A Magician Never Tells His Secrets

Back at the Freak’s camp I got ready for another long day. I helped sweep up the rubbish and prepare the group meals. I went around the camp collecting clothes that needed washing for the performances that night and sent them off with the cleaners to the local Laundromat. I set up some of the carnival stalls and stole a break with Daw and Liam when I was supposed to be helping prepare the popcorn kernels. Daw and I giggled as we went around the back of a van and Liam whipped out his cigarettes. He offered us both one and I declined, though he pushed one into my hands anyway.
Daw asked me to help her with her makeup and I obliged, even though I was sure she knew how to do it herself.
I saw right, she did know, and kept kindly telling me the right way to use an eyelash curler and cheek highlighting powder. I was gracious that she had asked me though, because I knew she just wanted to spend some time with me.
“How was Tori?” She asked as I lightly dusted her face with bronzer. My hand stopped in the motion.
“Alright,” I said with a shrug, picking up her lip-gloss to hide my pause. She didn’t press the matter.
Later as I was pulling my yellow staff shirt over a white singlet I told her my plans for the night.
“I’m going to see Anton’s show at ten-thirty.”
I could feel her eyes on me, but kept mine on my buttons which my hands were suddenly having trouble with.
“You’ll need something nice to wear then,” she answered. “Barry won’t let you in otherwise.”
She lent me an emerald green dress. It was simple, which was what I liked about it. I wore silver flats to my shift that night, carrying the dress under my arm.
When ten o’clock rolled around I found that the crowds were dispersing at my booth. I was lucky because at that time most children were heading home and the carnival was full of adults and teenagers. They knew to buy their tickets in bulk, so the line at my window thinned. I left a sign at my booth, saying where to find the other one. I changed into the green dress in the portable bathrooms, leaving my uniform on the chair of my stall.
As soon as I was out of uniform I found the atmosphere changed. It was that same dark excitement. I was no longer at work. I was at the carnival. I had time to kill before the show, so I went around to the wide tent which was where the Freaks were. Inside was full of people, staring and whispering at the Freaks, who were behind a purple velvet rope.
Daw sat on a stool in a plain black dress, lights shining to illuminate the glittering gold on her nose, eyebrows, lip and neck. She sent smouldering gazes to individual members of the crowd to get their attention, and I felt in awe of her beauty. People were clambering to buy a picture with her.
Liam was next in the line, lying on a bed of nails. He looked completely at ease, propped up on one elbow as he slowly inserted a knife into his mouth. The crowd gasped as he drew it back out again, only after the hilt had disappeared down his throat.
On Liam’s right was the two I had never seen together. Shaoran was with a girl I could only assume to be his sister; wide slanting eyes, black straight hair, white stage makeup over flawless skin. Her face was soft and sweet. This had to be Mayling Shi, the other half of the contortionist duo.
She wore a white leotard with sequins and diamantes studded in swirls along the bodice. Shaoran’s costume was black, with longer legs that weren’t as tight as the lycra his sister wore. Their bodies were twisted in strange, elegant shapes that, while unnatural, also seemed perfectly fluid and simple. They moved so easily it was like shifting their weight from one foot to the other, even while bending over backwards while balancing one-legged on the other’s shoulder.
I winked at Daw, smiled at Liam and nodded at Shaoran, unsure if they were so deeply immersed in their acts to notice me. None of them made any reply; though I saw Daw’s eyes twinkle.
I left at twenty past ten, searching for the rabbit door. I found it easier than I had thought I would and Barry let me in with a nod.
“At last you’re getting your show,” he said to me as I past.
Inside was a small amphitheatre; seats set up in semicircles, rows getting smaller the closer to the stage. The stage was covered by a red curtain. Ethereal music wound through the atmosphere, coming from nowhere in particular. There were small murmurings from the crowd as the nervous and eager spectators waited in rapture. I took an empty seat in a middle row, waiting for the show.
The music died out slowly, and on complete silence the curtains parted and the lights dimmed to extinguishment. My eyes probed the darkness, and I thought I saw a flurry of movement. I squinted, but my eyes could make no shapes.
Finally a light blossomed on the centre of the stage. Anton sat in a stool there, one hand playing with the cards. I shouldn’t have expected him to leave them offstage. I was beginning to think of them as a permanent fixture.
“Good evening,” he said in his quiet, unmagnified voice. There was such absolute silence in the theatre that the sound seemed to boom. The hairs on my arms stood erect.
“My first trick this evening will be making the pearl earrings on the lovely lady in the second row disappear,” he said in a bored voice and he sipped a glass of water. The audience flickered to look at the woman he gestured to, who gasped and stood up.
“My pearls!” She cried, making me flinch. “But – where did they go!?”
Anton smiled a closed-lip smile. His eyes were innocent, but devious at the same time.
“Ask Miss Woodville,” he said simply, nodding to me. I stared at him in panic and he tilted his head at me.
“You’re wearing my pearls!” The woman shouted. I looked around, feeling something move within my hair. I touched my earlobes, feeling the dangly earrings which did not belong to me.
