Donna considered Erin and Sandy’s request, then turned to the towels.  In all seriousness, she asked them, “Are you two OK with being used like this?”

“Can they hear you?” asked Sandy.

“Not exactly, but they understood me even so.  They seem pretty happy with the idea, so go ahead, just come get me when you’re finished with them.  They’re not stuck like that, I haven’t made all these changes permanent yet.”

Ray raised a fuzzy eyebrow.  “So the apartments are all going to go back to empty boxes in a week?”

“No.  Give me a minute first.  Everyone who doesn’t want to get stuck in their current forms should be here with us.”

All the new apartment owners gathered around.  Then Erin and Sandy traded looks, and stepped into their apartment.  “Stuck as catgirls is kind of the point of us having this place in the first place,” said Sandy.

“That, and the rent is great,” added Erin.

Donna held out her hands, and the catgirls pouted but pulled the towels out from behind their backs.  The catgirls traded another look, then Erin emerged with towels in hand and stood beside Donna to wait.

“Not going to become a catgirl after all?”

Erin shook her head.  “Nope.  Corset.  It’s my turn, and this way I don’t have to spend half the month insensate due to silver.”

Donna nodded, then checked to make sure everyone else was out of the apartments.  Spreading her attention through all of them, she brushed away the marks of their old reality, so the new one would take hold and not fade.  “Done.”

“That’s it?” asked Ray incredulously.  “Just blink and all the magic is permanent?”

Donna chuckled.  “Might have been a blink to you.  To me it felt like longer.”

“It’s still incredible.  Do you think I can learn to do that some day?”

Donna put a hand on Ray’s shoulder.  “I wouldn’t recommend going too far down my path.”  Her form flickered into ghostly translucence, vanished for a moment, then returned.  “Having a real body that doesn’t disappear when you blink is worth more than you might think.”

Ray nodded slowly.  “I suppose.”  Then his smile came back out, brighter than before.  “But at least I’m on the path, right?”

“Yes, Ray.”

“Hey, Donna,” asked Erin, offering up a pair of towels.  “Can we do the corset thing now?”

Donna took the towels and nodded.  “Sure.”  

As Erin started to diminish she grinned up at the people growing around her.  “This is going to be so much fun.”

Sandy picked up the sleek black corset at Donna’s feet.  “And she’s stuck like this for the month?”

Donna nodded.

“Can you change her back?”

“But...” protested Donna, before she saw the gleam in Sandy’s eyes.  “Oh, not permanently?”

“Yeah.  So she slowly becomes a corset later.”

Donna grinned.  “I’m sure she’ll enjoy that.”

Erin was somewhat disappointed to be back in catgirl form without being worn, but when her fate was explained to her she grinned.  “Sweet!  So I’ll start changing in a week?  Man, I wish it would happen sooner.”  She immediately slapped her paws over her mouth. “Oh!  I’m so sorry, Donna.”

Donna waved it off.  “It’s OK.  I was going to suggest this anyway.  You’re turning into a corset now.  Just really, really slowly.  It’ll take a few hours.”

“Ooooh.  Yeah, I can feel it, my insides are feeling fuzzy.  Thank you so much!”  Erin power-hugged Donna, then she and Sandy headed into their apartment with the Beth and Clarence towels.

Donna grinned as she heard them exclaim to see their newly upgraded shower.  It was easily big enough for two kittygirls, and had an array of spray nozzles and even a power-drying mode.  “Thank you Donna!” echoed through the halls.

Ray laughed.  “You’re having more fun with this than I’d expected when I asked the favour.”

Donna smiled at him impishly. “You still haven’t seen your guest room.”

Ray opened the door and doubled over in laughter.  The room beyond was strewn with brightly coloured cushions and low divans, with silks draped everywhere.  Some served to create semi-private nooks here and there about the room.  “A harem?”

“You’ve got a bevy of sexy transformed ladies at your place, it seemed appropriate.”

Ray snorted.  “Despite how it looks, I’m not actually trying to gather a harem of sexy furries...  Wait, why am I not doing that?”

Nissa snuggled up against Ray, who took a step back.  “Because you only have eyes for Ana.”

