Chapter Fourteen: Nomine

It wasn't so much that I had an old and shriveled little finger that was the problem. Sure, it was a bit off-colored, veiny, and knobby at the joints. It was constantly sore, and even more sore when I moved it (Is this what being 90 is like? Count me out!). That was aggravating. But it wasn't permanent - just as my transformation into a little yorkie for all of about two minutes, this was an artificial change and could be undone. More aggravating was that I couldn't let anybody else see it, for fear that they'd report it to somebody, who'd investigate the matter, and that would come back around to the incensed Bigs who'd put me in the situation to begin with. And who knows what they'd do then? They knew my body's 'True Name' and could use it to exert control over me. From what I'd experienced, I was more skilled in witchcraft than any of them… but I had no power over them. Therefore, whatever I could do to them was negligible in comparison to their holding a True Name over my head. But if I changed my name, they wouldn't be able to control me any more and, as far as I was aware, there was only one way to change your True Name: becoming a full-fledged witch.

"Us initiates don't get witch names - not yet," Cassie told me over lunch - lunch at St. Circe's is an unstructured meal, offered on a la carte tables set out in the dormitory lounges. Thus, we could congregate freely without my needing to act the part of servant girl. Cassie and Simone and I occupied the big green couch, snacking between classes.

"Am I even allowed to know about this stuff?" Simone asked.

"No, not really," Cassie shrugged. "Though you should probably be an initiate, too - Natalie says you're a whiz with symbols."

"If she says so," Simone said with the modesty of a long-time little. She was, if anything, better at math than me... and I was pretty damn good.

I gestured to the mostly-empty lounge. "There are plenty of other seats if you don't want to hear about this stuff, Simone. Because it's getting discussed."

Simone didn't leave - good for her. Instead, she did the opposite: she sat there quietly, her gray eyes utterly attentive, taking in every bit of what we said. I asked for details and Cassie explained the naming ceremony, to take place in a week's time. That was when all of the initiates who'd become Advanced in the past semester would receive their witch names. It only happened once a year, so that was great timing on Cassie's part to advance the week before the ceremony. And I was getting left out - Lily wasn't ready to reveal to the whole coven that she'd inducted me, and nor did we want Rowan Bryce finding out.

"So... your witch name... it's secret?" Simone asked.

Cassie nodded. "It's supposed to be. If somebody finds it out, that's bad news bears, because then they have all sorts of power over you. It's just about impossible to change your name - that's how your power is tied in with the rest of the coven... I'm not sure how you'd change it. Changing covens, maybe?"

That gave me an idea - all of the other Advanced Bigs had received their secret witch names a year or two before… but that didn't mean I couldn't discover their names. "So... if I deduced somebody's name, I'd have as much power over them as the Conclave of Bitchy Bigs does over me, knowing my middle name and all?"

"More, I'd think," Cassie mulled over it. "Since Natalie-whatever-Bryce is only half-way your True Name… and you'll get to change it when Lily makes you a full witch, regardless. All you need to do to get your name is to find a mother witch to sponsor you. Not the easiest thing in the world, approaching a witch about that, but maybe not so hard, either. Then she gives you your name in the ceremony… again, that's my understanding. I haven't done it yet, obvs."

"Obvs. Yes, that's wonderful," I agreed. "I'm thinking more about how I'd go about getting somebody's name."

"Well... it's not a computer password," Cassie said. "You don't just write it down."

"You don't just write a computer password down, either," I observed. "At least you shouldn't. That's just bad security. But I'm thinking a particularly autobiographical teenage witch might give more away than she realizes."

By this, I meant that Marie von Schurr might have given away more than she realized. Having been cowed by the Bigs, I was now playing my part as a good, dutiful little. I even cleaned our room - why not? It was a good chance to locate Marie's obsessively-kept journal and examine it. In fact, I spent a lot of time cleaning, because she kept that journal hidden pretty well and she changed hiding spots every week or so. Marie was clearly suspicious that I was up to something. She wasn't wrong. Whenever I played Susy Homemaker, I was cataloging possible hiding places, up until I found it beneath the false bottom of her desk drawer. As soon as Marie was asleep, I eased the drawer open, nicked her journal, and crept out into the common area to pore over it with Simone and Cassie.

Marie had Advanced a bit over a year ago, and so had been part of the induction ceremony in the late autumn of last year. Celestial events being important, the ceremony took place on the first full moon before the solstice. I'd have thought Halloween more appropriate, but the induction was usually smack-dab between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Fortunately for me, Marie was a doodler. That was a big help. Pumpkins… turkeys… Christmas trees… even though her entries were mostly undated, we were able to spot the transition from pumpkins to turkeys and study her journal entries leading up to the ceremony:

'I'm very excited about the ceremony - I'll have to come up with a name that's suitable for a dignified witch. Something serious but mysterious. I know that nobody else can know my name, but *I'll* know it. I'll need strong name to fit my strong destiny - after all, I'm the third best witch in my class! I'll have Nessa clean my cloak to a satiny shine...'

