08 Illusion

by Frank Peretti

  This was God’s gentle, loving doing, speaking to her through the mystery, showing her a glimpse of a faraway light she had long and secretly hoped for …

  There was a man in her bed.

  She jolted with a yelp, which made him jolt and then start to curse, “Holy …” He clamped his fingers over his mouth, dumbstruck, staring, looking her up and down.

  She covered herself with her arms, though she was modestly dressed—in thrift store pj’s.

  He was young, probably in his thirties, not too bad-looking with curly black hair, a Tom Hanks kind of face. Now she could see that he wasn’t in her bed, but in a metal-framed single bed against a strange wall in a room she’d never seen before. She’d seen those blankets and sheets before—in the hospital.

  “Who … don’t be afraid,” he said as if addressing a timid spirit.

  Well now, just who was the ghost here? She could see him, but she could also see her own bed in her own room in the same place, all mixed together like a double image, and he was looking a little transparent himself. She didn’t move, afraid the whole jackstraw pile of dimensions would blow and flutter away, including this man, before she found out who he was.

  “Can you see me?” the man asked, propping himself on his elbow.

  She nodded.

  “My God,” he said. “Oh, my God!” He sat up slowly, as if trying not to frighten her. “Who are you?”

  Around her, worlds still moved, crisscrossed, swirled. Even her visitor, his bed, and as much of his room as she could see, were rippling, fading, reappearing.

  The only thing not moving was she—and she felt that way, inside and out. She knew the answer to his question, the only answer, and she spoke it clearly for anyone in any world to hear her. “I am Mandy Eloise Whitacre.”

  That seemed to horrify him even more. He couldn’t even manage another “Oh, my God!” He was about to say something …

  His image got wavy, began to fade behind a tea-stained shadow. “No, wait!” he said, hand extended. “Wait! Don’t go away. I won’t hurt you!”

  He was gone.

  She was staring at her own bed, standing nowhere else but in her little apartment. The alarm clock said half past midnight. She looked down. Thrift store pj’s, bare feet, plain wooden floor in the amber streetlight coming through the windows.

  Who was he? Was he even real? Was anything real?

  With no answers, ever, she could only tuck such questions away to wait for their time. She would remember his face. For now, she was swept up in everything else that had just happened, and what remained.

  “Mandy,” she said. The dancer was Mandy. She was the dancer. She enfolded herself with her arms. The warmth had not left her. “Mandy Eloise Whitacre.”

  There had been a development. Dr. Jerome Parmenter could see it in the face of Loren Moss, his project manager. Moss was wan and shaken as he closed the door to Parmenter’s office and sank into the chair facing the older gentleman’s desk.

  “What’s happened?”

  Moss had been manning the lab while the rest of the staff was away for the holidays. Now fear lingered in his eyes. “I saw her.”

  The news was not a surprise, but it was not welcome. “Where?”

  “In the staff room, not more than ten feet from me.”

  Parmenter turned to the computer console adjacent to his desk. “Did you note the time?”

  “December 26, 12:22 A.M.”

  Parmenter scrolled through the readings and found a spike in activity at precisely that time. “A 23-degree fluctuation in the Kiley, 19 in Baker …” Unbelievable! “42 in Delta! Initiating at 12:22:04, resolving 12:23:36.”

  “That was it. It felt like a small earth tremor, and it woke me up. She knocked some books from the table, and my water bottle went rolling.” Moss leaned forward. “She had at least 50 percent opacity, and I’m guessing I had the same opacity to her. We could see and hear each other. I asked her who she was, and she responded. She gave me her full name, Mandy Eloise Whitacre.”

  “Did you tell her who you were?”

  “The corridors diverged before we got to that. But she was startled and disoriented. I don’t think she had any idea where she was or what was happening.”

  “Does anyone else know about this?”

  “No one.”

  Parmenter immediately scrolled to the readings he’d obtained in the coffee shop. “During her levitation she deflected the Delta 29 degrees and I thought that was extreme.”

