"You did this to me!" I insisted. My ears were still folded back and the tip of my tail was twitching from side to side behind my ankles. "That spell you sold me, it was flawed or something!"

Selene had a concerned look on her face as she asked, "What exactly seems to be the problem?"

I stared at her for a few seconds, I wasn't sure how to even respond to that. Surely she could see the cat ears and tail. Well maybe not the tail, it was behind my legs and the counter was between myself and her. But she had no excuse for not being able to see the ears. They were right in front of her eyes, considering I was sixteen centimetres shorter than I was when I was here last week.

I leaned forward on the counter and half demanded, "What's the problem? If you haven't noticed, I've got cat ears! And a tail!"

To help make my point, I reached back and got hold of my tail and pulled the end up and held it in my hand. The tip was still twitching back and forth like it had a mind of its own and it wasn't happy about being restrained like that.

"Not to mention," I continued, "Your spell turned me into a girl! You didn't notice any of that? It didn't strike you as the least bit odd?!"

The tall blonde gave me a patient smile, "Oh I did notice all of these things Miss Lloyd. I'm just questioning what you think is wrong with them?"

Before I could protest further she continued, "You wanted to be younger, and you wanted to be healthy. From what I can see both of those desires have been met, have they not?"

I took a deep breath, then sighed. I was still holding the end of my tail in front of me, and without really being aware of it I started running my left hand along the end of it while I held it to my chest with my right hand. It was a soothing sensation, and it helped me relax slightly so I didn't lose my temper.

"Yes," I replied in an uptight voice. "I'm young and I'm healthy. The spell did those things. I'm concerned about the unexpected extras? Like the fact that it turned me into a catgirl?"

I added, "In fact it changed quite a few other things too, you know? It changed my home around, my furniture, gave me a different wardrobe, even a different car! I'm pretty sure you never mentioned any of that stuff last week!"

"I'm sorry you're upset Ariana," Selene said in a calming voice. "What is it you'd like me to do for you?"

I was still stroking the end of my tail as I held it against my chest, and I hadn't really clued into that fact yet. It was keeping me somewhat calm though, and that was probably why I kept doing it.

I frowned for a few moments as I considered her question, then finally replied "Right now what I'd really like is some answers. I want to know what I'm supposed to do like this. I mean, I'm a bit of a freak aren't I? It's not normal, not natural, to look this way."

She raised an eyebrow as she watched me, "You aren't asking me to reverse the spell? Or to make you a man again? You aren't even asking me to remove your feline attributes?"

I frowned again as I considered her questions, then I felt my cheeks colouring. I spoke softly as I replied, "To be honest there were a lot of things I didn't like about being a man, and this kind of solved all of them? And this probably sounds strange, but even though it's only been a few hours since I woke up like this, it does feel really... I don't know? Comfortable? To be honest there's a lot of things I like. But that doesn't mean I don't have questions, or concerns."

After a deep breath I asked, "So I want to know. Did you do this to me? Or did you know it was going to happen? And what am I supposed to do like this? Like I said, it's not normal or natural to be part cat. There's going to be questions."

When I finished talking I finally let go of my tail. It immediately slipped back down behind me and started swishing slowly back and forth.

Selene was quiet for the next few moments, just sort of looking me over. Finally she sighed and looked towards her small black cat. The cat was sitting on her purple cushion on the counter, same as last week. She'd been watching me but turned to meet the gaze of her owner.

"All right," the tall blonde said after staring at the cat for a few moments. She looked back at me and asked, "You recall I told you the spell would set you on your true path? And I said that included fixing anything wrong with your body?"

I nodded, "Yes. I remember that, and I remember not hearing anything about becoming a girl, or part cat, or having a bunch of other details of my life changed around."

She ignored my pointed tone as she continued, "What I didn't tell you was that spell achieves its results by changing reality. It's a very powerful spell, the second strongest one I sell in fact. When I said it fixes whatever's wrong with your body, I didn't mean it would just heal you or cure your health problems. It actually gives you your ideal body, to go with your ideal life. Verum Viam normally won't change your age, but the version I sold you was modified to incorporate that magic as well. So it determined the ideal age at which to start you on your true path."

It took a solid minute or two for all that to sink in.

"So the spell I cast last night in my living-room literally changed reality?" I asked slowly. "That's how it changed my clothes and my name and my car and all that other stuff, in addition to my body?"

"Yes," Selene replied calmly. "That is correct."

"How?!" I exclaimed. "It was just a couple candles and some incense. A handful of words. How could it do so much?"

Selene glanced at her cat again for a moment, then looked back at me and replied quietly "Every spell I make is imbued with a small part of myself. The material components like candles and incense all carry a part of my essence. The spells aren't sentient, but they act like what you'd call machine intelligence. The words and actions you use to trigger the spell act like variables input into a computer program. They carry your thoughts, emotions, hopes and dreams, which the spell uses to determine the best possible outcome for you. Then the spell is triggered, and my power rewrites your reality according to what's best for you."

