When I woke up the next morning, I was pretty convinced that the events of st night had all been some weird dream. I mean, seriously? A talking wand?

  I pulled myself out of my sleeping bag to find that my dad had woken up and got out of the tent. I got up and went outside to find him cooking some Canadian bacon in a skillet over a fire.

  "Welcome to the nd of the living, kiddo." he said. "Breakfast is just about ready."

  I just nodded and took a seat in the folding chair he'd set up for me. He handed me a paper pte with a few slices of the meat and we sat there eating it for a while as the sun rose higher and higher into the sky. Once we were done we went back into our tent to pack things up. I opened my bag and saw the wand.

  Ok, definitely not a dream then.

  I hurriedly closed up my bag before Dad could see, and then I went about breaking down the campsite like normal. The questions began to pile up in my brain until it felt like my head was about to burst, but eventually I decided to just set everything to the side until that night. After all, the wand had said that she'd be able to talk to me after nightfall, so there wasn't much I could do about it tell then.

  We trekked down to the parking lot of the state park we were in. We threw everything into the back of Dad's pickup truck and then drove back towards town.

  Bckbriar is a real postcard of a town. More of a small city, really; we got a popution of about forty thousand. Everything downtown is centered around the university; it's not the biggest or most important around, but the sizable student popution means that traffic hasn't been great tely. As we sit in a long train of SUVs packed to bursting with the possessions of the freshmen moving into the dorms, I get the chance to really take it all in.

  The university is surrounded by dense trees, so you can't really see much of it from the street. The city hall sits across the street from the main entrance; it's a three story building, but it has all these pilrs and a cssical looking facade for an entrance, like it's trying to pose as somewhere important. Everywhere else downtown is either an antique store or a boutique catering to the students with disposable income. If you want food around here you have to drive a little ways out of town where the supermarkets have set up shop.

  We manage to breakthrough the automobile conga line and emerge into the town square. The courthouse sits in the middle like a gray brick dropped from the heavens. Erected outside is a statue of the town founder, William Bckbriar. He's wearing one of those powdered wigs you see in people from Revolutionary times, along with a petticoat and some old timey billowy pants. He's carrying a compass in one hand and a map in the other, and is squinting at something westward, facing the Berkshire Mountains. Supposedly he's staring out towards the frontier, wondering what lies beyond the Appachians. Or at least, that's what Ms. Hansley told us in third grade social studies.

  We drive through the square and past more stores until we pass by my future prison; Bckbriar High, or the BB, as most of it's inmates like to call it. It's a four story red brick building with a clock tower emerging from the roof. There's a window for each cssroom, and the floors are divided by grade, freshmen on the bottom, seniors on top. It's a popur pastime of the meaner seniors to drop stuff like water balloons on the incoming students. It also means I'll have to walk up four flights of stairs every morning. Joy.

  We make it past the school and arrive at the burbs on the east side of town. All the houses out here are single stories of varying design and styles. There's not really an HOA, so the overall aesthetic is...eclectic. Our house is pretty pin, though. It's a ranch style house, with white siding walls and some rose brushes in critical condition on the front wn.

  We pull in and unload our bags from the truck. We walk inside and I immediately head for my room.

  "I'm gonna unload my stuff and talk to Matt, Dad." I said.

  "OK, I'll call you for dinner." He said. It looked like our little camping trip filled our interaction quota for the time being, because he went into the living room to watch something while I walked down the long hallway towards my bedroom.

  I opened the door and threw my bag onto the bed. It nded on some dirty undry. My room was in a semi-permanent state of chaos. But whatever, that's how most boys my age are, right? The only thing that I kept pristine was my desk. That's where my PC sat. It was my pride and joy, bought in my sophomore year with a summer's worth of money from mowing wns. Since those awful three months I had maintained a solemn vow to never do manual bor again.

  I opened my backpack and pulled out the wand. It was just as cold and inert as it had been this morning.I held it up and turned it around, examining it from every angle. Honestly, it looked like something someone had thrown together in a few hours in shop css.

  "Hey," I said, "I know you said I had to wait, but do you feel like talking right now?"

  Nothing. I tried shaking it a bit, but that didn't seem to do anything. My curiosity sated, I put the wand back in my bag and then set my backpack on the floor. Then I sat down in front of my computer and opened Discord. I went to my DMs and saw that Matt had messaged me earlier in the morning.

  MattedFur: Hey dude, you made it back to civilization yet?

  MattedFur: C'mon, let's take it to the squids!

