by Jordan Bell
“Hey!” she cried suddenly. “What’s your name?”
“Serefine.”
“Serefine,” she repeated. “I hope you find what you are looking for.”
* * *
The first tent to catch my attention had a bodyguard. He stood in front of the entrance, the show inside hidden by gauzy panels of fabric that allowed colored light and shadows to pass through.
The bodyguard, easily six and a half feet tall, had very black skin, jeweled in tattoos that covered his arms and shoulders featuring epic battles of dragons and wizards, knights on horseback and beautiful women baring swords and saving themselves from villains.
Around his bicep he wore a gold band stamped with a raven to match his faintly Arabian Nights inspired costume, his face covered in a shiny nickel colored phantom mask.
He did not step aside when I showed interest in entering. He stood there, arms like clubs crossed over his chest, daring me to try and pass him.
“So I just go in then? I have this.” I showed off the lion charm, which he didn’t look at. The stoic guard didn’t move. Barely blinked. He reminded me of a scary Djinn that granted imprisonment and torture instead of wishes. “I was told I should see the dancers. These are the dancers, right?”
Nothing. Not a blink or a twitch.
“Unless you don’t think I should see the dancers, in which case I hear there’s a very excellent magician I should seek out.”
This time his mouth twitched, though whether he was amused with me or preparing to have me thrown bodily from the carnival, I couldn’t tell.
Finally, without a word, he unfolded his arms, took hold of the fabric panels, and drew them aside. Afraid he might change his mind, I ducked in.
Hypnotic music and thick incense smoke drifted in the small tent. The audience sat on plush red couches curved around a single raised platform. Hanging above the raised platform was a person-sized birdcage with a small swing inside.
And perched on the swing was a lovely young woman holding everyone in the room hostage.
Music to charm snakes by lulled me deeper into the tent, urged me to take a seat. I sunk into the soft fabric, but the intimacy of the audience made me uneasy. Beside me, a man in an expensive suit crossed his legs and stared transfixed at the small woman inside the cage. He did not look like someone who came to a carnival, certainly not in such an extravagant suit. He looked like a peacock and not for the first time I wondered what sort of carnival this actually was.
Because it was not the kind you go to as a little girl.
The audience was sparse, a few here or there, mostly men. Some of the men wore masks, small dominos that hid their penetrating eyes. They were different from the performers I’d seen so far. These masks meant something else.
Gifted with skin the color of vanilla ice cream, unblemished and smooth as glass, the caged woman watched us watching her. She was small in stature, petite and girlish, though there was something about the way she commanded her audience that gave away her true age. She was magazine ad perfect; everything proportioned and doled out by artists. Small fingers, graceful as they slid against the chains of her swing, as gentle as they were tempting.
She wore red. The dress hung far longer than she was tall to brush the floor of the cage. The woman sat barefoot on her swing, knees drawn tight to her body though one full leg all the way up to her hips fell exposed by a single, indecent slit. Wariness and caution filled her bright eyes, narrowed on certain faces, widened on others. There was something intense and distant about the caged temptress, absolutely nothing like the white haired juggler.
When the music turned bluesy, her eyes lifted, bringing startling blue irises wide on her audience. The caged woman stretched herself languidly like a cat, muscles flexing beneath thin arms and very gently she kicked off to let her swing sway, blowing her skirt back a millimeter further each time.
Then. Then she started to perform.
The burlesque dancer, for that was certainly what she was, extended her body in the most enticing ways, teaching us pedestrians the art of romance. She didn’t look happy, exactly, to be caged, but that seemed part of the act. The aggression in the bodies around me, the way they shifted and leaned forward, gave away the trick of the performance.
Unwittingly, we were part of the show. Her captors.
Each sweep and bend of her small body whispered a promise. Let me out and I will make it worth your while. The realization startled me and a part of me felt guilty and complacent and I blushed. I was clearly not the target audience of this show, but an envious part of me wanted to see.
I’m yours. You’ve caught me. Now what will you do?
She climbed to her feet on the swing, allowing her dress to breeze behind her. She pressed her back to one of the chains and her fingers clasped sensually around it above and behind her. She stretched, spun, dipped in the most impossible ways. I had no idea any woman could entrance a whole audience with seemingly simple movements, tiny gasps, almost imperceptible squeezes of her fists. There was power in her performance as a captured prize. She was in the cage, but the audience were the ones imprisoned.
My heart throbbed, fell in and out of love with her by the second.
She had something I could never have, would never have. Power. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been invested in luring any boy with my body, if I ever had. Certainly not since my breasts had grown noticeably and awkwardly round in comparison to my narrow waist. My thighs had no business being bared to a crowd. Bones did not poke through my skin. I didn’t look breakable.
We both shared white skin, but while hers was fragile and inviting, mine was mottled with copper and blond freckles. Absently I tugged at my loose red curls, an absolute mess from the day’s adventure. I wished I’d showered before leaving the apartment.
How was it that women like this could draw such longing and wanting from girls like me? How did they then inspire unflattering comparisons when moments before we didn’t even realize we were made of lesser things?
Power. I ached with envy.
