" So…" Hanna considers. "So, I've been thinking about something. I know maybe this isn't the best time for a joke, but… fucking demons is praxis, actually?"

"Who gives a fuck if it's praxis or not!" I laugh. "I just want an incubus to absolutely rail me to fucking oblivion! I want him to put a collar on me and lead me around and show me off to all his demon friends because it's fucking hot," I take a deep breath, "and also, in a consensual relationship where I can opt out at any time, helps me to process a lot of my conditioned fear that men will use their power to harm me, dominate me, and take my agency away from me."

I hug myself, swaying from side to side. "I want him to say things that are superficially dismissive yet always happen to affirm me for exactly what I want--"Here's my pet witch! Ah, yes, of course the swelling in her belly is my progeny! It was easy enough to take her--she is a slave to her own desires, and pleases mine well!"

"Isn't this really regressive?" Hannah asks.

"Yeah," I agree, "if it's forced on a woman who doesn't want it. But I do, though!" I stamp my foot. "I like sex! I like food! I like my… probably idealized notions of… motherhood."

I sigh, sitting down, counting on my fingers. "Pets, ideally, get fed and pampered and played with and do not have to do things, like work. So yeah, of course for my dream life, I want to have my sexual desires gratified in every minute detail while someone else provides for me, where I am rewarded simply for existing as the woman I am, with the desires I have! I hate work. I don't like work. That's what makes it work. I will work if I have to, that's just life, but I won't be proud of working. Same for social contribution!"

I laugh bitterly. "Why would I be proud of giving up even more of my time, effort, and scant personal resources in order to take care of people when the system won't? Why would I be proud of conceding that all I can offer is a Band-Aid measure because true revolution seems impossible? Charity is just a reminder that we're so disempowered, the system can force already deprived people to deprive themselves further to help even more deprived people, while rich assholes become more rich and bigger assholes, infinitely!"

"So…" Hannah is either having a cerebral meltdown or experiencing enlightenment. "If she wants it, it's actually more transgressive for a woman to be a happy breeder slut than, like… you know…" she taps her fingers together, "useful?"

"Yes," I agree, "because to this day, the most transgressive thing a woman can do, the only thing our oppressors cannot turn around on us by sublimating it into performative morality, is for a woman to just want something because she wants it. Not for someone else, not for society, not for religion or even fucking magic."

"I'm guessing you don't like the sex rites stuff in some of Wicca," Hannah says.

"Maybe if I ever read about one that sounds like it's actually about magic," I say, "and not just about using the pretense of magic or religious observance to avoid confronting fear of being stigmatized for sexual desire. Like, it sucks that women have to confront fear just to be horny, but once we're there, it's healthier to do it than not. Anyway, yeah. If it wasn't stopping the witches involved from getting real closure, I think I would like that sex rite."

"Maybe none of you are wrong," Hannah says sadly. "Maybe you just need different things from your magic than they do, and… and there's really no way to reconcile that. You just plain can't bond with Moonsilver and her followers over witchcraft because your needs are mutually incompatible."

"Yeah." I sniffle. "I guess so. When they say magic, they mean 'a place where I don't have to work on any of the things I'm carrying,' and I mean, 'a place where I'm strong enough to carry whatever I must, until my task is done.'" I rap my fingers on Xavier. "Tonight was always going to be a disaster, wasn't it? We can't force women who just want different things than we do to let us rely on them to get us what we want. It's not about deserving or not deserving, moral or wrong or selfish or heroic or whatever. It's just not doable."

"Yeah," Hannah says. "Although, for what it's worth, Moonsilver is the one with the bigger problem. I mean, like you said, we can't work through who we are if we always make it about keeping the moral high ground. She won't let herself work on anything if it doesn't help her get to that ground and stay on it."

I nod. "Yep. Either way, that's what we have to be free to do. To simply say, 'I'm going to have, take, live, and do these things for myself as a woman. I will because I just plain desire them, and I don't have to justify my desires or my life by making them serve someone else.'" I shrug. "I just don't see how bowing to the tacit idea that we need to have another layer, a protective explanation, a cutesy screen between us and what we really want, gets us closer. I meant what I said. I want magic to be magic, and I want sex to be sex. I hate substituting things for things they aren't. It just makes me deny both experiences, so when it's over, it feels like I haven't gotten either of the things I really wanted."

Hannah frowns. "So… I'm not just projecting my old male fantasies onto other women when I think that I want those kinds of things, too?"

Moonsilver... I really wish I could see a one-note enemy in you so I could just hate you. I know you're a victim in your own way, but you're hurting other women. Maybe I hate you because I see so much of myself in you. But, this anger is a me thing. What Hannah needs is the same thing I need in moments like this, which is for another woman to tell her--

"Oh, sweetheart, no!" Oh. Here we are. Apparently it's a night for catharsis, and Hannah and I are just going to be crying back and forth for a while. Oh, right, also--I pull a towel out of the sickening club bag, all the more disgusting now that I'm seeing it as a testament to Moonsilver's self-harming heroine complex, and offer it to Hannah. "If there's make-up in your eyes."

