Sybil yawned and shaded her eyes as she exited the bus. Followed closely by Eve, Rowena, and Katelyn, she made her way to the clearing where the rest of the campers were gathering, just in front of a wooden stage. A guy skinnier than a twig, with a somewhat scraggly beard, thin glasses and a sun bleached cap with the words “Wildwood Forever'' embroidered on it jumped up onto the stage. He wore a sweat-stained orange shirt that said “Camp Wildwood Staff'' on it, with a picture of a cartoon raccoon carrying a fishing pole, and a worn-out pair of cargo shorts. He looked like he’d never lived anywhere but outdoors in his entire life, and Sybil wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d been born here.

“Hiya, campers!” the guy spoke loudly into a cordless microphone, quieting down the crowd. “Welcome to Ultra-Muscle Training Boot Camp, where pain is our number one game!”

Everyone looked in confusion at each other.

“Haha, I’m just kidding, guys!” the staff member chuckled.

No one else laughed. Somewhere in the crowd a kid sneezed. Something told Sybil he started every camp with this joke.

“Anyways,” he continued, “welcome to Camp Wildwood! This week is all about having fun, enjoying the great outdoors, and making friends! I’m Jeremy, the head staff here at Wildwood, and you can recognize me and all of the other staff here by our bright orange shirts!” He tugged on his very faded shirt. “Now we’re gonna get you guys all settled in in just a second, but before that, let me just lay down some ground rules here at Wildwood, alright?”

He cleared his throat.

“Rule number one: this is a place of safety and inclusion, alright, so I don’t want anyone harassing or fighting each other, got it? Rule number two: Use the buddy system at all times. The forests around us are beautiful, but they can be dangerous, so make sure you’ve always got someone with you, okay? Should be easy enough when everybody’s got a lifetime companion. On that note, rule number three: absolutely under no circumstances should you be wandering out into the woods alone. We’ll be going on plenty of hikes and nature walks this week, so don’t worry, you’ll get lots of chances to see the beautiful forests around here.”

“Psst, guys!” Katelyn whispered. “Check out that ropes course!” She pointed to a giant structure of ropes and ziplines peeking just above the trees in the distance. “That thing looks nuts! Can’t wait to try it out!”

“I’ll race ya through it!” Eve whispered back. She paused for a moment, and looked back at her wings. “Oh, right . . .”

Sybil shrugged. “I’ve flown through ropes courses before,” she said, “and I gotta say they’re not really my thing.”

Melancholy flashed across Katelyn’s face for just a moment before she smiled again. “Well, I guess it’ll still be fun on my own.”

Jeremy cleared his throat again, bringing the group’s attention back to him.

“Alright, campers!” he said enthusiastically. “For cabin assignments, I want all of you to form into groups of three pairs, kay? Three humans, three pixies everybody. These groups won’t just be your cabin-mates, but they’ll be your team for lots of activities throughout the week, so choose wisely! Camp Wildwood is all about making new friends, so I recommend finding some new faces to group up with too! When you’ve put together a full group go ahead and line up at the steps of the stage and I’ll give you your cabin assignments. Alright aaand break!”

The crowd of students filtered apart and people began to pair up into groups of six. Relative chaos ensued as the other students debated and argued over who was going with who.

“We’re all together, right?” Eve asked the others.

“Hell yeah we are!” Katelyn responded. “High five.” She put her hand out, palm facing upward.

Sybil, Eve, and Rowena all took turns smacking Kate’s giant hand as hard as they could. Even throwing most of her strength into it, Sybil knew it didn’t actually hurt Kate at all. It was just a small gesture they had developed that could be fairly normal, when there was such a drastic size difference between them.

“We still need one more pair though,” said Rowena.

“Oh yeah, right,” Eve responded somewhat glumly.

By that time, nearly everyone in the crowd had all congealed into their own groups of six and lined up for cabin assignments, and very few stragglers were left. Sybil searched through the rapidly declining number of individuals for anyone who at least wouldn’t be completely awful to them.

Then she saw him again. That boy in the hoodie, with the pale eyes. He didn’t even look like he was trying to group up with anyone, he just stood in the clearing with his hands shoved in his pockets. It was difficult to see from her angle, but from what she could tell, he looked like he was on the verge of crying. Sybil didn’t even need to look for anyone else; she knew he was the one to join their group.

“How about him?” She pointed at the boy.

“What, that guy?” Eve asked. “Ehhh, I dunno, we don’t even know him. You sure?”

Sybil looked back at the rest of the group. “I am,” she said firmly.

Eve blinked in surprise at Sybil’s sudden conviction.

“He’s a misfit, just like us,” Sybil said absently, staring back at the strange boy. “I think he needs some friends this week.”

