“May I be excused from dinner, Mum?” Io asked. “I’d like to go work on my bath.”

“Of course, dear,” our mum said, giving her a smile as she scampered off. And then there were just the two of us, any prior conversation lapsing into silence.

That was probably to be expected, though — I hadn’t been participating in the prior conversation, and... well, it wasn’t often that I was very talkative. I’d always been quiet, preferring to stick inside my head more than I preferred reaching out to others. Even if those others were family. It was just... hard. Too hard to come up with the words. Too much energy that was sapped by... everything else.

It was quiet for a while before Mum spoke up. “Are you okay, hon?” she asked.

I stopped idly pushing around the fish on my dinner plate, looking up at her with a sheepish expression. “Umm. Yeah. Sorry Mum.”

“You know, you can tell me what’s on your mind. I promise, nothing’s off limits.”

“I… I know. I just… I don’t really… have coherent thoughts,” I said, my voice soft and hesitant. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologise, hon. You really should finish your dinner though. Don’t you like salmon? I thought it was one of your favourites...”

I shrugged, looking back down at it. It was one of my favourites. I just...

“Is it too cold? I can heat it back up if you need…” She held out her fingers to cast a spell of warmth. When I didn’t really make any move to eat it, though, she sighed. “Hon, I don’t want you to go hungry. You’re a growing boy, you know?”

A growing boy.

I frowned at my food, the idea of eating it even less appealing than the last time I’d taken a bite. Whether or not it was warmed back up. “I’m not hungry, Mum,” I murmured, head down.

After a moment, she sighed, and I glanced back up at her nervously. She didn’t look disapproving though, just… worried.

“If… if you’re sure,” she said. “Hon, I just want you to be healthy. Your body and your mind. You’ll tell me if you need anything… won’t you?”

“Yes, Mum,” I lied. At least some things came easily.

She excused me from the table shortly after that — I’d only eaten half of my food, but it wasn’t as if I was going to do more than pick at the remains anyway.

To be honest, this was a common occurrence in my life. I pretty much always struggled to have any sort of appetite. I struggled to have motivation for anything, to be fair. And as a result, I’d ended up shaped like a stick, gaunt and weak and small. 

I didn’t do much, either… I had very little motivation to try at anything, so it was honestly a miracle I hadn’t failed all my classes at school yet. Let’s just say an assignment turned in was magnitudes rarer than an assignment never touched once.

I wanted to be useful… I wanted to be productive, but… Pretty much the only productive thing I ever did was read. It was pretty much how I spent all my time, provided I wasn’t idly staring out the window, anyway.

“Hi, Io,” I said, having just entered the living room. She had her massive cauldron out, her bath potion brewing away. For a moment I felt a flash of jealousy, my eyes following the handle of the spoon she was using magic to stir.

“Sup,” she said, turning back to the cauldron to sprinkle in a handful of some kind of crushed leaves, then turned back to the workstation littered with materials and notes. She was clearly busy, and I didn’t really want to distract her. I knew her bath on each full moon was important. (As much as it... kinda weirded me out. I hated baths.)

Instead of sticking around, I sighed miserably to myself, then left her be and headed up the stairs to my room. 

When I got there, I sat on the chair next to my window, looking out into the forest past my home. This was a common spot for me… both during the day, and once it got dark. It was nice, staring at the world... watching the birds, and the trees, and the rare animal scurrying through them... watching the world, and imagining as though I fit within it. 

And tonight… It was quiet, calm, a cloudless night with a cool breeze. High, high up in the sky, hung the moon, big and bright and shining down, illuminating the garden, the fallen leaves, and the dim canopy. It was orange, but yet... I struggled to see the colour. 

I had a good life. There was nothing I ever needed to ask for; my mum always provided for us. She cared for us, my sister and I. Besides my struggle with, and hatred of school, my life was idyllic. It was like... I lived a wonderful, colourful life, but I couldn’t see any of it; the colours were all dimmed. 

And, like... living here was lovely. Living with two witches was amazing — everything was so easy. But again… that was just another reason that I felt... useless, compared to them. My mum did always say that people are special in different ways, that I’d find my hobbies, my interests, my… specialties someday...

(Provided I didn’t, like, exclusively stare out the window or read for the rest of my life.)

Some days, though…

I really wondered whether my mum was right. That I’d actually find things to… make me... normal. 

