Wishing Well

Chapter One

Power

1

The well was ancient; easily as old as many of the oldest houses in Bycastle, the original village from which Nockton and its twin-town Barton spread.

It had been restored in recent years by the Friends of Nockton conservation group. Before that it had remained covered over and hidden for many years. The circular structure had been rebuilt in keeping with how it would have originally looked, a peaked roof built over it. There was a crank handle, rope and bucket but they didn’t work. The crank wasn’t built to turn.

The wishing well overlooked the River Mead at the eastern end of Bycastle. Open fields had spread away from that point along the river bank in ancient times but now there lay the parking structures of Nockton centre, Tower Gates mall, the business park: Meadside, and the expansive towns of Nockton and Barton.

Though inaccessible, the well’s water was kept fresh not only by the river, but by the stream than ran close by and under the footbridge there on the riverside. The stream wound down through the conurbation, streaking through Hurley Park in the centre of town and originating from the crevices in the ravine up on the southern ridgeline of the long valley just beneath the edifice of Crackshaw, the town’s venerable estate.

Standing beside the well, I looked up to the ridgeline then followed the stream’s concealed trickle down through Nockton Heights and into Deerbarrow before it vanished underground for a while to cross the Ockham trading estate.

I sighed and turned back to the well, leaning on its edge and looked in, wishing that my problems could be solved as easily as dropping a coin down into it.

Wouldn’t that be great?

Perhaps then I'd be able to resolve the mess I’d made of my life.

It wasn’t all bad. I had my girlfriend, Jenny. We had our little ground floor flat in Ashfield; even if it was a bit too small for us and very damp. We loved each other and had been together for four years until now, in our late twenties, people were starting to assume we would be thinking about marriage and kids soon.

Fat chance of that. We couldn’t afford a holiday; let alone a wedding or the accoutrements of babies.

That was where most of my problems lay; around my career.

I didn’t really have one.

I had grown up in Nockton and I hadn’t done brilliantly in my schoolwork. Despite pushes from my mum, I'd failed the entrance exams for Lockwood Grammar and ended up going into a steady decline at Nockton Marsh instead. She wanted me to do A Levels at the sixth form next door but I chose Barton Tech to rebel. Much good it did me. I barely scraped through on the BTEC in Business Technology I did. A university degree was out of the question.

Fast forward ten years and I was already about as high as I was ever going to get at Wilton Danborough Business Consultancy or anywhere else. I wasn’t motivated to go back to my studies or driven enough to push myself through work experience alone. I felt underappreciated at work and semi-bullied by my micro-managing supervisor, Roland.

The worst part though, was seeing the contrast in my lifestyle to the consultants and senior managers in the firm. They had the flash cars, fancy houses and expense accounts. What did I have?

Nothing.

Except for Jenny.

And I did appreciate her; I really did. It wasn’t always perfect between us but it was good enough. We made the most of what cash we had left after the bills had been paid, going out clubbing or on the razz. It wasn’t a terrible life, but I did wish it was better.

My lunchtime walks were one of the highlights of the day. I had various routes I loved but my favourite was along the Mead to Bycastle. I could just get far enough along for a glimpse of the old castle itself before I had to turn back. The hump-backed footbridge and well were my turning point but I loitered today instead of hurrying back.

I’d had an email from my supervisor before I left saying he wanted to see me after lunch and I was dreading it. He was bound to run me down about something.

I stared moodily into the pit of the well, looking at the twin circles, one within the other, of dark water and reflected sky.

I checked my watch. I was going to be late back. But I didn’t turn away. Instead I reached into my pocket and withdrew a fifty pence piece. It was more than I would normally have considered throwing away but I didn’t consider that deeply enough to put it back.

I rested it on my crooked first finger and focused past it again at the water twenty feet below. Then as I gave my thumb a flick and watched it tumble over and over, down and down toward the water’s surface, I gave a little cynical chuckle and murmured, I wish I could be one of the senior managers at work.

2

As near as damn it, the second my coin hit the water I felt an onrush of heartburn that made me immediately forget the silly wish I’d made. I gripped my stomach and winced, regretting wolfing down the sandwiches I'd eaten at my desk before my walk.

Scowling at my rotten luck, I started to hurry back over the little hump-backed footbridge and along the river path at the back of the multi-storey car parks. There was a little gateway that cut into the outside dining areas at the back of the shopping centre then another one on the far side that led to Meadside Business Park.

Wilton Danborough had offices on the fifth, sixth and seventh floors of the Empire Building overlooking the river. The open plan office that I occupied was not surprisingly in the centre of the building with only overhead fluorescents to provide any light.

My stomach didn’t feel much better by the time I got round to the front of the building and I was a full five minutes late. Cursing my own dawdling, I finally turned out of the lift sweating and damp and ran right into my supervisor, Roland.

