Chapter Thirty
Talking To Be Had

 

Jacob stuffed a bread roll into his mouth. After some rest, they’d realized they hadn’t eaten in a day, and no amount of physical trauma was going to keep growing teenagers from scarfing down fresh bread. Besides, they needed something, anything to keep themselves occupied. Thankfully, something had offered itself up. 

“So you’re a girl,” he said.

“I don’t know!” Emily was a cat again. Her Witch had been more than a little excited to be around her now that they had some comparable experiences at the very least, though right now she was happy to be around.

“But you look like a girl,” Jacob pointed out helpfully while buttering up another one. 

“Yes!” Emily giggled and took a bite off the sandwich she’d clumsily made with her telekinesis. After having used it in a life-or-death situation, something like this felt easy by comparison. She had to take it easy, though. Her head still hurt. 

“And you chose to be a girl!” Jacob pointed the bread roll at her like a prosecutor at a court case. Jenna looked from one to the other like a spectator at a tennis match. 

“Yes!” Emily said, slamming both paws on the table. Other than them, nobody was in the mess hall. They were still not taking classes. 

“So you’re a girl!” Triumphantly, he put a hand on his hip and took a bite of the roll.

“I don’t know!” Emily laughed. That Jenna had been happy to help her figure herself out seemed, in retrospect, kind of obvious. But Jacob, too, had been very accepting. “How would I even know?! Everyone wants to be a girl sometimes!”

Now it was Jacob’s turn to laugh. “I don’t!” He looked over at Jenna, who was sitting across from him. “Jenna, wanting to a be a girl, does that mean anything?”

Jenna leaned in close to Emily, who was still chuckling to herself, and whispered loud enough for Jacob to hear too. “Wanting to be a girl is a big sign of being a girl.”

Emily mocked falling off of her chair. “Nooooooo,” she howled, catching herself with her mind before she hit the ground. Jenna picked her up under her arms and put her back on the chair. “Still,” Emily continued, “I’m still figuring things out, you know? It’s just… like… so much? I’ve kept myself occupied with so many things, and I never considered that this was even an option or what this meant, until I met you —” she nodded at Jenna, “— and then I was full of questions.”

“Like what?” Jenna asked, resting her chin on her hands and smiling happily. 

“Well, like, how did you know? When did you know?” Emily asked. Jacob was listening politely, looking at Jenna while scarfing down the too-manieth bread roll. 

“A few years ago,” the Witch said. “I mean, I wanted to be a girl fairly early on, even asked Santa and any other mythical creature I could think of to turn me into one, but I didn’t know that that was, you know, a thing, until I was like, ten. That’s when my parents… um…” Jacob reached across the table and took her hand to squeeze it. Emily, for her part, just gently nudged Jenna with her forehead. 

“What made you realize?” Emily said, urgently trying to steer the conversation forward in a less-painful direction. Jenna gave her a grateful pat on the head. 

“Nothing,” Jenna said. “No big realizations. No conversations with an older trans person. No magical girl anime or novel. Just one day realizing that puberty was around the corner and that I was going to come out of it a girl or not at all.”

“You’re… I’m glad you picked the first one,” Jacob said, his expression serious.

“Me too!” Jenna said enthusiastically. “For what it’s worth, I wasn’t planning on giving up any time soon. And finding out I have magic and being picked up by Afterlife Social Services was kind of just the last bit of help I needed. I’ve been living at Threewees ever since! What about you Jacob?” She turned her attention to the boy sitting across from her with a mischievous smile. “When did you know?”

He looked confused. “When did I know what?”

“When did you know you were cis?” she asked. Emily chuckled a little at Jacob’s confusion. He clearly hadn’t expected the question. 

“We-ell,” he said slowly, “being cis means I’m not trans, right?” Jenna nodded. “And that I’m happy with that, right?” Nod nod. “Okay, then I don’t know an exact time, but I get confirmation every time a really pretty girl makes me feel handsome by turning her eyes away and blushing — yeah, just like that — and that the idea of that makes me feel good.”

“Wow,” Emily said, looking at Jacob in admiration, “you just went right for the throat, huh?” Jenna bopped her on the head, and they both giggled. Jenna bit her lip and straightened her face. 

“Y-yes,” she said, “that does sound like euphoria, the opposite of dysphoria.” She frowned. “Can cis people get euphoria?” Emily and Jacob both shrugged. “Anyway, sounds like you’re a boy to me!” 

“Awesome!” Jacob said. “So what about you, Emily? How do you feel?”

“Confused,” she said, biting down on a sandwich. “Being a boy, being a man… like… it didn’t bother me. Well, I mean… hum…” She had to think for a second, putting everything in order. “It didn’t bother me more than anything else did, but like… I mostly tried to block myself off from things. I’d kind of resigned myself. Being a guy didn’t even really factor into it.”

“You know, if I ever meet your parents, we’re going to have words,” Jenna said with a very strained smile, and Jacob immediately confirmed that he would be happy to join her for various forms of verbal violence.

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“Thank you,” Emily said quietly, getting more head-scratches from Jenna. “But yeah, I didn’t really think much about being a guy. It wasn’t until becoming a familiar turned me into a girl-cat that I even considered that being an option. And things got weird after that.”