Eve went to say something, but Sybil had already started flittering across the clearing towards the strange boy.

“Umm, hey,” Sybil called out, once she reached the spot where the boy was standing. He jerked around, and his eyes scanned wildly around until he spotted Sybil. He looked like he would bolt away at any second, but Sybil tentatively pressed further.

“Um, would you like to be part of my group?” she asked, as Eve, Rowena, and Katelyn caught up to them. “We’re still looking for another pair.”

“I don’t have a pixie,” the boy responded, almost at a mumble. He looked down at the ground. “You wouldn’t want me.”

Sybil smiled as warmly as she could. “Come on, of course we do. Believe me, we’re pretty weird too, you’ll fit right in. Weirdos gotta stick together, right?” She flew just a bit closer and outstretched her hand. “My name’s Sybil.”

The boy put out his finger and Sybil grasped it with both hands, shaking it gently. A flicker of a smile played across his face.

“August,” he said. “My name, I mean. It’s August.”

“Nice to meet you, August!” Katelyn whipped her hand out for a fist bump, which August timidly returned. “I’m Katelyn. Kate for short.”

“Rowena.”

“I’m Eve.”

August waved shyly to the rest of the group. He paused for a moment and his face scrunched up in confusion.

“Wait,” he said, tallying them up on his fingers, “there are four of you? But there’s three pixies and one human?”

“Told you we were weird,” Sybil said, grinning and pulling Eve into a shoulder hug. “Eve and I are a dual-pixie pair, probably the only one in the whole state of Olympia. But let’s talk about all of that later, we should go pick up our cabin assignments.”

The group got in line and waited until it was finally their turn. They pulled up to Jeremy, who looked up at them and adjusted his glasses.

“Alrighty campers--ope, looks like y’all are missing someone! One of you girls’ humans leave to go grab something?”

“Actually, we’re pair-bonded,” Sybil said, gesturing between her and Eve.

“And I don’t really . . . have a pixie,” August chimed in, rather quietly.

Jeremy paused for a moment. “I’m so sorry, dude,” he said. “My condolences, losing your pixie can be super rough. You ever need somebody to talk to, you just give my office a knock, alright? I’m always available.”

August visibly retreated in on himself. “It’s not . . . like that,” he muttered under his breath.

Jeremy brightened again as he addressed the group. “And dual-pixies, eh? Wow, that is pretty special! Only met one other pixie-pair before, way back in ninety-eight, when this camp and I were still young, heheheh!” His countenance drooped and eyes bulged slightly. “Geez, was that really twenty-one years ago? Dang, I’m gettin’ old,” he muttered.

The group shared raised eyebrows with each other for a brief moment, before Jeremy continued.

“Tell you what, I’m gonna give you guys a special cabin, for a special group, okay? You folks are now Team Indigo.” He handed them an indigo card and indicated for them to write their names down under the ‘Indigo’ section of his document. While they were writing, he lowered his voice.

“Personally, that one’s my favorite. It’s on the very far edge of the cabins, away from most of the other campers’ traffic, and the view is drop-dead incredible!”

Once they finished writing down their names, Jeremy clapped his hands. “Alrighty, folks, I’ll let you guys relax for the rest of the afternoon; be sure to stop by the main hall to pick up your t-shirts before dinner tonight at six. Afterwards I’m looking forward to seeing you all again at the welcoming fireside! Welcome to Wildwood, campers, have fun this week!”

