Marty and Vanessa first met at a party. She had bought an interesting-looking drink-mixing kit at a party supply shop, and she invited a few friends over to try it out. The kit included a fancy-looking shaker and some funny-looking syrups and things, and the whole thing came in a shiny cardboard box with little sparkles on it. The whole thing looked pretty cheesy, but Vanessa figured she could make a good time out of it.
   Marty was a blogger. He had been writing little consumer watchdog articles for a while, until he found out about Opus Novelties, Inc., a company that had sold some seriously dodgy goods. They specialized in practical jokes and hobby kits, and each of their products had been associated with an unusual or inexplicable event. The company was out of business, but their products still occasionally turned up on store shelves and on the Internet. He made it his life's work to track down everything with the Opus brand and catalog their effects.
   By the time Marty tracked down the drink kit to Vanessa's house, she and her friends were already half plastered and fully under the effects of the kit's special ingredients. One of them had grown rabbit ears and two extra arms. Another had shrunk to about a foot tall. Vanessa herself was completely transparent, and she was swallowing various small objects so people could see them bobbing around inside her like goldfish. Everyone at the party was far too giggly to panic at what was happening. The only thing Marty could really do was keep everyone inside until they fell asleep.
   The next day, Marty woke up to find that the drinks had all worn off, and everyone was back to normal. He tried to get information from them, but only Vanessa knew anything. The others remembered only that they must have been drinking, because they were all hung over and miserable. After helping Vanessa distribute Tylenol and coffee and seeing her guests out the door, Marty and Vanessa sat down to compare notes.
   After hearing about Opus Novelties from Marty, Vanessa signed on to help him track down their other products. The two of them became quite the investigating powerhouse. They found a lighter that made any cigar or cigarette you lit with it explode with a harmless bang. They found a gag squirting flower that never needed to be refilled. They even found a space-age Buck Rogers-style shrink ray that actually worked. It never really mattered how much stuff they found, though, because every bizarre novelty that made its way to Marty's blog was dismissed as just another Internet weirdo looking for ad traffic. Nobody was taking them seriously. No one could reproduce what Marty and Vanessa were seeing in a lab. Every time anyone reputable tried to examine Opus's products, they only found harmless food additives and cheap electronics. What Marty and Vanessa needed was a windfall, something so huge that nobody could doubt it.
   After a year of digging, they finally found it. Buried in some old paperwork from Opus Novelties was a shipping manifest. It said that the company's entire inventory had been shipped to some old warehouse in town, not long after Opus closed its doors. This was the break they had been waiting for. They immediately set out for the warehouse to find out what they had been hiding all these years.
   The building was massive, built of ancient bricks and steel girders. It looked like it hadn't been used in decades, but the front door still looked to be in use. Marty walked up and gave it a knock.
   "Come in," said a woman's voice from inside. Marty opened the door, and he and Vanessa stepped inside.
   The front room was comfortably furnished with leather chairs, wood paneling, and an old fashioned chandelier. There was a large wooden desk with a woman sitting behind it, but she seemed to clash with the rest of the room. Instead of business casual attire or some kind of blouse-and-skirt affair, she was wearing a tank top, stretch pants, and lightweight sneakers.
   "Hi. I'm Alicia," she said. "What can I do for you?"
   "I'm Marty," he said, "and this is Vanessa. We're investigating your connection with Opus Novelties, Inc."
   "Ah. You'd better follow me." Alicia got up from behind the desk and went through a door in the back of the room, and Marty and Vanessa followed her.
   Beyond the door was a massive room. Thirty-foot shelves stretched as far as the eye could see, and they could barely even see the back wall. The shelves were full of all sorts of random stuff, but a couple of things looked a lot like Opus's area of expertise. Marty and Vanessa looked around, but Alicia was nowhere to be seen. She had only been a few seconds ahead of them. Where had she gotten to so quickly?
   Vanessa saw a janitor pushing a cleaning cart a few aisles over and flagged him down. His coveralls had the name Robby embroidered on them. "Excuse me, but do you know where the receptionist is? I think her name was Alicia."
   "Oh, she likes to go off on her own. It's probably best to just wait and let her find you."
   "Well, maybe you can help us," said Marty. "We're looking into Opus Novelties. We have reason to believe that you're storing some of their stuff here."
   "Is that so?" he said. "Well, why don't you take a look around? Maybe you'll find something that'll help you." He pushed his cart away down another aisle.