I… I didn’t even want to be normal. I was so used to feeling useless among witches, and I was so tired of it. So… I didn’t just want to be normal. I wanted more than that. I wanted to be able to do the things my mum could do. I wanted to be able to do the things my sister could do. I’d wanted it ever since I’d first seen magic — I still remembered my sister blowing out the candles, making fairy lights all around my bed…

In other words. Sometimes, as dumb as it sounded… I wished I was a witch.

But I… wasn’t like them. I wasn’t a girl. 

Not like my sister. With her… it was obvious. She’d always been confident, straightforward, stubborn, and not at all shy, and she had proudly declared herself a girl and a witch, just like Mum, at age six. 

I’d not been any of those things. No, I was cowardly, fickle, emotional... and the idea of talking to anyone at all was just plain terrifying. And most of all I definitely was not a girl. I mean, I’d have known if I was. Like Io.

I wasn’t a witch, either, though that was probably obvious considering I wasn’t a girl. Only girls could be witches after all. Boys — like... me — could be warlocks, if they wanted to be, but they had an entirely different kind of magic. It tended to be rougher, and flashier, and much more exciting in the way it solved problems. That wasn’t to say that it couldn’t do the same things, just... the way it went about them was... different. And it... just... I hadn’t really wanted magic like that? Nor had I wanted some kind of mix of the two either, like some people could do. I just... I still couldn’t get those fairy lights out of my head. If I could do magic... that’s what I wanted it to be like. Soft, gentle, comforting...

But... I couldn’t have magic like that. I wasn’t a girl, or anything else in the grand spectrum of gender, for that matter. If I had been, then the fact that both my mum and my sister were witches would mean that I’d be able to do magic just like my sister... but... Well, I’d tried. I’d tried to do magic just like her, but... nothing would happen. 

So, unfortunately, I was not a witch, and therefore, not a girl.

Sometimes, though…

Goddess, I really, really hated being a boy. Most things I was fickle about, like I said, but this was... it was different. I just hated it. I really hated being a boy. Mum usually left me alone about what I “needed” to be doing, but, well... I got the picture from schoolmates what a “boy” was supposed to be like. Based on what I’d seen the other ones do. Ugh.

I sighed, reaching off to the side to grab my book, and trying to start reading. But my mind just... wasn’t really in it at that moment. After realising that I hadn’t processed anything I’d read in the past page, I gave up, instead just staring out the window listlessly. And I did, for a long, long time. I’m not sure how long, of course, but I do know that eventually I was interrupted by Io suddenly calling my name up the stairs. 

I tensed up. Did I… did I really need to go down? Why couldn’t I stay here, alone…? 

Talking made me feel terrible. I hated it.

When she called a second time, I sighed, then got up, slowly trudging back down the staircase. I really kinda just didn’t want to do anything else today, especially not having some big conversation, or chores, or....

I reached the landing a moment later, and my sister flashed me a thankful smile. “Sorry, I have to run to the bathroom. Would you do me a massive favour?”

“What?” I grumbled.

“The potion is almost done, all that’s left is stirring it for a while. Can you stir it while I’m gone? I can't trust I’ll be able to multitask from another room.”

“Uh…” I stammered, my eyes suddenly widening. I'd never been allowed anywhere near her magic stuff… Really? “I… I can try… are you sure you want me to...?”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she smiled softly. “I trust you more than any other boy to be careful with this kind of thing.”

“A-alright,” I agreed, half nervous and half excited. I would get to participate in magic! She levitated the spoon out and into my hand, and gestured for me to get up on the platform next to the cauldron, before hurrying back out to do what she needed to.

Holding the stirring spoon in my hand, over the bubbling cauldron, I took a deep breath. This potion was important, but all I had to do was stir it. It would be fine.

And so stir it I did, my nervous expression fading by the second. I was doing it! I was doing magic!

Well, not really, this part of potion brewing wasn’t magical in the least, but… I could imagine that I was doing magic!

Imagining myself with long hair, with a big pointy witch hat like my sister got to wear… a skirt… I got to be all cute like her and do magic at the same time… I spun around in a circle, trading the spoon from one hand to another with a flourish, imagining my skirt flaring out. I couldn’t help but giggle to myself. I loved that image. Why couldn’t that be reality?

And then I sighed, my fantasy fading, leaving me with nothing but a bubbly cauldron and a sad boy stirring it. There... there was no magic. There would never be magic, not for me.

