Thanks to Bernice’s goading, everyone got out of the townhouse on time to head to campus for the first day of classes.  While there was some muttering and grumbling, it was mostly playful.

Steven and Maggie headed toward her first class, holding hands firmly to keep Maggie secure against the wind.  Steve’s grip nearly crushed her hand, despite the fact that there was little more than a gentle breeze blowing.  Maggie’s hands were, to be fair, quite easy to crush.  Being a living skinsuit did have its downsides, but at least being crumpled didn’t hurt.

Tanya held Bernice’s hand as they walked toward their inevitable parting for the day.  In their case it was because Tanya wasn’t used to walking on two legs, as she’d spent most of the summer with a tail instead.  Bernice gave her sweetie a long and lingering kiss when they had to part, and giggled at how Tanya wobbled away afterward.

Bernice made her way to the engineering lecture halls, and took a seat in her first class of the day.  As usual, she sat in “keener row”, the frontmost seats.  She gave her tentacles a little shake to settle them, and pulled out her notepad.  After a few seconds, she realized that the whispering around her was all directed at her.  She turned around to favour the pair of girls behind her with a grin.  “Yes, they’re real.  And they’re magnificent.”

The girls giggled, and then one shyly asked if she could touch one.  Bernice flicked one tentacle closer, making both girls skitter back hesitantly in their seats.  After a little encouraging, they both tried touching the tentacle, cooing over how smooth it was, and how slimy it wasn’t.

Bernice giggled.  “Ew, if they were slimy I wouldn’t have kept them.”

“So this isn’t something you’re stuck with?”

“It’s something I’m going to stick with.  I like them.  And I’m sure they’ll prove really handy in labs.”  Bernice flared her tentacles out like wings. “Plus they look cool.”

“Down in front!” called some wag further back, and Bernice settled her tentacles into a tight cape as the professor walked up to the podium.  He took the faintest of double-takes the first time he looked at Bernice, then carried on with his spiel laying out the plans for the term.

Georgina and Elizabeth tagged along with Bernice after class.  They were all in the same program, so the entire flock of students was flowing toward the next room on their schedule.  They chattered brightly about tentacles and fashion, and “how do you get tops that fit”.

By the end of the third class, they had Bernice calling them Geenie and Lizzy, “like all our friends do.”  Bernice was amazed.  She’d had a year’s worth of classes with the pair, and barely exchanged a word with them.  Now they were walking to lunch with her, tagging along as she headed to where she was supposed to meet Steve and Maggie.

Bernice asked them if there was an ulterior motive to getting to know her.

“Well...” Geenie looked abashed.  “The tentacles caught my eye.  And you were so open about it, and then you implied you had... control.”

Bernice rolled her eyes.  “Yes.  I can give you tentacles if you like.  Planning to help start a trend?”

Geenie bit her lips, and looked over to Lizzie for support.  “I was hoping... wings?”

Bernice shook her head, to Geenie’s obvious disappointment.  “Bob mostly works with existing materials.”  She brought a tentacle around to lie against her left arm.  “See?  The flesh tone is the same.  Though...”

“Yes?”

“Well, we’ve had some recent exceptions when real things get incorporated.  Maybe if you could find some real wings of the type you want...”

“I have this gorgeous pair of fake wings, made with real feathers.  Would that work?”

Bernice considered that.  “Well...  It’d be an interesting test.  It might end up with the wings being less usable than before.  Would you be okay with that?”

Geenie rubbed her arms, looking down at them with a longing that made Bernice’s heart ache.   “They were hand made, and cost more than I want to admit.  I’d hate to lose them, but I could get another set made.  Tell me what the upside is.”

“If it works, they’d be real, and look amazing.”

Geenie nodded firmly, then.  “Okay.  Um... what does this actually involve?”

As they walked, Bernice gave a summary of what the Magic Trunk could do, and had done to various friends.  She was about to get to why it was bad to get into the trunk when she ran into Steven.

“Have you seen Maggie?” he asked frantically.  “She isn’t answering her cell.”

Bernice quickly explained Maggie’s fate as a living skinsuit to her new friends, and they put their heads together to try to figure out what to do.  

“Were you texting her in class or between classes?” asked Lizzy.

