Six months after we’d left Vancouver, our group finally stood together on the far side of the Chilkoot Pass. We looked like walking corpses. Our cheeks were hollow, our beards were ragged and our clothing was shredded and filthy. But if we were exhausted, we were also thrilled to have survived.
We slid down to Lake Bennett on homemade sleds, laughing all the way. Our journey was temporarily interrupted when we were forced to set up camp on the frozen lakeshore for the next four months. While we waited for the spring thaw, we built a boat that would carry us down the Yukon River the rest of the way to Dawson. There were a few close calls during the last watery phase of our journey, but on the ninth of June, ten months after setting out from Vancouver, the boat we’d built carried us around the last rocky outcropping. We let out a cheer. There, stretched out for miles along the bank, was the fabled Dawson City.
In truth, my companions and I had expected something more than the mud-clogged roads, dirty shacks and weathered tents that greeted us, but we got over our disappointment quickly. We weren’t there for the city; we were there to find gold. We lost no time unpacking our shovels and racing for the creeks to stake our claims.
“You’re too late, cheechakos,” someone jeered as we passed. It was the name, we soon learned, that locals called newcomers. “It’s all gone. There’s nothing left!” the voice shouted after us.
We spent two entire days trying to disprove the old sourdough’s words. Eventually the truth sank in. The countryside had been staked for miles in every direction. There was nothing left to claim.
But I wasn’t ready to give up. “There’s more than one way to collect gold,” I assured the others as we conferred by our tent. “Let the claim holders break their backs digging it out of the ground. We’ll get our share another way.”
“What do you have in mind?” Thomas asked suspiciously. “You aren’t planning on stealing it, are you? Making it ‘disappear’?”
I smiled. “A little sleight of hand, perhaps, but no stealing. Look around and what do you see? Men, thousands of them. Tired prospectors with too much money, and discouraged cheechakos like us with not enough. What we all have in common is a need for some diversion, some entertainment. There are fortunes to be made in the Klondike, my friends. And not all of them will be dug out with shovels!”
We appointed Antoine our stage manager and assistant. He and Thomas sold our mining equipment and used the proceeds to purchase props and more presentable clothing. After we’d shaved our beards and trimmed each other’s hair, we set out together to find a suitable venue for our first performance in Dawson City. We distributed handbills to every person we met, and two nights later we performed in front of a packed audience in the town hall.
The crowd was wildly appreciative from the start. Thomas had barely got his first dish in the air when a tipsy Klondiker near the front started clapping. It was contagious. By the climax of Thomas’s act, as he juggled half a dozen bottles of champagne, the entire audience was on its feet. The cheering intensified when Li and Antoine appeared on the platform together and took their places ten paces apart. It was only as Li held up his first knife that the audience fell temporarily silent. When the last of a dozen knives was embedded in the wall behind Antoine, they began hooting and hollering again until the entire hall was shaking.
I jumped on stage just as Li and Antoine were making their exit. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” I cried. By now the crowd had worked itself into a frenzy, fueled by liquor and exhaustion. It was like yelling into a thunderstorm.
Thomas joined me on stage. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he shouted. “This place is about to explode!”
“These people paid for three acts, and I haven’t performed the third act yet,” I yelled back.
“They’re not even aware you’re up here anymore. Look at them! They’re about to riot!”
“I’d better get their attention quickly, then,” I said. I raised my hands, and flames appeared at my fingertips, accompanied by a deafening clap of thunder. The hall immediately fell silent as every eye turned to the stage to watch me manipulate the flames into one large ball of fire that seemed to hover just above my outstretched palms. My hands moved, and the flaming orb moved with them. I traced slow circles in the air, and then I clapped my hands abruptly to make the orb disappear.
Next I withdrew a small case from my cloak and beckoned Thomas to join me again. I saw a mixture of surprise and fear in Thomas’s eyes as I opened the case and took out a small gun.
Thomas shook his head. “No, Dante. You never said anything about performing the ‘bullet catch’ tonight. It’s too dangerous!”
