“Want one?” asked Francine. “Only costs ten cents each.”
Adam shook his head. “I don’t have any money with me.”
“Your loss, then.” Francine snatched the candle back.
“So…” Adam looked at the girl. “You don’t have any family?”
Francine’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not going to report me, are you?”
Adam didn’t know what to say. He thought of inviting Francine to stop by his place. The bakery had plenty of leftover bread and pastries, and the place was always warm.
As he was thinking of the best way to bring this up, Francine challenged, “What’s your story?”
“Me?”
“Wandering around New York in the middle of winter without a coat?” Francine crossed her arms. “Let’s hear the story behind that.”
Of course, Adam didn’t know any more than Francine did.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “But I have to get home.”
“You’re lying,” Francine said flatly. She studied him closer. “Although, you’re not a bad actor. A little more practice and you could be like Shirley Temple.” She straightened. “Well, I’ve got sights to see and candles to sell. You know how to get back from here, kid?”
Adam was about to say yes when he noticed a crumpled newspaper on the ground in the alley. For a moment, he stared at the front page of the damp paper in stunned silence. The print date read:
DECEMBER 10, 1935
When he looked up again, Francine was giving him directions on the quickest way to get to the Lower East Side by drawing a map in the snow.
“Just keep heading east till you hit Second Avenue. Avoid this area here—crowded because of all the Christmas shows going on—”
“That newspaper,” interrupted Adam. “Is that newspaper real?”
“What?”
Adam couldn’t speak. His mind raced. He thought of the street signs, the clanging streetcars.
Francine looked at him. “You okay, kid?”
Adam had almost forgotten about the snow globe, which he carried absentmindedly. It suddenly became heavy in his hands, the glass as cold as an ice cube. He peered under the blanket. To his surprise, the snow globe’s cityscape had disappeared. All that was left inside was the snow confetti. The snow globe looked exactly the same as when Adam had first found it in the attic earlier that day.
He held up the snow globe to his face. The snow confetti swirled inside the empty glass. All of a sudden, he was no longer standing in the snowy street but was back in the warm, dry interior of the Biscuit Basket.
Nobody else was there. Outside, crispy autumn leaves rolled across the sun-dappled sidewalks. Adam’s sneakers, however, were dripping with snowy slush. The wooly blanket was still draped around his shoulders.
If you’ve ever shocked yourself with electricity, you’ll agree it’s a very painful experience. That is why people are discouraged from standing outside during thunderstorms, for if lightning does strike you, you’ll be frizzled like a human pancake. The surprise that Adam felt after his sudden trip was comparable to an electric shock, only instead of leaving behind a scorched burn, the experience left him standing motionless in great confusion.
Adam didn’t know how long he stood there afterward. He hardly noticed when Uncle Henry came home; he merely shook his head when his uncle asked if he was feeling ill. Convinced that Adam was worried about the money problems, Uncle Henry made them a pot of his famous rice pudding and told Adam not to fret.
“I got a good deal on the candelabra,” the baker reassured Adam. “If business picks up a little, we shouldn’t have to worry about rent for several months.”
The twelve-year-old still looked troubled, so Uncle Henry sent him to bed early.
That night, Adam couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned, and his mind raced endlessly. The mysterious events, the wintery city, and the words of the man in the raincoat played on repeat in his head.
He didn’t know it, but across the city, another person was wide awake at the same time. Like Adam, this individual tossed and turned. Unlike Adam, he kept muttering under his breath in a most ominous fashion, “The snow globe…” But we’ll get back to him a little later.
CHAPTER FIVE
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
Some people don’t believe in magic. Others find magic in the most ordinary things.
Baking, for example, is a bit like magic. You take several different ingredients: flour, salt, and baking soda, all of which by themselves taste nasty. Not even a hungry dog likes to lick raw flour or baking soda off the floor.
But after mixing these simple ingredients together, adding a pinch of water, and heating the mixture in the oven, you’ll find these ingredients come together to form something greater than the sum of its parts. You now have warm, delicious bread that not a single person or animal in the world would turn up their noses at—especially not a hungry dog.
