The Hearts Series

by L.H. Cosway

  “Hey, are you Matilda?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Great. Come with me. Mr Fields wants you sitting in the front row.”

  “Oh,” I say warily. “Why’s that?”

  She shrugs. “Not sure. I’m just following orders.”

  The venue is underground, and the bare brick walls are all done in colourful spray paint. One side of the room is dark, depicting fire and demons, while the other side is bright and full of heavenly angels. It’s all seated, too, with rows and rows of old-style velvety cinema chairs. Cooler than any place I’ve ever been. Even some of the people here look too cool to be real, all tattoos, piercings, and unusual clothes. There are a couple of average-looking people as well, so I don’t feel completely out of place. The purple-haired girl tells us she’ll get us whatever drinks we want from the bar, and yes, we both opt for more wine.

  “Wow, we’re really being given the VIP treatment tonight,” Michelle gushes, running her hands over the velvety armrests on either side of her.

  “I know. Seemingly it pays to have an illusionist as a housemate. Who would have guessed?”

  Michelle gets a sneaky gleam in her eye when she asks, “Does it pay in any other ways, too?”

  “You’ll have to be more specific,” I say just as the purple-haired girl returns with our drinks before hurrying back to the bar.

  “Specifically, in the way of male and female relations,” she elaborates.

  “Of course not!” I sputter far too defensively.

  “Oh, but you wish it did. I know you, Matilda, and I know you like him. It’s written all over your face. Why don’t you go for it? It’s the whole reason I backed off last week, you know.”

  Really? That’s why she backed off? She’s an even better friend than I give her credit for. Sighing, I lean my chin on my fist. “It’s not that simple. What if I came onto him and he was all like, uh, could you please not? I’d be mortified, and I’d still have to suffer living with him afterward. It’s too risky.”

  “Life is risky. And anyway, I highly doubt he’d say that. It’s more likely he’d be all, yes, please continue.”

  I laugh at her, and she smiles. She always manages to make me feel better, even if she was the one who brought up the subject in the first place. At least she repairs her own damage.

  We drink some more wine, and then the venue starts to fill up. And I mean, there isn’t an empty seat in the house. There’s even a bunch of people who didn’t manage to get seats standing by the bar. I get a fright when someone taps me on the shoulder, and I turn to see Jessie crouched behind me.

  “Just thought I’d come say hi,” she says to me with a smile.

  “Hi, Jessie, this is my friend Michelle.”

  Jessie gives Michelle an appreciative look up and down, and a head nod. “Hey.”

  “Hello,” says Michelle with a grin.

  Jessie’s all dressed in black, the same as Jay had been, and it makes me wonder if she’s going to be a part of the show. Before I have the chance to ask her, she tells me she has to get going and hurries backstage.

  Suddenly, every light in the house blows out, and we’re all plunged into darkness. What the hell? It’s so dark that I can’t even see my hand in front of my face. My heart beats fast, and electricity seems to fill the air. Ironic, no? Excitement clutches at my lungs. For some reason, I don’t think this is a fault with the electricity.

  A track starts up, blasting through the speakers, and I immediately recognise the song: “Till I Collapse” by Eminem. What? I had a rap phase. The lights don’t come back on, though. A few seconds into the song, a spotlight lands on the stage, illuminating Jay from the feet up, as though he’s appearing out of thin air. My pores tingle with the heavy beat. His black shirt from earlier is gone, replaced by a simple black wife-beater vest. His muscular arms and tattoos are on full show, held out in front of his body as he displays a pair of shiny metal handcuffs binding his wrists.

  A tiny grin forms on my lips. Is this a subtle jab at Una Harris’ article? I think so.

  The audience erupts into applause, applause so deafening it makes me think they must be massive fans of his already, because he hasn’t even done anything yet. Jay beams down at everyone, and as he walks to the edge of the stage, he spots me and winks. Wow, I have chills. There’s something about the fact that the spotlight is the only light in the venue that makes the anticipation of what he might do that much more all-consuming.