Steven shook his head.  “Not during class.  We usually text between them, but she’s usually the one that starts it.”  He frowned.  “I didn’t hear from her after her first class.  I was too busy fretting to notice something that should have worried me even more!”

The group followed Steven to Maggie’s first class of the day, but she wasn’t there.  And of course, a completely different class was in progress.  Moving on to her second class, up one flight of stairs and over a hallway, was equally fruitless.

“We don’t know where she was last seen,” worried Steven.  “This is hopeless.”

“No it’s not!” reassured Bernice.  “We could try to get her phone’s GPS location.  I don’t suppose there’s a tracking app on it already?”

Steven shook his head.  “No, but that’s a great idea for next time.”

“You can call emergency services, and they’ll locate her for you.  But you have to be next of kin,” said Lizzy.  “My parents have had to do that a couple times with my brother.  Are you her emergency contact?”

“Her mother would be.  And the idea of having to explain all this to her...”  Steven shuddered.  “Any other ideas?”

“Call her, see if we can hear her phone ring?” offered Geenie.  “She probably puts it on vibrate for class, though.  Drat.  Would she have been texting anyone else?”

“Maybe Jem?” suggested Bernice.  She texted the colourful catgirl clerk, and grinned at the response.  “Yes!  She said the last thing Mags said was something about regretting her coffee, so she probably hit the nearest washroom.  When?”  A moment later she got a time that was in the middle of Maggie’s first class.

The nearest washroom was easy to find.  It was empty, though several of the stalls were closed.  Bernice tried calling Maggie’s number.  A faint buzzing led them to the first stall in the row.  It was locked, but quick work with Geenie’s pocketknife soon dealt with that obstacle.  A crumpled Maggie was draped over the toilet.

Bernice cheered, and checked Maggie’s zipper.  It was down barely an inch, and a slight tug led to the skinsuit girl re-inflating.  Geenie and Lizzy stared in wonder.  “Woah.  So she’s really...”

“Hollow, yes,” said Maggie.  “Thanks for the save.  Who are your friends?”

Bernice hurried her out to meet with Steve as she quickly gave introductions.  Steve’s crushing huge left no doubt that Maggie was, indeed hollow.  “What happened?” he asked.

Maggie blushed.  “The back of my neck was itchy, and I must have snagged the zip by accident.  I need a collar to protect it.”

They brainstormed several other safety precautions.  A tracker app was the first thing they took care of, with Bernice and Steven both getting links.  Lizzie suggested a watchdog timer, that would prompt Maggie to tap it every so often, and alert the others if she couldn’t.  Maggie vetoed that as too annoying.  Steven vetoed the ‘go to school as a half snake’ idea as too scary.

“So we’re taking Jem up on wearing me to class, then?” asked Maggie.

Steven nodded reluctantly.  “I’d prefer that to the snake.”

With the crisis resolved, the group had little enough time left before their next classes to do more than eat.  After a quick lunch, Bernice waved to her new friends as they headed off to their respective elective classes.  Maggie tagged along with her to “History 242 - History of Magic”.  The trip involved a significant amount of outdoor walking, and Bernice held Maggie’s hand to make sure the breezes wouldn’t carry her away.

The classroom at the end of Bernice’s trek was cozier than she’d expected.  Most of the classrooms in the Engineering buildings were bare-bones, spartan affairs.  This classroom had wood panelling and chairs with actual padding.  They proved as comfortable as they looked.

Bernice and Maggie were still whispering to each other, wondering what the holes in the desks were for when a stern-looking woman strode into the room.  “Good afternoon.  I will have no idle chatter in my class, we have quite a bit of territory to cover and believe me, the subject matter has plenty to offer for distractions.”

Professor Boyd went on to lecture at some length, covering the syllabus, expectations and grading scheme.  There appeared to be rather a lot of memorization ahead, a prospect that Bernice found slightly daunting without a logical framework to hang it all off of.  So when Professor Boyd paused at the half-hour mark to ask if there were any questions, Bernice put her hand up to ask just that.

The professor shot her a pitying look.  “I’m sorry, this is much like the history of art.  Modern magic has more consistency to it due to the advent of mass produced magic, but we won’t be covering any of that in this class.  In many ways, this field is more about the quirky, individual artisans responsible for the more famous magic items, than it is about magic itself.”