After his strange experience with the snow globe, Adam wasn’t sure what he believed. The whole scene in Times Square lingered in his mind, too vivid to be a dream. Francine’s wooly blanket was neatly folded and tucked under his bed. Yet the globe remained blank for the rest of the week—long enough for him to start questioning whether any of it had been real. The first thing Adam did each day was to look at the snow globe, which he kept close on his nightstand. He sped home after school each afternoon to see if the snow globe’s contents changed, and popped in every hour on the dot before bedtime. The last thing Adam did each night before he went to sleep was to check the glass ball again.
It remained empty.
All he knew was that the clue to solving the snow globe’s mysteries lay with the man in the raincoat. He searched the phonebook for J.C. Walsh. There were at least fifty people with the name J. Walsh listed in New York City. The closest he could find to a J.C. Walsh was a “Josefina Charlotte Walsh,” a person who, when he called, sounded to be a woman in her eighties.
No progress there.
He also tried to keep an eye out for Francine on his way to and from school, but in a city as big as New York, it was akin to trying to find a single salt grain in a sugar jar. He even stopped by the Hole to ask Victor if he or any of the other residents ever knew any orphans by the name of Francine. No luck.
He knew it was no use. Francine had apparently lived over sixty years ago, after all, so how would he possibly recognize a seventy-year-old version of her? Even as he wondered that, part of him refused to believe he’d actually traveled back in time. Because time traveling was impossible. Not only that, but everything he’d seen with Francine had been as colorful and as lively as New York City today, and everyone knew the past was supposed to be like the black-and-white photos in history textbooks or lifeless exhibits at museums—something distant and not easily relatable.
Adam tried his best to recall whether his parents had ever mentioned the magical snow globe. The only memory that came to mind was a fuzzy incident from when he was four, one year before the big accident. He had been sitting in the living room next to his mother, and had been watching his father argue with several other adults in the room. It had been a lively argument—heads shook, voices were raised, fingers stabbed the air to make a point. A man with a bushy beard kept waving his hands, while an elderly woman and Adam’s parents tried to calm him. Adam didn’t remember what the argument was about, but he did recall his father pointing to the snow globe on the bookcase.
At bedtime, his father used to tell Adam stories about faraway places, of tradesmen in Asia, wizards in Europe, and hidden treasure caves in Africa. His father had vowed on his name that the tales had been firsthand experiences from his and Adam’s mother’s travels. Magic stories.
As soon as Adam remembered this, he got an idea. He ventured upstairs to the attic again and rummaged in his parents’ box. He opened up the topmost atlas in the pile. The edges were worn, and the pages had pencil markings—notes his parents had taken. Dates of visits were scribbled above destinations. Four
more atlases lay piled underneath the first.
Adam read every note throughout every atlas in the box until his eyes nearly crossed from fatigue. His parents had traveled to every single continent, across more than eighty countries. Yet there wasn’t any mention of a snow globe anywhere.
Magic stories. He went back downstairs, shaking the cobwebs and dust from his hair, feeling defeated.
CHAPTER SIX
ACT I, SCENE I
Unbeknownst to Adam, approximately one hundred years ago in New York City, there lived a bright magician who had no doubts whatsoever about magic. He lived and breathed magic. His name was Elbert.
Elbert Walsh.
Elbert was seventeen. From a young age, he dreamed of becoming a stage magician. He longed to join the ranks of Houdini and Thurston—men who had astounded half the world with their illusions.
Elbert’s parents, a pair of hardworking immigrants from Ireland, wished their son would pursue a more “practical” career instead. Elbert’s mother mended clothes and sold used tea leaves in the streets. His father worked the docks at the shipyard, and often came home with sunburns and bruises. Elbert and his parents lived in a crowded apartment shared with two other families, with only one bathtub and a tiny crackling stove that didn’t always work.
