So imagine that this dude is a seventh son and he has six sons. Everyone is excited when his wife gets pregnant but it’s a girl. Thing is that the kid is trans and no one knows why they’re so powerful
His name is Kaleb though no one knows it but him. His name sits high in his throat, ready at any moment to burst out, but it…doesn’t. It’s too big, too powerful, too personal when he doesn’t know what they’ll do with it. Or, rather, when he suspects what they’d do with it and is afraid.
“Kristine,” his mother shouts up the stairs, “you’re going to make us late!” There’s a smattering of laughter at her words, mocking and derisive, from his brothers.
Kaleb’s always the one to blame in these situations. A seventh son was supposed to bring the family luck, status and power. Instead, Kaleb was born with a vagina and the family’s six son streak came to a tragic end. The tragic part, they all seem to agree, is that Kaleb exists at all.
Kaleb looks into the polished bit of metal in his hands and takes a slow, calming breath. He watches his reflection breathe with him and pretends his hair is short in the blurry surface. “I’m a boy. My name is Kaleb. They can call me a girl, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. I’m a boy. My name is Kaleb.”
It’s a spell he casts every day, pretending as hard as he can that he has magic, that this will work. It’s more effective on some days than others, but the day he doesn’t cast it are the worst, hands down. Those days every time they look at him, every time he feels his dress brush his ankles, every time they call him she grates and sets his teeth on edge. Panic will well up in his chest and he’ll have to run to the forest behind their house where they can’t look at him, where can’t look at himself, and strip down so he can’t feel their perception on his skin.
He tucks the polished metal under his bed and rushes to the stairs, long strides eating up the ground quickly. It feels good to walk this way, without his hips swaying, and he does it as often as he can. “As often as he can” often means “where mother can’t see.”
Today they’re going into town for a marriage talk with the Mayor. Kaleb’s oldest brother, Jacob, is of marrying age and has his eye set on the mayor’s daughter. Kaleb’s already been told that the only reason they have to refuse Jacob’s suit is Kaleb himself. He’s supposed to be on his best behavior today and he intends to be.
Kaleb ignores his brothers as they yank at his hair, his skirt, as they blame him for everything from the mud on the road to the late hour. If he fights back, he knows he’ll be the one scrubbing pots and floors, not them. He knows there’ll be much worse waiting for him should the meeting not go well.
“Just behave,” Samuel, the second brother, tells Kaleb. He’s never actively hurt Kaleb before, but as the biggest of his brothers, Samuel is still a threat. “Or else.”
Kaleb hopes it goes well.
Tag: magic
When magic starts to return to the modern world, barely anyone notices. It doesn’t look anything like what we imagine. People don’t suddenly start developing magic powers, casting spells, or turning into elves and dwarves. In fact, people don’t really change at all, not at first. It turns out that the magic isn’t even here for us. It’s here for what we’ve built.
The change is slow, and subtle, and strange, as the magic works its way into our institutions. You mail letters to dead relatives, and the post office starts delivering their replies. Late-night bus routes stop at places never seen on any atlas. Libraries suddenly include subterranean archives where you can look anything you’ve ever forgotten, from the names of your favorite childhood books to the precise flavor of your first-ever chocolate chip cookie.
The people working at these places take the changes in stride. The letters from the dead just show up every morning, sorted and stamped and ready for delivery, so why not carry them? Bus drivers follow the maps they’re given without trouble, and learn to accept even small gold coins as more than adequate fare. Electricians get used to seeing warding symbols in circuit diagrams, while clerks at the DMV find a stack of forms for registering ghostly steeds as personal vehicles, and sigh in relief at finally having that particular bureaucratic headache solved. The firefighters are shocked the first time they see a giant of living water burst out from a hydrant, but after it rescues several of them from a burning building, they decide not to ask questions. They tell their stories to others, though, and soon word of the changes is spreading.
There’s no single moment of realization where everyone discovers that magic is real; the knowledge just creeps into day to day life a bit at a time, and society adapts. Cyber-safety programs teach people to never accept a file from the electric fairies without sharing one in return, and to never accept their Terms and Conditions without searching for the subsection on Souls, Forfeiture Thereof. Students leave offerings of coffee and boxed wine to petition the School Spirit for lower tuition or exam deferrals. Nurses learn the hours when Death stalks the hospital hallways, and keep bedside vigils in the children’s ward. They bring board games and cards for when the reaper is feeling playful, and well-worn baseball bats for when he isn’t.
There are problems, of course, like the vicious monsters of blood and fire spawned from age-old hate groups, or infestations of the writing many-mouthed worms that literally feed on governmental corruption, but really, they were already there before the change. Magic only elaborates on what we’ve made, good or ill, manifesting the latent modern mythology underpinning our society. It doesn’t offer solutions to all of life’s problem, but for a few hurting people, guarded by the concrete arms of a neighborhood come to life to protect its community, or flying away on wings of copper wire and fiber-optic cable, it’s exactly the change they needed.
Steel Phoenix Studios 