Zigzag Effect

by Lili Wilkinson

  ‘Sage?’ she heard Bianca call. ‘Did you find them?’

  Sage quickly replaced the white card among the roses. ‘Coming,’ she said, and hurried back to the stage, where she helped Bianca fix her costume.

  ‘You are, quite simply the best, Sage,’ said Bianca. ‘How did we ever manage without you?’

  ‘How indeed?’ said Herb, appearing from the foyer.

  Sage swallowed uncomfortably and tried not to meet his gaze. Something felt wrong. There was something she was missing. Was it to do with Jason and the roses?

  ‘Hello,’ said Zacky, who had apparently overcome his shyness. He thrust a hand up at Herb. ‘I’m Zachary. I’m a magician too.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Herb made a visible effort to replace his miserable expression with a smile. ‘Can you do any tricks?’

  Zacky pulled a coin from his jeans pocket, and clumsily demonstrated the French Drop that Sage had taught him. Herb looked impressed.

  ‘That’s pretty good,’ he said.

  ‘Now you do one,’ Zacky demanded.

  Herb pulled an egg from Zacky’s ear, then transformed it into a carrot, then into a dollar coin.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘You hang onto that for me.’

  Zacky beamed.

  Herb glanced over at Sage. ‘Can we talk?’

  Sage looked at the floor. ‘I’ve got a lot to do,’ she mumbled. ‘Have to keep an eye on Zacky. Maybe later.’

  Bianca looked at Herb, then at Sage, then back at Herb again. ‘Hey,’ she said in a conspiratorial tone, turning to Zacky. ‘Are you staying for the show tonight? We might get you to help out with one of the tricks.’

  Sage’s uneasy feeling increased. ‘Not sure. Maybe I should take you home, Zacky. It’s been a long day.’

  She could call Mum and tell her that Zacky was sick and she had to come home from work.

  Zacky’s face crumpled. ‘We just got here! And you promised I could stay!’ His voice rose higher and louder with every word. A fully-fledged tantrum was just moments away.

  Sage swallowed. She didn’t want Zacky around Herb, not until she knew more about what was going on. Maybe he was right about Jason Jones. Or maybe it was all part of Herb’s plan. She didn’t know what to think, or who to believe. But what else could she do?

  ‘Okay, okay,’ she said. ‘Of course you can stay.’

  Sage installed Zacky in a front-row seat where she could see him from her position in the wings. He almost burst with pride to be allowed to sit on his own in such a highly coveted position, where he told anyone sitting near him that he knew the magician and that they had exchanged tricks before the show.

  She was glad for some time to think, as she went through the progression of lighting cues. There was too much going on in her head – she needed to sort it all out. But before she knew it, she was dimming the lights for the finale. They’d briefly discussed putting Assistant’s Revenge back in, now that Bianca’s ankle was better, but Herb had wanted to try something different. ‘A twist on an old classic,’ he’d said.

  Herb stood in front of a small table in the centre of the stage. On the table were three metal cups, and one red ball. Bianca stood slightly to his left, smiling gently.

  ‘The cup-and-balls routine,’ Herb said to the audience, ‘is the oldest piece of magic in the world.’ He picked the ball up in his thumb and forefinger and balanced it carefully on top of the middle cup. ‘It was performed in Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. In Ancient Rome, the effect was known as acetabula et calculi – dishes and dice.’

  Herb stacked the first and third cup on top of the middle one, then looked at the audience for a moment and grinned. He lifted the stack of cups to reveal the metal ball on the table, as if it had magically passed through the first cup.

  ‘It is the cornerstone of every magician’s routine. The great Houdini himself said that no man could call himself a magician until he had mastered the cups-and-balls.’

  Herb placed the centre cup over the ball and the other two on either side. He stacked them up and lifted them again, to reveal two balls on the table. Lining the cups up once more, his hands started to move faster and faster in an almost rhythmic dance. The balls appeared and disappeared, truly as if by magic. For a moment, Sage forgot about everything, entranced by the graceful, flowing movements of Herb’s hands.

