The Illusionist's Apprentice

by Kristy Cambron

  “You’ve made it quite clear that she’s not your daughter, so I’ll ignore the audacity of your question. Wren is a grown woman, and I believe the time for parenting is long past.” He offered his sincerest words. “I will say that if I love Franklin’s daughter, she’s going to hear it from me first. And I promise you one thing—I’ll make sure no harm comes to her. Wherever she is, I’ll find her. So I thank you for your time. You’re free to go.”

  Elliot gave a slight nod for propriety’s sake, then stepped through the door and started down the hall.

  “She won’t marry you! Even if you ask,” Josiah tossed out behind him. “Vaudes are all the same. They never trust anyone enough to love. I’m proof of that. And so was her mother. That girl will end up in an early grave because of it, just like that Houdini fella did. Wren Lockhart is damaged goods.”

  Elliot froze. Then turned. Slowly.

  Fury was quick to rise from his gut, for the little girl who’d watched hatred and abuse perpetrated on someone she loved, right before her eyes. For the innocence Wren had spoken of when they’d visited Charlotte that was stolen by this man right here, dirty and stinking of drink and only half sober as he tossed out righteous indignation.

  It took everything in Elliot to keep his fists cemented at his side. But his feet? They moved. They carried him with steps so sure that Josiah Charles actually took a lopsided leap backward, toppling the chair back with a crooked shove with the thought a fist could fly in his direction.

  Elliot stopped mere inches away from the man’s face, incensed for what he’d put his girls through. Elliot’s breath tore in and out of his lungs, teetering on the cliff of letting his anger fly. But all he could think of in that moment was Wren, how beautiful and untainted she’d been when she’d welcomed him in the peace of her glass house.

  The vision of her was more powerful than revenge, and he knew she wouldn’t want him to do it.

  “With all due respect, Mr. Charles, you might be the last person on this planet who can speak to me about love. Wren isn’t like anyone else. If she trusts enough to love, she’ll do it with the whole of her heart—even though you’ve nearly damaged it beyond repair. So you’ll have to excuse me, because I believe I know where she is. Wren needs a hero for once in her life, and I’ll do whatever it takes to ensure she finally gets one.”

  CHAPTER 24

  The abandoned halls of the Castleton were black as night.

  That Wren remembered from the last time she’d visited. But traversing the halls now, stage-side right without a pinprick of light and only their hands to follow along the walls—it made even the hair on the back of her neck stand to attention. Every sense remained on high alert, as they would be for one walking blind. Listening for every sound. Thinking they could hear footsteps every other breath. Pausing. Not breathing. Praying, and then breathing again. Hearing the possibility of danger in the creaking of the old walls as it fought with a spring breeze outside.

  “Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Amberley’s voice was squeaky, drawn down to the softest whisper she could manage and still be heard.

  “Shhh! Of course I do,” she answered in a rough whisper of her own.

  Wren kept edging her hands along the wall, feeling aged planks that had slight warps to the sides, worn and water-damaged velvet of curtains draped at certain intervals, and open spaces that led to stage-prop areas and doorways to halls greeting more blackness.

  Amberley trekked close behind, so close that she plodded a heel to Wren’s ankle every few steps. Wren ignored it, biting her lip as she kept moving.

  It has to be here somewhere . . .

  “Where’s that blasted door?” Wren’s hand eased over the telltale cold grasp of a metal knob and she exhaled. Finally, relief. The door to the VIP-room hall. It was there, hidden in the shadows right where she’d remembered it, as if it had been waiting for her after all those years.

  She turned the knob, jiggling lightly. It turned but refused to give. The door was bolted from the inside, as usual. But no matter. It just took a bit of know-how to open without a key. Wren felt for the crack of the door, found it, and slipped her file all the way to the top until it clinked against metal. She applied light pressure, an old hinge squeaking as it lifted the metal bar on the inside.

  And there they were, door open, with freedom but a few darted steps away.