 

~~~

 

Sybil stood on the railing just outside the Indigo Cabin door, the warm afternoon breeze blowing through her hair and blouse. Jeremy wasn’t joking; the view here was unbelievable. A dozen paces away, the ground gave way to the shores of Wildwood Lake, and a panoramic spectacle of the water’s surface spread before her. The water was clear as glass, a deep teal color that commanded her attention, and towards the far shore, lily pads and flowers grew on its surface. A flock of ducks swam in and out of reeds growing by the shore, and every once in a while a fish would break the surface to nab an insect floating in the water. Beyond, the pine forest stretched out and up, dancing over hill after hill, until far off in the distance, bluish-grey mountains rose up and pierced the heavens. She wasn’t sure she could ever really get tired of a view like this.

Knowing she would get plenty of chances to see this again during the week, however, Sybil tore herself away and fluttered her way over to the pixie door, which was really just a small platform jutting out of the human door, with a pixie-sized round hole cut through and a curtain on the other side. It was rather cute, actually, and it made her feel like a little bird entering a birdhouse. Stepping through the hole and into the cabin, she was met with the sounds and sights of the rest of her friends unpacking.

The interior of the cabin was laid out with two human beds on each side, and a third inset into its own alcove on the far wall, each with its own privacy curtain. Just above the large human alcove, a smaller alcove was set into the wall, nestled just under the peak of the sloped cabin roof. Inside the small alcove, three pixie beds were laid out in the same orientation as the human ones, two on the side and one towards the back, with similar miniature curtains. Katelyn had claimed the left bed, August was in the alcove, and Eve and Rowena had taken both of the side beds, leaving Sybil with the one in the back, just under a small window which shone warm sunlight across the bland, worn-out carpet.

“Yo, check it out,” Katelyn said, “we get an extra bed all to ourselves! Wonder if I can move this thing and double it up with mine . . .” She began inspecting the unclaimed bed.

Sybil dropped her bag on her bed. She could unpack it later. She casually stepped off the pixie platform, fell a couple feet, and caught herself midair. She then floated down over to August, settling herself down crosslegged on a bedpost.

“So where are you from, August?” she asked.

August jumped considerably and whipped his head around, searching for the speaker.

“Sorry, sorry! Down here, on the bedpost,” Sybil said, and August finally met eyes with her. He seemed very unfamiliar with interacting with pixies.

“Lynnville,” he said, sitting back and resuming his unpacking. “But, well . . . we just moved to Goldfield during the summer. My parents thought it would be a good idea to send me here to get to know some students before I started school at Goldfield High.”

“Oh cool, we’re going to Goldfield too, so we’ll see each other again in a few weeks, I guess.”

The conversation died down almost immediately after it had started. Sybil wished she was better at small talk.

Katelyn parted her curtain, revealing that she had changed into a fresher outfit and slipped on a pair of flip flops.

“Yo anyone wanna come with me to explore the camp?” she said, standing up. “I hear there’s a soft serve machine in the main cafeteria where you can just grab a cone, like, anytime you fucking want.”

“Oh, you know I’m already there!” Eve exclaimed, pumping her fist into the air.

“How about you two?” Katelyn addressed Sybil and August. “You coming?”

“Sure, why not?” Sybil shrugged. She looked back at August, who hesitated for a moment, before nodding.

“You can all go on ahead without me,” Rowena called out from her spot in the cubby. “I’ll stay here.”

“Rona, are you reading again?” Katelyn asked, as everyone else gathered near the door. “Don’t you wanna check out the camp at all?”

“No no, I’m fine, I’m just reading something really interesting right now about zooarcanology. Did you know that there are some creatures that can use the magisphere to sense prey and even predict their movements before they happen?”

“Very cool, Rona, we’ll see you later,” Katelyn said, stepping out of the door.

 

The four of them sat on a bench wearing new indigo shirts, looking over the lake. The temperature was cooling off and the sun was lowering in the sky. August held his own chocolate soft serve cone, while Katelyn held a swirl cone in one hand for herself, and a vanilla cone in the other for the two pixies. Sybil was delicately breaking off chunks of the cone and using them to scoop her own portions from the main mass, while Eve more or less tore into the thing like a hungry animal.

Her other half really had developed a thing for sugar.

They sat in silence for a while, happy to eat their ice cream in peace.

A passing team, wearing red shirts, pointed at the group and snickered to themselves.

“Looks like Chuck Johnson is collecting ghosts now too, not just pixies!” someone called out, just loud enough for them to hear.

“Don’cha know you can’t kill a ghost, Chuck? They’re already dead!” The red team erupted into laughter as they walked off, the guffaws fading out of earshot.

Silence reigned amongst Team Indigo.

Sybil nervously looked up at Katelyn, who had a sour expression on her face. August looked at the rest of the group in confusion.

Katelyn forced a too-happy grin across her face.

“C’mon, we’re not gonna let those fuckers ruin our week, are we?” She put an arm around August and gave him a good jostle.

Sybil hesitated. “Kate, it’s okay to--”

“Hey, I’m fine, don’t worry about me!” Kate said, grinning brighter. “Now come on let’s head back to the cabin and pick up Rowena before dinner. This extra cone isn’t just for you two, y’know.”

 

