Spells and Shadows

A Strange Day

The day had started out as normal as any other, but how it had gone terribly awry Jake had no idea. He’d just celebrated his eighteenth birthday the day before. His parents had even bought him a brand new car so he’d have a way to get to the new school he’d be going to, the same one his parents had both attended, as he’d found out the night before. What was weird was the way his parents had acted that night. They had seemed uptight and fidgety, almost nervous. He’d passed it off the night before thinking that they were just worried about the new car getting wrecked. After all it wasn’t even supposed to have been released in the US yet. It was a Lamborghette Monte Carlo. It had a sleek black body with an almost imperceptible silvery monogram on the hood with Jake’s initials.

When he’d woken up that morning though and looked in the mirror he screamed. Looking back at him wasn’t the handsome teenage face he’d been accustomed to seeing but the face of a purple-furred wolf with green ears and a black soul patch. A moment later his parents burst in and giggled at their son’s reflection. “Honey, its alright. There’s something your father and I forgot to tell you.” His mother said leading him over to his steel four-poster bed. They sat him down and told him that they were actually wolves with the power to transform into human form. They both removed what Jake had thought were their wedding rings and found that his father had fur the same color as his ears and his mother sleek black fur. “You see honey, you were never truly human, and you last name isn’t Feldstrom its actually Shadowpaw.”

Jake, stunned into silence by the truth being told, let out a long sad howl. He then clasped a furry paw over his snout and whimpered. Had he really just howled? His tail twitched beneath him and he jumped up. He actually had a tail! For years now he’d always wondered what it would be like to have one. He paced back and forth at the foot of the bed, thinking that he’d go into school and be laughed at by his classmates because of his looks. It was then that his parents continued their story. “About your new school dear, this isn’t like the others that you used to go to, the kids here are…..special. They’re well, not human either. You won’t have to worry about not fitting in, in fact you’ll probably be one of the populars.

Jake thought this over then went to his walk in closet and realized none of his old clothes were there anymore. They had been replaced during the night with tight-fitting tees and a dozen long-sleeved shirts. His collections of corduroys were also gone. They had been replaced with sleek denim and tight leather jeans. “He tried them on and discovered that they fit perfectly. “Mom, dad?” he said looking at them, tears flooding his vision. They rushed over to him and hugged him tightly. A moment later Jake realized that his now digitigrade legs now would no longer fit in any of his favorite sneakers. He looked over at them sadly as his father started tossing them all into a bag along with all of Jakes old hats. “Don’t worry son, they’ll all just go up into the attic for now.”

Katalina and Fraveldt Shadowpaw hurried their sun to get dressed otherwise he’d have been late to the school orientation day. Jake picked out a short-sleeved white shirt that read “FURRY & PROUD OF IT” and put on a sleeveless denim vest on over it and a pair of khaki jeans to match. He slid down the wrought-iron stairwell railing and bounced into the kitchen grabbing a muffin and running out the door as he grabbed a new monogrammed satchel off a hook by the door, swiped the keys from the bowl beside it and hopped into his car.

He started the engine, shocked to hear it roar to life around him the convertible hood slid up over his head and closed the roof above him. He pressed down the gas and rocketed forward at an almost neck-breaking speed. He lifted his paw and the car jolted to a stop. “Whoa, I’ve got to be more gentle with her.” He said as he lightly pressed the pedal down again. The car picked up speed and he was soon cruising at a pleasant 80 miles per hour down a long empty driveway and onto a deserted street in the middle of the woods. A few minutes later he pulled up in front of a humongous Victorian-style castle. In front of it was a stone sign that read “St. Frutio’s School for the Gifted.” He pulled the car into a large area reserved for the freshman and noticed that simple bicycles occupied most of the spots. He parked the car and clambered out and entered the front doors of the academy.






