Carnival Of Mirrors: Generations free porn video

This is the second Carnival of Mirrors tale. The first, also available on Fictionmania, is called: Carnival of Mirrors: Four Fates. Like this, it's a standalone tale. You don't have to have read either to follow the other, but if you like this one you'll probably like that one, too. CARNIVAL OF MIRRORS: GENERATIONS By BobH (c) 2004 New York City, Fall 2001 Staring up at the Unisphere, that 12-story high, stainless steel representation of the Earth that was one of the few remnants of the World's Fair held here in north Queens in 1964/5, 15 year-old John Miller let out a long, mournful sigh. He had been fascinated by the Unisphere since first seeing it during a visit to Flushing Meadows- Corona Park as a toddler, and ever since this had been where he returned to brood whenever something was troubling him. Something was troubling him now, something that had become a depressingly regular part of his young life. With his fingertips, he gently probed the area around his left eye where his father had hit him, the back-handed blow knocking John off his feet. It was tender to the touch and, as he knew from bitter experience, the bruising would appear and darken over the next few hours. Yet another black eye to be explained away in school tomorrow as the result of a collision with a door. The frequency John turned up with such bruising should have rung alarm bells with his teachers, but his excuses were taken at face value because John was a klutz. His lack of coordination and his disinterest in sports had resulted in injuries much like those he suffered at home. Tomorrow was a 'bring your sons and daughters' day at the brokerage firm in Manhattan's business district where his father worked and, despite what he would look like by then, John knew his father would insist he be there. It was odd how he pretended pride in someone he beat so much. John's father, George Miller, had always had a temper but things had become much worse in the past year. "Guess I shouldn't let you have caught me, Dad," muttered John, knowing nothing he had done warranted the abuse he was now enduring yet unable to break the lifelong habit of making excuses for his father. Tiring of the Unisphere, John turned and headed for the bridge over the Long Island Expressway that would take him to Meadow Lake in the southern section of the park. The lakeside amphitheatre was another of the structures that survived from the sixties and, though not as romantic to John's eyes as the Unisphere, it was another part of the park that could always cheer him up when he was down. When he got to the amphitheatre John was surprised to see a small travelling fair had set up a little way down from it, next to the lake. There was a carousel, a shooting gallery with soft toys as prizes, various rides, and a number of colourful tents containing other attractions. It was fairly early in the afternoon, the roustabouts were still setting things up, and so there were few other people about as yet. John wandered through the fair, eventually arriving at a small striped tent maybe ten foot square. The sign over the entrance identified it as 'The Carnival of Mirrors', and sitting by that entrance next to a small folding table containing a roll of tickets and a cashbox was a man reading a newspaper. He was, thought John, one of the most striking-looking individuals he had so far seen in his short life. Completely bald, gaunt to the point of looking malnourished, and pale enough to be an albino, the man also had large, bulging eyes that John found more than a little disturbing. "It's rude to stare, you know," said the man, putting his newspaper down and fixing John with a faintly amused gaze. "Oh, sorry," said John, blushing furiously, "I didn't mean... that is I..." "It's OK," chuckled the man, rising from the chair to reveal his impressive height, "I know how strange I appear to most people, and after all these years I'm used to being stared at." He thrust out his hand. "The name's Solomon," he said. "John Miller," said John, shaking his hand, "I'm pleased to meet you, Mr Solomon." "That's a nasty bruise you have there," said Solomon, frowning, "you get in a fight?" "Uh no," said John. "It was a door. I walked into it." "Do you walk into lots of doors, John?" said Solomon, his frown deepening. "I'm kinda clumsy," said John, looking at his feet, "manage to injure myself a lot." "What do your parents have to say about your 'clumsiness'?" "There's only my father and me," said John. "My mother died when I was born." "Ah, I see," said Solomon, thoughtfully. "I wish I could remember her," said John, wistfully, "or even knew what she looked like. The only picture of her I've ever seen is a grainy old black and white photo that Dad must've missed when he got rid of all the others of her he must've had." "Why would he get rid of her pictures?" asked Solomon, genuinely curious. "I wish I knew. I know he had a big falling out with her mother and her stepfather. When they found out she was marrying him, they cut off all contact. Maybe it was something to do with that." Wondering why he was telling Solomon all this, a man he had only just met; John idly probed his eye again and winced. It was really starting to throb. "You wouldn't know it to look at me," said Solomon, "but I've been around a very long time. Over the years I've seen all sorts of injuries and I've grown pretty good at deducing what caused them. That bruise looks to me less like the result of colliding with a door than the result of a punch or a back-handed blow. Would you like to talk about it?" "Not really, no," said John, heart racing. Seeing his distress, Solomon changed the subject. "I was here in 1964 and 1965, y'know," he said, "at the World's Fair. Set up in almost the same spot, too." "You were?" said John, his face lighting up. "I've never met anyone who worked at the Fair before. What was it like?" "Well, a little ways over there was the Continental Circus, a big yellow and white plastic structure that seated five thousand. They had star acts from all over the world including our own Flying Alexanders. There were lots of animal acts too, including elephants, a gorilla that did bicycle tricks, and chimpanzees who played musical instruments. I don't suppose they'd allow that sort of thing any more. Twice a day a parade marched from the circus building through the fairgrounds. It was a sight to behold. Next to the Continental Circus was the Circus Museum, which had exhibits from the Ringling Circus Museum in Sarasota, Florida." "So were you set up inside one of those?" asked John. "Hardly," chuckled Solomon. "My disreputable little mirror maze was relegated to a spot on the grass outside. Good days, though. I remember them almost as fondly as I do the 1939 World's Fair." "Wait a minute," said John. "That was over sixty years ago. You're not old enough to have been there." "Well, I did say I was older than I looked," smiled Solomon. "Robert Moses turned a vast municipal garbage dump into a park just for the '39 fair. Did you know the Unisphere was built on the exact same spot as the original Perisphere?" "Everyone knows that!" said John, derisively. He was beginning to think Solomon was making fun of him and wondered if he should make his excuses and leave. Glancing around, he saw there were a few more people wandering about the