Magic

by Audrey Niffenegger

  Tommy pushed himself away from the wall and took hold of it. Houdini held his arms by his sides, quite still, while Tommy wrapped him the rest of the way. The chain ran out just as it reached Houdini’s neck.

  Houdini nodded towards the padlocks, but he didn’t need to: Tommy understood. He picked up a lock and secured the end of the chain. He told himself it was going to be incredible, and his heart was beating fast, but it didn’t feel incredible: it felt odd. Dad’s balding head shone under the single bulb that struggled to light the farthest corners of the garage.

  Dad nodded. Smiled. There was a faint chink of metal as he flexed his arms. Then, voilà! In one movement the chain fell away from him, landing on the floor at his feet. He smiled, took a sharp bow. Tommy didn’t clap. He didn’t laugh. He couldn’t seem to move; couldn’t do anything, least of all look away from his father’s shining eyes.

  “SO, WHAT HAVE you two been doing all day?” Mum was busying herself about the kitchen, cooking the dinner. Steam rose around her. She wiped her hand across her brow, rubbed them on her apron.

  This time Tommy didn’t answer: his father did.

  “Escaping,” he said. He wrapped his mouth around the syllables, pronouncing each one quite clearly. “I – escaped.”

  “Very nice.” Mum didn’t look as if she thought it was very nice. She wiped her hands again, this time on a tea towel.

  “I am leaving.” Houdini waved towards the door. He smiled a slow smile, but he didn’t look at Tommy and he didn’t look at Tommy’s mum. He kept his eyes on the door, which stood slightly ajar; a light breeze came through it, stirring the steam that filled the air.

  “Not now, you’re not,” Mum snapped. “Now you can sit down and eat your dinner.”

  Houdini turned towards her, a puzzled expression on his face. He met her eye and they stared at each other for a long time.

  Then Houdini sat down and he ate his dinner. He kept looking up as he did it, not at Tommy and not at Tommy’s mum but above them, over them, beyond them.

  DAD DIDN’T GO to work on Monday, or the day after that. He didn’t sit around the house either; he didn’t get under Mum’s feet. He spent his time in the garage. Tommy knew this because Dad was in the garage when he went to school and he was still in there when he came home. He walked in one evening and found him standing with his shirt off, flexing his wrist backwards and forwards, pulling his hand in towards his arm and then back the other way.

  “Flexibility,” he said. “Strength. Courage.”

  “Courage, Dad?”

  His dad bent and picked up the end of the pile of chain and held it out to Tommy. Tommy looked at it dubiously.

  “Courage,” Dad said. It didn’t sound like a statement: it sounded like a command.

  TOMMY WRAPPED HIS dad in a length of chain. This was new chain, stronger than before. He had grown adept, too, at tying knots in rope: his dad had showed him how. Tommy hadn’t known his dad knew how to tie knots, but it seemed he did. He gave Tommy detailed instructions, guiding his hands.

  This time, though, it was chain, and padlocks, and handcuffs. Tommy didn’t know where the handcuffs had come from. He secured one around his father’s wrist, felt the lock snick into place, and he looked up and met his eyes.

  “You’re not really Houdini,” he said. “Houdini lived in America. I know. I looked him up.”

  Dad looked back at him. After a moment, the handcuff fell from his wrist and clattered to the floor.

  “You don’t sound American. You sound posh,” said Tommy, but his dad only smiled; it didn’t look like his old smile.

  “Did you know Houdini didn’t believe in magic?” Tommy pressed. “I mean, he did stage magic. But he didn’t believe in real magic. There were these people who said they talked to ghosts, and Houdini went around proving they couldn’t. He didn’t believe people could talk to the dead. He didn’t believe they could come back.”

  He stopped. Dad was staring at him, and suddenly Tommy felt afraid. He took a step backwards, almost tripped over a pile of rope.

  “Get out,” Houdini said.

  “What?”

  “Out.” Houdini’s voice was white hot; his voice was cold. He shrugged his shoulder and a loop of chain fell to the floor, freeing his arm. He pointed towards the door. “I said get out,” he said, and every single word of it was perfectly clear.

