"I'll - I'll just wait... out here," I spluttered to no one in particular, half-stumbling into the corridor. What was I supposed to do? I knew I shouldn't be here right now; maybe I ought to go home. Or at least wait out on the veranda until it was OK to come back inside. I peered out the front door, thinking Chrissie would probably never speak to me again. Gnawing on my lower lip, I started inching towards the door, unable to believe what I'd just seen.

(chrissies got no clothes on)

"Billy." Eva's voice again.

"Y-yes, Mrs. Reinhart?" I stammered, still averting my gaze.

"It's all right," she told me reassuringly, "you can come in if you want."

"Really?" I asked in overt surprise. My eyes started to wander through the archway, but I yanked them back on a short leash.

"Yes, it's fine, honey," she replied in coffee-cream tones, "we'll be finished in a minute."

(but chrissies got no CLOTHES on)

Despite my mounting agitation, I turned and looked into living room once more, mainly to confirm that it was all right for me to enter. I thought maybe Chrissie had climbed into a dress or was wearing the towel around her shoulders. Either option would have been okay, but it turned out that I was wrong on both counts.

Eva was sitting on the chaise-long in her jeans and t-shirt, hair tied back in a bushy black ponytail. Chrissie was standing to one side in her bra and panties, carelessly brushing the tangles from her hair, totally oblivious of her state of dishabille. She turned in my direction, eyebrows raised in silent inquiry, her posture completely relaxed. Well? Are you coming in, or what?

I looked hesitantly up at Eve, unsure as to what to do next.

"Come and sit here," Eve told me, patting the space next to her. There were some clothes laid over the end of the couch, along with a pair of spangled yellow sandals. Evidently, Chrissie had just finished bathing, and Eve had brought her out to the living room to get dressed. It was a big, airy space with light spilling in through the windows, painting the floor with long golden rectangles. Pushing myself forward through a supreme act of will, I walked across the room and sat down beside Mrs. Reinhart – and saw what little girls were made of.

I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised. Chrissie and I were practically joined at the hip, I'd grown so used to the sight of her underpants that I barely noticed any more. But this was the first time I'd ever seen her this undressed. Heck, it was the very first time I'd ever seen any girl this undressed.

I stared at my playmate in childish wonder. She was so different to me, so totally different. Having no point of reference, I'd always assumed that we looked pretty much the same under our clothes, except that Chrissie was smaller and prettier and had longer hair.

Looking at her now, however, I realized she was somewhat taller than I'd previously imagined – taller and more mature, in fact. All this time, I'd thought she was around my age, maybe eight or nine, but that had all been a mirage, a … glamour, for lack of a better word. It was just one of the countless illusions that seemed to surround her. She had the face of a child, true, but her body was blossoming. I could see that much, even at a glance.

How old was she really? Eleven? Twelve? Old enough to wear a training bra, at the very least. But that couldn't be right – only a month ago, I'd seen her almost completely disrobed, back when we'd played the handstand game. She'd looked no more than eight that day, and I could have sworn that –

"Billy," Evelyn said, snapping me out of my reveries. I practically leapt out of my flesh, staring at her in red-faced guilt.

"Sorry?" I replied after an uncomfortable pause. It was all I could manage.

"Could you hand me that skirt, please?"

"Yes'm," I replied, biting my lip once more. What had I been doing?! I knew it was rude to stare. She must've thought I was the biggest prevert in the space-time continuum, practically drooling over her half-naked daughter like that. I looked frantically around the room, not quite certain what she'd asked for. Had she said 'skirt' or 'shirt?' No idea. A single, rampant thought was flashing through my mind in glaring, neon letters:

(chrissies not wearing any clothes and they caught me staring)

Of course, I hadn't been drooling and neither of them considered me a 'prevert'. Eve was actually regarding me with considerable amusement, raising a comical eyebrow as I finally found what I was looking for.

Earlier on, I'd noticed a small pile of clothing neatly folded over the edge of the chaise-long, although I hadn't paid much attention at the time. There was a sky blue mini with a big silver zip down the side, along with a short-sleeved blouse splashed with strawberries. There were no socks on this occasion, but a pair of spangled yellow sandals had been placed on the floor, ankle straps lying open.

