by Mark Tiro
“Can I use your bathroom before I go?” I asked Katie as I started throwing everything back into my backpack.
“Of course, you don’t even have to ask. Probably use the one downstairs though, because up here, it makes a sound loud enough to wake everyone up when you flush.”
“Of course. See you tomorrow.”
“See you,” Katie answered, before adding with a grin, “and good job on the homework project. I think we make a wonderful team!”
I went down the stairs and turned into the bathroom that was right between there and the front door.
I tip-toed in as quietly as I could, trying not to make any noise so I wouldn’t wake anyone up. Then I turned on the light and closed the door behind me.
As I sat there, I decided to pull out my list. Reading over all the things I’d written my list, I remembered Angel clearly enough. And… I realized just how mad I still was at her. I figured she may or may not even be real, what with all my conflicting versions of reality floating around my head now. I decided to leave it at that and began to put away my pad and paper.
But then a thought occurred to me. I didn’t even need to decide which memories were real, and which weren’t—because I had this list.
This magic list.
And so I pulled it out again from my backpack. I wrote down #12, and next to it, I wrote as clearly as I could, “Get rid of Angel.”
I finished up in the bathroom and washed my hands. Then I went out to head home. As I opened the front door to leave, I said goodbye again to Katie, who’d come downstairs to say goodbye one more time. Then I added, “I don’t think Angel will bother you anymore.”
As Katie went to close the door behind me, she gave me a completely blank stare.
“Angel?” she asked. “Who’s Angel?”
18
Eighteen
“Sean?” I said frantically as soon as I dialed.
No answer.
I was walking home as fast as I could now, and so I put in my headphones and turned up some music as I walked, to try and calm myself down. I texted Sean back as I went.
“Sean—what happened to Angel? My friend Angel? You’ve heard me talk about her, right? Is she okay?”
That’s when I heard fireworks being shot off from somewhere behind me. That’s weird, I thought. It’s just a random Tuesday night. Why on earth would anybody be shooting off fireworks tonight? I didn’t stop to look back, though, because I was already late getting home, and I had to get up for school tomorrow. Also, I was still too creeped out that Katie didn’t remember Angel at all. And so I just pushed up my headphones tighter, and I pushed on home.
I got a text back from Sean when I was about halfway home. His text was just a single question mark. I looked at this lone “?” as it sat there, staring back at me from my phone. I looked at it, trying to think of how to explain it all to him. Then I decided that would take more time than it was worth. I threw my phone back into my pocket and kept walking.
“Maya? Is that you?” It was Sean’s voice. I heard it as soon as I’d come inside, taken off my shoes, and come upstairs.
“What? What does ‘?’ mean,” I asked as I pulled my phone out of my pocket and shoved it in his direction.
He ignored the phone and ran towards me, pulling me into a big bear hug so tight I could barely breathe.
“What?” I asked as soon as I could extricate myself.
“What?” he repeated. “You haven’t heard? You didn’t hear the explosion?”
“Explosion? What explosion? No,” I answered. But then I remembered the fireworks. “Well, maybe. But I thought it was fireworks, and I didn’t even stop to look. I mean, I was really bothered by something Katie said just before I left her house.”
“Katie? You were at Katie’s house?” he asked with a searching look in his eye now. “You were there? When? When were you there? When did you leave?” He seemed serious now… panicked, almost. “Are you okay? Maya, what happened?”
“Stop, you’re confusing me. I don’t know, I mean—what happened? I was at Katie’s house working on our school project, but nothing happened.”
Then I remembered the list, and the way we had used it to take a little shortcut on our homework. I felt this rush of guilt, all of the sudden. But how? I asked myself. How could Sean have known we used the list to do our homework for us?
“How do you know?” I asked him. Now I was feeling really guilty about using the list so selfishly like that, but then… how could he have known?
“How do I know? How don’t you know? It’s on all the news,” he blurted back. “And I got one of those emergency text notifications or whatever on my phone, too!”
Then, as if realizing he had said something he shouldn’t have, he became really quiet.
“You don’t know, Maya?” he asked so gently that it was almost a whisper. “I am so sorry. There was an… explosion. A gas main explosion is what they’re saying on TV.”
“So?” I said. Actually, my first thought had been more along the lines of, ‘Good, he doesn’t know about our homework thing.’ As soon as I had the thought, I felt guilty—again—for being selfish.
In the pit of my stomach, though, I think I knew the truth even before I asked.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “The… explosion. It was in your friend Katie’s neighborhood. That’s why I was so worried where you were. They said it took out half the neighborhood at least. More than just a couple of houses, and it’s hard to make out on TV from the news helicopters just how bad it is because it’s night, but you can tell in one of the shots they keep replaying—the explosion must’ve… well—”
“Well what, Sean? What? What happened?”
“Katie’s house. It’s… it’s… gone.”
I just sat there, stunned. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything.
I could barely move.
