"Are you sure he's not going to notice?" Melinda asked.

"Of course not don't be such a puss", Barbara answered. "He's not coming back until tonight so if we ever mess up we have plenty of time to fix it."

"But what if he comes back sooner? Or if we get into trouble?"

"What will could he do to us? Change us into mice for a few weeks? The last time he felt like punishing me he morphed me into a cat for an hour or two. Nothing too problematic for me. I can live with those kinds of consequences."

"Yeah but what if he gets really mad this time? I've heard pretty horrible stories of what happened to his old pupils..." Melinda shivered and rubbed her sides. "That they're now part of the furniture..."

"Forget it, he likes us way too much for that."


She picked up the spellbook and almost collapsed under its massive weight, bringing it into the next room, which was furnished with luxurious sofas and carpets, as well as having lots of open space. She crouched and dropped the book heavily on the ground where it lifted a small dust cloud. She opened it at random and mumbled a couple of words shuffling through the pages. She wasn't looking for anything specific. On the contrary, she wanted the book to surprise her. 


Barbara joined her hands together. "So, found anything interesting yet?"

Melinda frowned. "There are a few things, yeah." She flipped once more and leaned forward to read smaller inscriptions. "...blablabla, place your hand in the circle below. That should be simple enough... AHHHHH!!"


She had yelled because the book had suddenly and violently closed shut on its own. The contact of Melinda's skin again the dried parchment paper had triggered something she wasn't expecting and she jerked back in reaction to it. Luckily for her, she was quick enough not to have felt the crushing weight of the book shatter her bones into pieces. She sighed in relief.


"Well that was close." She said.

"I thought this was an incantation spellbook. You didn't even read anything yet!" Barabara looked around the room, wondering if the loud noise had triggered something else.

"It seems we'll have to be more careful, now."

"And to think I was the one being too cautious." She leaned forward to rotate the book towards her. "It's my turn, let me check a few things."


Opening the grimoire once again, she quickly came back to the page Melinda had just used.


"Uh, Barb?"


Like most pages in most of the manor's magic books, it bore a simple design: The name of the spell at the top, followed by the effects, a few illustrations, and finally the incantation. She could see the circle her friend had just talked about.


"Barb I think I did something."

"Shush I'm trying to read this." She answered.


The circle wasn't empty, but was instead filled with a realistic representation of a forearm. She couldn't understand what it meant.


"BARB!"

She shouted back. "WHAT?!"

"Look." She finally lifted her eyes from the book.


Melinda's left arm ended below the elbow. Her forearm and hand were nowhere to be seen. There was no blood or protruding bones, just a patch of skin matching the light brown color of her complexion. Barbara looked down at the book again, at the piece of arm that lay on the page.


"Is that... Is that yours?" They both stared at the picture.

"The book must have absorbed it when it slammed shut!" She took a closer look at her shortened arm, flexing it before her and feeling the skin at its end. "I wonder if I can retrieve it the same way. Hand it back."


She waved her stump and Barb obeyed. After carefully pressing her stump against the paper, she started to feel it getting warmer and sensations rushed back to her. Gradually, as she withdrew her arm from the page, the image vanished from the circle, leaving it blank once again. After recuperating the tips of her fingers, a very soft succion sound could be heard coming from the page. She clenched her fist in victory.


"Talk about a good start!" She said joyfully as she examined her fingers. "What's this section about?"

Barbara took the book back and flipped left. "Body modifications. If they're all as reversible, this could be really fun! But is there only one page for this trick?"


As she returned to the page containing the jinxed circle, she noticed the book was materializing more copies of the same page, always containing the same design. That meant it could be reused if they so wanted. 


She took matter in her own hands and gave it a try, too. Still using the same spell as her friend before her, she placed both hands in the circle on the page without triggering the book's violent closing. Instead, she felt the skin of her fingers become cold until they were numb. Then, the flesh in contact with the book melted as it sunk into the magical paper of the book. The more she pushed, the more it absorbed. She leaned forward more with each passing second as her forearms and elbows got consumed, keeping on pushing up to her shoulders. At this point, she used her abs to arch back and escape the book's spell.


