Trans Witch: College of Secrets Read online

  "TELL ME," growled the terrifying voice, and Lily's clothing fluttered with the sound waves it produced.

  Like in nightmares, she tried to scream, but only a tiny sound came out.

  "L-Leviathan?" she squeaked.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  "WELCOME, FRIEND," boomed the voice. Lily felt the air lighten as the presence receded and the shadow vanished. Rippling orange light lit the passage once more. Lily's fear drained away, and she gulped in a few breaths of the hot, humid air before taking a few steps toward the end of the tunnel.

  She hesitated only a couple of seconds, then gathered her courage about her and stepped out into the light, which faded from shimmering orange to a sunny yellow. The bright light dazzled Lily's eyes, and she held up a hand to peer into what lay in front of her.

  "So, that's what you look like!" Shanice appeared as Lily turned the corner and stepped through a doorway into a large, domed area. "That's much better!"

  Lily blinked in astonishment as she entered the disused Moraine Planetarium. The "sun" shined brightly overhead and fluffy clouds dappled a robin's egg blue sky. Seats ringed a central pit, each with a view of the projected sky above. In the center of the room, rising out of the pit, stood an eight-foot-tall two-headed mechanical monster: the star projector. Each "head" held dozens of "eyes" of various sizes; the middle held up on a gimbal. Spotlights from within the pit projected the blue sky.

  "I thought this place was closed because of disrepair," said Lily, twirling to see all around her. She loved the feel of cool, dry air on her face, after the discomfort of the steam tunnels.

  "Well, it was, but we fixed it up," said Shanice. "It was so busted up, we had to replace tech with magic in a lot of places, but it's a cool old machine."

  Once her eyes adjusted to the bright light of the room, she noticed she and Shanice weren't alone. Naille the elf sat in a back row, his face dark and brooding. Also, at nearly the opposite side of the circular room, sat Professor Librarian Bucher, wearing a merry smile upon her face.

  "So, can I ask a question?" Lily asked, not sure who to address since the three in the Fourth Facet sat at three different cardinal points of the room.

  "Always," said Bucher, chuckling. "We must always ask questions."

  "It's about—" started Lily.

  "The dragon!" interrupted Shanice. "It's a spectacular phantasm we set up to guard the place! Don't want anyone to wander in without an invite!"

  Lily shook her head. "No, I got that already. It's effective, by the way. I almost needed a change of underwear."

  "Let her speak," said Naille. "Though I think this is a terrible idea."

  "It was your idea," said Professor Bucher, laughing.

  Naille shook his head. "No. I didn't invite her here, Shanice did."

  Bucher snorted. "But you said we should help her find Penny."

  "Yes, I did. But I wanted it to be more indirect."

  "Indirect?" laughed Shanice. "You mean like your own damn self, confronting the trolls to help her escape?"

  "They're ogres, not trolls," said Naille, crossing his arms. "And if I hadn't, we'd be back to square one and she'd probably never see her wife again."

  Shanice threw her hands in the air. "Trolls, ogres, what's the difference?"

  "Well, for starters, trolls are made of living stone," said Professor Bucher.

  "Stop!" cried Lily. "I still have my question!"

  All three of the Fourth Facet members turned to look at Lily.

  "How is it that no one notices that there's a missing facet? I mean, Drake is clearly fire-based, Wyvern is air, and Basilisk is earth. It's plain in their colors that they're meant to be the four classical elements, except water is missing. There's a blank, inverted green triangle on SOAM's heraldry everywhere! Does the geas make everyone stupid as well?"

  Naille sighed. "It's true, the original geas makes people forget Leviathan, the banned Facet, ever existed."

  "Folks just say that the green is there because of the background and all," said Shanice. "Plus, the upright triangles look like the three-triangles thingy in that one video game; I think maybe that reinforces seeing only those three and not the one hidden in plain sight."

  "Negative space has a way of not being noticed," agreed Bucher. "Plus, anyone who catches on, and gets caught by the Administration, has a bit of corrective memory adjustment done. We've lost so many members that way."