We watched her mouth part, her eyes close, the wanting, the needing. A man sitting near me dug his fingers into his thigh.
Darkness finally descended from the tent top to envelope the cage and its captive, bringing her performance to an end. Her hands strained towards us as if begging us to release her before being completely enclosed in shadow. The image squeezed the last of my heart. I couldn’t even remember what she’d done except that she’d done it beautifully. I shook my head, blinked my dry eyes and wondered how much time I’d lost hypnotized by the sway of hips and the slow peeling of clothing until only the most private remained concealed. I remembered her hair, blonde silk cords, and her blue eyes, and very little else.
The audience stirred, rousing from their own trances, and as they began to pack up, a man from the front row stood, lifted a top hat to his head, and climbed the stairs to stand where the cage had hung moments before. He spun in a slow circle to eye us all and hold us all perfectly still. He wore a mask of burnished silver, like armor but for the intricate scrollwork and edging. It made him look like a gladiator despite his suit and top hat. I couldn’t see his eyes from my seat, but still they fell heavy when they crossed each member of the audience. When they touched me, I felt it.
I didn’t even realize the music had stopped playing until his heels struck the stage, booming and ordering us to attention. Half standing, I slowly sank back to my seat and waited for his command.
He took his top hat in hand, shiny under the bright spot light, and bowed extravagantly. Beneath his hat fell a mop of very black, curly messy hair.
“Good evening ladies and gentleman. Right now you may feel drugged by pleasure. Few tempt us like Lily to love her and obey her and control her. Right now you are wondering how anything else could compare to what you’ve just seen, because what could compete with the endowment of the Courtesan?” He paused and crossed one arm behind his back.
“But she is only on
e pleasure. A beautiful one, no doubt, but she only commands your body while I am here to master your mind.”
With that he flung his hidden fist into the air and birds … no! Ravens! … took flight from his outstretched hand and beat their mad black wings over his captive audience. People gasped and covered their heads, but while I swore I saw the birds, saw their wings and beaks and fathomless marble eyes, they vanished when we blinked.
Feathers drifted from the shadows above us. One struck my forehead and tumbled over my nose to land with a whisper in the palm of my hand. Amazing. I stroked the black feather between my fingers and delighted in its downy softness.
Murmurs passed over the audience, fear mixed with excitement and anticipation. Had we really seen that? Did he create birds and transform them into feathers in the blink of an eye?
Magic. I ached to believe in the impossible, the incredible. How could I not? My mother all but promised me it existed, but after watching her ply the desperate with what they longed for most, I’d had such a hard time believing she was not doing the same to me.
This man, this magician, brought up the same warring feelings inside me. Believe the impossible, despise the con artist.
The magician stepped off his stage and strode up the aisle towards the tent entrance, his audience trailing along behind him at a cautious distance. As he closed in on my seat, he slowed and dropped his intense gaze to meet mine.
Awestruck. Dubious. I had no idea what he saw in my eyes that made him pause and reach for my tightened fist.
“Allow me to escort you to my stage.”
No. Yes. No. God yes.
Words? They all fell right out of my head.
I let him pull me to my feet. This close I could see beyond his mask to his grey eyes. Grey like his mask. Grey like armor.
“You should know,” he said in his charming, softly British accent, “I shall show you all the greatest wonders of the world. Perhaps I’ll even make you disappear.”
Despite the heat from the tent, I shivered.
6
__________________
I wasn’t fooled into believing there was any special reason he’d plucked me from the audience, but there was something about the way he held on to me that sent shivers through my body, from our linked fingers to my toes in white bolts of electricity. For a moment I could allow myself to feel as powerful as the caged woman.
The magician’s grip tightened as we ducked inside his tent and instantly lights faded on around a front stage and spread to brighten the aisles between cobalt blue, tufted velvet theater seats.
“For you,” he said and escorted me to the aisle seat in the first row.
He placed me into seat and swept his free hand along my forehead to capture errant curls. He twisted them between his fingers before tucking them away. The magician’s fingers slid from mine, lingering in case I wasn’t already half in love with him. Before I could respond he bounded onto the stage and took his place in the spotlight.
He was definitely a showman. The escort, the special treatment, these were things I’d seen my mother do when she worked a crowd. It made the showman seem touchable, at least, almost touchable.
As his audience gathered and quieted, he removed his suit coat, bow tie, and while all eyes were on his fingers, he began unbuttoning his dress shirt.
He could have set the theater on fire and I wouldn’t have noticed. My eyes followed his fingers and the shape of lean muscles beneath each unworked button. Beneath his dress shirt he wore a white, long sleeved undershirt and old fashioned black suspenders. An ornate silver key hung from his neck on a black cord.
He stripped off his dress shirt carelessly, a wonderful sight of formal and just rolled out of bed messiness. This sent women in the audience tittering.
Next he swept the hat off his head, shook his curls out, and set all his clothes over the arm of the coach.
“That’s better. Now, good evening ladies and gentlemen and honored guests. Welcome to tonight’s first after dark performance. At the Carnival Imaginaire I am known simply as the Magician, though I might be better described as an illusionist. Some of what you’ll see tonight will be simply that, very beautiful illusions.”
