Order of the Majestic

by Matt Myklusch

  Manchester waved the wand, and Joey flew out over the Hudson River, where the wind released its hold on him. He dropped like a stone into the water, which had suddenly transformed into a giant version of the whirlpool-mouthed monster from the incident with the Water of Life.

  Joey screamed, waking up in bed.

  His father was at the door seconds later. “You okay?”

  “Wha—” Joey rubbed his eyes and blinked his way back into the waking world. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “I’m fine. I just… bad dream.”

  “You hungry?” his father asked. “We got takeout.”

  “Is it dinnertime already?” Joey asked in a disoriented voice. Checking his window, he saw that it was dark outside.

  “It’s past dinner. We let you sleep. Figured you needed the rest. You’ve had a lot on your mind the last couple of days.” Joey nodded, thinking his father didn’t know the half of it. “We ordered from that burger place you like,” his father volunteered.

  Joey’s ears perked up. “Taco-Pizza-Burger? You guys hate that place.”

  “It’s growing on me. I had a pepperoni burrito burger, myself. Wasn’t terrible.” His father held up a take-out bag with the TPB logo on it. “This one’s yours. You want it?”

  Joey’s stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. “I could eat.”

  “Dig in,” his father said, handing over the bag.

  “Thanks.” Joey tore into his food right there on the bed. Normally his father would tell him, “No eating in your room,” or “Take it to the kitchen,” but instead he pulled out Joey’s desk chair and pointed. “Mind if I join you?”

  Joey shook his head with his mouth full of taco fries. He wasn’t looking forward to the conversation his father no doubt wanted to have, but he figured he couldn’t put it off forever, and the burger had softened him up a bit. Catching him half asleep and surprising him with his favorite food had been a savvy move on his father’s part.

  “Listen, Joey, your mom and I were talking. This school… You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

  Joey stopped chewing. If he had been drinking his soda, he might have done a spit take. “Really?”

  “Really,” his father said, looking him straight in the eye. “If you don’t think you can do it,” he added with an air of surrender, “we’re not going to force you.”

  Joey sat up in bed. His father had managed to surprise him again. Yesterday morning Joey would have killed to hear him say those words, and for a second his spirits lifted, but then his groggy mind remembered that he had actually liked what little he had seen of Exemplar Academy. On top of that, where he went to school was the least of his problems right now. Joey slumped back against his pillows. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Now it was Joey’s father’s turn to be surprised. “What do you mean?”

  Joey shook his head. “It’s not the school that’s bothering me.”

  “It’s not?” His father furrowed his brow. “What’s the problem, then?”

  Joey put his food down for a second, thinking about how he had screwed up his chance to have magic in his life. Maybe everybody’s chance. “I blew it, Dad,” he said, his voice cracking a little. He didn’t want to cry. He willed the tears back into his eye sockets.

  “Joey…” His father tried to put a hand on his shoulder. “You didn’t blow anything.”

  “Yes, I did,” Joey said, pulling away. “I had a chance to do something—to be a part of something amazing, but I was afraid. I thought I could do it for a second, but I was wrong. I messed it up. I ruined everything.”

  “Come on, now… Don’t be so hard on yourself. You didn’t ruin anything. Tomorrow’s another day. You can try again.”

  “I can’t. It’s too late.”

  “It’s not. Joey, what happened today… It’s not the end of the world.”

  “You don’t know,” Joey said. His father still thought they were talking about Exemplar Academy. “You don’t understand.”

  “That’s true, I don’t,” his father agreed, but there was compassion in his voice. “I want to though. More than anything, I want to understand. Talk to me, Joey.”

  “I can’t. That’s the problem,” Joey said, adamant. “I can’t explain, and you just—you don’t know what’s going on, Dad. You still want me to go to Exemplar. I know you do, but you don’t get it. I don’t belong there, okay? I don’t belong anywhere.”