  AlextheAlright: Yeah, I'm back

  AlextheAlright: Breaking down the camp took way longer than I thought

  AlextheAlright: I'll hop into your party

  I booted up Terra Enigma; it was this co-op shooter that had gotten popur tely. You pyed as a bunch of marines fighting against squid aliens invading the sor system. The whole idea was to work together to try and complete major operations and win the war. The game finished loading and I appeared on the bridge of Matt's ship.

  "There you are, man!" Matt said, his voice coming through a tinny mic on his headphones. "Been waiting for ya."

  "Hope you didn't kill too many squids without me." I said.

  "Nah, I've just been running the lower difficulty missions and grinding out resources." He said. "Now that you're here we can get hardcore."

  Matt went to go select a mission for us to py as I just stood there. As he tried to pick a pnet for us to fight on, I couldn't help but wonder if I should tell him about the wand. Hey best buddy, check out this thing I found in a tree! It talks to me! Yeah right. Even if he's my friend he'd want to get me committed. Best to keep things under wraps until I knew what the heck was going on.

  "Alright, got it." Matt said. "Brace yourself."

  We dropped down onto the icy surface of Europa and started making our way to an enemy base.

  "So," Matt said, "Ready for another year of torture?"

  "Hey, at least we'll be seniors this year." I said. "We'll get all kinds of perks."

  "C'mon, guys like us don't get perks." Matt said. "We just get shoved into lockers."

  "Our lockers aren't even big enough for that."

  "You know what I mean."

  "You should keep your head low like me." I said.

  "Sorry, but the Computer and Robotics clubs need me." Matt said. "Even if being the president of both practically puts a target on my back."

  Matt was way more serious about stuff like extracurricurs than me. He was trying to build out his resume before college so he could get into MIT or Yale or some other big school. But that also made him way more of a target by both those who were jealous of his talents and those who saw them as something to bully him over.

  "So, what are you thinking for school?" Matt said. "Going local or abroad?"

  "I dunno if I wanna go to BU, man." I said. "Sure, it'd probably be easier to get in, but I want out of this town."

  "Well, you better make up your mind soon, then." Matt said. "Applications won't be open forever."

  "Maybe I'll take a gap year." I suggested. "Take some time to find myself."

  "No one who's ever said that has found themself." Matt said.

  "Oh, how would you know?"

  We left all the talk about our upcoming futures and that and ran around shooting stuff for a few hours until I heard my dad call me for dinner.

  "Sorry man, I gotta go." I said as I took off my headset. "Pasta night."

  "Alright then," Matt said, "more fun for me."

  I powered everything down and went to the dining room. My dad was straining the pasta as I walked in.

  "Oh, Alex, perfect timing." He said. "Set the table, would you?"

  I did as I was told and got out some ptes and forks for us. Dad gave his pasta a light drizzling of tomato sauce and a generous coating of Parmesan while I drowned mine in the the red stuff. We sat down to eat and ate in retive silence.

  "So, there's just today, then tomorrow and then school, huh." Dad said. "Feeling ready?"

  I decided to nod and put him at ease for now.

  "Well, hey," Dad said, his voice suddenly taking on an air of seriousness, " senior year is a big deal. I know that you don't really like to open up, but if you ever need someone to talk to, I'll be right here."

  "Woah, where did this come from?"

  "Hey, I just wanna make sure you're doing ok, kiddo." Dad said. "Wouldn't be a very good dad if I didn't try to be there for ya once in a while."

  "I suppose not." I said. "Though honestly, I feel like you've managed to become, like, a six out of ten dad."

  "Really?"

  "Getting into golf over the summer took you down a point."

  "It's an interesting sport!"

  "It's terminally boring."

  "It takes a lot of kill to py like the pros do, and I appreciate that!"

  "And yet they always seem to screw up their putts."

  Dad ughed.We kept the conversation light for the rest of dinner, and then I looked out our front window and saw that the streetlights were coming on. I hurriedly ate the st of my pasta and rushed to my room.

  "Woah, where's the fire?" Dad said.

  "Uh, sorry Dad," I said, "I promised Matt I'd help him with an MMO thing."

  "Alright," he said, "but don't stay up all night. You got to fix your sleep schedule for school."

  With that I rushed into my bedroom and practically dove for my bag. I opened it and pulled out the wand. It had begun to glow with a soft pink light. I locked the door and sat down on my bed.

  "Um, hello?" I said. "You there?"

  Alex? a voice seemed to whisper straight into my brain.

  "Yeah, it's me." I said.

