When the Curtain Rises (12 page)

I can't tell you how helpful he has been. We are
drawing record audiences to every performance. Even
without active promotion, the news of my new “Phoenix” act precedes us like wildfire. People are willing to pay
over and over again to see this amazing spectacle. If
that isn't enough, Lucien says that he will teach me to
perform even greater illusions before the season is over.

This is it, Maggie. I can feel it. With Lucien's help
I am finally going to achieve the kind of success that I
have dreamed of for so many years. I will be the world's
greatest magician!

Chloe had just moved Dante's first letter to the bottom of the pile when a familiar male voice called up from the sidewalk. “Good evening, ladies.”

“Good evening, Mr. Dromnel,” Kitty called back.

“Fine weather we're having,” Lucas Dromnel said. He was still wearing sunglasses, even though the sun was low on the horizon.

“Weather's holding for the moment,” Bess said. “But I can feel a storm brewing.”

Mr. Dromnel turned his face toward the cloudless sky. “You could be right. I believe I can smell a little lightning in the air myself.”

Abigail shuddered girlishly. “I've never liked thunderstorms. They're so terribly destructive.”

“But that's what makes them so exciting, don't you think? What would life be without a little danger now and then?” said Mr. Dromnel. He excused himself with a nod of his head and continued up the sidewalk to the house next door.

“There's something familiar about our new neighbor,” Kitty said once he'd disappeared behind some shrubbery. “I can't quite put my finger on it. Ah well. There are so many faces rattling around in this old brain, it's no wonder they're all beginning to blend together.”

When it was time to go to bed, Chloe carried her great-grandfather's letters inside with her. Through the summer and into the fall of 1917, Dante's letters were almost interchangeable. Dante missed his wife and children, but the excitement of seeing his ambitions realized outweighed anything else. Then in late November, Dante's mood shifted abruptly.

Dear Maggie,
I had a troubling conversation with Lucien this
morning at breakfast. In my excitement at having been
interviewed by a journalist from the
Chicago Tribune
yesterday evening, I told Lucien that his wishing box
had proved its worth many times over and that I was
ready to settle on a price. He just stared at me for a
moment, with a half-smile on his lips. Then, to my
surprise, he said that I had been paying his price all
along.

At first I didn't understand. Or maybe it would
be more honest to say I pretended not to understand. But as I stared back into Lucien's dark eyes, I began
to see clearly what I had chosen not to see before. For
every wish I made, there was a terrible consequence
that I'd refused to acknowledge. You saw some of
the results yourself: I wished for gold and received
someone else's stolen coins; I wished for a fiery new
illusion and someone else was consumed by real
flames. As my mind traveled back through the list of
crimes and misfortunes that paralleled my wishes, I
became increasingly ashamed and horrified. Of course I ordered Lucien to take his evil box and leave at once. If only I'd listened to your concerns earlier!”

As Chloe read the final paragraph of Dante's letter, she felt a sharp pain in the pit of her stomach. It all suddenly made sense. “Nyssa,” she whispered, “my stupid wish could have killed you!”

There was one final unread letter in the pile. Chloe smoothed it out carefully.

Dear Maggie,
Please try to understand what I am about to tell you. I know I wrote just yesterday to say that I was sending
Lucien away, but after speaking with him again last
night, I have reconsidered.

The truth is, everything in life has a price. And while
it may not seem just, the person who pays the price is
not necessarily the person who reaps the reward. As
Lucien reminded me, generals win their battles at the
expense of their foot soldiers, and wealthy men earn
their money on the backs of their laborers. Harsh as
that might sound, it's the way the world works.

What I'm trying to say is that Lucien has made me an
offer that I cannot refuse. He packed his belongings last
night as I'd asked him to, but before leaving he put the
rosewood box in my hands one final time. Something
strange happened to me as I held the box. I could hear
Lucien speaking, but his voice seemed to come from a
great distance. “Everything you want is in that box,” he
said. “Your deepest ambitions, everything you've ever
dreamed of. You could be the greatest magician the
world has ever seen. All you have to do is ask.”

If only you could have seen the images that flickered
through my mind at that moment, Maggie. If you could
have heard the distant music and smelled the intoxicating scent rising from the box in my hands, I know
you would understand my decision. I have waited my
whole adult life for this chance. I can't let it slip away
now, no matter what the price.

If there was any hesitation left in my mind, it evaporated when Lucien told me that he intended to extend
the offer of one wish to each of the other performers in
the carnival. They have been such loyal companions for
so many years—and now they get to share in my good
fortune as well!

I need you to understand. After I have made this
final wish, I promise that I will never use the rosewood
box again. I won't need to, once I'm the world's greatest
magician. Just think what that honor will mean for us,
Maggie! Everything that we've ever dreamed of, wished
for, imagined—it will all be ours!

Chloe let her great-grandfather's letter fall onto the bed. She looked at the rosewood box on her desk with a mixture of fear and revulsion. It would be impossible to sleep with the box sitting just a few feet away. She got out of bed and forced herself to pick the box up. Holding it out at arm's length, Chloe left her room and tiptoed down the dark hallway to the staircase at the center of the house.

