Trans Witch: College of Secrets Read online

  The last was only a few minutes before, while she'd been fleeing the ogres. Lily sent Ellen a text saying, "I'm okay, sorry, I just saw all your messages at once. Can you swing by my place? I need your help."

  Ellen replied that she'd be right over.

  While she waited, Lily clutched the penny pendant and paced. Monty, having eaten, watched her from the sofa.

  "It's getting serious," she told the cat. "I don't know if I can show my face at Moraine, much less SOAM. The Dean will have me grabbed and then she'll wipe my memory, and I'll be back to where I was before. I'm just getting so close, I can feel it in my gut! I mean, why else would she be after me so hard?"

  Monty yawned and stretched.

  "You're right. I need to try to calm down," she said, plunking onto the couch next to him.

  Monty trotted over to her and plunked into her lap, melting across her legs with a pleasant weight.

  "I wish I knew where she was."

  "Mrow!" said Monty, lashing his tail back and forth. He sat up and nosed her hand, knocking it away from the pendant for a moment.

  She laughed. "You're such a smart boy! Yes, that's a penny, and she even spoke to me through it. But I don't know where she is. The coin hasn't led me to her so far. It's only gotten really warm when I was in the middle of the stacks. But there's nothing there. Nothing but books. Well, and the—"

  Her doorbell rang, causing Monty to spring off of her lap, his claws digging into her legs more than he intended. She swore and rubbed the spots he'd scratched and called out, "It's open!"

  Ellen let herself in. "There you are! I'd begun to think you'd been abducted by aliens!"

  "You're not far off," said Lily.

  "What?"

  "Listen. There are things I can't tell you, but maybe I can show them to you. Would you drive me to campus and go with me to the English building?"

  "At this hour? It's late, Lily."

  Lily nodded. "I guess it is my turn to talk in riddles. Just please, take me there, and promise you'll follow my directions exactly?"

  Ellen peered at her. "Are you all right, Lily? You're acting so strange."

  "I need you to trust me, and I need your help," said Lily, standing and taking her sister's hands. "I'm in a bit of trouble, I can tell you that much."

  "Trouble? Should we call the police?"

  "They'd never believe me. And I'm certain they couldn't help with this kind of trouble."

  Ellen chewed her lip as she studied Lily. "This is about Penny, isn't it?"

  "Yes, of course it is. I'm close to finding her, I just know it!"

  "But you can't tell me anything?"

  Lily shook her head. "Not really. But I can show you. Let's go!"

  Ellen squeezed Lily's hands.

  A thought occurred to Lily. She unfastened the penny pendant from around her neck and then put it on her sister. "Keep this for me? Just in case something happens. If all goes well, I think I'll need it back soon enough, but until then, I can't risk it being taken from me."

  "Is that a penny?"

  "Yes. It belonged to my Penny. It's important."

  "It's just one cent," said Ellen.

  "It's important to me, okay?"

  "Fine," said Ellen, leading the way to her car.

  Lily grabbed her purse and scritched Monty on her way out. The cat let out a mournful yowl. "Don't worry, sweetie. I'll be back soon. I hope."

  Monty slipped past her and bounded after Ellen.

  "Dang it, cat!" cried Lily, chasing after him.

  Ellen laughed as Monty pawed at the leg of her jeans. "What's he want, anyway?"

  "It's like he wants to go with us," said Lily. "But Monty hates car rides. He always thinks he's going to the vet."

  Lily scooped up the chonky cat and carried him back to the house, depositing him inside. Before he could make another break for it, she shut and locked the door.

  They got in her sister's bright red Camry, and Ellen started it up. As they pulled away from Lily's house, she spied Monty in the window, scrabbling at the glass with his front paws. His mouth opened and shut once, and she could almost hear his pitiful meow.

  "Poor guy misses me when I'm gone, ever since it's been just him and me."

  Ellen shook her head. "You spoil that cat rotten."

  "Maybe. But he's all I've got right now."

  "I mean, other than your over-protective big sister," added Ellen.

  Lily laughed. "Yes, other than her. Thank you for looking out for me. Even if I'm acting weird."

  "When have you ever acted normal?"