  There was but one window at the end of the hall, a tall, arched portal of stained glass that was once beautiful and inviting as it looked out over the bustle of Scollay Square. But the glass, too, had been hidden, existing now behind wooden boards nailed up on the outside. There was just enough light to illuminate a door outlined at the far end of the hall, cast in shadows of red and gold, yellow and blue from the stained glass.

  Beyond . . . the alley. And freedom.

  “Good.” The satisfaction was sweet. Wren’s skills were useful, if one was locked in an old theater. “Amberley? Come on. We can make a run for it before they even know we’re gone.”

  The blackness seemed even deeper with Amberley’s silence.

  “Amberley? I said let’s go,” she whispered, slight and low, desperate to reach out for her in the dark.

  “I’m here,” she whispered, though her voice sounded too far behind.

  Wren turned, darting through the door to the hall. Heart in her throat, she plowed into the wall of a man’s chest.

  Any gasp she might have let out died in her throat. Instead, the man who’d managed to sneak up on them, and done God knew what to silence Amberley, was about to get the fight of his life.

  She reared back, breath nearly lost as she balled her fist and let her knuckles fly. They connected with flesh and bone, blasting her good arm with fiery pain, the bones in her hand jarring. It shot pain down her arm and a dull thud against what she hoped was a tender spot on an unsuspecting someone’s jaw.

  “Wren! What’s the matter with you! It’s me.”

  “Elliot?” Her breathing finally rocked her. Taking over. Reminding her that she, too, was flesh and bone and that her will was so much stronger when he was by her side. “What are you doing here?”

  A thimble full of dim light flooded in from cracks in the boarded window at the end of the hall, illuminating his features. He had a hand on his jaw, eyes clamped shut, a pinched expression on his face. “The least you could have done was warn me.”

  “Warn you?” She threw her arms around his neck. “I could kiss you right now!”

  He shook his head, cheek brushing against the side of her face. “No. Not when I’ve just had my bell rung like a telephone box.” He still rubbed his jaw. “Where’d you learn to punch like that?”

  Senses came back to remind Wren where they were and that time was not on their side. “It’s a great story and I’ll tell you later. But right now—where’s Amberley?”

  “I’m here.” Her voice drifted from behind Elliot’s back.

  “Good. Then let’s go. There’s the door—” She pointed out in the dim light cast from the stained glass. “It leads to the alley. I can take us the rest of the way, behind the buildings until we’re a safe distance away.”

  “I know. I came from the alley. No one’s there.” He exhaled.

  Was he as relieved to see her in one piece as she was to see him?

  “Then let’s just get out of here. You tell me the rest after we’ve gotten Amberley to safety.”

  They’d have to run for the door. Wren would have flown down the hall, leaving the dark, back-halls world of the Castleton behind, if the door hadn’t opened on its own, flooding the hall with golden daylight.

  Wren felt Elliot’s hand ease around her wrist from behind. Softly. With just enough of a touch to let her know he was still there, no matter what came.

  Sunlight illuminated the open doorway to the alley—and the forms of Irina, the glint of metal from a cocked pistol, and a young woman with a pink dress and auburn hair.

  No . . .

  Wren bit her bottom lip or e
lse she’d cry out. Elliot moved his hand down to her palm, lacing fingers with hers, and squeezed.

  “Charlotte,” she breathed out, her bottom lip trembling.

  “Good. You’re awake.” Irina’s voice was calm and hand unwavering as it held the gun on Wren’s sister. “And now I have your attention.”

  She stepped through the door with Charlotte in tow, then slammed the door on their flight to freedom.

  CHAPTER 25

  APRIL 3, 1907

  256 W. NEWTON STREET

  BOSTON, MASS.

  To a six-year-old, the sight of her mother falling down a flight of stairs was otherworldly.

  But it had happened. In a flash. Before anyone could stop it. And the aftermath was both immediate and bone chilling in its finality. It was as if they all hung on time for a moment as imaginary dust settled, and the cloud of doubt lifted enough that even Jenny could discern what just occurred.

