The primeval core of Trenton lands—from cave-bound prehistory through to the iron age and beyond—were arranged in a horseshoe shape around the great Golden Gulf, which stuck up into the eastern half of the Daxonian continent like a hitchhiker's thumb. Inlets on the Gulf's east side formed the Elpeck Bay and its environs. Southmarch stretched down along the Gulf's west flank. Elpeck's peninsula stuck out into the Gulf, and the city itself was built at the point where the Gulf's east and west coasts were nearest to one another. With such an ideal locale for trade, the Pekt had grown rich on the commerce of goods ferried back and forth across the Gulf. The riches of Daxon's northwestern lands funneled through the city, forming the trading network that gave the Trenton people their identity.

Language and culture spread with the roads, penetrating deeper and deeper into the continent, west to east. Elpeck's great warehouses stored wine from Vineplain, in the south, where it was left to age to perfection, and nothing less than perfection would do, for the wine represented the Angel's blood, and was anointed on newborns's heads as part of the Bonding ceremony, when infants were baptized in and pledged to the Sun's holy Light.

People never failed to be surprised by just how big the old wine cellar truly was. All the surrounding ancient hallways seemed so small to us moderns—and, indeed, people were shorter back then, on account of poorer nutrition and healthcare—which always made the expansive wine cellar come as something of a shock. The cellar was almost half as big as the Great Nave—and the Nave was the single largest contiguous internal space in all of Lassedicy. The bulk of the wine supply was stored in massive casks that filled the deep hollows that lined the cellar's stone walls. Modern racks lined the center of the room, beneath the cedar cross beams that stretched overhead.

Ancient, ancient wood.

But most importantly: Jessica was here, along with a handful of mushrooming corpses, to keep her company. At the far end of the cellar, several of the wine barrels had burst open. The casks were overgrown with fungus, which covered them like streaks of scorched ivy.

From what Jules could tell, it seemed like somebody had come down to the cellar to hide. A smart plan, though it would have been smarter if they'd done it before they'd become infected with the Green Death. Instead—whoever they were—they'd brought the plague with them into the depths, and their corpse had exploded in the far corner of the room, seeding spores and mold kibble across the cellar's aisles and walls. The fungus had grown heartily, its greedy branches erupting across the floor and the walls. The broken casks had either been punctured by the fungus' branches, or melted clean through by the acidic spores. The fungal growths seemed like roots of clotted blood where they spread out along the pools of spilled wine. More bodies had been brought to the cellar some time later, almost certainly by the wyrms, considering the way they were neatly piled neatly in the middle of the left-most aisle, in between the racks and the walls.

And, as for Jessica? She… well, she did not look good—so much so that, for a moment, Jules almost felt bad for the erstwhile bully, but only for a moment. Jessica had piled so much flak and petty bullshit on Jules' back that it was difficult for my daughter to feel sympathy for her—difficult, but not impossible. And the more she looked and listened, the less impossible it got.

Jessica looked even worse than she had in the video. Her legs dead-ended in the middle of her thighs, jutting out from where her torso melted into her tail in a way that reminded Jules of the vestigial claspers that some pythons had on their underbellies. Jessica sat against one of the casks in the wall, with her head hanging low on her elongated neck. Her head was only halfway transformed, with a distended lower jaw and a budding snout. Her hair was mostly gone, leaving clumps strands hanging here and there, like a witch's locks. The mumbling Jules had heard came from none other than Jessica herself, who appeared to be talking in a low voice, but to whom, Jules couldn't tell.

It wasn't like anyone else was there, at least until now.

As for myself, I was able to recognize Jessica's particular personality type from the first time I saw her, during an open house. Miss Eigenhat was the early bloomer of urban lore. She was "pretty popular" in every sense of the term: pretty, and popular because of it. She was transactional and manipulative—a veritable merchant of renown, massively impacting her environment and everyone unfortunate enough to be in it. In the shadow of Jessica's presence, girls either became groupies or wallflowers, and never the twain would meet. And though her parents definitely put on a good front, even from what little I was able to see and hear of them, I could already sense dysfunction streaming off them by the boatload.

It was sad, yes, but hardly surprising. After all, broken homes make for broken children.

