“What’s it do, anyway?” I asked.
“I don’t know. She just told me, ‘It’s magic, don’t touch it.’”
“And so you took it.”
“Yea, I borrowed it. I mean, I asked about it.”
“Did you ask about borrowing it?”
“Not… specifically. But I kind of got the okay to try it out some other time.”
“So, again. What’s it supposed to do?”
“She said it fucks with your head.”
“Like drugs or something.”
“No, like your actual — uh, head, head. Like that part of your body changes.”
“Into…”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
“Try it on!”
“No way.”
“Oh, so it’s not real, but you won’t put it on.”
“It’s ugly.”
“Well. It may be ugly, but I’m going to try it on.”
Wendy took the necklace back from me, and with a smirk, looped the copper chain around her neck. After a moment of fumbling, she got the clasp on. It was tight, almost a choker, but hanging just at the base of her neck.
“Okay,” said Wendy.
“Okay?”
“You still don’t think magic is real?”
“What? No.”
“What about now?”
“N—.”
I stopped short and gasped. Wendy’s head had … changed. Instead it’s place she had… my head. Like looking at a mirror, nearly.
“How did you? But I?”
She just started laughing. Harder, and harder. She pointed to the mirror above her dresser. Looking over at the actual mirror, I could see my body, sans head. My head was, invisible?
No. I waved my hand through the empty space above my shoulders. It was just gone.
“How can I still see? Fuck, how can I still talk?”
“Magic?” she said, shrugging her shoulders.
“Okay, now how do you undo it?”
“Magic?” she repeated, shrugging her shoulders.
“Give me back my head!”
“What?”
“My head! You stole my head!”
“I — Oh!” she said, and fell into another fit of laughter.
“Sorry,” she said. “I hadn’t even noticed. I was laughing because you were headless. That’s a, eh, potential side effect. I guess. I don’t know, I just borrowed it. But don’t worry, cause I’ll totally figure out how to get you another head to make up for it.”
“Another head?”
“Sure! Why, what’s so great about this one?”
“It’s mine!”
“You know, I once spent an entire summer headless?”
“You— wait, what?”
“A whole summer! Six weeks! I was a CIT at magic camp when I was 14. Part of our ‘training’ if you could call it that, was that we spent the whole time without a head so we couldn’t talk back. And here you are, headless for five seconds, and you can talk, and you already want your head back!”
“Well, I’m just… I wasn’t ready.”
“Yea, neither was I. But this isn’t so bad, is it?”
“I don’t have a head!”
“Yea, yea. All right, well, we’ll have to go back to Aunt Cindy’s.”
“Why’s that?”
“Cause she’s got all the magic stuff at her house.”