by Justin Swapp
They made their way to the last available seats, on the top row. When they sat, Marcus heard flutes and beating drums playing from behind the curtains.
A deep voice erupted over the speakers, echoing in the large room. “Welcome one and all to The Magic Box’sannual Who’s got Magic Talent show; the show in which you, the audience, get to showcase your magical talents for the chance to claim the next apprenticeship under our very own in-house magician.”
The audience clapped and cheered at the announcement, and some even stood. The anticipation in the air was palpable. Marcus leaned over to Ellie and asked, “So what did you think of that shop?”
“All I can say is, wow. They have everything from hand zappers to voodoo dolls. I don’t know how we are going to compete with that, Marcus…” her voice trailed off. “At least we’ll get some laughs out of this.”
A pair of ushers bolted the entrance behind them and stood stiffly in front of the doors with their arms crossed. The voice returned. “For those of you unfamiliar with the contest, when we call your row number please follow the direction of the aisle ushers. You will have two minutes to perform the best magic of your life on the greatest stage in Nevada. Now, row one, please make your way backstage.”
“Oh no,” Marcus said, turning to Jason. Ushers appeared near the front row, waving the excited contestants on. “They’re calling each row up one-by-one?”
“That’s how they usually do it, yeah. Why? Did you forget your tricks at home or something?”
Right, like he had a closet full of props in his bedroom or something. Marcus couldn’t believe what was happening, much less have an act prepared.
“What can we do, Ellie?” Marcus asked. “They think we want to go up there, and I definitely don’t want to go up there.”
“I don’t know, Marcus. Jump those big ushers and bite their ankles?” Ellie said sarcastically. “There’s nothing we can do, so let’s just sit back and enjoy the show. If they call our row, we’ll just explain the misunderstanding.”
Marcus shook his head as the first row of people disappeared on the stage behind the thick curtains. A moment later the voice returned: “Audience, I give you your judges.” Three dark figures stepped out onto a balcony, high above the stage, which Marcus hadn’t noticed before. They raised their hands, waved, and nodded, and then took their seats.
“Please hold your applause until the end of the show.” The voice paused for dramatic effect. “And now, I give you, this year’s Who’s got Magic Talent show.”
Trumpets blew majestically and the curtains pulled back to reveal a quivering man standing alone in the middle of the stage. His magic hoops quaked in his hands as he spoke. “I… I will show you the power of my… m… magic,” he said as he pushed a thick pair of glasses up his nose. “I will force these two r… rings, each made of the most solid metal, to converge according to my will, without blemish.”
“That’s the oldest trick in the book,” Marcus said, slouching in his seat. “What will they do next, pull a rabbit out of a hat?”
The man in the middle of the stage struck his rings together, not once, not twice, but three times. On the third attempt the man dropped to one knee and bowed his head. He extended his arms dramatically. The crowd gasped in anticipation of the joining of the two rings, but nothing happened. The man still held a ring in each hand, and the crowd murmured.
A second man, white-gloved and dressed in a black tuxedo with tails, came onstage and raised his hands to silence the crowd. “Shall we measure his magic?” he asked. The crowd quieted. The man with the rings stepped into the background, still clashing his rings together feverishly, cursing to himself. He was obviously on a timeline.
“What kind of jerk embarrasses a contestant like that?” a woman’s voice from the crowd asked. “Can’t you see that he’s not finished yet?” The man onstage raised one ring high above the other and brought it down with great force.
“Must be the guy’s mom,” Marcus said. Jason smirked, but Ellie elbowed Marcus in the ribs.
“To the true practitioners of magic here tonight, I need no introduction,” the man said as he reached into his tuxedo pocket and pulled out a small glass ball. ”I am the master magician of the house.” Microphone feedback echoed briefly throughout the theater as he spoke. When he held up the sphere in the palm of his gloved hand, the stage lights reflected off of what seemed like small bubbles swimming inside it.