  “She only deflected 17 during the Wallace performance, but collectively there was a trend outward.” Moss shook his head grimly. “She’s becoming very adroit at this, to the point that her inputs have priority over ours.”

  Parmenter sighed, sharing the frustration. “We set, she resets, we reset, she resets again. She’s getting so we can’t keep up with her.”

  “And she doesn’t even know she’s doing it. This latest event was clearly involuntary, which confirms for me that many of the events we’ve observed were also involuntary, triggered by emotions, her subconscious, maybe stress …”

  “Maybe even … her spirit?”

  Moss paused to weigh that. “If there is such a thing, it would correspond to what we’re observing, yes.”

  “To a substantial degree, I would say. It’s a niggling question we try to avoid, but we’re not dealing with a lab rat here, or even a monkey. I believe there are aspects of Mandy Eloise Whitacre that our science can never touch or control.”

  Moss considered that. “And that would provide an explanation for her behavior and these events.”

  “Yeah, well, DuFresne and the others are never going to buy it, but here’s my take on it: we’ve stolen her away and she’s trying to find her way back. We can alter and revert every atom of her being, but at a certain level beyond our reach, she knows who she is and where she belongs.”

  Moss sighed, visibly burdened. “So we’ve crossed the line.”

  “Oh, we did that a long time ago.”

  Moss looked away. “And not with impunity.”

  Parmenter felt a visceral response: fear for his friend. If Mandy Whitacre’s corridor passed through the staff room only ten feet from him and only a few yards from the Machine …

  “Loren, are you all right?”

  Moss only looked at him, the answer in his eyes.

  “Oh, no …”

  “I remember everything.”

  Parmenter’s hands went to his face.

  “I remember volunteering and everything that happened before that: the first experiments on the lab animals, the installation of the additional mass, working with you on the Kiley/Baker protocol. All of it. A whole year.”

  “We’ll have Kessler examine you.”

  “The cancer’s back. I can feel it. It was a pronounced and sudden change, quite noticeable.”

  The worst had occurred. Neither man could speak for a moment.

  Moss offered, “The deflection of her corridor encroached on mine and overwhelmed it. Similar to what happened to the soldier, Dose.”

  Parmenter looked at the computer. All the data that once promised discovery now confirmed failure. It was like reading a postmortem report.

  “We saw this coming,” said Moss.

  The elder scientist agreed. He just couldn’t bring himself to say it, not yet.

  But Moss had had time to think about it—and now had nothing to lose. “The early models all predicted inexorable return to equilibrium, and sure enough, all the inanimates, and then the rats, and then the monkeys retraced. We could push the deflection debt ahead of us, but …”

  Parmenter nodded ever so slowly, scrolling through the data on his screen. “But you can only stretch the universe so far. Looking through the lens of dead rats and monkeys—”

  “And a retraced soldier and a retraced scientist,” Moss reminded him.

  “These figures all make sense.”

  “And all proverbial hell is going to break loose with Mandy Eloise Whitacre the pivo
tal factor.”

  Parmenter hated being so cornered. “And DuFresne and Carlson in sole possession of the ears and pockets of the military.”

  “I don’t suppose a moral argument will work?”

  “Coming from us?” That made Parmenter chuckle in bitterness. “We’ve already explained our way around the data, disposed of the rats, incinerated the monkeys, held back what we were really thinking—that we were exploiting and jeopardizing human lives.” The moral question had always been clouded by bitter divisions over secrecy, propriety, national security, and the omnipresent god of funding, but now it was as clear as the data on the screen—and the dying scientist sitting across from him. “It’s going to be a terrible note to end on, wouldn’t you say?”

  Moss sighed and rubbed his eyes. “You could say that.”

  chapter

  * * *

  30

  That evening, Eloise knocked on Sally and Micah Durham’s door. It had been so long, and the Durhams were so happy to see her. Yes, Rhea was still doing hair. Darci had moved back to Sioux Falls, Iowa, and was engaged. Two new girls, Shelly and Doris, were staying in the home as part of their probation. Sally and Micah were fine. Micah had a job with flexible hours, so he could help out more.

