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CARNIVAL OF MIRRORS: FOUR FATES By BobH (c) 2004 Cedar Junction, MA, May 16th, 1987, 2:40 pm: Hot dog franks sizzled on griddles, sugar was spun into floss and onto sticks, vendors hawked their wares. The crowds swirled around happily, shouting and laughing, unaware of the danger that lurked among them. Reed Carter rubbed his stubbled chin thoughtfully and took in the scene before him with the experienced eyes of a predator. The fair had come to town two days earlier, the rides and tented attractions being erected in Sam Weaver's large field in record time by a small army of roustabouts. Since then, the townsfolk from Cedar Junction itself and those from neighbouring towns had flocked to sample the excitement on offer. It struck Carter as odd that such simple fare would still appeal to people in the late twentieth century, but then again it was cheap, it was in the open air and, for the young at least, it had a quaint novelty value. Weaver's field abutted a small wood, and the fair had been laid out to take full advantage of the available space, which meant several of the attractions were hard up against the tree line. This suited Carter's purpose perfectly. Watching the happy, milling crowds, he was alert for any sign of strays, for someone he could snatch from the herd unnoticed. Carter was loitering near a small, striped tent, about ten foot square in plan. The tent had a clearly marked entrance and exit. Above these, a somewhat garishly painted board announced: The Carnival of Mirrors. It was a mirror maze, something that was lame a century ago, thought Carter, snorting derisively. Standing outside the entrance to the tent, selling tickets and running the thing, was a tall, shaven-headed man of indeterminate age, with large, bulbous eyes. He was gaunt, even thinner than Carter himself, and had skin so pale as to border on the albino. The man's appearance was so distinctive that Carter might have continued to stare at him, had that not been the moment his prey appeared. She was seven, maybe eight years old, dressed in shorts, sneakers, and a T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Her long, blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she was very pretty. Just the way Reed Carter liked them. The girl stumbled from the exit of The Carnival of Mirrors looking confused, as if she didn't know where she was. Carter quickly scanned the people nearby, looking for anyone who might be a parent or guardian. There was no one. All he needed now was a distraction. As if on cue, there was a loud bang as a large tethered balloon that had been floating above one of the stalls suddenly burst. The noise drew everyone's gaze, and in that instant Carter sprang. Clamping one hand over her mouth, he swept the child off her feet and carried her into the woods, unseen. She was his. The girl struggled in his grasp, legs kicking out furiously but ineffectually. She scratched at his hands desperately; her eyes wide and full of fear. Carter liked it when they got that look in their eyes, loved it that he had total and absolute power over them. It was the ultimate high, holding the power of life and death over another human being. The girl continued struggling as he laid her on the ground, his hand still clamped over her mouth. Her struggles continued right up to the point where he squeezed the life out of her with his other hand, increasing the pressure on her throat until he heard her neck snap. She stopped moving then, but Carter did not. His body shook, his breathing fast and shallow, nostrils flared. Shuddering, he let out a long, deep sigh of satisfaction, putting his palms together to still their trembling. Ultimate high. Nothing on the planet to beat it. Carter covered the body with branches then stood and stared at it for a moment, absently rubbing the scratches the girl had inflicted on the back of his hands. Sighing, he turned and headed back to the fair. If the girl had not been missed yet he might even see if he could grab another child. It had been a long time since he had killed two in one day. He still recalled the rush it gave him with great fondness. He emerged from the wood near The Carnival of Mirrors, the weird- looking guy that ran it nodding to him as he did so. "Interest you in The Carnival of Mirrors?" he said. "A mirror-maze?" said Carter, dubiously. "I don't think so." "For most this is just a mirror maze, it's true," said the man, "but some it leads to what they need to find." "What does that mean?" said Carter. "Is this some sort of scam?" "Anything but," said the man, "but why take my word for it? Why not see for yourself, no charge?" He gestured towards the tent's entrance. Carter hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. "Why not?" he said. He had nothing to lose and, anyway, the tent was too small to contain much of a maze. No one had raised the alarm over the missing girl yet, and there was even a chance there might be another child already inside. Carter liked the idea of killing someone in this freak's attraction. Entering the maze, Carter was immediately struck by how much larger it seemed on the inside than on the outside. "Of course it seems larger, you rube," he muttered to himself, "it's full of mirrors." Carter had