The Dream

by Prudence Walker

  

Maggie grumbled as she heard the alarm clock go off. She thumbed it off, sighing, as she tried to recall the details of the dream that had been rudely interrupted. Her fading memories told her that it was "the dream," the one she wished she could have experienced for real.

Climbing out of bed, she arranged her stuffed animals carefully before making her bed tidy. She talked to them as if they were alive, and in her mind, the part that housed the small girl she had never been, they were alive. Each had their personality, and never a day went past, that she didn't spend time playing and talking to them.

"There you go Eeyore," she said, placing the stuffed donkey between lion heart and Boots her kitten.

Her job as a meter maid was made harder by the fact that she was a TS. Not only was her job made more difficult by the angry and often threatening motorists that over stayed their welcome and got ticketed, her once masculine body was still not immune to being read. This gave extra fuel to those that liked to vent their spleen on the source of those annoying pink stickers.

Her day was divided between doing her meter reading job and sleeping, with a limited time to go to the library, where she talked to her friends on the computers, and finding time to scrounge enough food to eat. She had a job she disliked because of the very nature of it caused much ill feelings. Unfortunately jobs that allowed her the freedom to dress enfemme, without formal education were few and far between. Eating was unfortunately also a necessity, which required money. Maggie was barely scraping though life; living from one paycheck to the next, without any luxuries one normally took for granted.

Maggie was a gentle soul normally, just wanting to do her job as best she could. Living as she did, she often drifted into her dream world where she was a little girl. He inner child was rarely ever allowed out to play, and the adult part of her despaired that magic part of that which was the child, might fade away from neglect.

One particularly windy day, as she was battling half way through her route, she saw an oldish looking woman loose her bag of groceries to the insistent wind. Maggie watched as she approached and saw no one bothering to help her as her packets of food skittered across the sidewalk. One of the more errant packages, a bow of cereal, blew up towards Maggie's feet. Maggie stopped it with her foot and picked it up. She returned it to the woman and helped chase after a few more of the lighter items. It seemed to Maggie that the packages were imbued with a weird sense of mischief, for when she was just about to grasp them; they evaded her fingers by inches, forcing her to expend precious energy that she had little to spare.

Determined, now she had committed to help the woman, Maggie persisted long after many would have given up. Puffing and out of breath, Maggie presented the woman with the last of her shopping.

"Thank you my dear," offered the woman, her eyes seeming to drill right into Maggie's soul. "You needn't have troubled yourself like that," she added, reaching for Maggie's hand and holding it for a moment. She released the hand after Maggie smiled, and added a cryptic remark as Maggie turned to leave.

"Once more you'll be tested, before your dreams desire."

Maggie continued on, puzzled by the odd remark, but as the reality of her job pressed in on her, she shrugged it off and concentrated on her work. Further on, she came to a car whose meter was expired. Noting that it had her mark on its front wheel, she knew it had overstayed its welcome and was about to receive a nice pink ticket. As she looked down to get her book, she saw a coin on the ground. It shone as if it was freshly minted. She picked it up, looking at it denomination. Should she keep it and buy an extra treat at a cake shop she knew, or give the person whose car was over parked, the benefit.

Unhesitatingly, she went to insert the coin into the meter. It wouldn't go in, it seemed to resist as if it were alive. Sighing, she dug another coin out of her purse and inserted it into the meter, thinking,' I'll just use the new coin instead. She never saw the glint, as the silver coin turned into a gold hued one, nor did she see the lettering change on the face of it. " Good for one wish."

Having spent time gathering the woman's groceries, meant Maggie had to forego her usual break in the afternoon, if she was finish her route on time. Sighing, she continued working, looking forward to when she could go to the library to use one of the computers there, to visit a particular chat room. A chat room she frequented whenever times permitted. There she would indulge her fantasy of being a 5-year-old girl. Never having experienced growing up as a girl, this allowed her to experience some of the joys she had missed. She had a virtual mother and a sister, another who also interacted as a child. The love she felt from these unseen faces in the form of text on a monitor screen, sustained her starved of affection soul. It was this love that kept the dark forces at bay, and stopped her thoughts from contemplating taking another final path.

Arriving at the library, she found that when she tried logging on to the chat room, a message came up, telling her it was classified as porn and therefore now on the restricted list. Maggie felt tears of frustration at not being able to access her one safe haven from the drudgeries of her every day life. She checked her email account and found several from her 'mother' and 'sister.'

