Girl in the Shadows

by Gwenda Bond

  “All right.”

  I walked up to Dad and Raleigh, and slung an arm around Dad. I’d worried we wouldn’t get through this with our relationship intact, but I’d felt more hopeful with each passing hammer strike and every minute working side by side.

  “You bring it?” I asked.

  He slipped a small jewel box into my palm before I even saw his hand move. “You’ve still got the skills,” I said, admiring his sleight of hand.

  “This is the payload?” Raleigh asked.

  “Just a sec,” I said, holding up a finger. “I need to check one last thing.”

  I went back under the curtain. The workmen glanced over, but then went back to their jobs. Everything had to be done by showtime, after all.

  Dad knew I was making a copy. Raleigh didn’t.

  The coin thrummed, even inside the box, like it was speaking to me. You again, it said. What marvels we will do together.

  I took a close look at the coin and then picked it up. An electric jolt went through me as soon as I touched it, and I tried to make friends. You and me, I thought to it, let’s get along.

  Then I closed one fist around it, and another around a prop coin from my pocket. And I thought, Make it look the same.

  When I unfolded my fingers, barely warm with the effort, I compared the two. Identical, as far as anyone who didn’t know what the magic coin felt like was concerned.

  After putting the real coin into its box, I hid it in my pocket. I ducked out to my dad and Raleigh with the fake in my hand.

  “You’re sure what I have in mind will work for your bird?” I asked Raleigh.

  “We’re all good. He’ll come when I signal. You ready to give me that yet?”

  “Here it is.” The real coin was still a solid thrumming hum in my pocket. I handed him the dummy coin, and his ticket.

  “Huh,” he said, turning the coin over and over. “What a thing to lose a job over.”

  “No kidding,” I said.

  Dad pulled me off to the side. “Give me one sec too, Raleigh,” he said.

  “You two are getting way too similar,” Raleigh said. He gave us a little space, though.

  “You’re keeping the real one on you?” Dad asked.

  “I know it doesn’t seem like a good idea, but—”

  “I kept it for you.” Dad kissed the top of my head, like I was still a little girl. “Good luck.”

  The coin buzzed and hummed with power I could practically hear, like it approved of our discussion. What things we will do together, it said.

  Dez had turned on the little lamp when I got to the closet-sized space that had become so familiar. I breathed in the air, knowing it was silly to think of it as “Dez air,” yet still trying to memorize it exactly. I took the box from my pocket and set it back beside the light, safe but not on me.

  The sense of its presence dampened, now that I was no longer in contact with it.

  Dez was lying back on the bed. I crawled in beside him and pressed my lips to his neck. He made a happy noise and tucked me into his arm. “Let’s pretend,” he said.

  “Okay. What are we pretending?”

  “That tomorrow isn’t going to happen. I want to know everything that happens next, after the season ends, if none of this was happening and we got everything we wanted instead.”

  My heart was simultaneously growing and breaking. This summer had taught me so many things—that bad people could do good things, that people who thought they were bad could be good, that you could love someone even if they hurt you, that forgiveness was possible. And that I was strong enough to resist my father’s will, to resist anyone’s that got in the way of what I wanted.

  My magic could save us, I hoped. No guarantee, though.

  But in the meantime, we could pretend.

  “Well,” I said, “I ask if you want to stay in Vegas. My dad is scandalized. But he gets over it.”

  “You’re probably getting your own place soon anyway. So I say yes. What do you do next? I want to know. Does your dad give you a job?”

  This was something I had been thinking about.

  “I used to think I wanted to open for him, be his apprentice, part of the show at the Menagerie.”

  He kissed the top of my head, and I angled my face to look up at him. “But now?” he asked.

  “Now I think I ask him if he’s willing to invest in a show of my own. Not as big as his, not so flashy, about the size of my show here. Well, maybe a little bigger. I want a theater, a home, a place where I can experiment. So I find this old theater that needs a little work in a less trendy part of town. I raise money and fix it up. I hire a crew, and a lovely assistant.”