"How do I look?!" She asked Melinda. She shrugged her empty shoulders and turned her head to observe them.

"Mostly harmless." She giggled. "How does it feel if I do this?"


She poked her thumbs in the socket where her arms were attached only seconds ago and massaged them brieftly. Barbara's mouth gaped open, her shoulders flailing in all directions. The straps of her top rested dangerously close to the end of her collarbones, menacing to fall off at any moment's notice. Her brain struggled to process sensations on this new part of her body and the feeling paralysed her in awe.


"....Gosh. It's like I've waited my entire life for this without even knowing." She kept rolling her shoulders backwards and moving them sideways. "You know, like when you scratch your back after removing your bra? You don't feel like you need it at first but then it's immensely satisfying?"

"I think I get it, yeah." She eyed the page containing the arms. "Hey, you think the attachment spell only applies on you?"

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"Like could I use your limbs? We could switch body parts!" Barbara sat effortlessly in lotus pose and frowned while Melinda removed her shirt. "Let me try."


Perched above of the book, calculating her angle, Melinda lowered her left side to the paper and immediately recognized the warm sensation from when she recuperated her hand earlier. However,it was now coming from somewhere on the side of her rib cage. She slowly began to recognize the feelings in her new limb and was getting excited. As soon as her friend's left arm had been transfered, she procceeded to do the second one on the right side of her body.


"They don't exactly match..." Said Barbara, pointing at her friend with her toes. Her own arms where white as snow, while her friend's complexing resembled chocolate milk.

"Who cares?! I gotta try doing stuff."


Her second pair of arms articulated beneath her first one, just below the first set's pits. There were no color transition between the skins so it looked like she had simply strapped on a costume of the wrong shade of color. She flexed them and reached out to grab and fold her shirt neatly beside her. Meanwhile, too focused on her new limbs, her old arms laid limp at her sides. When she switched her attention back to her own, Barbara's set instantly lost coordination, stretching the shirt and crumpling it into a messy ball. She groaned and clenched her four fists at once out of frustration. Exicted by her sudden coordination, she started clapping, hands of the same set working together.



"This is so tricky! The more I seem to focus on it, the harder it gets."

"The trick is not to think about it too much. At least that's what I'm trying to do." Barbara said. Balancing only on her ass, she extended her legs and brought the book close to her, flipping through it by pinching the corner of the pages between her first two toes. "Brush it off and act normally, see?"

"Yeah, okay." She breathed in and out before standing up, her hands reaching out for various anchor points around her as she did: the ground, her thighs, a chair.. "I wanna try something in the bathroom, care to join me?"

"Heck yeah."


Barb sprung up without any help. Her lack of arms threw her balance off for the first few steps, but she quickly aknowledged the balancing motion of her arms didn't exist anymore and adjusted her stance accordingly, tensing her core abs to straighten up her torso. Melinda followed behind, grabbing a hair brush on the way. They both examined themselves in front of the mirror. Barbara watched the narrow and rounded ends of her exposed shoulders as she moved and breathed, while Melinda brought her face closer to the reflective surface, simultaneously supporting herself on the countertop with her new arms and undoing her ponytail with her own. Using Barbara's, she opened the top drawer to pick up her mascara and unscrewed the cap while messing her hair up and mecanically started to brush them all over again. Bottom left hand on the counter for balance, bottom right applying makeup, and top ones working together to untangle her hair. She dipped the mascara into the tube again and went on applying it on her other eye just as she put down the brush and brought her hair up again. She twisted them into a loose bun as well as fixed a few wild locks and put the final touch of make up on her eyelashes before putting away both items in a coordinated dance of hands and arms, alternatively opening drawers, cupboards, setting down various items in their respective spots. Finally, she adjusted her bra with her own arms while cupping her breasts with her friend's.


"My boobs feel huge! Your hands are so tiny!" She brought the four together to compare their size, joining opposing hands of the other set palm to palm. Then, she laid the four of them on her hips. "This is great. I feel like an indian goddess. Do you think people would worship me over in India?"