Marcus nudged Jason. ”Who’s that guy?”
“You heard him,” Jason said. “He needs no intro—”
“Just tell me.”
“The great Faustino Forsyth,” Jason said pretentiously. “He’s why you’re here, isn’t he?”
Marcus had to think about that a moment. “Yeah, sure,” he lied.
Faustino mumbled something unintelligible and the ball began to glow. A faint, earthy color shimmered off Faustino’s greased-back hair, and a whispered murmuring rushed over the crowd. The man with the rings stopped what he was doing and gaped at the ball. The bubbles within the ball turned orange.
One by one, the judges on the balcony lifted an ornate gold paddle with a glow-in-the-dark number painted on its face. In the blackened theater the numbers appeared to float in the air. All three judges raised the number one in unison, and the audience moaned.
Jason bounced his leg. “They’re going to be tough tonight.”
“I’m sorry,” Faustino said, looking on the man with pity. Then he opened his arm theatrically toward the exit.
“But it worked,” the contestant said indignantly as he held up one ring, the other dangling from it. Despite a few half-hearted claps surfacing from the crowd, he was promptly ushered off the stage anyway.
Next, a teenage boy wearing tan baggy pants, curly gold shoes, and a gold turban strode onto the stage. He unsheathed a sword from his golden sash and whirled around, swinging and stabbing the sword to a rhythm only he could hear.
“It’s the human blender,” Marcus announced. ”I hope he doesn’t cut the Great Faustino before you can get to him.” Jason waved him off, zeroing in on the stage.
“I’m not worried,” Jason said a moment later, as if just hearing Marcus’s comment for the first time, “the Great Faustino cannot be killed.”
“You’re not serious,” Marcus said when the boy onstage lit his sword on fire with a wave of his hand. After a few more flaming twirls, he stopped, posed, and slid the sword down his throat.
“Many have tried to kill the Great Faustino over the years,” Jason said. The boy onstage slowly removed the sword from his mouth and took a bow, “but none have succeeded.” The crowd relaxed a little.
Ellie wiped her brow. Faustino lifted the glass ball again and the judges gave their score.
The varied performances that followed were dangerous, others were more like parlor tricks, and the rest were just plain laughable. After some time, Marcus lost interest. He couldn’t get over how many people had shown up to this event. Their grandparents had a hard time getting even a handful of people in their shop, yet The Magic Box was able to bring out what looked to be the entire population of the city.
Marcus snapped back to attention when one of the ushers called on the row in front of them. ”Okay, folks,” he whispered, “you’re up next. Let’s go.” The people stood and shuffled along the row, and then walked nervously down the aisle for their turn at the contest.
Once they cleared the way, Marcus saw a young blonde girl dressed as a magician’s assistant sparkle her way to the front of the stage. He squinted to get a better look; she reminded him of someone.
She lifted a top hat from her head and twirled it as she bowed. When she straightened up again, she slowly waved a hand above the hat and then below it. She flipped the hat over and showed the inside of the hat to the audience.
“Today I will perform a feat that you’ve never seen,” the blonde girl said. The crowd fell silent as if to egg her on. The girl’s voice sounded vaguely familiar to Marcus, but he couldn’t
place it.
“This,” she said, placing the hat at her feet, “is my magic hat.” She stood up and slowly circled the hat. “You’ve each observed that my hat is quite normal. There are no holes or strings attached.”
The audience grumbled unbelievingly, but settled down after a minute. Marcus leaned over to Jason and asked, “Who is that girl?”
Entranced by the girl’s act, Jason just shrugged. The hat looked normal enough.
“Are you ready?” the girl asked.
With a clap of her hands, the hat began to waddle and circle the girl on the stage. A single scream amongst gasps blurted out from the audience. The girl raised both of her arms in the air and the hat stopped in place. It still jerked randomly, however, as if something small underneath it tried to push its way out.
“Rise,” the girl said in a loud, dramatic voice, “and join me on stage.”