   Marty and Vanessa took stock of the shelves in the area. Most of the things here looked like totally innocuous items. There was some clothing, a few items of jewelry, and a few brightly-painted boxes that looked like stage props, but most of the stuff was totally random. You could have found stuff like this in any department store in the country.
After a few minutes of looking, something caught Marty's eye. "I found something, Vanessa!" he called out.
   "What is it, babe?" she said, coming over to him.
"A pair of Opus X-Ray Specs," he said, taking them from the shelf. He put them on and looked at Vanessa, and he could see through her clothes down to her underwear. "And they work, too. I bet these sold like hotcakes."
   "Let me try." Vanessa took them off him and tried them on, and Marty flexed his arms and grinned at her. "Hey! Did you see me in my undies?" she said.
   "Nothing I haven't seen before, hun." He leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek. "Well, at least we know we're on the right track. Let's keep looking."
   "All right, but I get to try the next one first," she said. "No telling what you might do."
   They wandered along a few more aisles, and eventually Vanessa spotted a wide belt with a fancy buckle. It was big and silvery, and it had a big red button in the middle. "There," she said. "I want to try that one."
   "That doesn't look like an Opus product," said Marty. "What is it?"
   "Don't know," she said. "There's one way to find out, though." She put on the belt and pushed the button. The buckle spun around with a metallic whirring sound, and then the belt vibrated for a second.
   "Ooh, that tickles," she said.
   "What happened?" said Marty. "It doesn't look like it did anything."
   "I don't know," said Vanessa. "I can't tell." She tilted her hips, and her top half began to slide off. Marty moved quickly and caught her before she fell.
   "Well," he said as he held her torso in his arms, "that's a new one."
   "So it's a cutting-in-half belt, then," she said.
   "I guess."
The two of them watched her lower half, still wearing half of the belt, take a few tentative steps and then lose its balance.
   "Whoa," she said. "It's harder to walk than I would have thought. My center of gravity is all off."
   Marty walked over to Vanessa's legs and put his hand over the upper surface where her torso had been, where now there was just a metal disk. He tried to feel the disk, but there was a repelling force that kept him from touching it. "That's weird," he said. "It's like there's something keeping me from touching the division."
   "Is there?" she said. She put her hand under her waist and felt the same repulsion. "It's the same on this side, too."
   "Huh."
   "Okay, this is getting to be too much," said Vanessa. "Help me get back together."
   Marty set her top back on her bottom, and she shifted around until she was lined up properly. The belt buzzed again, and the buckle spun around the other way. When it stopped, she quickly undid the belt and put it back on the shelf.
   "I suppose there were other companies than Opus making weird stuff," said Marty. "We were lucky to find this place."
   "Whatever this place is," said Vanessa.
   They wandered around for another hour or so, and then Marty saw something he had to try. "Hey, look at that!" he said, running to the end of one of the aisles. It was a circular booth like a shower stall, with a dome over the top and rib-like arms around the sides, all glowing blue. "It looks like some kind of teleporter!"
   "Now, wait a minute, Marty," said Vanessa. "You don't even know what that thing is."
   "Oh, come on," he said. "You tried out the last one without knowing. Besides, it's my turn."
   "Oh, all right," she said. "Just don't blame me if you end up on the moon."
   He jumped into the booth and pressed the button, and the lights started to brighten. Vanessa had to turn away as the lights flashed, but when she turned back, Marty was still standing there. In a matter of speaking.
   "Dude," she said. "You're a chick."
   "What?" said Marty. "Oh, my voice sounds funny. Whoa, holy crap!" Marty looked down to see what had happened. He was still wearing the same clothes, but he now had finely sculpted curves and an impressive rack. "Whoa, this feels so funky," he said, running his hands over his new body and trying out a gyration or two. "You know, I may be mistaken here, but I think I'm hot as hell."
   "You're enjoying this, aren't you."
   "I can't say no." Marty was standing in front of Vanessa and doing what he probably thought was a sexy dance.
   "Shameful. Absolutely shameful," said Vanessa, but she couldn't help but smile. "You know, if you had a webcam right now, you'd make a lot of lonely boys very happy."
   "Come on, you wanna give it a try?" said Marty. "You could turn yourself into a dude, and we could totally make out."
   "I don't think so," said Vanessa. "This whole situation is weird enough as it is."