taken no more than a couple of turns into the maze when he was confronted by a corridor of mirrors that appeared to be about a hundred yards long, an impossibility in a tent no wider than ten feet in any direction. Intrigued by the illusion, he set off down the corridor, counting the paces he took. After fifty paces he stopped, a cold sweat trickling down his spine. Given his height, one of his paces was over thirty inches. Which meant he had just walked in a straight line for about one hundred and twenty five feet! The maze not only *looked* bigger inside than outside - it *was* bigger! Panicking, Carter spun around intending to retrace his steps, only to crash into the mirror that was now directly behind him. The corridor he had walked down was no longer there. It existed as nothing more than a reflection of the corridor ahead of him. "What the fuck," he snarled. "If that freak is fucking with me I'll rip him a new one." Carter suddenly felt trapped, like a lab rat, and he started running, taking turns as they presented themselves, desperate to get out of the maze but with no idea where the exit might be. After a few more turns he came to a chamber in what had to be the centre of the maze. Standing in the middle of the chamber were six tall mirrors, but these were unlike any of the other mirrors in the maze. These mirrors had people in them. They were frozen reflections, Carter instinctively realized as he looked into the first mirror, one showing a man wearing what looked like a World War Two-era GI's uniform, captured moments in time. Behind all of them was the same mirror maze he knew was behind him. The G.I had his finger tips pressed to his side of the mirror, as did those in the other mirrors. The next one showed a young woman in a flowery summer dress, her hair and make-up suggesting the 1950s, while in the next was a man in a brightly -coloured, paisley-patterned suit. His long, centre-parted hair was held back from his face by a beaded headband, and among the many buttons festooning the wide lapels of his jacket was one that read: 'Troops Out of 'Nam now!'. It was the image in the fourth mirror that made Carter gasp out loud, however. There, staring out at him, her small fingers pressed against her side of the glass, was the girl he had just killed. Trembling, Carter reached out and touched the mirror, the tips of his fingers meeting those of the child. As he did this, so he found his hand sinking into the mirror, found himself stepping into and through the glass as the now no-longer immobile girl stepped into it from her side, passing through it and through him. It took carter a moment to realize what had happened, but one look into the ordinary mirror in front of him followed by a quick glance down at his body confirmed the worse. "I'm a little fucking girl!" he shrieked. "This cannot be happening to me!" He turned around to face the mirror he had stepped through. It now contained the frozen image of his own body, its finger tips pressed against its side of the glass. Desperately, Carter reached out and jabbed his small fingers against them. Nothing happened. He tried again and again, all to no avail. He could not get back into his real body. Looking down again at his now small and female body, at those spindly legs, that undeveloped torso behind the Ninja Turtles T- shirt, Carter shuddered. He felt weak and vulnerable. He *hated* feeling weak and vulnerable. He had always hated it. Weakness and vulnerability were for his prey. They were not for him, could never be for Reed Carter. But then he was not Reed Carter anymore, was he? He might not be able to be himself again, but Carter had no intention of remaining a child. If one mirror had worked this way then, he reasoned, the others probably did as well. Checking each of the other five mirrors in turn, he was surprised to see they now contained entirely different reflections than they had. Three contained woman clad in attire from various periods of the twentieth century, while the other two contained reflections of men. One of these was an old, enormously overweight black man, while the other showed a young white man in a frock-coat and stovepipe hat, thick 'mutton-chop' sideburns sprouting from his cheeks. Carter touched his fingers to those of this man first, then to each of the other people reflected in the other mirrors in turn, all to no effect. He was stuck like this. Dazed by the enormity of what had befallen him, Carter wandered over to the exit from the chamber. After what seemed no more than a handful of turns, he was stepping out of the maze and exiting the tent. No sooner had he done so than he heard a loud bang as a large tethered balloon that had been floating above one of the stalls suddenly burst. The noise drew everyone's gaze, and in that instant Carter belatedly realized the full extent of what had happened to him, knew that he had not only stepped into another's body and life but also into the past. He had no time to run before the large hand clamped itself over his mouth, no way to scream as he was swept off his feet and carried away into the woods to meet his final fate. Cedar Junction, MA, May 16th, 1987, 2:25 pm: Eight year-old Lindy Drew hated her life. A year ago, she had been happy. A year ago her Mom and Dad were still alive. After