After a few more questions clarifying grading, the professor nodded.  “Good.  With that covered, how many of you have at least seen magic in action?”

About a third of the class raised their hands.  Asking which ones had experienced it directly cut the number in half.  Asking if anyone owned a magic item cut it in half again.  The professor asked each to explain.  One guy had a small satchel that could hold multiple times its volume, and one of the girls in back had a magic mirror that applied her makeup for her.  The other girls in the class murmured about how lucky she was.  Her smug smile only increased as she was asked about its origins - it was a hand-crafted piece, not mass produced, though of fairly recent vintage.

Then Bernice described her maze-locked trunk, and was quite gratified to see the professor’s eyes widen.  “Would you be willing to bring it in to the department at some point?  We don’t get to see the really rare stuff very often.”

The rest of the class devolved into a scrum around Bernice and Maggie, asking questions about the trunk as she showed off her tentacles.  The girl with the mirror looked rather put out, until Bernice offered her a chance to use the trunk to make some ‘upgrades’.

When time was up, Bernice had at least a half dozen students interested in trying out some of the clothing, and had made a promise to bring all of it in to the department for testing.   As the class percolated away, Bernice held Maggie close and asked if she could speak with the professor alone for a bit.

“Magic trouble?” asked Boyd, getting furtive nods in response.  “If you two have time, you could come up to the faculty lounge and we can talk there, away from the prying eyes of your classmates.”

Bernice and Maggie agreed, and followed Professor Boyd up a flight of stairs and down a hallway.  The lounge had a lovely view out over campus, and an eclectic collection of overstuffed chairs of various types.  They settled in a cozy arrangement near one of the windows, well away from the kitchenette near the entrance.

“So what is the problem, exactly?” asked the professor, with a much kinder demeanour than she’d shown in class.

“Maggie ended up in the trunk.  Kind of on a dare, but then the jerk who’d dared her to do it slammed the lid on her.  She got transformed, and is now a skin-suit of herself.”

“Ah.  And the trunk produces permanent results, you said?  This is unfortunate.  There are no general purpose ‘un-cursing’ tools.  Sometimes you can find a specific effect that reverses the original, but this is out of my league.”  She looked around at the handful of faculty that had gathered around.  “Any of you lot hear about something that can turn skins into real people?”

They all shook their heads.

“Look, I’m going to have to call in the big guns on this one,” admitted Professor Boyd.  “The department head knows more about magic than anyone else here, maybe Mike will have heard of something.”

She bustled them off to the department head’s office, where a gruff voice answered her knock.  “Students?” cried the grey-haired man when they entered.  “The whole point of seniority is not having to deal with them.”

“Oh, it’s worse than that,” said Boyd with a twinkle in her eye.  “This one’s an engineering student.”

“What?  You dare sully this hallowed hall with such filth?”

Bernice watched the exchange, eyebrows raised.  Something about it felt off.  She turned to face Professor Boyd, and saw the grin there.  “What’s so funny?”

“Doctor Anson’s PhD is in Civil Engineering.”

Bernice turned to face the grey-haired old gentleman who was now waving her to a chair.  “That must be quite the story.”

“Perhaps you’ll hear it someday.  I take it Boyd here has found some mystery for me to unravel?  Something to do with your buoyant friend, and not your cape of tentacles?”

Bernice nodded, and told the tale of the trunk yet again.  She was unsurprised at the wide eyes she got when talking about the maze-lock.  The incisive questions were another matter.  Bernice answered the inquisition as best she could, making sure to be clear on what she knew, what she suspected, and what she just couldn’t recall.

After the third time she apologized for not remembering a detail, Doctor Anson smiled. “No, that’s fine.  I’d prefer you tell me what you do and don’t know, rather than guessing without saying so.”

The questioning ended with Bernice and Maggie tag-teaming the description of how Maggie’s modified body worked.  Doctor Anson frowned at what he was hearing, and asked for a demonstration of Maggie’s interaction with inanimate objects.

Bernice looked to her friend and got a nod, so she pulled a textbook out of her backpack and unzipped Maggie far enough to insert it.  Maggie immediately went inert, her eyes unfocused and her body still.  Bernice demonstrated that Maggie’s arms were now solid, rather than inflated as before.