  He holds up his hands in a gesture that says “give me a moment,” and then he reaches inside his pocket, pulling out a tiny key and dangling it for everyone to see. The key is for the handcuffs. He raises it into the air, opens his mouth, and drops the key right in. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows it whole.

  Walking from one side of the stage to the other, he again displays the strength of the handcuffs to the audience. Now he tries to yank his hands apart, but the handcuffs aren’t budging. He twists and turns his arms, but still nothing. What on earth is he up to?

  I expect him to turn around at some point and then turn back with the handcuffs off, but that’s not what happens. Instead, he keeps yanking at them, and something starts to happen. The chain linking the cuffs together begins to crumble to sand, pouring onto the stage floor in a long stream. Seconds later, Jay snaps the cuffs in half. The crowd roars with applause.

  Next, he pulls a knife out of the waistband of his pants. Bringing it to his chest, he slices right through the fabric, leaving a gaping hole to demonstrate its sharpness. Then, quick as a flash, he flips the knife; it flies right up into the air before turning and sailing back down, slicing directly through his foot. There’s an audible collective intake of breath. Jay plasters a confused look on his face and lifts his leg up, bending down to see that the knife has gone right through his shoe. You can see the sharp, pointy end of it sticking out of the sole. He bends down and pulls the knife clean out, and I’m not the only one who winces. I’m so close to him, sitting here in the front row, and it looks so real. It can’t be, though, because there’s no blood on the knife, and when he lifts his leg again, the sole of his shoe is completely intact.

  More applause.

  Next, he pulls a small black gun from his pocket and brings it to his head. I grimace, blood pounding in my ears. Past trauma has programmed me to panic at a sight like this, and even though I know it can’t be real, I still come out in goose bumps all over. I’m on the edge of my seat as he pulls the trigger and a violently loud bang goes off, confetti exploding out the other side of his skull. My heart stutters, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Guns have always been a bad visual for me, even ones that aren’t real.

  The clapping deafens me almost as much as the bang of the fake gun.

  He takes the gun now and covers it with both his hands. When he opens them, the gun is gone, and a bird flies out. A dove. One of his pet doves! Somehow, seeing a symbol of war being transformed into a symbol of peace is soothing to me. It does something to my brain, releases the trauma. The dove flies around him and then lands on his shoulder. Jay picks her up, holding her in his hands just like he held the gun. He crisscrosses his hands over her, and she transforms into two doves. Fucking. Wow.

  He has each of them perched in either hand now. He raises his arms, and they fly off over the audience to the back of the venue. As he rubs his hands together quickly, smoke begins to rise out of his skin, and then huge, billowing flames erupt, seemingly from his very palms. The crowd goes wild, and the flames rise up and up. I can actually feel the heat of them from where I’m sitting, so I know they must be real. As this is happening, two red devil horns are projected against the bare wall behind him, making it look like they’re coming out of his own head.

  Fire and brimstone.

  Yep. I was definitely right earlier when I’d described him as a sexy version of the devil.

  Then he reaches for a black strap around his neck and pulls one of those scary Jason masks on, covering his face. A group of people sitting to the back
cheers loudly. Ah, I get it. His full name is Jason.

  He stands there for a long time, completely still, his arms outstretched. Then, miraculously, his body starts to rise into the air by about two feet. He makes a swift gesture with his hands, and the curtains around the stage move abruptly, billowing out as though caught on a giant gust of wind. He gestures to a chair that had been placed off to the side, and it goes flying, crashing into the other end of the stage. A woman sitting behind me lets out a startled yelp.

  Did I mention he’s still floating in the air? Flying while telekinetic. That’s some magic trick. Dry ice smoke begins to seep out from the floor, the dusty smell of it filling my nostrils.

  He hovers there for a second before lowering back to the stage. When the clapping dies down, he reaches to pull the mask to the back of his head again, but when he reveals his face, it’s not Jay at all. It’s Jessie. She’s almost the same height, with similar tattoos, but not the same build. And she’s definitely not Jay.

  Where the hell did he go?

