Lillian quietly stepped into her closet and closed the door behind her, latching the lock. She flipped on the light switch and glanced around the room with a sigh. It was lucky for her to have her own walk-in wardrobe, with racks along each side displaying her collection, from dresses to long coats, skirts and blouses, more outfits than she would be able to wear in the space of a year. It didn’t fill her with joy. If she had the energy for it she would sort through everything; toss the old stuff that’d fallen out of fashion or which no longer fit her. It didn’t really matter though. That’s how she felt about it. When her mother would inevitably spoil her every week or two with something new, she found a way to make room for it.

What really interested her, and what she was here for now, was at the far end of the room. In a half-dozen strides she approached it: a slightly dusty curtain covering what she knew was a full-length mirror. She gently pulled it off, leaving it in a heap on the floor. Her reflection stared back at her. It was bad enough seeing her face in the vanity each morning when she used concealer to mask the bags under her eyes—it helped a little, but it was nearly impossible to breathe any life back into her face. The thick rims of her glasses and long auburn bangs hopefully masked it from a distance. It was worse seeing her entire body there in front of her. She was only 5’2” tall, and her posture was a bit slouched, with her slightly loose clothing doing what little they could to hide her body’s curves. She had on a purple knit turtleneck sweater and her hands nervously gripped the cuffs of her long sleeves. They were slightly damp with sweat after the particularly anxious day she’d had and she loosened her grip to fiddle with her fingers instead. Her black skinny-jeans were slightly ill-fitting and bunched up around her knees.

All in all she was the spitting image of a nerd you’d find absorbed in a good book in a library somewhere. And truly, on free days like these when she was free to wear what she wanted, there were few things in her closet she was actually happy to wear. She was content to forget the demands of the world and spend all day in the study. That wasn’t what she’d done that afternoon though. She had gone on a mission.

She pulled a little steel stick from her sweater’s kangaroo pocket, nervously holding it up in front of her. This was the Mirror Wand. Supposedly. The market vendor who sold her this item seemed terribly suspicious. She wasn’t the sort to buy into magical nonsense and she knew just as well as anyone that playing with the unknown was like begging to be cursed. But she was intensely curious about it. She never spent her money on much, as there wasn’t much she indulged in. Her food and housing was provided for her and the entertainment she enjoyed was free. So she had a bit of savings and this little wand wasn’t gonna break her bank. A whim and a half later she was walking home with this supposedly magic item (the demonstration at the shop could have just been an illusion after all).

She swallowed the lump in her throat and licked her dry lips. “Now or never, I suppose,” she muttered, then tapped the surface of her mirror with the wand.

The sound that rang out through the room was not the sound a mirror should’ve made. It was a shrill ringing, reverberating on its own while the surface rippled as though made of a pool of mercury. The ring died off and left just a low wobbling sound as the distortions died out and she made out her own reflection again. But it was clearer than before, as though she were looking through a portal into a real second copy of the room, the thin glass barrier peeled off.

She took a chance and gave it a little poke with her finger. Weirdly, it felt warm. She put the full palm of her hand against it and it slid around on the surface a bit. Completely frictionless. It didn’t even feel slippery. It was actually as though she were touching the mirror image of her own hand, and given the fickle nature of magic, she wouldn’t be totally surprised if that were actually the case.

With a slight smile she raised her wand again. She wasn’t here to look at her own boring self after all. It could do a lot more. She would, hopefully, have the chance to look at alternate versions of reality.

The truth was, she knew distinctly that her fashion sense was sorely lacking and she wanted to take a peek at how she might look if things had been different.

So, her heart thumping a bit faster in her chest, she imagined something simple to start with. She thought about having blonde hair and tapped the mirror’s surface. To her dismay, it only wobbled a tiny bit with no change to the image on the other side. She grumbled and scratched her head; it should have worked. But then she had another thought. She imagined seeing her reflection as having blonde hair, thought of what it would look like on her, before tapping the mirror again.

This time it wobbled harder and made the weird warping noise again as the ripples distorted the image. By the time she got a clear view of herself again, sure enough the girl in the mirror had blonde hair. She smirked and examined herself again before her eyes widened. The hair wasn’t the only detail that changed. Her sweater was now a light teal color, her jeans a navy blue. And although those changes were big, there were other subtle differences, too. Her bangs were trimmed higher and her eyes were a slightly different color, a lighter shade of hazel. The rims of her glasses were a light brass instead of the dark bronze of her own. Her eyeshadow and lipstick were applied in a subtly different way she couldn’t quite place. She cocked her head to the side and the reflection followed suit.