she had recovered from her injuries, the only survivor of the car crash that had killed her parents, Lindy had been taken in by Aunt Kerrie, her mother's sister, and her family. Lindy had never much liked Aunt Kerrie and her cousins, Aunt Kerrie's three daughters, and the feeling was mutual. Her Aunt had taken her in from a sense of duty rather than out of love, and Lindy was badly starved of affection. It had all been so different a year ago. Then her parents had still been here, and they had loved Lindy very much. Her baby-sitter, Laurie Ellison, had also loved her, Lindy knew, but Laurie and her family had moved away from Cedar Junction a few weeks before the crash. So now Lindy had no one. Lindy was playing hookey from school, a place where she had few friends, and she had come down to see the fair that had setup in Mr Weaver's field two days earlier. Looking at all the happy, laughing people at the fair riding on the rides, carrying balloons, eating hot dogs and candy floss, Lindy suddenly felt very lonely. There was no one here she knew, no special friend to have fun with. She stopped where she was and let out a long sigh. "My, it sounds like you have the weight of the world on those small shoulders of yours," came a deep voice from somewhere above and behind her. Lindy turned and looked up into the face of the man smiling down at her. He had to be twice her height and was one of the thinnest, palest human beings she had ever seen. His head was as bald as an egg, and his eyes bulged from their sockets alarmingly. He was standing in front of a striped tent whose sign proclaimed it to be 'The Carnival of Mirrors'. "Hello, I'm Solomon," he said. "What's your name?" "It's Lindy, sir," she said. "Is this your ride?" "That it is, Lindy," he smiled, "but it's not a ride. It's a mirror maze. Have you ever been inside a mirror maze?" "No, sir," said Lindy. "I've never even seen one before." "Would you like to go in this one?" Lindy nodded, then indicated the board on which was chalked: 'Adults $3, Children $1'. "But I don't have any money," she said, sadly. "Oh, I wouldn't worry about that," said Solomon, tearing a ticket off the roll on the small table he was standing next to and handing it to her, "I think we can let you in for free this time. And when you get to the middle of the maze, you might well find your heart's desire there." "Thank you, sir," said Lindy, then she entered the maze. She paused at the first mirror, examining her reflection critically. She was dressed in shorts, sneakers, and a T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Her long, blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail. "Not bad," she shrugged. Though it was unlikely she would meet anyone she knew at the fair, she wanted to be sure she still looked presentable, that she had not managed to get something icky on her clothes without noticing. The last thing she needed was to look like a dork. She needed to raise her stock at school, not send it any lower. As she made her way through the maze, finding its dead ends and false trails amusing despite herself, Lindy's spirits lifted a little. This was actually fun. She wondered what Solomon might have meant when he said she might find her heart's desire. It was probably just patter, she decided, just one of those things he said to make his maze sound more exciting. Having been turned around by the maze so many times, Lindy had completely lost any sense of direction when she came at last to the chamber at the centre of the maze. In that chamber, standing alone in a row, were six mirrors. In each of the mirrors was an image of someone, frozen in the act of touching their side of the glass. There were three boys and three girls, all of them within a couple of years of Lindy's own age, though some were wearing what looked to her to be very old- fashioned clothes. There was one girl Lindy was particularly taken by. She was dressed much as Lindy herself was, looked to be maybe six years old, had red hair, and was wearing a sweatshirt bearing the image of three cartoon characters labelled 'The Powerpuff Girls', whoever they might be. Curious, Lindy reached out, her fingers touching those of the other girl. As they touched, so Lindy found herself stepping into and through the mirror, felt that other girl also move forward and pass through her. It was the weirdest sensation. When she got to the other side and looked down at herself, Lindy saw that she was now wearing the Powerpuff Girls sweatshirt. Even before she looked up and saw her reflection in the mirror opposite, Lindy knew she was now that other girl. "Magic," she said in wonderment, "real magic!" Turning back to the mirror she had just stepped through, she saw what she had expected to see; her own image, now frozen there in place of that of the girl she had become. The images in the other mirrors were not those she had seen there before, but Lindy did not stop to examine them. She headed for the exit from the chamber, a new spring in her step. As she negotiated the maze, trying to find the way out, Lindy bumped into a tall, pleasantly attractive young woman. "There you are, Claire," she said, sweeping Lindy off her feet and kissing her on the cheek. "You gave Mommy a fright rushing off like that. I thought I'd lost you in