  Lily wrung her hands. "So, am I right? Is it witchcraft? Water-based?"

  Naille nodded. "Yes. And the triangle is inverted for a reason; witchcraft isn't the same thing as wizardry. Sure, they're both magic, but—"

  "Wizardry comes from the head, and witchcraft comes from the heart," said Lily, feeling like a star pupil.

  "Hmm, yes, precisely," said Naille. "Wizards exert their will over external magical forces, and Witches work their magic through intent, powered by their innate magic."

  "I knew it! Too bad it took transition for me to discover my magic. I might have stuck with Wicca, years ago, if it had manifested then. I put my heart into that!"

  Bucher shook her head. "Not the same. I mean, yes, both are personal power, but Fourth Facet witchcraft is personal power, but it's not religious, like Wicca. They are separate things, but I understand that they may complement one another."

  "So," asked Lily, putting her hands upon her hips, "if the geas makes everyone forget about witchcraft, then how is it we can think and talk about it?"

  "Because wizard magic can't entirely negate witch magic," said the Librarian. "And vice versa. We Leviathans may flaunt parts of the geas. However, everyone else is still bound by it, and we may not change that. That's why 'Leviathan' is such a great password; we can remember it, but wizards can't."

  "So, Penny wasn't just mind-wiped because they couldn't?" asked Lily, eyes flying open wide.

  Shanice shook her head. "Don't work like that. I mean, they could, it just wouldn't be perfect. She'd probably dream about SOAM. Or stray memories might bubble up once in a while. But most people would just shrug those off as dreams and silliness."

  "But not my Penny."

  "Right," said Bucher. "I know for a fact that they did wipe her memory once, but when she came back later, they hired her on as a teacher and tried to keep her from learning about Leviathan. Kept working on her, hoping something would stick. She found the books that even the Administration can't purge from the Library. She found them over and over. I even helped once. But Wheeler kept having Hartman wipe that from her memory, so she'd have to start over."

  Shanice put her hands out in front of her, palms up. "Then she started talkin' in class about what she knew, and we figure that made her too dangerous. We tried to warn her, but the next day, she was gone, and no one knew where."

  "You still don't know where she is?" said Lily. To Bucher, she said, " You're the Librarian, couldn't you look in the books?"

  "If I defied the Dean, I'd risk disappearing too."

  "What do you call a meeting in secret like this, if it's not defying the Dean?"

  Bucher shrugged. "She has spies everywhere. Even unwitting ones, we think Hartman can pull memories from people and view them. Nasty sort of voyeurism, if you ask me."

  "We've been tryin' to think of how to find and free her," said Shanice. "Then you showed up, with your dreams and intuition. We thought maybe you'd figure it out on your own."

  "Or with a little help," said Naille.

  Lily sat in a seat near her. "Okay. So here I am. What can we do to find my Penny?"

  "We think Penny left you a secret message, something that would lead you to her," said Bucher.

  "She left me a magical penny coin," said Lily.

  "And what did it say to you?"

  "She said the coin would help me find her, but she warned me that I might be best off not trying to find her. She didn't know how we'd escape both of us being made to disappear."

  "What has the coin shown you so far
?"

  "It's warmed up when I was in the Library, and when I've been given clues. I feel like I'm almost there. As if I know where Penny is, I only need to remember, you know?"

  Shanice stood and moved to a podium near her. The sky dimmed from blue to indigo to black. As the projected sun set, stars spread out upon the dome. "Sometimes I think starin' at the stars helps me think. If you've got intuitive magic, maybe it'll help you put things together?"

  Lily reclined in the comfortable chair. Speakers in the headrest played instrumental music, both spritely and mysterious. The sky projector at the center of the room turned and spun majestically. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she watched as the sky wheeled overhead, individual stars connected by projected lines to highlight the constellations. She recognized Orion, the archer, aiming at Taurus, the bull. Another, making a zigzag, seemed to be a serpent to Lily's eyes. And off to one side, she saw a constellation she'd never seen before, of a cat. As she blinked, the tail seemed to change position, and then back again. Like Monty did, when he wanted something.

