“Yes,” answered Rosemary.
The curtain parted, and in came a very young woman whom Rosemary didn’t know. She had the same school uniform that all of the female students at Misty Peaks had — and which, for a change, Rosemary was wearing as well. However, unlike Rosemary, below the crest on this visitor’s uniform was a grey metal tag with the words “SC Secretary” on it.
“Simon Corbin?” the woman asked, incredulously.
“Yes,” answered Rosemary, grudgingly. She wanted to correct her, but still didn’t dare.
“Is that your Halloween costume?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Rosemary, uncomfortably — wishing she could instead simply declare that this was her true self.
“Looks real convincing,” said the young woman. “When I saw you, I thought you were actually a girl. Anyway, ny name’s Sarah Mitchell.” she extended her hand. Rosemary shook it. “I’m the Secretary of the Student Council,” Sarah continued, “and I’m here to get you plugged back in.”
“Plugged back in?” asked Rosemary.
“Yes,” answered Sarah. “We’re going to the Great Hall for dinner — and after that, we’re going back to Hemlock Tower so I can take you to your new room.”
“My new room?” asked Rosemary, somewhat stunned.
“Oh yeah,” said Sarah. “They’re setting up a room just for you on the ninth floor. Usually it’s just seventh-years there, but they don’t really have any one-person rooms on the first floor.”
Rosemary slumped down in her chair.
“You alright?” asked Sarah.
“I’m not used to sleeping by myself in a room,” Rosemary said morosely. This was completely true. At home, she slept on the top bunk of a bunk bed as Serena took the lower bunk. At Misty Peaks, so far, she had had three roommates.
“Well,” said Sarah, “there’s a first time for everything. But don’t worry, I’ll be just next door to you. And if you want, we can make sure that your familiar has access to my room as well as yours, so that I can know if anything scary happens. Will that help?”
Rosemary nodded, sheepishly.
A few moments later, Sarah helped Rosemary up. “You don’t need to bring anything,” said Sarah, “just be sure you’re wearing your key clip — as you always should be. Everything else they’ll send to your new room.” Together, they left the curtained-off area where Rosemary had been staying in her infirmary.
“Oh,” said Madam Harvey to Rosemary as the two passed the nurse’s station. “I need a moment with you before you leave.”
Rosemary looked at Sarah. “It’s okay,” Sarah nodded.
As soon as Sarah stepped aside, Madam Harvey spoke to Rosemary in a hushed tone. “I’m going to need to see you here again Thursday, November the seventh — at latest. And you might want to do a renewal ritual just before coming, because the longer the transformation is locked in for, the longer it’ll be till you have to come in again. Got it?”
“Got it,” said Rosemary.
* * *
Rosemary had dinner with the seventh-years, as Sarah felt it best that the two shouldn’t be separated till Rosemary knew where her new place was. Specifically, they ate with Amy, Lacy, and Ethan.
“I’m sorry, Amy,” Rosemary said.
“What for?” asked Amy.
“I heard you got in trouble,” Rosemary explained, “for helping me.”
“Don’t worry about it,” assured Amy. “Nothing serious. Just two hours detention — that’s it.”
“But if you hadn’t helped me —” Rosemary began to protest
“If I hadn’t helped you,” said Amy, “and something bad had happened to you, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. Two hours detention is nothing next to that.”
“What did you help him with?” asked Sarah.
“Not mine to tell,” answered Amy. She then turned to Rosemary. “You decide if you want Sarah to know.”
* * *
After dinner, Sarah escorted Rosemary back to Hemlock Tower. They went past the Common Room to the hallway with the two staircases. They didn’t go onto the regular staircase on the left. Instead, Sarah took Rosemary three flights up the shortcut staircase on the right. Finally, after they reached the ninth floor, she brought her to the door of room 919.
“Here it is,” said Sarah, “your new room.”
Rosemary stared at the door, afraid to open it.
“Go inside,” said Sarah.
Sheepishly, Rosemary opened the door and turned on the lights. As she came in, she saw that the room, just like Amy and Lacy’s room, had two beds, two desks, two of everything. She saw Luna standing on one of the beds, stretching. Clearly the cat had been asleep when she arrived. As soon as she was done stretching, though, the cat came toward her for attention.
“You coming in?” Rosemary asked Sarah.
