Looking about my room, I took in the shelves that would have held any trophies that I might have won, noted that they were empty and then turned my attention elsewhere. Below my feet was a plush, white rug that matched the white walls. My bed was covered in the usual white sheets mom usually put on. The only thing out of place there was the plush Angelina Ballerina doll.
My dresser and desk where still in place and strolling over to the closet, I opened it and found the usual assortment of clothes that I wore whenever an occasion called for something nice. Peering about, I thought, "No girl's clothes," torn between being happy and wanting to be pretty.
Shaking my head, I closed the closet door and listening, I figured that I was the only one awake. Slipping across my room, I opened the door and immediately found myself looking at a door that wasn't supposed to be across the hall. Wondering what was going on, I peered down the hall, noting that it was longer by a bit and that there was also one more door then what I remembered there being.
Confused, I closed my door and crept down the hall and then as an afterthought, I returned and carefully opening the door across my own, I peered in.
Sleeping in her bed, I saw Katherine, surrounded by the usual themes of Disney and Princesses. Watching her sleep, I felt my mind slip and something inside of me wanted to go inside and play with her costumes and dolls. Shaking my head, I closed the door and continued down the hallway.
The next door I tried, the one I remembered as leading into Katherine's room originally now opened up to a room with a eight year old girl sleeping in the bed. Peering at her, I suddenly realised that the girl was actually my mom. Confused, realising that it might not have been a dream, I wondered how Thomas was fairing as I closed the door and started back down the hall, this time making a beeline for the bathroom.
Inside, I shut and locked the bathroom door and turning to the mirror - the one my mother had hung there when she still was my mother and not my sister - I looked into the reflective depths, taking in what I saw.
Reflected back was a person on undeterminable sex and gender. Bluish-green eyes, the same colour as Katherine's, peered out from a soft, round face that was somewhat pale in complexion. Spinning around, and suffering a mind slip as I thought of myself as a pretty Ballerina, I took in the long, brown hair - just a smidge lighter then Katherine's and about the same shade as my mother's - and immediately thought about how pretty it would look done up in a braid.
Shaking my head, I edged closer, suddenly realising something. Peering into the mirror, I titled my head one way and then another, as I realised that at some point both of my ears had been pierced with two silver studs.
Backing away, thinking, "Was it not a dream? Is it only going to get worse," I slowly began to undress.
Naked, still standing in front of the mirror, I took in the five foot one height, the hint of just a little bit of baby fat and then gasped aloud as I saw my penis and testicles
"What the hell," I thought as I touched my prepubescent genitals, thinking that they must be as small as when I was a newborn, suddenly thinking of a picture my mother had had taken of me when I was only about five months old and still clearly male.
And then it dawned on me that the way I was standing, my body forming a sort of S shape with my butt stuck out a bit and my chest and stomach forced out as well, made me look feminine. "In fact," I thought. "I look a little like Katherine does when she is running about without clothes after a bath."
Horrified by the way I was standing, I attempted to correct my posture but just found it to be too uncomfortable and torn between being comfortable with how I was standing and not liking it because it made me look even more like a girl, I slowly began to redress myself, all the while thinking, "What has happened here? How did I get here? And what has become of Thomas?"
Unable to come up with a solution to my questions, I slipped out of the bathroom and downstairs, where I found a new bit of information waiting for me.
Creeping quietly through the house, wanting to find anything else that might be different as well as breakfast, I paused as I stepped into the kitchen and saw the calendar. Walking over to it, I shook my head as I read the date and then pulling a chair away from the table and climbing onto it, I peered at the calendar.
After staring at it for a couple minutes, I finally turned about and sitting down on the chair, I thought, "This can't be right," as I thought about the X'ed out days and how they clearly pointed to the fact that it was Saturday and that it was exactly two days after I had originally helped take all of Katherine's old clothes downstairs.
"Right about when all this weird stuff started happening after I had touched the amulet," I thought as I slid of the chair and pushed it back to the table.
Moving about the kitchen, I fixed myself a bowl of cold cereal and as I sat eating, I wondered what else had changed and also, if this was two days after I had touched the amulet, why did I look like I was thirteen and have more changed about me then before.
Unable to come up with an answer, I sat and thought and when Katherine wandered down, bringing on another mind slip that I tried to shrug off, I followed her after she had collected her breakfast into the living room, where she turned on Dragon Tales, which I suddenly found interesting and not really wanting to stop myself, I sat down to watch.
About halfway into the next programme, Katherine looked at me and asked the question I knew was coming, but was not sure how to answer. Looking at me, she asked, "Marcus? Will you play with me today?"