “Normal girls, mortals, I mean, they could tell you what to do, they could give you commands and you would be inclined to follow them, but your body wouldn’t just go on autopilot. Angela and I, and others like us, our voices carry a bit more authority. We’re meant to influence mortals, we’re meant to cause change. I like this, because I can tell you to do literally anything, and that submissive nature of yours will go right along with it.”

For the first time I noticed she was holding something, what was it? Something long…it was a switch, like the kind you use on horses. Oh god, what was she going to do?

“Meredith…” I said weakly, trembling as she moved toward me.

“Shut up,” She growled. “Shut your mouth. I don’t want to hear a peep out of you. Don’t move, don’t talk, kneel here and take it. Take it like the weakling you are. I don’t care what Angela says, you’re not one of us, you might be immortal, but it was an accident, it was a mistake. After I get done with you today I’m going to leave you in this room, she’ll never find you, and then you can spend all eternity wishing you hadn’t matched with her on that dating site.”

Before I could contemplate what she’d said, she struck me. The switch came down across my face, sending me hurtling across the floor. I tried to scream, but per her command, I couldn’t even open my mouth.

“Get back to the center!” She screamed. Her voice echoed across the room, bouncing off of the concrete walls. “Kneel!”

I obeyed. I took up the kneeling position again, only to be struck again, three more times, this time on the arm, then the back, then my bare feet. I screamed internally, my eyes watered. She didn’t relent, she kept hitting me, over, and over, and over. She kicked me, her pink tennis shoe connected with my chest, knocking the wind out of me and knocking me over. She screamed at me to kneel. My body felt broken, but it still obeyed her command. Again, and again, the switch came down. It struck my upper lip, I felt a pool of blood forming. I felt the warmth running down my face. Oh dear god no, no, no, this couldn’t be happening.

“You’re pathetic!” She screamed with absolute hate and vitriol saturating her words. “I wish I could just let you die."

I heard the switch swing again, singing as it came down toward my body, I cringed, and began to sob, expecting the worst, but it never came. The impact never connected with me, I knelt there, my eyes closed tight, my body shivering. There was no sound; you could have heard a pin drop. What was happening? I opened my eyes, my arms were raised, both of them. They were grasping Meredith’s wrists, keeping the whip in the air just above my head. I’d reached up and grabbed her wrists. I’d stopped it from happening. No, I hadn’t stopped it, she was stronger than me. She’d stopped as soon as I grabbed her wrist. I stared up at her, making eye contact and trembling like never before. There was dead silence for a least a minute before she withdrew her hands and towered over me. I slowly, and carefully stood from my kneeling position in front of her, barely coming up to her chest.

“I am NOT the worst thing that you’re going to face,” She said to me, her face stone, her arms suddenly folded. “I will not go easy on you. I am NOT Angela. I’m going to tell you the truth whether you like it or not. You did good today, you defied me and stopped my arm, but you have a long way to go, and not enough time to get ready. Straighten your dress, we’re going shopping.”

“What should we watch next?” Angela flipped through the Netflix menu on the television, I laid comfortably between the two of them, kind of curled up. It was nice being small. “I think we’ve watched everything on Netflix and Hulu, we’re going to have to wait a few years for them to update the library.”

“Means we’ve been here too long,” Meredith suggested, laying her head back. I stretched a little bit, adjusting my head which was laying against Angela’s shoulder. I was tired, I guess. Our bodies didn’t get tired easily but we’d been awake for a while. The way I felt right now was weird I think. I didn’t feel like an adult anymore and I didn’t feel like a guy pretending to be a girl, not like before. This was different, this was just natural. They had allowed me to slip into my role effortlessly and I didn’t realize it before, but it was what I had always wanted.

“Yeah but if we leave, we’re going to have to actually explain things to Jasmine here, and she hasn’t really been interested,” Angela pointed out. She was right, I hadn’t asked any questions, I mean yeah I was curious, but I felt like if they told me, we’d be moving on to the next ‘thing’. I wanted this ‘thing’ to last for as long as it could. I wanted to feel small and vulnerable, I wanted to lay on the couch and just exist, cuddled up next to Angela, or mom.

“Hey Jasmine, could you sit up?” Meredith asked me. She was being very careful to phrase her commands as questions so that my body didn’t go into autopilot. It was something we’d been working on, but like she said, I still had a long way to go. I stretched and set up, pulling my face away from Angela’s shoulder and looking between them as they sort of angled themselves so that they could both look at me. The television still glowed in front of us. Angela took my hand in hers and smiled at me.

“My dear,” She said, squeezing my hand. “We…have had many names over the centuries, to be quite honest. We’ve been called gods, some people call us angels, pretty commonly we’re called Fae. That mythos is actually the most accurate, but what you don’t realize is that anyone can be one of us. It’s…a matter of time really. When a soul is born it’s placed into a body, the body lives for a while, then it dies, and the soul moves on. All of the memories from your life are stored. You still have them but you don’t readily recall them, not in detail. The experiences you have can help you to be more cautious or more social in the next life. They…teach you lessons really. When you’ve learned everything you need to, you don’t die, your soul ascends and you become like us. You can decide to live in Etherol, the afterlife as you would call it, or you can come back and try to help people learn what they need to learn. We…do things to set certain events in motion, we set up lessons. It’s not for everyone, but some of us like it.”

“Souls carry characteristics,” Meredith took over the explanation, we both turned to her. “Good and evil are elevated in our world, you either follow a strict moral code, or you don’t. Souls don’t change in that regard.”

“Good, and evil,” Angela spoke again. “Are represented by two courts: Seelie, and Unseelie. Most of the time we don’t work together, we sort of do our own things. In the case of Meredith and I, we’ve been working together for the last decade, with some obvious benefits.”

“So…you’re good, and Meredith is evil?” I smirked. “That explains a lot.”

“It’s not nearly that simple,” Meredith lectured me, shaking her head. “I can’t really explain it to you, you’re still new to all this. What you really need to know is that…all souls fit into either Seelie or Unseelie, you can’t choose, and there are no neutral souls.”

At this moment in the conversation there was a long, long pause, and then, finally, Angela said it.

“Except for you.”

“Me? What do you mean, me?”

“When you were born,” Angela began to stroke the side of my head with her free hand. “That was the first time your soul ever entered the world, you’re a brand new soul, you’re an infant. I shouldn’t have done this…thing to you, you should have had many, many more lives to gain experience and to learn, but also…”

“Also?”

“Your soul is truly neutral,” Meredith finished. “You’re not Seelie or Unseelie, you have no commitment either way.

“It seems like a small thing,” Angela told me. “But…one day, when you’ve matured, you could start your own side, your own…faction. Souls would have a choice, they could ride the fence and…as much as it pains me to say it, that can’t happen?”

“Dark and light have to coexist,” Meredith explained. “It’s the balance of the universe, if we lose that balance, who knows what could happen?”

“But the fact is, I like you, and I did a horrible thing to you,” Angela continued to stroke my head, running her slim, soft fingers through my hair and gently massaging my temple. “I don’t want to see anything happen to you, I don’t want you taken advantage of.”

“So what we’re going to do is keep you,” Meredith grinned at me. “As of…eleven years ago, we own you. Well, sort of, we need you to agree to it.”

“Agree to it?” I was confused. “Don’t you already? I can’t leave…”

“It needs to be legal, all proper and stuff,” Meredith explained to me as if she were talking to a child. “You’re not leaving us either way, but we can protect you better if you agree that you’re our property. You’ll sign a form, a portion of your soul energy will be taken and stored. If we lay a claim to you, we have more say in what happens to you, make sense?”

“I guess,” I nodded. “But…isn’t this the kind of thing we’re trying to avoid?”

“The world is a lot darker, and a lot less black and white than you want to think,” Angela said sadly. “It won’t be permanent, we can release you after a few hundred years. I know Meredith has been working with you to make you less submissive-“

“You KNEW?!” I choked, almost glaring at her. “You knew she was doing that to me?!”

“It’s kind of against her alignment,” Meredith shrugged. “Seelies don’t like to torture people. Unseelies…we live for it. I mean, I really get off on it, but I don’t really go all the way with you, what I’m doing to you is less than a fraction of what I’d do to an enemy.”

“We have enemies?!” This was getting way out of hand.

“That’s why Meredith is working with you,” Angela removed her hand from my head and placed it on my shoulder, looking me in the eye once again. “There are…forces out there, and not just Seelie or Unseelie, we’re talking about…creatures, monsters, the world is…complicated. We need to make sure you’re able to defend yourself and not be influenced by them, or either of the courts. You’re a pariah, to put it in a term you can understand.”

“How do we…how do we do the contract?” I wish I could say I didn’t want to do it, but the thought of them actually owning me, yeah, that excited me.

“Well, I’ve called in someone to help, someone who knows the law and can draw up the contract,” Angela explained. She looked toward the mirror, I followed her gaze. I saw it ripple like water, and then, something stepped through. Something I didn’t expect. It wasn’t a man, or a woman. In fact it was a rodent of some kind, with a hard shell. An Armadillo, that’s what it was. It was stood upright, and maybe about two feet tall, pretty big for an Armadillo honestly. That wasn’t the weird thing about it. The weird thing was that it was carrying a tiny briefcase and supported itself with a black, wooden walking stick. Then, as it made its way toward us, the most unsettling thing happened. It spoke, with a thick Scottish accent.

“Well then, you lasses seem to a’ gotten yourself into a bit o’ a bind then ain’t ye? Alright, let’s get it settled.”

I stared incredulously at the creature that had just passed through the mirror. Were my eyes deceiving me, or was this really, truly a talking armadillo? Angela and Meredith immediately rose from the couch, though I sat there, mouth agape until Angela nudged my shoulder. I climbed to my feet and leaned into her, wrapping my arms around her waist. She laid an arm around me and gave me a partial hug.

“And what is it ye’ve got ‘ere?” The armadillo asked, his thick Scottish accent hanging on every word. I trembled as he stepped closer; I don’t know why, but he was intimidating. I felt Angela hug me a little tighter.

“Eustace,” She said, addressing the creature. “This is Jasmine, my daughter. We would seek to enter into the contract of Eaves.

“In a thousand years you ain’t claimed a daughter,” Eustace regarded us suspiciously, or at least I think he did, I couldn’t really read an armadillo’s facial expressions. He shuffled across the living room and stared upward, inspecting me. “This soul, can’t be much more than thirty human years, and seems stunted at that. What’ve ye done, Angeline? What is it ye be protectin’ it from?”

“Some things,” Meredith said confidently. “Are better left unsaid.”

“Do ye have the implements to perform the ceremony?” Eustace cocked his head. “Do ye have the goblet? The blade?”

“I…have a coffee mug?” Angela said kind of doubtfully. “And yes, I keep an athame with me at all times.”

“And has it drawn blood in anger? I know how ye two are,” Eustace’s tone raised a bit. I didn’t blame him, I knew how they were too.

“It’s purity is not in question,” Angela said simply. “I implore you, please do this thing for us.”

“It will be done,” Eustace nodded. “I owe ye a favor after all. I warn ye though, whatever it is you’re a doin’ here, it’ll come back on you later. It may come back on me I’m afraid. But I’ll do it. Consider us even after this.”

“You have my word,” Angela nodded. She tried to pull away from me, but I wrapped my arms tight around her waist. “Meredith, go to the closet and get the chest.”

I squeezed my eyes shut as Meredith disappeared from the room.

“Lassie!” Eustace said, tapping my bare leg with his cane. I jerked at the impact even thought he hadn’t hit me hard at all. “What’re ye’ afraid of? There’s monster a’ plenty out there, ye’ needn’t be fearful of me!”

“She’s very new to all of this,” Angela explained. “A new soul, as you see for yourself.”

“Aye, I do indeed see that,” Eustace nodded. “You givin’ the blessing of immortality to a soul that hasn’t ascended, that ain’t to be looked on kindly by the council – seelie or unseelie.”

“She is my daughter,” Angela replied firmly.

“Aye, then let it be,” Eustace relented as Meredith returned with a small black chest. “Let’s get on wit’ it.”

Angela slowly and gently pulled my arms apart, detaching me from her waist and guided me to the center of the living room where Meredith was spreading a sheet. We took turns kneeling around it, Angela to the left, Meredith to the right, and me in the middle. Eustace stood before us, he and I now at equal height.

“Then let us begin,” Eustace said, looking at all of us, moving his head from left to right. “Now you know lassie, the Contract o’ Eaves, it ‘taint nothin’ to snicker at or take lightly, you be enterin’ into a lifetime o’ servitude.”

“She knows,” Meredith confirmed.

“I should like to ‘ear it from the lass herself, if you don’t mind,” Eustace turned back toward me, his small beady eyes boring into my soul. I simply nodded. He nodded in return and reached into his briefcase, producing a sheet of brown paper, perhaps larger than should have fit inside. “The Contract of Eaves is to be signed in blood, but first, ye must be bound in blood.”

Angela reached into the chest and presented a coffee mug, black with white letters spelling out: ‘New York Fucking City’.

“Give me your wrist,” Angela said, reaching out and taking it as I offered it. She positioned my arm over the mug, and then, suddenly I noticed that in her right hand she was holding a dagger. I instinctively pulled away, but her eyes immediately met mine, a silent order. My body fell still and I allowed her to press the cold steel against my forearm. I winced as she pressed downward and sliced into my flesh, red liquid fleeing gleefully to the surface of the skin, free of a lifetime of imprisonment in my vessels. The red blood turned to black as it trickled slowly down my arm and into the coffee mug at the center of the blanket, and as she withdrew the dagger, the gash on my forearm closed as if it had never been cut. I then watched her and Meredith do the same, When they were finished, Angela passed me the cup. I was hesitant at first, but I took it, staring in to her eyes. “There are no words to say, just drink, a little. Leave some for us.”

I looked at her, still hesitating, still unsure. I didn’t want to drink it, but if that was the worst part of this then…

“Drink,” She commanded softly. I wondered if Eustace noticed. I paid that thought no more mind as I lifted the cup to my mouth and allowed the warm liquid to gather on my tongue and drip into my throat. I’d expected to choke, or at least recoil at the taste, but it was sweet. I liked it, kind of. As soon as I felt it enter my throat I lowered the cup and looked at Angela expectantly. She took the cup from me and drank, Meredith did the same.

“Once more,” Angela said to me, indicating that she wanted my arm again. I held it out timidly and allowed her to cut once again. This time, she reached forward with a feather quill and dipped it into my running blood, handing it to me when she was done.

“The contract,” Eustace informed us, laying the page out in front of us. “Must be signed by all three. Once it is done, tis’ done. You’re sure it be what you want?”

I still wasn’t used to a giant armadillo speaking to me. I don’t think I was used to any of this, but I nodded.

“Your words lass!” Eustace insisted. “Tell it with your words!”

“Yes,” I said, nodding again. A lump was forming in my throat, I’m not sure I could have said anymore. I leaned forward with the quill and scratched my name into the document, in my own blood. Angela did the same, cutting her arm and priming the quill. She then passed it to Meredith who did the same. I watched all three names on the contract momentarily glow, and then fade to black.

“So may it be,” Eustace nodded and took the contract in his paw, placing it back into the tiny briefcase where it disappeared. “I will be on my way to file this, you three, you stay out o’ harm’s way, ye hear?”

“We have every intention to,” Angela assured him as he walked quickly toward the mirror.

“See that you do,” He said, shaking his head. “I don’t want to ‘ear about you bein’ pulled out o’ a gutter tomorrow, or the next week.”

With that, he placed his paw on the mirror and vanished before our eyes. What the hell had just happened? I remained kneeling in complete silence, unsure of what to do or what to say. I didn’t have to say anything, it turns out. Angela pulled me toward her and embraced me, I melted into her arms as her warmth enveloped my body.

“It’s time for you to get dressed,” She told me. “There’s a fair in town, and I think it’s time for you to really get out of the house, and not just for shopping, or for Meredith to beat you within an inch of your life.”

“A fair?” I perked up a little bit. “Can I get cotton candy?”

“Yes honey,” She snickered a bit. “You can get cotton candy.”

“Why did we drive a car if we can just walk through mirrors?” I asked as Meredith eased her car between two others on a temporary grass lot.

“Because it freaks people out when we just appear in front of them,” Angela told me, rummaging through her purse for something. Finally, she yanked a pink bracelet from the bag and handed it to me through the seats. It was pretty plain; there was nothing special about it, it kind of reminded me of a slap bracelet, though without the slapping part. “Put that on, it makes it easier to find you in a crowd.”

I didn’t bother questioning her, or rather I couldn’t question her. I just snapped the bracelet into place, immediately noticing that while I was able to put it on, I couldn’t remove it no matter how much I tugged.

“It’s fine,” She smiled at me. “It’s just so no one can take it off of you.”

“Who would take it off of me?” I asked, a little worried.

“No one today,” She reassured me. “Come on, let’s go in.”

I pulled the silver handle and listened to the ‘clunk’ of the bolt being released as I pushed on the door. It was accompanied by a creak and my feet connected with the grass, my long pink skirt billowing out around me. The dress they’d put me in was weird, kind of. It was a pink overdress on top of a white chemise with flared sleeves, like a renaissance dress. It was strange attire for the fair but I’d really learned not to ask questions. We’d spent a full six months at the house watching television, playing board games, and having Meredith ‘teach’ me regularly and while the time had passed like days, the one thing I’d learned to do was let go of my tendency to question things. At least where Meredith and Angela were concerned. It was hard in some ways, really hard, because I could remember being an adult, an eighteen year old guy with his own job, his own apartment, a car, a girlfriend…sort of. I remembered all of that and I remembered being independent, but now I’d gone backwards. I didn’t hate it, I loved it in fact, but it was hard to get used to. As soon as I closed the door, Angela was beside me, her hand in mine and guiding me to the front of the car. Meredith straightened the shoulder strap of my over-dress and checked to make sure the skirt was straight.

“Why am I the only one dressed like this?” I asked, looking to both of them who were dressed very casually.

“Because,” Angela said cheerfully. “If we can do anything we want with you why wouldn’t we put you in adorable outfits?”

“And if you say you don’t like it, you’re lying,” Meredith pointed out. She wasn’t wrong. As we moved through the parking lot, either of my hands grasped firmly in one of theirs I still found it a little weird that I absolutely had to go with them. Like, I had no choice, I couldn’t turn around and leave even if I wanted to. It was a wonderful yet terrifying feeling, having my future and nearly every movement dictated by them, but I had fallen into a trap of my own making and I couldn’t imagine going back to the way my life was eleven years ago. The loneliness, needing to be controlled but never finding a way to get it. In a way I’d gotten what I wanted, and I felt content.

At the entrance to the fair we encountered the most peculiar thing; the entryway was a castle façade with turrets and a ticket booth beneath, a sign reading “Ypsilanti Medieval Fair 2030”.

“Medieval fair?” I looked up at Angela. “What’s that? What kind of fair is this?”

“Don’t worry, you’re going to have fun sweetie,” Angela reassured me. “We go to these every year.”

