Tails

by Lhynn Cooper
Chapter 16

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.......... "To be honest with you, Terry, I don't know for sure. As I told you, most of us don't usually develop our talents until we are adults. Usually in our twenties." She could see I was getting agitated. "Patty is nine, almost ten. Normally you would have to wait, oh, probably another ten or fifteen years, but, by doing this, Patty has shown that she has remarkable talent and is starting to develop it sooner than expected. I'm going to work with her, but, honestly, Terry, it's going to be at least many months before she learns and develops enough, and it probably will be a few years until she can control her gift enough to remove the spell correctly."

.......... I hadn't cried since childhood, but I could feel tears welling up in my eyes and starting to run down my face. "Years?" I said in a pleading tone. "I can't wait years. I need to get a job, we need the money. We counted on me getting a job once we moved out here to be able to afford this house." I couldn't stop crying now. "Sam's going to leave me, I just know it. Then what'll I do? I can't live like this."

.......... As upset as I was, I could she that she was just about ready to cry, too. She pulled some tissues from her purse and dabbed at her eyes, then said, "Please try to calm down. I think I might be able to help you."

.......... "Get your daughter to change me back, that's how you can help me." I said, sniffling and rubbing my eyes and nose. I felt ridiculous crying like this, but I just couldn't help it.

.......... "I'm sorry, I really am." She said. "But, I told you, she doesn't know how yet. Look, she was trying to turn you into a plastic doll. She was so angry that somehow she was able to pull her latent talent to the surface just enough to cast a spell. A pretty powerful one. She doesn't know how to control her gift yet." She pulled some more tissues out of her purse and handed them to me. "Here, use these to dry your eyes."

.......... I wiped and she continued. "Even if I were to let her try, and she were able to do something, she just can't control it yet. You don't understand, this isn't an easy thing to do. It's not like on TV where you just snap your fingers or wiggle your nose or anything like that. To do spells right takes planning and ability that's been developed by practice. If she were to get it wrong you might actually wind up as a doll, maybe a life size plastic one. Or, she could reverse the effects of the spell and you'd wind up still half fish, but fish from the waist up and with normal legs. Would you want something like that? The odds against her getting it right the first time, without training, are astronomical."

.......... I saw her point and began to calm down, at least a little. "You said you could help me, if neither you or your daughter can change me back now, what can you do?"

.......... "I can't remove the spell, but I think I can modify it." She answered. "It's only something that can be done by a very close relative of someone with the gift. Did you ever hear of a case where a person donates a kidney to a relative. It usually only works well with someone who's a close tissue match. The closer the match, the better the chances, identical twins are the best match. Well, this isn't exactly the same thing, but, with close relatives, such as my daughter and myself, our spell patterns might be close enough that I can probably change the spell."

.......... "Change it?" I asked. "By how much?"

.......... "I can probably do this much." She replied. "I can change you back to fully human form for part of the day. You would have to be in what is now your normal form, that of a mermaid," She gestured towards my tail. "For just slightly more than half the day, say twelve hours and one minute. The other half day, minus one minute, you would be able to change back to fully human."

.......... "That's the best you can do?" I was still pretty disappointed.

.......... "I'm afraid it is." She said, looking down at my tail.

.......... "Can you do it right now, right here?" I asked, at least it was something.

.......... Just then, I heard a car in the driveway. I rolled over to the front window and saw Linda's car. "It's my friend, Linda." I said. "This is her house. She and her husband were with us when this happened."

.......... Linda walked up to the front door, looking at the strange car in her driveway. As she let herself in, Kathy stood up. "Linda!" I said. "This is Kathy Anderson. It was her daughter, the little girl, who did this to me."

.......... As she looked at Kathy, I could see that she was also confused. "She's not........," Linda started to say.

.......... "I know, I know." I said. "She's not the woman we saw at the restaurant, let me explain."

