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He still wasn't sure about this.

It was a betrayal. He knew it, even as he knew he had to take the chance. No matter what the man had told him, even if Jill and Dan never knew about this, he would.

Could he honestly look at them the same after this?

No, he knew it would change him irrevocably. He knew that even if it never, never, never came out, it still could drive a wedge between him and Dan.

But just as he was aware that this could lead to terrible things, he knew in the knot of his gut that he had to do it. He knew that presented this opportunity, he couldn't pass.

And so he'd taken the bus as close as it would get to Dan and Jill's townhome—which wasn't very close. Still, he walked the two miles carefully, staying off the main drag where Dan might drive by. He'd studied the map closely, finding a back way in that would get him by the house right about nine o'clock in the morning.

It was 9:03 as he walked down the street, feeling the weight of the small crystal around his neck. He resolved that he was just going to hang out for the day, not do anything he'd regret.

He just wanted to bask in her presence.

He knew she'd be home; she was a schoolteacher. Her last day at work had been the preceding Friday; she'd been bubbly discussing her summer off.

Will saw the townhouse, now; he was coming at it from an oblique angle. He realized, belatedly, that for all of his thoughts of this moment, he had no idea how to get inside.

In a way, he was surprised to find himself standing on the front stoop outside the door, looking at the newspaper on the ground.

But as he looked at it, he knew that this was his portal. He just hoped Jill got up soon.

He closed his eyes, and whispered the incantation.

And he opened his eyes again to a new world.

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Time drug.

Will checked his watch repeatedly. It was 9:45. Shouldn't she be up by now? Shouldn't she get the paper in?

He tapped his foot nervously. He was, as promised, one-quarter inch tall. Too small to climb up to the door, too big to sneak in under the door. Should he grow back and ring the doorbell, then try to quick-whisper the incantation before Jill got back? Should he try to go through the garage?

Should he just get out of here, quickly, before anything bad happened?

Suddenly, there was a tremendous creaking and groaning above him. He looked upexpectantly, and watched as the storm door swung perilously above him.

It was her.

His heart was in his throat as he looked up at the behemoth. Jill's petite 5'4" frame had ballooned into a titanic 1536'. Her bare feet were immense, her toenails just beginning to flake away their coat of paint. Around her left ankle a silver anklet dangled—as per usual. It had been a gift from Dan on their first anniversary. (Don't think about Dan.)

From there, it got dizzying; her slender, toned legs climbed up into a ratty pair of grey shorts (for just a second, he could see her pink panties), an old blue t-shirt displayed her breasts a good quarter-mile or so above him. She leaned on the door with one arm and yawned.

And then she knelt down for the paper.

"Shit!" cried Will, who had been so agog at Jill's appearance that he hadn't been prepared for this. He dropped and clung to the front page as Jill lifted it, hoping that he was in a spot on the page she wouldn't spy.

He looked up at her, as she half-perused the headlines. She looked up and away, carrying the paper and her hidden companion into the house.

She dropped the paper on the kitchen table and headed off to get some cereal from the cupboard.

He sprung up as she walked away, diving off the paper and running to the cover of a salt shaker sitting in the middle of the table. He turned to watch her again; at the distance ofthe kitchen her scale became more normalized. He could take her in all at once, thoughin the way one can take in a mountain all at once. She grabbed milk out of the fridge and turned back toward him, covering the distance rapidly. Before he was even ready for it, a bowl was on the table and car-sized Froot Loops were dropping from the sky.

Will watched in awe as she set the box down and dropped into her seat, scanning through the paper and eating trailer-sized bites absentmindedly. It was staggering, watching a woman he knew to be smallish and dainty taking in tons of food with every bite—and yet, he realized, doing so with her usual casual delicacy. She was the woman he'd dreamed of, simply magnified.

Suddenly, there was a deafening, piercing alarm. Will jumped involuntarily, wondering what was going on, when the alarm stopped. And started again.

Jill was not so startled. She simply rose calmly, and walked back into the kitchen.

"Hello?" she said, picking up the phone.

Will was awestruck by the force of her voice—this was, in fact, the first word he'd heard her say. Even several feet (at her scale—over a mile at his) away, her soft voice was amplified, magnified into a dull roar.

"Hi Wendy! What's up? Uh huh. Yeah, just eating breakfast. Right, right."

Will listened to Jill's side of the conversation, wondering what Wendy wanted.

Wendy was Jill's younger sister—she was still in college, going into her…senior year, Will thought, though he wasn't quite sure of it. She was a cute girl, actually looked a lot like he sister. He'd only met her a few times. Once when she came to a party, a couple times watching football.

And of course, a couple times at the wedding. (Don't think about the wedding.)

"Yeah, that sounds good. Just let me finish eating and get a shower. Of course I haven't showered yet! It's the first day of my summer! Yeah. All right, see you soon."

Will spun through the conversation, pulling out the obvious—Wendy was coming over, or maybe Jill was going to meet her somewhere. If he was going to spend the day with Jill, he realized he wasn't just going to be able to hang out in the townhouse—he was going to have to go….

Wait a second.

Shower?

A slow smile crossed Will's face.

Yes, he was going to have to see that.

Jill returned to the table, and sat back down, eating a few more bites of now-soggy Froot Loops. Will, for his part, was slowly walking toward the edge of the table, looking for away to hitch a ride.