fair now. One of these, standing a few yards away and watching him intently, was an elderly woman in an expensively- tailored pale green silk trouser suit. As he caught her gaze, she smiled at him. Unaccountably chilled by this, John quickly broke eye contact and turned his attention back to Solomon. "So what is this 'Carnival of Mirrors', anyway?" he said. "It can't be much of a mirror maze in a tent that small." "Oh, you'd be surprised," said Solomon, smiling mysteriously. "Would you like to try it for yourself? The fair isn't properly open yet, so admission is on the house." "Yeah, why not?" shrugged John. "Any tips on how to find my way through it?" "That would spoil all the fun," said Solomon, "but I think I can safely say you'll be overjoyed by what you find in there. It could be your heart's desire." This struck John as an odd thing to say, but he entered the Carnival of Mirrors without trepidation, rounding first one corner, then another, soon finding himself deep within the maze. To his surprise, it seemed far bigger than the tent containing it should have been able to hold. Having been turned around by the twists and turns of the maze, John stopped to get his bearings, realizing he had no idea in which direction the entrance and exit now lay. A soft, low growl from one of the turns in the maze, sent him scurrying down another turn, sweat trickling down his back. He had heard that sound before, on a visit to the Bronx Zoo. It was the growl of a full-grown Siberian tiger. He knew intellectually there could not possibly be a tiger in here with him, but then he also knew the tent he had entered could not possibly contain a maze as large as the one he was now lost within. Running, while glancing behind him nervously, John rounded a corner no different to a dozen others he had navigated thus far...and stopped dead in his tracks. He had arrived at a large chamber in what he knew instinctively must be the center of the maze, one that by itself was larger than the tent housing the Carnival of Mirrors. The walls of the chamber were lined with mirrors, and standing in a row in the middle of the chamber were six more mirrors. These mirrors were different than any others John had encountered, however. These mirrors had people in them. In each mirror were two people, frozen in place and unmoving, reflections from individual moments in time, caught and preserved. In every case the two people were touching, and one had a hand in contact with the mirror. Behind all of them were the mirrored walls of this very chamber. The first mirror contained a stern-faced elderly couple dressed in dark, Victorian clothes. The second showed what looked to be a young gay couple in 1980s garb, the larger of the two touching the mirror, curiosity written on his face, while his smaller, more effeminate- seeming companion tugged on his other hand, looking worried. In the third was what appeared to be a middle-aged farmer and his wife in early 20th century clothing, while the fourth showed twin teenaged boys dressed in the flared trousers and large- collared floral shirts of the early 1970s. The scene in the fifth made John gasp. Two young women having sex. One, a pretty blonde, had her back against the mirror, her right hand touching it, while her darker-haired girlfriend knelt before her, giving head. Despite the obvious attractions of this tableau, it was the one in the final mirror that captured John's imagination. In it, a pretty young woman in her early twenties was holding the hand of a small girl, presumably her daughter, who looked to be about four years old and was wearing a little white dress, sandals, and ankle-socks, a large ribbon in her auburn hair. The woman was dressed in what John thought of as Jackie Kennedy chic, a stylish, salmon pink outfit much like the one the First Lady had worn on that fateful day in Dallas. She wore a small hat, and the tips of one white-gloved hand were pressed to her side of the glass. Without thinking, John reached out, laying his hand over hers. After a minute or so, John slowly removed his hand. He was oddly disappointed that nothing had happened. He could not have said what he had expected to happen, or even why he should have expected anything to happen at all, but he had expected *something*. At some point while navigating the maze the realization had dawned that this was no ordinary fairground attraction, that the Carnival of Mirrors was a product not of the natural world but of the supernatural. And the images captured in these mirrors while better than the best holograms he had ever seen were, John knew, something far greater. Studying the mother and child again, he noticed something in the little girl's hand, something that made him gasp. It was a small wax dinosaur, something which would have meant nothing to most observers but whose significance he immediately understood. "There you are!" came an angry voice from behind him, one John knew all too well. It filled him with dread. "D...Dad?" he said, turning to face his father, "how did you get here?" "What, you didn't think I'd come after you when you ran out on me like that?" yelled George Miller. "I saw you go into the fairground and some old broad told me where you'd gone. The weirdo outside knew better than to try stopping me when I came in here to get you." "Want to get me home so you can beat me again, Dad?" said John, finding courage to talk back to his father in these strange surroundings that he could never have mustered at home. "Did you beat Mom, too? Is that why her family wanted nothing to do with us?" "What?" said George, looking as if he had been struck. "No, I could never have hit your mother. I loved her more than life itself. She was the only person in this whole miserable world who ever understood me." "Is that why you hit me? Because me being born took her away from you? It's not my fault she died giving birth to me. I didn't ask to be born. And this past year you've made me wish I never had been." Once again, George Miller reacted to his son's words as if they were physical blows. "How can you say that after the sacrifice Beth made to bring you into this world?" he said angrily. "Everything I've done for you has been for your own good." So saying, he reached out for his son. "Don't touch me!" yelled John, backing into the mirror behind him. As his father grabbed his shoulder, so John's fingers touched those of the gloved hand on the other side of the glass. "What the fuck...?" John heard his father saying, as he realized the glass had not checked his motion, that he was backing into the mirror and through it, his father being pulled along with him. He briefly felt the oddest sensation, almost as if someone were stepping through him. Then it was over. He had stepped out of the far side of the glass and was now staring at the reflection in the mirror. There, frozen in place, was the image of John and his father at the moment John had touched the mirror, but it was no longer a reflection of John as he was now. Turning to face the mirrored chamber walls John knew what he would see there. It was the reflection he had been so taken with before, the pretty young woman in the Jackie Kennedy outfit. Only now it was his reflection. He looked down at the female body he had stepped into, joy surging through him as he took in the shoulder-length dark hair, felt the breasts held in by