"We'll start with some background knowledge," says Kivuli, crossing her arms and pacing from the window to the door. "Skip a few pages in case you want to come back and add notes. Make your first heading: Blossom Water.”

I skip about a dozen pages then jot down Blossom Water at the top. I don’t know why, by my heart is racing. In school, I’d never really paid attention much. Teachers would drone on, words would float through my head, and I’d just daydream. There were only one or two classes that got my attention, but right now? All I want is to learn more.

“The town is ancient. Even more so than Rhinestone. It’s a port town, which I’m sure you’ve gathered from seeing the harbor. But that harbor and the ships from Isohet are not the reason Blossom Water is the most important port town in the world.”

Ancient. Older than Rhinestone. I circle that even though I don’t know how old Rhinestone even is. Most important port town.

"I found you in the Boreal Forests north of here, yes? Did you notice the sudden shift in weather?"

Nodding, I picture that wall of rain and howling wind. So there was a reason for the strangeness.

"If you venture south from Blossom Water, you'll find the scorching sands of the desert. To the Northwest, there are snowcapped mountains. All around, completely different biomes. The wetlands. The rainforest. The savanna." She pauses to take something out of her belly, reaching inside her shadow with both hands. She pulls out a large rolled-up poster.

Motioning for me to move, Kivuli unrolls it against the wall over my bed, unveiling a large, hand-painted map. Four of her shadow arms extend from her sides, each one holding a small dagger, and she stabs the map's corners, fixing it in place.

I stand by the window, holding the notebook, my mouth open in awe. “It’s... It's beautiful.” Beautiful doesn’t even begin to describe it. It’s stunning. It’s a piece of art, painted onto the paper with vivid color and imagining. There’s the coastline on the right-hand side, with the ocean depicted by swirling blues and whites. Black sands fill the shoreline below. The cliff seems to extend out of the map, and at the top, a little drawing of the cottage and the lighthouse. The hills look like flowing emerald serpents; I can just about see the grass swaying in the breeze.

To the north are the wintery woods, set like a crown atop the map. Mountains to the west with a lake, and when I turn my head, it seems like they’re all moving. Plains and farmlands and strange inscriptions that I just know hold secrets. I could sit on my bed and stare at this map for the rest of my life.

“This was my father’s,” says Kivuli softly. She points with one of her shadow hands, tracing a trail from the cottage to the snowy area. “In each place, there is something called a dungeon.”

She says that with enough gravitas that I snap out of my trance and write that down. Dungeon. I underline it twice.

“Nobody knows who constructed these distortions in the world. If they are even distortions. But each dungeon leads to a specific part of the greater continent. There are ruins at each one, and my father was obsessed with unlocking their secrets. He wanted to know everything there was about the Ancient Ones who ruled these lands.” She turns to face me, her extra arms fading away. She looks sad again. “Through my father, I am a descendant of the Ancient Ones. But their languages, their names, and even their peoples, were lost. Lost to time and war and... Can you see why the position of Mayor of Blossom Water is such an important job?”

Butterflies flutter through my belly. Staring at the map, eyeing the marked ruins and the river that cut through the farmlands, and the desert area to the south, I think I’m starting to understand. “Blossom Water connects everyone to everywhere,” I whisper.

Kivuli nods. “Whoever rules Blossom Water, can rule these dungeons and control access to the entire continent. It’s a key to wealth and power beyond anything else. And what did I tell you about jealousy?”

“Jealousy leads to fear. And fear leads to violence.” I make a note of that in my notebook.

“And power always invites challenge,” adds Kivuli gravely.

I chew on my bottom lip, my hand trembling as I write that down too. Can’t I just relax? I don’t want to deal with this. I almost wish I had taken Kivuli’s offer right away, before I set out to pick up her groceries. Then that fox thing never could’ve sprung this on me. I would’ve been an apprentice Shaman and that’s it.

I feel like that would’ve been so much easier.

But maybe this is just who I am. Maybe everywhere I go, I’ll always invite trouble or stress or something that’ll bring misfortune for everyone else. “Why did the fox spirit do this to me?” I ask quietly, angry at myself.

“We’ll catch it and ask,” says Kivuli. “If we can. My father was the only one who knew how to catch it, but we can try.” She walks over and inspects my notes. “But perhaps some handwriting lessons are in order.”