She avidly read those and fired of a reply, telling them of her plight. There was another email, part of a story that was being sent from New Zealand from her 'auntie.' Maggie pulled put a floppy and downloaded it for later reading at home on her old non-Internet viable computer. She just managed to compose a reply, thanking her 'auntie,' for the update, when the library started closing.

She went home disappointed that she hadn't been able to talk to Shelly, her virtual mother, Shelly was a self proclaimed witch like Jenna, and was always promising that Maggie would get her wish. After knocking up some dinner for herself, Maggie decided to try and write some letters on her computer so when she next went to the library, she could upload them from a floppy to be sent out.

As she sat, something dug into her bottom. It was the coin she had found, still in her pocket of the trousers of the uniform she was wearing. Maggie dug it out and was about to toss it over to the table, when she saw its altered appearance.

"Wow! Its turned gold coloured," she exclaimed to herself, as she examined it more closely.

"Good for one wish? Huh! Wonder if it's true?" Maggie mused hopefully. She knew in her mind that magic coins don't exist, except in stories, but in her heart there lay a small belief of hope that there was magic in the world. She thought of her dream, the one she had most nights if she was lucky. The one in which she was 5 years old and a girl and living with Shelly her mother. She clenched the coin and closed her eyes, preparing to formulate her wish, then paused. As much as she wanted to give her wish the chance to blossom, she wondered if she was being fair on Shelly. She knew Shelly wasn't born a woman, like so many of her chat room friends, and if there was any chance that the coin was real, she couldn't just something that would affect others without their permission.

A thought struck her, luckily it didn't hurt, Shelly and Jenna had always said that they wished their magic was real. So instead of wishing for something for herself, she would wish that Shelly and Jenna really were witches with witchly powers at their disposal. As Maggie made the wish in her mind, with all the will of her mind concentrating on it, she thought she felt the coin warm and a faint satisfied voice echoed in her head, "your wishes are done and done."

'Strange, that sounded like the woman's voice I helped today,' thought Maggie, as she opened her hand and peered at the coin. "Wow! It's turned back into a sliver half dollar," cried Maggie in surprise. "I hope that means my wish came through."

Far away in Texas and in New York, the magic of the coin settled into the sleeping forms of Jenna and Shelly, imbuing them with the knowledge and the wherewithal to perform real magic, magic that had lain dormant for countless years. Had anyone been at Stonehenge or at the some of the other centres of ancient magic concentrators, and had known where to look, they may have seen an aura that flickered around the runes before streaming in a direction that would end up in America. Streams from Egypt and from Easter Island and many places in the world where magic was once practiced all feed the stream into the two bodies of Shelly and Jenna.

Both Shelly and Jenna felt the difference once they woke. They could feel the magic surging in their bodies and instinctively knew the gestures and mental disciplines to manifest the power constructively. Jenna woke first feeling strange, she could sense the power filling her and there seemed to be a link to...someone she knew, someone who also had an aura of power. Concentrating, she felt it come to her, it was her sister Shelly. Jenna called her on the phone, knowing they needed to talk.

"Jenna! What's up, wait let me guess, you have the power too?" Shelly answered, as she felt the power surge through her own body. Shelly sensed something else as well, the person responsible for this marvellous gift, Baruchah, the Yiddish name of her daughter Maggie. She could sense her sister Jenna's wariness of trying out her power, unlike Shelly who was born for this moment and knew exactly what to do.

"Maggie wished on a coin for us to be witches," stated Shelly.

"But magic..."

"Doesn't exist?" completed Shelly, laughing gently, as she muttered a few phrases making use of it to give herself the female body she dreamed of for so long. "Go ahead sis, make yourself a genetic woman like I just did. I can feel your desire from here. I'm going to give Maggie a hug when she wakes...no I'm going to wake her with a hug, want to join me?" she asked, readying her transport spell.

"Sure. Just let me change first," Jenna begged, feeling a wonderful headiness fill her mind as she completed changing her form to its natural counterpart. Once done, she could feel the magic flow easier as if being more in harmony with nature.

Finding the transport spell in her head and orientating on both Maggie and Shelly, Jenna appeared in Maggie's bedroom in the same instant as Shelly. The spell placed her beside Shelly, as it wasn't possible for them to appear in the sane spot. Jenna looked at Shelly, smiling as she saw her friend for the first time. Shelly was wearing a long robe of silk with loose sleeves at the wrists reminiscent of those worn by magic users in past ages. It was a cream colour with iridescent threads in the weave that flashed as she moved. Jenna looked down at her blouse and jeans and sighed. Raising her arms above her head, Jenna chanted a quick spell. As she lowered her hands down to her side, her clothes changed into a similar robe as Shelly, except the colour was a buttercup yellow.

