Thursday morning, Elijah decided during breakfast that he’d better go ahead and read at least some of the articles Cassie had sent him links to. It would only be polite to be prepared if Cassie wanted to talk about them at some point. Though when he brought up Cassie’s email and started to click on the first link, he felt a stab of fear again, more distinct than it had been among the jumble of emotions over the past few days.

He pushed past the fear and clicked. He was reading through the page when Cassie shuffled into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee.

“You feeling okay today?” she asked. “You looked pretty wiped out last night after casting all those spells.”

“Yeah, I got a decent amount of sleep,” Elijah said. “We can finish that up later today, whenever you’re ready.”

“How about right after breakfast?”

Elijah finished reading the first of the articles Cassie had sent him and read a good chunk of the next before finishing breakfast. They answered some of his questions and left him with a lot more. He would have read more, but he was feeling information overload and decided to switch to the novel he’d been reading – very slowly, with all these interruptions and distractions – since before Monica came to visit.

After breakfast, they sat down in chairs opposite each other, not bothering with a towel under Cassie’s chair since there hadn’t been any stray hairs falling out last night, and Elijah traced the spell on each of Cassie’s knees, focusing first on her legs (getting rid of the hair on the first try), then on the area covered by her shorts, which took six tries, with Elijah turning his back so Cassie could check if he’d succeeded each time.

“This is great,” Cassie said. “Thank you so much.”

Elijah smiled. “You’re welcome.”

“Do you think you could do the other ones, the complexion spell and the fat-moving spell, sometime soon?”

“Well, I’ll have to figure out how to cast them on people other than myself first, but that should just take an hour or so each. Maybe less as I get the hang of it. Do you want me to do that first, before I do any more cataloguing?”

“If you don’t mind. I get the impression magic is harder work than cataloguing and reshelving?”

“Actual spellcasting, yeah. Studying the book and working out how to modify a spell, not as much. But I’ll get right on that and hopefully start casting the complexion spell later in the day, okay?”

“Thanks!”

So Elijah spent the next hour or so reviewing chapter four, working out an other-directed version of the complexion spell and double-checking his work. After that, he worked on cataloguing until almost lunchtime.

Once he was no longer focusing on the difficult mental labor of modifying a spell, he found his thoughts wandering back to the article he’d read during breakfast. Cassie had told him yesterday about her experience, how she’d realized that she wanted to be a girl. But this article he’d read this morning, written by another trans woman about her experiences and comparing them to some other trans people she knew, seemed to make a basic assumption that anyone who wanted to be different gender than they were ‘assigned at birth’ was trans. She came pretty close to saying anyone who thought more than once in a long while about what it would be like to be a different gender was probably trans. It couldn’t be that simple, could it? There had to be more to it.

She’d also said that trans people had always been the gender they identified as, even though some didn’t figure out they were trans or have obvious signs of it until late in life. She mentioned some people who didn’t figure out they were trans until their forties or fifties. That reminded him of what Cassie had said weeks ago about Ozma – that she’d always been a girl, even when she didn’t know it yet because Mombi made her look like a boy.

That seemed counterintuitive, but so did a lot of things he’d learned lately – really, a lot of things he’d learned through his whole life. He wondered if it was consistent with the first thing she’d said, about anyone who wanted to be a different gender being trans. If gender was really all in the mind and didn’t have anything to do with the body, then it made sense that it might change over time. He’d known people at church who were apparently very different, much worse people before they became Christians, and known people in high school who became very different people when they got into a bad crowd and started being influenced by their new friends. Surely there was some core of personality, whatever was part of your soul and not just in ephemeral brain processes, that couldn’t change except by a miracle, but if gender was part of that never-changing core, then how did it fit with the idea that wanting to be a girl made you trans?

But as he thought about it more, it started to make sense. If you were a girl inside and didn’t know it, it was natural that it would manifest as wanting to be a girl, or wondering what it was like to be a girl a lot more often than boys who were boys inside and out. And what you really wanted was a girl body – or to be seen as a girl, like the author of the other article had said – but you thought of it as “wanting to be a girl” because you thought you were a boy, because how were you supposed to know? Everyone told you you were a boy.

He couldn’t see the book he was cataloguing, it had gone all blurry. He set the book down on his desk and wiped his eyes, then sat staring at the wall beside his monitor for a few minutes.