I scrunch my nose. “I’m not used to writing by hand, okay? We just type where I’m from.”

“Type?” she asks. “Typewriters? They’re rare, but perhaps my mother can find one for us.”

“Oh no,” I say quickly. I don’t want to bother her. I’d already bothered them all enough. How much would a typewriter even cost in this world? And typewriters were nothing like digital keyboards anyway. “I don’t mind writing. My fingers just aren’t used to it. I’m surprised you guys use English too.”

"English?" She touches the paper, her fingers tracing the letters. "We lost the words for 'language' a long time ago. Through the Goddess, we understand all that is spoken and written, save for the Ancient writings."

“You mean your ancestors?”

"Yes,” she says, a faraway look on her face as she turns to the map. “The language of those who ruled in the past. Their markings only remain now in stone tablets and ruins. My father kept some notes on them. They’re downstairs in his books."

The way she speaks about him, I just know he’s dead. That’s how I’d speak about Jia. The slightest tremor you try to hide. A wobble that, no matter how hard you try to disguise, splits your broken heart open again every single time. I don’t press her for details, but this thing about the ancient language is intriguing. It almost sounds like hieroglyphics or something, but what’s even more intriguing is this Goddess thing in my head. It just enables us to understand all languages? Therefore, eliminating the necessity for different languages?

Or did these languages exist, the way I’m writing and speaking in English, and everyone just understands each other regardless? An automatic translation system inside our minds.

Imagine explaining this to my linguistics professor.

“Make that your second heading,” says Kivuli. “a thorough understanding of your Blessing is important. Your abilities, your stats, the constructs we call quests. Give it a few pages so you can fill it in as you learn. And the heading after that will be your duties as Mayor.”

I flip the pages and jot down the headlines. “Is there a book or something on being mayor? How do you know so much?”

But the instant the question leaves my lips, I see Kivuli wince, but she steadies herself, her fists balled up tight so that the muscles of her arms bulge.

“I can only relay what I learned from watching my father, the last mayor of Blossom Water.” She covers her face with one hand. “He’s the reason half the town is burnt down, and nobody’s rebuilt it since. But it’s alright. I put a blade through his throat.”

I shiver. We’re silent for a long time. I can’t look up from my notes. My head is swimming with so many thoughts, and I can't help but wonder if she’d wanted to cut my throat too.

I knew I recognized hurt on her face.

I realize that by showing me her father’s map, her teaching me all of this... it's clawing at her deepest wounds. And this explains her initial reaction. The anger. The fear. This is her trauma.

I am her trauma. Or at least some embodiment of it. The successor of her father...

But she wants to help me anyway. She’s helping me anyway. I bite my lip, words stuck on the tip of my tongue. I don’t know what to say.

I want to comfort her, but I don’t know how. Do I assure her that I’m not like her father? Isn’t that a backhanded promise? An insult?

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“It’s quite alright, Samiya,” she says.

Great. So not only am I useless in comforting her, but she’s also comforting me again. I clear my throat. Maybe changing the topic might help. “Can you tell me more about this Blessing thing? My thing called it a Soul Expression, but I don’t know what that means.”

Kivuli sits down on the bed, turning her back to the map. She straightens her shoulders, and if she’s glad for the question, I can’t tell, but she starts to explain.

“What we call the Blessing is everything in your thoughts,” she says. “Some call it the Guidance, the System, the Tesseract. My people know it as the Blessing of the Goddess.” She touches her forehead, an intense look in her eyes. Then she taps her heart. Then her lower navel. “These are the three points of every being. Our thoughts, our emotions, and our desires. Together, if your three aspects are powerful enough, which is remarkably rare, they come together to form a Soul Expression. And that manifestation is dependent entirely on your soul.”

I scribble that down, making a note to sketch out a diagram of a human body later. Thoughts and emotions and desires... I didn’t really have much of that, did I? “But I’m not powerful,” I tell her. “So, if it's so rare, how come I have a Soul Expression?”

She shrugs. “It seems you don’t know yourself as well as you think you do.” And I hear an echo of Jia’s voice. You can do anything you want, Samiya. I believe in you.

“Why doesn't everyone have one? Is that why they think we might be witches?”

