The Houdini Effect

by Bill Nagelkerke

  Harry nodded. ‘Oh yeah, that’s right. He said something along the lines of he thought you wanted to see him.’

  ‘Who the heck’s Troy?’ said Dad.

  ‘Someone Athens fancies, I reckon,’ said Harry.

  ‘I don’t,’ I shouted at him, muttering, ‘Well, I did, but not anymore.’

  ‘Bet that’s because he didn’t fancy you,’ said Harry.

  ‘I’ll never forgive you for this,’ I said to Harry.

  ‘Calmness my child,’ Harry said.

  ‘Do you want me to scupper your stupid act?’ I snarled at him.

  ‘Harry, that’s enough,’ said Dad, taking charge. ‘Stop winding her up. Go and catch up with this mysterious Troy for goodness sake,’ he said to me, ‘before he takes off thinking we live in some sort of a madhouse.’

  ‘We do,’ I said. ‘You go. Quickly. Please. Tell him I’ll be there in a second. I’ve got to run a comb through my hair. After all that practising, I look a mess.’

  “Don’t say another word,’ Dad ordered Harry as Harry opened his mouth to aim an obvious insult at me.

  While Harry looked abashed and Dad went after Troy, I dashed to my room to look in the mirror.

  What a fool I was.

  Did I imagine that reaching hand? I don't know. I never will. All I know is that at the time it seemed to have life and movement in it and that was enough to bring me to the brink.

  Iris and Laurie. Older again, both more faded than before. Sitting on a two-seater couch, looking up at a camera (as I surmised) that was being pointed at them, presumably by Mitchell. Laurie’s hand was folded over Iris’. Iris was looking pale (it was a

  bleached colour picture this time), ill almost. There was a deep sadness in both pairs of eyes. The sadness of knowing that something was coming to an end. When I saw the picture I couldn’t help it. I started to cry. Immediately, the single picture seemed to separate into two layers. In the foreground layer Laurie raised the arm that wasn’t linked to Iris. It took form and substance, became three-dimensional. His hand reached in the direction of the camera, went beyond it, towards me. It seemed at the point of breaking through the mirror.

  My tears of sadness turned to tears of terror.

  Troy, the Backwards Boy

  I didn’t hear Dad come into my room.

  ‘Athens, love, what on earth’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I could hear you bawling clear down the hall. Troy seems a nice young man but appearances can be deceptive. You don’t have to look any further than the chimney.’ (Oh, for heaven's sake Dad, does everything have to be compared to DIY!) ‘Is he responsible for you being so upset? If he is . . .’

  ‘No. No! Harry’s right. I asked Troy to come.’

  ‘Well, what is it then? Do you want me to call your mother.’

  ‘She’s in court. You couldn’t get hold of her if you tried. Not easily, anyhow. And there’s no reason to call her. I’m okay. I’ll be fine. Honestly, I’m crying about nothing.’ (I told you long ago that writers are liars. Have I convinced you yet?)

  Dad shook his head, giving up.

  ‘I asked Troy to come over so he could help me

  . . . help me with my biography project,’ I said. This time the lie was also the truth.

  I made myself look respectable as I could and went back to the kitchen where Troy was waiting. Dad and Harry had both retreated to their individual sanctuaries. ‘Thanks for coming,’ I said. ‘Sorry I kept you waiting.’

  ‘Seirrow on,’ he said. ‘What it’s all about? What sort of pleh do you deen?’

  ‘You’re seriously weird, yob sdrawkcab,’ I said. ‘Have I got that right?’

  ‘Tceferp,’ Troy replied.

  ‘But you’re going to think I’m seriously weird, too.’

  ‘Yhw em llet.’

  I took a deep breath, so deep it almost made me faint. ‘It’s the mirrors in this house,’ I said.

  ‘What about them?’

  How did one tell another person the about impossibilities they’d been witnessing? That scenario was another near impossibility in itself. But it was either that or holding onto the secret alone and going quickly mad. There was nothing for it but to blurt it out. ‘I see people in them.’

  Troy sucked in his bottom lip. ‘Yeeess . . .’ he said. ‘That’s what mirrors are for . . . elpoep gniees. Usually yourself.’

  ‘I don’t just see me,’ I burbled. ‘I see other people. The people who used to live here before we came.’

  This time Troy didn’t say anything. Not a good sign. I went on. ‘What I see are still images, like photographs. They don’t move or anything like that,’ I explained. ‘At least they didn’t until the last

  one. Just when you arrived. Then one of them did move. Laurie reached his hand out towards me. I thought it was going to come through the mirror.’

  I couldn’t help it. I started blubbing again.

  Poor Troy. He might have been a year ahead of me at school but he seemed so much younger than me in terms of maturity. He looked ready to run a mile. Many miles. It was his turn to take a deep breath. (Pardon the clichés. Sometimes there’s nothing else left.)

  ‘Photographs?’ he repeated.

  I nodded, doing my best to stifle the sobs. ‘Pictures. You already think I’m crazy, don’t you?’