  “Someone with experience, like me?”

  “Someone with experience, like you. And then I launch, and within weeks every show is sold out.”

  Dez was serious. “You should do all that.”

  “Maybe I will. Someday.” Even though we were pretending, I wasn’t sure I wanted it to be that easy anymore. One thing my magic had given me was a new appreciation for what was earned. For what was real.

  True.

  “And what about you?” I asked.

  “We’ve already established that in this pretend I am the lovely assistant.”

  I felt the pushback in it. He didn’t want to spin out what his real future could be. He didn’t know yet. I understood.

  I just had to cross my fingers and wish on all the stars in the sky that I was as strong as I thought I was, strong enough to do what I planned tomorrow.

  “Enough pretend,” I said, crawling down to the end of the bed to close the sliding door.

  All these nights we’d spent together, we were so comfortable with each other. But there was a line we hadn’t crossed.

  “I want to,” I said. “Do you?”

  “I do.”

  He wound his hand in my hair, and our lips collided. Our mouths were desperate, hot and open, and I moved my thighs to press against him. My Dez, so unsure anyone loved him. Our shirts went first, then the rest of our clothes. Hands followed mouths as we tried to get closer and closer.

  So close no one could ever part us.

  In those moments, I never wanted tomorrow to come.

  forty-four

  Tomorrow came anyway.

  I went home to shower in the Airstream and put on my performing clothes. Dita was waiting when I came out, standing by her bed in a jacketless men’s suit.

  I had the little jewel box in my hand. I’d been afraid to leave it anywhere apart from me since Dad forked it over. I hadn’t even bothered to open it again yet. The song it sang, like a Siren’s, was impossible to mistake.

  “I already made the fake,” I said to her.

  “You didn’t tell us the whole plan, did you?” she asked. “What are you going to do? Use it?”

  Of course Dita would guess. She’d gotten to know me as well as anyone ever had.

  “What I have to do to make sure the people I love are safe. I mean, as much as any of us ever can. You’d do the same, wouldn’t you?”

  “I would,” she said. “I envy you a little, for getting to. But it’s dangerous, right?”

  I nodded. I’d felt like the coin would consume me the one time I’d been onstage with it. Its crushing power convinced me I could do anything. And I was afraid that power would overtake mine and leave me with nothing. Leave me to break, to shatter into pieces, empty.

  She hugged me. “Don’t die.”

  “Fate has its plans, and it doesn’t consult us,” I said, quoting Dez quoting the Praestigae. “But death’s not in my plans.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  I peeked out from behind the curtain hung in the arch on my brand-new one-use-only stage. The people lucky enough to have seats for this outdoor illusion would be able to see the Ferris wheel only through the arch, which served as a pretty frame. The positioning was the key to the optical illusion of making the wheel seem to vanish and then the reverse, making it reappear.

 
Dad’s helpful shadows and mirrors, and the position of the towers and arch itself would combine to hide it from the onlookers, then show it to them again. The stage was also positioned so I could make it to the Ferris wheel and be on it when it reappeared in their view.

  And hope against hope for the best. I needed a show of power so dramatic that it would convince the Praestigae not to pursue us. If Mom took the fake coin and left, someday soon we’d be able to return.

  I sensed Dez’s approach and turned around to face him. “You ready?” I asked.

  “Nowhere close,” he said. “I feel like I should have more to do.”

  “You getting out of here—fast—is the key to everything.” I gave him an envelope. It contained a mushy note about how I believed in his future, along with the few thousand dollars’ cash I’d earned this summer.

  He put the envelope in his pocket and reached out for my hands.

  “Don’t read the letter unless I don’t show up,” I said. “Okay?”

  “You’re going to show up.”

  “Just in case something goes wrong.”

  We looked at each other.

  “I’ll see you soon,” I said.

  “You are the best and the worst thing that ever happened to me, Moira Mitchell,” Dez said. “And if you don’t show up, I’ll be a worthless, ruined soul. So nothing can go wrong.”