  Her mind wandered, and the constellation became Monty, once again pouncing on a copper coin, like in Phantasms class. This time, the coin wasn't by itself, it sat in an open book. The book and her cat sat in a circle of other books, spinning around her like the night sky. Monty looked up at her and mouthed a meow.

  The serpent-like constellation slithered into the circle, becoming the Leviathan from her earlier dream, the one in the pond who'd spoken to her.

  Lily knew that if she spoke, the dream would end, so she remained in silent awe as the creature loomed. This time she felt no fear, only the sadness that emanated from the dragon. It raised in a tight spiral in the very center of the circle of books.

  A blue star, a golden star, and a star as red as Taurus' eye followed the serpentine dragon, then surrounded it, making a horizontal triangle constellation in mid-air.

  Then, the starry Leviathan vanished.

  And though Lily could no longer see it, she could feel its presence as surely as she knew her body still existed when she had her eyes shut.

  And though no words passed between them, she knew the Leviathan needed her help, even as it showed her an image of Penny, trapped in a block of ice at the edge of the forest by the pond in that other dream.

  "I know where she is!" cried Lily, her dream dissipating in an instant. "The coin got warm in the center of the stacks. She's in the Library somehow! I know how to find her now!"

  "Where is she?" asked Bucher, leaping to her feet.

  Before Lily could say anything, her phone rang, singing "just keep swimming!" Ellen's ringtone.

  Lily fumbled in her purse and came out with her phone. "Ellen! I was right, I do need your help!"

  "I knew it! I called because the necklace just went cold, like ice, and I figured it had to be a bad sign!"

  Lily knew deep inside her that she had no time, so she blurted out, "Bring Monty to SOAM! Ask Jesse to get you both to the Library!"

  "But—"

  The house lights of the planetarium flared on, too bright.

  "Yer under arrest!" cried Maldink the ogre.

  "Well, not arrest, exactly, but we gotcha!" bellowed Kertoh.

  Behind them strode Dean Wizard Jackie Wheeler, a smirk upon her face, glasses perched on the bridge of her nose.

  Lily whispered into her phone, "Too late!" but there was no reply; the line had gone dead.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  "I told you this was a terrible idea," said Naille, who sat across from Lily in the waiting room in Professor Hartman's offices, a faintly glowing rope tied around his arms and chest, binding him to a chair.

  "I mean, it could have worked," said Shanice, testing the strength of the ropes that bound her similarly. "Lily almost had the answer in time."

  Next to Lily, Professor Bucher scowled. "This is an outrage! I have tenure! They can't do this to me!"

  "Mmmmph," said Lily, through the cloth gag in her mouth. She fantasized about biting Wheeler if she got the chance.

  The door opened, and both Dean Wheeler and Secretary Sample entered the room. The Dean said, "Oh, I assure you, I can."

  Lily shot Wheeler a dirty look.

  Dean Wizard Jackie Wheeler smiled that awful smile of hers. "You should have taken my advice, Lily. You should have stayed away. Kept your head down. Simplest for all of us if you'd just agreed to let us make you forget. If you had, we wouldn't have this mess to take care of."

  "It's a mess, all right," growled Professor Librarian Bucher. "I can't believe you're doing this to me, Jackie."

  The Dean's smile dimmed a bit. "Catherine, I do regret that you have to be, hmm, processed, as well as the others. But really, violating the SOAM Charter by being party to banned magics, in a secret society? Tsk. That's all on you, not me."

  Lily struggled in vain against her restraints, more to make a protest than out of any real hope that she could escape.

  "What you got against Leviathan anyway?" asked Shanice. "We just want to study magic that SOAM left behind. What's it to you?"

  The Dean studied Shanice. "What's it to me, personally? I haven't got any personal feelings about your little club, or the forbidden knowledge you seek. But my predecessors saw fit to make this a school of wizards, not witches. A college of the mind, not of softer schools of thought."

  "That's a lie," murmured Shanice.

