Her brief panic that the stone hadn’t worked disappeared with the first hint of the smell of pine. Within moments, the scent filled her head. The blue smoke cleared from Madeline’s vision, and she soon saw the open, cursed doorway to the witch’s hut. It was mere inches away from her face. The lights were on, and the exact same hallway full of the exact same mess was right in front of her. Madeline hadn’t expected them to be awake, but the possibility that they were was helpful. She needed to head inside. She needed to tell them about Chad.

“Wait, wait! Stop! We’re over here!” Melody frantically shouted at Madeline. She was somewhere to the left.

Madeline stopped before she could even start walking inside. She turned around; Melody was frantically waving her arms, with Millicent standing right beside her. The sight of a cow-snake standing next to a cat-witch, one of whom was panicking because she had arrived, was a very strange sight to behold.

“Sweetie, he has permission to enter. I don’t think he’d get cursed again.” Millicent said, reaching up to stroke Melody’s back.

“Do we really want to risk it?” Melody asked.

Millicent shrugged. “Fair.”

Madeline rushed over to them. “I need to talk to you.”

“Ah, but first we need to talk to you!” Millicent said, reaching up to hold her finger barely an inch away from Madeline’s dog-like nose. “How’s the curse treating you? Gotta say, I either expected you to come back here sooner or not come back at all.”

Madeline brushed her hand away. “I came back because I need to warn you. This guy in my village is trying to rile up people to form a mob and force you to leave.”

Melody got wide-eyed. “Oh no, are they gonna make a circle to perform a banishing ritual?”

Madeline raised an eyebrow. “No, I don’t think they can.”

“Are they going to send an elder of the village who is an experienced conjuror of extra-planar magics?” asked Millicent.

Madeline shook her head, the urgency and fear created by her encounter with Chad slowly draining. “No. I don’t think they have anything more than maybe a couple dozen people with torches and farm tools.”

Melody and Millicent looked at each other, then turned back to Madeline. Millicent said, “We’re good.”

“Yeah, I think we’ve got this covered. But thank you so much for being worried about us.” chimed in Melody.

“The concern is very much appreciated.” Millicent nodded. 

“Oh.” Suddenly, Madeline felt very silly for teleporting here. Of course this witch and this strange creature wouldn’t really need her help. But the thought that they would, truly, was never anything but an excuse. “So, what are you two doing out here?”

“Glad you asked!” Millicent clapped her hands together. “We’re doing some more tests on the security system. We have things in much tighter parameters now. In preparation for this test, the lovely Melody has had her permission to enter the home revoked.”

Melody slithered in a coil around Millicent. “I hope I don’t have to stay outside in the dark too long.”

Millicent held a finger under Melody’s chin and grinned, “I wouldn’t have you spend a single night alone.”

The two stared at each other’s eyes until Madeline cleared her throat. Millicent’s focus returned. She said, “Right! Melody, whatever you do, don’t enter the house.”

Melody slithered one more circle around Millicent before heading to the door. She sing-songed, “I certainly wouldn’t want to do… this!”

She stuck her head in the doorway. The instant she did, there was a bright flash. Where once there was a large cow-snake, there was now an average-to-a-human sized rabbit-woman lying on the ground. She was fully covered in fur, with very long, floppy ears. Her black jacket now hung well below her waist, and the neck slid to expose a shoulder as she got up off the floor. The only consistent thing about her form that she seemed to maintain was the patch of dark-brown fur on her left eye.

Millicent walked up next to Madeline. “So, thoughts?”

“She’s definitely small and cute.” Madeline nodded. Melody did as well.

“Oh that’s very true. And I think we’re leaning towards keeping bunny forms for future curse builds.” Millicent leaned in closer to Melody. “I’m just wondering if this is enough to make someone go ‘Oh no, I have been cursed, I should leave before I get cursed worse.’”

“I think I like it too much,” said Melody, looking at her fuzzy arms and legs. “We don’t want to make the curse too miserable, but I wouldn’t be scared away.”

Millicent nodded, then turned to Madeline again. “What do you think? Let’s say, hypothetically, you entered our house without permission. If you got hit by this bunny curse on your way in, would you run away or stick around?”

Madeline thought it over for a moment. “I was really nervous when I entered, so I think I would run back to my house. But is this version temporary?”

“We’ll make it temporary if it’s what we decide on,” said Millicent.

“Then, uh.” Madeline shifted her weight, leaning forward and holding her hands together behind her back. Her tail started wagging. “I most definitely would have come back to see if you could do it again.”

Both the witch and the bunny girl looked at her with a grin. Melody asked, “Oh, do you want another trip through the cursed doorway?”