the maze. Now let's see if we can find our way out of here. Daddy will be wondering where we've got to." Lindy buried her head in the woman's shoulder, tears welling up. A new Mommy and Daddy! And she seemed really nice, too. "Did you find your heart's desire?" said Solomon, winking at her as she and her new Mommy emerged from the maze. "Oh yes, yes I did," said Lindy-now-Claire. "Thank you, Solomon, thank you, thank you, thank you!" "It was my pleasure, little miss," he said, grinning as her mother carried her over to her father and to the start of her new life. Madison, WI, September 8th, 1962: Lawrence Haines III unfolded the yellowing newspaper clipping and smiled. It was dated December 24th, 1960, and the headline read: BODY OF MISSING 7 YEAR-OLD FOUND IN WOODS IN SHALLOW GRAVE. It was nearly two years ago, while still a teenager, that he had abducted little Gretchen Jorgensen in Minneapolis, but the thought of how he had fooled everyone and got clean away with her murder never failed to give him a lift. Fooling the police and getting away with it rather than the murder itself had been what it was all about for him. He had proven to himself that he was smarter than the authorities, not that he had ever seriously doubted this. Even if he had slipped up and the cops had managed to apprehend him, he was confident it would not have made much difference. Lawrence Haines was rich, the scion of old money, and he knew the family fortune and the expensive lawyers the family kept on retainer would ensure he never had to pay for anything he did. He was one of the elite, a child of privilege who would one day be one of those who ran this country. This was his due. As someone so obviously superior to the little people, it was only right and proper they should all one day defer to him. "Larry, Larry," shouted a beautiful young brunette, running towards him. It was Margot, his girlfriend of the past seven days. Lawrence folded the clipping away in his wallet and placed it in the glove compartment of his T-bird before Margot reached him. When she did, she threw her arms around him and kissed him long and deep. He knew Margot was a 'good girl', someone who intended keeping her virginity until her wedding night, but Lawrence was determined he was going to finally have her tonight, whether she wanted it or not. It was time she put out, and he would not be taking 'no' for an answer. With his wealth and his almost film-star good looks, he was not accustomed to women holding out on him. "So where we going?" asked Margot, climbing into the passenger seat. "I figured we'd check out that fair they've let set up at the side of Lake Mendota," said Lawrence, as he started the car up. Margot's face fell. She had been expecting him to take her to an expensive restaurant. Fat chance. He was not about to spend a lot of money on someone he would be discarding after tonight. "I figure we needed something to cheer us up," he said, cajoling her, "something to take our minds off this Cuban missile thing that looks to be brewing up. What's going to be better at accomplishing that than all the fun of the fair?" "I guess," said Margot, giving a small smile. He knew how hard it was for her to stay mad at him, how eager she was to please. It was something he was counting on. After parking the T-bird just off Gorham Street, Lawrence and Margot wandered over to the fair, which had been laid out in a long, thin strip to fit the stretch of shore-side grass it had been allocated. Lawrence bought them both chilli-dogs, and they mingled with the crowd, eating them as they went. They stopped briefly to watch the current Mr Universe, Carl Stark, sign autographs, took in a couple of rides, and eventually ended up at a striped tent in front of which stood a very striking-looking man. The sign on the tent identified this as 'The Carnival of Mirrors'. "You run this thing, buddy?" asked Lawrence. "Always have and always will," said the man. "The name's Solomon." "Is that your first name or your family name?" asked Margot. "Pretty lady, it's my only name," said Solomon, grinning at her - an alarming sight in that bug-eyed, hairless head. "So what is this 'Carnival of Mirrors'?" asked Lawrence. "It's a mirror maze," said Solomon, "one unlike almost any other in the world. Most who enter it find only fun inside, but a few find something more." "'Something more'?" said Lawrence, dubiously. "What does *that* mean? Are you saying you can find something you want in there?" "No, I'm saying some people find what they *need* in there," said Solomon. "What someone wants and what they need can be two very different things." "Sounds like a bunch of baloney to me," said Lawrence. "Well I think it sounds like fun," said Margot. "Let's go inside, Larry, please?" The board outside read: Adults $1, Children 30 cents. "Why not?" shrugged Lawrence, handing over a couple of bills. "It should be good for a few laughs, at least. You go in first and then, after a minute or two, I'll follow you. Let's see if we both make the same choices through the maze." "Okay," giggled Margot. "See you at the other end." Having given Margot the head start he had promised her, Lawrence entered the maze himself. After a few turns, he found himself totally disoriented, his sense of direction completely screwed