  “That’s not true,” Joey’s father said. “Hey. Look at me. That’s not true at all. Yes, I do want you to go to that school. I think it’s a great opportunity. I said that from day one. But I don’t want you to go there if it’s going to make you miserable. You don’t need that school to do something special with your life. You can do that on your own. I know you can. And I’m not gonna force you to go to Exemplar, but you do belong there. Get that through your head. You belong anywhere you decide you belong. You have unlimited potential. You have to know that.”

  Joey sniffed. “You just think that because I did well on a bunch of tests.”

  “I don’t need those tests to tell me what I already know. What I see out of you every day. You may think you played some kind of trick to figure out the answers on those tests, but you’re not giving yourself enough credit. That takes real intelligence, Joey. You’re a special kind of special. I look at you and I say, ‘This kid can do anything.’ You see things other people don’t. In fact, you saw something I missed in all this. You’re right. Exemplar Academy doesn’t matter. Believing in yourself is what matters. I know I’ve been pushing you really hard, and I’m sorry for that. I just don’t want you to end up like me.”

  Joey wiped his eyes and looked up at his father. “What are you talking about?”

  His father sighed. “Can I steal some of your fries?”

  Joey offered them up. “Sure.”

  “They have good fries at this place. As long as I’m opening up here, I might as well admit that, too.” His father grabbed a handful of fries and a napkin to use as a plate. “I told you yesterday that I didn’t want to be an accountant when I was your age, right? I’m guessing that didn’t come as an earth-shattering revelation. I mean, what kid wants that? Nobody wants that. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate my job or anything. It’s fine. It helps me do my part to take care of this family, but it doesn’t give me… I don’t know.…” Joey’s father gestured at the air, searching for the right word. He settled at last on: “It doesn’t give me energy. It’s just a job. It’s not where my heart is at.”

  “What did you want to be when you were my age?” Joey asked.

  Joey’s father snickered to himself. It was almost like he couldn’t say it out loud. “You’re gonna laugh.”

  Joey was intrigued. He had never talked to his father like this. “What did you want to do, join the circus?”

  “Close.” His father smiled. “I wanted to be a magician.”

  Joey nearly fell off the bed. “What?”

  “You heard me. I loved magic when I was a kid. I loved magicians. It was a different time back then. Magicians used to be a bigger deal. There was the Great Mysterio… Ella the Enchantress… Redondo the Magnificent—he was the best.” Joey’s father turned around halfway and tapped the lid of the Mystery Box, which was still there on Joey’s desk. “I really can’t believe they gave this to you at the testing center. Did I mention I had one of these when I was a kid?”

  “You told me,” Joey said, leaning forward, suddenly engaged.

  “I watched Redondo make the Lincoln Memorial disappear on TV when I was ten years old. Blew my mind. I used to practice his tricks and put on shows for my family.… You used to do the same thing. We got you a children’s magic set when you were in the first grade, remember?”

  “I remember,” Joey said.

  “We loved it. My parents loved it when I did it too. They were actually fine with me wanting to be a magician, if you can believe that. Maybe they were just humoring me. I don’t know. If they were, they had me foole
d. They said anything I was that into, I couldn’t help but succeed at.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Didn’t know your grandma and grandpa were so cool, did you?”

  “What happened? Why’d you stop?”

  Joey’s father lifted a hand up and let it drop. “I got scared. We never had a lot of money growing up. I decided to go for something safer. Think about it: It’s not easy to make a living onstage. How many successful world-famous magicians do you know? There are no Houdinis out there anymore. There aren’t even any Redondos. That guy fell off the face of the earth.”

  He kind of did, Joey thought.

  “I didn’t want to try and fail. Sound familiar?”

  Joey nodded reluctantly. His father understood his situation better than he thought. Something clicked in his brain. Maybe Joey and his father had more in common than they realized.

  “Hey, Dad, did you ever do all the tricks in one sitting, like I did with that test?”

  “It’s funny you ask that.” Joey’s dad took out his lucky coin. “I never told you where I got this. I was your age, maybe a little older. I was up late one night. I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t have anything to read, so I took out Redondo’s Mystery Box here. I had a desk in my room just like this one, and I sat there late into the night, doing every trick in the box, one after the other until I got through them all. It was just like that test you took, except I didn’t get a grade at the end. By the way, did you ever get the results of that test back? Dr. Cho was asking.”

