“...I see,” Cindy said after listening to Lydia’s full story. The girl was sniffling and constantly on the verge of crying, and Cindy wasn’t particularly to the woman who sat next to her, sitting somewhat removed from her daughter, distancing herself, whether consciously or unconsciously.

“Can you change him back?” the woman asked.

“Remind of your name?” Cindy asked.

“Diane,” she replied, impatiently.

“Right, Diane, I can change her back, but I won’t.”

“And why not?” Diane asked, her eyebrow raised slightly.

“Your daughter is clearly happier in this body. That’s the way my spell works,” Cindy replied.

“I don’t care if she’s happier I–” Diane raised her voice, before snapping her mouth shut.

“Right,” Cindy replied, “of course you don’t. However, you don’t get a choice in this. She’s said she doesn’t want to change back, that’s enough.”

“She can submit to God’s will with enough patience and–”

“Ma’am,” Cindy dryly replied, her gaze becoming more serious, “I’ve fought and subjugated two gods at this point, I would be more than comfortable making it a third, if that ever became an issue. If that’s all, I’m going to insist that you respect and listen to your daughter.”

“Is that a threat?” Diane asked, her hand drifting towards her phone in her pocket.

“If you make this an issue, it is,” Cindy replied, “I am insisting that you treat your daughter as she deserves to be treated, with basic human dignity. If you don’t feel you are capable of that, I can assist you in getting there.”

“That…won’t be necessary,” Diane replied coldly, “I’ll accept your terms.”

“I’m glad,” Cindy replied, her demeanor of confidence faltering a little as she allowed herself to relax. She turned to Lydia and smiled weakly, then said, “If you ever need me, you and your friend know how to reach me. I’m off to help your other friend next.”

Lydia nodded, wiped her nose a little, then waved goodbye wordlessly. With that, the mysterious witch was gone.

“Jo..Lydia,” her mother said, without turning her head.

“Yes, mom?” she weakly spoke in return.

“You’re staying in this room until your father gets home, do you understand?”

Lydia nodded and turned her face to the floor, as her mother walked upstairs. She heard her mother questioning Alexis, but ever tactful, Alexis had somehow managed to weasel out of it. Alexis texted her shortly thereafter that her mom was picking her up, and that she’d managed to lie enough to get both of them out of the more serious trouble.

About fifteen minutes passed, and Lydia tried to occupy the time by taking a proper selfie of herself. It seemed like she’d be in this body for a while (the idea of it being longer than that made her blush), whether her mom liked it or not, so she figured she might as well enjoy it. She opened up her camera app, and after a few shots that she decided she liked, she remembered filters!

First, she tried the genderswap filter, and noticed…it looked nothing like she did as a guy. It just looked like someone had photoshopped a beard onto her, with a bit of a wider chin. She giggled and swapped to another filter, this one with lots of sparkles around her face and muted tones. And there was another one! And another!

Eventually, she got bored and tossed the phone to her side, and layed down silently on the bed, beginning to nod off. A ‘ding’ woke her up. Hoping it might be Alexis or Luther, she checked her phone. She checked the name, and discovered it was Preston, one of her teammates. She opened the notification to check what was up.

“Hey dude, fyi, I think ur gf hacked ur account,” the text read, “bunch of random selfies of a girl on ur social media.”

Lydia froze and checked her account. All of the pictures had been posted in succession, about six or seven of them. She scrambled to delete them, but noticed from the likes alone that at least two or three people had already seen. No doubt, when John didn’t show up to class tomorrow and she did, there would be questions now, if there weren’t going to be already.

“Haha yeah she just logged into the wrong one! See you tomorrow!” Lydia replied, putting the phone down and screaming into her pillow.

She thought to text Luther but decided against it. If he was in trouble with his parents over his transformation, she did not want to lead anyone to believe it was a conspiracy, especially after Alexis had nearly been caught.