his bra, his blouse, and the fabric of his jacket. The stockinged legs showing below his knee-length skirt ended in feet clad in high-heeled shoes that matched his suit. Incredibly, impossibly, he was now the woman in the mirror. The child whose hand he clutched in his looked far less pleased by her new form. "This can't be fucking happening!" she said, the words sounding strange in her sweet, high, little girl's voice. "Language!" said John. The girl looked up fearfully at him, gulped once, then nodded. There was a black, patent leather purse on the floor nearby. John picked it up and checked it for ID. "I'm Laura Connor," he said, reading the name from the driving license it contained, "and we live in an apartment just off Flatbush Avenue." Reading the name out like that, seeing it next to a picture of his new face, made this all seem much more real to John. Laura Connor. Yes, that's who he...who *she*...was now, and who she knew she would be for the rest of her life. Also in her purse, Laura found a folded drawing done in crayon by a child. It was signed: 'My Momy, by Lizzy.' "Lizzy," said Laura. "Yeah, that name suits you." She knelt down to pick up her daughter, who flinched as Laura lifted her off her feet. She was trembling uncontrollably, though whether from shock or from fear Laura could not tell. "What is it, sweetie?" said Laura, "What's wrong?" Lizzy said nothing, unable to meet Laura's gaze. She was still tightly clutching the wax dinosaur in her hand. "If that little darling is what I think it is," she said, tapping the dinosaur, "then I've got a pretty good idea what's waiting for us outside the maze." "Wh...what is it?" asked Lizzy, noticing the figure she held for the first time. "It's a wax dino," said Laura. "You could make them yourself for fifty cents at the 1964 World's Fair." "We've travelled in...time?" said Lizzy, incredulously. "Only one way to find out." New York City, Summer 1964. Carrying her daughter, Laura Connor stepped out into the early evening sunshine, blinking at its unexpected brightness. As her eyes cleared so she saw where she was. There before her stood the yellow and white plastic structure housing the Continental Circus. It was the World's Fair. They had gone back in time almost forty years! "Good evening, Mrs Connor," said Solomon, "I hope you found what you were looking for inside the Carnival of Mirrors?" "Oh yes!" said Laura "You do know what happened to us, right?" "Of course I do. I know who you both used to be, and I know who you are now. Past, present, and future don't mean the same to me as they do most other people."" "Wait!" said Laura. "Did you just called me *Mrs* Connor? Does that mean I'm...married?" "Widowed," said Solomon. "Jack Connor was a foundry worker. He died two years ago in an industrial accident. The worker's comp from then has almost run out, and you're supporting yourself as a typist. You told me all this when we chatted briefly before you and little Lizzy here entered the tent." "What happened to the people whose bodies these were? Are they in our bodies now?" "No, that's not the way the Carnival of Mirror works, except in rare instances," said Solomon. "A string of body swaps can be hundreds long before the circle closes." "So the original Lizzy could still be a child, wherever she is?" said Laura. "She almost certainly is, though possibly a year or two older," said Solomon. "Anyway, enough talk. You took the afternoon off work to show your daughter the Fair, so you'd probably best be doing that before it's past her bedtime." "You're right," said Laura, surprised by how calmly she was taking all this, how quickly she was adapting. Impulsively, she kissed Solomon on the cheek. "Thank you so much for this." "I am but the servant of the Carnival of Mirrors," he replied, "but it was my pleasure." "There's one thing I need to know before we go," said Laura. "Can we affect anything we know is going to happen in the next few years? Can we alter the future?" "Not in any major or significant way, no," said Solomon. "You can affect your own life and those of people around you so long as this doesn't affect the larger picture. But when it gets down to it you'll probably find you don't want to." As they turned to leave, he touched Laura's shoulder to stop her. "My newspaper," he said, holding it out to her, "it might help you get your bearings." Holding Lizzy's hand, and walking slowly enough she could keep up, Laura set off for Meadow Lake Bridge, stopping at a park bench near it to sit down and check out the newspaper. Lifting Lizzy on to the bench beside her, she unfolded the newspaper and the two of them studied it avidly. It was the 'New York World-Telegram' and according to the date today was Tuesday July 28th, 1964. "Two months and thirty-seven years ago," muttered Lizzy. "I remember where I was that day." "While I won't even be born for another twenty-two years," said Laura. One of the lead stories concerned race riots over the past three nights in Rochester, in upstate New York. According to the report: 'Officials are at a loss to understand what caused the riots. Rochester has the lowest unemployment in the whole state, and the city fathers have been promoting racial harmony for years.' The background to the story mentioned that President Johnson had signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law on the second day of this very month, watched by Dr Martin Luther King, while on the eighteenth thousands had taken to the streets and rioted in Harlem. "I remember learning about this stuff at school in history class," said Laura. "I remember hearing it on the nightly news," said Lizzy, wistfully. Turning to the international news section, Laura came across a report that really hammered home the fact they were in the past: CHURCHILL LEAVES PARLIAMENT FOR FINAL TIME 'British wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill, now 89 and frail, made his final appearance in Parliament yesterday after a lifetime of service to his nation and to the world.' "Winston Churchill is still alive, now?" Laura said, amazed. "Wasn't he, like, ancient history?" "'Ancient History'?" said Lizzy, appalled. "He dies next year, has a big state funeral and everything. Twenty-one years before you were born is *not* 'ancient history'." "Whatever," shrugged Laura, flipping through the rest of the newspaper before dumping it in a trash basket. "OK," she said, standing and lifting her daughter off the bench, "let's check out the rest of the Fair." It felt so strange to be a 23 year old woman. Clearly, it would take time to get used to, time to fully emotionally absorb the fact of that transformation, but it could wait. She was at the 1964 World's Fair! For Laura, for now, that was a far bigger deal. They crossed over the bridge to the section of Flushing Meadows Park (the 'Corona' had not been added to the name yet) that housed most of the World's Fair, pausing on the far side to take it all in. It was bizarre that what had been mostly open ground only an hour ago should now be filled with so many buildings. But then an hour ago it had also been four decades in the future. In 2001, only a few fragments of the Fair remained, but here it was in all its glory, complete and teeming with people: 140 pavilions on 646 acres. Most of them were for US commercial companies, but there were also 21 state pavilions and 36 