  THAT NIGHT, TOMMY found a recording of Houdini’s voice on the internet. It had first been recorded on wax cylinders in 1914, but there it was, under his hands; he clicked on the file and Houdini’s voice filled the room. Houdini spoke quite clearly. He enunciated each individual sound of each individual word. There was only the slight twang of an American accent when he said the word dollars.

  DAD WAS LIFTING weights when it happened. He had taken to keeping them in the lounge, under Mum’s feet, but she hadn’t said anything about it, hadn’t tried to stop him. She kept to the kitchen these days. Tommy noticed how she would walk out of a room when his dad walked into it. Quite often, Tommy would walk out too.

  This time he’d thought his dad was in the garage, practicing. He wasn’t sure what he was practicing for, only that he was always there. He was building something in there, too: a wooden crate, its proportions a little bigger than a man. Tommy wasn’t sure what it was for, but he thought he could guess.

  Now he walked into the lounge to watch TV and found his dad was there, raising a dumb-bell to his chest. Dad’s chest was naked. Tommy could see the little grey hairs on it, but he could also see that it had changed, was stronger, more muscular. He looked away. His dad didn’t move, didn’t set down the dumb-bell. He made a little sound in the back of his throat. “Tommy.”

  Tommy’s head whipped around. It hadn’t been Houdini’s voice: it had sounded like his dad.

  “Tommy, I’m in here. I can’t get out.”

  Tommy rushed to his dad, put his hand on his arm. “Dad, it’s me,” he said. “Where are you? Where?”

  Dad’s eyes hardened. “Move – aside,” he said, and Tommy jumped away from him, and Dad set down the dumb-bell and then he picked it up and lifted it again.

  LATER, TOMMY GOOGLED the circus. He had found the old flyer, smoothed it out, read the words through the smudges of ink. The circus didn’t seem to have a name. He searched for the dates it had visited, for where it might have gone. He couldn’t seem to find it. He examined the flyer again.

  Amazing feats, he read. Amazing feats and mind-blowing escapades.

  He felt tears stinging his eyes. He didn’t want amazing feats or mind-blowing escapades. He didn’t want to see magic; he certainly didn’t want anything hitherto unknown to man. He only wanted his dad back again, the one who wore a suit and went to work and who liked to play Scrabble, and that was all.

  ONE DAY, TOMMY’S dad was gone. Tommy looked into the garage to call him in for tea and he found the room empty, the bare bulb a single spotlight shining on a chipped concrete floor. The chains had gone too, as had the rope and the locks. He had vanished, just like that: escaped, leaving not a trace of himself behind.

  SOMETIMES TOMMY TRIED to talk to Mum about his dad, but she wouldn’t have it. She’d purse up her mouth and sniff, or start talking about something else very loudly, even if she had her mouth full. He’d hear her on the phone sometimes, talking to her own mother, something about strumpet, or hussy, and he didn’t know what those things were, except that they were bad. If he tried to mention it, though, she’d leave the room and slam the door. Sometimes she’d just look at him, and there would be such sadness in her eyes, such an emptiness, that Tommy would shut up all on his own.

  There was once, though, when his mother broached the subject. “He wanted to be like Houdini,” she said. “He wanted to get away.” They were having their supper, and Tommy had been miles away in his thoughts, or wanted to be; but as it turned out, they hadn’t been so very far from each other after all.

  “No, Mum,” he said. “He was Houdini.”

  “Stop that nonsense,
” she replied, although her voice was kind, quite unlike the way it usually sounded these days. “He wasn’t Houdini, he was your dad. But he wanted to be.” Her voice went distant. “He wanted to be, didn’t he.”

  “Yes, Mum.” Tommy subsided, though he didn’t think his words were true, not really. “He wanted to be.”

  And she went on eating, and she didn’t look at him, though she had two livid blotches on her cheeks, just as if she’d been slapped, or as if she’d been crying.