   "Well, that's okay," said Marty. He leaned in close and whispered in her ear. "We can totally make out either way. You ever kiss a girl before?"
   "Maybe later, dear," she said. "Let's just find some more Opus stuff and get out, all right? I'm afraid of what you'll find if we stick around any longer."
   "Fine. You're no fun." Marty stepped back into the booth and pressed the button again, there was another flash, and he was back to his old self. "Come on. There's a doorway over here."
   The two of them headed away from the main floor and entered a long hallway lined with heavy doors. Each one had a small window, and each one led to a room with a single object inside.
   "All right, this is more like it," he said. "You start at that end, and I'll start at the other, and we'll meet in the middle."
   "Got it."
   They each took one end of the hallway and made their way along the row of doors. Marty found a big, scary-looking helmet in one room, but it didn't look like something Opus would have made. The telescope in the next room didn't look important, either. The next room, though, looked very interesting. It looked like a big rock with something glowing inside it. He pulled the door open and walked up to the pedestal it was sitting on.
The rock looked like a geode cut in half, with a hollow space inside lined with crystals of every color. The space was filled with some kind of liquid that shimmered and sparkled in a way that Marty had never seen before. It looked like a rippling lake reflecting the sun, except that there was no light overhead in this room. The glow was actually coming from the liquid.
   Marty reached his hand inside and dipped his fingers into the liquid. It felt warm, tingly, and slightly thick, like a honey Jacuzzi. He pulled his hand out and rubbed the liquid between his fingers, and it began to ooze down his hand. There hadn't been very much on his hand, but it was still spreading, covering his hand and creeping over his arm and shoulder. As it spread over his body, his skin began to absorb it, so that by the time it reached his feet, his arm was already completely clean. Within a minute, it was as if nothing had happened, except he felt like he had just spent the day at a spa.
   Meanwhile, Vanessa walked by rooms containing a key, a printing plate, and an empty pedestal, until she found a room that really caught her eye. Sitting on the stand in the center of the room was an old-fashioned magic lantern, like an antique slide projector. There wasn't anyone operating it, but the image it was projecting on the wall was changing anyway. The images were also life size. As she entered the room, the image changed from a rocking chair to a painting. The images looked real enough to touch, with far better clarity than a usual magic lantern. She walked closer to the image of the painting, and it changed to an image of a statue. As she walked closer, the image of the statue rotated to match her viewing angle, as though the statue were really standing in front of her.
   She walked over to the magic lantern and gently picked it up. She turned it over in her hands, trying to figure out how it worked. When she pointed it at the wall, the image changed to show the drink-mixing kit that had started this whole mess. It seemed like forever.
   Either the lantern was reading her mind and projecting her thoughts, or she was somehow controlling it subconsciously. She thought about the piano she'd learned to play when she was a kid, and it appeared in front of her. She thought about the jungle gym she used to have in her backyard, and there it was. She imagined one thing after another, and they all appeared in front of her. She wasn't sure if Opus had made this, but she didn't care. It was the most amazing thing she'd ever seen, and she'd seen her share.
   She set the lantern down and went to find Marty, and she found him running down the hall toward her. "Did you find anything?" she said.
   "Oh yeah," he said. "I found a geode full of this weird elixir or something. I think I may have absorbed some of it through my skin."
   "This is more than we could have ever hoped for," said Vanessa. "We have to –"
   "Ahem," said someone from around the corner. They left the hallway and found Robby the custodian standing there with his cart, like he was waiting for them.
   "I see you managed to find your way," he said.
   "What do you mean?" said Marty. "We came here looking for information about Opus Novelties."
   "I know," said Robby, "and I can tell you what you want to know about them in a minute, but that's not really why you came here."
   "I don't understand," said Vanessa.
   "You came here because the Storehouse drew you here," said Robby. "The objects in those rooms are what we call the wellsprings of magic. This whole place is full of things that have magic in them, but those items are what magic comes from."
   Just then, Marty and Vanessa looked up to see Alicia floating through the air toward them. She glided toward Robby and landed gently beside him, and he wrapped his arm around her waist.
   Marty pointed and stared. "Your receptionist can fly."
   "Oh, I'm not the receptionist," said Alicia. "I'm the curator. It's my job to know where everything is kept around here."
   "How can you fly?" said Vanessa.
   "I got called here, too, just like you," she said. "My wellspring is for levitation, so I can float in midair and walk on walls. Robby's is for clairvoyance, which means he can see and heard things from far away."