“AND they have cotton candy,” Meredith told me as we passed beneath the archway and stood in front of the ticket booth. Just beyond the shade of the archway I observed people walking in all directions wearing costumes similar to mine, though some of them were dressed as casually as Angela and Meredith.

“Three please!” Angela said to the booth attendant. The man behind the window, dressed as a jester looked to me immediately. Oh god, what was he looking at?

“Hey, kids under fourteen get in free,” He said, nodding toward me. My eyes went wide, how old did I look? I mean I knew she’d made me look young but I wasn’t prepared for that statement.

“You hear that sweetie?” We don’t have to pay for you!” Angela laughed and patted me on the head. I giggled involuntarily. As she paid, Meredith interlocked her arm with mine and guided me past the archway, into the crowd of people. The energy of the place was what struck me immediately; people everywhere, kids, adults, pets, all buzzing around excited about one thing or another as they pounded up and down the dirt paths, visiting various booths. I was having a hard time comprehending the energy that was afoot here honestly, what was it like to just forget all of your worries and just…be here, to exist in one place rather than a million other places at once? It was almost as if Meredith read my mind, she tapped my arm, I looked up at her.

“You need to let go of whatever it is that’s bothering you,” She told me. “Today you’re going to have fun – hey look at that, they have archery.”

“I think that’s my specialty,” Angela said as she joined us, affixing a paper armband to my wrist and handing one to Meredith.

“Just like you to steal all the glory,” Meredith laughed as we casually followed the flow of the crowd and stepping up to a long booth manned by three people.

“Step right up!” One of them invited in a thick English accent. “Test your skill at archery and win a prize!”

“And what’s the top prize?” Meredith cocked her head. “Is it worth my time?”

“It’s a recurve bow, from the one and only Broderick over there!” The old man pointed a bony finger forward a tent across the path. We all turned, I heard Meredith whisper something to Angela who nodded.

“We’ll try it,” She nodded. “Do you have a bow that’s…easier for a girl?”

“I think we can help with that!” The man nodded. “It’s ten dollars for ten arrows, and you have to hit that moving target five times, on the red spot, there, you see?”

“My god,” Angela craned her neck to see. “That target is like two hundred yards away.”

“You don’t think we just give it away do you?” The old man chuckled.

“Worth a try,” Angela laughed as she handed the money over and took the bow they handed her. Meredith rolled her eyes. We talked over to the range, stepping in between two people. Meredith pulled me back a little bit and pointed at Angela.

“Watch her form,” Meredith told me. “See how she holds it? Look at the bend of her arm, look at how she’s standing.”

I nodded. I had no idea why she would be telling me any of this, but I listened to her intently as I watched Angela fire multiple arrows, missing the first few which elicited laughter from the old man and his co-workers at the booth. Suddenly, her next arrow struck the moving target right on one of the red dots, causing them to fall silent. Their mouths went slack as she fired a few more, each one striking a the target with a ‘thud’. She fired the last arrow, it swished through the air and landed perfectly.

“My god lady,” the old man said. “Who are you?”

“No one you would know,” Angela said coyly, her upper lip pressed on her lower, forming a smug grin.

“Right then,” The old man shook his head. “Take this slip over to Broderick, he’ll set you right.”

“I appreciate it,” Angela did a curtsey, holding an arm out to her side. The old man shook his head.

“Come on,” Meredith laughed as she pulled me away from the booth and back toward the dirt path.

“What do you think?” Angela crouched down a bit to meet me at my eye level. Honestly she was only about two heads taller than me but she was practically a giant. “Are you having fun?”

“I…don’t know,” I swiveled my head nervously, regarding all the people with caution. “I’ve never been to a place like this before…”

“Never?” Meredith raised an eyebrow. “Not once, in all the years you were-“

“Her parents wouldn’t have let her,” Angela explained. “This would have been um…probably satanic or something.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Meredith folded her arms and shook her head. “I’ve met Satan, he’s a really nice guy. Pretty quick with his tongue.”

“Let’s get over to Broderick’s tent,” Angela laughed. “Before he has a huge line.”

Across the path we passed out of the sunlight and into a white, shady tent filled with wooden bows, all affixed to racks, and at the center, a wooden table. Along the walls of the tent, patches of sunlight teased the fabric, intermixed with dark patches of shadow, providing just enough light to make the interior fully visible. Our feet trod along tall grass, a stark reminder that we were still in fact outdoors. In the center, near the table, stood a man in a leather jerkin and greaves, reading over a sheet of paper. His slicked back black hair and relatively fair skin put him at about thirty in appearance but I had learned not to trust appearance.

“Broderick!” Meredith called out happily as we approached. He glanced up from his paper a wide grin forming across is face.

“Meredith! Angeline!” He replied, setting the paper down. “I haven’t seen you in ages!”

“Three years,” Angela laughed. “Barely a fortnight really.”

The three took turns embracing. I felt so awkward, who was this guy? Why did he know my mother? As I was wondering that he turned to look down at me.

“And who do we have here?” He asked of me. I looked down, toward the grass. I don’t know why I was so nervous.

“This,” Angela said as she placed a hand on my back and pushed me forward. “Is my daughter, Jasmine. Say hello to Broderick, Jasmine.”

“H…hello,” I whispered, trying my best to make eye contact but doing no better than staring at the man’s legs.

“No need to be nervous,” Broderick laughed. “I can’t be that scary.”

“True,” Angela nudged me. “She hasn’t seen you drunk yet so she has no reason to be afraid.”

“Please,” Broderick laughed. “I’m a pleasant drunk and you know it.”

“Tell that to that poor cow,” Meredith rolled her eyes.

“And then,” Broderick interrupted her, as if she were about to say something horribly embarrassing. “What is it that brings you to my humble tent?”

As he said that I turned my head, surveying the contents of the tent which seemed anything but humble.

“I won the prize,” Angela said.

“Well of course you did,” Broderick said, raising his shoulders in a partial shrug. “But what would a girl like you need with one of my bows? I’ve seen what you’re carrying.”

“Not for me today,” Angela touched my shoulder. “I would like something for my daughter.”

“Your daughter,” Broderick looked down at me. “Little girl, if you’re going to be the daughter of Angeline it won’t do for you to cower like that, you need to stand proud.”

“Oh leave her alone,” Angela scolded him. “She’s very new to all of this.”

“To be chosen as the daughter of a Fae is no small deal,” Broderick told me as I continued staring at the ground. “Especially when it’s a soul as new as you. You must be someone special, very special.”

Yes, I was either special, or a decade ago I had begged Angela to dominate me over and over again until she’d finally relented and left me on autopilot, cleaning her house for over a decade. It was one of the two.

“Can you help us, Broderick?” Angela asked, though from the tone of her voice I sensed it wasn’t much of a question.

“Aye, of course I can,” He nodded. “Girl, look up at me.”

I slowly raised my head, meeting his gaze. He had kind eyes but I still felt horribly intimidated.

“For the daughter of Angeline,” He said, reaching beneath his table and producing a long object wrapped in white linen. “I’m imagining troubling times ahead, so I won’t mess around. This isn’t the best bow, by any means, but it’s the best you’ll get in this tent, and the best you’ll get from me, that’s for sure.”

He held the package out to me, Angela nudged me until I took it in both hands.

“You’ll need to teach her to be less timid,” Broderick shook his head. “I don’t know what the circumstances here are, but it can’t be good.”

“I’ll teach her,” Angela confirmed. “She’ll be ready, for whatever may come.”

“For whatever may come,” Broderick echoed back.

“Come on Jasmine,” Angela said as the tension in the tent came to a head. “Let’s get you your cotton candy.”

“What are you thinking over there, Jasmine?” Angela asked me. I suddenly realized I was lost in thought, probably staring off into the distance.

“I…” I started to say, but trailed off, unsure of what I wanted to tell them. I gathered myself and sighed. “I’m just…I don’t want this to end. I like being…this. I like being your daughter, I like being…”

“Kept?” Angela finished for me, she stared at me from across the table with some concern as she sipped her drink. Around us, other people, dressed in medieval clothing milled around, talking, laughing, enjoying life, ignorant of the fact that three people sitting at the table here were immortal and that I had until recently been an eighteen year old man.

“I feel safe,” I admitted. “I want to be…like this.”

“Is that why we haven’t made any progress in our sessions?” Meredith raised an eyebrow. “You like being controlled? Still?”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Angela informed me. It probably wasn’t a conversation that I would be able to avoid. “What we’re going to do now, is teach you to socialize. You suck at it.”

“What? No I don’t,” I started to argue. Okay, maybe they were right.

“Over there,” Angela pointed to our left; off in the distance I saw a primitive wooden stage with a gathering of people, and a single musician belting out some kind of old Celtic ballad. They were dancing, and singing – something I would have vehemently avoided in a previous life. “You’re going to go over there with us, you’re going to dance, you’re going to have fun, have a problem with that? Too bad.”

I sulked a little bit until Meredith looked at me with a stern expression.

“Don’t make us order you,” She lectured.

“Please,” I whispered. “Please order me.”

“Okay this is getting to be a problem, and like I said, we’ll talk about it later,” Angela began to lay into me. “Let’s go.”

We rose from the table, Meredith taking her hand in mine and leading me toward the crowd. I obediently followed, keeping one hand at my side, the material of my skirt bunched up in my fist to keep it from dragging against the dirt.

“Come on!” Angela smiled broadly and began clapping her hands as I was thrust with her into the mass of people. “Come on, follow our lead!”

Meredith sort of laughed at me as she started dancing to the music, and Angela grabbed my wrists, forcing my arms into motion.

“I don’t really dance,” I tried to speak loudly to make my voice heard over the music. From the stage and over the speakers, the old Irish tune was still being belted out, somewhat off-key: “Whack fol the dah, will ya dance to yer partner, Around the flure yer trotters shake, Wasn't it the truth I told you? Lots of fun at Finnegan's Wake.”

“You’re doing it!” Angela said encouragingly as she loosed my wrists and sent me spiraling back into the crowd. I immediately bumped into someone, another girl about my age who laughed loudly and grabbed my hands, leading me in the dance. I began to relax a bit and even laughed at myself.

“I’m Annabelle!” She shouted over the music, her words barely registered. “What’s your name?”

“My name is S…Jasmine! My name is Jasmine!” I shouted back. She smiled and nodded. We continued with the dance until the song faded out and the crowd began to disperse.

“Hey, you wanna go get something to drink?” Annabelle asked me. My ears were still ringing from the music, but my body felt so alive. I glanced back at Angela for permission, only to see her wave me off. Right, she wanted me to socialize. I looked back to Annabelle, she was cute, definitely cute with dirty blonde hair that hung about two inches past her shoulders, a freckled face, and dressed in a cute bodice top with a white chemise beneath.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I would…love that.”

As we walked, I became aware of Angela walking past me, and without a word, shoved a ten dollar bill into my hand. I clutched it and tried to stuff it into my pocket, only to remember I was wearing a dress, and this particular dress had no pockets.

“Are you from around here?” Anabelle asked me, leading us toward a concession stand. “You look like a fish out of water.”

“I do?” I asked curiously. I thought I’d done a pretty good job of blending in.

“Uh-huh,” She nodded. “So what’s your deal? You seem way too young to be a fae.”

“Wait,” I sort of gasped. “You’re…a fae? You’re…”

“Yes, silly,” She laughed. “If you were older you’d be able to pick us out in a crowd pretty easily. “

“I guess….I don’t know how it all works,” I admitted. “I mean I…how old should I be?”

“Sweetie,” She said with a bit of a giggle. “A fae is a person who has lived through many, many lives, it’s ascension. You’re way too young, unless something went terribly wrong. Either way…”

We reached the concession stand, I tried to had her my $10 bill as she ordered two lemonades only to have my hand gently pushed away, with her telling me she ‘had this’. I suddenly realized that I felt very, very at ease with this girl. Maybe more so than I’d felt with anyone before, it was a strange feeling.

“So tell me,” She said, as she led me away from the crowd and to a slightly more secluded spot, a picnic table beside a metal charcoal grill, inert, but still way out of place for a medieval fair. “What’s the deal? Who made you?”

“I…I think I’m a little confused,” I admitted. “This isn’t normal? There aren’t more…people like me?”

“New souls walking around with fae blood and immortality?” She giggled as she sipped on her lemonade. “No, never seen that before. It’s not impossible but I’m not going to lie here, we’re kind of elitists and…it really defeats the purpose of being a fae if…you know. So why? I’m really curious why someone would do this?”

“I…think it was an accident,” I admitted. “My life…before was really weird, I mean looking back now it was weird.”

“How so?” She stared at me intently, I was kind of getting lost in her eyes if we were being perfectly honest, and then I had to shake it off; the girl was my age, which meant…no, if she was fae she could be a lot older, right? Oh god how was I supposed to sort this out in my head?

“So it’s like…my parents were…Christians, really hardcore Christians, and…they…they believed things and they made me believe those things. It was so…odd growing up because if I had an opinion that was different than theirs, I was punished. I wasn’t allowed to talk back or debate with them; everything I said had to align with their views exactly or I’d be grounded, or beaten. Obedience was kind of the core of who I was growing up and…as I got older, I never really got over it. I guess I still haven’t gotten over it and…I think my friend Angela is trying to help me. She says I’m her daughter now.”

“Angeline took a daughter?” Annabelle said, craning her neck to see over my shoulder. “Either she messed up or you really are special. No matter what though, I think the best advice I can offer you is that you’re not your parents. I had a lot of parents throughout my lives, obviously, some were great, some were not so great, and one of the most important lessons I learned, was that while other people mold who we are to an extent, we decide who we are in the end. You’re in control, Jasmine, not your parents, or the ghosts of your parents, whatever the case may be. You didn’t have centuries of growth so you obviously didn’t learn this lesson. It’s okay, I mean, Angeline is definitely someone who will help you. One of the lessons you would have learned, had you been given the chance though, is that there are two sides to every story. Abusive behavior is learned. Living through every life, you get the chance to be the abuser, or be the abused. It seems kind of shitty, but…it’s how we get where we are. The most important takeaway is…our situation sit the result of circumstances seen or unseen, ours or someone else’s. One way or another, we’re all connected and we have to do right by eachother.”

“I think…I get it?” I was still confused. I was really confused.

“No matter,” She smiled, standing up from the picnic table and motioning for me to follow. “Let’s go this way, I saw your mother and Broderick walking toward the clearing.”

I followed her into the treeline, down a winding path, and just as I wondered whether or not I should be straying this far from the fair, we emerged into a clearing where Angela, Meredith, Broderick, and a few others were gathered.

“Jasmine!” Angela waved to me. “We’re just catching up back here, I haven’t seen some of these people in years!”

“Hello,” I said timidly. As I did, a few of them turned to me, one was an older, balding man, clad in a black jacket with a sword strapped to his back.

“What’s this?” The man turned to Angela. “Is that a pet? It’s ten years old at most.”

His statement elicited laughter from the others around. Angela crossed her arms.

“Very funny,” She said. “This is my daughter, Jasmine.”

“Pray tell,” A black haired woman said. “What is something THAT young doing among the fae?”

“Whatever she may be,” Angela explained to them harshly. “She is protected under the Contract of Eaves, she is not to be touched, apart from by those who entered into the contract with her.”

The clearing fell silent, and I noticed Annabelle turning slowly and stepping away from me.

“You…entered into the Contract of Eaves with your own daughter?” Broderick raised an eyebrow at Angela.

“For her own protection,” Angela said adamantly.

“You spoke to me as if I were an equal,” Annabelle glared at me.

“I…”I stuttered. “What was I supposed to-“
“You’re a slave, you’re under the Contract of Eaves and you dared to speak to me with such disrespect?” Her gaze was bearing down on me, I stuttered and looked over to Angela and Meredith for help, but all I got from either of them was a cold stare. What were they playing at? “Get on your knees!”

As expected, my body just responded. I dropped to the dirt, my dress tangling beneath me. I breathed heavily, I wanted to scream, I was so utterly humiliated and I didn’t even know what was going on.

“Angeline,” The black haired woman said. “You need to teach your girl manners.”

“I apologize for her,” Angela explained. “She’s new, we didn’t expect her to run into another Fae here, at least not without our supervision. We only entered into the contract a few days ago, she hasn’t had time to learn all of the customs.”

“I demand an apology,” Annabelle’s voice boomed above me. “I won’t have filth talking to me like it’s my best friend.”

I looked back at Angela again, my eyes pleading. She looked at me calmly.

“You’re going to have to do that, Jasmine,” She said softly. “Apologize.”

“I’m…sorry,” I whimpered. “I…”

“You’re sorry for what?” Annabelle suddenly slapped me, her hand blasting the side of my face, the impact radiating from my cheek up to my temple. I whimpered and nearly lost my balance.

“I’m…sorry I spoke to you,” That was all I could think of.

“And don’t do it again! You speak when you’re spoken to, don’t open your filthy mouth around me!” With that, she raised her left foot and kicked me in the chest, knocking me onto my back and forcing the wind from my lungs. I laid on the ground choking and wheezing while Angela simply shook her head.

“Jasmine, get up, we’re leaving,” She commanded me. I immediately rose and ran over to her, practically hiding behind her like a child. I was a child. “Broderick, we’ll be in touch.”

Broderick nodded as Angela and Jasmine led me from the clearing; I could feel all of their eyes upon us as we went.

“Do you see the problem now?” Meredith hissed at me. “Do you want people to be able to command you like that? You need to sort your shit.”

I wanted to respond, but I just couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Again,” Meredith said coldly. As always, my body responded to her command; I ran back to beginning of the obstacle course, bow in hand and gripped the rope net, hurtling up and over the obstacle as I raced toward the next.

“Meredith please,” I sobbed as I ran, completely out of breath and barely able to keep upright. “Please just let me stop for a minute.”

“Stop talking,” She commanded. She wasn’t even yelling, or screaming. She was speaking in a normal tone of voice and that’s what scared me the most. She wasn’t doing this because she was angry; there was virtually no emotion behind it. “Keep your body upright, don’t sway like that.”

After the incident at the fair we’d ridden home in complete silence, and once in the house, Meredith had immediately taken me to a mirror. This place was like her other bunker, but contained a massive obstacle course complete with climbing walls, ropes, ladders, and jumping platforms. It might sound like fun, but we’d been at it for…I don’t even know how long.

“Please, I want mommy,” I choked out through my tears.

“I said stop talking,” She repeated. “This isn’t a punishment. Stop whining.”

“This isn’t fair!” I screamed as I jumped over a low hurdle, keeping the bow firmly in my blistering hand. “You know I can’t stop unless you let me!”

“Really? Then how are you talking to me right now?” She asked me as she fast-walked alongside me. “I told you to shut up but you’re still talking. Get the picture? You want it to end, you know what you have to do. You cleaned Angela’s house for eleven years, how long do you want to run this obstacle course?”

As I ran across a small balance beam, my foot slipped from underneath me and the bow dropped from my hand, clattering against the floor.

“Hey!” Meredith shouted, making a beeline onto the obstacle course, switch in hand. I tried to rush forward, to get away from her, but she immediately dug her nails into my neck and slammed me against the floor. The switch came down, once, twice, three times. I screamed and sobbed with every impact. “You keep the bow IN your hand! Do NOT drop that!”