And then, a minute later, as I stared listlessly into the bubbling liquid while stirring, I... dropped the spoon, and it sank slowly to the bottom of the cauldron. Clunk.

My brain froze for a moment, and I just stared through the bubbling, clear liquid, down to the faint outline of the spoon below.

Well… shoot. 

I wasn’t even being careless! I was just stirring it and the spoon slipped out of my hand!

Was… was the potion going to be okay? I was sure it’d be okay if the spoon stayed in there, but Io had said it needed to be stirred… So then… was there another spoon? I glanced around looking for one, but… nothing. How was I… I needed to get the spoon out, didn’t I?

If I was really a witch — rather than just in my imagination — I’d be able to just levitate it out… It wasn’t fair…

I could see the spoon, too; just barely make out its outline. Should I… Hmm… Io didn’t have the heat on… It was bubbling, but I doubted that was because it was still boiling. I was pretty sure that the bubbling was what made her bath a bubble bath. And with that being the case, I could probably…

I swallowed, then quickly stuck my arm in the liquid, snatching the spoon, and yanking it back out.

Phew. I was fine. No pain at all, just… warm.

And then I blinked, staring at my arm, which suddenly looked and felt weirdly different. I… wait… I… Did it…

Okay, but… sure, Io’s potions made her pretty, but, like… I was a boy! Why would… I swallowed.

“How’s it going?” Io suddenly asked behind me, and I snapped around to face her, hiding my arm behind me.

“I… uhh…”

And suddenly the thought struck me that… if my arm could change with a touch of the potion… Maybe I could bathe in the potion too, and then maybe I’d be as pretty as my sister. Maybe I could wear a witch hat, and a skirt, and…

No, no, no. What was I… No, I was a boy, that wasn’t going to change if I looked prettier…

“What’s wrong?” Io asked, also sounding nervous now. She took a step closer to the platform. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Did you… is the potion okay?”

I nervously took a step backwards, and… well, one step was too far. I tripped on the leg of the cauldron, landing right on its rim.

It almost seemed like it was happening in slow motion. Tripping, landing on the rim, the cauldron starting to tip over as I weighed it down… My sister’s eyes widening in worry… The cauldron flipping completely on its side, dumping its contents over me... My sister catching the cauldron with her magic as I slid down off the platform, landing on the floor with a light thump. 

As soon as it had happened, it was over. I sat there for a moment, in shock, dripping with the potion… And then the huge spoon fell down out of the cauldron and conked me on the head, and everything went black. 

*

When I woke up, wherever I was, it was nice and warm and cosy and soft. I didn’t really even want to move, if I was being completely honest.

But apparently I must’ve made some kind of noise, because a moment later the blanket was pulled away from my face. “Hon? Are you awake?”

I grumbled at her, blinking away the sleep. “I was so cosy, Mum…”

She laughed to herself, looking halfway between surprised and bemused. “Are you… feeling okay?”

I blinked at her some more. “I told you… cosy.”

“R-right,” she laughed again. “Listen, umm… do you remember what happened, hon? You got a pretty good knock on the head…”

“Do I remember what…” I mumbled, before… “Io’s potion!” I cried, my eyes shooting open as I sat up. “She needs that, and—”

“Hey,” Mum said, hand going down on my head.

I looked up at her, confused. It felt nice, though, her hand between my ears.

“Do you… know what Io’s potion does?” Mum asked.

“It makes her pretty,” I murmured, without skipping a beat. Why was it so easy to talk right now? It was like the words were just tumbling out, where before it was so hard to say anything…

She laughed again. “No, sweetie, it… It keeps your sister looking like she’s supposed to. It’s a potion to… help someone be a girl.”

I found myself blinking at her again.

“And it starts to wear off after a month, so every full moon, Io has to brew another batch, and take another bath.”

“I… I knew she used to be… or… she was born… well. Yeah. The potion is what makes her like the other girls?”

“Yes, sweetie.”

I swallowed thickly. “Is… is there still time? Can she make another potion?”

Mum shook her head. “Don’t worry, your sister will be fine. I made a new batch together with her while you were taking a little… cat nap. She’s in the bath now.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, and laid back down, only then realising just how weird I felt. It wasn’t bad — it was… good even — but… it was also completely alien. 

“Do you… umm…” Mum asked, sounding more hesitant and quiet than I’d ever heard her before, like she was worried I’d shatter at the smallest thing.

