The Demon Curse (14 page)

Harry picked up the telephone, and Billie and Arthur leaned close. The voices of Mayor Monticelso and the Islanders wafted down the corridor, but Harry concentrated on the crackles of static drifting out of the ebony earpiece.

“My congratulations on your remarkable feat,” Mr. James said. “And my apologies for my uncertainty when we last met, regarding whether you should proceed. Mind you, I had good reason because things were hardly going to plan…”

“I can see you,” said Harry.

The telephone was by the window, and Harry had been looking through the glass, down at the street below, from the moment Mr. James had started to speak. There he was, in his pale suit, standing below the iron balcony of the building across the street. A wire from the telephone he was holding stretched through a doorway, a packed suitcase stood by his side, and a horse-drawn cab waited by the curb.

“Yes, a further necessary subterfuge, I am afraid.” Mr. James glanced up at the window. “I deliberately asked to be put through to this extension so that I could observe you as we spoke. I might have guessed that you would seek to observe me too. Still, observing will be the limit of it.” A gesture at the waiting cab. “Should you move from the window, I will be gone. If you were in your usual condition, even that might not be fast enough, but I'm calculating the scorpion venom still weakens you.”

“
I'm
still pretty quick though, aren't I?” Billie grabbed the telephone. “Tell us what's going on or I'll—”

Harry reached out, steadying her while Arthur gently drew the telephone from her grip, angling the earpiece so that they could all hear. Harry kept watching Mr. James, but the man in the pale suit hadn't shifted his position at all. For now, it seemed, he was happy to remain. Harry waited with his friends for the voice to crackle out of the telephone again.

“What's going on, Billie? I wish I could be clearer on that subject, but secrecy is vital, and I can only tell you what you already know, namely that I work for the Order of the White Crow, an organization devoted to—”

“
The
overthrow
of
evil, wherever it may lie
,” Arthur muttered. “Yes, we know that.”

“The overthrow of evil and, just as important, the rescuing of those threatened by that evil. The Islanders of Fisherman's Point are not alone, I fear, in falling victim to wicked forces beyond their control. There are more like them, many more.” Static swirled back around the voice. “So yes, a somewhat out-of-the-ordinary organization. Then again, you yourselves are somewhat out-of-the-ordinary too. Consider what has taken place in the last couple of days alone. Among other things, you have disguised yourselves as swamp-school orphans, escaped from a brutal gang of fishermen, discovered scientific secrets in the madness and insanity section of the city library, detected a highly hard-to-spot clue involving a leaky fountain pen, and then, of course, pulled off a truly remarkable escape from straitjackets filled with nearly a hundred of the most dangerously poisonous scorpions known to humanity. Given such skills, can you seriously expect to be employed by an organization that is remotely normal? I think not. Unusual people need unusual work, that's what I say.”

Fair
enough
, thought Harry. Glancing at his friends, he sensed that they were thinking the same. Arthur was nodding thoughtfully, Billie had tilted her head on one side, and both of them, noticing he was looking at them, looked straight back and smiled. He smiled too. He realized his strength was returning quite quickly now, his balance was back, and his muscles were steady. He lifted his right hand and flexed the fingers. He watched them darting, angling, each one alive with its own energy.

“I have no doubt said too much,” Mr. James was saying. “My instructions are simply to inform you that, should you so wish, your services are still very much desired by the Order of the White Crow. As mentioned, there will be more who, like the Islanders of Fisherman's Point, require help from you and your remarkable abilities. Now, I think it is time this telephone call ended, although you might like to inspect the telephone itself.”

The earpiece went dead. Harry saw, down across the street, Mr. James hand his own telephone to a waiting servant and step into the horse cab, which rattled away. Glancing out through the window, Harry looked for drainpipes or ledges, but he knew Mr. James was right: His strength hadn't returned completely enough for that.
It
won't be long though.
He looked back at his hand and watched his fingers moving faster. He realized he could feel his heart too, throbbing gently in his chest, as he listened to Billie and Arthur.

“What was all that about?” said Billie.

