Candy clutched the letter in both hands. It wasn’t thick enough to be paperwork, no tribunal transcripts, no sealed certifications. Just a single page. An invitation. Or rather, a summons. In two days. Mandatory.
Marcus read over her shoulder. “Ministry Office 7B. Ministry of Domestic Reclassification and Integration”
He said it flatly, like he didn’t want to give it importance. But they both knew better. This was the next phase; the part they’d been dreading.
____________
The clerk was polite. That was the worst part.
“We’ve maintained Cameron Alistair’s deployment cover for three months now,” she said, tapping a seal-pressed scroll. “An active National Guard mission. Discreet, classified, and unconfirmed, so people know better than to pry.”
Candy frowned. “I was just a -”
“A scribe, yes,” the clerk interrupted smoothly. “But every man serves, even scribes. And we’ve used a Level Four Seal. You know what that means.”
Marcus did. Level Four seals didn’t demand belief. They demanded silence.
“Going forward,” the clerk continued, “you may send letters. They’ll be reviewed and redacted. You may receive them as well, also having been reviewed.”
Candy brightened. Letters? That meant she could speak as Cameron again, even if just on paper.
“This is your closure phase,” the clerk said, still brisk. “Say what you need to say. We suggest you do it now.”
Candy paused. Her fingers curled against the hem of her dress, just enough to wrinkle the fabric. Closure. The word landed like a sealed casket: clean, final, and utterly wrong. Her voice, when it came, was smaller than she intended.
“But… why can’t I just keep writing?”
The clerk paused. “Because, dear, no one is on assignment forever. If we haven’t found a way to undo your transformation by year’s end… Cameron Alistair will be declared missing in action.”
She handed over a dossier. Candy flipped through it, slow and silent.
“Your new name has been extended to a proper Candice Elwood. But you prefer to go by Candy. Maiden name: Alistair.
'Wait. Candice?"
"Yes, well. When the spell changed you the men in the ministry were scrambling. They chose a name that sounded extra 'girly', claiming it would help hide your other, more masculine behavior. I have some doubts concerning that, but regardless, thankfully some of us female staff were a part of the discussion regarding finalizing your story, and we were able to convince them to give you a proper, full name. Use it how you like, though again, we suggest you continue with Candy as your general moniker."
"I see... uh, thank you."
"Of course," she said, returning to her speech. "Now, you are legally the cousin of Cameron Alistair. You’ve only met him thrice. You were raised abroad; your father was a diplomat. The fact that your great-grandfather was a diplomat helps support this."
"How? Wasn't his dying wish that no Alistar ever go into diplomacy again? Didn't he say to be safe, do scribework?"
"Yes," which adds that the Ailistars are capable enough for the role, and that your side, you being Candy, would have been seen as the black sheep, returning to the role you'd sworn never to reprise."
"Uh-huh... ok. So I take it my fake dad went out like my real great-grandfather?"
"More or less. You were the sole survivor of an ambush while returning to Paddlewick. You were recovered by our soldiers, but were suffering partial amnesia from a head injury.”
“That could explain my speech not being like other women,” she muttered.
The clerk nodded. “Also, your lack of a maiden tattoo, your missing maiden pins, inability to do your hair in more than one style, your lack of etiquette, your unfamiliarity with Paddlewickian standards... We’ve accounted for it all. Including your new genealogy.”
“And the orphanage?”
“Officially under review for neglect. It gives you plausible gaps in knowledge and explains your behavior as a ‘trouble girl.’ That, combined with the partial amnesia, forms the narrative.”
Candy closed the file. “You’ve really thought this through.”
“We had to. The Ministry moved quickly but not without care. Additionally, we’ve sent several discreet inquiries to mages in other nations. Plumpudding, Bellefemme, the Garmond Confederacy. Cleavendale, of course. If there’s a cure, we will find it. Though I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”
She didn’t answer. The silence made space for something heavier.
“At any rate,” the clerk added, more gently, “you were never abandoned, Candy. You were... rerouted.
Cameron’s estate, such as it was, would eventually transfer to her.
A one-bedroom house in the Bachelor’s District. Some books. Two half-finished paintings. A kettle and a few tea cups. A carved wooden figurine of a knight repairing a torn banner. A cracked photo frame with no photo. And an old leather satchel, scuffed and worn, stuffed with maps, small keepsakes, and letters to people he'd met touring Cleavendale on military patrol that he never got around to sending. Plus all his clothes that Candy could no longer wear.
“Not much,” Marcus said softly.
“It was... everything,” she replied.
Her fabricated father, diplomatic hero, tragic casualty, had been awarded a posthumous medal. Candy would be permitted to wear it on Military Day. One day a year, with that medal on her chest, no man could spank her. No one could demand a “Yes, Sir.” She would walk the streets of Paddlewick unpunished and uncorrected. For one day, she would simply be. And her file? Stamped with a Level Three Ministry Obfuscation Glyph.
“It means,” the clerk explained, “if someone reads your file and starts asking questions… they stop. It creates that kind of silence. The protective kind.”