"Here," I mumbled apologetically, averting my eyes as I handed the skirt over. Chrissie snatched it up with an exasperated sigh.

"About time," she clucked impatiently, shaking her head in evident disbelief: you aren't a prevert, Billy. You're just an idiot. I smiled sheepishy at her disapproval, then turned my gaze towards her long-suffering Mother. Eve shrugged a wordless reply, carefully maintaining a straight face. The day was just getting started, after all.

I sat watching Chrissie dress for the next few minutes, silently recording everything I saw for future reference. It was like some magic reverse-striptease where the girl covered everything up rather than slipping everything off. Tonight, I'd replay the entire morning's events from start to finish, over and over on a continuous loop. It was the one thing I could look forward to when I went home: casting myself in Chrissie's role and feeling that familiar mix of shame, pleasure and excitement that accompanied my nightly 'dress up' shows. My emotions had become increasingly more complex since the Reinharts moved in. Part of it was the wonder of new experience, part of it was the joy of childhood friendship.

Part of it was sheer jealousy.

Chrissie had a Mother who cared for her, a Mother who loved and doted and fussed over her. Chrissie ate pancakes for breakfast and meatloaf for dinner. Chrissie had soap in the shower and towels on the rack. Chrissie had fresh bed-sheets and clean pillow slips and clothes that didn't smell like they were ready to crawl away and die in the corner.

Most of all, she had a Mother who talked to her.

I supressed a deep stab of envy, knowing how all of this had been denied to me for reasons I simply couldn't fathom. It all seemed so desperately unjust. When was the last time my mother had bathed and dressed me? When was the last time she'd brushed my hair, stroked my cheek, told me how special I was? Five months ago, six? A year? I couldn't remember.

I shoved the darkness into the back of my mind, understanding how unfair it was to blame the Reinharts for my misfortunes. If anything, their presence was my final refuge from complete and abject misery. I looked over at my erstwhile playdate, suddenly grateful that we had the whole of summer ahead of us.

"Well? How do I look?"

Chrissie finished strapping on her sandals and stood up to face me with her usual quizzical expression. She was every bit as beautiful as I'd ever seen her – more so, in fact, than on the day we'd first met. It's hard to say how – it was like she was ripening as the season climbed into mid-summer. Eve looked her over once or twice, fiddled with her hair, then nodded to herself in approval. Perfect.

And so she was.

"Can we go down to the park now, Mommy?" Chrissie asked, kneading her hemline.

"Not 'til you've had something to eat, Missy," Eva said, rising to her feet, "can't go out with an empty tummy, can we?" She glanced over in my direction, placing her hands on her hips. "Have you had breakfast yet, Billy?"

The question caught me off guard, and I hesitated several seconds, not sure how to answer. I hadn't eaten anything substantial for nearly two days - the fridge was empty and Mom had destroyed every plate in the kitchen during her last howling binge. I'd been surviving on a diet of potato chips and cheese-curls lately, and I'd left home without eating anything at all that morning. To say I was hungry would have been an understatement, but I was reluctant to let Eve know there was anything wrong.

"I...uh, I yah um – " I began, lapsing into the stream of gibberish I normally employ when my brain clicks into shutdown mode. Chrissie put a hand over her mouth and giggled, eyes rolling up to meet her Mother's.

(billys really funny mommy)

(no darling billys very hungry don't laugh)

"Already eaten?" Eve asked, reading my expression as much as my mind, "well then, why don't you come out to the kitchen for a snack? You ever tried French Toast?"

"No I haven't," I replied, intrigued by the name, "what is it?"

"Real yummy is what it is, Billy," Chrissie announced, scampering over to grab me by the arm, "c'mon, you'll love it!" She started yanking me off the sofa, regaling me with epic descriptions of her Mommy's culinary skills (all of which were totally indisputable, I should add).

In a span of minutes, we were seated at the kitchen table, chattering away in fluent childspeak while Eva tied on an apron and wove her motherly enchantments. Switching on the radio, she bustled about the breakfast bar, humming under her breath and filling the air with a floury haze. Call me old-fashioned, but the sound of a woman singing in the kitchen never fails to swell my heart with contentment. I think most people forget what a mysterious, magical place a kitchen is for a young child, with its jars and spices and secret, hidden spaces.