“They’re combing through the rubble now, looking for survivors. But from the pictures they’re showing on TV,” he said, taking a gulp of air, “there’s only a crater left where Katie’s house used to be. They’re saying that no one could have survived the explosion.”
He pulled me into a hug again. Another “I’m sorry,” I think, got muffled somewhere in there, too. He was crying now. He didn’t know anyone in Katie’s family except Katie, from when she would come over to our house, and I think he was crying as much for how he thought I must feel as for himself.
I was still dazed, though. In shock.
But I suppose it was starting to wear off. As it did, a memory flashed to mind. It was the room. I saw myself in it, together with… that list.
That room. That list.
This dark, ominous thing was advancing towards me. Step. Step. Step.
I couldn’t see it. I didn’t want to, I held my eyes shut tight against looking.
But I did look.
In my mind, I knew. It was that terrible dark thing coming for me, advancing one step at a time. I was guilty, and I knew it.
I was the guilty one. It’s all my fault.
I had forgotten.
And now, around the edges, I started to remember.
And so, I closed my eyes to the images. I lowered them to the ground, holding them shut, tight. I vowed to myself never to raise them up, never to open them to that terrible thing.
I swore never to look again on what I had done.
19
Nineteen
“#12. Get rid of Angel.”
Those were the words that I’d written down on the list while I was in Katie’s bathroom.
“Get rid of Angel.”
And I had.
And now I remembered that I had.
I closed my eyes and found myself back in Katie’s bathroom now. I had just finished writing that on the list. In that instant, I felt the familiar popping sensation. The next thing I knew… I wasn’t in Katie’s bathroom anymore.
Now I was in some sort of dressing room, getting ready. I looked down and realized I ha
d on what must’ve been the most garish clothes I’d ever worn in my life.
I must be a… what? Am I a…? Am I a… magician?
I also realized one more thing immediately. I was a man.
“You’re on,” the voice boomed into the dressing room as a hand reached around, thrusting the curtain aside.
I recognized the voice immediately. It was one of the stage hands from the theatre we were performing in. He was a friendly enough guy, and I’d gotten to know him well over the past two weeks as we’d performed there. It was one show every night, plus a matinee for the kids. Two on weekends.
“Maybe tomorrow we’ll switch places, you and me?” I joked to him as I brushed past the curtain as I headed out towards the stage. He didn’t answer, so I prodded him just a little bit, adding, “What do you say, Tommy?”
“They couldn’t pay me enough to switch places with your ugly mug,” he grinned. “Now if you don’t hurry up and get out there, they won’t be paying either of us much of anything tomorrow, and it won’t matter either way.”
I took one last look in the mirror and discovered that—except for the mustache which was even more garish than the outfit—I wasn’t too bad looking. At least for an old man, I thought. I must be at least 25, I figured, as I pulled my cloak up over my shoulders until it covered half my face like it was Dracula’s cape.
I have no clue if that’s what I was supposed to do with the thing, but that’s how I’d always seen people do it in the movies, and so I figured, if they did it in Hollywood, people would at least be expecting it.
I heard my name. Apparently, according to the announcer at least, I was one of the less in-demand siblings that made up the Incredible Magical Leone Brothers.
And apparently, judging by the size of the crowd at least—none of the other Magical Leone Brothers were available tonight.
Oh well, I thought. The show must go on, right?
As I tried my best to act mysterious, lowering my cape, first below my eyes, then completely, as I pulled it off in a big show and flurry. It didn’t seem to fly as impressively as it did in movies, but the announcer tried to cover over this fact by ramping up what I hoped would pass for enthusiasm.
“And tonight, the youngest Magical Leone brother, Master Guido here, will attempt what none of his older siblings have managed to pull off. It’s a good thing his family’s last name isn’t Bates, or I don’t know what we’d call the young master here!”
This must’ve been some sort of inside joke because at this, I could hear snickers all around the audience, and after that—outright laughter.
“In times like these, a practitioner’s magical arts will sometimes find themselves… shall we say… tempted….”
More laughter now. Raucous laughter was echoing off the walls in the small hall, along with some catcalls too.
This is a little overboard, now. I can’t be that bad of a magician, I thought. Or can I?
Just then, I turned and saw two stage hands wheeling in a giant cage with a curtain on top of it. There was a drawstring—obviously, to lower and raise the curtain—hanging down to the side.
I took one look at it and gulped.
I reached around as subtly as I could and felt the pad and paper tucked into an inner pocket of my suit jacket. It was still there, safe inside that pocket. Just in case I need it, I thought. I breathed out a sigh of relief.
The door to the cage was open and empty. Next to it stood two girls.
The first girl was obviously my assistant, dressed in a white sequin outfit that dazzled as the light shone off of it. I looked closely, astonished, as I realized that this girl, my assistant here, was none other than…
“Isn’t she an angel, folks?” the announcer said. “Why don’t you give her a big hand?”
It’s you, Katie! I realized, almost blurting the name out loud. You’re still alive!