I’d been… coated in the potion, hadn’t I? Completely covered in it. Basically submerged. So… the potion helped people be girls, so did that mean... Was I a girl now? Err, well, did I look like a girl now? I… definitely felt like my body maybe might’ve kinda changed in that sort of way, but I was trying not to give too much attention to it because… I was a little embarrassed.

But… was mum going to… uhh… “fix” this? Or… Would I… “Do I get to be a girl for a month, then?” I asked aloud, my voice hoarse as tears threatened to spill. I only realised afterwards that I’d said it in a way that… I’d admitted that I wanted this…

“D-do you want to be a girl for a month?” she asked, clearly a bit surprised at me again.

I didn’t answer, instead rolling over and burying my face in my pillow. Oh. I had boobs now. I… okay.

Mum put her hand on my head again, gently running her fingers through my long hair. “It’s okay, sweetie. You can tell me anything, remember? No matter what your answer is, you know I still love you, right?”

I hesitantly turned to look at her again. She… She was really making it seem like there wouldn’t be consequences for this… but… I knew I couldn’t be a…

I finally just… gave her the smallest, quickest nod I could, before burying my face in my pillow again, the tears finally starting to flow. Why was I crying? Why was this so scary? Why was… I was…

“Hey, hey,” Mum cooed, still stroking through my hair. “It’s okay, little one. You can be a girl. You can be my daughter. That’s completely okay.”

But… I… “I’m not, though!” I finally cried, rolling away from her onto my side and tucking my legs into my chest. “I was… I didn’t… Io knew! She’s a real girl! I’m just… I’m just jealous. I’m not a real—”

“Sweetie, that’s… that’s not how it works,” she interrupted, suddenly sounding in tears herself. “Is that why you’ve been so sad for so long? You knew you wanted to be a girl, but you thought you couldn’t be?”

I couldn’t even form a coherent sentence, just starting to sob. But… I didn’t need to. She understood.

Mum took me, then, picking me up in her arms and holding me tightly in her lap. I… I was… I was even smaller, now?

“It’s okay, my sweet daughter. It’s okay now. You don’t have to be a boy anymore...” she cooed, hugging me close. “You’re safe, now.”

I… I didn’t… I could… My mind felt pulled in every direction at once. I didn’t have to be a boy anymore? But… I was… I was always a boy. Io was so sure that she wasn’t, but I’d never had anywhere near that kind of confidence.

“I don’t understand…” I cried, wiping my eyes. “I don’t know that I’m a girl, not like Io… but I can still… be one?”

“It’s never about what you know. It’s always about how you feel.” I leaned into her chest as I sniffled, and she continued, “If you feel like being a girl is better, sweetie, then you can be a girl. No, I should say… then you are a girl. It’s as simple as that. That’s how it works for Io, too — she just figured it out sooner.”

She was silent for a minute, just holding me against her, rubbing my back as I shed my tears and tried to think.

Being a girl was just about... feeling? It was just about wanting to be a girl? But that... It couldn’t be like that. That’d be too easy. Was it... was it really okay?

But she kept holding me close, rubbing my back and the top of my head, around and behind my ears in the most comforting way. I... felt safe. I felt like... maybe... it would be okay. 

“I’m… I’m a girl,” I murmured, testing it out on my tongue. It felt… warm. “Mum?” I spoke up, swallowing the last of my tears. “I’m a girl, I think.”

She smiled. “I think so too, sweetie.”

*

Fifteen minutes later, against my will, I was in the bathroom, stripped of my clothes. Apparently I needed to bathe in the potion as well, that way we’d make sure that the potion had completely soaked in, and wouldn’t start fading before the month had ended. 

I hated baths.

I… couldn’t get in. I was just standing outside the bathtub, my sister staring at me, my cheeks scarlet in my embarrassment, all my hair standing on end…

So, maybe it was beyond a hatred of baths. Maybe it had progressed further than that. Maybe, just maybe, I was legitimately scared of the water. I hadn’t taken a bath in years, only showers, and I guess that, among other things, had turned them just really scary and unpleasant in my brain? Either way, it didn’t help that my sister was staring at me like that.

“So,” Io said, crossing her arms over the side of the tub. “You’re a girl now too, huh?”

“Umm… yeah,” I mumbled, looking down at my now-tiny feet.

“Aren’t you gonna get in then?” she asked, like it was the most simple thing in the world. “It’s nice and warm, I’ve been keeping it from getting cold.”

