TO THE MANA BORN: THE LIFE OF DONNA
Chapter 1 — After the Screaming Stopped
Langdon jerked upright in bed and realized the screaming had been his.
Something about his body felt wrong.
Footsteps hurried down the hallway outside his bedroom door. He had woken up screaming, loud enough to wake the house.
The footsteps stopped outside the door.
“Langdon?” His stepmother, Elisa, spoke through the paneled wood, her voice cautious, almost a whisper..
“Don’t come in!” Langdon shouted.
The sound of his own voice made him freeze. It was thin. Higher than it should have been.
“Langdon, I’m coming in.”
“Don’t.”
The doorknob turned.
It was three in the morning. Elisa stood in the doorway, looking pale and unfinished, her hair loose around her shoulders, her robe pulled tight at the collar.
Then she looked at the bed.
Her expression froze.
The person sitting tangled in Langdon’s sheets was not her husky stepson.
It was a brown-haired girl wearing Langdon’s oversized white tee shirt.
For several seconds neither of them spoke.
The girl looked about eighteen. Her eyes were wide and furious, as if she had just been thrown into the worst situation imaginable.
“What do you see?” the girl demanded hoarsely. “What do I look like?”
“I see a girl whom I have never seen before,” Elisa said uncertainly.
Then she forced her self to ask: “Who are you… and where is Langdon?”
“What do you mean, who am I?” the girl snapped.
“I mean exactly that. Who and what are you? Langdon’s new girlfriend?”
The girl stared at her in disbelief.
“Don’t call me a girl!”
She flung the sheets aside and jumped out of bed.
“Stop staring!” she said wildly. “Don’t look at me at all until I wake up.”
“Whoever you are,” Elisa said slowly, “you are not asleep. And you should be polite. This is my house you're in.”
The girl shook her head as if she were trying to wake up from a dream.
“I’m Langdon,” she shouted. “I went to bed, and now I wake up like this!”
Elisa stared at her.
“You are very confused,” she whispered. “Why don’t you look in the mirror and then tell me who you really are?”
The girl glared at her.
Then she turned and stumbled toward the mirror on the closet door.
Elisa snapped on the light.
#
The girl in the mirror looked nothing like Langdon Arden.
She had dark, wavy hair that hung in a messy curtain around her shoulders. Her eyes were hazel, wide with shock and anger. Her young face was flushed and tense.
Langdon leaned closer.
The reflection leaned closer.
“This is sick,” he muttered, “but at least I know I’m dreaming.”
He grabbed the hem of the oversized sleep shirt and lifted it.
The body underneath was unmistakably female.
Langdon had chased enough girls and paged through enough porn to know what a girls looked like under their clothes.
Then he looked at the reflected face again. “Well, damn!”
Distraught though he was, he could see how pretty his reflection was. But where were his muscles?
Langdon Arden had been a stocky, big-shouldered eighteen-year-old who got through life on size, attitude, and a willingness to intimidate people.
The reflected person looked like someone who belonged in sunlight, not standing in a messy bedroom at three in the morning.
Langdon lifted the shirt a little higher to have a look. He saw that the body it contained had everything a girl should have.
He slapped himself. “Why in hell can’t I wake up?”
"Surely you have memories of who you really are?" said Elisa.
The girl pushed her shirt-hem low and veered toward her stepmother.
“This is a dream,” she said stubbornly.
“I don’t think so, but I don't understand it either. Only magic like in the movies could turn a boy into a girl, and Langdon didn’t play with magic"
The girl, running both hands through her hair, began talking quickly. “I did do some wish magic, but I didn’t wish for this!”
“What are you talking about?”
The girl started jabbering about the medallion and how she’d been chanting over it for the last few nights.
“If that's true, there has to be magic in the world.” Elisa said when Langdon finished. “I used to watch online videos about strange things. Stories about money created out of nothing, about people cursed to have accidents. Supernatural stuff. Also, there were stories about people turning into other people.”
Langdon stared at her.