"Well I'm pretty sure catholics would burn you at the stakes on sight." Barbara headed for the furnished lounge and rolled her right shoulder forward as if to encourage her. "Come on, I want my arms back, let's try something else."

Melinda managed to shrug her four shoulders. "Nah, I'm liking this. I think I'm going to keep them."

Her friend stopped and turned around. "Hey, stop that." She gave her a menacing look, her left shoulder jerking forward as she tried to point her with an accusing finger. She looked at it and scoffed.  "Erm, give it back, or else..."


She walked towards Mel, who waited with all four arms crossed, looking particulartly unimpressed. When she got close enough, she grabbed Barbara by her empty shoulders without even unfolding her second set of arms. She faked a yawn and casually reached in her pockets while maintaining her grasp on her friend. She wiggled and struggled to break free.


"Come on, let go!"


Her torso rocked from side to side as her shoulders wobbled, trapped in Melinda's grasp. Using her right leg, she attempted a kick that was blocked by her own left arm. Before she could react or kick again, Melinda's last arm had lifted her up and she was being craned back into the previous room. They sat back on the floor beside the book.


"Let me just try one last thing before I give your arms back, deal?"

Barbara sighed. "Deal." Supporting a leg onto the other's raised knee, she cleared the hair off her face and stuck a few locks behind her ears. "But be quick, I also wanna try other things before the Master comes back."

"Yeah yeah, sure. In the meantime, you can try putting on my legs if you want."


To mark her words, she stepped on top of the book, still opened on the same page as before, and the effects were immediately visible. Melinda was getting shorter by the second, her legs gradually being absorbed by the page. Although she now lacked her feet, she seemed to have no problem keeping herself upright on top of her shortening stumps. When her hips drew near from the book's enchanted page, she set her hands on the ground and pushed up, breaking the contact between her skin and the page. On the latter, two brown pairs of legs were printed with astounding realistic details. 

She swung her ass backwards and landed on the ground on a padded patch of skin. Just like Barbara's shoulders, her pelvis was completely devoid of any limbs. She pushed down on the floor with her arms and felt her new rump using Barb's. Then, she leant forward and used her four arms to lift herself off the ground. Keeping her torso horizontal, she managed to walk on all fours for a few steps before dropping down on her ass again.


"Man, I wish we were three people in here, I could've put another set on and turn myself into a human bug! This has to be easier the more arms you have."


She waddled to the couch and pulled herself on it, two arms grabbing the cushions while the other two pushed her off the ground. Getting down was just as easy with so many hands to hold on with.


"Come on, let's try something else." Barbara insisted again, pushing the book towards her. "And give those back." A strap of her top fell off as she gestured towards me with a bare shoulder. She swung it downward to try and scoop the strap up without success.



After a few minutes of manipulations and putting themselves back together, both girls now had their own limbs back in place. Legs were bent and arms were stretched with contempt after each reattachment and they flipped a few more pages looking for another hex.


"Oh oh oh! This one! This one!" Melinda pointed excitedly at the title of this section. "That has to be great."

"Hell, why not." Barb answered, to her friend's delight. "Now we gotta chose which one specifically, there seems to be quite the variation. There's mixing, fusion, conjoined..."

"I'll close my eyes. Choose one without telling me and cast it. You can order me around for proper positionning if needed."

"Well don't mind if I do." Barbara rubbed her hands together and rapidly flipped through the section. "Let's see.. yes, this should be nice."


She cleared her throat and recited the incantation. It was several verses long and was written in ancient greek, which was no problem for her, of course, since it was the first language they had to learn when starting as pupils for the old Master. She was very careful to pronounce each syllable correctly, as well as breathe as the appropriate times. When she was done, her last words reverberated earily in the furnished room. Melinda, still with her eyes closed, was waiting patiently. Suddenly, she sprung up, a terrified look on her face.


"HE'S COMING!"


They both stood perfectly still and listened. At the far end of the corridor, muffled footsteps were progressing towards them. By no doubt this was the Master. They were going to be in a big load of trouble.


Barbara closed the book and stood up as well. "Alright, we gotta do it quick. You clean the room. We've made quite a mess and I place the grimoire back."