Ever so slowly, the hat began to rise up off the stage. Eyes grew wide and mouths gaped open as the whole audience leaned in and absorbed the scene. What was more, as the hat separated from the stage, something else came into sight. Marcus couldn’t believe his eyes; if he didn’t know better, he would swear that a pair of fancy high-heels had appeared underneath the hat. Then the hat seemed to expand and contract as it continued to rise up off the ground. Before long, Marcus saw stockings and a skirt. The crowd seemed flustered.
Marcus turned to Jason. “There is a woman under the hat!”
“At least half of one,” Ellie said.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Jason said, sounding worried for the first time. “There’s no way I can beat that.”
A minute later, a full-grown woman stood in front of the girl in the magician’s assistant outfit. It took a moment before the woman realized where she was and that she had a top hat on her head.
The woman patted herself down and spun around, disoriented. “Wha—” then she took a deep breath. “Where am I?”
“Everyone, give my volunteer a round of applause,” the girl said and then bowed.
“I didn’t volunteer for anything,” the woman said. She felt for the hat on her head and then threw it to the ground. ”You horrible little girl!”
“Mom?” echoed a voice from the crowd. A man shuffled his way out from his row, ran down the aisle, and climbed up on stage, embracing his mother.
He let her go and turned to move off the stage when music came over the theater speakers and sounded offTaDa! The woman and her son froze in place.
“Thank you, thank you,” the girl said majestically. She rolled her sparkling arms elegantly as she took another bow. “Please give another round of applause to this good lady.”
The crowd clapped excitedly and the man and his mother bowed reluctantly, still confused but soaking up the attention. When the man stood up, his glasses slid down a bit, and he pushed the thick, black frames back up his nose.
“Hey, that was the first contestant onstage,” Jason said, chuckling. The mother and son exited behind the curtains. “Poor sap.”
“Mommy!” Marcus mocked. This earned him another elbow in the rib from Ellie.
“Shall we measure her magic?” Faustino’s voice said over the speakers as he walked onto the stage with his glass ball in hand.
Eagerness took over the crowd when Faustino lifted the ball into the air. The anticipation was palpable to Marcus. This had clearly been the best performance of the night, but what would that mean for Faustino and his ball?
After a moment, color came into the ball. The color wasn’t the warm color of orange and red that they had seen all night, but rather a cool, bluish-green color. The judges shot up out of their seats and raised their score paddles. A hush came over the crowd when the young girl received the highest score of the night.
“Well done, young lady,” Faustino said with a gentlemanly nod. “May I have your name please?” This was the first time he had asked a contestant’s name.
“Elizabeth,” she said with her chin held high. “Elizabeth Stratton.”
“Well, Miss Stratton, if you will follow me, please.” Faustino took Elizabeth by the hand and escorted her behind the curtains. He returned a moment later.
“Let’s go,” a hushed voice said from the end of Marcus’s row, “You’re up.” Marcus turned to see an usher wave at them from the end of his row.
“Look, there’s been some kind of mistake,” Marcus said in a hushed voice. “We just came to watch the show, not participate in it.”
“Doesn’t matter, kid,” another voice said from the other side of Marcus. “We’re on a timeline. Now, get up.” Apparently one usher was pulling the row out into the aisle and the other was converging on the row from the other side.
“Come on,” Jason said.
They all stood and fell in-line as they made their way up the stage. Marcus couldn’t believe this was actually happening. Jason walked in front of them, almost skipping as he walked. Marcus felt quite the opposite.
“What are we going to do, Ellie?” Marcus asked as they walked up the steps to the stage. “For the record, I’m still in favor of biting the ushers’ ankles.”
One-by-one the ushers lined them up and spaced them out behind the curtains. “We’re together,” Marcus said to their usher to avoid getting split up from Ellie. By the looks of it, they were going last.
The ushers brought the first contestant from their group onto the stage. After a few minutes she came back with her head hanging down, and the next went out. Marcus and Ellie were too nervous to watch the others; until Jason stepped onstage.
