Aubrey got me back to my room. I wasn't crying. I wasn't feeling much of anything, at that moment. I was in shock, certainly. My hands kept turning the pendant over and over, as if the magic was in there somewhere and I would find it if I kept looking.

At Aubrey's encouragement, I began to take off my dress. But some semblance of my predicament penetrated, and I clutched the garment to me. "You shouldn't have to see.... I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about me," she said gently. "But I can go into the other room, if you'd be more comfortable."

I nodded, and she stepped out. I turned my attention to undressing. God, I had looked so good in this dress! I unhooked the now-useless bra, removed the panties that did nothing to conceal my penis.

Did I have any male clothes anymore? I looked through all the drawers, tossing clothes onto the floor as I went. None there. Perhaps the closet? I began pulling things down from hangers, trying to find an article of clothing that had changed back along with me.

Something bumped against my stomach. The necklace. I was so used to disrobing while keeping it on, that it hadn't occurred to me to remove it. Well, it didn't matter any more, did it. I jerked it over my head and threw it overhand into a corner of the room.

"Are you all right in there?" Aubrey called.

"I don't have anything to wear," I said in a broken voice.

The door opened. Aubrey took one look around the room, and nodded. I think she understood. Stepping past me, she went to my bed and retrieved a set of pajamas from under the pillow. They were lavender, and had a pattern of little kitty cats playing with yarn.

"I can't wear those," I said.

"They look adorable on you," she said, looking me straight in the eyes. "Put them on."

I put them on.

She sent me to the bathroom to remove my makeup. I spent more time than I should staring in the mirror, hating myself. By the time I got back, she had straightened up all my clothes. The blanket and sheet was pulled back from the bed like I'd gotten turndown service at a fancy hotel.

"Get in bed," she told me. I complied. She tucked me in. "I'm going to be in your living room tonight," she said. If you need me, I'm there. Now get some rest."

She turned out the light on her way.

I lay there in the dark, and waking turned into sleeping and into waking without clear lines. I must have slept, and dreamed, because I know that I did not wander up and up a set of spiral stairs, trying to find the roof. I did not knock over a fishbowl and try to assemble the pieces as the fish choked, wriggling on the carpet. And I could not have heard a voice, made of many voices, vibrating from the walls and floors and ceilings.

"You cannot go back," said the voice, and it was Aubrey's voice and Darren's and Madge's, Caroline's and Anthony's and Gerald's, and more and more. "You can only go forward."

"But what if I don't like what's ahead?" I demanded.

"Then keep going until you do."

Later on, when light had begun to steal through the sides of the curtains, I lay awake and staring. I was a crack in the wall, but I did not know the path to fixing myself. But unless I tried, that crack was going to get wider and wider until it brought down the whole house.

Go forward. That means getting out of bed. Pull back the sheet, throw your legs out, stand up. There, that was forward.

Out to the living room. Wake up Aubrey, dear Aubrey, who slept on the couch in her gallery opening dress because her friend needed her. Ask her for what you'll need. Ask her to tell Darren that I was all right, and that I'd see him soon. One step forward, and another, and another. Was it all better yet? No? Then keep moving.

Aubrey didn't want to go. I told her that what she had done was exactly what I had needed, but the next steps I had to take alone. She had to be convinced, but she went.

She returned with what I had asked for, paint and brushes and a single large canvas. Just one. If I needed more later I would as for more later. It was not necessary to look so far ahead, though. For one step forward, all I needed was one.

I ate a slice of bread, drank a glass of water, washed my face and hands. I went to my bedroom and took off my pajamas, folding them neatly under the pillow. Then, bare as I was born, in the sight of the House, I went to my private workroom to paint.

One step forward. I knew the form of this magic. I had done it twice. Paint what is, and make it into what will be. But I also knew from Darren that there was no such thing as going back. There was only forward.

And now I understood that the red-haired woman I had been for the last nine months was part of the past as well. She was never really me to begin with. She was a glamour, a construction made my Caroline, a convenient way for me to come to terms with my identity, but she was not me.

If I wanted to change, I needed to become something new. I needed to turn my scars into silver.

And so, I began to paint. I did not paint my body, not my male body nor the female glamour I had worn. I painted who I was.

I painted my art show. I painted the moment I realized my parents were gone. I painted my flute, Darren performing in a pub, walking out of my job, laughing with Aubrey. Scenes of childhood, adulthood, places I had lived or visited or dreamed of.