  I am...weaker than I thought. She said. I need...a vessel...

  "What?" I said. "What do you mean a vessel?"

  Have been in here...for too long...Need...new vessel...

  "Um, do you have any preferences?"

  Something I can move in...

  I looked around my room for something that would work. There was only one thing I could think of.

  I had an anime figurine on a shelf in my room. Well, OK, it wasn't an anime figurine, it was actually of figure of Messa, a character from Chronicle of the Rose War, this JRPG I got into a year ago. She was this tall librarian dy with big gsses and a heavy leatherbound tome she carried. Her figure was posed as if something had interrupted her reading and had made her look up with a curious expression. She wore a long skirt with a billowing blouse, and had straight bck hair that was about waist length. I don't know why I liked her so much as a character. She wasn't my 'waifu' or anything gross like that, and the figurine wasn't lewd at all. I just liked her as a character, I guess.

  "Um, would this work?" I asked, holding the wand up to the figure as if to show it off.

  Hmmm...crude, but sufficient.

  Suddenly the wand began to glow with a bright light, filling the room. I screwed my eyes shut as the light got brighter and brighter. Then it was just gone. I slowly opened my eyes, allowing them to adjust to the darkness of my room. I saw that the figure of Messa looked the same as it had before.

  And then it blinked.

  I jumped back and ended up falling off the bed, hitting the floor with a thud and dropping the wand in the process. I pulled myself to my feet and stared at the figure.

  It blinked again. Slowly, the parts of it's face began to move. First it opened its mouth and let out a yawn, then it wrinkled its nose as if it smelled something. It set down the book it was holding and stretched its arms over its head. It pulled at the fabric of its skirt, and then did a little twirl.

  "Yes, I do believe this will suffice." The figure said in a familiar voice.

  "Wait...you're the wand." I said.

  "Well, not anymore. I must say, I find this form much more appealing." She said as she looked down at herself.

  "What just happened?" I asked.

  "You transferred me from the wand to this doll." she expined. "It was getting pretty stuffy in that thing, anyway. Now I'm feeling much better." As if to prove her point, she jumped off the shelf and managed to nd onto my bed. "Oh, your family must be quite rich if you can afford such comfortable bedsheets." she said, running a small pstic hand over my comforter.

  "We're not-- Look, you said we'd talk more at nightfall." I said. "So now it's time for you to expin a few things."

  "Oh, of course." she said. "Please, ask away."

  "Ok, so st night you said that you don't remember anything about the wand." I said. "Are you sure about that? Like, is there anything you can remember?"

  "Well," she said, "I remember that it has certain rules, but I just can't seem to remember anything else about it."

  "Rules? What rules?"

  "It has some limits. First, it draws it power from the moon, so it can only be used at full power at night. Second, you have to use the right command word in order to use a spell."

  "Um...command word?"

  "Words that command the world around you to perform magic."

  "Oh. Right. Of course. That's so obvious. Do you happen to know any?"

  The figurine took a moment to think. "I...seem to remember a few, but I don't know their meaning. There's zuto, talor, aegir, and agar."

  "Any idea what those do?"

  The figurine shook her head.

  "Ok. Well, I'm gonna need your help figuring this thing out, so I feel like I should at least know your name."

  The figurine just sat there.

  "Don't remember that either?"

  She looked down at my sheets.

  "Ok, well, um...how about Messa?"

  She looked up. "Messa..." she said, rolling the name around her in her mouth. Then she nodded.

  "Ok, Messa,"I said, "I think we need to take this thing for a test drive."

  ***

  I climbed out of my window wearing my bck hoodie, bck sweatpants, and my checkered Vans shoes. Messa was riding with my phone in my left pocket, and the wand was tucked into my right. I hoped I didn't look too much like a burgr as I made my way across town to the BB, which had a nice big soccer field that I hoped would be private enough for some magical testing. When we got there the pce seemed deserted. I hopped the short fence between the field and the street and walked out to the center of the green. I pulled Messa out of my pocket and pced her on the ground.

  "Ok," I said, "so I just say the magic words and this thing will do the rest, right?"

  Messa nodded. "Ok, here it goes." I said.

  I pulled out the wand. It felt slightly warm now. I held it tightly, closed my eyes and tried to pick a word.

  "Talor?" I said. Nothing happened at first. Then I felt something pulse through my whole body, like the shock-wave of an explosion. The pulse hit my body again and again, until it was a constant sensation. At some point my vision went white, but I could pick out something against the background. It was a fuzzy outline of a person, and I could sense it was me. But I also sensed that i could reach out and do something to it. Change it. Shape it. What shape to take, though? Should I make myself stronger, faster, more handsome?

