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The Implausible Magician
Placerita Performing Arts Center was little more than a glorified high school auditorium. The seats squeaked, the stage small and poorly lit, and the acoustics less than desirable. Yet it was the largest venue the magician had ever booked, and the crowd didn’t disappoint. Filling the space with a respectable murmur, the audience filtered into the auditorium by the handfuls — families with small children, teenagers on first dates, older couples who had long lost the need for constant conversation. Simon St. Laine watched the performance hall fill from the shadows of the wings, silently amazed that people still turned out to see him. He knew his reputation as a third-rate magician. He’d hosted more than his fair share of children’s birthday parties and played second fiddle to home-grown bluegrass bands at numerous county fairs. His complete lack of talent was shameful, and as he watched the rows fill with spectators, a gnawing realization filled him with a dull anger. Most of these people were here for a comedy show. They were here to see him fail to guess which card the pretty young woman from the second row was holding. They were prepared to giggle at his expense when the rabbit he intended to pull from a hat sneaked out of his coat pocket. They expected to cackle politely behind their hands at his flubbed attempts to extinguish a candle with a single breath at thirty paces.
They were here to be entertained, yes. But they weren’t expecting magic. After all, magic was the one thing he’d failed to deliver time and time again.
Simon St. Laine turned his back to the crowd, straightened his rented tuxedo jacket. He was no bloody comedian.
The house lights dimmed, and a hush descended on the audience. Drawing a final preparatory breath, the magician waited a beat, two beats, before striding out onto the stage, his well-rehearsed grin bright on his face, his shining black cape trailing him with theatrical flair. The audience greeted him with polite applause. The spotlight was too bright for him to make out their faces. He did regret that. Tonight of all nights he wanted to see their expressions.
“I recognize some faces in the audience tonight,” he lied glibly, his smile never warmer, his eyes never brighter. “Thank you all for coming out.” How gave a small bow to demonstrate his appreciation. “Now, because some of you have seen my performance before, you probably expect me to do some card tricks.” He flicked his wrist, and a deck of playing cards appeared in his hand. He fanned them out expertly, gave the audience a good look. “But I’m not going to do a single card trick tonight.”
He swiveled with a flourish and threw the cards across the stage. Halfway through their flight, they blinked into nonexistence. The audience gasped.
“And if you’ve seen this show before,” he continued, “you probably expect me to apparate a pair of love birds, like so.” He reached into this coat pocket and retrieved a silk handkerchief. He shook it a few times and then tossed it into the air where it became not one dove, but two, cooing and ascending into the rafters. The audience was paying attention now, tittering with appreciation. He could feel the energy in the room begin to swell.
“And at last, if you’ve seen a magic show or two before, you probably expect to see something flashy and maybe a little…dangerous.”
He held his left hand out the audience, palm facing out, drew in a breath, and puffed five times as though extinguishing five candles. With each exhalation, a flickering flame appeared on a fingertip, each a different color, until his hand was like a birthday cake boasting green, blue, purple, red, and yellow flames.
His wriggled his fingers. The audience clapped enthusiastically. He shook his hand and the flames went out.
“But I don’t have any tricks like that for you tonight.” The audience groaned in genuine disappointment, and the smile on the magician’s face widened. “No, no, tonight, I have a surprise for you. Something different. I want to share with you a story. It’s a true story. And it took place not too far from where you sit some hundred years ago…”
As he spoke, his assistant walked onto the stage dressed in a Victorian-inspired outfit, complete with bustle, train, and hard-soled shoes whose clicks on the hardwood stage were swallowed by the poor design of the auditorium. She was small and dark, her hair swept up from her face into a fall of black curls, her cheeks and lips painted red as to be seen from the furthest row in the building. She smiled as brightly as the magician, her hips swinging as she walked.
She took her place in the center of the stage, looking up at the magician, fluttering her long, false lashes. She giggled as the magician said, “It began, as all good stories do, with a beautiful woman.”