I ignored him. I was already holding the gun in the air and calling for a volunteer from the spellbound audience. A dozen men raised their hands. I pointed to a bearded man who looked slightly less ragged than the other trekkers and prospectors around him. The crowd parted in front of him, and he climbed onto the stage.
“Sir,” I pronounced in a voice that carried to the very back of the hall, “I have in my hands a pistol. It is a real firearm, loaded with a single live bullet. For the benefit of the audience, would you please inspect this pistol and the ammunition inside it.” When the volunteer was finished his inspection, I took the gun back and unloaded the bullet from its chamber. “I will now ask you to mark this bullet for the purposes of identification,” I said. I waited while the man withdrew a small knife from his pocket and scratched something on the bullet. As the man watched, I returned the bullet to its chamber. “Thank you,” I said, bowing slightly. “If you would now hand this pistol to my assistant and stand off to the side, I will prepare to perform the most amazing feat any magician has ever undertaken.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said when Thomas had received the gun, “pay close attention. My partner will fire the pistol, and I will catch the bullet in my teeth. The danger you perceive is real. My life depends on my partner’s steady hand and my own skill. Any error, no matter how slight, could prove fatal.”
With trembling hands, Thomas raised the pistol. I crossed myself and nodded to show that I was ready. I saw Thomas close his eyes, and his lips moved for a moment. Then he opened his eyes again and took aim. I crumpled to the floor the instant the shot rang out. For the benefit of the audience, I waited a few seconds before staggering to my feet again. I opened my lips to reveal the bullet held between my teeth. Then I spat the bullet onto a plate and called my volunteer back on stage to verify that it was the same one.
“That’s it,” the bearded man said in amazement. “That’s the bullet I marked.” That was all the audience needed to hear. The hall erupted in cheering and loud applause.
After that performance, my companions and I had no trouble drawing eager crowds. We rotated our way through one venue after another: saloons, beer parlors, dance halls and theaters. But as the gold rush peaked and passed, our audiences began to dwindle. In the spring of 1900, we made the decision to return to civilization with the wealth we had accumulated. We boarded a steamship and sailed south to Vancouver, eagerly discussing plans for the next chapter of our lives.
Chloe found herself abruptly back in the present, staring at the blank space that followed the end of the last passage. She thumbed through the remaining pages of Dante’s book. They were all blank. Dante had written nothing more.
Chapter Seven
“But there has to be more,” Chloe insisted when she joined her great-aunts at breakfast the next morning. “Dante’s story can’t end in Vancouver. What about you? What about this house?”
“Dante’s story doesn’t end there,” Kitty agreed as she spooned sugar into her tea. “Unfortunately, what you read is all he managed to record before he disappeared. I’m sure he meant to finish it.”
“What happened after he left the Klondike? Did he start his own show? When did he meet your mother?”
Kitty smiled. “Even from this distance he’s charmed you, hasn’t he? That’s one thing Dante was especially good at, charming people.�
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Bess dabbed at her lips with a napkin and abruptly stood up from the table. “There was nothing charming about our father’s behavior. He abandoned his wife and children without a word. It’s not a fairy tale, Kitty. Why you’re dredging up the past at all is beyond me.”
“I’m sorry,” Chloe said, horrified. But Bess was already halfway through the door.
“Oh, don’t mind her,” Kitty said, reaching over to pat Chloe’s hand. “Bess has never really forgiven our father. She bristles every time his name comes up, even all these years later. But don’t worry—she may be a little annoyed with me, but she’s not angry at you.”
“I didn’t mean to pry,” said Chloe. “I’m sorry.”
“Nonsense,” said Kitty. “You have every right to know your family history. That’s why I gave you Dante’s memoir in the first place.” The old woman paused to take a sip of her tea. “As to what happened after Dante returned to Vancouver, I can only tell you what our father told our mother and what she passed on to us. Dante asked his companions to join him in forming a new traveling show. The company grew as they traveled east by rail over the prairies. By the time they reached the Great Lakes, Dante had founded the Carnival des Grands Lacs.”