"You guys get cloaks?" I asked.

"At the naming ceremony, yes... apparently," Cassie said. "I have no idea if they're special or do anything beyond serving as witchly attire for coven meetings."

After locating Marie's entries around the time of the ceremony, we read all of her entries right before and after, as well as examining her doodles for clues. Lots of seasonal pictures and… birds... she had a thing for crows and ravens, apparently. Very witch-y, I had to admit. And flowers. Her little doodles of flowers and vines reminded me of my intricate interweaving of tattoos - excepting that her floral patterns were always roses, their petals spread, their thorns drawn out with spiny detail, sometimes dripping with the blood of the injured. On one vine doodle, she'd replaced the leaves with black feathers - very neat.

I flipped to the next page - more vines. More birds. Marie's doodles weren't professional-quality illustrations, but she definitely had talent. She liked to draw, she liked to bike, and she was grounded enough to know she was only the third-best witch. I had a feeling that she might have been a decent person if she hadn't been so thoroughly poisoned by the other Bigs. But she had been, and so we were pitted against one another and I was going to fucking win. As we flipped through the journal, the three of us jotted down names that came to mind: Marie Crow Rose... Marie Unkindness Bramble... (witches usually kept their first names, apparently)... most of the names we invented came across as awkward and stilted. Certainly not the sort of thing that Marie would be drawn to - she had an artist's sensibilities, after all. But I had a lot of ideas to work with now.

I retreated to my room, folded the list of name words and slipped it inside my Initiate's Handbook. I returned Marie's journal to its spot in her desk drawer. Then I curled up in bed, thinking about witch names, hers and mine. And, all the while, Marie von Schurr snoozed away, oblivious to my shenanigans.

"I know you're not going to just give up," Marie said the next morning. She'd returned from her biking around the same time I returned from my morning magic. It was almost time for breakfast, after which was Upper Maths (with Cassie and Simone) and gymnastics practice (with Michelle). I wasn't going to let Marie ruin my morning.

"What do you mean?" I said sweetly. "Give up? You've got my True Name, Marie. You can do whatever you want to me. What could I possibly do to you that you can't revisit many times over? I'm under your thumb..."

"Look, Natalie, I didn't want things to go down the way they did. But we've got an order. We're going to enforce the order - with as little fuss as we can, but if you're determined to fuss, we're going to fuss back ten times harder. You get that, don't you?"

At least she'd resigned herself to using 'my' name now. It wasn't 'hey, little' all the time.

"I get that. I'm sure you don't expect me to like it, but I get it. Things have been this way for a long time, and you don't like the new girl showing up and making a mess of it. Okay, Marie, I'll play nice. I won't lie to your face and pretend like I'm a model student... but I'm under your thumb, Marie. While I'm stuck there, I'm yours to command... maybe until you graduate."

"I'm glad you've come to your senses. It's nothing personal," she said. "It's just the way things are - a little serves her betters."

"Of course," I said, and I thought: if Marie von Schurr is my better at witchcraft, you might as well turn me back into a yorkie. "It's nothing personal."

Indeed, it was nothing personal. I wasn't being personal when I took Marie's book and we jotted down all of the themes I saw there (well, maybe very slightly personal). I wasn't being personal when I assembled my best guesses at her name that evening. I wasn't being personal when I tested them out on Marie, one by one, as she slept.

Even with a control collar, manipulating a person can be tricky. But if you know that person's True Name, a control spell is downright simple. Two names out of three will get you a bit weak sauce control, and all three would get you the whole shebang. And, as in horseshoes and hand grenades, close actually counts - if you get really close to a witch's true name, you get a little English, even if it's not full-on control. And if I kept quiet enough and had enough of Marie's hairs to work with, I could try out names all night long to hone in on her True Name.

Being the dutiful little maid I was now playing, I was fastidious in cleaning Marie's side of the room… and so I was able to scrounge about a hundred primo Marie hairs from her brush, her pillow, and from the various hair-friendly crevasses of the room. It was easy to differentiate hers from mine, given that my hair was about ten times longer and, depending on the strand, either deeply, expressively fiery or strangely glossy and pink. I sat cross-legged on the floor, staring at Marie in her bed (pretty creeptastic but, hey, desperate times) and whispering the symbols under my breath. I shaped the symbols with a little witching bauble I'd made from arts and crafts supplies (witches like ominous or valuable-looking jewels - preferably both - but cheap and chintzy will work just as well). With each attempt, I'd wrap a hair around the bauble and mutter a simple control spell, using the control to make the sleeping Marie lift her arm. I must have been at it for an hour and burned most of the way through my stockpile of Marie hairs when I came across:

"Mistress Starlight, with this True Name,

this poor subject's will do I claim...