  TOMMY’S DAD NEVER came home after that. The years passed and he grew up, started to get into video games and seeing movies with his friends, and after that, girls. He once came across the flyer for the circus when he was sorting through his things, and he let out a ‘tch’ sound as if he’d been bitten, and he screwed it into a ball. He didn’t pause to read it; saw only a string of exclamation marks flying through the air as he threw it into the bin.

  THAT YEAR, HE was sixteen. He had met a girl – a nice one this time – and he caught the bus at the end of the road to take him into town. He was going to meet her there, and she would smile and wave and call him Tom, because everyone called him that now, he didn’t want to be Tommy any longer. And he went to the back seat of the bus and sat down and propped up his knees on the seat in front. He turned and smeared the condensation on the window with his sleeve.

  The familiar streets passed by until they grew wider and busier and the buildings grew taller, and Tommy looked out at them all, looking up at the formless grey sky, wondering if it would rain. It might be nice if it did; he could shelter his girlfriend under his coat, the way they did in films, and it would be funny, and give them something to talk about. Later, they might even kiss.

  The bus swung around the last long curve of road before it reached his stop, passing the wide square in front of the town hall, and he sat up straighter and his feet dropped to the floor and his mouth fell open. He wiped the window, once, twice, and pressed his face up against it.

  There was an escapologist in the square, standing above everyone else at the top of a flight of steps. There was a big crowd spread below him, and Tommy could hear them even over the throaty engine of the bus, laughing and clapping. The escapologist was all wrapped in chains, a silver coil that went around and around his body, holding his arms fast to his sides. He was smiling. He looked happy. He made a small convulsive movement and a coil came loose and a cheer went up.

  Then the man grew still. He was looking towards the bus. Tommy recognised his dad at once; his piercing stare, his balding head, though what hair he had was longer now, growing wild around his ears.

  His eyes, for an instant, met Tommy’s. Tommy saw his dad squint; he looked as if he was trying to remember who Tommy was. In the next moment, he was gone.

  The bus turned the corner and Tommy pressed himself against the window, trying to keep the man in view. He was too late. All Tommy could see, as the bus carried him onward, was a pile of chain; it was all that remained of his father, lying lank and shining and useless on the ground.

  THE BABY

  CHRISTOPHER FOWLER

  Rock and roll and the Dark Arts have always had something of a relationship. It’s called the Devil’s Music for a reason. However, rather than taking the rather predictable Satanic path with his shocking story, Christopher opts for something far far darker. This is a genuinely horrific tale and shows us the consequences of the corruption of magic

  THE DINGY EDWARDIAN pub was called The Grand Duke, but there was nothing grand about the place now. Its windows were covered in peeling gig posters, but half of the bands advertised had since split up, so that only their flyers survived.

  Inside, the pockmarked walls and jaundiced ceiling had absorbed a century of cigarette smoke and spilled beer. Bands occupied a rickety stage at the rear of the old saloon bar.

  The Duke no longer attracted the music stars of the future. Instead it hosted the bands of the past, those singers who had been granted a brief moment of fame, only to blow their main chance.

  Onstage, a shaven-headed DJ in a ragged death metal shirt was selling raffle tickets from a blue plastic bucket. Sasha Field made her way through knots of students to the bar, where her new best friend Tamara was buying drinks. At sixteen Tamara was a full year older than Sasha, and could often get away with buying alcohol in this kind of pub. Tonight her luck was in, so she loaded up on another round of Red Bull vodka shots and lager chasers. Both girls went to the same school, and both had parents who would have been horrified to see where they were now. But that was the point; neither Sasha or Tamara wanted to do anything their parents wanted them to do.

  They were here to see a band called Drexelle & The Iconics. Sasha had been raving about them, particularly the singer, but she hadn’t stopped complaining since they arrived. The poster had used the wrong typeface for the band’s name, they had put the lead guitarist above the singer when everyone knew it was Riley who was the real driving force; it was too hot, too crowded to see the stage properly. Tamara was beginning to wish she hadn’t come along. And the place was seriously skanky. How good could a band be if it was willing to perform in a venue like this?

  “Let’s get closer,” said Sasha, accepting her drinks and pushing forward. “We can get to the front.”