“No.” Madeline looked down at herself and saw her tail wag a little. “I really like this body, and I very much don’t want to change it right now.”

“Sounds like we might have some catching up to do about your current situation. Would you like to tell us over some tea?” asked Millicent, motioning towards the door.

Madeline nodded. It struck Madeline that these strange magical beings were offering her the same drink as her friends back home. Home in Rodehills, the village she’d grown up in. The village she had fled. But that was not what she wanted to think about right now. She chose to focus on the fascinating, seemingly universal, appeal of sharing a drink with friends.

Madeline looked at the pair again. Millicent helped Melody off the ground, only for Melody to pounce and hang on to the witch’s neck, sending them both tumbling to the floor. They hugged and laughed. Melody sprung back up to her feet, and helped Millicent up. Madeline couldn’t be sure if she considered them friends or not. But she hoped one day they would be.

Millicent pulled her wand out of the holder on her belt and waved it towards the door. She waved Madeline inside, while Melody literally hopped through the door and into the living room. Madeline waited for Millicent to walk through the door before following.

They made tea in the same way they’d made coffee last time Madeline was there. Madeline sat in the same chair as last time, but this time it felt much different. She shifted her tail to the side to sit more comfortably. A lot had changed in not much time at all. 

Madeline told them all about returning home, her excitement with the transformation, how worried she'd been about talking to Arin and how well it had worked out. The two magical beings seemed so excited for her. They couldn't be manipulating her, but the image of Chad standing in the center of town, and the horrifying possibility he suggested, wouldn't leave her head. She had to know. She needed that certainty. 

“Hey. I have a strange question, and I hope it's not too rude.” Madeline, her hands shaking, placed her tea down on a stack of books. “You didn't-” 

Madeline stopped. She didn’t want to ask. But they were already waiting for her to finish.

“You didn't use magic to make me want this, did you?”

Melody looked horrified. Millicent leaned her head back in resigned recognition.

“I- I only ask because I just need to know for sure.”

“No! We didn't, that would be horrible!” Melody yelped, leaping out of the chair the two were sitting in.

Millicent hugged her from behind, and gently pulled Melody back into the chair. She gently stroked Melody’s rabbit ears, and turned to talk to Madeline. 

“I understand, it's a decently common misconception. No, we didn't. And I'd understand if you didn't believe us.”

“No, I do. This may have been an accident, but I'm so grateful.”

Millicent waved her hand around. “Thank you, but let me assure you even further. We didn't mess with your thoughts not only because we don't want to, but also because it’s impossible.” 

Madeline perked up an ear. “It is?”

“I'm a specialist in dark magic, and I keep up with these things. There's research out there, often not conducted officially or ethically, but it exists and I’ll tell you everything that I know. No one has ever used dark magic to forcibly change someone’s thoughts or feelings. It’s simply not possible. Magically-induced false memories don’t exist either. Some nefarious curses might create memory loss, while others can make heightened abilities like night vision or the sudden ability to speak a new language, but they can’t make a memory from nothing. And they certainly can’t manipulate feelings.”

“I thought magic could do anything.” Madeline said. It had always seemed to do whatever someone wanted it to in the stories she’d read, not that she counted on them for accuracy.

“It potentially could; extra-planar magics have very wildly varying interactions with ours, which is why summoning is incredibly dangerous. And would also be terrible at creating fake memories, since a being who could do that is very very unlikely to do what you ask.” Millicent lightly poked the top of Melody’s head. “Dream-planer magic doesn’t like to stay connected to our world’s. So Melody has a natural magic power that can do basically anything, but its effects can be removed at essentially any time.”

Melody sighed, “Overridden by anyone who wills it to be, even people it’s not affecting, making it sadly ineffective at helping people here. I’m also immune to any of your world’s magic unless I let it affect me.”

This was all much more involved than Madeline had thought it would be. She was grateful for that. If it took a very complex understanding to curse her like this, it felt much less like she might be an exception to the rules. She wanted to know even more. “So why exactly can’t dark magic force people to change their feelings?”

“Dark magic is already influenced by feelings,” replied Millicent, who apparently understood that Madeline wanted a thorough explanation. “It naturally changes in response to the way the person receiving the curse feels about it. This is actually what makes dark magic so taboo, since a particularly heinous curse can detect that you dislike the effects and respond by making itself even worse. Very strict parameters on a curse can make sure it has a single, consistent effect, but the curse still constantly seeks out information of the recipient’s feelings. So to change your feelings or your memories, it would have to detect how you feel about your feelings being changed while it’s changing your feelings. And since you can’t see or feel the shifts magic would make to your feelings or memories, the curse ultimately assumes it hasn’t had an effect, and therefore instantly stops trying to affect you.”