  ‘This routine is also performed by conmen and fraudsters, where it’s known as thimblerig or the shell game. Street hucksters ask passers-by to place bets on where the ball will turn up. If you can turn over the shell or cup that has the ball underneath, you win double your money.’ Herb cocked his head to the side and grinned again. ‘But you never will.’

  He turned all three cups over to reveal that the balls had vanished. He tapped the cups back over and shuffled them around, then lifted the first cup to reveal an orange.

  ‘Orange-ya glad you didn’t bet on this one?’ he said, and tapped over the second cup. A lemon rolled out. ‘You’d feel like a right lemon.’ He lifted the third cup, exposing an egg. ‘No matter how much they egg you on, you’ll never win.’

  The audience started to applaud, but Herb held up a hand.

  ‘Recent versions of this routine have played with the format a little,’ he said. ‘Some magicians only use one cup. Penn and Teller do a scandalous version using clear plastic cups. But I thought it might be fun to inject a little … danger into the routine.’

  He stacked up the three metal cups and set them aside. One by one, he palmed the metal balls, the lemon, the egg and the orange, making them vanish with casual, almost lazy movements. Then he brought out three white plastic cups – the flimsy kind that the dentist gives you to rinse from. He also produced a metal spike. Sage frowned. It was the mail spike from Herb’s desk. The one she had seen penetrating Armand’s eye in her dream.

  Her blood ran cold. Her eyes sought out Zacky in the dimly lit audience. He looked entranced. Sage’s fingernails dug into her palms and her breathing turned shallow.

  Jason Jones was sitting directly behind Zacky.

  Herb covered the spike with one of the cups, and lined up the other two next to it. He shuffled the cups around. Sage kept her attention on the spike. She knew where it was. She let her gaze flick over to Bianca, and realised with a start that Bianca was looking right back at her, a broad smile on her face that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  ‘We need a volunteer!’ she announced. Herb nodded.

  Bianca’s smile grew just a little wider. Her eyes were brimming with sadness, and for a moment she looked so beautiful that Sage wanted to cry.

  ‘You, young man!’ Bianca said, pointing to the front row of the audience. ‘Please join us up here.’

  Zacky. He leapt to his feet, and before Sage could process what was happening, he had dashed up the stairs to the stage. She shot a wordless, panicked look at Herb, who gave her a smile that she thought was supposed to comfort her, but only made her feel more anxious. Bianca’s arm slipped around Zacky’s shoulders, and she winked cheekily at Sage.

  Sage glanced back at Jason Jones, whose eyes were locked on Bianca. There was a smug, knowing smirk playing around the corners of his mouth.

  Herb was talking, moving the plastic cups around on the table. Sage couldn’t hear anything – her ears were full of a fierce buzzing noise. She thought she might faint. Herb took his hands off the cups, and gestured at them. His mouth moved, but all Sage heard was the buzzing.

  Zacky didn’t look nervous at all. He trusted Herb completely. He chewed his bottom lip, then pointed at the cup on the right. Herb said something, and Zacky nodded. Herb took Zacky’s hand and held it over the cup.

  Are you sure? his lips said.

  Zacky nodded again. Sage was paralysed.

  Herb placed his hand over Zacky’s, and pushed sharply downward. The cup crumpled flat. No spike.

  Sage thought her heart might leap out of her chest. It was okay, she tried to tell herself. Herb wouldn’t hurt Zacky.

  Would he?


  Zacky’s hand was over the cup on the left. Again, Herb put his hand on Zacky’s. Sage tried to close her eyes, but found she couldn’t. Herb pushed downwards.

  No spike.

  Herb said something to Zacky, and Zacky lifted up the middle cup, revealing the silver mail spike underneath. Sage’s hearing started to return as applause filled the theatre, and she found she could move again.

  Bianca ruffled Zacky’s hair, and told him to return to his seat. Herb’s eyes flicked over to Sage and his eyebrows drew together in a plaintive smile. A smile that said I’m sorry. Can we start again?

  But she couldn’t trust him.

  Sage didn’t stay to help tidy up after the show. She didn’t know what to think, or who to believe. All she knew was that she had to get her little brother away from the theatre before something bad happened. She didn’t even bother to say goodbye to Herb and Bianca. She just grabbed Zacky’s hand and marched him up the aisle and out through the foyer.

