Anna's room had changed when she woke up. It was a little girl's room, with stuffed horses and dolls and other things a 5 year-old would like. Confused, she sat up and looked for Greg. There was a damp spot where he had wet the bed. She giggled, wondering how he had liked waking up to that!
Just then, she heard noises from downstairs. Voices - familiar, but they shouldn't be here now! It was her mom and dad! But.. the room suddenly made sense. She was a little girl, and her parents would be here to raise her again!
She scrambled out of the bed and pulled on some clothes, having a little trouble with the buttons. Her mother was coming up the stairs! "Anna? Where are you, honey?"
Afraid her mother would smell the urine, Anna ran out to greet her mother, who looked way younger now. "Here I am, mommy!"
"I'm going to do some work, so play with your dolly a little while. Then maybe we can go for a walk." Her mother went into the guest room and shut the door.
Anna suddenly remembered the computer program. Had it been left on?
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Her mother scowled at the graphic image of a naked horse-boy - Anna must have been looking on the Internet for horse pictures, and some sicko had this weird fantasy picture on. Well, she didn't want HER little girl seeing such filth!
It was hard to get the picture to go away. She kept having to hit return to clear message boxes - most asking if she wanted to save the current settings. Finally, however, the image went away,a nd she was back at the desktop. Well, she thought. First thing to do was to make sure little Anna could never get to THAT site again. She pulled down the Parental Controls menu and started changing settings.
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Anna felt something happen - nothing changed that she could tell, but after a moment, she realized that being 5 felt perfectly normal. She remembered being a grownup, but parts of it seemed icky. And what about Greg? She felt confused. Was he her husband? Her lover? Her brother? No. The image that came to mind was sort of a horsie, a funny horsie she had seen on the computer. Her thumb slipped into her mouth, and she decided it was too hard to think about. So she did what mommy said and went to play with her dolly.
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Greg shivered as a wave of disorientation swept over him. When it cleared, he still looked like the same horse-freak. Except - there were new memories mixed in with his own. Memories of a Scottish boy named Greg who had slept in a toadstool ring and been transformed by faerie. He remembered every detail of his life growing up on this remote farm in Scotland. Yet he also remembered being a grown man named Greg who had been born, raised, and married in America!
Was Anna doing something else with the computer? He frowned. Part of the new memories revealed that he had slept in the toadstool ring on purpose! He had wanted to be a horse! A handsome draft stallion, like those his family raised. But he didn't want to be an animal! Or did he? Greg felt a desire to seek out the faerie, but he couldn't decide if he wanted to be made a boy again, or finished up into a Shire stallion. It was too hard to think about, and he finally busied himself eating grain.