Then he got up and walked across the hall into Cassie’s office.

“I think I might be trans,” she said.

Cassie turned around and took one look at Elijah, then got up and hugged her. “Want to talk about it?”

“Yeah.”

Cassie saved her work and they went into the living room, sitting down on the sofa. Cassie offered Elijah a box of tissues. She gratefully took it and wiped her eyes again, and her nose. But she didn’t start talking for another half a minute.

“I read some of those articles you sent me,” she said. “And then I thought about them, and what you said, and… it all sort of clicked. I’m scared.”

“So was I,” Cassie said. “I still am, about how my family will react. Is that the main thing you’re worried about?”

“Yeah. I just don’t know… I mean, I was worried about how I would tell my family and my other friends that I’m friends with a trans person. Some of them have… pretty strong opinions about it. And – and now I have to either tell them about myself, or just pretend I never figured this out about myself, or pretend to be a guy when I’m with them and only be myself when I’m with you or by myself…”

“That might be easier for you than for other trans women,” Cassie said. “With the spells you’ve got. If you want to grow your hair longer, you can always remove it and re-grow it to its old length before visiting your family, and if you go on HRT and start developing breasts, you can temporarily reduce them with that fat-relocation spell. But… I don’t think that would be a healthy way to live long-term. If you don’t want to cut contact with them –”

“No!” Elijah said, horrified at the idea.

“Then you should probably tell them sooner or later. But maybe wait until you feel more comfortable doing so.”

“I guess.” Then her eyes widened. “Oh, wow, I hadn’t even thought of that… those spells… and ‘Miss Hudnall’…”

“Yeah, I kind of wondered if you might be trans when you kept getting those flesh magic spells, even though you seemed frustrated with them. I mean, a common trope is that people get magic or superpowers that fit their personality or their personal needs. But what was that about ‘Miss Hudnall’? Do you want me to call you that until you decide on a girl name?”

“Hmm, that might not be a bad idea – a bit formal, though. I haven’t really thought about a name yet…” It struck her that her choice of a name would be a crucial opportunity to further alienate or to slightly mollify her family, and the idea left a sour taste in her mouth. “But no, that wasn’t what I meant. Back when I first found the spellbook and the opening pages changed into English for me, the introduction started off ‘Dear Miss Hudnall’. I thought it was just a typo, like when my cousin Kevin got a college acceptance letter addressed to ‘Miss Hudnall’ because somebody made a typo entering him in their database. But they knew all along.”

Cassie smiled. “I’d like to know more about how that works. I seem to remember you said something about the introduction talking about ‘the editors’ of the book?”

“Yeah.”

“I wonder how they knew. Well, magic, obviously, but… anyway. I’m so happy for you.”

“Oh,” Elijah said, remembering. “Before I figured out I’m trans, I also figured out how to cast the complexion spell on you.”

Cassie’s face lit up, if possible, even more. “Great! We can do that any time you feel like it… I get it if you don’t want to do it right now, you’re dealing with a lot of stuff.”

“Yeah, but maybe casting the spell on you will help distract me from thinking about how to tell my family. Now is fine.”

A minute later, Elijah was casting the complexion spell on Cassie. This time she traced the spell on Cassie’s cheek to cast it on her face, and got it to work on the second try; after that she worked on Cassie’s arms, belly and chest. The chest took five tries, because she wasn’t tracing the spell directly on it, but the rest all worked on the first or second try.

By the time they were done, Elijah was tired again, though she hadn’t cast the spell nearly as many times as she’d cast the hair removal spell the evening before. She must not have fully recovered from that. When she slumped back on the sofa and closed her eyes, Cassie said with a tone of concern, “Oh, you look exhausted. Are you hungry or do you want to take a nap before lunch?”

Elijah opened her eyes. “Yeah, I could eat something. Probably eat a little and then take a nap.”

“Rest there for now, I’ll go fix lunch. I was planning on sandwiches; anything in particular you want on yours?”

“We’ve still got some of that sliced ham, right? How about that with lettuce, tomato, mustard and horseradish?”

“Will do.”

“Thanks.”