“I have to be in the wrong place, there is no way this place could possibly be a high school.” Jake said more to himself than anything but a passing student that resembled a fox shook his head and explained that St Frutio’s was more than a high school, it was a boarding school. Jake turned his head and asked what that was and the fox kid just laughed. “You must be new around here, I’m David Kyoni, Vulpus house. I’ll show you around but first you need to talk to the headmaster St. Marcos Frutio.” He told Jake grabbing him by the shoulder and leading him up a flight of semi-hidden stairs behind a tall stone statue of a weird looking fox-tailed dragon with flaming hair. “Sir, I have a new student here.” David called out to a giant seated shadow sitting behind a massive wooden desk.

The shadowy figure stood up and Jake gulped noticing that the man had to be at least ten feet tall, if you didn’t include the horns protruding from the top of his head, which must’ve been another 3 feet long. “S-s-sir? I’m J-jake Shadowp-paw.” He stammered, clearly intimidated by the massive figure. “DON’T DO THAT BOY!!! BE PROUD OF YOUR HERITAGE!!” the figure boomed at him as he turned around and faced Jake. St. Marcos Frutio III was a muscular hulk of a man, with a white wispy beard and wrinkles all over his body. He sat down again, not really diminishing his height by much.

Jake winced as a thick stack of papers was slammed down onto the desk in front of him. “You must sign these if you wish to be enrolled here Shadowpaw. Jake read over the forms, signing them faster than he ever thought was possible before, then again he didn’t think being a shifter was possible before either so this must be part of being a wolf. He handed the stack back and the headmaster dropped the stack into a file cabinet and tapped a few keys on his computer, which burped out a schedule for him as well as a map of the school and where his dormitory room was. “Seeing as you’re a Shadowpaw, you get you father’s old penthouseesque room. Its at the top of the tallest tower and is only accessible by air so you’ll need a pair of wings to get there.”

The man growled as he pointed a finger at Jake. A moment later he felt his shirt and vest rip as a pair of dragon-like wings spread from his back. “COOL, I CAN FLY!!” he said leaping into the air and doing a barrel roll. “DO THAT AGAIN AND YOU’RE EXPELLED!” the headmaster snarled. “You’re only allowed to use those to get to your dormitory, and if you use them for anything else, I’ll know about it and you’ll be out of here faster than you can say you’re sorry.” Jake apologized, gathered the papers and trudged outside to find his dormitory. He gazed up and saw a solitary glassed-in tower with no door on the ground levels to be seen. He flew up to the top of the tower and saw a stone balcony surrounding the top floor. He landed and opened the door by placing a paw on the door with hummed and slid open at his touch.

Jake gasped and dropped everything as he saw that the room was decorated like that of a king’s. There were several diamond chandeliers hanging from the solid glass ceiling, He wandered around the multi-story room. First he explored the downstairs. There was a large kitchen, a dining room, an extravagant lounge with a piano and various instruments as well. Another room held technology he’d only ever read about in spy novels, stuff like grapping-hook guns and laser-beam pens and even a latex suit that looked perfectly tailored to fit him. “Whoa this can’t be right, my dad was no spy.” He said aloud not realizing the tall cervine butler standing behind him. “Quite the contrary young master, your father was one of the best, that’s how he met your mother after all. My name is Corvin. If you need me just howl.” He said climbing down a ladder onto a landing a meter below. Jake looked down and noticed a small chamber below him there was a bed, a small porcelain toilet, a shower and a miniature kitchen all together in a single room. “You’re welcome to live up here Corvin, I’ve got more space than I know what to do with and I noticed multiple bedrooms.” Corvin snorted with a surprising sense of glee, then calmed back down. “Are you certain sir, I wouldn’t want to intrude.”. Jake replied, “Not at all Vin, mi casa es su casa.” He said helping the deer-man climb back up the ladder. He jumped down and began to help Corvin transfer all his clothes and needed items upstairs into one of the less posh, but still quite fancy, bedrooms.

After he’d gotten Corvin settled, Jake continued exploring his expansive rooms and gasped again when he spotted his dream bedroom. Inside was a bed shaped like a giant dragon’s mouth but instead of a tongue there was a mattress and instead of teeth there was a curtain. The coolest thing was it wasn’t against a wall or sitting on the floor. It hung by heavy steel chains from the ceiling and swung freely. “AWESOME!!!” Just then Corvin addressed him. “Sir, you’ll be late for the opening ceremony if you don’t hurry. Your parents have already taken the liberty of having all your clothes sent here from your home.” He said pushing Jake up the stairs and outside again. “GO!” he said giving one last push, sending Jake careening off the edge of the balcony, causing him to fall screaming at least a dozen stories before remembering he could fly.