“Let her move again,” said Doctor Anson softly.  “She should hear this.”

“Oh, she can hear just fine like this,” reported Bernice as she pulled the book out of Maggie’s back.  A quick zip left Maggie inflated and alert.

“Do you know how to get this fixed?” asked Maggie.

Doctor Anson’s expression was kindly.  “I’m afraid not.  What do you know of the common factor between all the most powerful, most responsive magic items known to history?”

Bernice shrugged.  “I’m taking the introductory course to find out that sort of thing.  I have the text, but I haven’t read ahead in it.”

The department head shot a look at Boyd that said “what exactly are you teaching them”.  She shrugged, and he rolled his eyes then gestured to her.

Professor Boyd sighed.  “Many historic artifacts are empowered by a person.  They provide both the power, and the guiding intelligence.  Given that Maggie ‘works’ on an inanimate object, then it seems likely that...”

Doctor Anson interrupted her.  “Not likely.  Certain.  She has become a magic object in her own right.  And I have never, ever, heard of such a thing being reversed.”

Maggie sighed softly, and nodded.  “I figured as much.  Thank you for confirming it.  I’ll... I guess I’ll learn how to cope.”

“How to cope?” exclaimed Doctor Anson.  “Do you not understand what this means?”

“That I’m stuck as an inflatable doll for the rest of my life,” said Maggie.  “At least I get to move around under my own power when I’m not being worn.”

“You’ve been empowered for only a few days.  It takes time to become familiar with the power, to become practiced with its use.  Your trunk has had centuries to gain such skill.”

Bernice gasped.  “The trunk was a person?”

“You gave him a name.  What did you think he was?”

“I don’t know.  Some kind of interdimensional magic spirit-thing.  I own a person?  How is that even legal?”

“Really, Boyd.  Not even the basics?”  Doctor Anson sighed.  “Magic artifacts are not people.  Most can’t even express themselves.  Legally, they are possessions.”

“I’m a possession?” whispered Maggie.

Doctor Anson focussed on her once more.  “Ah.  That does present an interesting situation.  I’ve never heard of an artifact so mobile or human-seeming as yourself.  You may end up setting some interesting precedents.   How would you like to be seen?”

“As a person, of course!  What else would I want?”

“Most of the artifacts that can communicate have made it quite clear that they prefer having an owner.  You don’t feel that?”

Maggie shook her head emphatically.  “The very idea seems as abhorrent now as it did before I changed.”

“Fascinating.  I don’t suppose you’d be interested in being studied and interviewed?  It’s so rare to have a chance to study this sort of thing first hand.”

“Could I get extra credit for it?” asked Maggie.

Doctor Anson quickly agreed, and asked what department Maggie was studying with.  Before they left his office, Maggie not only had agreed to participate in a number of studies, but she had signed the paperwork to change majors to Applied Magic, a joint effort between the engineering and history faculties.  The program was more focussed on the modern efforts at reproducing magic artifacts, but also touched on artisanal approaches as well.

*** *** ***

Back at the townhouse, Steven greeted Maggie with a hug that collapsed her torso, making her head and arms expand comically.  Maggie giggled as she popped back to normal when he let go.  “I was fine, sweetie.  Honest!  No harm done.”

“Did you learn anything from Bernice’s professor?”

That led into a big discussion of what they’d learned, and Maggie’s change of majors.  She had Bernice show off the textbook that Doctor Anson had loaned her, on the training of newly-minted artifacts.  “That should help me learn to control my abilities.”

“Abilities?”

Maggie nodded.  “Likely stuff related to what I already can do, which so far is ‘turn people into a copy of me’.  You remember, you were the one that wore me first.”

Steven nodded slowly.  “Yeah.  Being a twin of you was... different.”

“Going shopping as one of the girls was fun, wasn’t it?” asked Maggie eagerly.  “You had fun, I saw you.”

“Until you got caught on the breeze and punctured, sure.”

“Oh, yeah.  Hopefully I can learn how to get heavier.  Or amp up my self-healing.  Hey, I could practice that easily enough.”  Maggie headed to the kitchen to fetch a knife, and before Steven could protest she’d stabbed it through her left hand.