“Oh I have eyes a-plenty for the rest of you,” said Ray with a playful leer.  “But yeah.”

“Come on,” said Gwen.  “Time’s a-wasting.  You don’t want to miss Crazy Eights, do you?”

Donna sighed.  “Yeah.  Then we have to get back to work.”

“More work?” asked Gwen.

Donna nodded.  “Bunhill.  She wants to deal with more ghouls, and tonight is our chance.  Tomorrow night I won’t have the power, even back east.”

“But I thought the ‘real’ full Moon was tomorrow back east.”

“Yeah, but getting a second night of power is cheating, and the Moon made it pretty clear She wouldn’t go for it.  And that she will provide if we go tonight.”

“Oh!  Well, then we should get going.  Moonset back east is how far off?”

“Two and a half hours, give or take.  I figure an hour to fly out there, then we work our way back, chasing the Moon.”

“Cutting it fine,” cautioned Gwen.  “What if we run short?”

“Then we go like a bat out of hell.  C’mon, one quick hand of Crazy Eights then we can get on with it.”

“Twist my arm, why don’tcha,” laughed Gwen, following the others down the stairs that led back into the club.  The stairs had been bare wood on the way up, but now they’d acquired a lush carpet and some pretty wallpaper down the walls.

Back in the green room, two card tables had already been set up and pushed together.  Donna chuckled, and summoned the usual deck with all sorts of odd suits.  Rabbits, cats, vixens, breasts, robots, and wings were this month’s suits.

“Rules change,” said Donna before she dealt.  “I will grant an anything to the winner, and make it permanent if they wish.  Loser becomes their property, to change as they see fit... but not permanently.  Just for tonight.”

There were some relieved looks around the table, followed by grins and nods.  “Sounds good,” said Neysa.  “Deal me in, too.”

Play proceeded quickly, and soon both Nissa and Silvie were down to a single card each.  Nissa stared at the card in her hand for a time.  Out of the corner of her eye saw Silvie’s pleading look.  She reached for the pile and drew a card.  Silvie tossed her ace of wings to the table with a triumphant cheer.  “I won!  Yes!”

When Nissa dropped hers on the table, the eight of boobs that had been in her hand was revealed.  Silvie looked from the card to Nissa.  “Why?”

Nissa laughed.  “You know how Donna changes everyone a little based on one of their cards?  I was really hoping to keep that one.  So when I saw you so excited...”

“I’ll take the win!”

Donna chuckled.  “And you can have your eight breasts, Nissa.  All up front?”

“Nah, half up front, half in back.  More balanced that way.”

Nissa’s changes started, and she headed out to dance and show them off.

“Something birdy, I take it?” Donna asked Silvie.

“Yes!  I loved being half macaw last month.  I just don’t know what I want to be!  I want to be able to fly, but I also want to be able to dance.”

“Two bodies, then?  One a gorgeous macaw, the other human?”

Silvie shook her head.  “Not just human.  Some bird, too.  Maybe little enough I can put a robe on and pass?”

“I don’t know how to make it so giant bird-wings for arms could... hm.   What if you could take the wings off?”

“But they’d still be part of me?”

Donna nodded.  “One bird, one giant pair of wings that fit over your arms...”

“That was fun last time,” mused Silvie.  “But... arms are really, really handy it turns out.”  She giggled at her comment.  “Could I have wings that go on my back, but removable like that?”

Donna nodded.  “Would a mechanical interlock be okay?  You’d have some cybernetic implants in your back to carry the weight, so you could glide.”

“Yes!  That’d be amazing!”

Donna started wings sprouting from Silvie’s back.  “Now... how far with the rest of your body?  Some kind of similarly cybernetic magnetically-attached beak?  It’d be hard to hide the attachments, though.  Maybe a mask?”

Silvie shook her head.  “If I can have a bird point of view some of the time, I’d rather have a human face.  But... feathered hair?  And skin that follows the same colour pattern as the scarlet macaw from last time.  Oh, and scaly legs, just not the full claws.  Those were so hard to dance in.”

Donna started each change as Silvie asked for it, and soon she was studying herself in the mirror.  “Oh, it’s so perfect.”

