There was something simple about the wand, as if it was just a kid's toy, little more than a star cutout covered in glitter. And yet, it seemed brighter than it should be in this light and no shadow seemed to touch it or come from it. I reached for it, almost in an unconscious way, but stopped short from touching the strange wand.

Better leave it for Jaime in the morning, I thought. I was tired, still puzzling over the weirding woman, and didn't want to be here one minute more. I picked up my phone and turned to leave and lock up. But the image of the wand kept in my vision, as an afterimage in my eyes.

What was it? Why was it here? I didn't know, and I didn't really care. I wanted to go home and dive into playing Civilization while drinking beer to clear out my mind. I kept walking.

What could it do? The principle of out of sight and out of mind was hardly working. I did stop for a step and checked my pockets, making sure I hadn't forgotten anything. But even as I did so, I had a feeling that I wanted to go back to the counter and get the wand. Touch it. Take it and possess it. But I couldn't admit that to myself. I kept walking to the door.

Was it dangerous? I stopped again at the light switch at the front door, glancing back at the wand as I flicked with switch. The fluorescent bulbs above and their buzzing hum went away. And the wand glowed in the dimness. Not a lot, probably less than a phone screen at night. But enough that it cast soft silver-white light around the front counter.

Was it calling to me? I thought of Jaime coming in the next morning, eager to start the day with fresh coffee and donuts from 7-11. I imagined her looking at the wand and picking it up. Testing it. Waving it around with a girlish glee, wondering as I did what it was. It was that thought that took me back at a double pace. I could bear to leave the wand. I couldn’t bear that someone else would get to take it.

I should have known better. I've read my fair share of fairy stories and fantasy novels. I knew about strange compulsions, infatuating objects, and weirding women who contested in riddles. And yet I looked at the wand with an inexorable fascination. She had left it to me, either as a blessing or a curse. It would be rude to not take it, whatever it ended up being.

I touched the wand in strange reverence and felt for the first time the tinkling of magic break through my body like waves on the beach. Coming and going. Waxing and waning. I came to realize that as the feeling work through my body that I was smiling. The wooden handle was soft to the touch yet had an unnatural sturdiness. The star on top seemed all the brighter in my hand.

As I moved the wand I noticed shooting stars falling away from the wand, burning bright and then evaporating into the air. I waved the wand with a quick turn of my wrist and marveled at the bow of lights left in its wake. I tried it again, with my whole arm to make an arch above my head. The faster I moved the wand, the brighter the lights and more solid the shape. The bits of glow fell on me and sank into my skin.

I thought of what I might have looked like, wildly swinging a magic wand around in the dark, so I stopped. I cupped the star in one hand and looked at it, wondering at its hidden and not so hidden brilliance. Then I began to glow, really glow like a lightbulb surging with electricity. My skin warmed and tan light came from within. I looked down and over myself, and then the room. Like a flashlight I was lighting everything around me in warm colors

The waves of magic and its soothing, tingling feel receded for strange second, even as I continued to glow from within. I gasped at it suddenly leaving. And then the wave of magic crashed through my body. I began to scream, not out of pain, or even fear, exactly, but because I didn't know what else to do, or what else I could do. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the glow covered my eyelids in perpetual tan light. And then darkness. Silence except for the lazy whir of overhead fans and my own gulping breaths.

My body was shaking from a sugar high and I reached out a hand to the counter, but my sense of the world was off. I banged my fingers into the glass case below the top. "Ow," I said involuntarily. And then my eyes shot open, because the voice I heard was not my voice. It was softer and higher pitched, though it retained my own cadence and accent.

I looked down at myself. Now I screamed for real, because my body was not how I left it. Long brown hair, straight and perfectly brushed fell from my vision. I pushed my hair back behind my ears and as I did, I felt the way they came to a soft elvish point. My skin had lost its cuts and scrapes, freckles and hair, practically like a baby that had not yet felt the sun.

My clothes hung loose over me, my shirt draping me like a tent and exposing a wide swath of my shoulders and chest. My pants tried to fall from my waist, and only the strange, wide set stance kept them from falling down all the way. I wiggled my toes and saw them move in my shoe, well behind where they normally sat. Slowly, I reached to my collar and pulled it away, looking down my shirt. I looked back up immediately, too shocked and yet not shocked at the soft, pert breasts I saw inside.

"What the heck, what the heck," I looked at the wand still in my hand, "What the HECK?!" I shouted at it.

In response, the wand began to glow again. "I didn't mean it," I said quickly. But this time as the wand worked its power, it caused my clothes and not body to glow. I tried to open my hand and throw the wand away, but my fingers remained tight and shut around the handle. I was bathed in the comforting feeling and smell of sun warmed clothes.

Then the wave of magic descended and my clothes changed. The same cursed magic that forced me into my new body saw fit to force my clothes into fairy attire, but plain sort of costume put together by someone on a budget.

I now wore, by decision of the wand, a long-sleeved white shirt with a sewn in tutu. It wasn’t a grand, balletic tutu, either, but a short one that might be used for play or running and was just froofy enough to cover my waist. My thin legs were wrapped up in soft white tights that were opaque enough to keep me feeling covered. And my shoes had become flat black canvas tennis shoes.

“Augh!” I cried, padding my shirt and tutu, feeling for pockets. But after finding none, and looking around nearby, I was forced to conclude that my keys and my phone had vanished into the ether with my clothes, my real body, and my dignity.

I looked at the glittery wand in full disbelief. "Why are you doing this to me?" I said, still reeling at the sound of my voice. And as I asked an inanimate object for answers, I heard a voice behind me.

"It's just a wand, sweet sprite. It has no mind of its own.”