The next morning, Merlin saw Kellie off to school. He was rather proud that she had found the root of Claudia and Mare Elise's fight so soon. And she was able to reveal her ring and her being from another timeline to her friends without ruining his and Kellie's ability to live in this reality. He hoped that Kellie would be able to mend the bridge between Claudia and Mary Elise. Kellie showed the potential to be a great sorceress someday.
But right now, Merlin had his own work to do. Investigating Samantha's change has been one of the most intriguing adventures he has been on in a very long time. Some would shrug off Samantha's change from a Caucasian girl to a half-Samoan one to be the result of the ripples made when Kellie was plucked from the timestream. But Merlin knew better, he knew that another form of magic was at work here. His biggest lead right now was Samantha's mother, Judy. What Katie and Kellie didn't know yet was that Judy was a conjuration, a person who was constructed by one of their reality-warping wishes. In this case, to be Samantha's mother after she was made into a teen again. This didn't happen all the time. Often enough, someone who was already a family member would become the new parent. But on occasion, these reality changes created a conjuration instead of changing an existing person. But Judy still had a real history and no one who knew would think she was anyone other than Samantha's mother.
But being created by reality-changing magic meant that Judy would drawn towards other magic or vice versa. So Merlin was investigating her along the timeline. His field of search was much narrower than with other people as the change had to be within the past year. The problem was that there were other realities where Judy had acquired magical items that it was hard to tell which one of those items caused the change in this timeline.
On a whim, Merlin decided to check on Judy's husband, Fred Tele. After all, he was Samantha's biological father in this timeline and he definitely passed on his Samoan genes to her. It didn't take too long to find Dave. He has a very successful carpenter job in this timeline. When Merlin spotted him, he was working on an extension to a customer's house. He was certainly everything one would expect from a Samoan: tall, dark-skinned, very muscular, he was also quite handsome. Judy certainly had the envy of plenty of housewives for having a husband who looked like he could be the The Rock's cousin. Add in the fact that he was a loving husband and a good father and he was practically perfect... Maybe a little too perfect.
Merlin did a brief magical scan of Dave. He didn't seem particularly magical on his own, but there was enough of a trace on him to make Merlin suspect that he was a conjuration as well. Which wasn't that much of a surprise. How many Samoans, particularly ones that were almost purebred, would come to this city and settle down with a wife like Judy? Not that Judy wasn't pretty herself, but she seemed to be inordinately lucky here. And since it seemed like Dave might have been conjured to be her dream husband, Merlin had a very good idea of how that could have happened.
Searching the past year for signs of another conjuration was pretty easy and soon Merlin found what he was looking for. He materialized in front of Samantha's house roughly a week before last year's spring break. He walked into the house, completely unseen, unheard, and unnoticed. He walked into the dining room to find Judy sorting through a sizeable pile of mail. "Junk, junk, bill, more magazine subscription offers, junk, junk..." said Judy in a bored tone, flipping through the mail. But one particular envelope managed to catch her attention. It seemed like a regular envelope, though the ink on it was more iridescent. She held up that envelope to look at it before using her letter opener on it.
Inside the envelope was a surprisingly lengthy piece of paper that had quite a few blank lines on it. The top of the paper read 'Dreamboat Maker- List all the ideal qualities you would want in a man and have him delivered to you.'
Judy gave a small snort, "They really expect me to believe this? This looks more like one of those personality quizzes you find in teen magazines. But what the heck, it'll wile away a few minutes." Getting out a pen, she started filling out the paper. "Let's see, first off, husband and family man. How long should we be married? Eh, might as well make it 18 years. Would be a better guy than the one-night stand I had. What type of body? Hmm, I wouldn't mind having someone like Dwayne Johnson around the house. Maybe not quite the same, but definitely cut from the same material. What kind of job? Well, obviously someone who brings in good money, but shouldn't be away from home all the time. He ought to be useful around the house too. Oh, let's make him a carpenter." Judy kept going, filling out the qualities of her dream man. She was going into more detail than she would have expected of herself.
When she finally reached the end of the paper, all that remained was to write her signature. As soon as she wrote her name, Judy asked, "Ok, so now what should I do with this? Who am I supposed to mail this to? Not like I really expect anyone to-" Just then, the paper flew out of her hands and hovered in the air. It started glowing before it grew in size, transforming into a portal.
Out of that portal walked a dazed Fred Tele. He seemed rather confused, as if there were nothing on his mind at all. But as the portal closed behind him, more emotions registered on his face. He smiled at Judy and said, "Hey, my little orchid. What's up?"
Judy was very startled to see a man just appear out of thin air right in front of her. But then her shock was erased as new memories started flooding in. "Oh, just sorting through the mail," said Judy, "How was your day?"
"The Taylors asked me to look at their front door. It's not opening from the outside," said Fred.
"Well, that'd be annoying," said Judy as she went back to sorting through the mail, completely forgetting about the paper she filled out. Fred had been her husband for 18 years now.
The envelope was just about to vanish with the reality alterations when Merlin snatched it up. "Not so fast," he said to the envelope, "I want to know where you came from." But first, he wanted to satisfy his curiosity. Soon, the reality changes will affect the rest of Judy's house. Which means Samantha will altering to match her new father. Merlin went upstairs to Samantha's room to see for himself.
Thankfully, Samantha was not doing anything potentially embarrassing. Merlin might be a little indiscreet with handing out magical objects, but he was no voyeur. Samantha was just sitting on her bed at the moment, talking with her boyfriend on her cell phone. "Oh, I'm sure what we're gonna do about spring break," she said, "I mean, Mom can't spend too much. I mean, I'd like to go on a big vacation, but I think I'd have to wait for summer for that. We can only afford one big trip a year. At least we're still near the beach."
Then Merlin could feel the reality alteration reach this room. The first things that changed were the furniture, going from simple bargain finds to hand-crafted pieces built by her father. The awards she got for track changed into ones for wrestling, including a large trophy for the state finals. The most noticeable changes were to Samantha herself. She grew several inches larger, making her clothes look smaller on her. Her skin color darkened to a mocha color as her muscles started building up. She also got noticeably larger in the breast department as well. Then her clothes started catching up with the reality changes and altered to fit Samantha's body better. Except now she was wearing a tank top to show off her muscular arm and her growing cleavage. Her face also changed a big, getting bigger lips and a broader nose in the Polynesian style, though it hardly made her ugly.
Once the alterations had finished, Samantha continued her conversation, apparently unaware of any changes. "So I'm really looking forward to going boating for spring break. I mean, it's not like we're sailing all the way to Samoa, but it'll be awesome to go along the coast," said Samantha, a lot more animate now. "You're really gonna like this. I'm going to be wearing a new bikini." She laughed at Mike's apparent splutter and said, "Don't worry, my dad isn't gonna kill you. He knows we're not dumb enough to do anything more than kiss."
That was enough for Merlin to see. He returned to the present, having learned much. So it wasn't just Judy who had been created by reality magic. But just because her parents were conjurations didn't make Samantha less real. But it did indicate there was a lot more to her magically. Merlin wasn't sure if she could be a witch, but did have a magical connection that was uncommon. It was certainly interesting that the Dreamboat Maker appeared. Such magical items did not get sent as junk mail by random chance. Someone had sent that magic paper to Samantha's house. When Merlin returned to his home, he studied the envelope, able to see through the illusion placed on it. He raised his eyebrows and said, "Well, well, well."