I thought the prior Monday had been unusual. The atmosphere at school was unreal. Everyone already knew that Jenny had dumped Tommy. Neither of them would tell anyone why and the number of often conflicting rumors were unreal.

How could this be? She had been holding the lifeless bird statue when I petrified her and some of her life force was now in the bird. How much had been drained from her? The bird had had no life force for over a week.

I looked at the place where she and the bird were in contact and I could see some of the red inside her moving into the bird. I grasped the bird and was able to remove it from her hand. The bird's life lines were still very faint. At least now the essence was no longer flowing from Marie to the bird.

I woke up Saturday morning with two legs, much to my relief. I showered and returned to my room. As I looked through my closet I noticed the one pair of jeans I had purchased just a handful of days ago. Reaching for the jeans made me feel funny on Thursday. Today, I picked them up off the rack without my compulsions complaining about it. I put them on and still there was no problem. I had to admit I liked the way they hugged my body. When I finished dressing I went downstairs for breakfast. Mom and Daddy were already up.

We returned from the mall around two o'clock. As we walked past the garage I was surprised to see the bird statue still sitting just outside the back of the breezeway. As I hurried up to my room to drop off my shopping bags, Mom called out to me. "Don't even think about wearing that cream colored dress in that filthy garage. And don't get any makeup on it when you take it off."

Chapter 1

"Hey, Gorgon, did you twist last night?" Called the familiar and unwanted voice of Tommy Radner. "Look, somehow you got uglier." Suddenly a hideously mangled image of my face appeared floating in front of me where everyone in the hallway could see it.

"Tom, I think you may have improved his looks." John Lee joked. Tommy and John were both on the football team and could do no wrong according the school administration. No wrong apparently included accosting innocent students such as myself.

Wallmart, Flagstone Arizona

I'd always known that I might be twisted, but it never really sank in. There weren't many twisted back in Darvel, maybe half a dozen in my high school, and only one other in my year. Karen had always been kind of nerdy and then she went and twisted. She was binge watching the old Lord of the Rings Movies at the time, and now she was tall, willowy and had pointed ears.