“I got that medallion in the mail and the note said it could grant wishes. It sounded dumb, but I gave it a try and wished to be the most popular guy in school. Guy — not girl!”
“If you really are Langdon, magic has to be real. But you have to prove it. Langdon has a middle name he hates, and he never tells anyone what it is. What's your middle name?"
"Upchurch!"
"That's right!" She hesitated and then said, “…maybe it's because you played with magic, that this has happened to you.”
Langdon dropped onto the bed and pounded the mattress with both fists.
“This is insane—insane—insane!”
“That net series I watched had some shows about breaking spells. It said there are people who supposedly can use different magic to deal with this sort of thing.”
Langdon looked up.
“There was a medical doctor in one of those programs,” Elisa hurried on. “A specialist. He said that strange cases come into offices and hospitals that seem impossible. Real doctors can’t help the sufferers, so they send them to magical practitioners.”
Langdon stared, a glint of hope in his — her — hazel eyes.
“Those are people deal with magic,” Elisa said quietly. “Breaking spells. Maybe they can fix a transformation, too.”
Langdon rolled over and sat up.
“I never heard of such a thing!”
“Doctors are scientists and scientists refuse to admit that there is real magic. My gynecologist and I are good friends, so I asked her about doctors knowing about magic,” Elisa said hurriedly. “She said the stories were true. She even had a phone number of a magical practitioner she once had to consult.”
Elisa glanced toward the hallway, her mind racing.
“I’m going to call her.”She gave me her home number for emergencies.
Before Langdon could answer, Elisa slipped from the room.
#
While his stepmother was gone, Langdon stepped reluctantly back to the mirror on the closet door.
He was not surprised when that damned girl showed up again.
Langdon lifted the shirt once more with grim concentration. There was no way of escaping the fact that he was inside a completely female body.
And, in the nude, that girl was annoyingly attractive.
Langdon shoved the shirt down again.
“My whole life is going to be ruined!” he--she--muttered.
#
Elisa returned a few minutes later.
“I spoke to my doctor,” she said from the doorway. “She gave me the phone number of her magic man, and I called him.”
Langdon turned toward her excitedly.
“He’s willing to see us this morning. Nine o’clock.”
“Today?”
“Yes.”
“Why not tonight?” Langdon declared. “I don’t want to stay a girl for another six hours.”
“He said there’s no point in rushing. Transformations like this aren't supposed to get worse with time.”
“I sure hope not!” Langdon groaned.
Elisa hesitated. “Do you want to get up and have an early breakfast?”
“No!” Langdon said. “I still think this must be a dream. I want to fall asleep and wake up again.”
#
Langon wasn't able to fall asleep, and when she staggered out of bed, she was still the same girl she had seen in the mirror.At 8:30 am, Elisa drove her new stepdaughter to the address she had. The doctor’s office turned out to be inside a converted Victorian house in a quiet part of the city.
There was no sign outside except a small brass plate by the door with a suite number.
The man who answered the door looked like what a doctor ought to look — mid-fifties, gray hair, calm expression, white coat.
His foyer was serving as a small waiting room.
He shook Elisa’s hand politely.
Then he looked at Langdon. She was wearing a shirt, pants, and shoes borrowed from her stepmother. “Is this the transformed boy?”
“Yes,” said Elisa.
“We are apparently dealing with an extremely effective spell. Sit down,” he said to Langdon. “Tell me what happened.”
The black-maned girl told him, barely stopping for breath.It was the same story she’d told Elisa. The medallion. The chant. Falling asleep. Waking up.
The doctor listened without interrupting.
Finally, he leaned back in his chair.
“I’m going to tell you something most medical doctors pretend not to believe,” he said calmly. “Not because it isn’t true, but because the medical associations insist the public is not ready to hear that most science is just a bunch of hooey.”
Langdon waited with fists clenched tight.
“Magic is real.”
The girl blinked.
“Damn! I was hoping Elisa was all wrong about that.”
“She’s not.”
The doctor folded his hands.
“Your mistake is very common. You attempted to make a wish by using magical forces you didn’t fully understand. That is extremely dangerous.”