She added, "There are safeties in place of course, to ensure the spell doesn't do anything harmful to yourself or anyone else."

That was a lot to unpack but I understood the gist of it. I was sure she used the programming analogy for my benefit.

I still had many more questions though, and I frowned as I asked "The things I remember happened to me as Ariana, from last month or last year, did those things actually happen? Or are those fake memories?"

"When reality is changed like that," she explained, "A new timeline is created and the old one ends. In this timeline, you've always been Ariana and all the things you remember really did happen."

Once again it took some time for that to sink in. I commented slowly, "The man I was yesterday, in this timeline he was my father. And he died two years ago."

Selene responded in a soft, sad voice "I'm sorry for your loss."

For a moment I didn't know what to do with her words. She was offering me condolences on myself. Then it hit me. If this was a new timeline and those memories were real, then even if that man was me yesterday, today he wasn't me at all. In this timeline, in this life, he was my dad, and he really was gone. I felt a wave of strange feelings about that.

On the one hand I had trouble imagining him as a separate person from me, and despite Selene's words I still wasn't entirely sure if he ever actually existed as someone other than myself. But on the other hand I had nineteen years of memories of him as my dad. And I remembered how it felt to lose him two years ago, and how much I cried at his funeral.

I stayed quiet for another minute or two, and wound up wiping my eyes once or twice as I struggled with some very confusing emotions.

Finally I asked, "Did you know this was going to happen?"

She sighed, "There's quite a lot I didn't know, Ariana. I never know all the details. I never know exactly how the timelines will settle out. I couldn't have told you what kind of car you'd be driving, if you'd be living in the same place, or what your favourite food was going to be. I didn't know what age you'd be exactly. Sometimes I can make some solid guesses, based on people's personality? In your case, I knew you were a musician, that music would become a much bigger part of your life. And more to the point, I knew you were a girl. I knew that once you cast that spell, you'd wake up as young woman."

She added before I could ask, "I didn't know you'd become part cat, that was unexpected. In retrospect though, I should have seen the clues. It's not the first time something like that has happened by the way. It's rare, but not impossible. Some people are simply more comfortable being something a little more than human."

I had to wipe my eyes yet again as I thought everything she just told me. Eventually I frowned once more and asked, "So why didn't you warn me? Why not tell me before-hand what to expect? I get you didn't know all the little details but you just admitted you knew I'd become a girl. Don't you think that's something big enough to warrant a comment? A little cautionary advice?"

Selene gave me a sad look, "If I told you, you wouldn't have done it. You'd have been scared off. Instead of exploring why being a woman was the best possible path for you, you'd have denied it entirely. Maybe you'd figure it out on your own, some years down the road? Maybe not though. You got all the way to retirement age the first time around without realizing the truth."

"What truth is that?" I asked nervously. I was anxious, maybe a little bit scared to learn the answer.

"That you were always a woman," she replied softly. "The magic didn't turn you into a girl, Ariana. It just gave you a body that matched who you always were inside. All those things you didn't like about being a man? The reason you felt that way was because you were never a man to begin with."

I took a deep breath then let out a long sigh.

In retrospect it made sense. All the things I hated about my body were things people saw as masculine traits. The muscles, the body and facial hair, the sharp angular features. I hid as much as I could beneath clothing, and as I grew older I hid under layers of fat. That probably explained why I avoided people as well. It wasn't that I didn't like people, but having to socialize as a man caused me discomfort. My entire life I'd avoided the things which bothered me, without ever stopping to put together the pieces and understand why those things upset me. I never connected the dots, never figured out the root cause.

Yet again I found myself wiping tears from my eyes.

"Ok," I sighed. "That... That all makes a lot of sense. What do I do though about being part cat? Aren't people going to freak out about this when they see me?"

"Some will," Selene replied. "Typically you'll have the most trouble dealing with people or situations where the feline traits can't be overlooked. Oddly enough the place you'll have the greatest hassle is when you go to renew your drivers license. But that only happens every five years, and after a brief argument the staff will typically give up and let you get on with it. Doctors will be your other nemesis, but you'll handle them just fine."

Her calm, matter-of-fact delivery of that information sort of struck me. She wasn't making light of the situation, and she wasn't reciting some kind of prepared speech. She sounded sympathetic and compassionate.

I stared at her for a few moments, then asked "And anywhere else? What about getting groceries, or going to the mall? Going to a restaurant?"

The blonde replied "Some people might stare, but most will ignore you. People tend to filter out things they don't want to deal with. They'll assume you're wearing a costume, they'll wonder why, but they'll decide it's none of their business."

She added, "Remember Ariana, even though this feels new right now you've dealt with it your whole life. You just graduated from college last week, how did that go?"

I brushed aside a few more tears as I realized she was right. "Two profs gave me a hard time at first, and in two years there were about a dozen students who questioned or hassled me. But most of them just ignored me. And a few even became friends."

Selene smiled, "There you go."

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