“Couldn't make head or tail of it,” Arthur agreed. “And that's saying something, given how good we've gotten at working things out recently.”

“Some of it made sense though,” Billie said. “What he said about there being other people like the Islanders, for instance…other people who need help.”

“
There
will
be
more
, those were his words.” Arthur jotted with his leaky old pen in his notepad.
“There will be more…”

Harry kept looking out through the window. Directly below, a crowd was gathering around the steps, and he made out the mayor, tottering down them with Auntie May, Brother Jacques, and the other Islanders. The crowd pushed forward, but there were no brandished placards, no shaking fists, and no furious faces. Instead, the crowd's cries were joyful ones, and people were reaching out to shake the Islanders' hands. A very different crowd, Harry observed, and a bigger one too. The mayor marched off with the Islanders up the street, heading in the direction of Fisherman's Point.

Their
rightful
home.

Harry's heart throbbed, and his pulses twitched. He could feel those little flickering sensations too, very gently traveling over his skin.
Just
like
before
a
trick.
He heard a clattering noise and saw that Billie and Arthur were dismantling the telephone, Billie pulling a long ribbon of paper from the machine's insides. On it seemed to be written some sort of complicated code. Harry watched his friends' faces, intent, curious, determined. At the sight of them, the last traces of scorpion venom fled. He smiled, turned back to the window, and watched the mayor and the Islanders reach the end of the street, turn a corner, and disappear from view.

He looked at his hand. The fingers were moving so fast they were almost a blur.

“You're right, Artie,” he said.
“There'll be more.”

Harry Houdini was the most famous magician and escape artist of his time—probably of all time. Throughout his adult life, right up until his death in 1926, he dazzled his audiences by subjecting himself to spectacular ordeals. He escaped from nailed-shut crates thrown to the bottom of rivers; he broke out from one of the most secure cells in the District of Columbia jail; he writhed his way out of straitjackets while dangling from tall buildings. Nothing defeated him—no one could explain his mysterious powers.

He wasn't just a magician either. As well as being the world's most famous illusionist, he also devoted much of his life to doing battle against “magic.” Indignant at the thought of ordinary people being exploited, he worked ceaselessly to expose false mediums—con men who duped their victims into believing they could summon their long-lost relatives from beyond the grave. In his stunts, Harry pulled off amazing escapes, but he also sought to set his audiences free, rescuing them from the manipulative clutches of fake “miracle workers.”

So that was the great Houdini. But how did he acquire such phenomenal skills? I couldn't stop thinking about what might have happened to him as a boy to turn him into such an extraordinary man.

A fair bit is known about Houdini's childhood. He emigrated from Budapest, Hungary, to America with his family when he was just four, and grew up relatively peacefully in Appleton, Wisconsin. No records of derring-do or mystery solving. But much intrigue surrounds Houdini's adult years—some people believe he led a double life as a spy, working for the American and British governments. I started wondering; perhaps Houdini could have had another double life too, one that happened in his childhood? What if the few facts we know of Houdini's early years—Wisconsin, the peaceful childhood—turned out to have been a cover-up, devised later in order to conceal a far more thrilling and dangerous truth?

What if Houdini actually moved to America when he was a slightly older boy—and under mysterious circumstances? What if he became separated from his family on the journey—and fell in with two friends, not to mention a secretive crime-solving organization? After all, the real Houdini did a fair amount of tinkering himself with his life's events. At one point, he claimed to have been born on American soil, not in Hungary at all; and of course, he was brilliant at creating intrigue around the secrets behind his extraordinary tricks. He even hired the science-fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft (a favorite author of mine) to write a made-up tale about him having an adventure in Egypt, in which he investigated sinister forces beneath the pyramids…

Maybe, I decided, it was time for even more mystery. Mystery about what might have happened to Harry Houdini—the boy magician.

Simon Nicholson grew up in Raynes Park, London. He worked in theater for a while before starting to write stories, mainly for children. Since then, he has written plays, books, and over a hundred episodes of children's television series, and has been nominated for BAFTA and RTS awards. He lives in Winchester with his young family—and lots of books about Houdini.

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