up. He called out Margot's name, but there was no response. That was strange. Given how small the tent was, and thus the maze, she had to have heard him. Puzzled, Lawrence pushed on, determined to beat Margot to the exit. As he turned one corner, he was hit by a wave of warm air scented with jasmine, while another turn brought an arctic gust that made him shiver. "What the fuck?" he muttered. For all his faults, Lawrence was not a stupid man. He now realized this was no ordinary maze. There was something supernatural at work here. Rounding yet another corner, he stopped dead in his tracks at the sight before him. It was a mirror-lined chamber, with six individual mirrors standing in a row along its centre. Disturbingly, the chamber appeared to be bigger than the small tent that contained The Carnival of Mirrors. Lawrence approached the six mirrors cautiously, examining the image trapped in each of them with great curiosity, but keeping his distance. "This is what you meant by finding what I need, isn't it, Solomon?" he said, out loud. "You want me to make a choice of some sort, don't you? Well, I refuse to play your little game." He turned to leave the chamber the same way he had entered it, and was stunned by what he found. The exit had vanished. The walls of the chamber formed a seamless, unbroken mirror, with no sign of a doorway. Sighing heavily, Lawrence slumped against the wall and slid down to the floor. Sitting there, back against the wall, he studied the images in the mirrors thoughtfully. The first showed a young man wearing the uniform of an officer in the army of the Confederacy; the second a thin, slightly unkempt man in his thirties, his chin stubbled; the third a young woman dressed as a 1920s 'flapper'; the fourth a middle-aged and matronly Asian woman; the fifth a man dressed in rags, the mirrors behind him cracked and cobwebbed, his body covered in sores and...were those radiation burns...?; while the sixth...Lawrence wasn't sure what the hell he was looking at in the sixth mirror. It appeared to be a young man in his early twenties, dressed all in black, wearing black nail polish, eye shadow, and lipstick, his hair dyed green on one side, and shaved into an intricate design on the other. Lawrence figured the guy had to be a faggot, or a circus performer, or maybe both. Running his eyes over the images again, Lawrence found his gaze being drawn to number two. There was something in that man's eyes that spoke to him, something that marked him out as a kindred spirit despite his generally unkempt demeanour and distressingly blue collar clothing (there was even a button missing from his shirt). "Guess I don't get out of here unless I choose," said Lawrence, not sure precisely what choosing meant, but resigned to the necessity of doing so. Going over to mirror number two, Lawrence reached out, his fingers touching those of the man on the other side of the glass. The instant he did so, he found himself stepping into and through the glass, shivering as he felt someone pass through him, heading in the opposite direction. Looking at the mirror in front of him when he got to the other side revealed he was now that unkempt, thirty-something guy, while a glance behind him at the one he had just stepped through showed his old form now reflected there, trapped and unmoving. "I've switched bodies! No way!" he said, becoming aware of the scratches on the backs of his hands, and how these itched. He ran his hand over his now stubbled chin, stopping as he noticed the watch on his wrist. It sat there in place of his beloved Rolex, its strap made of the sort of cheap plastic Lawrence would not normally be caught dead wearing. However, it was not the strap that caught his attention but the watch face. There, in place of the mechanical hands he was used to, was a black numerical display on a grey background, showing the time to be 3:15pm, the seconds counting off in what seemed to him to be miraculous fashion. He knew with a certainty that such technology was beyond the science of his day, which suggested a thrilling possibility. Somehow, impossible as such a thing seemed to him, Lawrence had taken on the form of someone from the future! Looking for further confirmation of his theory, Lawrence turned out his pockets. Inside his wallet, he found a driving license. This identified him as one Reed Carter, which was useful to know, but it was the date the license had been issued that stunned him: February 4th, 1987. "Twenty-five years from now. Wow!" he said. Another, even more startling theory occurred to him. Perhaps he had not just switched bodies with someone from the future but, in doing so, actually travelled into the future. Perhaps it was no longer 1962 outside The Carnival of Mirrors but 1987. He would find out soon enough. In the meantime, he examined the six magic mirrors with great interest. He tried touching his fingers to those of his former reflection but, as he expected, nothing happened. The remaining five images were not the ones he had seen in those mirrors before his switch. The first showed a man in a World War Two GI's uniform, and the second a young woman in a flowery summer dress, her hair and make-up a few years out of date. In the next was a man in a brightly-coloured, paisley-patterned suit, his long, centre-parted hair held back from his face by a beaded headband, and among the many buttons festooning the wide lapels of his jacket was one that read: 'Troops Out of 'Nam now!'