  I didn’t want to lose my composure. I had to perform—both onstage in a few moments, and after, with the Rex and Regina. So I made a bad joke. I gestured at the enormity of the setup around us. “Not every girl would do all this for a guy, true.”

  Or risk her life. The coin would make me more powerful. But using it was a risk, and I knew it. I saw no other choice.

  Dez’s life was in my hands. My mom had said it, and the copper heart’s existence made me believe it.

  I saw Dad and Raleigh climbing up the back steps of the stage toward us. Raleigh had Caliban the crow perched on his arm.

  “Don’t screw this up,” I said to Dez.

  “Noted.”

  I leaned forward for one more kiss. I didn’t care if Dad didn’t like being forced to witness it. Not right now.

  Our lips touched and lingered, soft as a breathless whisper, and it didn’t seem possible this would never happen again. But it was possible. It felt like an ending.

  I tried to erase the thought as soon as I’d had it, but it was too late.

  The kiss ended, anyway. I couldn’t know if my dad or Raleigh had noticed that I’d used it partly as a cover to sleight the heart-shaped penny from my pocket and slip it into Dez’s.

  His life was his own to live, no matter what happened today.

  We looked at each other, but neither of us said good-bye. He walked away to get in position, with a gentlemanly nod to Raleigh and Dad. He said something I couldn’t hear to them. To my surprise, Dad nodded back.

  When he got to me, Dad reached out, straightening my mask, which I was certain was straight already. “You all set? Everything’s in place.”

  “Let’s see about that,” I said. “And Dita’s not here yet.”

  When I’d scanned the audience a few minutes before, the Rex and Regina weren’t in their reserved seats. Raleigh had a seat set aside right behind them. The better to keep close so he could signal Caliban.

  I shifted the curtain and saw my mother’s face first thing. The Rex sat beside her, in an overly nice suit. They’d somehow gotten extra tickets. Brandon and two other guys sat in the seats next to them.

  Hmm, I thought. But the only thing I said out loud was, “They’re here.”

  Dad and Raleigh loomed over me, where they could see too. Mommy dearest shouldn’t have been able to see us, but she sure seemed to be looking right at us.

  “She looks ten years younger,” Dad said.

  “She looks fine,” Raleigh said. He only knew that all this intrigue had to do with my mother and the so-called magic coin. He still didn’t buy that magic was real.

  Mommy dearest did, in fact, look the healthiest and most beautiful I’d ever seen her. It might have been an illusion, but I suspected it was the effects of the healing cup.

  I wondered if she’d try to suppress my magic.

  I didn’t think the coin would let her, if it came to that.

  Please don’t let it come to that, I thought.

  She had decades more experience than me, and I still wasn’t sure what she felt about me. All I knew was that her actions this summer had gotten her something she badly wanted. Her power back.

  Dita pounded up the back steps. “I’m here!” she said, extending her arm in Raleigh’s direction. “Jules misplaced the keys, but we found them. She and Remy are in place, waiting for Dez and you.”

  Raleigh held up his bird arm, pointed the fingers of his other hand to Dita’s outstretched arm, and gave Caliban a look. “Hop,” he said. Caliban flapped his wings and landed on Dita’s forearm. “Craagh.”

  “This’ll be perfect. The Rex is superstitious,” I said. “I appreciate you pitching in, Raleigh.”

  “A pleasure,” he said. “You proved me wrong. You’re a good magician, and this is going to put you on the map.”

  Oh yeah—my magic career. Funny how it had almost become an afterthought. I felt a thrill at the reminder.

  Thurston finally strolled up the back stairs to join us, clipping on a wireless mic as he approached. He didn’t seem at all surprised to see Dita holding a large crow or Raleigh heading down the stairs to rejoin the crowd. He nodded to Dad and me.

  “Ready for the big time?” he asked.

  I whirled and looked at the Ferris wheel in the distance, its lights blazing. Dez sat in a car near the top—his car, our car. He raised a hand and waved.