Marie Raven Rose!"

With that, I raised my right arm... and Marie's right finger twitched! It twitched! Maybe she was just twitching in her sleep... maybe she was about to wake up and catch me casting occult control spells at her in our room. No good would come of that. None at all. The Bigs would crucify me. I held my breath for a minute. I tried the name again - another twitch! So I had Marie's True Name mostly right. But I was at least a bit off - but where? I wracked my brain on it, thought about Marie's doodles... thought about the symbols underlying the name... I was tired, it was super late, and I'd been at magic for an hour. My head was swimming, churning, and I was about to give up.

Then something clicked into place. Inspiration struck. In my feverish state, I perceived a pattern, something aligning between Marie and the magic ignited by her own discarded hairs.

"Mistress Starlight, with this True Name,

this poor subject's will do I claim...

Maria Ravenna Thorne!"

I lifted my arm. The sleeping Marie lifted her arm. In my excitement, I almost let it flop down again, nearly awakening my controlled roommate. No... that wouldn't do. I had to sit on this secret until a more opportune time. But I now had more control over Maria Ravenna Thorne than she had over me. Success!

+++++

Something weighed curious on my mind after that episode - something that made me nearly forget my servitude as a good and proper little, that made me forget my secret power over Marie von Schurr, and that almost made me forget my wizened pinkie finger. My finger I could never completely forget because I had to keep it hidden most of the time and because it hampered me slightly in gymnastics. It was only a pinkie, but it lanced pain up my hand during handstands and made anything requiring good grip (which is a lot of gymnastics) a lot more unpleasant. I'd have loved to have my regular finger back, but I had to make do with aspirin and Bengay.

What weighed curious on my mind was what had happened right before I chanced upon Marie's True Name - that strange sensation of things clicking into place, of traversing a landscape within the magical ley within which lay the nexus of her witchcraft. If I felt my way to a True Name when I was very close to the mark, maybe there was a technique to feel one's way from farther out. Maybe there was an underlying pattern I could follow to any True Name, like a spider feeling out the tugs on her web to find a tiny, struggling mayfly, little cues to track down her tiny quarry and inject its helpless form with venom. Surely, if such an awesome power existed, the faculty would know about it - Lily, for instance, was far more proficient with magical symbology than I was. And why wouldn't she be? Apparently, she'd been at it for over sixty years.

"Sixty years? Bullshit," Cassie said. "She's like the same age as my mom."

We were on the green, walking hand-in-hand between Masters Hall and our Voice class with Dr. Clay at the conservatory. I still hadn't told her about Marie, but I'm sure she guessed it because I was as giddy as a schoolgirl (appropriately, I suppose). And if my attempt hadn't worked or, worse yet, if Marie had discovered me mid-ritual, Cassie definitely would have found out about it.

"Sixty or not far off... she's been working at St. Circe's for fifty-five years. That's what Tiffany says - she's seen Doctor Sauvage's records, and that includes faculty stuff. Lily has been headmistress for like sixteen years and was in teaching and administration for close to forty years before that."

"Jesus."

Were the records accurate? I had no idea, but I had no reason to doubt it. Rumor had it that witches could live for a very long time. But, being teenage girls, most of the students were unworried about the eventual ravages of age. They were more eager to grow up, me included. But the average faculty member appeared in her thirties or forties - sooo old to a student, so it hardly remembered if they were decades older than that. I wiggled my gnarled old finger... sooner or later, though, time would take an accounting. Perhaps witches could bypass age. Or, for that matter, bypass being tiny and mostly-defenseless. But I wasn't a witch - not yet. I was a mere initiate.

"I need to get my witch name," I said.

Cassie disengaged her fingers from mine, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. "Then do it - ask the headmistress. Any of the Thirteen can act as your Mother Witch."

"The Thirteen?"

Cassie rolled her eyes. "Didn't you read your Initiate's Handbook?"

I stomped my foot. "Yes!" We stood beneath the arches at the conservatory entrance, old limestone apertures like the entrance to a cathedral. "My book is different from yours - magical books, remember?"

"Right, right... well... we've got a few thousand witches in the coven - way bigger than any other coven in the Americas. You figure an average of fifteen inducted each year for the past two hundred years, and witches stick around for a good long while. Indefinitely, I guess, but most of the really old ones don't give a shit about coven politics. All of the coven's decisions are made by the Circle, which is basically all the active senior witches with at least a decade's involvement... maybe a hundred and fifty of them... and the Thirteen are the inner-inner circle, who are charged with allocating resources and carrying out the Circle's decisions. They also have some other vested powers, like inducting and cloaking coven members. Any witch can make a starting witch an initiate, but only the Thirteen can actually induct you..."

I sighed. "And all that was in your handbook?"

"Yeah, like twenty pages of it. It wouldn't let me get to the good bits until I read through all of the goddamn history, from the Salem witch trials to the Satanic Panic."