Well what the hell time do you call this Lionel? he snapped.

Sorry. I lost track of the time. I went to hurry past to my desk.

Again? Well there’s a surprise.

Sorry. It won’t happen in future.

Where do you think you’re going now?

I hesitated. To my desk?

We have a meeting? Have you forgotten that too?

No. Sorry. Er, where would you like to...?

My office. He turned his back on me and marched toward it.

I started after him, rubbing the point where my chest met the top of my belly, wondering how my day could get any worse.

Roland was waiting with his arms folded and his face a mask of irritation when I got to his office. Shut the door.

I did so and took a seat.

Did I ask you to sit?

Er, no. Sorry. I got up.

I’m kidding, Take a seat.

Oh. I floundered, unsure of myself.

Anytime you’re ready Lionel. I don't have all day.

Right. Sorry.

He dressed me down for my tardiness at lunch and then started on about my low productivity compared to other workers.

The data he was looking at was from a report that I knew had been run incorrectly but when I tried to point it out he sighed heavily and said, What planet are you on Lionel?

Er... sorry? What?

Are you telling me I don’t know how to do my job?

Uh, no; not at all.

How do you think I feel when you tell me I don’t know how to run reports correctly? Hm?

I cleared my throat. Uh, well...

Maybe if you spent the time you seem to waste questioning me on doing your own job right then the data in the report wouldn’t show you out to be a bad worker.

I winced again. My chest and stomach were turning over horribly.

Are you even listening to me?

Yes. Sorry.

I don't know why I waste my time on you.

I sat uncomfortably, unsure what he wanted me to say and worried that whatever I said would spark off more hostility.

Well go on then, he said. I told you to leave.

Er... I frowned, sure he hadn’t.

Just try to do a better job than you have been doing, he said.

I left his office and leant against the wall outside, breathing heavily. I staggered several steps then leaned against the wall again. I needed to sit down but my desk was still a long way off. It might have been a heart attack. It didn’t feel like any indigestion I’d had before.

The next door along was a meeting room. I lurched to it and pushed inside then leaned against the desk, trying to catch my breath. I felt awful and the feeling was growing, spreading up my back.

I was in serious trouble. I needed an ambulance, now! But when I reached for the door again and tried to call for help, all that came out was a hoarse scratching; not even words.

I retched, a lump filling my oesophagus, then I retched again. I bent over, clutching my abdomen with both hands.

Then suddenly there was a blinding flicker flash of white light and I flew back upright and staggered backwards as what felt like a hurricane wind took hold of me, filling my clothes and my hair.

In the next instant it vanished – the wind and the light – and I realised that the pain was gone too. The awful constriction in my stomach and chest had disappeared. I felt absolutely fine. There was nothing wrong with me at all. I was panting to catch my breath but everything else was normal.

Then I looked down as I reached to feel my stomach and my eyes went round with alarm as shoulder-length blond hair swung into view at the sides of my face.

And then I saw my bare legs from the knees down, smooth and hairless, and the low-heeled women’s shoes I was wearing suddenly.

I blinked, and blinked again; looked to the closed door; the glass wall to the rest of the office.

I was wearing a skirt! A blue skirt and matching jacket! And my body was an entirely different shape to what it should have been!

My mouth fell gaping open.

I had breasts. My body was bulging in all the wrong places!

Whatever had happened a minute ago had changed me.

It had transformed me into a woman!

3

My rapid breathing started to subside but my system was flooded with the static charge of adrenaline.

I grasped at the different parts of me to see if it was real; raising my arms out; turning them over; twisting at the waist to look behind me; feeling at this new hair; touching my face and my chest; my stomach, thighs, legs and hands.

I had turned into a woman, entirely and completely, and not a young slim woman. I couldn’t be sure without looking at my new face but from the clothes and the shape and the hands... I was an older one!

This new body was very full-figured but not morbidly obese. My thighs and calves were rounded, my hips and stomach forming the approximate silhouette of a pear. I had pillowy breasts that gave a surprisingly immediate sensation when I dared to touch them. And my hands... They weren’t tiny but were undeniably feminine, the nails polished to a gleam; the fingers narrow.

My hair was long now, dropping to the base of my neck and curling in, a flick of it coming down diagonally to overlap my right eye.

As for my clothes...! I was wearing a blue woman’s business suit: skirt to the knee, a jacket with sleeves that only just passed the elbows; shoes that matched. Under the jacket was a white blouse with a wide enough neck to show a circle of smooth chest but no hint of cleavage.

Gone from my cheeks was any sign of stubble. The skin yielded to my touch in an entirely different way to how it normally did.

The whole thing was flabbergasting.

