Skillful Death

by Ike Hamill

  After he has shuffled once, he cuts the deck three times and then assembles it back to whole. This is his first bit of trickery. His second cut is very thin, which could give him the opportunity to stack a couple cards near the top of the deck. Of course, I could just be grasping at anything since I have no earthly idea how he’s going to pull off the next part. He squares the deck and places it back on the felt.

  “Rather than show off for you folks, I’m going to do what any proud parent would. I’m going to have my kids show off for you.” He smiles and the group laughs politely.

  “Darlings,” he says to the deck, “could one of you with the same age as your separated sibling please come to the top?”

  With his index finger and thumb extended. He carefully pulls the top card and flips it on the felt. It’s the five of diamonds.

  “My children tell me that the age of your card, sir, is five.”

  He repeats the process and the next card he flips is the king of spades.

  “And my eldest tells me that your card is a boy. A spade, to be precise,” he says. “So, sir, whenever you’re ready, please flip your card to reveal the five of spades.”

  Now, it’s one thing to know what card I’ve chosen. He didn’t, but he could have offered me a deck that had only that one card in there, repeated fifty-two times. He didn’t, but he could have somehow switched out my chosen card. He didn’t, but he could have somehow forced me to choose that card. But, I’ve been watching. I know that none of that happened, and I’m almost one-hundred percent certain that there’s no mark on these cards.

  I flip my card.

  Five of spades.

  The crowd claps a bit and a couple of people drop small tips on the table before they walk away. He’s right. This isn’t the flashiest trick in the world, but I’ll be damned if I can guess how he did it. Even if the cards were marked, how did he pull a five as the top card and a spade as the second?

  “Well done,” I say. He allows me to reach forward and flip his deck. I fan it out. It has forty-nine different cards. It’s a standard deck minus the three we pulled out for the trick. That’s the only mistake I’ve seen him make today. He shouldn’t have let me verify the deck after the trick. I turn to walk away.

  He has chosen a pretty nice area to do business. Many well-dressed people are moving around on this sunny Friday afternoon. He set up near a giant bronze sculpture of a horse. His spot is away from the street, so he won’t be hassled by cruisers. He has a million escape routes if he needs to run. His little table will basically fold itself up if you grab the handle on the bottom. He’s dressed nicely, too. His suit and tie will blend right in if we accidentally spook him when we try to grab him.

  If he were a psychic, or had some kind of telekinesis, why the hell would he bother with card tricks? I have half a mind to write it off. I can come up with a reasonable explanation and pass it up to the big man. Then, this little card trickster can keep hustling these executives. But, it’s my job. If I can’t figure it out, the guy gets picked up. My orders are very clear. I have a soft spot for street magicians—I spent a few years perfecting my hustle and I made a decent living at it—but I’d rather keep my job than have this kid keep his innocence.

  I give my signal and my crew bursts from the back of a van that’s double-parked near the intersection. Two more guys stand up from the bench near the fountain and drop their newspapers. The two groups converge to within ten feet of the magician before he sees them coming. He never had a chance, but he surprises me when I glance back. He doesn’t even try to run. When he spots my guys with their stun guns and plastic handcuffs ready, the kid just drops to his knees. Red-backed Bicycle cards flutter to the brick sidewalk all around him. I’ll see the kid later, in the interrogation room I set up out in the suburbs.

  4 BIRTH, MIDWIFE

  Malcolm: What’s a “Midwifes’s baby?”

  Constantine: It’s a secret twin, born when the mother is unconscious after the first birth. If the Midwife can sneak it away, she raises it as her own.

  Malcolm: Is that really a thing? It sounds preposterous.

  Constantine: It used to be.

  ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠

  THE MIDWIFE WIPED HER brow and regarded her hands. They were covered in blood and other fluids. She looked around the small room, trying to find a rag. Normally, she would turn to a sister, or mother, or aunt, to help with all the cleanup. On this job, she was alone. The Midwife dug into her own bag and pulled out one of her rags—as coarse as sackcloth—and wiped her hands, spitting on her palm to loosen a stain. Sitting on the edge of a thick oak trunk, she took deep breaths while regarding the supine woman before her.