"The Satanic Panic?"

Cassie nodded. "You know, in the eighties? Partly our doing, apparently. Apparently, it was a distraction from the actual magic we were doing to prevent a nuclear war..."

"We're not all dead, so I guess it worked," I said with a shrug. "Shit... we're almost late."

Doctor Clay knew Cassie well and, as the rising star of her crew team, she could get away with quite a bit in Voice. Less so for me. Partly by reputation and partly because I had a pretty important spot in chorus. I was one of three high sopranos who sang beneath Harmony Yeung, whose name befit her talent. Harmony's voice was a bit lower than mine, but she was way louder and pitch-perfect. Actually, ironically, I think I (a former man!) was the highest-voiced of the bunch, able to hit at least a few notes above the high-C with decent clarity. Certainly higher than any of the other sopranos in chorus. But Harmony was pitch-perfect (my pitch was ok but still a work in progress) and she was at least twice as loud as me. She had a dark and resonant voice, which she loved to sustain just a bit too long, so Dr. Clay had me pipe in with a trill of harmony to remind Harmony when to stop. While my pitch was merely 'adequate' (which, in Dr. Clay speak, meant good enough not to be embarrassing during a public performance), my timing was phenomenal. Doctor Clay referred to us as her 'Harmony' and 'Cadence', and that meant she immediately noticed whenever I was a bit off for whatever reason, let alone when I showed up late to class. Cassie could belch out the Star Spangled Banner, and Dr. Clay wouldn't care as long as she could still row.

"Natalie, I swear, if you don't drop that sharp, I'm going to make you sing with thumbtacks in your shoes," Dr. Clay said.

"Sorry, Doctor Clay, I..."

"Stuff it missy - I've told the headmistress we'll be ready for the Winter Festival, and I'll be damned if your sharp at the end of every half-note makes a liar out of me."

"I'll do better."

"Damn right you will. Okay, girls, from the top."

That explained, I suppose, why we had so many holiday songs in our recent repertoire. Notably, way more Christmas-y things than I'd have expected at a school for witchcraft. From what I gather, witches don't concern themselves too much with the power of Baby Jesus nor with cultural appropriation. The coven was pretty neutral to it all. Some of the girls learning witchcraft still wore little crucifix necklaces and went to services on Sunday mornings and the coven seemed fine with that. Maybe witchcraft and ye olde religion weren't as incompatible as purists might insist. 'Ye shall not suffer a witch to live' had gone the way of no mixed fabrics, no shellfish, and no tattoos - relics of the past best forgotten.

+++++

The next day, I made an appointment with the headmistress - by which, I mean that I showed up five minutes before my shift in Lily's office and held my wizened pinkie finger up for inspection.

"What is this?" she asked, fingers steepled and rings glinting.

"My pinkie?" I said.

Lily sighed. "Yes, I can see that... what of it?"

"The Advanced Bigs - they've been using magic on me. They made me into a nonagenarian and left my finger this way... they also made me into a little yorkie."

The headmistress laughed, covering her mouth in mild embarrassment. "You must have made such a cute yorkie!" she chuckled. "I wish I'd seen that!"

I huffed, even though I suspected she was right. "It wasn't funny... I need them to stop."

"What can be done with magic can be undone with magic," Lily stated. With a wave of her hand and a half-muttered incantation, my finger became smooth and pink again. "See? I'm surprised you didn't figure out how to do it yourself."

"Headmistress! That's missing the point - if they see that my finger's normal again, they'll be really angry."

The headmistress nodded sagely, tapping her rings against the gloss of her desk. "Well..." she said, the hint of a smile playing across her crimson lips. "I suppose you'd better figure out how to change your finger back... and I suppose you'd better do what they say."

"Headmistress Lily, they turned me into a dog - doesn't that strike you as dangerous? I'm not coming here to tattle - I'm not a little kid. I'm coming here because I want my witch name."

She nodded again, this time standing from her desk and pacing over to the window. She looked out over the late afternoon, the deepening sun descending toward the russet-tipped treetops in the grove beyond. "Out of the question," she said eventually. "Maybe next year - probably next year, as you approach your graduation. But a witch cannot be disciplined by regular school techniques - she can barely be disciplined at all. A witch is beholden only to herself. And you? You simply aren't ready for that."

"But..."

The headmistress held up a finger. "One more word about it and I'll have more than words for you. I cannot give you leave to attend the cloaking. Do you understand?"

"Yes, headmistress."

I understood, but that didn't mean I was going to listen.

+++++

I spent most of my evening after supper in the advanced section of the library, trying to figure out how to age my finger again. That was bizarre, deliberately hobbling my own finger for the benefit of the Advanced Bigs (or, rather, for the benefit of keeping me on the lower echelons of their shit list). But therein, I came across an interesting gambit - as soon as you know how to change a bit about yourself with witchcraft, it quickly generalizes to other body parts. All sorts of venues for transformation are open. The changes aren't permanent, of course, but they might last for days at a place like St. Circe's (unless and until perturbed by especially powerful magic) and for years back in the 'regular' world.