. Wondering what 'Nam might be, Lawrence checked out the next mirror, which showed a man dressed as a circus clown, and the final one, which featured a pretty teenage girl dressed like a bobby-soxer. Experimentally, Lawrence gently touched his fingers to those of the clown. Nothing happened, which was both a relief and a disappointment. It looked like once you had stepped into a new body that was it, no second chances. Having exhausted all the possibilities he could think of, Lawrence turned and left the chamber. It was time to face whatever awaited him in the outside world, and to force the weirdo who ran The Carnival of Mirrors to put him back in his own body...after he had seen if there was anything in this future time he could take back to 1962 and make a fortune with, of course. As Lawrence left the chamber and unseen by him, the images in the mirrors shifted and altered, becoming those of six entirely different people. Finding the exit proved easier than Lawrence had anticipated. Stepping out into the light, he was surprised to see the clothes the crowds outside were wearing. He definitely was not in 1962 any longer. Solomon was talking to a man in a Sheriff's uniform. His shoulder badge identified this as 'Cedar Junction, MA'. Massachusetts? Could he have really have travelled that far, too? On seeing Lawrence, the Sheriff's eyes narrowed. "Interesting, scratches on your hands there, stranger" he said, "and I see there's a button missing from your shirt, too. White button, red thread." "Yes, so what?" said Lawrence. "So what is that the body of a young girl has just been discovered in the wood behind here," said the Sheriff. "A button was found near the body - white, red thread. Looking at her fingernails, I'd say she scratched the person who took her." Resting his hand on his gun, he said: "I'm afraid you'll have to come in with me for questioning." "B...but I'm innocent!" protested Lawrence. "I didn't kill that girl." "If that's so then I'm sure the button won't match those on your shirt, and the forensic boys won't find any of your DNA at the crime scene or under her fingernails," said the Sheriff. DNA? Since when could the cops test for DNA, thought Lawrence, worriedly. "I'm being framed," he shouted, pointing at Solomon, "and he's the one framing me." "You killed a young girl and hid her body in the woods," said Solomon, staring at him coldly. "That's a crime you might have got away with in another place and time, but in this one, you'll pay for it in full." His hands securely cuffed behind him, the former Lawrence Haines III was led away knowing there would be no family fortune or expensive team of lawyers to bail him out. This time, justice would be done. Wheaton, MD, July 6th, 2004: The striped tent looked out of place sitting there at the bottom of the smaller of the mall's two atriums, thought six year-old Claire Kurtz, holding her mother's hand as the two of them sized it up. The mall's management were always bringing in performers, exhibitions and the like to "enhance the mall experience", as the brochure put it, but Claire was very dubious about this one. The painted board over the tent identified it as 'The Carnival of Mirrors'. Sitting on a stool outside the entrance, a foldaway table erected next to him, sat an odd looking man. He was tall, bald, and gaunt, his eyes bulbous and his skin pale. Once seen, this was not a man you would ever forget. From the look in her mother's eyes, Claire could see she was seriously considering buying them tickets to enter the tent. Something about it intrigued her. Claire would prefer not to, but if her mother wanted to then she would. Her mother was still mourning the loss of her brother and, hard though it was, Claire was determined to be the perfect daughter for her. William and Helen Gould had been about as close as siblings could be. Following the childhood accident that had left him disfigured, Helen had always been fiercely protective of her little brother, taking on anyone who picked on him or who mocked his affliction. Later in life she married Harry Kurtz, and William became the favourite uncle of their daughter. Like her mother, Claire could see the wonderful person behind the scars. William Gough never married - no woman could ever see past his disfigurement - but he was philosophical about this, focussing instead on his love of music and amassing a large and impressive collection of CDs and old LPs. William doted on his young niece, and was always happy to baby-sit for her parents. Claire was delighted with this arrangement, too, since it meant spending more time with her beloved Uncle Bill, and everything had been fine until that terrible day five months earlier. When Helen had returned to find William lying there dead, Claire weeping over his body, she had been inconsolable. The coroner had ruled his electrocution an accident, but Claire knew everything that happened that evening had been her fault, just as she knew she could never tell Helen. Helen needed her daughter more than ever right then, and Claire had been determined to be everything she could ever want in a daughter. But