  Dean Wheeler's smile faded to a faint scowl. "And how do any of us know your supposed power to tell what's true and what is not isn't just your opinion, or worse, that you're lying about what you find to be untrue? Child, this is a matter of integrity, and also of security. If we allowed witchcraft in the halls of SOAM, we'd be opening ourselves up to all sorts of woo-woo magics. Unquantifiable. Unreproducible. Subjective, not objective!"

  "I don't know about any of that," said Shanice, sticking out her chin. "But I know you're full of it. There's more. You can't control folks like us. And you can't stand it."

  Dean Wheeler stood directly in front of Shanice, looking down at her. "You're right about one thing. Witchcraft isn't easily controlled. That is one major strike against it. How can we have an orderly school if some of the students can see the future? Or use clairvoyance to conjure up the answers to exams? If we cannot keep discipline in SOAM, we have failed. This is why I must enforce the rules previous Deans set down regarding your Fourth Facet and its style of magic."

  "That sucks," replied Shanice.

  Wheeler turned away from her to face Naille. "And you. I expected better out of one who's seen firsthand what happens when we let witchcraft pretend to be one of the Four Facets of SOAM. Chaos. Anarchy. Lax standards."

  Naille shrugged. "It has been a very long time, and the tighter your rules have gotten about Leviathan, the worse it has been for the entire School of Applied Metaphysics. Your predecessors usually turned a blind eye to the Fourth Facet gatherings and independent study. We co-existed for many decades. If not as equals, then at least tolerated if we kept quiet."

  Dean Wheeler nodded. "Yes. And then the Fourth Facet crossed too many lines. You came out of the broom closet a little too much, and there was talk. Students pushed against the geas, even those without your lesser magical talents. Questions were asked. And now look! We have even a member of my faculty rebelling against the Charter and defying me! Do you not see why this is wrong and must be stopped?"

  Naille shook his head but did not reply further.

  "And now," continued Dean Wheeler, "I must process each of you, beginning with Professor Lily Shelley. Don't attempt to run away. It will go harder on the rest of these fine people if you do."

  The Dean flicked her fingers, and the ropes binding Lily dropped to the floor. Her gag remained in place. "Come with me without trouble, and I may find a way to go easier on you."

  Lily rose, still staring daggers at the Dean. She followed as the Dean led her into the little room where Professor Hartman had bonded her with the geas. Th
e memory caused phantom pain to shoot through Lily's wrist.

  The Dean gestured towards the chair where she'd sat just yesterday. "Please, be seated. You may speak, now that the others may not hear you. I apologize for the necessity to silence you, but I couldn't have you telling more of what you think you know to the others. With less damage to undo, they may only need a memory wipe."

  Lily took a seat, and the gag in her mouth vanished with a snap of Wheeler's fingers. Lily said, "But me, you're going to make disappear, just like you did to my Penny."

  Dean Wheeler sat across from her. "Perhaps. But perhaps I could convince you another way. If you would accept a greater binding, a rather personal geas, your disappearance could be pleasant for you."

  "What? Why would I do that? And if you could do that, why didn't you just do this with Penny?"

  Dean Wheeler smiled. "To answer your second question first, she refused to take the other geas willingly, and consent is a requirement of that type of spell, just like the geas we all accept upon entering SOAM. It would also require her to quite forget her life with you, and everything about Moraine University. It is a sort of wizardly witness relocation program. She would wake up with a new identity elsewhere, her reality altered. It is a difficult, but powerful spell."

  Lily smiled.

  Wheeler raised an eyebrow. "What about that makes you happy?"

  "She chose whatever else you did to her, rather than agree to leave me and Moraine behind. That's my Penny."

  "You may find the offer more attractive," said the Dean, the ghost of her previous smile creeping onto her lips. "Since in your new reality, I could have you transformed into a real woman."

  "I am a real woman, Dean Wheeler."

  The Dean chuckled. "Yes, I know, that's what you say. But I'm offering you a full transmogrification. You would be fully a woman. Your body would transform, and no doctor could tell any difference. You won't even remember anything different. You would always have been a woman."

  "I had heard that transmogrification of that sort was also banned." Lily tried to hide her conflicting emotions with the question.