Chloe shifted in her seat. “It must have been successful, if he built this house.”
“It was reasonably successful, financially speaking,” said Kitty. “Dante was very good with money. He paid his performers fairly and invested the rest in timber and sawmills and mines. He did very well. He could have retired quite comfortably after just a few years on the road.”
“But Dante didn’t retire, did he?” Chloe asked.
“No. It wasn’t money Dante was after; it was fame. He was still determined to become the world’s greatest magician.”
“When did he meet your mother?” Chloe asked.
“Well, now that’s a story,” Kitty said with a smile. “In 1909, our mother, Magdala, was working as a servant for a wealthy family in Toronto. It wasn’t Magdala’s idea to visit the carnival when it came to town—one of the other servants she worked with talked her into it.”
“And Magdala saw Dante perform and fell in love with him,” Chloe concluded.
Kitty laughed. “It wasn’t just our mother who fell in love with Dante—almost every woman who saw him fell under his spell. Dante was already in his early forties by this time, but he was still quite a presence. Remember, my dear, this was before the age of movie stars. It was a rare thing to see such a handsome man, such a talented performer.” Kitty’s eyes had gone soft as she stared at a point somewhere past Chloe’s shoulder. “Dante’s act was pure enchantment. He threw scarves into the air and they became doves. He walked through a full-length mirror and disappeared. When Magdala was in the audience on that spring day in 1909, he invited her to sit in an ornate chair on stage and made the chair levitate and spin. As the chair descended, rose petals fell from the air all over our mother. She was spellbound, of course.”
Bess appeared suddenly in the doorway, her hands on her hips. “Spellbound, enchantment! Really, Kitty, if you’re going to tell our parents’ story, the least you can do is leave out all the romantic nonsense.”
“Were you listening at the door?” said Kitty.
“I was not,” said Bess. “Since Abigail is out this morning, I was tidying up the kitchen. You project your voice as if you were still on the stage, Kitty. I couldn’t block it out if I wanted to.”
“Well, then,” Kitty said, “if you don’t like the way I’m telling the story, why don’t you tell it?”
Bess was already taking her seat again. “I will.” She sniffed. “It’s the only way Chloe is going to hear anything like the truth. Now where had you left off?”
“Magdala had just seen Dante’s act for the first time,” said Chloe.
“Ah, yes,” said Bess. “Despite what Kitty said about Magdala falling under Dante’s spell, our mother was quite a sensible young woman. She wasn’t one of those swooners or heart-clutchers. Maybe that’s what our father saw in her: someone practical to balance his own rash and reckless nature.”
“The fact that she was so young and pretty probably didn’t hurt, either,” Kitty interrupted.
“At any rate, Magdala didn’t pursue Dante,” said Bess. “It was very much the other way around.”
Kitty nodded, her eyes bright. “Dante brought her flowers, took her out for evening meals, arranged mid-day picnics in the park. He was very persistent. He called on Magdala every day for two weeks, and then he proposed. She said yes, of course.”
Bess snorted. “He was persistent, all right. He wore her down—what else could she say?”
“Oh, Bess,” said Kitty, “you know very well that Magdala was happy at the beginning. They both were. Their love was real.”
“And when were you born?” Chloe asked.
“In 1912,” said Bess. “No one knew Magdala was pregnant with twins. Kitty shocked everyone when she emerged right after me.”
“And I’ve been shocking people ever since,” Kitty told Chloe with a wink.
“This house had just been completed a few months before,” Bess continued. “It was Dante’s idea to build a house this grand, certainly not Magdala’s. We didn’t spend much time in it as a family. Within a year, Dante was back on the road again.”
“After just a few months, Magdala gathered up our things and we caught up with the carnival,” said Kitty. “She didn’t like being separated from Dante.”
“Was it hard being on the road when you were so young?” Chloe asked.
Kitty shook her head. “Oh, no, my dear. It was quite wonderful. They spoiled us, all the other performers. It was like traveling with a large extended family.”
“We were happy,” Bess admitted. “We had everything we needed, and more. If only Dante had been satisfied, our childhood would have been quite idyllic.”