foreign pavilions. It was the dawn of the space age, with the Mercury program complete and the manned Gemini flights still a year away, and the Fair's theme was 'Man in a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe.' "Let's see what we can find," said Laura, smiling down at Lizzy Over the next few hours, they went on various rides, went to see the animatronic Presidents in the Disney pavilion that would be shipped to California for re-use in Disneyland after the Fair was over, and generally enjoyed themselves. Emerging from the General Motors pavilion, where the Futurama exhibit had featured a huge machine rolling through the jungle, lasers cutting down trees, leaving a completed road already with traffic, they sat down at a bench outside to rest their tired feet. Watching Laura massaging her ankles, Lizzy said: "You've done pretty well in those heels. But then you've had a lot of practice, haven't you?" "Don't start on me," said Laura. "I'm the adult now and I'm not frightened of you anymore. Yes, you're right. When you caught me in my room wearing Mom's old clothes last year it wasn't my first time. So yeah, I *am* pretty good in heels." "I guess this must be a dream come true for you, this transformation?" "Damn straight," said Laura, "it's my deepest desire come true. Not that I'd expect you to understand that." "You'd be surprised," said Lizzy. "Oh yeah? Then why'd you start laying into me after that like you did? You've always been too quick to use your hands, but this last year was a living hell!" Lizzy lowered her eyes. To Laura's surprise, she looked almost ashamed. Then she looked up at Laura, opening her mouth to speak. Whatever it was she was about to say died in her throat as an altercation broke out between a father and son sitting on the bench next to theirs. "That's it!" said the father, angrily tearing the comic book from his son's hands and tossing it into a nearby trash basket. "I didn't spend my hard-earned cash getting us in here so you could spend all your time reading that damn comic book!" "But, Dad...!" protested the son, who appeared to be about 7 years old. "Don't you talk back to me, boy!" snarled the man, landing an open- handed blow on the back of his son's head that knocked him off the bench, sending him sprawling onto the path. Standing up, he hauled the boy to his feet and stormed off, dragging his son behind him. The boy did not cry, though Laura could see he was only suppressing his tears through an effort of will. Horrified by what she had just witnessed, she turned back to her daughter, who was sitting there wide eyed, the colour having drained from her face. "Lizzy...?" said Laura. "What is it?" "The comic," she replied. "Get the comic book. Please." Shrugging, Laura lifted the comic from the basket. It was '80 Page Giant No. 1', a SUPERMAN Annual "featuring Superman's Most Fabulous Imaginary Adventures!". The cover was divided into four panels featuring four different situations: 'If Superman Had Turned To Crime'; 'If Superman Couldn't Save The World; If The Kents Had Adopted Supergirl'; and 'If Superman Retired'. Laura handed it to Lizzy, who held it in trembling fingers studying it for a moment before hugging it to her chest. "Can we go home now, please?" she asked. "Sure," said Laura, both puzzled and concerned, "it's past time someone your age was in bed, anyway." Lizzy barely looked up from the comic book during the entire subway trip to Brooklyn, alternately hugging it and staring at the cover for long minutes. "Anything you want to tell me?" said Laura. "Not yet," replied Lizzy. Their apartment, when they finally reached it, was a four room, fourth floor walk-up. The shower and toilet were shared with others living on the same floor. The arrangement struck Laura as almost third-world, but their apartment itself was surprisingly neat and clean. Sitting on the sofa in their tiny living room, Laura faced her daughter. "I think it's time you told me what's going on," she said, gently, "don't you?" Lizzy nodded once, then sighed. "I never thought I'd ever see this again," she said, staring at the comic in her hands, "but here it is." "So you're pleased you now have another copy of it?" said Laura, not quite sure where this was going. "No, not another copy," said Lizzy, "*this* copy." "Omigod, then that means..." "That boy was me, yes. And the man was my father, your grandfather," said Lizzy. "And he had good reason to be mad at me. I'd pestered him for weeks to visit the Fair, but when he eventually gave in and bought tickets for us to go, all I wanted to do was keep rereading this comic book. I'd bought it out of my allowance two days earlier and I was obsessing over it. We lived from day to day and money was tight. So I understand his anger." "You're making excuses for him," said Laura, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Nothing you could've done can excuse him hitting you like that. And I bet it wasn't the only time, was it?" "No, he was right," said Lizzy. "Children need to be kept in line, to be taught how to behave. Like the good book says, spare the rod and you spoil the child." "That's vicious bullshit," said Laura, angrily, "but he certainly succeeded in teaching you how to behave, didn't he? He taught you it's alright to brutalize defenceless children." Lizzy shrank back on the sofa, cringing in the face of Laura's anger. That was when the penny dropped. "That's why you flinched when I first picked you up after our transformation, isn't it?" said Laura, softly. "Now that I'm the adult and you're a small child, you thought I was going to beat you. How could you think that?" "What I did was for your own good," said Lizzy, licking her lips, nervously, "but I knew you didn't see it that way, that you couldn't until you grew up, married, and had kids of your own. I thought you'd want payback." "No, I don't," said Laura. "If child services ever found out how much you were beating me you'd have been locked up, but I never wanted that. Like most other abused children I didn't want my parent taken away; I wanted him to stop abusing me." "It wasn't abuse!" protested Lizzy. "It was for your own good, and done out of love!" "Really?" sneered Laura. "Love, huh? So why the escalation since you found me in Mom's clothes? Where was the love and understanding there? How was that for my own good?" "Standing there like that, you were the spitting image of your mother," said Lizzy, in a small voice. "For a moment it was almost like Beth had come back to me, but only for a moment. It was sacrilege for you to do that, and I...I couldn't forgive you for it. I had to beat it out of you, force you to be a man for your own good, but maybe I overreacted. Maybe I was harsher than I should've been..." "'Maybe'?" said Laura, incredulously. "Grandpa really did a number on you when he raised you, didn't he?" "Your grandfather was a good man," shouted Lizzy, "doing what had to be done the best way he knew how! He was right to beat it out of me, and I was right to try and beat it out of you. It was the only way. It had to be done." "Beat it out of *you*?" said Laura, a chill running down her spine. "Are you saying what I think you are?" "The third story," said Lizzy, voice thick, handing her the comic book. "Reading it for the first time changed my life." Laura flicked through the comic and found the story, which featured