Everyone applauded anxiously as I handed them back to the lady, completely dumbstruck. How did that happen? How did he get those in my ears?
“I would like to welcome my lovely assistant to the stage,” Anton drawled, gesturing to the side of the stage. Tori walked on, wearing a pale pink corset, a white silk wrap-around skirt and a bustle, her hair curly and adorned with a cluster of matching feathers.
The crowd clapped more enthusiastically, seeing a pretty girl with a willing smile.
But I noticed the way Anton looked at her, and it made the tension even tighter. It was the most sarcastic look I had ever seen. His eyes were mocking in their focus. It looked as if he could easily consume her. Twist this beautiful flower into a broken petal. And he wanted to. As the rest of the audience looked back at him the clapping faded quickly. They saw the look too.
“My beautiful doll,” he murmured, placing a thin, pale finger on her cheek and running it over her skin. My own skin erupted in Goosebumps.
He stalked closer to her while she remained still, smiling the same vapid smile. A dove suddenly flew out from behind the feathers on her headpiece, resting on his still raised finger.
After the initial gasp the audience clapped and laughed. Anton enclosed the dove in his hands, which I hadn’t noticed had been card-free. Where had they gone? When he opened his cupped hands the bird was gone. I had a terrible feeling he had killed it, even though I knew he wouldn’t.
“Are you going to cut me in half now?” She asked him with a playful laugh. He smiled back at her with that hungry leer.
“Soon enough my darling.”
My stomach twisted painfully.
The routine progressed; Anton pulling things out of the thin air around him. A white rabbit, a white rose which he pinned to her hair, a white handkerchief. Everything was white, which contrasted to his dark tuxedo. He seemed to turn the rabbit into a kitten, the kitten into a bouquet of posies, the posies into his cards. Finally he asked her to pull up his cupboard, which was a large, ornately carved wooden box, with wheels instead of feet. I saw the hilts of swords sticking out from the sides.
“Now hop inside, there’s a good girl.” He said gently and he pulled out the blades from the wood.
“If you say so,” she chirped. The audience became tense again.
He told her to stand in the cupboard. She hoped in, striking a pose before he shut the doors on her, smirking like a cat that has cornered its bird.
Anton picked up a sword, long and sharp and it swung through the air like a guillotine. He stared quietly at the beam which shone off the metal like another stage-light.
“I’ll invite a member of the audience to hold this,” he said, looking out over the crowd. “Make sure that it’s not a cheap retractable blade.”
Many members of the audience raised their arms. But he pointed at me. I glared as he beckoned me forward. I rose to my feet, clenched fits shaking, and walked towards the stage.
He looked down at me with intense eyes as he handed me the sword.
It was heavy, and my arm drooped, shoulder slumping. He smiled as I handed it back.
“Care to do the honours?” He asked with bright eyes.
I shook my head, feeling dizzy.
He walked away from me, to the other side of the stage, picking up his water from a side-table. I watched the glass touch his soft, rounded lips. He placed it back on the table and swallowed, rolling his shoulders and walking back across the stage. Without a pause in his stride he plunged the sword right back into the wood.
“NO!” I screamed, my arm unintentionally reaching out.
No one even paid me attention.
He picked up another and slid it into the side of the closet. And another. And another. I stared in horror as he dusted his clean hands on his trousers. I still hadn’t moved.
Two stage hands dressed completely in black came out and turned the cupboard on its wheels in a circle, showing where he’d inserted the swords.
After this he started pulling them out again. My heart rate didn’t slow; even though the I could there was no blood on the blades. When he threw open the doors of the cupboard Tori was standing there, grinning like she always did, still in her little pose.
The audience applauded as Tori crossed to the stage, taking a bow with Anton, who kissed her cheek.
I still hadn’t moved.
The curtain closed and the amphitheatre lights rose. The audience got to their feet, muttering with excitement and unease.
I still hadn’t moved.
I saw her walking towards me after the crowds had gone and I felt her placing a hand on my shoulder. I sensed her concerned eyes.
“I’m okay Meg,” she said. “You know; all whole and stuff.”
I gaped at her for a moment, before throwing my arms around her shoulders and sobbing into her neck.
Tori hugged me back as I breathed in her choking hairspray.
“She’s quite alright,” a voice said behind me. I turned to glare at Anton. I knew the game of cat and mouse he played with her. I still didn’t know if it was part of the show or not.
He looked at me, neither smiling nor frowning, his eyes bright.
I turned away.
“I’m going to go take off my costume,” Tori said, wiping away a tear of mine. “But I’ll walk you back to your booth. You’ve only got an hour until it closes up.”
She left me alone with Anton, who still stood behind me. I looked down at my white fists. I could feel his breath on the nape of my neck, even though I couldn’t hear it. It was cold.
“Did you kill it?” I whispered. “The dove?”
The silence was almost palpable. I felt one last cold breath on my shoulder. My eyes closed on their own accord.
“I can’t tell you that Miss Woodville. A magician never tells his secrets.”
He walked off the stage and left me alone.