  And how was Eloise? Once she got past “Fine,” “Doing all right,” and “Staying busy,” she sat with them in the cozy living room and got down to the main purpose of her visit: “I’m ready to tell you now. I have to tell you. Eloise is actually my middle name… .”

  The Monday after the New Year’s weekend, Arnie Harrington, fresh up from Vegas, got his first look at the Collins-Kramer-Morgan Magic Theater. “I’ll be jiggered!”

  For a training stage built in one end of a shop building, the stage was one impressive piece of work. It had footlights fashioned from work lights, movable access stairs, backdrops that rolled into place on casters or lowered into place on cables, teaser curtains, a rack of lights Dane bought secondhand from a concert promoter, a spotlight, and one main curtain operated by a revamped garage door opener.

  “The birthplace of exciting new talent and many new wonders to come, I trust,” said Dane.

  Wow. If Eloise Kramer’s act had benefited from the same Dane Collins touch … “So where’s our magician?”

  “I think I heard her Bug coming up the driveway.”

  The shop door opened and she stepped in wearing a hooded parka and pulling off her gloves. “Well, hi!”

  “Hi there!” said Arnie. What a picture. The Gypsy Hobett Coffee Shop Girl had an entirely different air about her in this place. You’d think she grew up here.

  Dane exchanged a warm smile with her and a thumbs up.

  She made a whimsical, tentative kind of face and pulled back the hood of her parka.

  Dane became frozen in time.

  Arnie stared unabashedly.

  Her hair was blond, golden through and through. She cast them a little sideways glance as she hung up her parka and pulled off her boots, but said not a word.

  “What’s this?” Arnie asked.

  “You did it,” said Dane.

  Her hand went to her hair, fingers combing, fiddling with it. “I did. I had my girlfriend put me back the way I was.”

  “The way you were?” Arnie asked.

  “She’s naturally blond,” said Dane, and he loved how it looked, it was rather obvious.

  “Huh.” Arnie was still staring, getting a little message. “How ’bout that.”

  “The roots were growing out anyway, and it just came time to be myself,” she explained.

  Arnie nodded and forced a smile—it wasn’t a very good one; he was trying to hide a gut feeling.

  “Anyway,” she said, offering her hand, “it’s wonderful to see you again.”

  “Yeah,” he replied as he shook her hand with a sideways glance at Dane. “I guess it’s been a long time.”

  Arnie sat in a folding chair just ten feet from the stage, the Kubota tractor at his back. Dane manned the lights and curtains, Shirley doused the shop lights and cued the music, and Eloise Kramer, in her one and only stage costume, did her show with playful, high-energy confidence, performing for Arnie as if he were the only one there. She made eye contact, she dazzled, she teased, she mugged, and most of all, she wove the wonder through everything she did.

  The cards flew from her hands, arced from one hand to the other, sailed over Arnie’s head and back to her hand, vanished as if they were never there; the bottles popped and multiplied out of nowhere and sang in harmony; choreographed tennis balls bounced and teased all over the stage as she danced with them; doves materialized from her empty hands and circled the room, only to vanish into snowflakes; her microphone had clones that sang in orbit around her.

  She got a hula hoop spinning around her waist, then stood still while the hoop continued to spin on its own. As she gestured magically, it rose around and then above her body until it was spinning in midair over her head. Then it became her partner and she danced with it, leaping through it, dance-dodging it, flipping and twirling it around herself like a cowboy with his lariat, and all without touching it. The hoop split into two, the two hoops circled around her like two unicycles without riders, then merged into one hoop again.

  The finale went off like a fireworks display: the music crescendoed, and Eloise took her grand ta-da pose flanked by tennis balls bouncing, hula hoops spinning, doves doing figure eights over her head, and playing cards shooting like a fountain from her hands.