“No, I’m fine,” apologized Sarah. “Everything of yours has been moved here. And you can tell which of the furnishings are for you and which ones are the spares because yours are labeled.”
“So some of the things are spares?” asked Rosemary, scratching Luna on the side of the head.
“Yes,” said Sarah. “Just in case you eventually get a roommate. But anyway, I’ll be in the next room, 920, if you need me. And your friends, Amy and Lacy, are just two doors down in room 917. And later, if you want, you can come by and we can set it up so your cat will have access to my room.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Rosemary kept sitting there, petting Luna for a while until Luna felt she had had enough and disappeared into the cat door — which probably led to the same cat house that it had always led to.
Shortly after, a folded piece of parchment faded in as it passed through one of the walls of the room and floated down, landing right on Rosemary’s lap. Rosemary looked down and could see that it was addressed to “Ms. Rosemary Corbin — Misty Peaks Academy”.
She turned the piece of paper over, and noticed that it was fastened in the folded position by a wax seal with the image of an owl. She unfolded the sheet and read the letter written on the inner side:
Rosemary,
I hear you’re out from the infirmary. We’re right now in the second floor’s lounge and we’d love to see you. Can you please come over now?
Seeya!
Lilith
Rosemary laid the note down on her table and walked out the door. She went to the corridor with the stairways and took two flights down on the shortcut staircase and one on the regular staircase down to the second floor. When she got to the lounge, she could see through the tall, arched crystal glass windows and the pane of the same sort of glass on the door that seven of her fellow students were in the room. But it wasn’t until she opened the door and stepped in that she could see who they were. On one couch sat Clara and Samantha. On another couch, just opposite it, sat Lilith in the middle, with Ricky and Jesse on either side of her.
At one end of those couches was a cozy chair facing in on the same space that the two couches enclosed. On that chair sat Mika. Opposite Mika, on another cozy chair at the other end of the couches, sat Tom.
“Hey there, Rosemary!” cheered Lilith, as soon as Rosemary was in the room. Everyone else echoed similar welcomes, as Lilith motioned for Rosemary to sit opposite her, between Clara and Samantha.
“I know we weren’t supposed to tell anyone about you being Rosemary,” said Lilith as soon as Rosemary was seated, “but when you were in the infirmary, and we knew the nurse would find out, we all got really scared.”
“Besides,” added Ricky, “it was starting to be obvious.”
“You could have told us, though,” said Jesse.
“Hey,” retorted Tom. “That’s because we weren’t there when he — I mean she — met the harpy. And you know whose fault that is.”
“Yeah,” blushed Jesse, “but they were told — and …”
“Hey,” said Tom. “She didn’t want to tell more people than she had to. Besides, she still had to live with us. Do you think she wanted us making things weird?” He then turned to Rosemary. “Not that we’d do that. I mean — I wouldn’t have. And if either of these bozos had, I’d straighten them out in no time.”
“Thanks,” said Rosemary, sheepishly.
“Anyway,” said Lilith, “we just wanted to tell you that we all know your secret, and we’ll be behind you no matter what you decide to do going forward.”
Rosemary sat there for a moment, unsure what to say.
“You know I want to be Rosemary all the time,” she said. “You know that’s who I really am.”
“But —” said Clara, knowingly.
“But I’m scared,” said Rosemary.
For a moment, nobody said anything. Samantha, however, leaned in and gave Rosemary a hug.
“I can’t tell you what to do,” said Clara, also patting Rosemary. “But you know, no matter what you decide, we’re here for you.”
“And you know you’ve got friends like Amy,” added Lilith, “who’s willing to get in trouble just to help you.”
“I know you’re all there for me,” said Rosemary. “But you know not everyone’s that nice. I mean — you see how mean Melissa Langford is to me just for daring to wear this in the lead-up to Halloween.”
“Forget her,” said Tom. “She’s just a loser. Why let her stop you from doing what you want?”
“You’re right,” admitted Rosemary.
“What Tom means to say,” said Lilith, “is there’ll always be jerks like Melissa. But ultimately, you have to decide what you want to do.”
“And what do I tell my parents?” asked Rosemary.
“You’ve got over a month and a half to think of that,” said Clara. “But whatever they say, you’ve got friends who’ll stand up for you.”
“And,” said Mika, “I know places in Oak Ridge you can go if you need to.”