“Try spreading your wings.”

The other girls exclaimed, some ducking out of the way, as Silvie spread her wings to their full twelve foot span.  “Oh wow.  Just... wow.  I might never take them off.”

Donna laughed.  “You’ll change your mind when you want to go grocery shopping.  Now hold out your hands.”

Silvie did so, and an egg formed in the cup of them.  As she watched in wonder, it cracked open and a tiny macaw hatched from it.  “That’s... I can see from her eyes!”

Everyone gathered around, watching in wonder as the parrot chick grew rapidly, its adult colours washing over it like rivers of paint.  Before long, it spread its three foot wingspan and attempted to fly.  Donna caught it as it crashed toward the floor.  “Take your time. You’ll have plenty.”

“I can keep all this?” Silvie asked as if unsure of her luck.

“This and more,” said Donna.  “Do you want this to be the new you?”

“Yes!” crowed Silvie.

“Then it is done.  And now we come to the rest of your winnings.”  Donna gestured to Neysa, who’d ended the game with more cards than she’d been dealt.  Everyone had been gunning for her, skipping her turn or forcing her to draw.

Neysa gave a little shrug.  “I guess it was get the boss night.  Don’t you all like my scheduling?”

Heads shook all around.  “That’s not it at all,” said Tawny.  “Losing can be a lot of fun, so we wanted to share.  I liked being stuck, too, but it’s not for everyone.”

“If any of you do want to be stuck as someone else’s property or just as part of them,” said Donna with a nod to Tawny’s tail with Carmen’s face at its tip, “just ask.  You can decide what you want to be, or leave it up to them.”

“Can we settle what I’m to become first?” asked Neysa plaintively.  “I can’t take the suspense!”

“I should like a flying companion,” said Silvie softly.  “Would you be okay being a parrot for a few hours?  A pretty hyacinth macaw would be nice.”

“Would I be able to talk?”  At Donna’s nod, Neysa grinned.  “Sounds like fun, then.  And I can still do my job.”

Neysa started to shrink, and bright blue feathers sprouted everywhere.  “Awk!” she croaked.  “Polly want a cracker.”

Everyone giggled, then laughed harder when Gwen gave her one.  Neysa gnawed on it happily.

“Okay, I think we’re done here.  Time to go,” announced Donna, to a soft cheer from Bunhill.  Gwen moved to stand beside them.

“Go where?” asked Rowan.  “If you and Gwen go, what about all the fantasies?”

“Going ghoul hunting.”  Donna looked to Ray.  “Time to step up, newbie.”

Ray laughed at the name.  “Sure.  But you said I couldn’t change normal people yet.”

“First, most of the regulars are far from normal, and have figured out how to use my power to make small changes already.  I don’t think that will work in my absence, though.  I’ll leave you enough banked power to shrink, change, and regrow dozens of dancers.”

Ray’s grin grew wider than ever.  “Awesome.”

Soon a giant box of magic bubbles was sitting against the wall of the changing room.  The bubbles were bigger and softer than Donna’s usual marbles, so that Ray could pop them for their power.

“Remember,” cautioned Donna at the end, “shrink them to a specific size.  If you accidentally vanish someone, don’t panic.  It’s fixable.”

Ray nodded.  “Just make them bigger again?”

Donna nodded back.  “You’ll be fine.  I’ll be back late, so... well, listen to Rowan.”

Ray laughed.  “How do you think the club runs as well as it does?  I know that already.  Go.  Be safe.”

Donna snorted.  “Not so likely, I’m afraid.  C’mon, you two.  Time to fly.”

A new jet formed, sleeker and simpler than the last.  Gwen and Donna debated the design for a couple of minutes until Bunhill’s impatience led to a rapidly tapping bunny-foot.  Donna rolled her eyes, and started them all shrinking.  “I’m sure this will be good enough.”

Ray and Rowan waved as the little craft shrunk further and slipped out through a gap in the window.  Ray opened the back door a crack, and Donna guided it outside.

Soon they were darting upward through the sky, growing slightly as they got further from any plausible observers.  “Ready for some real speed?” asked Donna.

“Hit it.”

