I stared into a thicket of brambles and tree limbs that blocked the way out pletely. I could just barely make out a hint of blue sky through the trunks, vines, branches, and leaves. Some of the vines were as big around as my arm — or my calf, I guess, since my limbs were a bit slimmer than they had been. On the good side, the air was much fresher now that I’d opehe door, and there was no sign of any guards. It must have taken decades for this spot to get so rown, and it looked like Enash’s tomb had been fotten about.

  I’d po put off yard work for several days while I got the interior taken care of, so the wn mower and the gardening tools were still in ste. I didn’t have anything with me that would help deal with the rown foliage.

  Did pnts t as living beings? “Hey, Enash,” I said, “ I use Life Drain ohings?”

  Sure, you . Not as effit as setting them on fire. Especially if y some of that gasoliuff down here.

  “e to a new world, start a forest fire. Yeah, no.”

  You really are weak, aren’t you? There’s nothing fmmable in here, it’s not like we’d be in danger. Maybe you ’t get out with me inside you, anyway. I always figured we could bypass the wards as long as I had you in me, but a few things haven’t worked out as pnned so far.

  “Oh, really?”

  Like having a guy who is afraid of little fire in charge.

  I pushed the crowbar outside, holding it in my hand like a sword. Nothing happeo it.

  I tried stig my finger out. It didn’t get chopped off or anything like that. Slowly I extended my hand. All fine. I put my left leg in, and wiggled it, but nothing happened except for a thorn catg at my jeans. Then I got the Hokey Pokey song stu my head. I couldn’t get my whole body ht now without clearing the way, etting some serious scratches.

  I pulled my leg back. It seemed like a good time to try some more magic.

  I poi one of the vines. “Life Drain,” I said. Nothing happened.

  You o have a wand, or touch it, stupid. Didn’t you read the spell?

  “I’ve had a lot on my mind for some reason,” I retorted. I reached out and touched the vine, instead. “Life Drain,” I repeated.

  My hand glowed with bergy for a moment, and then the green viurned brown, starting where I’d pointed and then traveling up and down its length, until I couldn’t see it anymore as it was lost in the rest of the undergrowth.

  Death and decay. Fun stuff. And Enash was right, it wasn’t a very effective way to clear brush, pared to using a machete, a saw, or hedge clippers. The vine was still there, after all, it was just dead.

  And I felt great, which was disturbing. I remembered the healing powers of the spell.

  For casting Life Drain for the first time, you have gained one experience point.

  For the first time. That made some sense. I had one point for each time I’d used a new spell or ability, but I only had one I hadn’t cast: Animate Lesser Undead. If I was going to get to sed level, I couldn’t do it just by casting spells. Presumably, I wao level up, although spells to create better zombies didn’t really motivate me.

  I swung the crowbar at the vine, and it broke, so it would be possible to clear the whole space using Life Drain and a crow bar, but I believed in using the right tool for the job.

  I closed the dain, bolting with the two remaining bolts that worked, and jamming the crowbar ihe middle one had gone. I needed a pn, and some more tools. I really hated the idea of driving across town twi one day, but it looked like it was unavoidable. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t going to have to make more trips for my stuff eventually, anyway; I was just moving some things up the schedule some.

  While I drove bay ste unit I did some thinking.

  I felt a little sorry for Enash. I was pletely in trol, and all he could do was make ents. It sounded like a miserable experience, and I would never have dohat to anyone else on purpose.

  Oher hand, trapping me in his body was exactly what he intended for me. And Enash was dead, and clearly evil. He’d had a ce to live a life, and he didn’t deserve another. I was a big believer in rehabilitation, but he hadn’t given me any clue that he was ied in that. He wasn’t worth w my sce about.

  What did it mean to me to have a futa body? Well, as long as that body stayed in a tomb, not much, but I was w on that part. I didn’t think it was something I could reason out. I’d just have to experiehings as they happened.

  The bruises on my butt had healed quickly. Even though I’d nded as Abby, the pain hadn’t magically gone away when I went back to Earth st night. But now, even sitting for half an hour in traffic, it was fine. Life Drain had dohe trick.

  I loaded the van up with tools, the refrigerator, and the bed. Living the way I did, I didn’t tend to accumute a lot of stuff, other than tools. One more load and it would be empty.

  I had a schedule for the renovation all id out on a spreadsheet, iing the trips for supplies with the progress I expected to make on the house, and it had all goo hell. The inefficy of it annoyed me, but at the same time I was excited. Finding out what y outside that crypt was a lot more iing than sanding floors or installing neliances.

  I picked up drive-thru burgers on the way home, ate them in the car, and washed them down with a rge co that had more ice than drink. I stopped by a thrift store, too, and quickly bought some shoes, shorts, and socks in different sizes, that I thought might fit Abby. I was tempted to look for sexy things, but I forced myself to stay on task. I didn’t need a cute top, and anyway I didn’t know what size I was. Maybe a bra to reduce the bounce would help, too, but not if it didn’t fit. My guess was 38DD, but I really didn’t know.

  I spotted an off-the-shoulder bck dress, with ce edging and big poofy sleeves, and a little bit of a corset effect. The oime I’d had any desire to be a woman was during my goth phase, because the girls had the coolest outfits. Fht bucks, I couldn’t resist.

  When I got bay new pce, Kathy waved to me. I waved back.

  “How’s it going?” she asked.

  “Good!” I said. “Busy, busy!”

  Normally, I would have been happy to chat for a few minutes, especially as she was cute. It paid to be on good terms with the neighbors, cute or not, but my life had gotten more plicated, to put it mildly. I wao get on with work, and the secret of the basement and Abby weighed ooo much to want to talk about fences and dogs.

