The Fortune Teller's Daughter (6 page)

“For you,”
he said and escorted me to the aisle seat in the first row.

He placed me
into seat and swept his free hand along my forehead to capture errant curls. He
twisted them between his fingers before tucking them away. The magician’s
fingers slid from mine, lingering in case I wasn’t already half in love with
him. Before I could respond he bounded onto the stage and took his place in the
spotlight.

He was
definitely a showman. The escort, the special treatment, these were things I’d
seen my mother do when she worked a crowd. It made the showman seem touchable,
at least,
almost
touchable.

As his
audience gathered and quieted, he removed his suit coat, bow tie, and while all
eyes were on his fingers, he began unbuttoning his dress shirt.

He could
have set the theater on fire and I wouldn’t have noticed. My eyes followed his
fingers and the shape of lean muscles beneath each unworked button. Beneath his
dress shirt he wore a white, long sleeved undershirt and old fashioned black
suspenders. An ornate silver key hung from his neck on a black cord.

He stripped
off his dress shirt carelessly, a wonderful sight of formal and
just rolled
out of bed
messiness. This sent women in the audience tittering.

Next he
swept the hat off his head, shook his curls out, and set all his clothes over
the arm of the coach.

“That’s
better. Now, good evening ladies and gentlemen and honored guests. Welcome to
tonight’s first after dark performance. At the Carnival
Imaginaire
I am
known simply as the Magician, though I might be better described as an
illusionist. Some of what you’ll see tonight will be simply that, very
beautiful illusions.”

The Magician
paused dramatically and tugged each cotton shirt cuff as if to say
I have
nothing up my sleeve
, then rolled them up to his elbows to prove it. His
wrists were decorated in several elaborate tattoos I could not see clearly from
my seat.

“The other
parts, the darker parts, come from something else. Storytellers might call it
magic, but that’s too simple. While you are distracted by the wonderful things
I show you, I will learn your secrets, steal your hearts, and charm you to do
my bidding. If this frightens you, I urge you to take the next moment to
quietly step outside and find gentler entertainment.”

The Magician
turned his back on the crowd and approached stage right. He led a pretty girl
by the hand from the wings of the stage. She hurried after him and the way she
moved gave away her classically trained grace. A ballerina.

She alighted
soundlessly beside him at center stage. Her smoky eyes grazed her audience,
lidded and wicked.

“My
assistant, Katya.” The Magician reached around her shoulders from behind and
took hold of the knot holding her cape closed. He tugged it loose and drew the
cloth from her bare skin, tenderly, like a lover. “Bow to your audience.”

He released
her and she folded at the waist gracefully. Unlike the Courtesan, his assistant
was rail thin, boyish but for the slight cleavage her corseted bodice created.
A skirt of pink silk covered only to the top of her thighs exposing gartered
white, glittery stockings.

“Illusion.”
The Magician produced a small white ball between his thumb and forefinger. He
closed his fist and when he opened his hand again the ball was gone. “It’s not
difficult to make you to believe in the impossible because you want to see
something extraordinary. You want me to astound you. That’s why illusion is so
powerful.”

The Magician
touched his palms together and when he pulled them apart a short, black wand
appeared. He twisted it in the air so we could see that it was real, tipped in
white on both ends. He flipped it over to catch the opposite end.

The wand
transformed when he caught it. Suddenly the Magician held a golden dagger. The
crowd rewarded him with gasps of delight.

“The only
people in the world better at illusion, I dare say, are lovers.” He cast a
knowing glance at the audience, a half smile encouraging giggles and whispers
from the women around me. “The unrequited convince themselves that one day
their professions will be returned. The blindly romantic carry on against the
worst behavior because one day, not very far away, they believe their lover
will change. And we are all of us mislead into believing that love is the most
powerful magic and that, in the end, it conquers all.”

The dagger
was tossed into the air, but what the Magician caught was a long stemmed rose
which he turned and handed to his assistant. She smiled, blushed, and reached
to take it, but before her fingers came in contact with the thorny stem, he
turned his hand and the rose was gone.