Maggie sagged a little as she lost air, but recovered once the cut had healed.  Steven fussed over her, but she insisted on continuing.  She even managed to talk him into stabbing her multiple times, though he avoided her torso.

“This is quite disturbing to watch.  It’s like you’re practicing being a knife-murderer,” said Kim, who’d stayed to watch after she and Robin had returned home.

“You should get some fencing blades, so she can at least try to defend herself,” added Robin.

“I don’t want to hurt Steven!” protested Maggie, then looked over at him. “Is this...”

Steven sighed, and nodded.  “It’s... less a problem than it was.”  He poked the knife into her arm, then watched the wound close almost as quickly as he could pull the knife out.  “You’re getting better at this, so I’m also seeing the advantage of it.”

“I am, aren’t I?” asked Maggie, watching herself reinflate.  “Cool.  I wonder what else I can practice.”

“Could you zip yourself up?” asked Bernice.  “That’d save us from a repeat of today’s crisis.”

Maggie turned her back to Bernice. “Unzip me.”

Bernice obliged, getting a pout from Steven as Maggie deflated.  “Sure, you get the easy bit.”

Bernice laughed at that.  “What, getting to stab your girlfriend multiple times wasn’t cathartic at all?”

Steven blushed.  “I... okay, maybe a little.  I wish I had a proper knife for it, something that looked suitably dangerous.”

“There’s the carving knife, but that’s still pretty utilitarian.  Maybe have a look in a fancy knife shop?  I’m sure you could find something cool.”

Robin grinned.  “No need...  I have a modest collection of blades.  A couple switchblades that have seen use... though not by my hand.  Plus some decorative ones, like a Japanese tanto.  What catches your fancy?”

“I’ve never seen an actual switchblade,” mused Steven.

Robin darted off to fetch one.  While she was gone, Bernice gave Maggie’s crumpled form a little poke.  “I don’t think she’s getting the zipper bit just yet.”

“Give her some time,” said Steven.  “Maybe if we leave her like this for a while, it’ll encourage her to try harder?”

Bernice peered down at Maggie’s crumpled form.  “Can you see the zipper moving?”

Steven shook his head.  Still, they left Maggie like that for half an hour as Robin showed off parts of his knife collection and Bernice got started on dinner.

Steven zipped Maggie up so she could join them at dinner.  She ate slowly, savouring the few bites she could manage for as long as she could, so that she wouldn’t be finished before everyone else.

Once dinner was over Maggie insisted on going back to her “homework”, interpreted by her as healing up cuts and trying once again to move her zipper.  She found it especially entertaining to have the switchblade puncture her as it opened.  Both the healing and the zipper saw improvements.  By the end of the night, she’d managed to shift it small amounts.  Not enough to zip herself all the way up in any useful amount of time, she fretted.

Bernice suggested replicating the mistake from the washroom that morning.  Maggie tugged her zipper down, and as before she’d barely moved it before she crumpled.  Ten minutes later she was reinflating under her own power, to cheers and hugs all around.

“Should we can call Jem and cancel?” asked Steven.  “You won’t need to wear her to stay safe.”

“Of course she still needs Jem!” argued Bernice.  “She can still blow away in the wind.”

“She can carry a backpack!”

“Excuse me, may I speak?” asked Maggie with a soft but firm voice.  The others quieted and turned to face her.  “Thank you.  This is my choice to make.  I would like to try a day with Jem, to see how it works.  And if that doesn’t work, the snake.”

“Sh...oot.  Really?” exclaimed Steven.

“Yes!  It would give me weight, and the strength to carry more than a notepad with me.  I can’t carry a backpack, Steven.  My whole body crumples if I have even a single textbook in it.  When I wore the snake tail, that part of me was solid and strong.  I could have panniers, and carry everything on my tail.”

Steven winced and looked away.  “This sucks.”

“We’ll get through it.  I know we will.  And hey, maybe the training will pay off and I won’t need it.”

“That’d be great.  How long do you think that’ll take?” asked Steven brightly.

Bernice was the one to shake her head.  “This stuff takes time, she has to learn a whole new and entirely unfamiliar set of skills.  You’re going to have to be patient.”

Steven sighed, and hugged Maggie gently.  “We’ll manage.  I hope.”