I frowned slightly. What other changes could be happening? Had the ring simply reset me to my prior form before making further alterations? I peered into the mirror closely.

At first I thought it was a trick of perspective, but soon I could not deny it. The mirror was slowly rising on its invisible wall. But why would that be? Unless....

Unless it wasn’t the mirror. I was getting shorter. I went to one of the actual walls and made a mark on the dry wall with my thumbnail, right at the top of my head. I stepped away, waited a few minutes, and did it again. The second mark was about an inch lower than the first.

Maybe I was getting younger. I was pushing forty, and the notion of setting back the clock as an appealing one. If not, it might be the thing I asked for next. I smiled at the notion. Youth. The chance to live it all again, to do it right this time, without the mistakes that plagued me. Yes, that was an appealing notion indeed.

I had no way of judging my new height for certain, but based on the perspective I had lost the better part of a foot. That would put me around... oh, twelve years old? A bit younger than I had hoped, but wouldn’t it be great to go through school without having to study? I laughed at the notion of what constituted homework in seventh grade.

The ring pulsed a third time.

Here it goes, I thought. My face began taking on a more youthful appearance, with rounder cheeks and larger eyes. It didn’t look like I did as a kid, though. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it looked feminine.

My hair suddenly shot out from my head, cascading around my head on all sides. Surprised and startled, I pulled it back away from my face, letting it fall behind my shoulders. I blinked at my reflection. The face that blinked back, with its long eyelashes and full lips and high cheekbones, its scattering of freckles and soft lines, was not the face of a preteen boy. It was the face of a young woman.

“What the hell is happening?” I said aloud, and gasped at the sound of my voice. It was high and tinny inside my head. There was none of the low tones that had previously characterized it. My eyes widened as I began to understand what was happening.

This was the Precedent, the thing that changed me enough to allow my target change to take place. In order to get the life that I wanted, Evelyn was changing my gender.

I tried to keep myself calm as I watched the remainder of the change take effect. I could change back soon, almost right away. I would just reject this change and ask for a different one.

My body was not the only thing changing. I had been wearing a T-shirt and shorts when I arrived, and they had shrunk to fit my body as I lost the weight. Now, they shifted in both shape and size. The T-shirt lost its sleeves, and the neckline opened up. Soon, there was nothing left of the shirt’s shoulders but two thin strips of fabric. The shirt itself tightened around my slender body.

The shorts, meanwhile, became even shorter, until the outer seam ended at the level of my crotch. Speaking of crotches, mine was now suspiciously flat. I felt and confirmed that the familiar bulge of my penis was now gone.

The hair disappeared from my legs. They softened as they shed hair, becoming toned and shapely. My socks vanished, and my tennis shoes became sandals that clung to my small feet. My hips broadened, my butt inflated. Suddenly, my shirt tucked in at the bottom, to follow the curve of my new, narrower waist. The front of the shirt pushed out, and I watched a line of cleavage form in the window of the low neckline.

The ring pulsed one last time. I wasn’t sure why — I did not see any further changes take place — and shortly afterwards the void fled. I was in a normal house, one that seemed oddly familiar.

A woman walked out of the door that I instinctively knew was the kitchen. It took a moment for me to catch my breath. “Mom?”

“Yes? Oh no, young lady. You are not going to go off to college dressed like that. If you want to go out half dressed, for heaven’s sake, do it once you’re there and I can’t tell.” Her voice dropped. “At least go put on a BRA.”

I nearly collapsed against her, hugging her to me. Tears came, and I did not try to stop them.

My mother had died a decade ago.

Guilt shot through me. I could have asked for this. I could have brought her back, but I had only thought about myself. I hated myself for my selfishness.

“Oh, Alice. I forget that you’re not as grown up as you pretend to be. I didn’t mean it, you look fine. It’s just going to be hard on me, you going off to school hours and hours away.”

“I missed you. I mean, I’m going to miss you.” I sniffed and pulled away. “I’ll go change.”

It wasn’t that I really wanted to change, but I needed the excuse to pull myself together. My mother. I thought I’d never see her again, and there she comes around the corner. I sought out my bedroom, or at least where I expected my bedroom to be. I recognized almost nothing in it, except for a high school pennant and a few inherited odds and ends. The rest was the bedroom of a late teenage girl.

There was a purse on the bed, and I opened it up. Makeup, mints, a hairbrush and a mirror. The gold key, thankfully.... there, a wallet.

Alice Parkland. Born December 11th, 1999. My birthday, but eighteen years later. The address was familiar too, and I finally got it... this was the house that my mom lived in when she died. I had visited only once, and stayed there for a few weeks as Marty and I were making arrangments to sell.

What had I done with the money? Oh, that’s right, I spent it on alcohol and drugs. No, that was the first Brian. It went as a down payment on the apartment. No, I spent it on board games. I shook my head. There were too many memories up there now. I did not even have any memories of the new me, yet.

I had told my mother I would put on a bra, but it took me a moment to find any. They were already packed up, in the suitcases stacked along the side of the room. I took out a likely one, and then set about getting it on.

The first step was to take off my shirt, and I’ll admit that I got distracted at my first look at my own tits. They weren’t huge, but I was still rather healthily built. A C-cup, I discovered from the tag on the bra. I struggled to get it on, but at least I didn’t have to adjust the straps — Alice had clearly worn it before, so it was already primed to fit. I pulled the shirt back on over it, and examined my image in the mirror. Yeah, just a normal girl looking normal.

I now had to decide what to do next. I should really put an end to all of this, go back to being myself and figure out another way. But my mother.... a little big longer with her wouldn’t hurt.

I returned to the living room. “Sorry,” I said. “Just with going to college and all....”

“You don’t have to explain, sweetie,” she said, smiling at me. “Did you need to do anything else, or are you ready to go?”

“Let me just get my purse,” I said, and put actions to words.

It was a good thing that I had not intended to flee this reality right away. The keyhole did not appear on the front door. It only appeared on the door of where I lived, and apparently I did not live at home anymore. I would have to wait until I got to the college no matter what.

I did not have a car in this reality, so my mom drove me. I was going to Georgetown, apparently. Philadelphia to DC is about three hours, but with construction and backups, it took almost four. She insisted on coming up with me to the dorm room to “get me settled in.” I pretended annoyance, but when it was time for her to leave, there I was crying and hugging her again.

“It won’t be long before you’ll be coming home for a visit,” she told me. And with heartfelt and mutual assurances of love, she parted.

The other half of the dorm room was still empty. Presumably I was going to have a roommate. But who? Did I even know? What was I studying? Who really was I?

At least the keyhole had appeared on the dorm room door. I had access to Debug Mode, and any time I wanted, I could change everything back to the way it was. But just a little longer wouldn’t hurt anything.

And if I was going to spend any time here, I needed to understand what was going on. I put my hand on the ring, a smaller ring than it had been on larger male fingers. I twisted it around once, and the stone turned blue.