  "Fair point."

  Lily peered out the windows of the car as Ellen drove her to campus. Would she see ogres on patrol, looking for her? What would Ellen even see if they were? For that matter, if her Queer Quartet could cook up a disguise bracelet, then Dean Wheeler and Secretary Sample could look like anyone they wanted. And Naille had just vanished in front of her. Could the Administration do something like that? And who had tipped them off to get her captured in Wyvern? Who could she even trust?

  After Ellen parked, they walked to the English building. As they approached Lily's classroom, a familiar voice called out to them.

  "Professor S!" Jesse Nguyen stood outside her door. "You shouldn't be here. You'll get caught."

  "I know, but I have to get to the planetarium. Can you help me get there?"

  "Planetarium?" said Ellen.

  Jesse looked at Ellen, and then back to Lily. "What is she doing here?"

  "That's rude!" protested Ellen.

  Lily put a hand on her sister's arm. "No, Jesse doesn't mean any harm. It's just that you could get in trouble too, by being here."

  Ellen pressed the point. "What's she mean, 'caught'?"

  "That's the part I can't tell you," said Lily.

  "You have to show me," she said.

  "Show her?" said Jesse. "What are you up to?"

  "Come on, both of you. Ellen, take my hand, okay?"

  "What, am I five?" said Ellen, taking Lily's hand anyway.

  As they got to the end of the hallway, Lily said, "Okay. Ellen, this is the leap of faith part. Close your eyes and let me lead."

  "Close my eyes! Is this some kind of prank? Are you up to something with Zach?"

  "Zach? No, nothing like that. Just trust me, sis? Please?"

  Ellen closed her eyes. "I feel stupid."

  Jesse looked at Lily with wide eyes. "You're not!"

  Lily nodded. "Shush. Here goes nothing!" With that, she led Ellen around the corner, taking care not to let her trip, and then she walked into the wall where the entrance to SOAM lay, pulling her sister after her.

  "Can I open my eyes now?" asked Ellen.

  "Oh no," gasped Lily.

  Jesse let out a strangled cry of panic.

  On the other side, stood two ogres.

  Chapter Twenty

  Lily, Ellen, and Jesse stopped in their tracks. The ogres seemed to be busy stopping students to harass them as they passed through the atrium.

  "Can I open my eyes yet?" asked Ellen.

  "No!" hissed Lily and Jesse at the same time.

  "Quick," whispered Jesse. "Give me your bracelet!"

  Lily fumbled in her purse and handed the twisted copper bangle to Jesse. "What are you—"

  Jesse slipped on the disguise bracelet and assumed the blonde younger Lily's form. "No time! Make a run for the gold portal after I yell." Without waiting for Lily's reply, Jesse ran between the two ogres and hollered. The ogres roared and pounded after her.

  "Oh my God, where are we? What the hell are those things?" squeaked Ellen.

  "We have to run! Follow me!" cried Lily, dragging her sister through the crowd of student wizards, toward the gold portal.

  "But Lily! What's going on!"

  "Welcome to the School of Applied Metaphysics!" said Lily, as she pulled Ellen through the gold portal.

  The wave of heat enfolded them like a blan
ket. Ellen gasped. "Lily, how did we—"

  "This is what I had to show you, sis! I didn't get hired on at the Philosophy Library, I stumbled into a wizard college right in the middle of Moraine! They made me choose between becoming a student, taking a job here, or having my memory of the place erased. I took a job at the SOAM Library."

  "Uh, are you saying we just went through a magic doorway into the steam tunnels?"

  Lily nodded. "Yes!"

  "And you work as a wizard librarian?"

  Lily shook her head. "Not anymore. I got fired. They were going to wipe my memory, but I escaped."

  "So those big brutes, back in the other room, were after you?" Ellen's eyes darted around the tunnel as though an ogre might pop out at any second.

  "Unfortunately, yes. Jesse put on a magical disguise to make her look like me to draw them away."

  "The girl who came with us? She looks like you?"

  "Well, a much younger, blonder, version of me," said Lily, tugging at her dyed red hair.

