Shamanka (16 page)

In fact, John had told Kitty that his mwa sawah capsized on the third day of his journey and that he and Lola had been rescued by an ocean liner called
The Trinity
. John had worked aboard the ship until a dreadful incident occurred, forcing him to flee to London. There he'd met Bart Hayfue who'd given him Kitty's address.

“What dreadful incident?” asks Sam. “Did he tell you?”

“He refused, so I asked the ancient spirits.”

So Bart had been right. Kitty
did
believe she could communicate with the spirits. Trying to sound as sincere as possible, Sam asks her what they'd said. Kitty lowers her voice.

“Murder by magic!”

When Kitty told John what the spirits had written, he couldn't look her in the eye. He claimed that automatic writing was a load of nonsense and insisted on showing her a mind-reading trick to prove that although it made him
appear
psychic, it was just an illusion.

“Was it the trick where you have to write something on a piece of paper and the magician sets fire to it and guesses what you've written? asks Sam.

“Yes – argh! You read my mind!”

“No, I didn't. He wrote it down in a notebook I found in the attic.”

She still doesn't know how the notebook came to be in the trunk or how John Tabuh came to be a magician. I do, but now isn't the time to share it with you. I'm happy to share the secret of the mind-reading trick though – no doubt you found it at the front of this chapter. I thought twice about telling you. Once you know how the trick works it's so obvious, it's disappointing. But I need you to understand why John Tabuh became so sceptical. The more he learnt how illusions were done, the more he felt there was no such thing as real magic; all was trickery, manipulation and deception.

His English mother was partly to blame. She was determined to bring John up the western way. She didn't have long to live; she knew the world was changing and wanted her son to be prepared. That's why she taught him to ask questions, why she told him that science and psychology were behind most of the phenomena his father called magic – most, but not
all
. Sam opens the shell locket and shows Kitty the photo inside. “Is this his mother?” she asks.

“Yes, that's Freya. When she died, John lost faith in his father because he failed to bring her back from the dread.”

“Do you think it's possible to bring someone back from the dead, Kitty?”

Kitty isn't sure, but John told her that when he was thirteen, Lola was hit by a poisoned dart and died in his arms. Sam interrupts the story.

“And didn't he beg his father to bring her back to life?”

That's what she'd dreamt and Kitty says yes. Seeing his son's sorrow, the witch doctor took Lola into his hut and chanted for two days. When he called John inside, Lola was alive.

“See what power I have, my son!” he'd boasted. “I can raise the dead.”

But when John's mother died, the same magic didn't work and John was left with nothing but her photo and three questions:

1. Did Lola really die or had she just swooned?

2. Did the witch doctor simply give her an antidote for poison?

3. Had the witch doctor swapped the dead orang-utan for a live one?

“I wonder if John's found the answers yet?” sighs Kitty. “He was supposed to be asking three questions his father gave him: What is magic? What is real? What is—”

“Illusion,” says Sam. “I know.”

But there's one illusion she knows nothing about; her mother's death. How was it faked? She won't find out this afternoon. Kitty is dozing off; she tires easily. She says she has a weak heart, something to do with smoke inhalation. She must lie down in her cabin.

“Do you sleep with your mask on?” asks Sam.

“What mask?”

It could be a weary attempt at a joke. But trust no one.

The masked magician's assistant climbs into a box. The lid is closed, and with a wave of a wand the magician says, “Be gone!” The box is tilted towards the audience with both hands and the lid is opened. Hey presto! – the box is empty. How?

THE SECRET

You need: a large cardboard box, extra cardboard, strong tape, black paint, a little friend
.

1. Cut out the bottom of the box leaving a lip on three sides.

2. Cut a false bottom from another piece of cardboard. Fit it in the box and attach with a hinge of tape. Tape on a handle.

3. Cut or tape together a one-piece cardboard top.

4. Paint the whole thing black.

continued over

Your magic chamber has a false bottom. When you tip the box forward, the box slides over your assistant, who pulls the hinged bottom shut by holding the handle. Your assistant is now crouched down, hidden behind the box, but to your audience, she's vanished!

1.

2.

3.

I
t is dawn. The Cat Barge has grown a platform of foliage near the top of the mast. It's Lola's nest; she is asleep inside, cuddling her monkey. In the rainforest, she'd have slept in the trees, building a new nest every day. She's used to sleeping in Sam's bed now, but, last night, she wanted to sleep under the stars.

Kitty is up before Sam. Maybe she's an early riser or maybe she didn't want to be caught without her mask on. I know the feeling.

Sam is still asleep. In the night, she dreamt that her mother was lying in a box painted in the Egyptian style. She was wearing pink gloves and her hands were crossed over her heart. She was alive and beautiful – not a bit how Aunt Candy had described her. Sam had cried out, “Mother!”

She'd woken in a sweat then struggled to go back to sleep, desperate to return to her dream. Instead, she slipped into a nightmare: she thought she saw her mother in the same box, but this time her gloves were purple with blood and, when Sam cried out, the woman snapped open her green eyes and snickered, “Surprise… I'm
Candy
!”

Sam sits upright and screams. Lola is below deck and by her side before you can say
Pongo pygmaeus
.

Kitty appears with a cup of coffee. “What's wrong? Have you had a night horse?”

Sam grabs her by the shoulders. “Did my mother bleed to death? Was she stabbed through the heart?”

“No, there was no blood – it was red oink.”

“
Red ink?”
It makes no sense. How did Kitty even know her mother?

Kitty perches on the end of the cabin bed and adjusts her mask. “Drink this and I'll tell you.”

“I hate coffee.”

Sam drinks it anyway. She takes a great gulp every time Kitty comes up with a new revelation; it helps to wash down things that would otherwise stick in her throat. I will now tell you exactly what Kitty told Sam as the sun rose like a fried egg over Eel Pie Island.

When John and Lola first arrived at the warehouse, Kitty kept her distance. Like many artists, she needed solitude to create and what she created was mostly cat-sized sarcophagi – highly decorated coffins similar to the ones found inside pyramids. The warehouse was home to lots of cats. If one died, Kitty mummified it and placed it into a sarcophagus, along with a carved mouse and a tin of tuna to be enjoyed in the afterlife. It bothers me that she forgot to include a tin-opener, but perhaps, if there
is
an afterlife for cats, there's someone there who opens tins for them.

While Kitty practised her art at one end of the warehouse, John practised magic at the other. But as the Dark Prince's doves escaped yet again, splattering droppings all over her sarcophagi, she decided enough was enough; she wasn't prepared to put up with random acquaintances of Bart Hayfue's cluttering up her warehouse with magician's paraphernalia. It just wasn't on.

Kitty didn't say any of this though; John was so handsome, she would always forget what she'd come to tell him off about. He was so charming, he only had to catch a woman's eye and she wanted to mother him or marry him. Kitty wanted to mother him, and when John told her he had no mother, she felt it was her moral duty to care for him.