And yet, despite all that—despite all the put-downs and snide remarks and bitchy pics and messages the girl sprayed over my daughter's Socialife profile—seeing Jessica now—seeing what she had become—Jules couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

Jules was mature enough of a young woman to be able to feel sympathy with her enemies, even as she sampled the discomforting smugness of seeing her tormentor laid miserable and low.

It wasn't like any of Jessica's groupies were ever her real friends, but now? Gosh, the poor girl was truly alone, and to add insult to injury, her mind seemed to be fading as the fungus took control.

Jules couldn't so much as look at Jessica now barely-human head without fear shivering down her spine.

In her gut, Jules knew it wasn't safe here. Worse, whatever information Jessica might have had, Jules feared it was long gone now.

She wanted to cry, but she didn't dare, not with a mad monster just around the bend. So, she stepped back as stealthily as she could, keeping her legs tensed, only to slip forward and fall as she put her weight onto her foot on the edge of the step immediately behind her. But just as Jules' life started to flash before her eyes, she smacked face-first into an invisible wall. The impact sent her topping backward, knocking her butt-first on the stairs.

"Ow!" Jules yelled. "Fuck!"

Jessica turned her head in response to the noise. "Is someone there?"

Her voice sounded… off. Stretched.

Jules froze in terror as the changeling began to crawl toward the steps along the wall that led up to the entryway. By the time Jules regained her senses and rose to her feet, Jessica was already onto the base of the stairs with her tail lolling behind her.

"Who's there!?" she yelled. She was frightened and desperate. "Who—" But then she bobbed her head and pulled her neck back, utterly astonished. For a moment, she just stared, her changing eyes locked onto Jules' face.

"What the fuck? H-Howle?"

Jules was stunned. Though this creature certainly didn't look like Jessica, it sure was acting like her.

"J-Jessica?" Jules asked. She honestly didn't know who was more startled here, her or Jessica—if Jessica it still was.

"Yes?" the changeling replied.

"Are you still… Jessica?"

The wyrm-in-progress glanced down at herself. "Yeah," she said, "though only on the inside."

Jules exhaled sharply.

Fuck.

It seemed Jessica was still Jessica.

"This is a lot to take in, you know," Jules said, quietly.

Jessica raised a mutated hand and shook it left and right, causing the two broken fingers that weren't sweeping into gruesome claws to wave like dicks in the wind. "Bitch," she said, "don't tell me what's 'a lot'. I'm the one turning into a freaking snake. Now, c'mon, tell me why you're here, or, I'll… I'll eat you, or something."

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She tried to growl, but the sound came out more like me testing out a new clarinet reed.

Jules chuckled softly.

Yeah, this was Jessica, alright.

"You shouldn't be here, anyway," Jessica continued. "Someone will be coming to check up on me soon. If they catch you down here, they'll eat you. Like, actually eat you."

Jules rose to her feet, rubbing her aching tailbone. "I'd like to see them try," she said.

Obviously, it was a bluff, but Jessica didn't need to know that.

Jules put her hand on the invisible barrier. It pushed against her like the push of two opposite magnet poles, only her body was one of the magnets.

Jules shook her head. "What the hell…?"

Was this the sound wall's better-looking cousin, or something?

Jules got onto her knees, pleating her skirt over her legs. She leaned into the force field, plastering her hands over it.

There were so many things she could have told Jessica at that moment. Figuring out which one to pick was almost overwhelming. In the end, Jules decided to go for the one that was the least likely to get the two of them trying to rip each other's throats out (again). Unfortunately, Jules had a poor track record with that.

"Jessica, my family is stuck here, and we want to escape. We've got my Mom's car, but…—"

"—Fat chance of that happening," Jessica said. She did her best to sit down on the lower steps.

"What makes you so sure?" Jules asked.

Jessica pointed at the entryway. Claw tips were beginning to emerge from the remaining three fingers.

It looked really painful.

"However much you think you hate these cultists, I hate them even more. So, if there's anyone who was going to mount an escape from this fucking madhouse, it would be me, and look how well that's turned out." She gestured at the barrier with her misshapen hand. "That barrier you're leaning on, the other Norms made it. How the hell am I supposed to escape if I can't even get through that? And, girl, if I can't do it, what chance do you think you have?"