  The Midwife had seen worse births, but never one this bad where both the mother and baby survived. Usually, this much turmoil ended with a funeral. The Midwife pushed herself up to her feet. She still had work to do. The umbilical cord lay on the bloody mattress like a stunned eel. Fluid still seeped from the eel’s mouth. It was like a reverse parasite. The Midwife moved to the new mother’s side to massage her. She lowered herself to the wet mattress and tried not to disturb the mother. She needn’t have worried. The mother was out, totally unconscious, and didn’t even react when the Midwife began pressing her firm fingers into the mother’s abdomen.

  Hours passed. As the Midwife massaged, she gazed at the baby girl’s serene face. Normally, the mother would be nursing by now. Normally, the gentle sound of suckling would calm the room and the uterus would contract on its own. Normally, the Midwife would be chasing the other women from the room, begging for them to let their sister alone so she could nurse her new treasure. Then, the placenta would come out on its own, with very little coaxing. In some cases, a gentle pressure applied to the cord would get it moving. In the worst case, like this one, nothing happened as it should. The Midwife pressed on the new mother’s flabby abdomen, just hoping to stave off a hemorrhage before it started.

  A brief cloud passed over the Midwife’s brow as her fingers found a hard lump. At last, the woman’s belly tightened and then released. The new mother moaned in her sleep and the little newborn scrunched her eyes. The Midwife exhaled a relieved sigh. She felt contractions that signaled the onset of the placenta delivery. The Midwife held on to the umbilical cord to prevent it from creeping back inside between contractions.

  The broken sack slopped out in a rush and the Midwife immediately pulled it away from the mother’s legs, so that she could inspect it. She had to verify that the placenta was intact. If any piece remained within the uterus, it would mean trouble for the young mother.

  The Midwife cursed under her breath as she straightened the messy tissue. A ragged hole near the top of the placenta meant that her wet-work was not yet over. She placed a hand on the mother’s abdomen and held it there. All was calm. No contractions and a firm belly meant that the Midwife was on her own. She considered waking the mother before diving, hand-first, into the mother’s uterus. The Midwife decided against waking the mother. The mother was so young and scared. She would probably just tense right up if she knew what was coming. It was this decision, trivial at the time, that changed the Midwife’s life for years to come.

  5 BIRTH, BOY

  THE MIDWIFE FOUND THE hard lump with the tips of her fingers and felt the mother’s body clamp around her hand. It wasn’t the piece of placenta she was looking for. She had no idea what it was. She had never examined this woman before this long birthing process, so she couldn’t guess if the lump was new or something she had always lived with.

  Most of the mothers the Midwife attended to were women she had known for years. Increasingly, they were women whom the Midwife had seen come into the world, bunching their tiny fists, and screaming through their first gasping breaths. She saw them emerge, grow, mature, bulge, and then give birth to their own daughters, like an endless cycle of discharge.

  But this woman was new. She had arrived in their sylvan village the previous year and moved into a cabin on the Shylan Road, owned by a taciturn olde
r gentleman—the Constable—who bred big horses for hauling trees.

  The Midwife had only heard rumors about her, and didn’t even know the young woman was pregnant until a barefoot boy had arrived at the Midwife’s shack. The boy was a neighbor of the Shylan Road couple and had only said, “Little mother sick. Come quick,” before he ran away. She arrived to find the sweaty young woman hours into a painful delivery, which would take days to complete.

  Now that the baby was delivered, and mother and baby rested, the last of the Midwife’s most important tasks lay just beyond her fingertips. She pushed at the lump, trying to move it to the side so she could feel for the stray piece of placenta. A flap brushed her middle finger and she knew she had it. The Midwife pinched the flap between her middle and ring fingers and eased her hand back with a twist of her wrist. She would let go at the first sign of resistance, not wanting to disturb the uterine wall. The placenta came easily, and she nearly had it free when a gush of liquid surrounded the Midwife’s hand.