Violin music began to play — soft, unobtrusive. The magician dropped to one knee, his eyes fixed on the woman before him. “And when you’re a beautiful woman, you are not without an entourage of suitors.” He pulled from his sleeve a bouquet of red roses and presented them to the assistant. She flicked her wrist to produce a fan, hiding her smile behind it modestly. She accepted the roses with demure grace. The audience forward in their seats.
“But this particular woman was cursed to live a loveless life. Every man who confessed his love to her soon dropped dead.”
The magician sank dramatically to the floor in a dead man’s pose, garnering a flurry of giggles from the audience. The bouquet of roses in the woman’s hand turned brown and crumbled, falling to the stage in flakes. Her spotlight softened from white to late afternoon gold. The audience gasped; applause rippled through the crowd.
With the lights dim, the magician leaped to his feet, moved like a cat between shadows across the stage, leaving his assistant alone in the center under a golden light. “She grew old, frail, alone.”
The small, dark beauty center stage slowly hunched over, her brown skin growing steadily paler until thin, green veins were visible through her skin. The illusion was monstrous, captivating. Her cascade of glossy black hair dulled, turned ash gray. Her smooth skin wrinkled, her hands gnarled. The audience watched in rapt silence, perched on the edges of their seats, their breath collectively held.
“As she lay on her death bed, having never known the power of true love, an angel appeared in her bedroom and offered her a single gift — to be loved for eternity.”
Now, the hunched, old woman in the center of the stage began to emanate a soft glow. It wasn’t a simple trick of lighting, the audience was sure of that much. No, she began to glow. Her spine straightened; her skin regained its color and smoothness. The magician moved swiftly toward her, the spotlight brightened, and with both hands he grabbed the woman by the arm and spun her like a top. He made a snatching motion like ripping out an invisible tablecloth from a table laden with china and the spinning woman came to a halt. In the same moment, her Victorian clothes were ripped from her body, revealing the conventional gleaming white gown of an angel. The audience gasped. Silence. Then an eruption of wild applause.
The magician hardly waited for their applause to die down before pronouncing, “The old woman died in the angel’s arms, and the angel … ascended …to Heaven!”
As he spoke these words, the woman began to levitate. First her heels, then her toes, then her body lifted effortless into the air. There was no awkward shifting of weight, nor the tell-tale wobble of flying wires. The motion was graceful and pure as though gravity simply ceased to exist where she stood. Her hands began to float up the sides of her body until they were level with her waist where they spread before her in a welcoming gesture, as though inviting the entire audience into her embrace. She was utterly aglow now, and floating ever higher off the stage, and the audience beat their hands together more fervently, unable to believe what was happening.
It was just so real.
Of course, it was nothing they hadn’t seen better magicians do on television. But to see it in their little theater, in the flesh, was breathtaking. The men whistled. The women laughed and squealed. Children hooted and hollered.
Simon St. Laine glided to where the angel hovered over the stage and cupped his hands before him. With a final flourish, he flung his arms out like a wizard casting a spell, palms facing upward, and golden glitter erupted from his hands, raining sparkles like fireworks around the glowing angel floating on stage. The audience was on their feet, clapping wildly. And when the angel unfurled her wings — glorious, terrible things, black as night and with a sheen like oil — the auditorium shook with the audience’s approval and suspended disbelief, the clapping of their hands, the catcalls, the delicious fury of their joy. Simon St. Laine smiled like a madman, still raining glitter on the stage. He threw his head back and laughed as the angel’s wings began to beat. His cape fluttered in their breeze.
It was at that moment the floating angel turned her head, and for the first time Simon St. Laine caught her eyes. A slow, dark smile spread over her face, chilling the magician to the core. She parted her lips and whispered something only he could hear. The words troubled him, and he swallowed hard, blinking in surprise. But Simon St. Laine was a natural performer and recovered quickly. Not even those in the front row noticed his smile had faltered, and no one saw the stark terror that washed over this face.
February 13th, 2010
You have a good website. Looks like you have put in a bunch of work on it! The story is great so far.
March 17th, 2010
I love this story. I am a magician oxford myself and it’s always nice to read stories related to my profession
April 5th, 2010
“The audience forward in their seats.”
craned, leant, moved, shuffled?
Otherwise, a thrilling chapter.
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