it was hard. Far harder than she had expected. "Shall we go in?" said Helen. "I s'pose," said Claire, staring dubiously at the man selling the tickets. He wore a badge identifying him as 'Solomon'. Seeing her serious expression, Solomon smiled down at her from his great height. "Why the frown, little miss?" he said. "I promise you'll get a lot out of your trip through the Carnival of Mirrors. It'll cheer you up no end." "He's right, sweetie. I'm sure we'll both enjoy it." Helen smiled at her, but Claire could still see the sadness behind her eyes. She was trying so hard to get back to normal, but grief could not be hurried. While her mother was buying the tickets, Claire walked through the entrance and into the maze it contained, the Carnival of Mirrors itself. "Don't go too far without me," said Helen, "we don't want you getting..." Her voice was abruptly cut off as Claire rounded a corner. Surprised, she turned to retrace her steps, only to find a mirror blocking her way. Puzzled by this, though not particularly worried, she stared briefly at her reflection, at her long red hair and at the Powerpuff Girls leaping out from their place on her sweatshirt. Turning around, she continued inwards, moving ever deeper into the maze, confident that Helen would easily find her. The tent was not very big, after all, so this could not be much of a maze. However, after another few minutes of traversing the structure, with neither her mother or the exit anywhere in sight, Claire began to feel concerned. She started running, taking every new turn that presented itself, hoping they would lead her somewhere. They did. Arriving in the chamber at the heart of the Carnival of Mirrors, Claire skidded to an abrupt halt. There, standing alone and erect in the middle of the chamber were six mirrors. And they had people in them. There were three men and three women, each attired in clothing from various periods of the past hundred years, all with a hand outstretched, touching their side of the glass. Claire found herself immediately drawn to one of these and went straight over to that mirror. Without hesitation or thought as to what she was doing, she put her fingers to those of the man reflected there. She had not known what effect this would have, yet she experienced little surprise as she was drawn into the mirror, stepping through it and feeling an odd sensation as if someone had passed through her travelling in the opposite direction. Having stepped through the mirror, Claire continued walking, stopping at the mirrored wall opposite and examining her reflection. She was a man now, maybe twenty or twenty-one years old, dressed in expensive clothes and wearing a heavy Rolex on her left wrist. Over six feet tall, extremely handsome, and with thick blond hair, he looked like someone who had never had any difficulty attracting members of the opposite sex. "Wow!" said Claire as she...as he, looked down at his new body and grinned. Turning back to the mirror he had just stepped through, the new Lawrence Haines III looked wistfully at his old reflection, at the little, red-haired girl in the mirror in her Powerpuff Girls sweatshirt. "I'm sorry," he said, after ten seconds or so of gazing at her image. Then he turned and left the chamber. "Did you find what you were looking for?" asked Solomon, as he exited the tent. "Yeah, I did," said Lawrence, staring in confusion at the lake the Carnival of Mirrors was now standing beside, "though I'm not sure I deserve it. Where are we, anyway? What happened to the mall?" "We're in Madison, Wisconsin, in a fair on the banks of Lake Mendota," said Solomon, "and it's September 8th, 1962." "It's forty-two years ago?!" said Lawrence. "That's not possible!" "Why is any less possible than switching bodies," said Solomon. "But then, you already knew that was possible before you entered the Carnival of Mirrors, didn't you?" "You...you know about that?" said Lawrence. "Then you know about the terrible thing I've done." "You did nothing wrong," said Solomon. "Yes, I did," said Lawrence. "I wish I'd never come across that damned medallion, but when I saw it there in the shop I bought it for Claire on impulse. I was going over to baby-sit that night, she loved junk jewellery, and I thought it would make a nice present for her. I didn't know the medallion was magic, didn't know it could switch our forms. I felt a tingle when I gave it to her, then watched in horror as each of us was slowly transformed into the other. Being only six, Claire thought it was all a huge laugh, of course, insisted we change into each others clothes, then strutted about pretending to be me. While I was fretting over the medallion, trying to figure out how to switch us back, I wasn't paying attention to what she was doing, and..." "What happened to Claire was an accident," said Solomon, gently. "You were not responsible. She was unused to her new body and you were distracted. What happened was tragic, but it could have happened to anyone." "I couldn't tell Helen," said Lawrence, "couldn't let her know her only child was dead. I couldn't do that to her, not to Helen. Losing a sibling is bad, but losing a child is unbearable. No, Claire had to live and I had to be her. But it was hard, much harder than I expected. I'm not sure how much longer I