The Illusionist's Apprentice

by Kristy Cambron

  “You’re sure you want to do this? You don’t have to, you know.”

  She loved the way he could say so much with so few words. His brow was wrinkled, showing concern, but not enough to say he didn’t have full confidence that she could handle what they’d come here to do. His eyes were never judging—just open enough that Wren knew he only wanted what was best for her and would always try to support it.

  “I know I don’t have to. But it is why I got all dressed up today, isn’t it?” She’d dressed in Wren Lockhart’s hallmark gentleman’s clothes and stage-ready cherry smile, stepping out in public for one of the first times since the news story broke outlining the deception of one Irina Blackwood, a former vaudeville manager, and Albert Gruner, the proprietor of A. M. Moriarty’s Theater Productions. Both Gruner and Irina had been charged alongside Stapleton, all facing their own trials for kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder, with evidence that continued mounting against the lot of them.

  Wren was prepared to testify in court, though she bore scars that needed healing. A cut from the hilt of a sword had permanently marked her brow and tiny scratches were still evident on one cheek, but her makeup had covered them well. Only eyes that looked on her as closely as Elliot’s could see them now.

  “Do you want me to stay?” He looked over at the striped denim-clad prisoner sitting at a table in the center of the room.

  Wren squeezed Elliot’s hand, drawing his attention back to her face. “I love that you asked, but no. This is something I need to do on my own.”

  He nodded. And just like always, he understood, saying nothing more about it. “I’ll be just outside if you need me.”

  Wren waited until the door clicked closed behind her, then walked across the space to the empty chair at the table. She looked down at the woman, her usually sun-kissed skin pale from months behind bars.

  “May I sit down?” She gripped the chair back.

  “It is why you’ve come, isn’t it?”

  Wren slid onto the chair opposite Irina.

  For the first time in years, her friend appeared dead in the depths of her striking green eyes. Wren couldn’t help but wonder if the next time they’d connect like that would be from across a courtroom, with her in a witness stand and Irina fighting to avoid a death sentence.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me,” Wren began. “I . . .”

  There was much to say—a history between them that went back years, long before Harry Houdini, before home became a stage. But now that the opportunity had come to say what she knew she must, the words were lost on her tongue.

  Start again. Pray for the words, and start again.

  “Elliot told me the truth. That on the day of his death, Josiah Charles told him who my real father was. But I think you already suspected that, didn’t you?”

  “Why have you come? To brag? To hold it over me that I’m in here and you’re out there?”

  “Not to brag. And not even to seek resolution with you. I believe the courts will seek justice for what you’ve done, and they’ll judge you accordingly. I’m here on another matter.”

  Irina narrowed her eyes, doubt covering her features. “If you’re not here about the case, then . . .”

  “I am here because of the years following my mother’s death. I don’t blame you for my father’s sins. He owned them alone, and the result was that our family was torn apart. But I needed to ask you a question—one that no one else can answer rightly.”

  Irina crossed her arms over her chest.

  “The man you named Victor Peale died on Horace Stapleton’s stage. That is a fact. And it’s for the courts to decide who administered the drug that killed him and to unravel the events of what happened in the weeks after. A jury will unfurl the story of why you had hired guns chase us down on the streets and why you attempted to have me die onstage by slipping in a new lock when no one was looking. But an illusionist’s secrets can always be explained. You know this. From the piping system that gave Victor Peale the ability to breathe in that coffin, to the gravedigger who administered the shot of adrenaline on the stage that day . . . It would have had to be someone with medical training, a healer, perhaps. Someone standing in line with the rest of the gravediggers in the shadows behind Amberley Dover. Someone who opened that coffin yet remained unnoticed because she hid in plain sight.”

  Irina remained silent.

  “I assume the book had significance. To give Victor Peale a book penned by Arthur Conan Doyle was a none-too-subtle message about a friendship that had fallen out. It was directed at me, wasn’t it? It was to be a message about us. We’d fallen out long ago, only I didn’t know it.”

  “That would have been a clever possibility.”