It goes without saying that Eva Reinhart's French Toast was the most delicious thing I'd ever tasted up to that point. I like to believe it had nothing to my being on the brink of starvation.

Perhaps I was asking for trouble. I was old enough to understand that my mother wouldn't take this desertion lightly. At best, she'd see it as a criticism of her parental abilities (such as they were); at worst, a defection to the enemy camp. But as I said before, what else could I do? I was nine years old, I was hungry, and there was no food in the house. Eve's generosity was a godsend. Unfortunately, none of this would make any difference to Mom. The moment she discovered I was eating my meals next door – and this was inevitable – she would give in to a fury that could melt lead.

Mom had come to loath Evelyn Reinhart with a passion that bordered on the irrational. There was no logical reason for her hatred; she hardly knew Eva, had traded maybe a hundred words with her, and most of those had been at their introduction. But Mom despised her all the same. During her less lucid moments, she held, long, rambling monologues with herself, attacking first Eve and then my father with equal venom. Sometimes, she seemed to imagine that Dad had run off with Eve, or at least someone like her. Times like that, I either got out of the house or hid in my room, as her delusions often signaled the onset one of her frenzies.

Most evenings, however, she spent comatose in the living room, and I frequently prayed she'd stay that way. Much as it pains me to say this, Mom had grown so unpredictable that I was avoiding her as much as possible. Fortunately, she was usually unconscious when I sneaked in through the back door at four-thirty. This afternoon I'd found her half-submerged into the couch, clutching a bottle of cheap wine in a death-grip. Evidently, Johnny Walker had been slashed from the budget, along with the pizzas, the corn-chips and the Colonel Sanders. Staring around the room at the fall-out of our lives, I fancied we'd sunk about as low as we could go. I couldn't have known how far we had left to fall. How very, very far.

But all of that lay in the future. For now, the oncoming storm was an insignificant blur, betraying not a hint of the havoc it would eventually wreak in our lives. As the temperatures climbed, I played in the sun with the girl next door; oblivious of the Darkness gathering on the horizon. How long did we have together? How long before the dogs began to howl around the streets of Fairmont? Three months, I realize now; little more than ninety days to run and shout and revel in the joy of her company. It seems impossibly short, a fleeting interval in the passage of years, but as I noted earlier, time moves differently for children.

And a lot can happen in three months.

Later:

My bedroom offered some small measure of protection from the encroaching shadows – not much admittedly, but better than nothing at all. It was eight o'clock, the sun was setting, and I had the evening to myself. It was time to slough off my daytime identity and free my Otherself. I'd come to see myself in two different roles – the boy I played during daylight hours and the girl I became every evening. She had no name, no existence beyond the frame of my three-quarter mirror; yet, like any other child, she lived in a realm of dreams and fantasies. And – like any other child – she inhabited more than one plane of reality.

I kicked off my clothes and walked over to the dresser, recalling how Chrissie had looked the morning her Mom cooked breakfast for us. The image had been replaying itself through my head like a video set to repeat and I'd acted it out every evening for the past week. It was one of a number of games I played while my mother was asleep and the house was on silent running. All of them were extremely sensual, a few of them left me breathless with excitement (the "Dressing Up" scenario was probably the most exhilarating – the scene at the end where I zip on the mini skirt always left me quivering in near-ecstasy).

Sliding open the dresser drawer, I reached in to find my costume. The underwear situation was becoming desperate, but I always kept a pair of white cotton hipsters in reserve. They weren't as pretty as Chrissie's underthings (particularly her Days of The Week selection), but they smelled clean and served their purpose in every other respect. I kept them hidden under a stack of t-shirts, the most priceless item in my top-shelf collection (where were they anyhow? Must've pushed them to the back for safe keeping).

Leaning over the drawer, I glanced absently at my reflection – and stopped.

There was a girl looking back at me.

Straightening up to my full height, I studied myself in the mirror: my hair, my face, my pre-pubescent figure. Lifting my fingers to the glass, I shook my head in slow disbelief, still doubting the evidence of my eyes.

Was it possible?