“It’s heavy!” I shouted back, trying to wrestle out of her grip. Her nails dug in tighter, I flailed slapped my hand against the ground.

“Stop flopping around like a god damn fish and PICK UP THE BOW!” Her lips were maybe an inch from my ear. My hands desperately searched the floor as her grip tightened.

“Why are you doing this?!” I screamed, my throat parched and burning. When was the last time I’d had water?

“Oh you don’t like this?” She goaded. “You think this is bad? Are you uncomfortable? Just imagine what’s going to happen when someone else gets their hands on you and you can’t say no to them just because you thought it was fun to be coddled and controlled. Pick. Up. The. BOW!”

My fingers found it and wrapped around the grip, Meredith immediately released me and I dropped to the floor, momentarily enjoying the rest I was getting.

“Get up! Move!” She screamed. “Get to the end, then go back and do it again!”

“How many more times?” I asked, my voice cracking.

“Until you can walk out!” She continued walking alongside me, switch in hand. “What are you doing?! Climb that net the right wa- hold the hell on!”

All at once, she was climbing the rope net, not even breaking a sweat. She mounted the wall and grabbed me by the shoulders, glaring at me.

“You’re doing this like a fucking child,” She growled. “I swear to god I’m going to-“

I don’t know what came over me, one moment she was manhandling me, the next, I’d pulled my fist back and sent it rushing at her chest. The impact wasn’t severe, I wasn’t that strong, but it was enough to make her stumble, and suddenly, she slipped on the edge and hurtled toward the ground. I snarled and curled my lip, literally hurling myself off of the obstacle toward her, colliding with her body as she slammed into the ground.

“I’m done with this you bitch!” I screamed as I began to pound into her with both of my fists.

“Stop it!” She ordered. “Fucking stop it! Get off of me and get on your fucking knees!”

“No, no, no, no no!” I screamed, hitting her over, and over again.

“I’m giving you one last chance!” She exclaimed. I struck her in the face as hard as I could. I couldn’t see much; my vision was obscured by tears and blind rage. All at once, my fists stopped. She simply took both of them in her hands and pushed me off of her, but very gently. I expected her to stand and tower over me again, and maybe start screaming, but instead she knelt and placed her hands on my shoulders, pressing her forehead to mine. “How do you feel?”

I breathed heavily, I rolled my eyes up to meet hers.

“I…” I was breathless, speechless, I didn’t know what to say.

“Jasmine,” She said calmly. “Talk to me. What do you feel?”

“I can’t…I don’t…”

“Say something,” She told me. I shook my head violently.

“You need to vent,” She told me. “It’s not an order, I’m asking you to do it for your own sanity.”

“I feel…” I choked out. “I feel…free. Like…I don’t know.”

I couldn’t really describe what I was feeling. Something was different, she’d beaten something out of me, it was weird, I felt different. What had just happened?

“Jasmine?” She rubbed my cheek. “Come on, what’s going on in your head.”

“Get me out of here,” I begged. “I don’t want to be in here, please.”

She nodded and helped me to my feet, leading me toward a mirror on the nearby wall. She pressed my hand to it, and suddenly, the bunker around us vanished. It was replaced by a starfield, a black void around us, nothing beneath our feet. We were in space. I shrieked and flailed my arms, but I immediately noticed that I was standing upright, my feet were planted firmly on something. In front of me I could see two spiral galaxies, one right next to the other at a slight angle. At the center of one, a bright glowing light unlike anything I’d ever seen.

“Meredith,” I gasped. “What…how…”

“It’s…a bubble,” She explained. “I made it a long, long time ago. I’m a lot older than Angela. I’ve had time. I wanted you to see this, so you could understand.”

“Understand...what?” I was so confused.

“A fae is more than just immortality and being able to do parlor tricks. That’s cool and all but…a fae is her…or his collected knowledge. Experience, the ability to build the wall between thinking and feeling. It’s about the endless traditions and customs. It’s a whole new world. I can teach you customs, Angela and I can help you with a lot of things but…the experience needed to think like us? To think like us? To exist on our level? That’s going to be something entirely different. That’s why we had you enter into the Contract of Eaves. You cannot make it on your own in this world. I know you never asked for it, I know you didn’t want it, but you’re here now. So…I want to explain how this works.”

“How what works?” I asked, stepping away from her a bit, taking in the beauty of the scene before me. The galaxies stretched out endlessly in front of us; I couldn’t believe that we lived down there, somewhere. We were so tiny in comparison.

“Earth is…just one planet of many, many billions. They’re all connected, all part of this universe, and this universe…just one of billions. All of them surrounding Etherol…another name for the afterlife, you’d call it I guess. It’s where Fae, and human souls, and other creatures reside. A mortal soul can stay there for as long as it wants after death, but if it ever wants to ascend, it has to go back again, and again, and again until…”

“How long did you live?” I was still staring at the expanse before me, awestruck. “How long did it take you to ascend?”

“Ten thousand years,” She sighed. “It was…a pretty short ascension really. I wasn’t from Earth, obviously, my soul bounced around a lot, it wasn’t really bound. Angela ascended faster, she…had a knack for attuning souls. She was able to attune her own, and triggered her own ascension. It’s very rare, that’s why she was able to attune yours, even if she only meant it to be temporary.”

“Meredith…I have to know,” I turned to her. “You guys said…something about me being able to pick a side or…something like…I don’t have to be dark or light? What does that mean?”

“It just means one day you’ll be truly free,” She told me. “Free of this light and dark bullshit, free of the politics. You can live your own life, whatever that means. They’re going to want you, though. You have to understand. They’ll want you bad. Because, Jasmine, whether you want to, or plan to, or not, you have the ability to change the natural order. The multiverse is kept in balance by light and dark, but you’re an anomaly. I don’t know how it happened, I’ve never seen it before. Maybe you were born like this, maybe Angela made you this way on accident, I don’t know. It’s really hard to say. Fact is, I don’t think you want to do anything. I think you want to stay with Angela, be her daughter, and be coddled for all eternity and you know what? I think she’d let you. I think she’d even be happy. But you know what? I think it’s only a matter of time before someone notices you exist, they figure out what you are, and, well, let me tell you this: you can’t kill a soul. If you die in your soul form, in Etherol, you’re just wiped clean. Memories gone, you name it. That’s as close as a soul gets to death. Even if you were wiped clean your soul would STILL be unaligned, so what they would do, is keep you locked up somewhere. Probably in a box. Darkness, forever, and we wouldn’t be able to save you. Jasmine, I’m only a sadist to people who deserve it and I can tell you right now, you don’t. You’re going to have to start listening, because things are only going to get worse.”

“I think I should run the obstacle course again,” I suggested.

“I have something better than that.”

“First and foremost,” Angela said, standing maybe three feet from me. “You’re going to learn to string this bow. Notice how the arms are curved, you see?”

I nodded. For the first time I was really getting a look at my bow. It was made from a sleep black wood, very simple, but also a bit heavier than I’d expected. I couldn’t help but feel a little bit of contempt looking at it, as Meredith had forced me to run the obstacle course over and over again while holding it. Still, it was something Angela wanted me to have, and that was enough to make me love it.

“So what you’re going to do is take the string and nock it, here at this end. Then I want you to put the arm against the flood and press down on it with your foot. Don’t worry, you’re not going to break it. Once it beds, you can string the other end. Very easy, try it.”

I took the bow from her hands and pressed it against the floor like she showed me, but my first attempt resulted in the blow recoiling and literally smacking me in the face. I expected her and Meredith to laugh, but neither of them made a sound other than to give me tips for doing it better. With their help, I eventually managed to get the bow strung, and once done, it was much more recognizable as a weapon. I couldn’t help staring at it, there was something so…majestic about it, really.

“Stop eye fucking it and come over here,” Angela put an arm around me and guided me over to what could only be described as a makeshift archery range. Meredith had explained to me that she had several of these bunkers, all underground, and each one serving a different purpose. This one, I guess, was an archery range. According to Angela she had one in Alabama dedicated to her DVD collection. “Here, take the bow, use your left hand to hold the grip and lift it up, like this, put that at your eye level.”

She manipulated my arms, lecturing me that my draw hand needed to be higher than my aiming arm. Rather than firing an arrow, she made me stop, release, and reassume the position until she was certain I’d gotten it right.

“You have to bring it up faster than that,” Meredith said from the sidelines. “You can’t fumble around with it. It needs to be up, have an arrow in it, and be aimed within two seconds.”

“Two seconds?” My jaw dropped. “That’s not even possible!”

“Not possible for a mortal,” Angela confirmed. “But you ran her obstacle course for a week and didn’t get tired. We’re stronger, we’re faster, we’re more skilled. However…so are our enemies.”

“You know what I want to know?” I said, thinking out loud. “If Fae are supposed to be some kind of guardians, what the fuck kind of natural order dictated that they should have enemies that are stronger than them?”

“Fae weren’t always the guardians, it’s passed many times over the millennia,” Meredith explained to me. “There was a time when we were the vanguard of the Greek Pantheon. When they died out, people turned to us. There are many out there who truly think the time of the Fae should come to an end. They think they can do better.”

“What do you think?” I regarded her curiously. I didn’t want to be argumentative, I really wanted to know.

“I think I’m tired,” Meredith replied. “Notch an arrow, get it aimed, now.”

I grabbed an arrow from the quiver in Angela’s hand and notched it onto the string, but the moment I tried to bring the bow up, I slipped and watched the arrow clatter against the concrete floor.

“Another,” Angela held the quiver out toward me. I tried again, this time at least managing to keep the arrow on the string and resting on my hand. “Pull back, don’t let it go, just hold it.”

I did my best to keep my fingers wrapped around the end of the arrow but it wasn’t long before they began to shake.

“You’re a Fae, Jasmine,” Angela lectured me as I stood there, my arm beginning to quiver, a bead of sweat rolling from my hairline. “Your body doesn’t give out that easily. Stop thinking you’re a mortal human.”

I tried, I really tried, but it was hard, it was like my body wanted me to stop even though my mind knew I was tougher than that.

“Hey,” Meredith interrupted us. “There’s someone at the door, at the house.”

“How do you know that?” I asked, turning my head to look at her. As I did, my finger slipped, loosing the arrow and sending it barreling down the range. It missed the wooden target setup completely and smashed against the brick wall. Both Meredith and Angela glanced downrange momentarily, and then continued as if nothing had happened.

“Let’s get back,” Angela said. “I think our little girl here has had enough for the day.”

“You mean little princess,” Meredith corrected. “That’s what she acts like.”

Angela took my hand and guided me to the mirror as if she just didn’t trust me to walk on my own. I’d noticed that…a lot. They were always guiding me or walking with me; I’d barely had any time alone, and honestly, we didn’t sleep much, so there was no good reason to sequester myself in a bedroom. Come to think of it, I didn’t even have a bedroom. Holding my hand, Angela pressed it to the mirror, and like magic, as always, the bunker faded away, replaced by the white walls of Angela’s two story home.

“Alright, let’s see whose at the door,” Angela said in a kind of sing-songy voice as she made her way from the living room toward the foyer.

“How did you guys know anyone was at the door?” I repeated.

“It’s our house, Jasmine,” Meredith told me. She didn’t bother to explain any further.

I stood behind them as Meredith threw the door open, and the moment I saw who was standing there on our porch I almost collapsed.

“Annabelle!” Meredith said. “Welcome! What brings you to our home?”

“Grave news I’m afraid,” Annabelle said, stepping past Meredith and standing before us. I stepped backward a bit, pressing myself against Angela’s back. “But before we get to that…Jasmine, step out here please.”

I didn’t want to. I think I would crawled up Angela’s butt at that point if she hadn’t stepped out of the way and pushed me forward to the center of the foyer. I instinctively dropped do my knees and downcast my eyes. I hadn’t been ordered to, and after Meredith’s relentless sessions, I wasn’t even sure that an order would work on me, at least not like that.

“Jasmine, darling, do you know what the Contract of Eaves was for? It was conceived in the city of Eaves, you probably haven’t heard of it, it’s a massive city, south of the Antarctic barrier. It was designed to prevent human slaves from being snatched away by rival companies or organizations. Fae laws are…convoluted. You see dear, while the contract protects you, Fae law allows that slaves may be punished by any free person, so no matter what the contract says, I can slap you, or kick you, or do, well, anything as long as I don’t kill you or permanently disable you. Now you understand, that doesn’t go for just me, that goes for any free that comes into contact with you. It’s a nasty side effect but it keeps you here, with your mother, and Meredith in the long term. As for why I hit you? Broderick is old school, he would expect it. If I hadn’t struck you, he would have, and he wouldn’t have held back the way I did. So please, for the love of the gods, stand up.”

Was I really hearing that right? I slowly lifted my head, meeting her gaze, she was staring at me expectantly.

“Jasmine, I appreciate the respect you’re showing me, I really do, but I need you to get up now. We don’t have time for this.”

Angela’s hand appeared next to me. I took it and allowed her to pull me to my feet. I still instinctively kept my eyes pointed toward the floor.

“Ladies, we are facing a problem,” Annabelle told us. “And the Seelie court adjunct, would like for us to take care of it.”

“Us specifically?” Meredith raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“Well it would seem,” She said. “That Eustace has gone missing, and we have very few leads to go on. Shall we get started?”

“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.”

“Pay attention,” Meredith tapped the old dusty book in front of me with her switch. She hadn’t used it on me lately but she really loved using it as an implement. “Without referring to the book, tell me the name of the Seelie court, in old Fae.”

“’Allo,” I responded, hoping I wasn’t messing it up.

“And the inner sanctum?”

“Alloquandirm,” I said a little uncertainty. The look on her face told me I was wrong.

“Alloquandirum,” She corrected me. “You’ve gotta get that ‘u’ in there.”

“Sorry,” I shrugged. “It’s a lot to learn and-“

“We’re just covering the basics,” She lectured me. “These are things that you NEED to know. The Seelie court is ruled by nineteen elected individuals, tell me who they are?”

“The Hish’Virt,” I said, starting to feel exhausted. We’d been over this a million times, maybe a million and one.

“Great, you’re paying attention,” She passed around the table, walking behind me. For the last month we’d done nothing but cover Fae history and politics, information I was sure I’d never even use. During this exercise she’d done away with the training bunkers and went for more of a library setting, the walls were lined with wooden bookshelves, all containing massive tomes, some accessible only by long ladders affixed to rolling tracks. The room was dead silent other than Meredith’s instruction; I couldn’t even hear air circulating. Meredith herself looked like a goddess, a picture of perfection, or maybe I’d just been in here way too long. Her shoulder length black hair was accented with a slight curl at the bottom, and she was dressed in a tight gray turtleneck. It was a serious deviation from her normal attire, she usually favored low cut tops, but today it was a turtleneck and jeans. I couldn’t tell you if she was really this attractive or if I was just losing my mind.

“Tell me what stops the Hish’Virt from killing each other over minor disagreements,” She instructed. “And stop ogling me, you’re like twelve.”

I blushed a bit and looked down.

“The answer, please,” She instructed again, pacing back and forth in front of the table.

“Because they’re not Unseelie, right Mr. Giggles?” I turned and looked to the cat that Anabelle had left behind for me. Mr. Giggles mewed and I scratched behind his ears.

“Funny,” She shook her head. “The Ritual of the Weeping Sage – they all undergo it, blood magic that means killing one is to kill yourself.”

“When is mom coming back?”

“I talked to her last month, she’s doing fine. She’ll be back as soon as she can.”

“Why doesn’t she talk to me when she calls?”

“Close the book,” Meredith tapped the table. “We’re taking a break.”

I sighed with relief; we’d been training hard. A lot of the time had been spent in this library, even more of it in Meredith’s training room learning to shoot, run, fight hand to hand, and she’d even shown me how to use her favored weapon: the dagger. I trained, Mr. Giggles watched, that’s just the way it had been, and I still had no idea how long mom had been gone. I felt pretty good about myself, but I didn’t know how well I’d do in an actual fight. I stood up from the table and straightened my skirt out, then waited for Meredith to make a move, which she did. I scooped Mr. Giggles up in my arms and we walked toward the massive mirror at the back of the library and she took us home. We materialized in the living room just in time to hear a knock at the door.

“Wonder who that could be,” Meredith said in a really upbeat tone of voice. I wandered off toward the kitchen. In another life I would have found the contents of our refrigerator to be nothing short of disturbing. Lemon juice, apple juice, orange juice, lettuce, various fruits and vegetables, hummus, and not a single bit of meat in sight. I thought I would have missed meat more but I hadn’t even asked Meredith or Angela why we didn’t eat it. They had simply told me we were vegetarians and I took at it at face value. I mean, what was there to ask? The cravings for lemon juice were unreal though.

“Jasmine could you come here for a minute?” Meredith called out from the living room. I glanced at Mr. Giggles, sitting patiently on the kitchen island.

“I guess the lemon juice will have to wait,” I smiled to Mr. Giggles, rubbing him from head to tail as I made my way around the island and sort of skipped across the threshold, into the living room. As soon as I passed through, my jaw dropped. I was starting at a face I never thought I’d see again: my sister, Meghan. She looked older now, much older than me, her physical age was probably about the seventeen, her complexion extremely pale, and her brown hair pulled back into a pony tail. This was a weird moment for me; she’d always been younger and she’d always looked up to me. Now the tables seemed to be turned.

“You must be Jasmine,” Meghan smiled as she crossed the living room and embraced me. “I missed you so much little sister.”

“What happened after I left?” I started asking her questions a million miles a minute. “Were mom and dad worried? What happened to them? What happened to you?”

“Shh,” She put a hand in the air, silencing me. “Over to the couch, we’re not going to do this standing in the middle of the living room.”

I kind of stood there in stunned silence at the moment, so Meredith literally pushed me over toward the couch until I sat down. I heard Meghan chuckle a little at how disoriented I was.

“Is she always like this?” Meghan laughed.

“Unfortunately,” Meredith shook her head as Meghan sat down beside me.

“So, a Fae,” Meghan grinned at me. “You climbed the social ladder awful fast. Angela told me it wasn’t intentional though…”

“Yeah,” I said, pursing my lips a bit. “It was um…it was a thing.”

“I heard all about it,” She nodded. “It was kind of rough but you did have a thing for being dominated, and she didn’t do it on purpose. You asked like every girl you met to do it for you so…”

“I didn’t ask EVERY girl,” I protested. “There were some-“

“You asked me,” She rolled her eyes. “Case closed.”

“Wow that’s awkward,” Meredith interjected as I dropped my head and stared at the floor in shame; I felt the redness spread across my face.

“After you left, mom and dad filed a missing person’s report but you were eighteen so there wasn’t really an extensive search. I kind of…didn’t do well. I missed you, a lot. Didn’t know you were right down the road. I went into this really rebellious stage, I started dating all kinds of guys, mom and dad hated it. Put in therapy, hah, as if that would work. When I was seventeen I met this guy that they REALLY didn’t like, and um, well, it turns out he was a little different.”

“Different how?” I said jokingly. “Did he drive a moped?”