When Marie was out, I practiced in the mirror, changing myself in a variety of ways. My abilities were still pretty limited - I could age or de-age myself (and wasn't I an adorable eight year-old?) or take the form of any girl (or child, or woman) who looked broadly similar to my 'regular' self. I couldn't yet make myself look like the old Martin Warner I had once been, but there was nothing to prevent me from eventually getting there. It was just a matter of working up to it…

Only I wouldn't be the old Martin Warner. As real as the changes looked, they felt artificial. When I'd been turned into a yorkie, I'd been dogly, but I hadn't really been a dog. When walking around in the guise of a 'tall' girl of five foot three, I felt like I was walking on platform heels and like the hands at the end of my now-longer arms were being controlled via marionette strings. I controlled my fingers capably enough to change myself back (lots of symbol-tracing was involved), thank goodness, but it was a lot trickier than usual.

"What are you doing?" Marie asked.

It was a legitimate question - when she strutted in, I was standing in the middle of our room, completely naked and staring intensely into the mirror. Before she could notice (I hope), I aged my pinkie finger back to its knobby, veiny appearance. I covered myself and chewed at my lip - what would I tell her?

"Don't lie to me," she said.

"Fine. I'll tell you, but you have to promise not to tell anybody..."

Marie squinted, her dark eyes boring into me. "I'll decide what and whether I tell anybody..."

I sighed for dramatic effect. "You're right, of course," I said. "It's just... I've been trying out things to wear to the Winter Festival..."

"You haven't got a stitch on."

"Exactly right," I said.

I extended my arm - baring my generous chest for the moment, but it was nothing that Marie hadn't seen before. Then I performed a transformation on myself - only, I extruded clothes from my skin. That was a strange sensation, the gossamer fibers of silk and satin billowing out from my flesh, spinning from my pores like spider's silk. But they did form a convincing if diaphanous gown sleeve, not some strange biological extrusion as I'd feared. It was no more a living part of me than my hair was. Marie was suitably impressed - her skeptical squint soon bugged out in surprise.

"How did you do that?" she asked, tugging at the sleeve. "Object synthesis is super advanced."

I shrugged. "I didn't say it was easy. I'm still working at it."

+++++

Saturdays are the day off at St. Circe's - a day to rest, recharge, and catch up… and, for the Advanced girls, a day to go out and socialize at school-sanctioned activities. Most months, twice a month, we arranged socials with St. Lovelock's, and on the other weekends there would be solo school events. Boozing around major European cities was always a popular pastime. This Saturday, though, there was no commingling with the boys from St. Lovelock's (our usual confreres) nor stumbling about the streets of Athens or Barcelona, on account of the Cloaking Ceremony - it was the full moon, a mere week and a half from the winter solstice.

I was disappointed, of course, that I wouldn't get to spend the evening with Magnus. We'd been exchanging letters - yes, my letters to him actually went through the censor, even the really steamy parts, and I was looking forward to avoiding Lucian with my new Boy in the weeks to come… hopefully involving Cassie if I could keep her from going moon-eyed over Liam. Between Magnus and Cassie, young Natalie Bryce had a very healthy sex life. But no Magnus this week - the Cloaking took precedence... and I didn't have a mother witch's invitation to the cloaking. In fact, Lily had specifically told me not to come. Oh well.

While I wasn't invited, some twenty-one of the Advanced girls, including Cassie, were getting their witch's cloaks (and, with them, their witch names). So, I asked myself: who but Natalie Bryce would be audacious enough to crash a witch induction? Surely, nobody would notice if twenty-two girls lined up for their cloaks and names instead of twenty-one. I wouldn't have noticed, and I was good with numbers.

One of those twenty-one girls was Arielle Posner - petite and pretty with fiery red hair. Her eyes were brown and her skin boasted a generous spray of freckles rather than my tapestry of polydimensional tattoos, but we were otherwise quite similar. We might, I thought, fulfill a similar-enough physical profile that I could impersonate her for the evening. I got a good look at her in Voice class - as a fellow soprano (albeit not so high in Dr. Clay's hierarchy of sopranos), our spots were pretty nearby. I nudged myself a few feet to the side and examined Arielle in profile for a good minute, completely missing my cue.

"Natalie! Please pay attention to your choirmaster and not your friends! Unless, perhaps, one of them has a doctorate in music that I don't know about?"

"I doubt it," I admitted. "Sorry, Doctor Clay."

"Don't be sorry. Be better," she said, strutting up to me. "Your timing is very good, but your pitch needs work - don't think I won't move you down if I think you aren't committed. Or send you to the headmistress's office."