  “You don’t have to confirm what I already know. But I must ask, what was he going to say? Victor Peale. If his heart hadn’t stopped when it did, what was he going to say about the afterlife? Or, should I ask, what did you tell him to say about it?”

  “I can’t answer that, of course, as this case is ongoing. But I would have said there is no power over the grave that we can’t harness for ourselves.”

  “And you truly believe that?”

  “It sounds as though you have your theories all worked out. Is that why you came, just to accuse me one last time before we meet in a courtroom?”

  Wren shook her head. “No. I came to absolve you.”

  Irina laughed, a curious chortle void of humor. It was a touch arrogant, given the state of her, stripped of her former affluence and now, known only as the number on a striped shirt. “Absolve me?”

  Wren nodded. “Yes.”

  “And why would I care what you think? You’re an illusionist. You take money for the same reasons as the rest, yet you call it entertainment. But we’re all magicians weaving spells and crafting lies, making people believe in something that’s a vapor. You should know that people will only believe in what they can see with their eyes. I know there’s a stage waiting for you out there and there’s plenty of money yet to be made. They won’t hang a woman, so you’ll be making it long after I’m finished rotting behind these bars.”

  “But I never claimed a connection with the afterlife, Irina, except to have received the gift that is available to every soul who walks the earth—including you. So I’ll say what I’ve come to say, and then I suppose we’ll meet again in court.”

  “Then say it and get out.”

  Wren looked at her friend, seeing the years that had passed between them now hollow in the depths of her eyes. “I forgive you.”

  “What?” Her eyes flashed with the first bit of emotion Wren had seen.

  “I said that I forgive you. For all of it. I won’t live with bitterness for a single day.”

  “You think I need your forgiveness?” She slammed her fist to the table. “Guard? We’re done here!”

  The door swung open, and Wren turned to see Elliot sweep into the room. He stood by, his glare serious.

  Wren shook her head softly, letting him know she was still okay. That some things she still had to do on her own, and this was one of them. If she truly wished for restoration and a life that wasn’t an illusion, Wren could be the only one to let her past go.

  She stood, feeling weightless, as if bitterness had withered like flowers in a crystal vase and fallen, cast off like a pile of ash on the floor. “I’m sorry, Irina. You may not have needed grace today, but I did—if I’m ever going to be free.”

  CHAPTER 29

  OCTOBER 6, 1927

  PALACE OF VERSAILLES

  VERSAILLES, FRANCE

  The grand salon doors were open at either end of the Galerie des Glaces—the Hall of Mirrors—in Versailles’ grand palace.

  The last searching rays of evening sunlight streamed in through the span of arcaded windows. With the wall of mirrors at Wren’s back, light fractured against pillars of gold and low-hanging crystal chandeliers, enhancing the timeless luxury that still clung to the golden hall of Louis XIV’s seventeenth-century world
.

  Wren looked from the central windows to the lush landscape beyond the back façade, dusk hiding what remained of the gardens’ summer secrets. Hers would be a stage set under the vault of a starry sky, where she’d perform her illusions for a crowd of illustrious guests: high-society Parisians, government officials, and dignitaries who’d arrived to see the famed American illusionist’s show. It was the final show in her late-summer tour—the pinnacle of the career she’d built over the last many years.

  Whether gilded at the moment or not, the name of Wren Lockhart had become synonymous with a dying art. She knew that soon vaudeville would be no more. What Horace Stapleton and so many others had fought to keep tight in their grasp was slowly fading away. Radio and cinemas with talking pictures were poised to steal the entertainment limelight. It had already begun in cities like Boston and New York, London and even Paris, where patrons flocked not to a live vaudeville stage but to entertainment that thrilled in modern ways. Traveling trick shows weren’t likely to find bookings at such honored former palaces for much longer, if ever again.

  The winds had begun to shift, enough that Wren wondered what would be left when it was all over. It weighed on her thoughts as she waited for showtime now, taking slow steps the length of the hall, her boot falls echoing off the ceiling.