   "I've been watching you both since you walked in here," said Robby. "And I saw what you did with the gender-bender booth, Marty, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself, but I already know you aren't."
   "Damn straight," said Marty.
   "So, I held one of those wellspring things and messed around with it," said Vanessa, "and it was like I was controlling it. Is that normal?"
   "That seems to be how they work," said Robby. He and Alicia turned to walk back to the front of the storehouse, and he beckoned Marty and Vanessa to follow. "Anyone who gets the call will eventually make their way to that hallway, for whatever reason, and the wellspring that chose them will kind of call to them. You can look at all the wellsprings you want, but you'll only want to approach one of them. That's the one that chose you."
   "When I looked in the rooms," said Vanessa, "one of them was empty."
   "Oh, I know about that," said Robby. "That's the wellspring for invisibility. I'm not actually sure what it is, but I know it's in there."
   "So which ones did we pick?" said Marty. "Or rather, which ones picked us?"
   "Marty, you found the geode with the liquid in it. That's the wellspring for transformation. It allows you to turn things into other things, including yourself or other people. You need to be careful turning things from animate to inanimate or vice versa, though, but since you're the keeper of the wellspring, you should know that already."
   "Great," said Vanessa. "So he can turn himself into a girl whenever he wants?"
   "Heck, he can turn himself into a flamingo if he sets his mind to it."
   "And what about me?" said Vanessa. "Which one did I get?"
   "The magic lantern is the wellspring for conjuration. You can create anything you want, or at least the appearance of anything, as long as you can imagine it. There are guidelines for certain kinds of conjuration, though, like precious metals or living beings, and you'll want to check our policy manual for the details, but other than that, the sky's the limit."
   Marty and Vanessa shared a look. This was so far beyond what they'd been expecting that they didn't know what to say. They'd wanted to get to the bottom of a mystery, but they only found more and more mysteries, and neither of them wanted to stop digging.
   "Wait a minute," said Marty. "So do you people have a connection to Opus Novelties, or don't you?"
   "Oh, right," said Robby. "We closed them down years ago. They were producing magical items without the proper licensing or safety restrictions, so we shut them down and confiscated their entire stock. We got most of it, but there were still a few things here and there in various retail outlets across the country that escaped our dragnet. I'd like to thank you two for tracking those down, by the way. What with one thing and another, I just haven't had the time."
   "When you say 'we,'" said Vanessa, "how many people are you talking about? Just how big is this organization you work for?"
   "For the longest time, it was just me," said Robby. "They were losing their funding, and they hired me to watch over the place until the other wellsprings found new keepers. Alicia showed up a few weeks ago, and I'm just waiting for the others."
   "And here you are," said Alicia, taking a break from doing mid-air barrel rolls to rejoin the conversation.
   "Wait a minute," said Marty. "Are you trying to get us to stay here?"
   "Well, you've got a choice," said Alicia. "One way or another, the wellsprings have picked you as their keepers, so you're stuck with that either way. If you really want, you can go out the door right now and never come back here. You can try to track down the last few outliers from Opus Novelties, but you'll always know that this place has more wonder than you can possibly count. Or, you can stay here and help Robby and me bring this place back up and running."
   "What is it exactly that you do here?" said Vanessa. "What was this place before it shut down?"
   "This place is a storehouse for magical items," said Robby. "In its heyday, it was the central hub for all the magic in the world. They used the wellsprings to create new magical objects, they sent out teams to regulate the use of magic and stop people who were abusing it, and they tried to understand the nature of magic as best they could. The main goal was to try to bring magic back into the public consciousness, but every time it was tried, it turned out that people weren't quite ready. Magic was released into the world in measured quantities, and it lasted for a few years or so until people grew bored with it, and it just sat there and withered like a dying houseplant. Then the wellspring keepers eventually passed away, and the rest of the staff went off to live their lives. It's an ongoing cycle, and this is the beginning of the next generation."
   "Basically," said Alicia, "this place is in charge of making the world more magical, and we're the ones who run it."
   Marty and Vanessa sat down on a bench to try and come to grips with what they'd learned. It was a lot to get their heads around in such a short time.
   "Look," said Robby, "I understand that this is a big decision to make. We are talking about your whole lives here, after all. I tell you what. I'll make up one of the bedrooms, and you can sleep on it. We'll talk about it some more in the morning." Marty and Vanessa followed Robby to the living area, while Alicia floated off again.