During my little chewing-out by Dr. Clay, Arielle turned to face her and I caught an even better glimpse of her face in profile. I tried to commit it to memory - I'd recognize her easily enough, but to recreate somebody's face I'd have to have a really good mental image of who I was impersonating, and we didn't have any cameras at St. Circe's.

"I'm committed, Doctor Clay. I'm sorry I let my focus wander - I'll do better." That was my go-to phrase for the good doctor (as opposed to Dr. Sauvage), and contrition seemed to placate Dr. Clay well enough.

"I hope so," she said. "Now... from the top."

That night, after dinner and hours after choir practice, Marie was asleep and I stayed up, hard at practice. I practiced looking like Arielle in the mirror. No matter how hard I tried, it didn't look quite right, and any ad hoc adjustments I tried made me look even farther off. I started from scratch a few times, eventually leaving good enough alone. I was Arielle-ish. Convincingly copying a person's appearance was damn near impossible, but getting close enough to look like a close sibling could be done with a little practice.

Initiate Arielle-ish program: height up, hair shorter, pink hair gone, tattoos gone, freckles out... and something else... right! Brown eyes. Nose a tad thinner and longer, lips a tad thinner and broader, cheekbones... just about right, actually... jaw down and back just a tad, breasts and hips in, waist... I patted my abs and smiled. A bit less definition for Arielle, but she was still plenty slim there. I took a few steps as Almost-Arielle, getting used to my different center of gravity, to the feeling of height (Arielle being a towering five foot one) and of strange slenderness. I'd grown used to being curvy petite, and Arielle was quite slender, if pleasantly so. I was getting close. Hmm... shoulders a bit broader, but with less overall definition. A host of other tiny touch-ups. I was very close. I could 'become' Arielle in all of about two minutes.

The next morning, Cassie and I went to peruse our wardrobe options. Cassie, of course, still had her phenomenal gown from the formal - but it wasn't appropriate here. The cloaking wasn't a ceremony to see and be seen. It had more gravitas - and it would be gauche, she reasoned, to wear something glitzy to the event. The school wardrobe had plenty of gravitas-y options to an enterprising young witch, housing several hundred perfectly serviceable dresses for any occasion and able to fit any body (given the properly applied witchcraft).

"I don't understand how you're going if you aren't getting a name," Cassie said. She was trying on her fourth dress, coal-grey, full-sleeved, and deliciously tight around her butt. "What do you think?"

I gave her seat an experimental squeeze. "Very nice... but I don't think a pencil skirt works for the occasion. Something looser?"

She gave her butt a little wiggle. "Sexy secretary isn't doing it for you, eh?"

"I'm not the one you have to do it for," I said. "But if you're asking..." I ran my hand up the seam until it sat mid-hip. "Mamma likey."

Cassie laughed. "Okay, fine... I'll find something classy. Something my mom would wear... scratch that, something grandma might wear. Mom would wear some tacky, ruffled '90s stuff."

My own wardrobe was a crimson tea dress - a bit shorter than might be expected, but understated and informal enough not to attract attention. I went with a simple black belt around my waist - Cassie wanted me to try something ostentatious, like a loop of pearls, but I didn't want all eyes (or any eyes) on me. Arielle was pretty enough, but she didn't have the sort of figure or the sort of sexual magnetism that drew lots of attention (and, to my mild consternation, I found that I had both traits in spades). I'd have to really rein it in to pull off pretty, unassuming Almost-Arielle.

Cassie went with forest green, elegant with little pearl adornments, but not ostentatious. The hem was respectable, the sleeves were long, and there wasn't a top in the world that could conceal that glorious bust. Oh well - she was as modest as she was ever going to be outside of Westminster Abbey.

"What do you think?"

"The dazzling witch of the deep forest," I ran my finger along the hem. "Slayer of crew records and ally of the crimson witch."

"But..." Cassie booped my nose. "You aren't going to be a witch. Not yet..."

"Oh?" I said.

"What?!" Cassie stomped, and for a good second her dress was a good deal less modest. "You're planning something, Natalie! What is it?"

I tapped the side of my recently-booped nose. "It's really better if you don't know. I'll tell you later if you haven't figured it out."

+++++

That evening, around ten o'clock, Ms. Irons (the Night Matron for the Advanced girls) gathered us in the lobby and did a once over of our wardrobe, sending a few of the girls back for more modest dress - and another girl back for less modest.

"This isn't a Victorian funeral, girl," she snorted. "Put something on where I can tell you've got a body beneath it."

"Yes, Ms. Irons."

The rest of us passed muster. I wasn't slated to attend the cloaking, but Ms. Irons was distracted enough that a little convenient positioning behind larger girls (and, let's face it, they were all 'larger girls' from my perspective) meant she barely caught a glimpse of me. And, aside from Cassie, nobody really knew me well enough to note that I didn't belong. Or, more likely, they were too caught up in their own worries to care. I could tell that Cassie was worried - normally the picture of confidence thanks to her St. Circe's conditioning, Cassie played with the silken coils of her hair, wrung her hands, and chewed at her lip. I wanted to go and comfort her, but I was doing my best at staying incognito. If she knew I was five girls down from her, she'd be even more nervous.

