It was getting to be about that time. The time of year when the world froze over and the cold settled into my bones to rest.

This winter would be different though. I had finally decided that I could no longer continue as I had for so long, trying to be who and what I was supposed to be when even my life cycle differed from most around me. Oh sure, there were other magical creatures out there… more of them than there are of the mindblind in fact but I wasn’t like most of them either.

I grimace as I feel the pressure increase on my back, and grip the armrests of my chair for support whilst my ‘friends’ all whoop and cheer. I force the corners of my lips to turn upwards into a smile, though that smile soon fades when the roar of the jet engine is drowned out by a loud squeak from my right hand side.

“Oh! My! God!” Georgie squeaks, shredding my nerves more and more with every word she says. “This is so awesome!”

“Mmph,” I moan as I feel a gentle breeze blow on my left ear, worsening the thumping headache caused by the alcohol I drank last night.

“Wake up,” A familiar voice whispers, before the breeze on my ear resumes.

“Stop that,” I moan. “I’m on holiday, I don’t want to wake up…”

“WE’RE on holiday,” my fiancée reminds me, her blowing turning from a gentle breeze into a hurricane as she blows directly into my earhole.

“Ugh,” I moan. “Can I at least shift this hangover first?”

"Miss Thomas?" I hear a voice call as my brain struggles against the darkness in which it's found itself. "Miss Thomas? Can you hear me?"

"Nikki?" Another voice- a familiar voice- asks.

"Mmph," I groan as sensation begins to return to my body, bringing with it a feeling of tiredness in my joints, fatigue in my muscles... And pain. Lots and lots of pain, centred mainly on my groin...

"Nikki?" Another voice asks, making my heart beat faster as I instantly identify the owner of the voice.

"Sarah?" I croak.

"A whole week off!" Maisie squeaks in my ear as the bell rings to signify the end of the school day- and indeed, the end of this half of the term.

At least, it would be the end of the school day for me, were it not for the fact that when I arrive home, I immediately head up to my bedroom and exchange the itchy, clingy black tights and knee-length skirt I've worn all day for an even itchier, even clingier pair of pink tights and a black tank leotard, just as I've done every Tuesday and every Friday since the New Year began.

“You know,” Paige said as she settled into her plush airline seat, “I kinda wish more people were staring. I mean, come on, just look at us! We’re hot!”

Introduction: Big things are happening at the Hotel, and Tommie is becoming a bit uneasy about things. Most of the special group that has been arriving since the day before is magic, and they seem to have an unusual interest in her. Cindy realizes she may have made a big mistake.

This story is another addition to The Cynthia Chronicles. Cynthia (Cindy) Brewer has graduated from medical school, and is well into her residency. The Wizard has difficulty remembering exactly where she is in her studies. Randi Lewis at age 18 is starting work on her Master of Science in Chemistry (read Randi and the Professor), and Charli Brewer will soon be a freshman in pre-med at UConn. Bobbie Anderson is setting the golf world on fire having now won tournaments on the PGA in addition to her many victories on the LPGA. This story takes place a year before Bobbie and the Glass Ceiling. If you are not familiar with the stories that make up the Cynthia Chronicles, you might want to go back to the beginning with An Incremental Journey. There are references to Cynthia and the Reluctant Girlfriend and Charli and the Girl Cave. If you don’t remember what happened in those stories, you might want to go back and read them again. This story also takes place just a few months before Cynthia and the Queen of the Knight.

Introduction: Randi fills Charli in on what has been going on. Needless to say she is beyond happy. Tommie has a very pleasant surprise.

This story is another addition to The Cynthia Chronicles. Cynthia (Cindy) Brewer has graduated from medical school, and is well into her residency. The Wizard has difficulty remembering exactly where she is in her studies. Randi Lewis at age 18 is starting work on her Master of Science in Chemistry (read Randi and the Professor), and Charli Brewer will soon be a freshman in pre-med at UConn. Bobbie Anderson is setting the golf world on fire having now won tournaments on the PGA in addition to her many victories on the LPGA. This story takes place a year before Bobbie and the Glass Ceiling. If you are not familiar with the stories that make up the Cynthia Chronicles, you might want to go back to the beginning with An Incremental Journey. There are references to Cynthia and the Reluctant Girlfriend and Charli and the Girl Cave. If you don’t remember what happened in those stories, you might want to go back and read them again. This story also takes place just a few months before Cynthia and the Queen of the Knight.

Introduction: For this little bit of fluff we go back only a couple of months before Cynthia and the Queen of the Knight. Over the years that these tales about Cynthia Brewer (nee Lewis) have appeared there have been a number of loose ends. We have met people, many the victims of The Wizard’s magic, and then we hear nothing more about them. A prime example is Charli and the Girl Cave. Charlie Donizetti’s parents as well as his aunt and uncle were brutally murdered during a robbery, leaving Charlie an orphan. Also orphaned were his two cousins. Other than a brief mention that the cousins had been sent to an orphanage in western Connecticut, we know nothing about their fate. Now is the time to find out what their fate was. The Wizard is up to his usual tricks.

