Percolating

The sound of the coffee percolating was oddly peaceful, considering Evan's reality had once again been rewritten overnight.

There was something comforting about the ordinary rhythm of it. Water bubbling through the machine. The faint smell of fresh coffee filling the kitchen. The quiet hum of the refrigerator. For a few minutes, he could almost pretend that the world hadn't been rearranged by magic, that he was just a nineteen-year-old making himself breakfast before another day of university.

Almost.

Evan regretted drinking the second potion. Stacy had been right about that. If he'd left things alone, admitted that bringing the first potion into their house had been a mistake, and accepted that there was nothing he could do to undo it, then at least he'd know what he was dealing with. He'd be living in married bliss that morning, with Stacy as his loving, doting wife, apparently crazy about him and eager to do whatever she could to make him happy.

Instead, he was waiting for coffee to brew while a woman upstairs probably hated his guts, and the universe was stitching itself together into yet another version of reality designed to make his life more complicated.

Evan paused beside the counter. Did Stacy hate his guts? She certainly had reason to.

He'd ruined her life. Taken away her husband, destroyed the security she'd built for herself, and subjected her to a series of humiliating experiences that he could barely stand to think about. First, the magic had turned her into an adoring housewife, someone whose entire existence revolved around keeping him happy. Then came the property curse, which had stripped away what little independence she'd retained and reduced her to something people barely recognized as a person.

And now...

Evan stared at the coffee machine.

He could only imagine what Stacy's new life was going to be like.

The dream he'd had had shown him three versions of her. One was the devoted housewife. Another was the obedient maid. The third was harder to categorize. Party girl, perhaps. Bimbo. Someone who seemed to exist in a permanent state of enthusiasm, desperate for his attention and convinced that being the centre of his world was the greatest thing imaginable.

The less charitable word that came to mind was slut.

Evan winced at himself. That wasn't fair. Whatever the magic had done to her, it wasn't Stacy's fault. She hadn't chosen any of these roles, and he had no idea how much of the personality he'd seen in his dream would actually carry over into this new reality.

Still, the prospect made him uncomfortable. This was Stacy, after all. His father's wife. He'd never been thrilled about that arrangement, and his relationship with her had been difficult long before the potions entered the picture. They'd argued. She'd made it perfectly clear that she didn't think much of him. He'd resented her interference in his life, and she'd probably considered him an immature pain in the ass.

None of that had prepared either of them for what had happened since.

Something had changed between them, though. Not just the details of their reality, or the roles the magic kept assigning them, but the way Evan thought about her. The hardship had forced him to see Stacy as more than the woman who'd married his father and made his home life miserable. She was someone who'd been hurt, someone who was trying to hold herself together while the world kept changing beneath her feet.

And he could see her trying.

Stacy hadn't given up. She was angry, understandably, and she wasn't about to pretend everything was fine. But she'd begun to approach their situation pragmatically. They'd tried fighting the magic. Every attempt had made things worse. Maybe the only way forward was to stop struggling against every change long enough to understand what they were dealing with.

Perhaps there was some kind of solace on the far side of all this nonsense. Some way to salvage a life neither of them had asked for.

The kitchen looked much as it had the previous morning, but the pictures had changed. Evan glanced at the bare walls where photographs had once hung. Gone were the images of him purchasing Stacy, the bizarre reminders of the property arrangement that had dominated their lives for the past little while. Nothing had replaced them. The empty spaces made the room feel less settled, less like a home that belonged to anyone in particular.

It was a small change, but it bothered him. Who was Stacy to him now? The closet upstairs had offered a few clues. The pink clothes, the provocative outfits, the ridiculous shoes. Clearly, the magic had decided that Stacy needed a new role, but the details remained a mystery. Was she supposed to become the woman from his dream, all giggles and enthusiasm and relentless demands for affection? Would her personality change to match the wardrobe, or would the magic simply keep changing her circumstances while leaving the woman underneath untouched?

As far as Evan understood it, the second potion wasn't supposed to change who Stacy was. It was supposed to change the situation she was in.

But the distinction was becoming increasingly difficult to pin down.

If Stacy found herself in a new life with different expectations, different relationships, and a different place in his world, how much of her would remain the same? Would the magic push her into acting a certain way? Would it simply create circumstances that made those behaviours seem natural? And if she started to feel differently about him, how would either of them know whether those feelings were real?

The questions were exhausting.

Evan rubbed his eyes and turned back to the counter. Whatever happened, he was determined to figure it out. This whole mess was his fault. Sure, Stacy had been a bitch to him when she'd been married to his dad, but that didn't mean she deserved any of this. He couldn't justify what he'd done by pointing at their old arguments and telling himself she hadn't been very nice to him.

She'd had a life. A marriage. A sense of who she was. He'd interfered with all of it. The least he could do now was try to help her get through the consequences.

Stacy would be downstairs soon. He'd made coffee, which was a start, and he could listen if she wanted to talk. If she needed something, he'd do his best to provide it. He couldn't reverse the potion or promise that tomorrow wouldn't bring another impossible change, but he could stop treating her like a problem he had to solve and start treating her like a person who was stuck in the same mess.

Maybe they could learn from each other. Maybe they could find some way to live with the magic long enough to figure out what, if anything, could be salvaged.

The coffee machine beeped.

Evan poured himself a cup and carried it to the kitchen table. The first sip was hot and slightly bitter, exactly as he liked it. He wrapped both hands around the mug, letting the warmth settle into his fingers while he listened to the quiet house.

Then came the sound of heels against hardwood.

Click. Click. Click.

Evan looked toward the hallway. The footsteps were measured and deliberate, though there was something uncertain about their rhythm. Whoever was approaching seemed to be making a point of walking normally while simultaneously wondering whether walking normally was even possible in those shoes.

Stacy appeared at the entrance to the kitchen.

Evan blinked. She was wearing a tight pink minidress that looked as though it had been selected by someone with very different ideas about appropriate morning attire. Her hair had been arranged into twin pigtails, giving her a youthful, almost cartoonish appearance that clashed spectacularly with the woman he remembered arguing with across the dinner table.

The heels completed the picture.

For a moment, Evan couldn't reconcile the woman standing in front of him with the Stacy he'd known for years. She was still recognizably herself, but the outfit seemed to belong to a character in some ridiculous comedy, one who'd burst into a room expecting applause and perhaps a little worship.

Except Stacy wasn't smiling. She looked nervous. That, more than the dress, caught Evan's attention. Beneath the bold pink and the carefully arranged hair, he could see the familiar tension in her expression. She was waiting for his reaction, and whatever she thought of the clothes, she was clearly worried about what he thought of her.

The realization made him feel like an absolute idiot for staring. Unfortunately, he'd already been staring for several seconds.

"Wow," he managed.

The word escaped before his brain could find anything more useful. Stacy's expression tightened. Evan set his coffee down.

Great job, he thought. Really making her feel comfortable.

"I mean..." He struggled to recover. "You look different."

Even as the words left his mouth, he knew how stupid they sounded. Of course she looked different. She was wearing a pink minidress and pigtails, and yesterday she'd been dealing with the aftermath of a magical property curse. The entire point was that everything had changed.

Evan glanced at her face, trying to work out whether she'd taken his reaction as a compliment or an insult.

For once, he had absolutely no idea what to say next.