Isabella (TW-I)

How many people ever get the chance to reinvent themselves entirely? To choose a new name? And, if I was understanding Elspeth's intent correctly, a whole new identity.

I asked, "So, Katherine's a blonde, Isabella's a brunette, and Deirdre's a redhead?"

Elspeth nodded and continued to stare me in the eyes by way of the mirror.

I sighed and considered my options. What difference did it make, really? I wasn't going to be me anymore. Still, I had some very pleasant associations in my head with certain brunettes. I took a deep breath and said, "Isabella."

Elspeth nodded again, and I looked in the mirror to see for the first time what it looked like when a witch worked her hoodoo.

It. Was. Freaky. As. Fuck.

My face fucking melted and shifted as if it were made of clay and someone was pushing and pulling on it in several different directions at once. Oh, and it hurt like Hell. My ears, nose, cheeks, jaw, eye sockets, the bones of my forehead. The whole shape of my head distorted agonizingly. After a couple of seconds, I decided squeezing my eyes shut as tightly as possible was infinitely superior to watching the changes, and did so.

It didn't take long, thank God. When the pain abruptly stopped, I eased my eyes open to see the damage, half expecting to still look like some postmodern sculpture gone horribly wrong.

Instead, I saw a hot Italian chick. Like, almost movie star hot. Aquiline nose, sensuous lips, the whole nine yards. Wavy, dark brown hair hung down to my collar bones, parted in the middle and tucked back behind my ears to reveal eyes the color of unsweetened chocolate. My skin tone had shifted from pasty to fair but slightly olive toned. A perfect beauty mark of a mole poised above the left side of my mouth served to highlight the otherwise exceptional symmetry of my features.

Elspeth interrupted my inspection by saying, "Hi, there, Bella!" Was I a "Bella?" Apparently I was now. "Oops! I forgot. You decided to go with your full name after those vampire movies came out. Isabella it is." She produced my driver's license and handed it to me. "Isabella Summers," it read, showing my new face and listing my age as eighteen. Wait, eighteen?

The other naked woman in the room answered without my having to ask the question aloud: "Yup! Eighteen again. I thought it'd be fun if we were in the same year. You're a freshman again, just like me."

I groaned aloud in my newly cute voice. Freshman year all over again.

Elspeth continued, "I'll get all the details of rearranging reality straightened out this afternoon, but you're Isabella Summers, an undeclared major. You were born in Toronto, but your parents moved to New York City when you were still little. You still have Canadian citizenship, but you're all American. You're Italian on your mom's side, of course. Oh, one more thing!"

She moved around behind me and put her hands on either side of my head, fingers splayed. I could swear I saw little bolts of lightning leap from her fingertips to my skull, and for a split second my vision went white with searing agony.

"There," she said, "that should take care of it. I can't make you forget who you were before today, because that's not part of my power set. But I did tweak the levels of serotonin, dopamine, and hormones in your brain to make you naturally tend to be a bit moody and kind of intense. I also increased both your cortical thickness and convolution."

I didn't have to think long to know what that meant, and asked, "You made me smarter?"

Elspeth laughed out loud. She had a very pretty laugh. "I made you a lot smarter, gorgeous. You're going to make sure I get all A's."

All these changes were piling up. In the mirror, I could see my eyes go wide and my nostrils flare as panic started to bloom in my chest.

Her arms went around my waist, and Elspeth hugged me tightly. She said, "Easy there, Isabella. No need to panic. You'll get used to all of this soon."

Tears came unbidden to my eyes, but I blinked them back. I might find a way out of this, but it wasn't going to be today. I needed to just deal with the situation.

"So," Elspeth interrupted my reverie, "when can I move in?"