Ms. Irons did a quick head count and, counting one too many, went back to repeat. I dipped behind two girls just as she scanned past me and the number came out right.

"Okay, it looks like that's everybody," she said. "Out we go to the grove. Come, my young Initiates - it's time we made you real Witches!" It was probably the most excitement I'd ever seen out of her. Come to think of it, it was the only excitement I'd ever seen out of her.

Between the time Ms. Irons marched out the door at the head of our group and when I brought up the rear, I managed to conjure the appearance of Arielle Posner, albeit with a different hairstyle and my own crimson dress, now fitted to her dimensions. That way, a casual onlooker wouldn't see two identical Arielles, should she be examining watching our procession. The real Arielle, near the middle of the line, had a dark blue number in sleek satin, a sheath dress with half-sleeves. Nothing too boring, but that sleekness of fabric was about the flashiest thing going for it.

We headed out into the cool autumn air, the stars unusually prominent above us despite the full moon sliding up the sky. We didn't need any lights to see ourselves by - the moon and the stars bathed the campus in a steady twilight. The path we took soon had us along a winding dirt trail, curving down toward the lake and then off into the densest growth of evergreens.

I felt presences around us - bringing up the rear, I felt something brushing against Almost-Arielle's shoulder-length hair more than once, but there was nothing to be seen. Spirits? Coincidental eddies of air? My suggestible imagination? You be the judge. Whatever the cause, I felt we weren't alone. The trees themselves were strange sentinels, black against the disc of the moon and the spatter of stars. My legs were cold, the breeze whipping around my skirt, and my bare arms were covered in gooseflesh... Real-Arielle's half-sleeve number sure sounded good right about then. But I was drawn along the path, my body providing an energy my mind couldn't quite connect to. That feeling of detachment was amplified by the fact that I was, in fact, driving another girl's body around, one subtly different from the petite-but-bounteous one I'd grown accustomed to. More than once, I stumbled upon roots with uncertain feet and, as if in a dream, always found my next step hitting the ground at exactly the right moment, touching down as if I was no heavier nor lighter than needed to follow along after the others. I felt that I had done this all countless times before, as if my path had been worn into the bedrock ages ago and I had but to follow it. But, no. This was the first time.

Finally, we reached a opening in the trees, a great circle of pines taller than all the others with the flicker of a dozen torches illuminating the clearing in their center. Those dozen torches were held by two dozen witches, many of whom I recognized as school faculty. Most prominent among them were four women with prominent hats - a bit like a stereotypical witch's hat, broad-brimmed with a tapering point... but not black. They shimmered with color - woven patterns of lace, fabric twisted like vines with wavering leaflets of other fabric, all seemingly projected from their garb into a few extra dimensions of space. Their cloaks were velveteen fabric with gold and silver trim. These four women - Headmistress Lily, Doctor Sauvage, Doctor Clay, and Mrs. Bishop were (I gathered) members of the Thirteen.

"Welcome, sisters," Lily said once the last of us had filed in. "This group of witches forms an adequate conclave of our coven, our Sisterhood of the Starry Night, to welcome these Initiates, each deemed worthy, into our ancient and illustrious order. Do my sister witches agree?"

"I do," Doctor Sauvage said. Doctor Clay and Mrs. Bishop repeated the sentiment.

"We do," the rest of the witches repeated.

Lily stepped forward from the circle, her arms outstretched. Her lips glistened wine-red and her eyes seemed sparked by an inner fire. In that moment, I knew that, between she and Doctor Sauvage, Lily was far more capable of horrible and wonderful things. The other witches present, even those other three of the Thirteen, paid her great deference. Her smile was predatory, pearly teeth gleaming in the torchlight. Clear and commanding, her voice would be the envy of any student of Doctor Clay's:

"Then let us welcome our new sisters - let them be cloaked and let them be named. Know this, my young sisters: today, you swear your loyalty to your new family. Keep you your old family of blood - blood has power. But it is nothing to the power of spirit, and today, you join us in the embrace of Mistress Starlight... but only if you accept her blessing. If not, turn you around now, and pray tell we never hear an utterance of our ways from your lips... this must be a choice freely given. Who among you will renounce her old name to join us in the starlight? Speak now if you be brave enough."

"I renounce my name," came a familiar voice - brave, beautiful Cassie. That figured.

This next part was tricky - I wanted to be neither too near the beginning, nor the end, nor to the real Arielle Posner's voice, any of which might garner me unwanted notice. I was about to (in a way) grift the greatest coven of witches in the hemisphere - a feat not to be taken lightly. Taking Arielle to be more on the timid side than not - she'd probably pipe in close to the end - I opted to go fifth:

"I renounce my name," I said. So far so good.