  "I want to be the best version of myself that I can be." I whispered.

  I felt goosebumps and a tingly feeling all over, but then I was back on the field, just a little scared to open my eyes.

  "Alex..." Messa said, "Why do you look like that?"

  "What are you talking about?" I heard an unfamiliar voice say.

  Wait a minute.

  That was me saying that.

  But why did my voice sound so...girly?

  I opened my eyes and looked down.

  "Alex-" Messa said. She didn't get a chance to finish as I reached for my phone. It wasn't in my pocket, since I didn't seem to have pockets anymore, but I was able to spot that it had fallen to the grass at some point. I picked it up and opened my camera. I switched it to selfie mode and saw myself.

  "Oooooooh my god."

  I was a magical girl.

  That was really the only way to put it. I was wearing a purple frilly dress with a puffy tutu-like skirt that stopped just below my knees. The top half was also purple, with a bck ribbon tied around my waist that formed a bow on my back. The sleeves were short with a wavy hem.

  Then there was my face. It was totally smooth, and all my features had been rounded out and feminized. I looked like my own slightly younger sister. My hair had gone from bck to red, and it had grown considerably, going from a short yer of scruff to flowing down my back until it stopped at my hips.

  I dared myself to look down. I couldn't tell you what cup size I was, but it was enough to be noticeable. I did a quick pat check between my legs and confirmed that there had been a pretty big change down there too.

  I stood there poking and prodding at myself for a good five minutes before I looked to Messa, as if for some kind of expnation.

  "Well," she said, "this is interesting."

  "This," I said in my new voice, "is, um, its not what it looks like."

  "So you're telling me you didn't wish to be a girl?"

  "NO!" I said just a bit too forcefully.

  "The dy doth protest too much." Messa said.

  "I'm not a dy!" I said. "I just...I thought that it'd be embarrassing to be a guy waving around a pink wand, so I thought this would make a good disguise."

  I felt bad about lying, but there was no way I was telling her that this whole thing just sort of...happened. Why did I turn into this after wanting to be the best version of myself?

  "You can always transform into someone else." Messa said.

  "Uh, yeah sure, just give me a minute." I said. I looked down at myself again. I was never a ten in the looks department; I was probably hovering around a five before if I'm being honest. But this girl? She was an eight or a nine, easy. More cute than sexy though, but I didn't really mind. I'm not sure sexy would suit me all that well.

  I spun in pce and felt the skirt twirl around me. It felt weird, but manageable. Then I got to thinking: this might actually work to my advantage.

  Think about it, I thought to myself, who would connect this girl to you? You look kind of simir, but no one would be able to tell it's you because everyone already knows you as a guy. You could go out and do anything and no one would think that you're Alex Summers. Plus you have a magic wand. You'll be fine.

  But I couldn't help but feel like there was something missing. Something to bring the look together. If I was gonna be a magical girl then I wanted to commit. I needed a theme. I had a lot of dark colors on, but I didn't want to go full goth. Something goth-adjacent might work, but what?

  That's when I had the idea.

  "Talor."

  I felt a single pulse through my body, and then I felt something resting on my head. I opened my eyes and saw that I was now wearing a purple witch hat with a wide brim. The outside of it was covered in stars woven in with gold thread, and the inside of the cap was bck as night. It was perfect. Messa was staring at me, her eyes wide open.

  "What do you think?" I asked.

  "You look adorable!" Messa said, cpping her hands. I felt an odd but pleasant feeling in my gut at being called adorable. I don't get compliments that often, and I always felt like the ones I did get were by people who were pitying me, but I believed Messa when she said I was adorable.

  "Um, ok, next spell." I said. I held up the wand, feeling a bit more confident now. "Zuto!"

  The wand glowed brightly, and when the glow faded I was holding a staff version of the wand that was about four feet long.

  "Huh." I said. A little disappointing. Then I had an idea. I pced the staff between my legs like I was a witch riding her broomstick.

  "How do I look now?" I asked Messa.

  She didn't get to answer before I felt the staff lurch under me and I was rocketed up into the air.

  "Stop, stop!" I shouted. I came to a sudden stop, clutching the staff tightly. I looked down and saw that I was hovering about thirty feet above the field.

  "Ok, um, go down, slowly." I said. The staff slowly sank down until it was hovering a few feet above the ground.

  "Alex!" Messa yelled. "Are you ok?"