So, with one small change in reality came a bunch of others. It made sense she supposed. The difference here was mostly in color, and she figured that if she really had been born as a blonde, then her choice of purchases throughout her life would reflect that. This magic really was something else.

She noticed her bangs again and wondered about something. She reached her hand up and pinched just the tip of them between her fingers. The reflection pinched… thin air, because her bangs were shorter. She then lifted the hair up above her head, and the reflection mimed the action even though there was no hair in her hand. She burst out giggling at the oddness of seeing that. A bit strange, but she supposed it made sense.

She shook her head and thought of the next change she wanted to try. With a vague image forming in her mind, she tapped the mirror again and waited for the warping to die down. There in the mirror stood a dark, gothy version of herself. She had jet-black hair, black eyes and pale skin. She wasn’t wearing a sweater at all but rather a plain black leather jacket overtop a white tank top and sports bra. The jeans she wore went back to matching her own black ones. “Hm,” she hummed, thinking about how some details would shift like that, while some would match. This time she glanced behind the girl to see the clothing in the rest of the closet. Some of the outfits were the same as she had but the majority had changed, some of it just being a different color (usually black) and some being totally different styles. She smiled as she saw a few lacy dresses and stockings that she knew she herself would never be caught dead wearing.

“You’re super gothy aren’t you?” she muttered at the reflection. She blinked as she realized when she said ‘gothy,’ she heard her other self saying ‘nerdy.’ This wand really was something else.

She continued this pattern of imagining herself with different styles and letting the magic dress up the girl in the mirror. After two more changes, she frowned and thought how she hadn’t really seen anything she liked yet. The images she created were like different versions of herself with different tastes from her own. It wasn’t that she disliked the way any of them looked on their own, but none of them looked like anything she really wanted to replicate. She slowly began to understand that she had pretty much done the best for herself, given the circumstances that she was living with. She never really felt any sort of urge to dye her hair and she didn’t really mind the nerdy style that much. It just wasn’t very satisfying somehow.

She decided to go back to normal. She once again thought of her own reflection and put the mirror back to normal. It still seemed to be enchanted with the magic, and she wasn’t sure how long it might take to wear off. She stared at her own eyes and thought for a moment. Then, she remembered another thought she had had when she bought this thing, and saw her face flush as her heart sped up. Ah… of course. This was the thing that probably tipped the scales for her buying it, and it was a thought that she had been having for… a long time. Something she didn’t often like to think about because it was shameful for her to admit. It was a forbidden something, she had been ridiculed for most of her life over this thing. But it was something she really wanted to see, if only the one time. Was this thing really something that could bring her happiness? Or would she see it the same as whatever else she had conjured today, a different person with a life that was not her own?

She took deep breaths to calm herself and her complexion returned to normal, but she couldn’t stop her heart from racing. It was now or never. Before she could think twice about it she reached out and struck the wand, imagining her deepest, darkest desires projected upon her reflection. She couldn’t really think of what she might end up looking like this time and she was just trusting the magic to do most of the work. Hell, she was basically projecting a mere concept in her head and hoping that would be enough. The wobbling kept going for several seconds longer than the previous times, and she frowned as she wondered if maybe this was pushing it too far.

But eventually, finally the image settled and she gasped at what she saw. There in the mirror was an imposing figure half a foot taller than her, with… a lot of differences. A stronger stature, although he had the same slight slouch as her own. Harder and rougher facial features with the shadow of a beard, but recognizable as someone she might be related to. He had on a large baggy navy blue hoodie and loosely fitting men’s jeans. He was the male version of herself, the person she surely might be if she had been born a boy.

He took a step back with a blush on his face and her eyes opened even wider as he failed to match her movements. That was a first! Curiously, she reached forward to touch the surface of the mirror but it was no longer there. Where there might have been a surface, had her reflection kept matching her movements and blocked her path with a matching hand, there was nothing stopping her from reaching through. The mirror wasn’t actually a mirror at all. It was a real, bonafide portal into an alternate dimension. And she was stepping over the threshold to the other side, watching as her male twin took another step back.

She grinned and, before he had time to react, closed the distance and reached up to cup his jaw in her hand. He blushed harder and hesitantly placed his hand on her head, stroking her longer hair. It was so surreal to be touching, and interacting, with this other version of herself that was of the larger sex. And she figured that it was exactly the same for him to see her for the first time.

She decided to take a step back. It felt weird how gently he was touching her. As she looked to the side, he glanced down at the floor, looking just as unsure of himself. And then she felt herself go pale as she knew—even looking away as she was—that his eyes were slowly trailing up her body, taking all of her in. Just like a creepy guy would, she thought. She was a little sick as she turned to him, suddenly angry.