“They thought he was a little too wild…which is weird because he always had perfect manners. So um, here’s the thing. You’ve probably noticed there’s something a little bit different about me, and it’s uh…okay, when you look at me, what do you see?”

I stared at her for a good minute, other than the pale complexion and her being a little older, I couldn’t really see much of a difference.

“I don’t know…” I said, trailing off and shaking my head.

“We covered this,” Meredith interrupted. “The book of Magnus Rho, page 767. Look at her. Pale complexion, deep blue eyes, red lips. Come on Jasmine, you can do this.”

I frowned and stared at her. No, it couldn’t be.

“V…vampire?” I felt like a fool for saying it out loud.

“Yes, little sister, vampire,” She confirmed. “My boyfriend, at the time, turned me. He didn’t want to do it, I begged him to turn me just to get me away from mom and dad, so he did. And so here we are. You live forever, and now so do I.”

“I don’t understand…” I said, frowning. “You…I…how?”

“Sis,” She said, taking both of my hands. “The supernatural world is huge, it’s more likely for a mortal to become entangled with it than it is for them to spend their entire lives in the dark. But enough about me, look at you, a Fae! That is…so amazing, I can’t even put it into words. My kind looks up to your kind, you’re like gods, you understand that, right? And you know what? You’re gorgeous, you look SO happy as a girl. God I can’t wait to take you shopping and do your makeup.”

“Someone has to,” Meredith snorted. “With Angela gone she’s been an absolute wreck.”

“So, do you…eat people?” I asked what was probably the weirdest question that I could come up with, but just as she was about to answer, we were interrupted by a bang, a huge bang right at the front door. The three of us turned and stared, mouths agape as the front door tore from its hinges and clattered across the tile foyer. Through the open door, a huge beast of a man stepped through with glowing yellow eyes and a sword large enough to match his size. There was a moment of silence before Meredith finally spoke.

“RUN!”

Meghan grabbed the collar of my dress and literally lifted me from the couch, dragging me across the living room and down the hall like a rag doll. Just as we reached the entrance to the hall, the house shook, an impact that rippled through the floor, knocking Meghan off of her feet and sending me sprawling back toward the couch. My head hurt. I could see a pool of red seeping onto the tile around me. It would heal, but god damn it hurt. Through my blurred vision I saw Meredith standing there, confronting the giant, but she looked different, so very different. Her skin was a deep blue, surrounded in neon green swirls of energy that shot across it like veins. Her eyes glowed green, and from her back, a pair what I could only describe as butterfly wings, flapping rapidly and keeping her suspended a foot off the ground. In her hands, a pair of short blades flashed, reflecting the glow of the spotlights high up in our vaulted ceiling.

“The girl is under the Contract of Eaves,” Meredith’s voice, oscillated and distorted echoed through the house, it shook my bones. The giant responded by swinging his massive sword in her direction, the blade whooshing, as if it were tearing the very air it came into contact with. Meredith shot backward, catching the sword between her two blades and landing a kick between the Giant’s ribs, sending him skidding backward into the stairs. I cringed as the bannister splintered and his mass crushed the wall beyond.

“Come on!” Meghan grabbed my arm and peeled me off of the tile, I cried out as the pain in my head surged. Meredith shot across the room, her feet never touching the ground and buried her dagger into the giant’s shoulder, it screamed, a bellow that was on par with a train whistle, I clapped my hands over my ears as Meghan turned me away and rushed me down the hall. She was fast, she was really, really fast. My stomach lurched as she shot from the front of the hall all the way to the back, taking a left turn as if she were an Indy car driver. I heard Meredith scream, and then the giant screamed. I heard another crash. I felt the house shake. Meghan slipped and slid across the tile floor, dropping me once again and landing us in the second hallway, nearest the outside of the house.

I could hear it coming after us, crushing the hallway walls that we’d just run through. I could hear the singing of Meredith’s blades, I could sense my sister’s fear. What was going on? Why was this happening to us?

“Meghan!” I said drowsily. “I need my bow…I need…”

“No, we have to get out of here!” She said insistently. “Where is it?”

“Living room,” I said. “It’s on…it’s on the other couch.”

“You keep your most important weapon on the living room couch?” She demanded as she took a turn at the end of the hallway, darting past what was once the front door and back toward the living room. Behind us, a flash of green light surged. I looked back just in time to see the giant reappear, a blast of green fire splashing against his back. He turned to face Meredith who screeched and lunged at him once again, her daggers slashing at the speed of light.

“Put me down!” I shouted as we reached the living room. As soon as my feet were on the floor I snatched the bow and quiver from the couch. “Get Mr. Giggles, he’s over there!”

I sped past her, notching a bow onto the string and flinging myself around the corner, just in time to loose an arrow at the giant. It struck him in the arm, he howled and turned his full attention toward me.

“Jasmine don’t!” Meredith screamed from behind him as she raced behind him and lunged again. “Get back! Get out of the house!”

“Come on!” I shouted. “We need to get to the mirror! Let’s get out of here!”

“Jasmine,” Meghan said, much more calmly than she should have. “I can’t use the mirror.”

“What?!” I exclaimed as I turned toward her.

“I’m a vampire,” She said. “I can’t use the mirror.”

I cursed and fired another arrow, this time hitting the giant in the leg. It didn’t even slow down. My eyes widening, I lowered the bow and ran back toward the living room.

“The front door Jasmine!” Meredith screamed. “Get out of the house!”

“I’m not going without you!” I shouted back as I took cover behind the couch. The giant swung its sword again, this time tearing through one of the beams that supported the ‘sitting room’, which was another open space that Angela and Meredith would have used to host parties, if they’d had any friends they wanted to invite over. As the beam broke, the ceiling began to sag and a barrage of splinters exploded outward toward the living room. I ducked as they impacted with the couch and clattered against the wall beside me. The giant howled again as Meredith tried to get in front of it, between me and him.

“Get…out…of…the…house!” She shrieked. “I can handle myself!”

“I can’t leave without you!” I sobbed. “Let me help you!”

From the corner of my eye I saw Megan rushing toward me, this time scooping me up under one arm. I couldn’t move, I was completely pinned.

“Get her out!” Meredith ordered. As she screamed, distracted for one second, the giant’s sword slammed against her flesh, cutting her from shoulder to naval. She howled as green blood exploded from the open wound. I think I was screaming. I don’t know, I remembered trying to claw my way out of Meghan’s grasp, I remembered pounding against her arm. I remembered the tears and rage flooding my vision. My hair matted and wrapped around my head. Meredith lunged again, this time digging her twin daggers into the giant’s neck and jerking outward, tearing through it’s throat and shrieking as a torrent of blood splattered against her face. The giant fell. It slammed against the floor, collapsing into a pile of flesh and blood. Meghan had stopped short, setting me on the ground momentarily. I saw Meredith trying to regain her composure, but the blood was spewing from her chest, trickling down her leg and pooling on the floor at her feet. I watched in horror as her wings ceased to beat and she collapsed onto the floor, using her hand to support her weight. Breathing heavily, she looked up at me, the silence between us spoke volumes.

“Meredith?” I whimpered. “Meredith?”

“It’s okay, Jasmine,” She said, trying to force a smile. “Go into town, there’s a….there’s a pub, called Howell’s. I want you…you go in there, and you tell the owner, Mr. Craven that you’re the daughter of Angeline. Tell him what happened.”

“Meredith?!” I rushed toward her, my arms outstretched, but it was too late. With a brief, less than spectacular flash, her body ignited and turned to ash. All that was left of her, Meredith, the beautiful woman who had protected me for so long, crumbled onto the floor. I screamed, at least I think I screamed. My mouth opened, I made the effort, but the sound didn’t reach my ears. I threw myself onto the floor, tearing through the ashes as my tears flowed, intermixing with them. This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening. She wasn’t dead. She hadn’t just died for me. No, no no, this wasn’t real. This wasn’t fucking real. Meghan’s fingers were wrapping around my arms, yanking me from the floor as I curled my fists and shook them at non-existent enemies.

“There are more coming,” She warned me. “Come on!”

I was numb as she took me to the mirror, I was despondent as she slung the bow over my back and shoved Mr. Giggles into my arms.

“I love you, little sister,” She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek before she threw me at the mirror.

My vision swam and my emotions raged as I was flung from the mirror and my body slammed against an old wooden floor, glass and debris bouncing, dust scattering after years of dormancy. I gasped for air and reached my hand upward toward the massive full-length framed mirror from which I had just been ejected. I scampered to my feet, rushed back toward the mirror, barely managing to keep myself standing. My arm outstretched I ran to it, slamming my hand against the glass. It shattered. The shards fell from the frame and turned to dust as they collided with the floor. Meredith had told me once that mirrors have a finite lifespan. Used too much, they grow thin and easily break. How many times had this mirror been used? Meredith was dead.

Meredith was dead.

Meredith.

I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, but I could still hear her words echoing from our training. Don’t scream, she had told me. Don’t let anyone know where you are, no matter how bad it hurts. No matter what you’ve lost, it’s nothing compared to what you still have to lose. Don’t scream. Don’t scream.

Slowly turning around I surveyed the room I was in; it was an attic, and old attic, the beams were solid, but aged. In front of me, at the other end I could see an octagonal window, broken, moonlight rays spreading softly across the floor and glinting softly off of the broken glass. I stepped forward, my flats crunching against the glass, the floorboards announcing my presence with a creak; the death rattle of a house long abandoned by the ages. Beside me I heard the sound of paws against the floor. I glanced down, Mr. Giggles was standing beside me, quietly. I immediately scooped him up into my arms. He was here, the last remnant of my broken former life, all smashed to pieces mere minutes ago by an intruder wielding a supernatural strength. No, no that wasn’t all. I looked down to the floor again, my bow. The bow Angela had won for me. It lay there along side its quiver.

“Don’t drop that bow,” Meredith had told me. “Don’t you dare drop that bow, keep it in your hand.”

Keep it in my hand. Keep it in my hand. Mr. Giggles climbed from my arm and onto my shoulder as I bent down and took the bow and quiver into my hand, slinging it onto my back.

“We’re alive, Mr. Giggles,” I said, trying my best to sound confident as I walked to the door, exiting the attic. “As long as we’re alive we’re hope. It’s what mommy always told me.”

Mr. Giggles mewed in response. I petted his head as I creaked down the stairs, emerging into the foyer of a destroyed home. The floor had been torn up in many places, pictures that once hung on the wall were broken in half and laying on the decaying wood planks.

“We have to find a mirror, Mr. Giggles,” I said quietly, still choking back tears. Had I really seen Meredith die? Was she dead for real? She hadn’t been in her human form, she’d taken the form of a Fae. Her true form. If she’d died in her true form, she was really dead. Her soul reset, all of her memories gone. Meredith gone. For me. Why for me? Why was I so special? I wasn’t special. She’d died for nothing.

“I don’t suppose you know where we could find a mirror, Mr. Giggles?” I asked him. He immediately jumped from my shoulder, the pads of his paws thudding against the floor as he moved silently through the foyer and looked from left to right. I followed him quietly, taking a right turn into what must have once been a living room. A rotting, overturned couch lay in the center of the room, an endtable with a broken leg. A huge stone fireplace, inert for decades. I ran my fingers across the cold stone as I made my way through the space, careful where I put my feet. This place, though dead, had once been alive. People, families had once inhabited this space. I could almost hear their laughter through the ages as they sat around a warm fire, not knowing that one day their lives, as they knew it would come to an end. Their family, like the one I had found, the one that I had longed for all my life, had been terminated, and here I was on my own. How strange was that? You spend your entire life in the shadow of someone else. Someone who teaches you, who guides you, you are them, and they are you, and one day, just like that, you’re on your own.

Mr. Giggles mewed again, I turned to him and found what I was looking for, a mirror overturned, facedown on the floor. I stepped forward and lifted it up, laying it against the wall and blowing years of dust from its surface.

“Where are we going, Mr. Giggles?” I asked, as if he could answer me. “Meredith, she said there was a pub called Howell’s downtown. I don’t know a Howell’s. I was never old enough to drink back then. I guess I may never be old enough. Well, if it’s a pub, then it’s probably in Depot Town, the historic district. So we could start by going there but…”

Mr. Giggles mewed and scratched the floor. He was right, where would I find a mirror in Depot Town? Meredith had shown me how to use the mirrors, she’d shown me that all you had to do was imagine the place you wanted to go, but it only worked over short distances. You had to know where you wanted to go, and I was having trouble remembering where a mirror would – oh yes, that was right.

“There’s this place,” I said to Mr. Giggles. “It’s called um…’Go Ice Cream’. It’s super close to Depot Town and they have a mirror in their dining room. I can…we can go there. Come on, Mr. Giggles.”

Mr. Giggles obediently hopped up onto my shoulder and I placed my hand against the mirror. I concentrated, trying to remember the layout of the dining room at Go Ice Cream. Right, it was a rectangular room, plate glass windows at the front overlooking a street. Picnic tables inside, and…a mirror, near the front of the room. I closed my eyes and allowed the mirror to take over. Just like always, the room changed around me and when I opened my eyes I was standing in the dining room. It was still open, fluorescent lights shone brightly above, and just as I remembered, the dining room was empty. I pressed forward, one foot in front of the other against a thinly carpeted floor. Yeah, it was time to get out of here, Depot Town was a few streets over and I could –

“Hello!” A voice said. I turned rapidly and saw a girl standing in the doorway to the dining room dressed in a pair of black pants and a white button-up top. The standard uniform of Go Ice Cream. Was it a girl? I squinted harder, the face had masculine features but the hair was…it was a trans woman. A trans woman like me, but human. She hadn’t had the same opportunities I’d been given but she looked good, very, very convincing. I smiled. “Are you okay? You look a little beat up.”

I smiled and nodded. “I’m okay!”

“Mmm I don’t think so,” She said, stepping closer to me and examining my face. “You look like you got hit by a truck.”

I knew that any bruises would fade within the hour, she would probably find that a little weird.

“I’m okay,” I reassured her. “Hey, do you know a place called Howell’s? It’s supposed to be around here?”

“Aren’t you a little young to be going to pubs?” The girl raised an eyebrow. I would have smirked, probably, if I’d been in a joking mood.

“I’m looking for someone,” I explained. “I need…I have to find them, like now.”

“Why is there a bow on your back?” She frowned. “And you have a cat.”

“It’s uh…a cosplay,” I stuttered. “My…friend is taking me to a convention.”

“Are the bruises part of the cosplay?” She asked, stepping forward a bit to take a look at my face.

“Maybe,” I said, smiling a bit. “My name is Jasmine, what’s yours?”

“Jasmine? That’s a really pretty name. My name is Ashleigh.”

“Nice to meet you, Ashleigh,” I said. “So do you know where-“

“You know what you need?” She said, grinning again. “You need ice cream.”

“I don’t know if I have time-“ I started to protest, only to have her interrupt me.

“Come on honey,” She laughed. “You look terrible, and everyone loves ice cream.”

“I guess you’re right,” I relented. “I do like ice cream.”

I hadn’t had ice cream in years. Meredith was dead. I was eating ice cream. Meredith was dead and I was eating ice cream.

“Stay right there, please,” She told me. “I’m going to go get you some ice cream.”

“Okay,” I nodded. As she left the room I sat down on one of the benches. Mr. Giggles looked up at me expectantly. “I don’t know what we’re doing here, Mr. Giggles.”

Sitting down was a bad idea, I had too much time to think. Too much time to think about the past, how much I missed mom, how much I missed Meredith. I recalled that first day, more than a decade ago so perfectly. How I’d begged her to dominate me. How I’d known it was wrong, but I pressed on anyway. If I hadn’t pressed on would she have still done it to me? I don’t know. All I knew though, was that in the entirety of those eleven years spent cleaning, scrubbing, and dusting, I never once hated her. Not once. Ashleigh came back with the ice cream, a single cone. I forced a smile as she handed it to me. I stood.

“I should really take this to go,” I explained. “Thank you so much, I…I think I needed it.”

“Of course sweetie,” She said to me. “Hey, if you need anything, come back here, okay?”

“I will,” I nodded. I felt her eyes on me as I walked from the dining room and toward the street, Mr. Giggles following close behind. A rush of warm air cleansed me as I crossed the threshold and pressed on to the sidewalk. The occasional rush of a passing car, the kaleidoscope of streetlights overhead, all punctuated by the diverse crowds of people crossing the streets, making their way down the sidewalks, or stopping to admire store displays. How long had it been since I’d been on the streets of Ypsilanti? Too long. It hadn’t changed much in eleven years, but it never did, and that was the beauty of it. I smiled a bit as I took Mr. Giggles into my arms and rushed across the street, darting into an alleyway. A few hundred yards and I’d be in depot town. From there, finding this pub would be easy.

As I pressed on through the alley I began to feel incredibly uneasy. I licked the ice cream cone and then looked ahead. On either side of me, a sleek brick wall, one sporting a deeply inset window, framed with a peeling green windowsill. Beneath my feet gravel crunched and I was acutely aware of the street behind me, disappearing with every single step. I needed to get out of here, I could just walk on the sidewalk without taking this stupid shortcut. I turned to leave and gasped as a shape stepped out in front of me. A man in a dark overcoat. I began to scream, but I was instantly muffled as a hood was shoved unceremoniously over my head and my hands were restrained behind my back.

“No, no, no!” I screamed, but my cries fell on deaf ears as I was forced further down the alley. I began to kick as one of them tried to push me, and then, all of a sudden, I felt a strike against the back of my head, just before I lost control of my senses and fell into a downward spiral, losing my grip on consciousness and succumbing to my fate, whatever it would be.

“Hello?” I called out, swiveling my head in the darkness. The hood pressed against my face, my breaths were labored. “Where am I?”

I tried to stand but my hands and arms were secured to the back of the chair I was sat in by some kind of straps, or cuffs. In all honesty, I wanted to die. Meredith was dead, Meghan was dead for all I knew, and I had no idea where mom was. I was alone, so alone. The hole in my heart was growing every second, the weight in my chest dragging the rest of my body downward. I didn’t know that I could experience a sadness like this. It was debilitating, it was draining, it was hemorrhaging the very life from what remained of my tattered soul. All at once the hood was yanked from my head and a dull yellow light assailed my senses. A strand of my black hair caught in my eyelid as I squinted, trying to see who was in the room with me.

“And just what the fuck is this?” Broderick’s voice, I would recognize it anywhere, even having only met him the one time. He was standing in front of me. Behind him, a tall blonde woman with a slender build, thin lips, and a pale complexion, though not nearly as pale as Meghan’s. Her hair was wavy. “This is exactly why your mother put you under contract, so you wouldn’t go wandering off and putting yourself and everyone else in danger. Now what do you have to say for yourself?”

“Fuck you!” I literally leaned forward as far as I could, spitting on the ground in front of Broderick’s boots. “FUCK YOU!”

“Oh that was a mistake,” Broderick stepped forward and reared his hand back, striking me across the face. The chair must have been bolted to the ground; it didn’t move, but I did. I felt the pain on my cheek, it was like I’d been struck with a car. I didn’t care. “Now do you want to try again?”