  Twelve

  The spotlight travels from Jessie on the stage, down the centre of the audience, to the back of the room. Every single person’s gaze follows the light until it lands on Jay, standing casually at the back of the audience, holding Ellen and Portia, his two white doves.

  He waves to the audience, and then the spotlight goes out completely, plunging us all into darkness again. A second later it comes back on, this time shining on the far right-hand corner of the stage, where Jay is now standing, sans doves. Okay, how on earth did he get there so quickly? It seriously can’t be possible.

  My mind is boggled.

  The song has ended now, and the crowd is cheering louder than ever. When it quietens down, Jay looks to his wrists, where the broken handcuffs still hang.

  “You know what,” he says, looking to the audience, “these are beginning to chafe a little. Anybody got the key?”

  “You swallowed it,” somebody shouts at him from the back.

  Jay scratches his head and looks confused. “Oh, yeah, I did, didn’t I? Shit, that was a bad move. Hey, are you all sure none of you have it?” His eyes land on me, and I jump a little. Up until this moment, I’d felt invisible from my place amid the crowd, but Jay’s gaze alone makes me feel illuminated.

  “Hey, you in the purple,” he calls to me with a knowing smile. “Have you got a key?”

  I shake my head no, already planning to give him an earful later for singling me out, when I hear something jingle. I reach up to the side of my face, all of a sudden aware of a heavy object pulling on my earlobe. My hand comes to the object, and I feel it. Oh, fuck me. This can’t be the key for the handcuffs. He swallowed it, or at least that’s what it looked like. It’s not possible for it to have gotten on my ear. It just isn’t.

  The spotlight lands on me, along with every pair of eyes in the place, as I feel the key hanging from an earring hook on my ear. Jay makes his way off the stage and comes toward me. I lift the key up for everyone to see, and they all start clapping. Jay stands in front of me, holding his cuffed wrists out as he bends down and asks, “You wouldn’t mind doing the honours, would you?”

  His breath whispers over my skin and I swallow hard, starting with his left wrist and unlocking the cuff. It falls free as I go to undo the other one. Jay comes closer and gives me a quick, light peck on the cheek, whispering, “Thanks, Watson.” His mischievous grin is still in place.

  “You told me not to wear earrings. You planned this,” I whisper in reply.

  “Did I?” he asks before turning and hopping back up onto the stage.

  I glance at Michelle, and she’s wearing a delighted smile.

  “Okay,” says Jay as he walks to centre stage. “I guess you all read some stuff about me in the press lately.”

  “Fuck The Daily Post!” some drunken man shouts from the bar.

  Jay chuckles. “Yeah, fuck ’em.”

  “You can fuck me any time, Jay!” a very enthusiastic woman yells.

  That’s the thing about heckling, even the positive kind. Once one person does it, they all start.

  Jay looks over to where the woman is sitting with her friends. He doesn’t say anything, just smiles and gives her a flirty wink. On the inside I’m like, That’s my flirty wink. Jealousy rears its ugly head, but I stuff it away. I imagine half the people in here want to make Jay the same offer that woman did. My jealousy would be futile.

  * * *

  Jay continues, clearing his throat, “But in all seriousness, I want to thank each and every one of you for not believing the lies, having faith in me, and coming here tonight.”

  There are shouts of encouragement and clapping. Jay waits for it to trickle out before going on, “So, I should probably move onto the next part of the show. As Mr Jerry Burke, who has the good grace to write me truly delightful ten-page ranting emails every week would say, ‘I’m gonna use my godlike super mind-reading skills to mess with your heads a little.’”

  Laughter rings out, and I wonder if Jerry Burke is a real person. If he is, it sounds like Jay attracts his fair amount of crazies.

  “Okay, I need three volunteers, and my nice assistant Jessie here is going to pick them for me.” Jessie walks out from the side of the stage and heads for the audience. She walks along the rows and selects two women and a man. After she leads them up onto the stage, Jay greets each of them before handing them a white sheet of card, an envelope, and a Sharpie pen. He tells one of the women to write down the name of her favourite band, the other woman to write down the title of her favourite book, and the man to write the title of his favourite painting.

