CW:

Chapter Five

“And you’re sure she couldn’t help you?” Lynn asked, again prodding me in the side as we trudged down the path back to town.

“There was nothing she could do for me,” I muttered. I dared not mention my curse, terrified at what Lynn would say to being forced to marry someone with a mismatched body, now that my mind had been so fundamentally altered by the witch’s misguided spell.

But Lynn didn’t seem satisfied with my half-answers. I’d essentially run downstairs and dragged her off the couch, then sprinted out the front door with tears in my eyes. As much as I might’ve wanted to, I knew there was no way she’d leave the matter alone. But even if I had to keep stalling forever, it was the right thing to do. No one deserved to see their husband’s soul transformed in such a cruel way.

“Ronny,” Lynn said, stopping in place. I tried to keep walking, but she’d rooted herself to the path, and I stumbled as she held fast to my hand. “I know something happened up there. You can’t just keep me in the dark forever. What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. “I’m allowed to keep things to myself…”

“Yeah,” Lynn said, “you are. But I’m your wife.” She held up her necklace, a simple cord of leather decorated with bone beads in various different shades of glazed dyes—the Marriage Tie I’d made for her during our wedding ceremony, with the blessing of the Highest. Every day, she wore it, sometimes even sleeping in it. Around my neck was its twin, which she had made for me. The designs were different, but we’d agreed on a common color palette of blues, greens, and whites. That way, no one would ever question that we belonged to one another.

“This is a promise,” Lynn said. “A promise you gave me. That you’d let me help. That you’d never give up. That you’d be with me forever.”

“I know,” I said, looking off.

“Ronny, if you shut me out, I can’t help you. And yes, I know that, even with this Tie, I’m not entitled to your thoughts. You’re allowed your secrets—I’m fine with that. But I love you. And whatever happened up there? No matter what, I’m still going to love you. You’re safe. I’m here; I’ll always be here.”

She had no idea what I’d become. No idea what had been done to me. She couldn’t make that promise—not truly.

But then, that was what the Tie represented, wasn’t it?

“I…” I said, forcing myself to turn around. “She… did something to me up there.”

“Oh, Highest,” she said, terror and fury welling in her face.

“No, no! No, she didn’t take advantage of me, I swear. But… she cast a spell, and it… I don’t know what I’m supposed to think about it.”

Peace returned to her eyes, and she stepped toward me to lay a gentle hand on my arm. “What did the spell do?”

Flushing, I looked up into the canopy of endelwood above, watching broad, red leaves float on the wind between the swaying vines in celebration of Fall. The harvest would begin soon, and our grain-houses would run over with wheat and corn and barley. I had so much to look forward to; so many feasts and festivals and gatherings as our village enjoyed the last few warm days before the winter, when our fires would crackle as we wore the warm, plush fruits of Lynn’s spinnery. The Ford-foxes would sleep through the cold months, and I would find myself lounging in the leisure of my idle season. A wintry paradise. Perfection.

All of that was ruined, now. I’d destroyed my own happiness.

“I… I don’t—it wasn’t—I—” I said, trying to force the words out, but… it was all so humiliating. I couldn’t disclose a word.

And Lynn, she just kept staring at me.

Finally, I leaned against one of the trees by the edge of the road and admitted the dreadful idea that had swarmed my mind ever since I ran out of the hut. “I have to go back, don’t I?”

Lynn frowned. “Do… you want to?”

I paced for a while, thinking about all the things the witch had said. The ways she could help me, as… undeserving as I was, wasn’t it right to at least learn what was possible? For Lynn’s sake? Obviously, I wouldn’t go so far as to condemn Lynn to marrying another woman—even though, after that spell, I accidentally had. This was all too much, but I couldn’t stand to just walk off to my tower and sulk up there all night while the world went on its way. No one wanted me to sit up there and disappear. No one but me. And maybe, this wasn’t about me at all. Maybe I was just a passenger in this matter, dragging everyone else down with my own misery. That must be it—I needed to fix myself, or I’d continue being a burden on the people I loved!

My only choice was to reverse the curse.

I sprinted back to the hut, barging through the door and catching Verona by surprise as she carried off the sweets she’d brought to the lounge.

“R?” she said, baffled.

“You have to change me back!” I said, dragging her back upstairs by the arm. Her dress was still white from the chalk dust, and she awkwardly tried not to drop her sweet tray as we circled the stairs.