.......... Kathy and Linda nervously shook hands. As Kathy sat back down, Linda put her purse on a table and I started to relate to her what Kathy had told me. When I got to the part about how she couldn't completely change me back. That I would still have to be a mermaid for half the day, I could have sworn I saw her face brighten up and relax a little. "She was just about to modify the spell, weren't you, Kathy?"

.......... All I could think about was getting my legs back and getting out of this wheel chair.

.......... "Yes, I'll try it." Kathy said. "But I need to know what you looked like before. When a spell this complete is cast, it, uh......, well, it's hard to explain to somebody who doesn't have the gift, but, to use a modern computer term, it rewrites your source code. What you are now is what is normal for you, there's nothing left to tell me exactly what you looked like."

.......... "Can't I just tell you?" I asked.

.......... "I wouldn't get it right, verbal descriptions can mean different things to different people. If you say medium build, what exactly does that mean?" She paused. "I didn't get a chance to completely explain this to you, but, I'm only going to get one chance to do this right."

.......... I didn't like the sound of that. "What do you mean only one chance?"

.......... "That didn't come out right either." She replied. "What I mean is that you already have one full spell on you. If I were to try and put another one over that, it might kill you. The two spells would be fighting each other, each trying to take control. Modifying the spell so that it's not going to be hard on you is going to be difficult as it is."

.......... "Hard on me?" I didn't like the sound of that either.

.......... "It shouldn't be painful, exactly, but it might be a little unpleasant. It's such a drastic change, rewriting the whole body like that. If I had been able to cast the original spell, modifying it would have been as simple and easy as the original change."

.......... "Easy, simple?" I said. "When she changed me, it was terrible. It felt really creepy while I was changing, and there was some pain, and then I don't remember anything until I woke up several hours later."

.......... "Hmmm." Kathy said. "It sounds like Patty will need to work on that. If done properly, there shouldn't have been anything unpleasant about it. The change should have been almost instantaneous and shouldn't have felt at all like that. Look, I don't have a lot of experience at modifying spells, but I do know how it should be done. I'll change the spell, but I need to know how you want to look, a picture would be fine."

.......... "I don't have a picture of myself with me." I said. "It's not the kind of thing I usually carry."

.......... Linda broke in, "I have some pictures of you. Remember when you and Sam visited a couple of summers ago, I have some we took then. I'll go dig 'em out of the closet."

.......... Linda went into the bedroom. I looked at Kathy, and she was studying me closely, looking at my face and then my tail. "Are you sure you don't want me to make you look like you do now? I mean, you could be a normal human version of yourself, as you are now, for half the day and then the change back and forth wouldn't be such a drastic one. Besides you have such beautiful hair and such a nice figure."

.......... I looked at her like she was crazy. "No thanks, after this, I just want to go back to being plain old me."

.......... Just then, Linda came back with a couple of pictures in her hand. "I took these at the beach." She said. "It's you and Sam with Bob. Bob's my husband." She said to Kathy. "They're not my best work, but I didn't want to take one of my good cameras to the beach."

.......... "Linda's into photography." I told Kathy. She took the photos from Linda and looked at them carefully and then back to me.

.......... She looked back and forth a few more times and then asked me, "This is how you want to look, right?"

.......... "Yep, that's me."

.......... She studied the pictures once more and said. "I didn't finish telling you before, but once I modify the spell, that's it. I can't change anything more until Patty removes the original spell. It would be too dangerous. You can't have more than one spell on a person at a time and there can't be more than one modification to a spell, so this is it."

.......... "Got it." I said. "I don't like it, but if it's the best you can do, I'll take it." I thought for a moment. "Maybe I should take off this dress, will that make it easier, when I change?"

.......... "Well, " Kathy said. "It isn't absolutely necessary, but if you want to, OK."

.......... I slid down out of the chair and onto the floor. I wiggled around and pulled the dress up over my head and then reached around and undid my bra. "Whew, feels better already." I said.

.......... Kathy's eyes grew wide and looked me up and down. "My goodness, Patty really must have a lot of undeveloped power." She stood up and walked over and kneeled down next to me. "How does it feel? To be a mermaid, I mean?"