  "Yeah, I'm fine." I said, even though I was still a little rattled. "Just trying to figure out how this works."

  I sat up on the staff. "Ok, um, mush!"

  The staff started floating forward, and soon I had managed to fly around the soccer field. Once I felt in control, I nded and held out my hand for Messa to climb on. She climbed up my arm and took hold of some frills on my shoulder, and we flew up to the roof of the school. We nded and I walked to the edge of the roof. I looked out over the town. It was lit up by streetlights, bathing the whole pce in a warm orange glow.

  "This is your town?" Messa said. "It's so big and so...bright."

  "Trust me, this ain't nothing." I said. "I'll take you to New York sometime."

  "Oh? Has Manhattan grown since--"

  Messa stopped. I looked over and saw that she had pced a hand on her temple.

  "Messa? Are you ok?" I said.

  "I'm fine, I just..." she said, her voice trailing off.

  "Wait," I said, "how do you know what Manhattan is?"

  "I...don't know." She said. "It just...came to me, but I don't know why..."

  She put her hands in her p and looked down. I wasn't sure what to say. I'd never been good in situations like this. Sometimes it felt like there was a wall between me and normal people; like everyone else was experiencing real emotions while I was stuck with some diluted version of them, and that meant I had a hard time reting to others. But seeing her get so sad did something to me. I took her off my shoulder and pced her down on the ground.

  "Messa, look at me." I said. She looked up. A tear somehow rolled down her cheek.

  "I'm going to help you get your memories back," I said, "and we're going to figure out who made the wand and who put you in there. OK?"

  Messa sniffled. "Ok." She said. She wiped away one of her tears. "Thank you, Alex."

  "Oh, wait," I said, "I can't have you use my name while I'm out and about like this. Don't want people to know it's me."

  "Why not?"

  "Well, if someone knew I had this thing, they might do something like hurt my dad in order to get to me, or they might track me down and try to steal it. So I need a secret identity, or like, a superhero name or something like that."

  "Hmmmm...." Messa said, putting her face in one hand, "an alias, then?"

  "Yeah, exactly."

  Messa seemed to think deeply for a second before shrugging. "I don't have any ideas."

  I sighed and looked up at the night sky. There was a bright full moon hanging overhead, surrounded by a field of stars. I furrowed my brow.

  "Hey, how about-"

  "Alex?" I heard Messa say. "What's that?"

  I looked down and out over the town and saw something on the side of the nearby mountain. There was an orange light shining through the trees.

  "Oh, it's probably the Bonfire." I said.

  "Bonfire?"

  "Yeah, it's a thing some of the kids do before the first day of school. They all go out to the woods, get drunk, and there's a bonfire. I've never been."

  "Is the Bonfire supposed to be that bright?"

  I squinted and realized that the fme was a bit bigger than I thought it was.

  "Probably not."

  ***

  Dorothy was nearly at her wit's end.

  She'd cancelled all her meetings for today and had been in her study since dawn, casting the magic detection spell over and over again, waiting for Bckbriar to glow like it had the night before. But nothing. It'd been two hours since she'd st cast the spell, and now she was drinking wine alone. She hadn't even bothered getting out a wine gss. She just drank straight from the bottle.

  She hadn't just been casting her spell all day. She'd had Eliza dig up any and all information on Bckbriar. It was quaint town that dated back to colonial times. Sat at the base of the the northern Appachians, had a moderately well known university, and was pretty in the fall. Very peaceful. Very boring.

  So Dorothy felt like her frustration was moderately understandable. There was nothing about the town that suggested it would hold such magical power. She was at a total loss. Had it been a fluke, some cosmic mishap, a false positive?

  She drank some more wine. The bottle cost more than most people made in a month. She didn't care.

  She set the bottle on the floor and rose to her feet. What the hell. One st spell before bed.

  She steadied herself and put her hand to the map. Her words came out slurred, so she had to give a few tries before she manage to recite the spell correctly.

  There was nothing for a second.

  And then Bckbriar began to glow again.

  ***

  I conjured up a pocket in the dress for Messa to ride in and flew over the town towards the fme. As I got closer I could see that there were a bunch of cars and motorcycles parked along the small road that lead to a clearing in the forest. I flew in closer and saw that there was a crowd of people my age standing around a rge pile of burning logs. There were some grills and chairs scattered around the fire, along with coolers filled with beer. I watched as some guys I recognized from the football team started throwing firewood into the fire as the people around them cheered.

