They came to her soon after she’d told them. Sat her down in the kitchen. Offered strained, brittle smiles.
‘Son,’ said the father, like that single word said it all.
‘We’ve always known you’re different,’ said the mother, leaned across the table to clasp the girl’s hand in her own, oozing anguish. ‘But not this,’ she said. ‘It’s too much to bear. It’s an illness,’ she said. ‘It breaks my heart.’
‘I want to be a girl,’ said the girl, eyes downcast.
‘Boys mustn’t want to the girls,’ said the father.
‘It’s not how we’ve raised you,’ said the mother. ‘It comes from the world, and all the lies they tell our children.’
‘I am a girl,’ said the girl, tears cupping her eyes.
The mother stood up, poured three tall glasses of lemonade. The father brought out a small vial, put it on the table.
The girl cried and her narrow shoulders shook. She clenched her hands together and sang something nervously under her breath.
‘This will help,’ said the mother. ‘It’s from the ferns. You know how they’d helped since they’d come here. You know how much better they’d made the world. This will heal you,’ she said.
‘It will fix you, son,’ said the father.
‘It’s alien stuff,’ whispered the girl. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I don’t need that,’ she said.
The mother got up, stood next to the girl, her body casting a shadow. ‘It will take away your strangeness,’ said the mother. ‘It will make your life easier. That’s all we want for you,’ she said. ‘To be happy.’
‘It will make you the way you’re meant to be,’ said the father.
‘And the spores are safe,’ said the mother. ‘Remember when Gran had cancer and she drank the spores and it healed her?’ she asked.
‘Gran is different now,’ said the girl.
‘She’s just getting old,’ said the father, laughed.
‘These are modified,’ said the mother. ‘Just for you. Costs a fortune. It will bring out desirable traits and get rid of the bad ones,’ she said. ‘It will cure you.’
The girl wanted to get up, run away, but it felt like their eyes had her pegged to her seat. She looked at the mother and at the father and saw faces that were drawn and fearful and angry. ‘I’m not sick,’ said the girl.
The father reached over the table, emptied the vial in her lemonade. ‘Drink,’ said the father. ‘It will make everything better,’ he said. ‘I promise.’
***
That first night, it took her a long time to fall asleep.
There was a shadow in her room, in the corner by the window, watching. A shadow that never moved even as the moonlight shifted. And when she finally drifted off, she saw the shadow in her mind. Something new and wary, like a feral baby animal.
The next morning, she got into her boy clothes and went downstairs. She couldn’t eat. Her stomach felt unsettled. It moved and churned. Like there was something inside, poking about.
But the mother said it’s fine, not to worry. It’s probably indigestion, she said. Because of the spores. The doctor said there might be some discomfort, she said, just for a couple of days, while the spores bind with the body.
The girl spent the day watching television, her hands on her stomach, listening. She heard something like voices, but thought it might be the wind stirring against the curtains.
The second night, she could not sleep at all. Eyes opened or closed, the shadow hung over her like a cloud, and she felt things like tendrils tickling through her innards.
She got breakfast in bed. It made her nauseous. She watched it get cold. The mother told her to be strong. The father came by to say how proud he was. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw she looked exactly like she always had, just a bit more tired.
But the tendrils were there. Inside. She could feel it. Quietly nestled in her neck like a viper waiting to strike.
She spent that day walking in the garden, watching the sun through the summer trees, weeping amidst birdsong, feeling like she was seeping away.
The third night, there was no shadow, but her mind felt black and dead and empty, and as the tendrils bore up and up into her head, she fell asleep, and never woke again.
***
It was easy. This world was strange, but had been known by another, and it knew what that other had known.
For a while, it lay in bed in the warm morning sun, felt its new body, mulled over its many new memories, looking for those that mattered, so it could become exactly what they wanted. This was how it survived. In all the many worlds it had spread to.
It got up and they all ate together and the mood was light and joyful.
***
In the days that followed, it learned quickly. It found the things that gave them joy, and acted accordingly. It said the right things and said it the right way. It played ball. It fed on their approval.
After a while, it knew.
They had the son they always wanted.
Daniel Burnbridge is a South African author of speculative fiction, with work published or forthcoming in several magazines and anthologies, including Journeys Beyond the Fantastical Horizon (Galaxy’s Edge), Amazing Stories and Aurealis. He is the winner of the 2023 Mike Resnick Memorial Award for best science fiction short story by a new author.
Published 2/14/25