But Elbert refused to give up his dreams of stardom, despite his parents’ protests. Over the years, he slowly saved up pocket change for magic supplies by doing odd jobs. But most of his earnings came from street performances. For privacy, he would practice his act in the narrow alleyway behind his apartment. Then, hour after hour, he roamed the neighborhood, producing roses out of hats and making bottle caps disappear. He pushed his fluttering pet dove from his sleeves. He transformed green handkerchiefs into red ones and back again.
And he kept his eye on the Silk Hatters.
The Silk Hatters were an outstanding local group of five magicians, each with a unique ability: the Escape Artist; the Levitator; the Hypnotist; the Mind Reader; and the Vanisher. During their performances, the members each wore a signature black silk hat.
One day, word spread that the Hypnotist had fallen ill with smallpox, and the troupe was searching for a replacement. The first chance he had, Elbert signed up for an audition on the piece of parchment posted outside the theater.
On the day of his audition, he used his savings to rent a suit. He bathed, combed his hair, and, slightly nervous, entered the empty theater where the rest of the Silk Hatters were judging applicants.
The enormous theater swallowed Elbert up. He stood motionless, soaking in the scene. After his eyes adjusted to the blinding stage lights, he looked out into the vacant seats and imagined himself performing a real show in front of a full audience. Thunderous applause echoed in his mind, along with crowds chanting his name. Here he is, folks, the Magnificent Elbert!
Someone in fact was shouting from the front row.
“Hurry up and start already!” yelled one of the Silk Hatters, jolting Elbert back to reality.
He was barely two minutes into his first act before the Silk Hatters began to scoff at his performance.
“What good is a color-changing handkerchief?” clucked the Levitator, a particularly pompous middle-aged man with a cherry-red nose. “We’re looking for real talent here.”
Elbert’s magic dove act was also met with scornful laughter.
“This bores me,” shouted the Escape Artist, a round-faced man with bulging muscles. “I have seen enough doves that appear out of nowhere to last me a lifetime! Let’s cast the votes already. Gentlemen—”
“Don’t forget woman,” piped up the Mind Reader, a petite lady whose silk hat covered nearly half her face.
“—all in favor of accepting this young man into our troupe, say aye. Otherwise, say nay.”
Nays were echoed by all four troupe members.
Elbert grasped for one last chance. “I have a good act,” he promised. He started re-creating the rose-from-the-hat trick. The Silk Hatters booed. Flustered, Elbert accidentally dropped the rose. His pet dove escaped from his sleeve to pick it up.
“Still boring,” fake-snored the Levitator.
To top it all off, the Vanisher, a shrewd, tiny man who highly resembled a rat—he even had whiskers on his face—produced a ripe tomato from his pocket and chucked it at the stage. The tomato splattered against Elbert’s head.
Poor Elbert, he could only stand in stunned silence, tomato dribbling down his golden hair, as the troupe members howled with laughter. The Levitator wiped away tears.
“You’ll never be worth anything, boy,” he said, his shoulders shaking from laughing so hard. “Not to worry. Most men aren’t destined for fame.”
“Or women,” added the Mind Reader.
Heartbroken, Elbert left the theater with a pit in his stomach. He sat on the curb the rest of the afternoon, too embarrassed to go home and admit his failure to his parents. His pet dove gently pecked at his hand to cheer him up.
The pit in Elbert’s stomach eventually burned with anger. He kicked his scruffy shoes against the uneven pavement. Who did the Silk Hatters think they were? He would show them.
That evening, with stale tomato bits in his hair, he roamed aimlessly down the streets until he noticed a clockmaker’s shop not far from the busy marketplace. As he stared through its windows at the steadily rotating hands of the pocket watches and the rhythmic, back-and-forth pendulum of a grandfather clock, an idea popped in his head.