could've kept up the pretence without cracking." "You don't have to anymore," said Solomon. "Now someone else is Claire Kurtz, a little girl desperate for the loving parents your sister and her husband will be to her. They will all be very happy together." Lawrence let out a huge sigh. "You've no idea how relieved I am to hear that," he said. "What happens now?" "Now?" smiled Solomon, "why now you enjoy your new life. You'll find you can't influence any of the major upheavals that will convulse this country in the coming decade, but I'm sure the date must suggest some possibilities to you." "The Beatles!" said Lawrence, slapping his brow, "And the Stones, and all those other great groups! In a few years I can get to see all their early US concerts, get to see them all perform in their prime." "Exactly so," said Solomon. "You're young, you're good-looking, and you're wealthy. You're really going to enjoy the 1960s." "Yeah," said Lawrence, "now if only I had someone to share the experience with. I may be good-looking now, but I've never even asked a girl out before. I was always too frightened of rejection." "Larry?" said a female voice. "How did you beat me out of the maze?" He turned then to see Margot emerging from the exit. She was, thought Lawrence, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. "Uh...just lucky, I guess," he said. "Ah, would you like to get dinner somewhere?" "I'd love to!" she cried, throwing her arms round his neck and kissing him. "I thought you'd never ask." Watching the happy young couple walk away, holding hands, Solomon smiled. Sometimes, being the servant of the Carnival of Mirrors was hard, but moments like this made it all worthwhile. The End How this whole Carnival of Mirrors thing came about is that I was looking for a simple and versatile mechanism to bring about cross-time body-swaps. Images trapped in mirrors seemed the best of the various things I considered, which in turn led inevitably to the idea of using a mirror maze. Now, I'm sure mirrors have been used countless times before on Fictionmania and maybe even mirror mazes - with me having so far only read a few hundred of the 8000+ stories here that's pretty much a cast-iron certainty - but I'm hoping not too many have used them this way. I'm throwing this open to others to use in stories if they wish mainly because it is such a simple and versatile way of bringing about cross- time body-swaps. Also, having made the extensive use I have of the Medallion of Zulo, it's time I gave something back. The 'rules' are simple: 1. Solomon (his only name) has always run the Carnival of Mirrors and always will. His clothing may change to reflect the period we find him in, but he himself is unchanging, eternal. He does not experience the passage of time as we do. He remembers no other life. Solomon's narrative function is to sometimes be cryptic and to sometimes provide information to the protagonist as to the situation they find themselves in. Whenever someone exits, and wherever they might have come from, he always knows who they were and what they've done. The position of the Carnival of Mirrors itself changes with time. In one era it might be attached to a circus, or in a converted or custom-built building, or...whatever. In the Old West, Solomon might well have taken it from town to town on the back of a single wagon, assembling it at each place he stopped, for instance. The Carnival of Mirrors is eternal, but its surrounding situation is not. 2. The mirrors can take you forward, backwards, or even sideways in time (by 'sideways' I'm referring to alternate realities, to other Earth's where things are different to how they are on ours). The time travelled can be less than an hour, as Reed Carter discovered, or years, decades, or even centuries. To most people who enter the Carnival of Mirrors, it's little more than an amusing diversion. Only those few destined to find the chamber at its heart ever do so. 3. I had the various body swaps form a neat circle in this story purely because I wanted to demonstrate the concept. It's perfectly OK to have your character step into another life or time without showing what happened to the person whose place they take (though it would be surprising if they didn't at least wonder about them). Also, this one is centred around the Carnival of Mirrors, for the reason already stated. Ordinarily, I'd expect it just to be the mechanism for a switch, much like the Medallion of Zulo, to have it appear as required then for the writer to explore the new life their character has stepped into. 4. The moment someone steps out of their body is the exact same moment in time someone else steps into. There is no gap. When someone first steps out of their old body and life there's no immediate stepping back into that same one. However, I see no reason not to have someone accomplish what you want them to in their new life and then, later, to find the Carnival of Mirrors again and step into their old life - at the exact instant they left it of course. 5. There are thousands of reflections trapped in those mirrors, but a person is only ever shown six. Why those particular six, and how different their fate might have been had they chosen differently, I couldn't say. Perhaps you can't escape your destiny whatever you do.