“Why don’t you go stuck your thumb up your ass and spin like a top,” I growled at him, an expression of pure hatred of my face. I wanted him to hit me. I wanted him to kill me. I wanted to be dead, right now. “Go ahead and hit a child, you fucking coward!”

“Oh believe me, I will,” Broderick reassured me. “Just as soon as I get Meredith on the phone so she can come down here and collect you. Going to have her put a shorter leash on you. Mellie, be a dear and phone Meredith.”

Behind him, I saw the tall blonde woman take a phone from her pocket and begin to place a call. If only it would go through.

“Kill me,” I hissed at Broderick. He turned and looked at me, a frown on his face. “Just kill me you coward. If you can hit a kid you can kill her, now just KILL me!”

“The call isn’t going through,” Mellie informed him. Broderick turned from me and looked back at her.

“Try again,” He insisted, looking back to me, then to her again. A moment later she shook her head and put the phone down.

“Kill me,” I said again, although this time it was more of a plea. “Just do it, Broderick, do something. You have to know how, KILL ME!”

“I think we need to untie her,” Mellie said, her voice was a mixture of confusion and worry.

“If you take a swing at me, I’ll knock you across the room,” Broderick warned me as he walked behind the chair and unbuckled the straps that had been holding my arms in place. As soon as my arms were free I rose from the chair, turned, and charged him. I thought for sure he was going to hit me, I wanted him to. I wanted him to hit me hard enough to knock me out just so I wouldn’t have to feel all the things that I was feeling. He didn’t hit me, instead, Mellie grabbed my arms from behind and pulled me across the room toward a metal desk that was sat at the front corner, beside the door. For the first time I noticed that the room was a sort of office. Mellie set me down on the desk and pushed me over, easily until my head was resting on the wooden surface and my legs were curled up beneath me. She pinned my arms into place in front of me and used the rest of her body weight to press me against the desk.

“Stop,” She said softly, but firmly, her eyes fixed on mine. “I know Meredith has been training you, I know she taught you better than this. Speak your words, what’s happened?”

At the mention of Meredith’s name I burst into tears. I turned my head and tried to bury my face in the surface of the desk; my eyes closed, my lips quivering.

“I’m going to tell Craven to get people out to Angeline’s house,” Broderick said finally, walking toward the door. Before he could leave, it opened, and another unfamiliar voice spoke.

“Broderick,” A male voice said. “There’s a vampire girl here, she says she’s here to see the girl, your prisoner.”

“Vampire girl? The sister?” Broderick growled. “Sister or not I don’t want a vampire in this establishment and NOT down here.”

“Broderick for the love of god,” Mellie said. “She can probably clear this up, whatever it is.”

“Gods,” Broderick groaned. “Send her down. Check her for weapons first.”

“Surely you can handle one little girl,” Mellie mocked.

“We didn’t fight a two-thousand-year war with them just to let our guard down. Two thousand years on EARTH mind you.”

I heard footsteps outside the door, shuffling, and then, from the corner of my eye I saw Meghan burst into the room.

“Where is she?” Meghan demanded. “What have you done with her?”

“Meghan?” I said weakly, sniffling a little. Mellie removed her hands from me as Meghan took her place at my side.

“My god, are you okay?” She asked, looking over my body as if she were trying to find bruises. I guess she forgot that Fae heal super fast. My body wasn’t broken, just me.

“What happened?” Broderick said loudly. “Someone had better start talking!”

“Meredith is dead,” Meghan said, turning around to face Broderick. “The house was attacked by a Zuh’Gath.”

“A drone?” Broderick’s face turned pale and he began to regard me very differently. “And Meredith? You know how Fae souls work, she’ll be fine.”

“Meredith was not in her human form when she was struck down,” Meghan said it slowly, making sure that Broderick soaked up every single word. I watched his expression change from one of annoyed apathy to one of horror.

“No,” He said, shaking his head, looking to me. I saw Mellie place a hand against her mouth, her eyes wide. “No, that can’t be. She wouldn’t-“

“She was protecting Jasmine. She had to do it. You know she had to do it,” Meghan told him. Protect me from what? What was going on.

“Do you have ANY idea what she did for you?” Broderick demanded, pointing a finger at me in anger. “Do you have ANY clue what kind of sacrifice was made today?”

“She knows,” Megan insisted. “She knows very well.”

“Word from Angeline,” Mellie said, indicating her phone. “Earlier she said they came for her. The Seelie court is after her on a trumped up charge from her escapades in the late 1800’s.”

“Ah yes, the Godhead incident,” Broderick rolled his eyes as Meghan pulled me into a sitting position on the desk. “Young lady, your mother was a problem, to say the least.”

“Wait,” Meghan said, sounding confused. “Wasn’t Angeline ascended in 1958? During the space race?”

“She was indeed,” Broderick nodded. “Funny story that. Your mother is particularly good at soul transformations, so good in fact that she managed to transform her own soul in late 1700’s. We didn’t catch her until far later. Essentially, she ascended to godhood and created the largest criminal underworld the city has ever seen. Not her fault really, she didn’t know what she was, but we found her, put a stop to it, returned her soul to its former condition, she lived two more lives before ascending, the right way.”

“Jesus,” Meghan muttered.

“Imaginary friends have nothing to do with it,” Broderick said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Angeline is an extraordinary woman.”

Broderick suddenly paused his speech and walked to the other side of the room. He returned, holding my bow in his hand. He pushed it toward me, I took it in my hands and stared at it, still whimpering. I couldn’t stop.

“Weapons have names, little girl,” He told me. “You’re not alone, but you are out here, in the world now. No one is going to coddle you. Those days are over. You give that bow a name, you make it a part of you. Stand ready and be prepared to defend your life, and the lives of those around you.”

“I…don’t…know if I can,” I said quietly between sobs.

“Cut that out!” Broderick ordered. “You are a Fae, be the Fae your mother would have wanted you to be, and don’t let the death of Meredith be in vain. Tell me, what is the name of your bow?”

The tears stopped, at least for the moment. Meredith was gone, but my sister was here, mom was out there somewhere. The fight had to continue, and now I was very much a part of it.

“Meredith,” I said, standing from the desk, planting my feet firmly on the floor. “The bow’s name is Meredith.”

“Everyone here has something to lose,” Broderick paced back and forth. We were sitting the basement office, just below Howell’s pub, as I’d come to learn. There were seven of us here. Broderick, Mellie, my sister, and a few other people I hadn’t met yet. I was sitting on the desk, Meghan beside me, her hand in mine. “Everyone here, in this room, save for the vampire, is a member of house Greystem-“

“Wait, what?” I interrupted. “Greystem?”

“Had Meredith taught you nothing?” A short man on the other side of the room demanded. “Vampires have clans, the wolves have their packs, Fae have houses. Basic shit, little girl.”

“Your mother is a member of House Graystem, and by extension, so are you,” Broderick stared directly at me. “She brought you into this house, you’re a part of this house, end of. Your mother never told you that you were a Graystem?”

“I…guess it never came up,” I was so confused.

“Whatever,” The short man said. “We should all introduce ourselves then. My name is Ralthor, they call me Ralph here. You already know Mellie and Broderick. Over here you have Craven, and of course Celina.”

“Don’t forget me,” Another girl about my age spoke up. “My name is Rhea.”

“Ah yes, Rhea,” Ralph chuckled as if he had forgotten. Rhea shot him a nasty glare.

“Wonderful,” Broderick snapped. “Now that we all know eachother, let’s get down to business here. You, Jasmine, believe it or not, this entire thing revolves around you.”

“I think she’d believe that at this point,” My sister spoke up. Broderick glanced at her, the look on his face told me he was angry that she had even dared to speak.

“This whole thing is a cosmic joke,” Ralph growled, shaking his head.

“Agreed,” Mellie nodded, stepping forward to stand beside Broderick. “Jasmine, it’s time you were clued on what’s going on, with you, specifically.”

“I don’t care,” I replied, looking down at the floor. I could feel Meghan turning her head to look at me, I didn’t meet her gaze.

“Now you listen to me,” Broderick snapped, stepping closer to me, glaring down. I could practically feel his breath on my neck. “You’re alive. Your mother is alive. Your…sister…is alive. All of us, we’re still alive. There will be time to mourn the dead later. For right now, you need to fight for the living, and if you keep moping around I’m going to beat you from one side of this room to the other, are we clear?”

“We’re clear,” I said, my voice completely emotionless as I looked up at him. He stared at me for a moment more with a hard expression on his face before turning and rejoining Mellie at the center of the room.

“Allow me to continue,” Mellie said. “We learned three years ago that Eustace was sent on an assignment by the Seelie court adjunct, and during that assignment, he discovered information that could indicate a plot hatched by the highest levels of the court, that plot involves you, Jasmine. You see, you have a neutral soul, as you’ve been told many times, and we’ve tried to keep it under wraps. That’s why you’ve been sequestered at Angela’s house for nearly five years. Well, sixteen really, but we don’t really count the first eleven. Somehow, someone found out who you were, and what you were. Eustace was trying to investigate, he went missing. The Seelie court adjunct sent your mother to investigate his disappearance, though we know the orders were handed down by a member of the Seelie court proper. We feel she walked into a trap. We also feel that whoever gave the order had expected Meredith to go with her, which would have perhaps left you alone in the house. It didn’t work out, and it took three years for them to come up with a proper assault plan. Whoever did it figured out how to make it through the wards we put on the house, the energy barriers, and all of the other precautions we put in place, you understand.”

“Here’s what we do know,” Broderick cut in. “If the entire Seelie court knew what you were, then it wouldn’t have been a drone attacking the house, it would have been officers of the court showing up to take you into custody. That means perhaps only one of the nineteen in the Hish'Virt is aware. That’s good, to a point, it keeps you out of a cell. The bad news, is that it means someone on the council would like to break the Ritual of the Weeping Sage.”

“The Ritual of the Weeping Sage,” Mellie broke in. “Is the blood rite taken by each member of the Hish'Virt. It ensures that one member cannot kill the other without sacrificing their own life. This cannot be undone, but if they managed to get their hands on a neutral soul, and merged that soul with their own, they could theoretically override the blood rite and slaughter the entire council, which has plenty of consequences. We don’t have time to go into all of it, but suffice to say, we don’t want that.”

“The entire balance could be disrupted, absolutely anarchy,” Broderick added. “Imagine if vampires were no longer under the rule of Fae law and were able to hunt freely again? What if the wolf clans no longer cared who they were infecting? The bloodshed would be insurmountable. The world would become a warzone, at least until order was restored, but would it be? It’s too unpredictable. The Hish'Virt must live, and most importantly, you must live, at the behest of your mother.”

“So,” I said, shifting my weight on the table a bit. “We just kill the… Hish'Virt person. Whoever killed Meredith, I want them to die.”

Broderick chuckled a bit, the others in the room did the same, except for Meghan who stared intently at me.

“Girl,” Broderick shook his head. “It took a top member of the Hish'Virt three years to break through the wards that were placed on your mother’s house, can you imagine what they must have guarding the Alloquandirum? No, we bide our time, and most importantly, we get your mother out of Eaves where she’s been holed up.”

“Then I want to go to Eaves,” I said quickly. “I’m ready to go now. Where is it? Another planet?”

“No, Jasmine,” Mellie said. “It’s outside of the Antarctic ice wall, the Earth you know is much larger in reality. An ice barrier surrounds the eastern and western continents, magic makes it appear to be a complete sphere, and outside…countless lands, including the city of Eaves.”

“Before you ask,” Broderick broke in. “No, the world is NOT flat.”

“Then we should go,” I stood up and gripped my bow. “I’m ready to go, now.”

“Sit down, Jasmine,” Mellie instructed. “You’re going nowhere. We can’t risk taking you across the barrier, you could be seen. Oh, and, you need to stop using the mirrors.”

“Yes,” Broderick nodded. “That’s precisely how we found you. Whenever Meredith took you through a mirror, she placed her hand on yours to distort the signal, but when you went through on your own, you lit it up like a Christmas tree. We took an image of the network from earlier, you were there, clear as day, going to that abandoned house, and then to that ice cream shop. From now on, if you need to go somewhere, you walk.”

“We’ve taken measures to make it seem as if you fled Ypsilanti,” Mellie informed me. “Your enemies…the enemies of Greystem, are searching elsewhere. For now, you stay here. We’ll protect Angela’s legacy and the honor of the house, we’re sworn to it.”

“And what the hell am I supposed to do here?” I demanded. “My mother is out there, waiting for me. I need to find her.”

“Your mother would want you to sit still,” Broderick said sternly. “If you need something to do, why not read a book? We have a few in the other room.”

“Absolutely,” Mellie said. “We have the entire ‘Woodcrest’ collection, AND the sequel series.”

“ Okay, first of all,” I growled. “Woodcrest is a terrible series. The only thing that would be worse, is if someone wrote what amounted to a shit post of a story about bondage, posted it online, got drunk, and then somehow extrapolated it into a high fantasy series as a means of dealing with their depression over being unable to beat their body dysphoria and for some reason thrived on the comments like they were snorting cocaine, but in the form of validation. Secondly-“

“That was really specific,” Mellie commented.

“Secondly, I can’t just sit here and do nothing. Do I just sit in this basement?”

“If you want something to do, go to school,” Rhea said, stepping forward.

“Sorry, what? Go to school?”

“There’s a great middle school here, I go to socialize and interact with the community. You can too. You’re going to be stuck in Ypsilanti for a while, you might as well made the best of it.”

“I am NOT going to school,” I protested. “I already graduated high school, I can’t do that again.”

“Actually, I think you’re going to,” Mellie smirked. “Saves us the trouble of keeping tabs on you. Rhea can do a fine job of that.”

“I’ve got nothing else going on,” Rhea shrugged.

“Then it’s settled,” Broderick said. “Welcome back to the real world.”

“Welcome to your new home,” Rhea stepped into the house, backward, her arms dramatically outstretched. “It’s not as big as Angela’s house, but it’s home.”

“We…live here alone? Just us?” I looked around, noting that the place WAS much smaller. It was a single story house with aging wood floors, faded walls, and furniture that looked like it came from a thrift store.

“I live here too,” Mellie said, walking into the house and passing by me and tossing her purse on the couch.

“You’re never even here,” Rhea rolled her eyes, walking into the kitchen which wasn’t even close to an open concept. The house felt so claustrophobic compared to Angela’s; I shuddered inwardly. “You show up for parent-teacher conferences and then you disappear for months at a time.”

“I have things to do,” Mellie shrugged.

“So…we’re here…by ourselves?” I asked nervously.

“Don’t get too excited,” Mellie said, patting me on the back. “You’re under the world’s biggest microscope for the foreseeable future.”

“So um, why do you go to school…exactly?” I asked, stepping forward a bit. “I mean, couldn’t you be older and…do something else?”

“We can’t just change our bodies,” Rhea stared at me as if I should have known that. “We usually start as a teenager and we grow up; the difference between us, and humans, is that we take thousands of years to go from teenager to adult. We usually stop at the equivalent of about thirty years old. I guess it’s a way of putting new Fae in their place.”

“Okay I said, frowning. “But Angela wasn’t that old and she’s-“

“Your mother isn’t normal,” Mellie reminded me. “Remember, she attuned her own soul, she has the ability to change herself in any way she sees fit. She’s an anomaly, like you, but not one that the Seelie council would care about. They care about you because you’re a game changer.”

“Hold on, wait,” said. “They care about me because I’m a neutral soul, but they don’t care that my mother can go around attuning souls on her own?”

“It’s not something she’s abused, until you,” Mellie said. “and it’s not something that’s going to get out. She’s in enough trouble.”

“But they already know I exist,” I said, to no one in particular.

“They know you exist, but they don’t know how. For all we know, only one member of the Seelie council has ANY idea.”

“So, here we are then,” I felt defeated. Meredith was dead, I couldn’t go after mom. I was stuck here, in Ypsilanti.

“Here we are,” Rhea nodded. “Let me show you your room.”

“Are you even…sad about it?” I asked Rhea as I followed her through a brief hallway and into an empty room that had nothing but a mattress, on the floor. “I mean…about Meredith?”

“Of course I am,” She nodded. “Meredith was a good friend…for an Unseelie, but we lose people sometimes. Over the centuries I’ve lost a lot of friends. It happens. Like Broderick said, we’ll have time to grieve later, right now we have to be on guard.”

“I…I don’t know if I can do that,” I admitted. “I just feel so…I can’t explain it…empty I guess…”

“It’s because you’re young,” She said, almost emotionlessly. “Very, very young. You’ll get over it in time. Give it fifty years and she’ll be a distant memory. That’s the funny thing about people really, even with Fae. You get to know people, they become an intrinsic part of your life, they’re there for you at every turn, you trust them, you rely on them, you love them. Then one day, they’re gone. They’re relegated to memories that are vivid at first, and then they fade. Every day you remember them a little less, you mourn them a little less. The hole in your heart is there, always, but it scabs over, and you can go on. A person is a person until their essence is ground down into a few scattered pictures, letters, and the memories you have. Remember this, and remember it well. Souls don’t die, our memories can vanish, we can be killed, but our souls will live on to gain new memories and become part of the universe once again. Natural order, Jasmine.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” I admitted. “One day we’re all just…gone. My mother, my sister…you…me…”

“And Broderick,” She nodded. “And Mellie. Everyone.”

“The afterlife sucks.”

“Yeah,” She nodded slightly. “So, what are you going to do with yours?”

“I think…maybe I want to furnish this room,” I said, looking around. “I need a litter box for Mr. Giggles and-“

“That’s Annabelle’s cat, right?” She asked, glancing toward the door where Mr. Giggles was sitting prominently as if he owned the place. “She trained him to use the toilet.”

“You…can train a cat to use a toilet?” I cocked my head at her. Was that even possible?

“Yeah,” She said dismissively. “You just…put the litter box in a sort of ring inside the toilet and widen it until it’s crapping in the toilet consistently. It’s…um…I think it’s called City Kitty, there’s a kit.”

“That…sounds gross,” I raised an eyebrow.

“No, Jasmine, having a box of poop in your house is disgusting. Having a cat that uses the toilet is civilized.”

“So what do we do now, then?” I asked, looking at the room.

“Well we could watch a movie,” She suggested. “I just picked up this teeny bopper drama called Audrey’s Trial. It finally ties Woodcrest, Allison, and Makayla together, you know, because the author forgot to.”

“Um, wait, everyone knows that Makayla was connected because Aleah took the –“

“Hey guys,” Mellie poked her head in. “Don’t you think Jasmine ought to get registered for school?”

“You know, I think I’ve totally reconsidered the school thing,” I interjected. “I can just-“

“Nope,” Mellie stepped through the doorway, leaning against the frame as she used one hand to brush her golden blonde hair from her face. “We could be here in Ypsi for a long time, and you’re going to go stir crazy if you just sit in this room. There are very VERY few things for a girl your age to do in this town. You can only go to school for a few years, then you have to take a long break. Fifty years or so, and then you can go back for a bit. Still, you’re doing it, because Rhea’s not going to want you moping around the house. Let’s get you registered so I can get out of here.”

