Penny sighed and rang up another customer. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy her work—she loved working at the boutique—but she’d woken up unusually depressed that day and her dysphoria had only gotten worse throughout the day. Every time she glanced into a mirror, she just saw a guy. If she’d actually started her transition by now, at least there would be something positive to latch onto and keep her spirits up.

“Come again,” she said in her gruff boy voice, forcing as much cheer as she possibly could.

Raquel’s Boutique was a fairly popular clothing and makeup store. Auburn may have been a small mountain town, but thanks to the river, it brought in a lot of tourists for fishing and whitewater. And the best thing about tourists is that they were usually willing to spend a bit more than what was reasonable while they were on vacation. Despite the town’s size and median income, Raquel’s was doing alright.

The shop’s owner, Rachel, came to stand by the register.

“Did you see the news?” she asked. “The capes are going to be honored at the Fourth of July celebration. The mayor wants a lot of tourists to see.”

“Just like every year, Missus Wood,” Penny replied.

“Do you go to the festival, Tobias?” Rachel asked.

“Some years. Probably not this year.”

“Do you ever get out of the house?”

Penny shrugged.

“Well, put some effort into it,” Rachel said, “if only for your health. It’s not good to be cooped up inside all day.”

“I’ll remember.”

“Great. Now see if you can help some of these customers.”

Penny nodded and stepped away from the register. She wandered through the store, feeling way too big for the narrow squeezes between the racks. Realistically, she knew she was wrong; she wasn’t actually that much larger than most girls. But it sure felt like she was.

“Hello,” she told a woman inspecting dresses, “can I help you?”

“Oh…” The lady smiled nervously. “No thank you. I’m fine.”

Penny nodded, but her soul was dying. She could see it in the woman’s eyes: she just saw Penny as another man trying to invade a women’s space. Every now and then a customer would look at her that way and it would just sting so much.

“Of course. Have a nice day,” she said.

She wandered through the store for a bit before finding herself back at the register. Penny sighed and closed her eyes. Why had she insisted on taking a gap year? She didn’t need this job, not really. If she’d just gone to college, she could already be on hormones and dressing like she really wanted.

“Hello there,” someone said, getting Penny to open her eyes.

“Hello, Gabriela,” she said, smiling softly.

Gabriela was only in her mid-twenties, but carried herself like a well-established adult. She was also a regular, and one of the only customers who didn’t seem the least bit bothered by Penny’s presence. It was always a bit of a joy to see her.

“I love this hat,” Gabriela said, placing her find on the table, “and I wish someone had told me earlier that you’d gotten in new shades of lipstick for the summer.”

“I’m glad you found something that you like,” Penny told her, ringing up the purchase. “Enjoy your day.”

“You too, sir,” Gabriela replied, and Penny felt a pang in her heart.

Once Gabriela was gone, Penny sighed. She’d barely been out of school for a month and already regretted her decision not to go straight to college. The dark clouds in the back of her mind began to roil again.

When Penny got home, she sent a message to Michael. He was the only friend she had from high school who also didn’t go straight to college, but since his job was full-time and hers only part-time, it would be a while before she heard back from him. So she put on her headphones and laid back on her bed, closing her eyes and letting the music take her away.

Eventually, she heard movement elsewhere in the house. Her mother had gotten home. It was about that time she got a message from Michael.

Hey, what’s up? he’d asked her.

Just a sucky day, she replied. At least the weekend is coming up.

Yeah, but you’re not going to do anything.

Ow. That stung. But it was true.

What are you going to do? Penny asked.

That group I was talking about? The Auburn Warrior Guild? They’re having a meeting this weekend and I kind of want to go to.

Penny honestly didn’t remember him talking about them. Had she just not been paying attention? Michael was always going on about something or another. Did it make her a bad friend if she didn’t remember it all?

She asked, Are you going to the Fourth of July celebration this year?

Maybe, he replied. Why?

The supers are going to be there.

So? We saw them when they came to visit the school, you dummy.

Yeah, but I want to see them again.

It’d be cool if we got powers like that, right?

There was a knock on Penny’s door. Her father, telling her that dinner was ready. Penny sighed and put her phone away, then got out of bed.

Dinners were always awkward. Nobody really said anything anymore. It had been this way for months, ever since Penny had first tried coming out to her parents. They could barely look at her now.

“So… everything is going well at the boutique,” she said. “I might be able to pick up some extra hours next week.”

“A shop like that is no place for a young man,” her father said curtly. “You should be working at the factory. Or applying to college. Have you started that, yet?”

“Not yet, Dad,” she mumbled.

“Well, get to it,” he said.

Her mother nodded silently, then added, “You should take up fishing or something, dear. I think a real hobby would help you center yourself after the… struggles you’ve had for the past few months.”

By a “real hobby” she meant a “manly hobby,” of course.

“Mom, Dad,” Penny said, shaking a little, “I’m a girl. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s not going to change no matter what I do.” Her parents were glaring at her. “Furthermore, I want to start taking hormones. It’s my right to transition—”

“There will be no talk of that nonsense in my house,” her father said sharply. “You know better than to bring it up.”

Her mother added, “As long as you’re under our roof, dear, we’re not going to entertain the idea of you… damaging your body with hormones of any kind.”

Penny turned her gaze to her plate and continued to eat in silence. Neither her mom nor dad said anything more after that. When she was done, Penny put her plate in the sink and returned to her room.

Once there, she curled up onto her bed and started to cry. All Penny wanted was to be out of this miserable life already. She wanted to be somewhere where she could be herself. She wanted parents who supported her. She wanted to just be a girl already.