She pouted
dramatically, turned out her heels and pointed in her toes. She twisted her
hands girlishly in front of her and the Magician rewarded her with an intimate
touch along the hollow of her cheek. His finger stroked long from her ear to
the center of her lips. She closed her eyes and reveled in it.

Oh hell. We
all did.

“In the end,
illusion is only a very romantic form of desire.” His voice thrummed low, his
British accent flirting on the edge of his words, smooth and lullaby soft. “It
stimulates the mind with its how-tos and what-fors. Teases us with its infinite
possibilities. It creates pleasure without touch. I could tell you that what I
do is real, that I am not an illusionist. Some of you will believe me. The rest
of you will crave that belief with every fiber of your being. Desire, my
friends, is all-consuming.”

He took
several steps away from his assistant, closer to the stage, his back to us.

Katya knelt,
her knees spread just wide enough to make me blush, her arms settled prettily
down the slant of her bare thighs. She breathed hard, her mouth open slightly
as she gazed up at her Magician with a rough sort of want that could not be
faked.

“At its
best, desire can make us stronger and richer for having it. It creates great
lovers and indomitable warriors. But at its worst it flames aggression.” The
Magician circled the kneeling Katya. He snapped his fingers, and pointed at the
space beside him, and as he did fire burst from his hands, little fireballs
that momentarily blinded me. His voice darkened. “It inspires revenge, turns to
possession and jealousy, until whole cities burn from it.”

Katya bent
her head and gracefully crawled to him on her hands and knees. Her body swayed
cat-like, sinking and rising with each step. She brought her forehead to his
outstretched fingers and he grazed them through her hair.

My heart
squeezed painfully, irrational jealousy warring with a new, distracting
pleasure. Ridiculously, watching him command his assistant without words, only
gestures, turned my insides into a hot mess. I ached for those outstretched
fingers. That was the trick, I was sure, and I fell for it willingly.

He then
stepped to the middle of the stage and the lights dimmed around the small
theater so that only a soft spotlight illuminated the man. Katya vanished in
shadow.

“What
happens when the illusions are too real? When they can’t possibly be just a
trick of the eye or a slight of hand? How does your heart change when you
realize there is no trick, no con, no pretty lie? Can you truly believe?”

He raised
his hand, palm up and flat. All his concentration poured into the center of it.
His eyes narrowed, his brow furrowed. Everyone in the room held their breath.

A flicker of
orange, then, a spark of red. Slowly a tendril of flame curled from his palm.
Snakes of red and orange and yellow braided itself into a single pillar.

His lips
parted, pursed, and then he blew into the column of fire so that it seemed to
bend at his will.

Gasps echoed
across the theater and without realizing I’d done it I found myself perched on
the edge of my seat grasping the armrest until my fingers hurt.

It seemed
exactly as he’d said. Impossible.

“But perhaps
you are still skeptical.”

The Magician
spun his free hand across the front of the now bent column of fire, fingers
spread as if he were stroking the contour of a crystal ball. The yellow bright
tip of the bent column threaded, fanned out so that it suddenly had shape and
depth. It crawled across an invisible plane, lengthened, frayed. It did things
fire did not do, could not do, had never done before. It rippled.

When the
yellow ends rethreaded, the flame had formed the shape of a miniature lion,
mane fluffed out, eyes dark and expressive. It had paws and tufts of hair
between its toes. It had a tail.

It was too
bright to stare at but I could not take my eyes away.

There was
silence in the theater, the silence of frozen, disbelieving awe. Real. Not
real.

Real.

He waved his
hand again, a flourish at the wrist, and the damn thing started walking.

One
oversized paw in front of the other, it walked in place hovering above the
Magician’s hand. Its tail swished. Its ear flicked. And then it opened its fire
jaws and gave the audience a tiny, yawning roar.