  “Dad! Forget the test. Finish the story,” Joey said excitedly.

  “Right, right… It doesn’t matter,” Joey’s father said, remembering that Exemplar Academy was off the table now. “Okay, when I was done, I found this coin tied to a string at the bottom of the box. Somehow I’d missed it up until then. There was a note about the coin being the ‘price of admission’ for an audience with Redondo. So I pulled the string, and I must have finally fallen asleep, because I had this dream where I was transported to some carnival in some faraway land. Somewhere in Europe, I think. There was this big tent for Redondo. I was going to go in and watch his act in person.”

  “The coin was the cost of a ticket,” Joey said, mesmerized.

  “Exactly. I was going to pay and go in, but—”

  “What happened?” Joey blurted out. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was the coin! Manchester had said that when he walked into the NATL office, magic had walked in with him. He didn’t understand then, but it made perfect sense now. It was his father’s lucky coin! The item at the bottom of the Mystery Box was supposed to bring people with magic potential to Redondo, wherever he was. Joey’s father had passed the test the same as him! From the sound of it, he’d done it before Redondo had gone into hiding, too! “You were actually there?”

  “No, Joey. It was a dream,” his father said, finding it funny that Joey needed to be reminded of that little detail. “But in my dream there was this guy outside the tent… just a kid, really—a creepy British kid,” he added, with an unpleasant grimace. “That’s why I thought the carnival was somewhere in Europe. He was manning the ticket window. I don’t remember exactly what he said to me, but I didn’t like his vibe, you know? He kind of scared me off. I didn’t go in the tent.”

  “You didn’t?” Joey asked, eager for more. “What’d you do?”

  “I woke up. That’s it. That’s the dream.”

  “That’s it?” Joey was blown away. His father was talking about Grayson Manchester. He had to be. It made perfect sense. Manchester wouldn’t have wanted to share magic or Redondo with anyone else, even back then. He would have tried to scare off the competition—people like his father—before they ever got to meet his boss. Joey wondered how many other kids Manchester had turned away during his years as Redondo’s assistant. How many other potentially extraordinary magicians had grown up to live ordinary lives instead?

  “Don’t look so upset, kiddo. It’s not like any of this actually happened.”

  “I know that,” Joey said, covering. “But you kept the coin. How come?”

  Joey’s father gave a shrug. “I just liked it, same as you. I told myself it was lucky. Who knows? Maybe it is, but you get older, and you learn a few things. We make our own luck, Joey. I look at this coin now and I see a reminder to not be afraid. Or better yet, to try to do the things that I’m afraid of. You have to go after the things you want in life. I didn’t do that when I was your age because I was scared. People used to say I was a magician with numbers.… Somehow I ended up in accounting. I’m still not exactly sure how that happened. I played it safe. I guess I got it in my head it was the next best thing, but I don’t want that to be you, Joey. Don’t settle for your next best life. Not when you have got a shot like this in front of you.”

  Joey looked at the coin in his father’s hand, an idea forming in his head. “I do have a shot, don’t I?”

  Joey’s father finished his fries and stood up. “That’s up to you.” He tapped Joey on the shoulder. “Finish your food. You need to eat.”

  “Dad?” Joey called out just before his father left the room. “Do you still believe in magic?”

  “Still?”

  “You had to believe at some point.”

  Joey’s father flipped the coin in the air and caught it. “How could I stop believing in magic when I see it every day in this apartment? When I see it right here in this room?”

  Joey watched as his father moved the coin across his knuckles back and forth. “I think I see it too, Dad. Could I borrow that coin again?”

  “I’ll tell you what. Keep it.” He flipped the coin to Joey. “No strings attached this time.”

  Joey caught the coin and smiled wide. Not yet, but give me a few minutes.

  17 The Final Curtain

  Joey wolfed down the rest of his food and threw out the wrappers and crumbs in the kitchen. His parents were surprised to see that he was already dressed in his pajamas when he came out of his room, considering he had slept much of the afternoon. He told them he just wanted to pack it in for the day and maybe things would look better in the morning. They had no objection to that. Joey just hoped they wouldn’t check on him after he went to bed, because he didn’t plan to be there very long.

