Romeo - 11

Chapter 11: Freedom(?)

The train was rolling through Burlington as Roaslind got replies from the rest of the band. Basically just everyone wanting to know what ‘curing the curse’ was going to mean. She, however, was feeling too giddy and excited to really stop and carry on much more of a text conversation. She was going to get her old face back. Her old life. Everything would be so much simpler again.

Her legs were bouncing about with excitement as she watched the cityscape of the Golden Horseshoe sparsen a little after Burlington. At the point where they rolled through the large conservation area in western Hammer City.

“Oh, hey, that’s actually a pretty nice view,” Teddie said, looking out the window as she sat across the seat set from Rosalind. “Thought Hammer City was all factories and industry…”

“Mhm. There’s some nice parks. Done some music festivals,” Rosalind replied, though she wasn’t really focused on small talk.

“A much easier place to relax than Toronto as well,” another voice said.

Both of them jumped slightly as Hermaphroditus’ winged form appeared in the seat beside Rosalind.

“You’re… you’re physical,” she said, poking them on the arm.

“Mhm. Takes barely any energy somewhere with ley lines like this,” they said.

Teddie was staring, before turning to see if anyone else on the train had noticed the androgynous winged humanoid who had just appeared. No one seemed to care, however. Which, she supposed, made sense. The train was mostly filled with Torontonians (who were well trained in ignoring things) and Hammer Cityers (who were used to strangeness, based on what she’d learned whenever the news covered an event in Hammer City). If the presence of a Greek Deity wasn’t taking so much of her focus, she’d have probably remarked that the two cities were well matched siblings, one always making rude faces while the bigger sibling ignored them. Not quite twins, though, as there were too many other cities in the area for that (Niagara Falls, Berlin, London, Guelph… the list went on), but still close siblings.

“So, who exactly are we going to see?” Teddie asked as they rolled into the urban portions of Hammer City.

It wasn’t as large as Toronto, especially lacking the truly towering glass condos spreading to every corner of the 416, but it was still clearly a city. There was brick and history here you didn’t get in the suburbs between the two cities.

“There’s a witch who’s moved out here. I don’t know why she left the Mediterranean, but it works out well for us. She should know how to contain the curse,” Hermaphroditus explained.

A short while later they’re rolled into a tunnel, and then popped out into the downtown of the rougher city. Though, being that it was Canada, there were still a few condo towers rising here. Then they pulled into the downtown station, for their second last stop.

It wasn’t a long wait, but any time spent sitting still was digging at Rosalind’s anticipation.

The final leg of the voyage had been dominated by Teddie asking Hermaphroditus about the whole ‘god’ thing. Which Hermaphroditus had corrected as being a ‘deity’ thing. They were nonbinary, perhaps a little more masculine than feminine, but not overly connected to either. Salmakis, meanwhile, was mostly feminine, but also felt a bit disconnected from gender.

They also explained that, yes, they were indeed a bit over two thousand years old, though fairly young for a Theoi. They’d also spent a lot of time napping, especially after the rise of Christianity and the loss of any real active worship.

“I was lucky to be remembered at all,” they said, as the train pulled into the Stoney Creek station. “Lots of folks were not, and a forgotten deity will slowly fade. Having my name be connected to a phenomenon really helped me out… even if I’ve got nothing on Eros or either of my parents.”

Teddie seemed rather fascinated as they disembarked, though Rosalind was a bit less interested. The gods (at least the Greco-Roman ones) were jerks and she’d gotten lucky to run into the least jerkish of them all. That was as far as her thoughts went.

“So… why did Salmakis curse Rosalind?” Teddie asked as they walked from the train station to where Hermaphroditus said the witch lived.

“Their… their father is Eros,” Hermaphroditus explained.

“Ah, you mentioned that name before… I’m not sure I know who it is, though,” Teddie replied.

Rosalind felt herself starting to blush, and nudged between the two of them. “How long of a walk did you say it was, again?”

“Hm? Oh, about fifteen minutes? Circe currently lives in an apartment building not far from here. A small walk-up. A bit of a drop from having a private island, but… sometimes it’s nice to live the simple life for a few decades,” they replied, before turning their attention back to Teddie like they’d not been interrupted. “And you might know Eros’ better by his Roman name: Cupid.”