The clerk went on to explain that there was a long list of things to be achieved by her.. She had one year from today’s date to pass the CCS (Curtsey Count System) exam, for example, upon which time her CCR (curtsey count ratio) would start being tracked, in addition to behaviors already being logged.
Then there were those based on their marriage date. Before the first anniversary of her marriage, she would have to receive her Marital Tattoo. That wasn’t negotiable. None of it was. Integration in Paddlewick wasn’t an option. It was mandated.
There was the dance class, hair tutorial, cooking requirements, and so many more local tasks to be achieved.
And in its own way, perhaps the trickiest, was memorizing her backstory. She needed to learn the years she was supposed to have been at certain nations and those nations' cultures; the ocean-based Confederated Isles of Floatsome, the nudist nation of Skinterra in the vented eastern outcrops, and the worst of them, the Goblin nation known as the Garmouth-Confederacy. This would be a lot, but at least when she didn’t know something, she could explain that they did things differently in the nation she grew up in.
"One last thing," the clerk said. "We need you to keep a low profile. Go to neighborhood meetins only if it looks worse if you don't. Don't cause public scenes, don't do things that get's your name in the paper or on the scry news. Just... lay low. Candy frowned, pondering that but nodded her compliance.
As they rose to leave, Candy turned.
“Can I ever tell anyone? That I’m… me?”
The clerk didn’t hesitate. “Eight people. That’s it. Choose wisely.”
“And if one of them slips?”
“Then the silence turns sharp. We’ll protect the secret. You may not like how.”
Candy said nothing until they were back outside. She breathed deeply.
Marcus watched her. “You okay?”
She nodded. Then shook her head.
“I just…” she said. “Sometimes I still can’t believe this happened. It doesn’t feel real.”
Marcus nodded but said nothing. There was nothing he could do, or add, or say.
And they walked home, Candy forced to curtsey three times as they passed high-ranking men on the way.
***
Later that evening, after the ministry meeting and its quiet suffocation of possibility, she sat at the writing desk, lavender-scented, too floral for her taste, but steady beneath her fingers. She stared at the blank paper for a while.
Who to write to?
She didn’t have much family. Her parents were gone, both of them, a few years now. No siblings. No children, obviously. There was an uncle once, her mother’s brother, who had defected to Cleavendale after a grand family falling-out. She remembered snippets: a shouted argument, a slammed carriage door, her mother saying, “He thinks free thought is a virtue. The man’s dangerous.”
He might have ended up in Jigglemore. Or was it Boubourg? Maybe Brazonga. She honestly couldn’t remember. So, not him.
She and Marcus had kept a tight-knit circle. Not big, but solid. Most of them had done their Guard rotations together, young, sarcastic, invincible. Or so they’d thought. There was Owen, Luke, or Josh. Although Josh was more of an orbiting friend than a core one.
But Greg Hemble?
He was the oldest. Not the best friend, that was Marcus, but the longest. The kind of friend who could lose touch for five years and then fall back into conversation like you’d paused it just for lunch.
Goofball Greg. Who once forged an excuse letter to get out of drills so they could sneak off and drink ginger beer in the orchard. Who got a warning from the Ministry once for “irreverent comportment during pledge recitation.” Who would absolutely make a joke about her current situation without even knowing what it was.
She smiled faintly. Yeah. Greg. She picked up the pen.
Greg,
Hey big guy,
I know it’s been a bit. Sorry for dropping off the map. I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t expecting it either.
Got pulled into something. One of those things you don’t see coming, and then you blink and it’s three months later and you’re eating soup with people you don’t know in a place that doesn’t feel like yours.
Anyway, long story short, I’m okay. Just... elsewhere.
Can’t say much. Orders. You know how it is.
But I’m writing to say I’m alive. I miss decent bread. And I miss people who know how to laugh like it’s not a trap.
Don’t feel like you have to write back. Just wanted you to know I’m out here. Still kicking. Still sarcastic. Still me.
Mostly.
Hope you’re doing alright.
- Cam
She stared at the name at the bottom for a long time. Not Candy. Cam. She folded the letter, sealed it, and laid it gently in the outgoing tray. The ministry would read it. Redact it, probably. But that wasn’t the point. The point was: she had written it.
And somewhere out there, Goofball Greg might read it, lean back in his chair, and mutter something like “Well, that’s suspiciously vague…” and then smile.
And that felt like it was enough, just for a moment, until she spotted the folder the ministry had sent home with her. Their expectations loomed.
Candy wasn’t just being left alone to settle. She was being folded in, stitched, requirement by requirement, into the fabric of society. She’d been given a lengthy list of tasks to accomplish.
Then there were those based on their marriage date. Before the first anniversary of her marriage, she would have to receive her Marital Tattoo. That wasn’t negotiable. None of it was. Integration in Paddlewick wasn’t an option. It was mandated.
She stared out the window that evening, trying to imagine the version of herself that would exist one year from now. Somewhere between the lavender-scented desk and the curtsey tally forms, Candy Elwood would have to become truly real.