“I don’t—what do you mean?” Verona said as we burst into the office, still marked with the odd-looking spell circle on the floorboards.

“You have to change me back into a man!” I said, clenching my teeth and trying in vain to hold in the tears that were coursing down my cheeks.

“R? I—hold on, let me…” she set her tray down on the windowsill and blinked a few times. “Okay, uh… I’m sorry, I probably rushed you into the whole thing, didn’t I?”

“No, it was me—I let my perversion lead me down a dark—”

“Hold on,” Verona said, cutting me off. She pulled her desk chair up to the edge of the spell circle while I stood in its center. “R, you aren’t a pervert or anything. And… I didn’t actually cast a spell on you. I’m sorry. I assumed you’d understand, but I didn’t explain myself.”

“W-what?” I said, my mind straining to solve the uncanny equation she’d presented me. “B-but you said magic words and lit candles and—and the spell circle! The runes!”

“Yeah…” Verona said, staring off. “Uh, so, that’s a habit I picked up from my tutor. She realized her patients were a bit more likely to take their medications if she pretended to enchant them. People hear ‘witch,’ and they assume we can fly or charm people. We have to live in the woods to find most of our ingredients, since it’s a bit of a walk from town, so… people get the idea that we’re mystical in some way. I’m mostly just a pharmacist.”

“A what?” I asked.

“Sorry, it’s an old word. Basically just means ‘medicine-maker.’ I can’t do anything supernatural, I just… do a lot of research on how the world works. More of an applied Archivist, but without the religious element. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I do believe in the Highest, and I do willpower rituals and sigil work, but that’s mostly just for me. I don’t do that with clients.”

“So… you t-tricked me?”

Verona grimaced. “Mrs. McReid, the point of that exercise was to break you out of your old way of thinking. I did all that because I could tell you weren’t going to accept the truth without a little… nudge. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you—I guess I was a bit too overzealous. While I didn’t intend to hurt you, I played with your feelings. And that isn’t okay.”

I didn’t catch half of what she said, because my mind kept replaying that one word she called me: “Mrs.” It obliterated me, it elated me, it elevated me, it degraded me. The world went fuzzy.

“Yeah, that’s okay,” I said, blinking. “No, I, uh… I get it, I’m sorry for making a big deal out of—”

“I don’t need an apology,” she interjected. “In fact, I don’t want any. There’s no reason to apologize after I wronged you.”

“Oh, uh… sorr—well. Thanks?”

She smiled at me. “Point is, R, you are a woman. Because only a woman would ask for a spell like that. And I went in with your explicit consent.”

“N-no,” I said, suddenly panicking. “Wanting to be a woman isn’t the same thing as being one. ’Coz everyone would be one, and we’d all just be a race of women. The Highest made us male and female, and that’s just the way it is.”

Verona pinched the bridge of her nose. “Do you really think everyone wants to be a woman?”

“Y-yeah?”

She pursed her lips, shooting me a piercing look.

“W-well, I suppose my dad likes being a man…”

“Not to mention the thirty-some young men trapped in female bodies who rely on me to provide masculinizing tinctures so they can live as lads, yes. Oh, and the twenty people who identify with neither or both, who I also serve.”

“Oh,” I said.

“There are a lot more options out there than you think, Mrs. McReid. That’s why I’m offering you the pills that can make you look the way you obviously want to. I know well over thirty lasses in your exact situation, and I’ve helped every one of them become themselves. And again, I’m sorry I’ve approached this from the dumbest possible angle, but I’m serious when I say I think this will help you. Because you are a woman. If you want to be one, you just are. Whether you walk away from this meeting empty-handed, or if you begin taking the medicine immediately, you are what you are, R.”

I just stood there, ignoring the other chair. Staring down at the chalk circle underfoot, I realized just how desperate I’d been in that one moment when the witch told me she could turn me into a woman. And as much as I’d denied it, if the world truly worked the way the witch said it did—which seemed relatively consistent, considering her experience and expertise—then what did that say about me?

Something pretty important, I bet.

Yeah, pretty important, I'd say. If you're enjoying this series, that's great! Me, I enjoy money. Hey, maybe we can both get things we enjoy, if you head on over to my Patreon! Yeah! Do that! That'd be super cool! I bet there are, like, cool benefits for cool people, too, like a Discord and early chapters and stuff... That'd be neat, right?