  Her mother lay lifeless, a beautifully scarred heroine, her body quiet and still on the hardwood in the entryway. Charlotte had fallen, too, but only a step or two. She clung to the wooden spindles outlining the staircase and cried out in the silence, a single, heartbreaking sob: “Momma?”

  Jenny couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even think.

  She watched as her father ran down the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. The old wood groaned out in protest as he tore over it, falling to his knees on the ground floor. He shook their mother. First lightly, his hands cautious as he ran them over her forehead and cheeks. Though her weighted feet moved in slow-motion, Jenny slipped her book under one arm and walked to the stairs. She stepped down, one . . . two . . . three steps. And when she was at Charlotte’s side, she held out her hand.

  Charlotte’s hands were fused to the spindles—white-knuckled, as if she were grasping for her own life.

  “Come, Charlotte,” she said, feeling strength well up inside her. From where? She didn’t even know. It just seemed sensible to take her sister away.

  As their father pounded fists to the floorboards, crying out with pain, Jenny slipped her hand in her sister’s tiny cherub palm and squeezed.

  “Come with me,” she whispered.

  Charlotte trusted her. She nodded, tear tracks still wet upon her face. And together they walked the longest path Jenny could have imagined, from the top of the stairs all the way to the nursery door at the end of the hall.

  Jenny closed it, drowning out the pitiful noise of their father’s shouts. There was no key to turn in the lock, so she looked to their desk and pushed the yellow-painted chair up under the old brass knob. And as if the night beckoned her, she crossed the room to the double doors and swung them open.

  The coolness of evening flooded in, catching up the gauze curtains on a breeze.

  The sun had gone to sleep.

  Trees were talking with the wind and tiny singsong spurts of birdsong mingled through the waving leaves. It was as if their garden sang through the night, even as pounding continued on the door downstairs and the entry suddenly filled with the sound of footsteps and adult voices.

  Somehow, in the midst of death’s grip, the call of something beautiful and untainted swept into the nursery room.

  Jenny stood on the balcony and listened, hearing their father’s wailing from somewhere below, fighting with the soft call of birds in the trees. And she watched, tears peppering her eyes, as a tiny wren dropped out of the treed sky and landed on the stone rail before her.

  “Come here, Charlotte,” Jenny whispered, for fear the tiny bird was still too wild to trust and a loud voice could cause alarm. It hopped about, bobbing its head. “I want to introduce you to a friend. This is our little wren.”

  Charlotte wiped her eyes with her rolled fists. “We have a bird?”

  Jenny nodded, the flood of emotion finally gripping her heart. “Yes. Come see. We’ll talk of lovely things,” she whispered, pained. Because of what she saw. Because Charlotte had been at the top of the stairs and their mother was at the bottom. And there was no other explanation than the horrific thought that Charlotte was to blame.

  Though she couldn’t have known what she’d done, Wren’s little sister had shattered both their worlds.

  “I’ll tell you a fairy story from our book. It’s about a princess and a dragon. And a hero who comes to save the day. But you cannot speak of this day again. Understand? Not ever.”

  “Never?”

  Jenny shook her head. “No. All we will say is that we will never push someone again. Do you understand?”

  Charlotte nodded. As though she understood at a level deeper than her mind would allow. This her sister had felt with her heart, for her eyes teared. Her hands trembled, still covered in smeared crimson. “We never push . . .”

  “Come.” Wren held her hands, ushering her to the washbasin. “I’ll wash them. And we’ll talk of lovely things from now on.”

  The promise of simple things, of fairy-tale worlds and sweet dancing birds beckoned Charlotte from her tears. She came to the window and stepped out on the balcony. “I do like your stories,” Charlotte said. And then, with a far softer tone, asked, “Is Momma asleep?”

  Jenny leaned down, slipping her arm around her sister’s tiny shoulders. “I would like for you to meet our wren. She will always watch over us,” she whispered. “Her name is Olivia.”

  “Agent Matthews, I’ll ask you to remove your weapon—slowly, because we don’t want our dear Charlotte to be frightened—and slide it over to me.”