.......... "Jeez, everybody wants to know how I feel." I was getting anxious. "Kathy, can you just change me back and then we can talk about it? I'd really like to get my legs back, even if it's for only half the time."

.......... "OK." She said. "Uh, Linda, can we have some privacy? I really need to concentrate. This shouldn't take too long, but I have to get this right, and I work best in privacy, please."

.......... "Oh, sure." Said Linda. "Tell you what, Terry. While Kathy's doing this I'll go and try to call Sam for you. You said you couldn't get through on the phone."

.......... Linda picked up her purse and headed into the bedroom and shut the door. Kathy looked back at me, then back at my tail and asked, "Ready?"

.......... "Go for it. Am I okay here on the floor? Should I get up on the couch?"

.......... "If you want." She shrugged. She watched, curiously, as I pulled myself along the floor, my breasts bobbing up and down without the bra, until I reached the couch and then pulled myself up so that I was sitting on it. I leaned back against the cushions and looked at her expectantly.

.......... She didn't say anything, she just turned and sat in the chair across from the couch. She put her purse on the floor and closed her eyes. A few moments passed and then she opened them again and looked at the pictures in her hand. She then looked at me and put her hand out in front of her with the palm facing towards me. At first nothing happened, but after about two minutes, I saw a small ball of bluish light form in front of her hand. It grew until it was about the size of a baseball and then pulsed a couple of times and before I knew it, it was rushing towards me.

.......... I felt nothing at first, as the ball of light hit me. It just disappeared as soon as it touched my chest. Within a few seconds I began to feel some of the same things as when her daughter's spell had hit me. There was the tingling and crawling sensation under my skin, and the feeling of bones moving and rearranging. This time, there was no pain, just an unpleasant queasiness in my stomach and a strange stiffness forming in my tail. Again, even my scalp was tingling, and I could feel changes starting to occur in my face. I could feel my jaw and teeth moving around. My tail fins seemed to be suddenly much more sensitive and smaller.

.......... Unlike the last time I was changed, I still had some control over my body. I looked down to see my tail changing color from silvery-blue to normal skin color, and it's normal flexibility was gone. It was sticking almost straight out, with only a slight bend at where my knee joints were reforming. My fins were pulling in and twisting. Reforming themselves into feet. Just as I noticed a split forming between my developing feet, I felt very dizzy and everything blacked out. I just remember slumping over on the couch and then nothing.

.......... I was dreaming of swimming. Samantha was there and so was Linda. They were in a boat, fishing and I was swimming alongside. I heard Linda calling to me, "Terry! Are you OK? Wake up Terry."

.......... I opened my eyes and saw Linda bending over me with some strange woman standing next to her. "Okay, okay, I'm up." I said. "What the......., what's going on?"

.......... "Are you OK?" She asked again. Then it all came back to me, who the woman was and what she had done to me. I was me again, at least for a while.

.......... I started to sit up and at the same time said, "It's going to be great to be able to walk again." My voice sounded strange. True I had been a female for over a week, but I still remembered what my old voice sounded like and that wasn't it.

.......... "Take it easy, Terry." I heard Kathy say. "How are you feeling?"

.......... "Fine." I said, trying to clear my throat. I was still on the couch. They must have stretched me out on it when I passed out, and I noticed that they had covered me with the blanket. As I sat up and put my legs, (My God, it felt strange to have legs instead of my tail), the cover fell away from my chest and I looked down at myself and almost passed out again.

.......... I was still female. "What the hell!" I called out. "This isn't right. You were supposed to change me back to me, myself, what I was before." I was almost stuttering. My voice sounded strange, or at least a different strangeness than that of the soft mermaid voice I had been using for the last week and a half.

.......... "Calm down, Terry." Linda said and she sat down on the couch next to me. "Things didn't go exactly as planned."

.......... "So I noticed." I said, looking from Linda to Kathy.

.......... My hands were busy feeling my new legs. My new FEMALE legs.