Jake soared down to the ground level clutching his bag and the papers he’d been given. He ran off to a large brick structure marked Gym where a bunch of students of varying species had already begun to file in. “Excuse me, coming through, pardon, sorry, “ he said shoving his way through the crowd to the front row to get a seat. No sooner had he sat down then his wings folded back up into his back as fur covered the spot they’d grown from. He and the other students clapped when the headmaster climbed onto the stage and grew quiet as he addressed them. “Welcome to another year at St. Frutio’s, This year we have another Shadowpaw among us, young Jacob Shadowpaw, please come forward!” he called out as a spotlight shone on Jake. He blushed, stood up and climbed up onto the stage. “Thank you sir.” Jake said shaking the dragon’s hand. “Young Jacob Shadowpaw here will of course be the starting quarterback on the football team, as well as the pitcher and captain for the baseball team, and the President of the school gov. just like his father before him.” Not wanting to incur the headmaster’s wrath while on stage, Jake decided to wait until after the ceremony to explain that he’d rather wait a few weeks before he got into all of that.

He just smiled and waved as he climbed back down and sat amongst the other students who were already clambering to sit beside him as if he was one of the populars, which he’d never been before. After the ceremony he noticed that it was already much darker outside than it had been before, Apparently the ceremony had lasted longer than he’d thought it would. He flew off to his solitary tower room and crawled into his dragon’s mouth bed and pulled the covers over him as he tugged on a cord, turning out all the lights in his room.

He slept more soundly than he’d ever had before and before long he was dreaming about the most beautiful raven girl he’d ever seen, ignoring that she was, in fact, the only raven-girl he’d ever seen before. “Just as he was about to ask her name, the curtains around his bed were pulled aside and bright sunlight shone on his face, temporarily blinding him. “Aurgh! CORVIN!!!” he snarled loudly falling out of bed onto the cold stone floor. A few feet away Corvin stood holding Jake’s new school uniform, a tight-fitting white polo shirt and crimson vest with the school’s coat of arms emblazoned on the right breast. “Your uniform sir, I do suggest you hurry or else you’ll be late for your first real day of classes.” He said handing the boy his clothes as well as a pile of books and his other papers.


First Day of School

Jake climbed the stairs up to the balcony and flew down to the ground floor of the school and walked in through the massive front doors. He looked down at his class schedule and then the map, which indicated that his class would start in less than five minutes and was on an upper floor. He tried flapping his wings but collapsed on the hard marble floor. “There had better be an elevator here.” He thought to himself but looked around and didn’t see anything but stairs. He ran up flight after flight then around the fourth floor an idea struck him. “I’m a wolf so why not try running like one?” He leaned forward and landed on all fours, he found this method to be much faster. He was up on the thirtieth floor in a minute flat. “Whoa, headrush!’ he groaned standing up and dashing down the hallway to the fourth door on the right for his first class which, by the sound of it, had just started a few seconds ago. “Sorry I’m late Mr. Immelman, my sundial was running slowly.” He apologized to the teacher as he sat down at a desk in the fifth row.

The following classes were just as unusual as his first one. The subjects ranged from Species History to Anthropomorphic Creatures in Modern Literature to Transformation and Shifting 101 to, perhaps the weirdest of all, Anilinuguistics Each teacher had assigned a one page essay on what the student expected to learn in each class and what they hoped to achieve by the end of the first semester. The last class of the day turned out to be Jake’s favorite, Gymnastic Aerobics and Flexomorphing. In all of his summer vacations his parents had taught him many different techniques. He’d learned how to inflate himself like a balloon, stretch and twist his body into various forms as well as how to walk on beams as thin as a piece of paper without falling. It had always been his strong suit but after all his other exhausting classes, Jake didn’t think that he’d be up to performing today. Luckily it was just basic training and theory today.








