The Plastic Magician (A Paper Magician Novel)

by Charlie N. Holmberg

Alvie’s thoughts rushed through her mind in a blur. That was what he’d decided to try? An already-discovered spell, and one a first-year apprentice would know?

  He’d lost it.

  The arm didn’t move. He knew he had lost, and now everyone in the room knew, too. Mg. Ezzell’s eyes glistened, and Alvie almost felt bad for him.

  Almost.

  The chief of police stood, but before he could utter a word, Mg. Praff rose from his seat and reached forward, taking the prosthesis from Mg. Ezzell’s hand. He didn’t even clear his throat before saying, “Compress.”

  The liquid plastic inside the plastic tubes of the arm pressurized and straightened out all five of the prosthesis’s fingers.

  Alvie grinned.

  The chief groaned. “Arthur, place Magician Ezzell under arrest for the theft of property and abduction. We’ll add to the list later.”

  Mg. Ezzell jerked back as though struck. “He’s tinkered with it somehow! This is hardly conclusive evidence! This is outrageous!”

  “Do quiet yourself, Mister Ezzell,” the chief of police said in an almost bored tone. “Or you’ll give me even more fodder for charges.”

  Mg. Ezzell’s mouth snapped closed just before the policeman named Arthur came behind him with a pair of handcuffs.

  Giddy relief surged through Alvie like a geyser. Jumping from her chair, she threw her hands up in a cheer, then landed on her sore feet and promptly fell over.

  CHAPTER 19

  THE DISCOVERY CONVENTION WAS to last three days. On the morning of the second day, Emma confessed to collaborating with Mg. Ezzell in exchange for a lighter sentence, sealing the rogue Polymaker’s fate of prison time and a permanently revoked magician’s license. In the evening, the police found the rest of Mg. Praff and Alvie’s equipment in a nearby storage shed and their automobile and trailer in a ditch just outside Oxford. One of the officers assigned to the case found a lead on the thug who had attacked Alvie at the cabin and expected to make an arrest soon. The owner of the cabin had not been found, causing the chief to believe either Ezzell or one of his colleagues had used a false name to purchase the property. On the third day, Alvie and her mentor were finally allowed to attend the festivities.

  The enormous Imagidome drew in a swarm of attendees, new and veteran, and for hours Alvie managed the line for it, passing out tickets and fulfilling requests for the three visuals provided—Starry Night, Arabian Sand Sea, and His Majesty’s Courtyard. While the Imagidome and its otherworldly delights garnered oohs and aahs, it was the prostheses that had magicians, scientists, and inventors alike engaged, asking questions and studying the prototype. The captive audience gasped when Mg. Praff put a sock over his fist and moved it around in the socket made to fit over Ethel’s stump, the various movements causing the fingers to jump and flex. Every time Alvie heard a “Remarkable,” or an “Incredible,” she beamed. Polymakers came by the dozen to investigate and learn the new spell. So many of them clustered together, discussing other potential applications for compressed polymers, that Alvie got multiple complaints from Imagidome attendees about the noise disrupting the “theatre.”

  At two o’clock, four hours before the convention was to end, Mg. Praff set a hand on her shoulder and said, “Your turn.”

  Alvie adjusted her glasses, which Mg. Praff had thankfully fixed so that she was no longer bug-eyed on one side. “Pardon?”

  He gestured to the prosthetic ankle and arm. Newcomers were already approaching the display.

  She swallowed. “But it’s yours—”

  “Ours,” he corrected.

  Taking a deep breath, Alvie nodded and tightened the strings of her apprentice’s apron. She slipped between bystanders, most of whom were men, and said, “Welcome. These prototypes are of a prosthetic ankle, arm, and hand, which Magician Marion Praff and myself designed.”

  “Yourself?” repeated a young man.

  “Yes, sir. I’m his apprentice.”

  He looked doubtful. “Your name?”

  “Alvie Brechenmacher, sir.”

  Another man asked, “You’re not related to Edison’s Brechenmacher, are you?”

  “Yes, sir. He’s my father.”

  “The light bulb?” another spoke up.

  “Forget the light bulb,” a fourth shouted. “Show us the fingers!”