Jules tried to push into the barrier, but it resisted, responding with equal and opposite force.

As much as Jules was loath to admit it, Jessica seemed to have a point here.

"If they made the barrier," she asked, "can't you, well… un-make it?"

Lowering her head, Jessica pointed at the corpses piled further down the aisle. "That's why they sealed me in here with these bodies. Once I eat them, I'll change enough into a Norm that I'll be able to undo the barrier on my own. That's what they told me, if you're willing to believe it. Personally, I'm not."

Jules was about to say, "Then why haven't you?" when she realized that sounded too confrontational. So, she tried a different tactic.

"My grandma Margaret is one of the cultist Norms," she said. "My mom's mom."

"Revenel?" Jessica asked.

Jules nodded. "Yeah, Margaret Revenel. She had my mother out in the Nave with her, watching as the others… fed. She…" Jules looked Jessica in the eyes. "She was there when you got taken away. My Mom even made a video of it, on her console. I… I saw it."

Jessica grimaced. "Is that why you're here, Howle? To gloat? Here to tell me that your shrink dad was right, and that I'm an early bloomer, and this is my comeuppance?"

"No," Jules said.

"No?" Jessica's voice curled up at the end like an apostrophe. The sound bounced off the wine cellar's gently arched ceiling. "Then why are you here?"

Jules bit her lip, trying to think of a good answer.

"Because…" she said, "my Mom's a mess and… my brother's a twerp. Like, the biggest twerp."

"Is your Mom, like, one of the cultists, too? Has she bought into Verune's shtick? Or…" Jessica's expression darkened. "Has she—"

Jules shook her head and sniffled, trying not to cry. "My Mom doesn't know what to believe anymore. It's kinda funny, actually. My Dad's always been like that, but she… she's lost, and I think it's broken her. She believes she's damned my brother and I to hell. And my brother he…" Jules twiddled her fingers. "…he thinks we should get one of the good sneople to help us escape."

"Sneople?" Jessica' shoulders hunched in confusion.

"Snake people," Jules admitted. On the inside, she died a little as she said the words aloud.

"Oh fuck," Jessica replied, "he really is a twerp."

"Yeah." Jules breathed in deeply and cleared her throat. Her mask kept her hot, wet breath pinned against her face. "Jessica… what happened? Why did you act up like that? Why are you here?"

"What's it to you?"

"My Mom doesn't know what to believe. Scripture? Verune? Nothing at all?"

"Huh…" Jessica said. "But you haven't ever had a problem believing in nothing, right?"

"You got that right," Jules said.

"Then you should be able to get her out of her funk. Right?"

"I… I've been trying to get her out of it, but…"

"…Oh," Jessica said.

Jules nodded. "It's not working. But She heard you say that Verune and the Last Church were crazy and deluded, and she's clinging to that, as if it's the one thing that could convince her that Verune and Grandma are just that fucking awful."

There was a pause.

"It's not that they're nuts," Jessica said. "It's…" She let out a spore-wisped sigh. "These changes, they mess with our heads. They let us imagine things into being."

"Imagine?" Jules asked.

Jessica lowered her head. "When I was little, I wanted a pet tiger. A white tiger. Then, one morning, a couple days ago, I woke up feeling dead, and there was a white tiger on the floor, in front of my bed, just like I'd always dreamed."

"Holy shit," Jules said. "So, if you think it, you can make it real?"

"Yep—but it took me a while to figure it out."

"What happened?"

"Well," Jessica explained, "at first, I was pretty excited. I thought I was in Paradise or something, but… when I ran up to pet the tiger, my hand just passed through, like he was a ghost." She looked up. "For a while after that, I thought I was just crazy or something, but, eventually, I figured it out: Us changelings can do the craziest things inside our heads. It's a sandbox in there, we can do whatever we want. It's just like you said: if we think it, we can make it real. Once I understood that, it gave me like so much clarity! It made such a difference! "

"That sounds… pretty wild," Jules said, softly.