  The music thundered and drummed to a big finish, Dane closed the curtain on Eloise’s triumphant tableau, and Arnie rose to his feet, applauding and whistling. “In-credible! Absolutely astounding!” Dane opened the curtain again so she could perform a graceful dancer’s bow.

  Shirley threw the wall switches in the back, and the shop lights came up. Arnie kept clapping and Eloise, high as a kite, sprang from the stage and leaped into Dane’s arms for a congratulatory hug, and then a laughing, father/daughter hug, and then a hug between two friends. Arnie found himself calling out a few extra bravos and extending his applause so the hugs wouldn’t outlast it. What would he have to do next, sing some background music? Finally, when the student and her master were aware of someone else in the room, Arnie stepped forward and extended his hand. “You’ve definitely fulfilled my highest expectations and, uh, more besides.”

  They debriefed in rapid chatter, they reviewed, they fired off ideas as they came:

  “Now that we have the routines just about timed out, we can get Robbie Portov to work up a music score,” said Dane.

  “And costuming. Better costuming,” said Arnie. “Something brighter, eye-catching …”

  “Something that follows her and accentuates her moves.”

  “Several changes if we can swing it.”

  “But with class.”

  “Like Mandy made famous.” Arnie’s eyes asked if the reference was okay.

  “Well … exactly,” said Dane. “Is Keisha Ellerman still designing?”

  “And how.”

  Dane sighed through pursed lips. “Budget, budget. We’d better talk venues first.”

  “Let me take you to lunch.”

  “Great!”

  “I guess I should change,” said Eloise.

  “Just Dane,” said Arnie.

  There was a short, awkward beat, and then she recovered. “Oh. All right.”

  Arnie smiled and explained, “We’ve come to that point, kid: Dane and I need to talk about you behind your back.”

  Dane patted her shoulder. “That means things are getting serious.”

  Arnie didn’t build on that comment. He just let the sideways stretch of his mouth and the arch of his eyebrows concede.

  She smiled, adjusting. “I’ve got some housecleaning to do.”

  Dane took Arnie to Rustler’s Roost, a log-structured, ranch-style barbecue place with log furniture, red checkered tablecloths, and waitresses in cowboy hats. It wasn’t Vegas, was definitely Idaho, and had plenty of
room so they could find an isolated table and talk privately.

  “They have great food,” Dane assured Arnie.

  “Bring it on.”

  They ordered, then Arnie gave Dane a look he’d seen before, a look that meant this lunch could go kind of long, Arnie had a difficult topic on his mind.

  Dane thought he might be able to steer around it. “You know, I was thinking it would be a great idea to get her booked on Preston’s show. Maybe she could even take up a challenge. That would get her in the public eye and give her something unique to say for herself.”

  “He’d take her apart,” said Arnie.

  “Well, not if we set it up right. Maybe we should leave out the challenge part and she can just be a guest magician.”

  Arnie repositioned himself on the log bench as if his rear end were getting sore already. “First let’s talk about Eloise.”

  “I thought that’s why we were here.”

  “I don’t mean the business part. I mean the other part.”

  Oh, brother. We’re going to go there. “You mean, umm …”

  “I mean, I want to know if I’m seeing what I think I’m seeing.”

  Cornered. Arnie wasn’t blind and he wasn’t stupid. “She … she tends to be affectionate. She has no parents. I guess I’m like a father to her.”

  “Dane …” Arnie put up his hands. “Listen, if that’s the case, or even if you have something more going with this girl, I’m not your parents or your pastor, I’m okay with it. I work in Vegas, I see everything.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “But do you know what it is like? As your friend, that’s what I want to be sure about, that whatever it is, you know, you really know.”

  “What it’s … what are you talking about?”

  “All right.” Arnie leaned toward him and made an effort to keep his voice down. “I’m thinking about you and me on the street outside that coffee shop, and you going on and on about that girl looking and sounding just like Mandy. You do remember that?”

  Dane couldn’t hide the fact that he did.