  Alvie smiled and took up the white sock, pulling it over her hand and making a fist. “The socket is sensitive to pressure. I’m sure you’ve heard of the discovery of the new Polymaking spell, Compress. You see, these tendons are hollow and filled with liquid polyethylene . . .”

  Alvie discussed the prototypes for two and a half hours—the time went by quickly, and she enjoyed every minute of it, but she was still thrilled when Mg. Praff returned and excused her to see the convention for herself. She certainly couldn’t experience everything in only ninety minutes, of course, and the inability to explore and learn to her heart’s content hurt worse than her still-sore feet. But it wouldn’t do to waste what time she did have by sulking.

  She started off in the Polymaking section, browsing the aisles of booths backdropped by shelves and shelves of library books. One magician had created a new material for parachutes, and another had invented a thinner, clearer kind of tape. She would have loved to describe it to Bennet, but her bag containing his Mimic spell had yet to be found. It hadn’t been with the other items from the trailer—she imagined Mg. Ezzell had thrown it away with her shoes and luggage long before arriving in Oxford. She sighed. At least there hadn’t been anything too sentimental in there.

  She explored the very small section for Folders, looking at textbooks with moving images and giant suspended displays full of flapping birds or swimming fishes, where even the strings were made out of curls of parchment. The Pyres had a self-lighting fireplace that featured color-changing flames, as well as self-lighting cigars. There was quite an extensive jewelry display with the Gaffers. Mg. Ezzell had taken her money, but Mg. Praff had kindly reimbursed her, so she bought a long necklace of clear beads for Ethel and a hair clip shaped like a pond lily for herself. She found bouncing balls that never stilled unless commanded in the Sipers’ section and got two, one for her papa and one for Bennet.

  There were oddball displays between sections by other scientists and innovators, including demonstrations for the nonmagical on how enchanting materials worked, as well as machines designed to do simple tasks in an extraordinarily complicated fashion. Alvie watched as ball bearings were dropped into the “start” bucket of one of the contraptions. This first action moved a string that tumbled over a stack of cards that shifted a pencil that tapped a weight that came down over a candle to press a weighted wax seal into a letter. As she passed another booth, she overheard someone explaining to a group of adolescents the differences between man-made and nature-made glass. Part of the presentation was a beautiful, warped piece of glass that had apparently been formed after lightning struck out in a desert. Such glass could not be enchanted by man, just as naturally started fires couldn’t be tamed by Pyres, and pure metals couldn’t be worked by Smelters.

  The Smelter section was last on her route. Alvie ogled displays of enchanted train tracks and skeleton keys among the Smelters. She wished the latter were for sale. She certainly could have used a metamorphing key in that basement.

  She shuddered at the thought as a bell rang out through the halls, signaling the end of the convention. There was a dinner being held afterward. Alvie wondered if she could skip it and snoop around the exhibits some more. Ah well, there was always next year. The Discovery Convention was to be held in New York City for 1907. A good excuse for a trip home.

  Alvie and Mg. Praff returned to their hotel late—it was a small one down the street, since the closest ones had already been filled. Alvie had her own room, and she wrote a letter home before turning in so she could remember everything she’d seen. She would break the news of her cabin adventure through Mg. Praff’s enchanted mirror when she returned to Briar Hall. She woke early the nex
t morning, got dressed—unfortunately, in a skirt—and headed home in a hired buggy. Fred had been discharged from the hospital, Mg. Praff told her, but he was resting at home. He wouldn’t be back to work until the following Monday.

  The buggy pulled into the drive of Briar Hall close to noon. Alvie was eager to get out. Her feet only ached a little bit, but her backside was tired of the cushioned seat in the back of the buggy. She’d only been stretching for a moment when she noticed a Benz parked ahead of them.

  “Bennet!” She rushed into the house, startling the housekeeper. She didn’t need to go far to find Bennet Cooper—he was in the gallery with Ethel and Mrs. Praff, who was giving them a tour of the various portraits there.

  “Bennet! Ethel!” she exclaimed, startling the lot of them. Upon seeing Alvie, Mrs. Praff ran out of the gallery, likely to find her husband. Bennet and Ethel stayed, and Alvie lost her air when Bennet threw his arms around her.