  I didn’t even finish unloading or stop to do a round with the aper befoing downstairs. I did put on a long sleeve fnnel shirt over my T-shirt.

  The shorts I bought, I realized, were not as practical as jeans would have been. I suppose subsciously I didn’t want to cover up Abby’s legs.

  I had more than an armful of things I wao have avaible to me, so I took them down in stages. Hedge clippers, my saw, a headmp, a lirimmer, arimower, and a whole lot of batteries. I avoided using gas powered things when possible, because the fumes irritated me. Having the dder helped a lot, although going up and down and switg bodies each time was disorienting and made me feel a little siy stomach.

  For the st trip I dohick gardening gloves. They’d be too big for Abby’s hands, but they’d provide prote at the cost of some dexterity. I stuffed some snacks in a belt bag and strapped a twenty-two ouer bottle to my belt.

  Once down food, I ged into the shorts and the socks and one of the pairs of shoes I’d bought. The others didn’t fit right, so I’d dohem baeone else could have them. They hadn’t uch. The ohat did fit were bright pink, which was not usually my color. But at least I didn’t have to deal with my pants sliding down.

  I undid the bolts, opehe doors, and looked closely at the forest outside. It was still light out, but there were a lot of dark shadows, so I turned on the headmp to see better. Small brown is crawled along one of the smaller vines. A spiderweb stretched between two branches, spanning a couple of feet, but I couldn’t see the spider. A few small flies buzzed around, and I saw er one, like a dragonfly. I wasn’t an expert, and none of them looked exactly like the bugs I was familiar with, but they wouldn’t have been out of pce as far as I knew in any forest oh. It’s possible I’d seen is just like them and hadn’t noticed or remembered.

  ime, maybe I’d bring a field guide. For now, I took some pictures using my phone. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t have a signal, but I could still take pictures.

  I didn’t see anything rger than the dragonfly, which had been maybe three inches from wingtip to wingtip. Nothing looked threatening. I went to work on clearing a path. I didn’t know what dire to head, so I settled for just outward, using the saw to cut through the rge vines right in front of the door, then taking the path of least resistance. After I’d cleared the entrahere were a few patches where I didn’t have to do much at all.

  Something moved quickly, running away from me, and I caught a brief glimpse of a furry green tail about five inches long before whatever it was disappeared. That was definitely not ah creature, because I couldn’t think of any green mammals, but it didly scare me. Some sloths were green because they were covered with algae, but this thing was smaller than that. The tail looked like a squirrel’s, and it made a simir amount of noise as it ran away. It was more scared of me than I o be of it, but I wished I’d gotten a better view of the alien animal.

  I supposed I was the alien here.

  A hundred feet in, I still hadn’t hit a game trail or anything that would give me guidance as to what dire to head, but I found my first sign of civilization other than the crypt itself in the form of a rgely crumbled wooden wall. ks of stone y around it, some still joio another by mortar. I started clearing the area, cutting the rger vines with the saw. Then I took that back to the crypt, picked up the weed whacker, a after the rest. After twenty-minutes of work, I’d uncovered a square area about twelve by twelve feet with a foundation of solid granite and the remnants of a wall of fitted stone around it, now no more than three feet tall. From the fallen remnants of the wall around, I guess that the thing might have been a building once, abandoned ao decay, and then rown by the forest. How long would it take a building like that to be swallowed up? A hundred years or more, I guessed, from simir structures I’d seen oh. A rge oak tree loomed over the square area, and I doubted it could have gotten very far pressed up against an intact wall. It looked tall enough to be fifty or more years old. So a hundred and fifty years, sihe building had been used? It was all guesswork, I knew.

  Enash had mentiohat there would be guards posted outside. This might be where they stayed. Would a guardhouse hold up better than the mills or old stone farmhouses I’d seen the ruins of in my world? Maybe? I couldn’t help but look at such things and want to rebuild them, and this was no exception. I wondered what it would take. I didn’t have a reason, other than wanting to see the pce look nice again, and I still had plenty of things to do in my house oh.

  Tired, I sat down on the remnants of a stone wall and munched on a protein bar. I’d been focused on my work, but now I was aware of my body in a different way. It didn’t ck for strength or endura just felt soft in pces Abel’s body was hard muscle. I couldn’t resist slipping a hand under my shirt as I looked around and gave myself a squeeze. My nipples were so sensitive. Feeling odd, I pulled my hand away.

  I didn’t know how much more clearing I’d have to do, and maybe I should just appreciate what I could already get to. I looked around, hoping I could catht of that green squirrel or whatever it was, but I didn’t see anything before I finished my snack. I started walking back to the crypt, pnning to put the lirimmer away there and just sit for a bit and see what I could see if I stayed still rather than making so much scary noise. I felt a bit of guilt for not getting to work on the house, for I’d always valued hard work, but this was a brand-new world, and it should be appreciated.

  A green vine I hadn’t noticed was suddenly ahead of me at chest height. It must have fallen to that position because of some disturbance I’d made, and it was two inches wide, too thick to cut with the weed whacker. I’d e back for it with the saw, but for now I grabbed the vine and dipped u.

  Another vine shot out in front of me. A third ed around my ankle, and as I tried to get out of it more ed around my right arm pinning it. It was thin enough that I could rip it off, but they kept ing. One whipped me in the face, stinging and cutting my cheek. Others ed around my arms and legs, until I could barely move at all. My breasts were trapped between two lines of vines, one above and one below, making them even more promi.

  “You hurt my forest,” said a soft, female voice behind me. She didn’t sound amused.