“I… I’m scared.”

“Of what? Me or the water? Okay, well, to be fair, I am really scary.”

“I’m not scared of you,” I pouted, still not meeting her eyes, shifting uncomfortably.

“Oh my god, you actually are scared of the water, then?” she snorted. “You really are a cat!”

I looked back up at her, tilting my head in confusion. “A... cat? What do you mean?”

She stared at me. Then blinked. And blinked again. “Have… have you not seen yourself in the mirror? Or… like… paid any attention to your body?”

“Well... N-no…” I blushed, looking down at my feet again.

“Well, turn around, then, dummy!”

I did so, hesitantly. What would I look like? Would it be... bad? Would it feel like I was being... gross or weird? 

But in the end, I shouldn’t have been afraid. “Phew, the mirror is all fogged up.”

She sighed, then snapped her fingers, and the entire mirror was suddenly crystal clear. And I jumped back, startled, because there was some catgirl there! 

…Wait. I… wait.

Huh?

“Why am I a catgirl?” I mewled, watching as my ears flattened against my head and my tail tensed up behind me.

“Why am I a human?” she countered. “I’m kidding, I have no idea. It kind of fits you though? You always were a little catlike... You know, liking fish and milk, how you’re always dozing by that window...”

“I’m reading!” I pouted back at her.

“Uh-huh,” she said. And you know... I don’t think she believed me! 

I shook my head and turned back to the mirror, leaning in close to take in every little detail.

I… I was a girl. I was really a girl. Completely. And instead of feeling like I expected — that this was weird and gross and that I was actually supposed to be a boy — all I felt was… happy. 

I got to be this person. This girl. I got to be pretty! I got to have these fun ears and a tail, even! Most people didn’t get to have that!

“You’re really cute too, if it matters,” Io said. “Also, you look like the little sister now too,” she said, and I glanced around in time to see her devious smirk and the glint in her eye.

“I…” I flushed, my ears twitching. “We’re the same age, though.”

“Tell that to literally anyone else and they’re going to laugh at you,” she smirked. “Anyway get in the bath you silly cat!”

“I…” I stammered. “But…”

“Do I need to levitate you into the bath?” she threatened.

I got right in after that.

“So, whatcha gonna change your name to?” Io asked, a bit later.

“Mum suggested…” I shifted uncomfortably, struggling not to be embarrassed about it. “Iris. Because my life was like a storm and this will be the rainbow… or something…”

“That’s… adorable,” Io said. “Yeah, that fits. And we match, too!”

I gave her a happy smile, even though I was also pretty sure I was blushing furiously. “Now the only thing we don’t match on — well, besides the whole ‘surprise catgirl’ thing — is that I’m not a witch.”

And then my mood dropped a bit, thinking about how sad that really was. I wasn’t going to have issues talking anymore, apparently, but… I still wanted to be useful. I still wanted to be able to do the things that my mum and my sister could do. I still wanted to be one of the witches. But I already knew that… I never would.

But rather than being sad for me, Io just burst out laughing. It was a complete and total giggle fit, so much that I thought she was having trouble breathing.

“A-are you okay?” I asked.

“You… you are a witch, dummy!”

I looked at her for a moment, wondering if she was playing some kind of trick on me or something. 

“For one thing, you’re a girl and you helped me brew a potion. Therefore, witch. But if you’re not satisfied with that... you know that any girl can do witch magic if she tries hard enough, right? So why the heck would you not be a witch, if you wanna be?”

I mean… I’d tried doing magic before, though? So hadn’t that disproved that I was a witch?

“But I’ve never been able to do witch magic,” I tilted my head. “It would’ve been nice, too… then I’d have known I was a girl without today’s fiasco.”

She smiled. “It doesn’t work like that, Iris.” I felt a warmth in my tummy as she said my name, and I couldn’t help but sink lower in the water, smiling. She shook her head and sighed, “Haven’t you read, like, a ton of magical theory?”

“Umm. Maybe? Yes…” I hid my face. “But it was mostly about the fun spells…”

She snorted. “Well, little Iris. A witch’s magic is not just something that happens or whatever. It’s something they cause. Witches have strong wills, and ones born twisted like us have even stronger ones, usually.”

Well... okay. That explained why I wasn’t a witch, didn’t it? I’d always been fickle and had no confidence in anything, after all.