Superboy. Then she knew. "'The most freakish twist of fate imaginable'", she read out loud, "'changes the Boy of Steel into a Lass of Steel when Clark Kent becomes...Claire Kent, Alias Super-Sister!'" "Dad caught me when I was thirteen," said Lizzy, "but that story was where it started. Reading it gave me a strange feeling in my stomach I didn't understand, a sort of recognition mixed with fear and excitement. It wasn't too long after that I started dressing in the clothes your grandmother left behind when she abandoned us. I kept this from Dad. Even at that age, I somehow knew he'd go nuts if he ever found out, and he did." "I can imagine," said Laura, remembering the scene in the park. Her grandfather had died before she was born. Having now seen him in action, she doubted they would have liked each other. "Grandad was a violent bully," she said. "Did Mom know? About you?" "She guessed somehow," said Lizzy, "but it was never a problem. There was serenity to Beth, a deep, calm center. Your mother always accepted everyone as they were. She was totally non-judgmental when it came to their, ah, foibles." Lizzy was silent after this, staring into space thoughtfully. Laura could have pressed her further, but decided this was enough for now. They had made progress, had started to clear the air between them. No point in pushing things too fast. Tomorrow was another day and, for now, there was a more pressing matter to attend to. "It's way past time you were in bed, young lady," she said. "You're a four year-old now, and that body of yours needs its sleep." Lizzy nodded wordlessly, and Laura noticed for the first time how thoroughly exhausted her daughter was. She did not say anything when Laura picked her up but instead nestled into her mother's shoulder as Laura carried her through to her tiny bedroom. It was a small moment of physical affection between them, something Laura had hardly ever known when they were father and son, and she treasured it. Lizzy endured Laura stripping off her clothes and putting her pyjamas on her without protest, now looking very sleepy indeed. Hardly had Laura finished placing her in bed between two large stuffed animals and pulling the sheets over her than she was asleep. After watching her sleeping daughter for a while, and struggling to come to terms with the raft of conflicting emotions she felt towards that small figure, Laura sighed and headed back to the living room. As she did so, there was a knock on the apartment door. She opened it to a young woman about the same age and size she now was (though not as pretty, she noticed, feeling vaguely ashamed she had automatically made the comparison). "Hi, neighbour," said the woman, sweeping past her. "I've got that book and lesson tape you wanted to borrow." "Oh, uh, thanks," said Laura. She was a neighbour, and from the casual way she had entered the apartment, clearly a friend of the original Laura Connor, but who *was* this woman? "The shorthand course?" she said, taking Laura's puzzled expression as a sign she had forgotten about this. "So that you can get out of the typing pool? And maybe even get to be the personal secretary of that dishy boss of yours? Honestly, Laura, you look as if you're a million miles away." "Oh, sorry," said Laura, taking the package from her. "Can I get you a coffee?" "You sure can," said the woman, seating herself on the sofa. "Then I'll show you the pictures of the twins I just got back from the developers." In the kitchen, Laura put the kettle on then examined the package she had been handed. There was a mailing label on it, and a name: Mary Cochran. It was addressed to the apartment next to this one. Inside was a well-thumbed paperback book and a reel-to-reel tape. Laura had seen these in old movies but had never handled one herself. It looked a lot more cumbersome and impractical than a cassette tape. Not knowing how Mary took her coffee, Laura brought it on a tray along with a bowl of sugar and jug of milk for her to add herself if she wanted, and carried it through to the living room. Mary had lit up a cigarette without asking and was contentedly puffing away. A definite social no-no in 2001, this was yet another sign the past was a different world. Laura put the tray down on the low table in front of the sofa and sat down beside Mary, who pulled a set of photographs from her handbag, and began excitedly showing them to Laura. "I know Peter and Alan aren't identical twins," she said, "but sometimes I can't resist dressing them in matching clothes." The boys were just over a year old and, thought Laura, smiling at the photos, just totally adorable. "Oh, they look so cute!" she cooed. "Well, they are now they're asleep," said Mary, wryly. "Though if they do wake up, these walls are so thin I'll know immediately." During the hour or so they chatted, Laura was able to glean the information that Mary was an unmarried single mother, a state frowned upon in these less enlightened times and one which left her socially isolated. Laura was pretty much her only friend, the two women having bonded over their single parent status when Laura had moved into this apartment after her husband's death. The children were the result of Mary's affair with a man who later decided he was gay. He gave her money, enough to keep the wolf from the door, but things were still tight. She supplemented her income by offering day care to other working parents in this and several adjacent apartment buildings, all of whom left their toddlers with her while at work. Her rates were the cheapest around because, like her, most of those who lived in these apartments could not afford to pay what others asked. It was Mary with whom Laura left Lizzy when she went off to work every morning. Laura liked Mary. Despite her circumstances, she was determined to do the best she could for her sons, to do whatever it took to make sure they got a better start in life than she had had. Laura could easily see why her predecessor and Mary had bonded. When she was finally alone, Laura stepped into her bedroom and stood before the full-length mirror on her closet door. Stripping her clothes off, she finally got to thoroughly examine her new body. Cupping her breasts she gently stroked her nipples, pleased by how they responded, before moving her hands down across her belly and around to her now curvaceous buttocks. It was not a perfect body, not a model's body, what with it's less than flat stomach and those faint stretch marks obviously resulting from Lizzy's birth, but it was still pretty good. Laura was thrilled with it. She was undeniably pretty, and that raven- dark hair was styled identically to how Jackie Kennedy wore hers. It would mean wearing large rollers in bed to maintain, she knew, but that was OK. There were all manner of feminine maintenance techniques she would have to master if she intended to make the most of her charms, and she did. Laura's fingers strayed towards that downy cleft where her legs met, probing for her clitoris...then stopped. Tempting as it was, and Laura could feel herself getting wet at the thought of pleasuring herself, she knew she had to put off that particular piece of personal exploration. There was still too much she needed to learn if she was going to be prepared for her job tomorrow. Sighing regretfully, she opened the bedside table and rummaged through the documents it