  Back in his room, Joey changed his clothes and put on an old pair of sneakers. They were a little tight, but he got them on. He had kept them for rainy days and other things that might get messy. What Joey had in mind for the rest of the evening definitely qualified. He emptied the Mystery Box, found the golden string at the bottom, and tied it to his father’s coin, through the hole in the middle. It was old, but he didn’t think that would be a problem. Houdini’s wand was a hundred years old at least. All that mattered was what he believed.

  It’s go time, Joey told himself. No doubt. No fear.

  And no more waiting. He pulled the string, and there was a loud crack as the walls of his room fell away. Once again he was back on the foggy street of Redondo’s depressed, Off-Broadway realm. The shadows of the Invisible Hand were there too, blocking the entrance to the theater. One of them spotted Joey and screeched to its brethren. Joey steeled his nerves as they drifted over to swarm him. “You’re not really here,” he said, standing his ground and waving them off. He didn’t pick up the Mystery Box and swing it at them this time. He didn’t need one. His hand was enough. Swatting at the shadows, Joey split them apart and strode through their midst unafraid. The only real threat here was Manchester. When he got to the theater door, it was locked, as usual. Joey didn’t have a key to get in anymore, but he didn’t think he needed that either. He looked at the coin in his hand—the token that should have facilitated his father’s meeting with Redondo. It was meant for another time and place, but Joey believed it would work here. “It’s not a coin,” he told himself, gripping it tight in front of the locked door. “It’s a key. It just looks like a coin.”

  Joey heard an audible click as the door unlocked for him. He opened it just enoug
h to quickly squeeze through the gap before the shadow creatures regrouped. He didn’t think they could do any real damage if they followed him in, but he figured it couldn’t hurt to be a little bit careful. He had already let one member of the Invisible Hand into the theater. That was enough.

  The lobby was quiet, dark, and empty. Joey hoped he wasn’t too late. He opened the door to the main auditorium of the theater, but the houselights were off in there as well. He didn’t see Redondo. He didn’t see anyone. Joey was about to call out for him, but thought better of it. If Redondo didn’t want him there, he could send him home with a snap of his fingers. And if Manchester was stalking around backstage, Joey was better off keeping his mouth shut.

  Joey backed away from the lobby doors and went up the staircase to the second level. It creaked beneath his feet, so he walked close to the banister, minimizing the weight distribution on each step and staying as quiet as possible. On the second-floor landing, he found another staircase that led up to Redondo’s private office. Pausing outside the door, Joey thought about what he was going to say to Redondo when he saw him. He didn’t have anything prepared. He didn’t have anything beyond a strong desire to make things right. He wanted to help and he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Unfortunately, Redondo wasn’t there to say yes or no.

  The office was not only empty; it was immaculate. Cleaner than Joey had ever seen it before. Joey switched on a lamp and saw that various magical relics, texts, and instruments were all neatly arranged on Redondo’s shelves. His cluttered desk had been cleared save for a leather-bound book and a deck of cards. Joey took a look. It was Redondo’s magic deck. The one he always had on him. Why would he leave this up here? As the question drifted through Joey’s brain, a likely answer followed close behind. The last card Joey had seen Redondo pull was Death. After drawing that from the deck, the art of fortune-telling probably lost its luster. Joey leafed through the pages of the book and found it was an inventory of every magical artifact in the theater. Knowing death was near, Redondo had apparently put his house in order. This he had a harder time understanding. Redondo had originally intended to destroy Houdini’s wand before he succumbed to his illness rather than let it fall into the Invisible Hand’s clutches. Why had he organized all of this? He was practically gift wrapping everything in the theater for Manchester and his cronies. Joey speculated that Redondo perhaps couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it all. Or maybe he was being cautious, in case Manchester demanded something more than the wand in return for Leanora and Shazad. Or maybe Joey was too late and he was looking at Manchester’s handiwork, not Redondo’s.