  "So, wait. If she looks like a boy—"

  Lily sighed. "No. Not like I looked when I was younger. What I might have looked like if I was a younger version of me now."

  "Okay, so if she looks like that, then how will the monsters recognize her as you?"

  "I looked like that when I escaped earlier. I've been using the disguise to snoop around SOAM undercover."

  Ellen's eyes widened. "If you have a magic disguise that makes you look twenty, I want one too!"

  Lily laughed. "Maybe after we find Penny. If I don't get nabbed and mind-wiped."

  Ellen tilted her head. "I get the feeling I'm not supposed to even be here."

  Lily nodded. "That's correct."

  "Then why am I here?" said Ellen, putting a hand on one hip.

  "I need your help. I need someone on the outside who knows about SOAM, in case they do wipe my memories."

  Ellen's brow furrowed. "What if they wipe my memories?"

  Lily considered this a moment, then pulled the little potion out of her bra. "Here. Drink this if you get captured. It'll make you temporarily immune to enchantments. Don't let on, though. Let them think they erased your memories of this place."

  Ellen stared at the tiny metal flask in her hand. "Oh Lily, I don't know. Don't you need it more?"

  Lily shook her head. "No. I mean, yes, but they'd watch me more closely afterward if they caught me. You're not magical, so they won't worry about you."

  "Hey! I'm not magical? But you are? Since when?"

  Lily shrugged. "Well, near as I can figure it, most wizards gain their powers a year or two after puberty starts."

  "So? You're in your forties!"

  Lily grinned at her sister. "Yes, but I only started transition the year before last. Biologically, I'm more or less in my second puberty! I'm a second-chance wizard, it seems. Or witch, more likely."

  "Wait. Now you're a witch?" said Ellen, rolling her eyes. "Like with a flying broom and a black cat and all that?"

  "Monty's orange, but something like that," laughed Lily. "Seems like it's a different kind of magic. One that the Administration here doesn't care for."

  Ellen sighed. "This is all too much, Lily."

  Lily began to answer her, but her phone sounded a text message alert. She looked at the phone, and told Ellen, "Oh, looks like we're about to have company."

  "Monsters? Here?" shrieked Ellen.

  Lily put a hand on Ellen's shoulder to stop her from running down the tunnel. "No, no. It's Jesse. She lost the ogres and is coming to join us."

  "Oh! I'm glad she's okay."

  Not long after the message came in, Jesse emerged from the gold portal, smiling but out of breath. "Those… ogres… are… dumb…"

  "Jesse! That was quick thinking, thank you so much!"

  "It's okay. It was… kind of fun." Jesse grinned and offered the bracelet to Lily.

  "I'm not sure it'll do me much good now. They know what my disguise looks like."

  Jesse shook the bracelet. "Take it. You never know when it might be useful."

  Lily held up a hand, refusing Jesse's offer. "No, why don't you keep it? Either you or one of the others in the Quartet could use it to confuse the pursuit with sightings of 'me' here and there?"

  Jesse shrugged and pocketed the bracelet.

  Ellen frowned. "Lily, what do you want me to do now that I'm here?"

  "I'm not even sure how you're here," said Jesse. "I didn't think this was possible, given the geas."

  Lily smiled. "I didn't know it shouldn't. I hoped it would. So, I guess it did."

  Jesse pursed her lips, then said, "Could that be part of your magic, too? Or maybe something Penny put into the coin?"

  Lily threw her hands in the air. "How should I know? I wish I could just ask Penny. But we'd have to find her first."

  "Didn't she leave a spell on the coin," said Jesse, twirling a finger in the air. "You know, like a piece of herself?"

  Lily nodded. "Yes, but it talks in riddles like everyone else around here."

  "The geas, I guess?"

  "I don't know. Maybe. Or maybe she didn't want me to rush in like she did and get caught."

  Ellen cleared her throat.

  "Yes?" asked Lily.

  "I hate to complain, but it's like a hundred degrees in this tunnel. What's next?"

  Lily peered down the tunnel. "I have a date with a secret society."

  Ellen frowned. "And me?"

  "You should get out of here. Out of SOAM."

  "Lily, if you want me to leave, why'd you even bring me here in the first place?"