The acceleration then pinned all three to their seats.  Donna let it taper off some after they passed the speed of sound, but kept on boosting until they were above all but the thinnest reaches of the atmosphere.  Below them, a moon-lit cloudscape rolled by.  As Donna levelled off and the acceleration returned to something easily tolerable, Gwen peered out at the clouds.  “How are we going to find anything in this?  Never mind a particular city with a particular ghoul in it.”

Donna shrugged at the mock controls of the craft.  “I’ll know.  I can sense the population centers, partly due to the attention and potential for being seen.  But also just because there are lots of people there.”

“And you can tell a Canadian city from US ones?  I’d hate to fly across the border and cause an international incident.”

“Bah.  We’re the size of a pigeon.  Nobody’s going to see us.”

“A pigeon going Mach 5.  I suspect that’ll show up on something or other.  The heating in our wake, if nothing else.”

Donna shrugged.  “No jets.  There’s a little turbu...”  The little craft juddered just as she said the word, causing Bunhill to squeal.  “OK, more than a little.  Hang on!”  The ground fell further away as Donna lifted them higher.  “Stupid Rockies.  Some kind of pressure-wave off ‘em, even up here.”

“Well, at least we didn’t hit the actual mountain range,” said Gwen.  “Any more surprises ahead?”

“Nah.”  Donna frowned.  “Huh.  We are attracting attention, though.  Damned if I can tell what, but someone knows we’re here.  Gotta streamline further, hope it’s just the sonic boom.”

“While we’re flying?” asked Gwen worriedly.

“Think of it as a dynamic wind tunnel test.”

“Those don’t generally end very well.”

“Just give me ideas for reducing the vortex behind us.”

“We don’t really need wings, given the thrust you can hit us with.  Lose those.”

With a loud crack the wings separated and fluttered off behind them.  Gwen rolled her eyes.  “I didn’t mean that literally.”

“Sorry.  Wasn’t actually the plan, but it worked.  Our observability has dropped.”  Donna frowned.  “Well, it did for a bit.”

“Maybe the wings distracted whatever it is?”

Donna nodded.  “This is starting to get annoying.  Let’s go smaller, and change course a few times to shake it.”

Several erratic maneuvers later Donna breathed a sigh of relief.  “That seems to have done it.  I wonder what that was.”

“How small are we now, anyway?” asked Bunhill after a quiet minute.

“Didn’t pay a lot of attention,” said Donna.  “Uh...  Couple millimeters.”  At Bunhill’s confused look she amended, “the size of a smallish grain of rice.  Thinner and pointier, but otherwise pretty close to that shape, too.  It’s actually easier to boost us when we’re this small.  I bet we could hit orbit without breaking a sweat.”

“Let’s not,” said Gwen.  “Staying near Earth sounds like a good plan.  Hasn’t exactly gone well, y’know?”

“Yeah.  I wonder if the Apollo 12 disaster had anything to do with the Moon as we know Her.  The reports of what happened to those guys after they landed on the Moon were seriously weird.  I mean, trained astronauts don’t just go crazy, so...”

“What are you talking about?” asked Bunhill.  “Landed... on the moon?  How is that even possible?”

Donna grinned and leaned back in her seat. “You’ve missed a lot of history.  Should we start with the space race?”

Gwen shrugged.  “May as well.  How long is it going to take us to get there?”

“About an hour.”

“Lots of time, then.”

Donna and Gwen took turns telling Gwen about the last century’s history as seen through the eyes of the space program.  From Jules Verne’s dreams of flight to the moon, to post-WWII political drama, and the competition between the USSR and the USA to prove their technical prowess.

“Better than a war, I guess,” mused Bunhill, which led into a digression on nuclear weapons that left her eyes wide as saucers.  At least in a relative sense.

“And you’re worried about magic?” asked Bunhill, in a tiny voice.  “With that kind of destructive potential?”

“Who said we’re worried about magic?” said Donna.  “It seems like pretty cool stuff to me.”

“Until some madman tries to take over the world with it, sure.”

That led into more about World War II.

Finally, somewhere past Toronto, they came back around to the space race, from the insouciant Sputnik to the mighty Saturn V rockets launching capsules to and around the moon.