The change in attire, took only a moment of time. Turning to look at the sleeping Maggie, they saw that she was clutching one of the stuffed figures to her side. With a quiet, "shall we?" Shelly moved forward to touch the sleeping Maggie, after getting the nod from Jenna. Maggie stirred sleepily, before turning over and opening her eyes. Seeing two people standing bye her bedside, gave her a moments fright, before the calming voice of Shelly spoke to her.

"Hello my daughter, we much to discuss."

"Shel… momma?" Maggie gasped before looking at the other figure. "Auntie Jenna, you're here too?" she said rubbing at her eyes in wonder.

"You wished us to become true witches?" Jenna asked Maggie gently, as she sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Yes, I found this coin, it said good for one wish. I wanted to wish for my dream to come true, but then I thought that if you were real witches, you could help more people with the magic and that was more important than my silly dream coming true," Maggie explained.

"I know what your dream is, Maggie," Shelly whispered, as she came and hugged Maggie. "You want to be my five year old daughter and grow up as a girl, experiencing everything you missed."

Maggie looked wide-eyed at her chat mom, a sense of anticipation making her heart thud.

"You're wondering if your dream is still possible, well… let me ask you one thing. Do you truly want to be my daughter and allow me to give you the love you missed out on in this reality?"

"OH MOMMA, YES!" Wept Maggie, flinging her arms around Shelly.

"Alright then, lets begin." So saying, Shelly lifted Maggie out of bed and indicated to Jenna to take the other hand of Maggie, making a circle, as Shelly grasped Jenna's free hand.

Jenna felt the words of the chant enter her head and repeated them in synchrony to Shelly as she opened herself to the magic. For Maggie, she felt like she was being filled with energy, as the magic flowed. She barely felt the changes as her body shed its accumulated mass as the years peeled away. She did feel the remnant of her old sex as it grew smaller and altered. Her arms lifted as her height shrank, until she had to stretch to keep holding on to her momma and aunties hands. Finally it was done; the nightie Maggie was wearing was now pooled in a silken mass around her feet. Released from the circle, Maggie looked herself over, giggling in the very high pitch of a child.

" Momma, I'm liddle," she squeaked, as she ran her hands over her new body. She found her enunciation of words difficult, but she didn't mind, seeing as she still had all her knowledge of who she had been. In her excitement, Maggie hadn't noticed the room had changed; in fact she wasn't in her old place anymore.

"Yes you are," confirmed Shelly, lifting Maggie into her arms with ease, and planting a soft kiss on Maggie's forehead.

"Where are we?" Maggie asked, as she saw the room from the elevated position for the first time.

"Where you belong honey, with me in my home. I hope you like your new bedroom my Baruchah," Shelly explained.

"Oh it's just onerfull momma and ... YES!" She exclaimed, as she spotted her animals and dolls, piled neatly on the bed. Maggie wriggled her way out of Shelly's arms and ran to pick up an armful of her friends. "My friends came too," Maggie squealed in delight.

"Of course honey, you don't think we would forget them?" Jenna chided her gently.

Maggie tried to run to Jenna to give her auntie a hug, but the much too long nightie tangled her stubby legs and she nearly fell on her face. Only a quick twitch of Shelly's finger that released a levitation spell prevented Maggie from a nose wheel landing. Maggie squealed, as she floated over to Jenna, where she was promptly snagged out of the air for quick cuddle.

Maggie felt her nightie shrink to a more suitable size, as more magic from her momma's talented fingers was expended.

"You sure seem to be adapting well to having magic at your beck and call sister," Jenna mentioned enviously, looking at Shelly in amazement.

"It's funny you should say that, after all, you had more power before with your physic abilities, than I did," Shelly began, I on the other hand, was always the witch of the chat room, Maybe it's because I was a witch with no power, I knew how the spells should work, it just needed to magic to apply it," offered Shelly, shrugging her shoulders.

"Speaking of chat rooms, I think a meeting of the minds is in order," Jenna responded.

"Indeed, this should be very interesting," smiled Shelly, with a hint of mischief in her eyes.

"Oh oh! I think so too, seeing that look in your eyes," laughed Jenna, feeling a sense of excitement at the prospects of their news.