  “It’s fine back here, we’ll only get shoved around if we go further.” Too late. Sasha was already on the move and all she could do was follow.

  “Where did you get the money for those?” Tamara asked, looking at the yards of pink raffle tickets hanging from Sasha’s fist.

  “Karen’s purse,” Sasha replied, stuffing the tickets into her jacket. “She gives me anything I want. It’s so easy to handle her. All I have to do is say stuff like how much I miss my real mother and she’s like, buy yourself something pretty. A total pushover.”

  “I wish my parents were divorced. Instead they stay out of each other’s way. Just as well, really. The thought of them touching each other makes me physically ill.”

  “Karen will get fed up with him eventually. She’ll see what a sad old man he’s become.”

  “Don’t you ever hear from your real mum?” Tamara knew her friend was touchy about the subject, but had been wanting to ask for ages.

  “She texts me all the time. She’s just been really, really busy lately. I’m going to stay with her in the summer. She has a big house in Devon.”

  Tamara sensed it was probably best to leave it there. “What’s the big deal with this band?”

  “I keep trying to tell you but you don’t listen. You’ll see when the singer comes out. It’s all about him. He formed the band, he writes all the songs. Drexelle’s just a crappy one-octave three-chord player who does what she’s told.” Sasha downed the vodka shot and chugged some of the lager. Her face looked flushed and feverish in the lights of the stage. Tamara made a mental note to give her some cosmetic tips. In an effort to appear older, Sasha had plastered her face until it had a strange doll-like quality. Not so hot for fifteen, she decided. Why has she slathered her makeup on like that?

  The band members filed onstage to unenthusiastic applause, took their positions and launched into their set without stopping to acknowledge the audience. Riley looked so skinny and craggy that he barely matched Sasha’s memory of him. Drexelle had the wasted facial features of a seasoned heroin user. Sasha had been shown pictures of drug abuse at school. She had always known that Drexelle would ruin her lead singer’s chances of success. The bitch was jealous of his talent. As soon as Riley started singing, Sasha lost herself in his molten silver voice and knew that she still loved him. When he sang, she was ten again.

  The band played four songs in quick succession, and when they finished Tamara noticed that tears streaked her friend’s face. Sasha was the only one there who knew all the lyrics. At the end of the set the applause stopped before the band managed to file offstage. The DJ pushed back on and made the announcements for next Saturday’s show before drawing the raffle. He could have been reading out his shopping l
ist.

  “What do you win?” Tamara asked, trying to see if there were prizes on the stage.

  “Tickets for concerts, but I don’t want them,” said Sasha, the spots from the threadbare lighting rig shining in her eyes. “One of the prizes is that you get to go backstage. It always is. That means you get to meet Riley. Hardly anyone else bought tickets and I bought loads.”

  “Wow.” Tamara couldn’t keep the sarcasm from her voice. How cheap was that? Riley had looked as if he didn’t know where he was. Drugs and rock – it was all just so predictable. “So you don’t win, like, a bottle of vodka or anything?” She couldn’t see the point of wanting to spend any more time in the presence of the band than was strictly necessary.

  “What are you talking about?” Sasha shouted back. “It’s the best prize you could ever want. He’ll go it alone after this and become one of the biggest stars in the world, he has to, and this is a chance to meet him now, before it finally happens for him.”

  “I think I’d prefer the vodka,” said Tamara.

  SASHA SAT ON a beer keg in the freezing brick corridor outside the dressing room, waiting to be summoned. The winning ticket had been held so long in her hand that it had become pulpy with sweat. She felt the heat of the alcohol she had consumed reddening her face, and tried to see herself in the smeary broken mirror on the wall above her head. The dressing room had originally been the pub’s outside toilet, but the landlord had covered its roof and turned the side alley into a passage.

  After twenty long minutes the door opened and Riley swung out. He had changed into tight black leather jeans and a brown, loosely woven sweater with holes in, and had slicked back his bleached hair. He smelled sharply of sweat, cigarettes and alcohol. “You the girl that won the raffle then?” he asked.