The teacher in that class was a tall, graceful yet still somewhat muscular female antelope named, coincidentally enough, Grace Stillhoof. She wore a tight-fitting black leather dress that reached her calves. It made a funny squelching sound against her legs as if they were made of rubber themselves. He stretched and touched his paws to the ground and noticed that, in fact, they were. Jake wondered how that had happened and if Ms. Grace’s entire body was rubbery. He pretended to trip and fall over, tumbling into her. The moment his body touched hers the rubbery like texture spread onto his legs covering him from his knees down to his ankles turning his fur into a rubbery substance. “Aw come on!” he groaned. Nobody noticed so the class went on as normal. At the end of the lesson the teacher trotted over to him and said. “I so very sorry young man but I was cursed as a child to never touch another again otherwise they’d eventually end up like me, made of zis rubbery material. It’ll be covering you in a few days. Unless you can destroy the witches spell book you vill age at one turd the normal vate.” She said leading him to the door and shoving him out the door.

Utterly tired and somewhat traumatized by the knowledge that he only had a month until all his beautiful fur would become rubber. It had already spread over his feet and he squelched with every step. He flew up to the balcony and landed with a squeak. The moment he landed his rubbery feet slid out from beneath him and he fell on his butt. “Aw man! You’ve gotta be kidding me!” he screamed. He’d have to either put down hundreds of rugs or else replace the floors with carpet in order to prevent his feetpaws from squeaking or him slipping up again.

Jake climbed into bed and dozed off almost immediately. When he next woke up there was a strange sad melody coming from the next room. He climbed out of bed and tripped, falling on the floor and bouncing to his feet again as the rubber had now almost completely become rubber. Only his head and hands were still furry. He squeaked into the next room to find a golden-haired falcon girl. She was playing an enchanted harp and was singing a haunting tune that he’d recognized as the same one his parents had sung to him every night as a child whenever he’d had nightmares about turning into a purple and green wolf. “Who are you?” he whispered and a moment later she replied. “Young Shadowpaw, I am your Guardian Creature Chelsea, or GC for short.

“What are you doing here, how do you know that tune, can you help turn my fur back to normal?” he asked her one question after another as he felt a strange creeping sensation slide op his neck and along his wrists as the rubber slid up over him turning him completely to rubber with a squelching noise. “Nooooooooooooooo!” he howled, sitting upright in bed. It had just been a dream, or had it? On his night table was a golden hair beside a tiny harp.

Corvin burst into the room a moment later in his night robe. “Are you alright young master?” he asked seeing the look of startled horror on Jake’s face. “I’m fine Vin, just a dream, a bad dream, that’s all.” He lied, rolling over and attempting to fall asleep. An hour later he decided that he couldn’t live in fear of being made into a life-sized rubber doll.

Jake slid a pair of large cloth bags on his rubbery paws and crept outside with only a wife beater and a pair of skimpy shorts on. He unfurled his wings and soared down to the gym so he could talk with Ms. Grace. He had to find out how to reverse this. A few minutes later he knocked on her door and whispered that he needed help. She answered it and explained that the witch lived in a cabin far north of the school’s grounds, at least 20 daywalks from their current location. He said that he couldn’t afford to miss classes but that he didn’t’ want to be a rubber wolf all his life. She promised to cover fro him if he’d help return her to normal again. He bowed and ran off into the woods on all fours.

Five days later he ran straight into an invisible barrier. “What the fuck?” he cussed as he rubbed his aching head. He placed a paw on it and held it there as he walked in a giant circle. Hmm, that’s weird. In the center lay a large stump that looked like so many others around him. He tossed a stick and it went through the barrier, then he tossed stones with the same effect. He grabbed a branch almost as thick as him he held it like a lance and charged headfirst at the barrier; at the last second he leapt forward and tumbled into the space. He touched the stump and pelt a tugging behind his navel. He grabbed it in his teeth and was teleported a very long distance until he landed with a thump in front of a giant stone house with a sign over the door that read “Elphaba’s Elixirs and Potionry.