I'd been denying it for weeks now, telling myself that it was just my imagination. Dreams never came true in the real world, wishes were never granted, I knew that for a fact. If they did, Prince Charming would never have run off with his secretary and Cinderella wouldn't be lying paralytic down in the living room. Life was no fairy tale, no matter how desperately I wanted otherwise; ducks didn't turn into swans, straw didn't turn into gold, and boys couldn't turn into girls. Yet here I was, staring into a face that only barely resembled mine.

I was changing.

A transformation had been taking place, just as I'd suspected; one so gradual as to seem virtually non-existent. What had been the first signs? A rounding of the limbs, a faint swelling of the tummy? That could have been anything - a change in weight, a trick of the light. Blonde streaks in the hair? Had to be the sun; I spent most of my time outside. Nothing dramatic, nothing inexplicable. No Hollywood CGI, no Terminator-style morphing. Just a slow, plodding transition from one state to another, as imperceptible as the growth of a child.

When had it begun? Back in June, the night of the spinning game? No, it had started weeks before that, right after school let out, not long after Dad had hopped an Airbus to Chicago. End of spring, around the same time the season turned and the flowers burst forth along the sidewalk. The day I sat listening to the radio on the front porch, idly tapping away at a paddle-ball while a huge blue moving van rolled up before the Old Stewart Place.

The morning Chrissie moved in, to be precise.

How long ago was that? Eight, nine weeks? The whole length of summer so far. As the days grew longer and the streets pulsed with vibrant green life, some bizarre metamorphosis had occurred; was still occurring right now. There was no other explanation; the signals were all there, and they were far too obvious to ignore.

My hair had lightened by visible degrees. At first I'd thought it was common sun-bleaching, but it had also changed color somehow, going from a dark reddish-brown to a rich honey-blonde. It had thickened and grown at an impossible rate, taking on a sumptuous wavy curl. How long before it was down to my waist? Three weeks, a month? By the beginning of fall, it would be longer than Chrissie's, perhaps even as fair.

The changes extended to my face as well. The features had softened, growing steadily more feminine. My lips had folded into a sensuous pout, dimples appearing either side of my mouth, and my nose was melting into a clipped, round bump. The very structure of my face had altered; the cheeks padding up with puppy-fat, the jaw shrinking away to doll-like proportions. And while I hadn't lost any height, I had the open, blameless expression of a very young child – a girl of maybe six or seven.

I moved my hands down the front of my body, examining the differences with my fingertips. My tips were as large and dark as plums, the ends jutting from my chest in hard red points. My figure, lithe and rather girlish to begin with, was overflowing with lush, ripe curves, especially around the thighs and bottom. Even my belly button had changed. Back in May, it had been a shallow dip in the middle of my tummy. Now it was poking out like the tip of an impudent pink tongue.

Scanning myself closely in the mirror, I slid my fingers down to the junction of my legs. I was vaguely aware of how different girls were from boys, but that difference had been evaporating off my body for over two months. I hadn't noticed it until quite recently (perhaps because this was the slowest of all the transformations I was undergoing), but there could be no question now as to what was happening.

Strangely enough, this particular modification hadn't frightened me in the least. Most other boys would have run screaming through the house ("What's happened to my wiener?!!"), but I found myself accepting it with the same puzzled confusion I'd felt all along. In a way, it was no different to anything else that had happened that summer. It was almost as if I'd been... well, expecting it, I s'pose. That's not exactly the right word, but it's close enough.

However, that wasn't the full extent of the changes. There was still one more, perhaps the most significant, something I hadn't noticed until a few days ago. It was the most perplexing – and maybe the most alarming – of all the enigmas I'd encountered so far. In a way, it was the key to everything that had happened to me, although I wouldn't understand that for quite some time yet.

Bracing one hand against the wall, I leaned in towards the mirror, close enough for my breath to fog the glass. Gazing into that innocent, elfish face, I sought an answer to this mystery, a clue to this paradox. And there it was, the final proof I was seeking. There could be no doubt, no mistake. Somehow, it was all true. Against all logic, all commonsense, I was evolving into a girl. And not just any girl, either.

My eyes had turned purple.

Purple, rimmed with turquoise.

Visit the Transfiction Wiki