I stared down at the scattered parts of my wife in absolute confusion. She was still alive, which was good, but how in the world could something like this happen? Then my mind called back to Tycho and his damn magic ball.

Carefully, I picked up her head. It was unexpectedly heavy.

"What did you do?" Kirsten's head said with an intensity that made any man shake in their shoes.

I could only stammer.

A column of purple smoke spun for a brief moment, materializing into the form of a man. It was Tycho. He adjusted his black and yellow robes, wiping dust off of the elegant crest of a badger on his left breast.

"I see. You're not only a trespasser, but a bigger buffoon than I could have anticipated."

I wanted to be angry and make a snide remark of how much of a fucking nerd he was, but I jumped to my feet, placing Kirsten's head between my arm and hip, and made my plea.

"Restore her. Please, and I will never bother you again."

Tycho furrowed his brow. "And this is my responsibility...how? You break into my private space, use my enchantments, and you expect me to undo your mistake?"

"How would you know? I was here the entire time!" I said as convincingly as possible.

"You most certainly was not." Kirsten pipped.

"Shut it." I said through clenched teeth.

"I know the spell you used. Something I developed myself. Corporis Secarus. It separates the limbs and head of the target painlessly, with no drop of blood spilled in the process. They can't feel the separated parts of themselves and cannot be put back together until a reversal spell is incanted. It's a rather humane way of incapacitating home intruders."

"Yeah, well I sure as shit didn't invite you in." I gestured to where he stood.

"I'm not here at all. This is a projection of myself. I happen to be at the convention, and in the men's stall no less."

I reached for the closest thing--other than my wife's body parts--and threw it straight at Tycho's face. The decorative table piece hit the door behind him and shattered. "Shit."

Tycho's expression of disappointment went unflinched. "Find your own way out of this one. Now if you'll excuse me, I've been compacted for quite some time." And with another swirl of smoke, Tycho was gone.

"...Great going you dumbass." Kirsten said before blowing strands of brown hair away from her face. "I thought you said he couldn't teleport either."

It was a moment of reflection for myself. Here I was, thinking I could best someone who knew way more than I assumed. Hurting me was one thing. I put myself in front of his crosshairs far too often, but now it wasn't me who was getting turned to a toad or stool to hold said toad, it was Kirsten. The last person I wanted to get hurt from our shenanigans.

"I'm sorry...really."

"Oh, I know you are. And you're going to be really sorry when I'm able to get my arms back."

Cautiously, I placed Kirsten's head on the end table that sat in the corner of the two sofas. She squinted.

"This feels sooo weird."

I wouldn't know. Never was there a time our heads came off of our bodies since birth. I looked down at the pile of Kirsten on the hardwood flooring. Grabbing an arm, her hand which sported some recently manicured and french-tipped fingernails, limply flopped backwards.

"Can you not play with my body like that. It's weird."

"What's weird? This?" I said as I shook the arm and made the hand jerk around erratically.

"Stop! Just put it down." Kirsten frowned.

My attempt to make light of the situation failed, and it was unusual for that to be. I hung my head down and squatted down to my wife's eye level. "What am I going to do? You can't stay like this forever."

"First you need to make it up to him. Make it known that you're sorry."

"You're not mad?" I said with astonishment, "You don't demand that he fix this?"

"No, I'm not. I'm still alive. I'll just have to...call in for a month or something. It's inconvenient being in this state, but this is more your punishment than it is mine."

I let out a deep sigh. "But there's no telling when he'll be back."

"Then you make this time for thinking how you're going to be better."

Nodding, I twisted myself around to find Kirsten's truncated torso. Watching closely, I could see her chest rise and fall. A thought occurred. "I'm...going to have to take you to use the bathroom, huh?"

"Yep."

Sleeping that night was a different experience for the both of us. Kirsten had me prop her head on a neck massager pillow, then place her torso on its belly. The arms and legs were placed on a bed of pillows to avoid potential sores. I found myself waking up in the middle of the night spooning her torso like old times, but it just wasn't the same.

I was prompted to take action once more, and I stood facing the fence in the backyard at dawn. It was tempting to go back in and try to find that reversal spell Tycho spoke of. Breaking in the first time was easy, and doing it a second time would be even easier.

Fueled by impulse and lack of proper rest, I climbed over the fence once again, making sure not to get my bathrobe and slippers snagged by the wooden posts.

Everything appeared untouched since the previous visit. I quietly and carefully stepped towards the back door and gave it a tug.

Locked.

I rattled the knob again. No way it could have been locked, But then again, magic. I threw my hands up in the air. "Goddamn it."

Suddenly, the door warped and compressed itself into a smaller shape, resembling Tycho's mustachioed face with a bronze knob for a nose. It spoke.

"This is the manor of Tycho the Suburban Wizard! I demand you leave at once!"

Like the idiot I was, I attempted to communicate. "Hey you...you son of a...erm..."

The door raised an eyebrow.

"I, uhhh, need that reversal spell. Please! Just for a second!"

"You shall not pass!" The door said before expanding and returning to the normal shape it was prior.

It was a long and depressing stride back to my own back door. I wasn't getting that reversal spell, not through sly covert operations. I slunk onto the bed once I reached the room again.

"Fuck ADT, this motherfucker has has talking Gandolf doors now."

"You tried to go back in there?"

"You're right honey. This is my punishment. I can't live with myself knowing that my hatred towards him bounced off his stupid mug and hit you. God...I really am an idiot."

Kirsten tried to shake her head, but then must have remembered the required it being attached. "Don't, don't be so hard on yourself. You're learning. We just have to adapt to this change until he comes back. I know he will fix it."

I groaned harder than I had groaned before."Fine. He wins and I lose."

"It has nothing to do with winning or losing. Even though he's the wizard, you have the power to control how you react to him. The antagonizing--he does it because he knows you'll react. Yes, it's a power play. He wants you to know how insignificant you are compared to him. He'll always have control over you if you let him, okay?"

I smiled. "When did you become the voice of reason?"

"Like, seven years ago when we got married."

We had a laugh, and I reached over to take her head from the pillow, hugging it against my chest. At the very least, I still had her no matter what Tycho felt like taking away from me.

"I have got to pee again, and bad." Kirsten said with urgency in her words.

"Okay fine."