“And then?” asked Bunhill breathlessly.

“Then, a little before my first birthday, they finally landed a flimsy metal capsule on the surface of the Moon.  Neil Armstrong and were the first men to actually walk on the Moon.  They didn’t stay long, just long enough to do some basic exploring and pick up some rock samples.”

Bunhill’s indrawn breath made Donna turn from memories to staring at her.  “What?”

“Contagion.”  At Donna’s confused look Bunhill sighed and began to lecture.  “It’s one of the most fundamental principles of magic!  Something that was part of a thing always has a connection to it, though it fades with time and contamination.”

“So when they returned with samples from the Moon...  I wonder if the Moonstone really was a bit of the Moon, then?”

“Seems likely,” mused Gwen, “given how strong your connection to the Moon has grown.”

“We need to find out what happened to the other rocks, then.”

Donna frowned at a thought.  “But there are other Moon rocks on Earth.  Meteors knock chunks off all the time, and they occasionally fall to Earth as meteors.  I don’t know what fraction of the meteorites out there are of lunar origin, but... there has to be a fair bit, I should think.”

“How old would they be?” asked Bunhill.

Donna shrugged.  “Beats me.  Mostly millions of years, I’d think, with the odd newer one.  But I suspect the cat figurine that once transformed Sidney may have had a little bit of old lunar rock in it.  I wonder how many other artifacts like that are out there.”

“It’d take more than any old random chunk of Moon rock, right?” asked Gwen.

Bunhill nodded.  “To form it into something that would channel magic?  Certainly.  But... if your theory of cyclical changes from lunar to solar magic and back is true, then in previous lunar cycles, these lunar stones would be incredibly valuable.  But during my solar cycle, they were useless.  And it’s not like you can find bits of the Sun lying around on the ground.”  She looked at Donna for confirmation.  “Or isn’t it a giant ball of gas?”

“Eh, pretty close.  Plasma is more energetic than gas, but the same general idea.  It’s not burning, as such, but heated by fusion reactions in the core.  That’s how it can last billions of years.”

“Billions?”  Bunhill shook her head.  “I think I have a lot of reading to do when we get back.  How much rock came from the Moon?”

“I don’t know exactly,” said Donna with a shrug.  “Tens of pounds?  They had to launch from the surface with what they’d brought, so I can’t imagine there was a huge amount of mass margin for cargo.”

“Dangerous stuff.  Were there other missions?”

Donna shook her head.  “That’s what got us started.  The next flight never returned, and the reports from it are... weird.  What is certain is that Intrepid never left the surface, and eventually the pilot of the orbiter was ordered home.  Barely made it back, he waited longer than he should have.”

“And then?  From the stories you were telling, they’re persistent.”

“The next one had a massive malfunction while en route, and barely limped home.  Then Apollo 14 blew up on the pad, and that was the end of that, they spent a decade trying to figure out why and never launched the other rockets.  Manned space exploration basically ended that day.  We’ve explored with increasingly sophisticated robots since then.”

Bunhill shook her head.  “Tragic.”

Donna nodded.  “Many of us think so, wondering what might have been.  I guess we know why we never got the lunar base we were promised.”  She frowned, and looked up into the sky where the Moon was dropping toward the horizon as the Earth spun below them.  “Do you think She did it?”

Gwen shook her head.  “Twelve?  I bet they ran into magic and screwed up.  Changed something vital and...  The others, though – that’s not like Her.  I bet someone here figured out what the rocks could do, and didn’t want competition.”

“That sounds kind of paranoid.”

“Think about it.  What if Apollos 13 and 14 were sabotaged by magic?  The engineers would never figure it out.”

“I thought they figured out why Apollo 13 failed.  Something about damaged wiring in the oxygen tank that blew.”

Gwen waved that off.  “Not the point.  They never figured out why Apollo 14 failed.  I read the report in high school, and... nothing.  The third stage oxidizer tank experienced a massive pressure spike with no rational cause.  It ruptured, and the rest is history.”

“Speaking of history,” said Donna.  “Tonight’s history lesson is over.  We’ll be in Newfoundland shortly.  Time to hunt.”