  Lily paused. Why had she brought Ellen in? "I mean, at first, I just wanted you to see so you'd believe me. But once I brought you here, I had this gut feeling that I'll need you on the outside for something."

  "But what, Lily?"

  "I don't know that yet, but I'm learning to trust my hunches."

  Jesse peered up from her phone. "Uh, I hate to break this up, but Cam says Wheeler is working with the ogres on the search now. If you're going to do something, you'd better do it now."

  Lily frowned and nodded. "Jesse, could you escort Ellen out of SOAM?"

  "Sure. I'll take her to Basilisk, wait for Hannah, and she'll help me smuggle her out."

  "What's a Basilisk?" asked Ellen.

  "It's a student dorm," said Jesse.

  Lily pursed her lips. "Isn't she going to stand out?"

  Jesse produced the bracelet and handed it to Ellen. "Put this on."

  "This is the thing that'll make me look twenty again?"

  "Yup!"

  Ellen snatched the bracelet out of Jesse's hand and put it on. Lily smiled at her sister, who seemed to grow taller, thinner, and younger. Her face became as Lily had seen in the mirror. Ellen looked down at herself and said, "this is amazing!"

  "And you still look like sisters!" exclaimed Jesse. "Now, we gotta go. And so do you!"

  Lily hugged her confused sister and kissed her on the cheek. "See you on the flip side, sis!"

  The three of them walked further down the tunnel, and parted ways at the entrance to Basilisk; Jesse pulled Ellen through the portal, and Lily continued alone.

  As she followed the long, poorly lit passage, anxiety crept into her heart like a thief in the night. She'd given up the potion Hannah had stolen for her. She had no friends with her. She'd even given up her last, tenuous connection to Penny.

  All she had was a lead on one of the last places Penny had been seen, heading there in hopes of finding more clues. She wished she knew some spells, like everyone else here at SOAM. The further she walked down the steam tunnel, the more exposed she felt. Like she carried an invisible target, or even a beacon, telling anyone looking in the right place that Lily had no real plan and no real defenses.

  Even if she could find Penny, how would they escape together? Her gut told her that Wheeler and Hartman would see to it that she and Penny would both disappear.
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  It occurred to her that maybe that wasn't even all of it. What repercussions would her young friends suffer?

  What, if anything, could Lily do about any of this?

  Maybe she'd have been better off never stumbling into SOAM at all if her efforts only made things worse for those who sought to help her.

  Having no better ideas, Lily continued forward, following Shanice's directions; she took every left turn that presented itself. This led her into narrower and darker passages. The stale air pressed in on her, and she found it harder to breathe. Her heartbeat faster as anxiety threatened to transform into panic at any moment.

  A flickering light, like flames reflected off of water, lit the far wall of one of the passages. The light came from the left, which Lily's instincts told her was the final left before her destination. The air currents oscillated, like a giant's breath; first, it wafted past her towards the passage, then it billowed in her face, on its way out once more.

  The shimmering orange light played across the wall even brighter, as though the source approached her.

  She held her breath, paralyzed with doubt. Lily knew she had to make one last choice. She could continue, despite her rising fear, or flee back the way she came, to relative safety.

  Penny wouldn't blame her for backing out. She would want her to save herself, wouldn't she? That's what Lily would want if positions were reversed.

  She took a half step backward, not taking her eyes off of the far wall. Panic rose in her, demanding either fight or flight.

  Penny's face appeared in her mind's eye. Something solidified within Lily and she knew what she had to do.

  "H-hello?" Lily called out to the rippling orange light ahead of her.

  The air trembled around Lily, an extended subsonic bass note, threatening to pull her apart, followed by a deep growl and the hiss of leather upon stone. A shadow appeared as something blocked the wavering orange glow; something shaped like a dragon's head. The shadow of a head as big as Lily's entire body.

  "WHAT," boomed a semi-truck engine voice, "IS THE PASSWORD?"

  Lily's throat closed up, and her panic reached a crescendo. What if she couldn't speak? The thought added fuel to her fear, and her whole body trembled and shivered, despite the heat of the tunnel.

  The shadow grew until it filled the end of the tunnel, and all went dark.