“Where are you going this time?” Rhea asked, a bit of sarcasm in her voice.

“I was thinking of heading out to the desert,” She shrugged. “They have this new festival in Arizona that was supposed to be like ‘Burning Man’, but they burn a giant wooden duck instead. Unfortunately, I have to stick around town to watch out for SOMEONE, so I’ll just head down to Sidetrack and have a drink instead.”

“You have to come with us to get her registered, parent or guardian, remember?” Rhea pointed out.

“Oh…right…okay, down to the school….then,” Mellie looked sorely disappointed as she turned and motioned for us to follow.

“Remember, we can’t use the mirrors,” Rhea reminded her.

“It’s always something,” Mellie muttered.

The ride to the school took about five minutes. To be fair, Ypsilanti is maybe ten miles across, and in the center, a water tower that looked like a giant brick penis. I chuckled a bit as I remembered a lady years ago who made Ypsilanti merchandise, like cups, and luggage tags that actually had an artist rendition of the tower and said ‘Homesick for the Brick Dick’. God, I kind of missed being out in the world, and to be honest, Ypsilanti wasn’t all that different than it had been…what had it been now? Thirteen? Fourteen years? I was starting to lose track.

“Out we go,” Mellie said as she stopped the car. “Let’s get this over with, I need my wine.”

As we stepped out of the car, I noticed that she was holding a thick manilla envelope; probably all of my identification papers. I couldn’t imagine that they wouldn’t have prepared for this.

The school was pretty much like any other, with ‘Ypsilanti Middle School’ written proudly across the front in blue block letters. The building itself was a mixture of brick and rectangular window frames comprising the entire front façade.

“Ugh, I remember middle school,” I sighed. “I hated it, it was so…claustrophobic.”

“It might be different for you now,” Rhea suggested. “Now that you get to go through it was a girl. I lived a lot of lives, I remember, being trans…always the hardest. You do it a lot over the course of your life. Reincarnating is like rolling the dice; universe doesn’t care. It’ll stick you in whatever body, no matter if you have a male or female soul. It sucks, but it’s not something you have to worry about now.”

We passed through the metal airlock, one set of doors, then another, and then onto a tile floor and an open-air reception area of sorts. It was cleaner than I remembered. Had they remodeled in here?

“Through heeeeeere,” Rhea walked us through a glass door and into the front office. Yep, just like I remembered. As we approached the front desk, I saw someone I would have remembered anywhere, it was Ashleigh, the girl from the ice cream store. The trans girl, actually.

“Wait, you work here?” I said, confused. “I thought you worked at Go Ice Cream?”

“Hm?” She said looking up at me. “Oh, I remember you! Are you here to enroll, or do you already go here?”

“She’s here to enroll,” Mellie spoke for me. “Um…eighth…grade…I’d guess.”

“Well, how old is she?” Ashleigh asked, turning toward her computer and typing a few things in. I became aware of Mellie opening the manilla envelope and rifling through a few sheets of paper.

“Thirteen,” She said, semi-confidently after reading the paper.

“And you’re a parent or guardian? I’m going to need to see a birth certificate, and…oh, you probably have everything we need in there.”

I waited patiently as Ashleigh filled out the paperwork. I watched her closely, hoping that she didn’t notice I was starting. She was about the age I’d been when I’d been…appropriated by Angela. Her hair brunette hair was shoulder length, mostly straight but flared at the bottom – much like Meredith’s had been, but it less…sleek. It seemed a bit more stringy. It was hard to tell that she was trans really, I guess I just knew what to look for.

“Okay, you are all set,” She said to me. “I’m going to bring out a schedule for you here-“

“Oh, shit,” Mellie said, staring down at her phone.

“What is it?” Rhea perked up and looked over to her.

“We…have to go. Now.”

“And what is this?” Mellie asked, staring at the ground with the greatest amount of disinterest that I’ve ever witnessed from any human being.

“This is a dead body,” Broderick said to her, as if he were explaining to a child.

“What a shame,” She shrugged. “Well, now what we know what it is, I’d like to get on with my day.”

“There are TWO things I want to discuss here,” Broderick placed this foot atop the dead body and rested his arm on his knee as he leaned forward to look at us. We were standing in a clearing adjacent Frog Island park, a wooded area, and the sound of children playing just beyond the tree line. “First of all, our common room, at Howell’s. All of you are responsible for doing the dishes after you eat, ALL of you. The place reeks of lemon juice and rotting tomatoes, and I’m not going to stand for it. Are we clear on that?”

“It was NOT my turn to do the dishes!” Ralph protested angrily. “I specifically said, LAST week-“

“I don’t give two shits!” Broderick waved his hands angrily. “Someone’s going to do the dishes, or I’m going to blow a gasket and NO ONE here wants that to happen!”

“Why doesn’t the new girl do dishes?” Craven suggested, looking directly at me.

“Me?” I demanded. “Why don’t you do them?”

“Because I own the bar, sweet cheeks,” He snapped. “I provide the space, you all do the cleanup, that’s how it works.”

“Oh that’s how it works is it?” Rhea shot back. “You put more dishes in that sink than anyone here! I saw you gorging yourself on Cesar salad all last week, there was so much dressing I thought we were going to have a second flood!”

“ENOUGH!” Broderick’s voice boomed. I heard the sound of the children’s laughter dissipate for a mere second, but then started up again. “All of you, get together, make a schedule work something out. Get the dishes done, I won’t be working in a pigsty. Second order of business, there’s a dead body under my food and I want to know how it got here.”

“Maybe it’s someone who died there?” Rhea suggested.

“Oh, you are so very funny,” Broderick said with mock laughter in his voice. “Look at the neck, two puncture wounds, from vampiric incisors, you all know what that means. It means that someone is breaking the law, and I want them found.”

“Since when have you been such a stickler for the rules?” Rhea smirked, eliciting a look of sheer annoyance from Broderick.

“When people die of supernatural causes, you know what happens?” Broderick quizzed us. “Anyone? No? People start asking questions, and when people start asking questions, newspapers start writing stories, and when newspapers start writing stories, the Seeling AND Unseelie court start asking questions. When they start asking questions, well, we have a problem don’t we? I don’t want any higher ups lurking around Ypsilanti, especially now that we’ve got little Miss Diva here hiding right under their noses.

“I am NOT a diva,” Protested. “I’m—”

“The reason we’re all fucked,” Ralph finished my sentence for me. “We need to question the local vampires, see if anyone knows anything.”

“Well that would be a good start, wouldn’t it?” Broderick rolled his eyes. “There are exactly two vampires in Ypsilanti, one is Jasmine’s sister, the other runs a shop called ‘Blazing Spices’. Does anyone know where that is?”

“Yeah,” I spoke up, everyone turned to look at me. “It’s across from the Brick Dick—”

“Don’t call it a ‘Brick Dick’,” Broderick interrupted me. “It’s a water tower, just call it the water tower.”

“It’s a water tower that looks like a circumcised dick,” Mellie filled in. “Everyone agrees it’s a dick.”

“Blazing Spices is a store that’s been around for a while,” I continued. “It never did well, they sell ultraviolet strobe lights and garlic.”

“What?” Broderick looked legitimately confused. “Okay, whatever, Mellie, Ralph, go to ‘Blazing Spices’. Now whose going with me to meet with the ‘La Goule’ clan?”

Without a single word, I watched Craven turn on his heels and literally run from the clearing as fast as he could, Broderick shook his head as he watched the man disappear through the treeline.

“Again, whose going with me?”

“Not it,” Rhea said. That left Broderick looking in my direction.

“Okay sure,” I said. “I’ll go with you. What’s the problem?”

No problem at all,” Broderick sighed. “La Goule is headquartered in Ann Arbor, so I have to take you out of town. Don’t tell your mother.”

Broderick sighed as he hoisted the dead man over his shoulder and began to walk from the clearing. I followed him for a bit, finally reaching his car, parked in a gravel lot alongside about five others. For some reason it never occurred to me that he was literally carrying a dead body in broad daylight as if it were a piece of luggage, and perhaps even more disturbing is that no one noticed. Apparently, people only pay attention to themselves. Broderick asked me to open the truck, and then he unceremoniously shoved the corpse into his trunk alongside a bag of golf clubs and woodworking toolbox.

“Don’t say anything when we get in there,” He told me. “I’m only bringing you along so I don’t have to do this myself.”

“What’s so bad about it?” I asked as he left the park and took the freeway exit toward Ann Arbor.

“They’re vampires,” He said, keeping his eyes fixed on the road. The car hummed, and the road roared beneath the thin floorboards. You’d think he would have been able to afford a better car.

“Broderick,” I said as we flew down the freeway faster than the speed limit really allowed. “When are we going after my mother?”

“Your mother is a formidable woman,” Broderick answered, flipping on his turn signal and taking the exit ramp and blowing through a red light at the bottom. “She wants us to protect you, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. There’ll come a time when we need to go for her, there will, but now just isn’t it. You’re stuck here, for the foreseeable. Doesn’t mean I won’t put you to work, there’s a lot to do around here.”

“Great,” I muttered. My mother was out there, somewhere and I was stuck in this hole in the wall town working for this idiot.

“I know you might not think much of me,” Broderick said, as if he were reading my mine. “And I just want to say…I don’t think much of you either.”

“Reassuring,” I rolled my eyes. He turned onto a side street and pulled into a residential area, immediately stopping to parallel park in front of a house with Greek letters affixed to the awning. “A frat house?”

“Delta Alpha Muh,” He said, throwing the car into park and opening his car door. “At least it is today.”

“What do you mean, today?” I asked, really confused. “Does it change?”

“Fucking often,” He muttered. We walked up the sidewalk and ascended the stairs and rang the doorbell. “Remember, keep quiet, I’m not going to answer a million and one questions today.”

He rang the doorbell again, and almost immediately the door flew open. We were met by what appeared to be a stereotypical frat boy in a button-up shirt covered by a blue sweater-vest, complete with the University of Michigan logo across the left breast. The guy that answered was a well-groomed picture of perfection, basically every frat boy ever.

“Broderick!” He said, smiling wide. “It’s been so long! How have you been?”

“Can it,” Broderick said, pushing his way into the house. “I need to talk to Samuel, where is he?”

I followed Broderick into the house, emerging into a beautiful wood-paneled foyer, photographs of fraternity members hanging on the walls, and a polished hardwood floor beneath our feet. The place was incredibly clean, not a speck of dust anywhere. Over our heads, a brass chandelier lit the area, including the stairs to our right. As I admired the scenery, a black haired boy emerged from the back wearing the same sweater vest and a pair of khakis.

“Can I help you, Broderick and…” He stopped to look at me.

“She’s not important,” Broderick practically dismissed me. “I need to talk to you.”

“If it’s just you that needs to talk to me, then why is she here?”

“Gods, Samuel, this is Jasmine, Jasmine, Samuel. Are we good now? We found a dead body in the park, over in Ypsi, two puncture wounds, clearly a vampire. You know that vampires aren’t allowed to hunt, it’s against the law. So what I need from you is a list of your people, where they were in the last forty-eight hours and-“

“You know what?” Samuel said with a smile. I noticed for the first time that his complexion was a little paler, just like my sister’s, and his eyes were a deep blue. Is this something I would have noticed in my previous life? How had I missed stuff like this? “I can certainly help you there, let’s go back to my office and I’ll—”

“THEME CHANGE!” A voice from a side room boomed. I nearly jumped two feet in the air.

“Theme change!” Samuel echoed. Throughout the house, I heard feet shuffling, and Samuel took off running, disappeared down the hallway. I became acutely aware of Broderick slamming his face into his palm as several students ran from the back carrying sheets of what looked like faux stone that they affixed to the walls until the place actually looked like Dracula’s castle, complete with lit braziers on the wall and what I hoped were fake blood stains. Suddenly, Samuel reappeared, but this time, he was wearing a black vest, black pants, and a red silk shirt with a floor-length black cape. His hair had been slicked back, and I swear he was wearing eyeliner.

“Welcome! Welcome to Castle La’Goule!” He shouted, spreading his arms in a dramatic fashion. “How might the Lord of Castle La’Goule help you on this lovely day?”

“Holy fuck Samuel, you know why we’re here,” Broderick snapped. “I need—”

“You shall address me as Lord Samuel of Clan La’Goule!” Samuel screeched. “Within these walls you shall pay respect to your benefactors!”

“Holy shit, okay, Lord La’Goule, what I need is-“

“THEME CHANGE!” The voice shouted again.

“What are they doing?” I looked up at Broderick.

“When you’ve been a live for a few hundred years you get bored,” Broderick told me. “Just…they get more bored than we do.”

The bleak gothic walls were taken away, suddenly replaced by a façade of a school hall, complete with lockers and desks. Samuel reappeared, this time dressed in a plaid skirt, a pair of stiletto heels and a white button-up top, tied at the waist.

“We’re sexy schoolgirls now,” He informed us.

“Come on, Jasmine,” Broderick sighed. “We’re leaving.”

“I hate school,” I said to Rhea as we walked into the bathroom following the last bell. “It’s worse than I remembered.”

“It’s not that bad,” Rhea rolled her eyes and leaned against one of the sinks, her body toward mine. “Fix your lipstick, it looks terrible.”

In all of the lessons Angela had given me on makeup, I’d never managed to get liquid lipstick right, ever. I’d get one side straight, then I’d try to fix up the other, overcompensate, and suddenly, I’d look like a clown. I hated the new lipstick that Rhea had gotten for me, on that note. She’d insisted on getting me this sparkly pink stuff that looked so…juvenile. It was to blend in, I guess, but god damn, teenage girls have horrible taste.

“As long as we aren’t going to start going to church,” I said, looking in the mirror and pressing the lipstick applicator to my lips. “I don’t need to learn about Jesus.”

“That’s an interesting story actually,” She continued to watch me apply the lipstick, silently judging me, or so I thought. “Jesus was a more of a…freedom fighter. A highway man. Broderick met him. He was um…he went around Judea trying to raise an army, had these twelve guys, convinced them to just give up their jobs and, you know, join up with him. It all ended in a battle at this place called Gethsemane, I hear it was beautiful.”

“How did that end?” I asked, genuinely curious as I placed the cap back on my lipstick and checked it in the mirror.

“You ever read the Bible? Anyway, let’s get home,” She placed her hand against the mirror, and just like that, she was gone.

“Hey wait!” I protested just as she vanished. I couldn’t use the mirror, Broderick told me that they could track me if I used the mirror. Did this bitch really just abandon me at the school? Yeah, of course she did. I slapped the sink with my open palm and turned toward the bathroom door. The house was a few miles from the school, it probably wouldn’t be a horrible walk but I really wasn’t looking forward to it.

As I walked out of the bathroom I noticed massive OLED wall across from the bathroom; that definitely hadn’t been here when I’d attended the first time. I’d seen quite a few video walls since I’d left Angela’s house, this one was just advertising school events. Ticket prices for an upcoming football game, tryouts for the girl’s volleyball team, a presentation of Phantom of the Opera by the first grade elementary school class, boring stuff really. I turned from the display and made my way toward the front door, dodging a few stragglers, the sounds of students fading as I slung my purple backpack over my shoulder. The noise in the hallway grew quieter,more and more of them vanished from the front doors grew nearer. As I rounded the corner, finally, I saw Ashleigh standing there, beside the wall heater, staring intently at her phone.

“Hey!” I said kind of cheerfully, or at least I think it was cheerfully. Faking emotions – not really my thing. Her emotions, however were transparent; she was pretty happy to see me.

“Oh hey,” She smiled. “Jasmine, I totally remember you from the office the other day.”

“And the ice cream shop,” I reminded her. “You work in both places?”

“Yeah, I’m trying to save up money for a trip to Europe, I want to study abroad, you know, experience another culture, get an education, the whole shebang.”

“That’s exciting,” I nodded. “I guess I’m pretty boring by comparison…”

“You don’t SEEM boring,” She cocked her head at me. I frowned.

“I don’t?”

“Really, you don’t, there’s something off about you, and hopefully I’m not offending you, but you know, I sat in on a few classes, being a student teacher and all, and you…you seem different. Really different. You’re not intimidated by the other kids, even if they pick on you, you finish your work fast, it’s like you’ve done this before, it’s like…you’re detached.”

“People can pick on me all I want,” I shrugged. “Once they graduate they’ll live miserable lives and work dead end jobs.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” She studied me a bit closer. “You seem like you’re way above all this and not in an arrogant way, it’s like just…a fact.”

“Yeah?” I said. “What else can you tell about me?”

“You’re like me, a lot like me. You don’t want to be here, you’re longing for something.”

“Well, right now I’m longing for a ride home,” I joked. “Know where I can get one of those?”

“Well you just missed the busses,” She glanced out the front door, peering through the smudged plate glass that overlooked the front parking lot. “And technically I’m not allowed to drive you in my car…”

“But you’re going to, right?”

“Yeah,” She nodded. “Just don’t tell anyone, alright?”

“Promise,” I confirmed as she tucked her phone into her purse and pulled out a set of car keys.

“Mine is the blue one, over there,” She pointed as we stepped into the airlock and then out into the sun. It was stupidly hot out here; I could feel the heat reflecting off the windows, another great memory of this school from back in the day. It was nice to see almost nothing had changed in two decades. As we walked I couldn’t help but notice how cut her outfit was; it was this blue cami underneath a lighter blue flannel top, fitted and showing her outline. A pair of jeans completed the ensemble and I couldn’t but sit there and ask myself why I couldn’t have bee that brave back when I was her age. Eighteen or nineteen, whatever she was. 2019 had been a completely different world, I guess things were starting to look up for trans people, at least in Ypsilanti. “Hey, you going to stare at my butt or get in the car?”

“Oh, um,” I stuttered. “I was just…sorry I was looking at your outfit.”

“It’s pretty cute, right?” She grinned. “I love layering, it takes attention away from…other things, you know?”

There was a click as the car doors unlocked. I pulled the handle and climbed in, immediately noticing that her car was really, really high tech for a student teacher who worked at an ice cream shop.

“Wow,” I remarked. “Your car has a touchscreen on the dash? Oh my god, the speedometer is reflected on the windshield? That’s…that looks really expensive.”

“Jasmine, are you on pot? Serious inquiry. Every car has this stuff.”

Right, the years was 2035, cars were probably one of the more advanced pieces of tech right now, even if everything else had stagnated. Then again this probably wasn’t even high tech for the time period. God, I apparently missed a lot while I was playing maid for Angela. Then I probably missed even more while I was living in her house. Sixteen years went by so fast, yet, here I was, still a kid. Life is just weird sometimes.

“Yeah uh…well…yeah,” I laughed, trying to change the subject, or at least divert it away from my obvious ignorance.

“Heh, whatever,” She laughed. “Hey, I have to stop by my house, I forgot my work uniform and I’m staying at a friend’s house tonight.”

“Oh, uh, sure,” I said. “I can wait in the car.”

“Don’t be stupid,” She waved her hand as we took a turn onto a residential street. “I’m not going to make you wait in a hot car.”