  This moment was the one she’d longed for once. It was her dream, to see the hall again. To stand in its center, then walk its length and decide which salon to enter at the end. Each entryway possessed its own painting—one for pretending and one for truth. One for war, the other for peace. And like the Sun King in his mirrored world, Wren could choose which one to enter.

  Wren could step into a future showered with peace, like the last rays of sunlight that bathed the hall around her. Her mother’s death did not have to be in vain. Nor Victor Peale’s, or even Josiah Charles’s. And she knew Franklin was her father in name now, though he’d always been in her heart. It changed everything to know who she really was. Wren wanted to use the events of the last months as a reminder for what truly mattered. That what Elliot had whispered once was true—the girl behind the mask had worth far greater than what the world said on a stage.

  Her freedom was, as Socrates had said, in the beauty of a life lived without pretending.

  Wren looked from left to right as the sun sank deeper, the swift fall of darkness outside emphasizing the glow of the crystal and gold-tipped chandeliers down the length of the hall.

  “Jenny.”

  She spun on her heel, staring toward the salon at the end of the hall. Elliot was there, spinning a bright-pink flower in his fingertips. He emerged into the glowing light reflected by the mirrors. “I don’t know what it is, but it looked like a peony.”

  “You picked it from the gardens . . .” He didn’t deny it. That made her smile. “You’ll be thrown in a French prison for defacing a national landmark.”

  Elliot shrugged, as if the threat were paltry. “You’re worth it.”

  He came toward her, his stride sure, eyes focused on her. Wren nodded, fiery waves grazing wetness that had found its way to her cheeks.

  “They sent me to fetch you. You ready? It’s about that time.”

  “I know. I was just . . . thinking.”

  “I wasn’t sure where you were. Looks like I guessed correctly when I found the backstage area empty.” He came still closer. He held up a slip of paper in his hand, stopping in front of her. “As your temporary manager, I am bound to tell you that we shouldn’t be late. But I did want to share this before you went on.”

  “Business?”

  His shook his head. “An urgent telegram. Apparently we’re being summoned back to Boston.” Elliot cleared his throat, trying his best not to smile. “It reads, and I quote: ‘I should have listened to you. Stop. You’d better be home by Christmas. Stop. I’ll never make it through this wedding without you two. Stop.’ Signed Connor Finnegan.”

  Elliot folded the telegram and slipped it into his tuxedo pants pocket. “I told him Amberley would have him walking down the aisle in the grandest society wedding Boston has ever seen to date. He said now that he wishes he’d gone to the courthouse like we did, and maybe he, too, could be spending his honeymoon on a European tour.”

  Wren laughed, unable to suppress the image of Connor Finnegan saying “I do” in front of five hundred of Amberley’s closest friends. “I am sorry for him, of course.” She smiled. “But I have to say that since Mrs. Amberley Finnegan will be our business partner, I might have to hold my tongue a little better in the future. I think maybe I’ll start right now.”

  “You’re sure you want to go into business with Amberley, especially when you know what you’ll be in for?”

  “I do. I think it’s right. We know now that Stanley Dover’s debts were not quite as life-altering as she’d been threatened into believing. Still, she’s trying to make amends. Allowing her to fund our rebuilding of the theater as the Castleton Gardens is a small price to keep the peace. And I’m freeing up my husband to get back to the job he loves. Everyone wins.”

  “Then you’re not sorry?” He held a hand out to her.

  Wren looked down at it, his palm open to the golden ceiling. It felt more right than ever to lace her fingers with his, now that she could do it anytime she pleased. “No. I’m not. How could I be when this reminds me that we walked hand-in-hand down a hallway once? A hallway that was much grander than this because I was staring down my past, and you wouldn’t let me do it alone.”

  “I remember.”

  “I wasn’t sorry then and I’m not now. I’m Wren Lockhart to everyone out there.” She tilted her head toward her stage set up in the gardens. “For better or for worse, I’m a vaude. I can’t turn back time and change who I’ve become. So I’m going out on that terrace to give a show. It’s who I am.”