Jason was pretty good, but that didn’t make Marcus feel any better. Jason walked out onto the stage, took a string from his pocket and held it up high, letting it hang from his fingertips. Then he produced a lighter, which he thumbed once to produce a flame.
He waved the lighter underneath the tail of the string and it was consumed instantly by the flame, only to be replaced, at the flick of his wrist, by a silky red cloth.
Next, Jason took a dollar bill out from his pant pocket and snapped it tight between his two hands. Then, placing the dollar bill between his hands, he turned his hands over and pulled them away from the dollar bill, leaving it suspended. He moved his hands all around the bill without disturbing it. Then he clasped his hands around the bill again just as Faustino came from behind the curtains.
Marcus heard Faustino repeat his typical comment and he lifted his glass ball to measure Jason’s magic. The ball turned orange; the bubbles inside glowed blue. The judges scored him well, but not as well as Elizabeth. Marcus heard the crowd murmur disapprovingly. Jason returned backstage with a disappointed look.
“You two, you’re on,” an eager usher said to Marcus and Ellie, “and make it quick. We all want to go home at a decent hour, and there’s no way you’ll beat that other girl.”
“You can go home now,” Marcus said. “We don’t even have an act. We just came for the—”
“The Great Faustino expects you onstage, so you get out there and do some magic,” the usher ordered. “You don’t disappoint The Great Faustino.”
Marcus and Ellie scanned the backstage area for props or other antics. There was a stool with a pack of cards on it. Marcus darted to the stool and grabbed the cards just in time to get pushed in the back and onto the stage with Ellie.
The audience looked tired, but boy there were a lot of people staring at them. Marcus looked at Ellie and she looked back; confused.
“What are you going to do?” Ellie asked.
“I don’t know,” Marcus said, “Put in a plug for The Magic Shop?” He sniggered, but when Ellie didn’t respond in kind, he said, “Let’s just lose and get out of here. With any luck, Faustino will smell our lack of magic and kick us out.”
Marcus opened the pack and slid the cards out onto his hand. He threw the card case onto the stage.
“You there,” Marcus said, pointing at a young lady on the front row. ”Come pick a card.”
Marcus met a young girl at the
edge of the stage and fanned open the deck in front of her. She hesitated for a moment and then picked a card, pulling it close to her face. She held the card to her chest with both hands.
“Let me guess,” Marcus said half-heartedly, “it’s a queen of hearts.”
“No,” the girl said, holding the card up for the crowd to see. “It’s a joker.”
Fitting, Marcus thought as the crowd chuckled at him.
“The what?” Ellie asked. She ran to the edge of the stage, grabbed the card, and then showed it to Marcus.
Faustino’s slow clopping steps echoed in the theatre as he took the stage. He shook his head disapprovingly, reached out and took the card out of Ellie’s hand and examined it for a moment. “Curious,” he said, turning it around for the crowd to see.
It was a queen of hearts.
“Shall we measure his magic?”
The crowd cheered as Faustino lifted the glass ball like he had after each contestant that night. Unlike the other times, however, the ball didn’t fill with color. The crowd shifted in their seats, and a mumble filled the room. After some time, Marcus thought he saw a faint blue light emerge from the center of the glass. The light grew in brightness until it washed out the bubbles; they couldn’t be seen any more in the ball. The unique color reminded Marcus of something.
“The room,” whispered Ellie, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, “it looks like that color from the blue room.”
Faustino’s eyes grew wider. The color burned brighter; so bright that members of the crowd squinted and turned their heads away.
“What,” he seemed lost in thought for a moment, “what is your name, young man?” Faustino lowered the ball and covered the bright color with both hands until he could store it away gently into his jacket pocket.
Marcus looked at Ellie, unsure if he should give his real name. She just shrugged.
“Marcus,” he said hesitantly. Elizabeth snarled at him from behind the curtains.