  "Looks like they're just messing around." I said to Messa. "Nothing to worry a--"

  Just then, there was a loud pop, and a chunk of burning wood flew out of the bonfire and nded at the edge of the clearing. Some people yelped, but no one was standing nearby as it fell. However, the piece had nded next to a grill. One with a propane tank.

  "Oh no."

  The propane tank exploded. Burning chunks of metal soared through the air, nding on dry leaves and making them catch fire. Now people had begun to scream. Some ran for their cars, but some tripped on chairs and coolers, falling to the ground and becoming dazed.

  "Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no."

  I felt frozen watching the scene before me. Seeing something like this in a movie was one thing but in real life--

  "Alex!" Messa said into my ear. "you have to help them!"

  "Right, right." I said. I flew down to the ground. The heat around me got even more intense as I nded in the clearing. Nobody even seemed to notice me as they tried to flee the fmes. I watched as one girl stumbled and fell to the ground. I ran over and helped her get to her feet.

  "Are you ok?" I asked.

  The girl looked up at me. She had shoulder length brown hair that was pulled back into a ponytail. She was wearing a bomber jacket over a Nirvana t-shirt and some blue jeans. Her eyes went wide when she saw my outfit.

  "Who...who are you?" she asked.

  I opened my mouth to say something when I heard another explosion. I turned to see that another grill had exploded, sending chunks of debris flying our way. I heard the girl scream.

  I thought quick. I realized the wand was still in flying mode, so I grabbed her shoulder and then willed the wand to move us out of the way. It pulled us to the side, and the debris sailed right through where we'd been just a moment before. I helped her get to her feet."Get out of here!" I said. "I'll stop the fire."

  The girl just nodded and ran off towards the cars. I saw that the partygoers had stopped and were staring out me now. Some had pulled out their phones and were recording everything.

  Well, I thought, time to try out that name.

  "Don't worry, everyone!" I said. "Brightmoon is here!"

  I turned back to face the fmes. They were growing fast. The dry leaves underfoot were acting as kindling; if it kept going, it could reach the town.

  "Messa," I said, "I need some advice here."

  She poked her head out of her pocket.

  "Well, you could still try aegir and agar," She said, "but I can't say if they'll help or not."

  "They're worth a shot." I said. I pointed my wand at the fmes. "Aegir!"

  A gust of wind suddenly shot out of the wand, fanning the fmes even bigger.

  "That didn't help!"

  "Try the other spell!"

  I held out the wand again and took a deep breath.

  Please work please work please work please work.

  "Agar!"

  A drop of water appeared between the two points of the wand's moon, and it began to grow and grow until it was the size of a baseball. It looked small, but I could feel the pressure building up within the wand itself.

  The ball of water suddenly turned into a deluge. Water shot out of the wand and began to flood the clearing. Everything got soaked, and the fmes began to go out one by one. I focused the stream on the pile of burning wood, and eventually it too yielded to the water. Once I was sure all the fmes were out, I lowered the wand and stood there, taking deep breaths and enjoying the smell of non-smoky air. I turned around to make sure everyone got out ok, and I saw that they hadn't, because they were all standing by their cars and looking at me. Some had their phones out and were recording. The girl I helped just stared at me like I was a ghost.

  "Uh, stay safe, y'all." I said. Then I mounted my wand and took off into the sky.

  ***

  I somehow managed to nd back at my window, but at this point I could barely see straight. The night's events had exhausted me.

  I pushed the window open and crawled back into my room. I flopped face first onto my bed, only to be met with the foreign sensation of hitting the bed boob-first. The pain brought a bit of lucidity back, and I realized that I was still in my girl form. I let Messa out of her pocket, put my phone in to charge and then changed back to my old self using the wand.

  "Well, that was an eventful night." Messa said as she hopped from my bed to the bookshelf. "Best get to sleep."

  "Yeah..." I said weakly. I got into bed and pulled the covers over myself. I was out in seconds.

  ***

  Dorothy had Eliza sweeping all social media originating from the Bckbriar area for any sign of unusual sights and phenomenon. The high concentration of magical energy had persisted all night. Someone had to have found something she could use.

  Her answer came when Eliza found a video shot by some teenager and posted to Twitter about thirty minutes ago. It was low-res, but it was exactly what Dorothy was looking for.

  There was a burning forest, and a girl in a witch hat was standing in front of the fmes. She turned to face the camera.

  "Don't worry, everyone! Brightmoon is here!"

  Dorothy paused the video. She pulled out her phone and made a call.

  "Eliza?" She said. "Cancel all my meetings for tomorrow. I'm going to Bckbriar."