  The Midwife abandoned the placenta and pulled her hand back fast, bracing herself against the smell of copper and gush of blood that would certainly follow her hand back out of the young mother. But it wasn’t blood that coated the Midwife’s hand. The Midwife rubbed the thick, clear fluid between her finger and thumb, not quite believing what she saw. Instead of blood, tugging on the placenta had released a new gush of birth-water.

  When her confusion cleared and she finally understood the implication, the Midwife returned her full attention to the young mother. The mother slept soundly as her body silently pushed out a second, tiny baby. Tears rushed down the Midwife’s coarse face as she cradled the miniature boy in the palms of her hand. He opened his little mouth, pulled in a huge breath, and yawned. The Midwife’s tears dripped from her cheeks and bathed the boy.

  6 YOUNG BOY

  WHEN HE WAS VERY young, Constantine didn’t question much. He either understood something as soon as he saw it, or he didn’t. The first time he saw a wagon, he took one look at its spinning wheels and understood how the iron hubs rotated on the wooden axles. He saw the metal clouts along the top and bottom of the axle and understood that they would help increase the axle’s longevity. The buckets of grease hanging from the sides would provide lubrication. Later, when he saw his first skein-clad axle, with a metal cap on the end of the wooden axle, he appreciated the improvement in the design.

  Things that captivated and entranced other kids didn’t interest Constantine at all. He hid in the bushes one day and watched a woman performing for a group of kids. She began by juggling three, then four, then five colored balls. Constantine enjoyed seeing the demonstration of dexterity and coordination. The woman tossed all of her balls in the air. When they were at the top of their arc, just about to descend, all five balls stopped. The group of children gasped and applauded. Hiding in his bush, Constantine just watched, barely interested. The woman twirled her fingers and the balls spun in a slow circle, swapping places with each other like a square dance. When she lowered her arms, the balls flew higher. They dipped and dodged around the branches of the maple which sheltered her demonstration.

  Constantine fell asleep under his bush while the other children danced in their own circles beneath the swooping balls.

  During Constantine’s seventh summer, he decided to wander at night. While he wandered the roads at night and heard a wagon coming, he didn’t have to run deep into the forest to remain undetected. He could just step behind the closest tree. At night Constantine could sneak up close to a window and watch the people eating, or sleeping, or drinking at long, low tables. At night, Constantine learned lots of new words that the Midwife never uttered. He would whisper them to himself, tasting them on his tongue.

  Sometimes a barking dog would give away his position, but most of the dogs were already afraid of Constantine. If they weren’t, he soon gave them reason to be. Constantine watched, and watched, and watched, trying to make sense of the night people’s actions. It took him a long time, but he eventually figured out what these people valued. They ate quickly and often. They clearly didn’t value their food. They spilled words from their mouths endlessly until the sound of it drove Constantine away. They clearly didn’t value their words. But at night, just before retiring, each person would finally remove their clothes. In the morning, before anything else, they put them on again. Most people took great care to fold and secure each garment overnight. This is what they clearly cared about: their wardrobe.

  Constantine looked at his own body one night in the moonlight filtering down through the canopy of leaves. He wore only mud, and scabs, and bruises. Even the dogs and squirrels wore a thick coat of fur attached to their pink skin. Constantine amassed a collection of dog fur, but he couldn’t make it stick to his own hide. When he ate a handful, it didn’t seem to sprout through his skin as he expected.

  Down by the river, Constantine found a big chunk of sandstone with a dark spot near the edge. With careful blows from fist-sized rocks, he liberated a sharp flint edge and then shaped it into a decent knife. All this exploration and experimentation served no immediate need, but once he had his crude stone knife, Constantine formed an idea. He killed a rabbit the next day with a sharpened stick. Using his flint edge, he skinned the hide from the soft animal and stretched it to dry on a bed of leaves.