Langdon frowned.
“I was trying to improve my life. Not turn into a girl.”
“Yes,” the doctor said mildly. “But magic listens to the unconscious mind more than it listens to the conscious mind.”
Langdon stared at him.
“Your unconscious desires can have wishes different from what you ask for, and it can redirect magical forces in unexpected ways.”
“You’re telling me my subconscious made the magic change me into a girl?”
“That is a simplified explanation,” the doctor said. “But essentially correct.”
Langdon felt heat rising to her face.
The doctor continued calmly.
“In thirty years, I have seen eleven cases of transformation. Each involved a person's hidden fantasy that the magical brought into reality.”
Langdon sat saying nothing.
“The good news,” the doctor said, “is that transformations can be reversed.”
Langdon leaned forward avidly.
“How?”
“It will take time.”
“How much time?”
“Almost exactly one year.”
Langdon groaned.
“Magic is influenced by the position of the stars,” the doctor continued. “The celestial alignment must return to the configuration that existed during the original transformation.”
He left the room and came back with some papers. He handed Langdon a printed sheet.
“This describes how to perform the meditation you must follow.”
Langdon took it. The magic-man gave Elisa a half-inch of additional papers.
"This in information to help you manage this unusual situation," he told her. "Like, it would not be wise for you or Langdon to tell the world about this. It would scoffed at and people would laugh at her for pretending to be a transformed boy. You might want to establish a new identity for her. There is a contact email for a person who creates false identity papers. Maybe you can say that Langdon ran away, and the girl living with you is a niece or something. Talk the details over with the identity man."
He glanced back at Landon. “There is one important thing you hve to remember,” the magic-doctor said.
Langdon looked up.
“The reversal will only succeed if your conscious mind strongly desire to return to your original form. If its wish to be a male isn't stronger than your unconcious wish to be a girl, the spell-breaking ritual might fail and you may have to remain as you are now for as long as you live.”
Langdon stared at him.
“You’re saying the spell might not be broken?”
“There is that danger. If you find that you enjoy living as a girl,” the doctor said calmly, “that will empower your subconscious to resist the counter-spell.”
Langdon shook her head with dream in her eyes.
“I have a will like iron," she said.”
The doctor smiled faintly.
“Many people say that. But in your case, I hope your every wish comes true.”
#
The ride home was quiet.
Langdon sat in the passenger seat, arms crossed, looking grumpy. She's just been told that she would have to remain female for an entire year. She couldn't let the people at school find out what happened!
The idea of enduring this for a year was ridiculous!
Still… the doctor had had tried to encourage her.
But what was the choice. If she couldn’t tough it out, her only other way out was suicide!
#
Later that evening Langdon gloomily in bed for an hour, until she gathered nerve enough to face the mirror again.
When she did, that same infernal girl stared back at her.
As far as girls' went, this one was absolutely beautiful. Langdon had look at himself as a superior short of man. Maybe it was natural that his female side was a superior sort of girl. Damn, plenty of girls in AI videos didn't look so good as her reflection. That was a good thing, maybe, but she didn't dare feel good about it. She remembered the doctor’s warning about letting herself enjoy being being a girl too much.
Falling in love with her own image might make the spell permanent.
Langdon slapped herself three times on the cheeks.
“Keep yourself angry,” she muttered.
Things were going to be like this for a year.
This was going to be the worst year of the rest of her life.
#
Outside the room, Elisa picked up the phone and dialed a number she knew by heart. This had been a day that was too much for her to handle alone. She needed someone to talk to.
The lawyer from Wizard's Law Office, Jethra Courtindale, answered on the second ring.
“Well, how did it go?” the lawyer asked.
Elisa looked back at Langdon’s bedroom door and then hurriedly explained everything that had happened so far in a low voice.
“From what you say, everything is moving ahead smoothly,” Jetra repied confidently. “Now what we have to do is give that girl of yours the most fun and exciting year a girl has ever had. By the time we're through, she'll be singing, "I Enjoy Being a Girl!"
TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 2
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