How could it possibly have happened?

But of course, the second I asked that, the answer thunked so heavily into place that I knew with absolute certainty that it was true.

There was no room at all for scepticism. How could there be?

In a mundane world with only one bright point of the unreal, there was only one possible source.

The wishing well.

My wish.

My memory-mind leapt back to that moment: the fifty pence piece balanced on my finger; watching it begin to fall, spinning end on end all the way down until it splashed into the black liquid at the bottom.

I had wished I was a senior manager at my firm.

And it hadn’t just fixed reality to change my job role, it had fixed me to suit it.

There was no blond female manager currently working here. It hadn’t changed me into a copy of someone else. But surely it had done the next best thing.

Oh my God, I whispered, laying my hand on my breast. It came true. But I hadn’t meant it to be like this. I didn’t want to be a woman!

And at that precise instant the meeting room door opened and two people I knew from around the office came in.

4

They were both senior managers; a man and a woman. They did no more than glance at me as they entered and started circling the oval meeting table. There was no strong reaction at all. The woman gave a slight smile and my mouth smiled back falteringly of its own accord.

Are you sitting here Marjorie? asked the man; Ken Blaine, Sales Manager, if I remembered correctly. I turned to face him and he was looking right at me.

My lips flapped a little as I looked down at the neat pile of papers and the tablet marking somebody’s place on the far side of the table. Er... Yes?

He gave a polite smile and sat in the next seat along. Good. If the old man drones on we can write notes to one another.

He and the lady chuckled and I gave a half smile. This was crazy, but they knew me. And he’d called me... Marjorie? I looked down my very feminine body again.

They were both getting settled; laying out their papers; but I just stood staring from one to the other of them then back down at myself.

Another woman came in behind me and started to sit as well. I knew her vaguely. She was the administration manager, Zoe Kellerman. Oh hi Marjorie. How was your lunch? Did you get that dress you were after from Dorothy Perkins in the end?

Er, no, I replied, marvelling at the mature woman’s voice that was coming from my lips; at the way these people were treating me; as though I really was one of them. I... decided not to.

Oh. Shame. When does the sale end?

I uh... I don’t know.

She started laying out her papers and more people filed into the room. They were all taking their seats but I remained where I was, unsure what I should do and entirely confused by the situation. I felt like running, screaming from the room but I also... sort of didn’t. It felt kind of normal."

Then my pulse went up a notch as I heard the voice of the company president, Richard Wilton, talking and chuckling with the VP.

I gaped at them as they entered, continuing to joke, and took their seats round the now almost full table.

Mr. Wilton caught my eye. Are you joining us Marjorie?

I stared at the empty seat with the tablet and papers then back at him. Everyone was looking at me. Er... Yes. Of course, I said, and circled warily round to my seat, expecting at any moment for there to be some gigantic response or even another magical flash. But people were just sitting there getting ready for the meeting. No one was looking at me strangely. It seemed absurd to go along with all this but what else should I do? I was absolutely flummoxed by the whole thing.

Mr. Wilton’s PA came in to record the minutes then he started the meeting, beginning with the minutes from the previous week.

I had always wanted to be important enough to be invited to this kind of review meeting, but my wish had come true in the most bizarrely unexpected way possible.

The president prompted the Accounts Manager to give his report on the upcoming budget and he went into the results of some recent analyses and his projections for the coming months. When that was done with, the focus moved to the next manager who went through his department’s output and issues. I shook my head in wonder, trying to accept that this was really happening to me.

Then as the focus travelled round the table I started to get the sinking feeling where it was going to end. I was at the end of that trail. They were going to want to hear my report and I didn’t even know what my job was!

By the time I realised what this meant and how exposed I was going to be, the creep of doom was already at the end of the table, starting to curve round toward me.

I looked through the papers in front of me desperately, trying to get some clue on what to say. There were a lot of figures and employee names. They looked like wages or job grades. Beneath that were a couple of employee files, one of which was my supervisor’s, Roland. It had his photo from the employee board in reception and his original application form; various other subsequent documents; his contract. A post-it note was affixed to the front marked with the word possible in steeply angled handwriting.

The creep of doom went on a notch. There were two people and then me to go: the man and woman who entered first.

I flipped open the tablet and swiped the screen to activate it then stared at the spreadsheet it was open on. More figures and names.

I shuffled in my seat, noticing my dangling hair again; the feminine hands; the breasts; the business suit. I couldn’t do this. How could I? I just had to get out of here!

The woman who had first called me Marjorie finished her round-up and the Sales Manager beside me started to go through some challenges his team had faced to bring in new business.

Should I get up? Say I didn’t feel well?

And then what? I was a woman! I was a middle-aged woman!

The Sales Manager was