Just then, her ears twitched at the sound of the front door closing, and she knew that meant her father was home. She braced for something. She’d always known her father to be gracious and comforting when he needed to be, but this was…unique. There was no telling how he’d react. She heard her mom and dad whispering, her ears just barely sensitive enough to pick up that they were definitely talking about her.

The stairs creaked as her father descended them down to the floor on which her room was. There was a light rapping at the door.

“Are you decent?” her father asked.

“Yes dad,” she replied, her tail wagging as she remembered that this was how she sounded now, even if apprehension remained.

Her father opened the door and walked down the stairs, and she noticed he had his eyes closed. Finally, he turned to the bed and opened his eyes slowly. He stared at her for a few seconds, noticing the ears and tail, her stature, and how she was shyly glancing at him with a temerity he had thought he’d removed from her entirely.

“Diane,” he yelled upstairs, “are you sure?”

“Yes dear, the witch came in here and confirmed it, I told you!”

Lydia winced and covered her ears as her parents yelled, noting that she’d probably have to find something noise canceling for her ears. Normal headphones probably wouldn’t do, but there might be something. Her father looked at her, puzzled.

“Sorry,” she explained, “they’re very sensitive to loud noise.”

“It is you, isn’t it?” her father asked, his face remaining bewildered but otherwise expressionless.

“It is, dad,” she replied.

He sighed and slumped against the wall, his hand scrunching up the front of his receding hair as he grasped the full reality of the situation.

“Right,” he finally spoke, “I don’t know what you were thinking, young man. But using a spell and then contacting a witch who entered our house?”

“I just wanted to see if it worked,” Lydia said, her ears drooping as she realized she’d have to have this discussion again, “I just wanted to see if I could change something about my appearance.”

“Well,” her father said, “if you want to be a woman so bad, you’ll have to start doing women’s chores, cleaning, laundry, the dishes, and dinner every night, you understand?”

She paused. She was expecting much worse than that. She then nodded enthusiastically. “If that means that’s what I have to do, I’ll do it!”

Her father guffawed as he scratched his chin. “You really are insistent on this, aren’t you, bud?”

“I like looking like this! And my name is Lydia!” she exclaimed, exasperated. Why weren’t they believing she really wanted this?

“Well,” he spoke, “it won’t do to have you in clothes like that anymore. They’re indecent on you. We’ll have to have you wear young ladies’ clothing until you change back, do you understand?”

“R…really?” she gasped. She knew her father was trying to make her regret her decision, but she only found herself excited to try out some new looks on herself.

“And you’ll be grounded for a month for letting the witch into our house. That means no basketball, no friends after or before school, straight to school and back home. Am I clear?” His face was now displaying much more frustration than it did before.

“Okay,” she replied, “thanks dad, is that all?”

“You…just learn your lesson and read the scripture about what you’ve done, okay?” he said, clearly stumped and frustrated.

“Okay! I will!” she replied, beaming.

As her father slammed the door and stomped back upstairs, she said her nightly prayers and began reading her devotional. It had been given to her by her youth pastor after she’d expressed special interest in scripture at church, and she’d been eagerly reading through it.

As she flipped through the pages, she finally landed on that day’s devotion. It started off with a story about how a watchmaker constructed his watches meticulously, and a comparison to God thereafter, because God created Adam and Eve, and all of humanity, in the same fearful and wonderful way. She rolled her eyes, this wasn’t new to her. But what was new was the conclusion: that she should listen to God about the kind of people she should date, and shouldn’t fall into temptation to date the same sex.

Well, that wasn’t a problem for her! She was strictly only into…she blushed as she realized, she didn’t know how to interpret the devotion. She was definitely into women, but Luther was a man in a woman's body, and she was into him. And if mom was right, God thought of her as a man still, so what did that mean? Should she date women or men? She decided she'd have to ask her dad in the morning.

She curled up into a ball and closed her eyes wearily, purring gently as she drifted off to sleep.