Rosemary thought for a moment, and then smiled. “You’re right,” she said. “I can’t keep going on like this. Rosemary is who I am. That’s who I’ve got to be.”
* * *
Rosemary stayed with her friends in the second floor’s lounge for a while longer. When everyone left, she went back upstairs to the ninth floor. Instead of going back into her own room, though, she knocked gently on Sarah’s door.
“Who is it?” she heard Sarah ask.
“It’s me,” she answered.
“Simon?” asked Sarah’s voice.
“Yeah,” said Rosemary, uneasily.
“Give me a moment,” said Sarah.
A minute later, Sarah opened the door. “Come in!” she said.
Hesitantly, Rosemary stepped in to Sarah’s room. She looked around and saw that, like her own room, it had two of everything.
“You here to set up the cat access?” asked Sarah.
“Yes,” said Rosemary, “but something else too. Did they tell you why I was moved to a different room?”
“No,” said Sarah. “They just said that for reasons that need not be gone into, you needed to be moved to a different room. What? Were you having trouble with your roommates?”
“No,” explained Rosemary. “What happened is, I had an accident and had to go to the infirmary — and they found out that I’ve been under a somamorphic spell since the day after I made my wand.”
“One minute,” said Sarah. “You’re under a somamorphic spell?”
“Yes,” said Rosemary.
“Wow,” commented Sarah. “You’re lucky they let you stay in school. I hear that except in special cases, they don’t put up with that stuff.”
“Yeah,” said Rosemary. “They told me I should have gotten their approval ahead of time. I’m lucky that all they did to punish me for not doing that is four hours of detention.”
“That and putting you in a room by yourself,” noted Sarah.
“No,” said Rosemary. “That they did because with the change I made, I can’t be in a room with my old roommates.”
“What?” asked Sarah.
“Because I’m a girl,” said Rosemary.
“One moment,” said Sarah. “So you had a somamorphic spell cast on you to make you a girl?”
“I cast it on myself,” said Rosemary. “I mean, I didn’t make the trait imprint stone — but I used it to cast the spell on myself. And I’ve been renewing it every week to the max ever since. And I did it because that’s who I am inside — and I want to be that on the outside too.”
“Woah,” said Sarah, sitting down on her bed. “And so they’re putting you, a first-year, all by yourself?”
“Yes,” said Rosemary. “I can’t be in a room with boys. And I guess they also can’t put me in a room with other girls.”
“Well yeah,” said Sarah. “That’s probably ’coz you can’t yet lock the spell in for long enough. But they should think of something other than putting you away by yourself.”
“I don’t know,” said Rosemary.
The two sat in silence for a moment — Sarah on her own bed, Rosemary on the spare bed.
“So, do you have a girl’s name?” asked Sarah.
“Yes,” said Rosemary. “Rosemary. Anyway, I used Halloween as the excuse when I started dressing like this — but now I’ve decided that Friday, after Halloween is over, I’m not going to go back to dressing like a boy. I’m staying like this. And then, people will know.”
* * *
The next morning, Rosemary went to breakfast with Lilith, Samantha, and Mika. The meal seemed to be going normally, until all of a sudden, Samantha turned to her.
“So,” asked Samantha, “what was it like being chewed out by Professor Brown?”
“What?” asked Rosemary.
“I mean,” said Samantha, “didn’t Professor Brown give you a talking-to when she gave you detention?”
Rosemary just stared at Samantha, confused.
“Oh,” said Samantha. “So she just told you you had detention, and that’s it?”
“Oh no,” said Rosemary. “She didn’t tell me that. It was Dr. Fletcher.”
“You mean the school metapsychologist, Dr. Fletcher?” asked Lilith.
“Yes,” answered Rosemary.
“Did he say anything about the Chamber of John Hendrix?” asked Mika.
“No,” said Rosemary. “But I’ve been reading up on John Hendrix. You probably know he went to Misty Peaks.”
“That goes without saying,” agreed Mika.
“And when he went here,” said Rosemary, “he didn’t show any talent at all for prophecy. So people don’t know how he did everything that he did later on.”
“I bet whatever it is,” said Lilith, “there’s something tied to it in that chamber of his.”
“Would it still be there?” asked Rosemary.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” replied Samantha.
“Because,” reminded Rosemary, “the chamber was breached this past summer. Remember? What if whoever broke in took whatever it was?”