Dinner that evening had been hamburgers, in all of their perfect backyard-grill mass-produced-for-a-cookout glory. Afterwards, in the amphitheatre, the welcoming fireside consisted of lots of introductions, mildly funny skits performed by the staff, explanations of the activities to come, as well as the schedule of events that week. As dumb as the antics of the staff were, and the (pardon the expression) “campiness” of the whole operation, Sybil couldn’t help but get drawn into it. She found herself enjoying the over-the-top slapstick nature of the skits and jokes told during the evening. Sometimes it was good to just relax and enjoy some stupid shit every once in a while.

That evening, as they were all relaxing in the evening and bedding down, August spoke up.

“So uh, Sybil, a-and Eve too, what’s, um . . .  what’s the story with you two? You’re really like, two pixies bonded together? I didn’t know that was a thing that was possible. Were you born that way?”

“Not really,” Eve said, peeking down below. “Uhh, wanna take this to the floor? I think we should do some explaining or something.”

“Sure, I guess.” August shrugged.

Everyone gathered together on the floor in the center of the cabin, sitting down with various pillows and things. Eve, hugging a tiny stuffed bear plushie, took a deep breath. She hesitated for a moment and her eyes shifted to the floor. “Okay, so uh, a little over two years ago there was an accident between me and Sybil; before that point, I used to be a human.”

She swallowed hard and squeezed her bear. “I, well . . . I also used to be a boy back then.”

August blinked and processed for a moment.

“Oh dude, I’m sorry man, that’s gotta suck.”

Eve went pale, and looked on the verge of puking.

“Oh no no no no no, it’s not like that!” Sybil exclaimed. “It was a good thing, really! It was good . . . for both of us.”

Eve took another deep breath.

“I’m trans,” Eve said. “I wanted to be a girl before I transformed. I . . . am a girl, and I always have been. I guess what I should have said was that I just looked like a boy before, but I’ve always been a girl. The result of the accident, although not really what I was expecting, was probably the best thing to ever happen to me.”

“What happened, if you don’t mind?” August asked.

Sybil and Eve had told this story probably a dozen times at this point, and they easily slipped into telling the familiar tale. For the next hour, late into the evening, they told August all about meeting Meredith and Joanna, the mindscape journey, and the magical overflow Sybil had created that turned Eve into a pixie.

Even though the result had been wonderful and Eve was happy, Sybil still felt a painful amount of guilt over her lack of control; her shoddy discipline was the reason Eve was the way she was. If she had just kept a handle on her emotions a bit better, Eve would still be a human, and she could have magically transitioned in the same way Katelyn did. They would have been a normal pair, or at least more normal than they were now.

“Wow,” August said after they had finished the story, “that’s pretty metal.”

“Yep,” Eve said. “I think it took me so long to figure it out because Kate and I had been best friends for so long and we figured everything was just normal.”

All eyes turned towards Katelyn, expectantly.

“Uh . . . yep,” Kate said, and nothing more.

Sybil was momentarily confused. She thought Kate would tell August her story too, but whatever, she wasn’t obligated to share anything she didn’t want to.

The room fell silent for a moment.

August gripped his pillow and took a deep breath.

“I guess I should tell you my story since you told me yours, right? Um, what do you know about how humans and pixies are made?”

“What,” Rowena asked, “you mean like . . . sex?”

August flushed beet red and buried his face in his pillow.

“No, no, like, after that,” came his muffled voice, “when babies are developing.”

“Ohh,” Eve said. “You mean when the base soul splits in the womb, where half develops into a human and half develops into a pixie?”

August looked up from his pillow, pale eyes shining.

“Wow, you actually do know. Not a lot of people do.”

“Well, we had to learn a lot about what the Bond is all about when we were figuring stuff out ourselves,” Eve responded with a cheerful shrug.

“Well,” August continued, “I’m what people call a ‘Fused’. My soul never split when I was developing, so I was never born with a pixie companion. There are lots of different types, I guess; my official diagnosis is called Archedictyonal Dysgenesis. Basically my body still tried to form as both a human and a pixie, even though it never split. So I’ve got bits and pieces of both in me.”

He glumly pointed to his eyes.

“So they do glow, don’t they?” Sybil asked. “It was hard to tell in the sunlight.”

“Yeah. Wanna see?” August got up and moved to the light switch. He flicked it off, shrouding the cabin in darkness. A mixture of aquamarine, lilac, and marigold light shone and danced around the room, coming from Sybil, Eve, and Rowena. Beyond that, however, August’s pale eyes pierced through the darkness, shining a haunting white, slightly bluish light that looked like it belonged to a banshee.

“So yeah,” August said, “guess I get to look like a freak.”

“Nah, you don’t look like a freak, dude,” Katelyn said, “You look like a fuckin’ superhero, or like some kind of anime character, or like a . . . a . . . a ghost!”

Katelyn immediately clamped her mouth shut. Sybil guessed she hadn’t realized who the ‘ghost’ the redshirts were referring to earlier was until just now.

August flipped the light back on and sat back down with palpable melancholy.

“Look, I . . .” Kate started.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” August said.

The cabin fell silent for a long while.

“I . . . should go to bed,” he said, standing up. “It’s getting late.” He slid into his bed and pulled the privacy curtains closed.

Slowly and glumly, everyone else made their way back to their beds. The last to go was Katelyn, who stood outside August’s bed. Turmoil was written on her face, she worked her jaw a few times.

“Sorry,” she whispered through the curtain, then flicked off the lights and slid into her own bed.