“So, is the feeling detection why I got this body?” Madeline asked.

“You like it, right?” 

“I love it.” Madeline said. Her tail, curled around beside her, starting to wag and bump up against the armrest.
The couple both smiled. Millicent said, “Yeah, my assumption is that the curse picked up happiness or excitement and gradually morphed itself to maximize that. Which is honestly something kinda novel. If we could get those results consistent, it’d actually make maybe the world’s best assistance for people who want to drastically change their bodies.”

“Are there a lot of people who want that?” Madeline asked.

They gave her a confused look, then one of surprise. Melody jumped out of her seat, ran over, and gave Madeline a hug. “There’s a lot more of us than you would think.”

It took Madeline a second to process what had happened and what had been said. All she said then was, “Oh.”

“To finish up alleviating fears as best I can,” Millicent leaned to the side so she could still be seen around the bunny girl that continued to hug Madeline, “it’s possible that other forms of magic I’m less familiar with might be able to mess with feelings, but I’ve never heard of one that can. And dark magic is the only one I know that would have permanent effects. It would take someone very specialized and powerful to know how to cast, say, a light magic version of that kind of spell and maintain it for over three days. And I’m the scary, evil transformation witch. Light magic is not my style.”

This time, Millicent’s assertion of being evil sounded much more disingenuous. Madeline said, “Okay. I’m convinced.”

Melody let go of the hug, and walked back over to Millicent’s chair. She glanced toward the front door. “It looks like that mob hasn’t shown up. Maybe nothing happened.”

A part of Madeline had been waiting for Chad to show up outside and bang on the door. Most of her really didn’t want to think about it. But, hours had passed, and with them passed the moments she had to think about things other than what she should do next.

Melody looked to have picked up on her feelings. “You could stay here for a little while if you want.”

Madeline stood up. They’d already done so much for her. She couldn’t bear to ask them for any more. She swooped up her cloak from the back of her chair. “No thank you. I actually have to go back. Like, right now. I need to let my partner know that I’m okay.”

She saw them give her a surprised look, but nod as she turned and walked into the hallway. Behind her, Millicent said “Oh, before you go, we should give-” but Madeline walked out the door. It was a sudden, rude departure. She hoped they’d forgive her for that.

Madeline ran through the maze of the woods. It was already a very dark forest, and the night changed it very little. But she had changed. She moved faster, with much more ease. The prickle of the needles didn’t bother her as much, and the smell the forest was so great. The night air was chilly, and felt refreshing to move against. Running through the woods was wonderful. Madeline hoped that Arin wasn’t too worried about her. She hoped that she wasn’t too worried about the future.

It didn’t take her long to see the clearing, the miles of tall grassland, leading to a steep hill where Rodehills, the place that had been her home, stood. A part of her screamed to run back to it. Another part screamed to stay. 

She slowed as she approached the end of the forest, moving from running, to walking, to stopping and leaning against a tree next to the field that led to home. If she crossed that field and returned to Rodehills, she’d be welcomed with open arms by Arin and Florence and met with who-knows-what by everybody else. The village now knew who she was, but she didn’t know if that meant coming home to love and acceptance or another crowd of torch-bearing shepherds and farmers, still listening to someone expound another solution for their “werewolf problem.”

Alternatively, she thought, she could slink back into the forest. Live here, away from anyone who could tell her how they thought she was supposed to feel, and who they thought she was supposed to be. Stay in the forest, like the wolves her new body emulated. People at home could still talk about her, but she wouldn’t know what they said. Maybe one day Millicent and Melody would disappear from these woods as suddenly as they came. If that happened, Rodehills could certainly use a new Evil Witch of the Forest.

But, no, that wasn’t a healthy thought. Maybe the town would learn to love her, and maybe not. But Arin already did, and she loved them back. Whatever the future held, whether that future was in Rodehills or somewhere else, she wanted to work with Arin to figure that out.

She took a step forward into the grassland when she heard a little noise. Something about the frequency of it made panic run through every inch of her. She turned around, her ears perked and listening for the source. Then she heard it again, a small squeak. One that was very soft. And very weak.

Madeline followed the sound, brushing aside pines and bushes and everything else, frantically looking for a source. Then she found it. The tiny, curled-up, dark-grey blob moved, kicked, and called out as loud as it’s little lungs could. It was very small, looked very cold, and was very alone. There was no time to deliberate any longer.

Madeline grabbed the wolf pup, cradled it in her arms, and made a mad dash towards home.