Jake walked in and saw a beautiful young woman stirring a cauldron of foul smelling black tar-like goop. “Um Elphaba? I have a problem.” Jake muttered, tapping the woman’s shoulder spreading the rubber curse. “Ah… my sister’s work I see.” She said neutralizing it. “I’m guessing you’ve touched one of Glinda’s unfortunate victims. I do have a cure, its only temporary though, it’ll prevent it from spreading as long as you apply a cream to the affected area every night under the direct light of the moon.”




He took the bottle, thanked her and began to rush out of the building. “Wait young one, if you wish to find her you’ll need this!” she said tossing a necklace at him. “Her domicile is invisible to those unrelated to her except if they wear that pendant. Be wary though, if you rely too much on its other powers you’ll even up in a worse position that you could ever have nightmares about.” She warned as the her and the building vanished and Jake was left standing in a large flower-filled clearing. Had he just been dreaming again? If so how did he have the bottle of fur cream and the necklace clutched in his paws. He put the bottle in his bag and placed the necklace around his head. He then trudged ahead for a few more days until he reached a solitary stone tower with a single window high up much like his own room but made of stone. He couldn’t think of any way to climb up to the window other than to fly but he knew that if he tried, he’d be expelled for doing so. He tried something he heard of in a childhood story. “Rupemzel, Repumzel, let down your hair!” He called out as a long blond strand of rope-like hair was cast out of the window and landed with a thump beside him on the ground. He climbed up it and tripped over the sill falling into a small circular room. On the floor in front of him was a small chameleon. The girl scooped it up and placed it on her shoulder. “Pasquale. Don’t get too close to dangerous animals like that.” She told it as she helped him to his feet. “Is Glinda here?” he asked causing her to scream. A moment later she dragged him over to a giant trunk and shoved him into it, closing the lid on his head.

From his cramped spot in the large wooden chest, he could just faintly hear a woman calling for the girl to let down her hair. He watched through the keyhole, careful not to raise the lid as a tall busty woman climbed in through the window. He heard Rep address her as Aunt Glinda. Unable to stop himself from gasping, he revealed his hiding spot and Glinda stormed over to the chest, opened the lid and instantly hexed him. “Stupid wolf boy, did my meddlesome, goody-goody sister send you to spy on me?” Trying to answer, Jake found that every time he tried to speak all that came out were animalistic grunts, woofs and barks. He then whimpered and shook his head as he curled his tail between his legs.

He looked over at Repumzel with pleading eyes and whimpered again. She convinced Glinda to let him speak. The hex stopped and he explained that he was turning to rubber and the thought of never being able to feel his fur again saddened him to no end. He told her that he’d do absolutely anything if she’d just reverse the magic causing it. She said that the only way to do it would be to kill the one that had passed the curse onto him, and he replied by saying “Er, almost anything.” She then explained that the only other way she’d help him was if he promised that his first child would be given to her on its tenth birthday. He instantly agreed seeing as he never intended to mate and have pups of his own. She danced around him cackling and singing a bizarre tune. All at once the rubber returned to being fur, but it didn’t stop there, all his fur grew coarser and tangled. “No matter how often you shave, your fur will tangle so bad you’ll always look scruffy!” she said as she cackled again before disappearing. “Um Repumzel? Do you have any hedge trimmers?” he asked the young girl. A few minutes later his fur was back to normal. He thanked her and jumped out the window somersaulting and twisting gracefully a few times before landing quite gracefully on his paws and running off into the woods. He could once again feel the wind flying through his fur as he raced through mile after mile of dense forest until he reached the school grounds again. No sooner had he returned than the headmaster appeared, eyes glowing with rage. “Sir I had a good reason for missing school. I got hexed by an evil witch named Glinda and it was turning my precious fur into rubber by bumping into the Flexomorphing teacher Ms. Grace Stillhoof. I felt it was my duty to help her.” Jake explained.

The headmaster snorted and a wisp of flame flew from his nostrils. “It is none of your business to help the teachers here with their problems and if this happens again you are hereby suspended until physical proof of this rather farfetched story can be provided.” Jake spluttered and remembered the charm and the fur cream, he rifled around and realized that he’d left them sitting on the floor of the trunk in Repumzel’s tower.