He ventured into the shop. He was greeted by the soft tick-tocking of the numerous timepieces that lined the dimly lit shelves, as well as the gentle aroma of lavender. Clocks of all shapes and sizes surrounded him—long clocks in handsome dark wood, mantel clocks with enamel faces, brass and silver pocket watches, wristwatches. It was clear the clockmaker took great care in his handiwork. Each wooden item was delicately carved and free from even a speck of dust. Their fine details shone in the soft glow of dozens of green-and-white-striped candles that sat in sconces mounted along the walls. Elbert realized these candles were responsible for the lavender smell.
The clockmaker sat behind the desk in the corner, examining a wristwatch through a magnifying lens. He was an ancient man, with tufts of feathery white hair and a weathered face. The clockmaker peered up at Elbert and asked in a soft voice, “May I help you?”
Elbert replied he was looking for the best pendulum money could buy, though he kept his lips sealed about the pitiful amount of money he actually had in his pockets. He told the clockmaker he wanted something that could “hypnotize and wow an audience.”
The clockmaker seemed to ponder Elbert’s request, his eyes slowly sweeping over the magician as if reading him. At long last, he nodded, dusted off his hands on his sweater vest, and introduced himself as Santiago. If the old man noticed the tomato drippings in Elbert’s hair, he made no mention of it. Santiago moved slowly and talked slowly, but Elbert could tell each step and every word was carried out with a sense of purpose.
Santiago led Elbert to his collection of clock parts. There were silver chains, tiny bells, dials, windup keys, and pendulums.
“I believe this will suit your needs,” the clockmaker said, showing Elbert a sleek black case.
Inside the case lay a fat, golden pendulum, its thin chain nested snugly in the velvet cushion. Elbert immediately felt himself drawn to the pendulum, as if it were a magnet. He touched the gold. It was solid, but not flashy. It had an irresistible appeal.
“I obtained this long ago from a fellow clockmaker,” said Santiago with a smile. “I daresay he did not know its true value, though that’s not necessarily a great loss. I don’t have much use for it, myself.”
“How do you know for sure it can hypnotize people?” asked Elbert.
“Look at yourself. You’re entranced by the gold, yes?”
True. Elbert asked for the price. It was far beyond what he could afford.
“Come now, cheer up,” Santiago said gently, upon seeing Elbert’s dejected look. “Tell you wh
at, I’ll lend you the pendulum. All I ask in return is that you help out in my shop every evening until your debt is paid, and it will be yours to keep.”
“Truly, sir?” whispered Elbert.
The clockmaker placed the pendulum around Elbert’s neck and gave him a steady smile. “Life goes round and round like a clock, my friend, but our individual roles in the cycle are brief. What good is our precious time if we don’t use it to help each other out?”
Thanks to the clockmaker’s golden pendulum, Elbert’s magic acts improved tenfold. Within three months, he had risen among the ranks of the magician world as a promising hypnotist. He went from performing in the streets to performing in taverns and shops, until finally he was performing on stages in crowded theaters.
Word quickly spread about “Elbert the Excellent” across the city. Journalists and crowds swarmed around the magician after each show with questions. Soon, people all up and down the East Coast had learned of Elbert and his magnificent ability to make a person do anything on command.
Skeptics also speculated about the logic behind the magic act.
“Humans are simply attracted to the pendulum’s gold finish,” explained a stodgy professor in a lecture to his students. “The magic itself is not real. They just see the gold and become mesmerized like fools.”
Real magic or not, Elbert became wildly successful. So successful, in fact, that the Silk Hatters approached him a few months later. They again had another open spot in their troupe, because the Levitator had accidentally fallen thirty feet during a performance and broken his leg in two places. The remaining members of the Silk Hatters told Elbert they’d be happy to welcome him to the group.
To which Elbert laughed out loud for a solid ten seconds, responded, “Abracadabra,” and left them in the dust.
Elbert never forgot his deal with the clockmaker. Each night after his evening performance, he graciously made his way through the usual crowd of devoted fans and dutifully went to Santiago’s shop to help out. Over the months, he’d learned quite a bit about clock making and the mechanics behind it—how to clean a clock, how to fix a broken pocket watch, how to replace the gears.
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