contained. Tomorrow was a test, and she had studying to do. Laura woke early the next morning, momentarily confused at first, then grinning as she remembered what had happened the previous day. After showering, she took her time dressing and applying make up before waking Lizzy. "Time to get up, sleepyhead," she said, peeling back the bedclothes. Lizzy grumbled, but she allowed herself to be carried down the hall to the communal facilities where Laura washed her. Over breakfast, they discussed the coming day. "I spent a while going through Laura Connor's papers and diaries last night," said Laura. "I found a pay slip that gives the address of the place where I work and a photo of me and the other girls in the typing pool taken at last year's office Christmas party with their names pencilled on the back. From stuff written in the diary, I think I've figured out who I'm most friendly with, and also some gossip about them." "Do you think you can do the job?" asked Lizzy, spooning oatmeal into her mouth. "Copy-typing?" said Laura. "It should be a cinch. Only girls learned how to type back here, but with almost every job in the twenty-first century requiring computer skills, my high school made sure every student, male or female, knew their way around a keyboard. You never noticed, but I'm a pretty damn fast typist. How about you? Think you can play a four year-old for the day with all the kids next door?" "I'll have to," said Lizzy. "It's not as if I have any choice, after all. I've got to get it down, and soon, too." After dropping Lizzy off with Mary Cochran, Laura took the subway into Manhattan. She sat in her seat with her purse on her lap and knees pressed together, acutely self-conscious; surreptitiously scanning her fellow passengers to see if any of them noticed anything out of the ordinary about her. Apart from a few appreciative glances from several young men and one woman, most of them ignored her, concentrating instead on their newspapers and books, or just staring out the window. Mini skirts would be arriving soon. She wondered how much more attention she would attract then. The law firm Laura worked for was located on the third floor of a building in downtown Manhattan. Stepping out of the elevator, she was greeted by a plump, friendly looking young redhead. "Morning, Laura!" smiled the woman. "Good Morning, Jean," replied Laura, recognizing her from the Christmas photograph. As she had planned and hoped, Laura was the last of the typists to arrive for work and so was easily able to spot which must be her desk in the typing pool, all the others being occupied. Next to the typewriter, a Smith-Corona, was a tape-recorder. Next to this was a small pile of early (and very large) cassette tapes. Making a sandwich of two sheets of white paper and one of carbon paper, Laura fed this into the typewriter. Donning the headphones and pushing the first cassette into the recorder, she began to type. The first few hours flew by and the mid-morning coffee break, when it arrived, came almost as a surprise. "Your turn to make coffee for the partners," said Jean. Sighing, Laura made her way to the small, galley-style kitchen she had seen earlier and made the requisite number of coffees. Having been paying close attention all morning, she had figured out there were four partners, all of whom had just gone into a meeting in the firm's small conference room. With four coffees, a bowl of sugar, jug of milk, and plate of cookies, on her tray, she knocked on the door and carried it through to them. Three of the partners were middle-aged or older, greying and crusty, but the fourth - Arthur Aldrich - was in has early thirties. From her diary, it was obvious that Laura's predecessor had had the hots for Arthur. She could see why. He was very good looking. "Thank you, Laura!" said Arthur as she laid the tray down on the conference table. He gave her a dazzling smile, his gaze lingering on her just long enough for Laura to realize he had more than just a professional interest in her. Laura returned to her desk feeling oddly hot and flustered, something the other girls noticed instantly. "Looks like Mr Aldrich give her the eye again," grinned Jean. "Sure do," laughed Gloria, a middle aged black woman. "So you going to go out with him if he asks you?" "I haven't given it any thought," said Laura which, since she had only just laid eyes on Arthur Aldrich for the first time, was entirely true. "Ain't given it no thought?" hooted Gloria. "Why, you a liar, Laura Connor!" The other girls all joined in with the chuckling. Clearly, her predecessor's interest in her boss had been no secret to them. "Yes, well, he has to ask me first," said Laura, somewhat defensively. "Oh he will, no doubt about that," said Jean. "The man's just been trying to work up to it. He'll ask you soon, mark my words, and you'd better know what your answer's gonna be before he does." The rest of the day was busy but uneventful, Laura concentrating all her attention on her work and trying not to think about Arthur Aldrich. She mostly succeeded; greatly helped by the fact she never caught sight of him again that day, something she was nevertheless disappointed by. She left work at the end of the afternoon tired, pleased she had got through it without tripping up, and confused by her feelings towards Arthur Aldrich. Dating him had been her predecessor's fantasy not hers, yet she could not deny she was attracted to him. "And how was my little girl?" asked Laura, picking up Lizzy when she arrived back at her apartment building. "A lot quieter than usual," said Mary. "Lizzy's always a real chatterbox, but she hardly said anything all day. She really helped me with some of the younger kids, though. She played with them and kept them happy while I was seeing to the older ones." "Well good for you," said Laura, giving her daughter a kiss on the cheek. "I'll see you again tomorrow, Lizzy," said Mary. "Bye bye." "Wave bye bye, baby," grinned Laura, and Lizzy did so, somewhat half- heartedly. Carrying Lizzy into their apartment, Laura put her down on the sofa and regarded her thoughtfully. "Well, it appears someone did a good deed today," she said. "Hey, I like kids," shrugged Lizzy. "You could've fooled me," said Laura, raising an eyebrow. "Oh, don't start," said Lizzy, exasperation in her voice. "Why not?" said Laura. "Did Mary find it necessary to beat any of the children in her care?" "What...? No, of course not," said Lizzy. "So why was it necessary to beat me? Was I really so much worse than any of them?" Lizzy stared at her for a moment then dropped her gaze, looking almost ashamed. Laura sat down beside Lizzy and put an arm around her daughter. "Now that I've seen how grandpa treated you as a child, I understand," she said, gently. "It's not all your fault. He has to take some of the responsibility for screwing you up as a child." Lizzy looked up at her, eyes brimming with tears. "I thought it was my fault," she said, voice trembling, "that I deserved the beatings he gave me, but I didn't. I thought if he loved me then what he was doing to me he was doing for my own good. Even through it all, I loved him and I idolized him because he was my Dad and that's what boys do." She was crying softly now, stifled sobs shaking that little body. Laura gave her another quick hug, filled with sympathy for her but remaining silent, knowing