"Momma? Will I be able to see awnty Prue and her hair munching moose?" (Maggie in her five-year-old kitten persona had always called Prue's muse, a moose and made it take on an identity of its own, whenever she visited the chat room. One of its quirks was the ability to chew hair while whispering in Prue's ear.)

"I think so kitten, she should be still in the room for another hour or two," Jenna replied.

The three held hands again and instantly they seemed to appear in a room with a large circular pink couch. There was a round table in the centre with all sorts of food and drinks on it. Maggie ended up sitting between Shelly and Jenna, and she bounced impatiently on the couch as the others drew in the others one at a time. One minute there was just the three, then a brunette popped into view with a magically applied nametag on her blouse. Maggie didn't need no name badges, as she instantly recognised her auntie Prue from New Zealand.

Maggie squealed and ran to her surprised aunt, giving her a hug as she hopped on her lap. Maggie seemed to see a fuzzy appearing moose head with a tiny body, poking out from under Prue's hair. Maggie giggled and scooped up the mystical moose, and set it on her own shoulder, as she tried to tell her auntie everything in one continuous sentence.

"Whoa there! Kitten, let me get this straight, you found a magic coin and wished on it, and now both Jenna and Shelly are real witches, and that's how I'm here? Wherever here is?" she asked, quirking her eyebrow at Shelly for further elaboration.

"Yupper awntie Prue, you gotted it right first times," Beamed Maggie, feeling proud that her rush of words had been understood.

"Here,' is a pocket in time, where everyone can meet in the form of their choosing," Shelly explained. "No time will elapse in real life until you want to return." She further added.

Others then started popping into the room, Janet, Donna, Cathleen, Bob and Rich were just the first of many to feel amazed to see each other in the flesh, even if that flesh was a product of their own minds and the way they saw themselves. Explanations took time, only in the reality of the room as no time passed in the real world. Some like Cathleen chose to appear as a child, as Cathleen had a daughter mother relationship with Jenna in the chat room. Needless to say, there was a lot of tears and hugging going on as everyone finally met everyone else. Then the real bombshell fell as Shelly called for silence.

"I'm going to begin with a once in a life time offer," she announced, into the near silence. "Anyone wishing to keep the body that they have chosen can do so. Those like Danielle, Heather, Rich and Bob with health problems will have them fixed regardless of that. All you need to do is visualise how you want things to be and log in tomorrow. If things turn out not quite as you desire, you can alter them. "Stuck" is not an option, unlike some of the stories you may have read."

Babble reigned as the implications sank in. Shelly was inundated with questions of. "Will I need a new identity? What about my parents and friends?" Shelly explained that reality would fill in the discrepancies from their old life to the new, and that they could select those that they wanted to know both realities. Further, Shelly told them that any particularly unpleasant memories they didn't want to keep could also be changed, but she wouldn't allow a complete memory rewrite.

As people in the real world logged into the chat room and saw the others logged in, a message would come up from Shelly Shalimar, inviting them to come into the party. If they accepted, they appeared amongst the others, and were given the same choices. After several hours, many opted to leave, anxious to begin their new lives, but promising to remain in touch so they could share their experiences. Jenna suggested that maybe they should each tell their own individual stories of how their lives changed and post them for others to read.

Shelly stayed on in the room she had created for a while, to catch those late comers from the other side of the globe, while Jenna and Prue left with Maggie to put the over excited child to bed. It was a really poignant moment as for the first time they could tuck her into bed for real and give her the first of many hugs that had previously only been cyber ones. Jenna gave Prue the ability to transport herself (and her moose) to wherever Shelly or Jenna happened to be at any given time. This would mean she could visit Maggie and her momma or Jenna and Cathleen, who had decided to become Jenna's daughter, at any time of the day or night. Jenna also provided a linking spell that would allow Prue to sense when she was needed or invited over.

That night, for the first time in her life, the dream that Maggie had always wished could come true, did not fill her slumbering mind. Instead, her dreams changed to scenes and memories of a life growing up with Shelly and Cathleen and Jenna. When she finally stirred the next morning she wondered if everything that had happened the previous day was indeed true or just a fevered dream. She lay there, motionless, hoping that when she opened her eyes, it would be to the wonderful room Shelly had created for her and not the same old room in her old life. She cracked open one eye, and checked the room, holding her breath...YES!

The end, or maybe its the beginning.

This story is dedicated to a wonderful person that I've grown to know and love. May all your dreams come true Maggie O'Malley.

  

  

  

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© 2003 by Prudence Walker. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, and compilation design) may be printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without the express written consent of StorySite and the copyright holder.