“Wait—say that again?” Miranda said, as she looked up to the towering figure standing before her. In truth, Courtney barely hit five feet. But, when you measure your size in inches, that mattered little.

The worried woman fretted before repeating herself. “You’ve been altered. I can’t turn you back.”

There was something interesting in the way Miranda’s stuffing twisted all on its own, mimicking gut-wrenching embarrassment. “Why not?” She squeaked.

Courtney pointed at Miranda’s plush feet. And at the writing marked on them. “You let her write her name on you!”

The doll thought back to that moment a few days ago, when Andi produced a marker and took hold of each one of Miranda’s legs. Miranda, who fell limp whenever a human so much as grazed her, remembered feeling oddly comforted about whole moment. Like she was being cared for. In a way, she had been.

“Let her? I’m a few inches tall and made of plush. How could I stop her? Besides, this is your fault. If you knew how to properly control your—”

“No one can control wild magic! That’s why it’s called wild magic!” Courtney huffed. They didn’t know each other that well, just having a few college Lit, classes together. So it came as a bit of a shock to Miranda when she found Courtney setting up a candle ritual around a plush doll in the bathroom. In hindsight, startling the apparent witch was a bad idea.

“Well…you still lost me.” Miranda said, grasping for anything to shunt the blame for this mess onto the other girl.

“You ran from me.”

“I was scared! I had just been turned into a living toy and the next thing I know, the girl who did it was a giant chasing me.” The chase didn’t last long, but it did end with Miranda being scooped up, not by Courtney, but by Andi, who was at the school to visit her adjunct father. It was then the new doll discovered what being a real doll was like. It was an annoying mix of doing as she was told, of being fully limp, and very occasionally, getting to do what she wanted. As long as what she wanted didn’t involve leaving Andi’s bedroom.

Courtney flexed her fingers in frustration. “How am I going to fix this?” She whispered to herself.

“I still don’t understand, why does the marker change things?”

“Because the…” Courtney squeezed the bridge of her nose, thinking of how to explain this. “So, you’ve been claimed, officially. Let’s say I turn you back, let’s say we leave the room, let’s say you go back to your normal life.”

“I like it so far.”

“Then, Andi, your Owner, wishes to herself that her magical doll was back home where she belonged, and guess where you wind up?”

“Can we tell her…not to do that?”

Courtney laughed ruefully. “We’d have to get her to give up her claim over you entirely. Do you think that’s likely? You know her better than I do.”

Miranda grimaced. “She’s pretty possessive of her toys.”

“Great. Maybe I can find some way to break the bond. But I’ll need to go do some research. So, stay put, and keep doing whatever it is you’re doing. With any luck, you’ll only be a doll for the rest of the summer.”

“Wait! You can’t just leave me here! Andi’s about to have me speed date all her dolls!”