"But what about the spell you just casted?"

"We'll figure something out. We can hide and come back later to undo it."


Both girls headed opposite ways, Melinda placing cushions and furniture back into place while her friend sprinted through a corridor to bring the book back where it stood before they took it. When everything seemed as clean as earlier, Melinda spoke up:


"Everything neat on your side?" 


She could hear Barb grunt and wheeze before she answered.


"Can't. Walk. Anymore. Something. Pulling me back."

"Quick quick quick we don't have time for this!"


She got up and walked towards her. As she did, Barbara managed to do a few more steps before stopping again when Melinda herself stopped walking. She fell on her knees, hands clutching at her stomach. She felt like a fishhook had been buried deep within her guts and was trying to tear her soul out of her body.


"What is happening to me Barb?!" She gasped for air as the pain grew more intense.

"Spell... Too.... Strong."

The spell was dragging Barbara backwards on the wooden floor, despite her attempts at anchoring her feet properly on the ground, while Melinda was also slowly sliding forward towards her friend. They turned around to face each other and reached out to grab the other one's hands, the book falling heavily on the floor in the process. When their hands met, their flesh seemed immaterial, one's hand phasing through the other's, before they realised they were actually fusing together. Melinda's fingers melted on contact with Barbara's skin, her hand vanishing completely inside her friend's arm. Surprised by the process and frightened by the Master's upcoming entrance, she retracted her left arm only to find her hand was missing from her body, chopped off just like earlier. She turned back around and, with two missing hands, crawled away from her friend, now on her knees, also reaching for her stomach. A door opened and Barbara's face switched from pain to fear as she made eye contact with the Master. He didn't speak a word, but the entire mansion vibrated under the power he seemed to unleash. She kept mumbling excuses and regrets and all sorts of petty sorries but his mind was set.

Under the sheer force of the spell Barbara had cast, Melinda's legs were now being ripped apart in tiny droplets that were absorbed by her friend's body. Gradually, her feet, shins and knees tore away, her crawl slowed down and came to a full stop before starting to get dragged backwards. The last remains of her thighs went through the same process as she attempted to hold on to nearby object with handless arms. When she looked back, the Master's shadow had grown to a terrifing size. Barbara didn't pay attention to the droplets of flesh penetrating her skin. she was still pleading the old man for mercy and forgiveness. Melinda's rump had also vanished, along with her pelvis, leaving her as a rapidly shrinking torso. When she felt her breasts starting to disintegrate, her vision went blurry, the sensations in her brief body became numb and she passed out...



---------------



When Melinda finally woke up again, she found herself lying down on a comfortable bed. Stacks of clean blankets pressured heavily on her as she breathed and remembered what had happened. She looked around the room but couldn't manage to recognize it. I've never been here before, she thought. Could it be one of the Master's secret rooms? The ones hidden behind intricate hexed walls and barriers? She brought her hands up to rub the sleep out of her eyes and was surprised when only her left rendez-voused with her face. 


"Well that's weird." She whispered to herself.


Scouting the sensations in her body, she found no trace of a right hand, or even a right arm, to feel or control. Moving upward from there, she noticed couldn't feel her shoulder either and reached over on her right side to feel for any remaining limbs. To her surprise, she did grab onto what seemed to be a forearm, slid her hand towards her feet and was met with what felt like a perfectly normal hand. Backtracking from this point, she felt her way back up to her shoulder, still without feeling any of this. It's only when her hand came back on her torso and her breasts that sensations came back to her. 


"I probably slept on this side during the night."

"Shut up and let me sleep."


A voice had suddenly spoken directly into her ear. It was unmistakenly Barbara's. Melinda turned her head towards the source of the sound and flinched. Her friend's face was only a few inches away from her own, their lips almost coming into contact.


"Why are we both in the same bed?" Melinda said. "Come on gimme some room to breathe here."