“Cupid? Like… the little baby for Valentine’s Day?”

“He’s not really a baby,” Rosalind muttered.

“The Romans just liked to show him that way, and the rest of Europe seemed to latch on to it… it’s the one thing we can tease him about,” Hermaphroditus explained with a slight smirk.

“So… does that make you a demigod then, Rosalind?” Teddie asked, seeming rather frazzled by the whole idea.

“I guess? I don’t know,” she replied.

“More just a mortal of divine parentage,” Hermaphroditus explained.

The rest of the walk was quieter, Teddie seeming quite impressed by all she’d heard. Hermaphroditus took them on an efficient walk through the historic, though small town feeling, streets of ‘downtown’ Stoney Creek, before leading them up the walkway to a small apartment that looked like it was built in the 50s or 60s.

There was enough yard around it to almost make one wonder if it was any denser than a similar number of houses would be, but surely it must have been, to warrant someone actually building apartments instead. Hermaphroditus went to push the button on a buzzer when someone stepped out of the building.

Rosalind did a double take at the woman leaving, because there was little question in her mind that she was a vampire… as absurd as it sounded. The woman had a red and black victorian dress on, red coloured eyes, pointy ears, and, when she opened her mouth in surprise at seeing Hermaphroditus’ winged form, Rosalind was certain the woman had prominent fangs. Oh, and she had a sort of deathly pallor about her, despite having a reasonably dark skin tone.

“I—I’ll hold the door for you mis—mist—uh, your angelicness,” the petite vampiric woman said, though it seemed she was more using it as a shield than really thinking about being polite about holding the door open.

“I’m not an angel,” Hermaphroditus said with a soft smile, “but thank you all the same.”

The vampiric woman gave a small nod, but still seemed quite nervous as the trio headed in. Teddie watched her hurry off for a moment, before following the other two up the stairs.

“Don’t vampires burn in the sun? It’s daytime?” Teddie asked.

“Depends on the vampire,” Hermaphroditus replied, leading them up to the third floor.

There was an odd smell up here. One Rosalind couldn’t identify, yet swore she somehow knew. Walking past a few apartments, they came to one that, rather than a door, had a simple bead curtain. Well, it looked simple, but she suspected there was something magical about it. Hermaphroditus pulled the beads back and bid the other two to enter before following them.

The apartment on the other side was, in a word, crowded. There were shelves attached to almost every portion of wall, and the shelves were filled with—well, it almost seemed like anything that could be found. Some items looked like glass jars filled with what were surely magical ingredients. Others seemed nothing more than random nick nacks from second hand stores. Pointless souvenirs meant to provide visual noise to a space and nothing else.

It all struck Rosalind as deeply claustrophobic. Adding in the scents of the place as she was struggling not to scurry out, gasping for fresh air and open spaces.

She was distracted, though, by a small creature hurrying over to her side and making a noise. It was a piglet, and a rather adorable one at that. A bit larger than a cat, but still clearly young for a pig.

“Aren’t you just a cute little thing?” Rosalind said, crouching down to give it a scritch behind the ears.

“Huh… I didn’t realise piglets were so cute,” Teddie said, bending over to look at the creature.

“Are you trying to escape again, Jennifer?” a female voice with a vaguely southern European sounding accent.

The woman then walked into view, and Rosalind saw she looked to be in her forties, a greying olive skinned woman that would have easily blended into any streetcar in Toronto.

“Oh, Hermaphroditus,” she said. “You’re early.”

“Valenti was in more of a hurry than I expected,” they said.

“You named the pig Jennifer?” Rosalind asked, thinking it was a rather human sounding name.

Though, then again, she didn’t really know what normal names for pigs were.

“I didn’t name her anything. That was the name her parents gave her… probably,” Circe said with a casual shrug.

“Pare—oh, you’re pig-sitting?” Teddie asked.

“In a manner of speaking… until her boyfriend pays what he owes me and I turn her human again,” Circe said with a shrug.