  Without a word, Elliot followed the order, immediately taking the gun from his shoulder holster. He knelt, sliding the gun out on the hardwood floor. It sailed forward, then fell dead with a thud against the wall.

  Irina stooped to retrieve it, the flash of metal dulled by the dim light of the Castleton’s back hall, the sunlight shut out by the closed door behind her. “You can come out now,” Irina called, her voice oddly shrill and calm at the same time. “I’ve stopped them.”

  Wren stood frozen, watching her entire world crumble. The door closest to Irina opened, and three men stepped into the hall. Two she recognized from a snowy New Year’s Eve in Mount Auburn Cemetery—just as she’d suspected, the gravediggers had been hired for the job.

  The other, a man who’d hung back behind Irina, finally stepped into the light.

  Always one to act without restraint, Amberley let out a shriek. “Al . . . But you’re supposed to be dead.”

  He was thinner now and far more composed than Wren remembered. So unlike the hired hand they’d known in Harry Houdini’s show. Gone were the scuffed boots and work shirts with suspenders. They’d been replaced by a genteel air, even if it did seem manufactured. He wore a crisp tailored suit and a top hat, twirled a walking stick in his fingertips, and walked forward to Irina’s side in shoes that had been polished to a right shine.

  “Al Gruner?” He chuckled. “I haven’t heard that name in some time—not since word got out in the papers that I’d died in a farming accident some years back. Right about the time our Amberley here had discarded me as an old stagehand in favor of a neat and tidy life with a railroad tycoon.”

  Anger swept over Amberley’s face and she stepped out, as if to swing a fist at the man. Elliot moved in, holding her back at the elbow. She turned an ankle on the heel of her shoe, blasting out, “You mean to tell me that I’ve been forced to endure rumors—the blackening of my character—for years, while you were building a vaudeville empire? You have some nerve to come back here now . . .”

  Gruner chuckled, ignoring her.

  Wren exchanged glances with Elliot. Wishing she could read his mind. Wondering how to think like an agent so they could see a way out of the proper fix they were in.

  “I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your fire, Amberley. But I’ve changed a bit since the old days. And you forget—crew members are never photographed and hardly seen even when backstage. Who would remember my face but you? So it’s Mr. Albert Moriarty now, of A. M. Theatre Productions. You may know one of
our top talents, Mr. Horace Stapleton. Well, that is, he was one of our top talents before our Wren here decided to team up with the late Mr. Houdini and sully our showman’s name. I will forgive the slipup since you may not have known of my one-time success as a private investor in certain vaudeville shows across the country. But you decided to ruin that, didn’t you, Jenny? It wasn’t until Irina came to me with an idea to save my venture that I thought it was time to come back to life—so to speak.”

  “But Victor Peale—”

  “Him? A nobody. Some nameless scamp off the streets. But in searching through photographs of those buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery and with a stroke of luck, we found that he bore a striking resemblance to the real Victor Peale, dead some twenty years.” Al scoffed. Had the nerve to laugh over a dead man. “If you promise a starving man the world, you’ll find he’ll agree to just about anything.”

  Enough of this. I need to get Charlotte out . . .

  She won’t understand.

  “Whatever it is you want from me, you can have it. Just let them go. This is between us, isn’t it, Irina? This is our ten-year courtship with the truth finally come to light.”

  “And what truth is that?”

  “Magic,” Wren breathed out. “Do you remember? I asked you once if you would claim the use of magic if you didn’t have to.”

  “And now you know the answer. I believe in magic, but only because I believe in myself more. If the fools in a crowd will toss their coins in my direction because they believe in an illusion, I’ll use that and more to convince them of truth.”

  Charlotte whimpered. “I don’t like it here, Jenny,” she cried out. “I want to go home, with you.”

  “It’s okay, Charlotte. I’m here.” Tears tumbled down Wren’s face, unencumbered now, not seen since a day in April more than twenty years before.

  Wren stepped forward, drawn from the solidarity of Elliot’s strong form by the soft cries of her sister. “It’s going to be alright. Just think of Olivia, okay? Think about our winged friend. The memory of our wren will give you strength.”