  “Are you all right?” Her hair muffled his voice.

  Ethel said, “Oh, Alvie, we were so worried about you!”

  Bennet drew back, and Alvie said, “You heard?”

  He nodded. “We had Oxford policemen showing up on our doorsteps, asking us questions about Magician Praff’s work.”

  Alvie’s mouth formed a small O. It made sense—she wondered if the Oxford chief of police had determined Mg. Ezzell was guilty before Alvie had requested a demonstration with the prosthesis. Whatever witnesses Mg. Ezzell was able to provide, they had Ethel—the woman who’d inspired the project in the first place—and her brother, who had visited the polymery several times, on their side.

  “You’re all right?” Bennet asked again, his hands on her shoulders.

  She nodded. “My feet are a little sore, and I’m in a skirt, but other than that, I’m fine.”

  Ethel laughed at the same time as Bennet asked, “What happened to your feet?”

  Alvie related the story then, about the automobile problems and the trailer and the basement. Ethel covered her mouth with her hand the entire time, leaning forward as though Alvie were reciting some great play. Bennet, on the other hand, paled a little more with each detail. She didn’t mention Mg. Ezzell’s hand on her leg.

  “But the convention was great!” she hastily added at the end. “It really was. I’m sorry I couldn’t write to you, Bennet—”

  “You hardly owe me an apology.” His voice was a little weak. “Oh, Alvie, I’m so sorry that happened to you. I wish I could have done something.”

  Ethel elbowed her brother with her good arm—her left still wore that heavy, false-looking hand. “You helped acquit them. That’s enough.”

  Still, Bennet’s eyes were downcast with guilt. Alvie stepped closer to him and took his hand, earning a small quirk of his lips in response.

  “Ethel!” Mg. Praff’s voice echoed through the gallery. Alvie turned to see the Praffs standing arm in arm, both smiling. “Just the young lady I want to see. I believe I have something for you.”

  Ethel lit up like a light bulb. “Really? Right now?”

  Mg. Praff grinned. “Come, I’ll have the footmen bring it around to the polymery.”

  Ethel’s grin shined brighter than an enchanted lamp.

  Alvie slipped her hand in Bennet’s. “Come on. It will be perfect.”

  A package arrived from Oxford three weeks later. Alvie took it to her workroom without even opening it. She cleared off all her desk and counter space, putting away new spells and the books detailing them. She opened the package with her pocketknife and pulled out the lock.

  Grabbing a set of tools, she carefully pried the lock apart, which was tricky to do since the plastic had melted and reformed inside it. She didn’t dare soften it up to quicken her work—that would botch the integrity of the discovery.

  And discover she did. When she finally got to the guts of the lock, her suspicions were confirmed.

  The plastic had melted with delicate metal parts.

  Not melted against them, but with them. The metal of the inside cylinder had merged with the plastic, as though Alvie had melted that, too.

  But she couldn’t have. She wasn’t a Smelter, and the Melt spell shouldn’t have been nearly hot enough to affect the metal.

  She marveled at the lock, turning it this way and that, then began to diagram it. Later, in the lab, she began building a lock of her own—a simple design, with all the components made of plastic. The task took her a day and a half to complete. She missed a homework deadline but couldn’t bring herself to care as she molded and formed and shaped.

  She installed the new lock in her workroom door, about a foot above the handle, to test it. Sure enough, it locked. She commanded it, “Unlatch,” but the plastic did not respond.

  So she made another lock, taking care with each component to ensure its integrity. Missed another deadline. Installed it above the first and commanded it, “Unlatch.”

  The plastic didn’t heed her.

  It was when Alvie collected her monthly stipend and asked Fred to take her to a hardware shop that Mg. Praff finally asked, “Alvie, what are you up to? We’re supposed to be discussing thermodynamics in thirty minutes.”

  “I’ll be right back. It’s very important,” she promised.

  Mg. Praff sighed, but nodded his consent. He, of all people, understood the draw of discovery.