Bringing her hand against Barbara's face to push her away, she stopped dead in her tracks halfway through her motion to inspect her hand. It was white. Not albino white. Not unnaturally white. Just... white. However she knew the color of her own complexion far too well, a fine combination of her african mother and her caucasian father, giving her skin a light brown color quite resembling chocolate milk. She tried to push herself away from her friend using her legs but again, just like with her hands, only the left one seemed to obey her commands. She began to panic and pushed against her friend's head. As she did, a sharp pain passed through her neck


"Let go of me, let me go!" She covered her hand with her mouth. That voice wasn't her own, why did she sound so much different? She hadn't noticed before bringing her voice louder from a simple whisper.

"Fucking hell what is this all ab..." Barbara started before stopping mid sentence to inspect Melinda. " And why do you look exactly like me?"

"...Do I? I.. I Do... I... I don't know...." She raised her hand in incomprehension, flipping it over as if trying to find a clue written in-between her fingers.

"And why are we both so cramped up in this freaking bed?"


She writhed brieftly, trying to raise herself on one elbow. As she did, Melinda's body jerked forward, following her friend's movements. Again trying to distance herself from Barb, she threw the blankets off the bed and attempted to move sideways. Then, she looked down at her body.

She was alone in the bed. Or rather there was only one body in the bed, and weirdly enough, it was Barbara's. It was as white as her hand, only the limbs on the opposite side of her body seemed to be paralyzed, oblivious to her desire to articulate them, while her left arm and leg moved as she pleased. The angle from which she was looking at herselft left her feeling... off. Like she was too far to the left, or looking down at herself through a camera perched over her own shoulder. Suddenly, the limbs on the right moved too and her gaze flew from her legs onto her other arm. Finally, she stared straight ahead into a gigantic mirror that had been installed on the opposing wall of the room and both girls screamed in horror. 

On a single pair of shoulders, two identical heads connected to a single body. Both bearing Barbara's face, both cramped up tightly between the two shoulders, necks sprouting near the middle in a slight angle, one's right cheek almost brushing against the other's left. Both girls could feel the entirety of their torso, but were unable to control or get any sensation coming for the limbs on the opposite side of their body. 

Having heard a voice, they put their hand on the other one's mouth and listened. From outside the room came a voice familiar only to one of the girls.


"Is everything alright up there?" The voice asked.

"What.. The..." Barbara cleared her voice. "Everything's fine, mom. There was a spider that's all."

Melinda nudged the right side of her body and spoke softly : "Mom?! Was does that fucking mean?!"

"I don't know, would you shut up!"


They heard the voice once again, still muffled by the closed door of the room, but louder now. 


"Breakfast is ready, I'd be cool if you joined me for once."


As the doorknob was slowly being turned, Melinda pounded harder on Barbara's side of the body, muttering and whispering things at a mindblowing speed.


"No don't come in! I.. we.... I'm.... Not hungry! and naked- I'm naked!"

Her mother scoffed from the other side of the door. "I gave birth to you and changed your diaper for years, you think I mind seeing you naked?"

"Well I do!" Melinda said, speaking with the exact same voice.

"And even then, maybe your sister is hungry, do you ever think about her at all?"


The girls, looking for something to cover themselves, went opposite ways. Melinda reached for the discarded sheets on her left, Barbara for a sweatshirt on her right. As the heads craned, they quickly tugged on the other, the patch of skin between them stretching painfully in the process and prevented their progression while arms flailed through the air looking to escape their other half. Right at that moment, the door flung wide open with the spectacular velocity and force only mastered by parents of experience. Quickly, both hands reached down in front of them to grab another unidentified piece of clothing and use it to hide their exposed breasts while simultaneously looking up to the unexpected visitor. One face expressed pure terror, the other a mix of apprehension and resignation.

Their mom stared and waited. One hand on her hip, the other resting on the door frame. Calmly, looking down at both girls, alternatively looking at one head, then at the other. They looked at each other before turning to their mom. 


"I'll never understand teenagers. Still in bed at this time?" She checked her watch. "Melinda, did you force your sister to stay in bed this morning, too?"

Melinda's mouth opened and closed a few times before she managed to produce a sound. "What, me?! I'm not even your..."

"It was me!" Barbara shouted, reaching over her left side to cover her friend's mouth with her hand. "I was being lazy and I refused to move."