The theater
exploded in emotional applause. Magic triumphed over reason and won all our
hearts. Stole them right out of our chests, just like he’d promised. I clapped
so hard my palms ached and my eyes watered. If it was an illusion it was a
brilliant illusion. A marvel of wonder.

“Did you
see that?” “My God. It walked.” “Impossible. God damn impossible.”

While we
roared and begged for more, all of us adults behaving like children, the
Magician never wavered his concentration. The firelight created a strange
pattern of light and shadow across his face, giving his serious eyes a demonic
and powerful look that was at once terrifying and hypnotic. If he’d turned into
a black winged demon we would have all of us followed him into hell.

Suddenly the
Magician snapped his hands together in a cracking boom of skin against skin and
the lion vanished in a puff of smoke and dropped the Magician and the stage
into a fathomless darkness.

The woman
beside me clutched her chest, practically panting, eyes as wide as the moon. I
felt it, the running pounding of my heart, a little scared and thrilled at the
same time. I could not remember why I’d ever come to the carnival. I could not
imagine going home.

The lights
faded on, the bare bulbs hanging above the stage giving only enough light to
throw the theater into shadow. He stood one ankle crossed over the other, toe
touching for balance, small crystal juggling balls wending between his spread
fingers. His face relaxed in casual disinterest as if he were waiting for us
and not the other way around.

Katya
returned to her kneeling behind him, waiting for her cue.

“I have one
last trick for you.” The balls spun and one by one they vanished until his
hands were empty. “One last taste of romance and pleasure. One last illusion.”
He shrugged and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Or magic.”

The Magician
turned and started for his assistant, holding one hand out to her. She started
to reach for it, big white smile glittering beneath the lights, but before they
touched, he turned again suddenly to stare at us, his brows drawn but eyes
wide.

“I need a
volunteer from the audience.”

“You
what
?”
I heard the surprise in Katya’s outburst, saw the mixture of confusion and
horror as her hand hovered between him and the aborted trick. 

He gazed
down the rows, a dozen hands in the air waving manically. I willed him to skip
over me.

He didn’t.

“You. The
lion-haired girl. Come here.”

I froze.
Every gaze locked on me and I didn’t dare meet any of them. He knelt at the
edge of the stage, one elbow propped on his bent knee. He pointed at the spot
in front of him.

“Come here.”

I shook my
head, unable to find my voice, and shrunk a little lower.

His eyes
narrowed a sliver.

“Now.”

“Go,” the
woman beside me whispered. She nudged her elbow into my kidney.

Against my
better judgment, I stood. The blood rushed into my face. Every drop of it. I
could feel the heat and the red scorching my cheeks.

“Leave your
coat.”

I tugged the
buttons, slipped it off, and left it in my chair. He held out his hand and I
took it.

On stage, he
didn’t release my hand. He brought me to where Katya now stood, frantic eyes
darting between us and her strained smile giving away that she had no idea what
was going on.

“Please
don’t ask me to do anything weird,” I whispered. There were too many strangers
staring at me and the hot bulbs above us were already making me sweat.

His mouth
turned up in a half grin, wry and secretive. He did not answer.

“One last
trick. Are you ready?”

“No, not
really.”

He brought
two fingers to his eyes to center me. “Look into my eyes. Keep looking, that’s
all you have to do. I’ll do the rest. Try not to blink. Good girl.”

Looking into
his eyes was not as easy as he made it sound. Gazing, unblinking, into anyone’s
eyes was an intimacy reserved for lovers and enemies, not strangers. The
Magician’s eyes were storm grey, but also blue, glacial blue, nearly iridescent
but for the grey clouds that darkened them. If I didn’t know better, I would
have believed this too was an illusion and that if I didn’t blink soon he’d
hypnotize me.

But I did as
I was told and very quickly I felt the stage floor slip away and the lights
around us dim. The heat sunk back and I could feel a chill, a touch of early
winter where it didn’t belong. I felt his fingertips press along the curve of
my wrists. From the spot between my eyes down through the middle of my body, I
felt a lingering sense of vertigo.