“And what do you think you’re looking at?” she snapped at him.

He scrambled to take two more steps back, looking just as pale as she felt. “I–I just thought, um…” He fumbled for words. “Well, you’re me, so…” He sighed and shrugged.

“So, would it be okay if I did the same…?” she asked, trailing my eyes down his chest and stopping at his crotch.

He blushed. “No, no I’d really rather you didn’t.”

She smirked. She guessed he was just as curious about her as she was about him. But clearly he was just as uncomfortable as she was about some things. She decided to tone things down a bit and start simply by offering her hand to him. “Lillian.”

He gulped and took her hand, shaking it limply. “L–Liam.”

“So, are we the same person?” She scratched her head. “You’re the first reflection who hasn’t copied my exact movement.”

“We’re the first pair to be different genders.” He crossed his arms and pursed his lips. “Girls and guys act differently, so it would make sense, right?”

She nodded. She agreed with him, but something seemed off about that. “Well, how different, exactly? Like, sure we have totally different bodies, but our worlds should be pretty damn similar, shouldn’t they? Why would gender be the thing that tips the scales?”

He shrugged. “Someone’s reaction to seeing a guy would be different to seeing a girl, I guess? And there’s the whole nature versus nurture thing. Our minds are probably at least slightly different, both based on biology and how we were raised as our respective genders.” He was literally putting her own thoughts into words. It was crazy how his perspective on things matched her own so well.

“You’re right. But like, when I looked at the goth version of myself—”

He snorted. “That’s what you went with? Goth?”

She frowned. “Yeah. Duh, goth girls are cute. I also checked out myself wearing a maid uniform,” She giggled as she saw him look away, embarrassed by her antics. “Who were you looking at?”

He shook his head. “It–it doesn’t matter.” He wouldn’t meet my gaze for whatever reason.

Lillian shrugged. “Anyway, yeah, so you’d figure those girls would have like… the same biological brain as I do, but nature and nurture do both play a role, and they must have been raised at least a bit different. But they still matched my movements perfectly.”

He looked thoughtfully at her. “Yeah. I dunno.” She didn’t know either, so they must have both reached the end of that train of thought. While she was busy thinking about how their thoughts matched so well, he said, “So the gender thing must be it. But, think about what happened at the start. I took a step back and you stepped forward through the mirror.”

She nodded, not sure where he was going with this. “Yeah?”

Liam shrugged and scratched his head. “But like, wouldn’t it be the typical girl thing to be timid while the guy is confident?”

She smiled. “I also noticed you were blushing.”

He huffed. “Yeah, I was. Exactly. If gender was the only thing changing here, don’t you think that’s a little backwards?”

She nodded, conceding his point. It was one she knew she would reach, too, if she had been taking the lead in the conversation at that point in time. She decided to take the next step forward. “And why did we want to see eachother anyways? This was only the fifth, um, mirror image that I tried.”

“Same here. I even hesitated for a while because I—I got nervous.”

“I was nervous too but I didn’t hesitate.” She chuckled and wondered for a moment if that was why it took so long for the portal to form. “We both really wanted to see what it would look like if we were the other gender. Right?” He nodded. “I’ve always been just, really really curious about it. What it would be like to be a guy.” He tilted his head, looking kinda confused and uncomfortable. She grinned at him. “So? What’s it like? You get to be confident all the time, you don’t have to worry about people looking down on you. You can just be bros with your bros and slap eachother on the shoulder and have fun! No more pointless girl drama or anything. And you’re stronger too, right? How much can you deadlift?”

Liam looked almost haunted by Lillians barrage of questions. “I, I don’t know. I don’t do any of those things.”

She frowned at him. “You don’t?”

He sighed again and sat on the floor. “No. And, I think, I would ask you all the same things, but in reverse?” He smiled dreamily, “like, what it feels like to be… pretty, or whatever?”

She shook her head angrily, sitting down in front of him. “I’m not pretty. I gave up on making myself pretty a long time ago. I just try to be presentable.” She grinned at him boyishly. “You’re actually, like, handsome though. A real dashing fella. I bet you pick up all the ladies.”

“No. I don’t, Lillian. I’ve never had sex. I’m a virgin.” He sounded bitter, and she winced at his words. She had actually had one sexual partner but she didn’t enjoy it, so she felt his pain.

“I mean…” She sighed and cupped her face in her hands. “So, you don’t like the way you look? You’d rather look like me?”

“Of course. You’re gorgeous.”

They looked at each other for several long moments, their thoughts racing, before suddenly, they spoke in sync with one another for the first time:

“Oh my god, you’re transgender.”