   After Robby unlocked one of the long-vacant bedrooms and made sure that everything was in order, he left Marty and Vanessa alone in the room. They sat there just holding hands and thinking for a few minutes before Marty broke the silence.
   "Well, I don't know about you," he said, "but I really want to stay here. I mean, these people do exactly what we do and more, and I want to help them."
   "Are you sure?" said Vanessa. "It's a huge change. I don't know if I'd be able to go jetting around the world fighting evil, working for some big faceless organization."
   "It's not a big faceless organization. It's us and two others. And Robby said that once it got to be a big organization, we'd be at the top of it."
   "But are you sure they're doing the right thing?" she said. "Our goal was to keep people safe from weird things and keep them contained, but they seem to want to spread them out."
   "Of course. The whole point is to make people's lives better. Once there are enough people that we can keep everything under control, then we can disseminate these things and make sure people use them properly. When you and I were out in the storehouse earlier, we were having a great time trying everything out. Don't you want other people to be able to do that?"
   "Sure."
   "And besides, if you left here, wouldn't the rest of the world just seem boring?"
   "I guess," said Vanessa. "All right, you've convinced me. Let's stay."
   "Good, because I want to practice transforming into things, and I need a spotter," said Marty.
   "Not so fast," said Vanessa. "You've already transformed today, but I haven't gotten to conjure anything. Besides, this room could use some sprucing up."
   "Okay, fine," said Marty. "Conjure us up some decorations."
   She held out her hand and closed her eyes. There was a swirl of particles and light above her hand, and a lamp appeared. It had teddy bears on it.
   "What's that?" said Marty.
   "It's the lamp from my bedroom back home," said Vanessa. "I always loved this lamp." She set it on the end table and plugged it in, and it worked fine. "Cool. The wiring works."
   "I guess you don't have to be able to visualize every detail of a thing to be able to conjure it," said Marty. "Try something else."
   She went over to the desk, held out her hands, and focused. There was another swirl of light, and a fancy-looking computer appeared in front of her. She tried to turn it on, but nothing happened.
   "What's wrong?" said Marty.
   "I don't know. It didn't work."
   Marty opened up the computer tower and looked inside. "Well, there's your problem. There's no motherboard or anything in here. It's just an empty case and some lights."
   "Is the computer too complicated?" said Vanessa. "Do I need to imagine a motherboard for it to work?"
   "That would probably help," said Marty, "but I think you were able to conjure the lamp because you were already familiar with it. If you had a beloved computer back home, I think it would have worked, but other than that, you probably need to have a specific thing in mind for something this complex. Try something unfamiliar but simple."
   She held out her hand and closed her eyes for a moment, and a glass of water appeared. "There," she said. "Simple." She sniffed the water, and then she took a taste. "Just like mother used to make."
   "All right, my turn," said Marty. He dipped a finger into the water and stirred it around, and a cloud of deep red began to spread throughout the glass. When the water had completely clouded over, Vanessa sniffed it again. "Huh. Water to wine. Not bad."
   "Hey, the old tricks are the best tricks."
   "It's a little cliché, though, isn't it?"
   "All right, try this on for size." He took the glass and shook it, and the wine turned into a bright pink slurry. He gave it back to Vanessa, and she cooed with delight.
   "Ooh, strawberry! My favorite." She tapped the surface of the milkshake, and a straw popped out. She took a drink. "Mmm, that hits the spot."
   "Hey, if you think that was cool, try this on for size." He closed his eyes and relaxed, and a shimmer passed over his body as he gradually transformed back into the woman the booth had turned him into before. "How 'bout it, hot stuff?"
   "You are absolutely determined to make out with me as a girl, aren't you?"
   "Hey, you said maybe later."
   "And what would you think of me if I was willing to make out with a strange woman?"
   "That's a good point," said Marty. "If that's the case, then I offer you this counter-proposal."
   He closed his eyes again, and he transformed into a duplicate of Vanessa. "There, problem solved. I no longer look like a stranger."
   "You know, you are truly strange and wonderful," said Vanessa, setting down her homemade milkshake. "Not to mention devilishly attractive." She ran a finger along Marty's jaw line.
   "You don't look so bad yourself," said Marty. He put a hand on the small of Vanessa's back and leaned in.
   Their lips touched.