.......... "Before Kathy explains, I think you better look in the mirror, Terry." Linda said, putting her hand on my arm. "The sooner you find out, the better, I think."

.......... "Why, what else is wrong?" I didn't know what the hell she was talking about. I started to try and get up, but I felt a little dizzy and I had a little trouble controlling me new limbs, they felt so strange, these stiff and jointed human legs. So different from my flexible tail. I suddenly realized that my hair was much shorter. I didn't feel it hanging half-way down my back. I reached up and touched it, and then pulled some of it down, trying to see it. I couldn't see much because it was now so short. I was still a blond, but my hair was a rich golden-blond instead of the silvery-blond that it had been before.

.......... "Stay here." Linda said. "I'll get a mirror."

.......... Linda went down the hall and I turned to Kathy. Before I had a chance to speak, she said, "I'm so sorry, Terry. I didn't know you were a man." I could see she was even more nervous now than before. "I saw those pictures you showed me, of a woman and two men, and Linda said one of them was her husband, and, well.......," She paused for a second. "Well, you said your name was Terry, and you and Linda kept mentioning a Sam. I thought you were the wife and Sam was your husband."

.......... "Sam was short for Samantha." I said, feeling almost ready to cry again. "Everybody calls her Sam." I was still shocked. "Oh God, now what am I going to do?"

.......... "I wish I could help you, but I told you, I was only going to have one chance. Now you have to wait until my daughter is old enough to control her powers."

.......... "Oh, great." I said, disgustedly. "This is just great. How am I going to tell Samantha about this?"

.......... "You haven't seen everything yet, Terry, you better look in this mirror." Linda said as she came into the room with a large hand mirror. She held it in front of me, and I reached out and turned it a little so that I could see my face.

.......... Staring back at me was Samantha's face. I had become my own wife.

.......... The blood drained from my face and it was a good thing Linda was holding the mirror or I would have dropped it. I groaned and leaned back against the cushions of the couch.

.......... "I did get in touch with Sam." Linda said. "I talked to her from the bedroom while Kathy was doing this. She said she was going to leave and come home right away. She's on her way, but she doesn't know about this."

.......... "So, she'll be expecting to see the old me." I said. "The old male me, with all the original equipment. Is she coming over here, or to our house?"

.......... "She's coming here."

.......... I turned to Kathy. "Well, now what? Isn't there anything you can do about this? I'm desperate, I'll try anything."

.......... "No." She replied, shaking her head. "There's nothing that can be done now, but let me finish explaining about this spell modification." She shifted uneasily on her feet, and continued, "You can stay like this for twelve hours per day, that is, twelve hours minus one minute. Then, you must change back to being the mermaid. You won't change back involuntarily when the time arrives, at least you won't do so immediately. But you will start to feel, to sense that you must change. To do the transformation, you just have to think about it, and it should happen."

.......... She started walking back and forth as she talked. "You can switch back and forth as often as you want, as long as you spend at least half the day in mermaid form. If you don't change when you feel the time come, the need to change will become stronger and stronger. You may be able to put it off for a few hours, but it will become more difficult to remain human as the time goes on. Eventually, you will be unable to control it and will change back. If you force body to remain human for, oh, say two extra hours one day, you must make up that time in mermaid form the next day."

.......... "If you've stayed in human form for the allowed twelve hours, and you change back to mermaid form and then you try to become human again before spending the required twelve hours as a mermaid, you will probably not be able to make the change. If you do manage to concentrate hard enough to do it, you will have to maintain that concentration to hold the form, but eventually, your body will change back to it's normal shape. And for you, normal is now being a mermaid. At least until my daughter can remove the original spell.

.......... My head was spinning. "I'll never remember all of that." I said.

.......... "You don't have to remember anything." Kathy said. "Your body will tell you what you can and can't do. You will be able to stay in mermaid form for as long as you want, but that won't increase the amount of time you can next stay human. You can keep your tail for three or four days, but once you change to human, twelve hours later, your body will tell you it's time, and soon you'll be forced to go back to mermaid form."

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