He turned the knob and prepared to duck down. He found himself face-to-face--sort of, because of the height difference--with the Sydney who apparently had been Brenda. Could he get by her? Rick ducked as Brenda/Sydney moved around and just got past her when he tripped.
Sydney took the opportunity to hold onto Rick's skirt and Rick tried to wrest it out of Sydney's grasp, but as a younger girl, he wasn't able to. Then Brenda/Sydney caught his arm and seemed triumphant until the medallion around his neck touched her.
Horrified, Sydney instinctively raised her hands to push it away, but it was too later.
"No-- you couldn't have!" exclaimed Brenda.
"I couldn't have what?" replied Rick.
"You couldn't have figured it out. But you did."
"Tell me what I did."
"Why would I do that if you hadn't figured it out?"
"Because I'm not trying to hurt you on purpose. I'm trying to save myself. I just need to get you and Susanne back to normal."
"I... I can feel the influence going away. I'm not Sydney, not that Sydney.... I... sure, you should know. It's easy to stop most transformations. Just take the medallion off. But if you touch the medallion to another person, both people change into each other--even though the second person isn't wearing the medallion. You can't stop that second person's transformation by taking the medallion off of them--they aren't wearing it to begin with. They just transform and there's nothing that can be done."
"So when I touched you with the medallion, just for a second, it made you turn into who I am now. With no way to stop it. And I'd be turning into you but I can't since the 12 hours aren't up for me."
"I'm becoming me... not me, half of me. I'm becoming Sydney, but not that Sydney. My essence... Sydney's essence... is being transformed by Zulo too... I am Sydney but not the evil Sydney...." She began to cry as she shrank down to young Sydney.
"Brenda?"
"I'm Brenda... and my daughter... but the evil in her is going. It's some kind of mystic thing, about what happens if Zulo turns old Sydney into young Sydney. Zulo isn't supposed to affect the mind much, but nobody ever tried it with an essence like this...."
"We have to stop the other one, then."
"The same trick won't work. Your wife is still within the 12 hour time limit, so Zulo can't do anything to her." She suddenly cried again. "I don't want an evil me!"