But the sofa was pretty comfortable, and Elijah found herself drifting off. She was vaguely aware of Cassie coming in and saying “They’re ready,” but couldn’t quite bring herself to open her eyes.

When she woke up, she found a blanket draped over her and a crick in her neck. Cassie was in one of the easy chairs, reading.

“Hey. I put your sandwich in the refrigerator when I saw you’d fallen asleep.”

“Thanks. How long did I sleep?”

“Not quite an hour.”

Elijah went and ate the ham sandwich she found in the refrigerator, then got back to cataloguing until suppertime.

At supper, Cassie asked, “Have you figured anything more out? Ideas for a name, or when and how to start talking to people about it?”

“Not really,” Elijah admitted. “I’m still figuring out what it means.”

“Okay, yeah, there’s no hurry. Take your time. But, you know, you might want to take advantage of this summer to experiment with clothes and with using your magic to try out different hairstyles. And maybe moving fat around to see what you’d look like with breasts and hips?”

“I want to try that,” Elijah said. “I’m kind of scared, though. What if I enjoy it so much I can’t stand to go back? I’d have to come out to my family later in the summer, and everyone at school when the fall semester starts up.”

“Then they’ll have to deal with it,” Cassie said. “And if they can’t… you’re still not alone. A lot of trans people have problems with their families, and have to put together a new family from people who can accept and love them for who they are.” She sighed. “And if my family can’t accept me when I tell them, or yours can’t accept you whenever you tell them, at least we’ve got each other. And I can introduce you to some other people I know will accept you.”

Elijah did not find this as comforting as Cassie probably hoped it would be. Who knew if she would get along well with Maisie and Cassie’s other friends? She had such a hard time making friends that the rare occasions when it had happened seemed like random flukes every time. You couldn’t just make that happen on demand, or at least Elijah couldn’t.

It was tempting to just ignore what she’d discovered and go home for her planned visit at the end of the summer, pretending to her family that she was the son they’d always thought of her as. But she knew it would be difficult to keep that pretense up now that she knew she was a woman.

“Okay,” Elijah said. “Let’s do this.”

She went into the hall bathroom and stood in front of the mirror, and cast the hair-growth spell on her scalp several times, growing an inch or two at a time, until she was somewhat satisfied with her shoulder-length hair. It would need some styling to look as good as possible, but she already liked it better than the short hair she’d worn all her life.

She’d need the book for the next part; she hadn’t even tried the fat-moving spell. She went to her office and read over the spell several times, then went back to the bathroom and, looking at the sink counter, decided to clean it off before setting the book down to refer to while she practiced it. She set the book in the book-rack between the sink and toilet, then got out a washcloth and scrubbed the sink counter and dried it thoroughly. Finally she couldn’t think of anything else to procrastinate with, so she opened up the book to the end of chapter four, took off her shirt, and started trying to move fat from her belly to her upper chest.

She started seeing some results on the fifth try. Seeing small breasts begin to grow, she blushed hard and then began to cry. This definitely felt like the right decision. After washing her face, she cast a couple of more times and they grew a little more. Her nipples hadn’t changed, and she remembered Cassie alluding to the fact that men and women’s nipples were different, but she really didn’t want to look up reference pictures on the Internet. With just the right search terms, she might could find anatomical diagrams, but just a little off and she was afraid she’d be stumbling over porn. This was good enough for now, and maybe one of the spells she would get later would help with doing targeted research without risk of finding something unsavory.

Three more tries and two more successful castings, and she decided she’d gone far enough for now. Maybe once she had a bra to support them, she could go a little bigger? She wasn’t sure how much she wanted – she’d just barely accepted the idea she was a woman, after all – but that could wait. If she went too far, she could always shift some fat away from them to her hips or thighs.

Speaking of which… She took off her pants and stood there in her jockey shorts, and started shifting fat from her waist to her hips and upper thighs. By this point, she was casting successfully almost every time, but she was getting tired, so after only a little change to her hips, which was promising but not satisfying, she got dressed again and went back to show Cassie what she’d accomplished.

“Wow,” Cassie said, her eyes wide. “I’m so jealous. You’ve gotten way more results in an hour than I’ve had in months on HRT… but I guess you can do that for me?”

“Probably tomorrow,” Elijah said. “I’m pretty tired… I think I’ll go to bed early.”

“Good night.”