"Funny thing about those ideas," he said, "the twin sisters one you suggested? You know, there were these rumors that Katerine had a twin sister. I know where those came from."
"Really?" I said.
"Yes, really, kid. It wasn't a twin... but what it was was someone who claimed to be her. She looked like Katerine--a lot like Katerine--but her signature didn't match, and she didn't know certain things that Katerine would have known. This Medallion of Zulo... now that I can see what it does it's obvious that used it and became her."
"Why would someone want to be her back then?"
"Dunno. Maybe the same reason you did. Maybe they thought her death was suspicious and they were investigating. Maybe they were trying to con me out of money."
"I wonder if whoever it is is still around," I said.
"Could be. She'd be the age of someone born in 1949... except that it's easy to use the Medallion to get younger. For all I know she could have had it just before you did. Anyway, it looks like it'll happen again."
"What, you mean we're doing the sisters idea?"
"I most certainly am," he said. "It's a way that I can say I'm related to you and the baby in you, without having to tell anyone that's because of magic. We'll look so similar everyone will believe it. And I don't want us to be husband and wife. You see, you look just like my daughter did. I would never want to be a husband to someone who so much reminds me of my daughter. Even if I transform so we're not related, you'd still look like that to me. It would feel wrong."
"Well... then you'd be pregnant too, unless you want to wait."
"I think I am going to wait," he said. "But I'm going to try the pregnancy too. No reason I can't have two granddaughters."
"Except one's your daughter and one's your niece."
In several days we had everything arranged for my disappearance. I did have to explain it to my parents. They weren't that happy about it, but they couldn't exactly tell anyone else... and they were a little happier when I gave them a parting gift... each one got twenty years younger.
At this point I was nearly four months pregnant. It took some time for McTaber to arrange his affairs. He borrowed the medallion--I got really worried--but he was, fortunately, honest. He returned it in two weeks.
"What was that for?" I asked.
"What, really? You need to figure it out? Let's put it this way. If you're going to get a new identity in this day of computer databases, you need some help from pretty high up. And I needed to pay off all my heirs not to cause trouble. But you know the funny thing is, getting rid of age, like you did for me and your parents... that's a better money than money. It's amazing how cooperative people are when you pay them in years. Come a few months and we're in the equivalent of a witness protection program."
We decided to "disappear" before the birth; he had to keep around only one contact--his doctor. We had already bought and gotten title to a new house and would be living there as sisters once he changed. You might think I was surprised by it and I didn't know what to do but of course that was wrong, since we'd been planning it for months.
"It's 15 hours," he said. "At least it was for Katerine. Plenty of time left."
A little later he called his doctor--the one contact he had to keep around after we had disappeared, and a very old friend of the family who was staying in America at the moment--and then gave me a robe. With difficulty I took off my robe and put on the new one. Then he touched the medallion to the first robe and began turning into me, just as I was. Red hair grew on his head, his face softened, and of course his belly bulged out. Suddenly I had a contraction... and so did he.
"God that hurts," he said in the female voice I had become familiar with during the past months. "It's like I..."
"Please don't say 'swallowed a watermelon,'" I said. "That's so cliched."
"Okay, I won't."
The doctor came over with a midwife, and I found myself having to lie down on a sort of slanted cot. Lord McTaber lay on the other one. One epidural later for each of us, a lot of discomfort despite that, and hours of time, we had both given birth to identical girls.
"We need names!" I exclaimed.
"Hold it, hold it," said the doctor. "You have to rest."
"I know," I said.
In fact, we needed names for ourselves too. Lord Edmund McTaber no longer could that name, of course. He was now Brenda McTudem, a simple anagram. I was now his sister Katerine McTudem. His dead granddaughter had been named Cassandra, so we named our daughters Cassie and Sandra.
We were glad it was all over. We had new lives--him, more years, and me, a fantasy--and were rich. But needless to say this isn't all of the story.