Mary Thichkiss was born to Edmund and Kathryn Thichkiss 19 years ago. At her
birth, Edmund was an inexperienced businessman struggling to keep a textile
factory afloat on thin margins. Drawing on her knowledge of history, Kathryn,
researched the automated weaving looms invented by Joseph-Marie Jaquard and
told her husband. Having no other ideas at hand, Edmund, built some similar
looms and attached them to steam engines. Before long, the Thichkiss factory
was pumping out fabrics, and the books were well in the black. Edmund and
Kathryn Thichkiss did for the English textile industry what Jaquard had done
for the French textile industry half a century ago, and earned themselves
quite a name in the process.

The long hours her parents spent working Mary left with a great deal of
leisure time to herself. As a child she had a vivid imagination and loved to
read fairy stories and play make-believe with her playmates. As she developed
into a young woman, all her girl friends seemed to abandon their dolls and
storybooks, but not Mary, who still loved to flit about the garden,
re-enacting numerous fairy tales. Left with fewer and fewer playmates, Mary
found a friend in the butler, Wong, a Chinaman with knowledge of the far-East
art of Judo, which she learned from him over the course of numerous sparring
sessions in gardens of the Thichkiss Estate.

Then, one day, something wonderful happened. As she was playing in the garden,
Mary discovered a little water-well with pretty, glistening lights inside.
Curious, she jumped in and after tumbling about in the dark for what seemed
like hours, she arrived in Fantasia. Mary was overjoyed to be able to play
with the Brownies and Pixies, the Wood-Nymphs and Mer-folk and came to visit
every day. One day when she was visiting Fantasia, Mary was invited to attend
a gala feast hosted by the Queen of the Faries, Tatiana. At the feast, Tatiana
walked through the hall, passing out gifts to the atendees and gave Mary a
spellbook of her very own.

All good things must come to an end, though, and so it ended for Mary one
night when a gang of hoodlums raided the Thichkiss estate, breaking windows,
setting fires, and ruining the gardens. The police were baffled, not knowing
whether this heinous act was the work of Luddites, industry rivals, or some
other, unknown enemy. Saddest of all was Mary, who found that her little
water-well had been destroyed, and with it, her passage to Fantasia.

She cried to her parents that her well was gone and sobbed that she would
never see the Fairy-folk again. Her parents and Wong didn't believe a word and
thought she was having a fit. To prove she wasn't lying, Mary attempted to
cast a spell, but found to her dismay that spells just don't work as well in
this world as they did in Fantasia. Her parents were about to send her off to
Bedlam, when at last, in desperation, she cast a spell she had learned and
produced a dazzling display of colorful lights. At that point, Mary gained
some powerful allies who believed in her, and Edmund and Kathryn knew that
they had a very special daughter.

Since then, Mary has been obsessed with finding a way to return to Fantasia
and asked her father to grant an open invitiation to all mystics and
occultists to come to the Thichkiss estate and offer advice on how she might
return. Edmund granted the request, with the added stipulation that she
attempt to discover the identity of his enemies. After all, if Kathryn
Thichkiss could save his business before, perhaps Mary Thichkiss can save it a
second time...