  ‘Os kniht t’nod I,’ Troy said, shaking his head so I didn’t have to interpret what he’d just said.

  I calmed myself down.

  ‘Do you think you are?’ he asked me.

  ‘No!’

  ‘There you go then. You’re ton. So, you’re saying that these serutcip are of the people who owned this house. How do you know who they are?’

  ‘May, next door, showed me a photo of Laurie . . .’

  ‘Laurie. You mentioned him. Eh si ohw?’

  ‘Um . . . the husband. Actually, would you mind not doing that for a bit, Troy. It’s doing my head in, trying to work out what you’re saying. It’s been bad enough trying to work out the mirrors.’

  ‘Yrros. Sorry. It’s just erutan dnoces. Sorry. Second nature. I’ll try.’ He grinned. ‘Who’s the crazy person around here?’ he said.

  I managed a smile as well. ‘No comment. I’ll fill in the details for you. Laurie’s in a rest home now, up north. We think. Or he might be dead. He

  was married to a lady called Iris. They had a son, Mitchell. He’s the one we bought the house off. I recognised May’s photo as being of the man in the mirror. Each time one of the pictures appears he and Iris are a little bit older. Last night there were dozens of photos. Going crazy, like a merry-go-round out of control. Then, just a little while ago, another photo . . . the one that moved.’

  I stopped. I could hardly believe what I’d been saying, so how could Troy.

  ‘What was happening on this photo?’

  ‘I could tell that Iris was sick,’ I said. ‘She looked thin, gaunt, cancerous. She died, you see, and Laurie was left alone for years until he became a grumpy old man.’

  ‘And now he and Iris - or rather their pictures - have come back to haunt this place?’

  ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ said Troy. ‘Everyone’s allowed to believe at least one impossible thing, that’s what I eveileb. Believe.’ (Troy must have read Alice, too) ‘Has anyone else seen the pictures?’

  ‘No, only me. Yesterday Harry came into the lounge - I see the pictures in different mirrors - but the picture disappeared when he did. I mean when Harry came into the room, not when he dis-appeared. Although he does that as well,’ I said. ‘He’s good as escaping.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understood that last part,’ Troy admitted.

  ‘Harry’s a magician, a prestidigitator,’ I explained. Then I said, ‘It’s okay, I’ve told someone, that’s all I really wanted to do. You don’t have to believe me if you don't want to. If it

  had been the other way round I mightn’t have believed you. I’m sorry to have of
f-loaded this stuff onto you, Troy. Just try to forget about it and please don’t tell anybody else. I don’t want to be carted off somewhere.’

  The silence that followed suggested that Troy’s one-impossible-thing-philosophy had been him being kind to me, or simply patronising. I wondered if he was calculating how quickly he could get away. But that turned out not to be the case at all.

  Is that him?

  ‘Is that him?’ he said.

  I’d actually forgotten the kitchen had a mirror of its own. It hung above our china cabinet. Gazing out of it was the face of Laurie. He was alone, looking stricken.

  ‘It is!’ I yelped. ‘It’s exactly the same one.’

  ‘Exactly the same as what?’ said Troy.

  ‘It’s the Laurie in May’s photo. Post-Iris. On his seventieth birthday. May must have given him a copy.’

  If I needed absolute proof that these were old photos I’d been seeing and that they’d been of Laurie and Iris, this was it.

  Laurie looked out of the photo, and faded away.

  ‘Zeeg!’ said Troy.

  ‘So, what do I do?’

  ‘Aedi on,’ said Troy.

  ‘I’ve written to Mitchell, Laurie and Iris’ son,’ I said, explaining my rationale for having done so. I also told Troy about Harry and his magical

  illusions and that I’d ruled him (Harry) out of having had any hand in what I’d been seeing. Then I went on to explain how the images had progressed, from young to old. ‘I think this last one was the saddest one of all,’ I said, ‘despite the fact that it was taken on a significant birthday. Iris wasn’t with him any more.’

  The last picture had been so much less threatening than the last. It had faded quickly, almost as if it regretted having shown itself to Troy.

  I showed Troy the scan of my letter to Mitchell. Thank goodness I’d made a copy.

  ‘Esnes doog sekam,’ he said automatically, reading over what I’d written. ‘Sorry. Makes good sense.’

  ‘I’d worked that out,’ I said. ‘My brain is starting to function again, thank goodness. But will my letter make any real difference even if Mitchell does send a reply? It may be that I can get to talk with Laurie but what if he doesn’t know anything, or won’t tell me anything? Why did you see the picture, too?’ I added. ‘Why you and me and no one else.’

  I saw then what writers mean when they say that people’s brows furrow when they cogitate. That’s what happened to Troy’s brow.

  ‘Well, we don’t know for sure that no one else couldn’t see it,’ he said, thinking hard. ‘But perhaps . . .’

  ‘Perhaps what?’