Penny stopped crying soon enough. It was so hard for her to muster up any kind of substantial tears. She wished she could just cry like a normal person. If she was on hormones, she’d be able to cry.

She felt absolutely miserable. Today had been way too much. From the moment she woke up, she knew it’d be a bad day. But then her parents had to go and make everything that much worse with their transphobia. Penny hadn’t had a day this bad in a couple of months. Was the rest of the year going to be like this? Could it possibly get any worse?

“I need to get out of here,” she mumbled, sitting up.

Penny put on her shoes and opened up her window. Carefully, she removed the screen and set it to the side. Then she inched herself out of the window and to the ground. Walking swiftly but quietly, she disappeared into the woods behind her house. At any moment, she was sure she’d hear her mom or dad call out for her to stop, but fortunately she was met only by silence.

She’d made this trek multiple times before. In her last year of high school, it had become a regular experience for her on the particularly bad days. Today felt like a good time to revisit an old habit. Before too long, she was sitting on the banks of the wide Auburn River that the town was named after.

This part of the river was somewhat calm, but Penny had been kayaking on the Auburn River with her father when she was younger. She knew how bad the rapids got in some places. Occasionally someone would just be thrown out of their raft and into the water. It must have happened a couple of times every season.

Penny wondered, not for the first time, if one of the local heroes would come to rescue her if she fell in. Snap-trap could send in one of her plant vines for Penny to grab onto, or maybe Transvection would just pluck Penny out of the water with his psychic powers. Or, just maybe, nobody would come and rescue her and she’d be bashed against the rocks until the rapids held her under long enough to—

“Oh god,” she muttered, closing her eyes and beginning to cry again. “I don’t want to die. I don’t. I promise.”

But what else was she supposed to do with herself? Penny had never known what she wanted out of life beyond her transition. She hadn’t even tried to apply to any colleges her senior year. And she sincerely doubted she had what it took to hold down a full-time career in the emotional state she was in.

Her cries turned to sobs and Penny fell over, curling up on the ground. She should just get it over with. All she was doing was delaying the—

She stopped sobbing and pulled herself back up into a sitting position. Floating down in front of her, like a leaf in the air, was a small glowing silvery orb. It came to a stop just a foot in front of her nose and hovered there.

Penny was still. Even her breath had stopped. Around her, trees rustled and the river babbled. The orb made no sound and didn’t move, but the soft glow seemed to pulsate ever so slightly. Tentatively, Penny reached out her hand, but stopped before touching the orb.

“What are you?” she asked breathlessly. It did not respond.

Very slowly, her fingers curled around the orb. It was warm and soft. As she held it, the orb seemed to melt and bleed into her hand. When she opened her fingers again, it was gone.

A tingle ran up Penny’s arm and she sat bolt upright. She felt different. Her head felt different. Penny’s hands were quivering in anticipation. Something about her had just changed and Penny wasn’t sure what.

“I need to get home,” Penny mumbled, looking up at the low moon in the sky.

She got to her feet slowly. Penny had been on her knees for long enough that her foot had fallen asleep. Her leg buckled and Penny nearly fell. Acting on instinct, Penny reached out and felt her hands wrap around something. She stopped falling and blinked in surprise. Penny was holding onto a finely carved walking stick.

“How did—?” she asked, letting go and watching it immediately dissolve into thin air.

Penny looked down at her hands in surprise. She closed her hands and opened them again, dropping two handfuls of marbles onto the forest floor. For a moment, they just laid there in the dirt. Then Penny sort of… let go of them with her mind and they dissolved into air.

Penny covered her mouth and muttered, “Oh my God. I have superpowers. That had to be a Moon Orb.”

Several people throughout recent history had gotten famous with powers they’d received from a Moon Orb or Sun Orb; they always came in pairs and the people granted powers were always linked in some fashion, usually as partners. The orb must have granted Penny the power to create solid illusions of some kind. Could any heroes she knew of that also got their powers from a Moon Orb do that? Moonbeam didn’t, Lunescent didn’t, Tidal Lock certainly didn’t.

“Wait. That means that someone else just got powers from a Sun Orb,” Penny realized. “Probably someone nearby, too.”

And probably a guy, too. That was the other thing. As far as Penny was aware, the Sun Orb was always granted to guys and the Moon Orb always granted to girls.

“Which means I was right!” Penny cried, pumping her fist into the air. “No matter what my parents say, they can’t take this away from me!”

She was a girl! She was a girl! She was a girl! This whole time, Penny was a girl!

Penny felt a little dizzy for a second, then shook her head to clear it. As she did so, hair longer than her own whipped her in the face. Confused, she grabbed a handful. It was blond instead of brown and it was silky smooth.

Frowning, Penny looked down. Her clothes had changed; they were almost the same but distinctly feminine now. Her pants clung to her wider hips. Her shirt showed off cleavage that hadn’t been there before. She was even wearing a bra. Penny ran her hands all over her body. It felt so real!

“But it’s not,” she realized sadly, and again mentally detached herself from the illusion. It faded away quickly and she looked like herself again. Penny closed her eyes and sat back down.

Her new powers hadn’t given her the affirming body she always wanted, just the temporary appearance of it. Perhaps that was for the best. Penny couldn’t exactly walk back into her home looking entirely different and expect things to just work out.

“But I can walk around town looking like that,” she realized. “When people look at me, they’ll finally be seeing me and not some dumb boy.”

Penny started to laugh.

“I finally get to be me!” she told the forest. “I can’t believe it. I can’t wait until tomorrow.”

Speaking of which, she had an early shift the next day and needed to get home. Penny sprung to her feet, still giddy. Work might be a hassle, but afterward? Afterward, she was going to finally get out of the house for a while.