“As Mum explained to me,” Io continued,  “‘You must will your magic into being, just as you will your identity into being.’ So basically, a witch is just someone who believes she’s a woman with magic. Nothing more, nothing less. And you definitely believe you’re a woman, right?”

“I’m thirteen...” I mumbled.

She rolled her eyes. “You definitely believe you’re a girl, right?”

I took a shaky breath, giving her a small nod. She was right on that front. I definitely believed that I was a girl now — at this point, I had a feeling that if I transformed back, for some reason, I’d burst into tears. It was easy to assume that that wasn’t normal for a boy. 

But believing that I was a witch?

Could I believe in myself to that degree? Could I believe in my ability to do what my mother and sister did? What I couldn’t ever do before, what I was expecting to be stuck without for my whole life…

“Iris,” my sister said, startling me from my thoughts. She looked worried about me, and a little sad. I realised then that I’d started crying again. “Hey,” she said, getting closer to me with a splash. “It’s okay. I promise. This is something you can do.”

“How?” I whispered.

She gave me a hug. “You’re one of us. You know you are. You can do anything you set your mind to.”

“I don’t know,” I whined.

“Iris, I’m going to shut off the lights.”

“Wh-why?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” she said, and then I saw nothing. “Also, close your eyes.”

“O-okay…”

“Do you remember how to make a fairy light?”

I nodded, before realising she couldn’t see me. “Mm.”

“Do it.”

I took a deep breath, and then traced the symbol in the air. “Glow,” I whispered.

“Nothing happened, right?” I asked.

“Nothing happened, but that’s okay. It was your first try. You’re a witch, right?”

“I… don’t…”

“You’re a witch, right?”

“Y-yes.” I agreed, trying to internalise it.

“Say it.”

“I’m a witch.”

“Like you mean it,” she ordered, except this time I could hear the smirk in her voice. She was right, though.

“I’m a witch!”

“Good girl. Now be a good witch and make a fairy light!”

I took a deep breath, and drew the symbol again. “Glow.”

“There!” Io said, and I saw a light through my eyelids. 

Shocked, I opened my eyes, and… nothing. It had already gone away…

“You did it, Iris,” my sister said. “Can you do it again for me?”

“O-okay,” I said, but this time my stammer was for excitement rather than hesitance. I… I really was a witch? I was a witch!

One last time, I drew the symbol. “Glow.” In my mind, I could picture it. Just like the light my sister had made for me, years ago, when I was struggling with a fear of the dark. Just like when I first thought that I wanted to be a witch too, like my mum, and like my sister— even if I’d never acted on that want. Just like the glow burned into my last happy memories.

And it did. It glowed, and it did so just like I remembered. A small, blue light, hovering in the air before my hand. 

I’d… I’d done it. I’d made a fairy light.

I was definitely a witch. 

Just for the heck of it I made a bunch more, blues and whites and pinks, the same colours Io had made all those years ago. By the time I was done, the whole room was filled with little glowing balls of light, and I was overjoyed. It looked just like when we were little... maybe even more colourful than before — was it just me, or had all of the colours gotten more vibrant?

My sister was staring at me, grinning. Or smirking?

“What’s so funny?”

“I tricked you, you know.”

“Wh-what? How?”

She giggled. “I tricked you into believing in yourself. That first fairy light, when your eyes were closed? I did that. But the rest? No, that was all you, sis.”

“I’m a witch,” I said.

“I never doubted it for a second. The cutest cat witch in the whole family. Did you know your eyes glow in the dark, even?”

Oh gods, way too many compliments. I felt my face warming up, before I suddenly realised, “Hey, wait, aren’t I the only cat witch in the whole family?”

“Yeah, if I said cutest witch it’d have to be me instead.”

I gave her a shove. “No, I’m way cuter! Have you seen my fluffy ears and tail?”

“They’re very wet and flat right now, not fluffy at all. Hence, I’m cutest.”

“I bet you Mum says I’m cuter when we get out of the bath. And put some clothes on.”

“Oh, you’re on.”

I… couldn’t help, then, but imagine being me, but in my witch attire. A huge, adorable witch hat adorned my head — my fluffy ears sticking through, of course — a pretty, pleated skirt, my tail swishing below. I even imagined myself at the cauldron once more. Stirring, but with magic this time, not my hand. I was a witch, after all.

And I was happy. My life was idyllic, after all — now that I could see the colours.