this was what the moment demanded, that Lizzy was almost there. "He shouldn't have done what he did," sniffled Lizzy. "He was a...a bully...and he was a bastard!" And then she was clutching Laura and wailing openly, a small child now in more than just body, seeking the solace that only a mother's arms could give her. Laura comforted her in a way that could never have happened when they were both male, stroking her hair and rocking her gently. This had not been a sudden breakthrough for her, she knew. No, Lizzy had been wrestling with this stuff since their argument the previous day, had been forced into confronting it by that and by the shock of their new situation. "There's something I don't understand," said Laura, when Lizzy's sobs had subsided. "If you were...like me, why weren't you happier about your transformation? Wasn't it a dream come true?" "It was a dream I thought had been beaten out of me," sniffed Lizzy, "a dream I'd buried so deep I'd managed to convince myself it wasn't even there any more. When the switch happened and all those feelings came rushing back, feelings my father had made me believe were wrong, it was too much for me. Along with becoming a child again and going back in time, I couldn't handle it. I was just in shock." "And now?" "Now? Now I think maybe things are going to be alright. I thought a terrible mistake had been made when you ended up the adult and me the child, but I think maybe the Carnival of Mirrors got it right after all. You've been far more understanding and sympathetic through all this, far more 'adult' than I think I could have been in your place. How did you get so wise, anyway?" "I guess I must've got it from my mother," said Laura, wryly. "Yeah, got that right," said Lizzy, ruefully, "'cos you couldn't have got it from me." Laura laughed. "More seriously," said Lizzy, "how was your first day at work? Did you do OK?" "I think so, yeah," grinned Laura. "And I think my boss, Arthur Aldrich, is working up to asking me out?" "Your...boss?" said Lizzy, staring at her wide-eyed. "And you want to date him?" She looked stunned. "Yeah, why not?" said Laura, defensively. "I'm a grown woman now, and he's really hot! Do you have a problem with that?" "No...no, I was just surprised, is all," said Lizzy, regaining her composure. "Arthur Aldrich. Yes, I think you *should* accept if he asks you out on a date, I really do." Laura had expected more of an argument from her daughter, not this sudden and unexpected capitulation. Since their transformation, Lizzy had confounded most of her expectations, usually for the better. "You know, for the first time I really do think this is all going to work out," said Laura. "One way or another, I'm sure it will," said Lizzy, quietly. New York City, Fall 2001 As George Miller pushed past him in pursuit of his son, Solomon turned to see the woman who had pointed Miller to the tent, walking over to him. Grey-haired but stylish, she was wearing an expensively-tailored pale green silk trouser suit and she could have passed for someone in their early fifties despite, he knew, being a good ten years older. She had an apprehensive expression on her face, as if uncertain of what reception to expect from him. "Hello, Mrs Aldrich," he said, smiling at her. "You recognize me?" she said, clearly surprised. "Of course. I always recognize everyone who's ever been judged by the Carnival of Mirrors. Would you care for a seat?" "Thank you," she said, taking his place on the stool next to the entrance. "When you reach my age, standing for long periods isn't so easy anymore." "Do you mind if I smoke?" she said, taking her cigarettes from her purse. "Please do," said Solomon. "My one remaining vice," said Laura, lighting her cigarette and inhaling appreciatively. "I started smoking soon after my son was born. I always meant to quit but somehow never managed to." She blew a long stream of smoke, and regarded Solomon thoughtfully. "I had to be here," she said, "to see my father and myself step into the Carnival of Mirrors, to see the circle close. Hard to believe today first happened for me almost forty years ago." "Were you at all tempted to try and stop them from entering?" asked Solomon, curiously. "Lord, no!" said Laura. "Even with all that followed, even with that heartache and pain, the good still far outweighed the bad." "You don't regret suddenly becoming eight years older, losing prime years of your life you'll never get back?" "No, I don't. I mean, yes, I'd really appreciate having those years back now, but it was a fair price to pay to become who I wanted to be and living a life I never otherwise would've had. The only thing I ever really regretted was not having the girlhood my daughter got." "So how was that life?" asked Solomon. "Was it everything you hoped it would be?" "No," said Laura, "but then no life ever is, is it? Yet on balance it was a good life, a happy life. And it's not over yet. With any luck, I've still got another twenty years in me. Time enough to find happiness again." "Again...?" said Solomon. "Then does that mean...?" "My husband passed away two years ago," replied Laura, voice tinged with sadness. "He was ten years older than me, and I suppose it was a blessing he went quickly and didn't suffer too much, but after more than thirty years together I was devastated by his death." "I'm very sorry for your loss," said Solomon. "My deepest sympathies." "You pick yourself up and you carry on," said Laura. "It's either that or you curl up and die. Six months ago I met another man - this time five years younger than me - and we've been dating ever since. Ironically, he works for the same downtown brokerage firm as my father, as George Miller. We're flying out tonight to see my son and his wife and my three grandchildren - hard to believe the eldest is twelve already - to announce our engagement." "It's good you'll be getting out of the city for a few days," said Solomon. "What about your daughter?" "So you don't know everything about transformees," said Laura, taking a lengthy drag on her cigarette. "I had wondered. My daughter is dead. She passed away in the 1980s." "Again, my deepest sympathies," said Solomon, gently. "Those first few years after Arthur and I got married were the best," said Laura, wistfully. "I had a new baby, a husband who loved me, and Lizzy had settled into her new life and seemed content. She was the kindest, most loving daughter anyone could've wished for. I was a young mother with a perfect young family and for the next seventeen years I couldn't have been happier. That all changed when my daughter brought home her boyfriend to meet us and announced they were getting married. I was totally horrified. I felt my entire world flip over in that instant and things took on whole new meanings. I now knew what that look on her face when I told her I was going to date Arthur had really meant, along with her deciding as a teenager she now wanted to be known by a different short form of her name, of 'Elisabeth'. When she announced she wanted to be called 'Beth' I thought she meant it as a tribute to my mother. I never realized what it truly meant until she introduced my father as her fiance. But then, how could I have ever possibly guessed my father and my mother were the same person." "And she went into it knowing she would die giving birth to you," said Solomon, quietly. "Yes," said