  “Once you’ve written them down, I want you to put the cards inside the envelopes and seal them up,” says Jay, going over to the corner of the stage and returning with a small metal lock box. It’s got a narrow slit opening on the top, and each of the volunteers slides their envelopes in. Jay carries the box right to the edge of the stage and sets it down.

  “I’m going to leave this here where you all can see it. For the duration of the show, nobody’s going to be able to touch it, so there’s no way I can find out what’s been written. However, I promise you that by the end of the night I’ll have figured out what’s inside those envelopes. Deal?” he says, offering his hand and shaking with all three of them in turn.

  They go back to their seats, and Jay carries on with more tricks. The first involves getting a man up onto the stage and hypnotising him into believing he’s gained the superpower of invisibility and can do whatever he wants with no consequences. He heads straight for the bar, helping himself to free drinks and some money out of the cash register.

  After Jay has woken him up from the hypnosis and thanked him, the man returns to his seat. I think he must remember what he did because he looks a little sheepish. Jay walks to one side of the stage and calls on one of the women who’d volunteered with the envelopes earlier. Her names is Rhona.

  “Hey, Rhona,” says Jay. “I’m feeling kind of generous right now and I want to give you a little gift. Would you take a look in your purse for me? See if there’s anything in there that wasn’t before?”

  Rhona looks excited and nervous all at once as she rummages through her red leather handbag. A moment later she pulls out a small brown envelope. “Shall I open it?” she asks shyly.

  “Be my guest,” says Jay, coming to sit at the edge of the stage, resting his chin casually on his hand. “Show us all what’s inside.”

  I crane my neck to see as she holds up what looks like a pair of tickets. “It’s concert tickets for Kings of Leon,” she exclaims.

  “Is that the same band you wrote down on the card and put in this box?” he asks, pointing to the box in question.

  “Yes,” she answers happily. “Amazing! Wow, thank you.”

  Jay stands. “My pleasure. Okay, that’s one down, two to go. You know what, it’s way too fucking hot in here. I think I’ll take this off.” He proceeds to remove the vest he’s wearing, and the place prac
tically erupts with whistles and catcalls. Some of them come from Michelle sitting right beside me. I eye her and she mouths what?, unable to keep the smile off her face.

  God. Nobody looks better than Jay without a shirt on. He’s turned with his back to the audience, and at first I think it’s just more tattoos, but it’s not. There, painted onto his skin, is an exact replica of The Scream by Edvard Munch. Applause mixes with the catcalls.

  “What is it?” Jay asks playfully. “Is there something on my back?”

  The man who’d volunteered stands up. “You’ve got my favourite painting drawn on you, the one I wrote down on the card.” His jaw is slack, like he can’t believe it.

  “That’s two down now,” says Jay, looking to the final volunteer where she’s sitting in the second row, a woman named Becky. “I’m coming for you next, Becky, so watch this space.”

  She giggles, and Jay hops over to the other side of the stage, preparing his next piece.

  I know it’s the obvious question, but how the hell does he do it? He’d have to have that painting drawn on him in advance of the show, which means he needed to know the answer before any of the volunteers were ever asked the question. Either he somehow planted the idea in the man’s head to write down that painting, or he really does have godlike super minding-reading skills, as Jerry Burke, the nutty fan claims.

  As it turns out, guessing the favourite book of the last volunteer is the big finish. Jay went off stage for a moment, and now he walks back on, scratching his head. I’ve come to learn that this is how he pretends to be confused, when really everything is going exactly the way he wants it. I guess other people don’t know this because they haven’t spent as much time studying him as I have, which I’m sure he’d find disconcerting if he knew.

  “Crap, Becky,” Jay says. “I still haven’t gotten you yet, have I?”

  Becky shakes her head. She looks a little disappointed. Perhaps she was hoping she’d get a gift just like Rhona and her concert tickets. Jay pulls a small book out of his back pocket and lifts it up. “It’s not The Catcher in the Rye, is it?”