  ‘Sage?’ said Zacky. ‘Are we going already?’

  ‘Yep,’ she told him, squeezing his hand. ‘It’s time to go home.’

  The icy wind cut right through her jacket as she stood on the footpath, taking deep breaths and trying to calm down.

  She’d had enough of ghosts and magic. She was done. She would never set foot in the Lyric Theatre again. After all, with Herb kicked out of the Magician’s League, and no sign of Armand, Bianca would certainly go and work with Jason Jones. What was the point in staying around to witness the inevitable?

  Sage looked at the theatre one last time, tilting her head to take in the whole façade. Above the mostly broken lightbulbs and faded posters, flaking gold paint spelled out the words:

  LYRIC CINEMA EST 1936

  Sage frowned. She remembered Herb’s advice. To really appreciate anything in this city, you have to look up.

  ‘Or down,’ she said to herself.

  ‘What?’ said Zacky. ‘I’m cold. Can we go now?’

  What was it Yoshi Lear had said? You need to look a bit harder, with an unbiased eye.

  Images zigzagged back and forth through Sage’s head. Armand’s face when she’d told him about the missing money. The snapped wand. The locked storeroom. Bianca’s injury. The creepy letters. Lipstick on Bianca’s mirror.

  And her dream … the metal spike through Armand’s eye. The backwards writing on the typewriter. The ghost, captured blurrily on film.

  She thought of the knocking sound she’d been hearing. And the scraping noise that had woken her when she and Herb had been locked in the storeroom. She thought of the sudden strong smell of jasmine. She thought of little pots of makeup and half-used lipsticks. She thought of Zacky, looking for an imaginary basement in their house. She thought of Elsie and Frances, taking dreamy photos of cardboard fairies.

  ‘I have to get into Bianca’s dressing-room,’ she murmured to herself.

  ‘I thought we were going home,’ said Zacky.

  Sage tugged him back through the entrance into the foyer. ‘Zacky,’ she said. ‘Can you go backstage and tell Bianca about your Harry Potter trading card collection? Make sure you tell her about every single one. I’ll be back in a moment.’

  Zacky’s eyes brightened, and he trotted through the auditorium to where Bianca was sitting and stretching in the wings of the stage. ‘Bianca,’ Sage heard him say, ‘I have seventy-three Harry Potter cards in a special box.’

  Sage slipped down the side aisle and made her way backstage towards Bianca’s dressing-room. As she passed the office, an arm snaked out and grabbed hers. She yelped.

  ‘It’s just me,’ said Herb. ‘Don’t freak out.’

  Sage tried to conceal the fact that she was, in every conceivable way, totally freaking out.

  ‘We need to talk,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t,’ said Sage. ‘Not right now.’

  Herb pulled her into the office and shut the door behind her.

  ‘No, it has to be now. What the hell is going on with you? If you don’t want to date me, then that’s fine. But just tell me. There’s no need to be such a bitch about it.’

  ‘I’m not being a bitch!’ she said, edging towards the door. ‘Look, I really have to—’

  ‘What happened?’ Herb shook his head, his expression sad and bewildered. ‘Everything was great, or at least I thought it was. Then all of a sudden you cancel our date, and you’ve barely spoken two words to me since. Is it because I asked you to assist me? Is it because I said you looked ridiculous in the red sparkly number? I only meant that you look beautiful just the way you are, you don’t need to glitz it up.’

  Sage was feeling about a million emotions at once, but didn’t have time for any of them. She had to get to Bianca’s dressing-room.

  ‘I really can’t talk about it now—’ she started to say, then stopped. ‘Wait. I didn’t cancel our date. You stood me up.’

  Herb’s expression turned indignant. ‘I did not! I was just heading out to meet you, but Bianca told me you’d gone home because you were too upset about the letters. You didn’t even tell me.’

  Sage stared at him. ‘Did you kill the mice?’ she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

  ‘What mice?’

  ‘The white mice. Did you kill them?’