“Oh, okay,” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. She pulled into a driveway, directly in front of a one story house affixed to a white garage door. Immediately, she turned off the car which had been riding a lot quieter than I thought, and stepped out. I followed her into the house; the wind was beginning to pick up a bit and I found myself doing my best to keep my hair out of my face as it plastered to my lip gloss. I got a reprieve from the elements when we stepped into the house and the door was shut. We stood just inside an entryway, the open concept of the home granting us a clear view of the kitchen and living room beyond.

“Hey, Shelley?” Ashleigh called out as a tall blonde girl poked her head out from the kitchen. “This is Jasmine, she’s just here while I grab my work uniform.”

The girl, Shelley, looked at me with what I think might have been an expression of disgust but it was kind of subtle. I immediately became wary.

“You need to tell us when you’re bringing people over,” Shelley said, placing her hands on her hips. “You pay rent, but this is still our house. Adam was pissed last time.”

“Oh, I’m…really sorry,” Ashleigh smiled a bit, though I could tell she was a little stressed. Maybe a lot stressed. “I thought it would be okay, she was only here for an hour-“

“Our house, our rules. Also, you left your cup in the sink again, you know how we feel about that.”

“You know what, you’re right,” Ashleigh nodded. “I’ll try to be more careful.”

“I don’t know if I can believe you anymore,” Shelley said, walking back into the kitchen. “It’s the third time.”

“Come on,” Ashleigh smiled to me. “Let’s go get my work uniform.”

Casting a wary look toward the kitchen, I returned my attention to Ashleigh and followed her through a brief hall, into a room that was so incredibly girly. Pink walls, a pink bed with a pink metal headboard. It was kind of how my room would have looked at Angela’s house if I’d been allowed to have a room.

“This is so cute!” I exclaimed, doing a kind of spin as I took in the space. “I love the theme you have going on here!”

“Yeah, I was thinking about doing a theme change though, maybe something a darker pink instead of a baby pink.”

“Yeah, theme changes are fun,” I watched her take the work uniform from her closet and stare at it for a minute. I bit my lower lip and sighed. “Hey Ashleigh?”

“Yeah?” She turned to look at me.

“It’s not always going to be like this,” I said, trying to be reassuring. “It won’t hurt forever.”

Maybe what I said sounded crazy, but I could see the glint of recognition in her eyes. It was a pain I’d experienced so many times in my life, before Angela. I’d though that there was no hope, I thought I’d live as a boy forever. Ashleigh had done really well, but deep down she still had to feel the pain and I knew how hopeless she felt. God I wish I could tell her more.

“I think we should get going,” She stared at me, probably thought I was crazy. Just as I began to speak, I felt a buzzing in my shallow pocket. As, yes, the phone that Broderick had given me. I reached in and gripped the casing, pulling it out into the palm of my hand to see a group text from Broderick.

Got a lead on the fucking body. Get Jasmine over here now.

“Well, duty calls,” I muttered.

“I don’t mean to be a dick, by any means,” Broderick said as he stood behind his desk in the basement of Howell’s. “But we need to step up our game.”

He was leaning on his desk, arms spread and palms open against the surface. He had what I could only describe as the most pissed off look that I had ever seen on his face and I had no idea what was going on. The rest of us, minus Craven, were gathered around the desk waiting for whatever news he was about to drop on us.

“And…what did you find exactly? You know, about the dead body?” Mellie asked impatiently. “I have places to be, I can’t just sit here and wait for your grand finale, or whatever.”

“I sent the body over to our friends at the University, they were able to extract a trace amount of DNA from the wound. Seems our vampire friends aren’t from here, at all. They belong to the Maras coven, which, as you know, isn’t based within the ice barrier. They operate primarily out of Eaves. So, what is a coven from Eaves doing here? Hm? Trying to draw Jasmine out?”

“Why the cloak and dagger?” Ralph asked, stepping forward. “If they want Jasmine, why don’t they just take her? No offense, Jasmine.”

“Because they know we’d raise holy hell if they did,” Mellie shrugged. “Angela’s legacy is to be protected at all costs. As one of the matriarchs of Greystem, we follow her wishes.”

“She inspires loyalty to a fault,” Broderick sighed. “But, I need volunteers. We need to go to Pi Sigma Theta, the sorority across from Delta Alpha Muh. Once again, not a real sorority, they just moved into a house and threw Greek letters up. As you know, or as some of you don’t know, there are four houses in that cluster, and they all share a backyard. They do their stupid theme changes in tandem sometimes, so we have to be wary when we go over there.”

“Do you think they’ll be doing the desert again?” Rhea perked up. “I like the desert.”

“And I suddenly hate you,” Broderick shook his head and rolled his eyes. “They’re the coven with ties to the Maras, but we have to tread carefully. They’ll likely give us the answers we want, IF we catch them on the right day. I need a volunteer to go with me. Jasmine, put your hand down.”

“That’s not fair!” I objected. “I had fun last time!”

“Okay, I’m not going to spend time arguing with you. You and Mellie then. We’re going…right now.”

“I’m busy tonight,” Mellie objected.

“Oh? Doing what?” Broderick stood up and rubbed his hands together. “Drinking wine and seducing boys to do your laundry?”

“And girls,” Mellie nodded.

“It’ll do you good to actually DO something around here, get ready to go,” Broderick sighed and reached into his desk, pulling out three lemons which he slammed down unceremoniously. “Everyone take a lemon.”

“Um, what’s the lemon for?” I asked, genuinely confused.

“You’ll figure it out,” Ralph snickered. I glanced back; I’d almost forgotten that he was there.

“Let’s get it over with,” Mellie said angrily. “I guess we have to take the stupid car.”

“Yes,” Broderick sighed, looking straight at me. “We have to take the stupid car.”

The ride to Ann Arbor took about twenty minutes as usual, and we pulled up onto a different street. I saw Broderick looking out the window, a confused and pained look painting his face.

“It should be here,” He muttered, staring at what appeared to be an abandoned storefront. “Their house is…no, it couldn’t be, could it?”

“You think they mezzed the entire front of the house?” Mellie suggested.

“I think they did,” He sighed. “I wonder what the theme is today.

“We’re not going to like it, whatever it is,” Mellie shook her head. “What do we do?”

“We go over to Delta,” He said, throwing the car into drive once again. The transmission clunked beneath us as he moved the shifter and pulled way from the curb.

“You see the other sorority is missing too?” She pointed across Broderick, indicating an empty lot right next to the abandoned storefront.

“Of fucking course it is,” He said angrily, taking a left turn and winding around the block. He stopped the car in front of the Delta house and told us to get follow him. The Delta house looked pretty normal, nothing odd about it, but as Broderick cop knocked on the door I couldn’t help but feel a little bit uneasy.

The door opened, and there stood Samuel, this time wearing a pirate outfit, complete with a bandana, a hook on his left hand, and a bottle of rum in the other.

“Argh!” He shouted aloud, taking a swig from the rum bottle. “What ye be doin’ at our abode at this late hour?”

“It’s four in the afternoon, Samuel,” Mellie snapped.

“Argh but be it really?” He waved a hand, indicating that we should look around. The afternoon sky had grown seemingly dark, the sky dotted with stars. “Now tell me? How can we help ye? State yer business.”

“Gods fuck it,” Broderick swore under his breath. “We need to get over to Pi Sigma Delta. Their house is gone, so you tell us how to get there.”

“Aye, ye not be the only one askin’ bout that accursed house. I can grant ye passage, but the road is long, the path dangerous, ye be takin’ your life into yer hands!”

“Samuel, you are LITERALLY taking your OWN life into your hands right now, show me how to get to Pi Sigma.”

“I have to tell ye,” Samuel said as he led us into the house. “It’s unsettling to even do this thing for ye, it feels wrong, in me bones. The Pi Sigma’s…they’re scurvy wenches they are. Cast a curse on ye they will. You an’ your companions, you’ll ne’er be the same!”

“Holy fuck Samuel,” Broderick practically shouted as we were led through the house, which had been transformed into some sort of boat dock, complete with life preservers affixed to the wall. “Shut your mouth and get us to Pi.”

“Don’t be so rushed to sail to your demise!” Samuel snapped as he threw open the back door. I heard Broderick say what must have been a curse word but in an entirely different language. Outside, just beyond the back porch, an expanse of water, glistening in the moonlight and stretching across the Delta’s backyard, all the way to what I assumed was the Pi Sigma house. Longways, it ran through two other backyards, forming a literal sea in the middle of the neighborhood block. Samuel beckoned for us to come with him, guiding us to a small wooden rowboat that had been docked at the porch. He carefully hung a lantern at the bow of the boat and began to untie the rope. “Now are ye sure this is the path ye wish to take? Can I not sway ye?”

“Samuel you stupid fuck,” Broderick snarled. Mellie placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Broderick, let the man have his fun, you know how bored they are,” Mellie smiled. “Besides, we’ll be out of here shortly.”

“Are ye sure I can’t change yer mind?” Samuel looked at us with what appeared to be legitimate concern. “I can’t tell ye what dangers might lurk behind those doors!”

There was a thud as the rowboat collided with the front of the porch. The three of us stood and jumped to clear the gap between the bow and the top step.

“Thank you Samuel,” Mellie smiled. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“Aye, but would be a help to my soul if I could change your mind!” Samuel said, using an our to push off and began to move back toward the Delta house. The three of us stood together in front of their back door. Broderick looked annoyed beyond belief, Mellie seemed amused, and I’m not going to lie, I was a little terrified.

“Alright come on,” Broderick said angrily, grabbing the doorknob and yanking it open. We stepped through, and instead of being greeted by what I thought would be a sorority house, it was the same nautical theme as the Delta house, though with a more Victorian touch. As we stepped into what had to be their dining room, a girl came around the corner, a beautiful blonde wearing a peasant type dress with a black leather corset bound around her midsection. As she moved toward us, she grinned seductively, dragging her hand lightly against the wall.

“Ladies…and gentleman,” She said with an evil grin, moving in close enough to sniff Broderick. “What brings you to the Pi Sigma house today?”

“We need to speak with Heather, and gods dammit, could you make it fast?” Broderick demanded. “We’ve had enough of this nonsense for one day.”

The girl slowly and purposefully moved over to Mellie and placed her face within half an inch of Mellie’s nose.

“Be careful what you wish for, dears,” The girl said in a mockingly evil tone of voice. “You might just….get it.”

“Well, given what’s being offered,” Mellie smiled. “I don’t think I’d mind getting it.”

As Mellie spoke, she snapped her teeth at the girl’s nose. The girl pulled back at the last second and giggled.

“Oh I like this one,” She laughed. “She has spirit! Now maybe we could put that to good use!”

“Could we not do this right now?” Broderick sighed and looked around, surveying the corkboard walls and the various nautical themed implements. “We’re on a schedule.”

“But of course,” The girl grinned. “I’ll take you to Heather, right this way!”

“You see this shit,” Broderick groaned as we were led to the left and down a hallway. “This is why I don’t deal with vampires.”

As the girl came to a closed door, she knocked lightly until she heard a voice from the other side asking us to enter. We were led through, into a room that looked more like the captain’s room of a ship tan anything else. The girl, Heather, sat at a huge desk, her boot clad feet crossed atop it. She was a red headed girl, dressed in a wench dress similar to the other girl’s but with a shorter skirt, and dyed a deep red. Her black corset accented her curves perfectly, and the three cornered pirate had atop her head added a new layer of absurdity to the entire thing. Broderick started to speak, but his eyes were drawn to what appeared to be a man of about twenty kneeling on the floor in front of the desk, his hands shackled, and an iron collar around his neck with a lead bolted to the desk. He was wearing a tattered University of Michigan sweater, his face bruised to hell and back. As soon as he saw us, he began to scream.

“Oh thank god, please help me! Get me out of here! Please!” He raised his shackled hands toward us, as if to reach out for help.

“Heather, what the hell is this?” Broderick demanded, indicating the man. Heather simply shrugged.

“He came into the house and tried to get…aggressive with one of our coven. Simply not a thing we put up with, and he’s seen too much. You know the law, we can’t kill him, we can only turn him .”

“Then why haven’t you turned him?” Broderick studied the man. “Get it over with, if you’re going to torture him don’t do it to him as a human; you could kill him.”

“We’re doing it kind of slow,” Heather shrugged. “Taking time to make sure he’s nice and weak, and that he stays small. This one’s going to wear frilly dresses and serve me tea.”

“You don’t drink tea,” Broderick stepped forward, past the man who continued to plead.

“Right, then I’ll find something for him to do,” She shrugged. “So what is it that brings you here, Broderick?”

“I’m looking for a member of the Maras coven, someone who has been committing…atrocities, so to speak. It could draw unwanted attention, for all of us.”

“Indeed?” Heather nodded. “I do know of one who came into town recently, a friend of ours from many years back, though if he’s planning to make our lives difficult, I want no part of that. His name is Draven, and he isn’t a Daywalker, like us. You would find him in the sewers at night, most likely.”

“In the sewers, right,” Broderick nodded.

“Dude, please, you have to help me!” The student shrieked again. “You can’t just leave me here!”

“Thank you for your assistance,” Broderick nodded. “It is very much appreciated-“

“Oh you didn’t think you’d get that little tidbit of information for free, did you?” Heather grinned as she stood from her chair. “You, Broderick, are quite handsome, perhaps you could spend a few days in one of my cag—”

“Squeeze the fucking lemons,” Broderick said, reaching into his pocket. I’d completely forgotten the lemon in my jacket. I reached in and grabbed it, giving it a hard squeeze. The moment I did, the corkboard walls and the desk vanished, suddenly replaced by a typical bedroom. Light pink walls, white closet doors, and three beds. Heather stood before us, now dressed like any other college girl, and wearing an expression of pure hatred.

“Don’t you know how to have fun?!” She demanded, suddenly kicking the poor guy on the floor, who collapsed into a heap at her feet, sobbing into her shoes like a baby as he struggled to free himself from the shackles.

“Fun?” Broderick growled. “Never heard of it. Let’s go.”

“I’m going,” I said adamantly to Broderick, gripping my bow in my left hand. “If they’re after me I deserve to know why.”

“We can send you a memo,” Broderick said, dropping a netted bag of lemons into a canvas backpack along with a few packages of crossbow bolts. “Have you ever been in a real fight? And by that I mean a fight where you didn’t get one of the most important people in your life killed?”

“Excuse me?” I clenched my fist, my face beginning to burn a deep red. “There was NOTHING I could do for Meredith!”

“You’re gods damn right there wasn’t,” Broderick zipped the backpack and slung it over his shoulder, then lifted a heavy black crossbow from his desk and rested it in both hands. “You want to know something, Jasmine? The mirrors we use to travel, they have a neat feature, they capture events that they see. We were able to see the entire fight, and you know what? You got her killed. Yeah, I’m probably going to hurt your feelings but quite frankly dear, I don’t give a fuck. She told you to run, out the front door. If you’d done that, she wouldn’t have had to stay to protect YOU.”

“That’s…fuck you!” I shouted. “How dare you?! I loved Meredith! How fucking DARE you?!”

“You apparently loved the idea of showing up more than you loved the idea of keeping her alive. How does it feel, Jasmine?” Broderick looked at me, the expression on his face wasn’t anger so much as it was condescension. “How does it feel to pretend you’re the victim instead of being the one that killed her? Understand this, you made a mistake. It’s not the first one you’ll make over the millennia. I’ve gotten people killed myself, and it’s not a good feeling, but here’s the thing, you need to own up to it. You need to come to terms with the fact that you valued your pride and vanity over her life, only then are you going to fucking grow up.”

Broderick walked out of the room, leaving me to fume by his desk. I glanced toward the door and saw Rhea leaning against the frame, arms folded, one foot up behind her resting against the wall. She looked over at me and shook her head.

“You’d better listen to him,” She told me. “You get a little taste of immortality and you think you know it all? You know shit. Stay here, keep your head down, before you get your mother killed too.”

“For all I know, she’s already dead,” I spat out.

“She’s your mother,” Rhea said, lower her leg and turning to leave the room. “If she were dead, you’d know.”

I let out a shriek of anger and slammed my fist down on Broderick’s desk. I couldn’t believe that they could even SAY that to me. I hadn’t gotten Meredith killed, I’d tried to save her. This was complete bullshit and now they were off on some fucking adventure that was all about me, without me. The basement grew silent as everyone left, through one of the mirrors, without me obviously. Funny thing, they could use the mirrors as long as I wasn’t along. Maybe that was the real reason.

“Hey Jasmine,” A familiar voice said. I turned around to see my sister standing in the door. I was still getting used to the fact that she was taller, and way older than me. I knew that it had happened, and I knew HOW it had happened, but to see it, oh my god. “You feeling alright?”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “Things are just…you know.”

She nodded.

“Well, while they’re gone, I’m on babysitting duty, so come on little sis. We have a lot of catching up to do anyway.”

“Little sis,” I smirked. “You know I’m like thirty-five, right?”

“Mmm not from where I’m standing,” She grinned sardonically. I blushed. “Come on, let’s go, I don’t want to carry you out of here, but I swear I will.”

I reluctantly followed her up the stairs and allowed her to lead me to a car. It was a pink convertible – not what I’d been expecting her to drive at ALL. I’d expected something black, like a hearse. I mean, she was a vampire, right? She saw me staring at the car and shook her head, then walked right past me and opened the passenger side door.

“In,” She spoke with a commanding voice. I flinched a little bit, then walked to the car, unsure if I’d done so under my own power or because she’d told me to. I guess it didn’t matter. She closed the door and walked to the other side, throwing the car into gear and pulling out of the parking spot.

“So where do you live, anyway?” I asked, genuinely curious. “Some underground lair, or an abandoned church? Where do vampires live?

“Don’t you think that’s a little insulting?” She asked. I couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not, but then she cracked a grin. “I live in a house, a house you’re pretty familiar with.”

As soon as she said that, I noticed that she was pulling onto a familiar street. A really familiar street. In fact, she pulled into the driveway of a home that I’d known for the first eighteen years of my life.

“Meghan,” I whispered. “Are we…going to see mom and dad?”

She shook her head, I sighed in relief as she patted my hand.

“Let’s go inside, little sis,” She unbuckled her seat belt and stood up, waiting for me to join her on the other side. As I did she took my hand in hers and walked us up the driveway. Reaching the front walk I felt my knees begin to buckle. I didn’t want to go in there. I was immortal, I shouldn’t have felt the way I did, it’s not like they could hurt me. But the memories. Oh gods, the memories they kept flushing back into my consciousness like dirty water, swishing around and permeating my existence.

“Meghan?” I said questioningly.

“It’s okay hon,” She reassured me. “We need to do this.”

I let her lead me up to the front door, my body was numb as we walked through the front door, and even more memories began to dig their way out of a grave I’d dug for them more than a decade ago. As we stepped inside though, the house was different, very, very different. It was more feminine first of all. I mean, it wasn’t pink or anything but it definitely had more of a female touch. I guess the best way to put it would be ‘college girl’, it had that vibe to it. Mom and dad were nowhere to be seen, but I kept expecting them to appear at any moment. My body was tense. I looked up at her, I think I was trembling. She smiled and led my past the dining room and down the hall, to her room. It looked largely the same, though fewer posters on the walls, and a laptop sitting on a glass desk in the corner.