The ticking of the clock on the first landing sounded ominously loud. Chloe tried not to think about the painting hanging beside it in the shadows. She climbed up through the dark house, through the library on the third floor and up the spiral stairs to the loft. Holding the wooden box in front of her, she moved quickly out onto the tiny balcony. With her free hand, she felt carefully around the shutter for the first rung of the exterior ladder. Her heart was beating furiously as she began to climb in the moonlight, over the railing and up the short ladder to Magdala's secret attic. She had to wedge the rosewood box between her stomach and the ladder to free up a hand to open the window. When it was open, Chloe took the box and shoved it as far as she could into the dark space.

C
hapter
T
welve

“Y
ou look worse than me, if that's possible,” Nyssa said to Chloe the next morning. Nyssa was half lying, half sitting in a raised hospital bed. A white cast encased her right forearm.

Chloe sat down in the chair beside Nyssa's bed. “Bad dreams—don't ask.”

“Worried about the show tomorrow night?”

“It's not that,” Chloe said, staring down at her fingernails. “Although with everything that's happened, you can't really expect that I'd be up for the talent show.”

“What do you mean?” Nyssa struggled to sit up further. “Don't tell me you're bailing on me. Your name is on the program and everything!”

“Hey,” Chloe said, looking up quickly. “I told you when I filled out the entry form that I was reserving the right to back out whenever I wanted to. Anyway, your name is on the program too, and you aren't going to be there!”

“Believe me, if there was any way I could be there, I would be.”

“But you
can't
,” said Chloe, feeling her face flush. “And if you can't, I'm not going to do the show either.”

Nyssa shook her head from side to side. “No way. You can't use my accident as an excuse to pull out now. You're prepared, Chloe. You have a real chance!”

“
You
had a chance before I made my stupid wish,” Chloe said angrily. She let her eyes rest briefly on Nyssa's cast, and then she raised them to her friend's face again. “It's my fault you're lying here.”

“How on earth do you figure this is your fault?”

“Because it is,” Chloe insisted, drawing herself up in the chair. “You know the wish I was going to make yesterday at lunchtime? I made it. I wished for a bike just like yours. And then you collided with Mrs. Larsen's minivan and ended up here, and I ended up with a bike
just like yours
. Your bike! Don't you get it?”

Nyssa's eyes went wide. “You wished for a bike just like mine?” She closed her eyes and remained silent for the space of a few breaths. Then she shook her head. “No, Chloe. That's just crazy. It was another coincidence, that's all it was.”

“It wasn't a coincidence!” Chloe insisted. “It's the way the rosewood box works. I read it in Dante's letters.”

“Where's the box now?”

“Back in the secret attic. I put it there last night.”

Nyssa nodded. “Good. You should leave it there.”

“Finally you believe me,” said Chloe.

“I don't believe the box is magic, but I do believe the
idea
of it is dangerous. Look how messed up you are right now. Forget about it. Focus on getting ready for the show.”

“I told you, I don't want to do the show.”

Nyssa stared into her friend's face for a few seconds before sighing. “Whatever else Dante was, he wasn't a coward.”

“Are you calling me a coward?” Chloe said angrily.

“Well what do you call what you're doing?”

“I call it common sense, knowing my limits.”

“My dad always says that the only limits you have are the ones you put on yourself,” said Nyssa. “Anyway, I'm being released this afternoon. I'll be really disappointed if I don't see you when the curtain rises tomorrow. Especially now that I can't be in the show myself.”

Chloe tried to outstare her friend. “That is so low!” she said after a few seconds. She folded her arms across her chest. “Fine. If it means so much to you, I'll do it.”

Abigail was waiting in the hallway to drive Chloe back to her great-aunts' house. The center of town was packed, forcing Abigail to slow the car to a crawl as she navigated the narrow main street toward the bridge that led across the canal.

“Good turnout for the festival,” Abigail said as she edged her hatchback past a line of parked cars on one side and a stream of pedestrians on the other. “Most of the festival's shows are already sold out.”

“How about the junior talent show?” Chloe asked, feeling her stomach flutter.

“Oh, that's been sold out for weeks,” Abigail said with a careless wave of her hand. “Good thing we got our tickets at the beginning of the summer. It's quite a famous event here, you know. It's launched a few careers. Young people send in their audition tapes six months in advance, just to get a spot on the program.”

Chloe turned to stare at Abigail. “Audition tapes? I didn't send in an audition tape.”

“Yes, well, you're the exception. Your great-aunts' word was enough to convince Nyssa's father. As the program director for the festival, he has pull.”

The butterflies fluttering in Chloe's stomach had suddenly become giant birds of prey. “I didn't know this talent show was such a big deal,” she said in a strained voice.

The housekeeper took her right hand off the steering wheel just long enough to pat Chloe's leg. “Don't worry. You'll do fine. You're a McBride, after all.”

Chloe made her way to the piano in the sitting room immediately after lunch and began running through her scales. “Don't think,” she told herself sternly as she adjusted the sheet music on the ledge. “Just play.”

As much as she tried to block the talent show from her mind, thoughts of it kept creeping in. Chloe's fingers felt like lead. They fell clumsily on the keys. “I
know
this,” she told herself angrily as she stumbled through the climactic passage of
The Ballad of Petticoat Joe.
She forced herself to slow down, to go through the music on the page note by note, measure by measure, until she had it right again. Her cheeks blazed even though she was alone.