The Magician paused dramatically and tugged each cotton shirt cuff as if to say I have nothing up my sleeve, then rolled them up to his elbows to prove it. His wrists were decorated in several elaborate tattoos I could not see clearly from my seat.
“The other parts, the darker parts, come from something else. Storytellers might call it magic, but that’s too simple. While you are distracted by the wonderful things I show you, I will learn your secrets, steal your hearts, and charm you to do my bidding. If this frightens you, I urge you to take the next moment to quietly step outside and find gentler entertainment.”
The Magician turned his back on the crowd and approached stage right. He led a pretty girl by the hand from the wings of the stage. She hurried after him and the way she moved gave away her classically trained grace. A ballerina.
She alighted soundlessly beside him at center stage. Her smoky eyes grazed her audience, lidded and wicked.
“My assistant, Katya.” The Magician reached around her shoulders from behind and took hold of the knot holding her cape closed. He tugged it loose and drew the cloth from her bare skin, tenderly, like a lover. “Bow to your audience.”
He released her and she folded at the waist gracefully. Unlike the Courtesan, his assistant was rail thin, boyish but for the slight cleavage her corseted bodice created. A skirt of pink silk covered only to the top of her thighs exposing gartered white, glittery stockings.
“Illusion.” The Magician produced a small white ball between his thumb and forefinger. He closed his fist and when he opened his hand again the ball was gone. “It’s not difficult to make you to believe in the impossible because you want to see something extraordinary. You want me to astound you. That’s why illusion is so powerful.”
The Magician touched his palms together and when he pulled them apart a short, black wand appeared. He twisted it in the air so we could see that it was real, tipped in white on both ends. He flipped it over to catch the opposite end.
The wand transformed when he caught it. Suddenly the Magician held a golden dagger. The crowd rewarded him with gasps of delight.
“The only people in the world better at illusion, I dare say, are lovers.” He cast a knowing glance at the audience, a half smile encouraging giggles and whispers from the women around me. “The unrequited convince themselves that one day their professions will be returned. The blindly romantic carry on against the worst behavior because one day, not very far away, they believe their lover will change. And we are all of us mislead into believing that love is the most powerful magic and that, in the end, it conquers all.”
The dagger was tossed into the air, but what the Magician caught was a long stemmed rose which he turned and handed to his assistant. She smiled, blushed, and reached to take it, but before her fingers came in contact with the thorny stem, he turned his hand and the rose was gone.
She pouted dramatically, turned out her heels and pointed in her toes. She twisted her hands girlishly in front of her and the Magician rewarded her with an intimate touch along the hollow of her cheek. His finger stroked long from her ear to the center of her lips. She closed her eyes and reveled in it.
Oh hell. We all did.
“In the end, illusion is only a very romantic form of desire.” His voice thrummed low, his British accent flirting on the edge of his words, smooth and lullaby soft. “It stimulates the mind with its how-tos and what-fors. Teases us with its infinite possibilities. It creates pleasure without touch. I could tell you that what I do is real, that I am not an illusionist. Some of you will believe me. The rest of you will crave that belief with every fiber of your being. Desire, my friends, is all-consuming.”
He took several steps away from his assistant, closer to the stage, his back to us.
Katya knelt, her knees spread just w
ide enough to make me blush, her arms settled prettily down the slant of her bare thighs. She breathed hard, her mouth open slightly as she gazed up at her Magician with a rough sort of want that could not be faked.
“At its best, desire can make us stronger and richer for having it. It creates great lovers and indomitable warriors. But at its worst it flames aggression.” The Magician circled the kneeling Katya. He snapped his fingers, and pointed at the space beside him, and as he did fire burst from his hands, little fireballs that momentarily blinded me. His voice darkened. “It inspires revenge, turns to possession and jealousy, until whole cities burn from it.”
Katya bent her head and gracefully crawled to him on her hands and knees. Her body swayed cat-like, sinking and rising with each step. She brought her forehead to his outstretched fingers and he grazed them through her hair.
My heart squeezed painfully, irrational jealousy warring with a new, distracting pleasure. Ridiculously, watching him command his assistant without words, only gestures, turned my insides into a hot mess. I ached for those outstretched fingers. That was the trick, I was sure, and I fell for it willingly.
He then stepped to the middle of the stage and the lights dimmed around the small theater so that only a soft spotlight illuminated the man. Katya vanished in shadow.
“What happens when the illusions are too real? When they can’t possibly be just a trick of the eye or a slight of hand? How does your heart change when you realize there is no trick, no con, no pretty lie? Can you truly believe?”
He raised his hand, palm up and flat. All his concentration poured into the center of it. His eyes narrowed, his brow furrowed. Everyone in the room held their breath.
A flicker of orange, then, a spark of red. Slowly a tendril of flame curled from his palm. Snakes of red and orange and yellow braided itself into a single pillar.
His lips parted, pursed, and then he blew into the column of fire so that it seemed to bend at his will.
Gasps echoed across the theater and without realizing I’d done it I found myself perched on the edge of my seat grasping the armrest until my fingers hurt.