  “Ready.” I touched the coin in my pocket, and it sang back to me. Yes, yes.

  “I reminded security no one’s to leave their seats until the illusion is concluded,” Thurston said. “But you may want to emphasize it too.”

  “Of course,” I said. “For drama.”

  Dad was nervous, I could tell, that he’d been relegated to backup duty. I’d made him promise to stay behind the scenes and manage the towers and the curtain and the recordings. This was my night. The less obvious his participation was, the less chance the Rex would worry about me besting him.

  “Then let’s start the show,” Thurston said. “This is so exciting.”

  You have no idea, I thought.

  Dad stepped back out of view, behind one of the towers that bordered either side of the arch. Dita hovered behind him, stroking Caliban’s feathers.

  I pulled aside the curtain within the arch with a flourish. Thurston stepped out and walked onto center stage.

  “And now, may I present the Miraculous Moira Mitchell. Moira will be performing the first-ever illusion of its kind done as part of the Cirque American. A grand finale for our grandest season yet! Please welcome the astonishing, mysterious, miraculous . . . Moira!”

  Every seat was packed.

  I took a bow. Thurston walked to the side of the stage and hopped off so he could watch the show.

  The sound guys switched my lapel mic on. We were on. There was no stopping now.

  “Welcome to the final evening of the second season of the Cirque American.” I strode around the stage, faltering only a little at the way the Rex watched hungrily when I met his eyes. He grinned. He must have assumed they’d outmaneuvered us.

  My mother had the grace to look vaguely worried, if as regal as I’d ever seen her. I wished again that I could read her better.

  The coin sang to me, I am here when you need me. I am here waiting.

  I went on, trying to ignore it. “Typically I dedicate a new illusion to one of the women magicians who blazed the trail I am now on, women too often forgotten by history, despite their boldness and perseverance in a man’s world. But tonight, I’ll be doing the largest illusion of my career—and one of the largest illusions ever attempted in the world.” I swept a hand to trace the arc of th
e Ferris wheel framed in the archway.

  “This Ferris wheel is the largest transportable wheel in the world. Thurston Meyer had it constructed expressly for the Cirque American, designed to recall the world’s first such wheel, created for the World’s Fair in Chicago. It stretches some two hundred feet above the earth, and takes three days to assemble and a full day to disassemble. Rest assured, there is no way for it to vanish before your very eyes.” I smiled at them. “And yet it will.”

  The crowd made an admiring coo, excited by the prospect. A few skeptics were shaking their heads.

  Let them.

  “I have been inspired by so many magicians. My father, for one. But tonight I dedicate this performance to all those women who ever stood on a stage or a street and produced coins from nowhere. To those who pulled cards from their sleeves. To those who were lovely assistants and box jumpers. To those who escaped from straitjackets and locked trunks. And to those who caught bullets. To all the women who dared to do magic.”

  I walked to the side of the curtain. “Let’s begin. You’ll see my assistant seated in a car on the Ferris wheel. He’ll be disappearing too. All we need are a few simple magic words.”

  Someone in the crowd let out a whoop. The audience was waiting for me to show them a marvel. A miracle.

  My heart started to pound, and the coin in my pocket seemed to pulse in time with it.

  The Rex laughed, as if this were nothing but a small amusement. My mother gave a slight shake of her head and put a hand on his arm.

  I hesitated. The seats where Brandon and one of the other men had been, beside the Rex and Regina, were empty.

  A bead of sweat ran down the side of my face, and I was excruciatingly aware of it. And of the audience watching, waiting. Where was their miracle?

  “Moira?” my father said, from the wings.

  This was the moment. I had to keep going. Dez had to get out of here.

  “And now I will make this Ferris wheel vanish. You are welcome to stand after the show is complete, but until it is concluded, please remain in your seats.” I paused. “Or the kind security officers will show you back to them.”

  They were stationed around the edges of the audience. Brandon couldn’t get by them, I told myself. Could he?