  Herb looked baffled. ‘No. I told you about them. I accidentally left the door to their cage open, and they escaped. They live under the floorboards of the stage. Every now and then you see one sneak out for a bit of popcorn.’

  Sage’s mind was racing. Herb took a tentative step forwards. ‘What’s this about?’ he asked. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I have to go.’ Sage pushed past him, and bolted up the corridor to Bianca’s dressing-room.

  Nothing had changed. Little jars and pots of makeup still lined the dressing table. A silk scarf was carelessly draped over the chair. The air was thick with the smell of Jason Jones’s roses. Sage hurried over and yanked open the drawer.

  The old mobile phone.

  She picked it up and switched it on, hoping there’d be enough battery. The screen flashed into life, displaying a generic welcome message. Sage willed it to start faster, straining her ears for footsteps in the hall. She should really pocket the phone and go to her own office, but what if Bianca noticed it was missing? This might be her only chance.

  With shaking fingers, Sage navigated to the messages screen. The most recent sent message was there, exactly as Sage had dreaded it would be.

  NOT COMING IN CANCEL WEEKEND SHOWS.

  It was Armand’s phone.

  Sage reached into the drawer and pulled out the empty bottle of perfume.

  ‘No,’ she whispered.

  She hurriedly switched off the phone, shoved it back into the drawer and pelted down the corridor to the stage, skidding to a halt just inside the wings.

  ‘And then for Christmas last year I got the Quidditch Cup pack, which had three holofoil cards in it.’ Zacky was saying.

  ‘Mm-hmm?’ Bianca’s voice was overly bright, as if she wasn’t listening but wanted Zacky to think she was. She glanced up at Sage.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  Sage plastered a smile onto her face. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Just, you know. Tired.’

  Bianca looked at her for a moment, saying nothing. Then she nodded sympathetically. ‘It’s been an intense few days.’

  ‘Well,’ said Sage. ‘We’d better go home.’ She dragged Zacky to her side. ‘You should go too,’ she told Bianca, trying to look as friendly as she could. ‘I bet you could use a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘Great idea,’ said Bianca, with a warm smile. ‘You read my mind.’

  Sage towed Zacky from the theatre out into the cold night air.

  ‘Did you see me during the show?’ he said proudly as Sage marched them to the bus stop. ‘I helped with the magic trick.’

  ‘I did see!’ said Sage brightly. ‘I was very proud of you. Were you scared?’

&nbs
p; Zacky shook his head. ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Not a bit. Because I knew it was all pretend anyway, and Herb wouldn’t do anything where I might get hurt, would he?’

  Sage felt a twist of guilt. ‘Of course he wouldn’t.’

  The bus pulled up with a rumble, the door scraping open. They climbed on board and sat down. Zacky plastered his face against the window, breathing hot fog all over it as he peered out into the night. Sage took a deep breath, and pulled out her phone to text Herb.

  You were right. We do need to talk.

  16. Escape: the magician or subject is placed in a restraining device, and escapes to safety.

  Sage arrived at the theatre on Thursday earlier than usual. The building was deserted and icy cold. She switched on the heating system and set it as high as it would go. She shoved her numb hands into her pockets and tried to convince herself that it was just the cold that was making her teeth chatter.

  She stood in the auditorium for a moment and looked at the stage. From here, you didn’t notice that the red velvet curtain was faded and worn, or that the scrolled plasterwork around the proscenium was cracked and flaking. It was funny, Sage thought, that people always wanted to sit as close to the stage as possible, when in fact, the further back you were the better it looked.

  She took a deep breath and counted to ten, then turned away from the stage and headed up to the old projection booth where they stored the magic equipment. She’d done some googling the night before, after she and Zacky had arrived home, and learnt that old celluloid film was so flammable it could just burst into flames if it were kept in a warm room. So most old cinemas had built underground cellars to keep the big round canisters of film cool and safe.

  Sage squeezed into the booth and examined the floor. There were scrape marks on the wooden boards, leading to the black-and-white lines of the Zigzag cabinet. She took hold of the cabinet and pulled. The cabinet made a squealing noise as she dragged it across the floor. Stepping back, she peered around it.