  He’d learned a little by watching the men near the east edge of town. There, they boiled skins with the brains of the animals and then soaked them in a solution made from the bark of the young oak trees near the pond. Constantine invented his own process for tanning the skins. He gathered salty white crystals from the old mine in the side of Poltya’s hill. He mixed those with water and the white ashes from the hot oak fires the Midwife kept burning. This paste stung his young skin. Constantine smeared it on the back of the hide and then plunged his hands into cool mud to stop the caustic burning. It took months to perfect his process. Sometimes the hair would fall off the skin in tufts. Other times the whole hide disintegrated after his treatment. Constantine ended his process by suspending his hide over a smoky fire for ten minutes. This last step changed the color of the skin and left it supple, even after it got wet and dried out.

  With his collection of pelts, Constantine set out to make himself a second skin like the clothes the other men wore. He didn’t have a needle or thread, so once he figured out how to arrange the skins into a suit, he began fraying the edges into tiny strips.

  Constantine worked the skins for weeks. He spent all his time hunched over in a little naked ball behind the big rock that sat near the tall elm trees. A pair of crows perched on a log a few feet away and studied him with their shiny black eyes. Once he slit the edges of a piece into a fine fringe, Constantine wove those strands together with the next patch and secured them with tiny knots. He didn’t possess ingenuity or skill, but he had enormous reserves of patience and tenacity for a boy his age. He used those two qualities to compensate for his shortcomings.

  He wove those pieces together so well that the seams disappeared. A squirrel fur transitioned to a stolen piece of sackcloth. A heart-shaped patch of black cow’s hide that Constantine found behind the abattoir became the center of the panel covering his back. He measured the dimensions against his own body. As he worked, ignoring food and water, his body withered and his suit gained extra room around his waist and neck.

  In his suit, seen from thirty paces away, Constantine became startling. He didn’t know it. The Midwife didn’t keep a mirror in the house, so Constantine only knew what the parts of the suit looked like. Upright on two feet, he appeared dignified and formal, but ready for anything. When he dropped to all fours, he might be a predator—a wolf or at least a rabid dog—until you drew close enough to see his human features.

  Perhaps he felt pride in his new clothes, or perhaps he simply felt less embarrassed now that he was finally covered up. Constantine began to venture out more in the daylight. He walked to places where others might see him. Constantine and his unique attire beca
me the subject of many whispers. He didn’t stop with his first accomplishment. He kept creating new clothes, experimenting with different skins and furs, and pilfered textiles. Within a few months, he had several complete outfits to choose from.

  His bravery had limits. Constantine observed the migration of other children and noted when they traveled to and from school. He made himself scarce during those times. Other children yelled, and chased, and threw rocks. They spit, and cursed, and ganged up. Constantine wanted nothing to do with those beasts. Before the children took to the paths, migrating to their fancy schoolhouse whose bell tower loomed nearly as high as the town hall’s, or dawdling back to do their afternoon chores, Constantine found a deep hollow or tall branch where he could hide in safety.

  One morning in early August, Constantine made a mistake. He napped in one of his favorite trees, where three thick branches sprouted from the trunk of a big maple, serving as his bed. Here, he was high enough for some unfiltered light to dazzle his eyes. Constantine was perfectly camouflaged in his gray and brown outfit made from the hide of an old horse. He woke an hour before the kids would be released from school, and decided to make his way out to the marshy area near the scrubby swamp maples. There, he could strip the slimy bark which he wove with horse hair to make ropes for his snares. The trees were past the school, and the marsh had no houses, so he would be safe there from kids walking home.

  The mistake he made was born of ignorance. He knew that the Harvest Festival was that weekend. He did not know that the kids enjoyed early release that Friday to help their parents finish their preparations.

  Constantine walked down the old deer path next to the Sapockin River when three boys from the school spotted him. He didn’t know their names, but he recognized them. The biggest boy, the blond with the red mark on his chin, lived over on Hyff Lane and had a big mean tomcat who would shred Constantine’s snares if they contained an animal.