  So Alvie went out and bought eight locks, all of the same make, all with a dead bolt. She studied them in her workroom—took them apart, replicated them. Took notes, built theories. Stared at the lock from the basement in the cabin.

  By the end of it, her door had over a dozen locks installed in it. Most of the metal ones were useless, their keyholes pumped full of plastic.

  Eleven days after the first lock had arrived from Oxford, Alvie began writing a paper. On the twelfth day, Mg. Praff came into her workroom near ten o’clock at night.

  “I’m going to have to get you a new door,” he said, eyeing the locks.

  Alvie was taking notes.

  “Alvie?”

  “I think I figured it out,” she said, lifting her head and setting down her pencil. She rubbed a cramp from her hand. “I have a theory, Magician Praff.”

  He folded his arms and leaned against the counter. “Oh? And what is this theory that’s kept you here all hours of the night, barely stopping to eat, putting off your assignments, and ruining a perfectly fine door?”

  She handed him the lock from the basement. “Look at this.”

  He studied it. He must have noticed the way the metal and the plastic had melted together, for his brow furrowed and his lips formed a small frown.

  “This is how I got out of that room. I’m calling it Bending, for lack of a better word.” She opened a drawer and fished through the mess of papers within it, including several used-up Mimic spells from Bennet, and pulled out a smudged diagram—a circle of all seven magics, including Excision. “Imagine this. A magician who can Bend into an adjacent material, according to that diagram—it’s not a perfect diagram—and manipulate it.”

  Mg. Praff lowered the picture. “I’m not following you.”

  Alvie plucked the diagram from his hands and laid it on her desk. “I think that’s what I did. I think I somehow Bent into Smelting when I was in the basement. That’s why the plastic merged with the metal. Why the Unlatch command worked.”

  “Alvie—”

  “It worked with metal because they’re both from the ground, see?” She pointed to her diagram. Plastic and metal were wedged next to each other. “And I think it would work with Siping as well, since the disciplines are so closely related and share a lot of raw materials. Think of it! Maybe a Smelter could perform a Gaffing spell, since their materials are both, fundamentally, made of stone. I think a Folder could even do something with Excision, given that their raw materials are both organic, or that, well, all magicians are flesh and blood, and—”

  “Wait, Alvie. Stop there,” her mentor urged. “This is getting . . . large.”

 
; Alvie chewed on her lip a moment. “It makes sense, I think.”

  Mg. Praff set the malformed lock on the counter. “And have you been able to replicate this?”

  Her shoulders drooped. “No, sir.” She’d tried over and over again, doing exactly what she’d done in that basement, uttering the same spells, even the ones that had proved fruitless. She wondered if she was forgetting something, or if it had to be a special sort of metal or an old lock, or if she just hadn’t been able to enter the same frame of mind.

  “But nothing else explains it,” she added.

  Mg. Praff sighed. “Maybe this is a fluke. Or maybe the door wasn’t locked all the way—”

  “It was locked all the way.”

  “—or perhaps you got the plastic hot enough to do this.” He gestured to the lock. “We might never know what outside force helped you with this, but until you can repeat the incident, the theory won’t hold. Neither in the scientific world nor the magical one.”

  Alvie frowned. She knew this, of course. Hence all the locks on her door.

  After a moment of silence, Mg. Praff said, “We should return to your studies.”

  Alvie nodded. “Yes, we should.” She rubbed her eyes under her glasses. This would require a lot more study on her part, and a lot more experimentation. A lot more time than she could dedicate at the present moment. And maybe, once she’d mastered Polymaking, all of this would make more sense to her.

  “In the morning.” He clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s get some rest tonight. And I’ll have Hemsley look into fitting you with a new door.”

  She nodded, glancing down at the messy drawer, at the torn papers scribbled with both her and Bennet’s handwriting. Before Mg. Praff departed, however, she said, “Mg. Praff ?”

  “Hm?”

  “Are apprentices allowed to marry?”

  His brow raised enough to thoroughly wrinkle his forehead. “Well, yes. There’s no rule against it.”

  Alvie nodded.

  Mg. Praff lingered a moment more, perhaps waiting for Alvie to say something else, but when she didn’t, he slipped away, closing the many-locks door behind him.