Shaping Fortunes

By Ada Stone

Julia is a twenty-something non-binary artist living in Seattle. One day, while working on their art, Julia discovers they’ve developed the power to shapeshift. With their roommate’s support, Julia decides to open a romantic fortune-telling business with the express goal of using their new power — though whether for good or evil is up to interpretation.

After listening to their clients describe their situation, Julia crafts an intriguing and hopeful outlook for them, with very specific instructions. When the time comes, Julia changes shape and ensures that the events that they’ve described to their client come to fruition.

As they play with their power, however, Julia begins to want more than just fun and games. But will shapeshifting help or hinder their ability to find a committed partnership?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Shorts
• Release date: Feb 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781094418575

Ada Stone

Ada Stone is a queer and trans book-obsessed human from the Pacific Northwest, where they live now. They love spending quiet time among trees and mountains, listening to their favorite albums on repeat, and receiving “your holds are ready for pickup” alerts from the library.

Book preview

Chapter One: An Inside Job

Julia looks at the clock and sighs. Somehow, it’s ten minutes past midnight, and they’d wanted to be in bed by eleven. Unable to stop without finishing one last tale of werewolf romance, Julia finally closes their laptop at 12:17 and flops into bed. They’d begun reading shoddily written, melodramatic smut ironically, but now, months — and dozens of stories — later, Julia must admit that the stories turn them on.

Visions of sexy, gender-bending werewolves flash through their mind as they drift toward unconsciousness. They press their hips into their body pillow and fade into the void.

Section Break

What feels like only moments later, Julia’s alarm greets them in its typically passive-aggressive tone. The sound is delicate and melodious, and Julia is tempted to change it to something that coincides with the feeling of being jarred out of their slumber at 6:05 a.m. (the extra five minutes are Julia’s most recent attempt at self-love). Though Julia is their own boss, they know their brain’s most productive hours come before noon, hence the early alarm.

Teetering out of bed, Julia crosses the hallway into the bathroom. Without switching on the light, they turn the faucet on, splash their face with water, and swallow their prescriptions and vitamins with a few sips. In the living room, Julia turns on a lamp and opens their tablet.

Today’s task is to start the comic about consent they’ve been asked to draw for a hip, up-and-coming media outlet. With an idea already in mind, Julia decides to spend their warm-up time sketching a few versions of the main character.

Later, satisfied with what they’ve done, Julia stands and stretches their hands above their head. Their shoulders are feeling weirdly heavy and tense.

Maybe some tea and breakfast will help, they reason.

Julia walks around the corner into the kitchen and almost slams right into their roommate, Ben.

Oh, good morning, Julia manages to say.

Morning, Ben replies, without looking up from his phone. It seems like he spends every waking moment texting his crush these days.

As Julia pours a bowl of apple cinnamon Cheerios, they feel a tingling start to spread down through their torso and hips. They think back over the past 24 hours: They didn’t imbibe

any drugs or alcohol, they ate a normal amount of food and drank fluids, and they got six hours of sleep, which — while not ideal — should be enough to prevent their body from falling apart.

Julia thinks harder and wonders if the leftover lasagna they had last night might’ve been a day past its prime, but their stomach feels fine. Before pouring soy milk into their cereal, Julia pulls up a sleeve of their T-shirt to check for a rash or hives. Their skin itself is its usual smooth, light brown, but they can tell their arm is swollen. Examining their other arm, they observe the same phenomenon.

Breaking into a panic, Julia runs into the bathroom, flips on the light, and feels their jaw drop to the floor. It’s as if the character they’d been sketching has come to life by using their body as a vessel. Julia’s brow and cheekbones have hardened, their shoulders and chest are wider, their belly looks a little chunkier, and their hips are visibly narrowed. Lifting their shirt away from their chest, they see that their breasts have disappeared.

Julia’s head spins as they try to understand why this has happened. Suddenly, they think to check one last detail. Shoving their hand down their pants, Julia feels for any change in their genitals, but there is nothing there other than a smooth curve of skin covering the space between their legs until it parts to become their butt crack.

Julia runs out to where their sketches sit on their desk and adds a slight bulge to their character’s crotch. Moments later, the same place on their own body begins to tickle. After giving the magic a few minutes to work, Julia peeks back into their pants and sees a penis, hanging limp but surprisingly heavy.

Ben! they yell, noting that they still have their own voice. Don’t freak out, but I’m going to need you to get in here — now!

Footsteps thump down the stairs and through the hall as Ben yells, What the hell?! Julia?

Section Break

It takes three days for Julia and Ben to decide that they’ve got the basics figured out. Every morning, Julia wakes up looking like themself. Then, as they begin to draw their first character of the day, Julia’s body begins to transform into that person, down to almost every detail. If they leave a finger off the character’s right hand, Julia will also have four fingers.

There are some things, however, that don’t change: The color of their skin and their voice, for example, are immutable. And when Julia drew a portrait of Ben on the third morning, their body refused to shift. Same went for a picture of another one of their friends. No matter how many different people they draw over the course of the day, Julia’s body remains in the form of the first character until sleep allows them to fade back into their original form. (Naps count, as they discover on the second day.)

As for the cause, Julia can only surmise that they have reached a precarious level of shapeshifter erotica saturation. When and if it will wear off is anyone’s guess.

On the fourth day, Ben walks downstairs with a gleam in his eye. Julia’s current six-foot, eight-inch frame curls comically over the table as they work.

I have a plan, Ben announces.

For curing me? Julia asks, the queasy feeling in their stomach suggesting that they might not be ready for the magic to fade just yet.

No, no. For you to use your powers for… fun, Ben muses. He pulls his long black hair into a high bun before continuing. I was just reading this article about my ancestral shamans’ traditional roles, and I started thinking about the palm reader I went to see on my birthday last year. It’s a totally different practice, but my brain connected the two. Anyway, long story short, I realized your magic could make you the most powerful fortune-teller ever!

Wait, you’re going to need to back up about five steps, Julia says, holding up their hands. How does shapeshifting connect to fortune-telling?

"To my knowledge, fortune-tellers end up giving