"Oh, yeah, it… it really stings, actually," Hannah says, with a sheepish smile.

"Here." I fish a water bottle out. "Go ahead and wet that down as much as you need. Just leave some parts for me. I'm pretty sure I'm going to need it in a minute."

While Hannah preps the towel, I continue babbling. "Look, I… is it alright if I say some stuff that might be wrong? I'm not trans. I don't know your life. I'm not saying I think I have the right to validate your womanhood or whatever. I just… want to try offering something, maybe?"

"I think I'm okay with that," Hannah says, scrubbing her eyes. "Technically this is where I'm supposed to tell you that there's no way you can relate, and you should keep your mouth shut, and I don't need your approval to be a woman, but…" she shrugs. "The trans girls who make money and are good at speeches can do that, I guess. I don't care about big moral questions or optics or lived experiences right now. I want to bond with other women, and…" she kicks at the increasingly-crumpled bag on the floor.

"I have to be real for that to happen, right?" she says. "I have to be real with you. Even if it's scary. Even if it means putting myself under your power, where you might say and do things I don't want, that I don't expect, that hurt my feelings. Real people aren't perfect. So if I just make you go by the Good Cis Ally script, saying all the little lines you're supposed to say to prove you get it, you've done the reading, you're safe…" she sighs.

"Then you can't be real with me. I won't feel what I need. It'll be like what you feel, maybe, when Moonsilver tells you that the afterglow from cumming is the Goddess when you know it's just the afterglow from cumming. Good, just like being safe with allies is good… but not what you wanted."

I just accept that with a deep breath, then say, "Yeah. The funny thing is, I think you understand real magic better than any of Moonsilver's crew. That's fitting, you know? Maybe-fuckups start here…" another breath. Even deeper. Steadying.

God, I don't want to hurt this poor girl.

"Trans people… have to understand that our bodies, I mean, the bodies of thinking human beings, of self-aware people, are what we make of them, right? To be yourselves? You sort of have to believe in something…"

I stop. "I fucked up. If I finish this, I'm implying that you need something supernatural to be trans. That your bodies can't really be female because trans women are female, or male because trans men are male, unless you have some supernatural higher self that elevates your, well… your flesh. The body you know. Which is wrong and awful and just plays back into the whole messy lie of biological gender."

"It's okay," Hannah says. "I fucked up like that too, at first. Sometimes I still do. I think I get what you wanted to say, though. That, in order for who we are to transcend what we look like, we have to believe in mind over matter. Which… kind of… isn't how most other things work. But people aren't machines. We are who we say we are because we say it."

I brighten. "Yeah! I, um… I guess it would've been more helpful if I just told you I would love to hear you talk about how you understand gender. You're on a whole other level."

"You're really cute and you mean well," Hannah says, "so you get lots of leeway. We're just girls talking about what it means to be girls." She nudges me. "You want to learn. You want to get better. That work is what I really care about. And I bet if you do get some real magic, you'll totally give me a real pussy…" she pauses. "See? It's not easy to get the bad thoughts out and make them stay out once the world puts them in. Um… a pussy that can… you know… let me be a breeder slut."

"Womb hookup and all?" I ask. We laugh together. "Hannah…" I hate myself for this, but I won't be a coward. Not with her. "I don't think I can promise that. Not because I wouldn't, if I had the power, but because I know so, so many people have tried so many really smart, determined, or just plain crazy things to find or bring back or make real magic over the millennia. If there is a way," I say, then seize.

No, Carrie. None of that. You started this. You finish it.

"If there is a way," I say, nodding to myself, "there's no guarantee I could still reach you to keep my word. Whatever I have to do to claim the power…" I stop. "I'm so sorry."

"Hey," she says, shaking her head vigorously, "no need to be sorry! I've had so many people promise me things they were never going to give me. I passed on other things because I was holding out for that stuff. Got my hopes up. Got them crushed. And when they were, I didn't have what they promised, and I didn't have the stuff I could've found on my own or got from someone else if I hadn't been waiting on them."

She takes my hands in hers. Squeezes gently. "You're a good person, Carrie. A real, true, good person. You do what you know is right, even if it makes things harder on you, even if people don't like it at first so they decide to make you the villain. You don't lie to people to make them feel better--not if the lie is going to hurt them more in the end than the truth."

And I'm crying again. But… softer this time.

"Not anymore," I say softly. "I learned my lesson on that." I squeeze back, and continue, "About the whole thing with sexual fantasies and worrying about projection… you were always a woman. So naturally, you were going to see the things in your ideas of other women--including sexual fantasies about them--that you wanted, but didn't feel like you deserved. Because we always want to see the best of ourselves in the people we most relate to. You were just imagining other girls having the pleasure you wished you could."

