“Eve?” asked Mister Sherman. “Before I comment any further, I have a rather odd question to ask you.”
“Yes sir?” said Eve.
“Is your full name by any chance 'Evelyn'?” asked Mister Sherman.
“Yes, sir,” she answered. “My full name is Evelyn Marie Jones. Why do you ask?”
“Evelyn has always been... a favorite name of mine,” Mister Sherman said slowly. “Does the name 'Evelyn
Campbell' mean anything to you?”
“Not really sir,” replied Eve, frowning a bit and shaking her head. “I guess it sounds vaguely familiar. Like
something from a dream. But it isn't like my visions of you as a boy, or the weird importance the name 'Paul
Hodgson' has for me.”
“Well, let's just say the name 'Evelyn Campbell' has some similar meaning for me,” confessed Mister Sherman.
“She's a kindly old woman, a grandmotherly sort. I know I've never met her. I tried researching her years ago,
and she actually died when I was about fifteen. I'm positive I never met her. But I also know that she really
existed. And... well... just as you say you've had some unusual visions of a younger version of myself, I have
had occasional visions – perhaps just unusually vivid dreams – about the life of Evelyn Campbell. Usually she
is an old woman, but I've had glimpses over the years of all sorts of parts and pieces of her life. It's
almost like I'm a spectator being treated to the memories of somebody else. I'll 'remember' things about
Evelyn as a little girl, as a young woman, as a middle-aged wife and mother, and finally as an old
grandmother.”
“How does this connect with Paul Hodgson?” asked Eve.
“Well,” said Mister Sherman, suddenly blushing a bit and fidgeting nervously. “It's a very long story, Eve.
And it's actually something Paul and I promised never to reveal to anyone. But... well, I somehow feel as
though you deserve to know it.”
“I won't reveal your secrets to anyone, sir,” Eve promised.
“I trust you,” said Mister Sherman with a warm smile. “It sounds crazy, but I have this strange feeling that
you need to know all this. I won't go into all the details, but when Paul and I were teenage boys we began
dabbling in the black arts – magic. I trust that with you, Eve, I don't have to convince you such things
actually exist.”
“No, sir,” said Eve. “I've seen some pretty incredible things already. I believe magic exists in the world.”
“It does,” continued Mister Sherman. “Paul had a book of spells his uncle had given him. We experimented with
some spells, and the consequences were pretty severe. We actually rewrote history and created some wildly
improbable alterations in the very fabric of reality. Oh, it was a mess! Again, I won't go into all the
details, but suffice it to say that in a single afternoon Paul and I changed ourselves, our families, most of
the town, and God knows what else on the planet in a series of bizarre transformations. And each time we cast
a spell, only Paul and myself retained any awareness of the old history and how things had been radically
altered.”
“So this version of reality we're in right now isn't correct?” asked Eve.
“Well, let me finish,” said Mister Sherman. “Things had gotten so badly screwed up that Paul and I knew we
couldn't just leave the world in the state we'd created. So we diligently spent that evening studying – not
experimenting mind you – just reading and researching. I swear that was the longest night of my life! But by
dawn, we had devised a series of reversal spells to put everything right again.”
“Did it work?” asked Eve.
“To the best of our knowledge, it did,” replied Mister Sherman. “Paul then threw the spellbook into the
garbage first thing the next morning, and we vowed never to reveal to anyone what had transpired during that
day.”
“So why are you telling me this now?” asked Eve. “Do you think something happened to me that day that didn't
get corrected by your reversal spells?”
“That's exactly what I suspect,” answered Mister Sherman. “Though I have nothing but a gut feeling to support
that conclusion. I really couldn't say how you fit into this puzzle Eve, but I'm certain that something
happened to you on that day, long ago. You see, it was only after experimenting with the spellbook that I
began to slowly become obsessed with this mysterious Evelyn Campbell person. Before that day, her name meant
nothing to me. In the years since, she has always lurked in the back of my subconscious – a person of great
importance, though I haven't a clue why.”
“What do you suggest, sir?” asked Eve.