“Everyone does,” says Kivuli, placing her hands on her knees and staring up at the wooden beams. “But we all have brains, don’t we? Yet so many people behave like they don’t. And then they get jealous, and you know the rest.”

I can’t help but smile at that.

“I want to see your Soul Expression again,” she says. “Can you only turn into an Ember Slime?”

I shake my head. “A squirrel too.”

“Ah yes,” she says, furrowing her brow. “You mentioned that last night. How does it work?”

Feeling shy, I explain what I’d figured out so far. How I acquire them, how the creatures relax, and how it feels. I even explain the mind. The way the Arctic Squirrel almost took over.

“Fascinating,” she says. “And you also acquired Bluebell. You can turn into a Snowstream Bear...” She trails off like she’s picturing it, but then she asks, “Could I see you acquire Puddle? If you’d like to?”

"Right now?" My heart flutters with anxiety and excitement. She wants me to show her what I can do.

"It is prudent to learn exactly how your Soul Expression works. That way, you may know your limitations. And, more importantly, how to exceed your limitations."

"Yes, Ma'am." I quickly leave my bedroom. It feels strange to say that it's my bedroom, but I hurry back to the hallway, my reflection chasing me from mirror to mirror, until I slip into the kitchen.

"Hi," I whisper when I get to the sink, reaching out with one hand, hesitating, asking for permission.

Puddle's dot eyes follow my fingers. Then it rolls forward to plop onto my waiting hand. It's so cold to the touch, like touching a water balloon that's been in the fridge for a while.

Not yet. Just like Squishy, Puddle's body is gelatinous and gooey, and I can’t help but squeeze it gently. A small stream of water gushes between my fingers and splatters the sink, and Puddle vibrates in my hand.

“Did you enjoy that?” I whisper, unable to stop smiling at how Puddle’s lips squiggle with joy. I rub the slime against my cheek, its coolness is so soft and welcoming. “Oh, you’re so cute, I just want to squeeze you forever.”

I carry Puddle back to my room where Kivuli is waiting on my bed. She's holding my notebook.

"One more headline for you," she explains. She'd written down Spirits. "But this is for later." She snaps the notebook shut and stares at me expectantly.

"Okay," I say softly. I brush my hair behind my ears, trying to focus. I can do this. Cupping Puddle between my wet hands, I close my eyes and activate .

Puddle relaxes, flattening slightly as a tingling sensation travels up my arms.

Dewdrop Slime is a cute name, and as much as I want to squeeze Puddle again, I hand the slime over to Kivuli, explaining that I’ve just acquired it. I think about undressing, but I don’t want to take off my clothes while we’re both in the tiny bedroom together, so I figure I’ll spare us the embarrassment. Besides, it’s not like I’m gonna set my clothes on fire this time. At worst, they’ll get a little wet.

Taking a deep breath, I use , and it begins.

The first thing to go is my right leg, shooting up the trousers and into my hips. I cry out as I lose my balance and collapse on my side. Kivuli almost gets up, as if to help, but I hold out my hand. "It's okay. That didn't hurt."

My side is no longer human. It splatted on the floor before sucking back into my chest, and I shudder as my throat flattens. My tongue melts into my jaw. Then my head convulses.

The room ripples around me, and I know my eyes turn to dots. I'm seeing through my gelatinous body. Everything has a faint blue shine.

Puddle's mouth squiggles with concern as it stares at me from Kivuli's hands. But I'm shrinking. Within moments, I’m buried in my clothes. The green shirt feels like a collapsed tent, and everything is dark inside. But my transforming skin can sense the water vapor in the air. It knows which way to wiggle, and I manage to escape through the top of my shirt so that I splat onto the hardwood floor.

The room feels enormous, the ceiling as high as the sky, and my bones pop one after another, vanishing into the gooey soup of my insides.

My intestines float through me, and it takes me a second to realize I still have a human arm and a human leg, smaller than normal, but sticking out of my slime body and stuck inside my shirt.

Kivuli's nose curls, but she squats down, bringing her face closer to inspect me. "Are you alright?" she asks, her voice booming through the air and the floor.

I open my slime mouth, but I can't speak. My hand flails uselessly, slapping against my leg as I try to shake them free of my clothes. I'm stuck. I'm stuck! I messed something up.