This story is another addition to The Cynthia Chronicles. Cynthia (Cindy) Brewer has graduated from medical school, and is well into her residency. The Wizard has difficulty remembering exactly where she is in her studies. Randi Lewis at age 18 is starting work on her Master of Science in Chemistry, and Charli Brewer will soon be a freshman in pre-med at UConn. Bobbie Anderson is setting the golf world on fire having now won tournaments on the PGA in addition to her many victories on the LPGA. This story takes place about two months before Cynthia and the Queen of the Knight and a year before Bobbie and the Glass Ceiling. If you are not familiar with the stories that make up the Cynthia Chronicles, you might want to go back to the beginning with An Incremental Journey. There are references to Cynthia and the Reluctant Girlfriend and Charli and the Girl Cave. If you don’t remember what happened in those stories, you might want to go back and read them again.

“Thank you all!” Becca yells into her microphone to the screaming crowd as we all wave happily. “Thank you all so, so much!”

“Thank you Glasgow!” I scream into my microphone, taking several deep breaths (despite my tight clothing) to rest my tired voice.

“We love you all!” Lauren yells into the microphone, her long, ginger hair pinned to her face with sweat thanks to our two hour long concert- our tenth in twelve days, and thankfully, our last for the time being.

“Look man, when you said shooting the rapids would be an adventure I kinda thought, you know, a nice sort of civilized outing with trucks and guides and whatnot!”

“Yeah, I kinda figured there’d be some water involved too…” Pete gestured around them. “Think the rafts wills slide down these things?”

Kevin stared off into the distance, fuming as the wind hummed over the dunes.

PROOF OF AGE

by
Emma Finn

A teenage girl makes a bargain to increase her age in the hopes of gaining freedom for her and her boyfriend to be together but being older is not all it’s cracked up to be and she may just have made a terrible mistake.

A female to female magical weight-gain and age-progression transformation.

1

“It’s just not fair mum!” cried Trinny, feeling more and more exasperated. “I wanna go to the disco with Andy!”

“You don’t lie to me,” I sing in my low, sultry voice.

“You don’t lie to me,” Lauren repeats in her own rich singing voice.

“You don’t lie to me,” Kayla sings with a devilish look in her eyes.

“You don’t lie to me…” Adeola sings as we all so a single turn before we all throw our arms in the air.

“No more lies!” The five of us sing in unison, earning a thunderous rounds of applause from our producer Stuart and our choreographer Krystie.

“BRILLIANT,” Krystie giggles. “Choreography was spot on, well done, girls.”

Where does one person end and another begin? Usually not a difficult question to answer as each mind is confined to the brain it inhabits, but as our ingenuity enables us to overcome the barriers nature would impose on us, so we discover there are unforeseen consequences.

Nietzsche famously said that when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. I'm not sure this is what he meant by it, but it fits. Physics predicts that you can't observe something without changing it, and as you exert an influence on it, so it responds by exerting one on you.

Not in any way a Valentines story, but it's finished, so it might as well go up.

“Everyone’s staring at me again,” Jessica moaned, relaxing back into her chair.

“Staring at US,” Paige said. “And let them stare. Nothing they can do about it, they can hardly throw us off the plane now, can they?”

“God knows there are people who’d want to,” Jessica replied. “America may have legalized gay marriage, but that doesn’t mean everyone in America agrees with the Supreme Court.”

“I’m heading out now,” I say, grimacing in advance at the inevitable response.

“Kayleigh-Ann,” mum says in an obviously fake pained voice, “come here…” I roll my eyes, before heading into the living room and facing my mother, whose face is scrunched up in a look of pure disapproval.

“What is it?” I ask. “I don’t want to keep Ollie waiting…” I don’t want to keep Ian waiting, either, I think to myself.

“WHY are you going out with him?” Mum asks, barely restraining herself from spitting. “He’s a nerd…”

My hands shake with nerves as I- and everyone else in the vast room- watch the action unfolding on the television with baited breath.

“Come on,” I whisper. “I know you can do it…”

“The winner,” the blonde TV presenter announces in her refined northern accent, “of Strictly Come Dancing 2015 is…” A long, agonising pause fills the room as everyone holds their breath, waiting for the inevitable announcement.

“…Hannah and Robin!” The presenter says in a happy voice, prompting a loud, riotous cheer from everyone around me- myself included.

A Whateley Academy Short Story

Medicine Girl

by

ElrodW

Wednesday, May 16^th, 2015, dinnertime

Crystal Hall, Whateley Academy

When my cell phone beeped to tell me I had a message and I saw the number, I tried really hard not to show it, but I was a little nervous, and I guess that my team-mates and friends noticed.

THE MIXED TAPE MYTHOS STORIES

In the Australian outback a solitary traveller stops at a strange roadside store and leaves with a mysterious cassette. A homeless busker tells of the night that they became a conduit for a wild and otherworldly force. A young writer meets a man with no shadow. We will encounter her again, a student at an academy for witches and warlocks. The results of a pitched and secret battle in a secluded valley shapes humankind’s destiny amongst the stars. The wondrous and terrifying magic of the Mixed Tapes links disparate tales of sex, superheroes, fantastical kingdoms, and human and inhuman monsters. If you have ever wondered what the little indulgences that frame my anthologies add up to, here they are, all in one place, for your reading pleasure.

Concludes with an announcement regarding the first Mixed Tape of 2016

“Don’t see why you’re moaning,” dad laughs as I pass him yet another handful of pink and silver streamers. “You’re the one who insists on hanging out with these celebrities, attending their parties… There’s no ducking out of it now just because it’s your turn to organise one!”

“Give me a break,” I sigh. “I’ve been at work every day this week…”

“Ooh, poor you, having to work for a living,” Beverly laughs, making me sigh. “Thanks for helping out today, Chris.”

“My pleasure,” dad says. “She’s my future daughter-in-law, that makes her family, right?”