May watched the two girl's exit her office and cursed. "Dammit! They didn't have the answer or the item I seek." In front of her a message appeared on her computer, which confirmed that the two mermaids where to be released back into there natural habitat.
Smiling at this bit of news, May began to pull various ingredients from her desk. Within moments she had a full spell working. Chanting words to herself, she began to undo the memory changes she's done to Andrea and Clara. The two would never remember meeting each other, but Andrea would still attend the private school, like Clara, but only when she'd reached an appropriate age. "After all. It is a school for Junior and Senior High School students," May thought to herself.
Next she began to prepare another spell. This one would not take full effect yet, but once it did, Dani and Maria would fail to ever remember their short stay here, plus their previous lives and the arcade. "After all," May thought to herself. "Neither of these girls have what I seek."
Satisfied that the memory modifications where all in place and that all was going according to her plan, May began to meditate, searching the ether for another, preferably within the city, that had come in contact with the arcade. As she sat, her thoughts drifted and she remembers her life before she was ever May and had ever believed in such a thing as magick and shops that could change you.
------
His name is Ben and today the fair is town. The year is nineteen hundred and twenty three and what makes this fair special is that it isn't following the normal pattern that the rest of the fairs do.
Instead of coming in the late summer, this one came in the late spring and to Ben, that means it's special. And even though his mother and father tell him he should act his age and be out looking for a job, Ben would rather spend his time with his friends and go to the fair.
At the age of fifteen, he stands just shy of five foot eleven. With unruly sandy blond hair and brown eyes that hint of mischief, Ben is considered to be one of the brightest in his class, next to his three friends Perkins, Randall and Dale.
And now, unable to find his friends and ducking his father, who wants his help at the store, Ben has snuck off to the fair, because he thinks it's special and could provide a bit of fun.
He spends the whole day there. Riding the rides, taking in the shows, watching the exhibitionist, what his father would call the naughty bits, and rather well enjoying himself. It's only late and when he's tired that Ben begins to feel that maybe he should be heading home. But not before one last bit of fun; the tent that's been closed all day and the signs promise that it has games and such in it that man has never before witnessed.
Scoffing to himself, Ben pays the barker and enters. At first he's not very impressed with what he sees; shooting games, more dunk tanks, a creepy exhibit of supposedly freaks and other nonsense. Ben just about to leave when he sees another sign.
It advertises a fun house combined with a house of mirrors and promises to both delight and scare the person who dares enter as well as change them in ways they could never imagine. As he reads the sign, a barker calls out, "Step right up. See the wonders inside and who knows, you might just see what lurks inside yourself. Step right. Come one. Come all."
Ben grins at this and heads inside. At first it's really fun, but then it starts to get spooky. And as this feeling grows, he thinks that not only is someone watching him, but this same someone is also stalking him in the same way a predator stalks it's prey.
And then he trips. On what, he does not know. All he does know is that he pitches forward toward a mirror. But instead of colliding with glass, he falls through it; much like the same way Alice did in the book Through the Looking Glass. And instead of a fun house, on the other side Ben finds grass damp with dew and the smell of Autumn in the air.
At first he's confused and starts to wander home. Only to find two surprises awaiting him. The first being his home abandoned, as if years had gone by. And as Ben realizes this, he notices that he's made the journey walking on all fours. Closer inspection reveals that's he been turned into a cat, a tabby to be more specific. Alone, scared, Ben begins to wander, wanting only to end the nightmare he, now she, has been forced into.
Years later, after learning she's immortal, Ben by chance stumbles upon a creature that is not quiet human, but not quite animal. Unable to define it, Ben first tries to avoid it, but it calls to him.
Drawn to it, he learns that the creature was at one time a human and like Ben, had also fallen for a trick; only it explains that instead of a fair, it fell for a wandering gypsy show two hundred years earlier. Clearing dying, it begins to teach things to Ben; the first is how to regain some of her humanity.
Humanity regained, Ben adopts the name May and begins to learn the arts of magick from the dying creature. It is only when the creature breathes it's final breath, that May swears vengeance upon those who'd cursed her and the creature before her.
Twenty years later she learns of the Arcade and closer investigation she learns that this is being operated by the same person or persons that had run the carnival eighty years earlier and before that the gypsy shows. Glad that her goal is coming closer to fruition, May begins to spy upon the arcade.
It is only by chance that she learns that her vengeance can only come forth is she finds a specific object. What that object is, she does not know. What she does it that it is connected to a person also effected by the magicks of the arcade.
------
Snapping her eyes open, May smiles as she senses another that has been effected by the arcade and he's right here in the city. A miserable man going by the name of Norton. Standing, she checks her magicks. Seeing that Andrea has already forgotten everything, content to live the rest of her life as the girl she has become, May turns her attention to Clara.
"This one may be troublesome," May thinks as she realizes that Clara is thinking about returning to the arcade, but has already forgot about May, the mermaids Dani and Maria and has also forgotten about Andrea. Shrugging, thinking it's no consequence of hers, May turns her attention to the mermaids.
Already Dani and Maria have healed, both mentally and physically. Forgotten already is their previous life as humans and seeing that they shall be returned to the open see soon, May exits her office.
Standing outside, she mutters something and instantaneously her job position has been replaced with another. Smiling, seeing that everything has been taken care of, she walks toward the tank with Dani and Maria in it. Placing her hand against the glass, she whispers, "I'm sorry for the pain I've caused you," and then begins to mutter another spell.
Before her time speeds up and she witnesses as Dani and Maria are taken from the aquarium, with the help of several irate green peace people, and sent back to the ocean. May smiles as she sees that they take to the water and disappear completely, never to be heard from again.
Satisfied that her harm that she caused the two will be undone, she turns back the clock, taking with her a piece of the future, thus securing that the events turn out as she saw them. Back at the day she first met Clara and Andrea, she closes her eyes and begins to concentrate. Within moments she has the exact location of Norton. Smiling, she mutters another spell and disappears.