I'm a freak! I'm stuck as a freak! Should I just try ? What should I do? I don't have a human mouth; I can’t even tell her what happened!

"Samiya?"

The sound of her voice vibrates through me. My arm and leg itch uncontrollably, and I shut my dot eyes. I’m just nervous because someone is watching me. That has to be it. Before when I transformed, I had to picture the creatures clearly in my head. And when I wanted to return, I had to keep an image of myself in mind. I have to guide the transformation purposefully.

Okay. I can do this. I picture Puddle. Squeezing it over the sink. Rubbing it against my face. I breathe through my skin, sucking in the tiny wisps of water vapor – and there’s so much in the air! I can taste the storm all around me, within me! – and then, with one last slurping noise, my remaining limbs turn gelatinous and slip into my tiny body. I’m a Dewdrop Slime.

The air... the air is so full of water. I want to absorb it all.

My core pulses with want. I can feel every molecule of wetness surrounding me, passing through my skin and gathering inside me. Squeeze me.

Won’t somebody please squeeze me? I’m so full of water! I’ll burst! I swear to God, I’ll burst!

No wait. Wait. I won’t. I won’t burst. This is strange. My mind spins in two directions. The Ember Slime's mind wasn’t like this. That had been cozy and soft and gentle. Being a Dewdrop Slime... it’s the rain. The rain is driving me crazy. The rain is inside me!

The air is so wet! Can’t Kivuli feel it? The rain, the ocean, and water. It’s like I have to pee so badly that I can’t sit still. My body jiggles and stretches.

It hurts. It aches. I need release!

Wring me out like a fucking towel.

Kivuli picks me up all of a sudden. Air rushes around me; she seems so gigantic. Her face is the moon. “You can speak?” She whispers. “You can speak in that form? I heard your voice.”

I can talk?

She nods, looking at me very closely with a peculiar expression. Some mix between concern and bewilderment. “You want me to squeeze you?”

The need is too strong for me to feel shy.

Kivuli glides out of my room. She rushes down the hall. It's a little dizzying. I almost feel like I might be seasick. But then I’m over the sink, and her warm fingers close in.

They’re so warm. Hot and strong, pressed against my cool body, and the sensation. The sensation of being squeezed so tight, compressed like a stress ball in a fist. I gasp inwardly, air and water gushing out of me. Pleasure cascades through my blobby body as I swell uncontrollably through her fingers. I feel it in my core, like she’s pressing on the deepest recesses of my soul, and my mind snaps shut.

All I know is the pleasure of release as water shoots out of my skin. The sound of it splattering the sink, and oh god, it feels so good.

When it's over. When no more wetness is left to escape me, I open my eyes and find Kivuli looking slightly red in the face. Oh god... oh god oh god oh god.

I whisper, the embarrassment blossoming through me now that the Dewdrop Slime’s mind had quieted. Even saying thank you feels like the worst thing to say.

"Perhaps it's best you transform back now," says Kivuli in a strange voice. She clears her throat and sets Puddle on the shelf. Puddle blinks at me, and I know it understands how I'd felt. I can feel water gathering inside me again, building and swelling. Oh god.

“I’ll take you back to your room,” she says, holding me gently in her hand. She’s looking everywhere but at me, and I can’t blame her. “I now understand what you mean by having another mind in your head.”

I tell her weakly, but she doesn’t respond. Instead, she freezes, and her face hardens.

Ringing sounds fill the cottage, like a bell being rung over and over.

“We’re being summoned,” she says. She almost seems grateful for the distraction, and I feel the exact same way. But Kivuli holds me up to look me in the eyes. The embarrassment on her face is gone, replaced by a businesslike sternness. “That bell is only rung when my services are required. Will you accompany me?”

You still want me around after that?

I tell her quickly. Anything to put this behind us, and I’m more than a little curious about what we’ll find at the well.

“It could be dangerous,” she says, walking down the hall. “I don’t get any quest information until I speak with whoever rang the bell.” She pauses in my room, and I realize she’s trying to figure out where to place me.

I say. If I were human, my face would be so red.

Kiivuli sets me down and clears her throat. “Be quick. I’ll be waiting outside.” She’s gone in a flicker of her shadows, and I use wondering if I’ll be able to look her in the eyes when I get downstairs.