“Turn her… human…” Rosalind mumbled, staring in terror at the pig.

Or… human being that was transformed by ancient magic? Magic surely not too different than the magic that had transformed her… sure, she’d read about the other people hit by magic in the Metamorphoses (well, the abridged summaries of the story she found online) and other Hellenic myths, but actually seeing it? With her own eyes?

It was terrifying and left her thankful she’d retained her humanity with her curse.

“Now then, which of you is the one I’m treating?” Circe asked, apparently not caring about the existential crisis she’d just inflicted.

“Uh… it’s… it’s me?” Rosalind replied.

“Huh… not who I would have guessed. Well, stand up,” Circe said, waving her over.

Once Rosalind got close enough, the witch grabbed her wrist and dragged her off towards the kitchen. The place looked like it hadn’t been renovated since the building was built, as best as Rosalind knew her historic interior decorating trends.

“Now, thankfully, the curse on the Spring of Salmakis is fairly general and undirected, so it doesn’t take too much to confuse it and deactivate it,” Circe explained, nudging Rosalind to stand in the middle of the kitchen. “Most witches would still have no idea where to begin to deactivate it, but lucky you this isn’t ol’ Circe’s first time encountering a victim of the spring. Had some poor confused Crusader so desperate for a cure back in the day I got him to renounce his church before I treated him.”

“I… um… I’m not really religious,” Rosalind offered.

“Didn’t think you were, child,” Circe replied. “Foolish, but not a Christian… besides, your dear father’s sibling asked me to help you, and who am I to deny the child of two Olympians? Now then, the actual fix is fairly straightforward. Mixing the symbols of Hermes and Aphrodite the right way convinces the magic that you’re under the protection of both of them… though it’s more than just the symbols. You also need the right medium. A special blend that’s mostly the ash of an olive tree, but with some other matters mixed in.”

With that, she pulled out a sort of ink well and a narrow paint brush. Circe dipped the brush into the well, then pulled Rosalind’s arm over and painted on the symbol in question. As soon as she added the final touch a tingle shot through Rosalind’s body. With the spread of the tingle came the spread of her birth form.

She shot up a few inches while the dress became tighter on her. Her shoulders shifted broader and she felt her jaw grow squarer. And… and…

She felt a shiver run down her spine because she’d forgotten breaking the curse and getting her old life back meant losing the delightful femininity that she’d gained from it. The dysphoria of her birth form hit her in a way it had surely done before, but she’d never been able to put a finger on. Now, though… now she knew exactly what was wrong and how much she hated it.

“What just happened?” Teddie asked from the doorway of the kitchen.

Rosalind—or, she supposed she should really think of herself as Romeo again now, grimaced. She raised her arms in a placating manner.

“I—I can explain. This—I—well… ok, it’s… I know it doesn’t look good,” she stammered, her mind desperately trying to come up with an explanation that made her gender clear despite the awkward way she’d stumbled onto it… while her head also spin with the sudden discomfort at her own body. “I… I got this curse in Turkey, and it sort of turned me into a girl and then I wanted to get uncursed because it made my life a mess, but then I also realised I kind of liked being a girl sometimes, and so I embraced it but I also still wanted my old life back but now I think I made a mistake and having to choose one form or the other really sucks because I’m genderfluid.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Circe said with a smirk. “The fluid part just got more literal now, is all.”

“What do you mean?” Romeo asked.

Instead of answering, Circe grabbed a pitcher of water off the counter and then dumped it onto Romeo’s forearm. The sigil on her forearm washed away with the water, and a new tingle spread across her body, returning her to her cursed form.

“The ash mix isn’t waterproof. Water based curse and all, it was always going to have issues around water,” Circe explained. “I’ll sell you some at a reasonable price, though. Don’t worry. I’m an honest witch… these days.”

“Oh,” Rosalind muttered, glad to have her more feminine body back.

“I… I know several people who would love to have that,” Teddie muttered, her eyes still not quite focused yet.

“Mmm… maybe we should start bottling that water of yours, Atlantiades,” Circe said.

Hermaphroditus gave a small nod, seeming to seriously consider it.