Laura. "She'd known it since first hearing Arthur's name. She'd only met Mom's parents a couple of times, and so didn't recognize her mother-in-law in the 23 year-old I was then, or remember Mom's original surname, but she did know the name of her stepfather, the name she took later. Come to that, Dad didn't recognize me as Beth's mother just now, when I directed him to this tent." "So from the time she was a little girl, Beth knew her fate, how and when she would die?" mused Solomon, thoughtfully. "Yes," said Laura. "I can't imagine how you go through life with that knowledge, but somehow she did. She had years to think about it, years to decide what she would do when she eventually met George Miller, and whether or not to choose a different path. I've given it a lot of thought since, and I've come to the conclusion she decided early on not to change anything. I think knowing her fate, making peace with it, is what gave Mom the serenity Dad told me about. I wish I could have felt the same. The whole thing tore me up. I came close to having a breakdown over it." "You did nothing and you felt terrible guilt about it," said Solomon. "Of course. Despite how we had started out, ours grew to be a true mother/daughter relationship. Beth was my daughter and I loved her as much as every mother loves their child, loved her far more than I had ever loved my father. Knowing that marrying him meant she would die was almost more than I could bear, yet if she had decided to do this, to do nothing to change what had happened, how could I dishonour her by doing any different? That's what I told myself, anyway, but if she didn't marry him then I'd never have been born so was this just self-interest winning out over maternal instinct? I don't know, I truly don't. So I did nothing. We broke contact with her and stayed away as Mom's parents had. After...after Beth's death, could I have re-entered George Miller's life, I wonder, maybe prevented him from beating on my grandson, on me, the way I knew he would? By doing nothing, was I an accessory in my own abuse?" "You're being too harsh on yourself," said Solomon. "Your daughter knew the fate that awaited her yet she chose it willingly, and she did so out of love for you. She knew her death would bring you into the world and, I'm sure, saw it as penance for how she treated you as your father. She would have wanted you to act no differently than she did. You were stuck in a time loop. If you deviated from what you knew was to come, it could've unravelled what had already been. She understood that as well as you did, and I think her sacrifice balances the scales, don't you?" "But they didn't need balancing!" said Laura. "I'd long since forgiven her for what she did as my father. We couldn't have had the mother/daughter relationship we did if I hadn't. Really, I gained far more in letting go of my anger than I ever would have if I hadn't." "You'd forgiven her," said Solomon, "but perhaps she had never forgiven herself. Do you think that's possible?" Laura nodded, face sad. "The time loop finally closed today when you and your father entered the Carnival of Mirrors," said Solomon. "Now you can move on. Once again, for you, the future is an unwritten book. Honour your daughter's memory by grabbing all that life has left to offer you." "Thank you," said Laura, taking a last drag on her cigarette before stubbing it out and rising to her feet. "Talking to you has been a great comfort to me." "Don't you want to stay and meet the new George and John Miller?" said Solomon. "The new inhabitant of a body enters it the same instant the old one vacates it, so they should be stepping out of the tent any minute now." "No, I don't think so," said Laura. "Whoever they are they have no connection to me. Those are their lives now. I hope they make a better job of them than we did." "I understand," said Solomon, holding his hand out. "It was good to see you, Laura. You be sure you and your fiance don't miss your flight tonight, OK?" "We'll take extra care to make sure we don't," said Laura, shaking his hand. "Goodbye, Solomon. It's been a real pleasure seeing you again after all these years." Watching her retreating figure, Solomon sat down, picked up his newspaper and sighed. He understood the dilemma Laura Aldrich had faced over her daughter's fate and had sympathised with it more than she would ever know. Like her, he was stuck in a time loop, but his was much larger than a mere four decades. For Solomon, past, present, and future were meaningless distinctions with no relation to how he experienced time. For him the time loop was thousands of years in size. For him what was about to happen had always already occurred. For him, the only thing that remained forever a mystery were his own origins, who he really was and how he came to be in this position. He had told Laura that while she could alter things in her own life she could do nothing to affect the larger scheme of things. That same stricture applied to Solomon himself, and knowing what was coming while being unable to change it was one of the hardest parts of the curse tying him to the Carnival of Mirrors to deal with. It never got any easier. It wasn't any easier this time. He glanced at the date on his newspaper again and let out another long sigh: September 10th, 2001. Solomon would be closing up the Carnival of Mirrors tonight. By morning he would be long gone. The End. Notes: After the plot for this one came to me, I figured out a timeline working backwards from the present and realized the 1964 New York World's Fair would suit my purposes nicely. I researched it on the web, borrowing liberally from the anecdotes of those who were there. At the same time, it also occurred to me I could work the 1964 80 Page Giant SUPERMAN Annual in there. It's dated August 1964, which means it actually appeared on newsstands three months earlier and would've still been on sale at the time that section of the story occurs. I acquired a dog-eared old copy of this many years ago. The Carnival of Mirrors is *A NEW OPEN UNIVERSE*. The 'rules', somewhat modified since they appeared at the end of the first story, CARNIVAL OF MIRRORS: FOUR FATES, follow below. The two person arrangement I use in this story was the result of me belatedly realizing that, of course, people are just as likely to navigate a mirror maze in pairs as alone. There's a new rule added that reflects this. 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. 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, 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 the first 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, as happens in this one. Also, though the first one is centred around the Carnival of Mirrors, for the reason already stated, usually 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. 6. The level of language and or other skills or memories a new arrival acquires along with their new body is up to you. I see no reason for a hard and fast rule about this. 7. Where two people are in the Carnival of Mirrors together, they will be presented with six choices featuring pairs of people. The switch can only occur when the two people are in contact and one of them touches the mirror. * When I get around to writing it, the next story in this series will probably be: CARNIVAL OF MIRRORS: HERO and will feature a WWII fighter pilot.