"I renounce my name," Arielle said in a near-identical voice.

Shit. Shitshit. I glanced around as much as possible without moving my head. Who'd noticed? Surely, Doctor Clay, as attuned as she was to voices, especially ours... indeed, her ears seemed to perk up, and she cast a suspicious eye to Arielle and then toward...

"I renounce my... I... I can't... I can't," a girl cried out. She started sobbing. "God help me, I can't." She reached toward her neck and rubbed at a gold crucifix - I suppose, in her mind, renouncing her name was too close to a deal with the devil. Maybe it was exactly that, but I doubt it.

My moment under scrutiny had quickly passed. Ms. Irons scurried out from the shadows and escorted the girl away. I'm not sure what happened to her - presumably, nothing too bad, but I suspect that her magical instruction was halted and she was placed under some compulsion to neither practice nor speak word of it. Harsh but fair, in my opinion.

The remaining girls, every last one of them, renounced their own names. For a moment, we stood in the glade in the starlight, twenty-one young women without names in front of the Sisterhood of the Starry Night. The two doctors and Mrs. Bishop stepped forward to join the headmistress, each of them standing in front of a standing stone - pale and mossy stones with strange engravings, stones green and etched with moss and lichen, their symbols shifting in more dimensions than they ought to have possessed.

Lily pointed skyward. "Come now to your Mother Witch, women, and become true witches. Look into the Vault of Stars and claim your name. Whisper the last and greatest of your new names to your Mother to receive your cloak, to be embraced by your sisters, to become a Witch."

My heart thudded in my chest... was I actually about to go through with this? Would I even be able to go through with it? They were going to catch me - they were going to catch me and do something absolutely horrible to me. I just...

I took a deep breath and found myself strangely calm. I lined up behind several girls queuing in front of Headmistress Lily. Among the four witches presiding over the ceremony, she seemed to have some affinity for me. I wasn't sure why that was yet but, presumably, it didn't involve horrible and unspeakable magical punishment. She'd taken pains to protect me when she didn't have to and (purposefully?) led me to the skill set that had enabled me to crash the conclave. She had to know...

I was next. Holy fuck, I was next. I vacillated between excitement and terror and some emotion I couldn't begin to describe. I saw the girl in front of me cloaked - threads and shimmering shapes drawn out of the thin air, silvery lines drawn out of the very stars in the sky to infuse the cloak with their symbols. The girl drew the cloak about her, leaned forward, and whispered something to Lily.

"Go in peace, sister," Lily said. The girl almost backed into me but didn't. She scurried off and I was next. Lily's right eyebrow inched up. "You aren't one of mine," she stated.

"I am," I said firmly.

Was that a smile? "So you are. Place your hands upon the stone and find your name within the Vault of Stars."

Was I really about to do this? Once I did, I was committed. To do so was as much as renouncing my old life, my life as Natalie Bryce, of course, but also my 26 years as Martin Warner, to fully embrace who I was and who I would become. Was it really that important to me that I do this? But, I realized, it was already too late. I'd already renounced my name - all I could do was accept a new one and throw myself into the hands of fate.

So I did as Lily asked, slim hands not quite my own laid upon the cool curve of stone. I looked up to the stars... there were so many of them. More stars than I'd ever seen before, stars of every color. They didn't twinkle, either - they were constant. Shining now, shining for millions of years uninterrupted, eternal in the life of a mortal woman or even a witch. They spun about me like a kaleidoscope, stars more massive than the entire solar system spinning about through incomprehensible tracts of space like nothing... and I saw their pattern.

I'd almost missed it, but there it was. Not a pattern of stars, nor of movement, but of vectors within vectors nudging the parameters of the world, drawing me toward a deep trough... a name. Martina... no... I wasn't Martina. I resisted it - I would not accept a name... I would claim my name. The stars surged into angry swirls, drawing me up and stretching me through space... and yet I felt the cold ground beneath my feet. I spotted a star far beyond the one that had drawn me in (how I could tell what was beyond what, given the incomprehensible distances involved, is hard to explain), and something in me vaulted to it, across that immense rift of space. A name: Natalia Cadence Storm. Yes. I claimed the name. That was my name now. Now and forever.

I found myself back in the glade, my hands hot against the stone. I leaned forward and hopped high enough to reach Lily's ear, whispering my last and most important name for her, my Mother Witch, to hear: "Storm."

She gasped and looked down at me with something akin to horror. Certainly far more fear than I'd ever seen in her. Then she forced a smile and drew a cloak around me, soft, warm, dark fabric with a weight of great import, its patterned silver lining very much resembling the tattoos that were even now spooling out across my body... my illusory self had become unstable.

"Go in peace, sister," Lily said. Her hands were shaking.