For two 15-year-old girls in the early 1990s, meeting David Copperfield, the world famous magician, seemed like the thrill of a lifetime.

Carla* says she remembers the way Copperfield gave her his phone number after a 1991 show in Georgia. About two years later in San Francisco, Lily* says, she felt giddy when the master illusionist picked her to join him on stage for a magic trick.

Both girls were in high school at the time and had attended Copperfield’s shows with their parents.

The women, now in their 40s, come from different backgrounds and have never spoken to each other, but they do have one thing in common. They claim the events that followed these encounters changed their lives.