The audience gave her a much bigger round of applause than it did for me, and that’s before she started blowing kisses to some of the more… exuberant-looking men in the front of the crowd.
Then the next surprise.
Not so much for the crowd, but for me….
The second girl now turned away from the crowd and began to walk to where I was standing. That’s when I first saw that she was dressed head-to-toe, completely in red.
And then, I saw her face just as the announcer’s voice began to boom again.
Angel.
It was Angel, and she was dressed in a devil costume.
Of course, I thought, ruefully. Bitterly, even…
“And let’s give another round of applause to… well, she’s quite a mischievous devil, now isn’t she, folks? But she can also be quite an angel now, too, with the proper… motivation. Let’s give a big hand, folks, to Angel. Isn’t she a lovely devil, folks?”
More applause. And more than a few catcalls, too.
This was starting to become annoying.
“And tonight, the Implacable Master Guido here is going to lock them both in this cage together, our devil and our angel…”
Wild applause now.
Okay, this is definitely getting out of hand. This can’t be anything more than a little side-show hocus-pocus, I thought.
“…And I assure you folks, this is no mere side-show hocus-pocus,” the announcer’s voice suddenly boomed, the second the thought had occurred to me. “Our magician here is actually going to make both of these lovely ladies disappear.”
A silent, psychic scream in my mind shouted ‘no’. I remembered the list, and how that last thing I’d written had been my desire to “get rid of Angel.” And I remembered the explosion at Katie’s house, and Sean’s words about how no one could have survived.
Suddenly, I was terrified.
“Don’t worry, it’s only magic,” the announcer went on. “We know that because if it were real, of course, I for one would be asking our two lovely women to make Master Guido disappear.”
Laughter again now. Ugghhh. What did I do to deserve this? The crowd was laughing… at me. Of course they were. There’s got to be a limit to them making fun of me, no?
“And so, without any further ado, the Magnanimous Master Guido Leone will make both the angel and the devil disappear right before your eyes! And absolutely no peeking behind the curtain at our lovely young ladies while he does. We’ll give them some privacy, and maybe at the end, we’ll see which girl—er I mean whether the angel or the devil—winds up on top.”
I was dreading this now.
But I did peek. As the stage hands were closing the lock for the trick, I peeked around at… Katie, and at Angel.
What have I done? I thought. What am I doing?
As I was thinking of pulling out my list and trying to make this whole thing just go away, Angel shot me the most smug, annoying, mischievous look. I wanted to scream. It was the same look she’d given me when I walked in and caught her sleeping with… Steve.
Even if I didn’t remember all the details, Angel’s look made me remember just how much I really did hate her for what she’d done.
It all came back to me now.
I wanted to shout. I wanted to scream. I wanted to jump across the stage and strangle her.
And then… I remembered, in a flare of rage and anger, what I really wanted.
I wanted to get rid of her.
I wanted to get rid of Angel.
I returned the look, staring hard at her—staring straight in her eyes.
Then I turned to the crowd. I made an exaggerated sweeping motion with my hands, like I’d seen magicians do on TV. The crowd suddenly became quiet.
That was the sign, and the stage hands twirled the cage around and pulled the curtain down, shielding Angel and Katie inside from view.
That was it.
It was almost unconscious, like I was an actor playing my part in a bad movie that almost no one would ever see anyway.
But play my part I did.
I said some words—some magic words. Nothing like this
had ever come out of my mouth before. I’m not even sure I’d ever heard these words before, and I was relatively certain they were insensitive and would’ve landed me in the principal’s office if I’d said words like these in school.
But magic words they were. At least here.
Because as soon as I said them, the entire cage lit up in a poof of blinding light.
The audience erupted into more raucous applause. Apparently, this was the magic trick they were waiting for (at least until my act was done and the headline act came out).
But I had a bad feeling about this.
I had a very bad feeling.
I made another sweeping motion with my hands like the one I had made before, but this time, in reverse.
It was the obvious sign for the stage hands to raise the curtain on the cage where Katie and Angel had gone in.
I made the motion, but no one moved.
The stage hands all seemed frozen.
This was a very bad sign.
I rushed forward and threw off the curtain myself to uncover the cage.
As soon as I did, a giant gasp rose from the audience.
Nothing.
They were gone.
Both of them were completely, just… gone.
I took a deep breath, reassuring myself that this was just the first part of the magic trick. This is how it’s supposed to go, I told myself as I forced myself to smile for the crowd.
The crowd was cheering now. They were cheering for me, and finally, something, this, felt good.
But this was not good.
The stage hands both stared hard at the ground, refusing to meet me in the eye.
And they were both sweating now.
And so I walked back to the curtain, pulled the cord, and lowered it again, back over the cage. Whatever I had done, I thought, I would just undo it now.
I would just make them reappear.
And so I waved my arms around in the same exaggerated motion I’d made before.
But the stage hands just stood there, looking at each other, not moving at all.
Then I heard a shout. Then another.