There was not enough space on the canvas for all of it, surely, but I painted it nonetheless. In fact, I had left the center of the canvas entirely blank. Each new memory, each new part of myself began to outline a shape. It was a silhouette, a human shape.

That was me, I realized. I was defined by everything I had experienced, and still those experiences could only form the border of my self.

The room faded around me. All that was left was my paint, my brush, and my canvas. The canvas was larger now, big as the wall, the empty silhouette in the middle just my height.

The pace of my painting slowed. I was finished depicting the past and present. What came next was the change. But what did I wish to change?

There was no place on the canvas that determined my gender. On the contrary, in reading the images I could tell that I was already a woman, had always been one. Then what was I changing? How could I make certain that when I emerged from this transformative moment, I had the body I wished?

I could not. I could ony take another step forward, in hopes that it was better than where I was.

I knew what I wanted, in part. I wanted health, youth, and vitality. I wanted to run and jump and feel the breeze on my face, to have a body that could interact with the world and derive pleasure from it. Yes, that was something I could paint. I put it on the canvas, and it filled the top third of the figure.

And skill, I wanted skill. Clever hands and fingers to do my art, and a clever mind to learn. I wanted the ability to take what was inside and bring it out, put it into tangible form, to move others to laughter or tears that we could share together. And another third of the figure was filled.

I knew intuitively that I had one more change I could make. Acceptance. Yes, I wanted to feel accepted, to be part of a family who loved me for who I was, who would always stick with me no matter what.

I put my brush to the canvas, but nothing happened.

"You cannot choose that," said the voice of the house, "because it is something you already have."

The voice spoke in the voices of all my friends united together. I did not know whether what I heard was a creation of my own mind or some deeper magic than I understod, but I heard the truth in the words. It was hard to accept, though. Not when.... oh.

I still wanted acceptance, but of a different sort. I wanted to accept myself.

The brush touched the canvas, and I painted.

Now there was nothing in front of me but the silhouette, filled with all those things I wanted to become. It beckoned to me, inviting me to enter and take those things that I had chosen. But I was afraid. I did not know what waited on the other side.

And yet, I knew what I had on this side, and that was not what I wanted. I could not go back. I could only go forward.

I went forward.

All that I had painted descended on me, wrapped around me, sank into my skin. I felt vital in mind and body. And for the first time I could remember, I felt peace. I closed my eyes, but thin eyelids could not block out the warm glow that suffused me. I drifted, free of gravity, in a sea of voices who told me that I was safe, that I was with them, and we could be joyful together.

The warmth and light vanished. My eyes opened. I was in my workroom.

But it had changed.

The canvas I had painted was sliced out of its stretcher. But the painting was not gone. One whole wall of the workroom had been turned into a mural, floor to ceiling. I recognized the things I had painted from my life, forming a silhouette in the middle of the wall.

It depicted a female figure, walking away from the viewer. She wore a deep blue dress that flowed to her ankles. One small foot showed beneath the dress, heel and instep, as she left behind where she was and took a step forward. Her hair was a deep brown with hints of red, a mass of ringlets, flowing down to the middle of her back. One arm hung at her side, ending in a slender white hand with long fingers. The other arm was raised, perhaps in a gesture of greeting. She saw something ahead of her. She was stepping forward to meet it. And she greeted it like an old friend.

I looked down. I saw the same dress wrapped around my body. I held up the same slender hands. I twitched aside my skirt and saw the same feet.

Stumbling, I made my shaky way to the bathroom. The face that greeted me was wholly new, and yet wholly familiar. My lips parted. I smiled, and the woman in the mirror smiled back.

I felt my body through the dress. I was female. I wore no necklace, and yet I was female. I laughed, or was it a sob? How do you express an emotion that comes only once in your life, the culmination of all your desires into a truth better than you could imagine?

After satisfying myself that yes, I finally had a body that matched my soul, I returned to the workroom. Soon I would go downstairs, reintroduce myself to my family, and begin the life I had finally accepted as mine. But not yet. First, I would gaze at the painting I had made.

There was one detail I had missed. Down at the bottom right corner was a signature. "Cayley Marie Davenport." The last name of my first life, the first name of my second. The middle name was new, unforeseen, unconnected with anything that had come before it. But it would be with me from now on, the symbol of everything I had become.