“Do you remember how much time we spent in here?” She asked as she led me over to her bed and literally lifted me onto it. She sat beside me and threw an arm around me. “Dad hated you for it.”

“Yeah,” I remembered. “He thought…he thought I wasn’t manly enough, I mean he…wanted me to do boy things like, I don’t know…what do boys do?”

“I have no idea,” She admitted.

“Meghan, where are mom and dad? What happened to them? Whose house is this?”

“Well, Jasmine, honey, when you disappeared I…I head a breakdown of sorts, I guess. With you gone, mom and dad, they turned their anger on me. I guess I got a small taste of what they’d put you through. I mean I guess it was going to happen anyway, since you moved out, but…maybe it was worse, I don’t know. Sometimes people take their grief and turn it into rage. When I was seventeen, I met Jothron. There was just something different about him. Mom and dad hated him, I loved him. Of course it would work that way.”

“Of course,” I nodded, interrupting her.

“He came here, to my room one night, said he could set me free, so of course, I took him up on it. He took me away from here, and he changed me. At first it was amazing but…he turned out to be so much worse than they were. He controlled every aspect of my life. He…I…I was his slave, until one day, I found a way to turn on him. I killed him. He was stronger than me, but I found a way to kill him. Then, in my blind rage, I came back here and…I took mom and dad, I locked them up, in the basement, and I told them everything, everything they’d done to me, and to you. I…tortured them for months, and I told them why. I made sure they knew, and they tried to apologize. Especially dad. Oh, he groveled, he didn’t want to die. He begged me to kill mom first. I think at the end she realized what a scumbag she’d married but…I wasn’t really feeling charitable. Once their bodies were found, I put a bid on this house, the moment it went up on the market, and, well, here we are.”

“I don’t know what to say,” I shook my head. “I should feel something, anything at all but I just feel…”

“Relived?”

“Relieved,” I confirmed.

“You and I,” She told me. “We’re free now. You got the mother you always needed. I got revenge for both of us. There’s going to be danger ahead, little sister, but don’t be afraid, I’m with you every step of the way. So tell me, what’s one thing you always wanted to do while you were in here, back then?”

I grinned sheepishly.

“Try on your clothes, obviously.”

“Well,” She said, standing up and gesturing toward the closet. “Nothing stopping you now.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you shop like a stoner?” Ashleigh peeked into my cart as we approached the self-checkout lane at the grocery store. Inside, as I well knew, she would see three bottles of lemon juice, a bag of tomatoes, six potatoes, and a quart of ice cream. I suppose she would think that was a little weird, but ever since I’d been changed and allowed to eat for the first time, I’d been craving citrus and random dairy products. Potatoes were just a plus today.

“Uh…I guess I just get weird cravings,” I said the first thing that came to mind. She’d already questioned why I needed to go shopping; I guess there aren’t many twelve year old girls that go grocery shopping these days.

“I totally understand,” She nodded. “I crave pickles, like, all the time.”

“Pickles?” I asked her as I scanned the lemon juice and set it on the conveyor belt. “That’s a weird thing to crave.”

“Not if you’re trans,” She smiled. “I take a pill called sprio, right? It suppresses testosterone but makes it REALLY hard for my body to absorb salt, sooooo pickles. Lots of pickles.”

“Um,” I said, slightly distracted as held my transparent credit card beneath the scanner. It made a satisfying beep and I retracted it. “You ever try olives?’

“Olives are good, pickles are better!” She responded in a very upbeat tone with a smile on her face. I stared at her for a long moment and then dropped my bags into the cart. Her phone buzzed, and as she checked the screen, the smile faded momentarily from her face, until finally she put it away and looked back toward me. I finished dropping the items in the cart and walked toward the door, walking around several other shoppers as the cart wheels clattered against the tile.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I told her after we’d finished packing the groceries in the car and sat down up front. “If you don’t mind…I mean…what’s it like being trans? Does it feel weird? Is it different? How did your family take it?”

I watch her stop for a moment, perhaps lost in thought. I’d asked her to take me shopping because Meghan was noticeably absent today and I couldn’t use the mirrors. She probably hadn’t expected an interrogation but I really, really wanted to know what my life could have been like if Angela hadn’t changed me. It was impossible for me to say if I would have ever come out; back then I was afraid of my parents even though I’d moved out. Even still I felt their invisible grip around my heart and mind, one driven by manufactured dogma and control issues that I couldn’t even begin to diagnose.

“It’s um…funny you ask,” She sighed. “I told my mom four years ago and I thought she would have had time to adjust but she told me that…that I took her son away. I tried to explain to her that this has always been me, that I spent my entire childhood being…so…sad. I guess sad is a good way to put it. But she said to me ‘I’ll always remember him, and that you took him away from me, and everything that I hold dear’. You know, Jasmine, in my mind I know it’s bullshit but my heart, my heart is aching right now. In my heart, it feels like I…feel like I hurt a person that I’m supposed to care about. I feel…responsible.”

“You can’t be responsible,” I shook my head. “You didn’t take anything away from her, you…didn’t belong to her. You made the best choice, for you, to survive, and if she can’t handle that then…it’s gotta be on her.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself,” She nodded, her voice cracking a little bit. She still hadn’t started the car. “I just keep trying to…”

“Have you thought about writing it down?” I suggested. “I used to keep a journal, sometimes it really helps to get the emotions out through words. Heck you could even turn it into a story, post it online, get some feedback.”

“I don’t really like posting stories online,” She laughed a little bit. “It’s easy at first, when you don’t have much character development fleshed out. See in the beginning your character is someone that people can relate to, they can project onto. But, as you get further into the story you start to really develop your character, give them a personality, and then your readers will be like ‘Well I’d never do that’ or ‘I’m really losing interest in this story now that I can’t picture myself in it’. It’s…just a problem that happens as the story evolves.”

“Wait, hold on,” I cocked my head at her. “Doesn’t the quality of the story matter? Like, at all? Dynamic characters, branching plotline? I see books all the time that are really complex. You can’t really project yourself onto a character in a Steven King book but the story is what matters.”

“Well, sometimes,” She nodded. “But then you have books like Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey where the character is basically an empty template that you can jump into. Everyone could picture themselves as Bella, but not everyone can be Roland the Gunslinger.”

“Did love me some Dark Tower though,” I smiled softly. She shot me a strange look.

“You’ve read the Dark Tower?” She finally turned the ignition key, the car roared to life. “That’s like…old…and you’re like…eleven.”

“A classic is a classic,” I affirmed. The truth was that I’d gotten into it around the time the movie was still pretty popular, but did she really need to know that?

“So here’s…the truth,” She told me with a sigh. “This thing…happened. My mother said that to me and you know what? Everyone around me sees me as the strong one, the one who always cracks a joke, the one who lets everything roll off her shoulders and to be honest, I am that way because I had to be growing up. My parents, they weren’t really ones for listening or helping me solve problems. I had to put up this wall, build this hard shell, never let anyone know how I was feeling. Because of that everyone comes to me with their problems, they expect me to solve so many things, or be that sympathetic ear but you know what? Now I’m the one that needs help. Now I’m the one that’s hurting, and there’s no one here for me.”

“I’m here for you,” I said softly. “I’ll listen, I promise. You can tell me anything.”

“Why do you seem so much older than you are?” She looked at me as she pulled the car into my parent’s old driveway. Meghan had insisted that I stay there while Broderick and company were gone, and now, her car was sitting in the driveway. I guess she was home.

“Well,” I sighed. “The truth is, I was eighteen years old in 2019, and a guy but I bugged this Fae girl to dominate me, and she did, and accidentally left me to clean her house for eleven years and turned me into one of them. Now I’m immortal, and instead of being a 35 year old guy I have the body of a 12 year old girl. Wild, right?”

There was a long pause and a pregnant silence in the car, and then, finally, Ashleigh burst out laughing. I joined in momentarily before her phone rang and she lifted it to slide the ‘answer’ button.

“That’s good, that’s real good,” She snickered just before holding the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

I sat quietly for a moment and tuned into the conversation at the other end of the phone. It was in this moment I realized that the Fae had extremely good hearing.

”Did you leave a shirt on top of the washing machine?” I recognized the voice as that of her roommate. I craned to listen a bit more.

“Uh, yeah,” She said. “I need to wash it after you guys get done with your clothes.

“What did I tell you about leaving clothes on the washing machine?”

“I’m going to wash it when I get home, you guys were just doing laundry and-“

“You know what? You do things like this because you don’t care. You don’t care about ANYONE but yourself. I let you live in my home, I let you use my kitchen, I let you use my laundry room. The least you could do is say thank you.”

“Thank you,” She said quietly and flatly. “I’ll take care of the shirt when I get home.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Her roommate said sharply. “I already threw it away. I’m going to throw ANYTHING that you leave laying around away from now on.”

“Okay, I’m sorry,” She said. “I won’t do it again.”

“I wish I could believe you,” The phone clicked, the line was dead. Ashleigh held it out in front of her and hung up, her face grim for a moment.

“Okay,” She said, smiling at me. “You ready to get these groceries in the house?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Let’s go.”

I opened my eyes, though I don’t know why I bothered. It was the same room, every day. The same white walls, the same tall barred window, lined with steel lattice just in case I somehow managed to squeeze my way through the iron verticals. A white tile floor, a white bed, everything white. At least they’d unstrapped me from the bed. Why was I here? What had I even done? As I surveyed the white plaster ceiling I remembered my father’s words. “You’re no son of mine,” He’d said. How fucking cliché. I couldn’t tell you why he hated me so much. Well, I could, but does it really matter? How long had I been in here? Day? Years? Months? What time was it, even? I listened carefully, heard attendants making their way up and down the hall outside, the soles of their rubber shoe clapping noisily and squeaking against the tile. Everything here was so sterile. So sterile. How I longed for a carpeted floor, a poster on the wall, music from my old transistor radio. My wandering thoughts were interrupted by the sound the latch outside opening with a rude slam, the attendant, Michael appeared in the doorway carrying the daily offering of medication on a tray with a plastic cup of water. They couldn’t trust a glass in here. Everything plastic, or cardboard.

“Good morning, Alexander,” He said, stepping into my room. My cell. “Got your medication here, you promise not to bite me this time?”

“No promises,” I said, no emotion tainting my voice. I had none to give anymore.

“Now now, any funny business like that and I might just have to have you sedated again,” He lectured. I think he enjoyed his job way too much.

“No trouble from me,” I reassured him. He handed me the pills and I took the cup of water from the tray. He stared at me intently as I placed them on my tongue and gulped the water. After I laid the empty cup back on the tray, I extended my tongue to satisfy that I hadn’t simply stowed the capsules beneath it.

“Did you hear?” He said as he walked from the room. “We beat those Ruskies at their own game, they call it Vanguard One – Sputnik can go fuck itself.”

I would be alone for the rest of the day. Or at least I though. As I started to lay back down, I noticed a man, dressed in some sort of leather shirt and pants sitting in the corner farthest from me. He was sat on a chair, his back arched forward, his chin resting on his doubled fists, surveying me.

“Hello, Alexander,” The man spoke slowly, with purpose.

“What’s this? Am I finally losing my mind?” I asked, only partially joking.

“I think that ship sailed a while ago,” The man replied, standing up and making his way over toward my bed, stopping only a few feet from me.

“You here to kill me then?” I asked. “Get it over with, you’d be doing me a favor.

“Your attendant already did,” He told me. “The pill he gave you, a gift from your father.”

I paused for a moment.

“That’s a shame, I was having so much fun living my life,” I stretched my hands out and gestured to the room. “Who are you?”

“I’m here to get you out,” The man said very matter of factly. “If you’re ready to go, that is.”

I snorted.

“Even if you had a way out,” I said. “My father would have you locked up like me, or killed, whoever you are. He can’t have a disgrace like me wandering around dragging the family name, or so he says. The moment I went for hormone treatment, he knew about it. Had me dragged right out of my apartment. Says he gave birth to a son, not some tranny. Maybe he’s right.”

“You’ve suffered quite enough,” The man said. “A thousand years worth of it, I might guess.”

“Come again?” I glanced up, raising an eyebrow. In my stomach I could feel a dull pain starting to emanate from the pit, lurking its way outward. Had I really been poisoned? Good.

“You’ve lived many lives, Alexander,” The man told me. “You fought at the battle of Culloden, you marched alongside Napoleon, you served as a handmaid to the Queen of Scots. You’ve done many things, though the one thing you never had was children, curiously enough. You’ve had a time of it, and now it’s time to come home. My name is Broderick, and I’ve come to guide your soul home.”

“Broderick?” I said. “I knew a man named Broderick onc—”

I stopped short. What was I remembering? A torrent of memories was rushing into my head all at once, as if a set of flood gates had been opened onto my very reality.

“Tell me,” I said, standing up, as hundreds of lives flashed before my eyes. “Why was I forced to live like this? In this body? Why would this happen to ANYONE? Why was I made to suffer like this? Why was I made a prisoner in my own body? What right do gods or angels have to condemn me?”

“We all have lessons to learn,” Broderick told me. “Now I want you to think, think hard. What is your name?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Think hard,” He instructed again. “Tell me your name, the first thing that comes to your mind.”

I looked about the room, the white walls were becoming a little less suffocating, I was feeling lighter. I bit my lip and finally spoke.

“Angeline, my name is Angeline.”

“Welcome to the light, Angeline.”

“Angela?” I perked up a bit, turning and placing my hand on the steel tubing that comprised the rail of the wooden bridge. I saw the girl, her jet black hair coursing with the flow of the wind, her wedge heels clipping the uneven planks. She looked just like any other girl really, apart from the paleness and the deep blue eyes.

“Yes, I am, you must be Meghan,” I extended a hand, which instead of taking, she looked at warily and then glanced out, off the bridge and out to the river beyond. We’d agreed to meet at Frog Island Park as soon as I’d figured out where she was and had in fact confirmed that she still lived in the area.

“I’m sorry,” She said, shaking her head. “I don’t feel that comfortable being around you, you’re a Fae, I’m a vampire. We all know how these things usually go.”

“Are you afraid of me?” I smirked a little. Damn right she was, she should be.

“You said you have information about my brother,” She said stonily. “He disappeared when he was eighteen, right after he graduated from school. I cried for months. If you know where he is, I need to know, right now.”

“I’m going to be honest with you,” I sighed. “He…hasn’t had a great life since he disappeared. I…made a mistake.”

“What kind of mistake?” She demanded. I could see her anger rising, but I wasn’t too worried. In the daylight, vampires are about as strong as the average human. At night, it’s a completely different story. “Where is my brother? Tell me, now.”

“Okay,” I tightened my grip on the handrail. “I’m going to need you to calm down, first of all, your brother had a bad habit of asking women to dominate him, did you know that?”

“Uh, yeah,” She stifled a laugh. “He asked ME once.”

“What? Okay anyway, he asked me, a lot, and I always said no. One day, I got fed up with it so…I well, I gave him a very basic order to clean my house, over, and over, and over. I expected him to snap out of it within like a week, but…he didn’t.”

“How…long…did he clean for?” Meghan raised an eyebrow. “Please tell me it wasn’t for more than a few days.”

“Nine years and twenty-four months,” I said, blurting the words out as quickly as I could. “I promise you, he probably doesn’t remember most of it.”

“Eleven YEARS?!” Her expression changed from one of skepticism to pure rage. Without warning, she threw herself at me, wrapping her arms around me waist and dragging me to the ground. As soon my back slammed into the planks, she reared back, hissing as she raised a hand in the air, preparing to bring her hand down. I reached out and grasped her wrist before she could dig her nails into my throat. The moment I did, she attempted to bring her other hand down, which I easily grabbed as well. “Get off of me! Where the fuck is my brother?!”

“Calm down!” I hissed angrily as I lifted her off of me like a rag doll and planted her firmly on the deck while I towered over her. She was no match for me. “Your brother is fine, he’s alive, he’s been living in my house.”

“What, as your slave?! You still have him scrubbing your floors? I’ll kill you!”

“You are not going to kill me,” I said sternly, easily maintaining control of her as I held tightly to her wrists. “You are going to sit there and you are going to listen to me. I need to talk to you about your brother-“

“Let me go you cunt!” She shouted, thrusting her body forward and headbutting my leg. I sighed and lifted up on her wrists, flinging her as hard as I could from the bridge and watching her tumble into he water below. The current immediately seized her, dragging her downriver.

“Outstanding,” I muttered as I turned to my right and made my way toward the end of the bridge. Emerging into the parking lot, I crossed the blacktop quickly and made a beeline for the bathroom, a simple brick structure with a few stalls, and of course, mirrors. “I hope I don’t get randomly attacked in here.”

For a moment, I stared into the mirror and ensured that my makeup was still acceptable – it seemed to be okay. I shrugged and placed my hand to the mirror, using my mind to concentrate on the other bathroom that I knew was on the trail, about half a mile down the river. Within seconds I was standing inside that bathroom instead, and while the layout was exactly the same, it was thoroughly trashed with candy wrappers on the floor, graffiti on the walls, and what I was pretty certain was fresh urine near one of the stalls. I immediately walked toward the exit, emerging onto the trail and walking through the trees. There was a slight embankment, and then, just as I predicted, I found Meghan lying on the shore, gasping for breath and choking her lungs out as she tried to stand upright.

“Again,” I said to her. “I need to talk to you about your brother. Did he ever…act different?”

Meghan stopped choking for a moment and glared up at me. I raised an eyebrow.

“I…guess…he always acted a little bit feminine. He asked to try on one of my tops once,” Meghan brushed herself off as she stood upright and sort of snarled. “I thought it was a joke but later I noticed a lot of my stuff was…hung up…wrong.”

“That makes sense,” I nodded. “There’s something I really need to tell you. First of all, I want you to know that we’re training him, in everything. We’re teaching him to stand up for himself, we’re teaching him to fight, and we’re teaching him about the world he’s living in now. We’re not just going to leave him hanging, you understand?”

She nodded and stepped closer to me.

“There’s something else, isn’t there?” She asked. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Your brother he’s…a Fae now. Not intentionally, but it happened, and there’s no going back, you understand?” Her expression changed, it was a mixture of confusion and relief. “And…he’s…he’s your sister now.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your brother was always a girl, her name is Jasmine now and…”

“I…actually that makes sense,” She interrupted me. “But…you’re taking care of hi- her, right? You’re taking care of her? That’s one thing that was always missing. Our parents…they treated her so horribly. They put so much emphasis on religion and…I remember them locking her in the bathroom and forcing her to pray for hours at a time…I remember…they did so many things to her. They…they just weren’t good parents, I…wish she’d had parents, or at least a mother, I really do. Please tell me you’ll take care of her.”

“Meghan,” I said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I have named myself her mother. You know well that it’s a real connection between two Fae. It isn’t just words. Her and I are connected now, forever. Her fate is my fate.”

“Thank you…” Meghan said, suddenly leaping forward and giving me a hug. “Thank you so much.”