“But why wasn’t he happy?” asked Chloe. “What more did he want?”
Bess clucked her tongue angrily. “Only the world, my dear. By unhappy coincidence, Dante’s dissatisfaction began the year we were born. That was the year Dante traveled down to New York to see Harry Kellar. By this time, Kellar was widely recognized as ‘America’s Greatest Magician.’ Dante had heard a rumor that Kellar was about to retire and was looking for a successor, so he arranged a meeting with him in New York. When Dante came home again, he was full of lofty plans. He was convinced that Kellar was going to write and invite him to be his protégé.”
“But the letter never came,” said Kitty. “A few months later, when he learned that Kellar had chosen another magician to be his successor, Dante was absolutely heartbroken. At least that’s what our mother told us.”
Bess snorted. “Dante indulged his grief like a spoiled child. He retreated to the library and didn’t come out for two whole weeks.”
“But he did finally come out,” said Kitty.
“Yes, he did,” said Bess. “But he came out a man obsessed. Dante was more determined than ever to become the world’s greatest magician. And we all paid the price for that.”
Chloe waited for Bess to explain, but both women had fallen silent, staring into their teacups. “Did Dante’s obsession have anything to do with the carnival’s disappearance?” Chloe asked at last.
“Of course it did,” said Bess.
“Now, we don’t know that for sure,” said Kitty. “What about Monsieur Lucien and his wishing box?”
“Monsieur Lucien!” Bess grimaced. “You don’t still believe that fairy tale!”
Kitty sat up as tall as her tiny frame would allow. “Monsieur Lucien existed, Bess. And you can’t say he wasn’t an influence on our father.”
“Oh, he was an influence on Dante, all right,” Bess agreed. “But all that nonsense about a magical wishing box—surely even you can see what that was. Our mother told us that story to gloss over the ugliness of what really happened. Our father abandoned us, Kitty!”
Kitty took a deep breath before turni
ng to Chloe. “So much time has passed,” she said quietly. “It’s hard to see things clearly now. Bess may be right; I don’t know anymore. I suppose the best we can do is tell you what our mother told us and what we remember ourselves. You’ll have to draw your own conclusions.”
Chloe looked from Kitty to Bess and nodded.
“We were just five years old when Monsieur Lucien wormed his way into our lives,” said Kitty. The old woman closed her eyes. “It’s been almost a century, but I can still see him clearly in my mind. He was tall and slender and very formally dressed. I remember he carried an ornate gold and ebony cane. He was dark-haired, and he spoke with an accent. There was something very troubling about his eyes. They were like bottomless black pits. The first time he looked at me, I was afraid I was going to fall into them. After that I hid behind my mother whenever he was near. Bess was braver,” Kitty said, opening her eyes again.
“I didn’t like him,” said Bess, “but I wasn’t afraid of him. I was there when he presented Dante with the small wooden chest made of rosewood that he called a wishing box. It was just another magician’s illusion, of course—it had to be—but Monsieur Lucien claimed that it was something more and offered to sell it to Dante after demonstrating its powers.”
“Powers?” Chloe asked, leaning forward in her chair.
“Dante wrote something down on a piece of paper and locked it in the rosewood box. When he unlocked the box, he found a velvet bag full of gold coins. He believed that his wish had been granted.”
“So it worked,” said Chloe.
Bess gave a mirthless laugh. “That’s what Dante believed. Our father was taken in by a con man, Chloe, a common crook.”
“Bess wasn’t the only one who didn’t like Monsieur Lucien,” said Kitty. “Our mother was uncomfortable around him from the very beginning. And then when she read in a newspaper that a man in a nearby city had been robbed of a collection of antique coins that matched the description of the coins in the velvet bag—well, she was really upset then. She confronted Dante and demanded that he send our foreign guest packing, but Dante refused. Monsieur Lucien was very persuasive. He’d already convinced Dante to make another wish, a wish for a new illusion so spectacular that it would make all his previous illusions look like amateur parlor tricks.”
When the Curtain Rises Page 5