Mark of the Rising Sun
Into the unknown

The vehicle was extraordinary. It got us hundreds of miles in only a few minutes. One minute we were on the east coast, an hour later, we were back on the west coast again. In fact, I wasn’t too far away from the city I started in. They lived in Beaverton, Oregon. I was excited; I could easily get back in touch with my family. I wondered what they had been told when I disappeared last month. I would have to contact them later and find out.

We stopped in front of a blue, two-story home with a huge yard. There were trees everywhere, and the grass was greener than any other yard for as far as I could see. The smell of honey was in the air, and there was a slight breeze. We climbed out of the car, and up the front walk, me looking everywhere for things that looked out of the ordinary. It was a magic house, so there must be magical stuff, but all seemed normal.

Inside the house, everything seemed normal as well. I got a tour of the house from my new parents. The computers, T.V., the kitchen, and the appliances looked like any other place I had been to. It confused me, but I kept quiet as we continued. We went through the bathroom, an office, and several empty rooms. Eventually, we hit my bedroom. I nearly vomited as the place had been almost completely decorated in pink. I turned away, the sight of it making me sick. When I looked up again, it was decorated in a style more to my liking.

In answer to my questioning glance, my mom said, “The room has been enchanted to decorate to your standards. Just think about how you want it, and it will change.” I spent a couple minutes toying with it before deciding on something I enjoyed and could live in. My bedroom was the last stop on the tour, so we headed to the living room to talk further.

“So I am a bit confused, where are all the magical items, I was expecting something different than a mostly normal home.”

“You have been deceived by books, movies and other sources. We try to blend in with the world. If we were too different from the normal world, people would notice, and we would be outed. We take what is already out there and improve upon it.” My dad explained.

“You mean like the car?”

“Precisely, we took the car and used magic to make it faster and a lot safer. Our cars are practically self-driving, with only minimal effort on the part of the driver. We use computers and phones, but augment them with magic both to conceal ourselves, and to make life easier. We have our own websites that can only be accessed by people with power. The same applies to our television channels. Certain channels are available only to those who know where to look. When your powers awaken, you will be able to get them as well. In the meantime, you can ask us to connect you.” “Fascinating, so you don’t come up with any of your own stuff?”

“We try not to. Alternatively, if we do, we try to make it available in some form or another to Norms. When something we create doesn’t translate, we hide it from Norms, but we try not to make much like that. We don’t want too many questions asked.”

I shook my head in wonderment. There was a lot to this magic stuff. We ate dinner, and since I was still not used to everything yet, I decided to call it an early night. Mom came in tucked me into bed despite my protests, and then left me alone to dwell on my thoughts. It was in this quiet solitude that it really hit home. I was a girl, a very young girl, in a completely new world. My life had been changed forever. Thinking about it all made me sad, and I cried myself to sleep.

The next morning, I started questioning my parents about magical methods to return to my original gender. I was desperate to be male again. I did not want to go through periods, puberty and all that; I wanted to return to at least a semblance of myself. I was told that although there were magical methods of gender transformation, other than the one I had already found, none of them were permanent. I would return to my rightful sex within a couple days, and the more I did it, the shorter the period would last. I had found the only permanent way to change genders and unfortunately, it only worked one way.

I was devastated; nothing could have prepared me for this twist of fate. Never in my previous life had I expected to one day be young again, and have to live life as a female. I got depressed, isolated myself. I was never one to consider suicide, but I felt like my life was over. My new parents were great, but even they had no answer for the problems I had. They figured that only time would heal these wounds, if they ever did. They didn’t want to put me on any meds, because standard medicine tended to have strange effects on those of us with full magical blood.

It took almost a year for me to break out of the shell I had encased myself with. During that time, I had kept mostly to myself. My parents had tried to break down those barriers, but to no effect. Others who had gone through the same thing had tried to help me, but they knew from experience that each person takes these things at their own pace. I wasn’t the fastest to recover, by a long shot, but I wasn’t the slowest either.

By the time my sixth birthday rolled around, a change had occurred in me. I was opening up, acting like the little girl I was, and just enjoying my life again. I had even met a couple of girls in the neighborhood and become friends with them. None of them were of magic descent though, so I had to be careful what I said, but it was fun. Life was nice again and the light shown inside me again. I was ready to take on the world and tackle new challenges. I was ready to become the witch I was expected to be.

However, nothing happened. My parents said not to worry, that there was plenty of time left, but I couldn’t help but worry. They said that powers didn’t always show up until ages seven or eight, but usually before nine. I had plenty of time to blossom. My seventh birthday passed me by and still nothing, my eighth; they were getting worried now. The closer I got to my ninth birthday, the more worried they got. That made me more anxious, and I walled myself up a bit again. My friends couldn’t understand it, and I couldn’t tell them the truth.

At last, the day before my ninth birthday arrived. I was disappointed; my parents were nearly in tears. Nothing could be done of course; this was just how the magical world worked. If you weren’t magical, you were dumped out on your head on your ninth birthday. Pretty much the whole 4 years would be gone. My parents pulled me to the side on my birthday, before the party.

“Look, we know this is unfair, but this is the way we operate. After your party, the Wizardry Council will come and erase your memories. They’ll put you into a sleep and when you wake up, you will be a Norm again. You won’t remember anything about us. The other Norms will be a cover story to cover any questions that may come up, but you’ll be on your own. Since you have your old life and memories to build off of, you should be better off than most in your situation.”

I tried to enjoy my party, but it was really hard when I knew what came next. My friends noticed, but didn’t know where my sadness was coming from. It was my birthday; it was supposed to be a happy time. As all good things must do, the party ended, and everyone drove home leaving me to await my fate. Even my parents left to make things easier on themselves. A knock on the door drew my attention. The time had come.

I opened the door to see the same man I had met before, the one who had first put my new name into the system. “Sorry Angela, but it is time. Don’t fight, you can’t win. Just relax and it will be over before you know it.”

With tears in my eyes, I sat down on the couch. He grabbed a chair nearby, and sat in front of me. He grabbed my head in his hands. This is it. I thought, This is the end of my fairy tale. I wasn’t ready for it to end though, a part of me wanted to stay to fight. Unable to fight back physically, I tried to fight mentally. I needed to protect my memories, build a wall. I didn’t know if what I was doing was having an effect, but I picked my most important memories from the last few years, and stored them away in the deepest corners of my mind, then I built up a solid barrier to protect them so that even I couldn’t reach and reveal them. Then I waited.

The man was in front of me for a long time, and one by one, the memories vanished. My time at the hospital disappeared, my new parents, gone. Everything I had learned deleted as if wiped from a hard drive. I mourned the loss, but knew that in a few minutes, even that memory would be gone, and it wouldn’t make a difference.

When I came to a strange man was in front of me, “Who are you, what’s going on?”

“Don’t worry about it; I am nobody, just sleep now. Everything will be better in the morning.” With that, he spoke something I couldn’t hear, and I fell into a deep sleep.

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