"Verune," Jessica said, "he's doing something. He's… I think he's making the others see what he thinks he sees. The songs you hear the Norms sing… they're messages. The more I change, the more I understand them. It's like… it's like they're sharing their thoughts. I think that's what Verune is doing, and he might not even be aware he's doing it. But I was."

She flattened what remained of her eyebrows. "You saw the video, right? When he did the thing with the water in the fountain?"

"Yeah."

"When he did that, I could feel his imagination like… touching me, but on the inside. For like a second, I saw myself as what he's convinced I must look like. It was beautiful. Silver and gold, with radiant hair. Angel… I really did look like a divine beast." She wept. "But it's not real. Verune has gaslit himself, and now he's gaslighting all the others." She looked at the bodies. "That's why I don't want to eat. I'll change if I do."

"Are you scared of changing?" Jules asked.

"Hell no," Jessica said. "I'm still me. I'm still fabulous," she paused, "after a fashion."

Jules snorted.

"Laugh all you want, Howle. I know what real fear is."

"Oh yeah?" Jules said.

"Yeah," Jessica replied. She nodded, but then lowered her head. "I'm not half as scared of myself as I am of… the others. I don't want them to put their thoughts into my head. And if holding off the changes will do that, then… that's what I'm gonna do."

"Wait," Jules asked, "why aren't you concerned about losing your sense of self? How do you know you'll still be… you?"

"Howle, I've seen shit like you wouldn't believe," Jessica replied. "I've seen fully changed Norms digging graves for the dead. Like, they even made the Bond-sign. Why would they do that if they weren't themselves?" Jessica turned her head away. "You know, part of me wishes I actually would lose my mind."

"Why?" Jules asked.

"My Dad's dead, Jules. I… I ate him. But, you know what? He's still here. He's still here. They all are. The dead haven't gone away; they've just moved inside us, now. It's like I'm Hotel Eigenhat or something. My dad was the first guest, and I'm pretty sure he's stuck with me forever. I don't know whether to laugh or scream."

"I'm s—"

"—You don't need to apologize for anything. It's none of your business, anyhow." Jessica raised her head. "Tell your family the Last Church is full of shit. The plague might kill people, but it doesn't make them disappear. The Norms aren't mirrors to the soul or whatever-the-fuck Verune says they are. They want to think they're holy, but they're man-eating monsters that gobble up souls to put them inside our heads. Everything else is just bullshit people have come up with to explain the unexplainable."

"What the fuck?" Jules muttered.

"You heard me," Jessica replied. "You die, then you get uploaded into a Norm. There's like a zoo inside each and every one of us. We can do whatever we want with you guys, and you'll get no say."

"Shit…" Jules muttered.

"Yeah." Jessica nodded in agreement. "So, like, the best thing you can do is to find yourselves a nice Norm to die around, someone you'll be okay spending the rest of the eternity with. Shop around. Make sure it's somebody you trust. You have to tell your family, Jules. Your Mom, your Dad, that twerpy little brother of yours. Tell everyone. At this point, it's a public service."

Dad… Jules thought.

Her expression fell. "My Dad's—"

—But at that moment, somewhere deep in Jules' mind, one of her thought-gears advanced by the turn of a single tooth. A new synapse formed as the last piece of the puzzle fell in place inside my daughter's brain, and gazed upon the awful truth that Jessica's words had just detonated inside her soul.

Jules shuddered.

"Dad…" she said, croaking, tears beginning to pool in her eyes. Scowling, Jules slapped the back of her head. "Stupid! I'm so stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"

"Was it something I said?" Jessica asked.

Jules shook her head. "You don't understand. My Dad… he's one of you. He's changing into a wyrm. Angel's breath: he's still himself. He'll still be his same, dorky, goody-two-shoes self, wyrm or not. We shouldn't… we shouldn't have…"

The only reason Pel had taken them to her grandmother's place was because she thought her husband had been lost to Hell.

Jules started to cry. She'd missed me so much, but that pain had been held at bay by her belief that I was lost to her forever. But now she knew the truth, and it refused to let her

Then, from somewhere behind her—over her weeping—Jules heard the ancient hallways fill with the sound of an approaching wyrm.

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