“Good-weird?” Jacob asked. Emily nodded. Yeah, definitely good weird, she figured. She actually got to be Jenna’s friend, she figured. Now they were both girls. 

“Where are Sarah and Simon, by the way?” Jenna asked. “I’d think they’d both be happy to be here to celebrate with you finally figuring things out and everything. Especially Simon.” Jacob cocked his head. 

“Why Simon specifically? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen the way those two look at each other…” Now it was Emily’s turn to quickly look away like the edge of the table was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen. “But she’s also been having those looks with Sarah. So why him?”

“I don’t know. I guess he just read kinda… I don’t know, I figured he’d understand.” She grimaced. “Could have been wrong, of course. I hope I’m not.” The thought of Simon and Sarah not accepting her ran little circles around Emily’s brain. She didn’t want to think about it, but it felt like they’d been avoiding her. 

“Well, I know Simon’s been with Benjamin all day. I saw him curled up in the hood of Ben’s jacket earlier.” He nodded. “It’s a good sign, considering…” He left the words hanging. Emily was sure that Benjamin had also come out to Simon, which meant that Simon, at the very least, wasn’t going to be an ass about that kind of thing. “And I’m glad he’s got someone to talk to.”

“And Sarah will be with her own Witch,” Jenna said. “Still, I’m sorry your friends are keeping their distance, Em.” She wrapped her arms around Emily. Between getting a nickname she actually liked for the first time in her life and having Jenna squeeze her like a stuffed animal, Emily was having some trouble breathing. 

“You know what?” Jacob said. “It’s going to be okay.” He took off his glasses dramatically. “That’s a Wizard’s guarantee.” Jenna chuckled. 

“You’re such a nerd,” she said as she stood up. They were, finally, done eating, and much as they’d like to, they couldn’t stay in the mess hall all day. Since they were still excused from class, they could do whatever they wanted, but the Headmasters had recommended that they not isolate themselves in their rooms, no matter how tempting of a prospect that might have been. Stepping out of the building, they were greeted by a wall of water. Jacob groaned. 

“Ugh, I have to go through that?” He rubbed his face. “But I should check on Dennis. I can feel him, he’s close by.” He squinted. “Looks like the common room.” Emily looked up at him, and then at Jenna. 

“Can you do that too, ‘see’ where I am?” she asked. Jenna nodded. “Neat.” 

Jenna raised her hand. “I would like to point out…” the rain parted. “... that you’re a Wizard, Jacob.” She lifted Emily under one arm and stepped out, still dry.

“I’m a wot?” Jacob said, his eyes wide, as he touched his glasses and created an invisible umbrella of his own. “It’s kind of impressive how easy it is to forget that you can do this kind of thing.”

“Really?” Jenna said. “I have the opposite thing, I keep stopping myself from trying to solve every problem with magic. Anyway, let’s go find Dennis. He really stuck his neck out for us yesterday.”

It was true. Dennis hadn’t known about their plan to get him home, but he’d immediately pretended like it had been him from the very start, and though the others had quickly tried refuting him, the damage had been done. Dennis was their hero. And they kind of needed one. 

They found him in the common room, sitting on the sofa as a puppy, across from a middle-aged man. There was a large pot of tea on the table, and a few cups. They’d only even met the man the day before. Well, met him in this form, anyway. Jenna gently put Emily on the ground and approached. The rest of the common room was mostly empty, and the people who were there spoke in hushed voices.

“Are we bothering you, Mister Havelock?” Jenna asked. The man, who looked very, very tired now that he wasn’t a Great Dane, softly shook his head. 

“Not at all. Please, sit.” He gestured to the sofa across from him. Jacob sat down, and Dennis immediately hopped on his lap and curled up into a ball, biting at his tail a few times. Jenna sat down next to him, and Emily picked a free pillow. “Dennis just asked me about… about Samuel.”

Dennis nodded. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Mister Havelock,” he said. “I just wanted to… you know…”

“Oh, it’s no problem,” Havelock said. “I think it’s a good way to remember him. That way he wasn’t just the old man who scared the life out of Dennis on his first day as a teacher, or the warrior.”

“What was he like?” Jacob asked. “Before, I mean.”

“He was a good man,” Havelock said, “and a bastard. But a good one.” He smirked when the kids looked at him in shock. “I mean that affectionately. He used to complain all the time but at the end of the day, if you needed help, he’d be the first one there. He got his ass beat more than once just because he thought it was the right thing to do.” He shook his head. “God, he was such a stubborn old fool.”

“You two were close?” Jenna asked, gently patting Emily. The man nodded. 

“Yes,” he said. “We weren’t always, though. There was a time when we’d drifted apart, but there was a need for more people fighting on the front lines, so he showed up at my house with two deep fried kebabs and a backpack. Half an hour later, we were on the road.” He sighed. 

“You miss him,” Emily said softly, more to herself than anything, although Havelock nodded in agreement. “Would — Could you tell us about him? Just… for as long as you’re comfortable.”

Havelock smiled. “I’d love to.” He poured himself some more tea. “So, Samuel and I met when we were about your age…”