"When can I expect you both at the kitchen table?" A disgusted frown grew on her face as she grabbed a crumpled shirt on a dresser with two careful fingers. The collar on it had visibly been cut wider and sewn again by hand.

"We'll be here in a sec." They said simultaneously, both girls sensing the other's words in their own head right as they spoke.

The woman sighed and turned around. "And try not to fight for a few minutes, I could use some change." Leaving the door wide open, she headed down the staircase.



"Uhhhhhmm." Melinda groaned for a few seconds before stretching her arm forward and feeling her head. "So... How the fuck are we both you, then?"

Barbara sighed. "Back in the mansion, the spell I used. It was supposed to make us conjoined like identical twins. First by absorbing your entire body into mine.."

"Mmhm. I remember being teared apart. Losing limbs in droplets of flesh isn't too amusing." Her tone was sarcastic.

"And then reconstructing a part of you from my own body..." She pinched the skin of her belly. "If we would've only fused together, we probably would've kept specific halves of ourselves. But since the spell passed through me first, that would explain the same head and face.."

"Hhmm yeah I'd guess," Melinda interrupted.

"But why appear here in my house when..."

"That's fucked up I'm telling you."

"You really can't shut your fucking mouth a single minute can you? I'm trying to answer your question, keep your pie-hole shut!" She turned her head and met face to face with... her own. Arguing with someone identical to her own self was very unsettling to say the least.

"Maybe I'd be able to shut up if I wasn't chained to your bowels and shared a body with you twat."

She slammed her fist on the bed. "I thought you agreed on the choice of spell back there? Is that my fault now? You didn't know the Master was coming either if I'm not mistaken!"

"Right. Back there." She pointed her thumb behind her back. "Why are we here now? And where's that book? I have to pee and I'm not sure I wanna test what'd be more awkward : Wiping myself knowing you can feel it or letting you wipe my own crotch."


Melinda sighed and the girls crossed their legs instinctively. She was rubbing the sleep out of her eyes when Barbara spoke again.


"Look Mel! What the hell is that?"


She pointed ahead of them both at a spot suspended in mid-air where the room seemed to twist and turn and deform whatever was behind it. Before long, a black portal warped into existence, spit out a piece of paper, and evaporated back out of the room. Barbara struggled to catch it as it fluttered randomnly to the ground. She had always been left handed but that arm had been forfeited to her friend. When she successfully grabbed it, Mel helped her open the folded contraption and held it out in front of them. They recognized the Master's handwriting.


"You who like to play around so much,
Who disrespect my art and authority,
I condemn you to stay together bound as such,
For this lifetime and all eternity.
United in life and death, but only to find
Being reborn will never soothe your mind."


Melinda let go of the riddle and grabbed the back of her head.


"Does that mean what it says it means?" She asked, her breath accelerating as she looked at her friend.

"There's only one way to find out. Get up."


With both hands secured on the bed, the girls used their legs in harmony to stand up. They had expected this to be harder, but still had to walk to Barbara's pc on the other side of the room. 


"You go first." Melinda said.


Still holding on to nearby furniture, Barbara lifted her leg off the ground. Not feeling her left leg at all, she felt like she was levitating. She tilted her... their torso forward and extended her leg to take a step. Next followed Melinda's leg, while she remained solidly anchored to the ground, then her turn again. Slowly but surely, they reached the chair in front of her desktop computer and crash landed on the seat. Barbara knew that the Master's magical school was being disguised as a weird apothecary shop, so perhaps if she could find the shop, they could contact their Master. She quickly tabbed away from her Facebook page, without first noticing how a second head seemed to have made it's appearance in every single one of her photos. However, when googling about the shop, they found a few local newspaper articles telling the story of how it was destroyed by a accidental fire more than 20 years ago. For non-initiated, this is still what can be seen on the corner of the street where it stiid, That meant... they had been banned from the Master's magic, unable to view the true form of his mansion.


Like hearing a voice in the back of their heads, they heard the other's thoughts. The word eternity resonated inside their minds.


They shuddered.