  He edged a step closer, the tips of his shoes grazing hers with soft intention. “And that woman onstage who enchants every crowd is exactly who I love. So just go out there. Be Wren Lockhart as long as it brings you joy. And I’ll be waiting in the wings of every stage when you do. But please—don’t think you can’t be Jenny with me too. Someday you might be ready to leave Wren behind, but I won’t ever push you to change. Loving someone is accepting all of who she is, not just the best or the easiest parts. Do you hear me? I love you, my Jenny Wren, and that’s loving your pain too. All of it. Just as you accept me with mine.”

  Elliot slipped his arm around the small of her back, leading her down the hall. “I can’t forget that first night I stepped up onto your stage.”

  Laughter came easy and sounded so right as it bounced off the high ceiling. “You pushed your way in as a counterfeit volunteer.”

  “You said your heart was already spoken for, that first time I stepped on your stage and offered you a flower. Do you remember?”

  She nodded. “Yes. I do.”

  “I know you were playing to the crowd, but there was some truth behind what you said, wasn’t there? Please don’t tell me I busted up a secret courtship of some sort.”

  “It was like the tales in The Welsh Fairy Book: there was the promise of a hero one day. Someone who would walk down a hall with me. Who’d take my trembling hand in his. Maybe listen while I talk of fairy stories with my little sister. And he’d tell me to sell my home if it made me happy. To bring Charlotte to live with us in a little cottage by the sea, because he understands me so completely that he didn’t even have to ask to know it would be exactly what I’d want.” Wren met his smile with one of her own.

  One of their stagehands came into view of the doorway at the end of the hall. It was time.

  “I have to go.” She leaned in, pressing the whisper of a kiss against his mouth with a butterfly’s touch. “Will you be here when I’m through?” She leaned back, savoring the openness of his eyes looking only at hers.

  Elliot tugged at the tip of a fiery wave that had settled on her cheek and brushed it back with a finger against her brow. “Yes, Wren. I’ll always
be right here, waiting when the curtain goes down. And we’ll walk through whatever door we choose from this moment on—together.”

  Wren stepped onstage with music playing and a crystal vase of flowers ready to grow. Elliot was there. Watching and waiting but allowing her to be all of who she was. Feeling at peace as a little girl danced down the aisle. As flowers grew and matured. As false lives withered and died away.

  And in the next breath, ashes flew.

  She tossed it up, letting go, the crowd riotous in awe.

  A wren rose from the ashes, fluttering and soaring over the applause, its wings beating in time with the music . . . daring to go as high as freedom would allow. And she watched, heart full, as moonlight cast the shadowed outline of tiny wings on the manicured gardens below.

  The Wren was finally whole.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  One of my favorite stories about Harry Houdini wasn’t in one of his most infamous escapes or lockdown jailbreaks. It’s actually a story from his youth, of a young boy who, much like our own sons, had quite a taste for the interesting and adventurous.

  At barely seven years old, Ehrich Weisz (later to become the world-famous Harry Houdini) was a known daredevil and lock-breaking kid who one night, “unlocked all the doors to the shops” along College Avenue in the town of Appleton, Wisconsin. Upon seeing a street circus pass through town, he decided then and there that a life of adventure was for him. And on October 28, 1883, Houdini made his show-business debut with the Jack Hoeffler 5-Cent Circus, taking home a purse of thirty-five cents.

  Said to have been athletic and nimble from birth, he was fascinated by the tightrope walker who defied death in that street circus, stringing up a wire between buildings and walking across, seemingly without worry for the outcome of certain death should he fall. The prospect fascinated and exhilarated Harry so that he went home, promptly strung a rope from two trees, and climbed up to traverse the distance in the same way a tightrope walker would.

  Harry fell. Hard. The ground broke his fall but not his spirit. He got up, dusted himself off, and vowed to try again. In fact, he was soon dangling from a rope in his mouth, not knowing the showman in the street circus had used an iron-jaw mouthpiece to perform his tricks. It’s said that Houdini lost his front teeth as a result of that death-defying feat. (Fortunately they were not permanent teeth and new ones soon grew back to complete his smile.)