"W-what about the really bad ones?" Hannah asks. "The… the wrong ones…"

I shake my head. "All those stigmatized ones that girls like Moonsilver will tell you we have because we're broken, terrible people, evil self-hating women… those are really common fantasies, actually. Lots of women have them. It's just a sad, natural part of reclaiming our sexuality in a world that constantly conditions us to associate it with violence."

My pendant feels strangely warm under my fingers. Solid. Almost sharp. "I bet, deep down, Moonsilver has a lot of those same needs. Call it woman's intuition. But… I'm afraid she's never going to be able to forgive herself for that. For not being strong enough to stop the world from hurting her through her lust. She'll lose more and more as the years go by, and never give herself the right to take any of it back."

We both sit there. God, we're both trembling.

"You're a good person, Hannah," I finally say. "You're not evil. You're not bad or wrong or broken. You're hurt, and other women just hurt you more instead of helping you." I shudder. "You're not crazy. You're not dramatic, and it's not your fault for not speaking up either. It's so, so obvious that your quiet is a cry for help if anyone just really looks at you, anyone who pays attention to girls like us… you didn't deserve to be left behind or ignored or used because you weren't 'assertive' or 'independent', or because you were too passive or compliant or whatever bullshit."

I sniffle. "It's always the ones who talk so much about being strong. Fighting for all women… except women like us. The ones who got stranded among bad people, and just had to hang on, to keep their heads low, to do what it took to survive." I must look a hundred years older than I am with how grim I feel. "Us ugly, evil old hags."

Her shoulder feels so small, so knobbly, so weirdly warm under my hand. I smile through my weakling tears. "But you're not. You're beautiful because you're you, and worth it because you're you, and I'm so happy we both made it to nights like this, to conversations like this. We both deserve that. I'm starting to believe that, finally."

"Thanks, Carrie," she says. "You have to believe that about yourself too, okay?"

I smile a shaky smile. "Okay," I say.

"Hug?" Hannah asks.

"God fucking yes," I groan, and we pull each other in. It's warm, and safe, and I'm just so happy to hold and be held by someone, anyone. Our tandem breaths grow lower, easier.

I don't know how long the hug might've gone on. All I know is that Hannah's phone vibrates in her shorts. We startle, split apart, and face the slow-cooling night--once more apart.

"Oh," she says, pulling it out. A check. An apologetic grin. "It's Tomas. He's really worried about me, so I'm going to go out there and…" She sobers. "We can stick around if you need, Carrie. Or, do you want a ride back? I don't want to leave you out here with Moonsilver and her clique if you don't feel safe."

I shake my head. "I appreciate it, Hannah, but they're not going to try anything. I…" I look around the tomb. "I think I'm just going to stay here a little while. I'll call a cab when I'm ready to go, hit up the rest of the study abroad group if that falls through or, worst comes to worst," I shrug, "I'll hoof it to the nearest village in the morning and lean on some of that German-American ancestry. Maybe I can get an aging Hausfrau to take pity on me. It's all a lot more doable in Germany than it could be in the States, I'll tell you that for free."

"Okay," Hannah says. She gives me one last hug. "See you around, Carrie."

"Yeah." In trade, I give her one last smile. "You too, Hannah."

A beat. A wave. Footsteps on the ancient stone.

Then I'm alone in the long-abandoned shrine. Just my thoughts, and the long night, and the heavy threat of a tomorrow that's going to dawn sooner or later. It won't be pleasant. But right now, as long as I'm awake, the night feels like it belongs to me. As to what I want to do… well, nothing. Repose in this shrine feels just fine to me. Humanity and its demands, the workaday world of cars and noise and "Carrie, for god's sake, it's a 9-5, not a death sentence"… it's all so far away. This is what I wanted, isn't it?

Just to lie here and dream about demons of the night.

So, I do. That is, I lie down on the altar just like the witch engraved on its base, because no amount of "what if" and "you shouldn't assume" can shake my stubborn need to be convinced she was a witch too. I lie there for one breath after another. The musty smell of earth seeps into my nose. The candles flicker. One sputters and dies. That's okay. I can relight it if I want, and if not, there are so many more left to burn.

Tomorrow will be another day. A hangover of the soul. I indulged in getting as close to real magic as any woman of this cursed Earth ever can. And, because I got that close, pushed myself to the limit, my failure to manifest a single truly arcane feat is as devastating as it ever could be. Well… I guess I'm a gothic heroine, right? A tragic fool cursed by her own desire for adventure. Maybe Moonsilver's right. Maybe it's better there be no women like me left in the world.

What do we contribute, anyway, besides our sadness?

Then even those thoughts pass. Back to the silence. The calm of the flickering candles.