  ‘Aedi dam a tsuj. Just a mad idea,’ he said. ‘Perhaps because we reminded Laurie of himself and Iris. Or perhaps the mirror was reminded.’

  We looked at each other and both started

  laughing out loud.

  ‘What a mad idea!’ I said. ‘As if.’

  ‘Fi sa,’ Troy mirrored.

  ‘Just friends,’ I said.

  ‘Friends,’ agreed Troy. He gazed up at the mirror. ‘But I guess in the end friendship was what mattered most to Laurie and Iris.’

  I was sure he was right. ‘You’re not so backwards as you let on,’ I said. ‘And you know what, I don’t feel nearly so sacred anymore.’

  ‘Tluser,’ said Troy.

  ‘Tluser,’ I said.

  ‘I guess we can’t do anything else but wait to hear from Mitchell,’ I said. ‘I wonder how long it will take for him to reply.’

  ‘When he does, will you tell him what’s been happening?’

  ‘I don’t think I could do that,’ I said. ‘I did think about it but: a) chances are he’d think I was loopy, and b) would he really want to know that pictures of his parents, and of him, are showing up in the mirrors of the house where he grew up. It would freak him out to discover that, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Very likely,’ he agreed.

  ‘What I really need to do is talk to Laurie,’ I said, ‘if he’s still alive that is.’

  ‘That won’t be any easier,’ he said. ‘Where would you start?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t gone down that track yet. I just hope I can do something sooner rather than later. I’ve become like a recluse. When school starts next week, Mrs Tyrell will be demanding how far we’ve got with our bio projects and at this

  rate I won’t have even started mine.’

  ‘I remember doing that assignment last year,’ Troy said. ‘I left it to the last minute, too.’

  ‘Who did you do yours on?’ I asked him.

  ‘Leonardo,’ he said. ‘Odranoel.’

  ‘DiCaprio?’ I asked. 'I like his movies.'

  ‘So do I, but no. Leonardo Da Vinci.’

  ‘The Mona Lisa man,’ I said. ‘Good one.’

  ‘Not just because of the paintings,’ said Troy, ‘or because he was the kind of guy who was into everything and anything. Science, medicine, anatomy, astronomy.’

  ‘What did that leave you with then?

  ‘His mirror writing,’ said Troy. ‘He was a man after my own heart.’

  ‘Backwards,’ I said.

  ‘Backwards for the words and Reversed for the lettering,’ Troy elaborated. ‘I could lend you my project. I think I’ve still got it.’

  ‘I don’t want to copy anybody else’s work,’ I said, sounding rather prim even to my own ears. ‘But it’d be interesting to read. Harry thinks I should do Houdini,’ I added. ‘He’s given me a book to read about him. Maybe I’ll end up doing him.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Troy. ‘As a backup if nothing else. Then you’ll have something to show Mrs T when she asks for a progress report next week, as she will. She was nice, but very elbatciderp in her expectations.’

  ‘Sometimes I prefer predictable,’ I said.

  ‘Fair enough. Give me your address and I’ll flick Leonardo over in an email anyway,’ Troy promised. ‘It’ll be something to distract you.’

  ‘I badly need distracting. I’ve got myself tied

  up in another big project as well,’ I admitted,

  explaining to Troy how Harry had inveigled me to be his partner in the talent quest and how I had let myself bite off more than I had expected to chew.

  ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘You’re game.’

  ‘Like I said, it stared off as a distraction and because Harry really needed some help. I’ve got kind of excited about it, to tell the truth. Perhaps it’s another form of escapism. Maybe I should do Houdini.’

  ‘Maybe you should,’ he agreed. ‘Thanks for your letter and the palindrome, by the way. The palindrome I knew but the letter was the first proper one I’ve ever deviecer.’

  ‘Don’t expect a second,’ I said, feeling lighter than I had all holidays.

  Back to business

  After Troy had gone my sense of lightness dissipated. I’d told him I was feeling less scared, which had been true, but only when he’d been there and I could talk to him about the mirror images. The fact that he’d seen one himself made it so much easier, that and the fact he’d been sincere when he’d said that he was prepared to believe one impossible thing a day. So I decided I should go and find Harry, carry on with our rehearsal of the sub trunk illusion. I found him unusually subdued.

  ‘Thought you were never going to forgive me,’ he said.

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘You said you were going to scupper my act.’

  ‘I asked if that’s what you wanted me to do?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Right. I’m not going to. Let’s get on with it.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘As long as you cut out the wisecracks.’

  Harry nodded.

  ‘Well, try to,’ I said. ‘Some things are just too impossible to believe,’ I added, sotto voce.

  As we practised the illusion - countless times it seemed - the word ‘uncomplicated’ came suddenly, unbidden, to mind. Perhaps the reason for the appearance of pictures was uncomplicated and it was only my response to the
m that was confused. Confused by a complexity I’d generated myself. That was an interesting notion.

  Schedule

  The rest of my week looked like this:

  waiting anxiously for a reply from Mitchell

  looking over my shoulder at the mirrors

  dipping into Harry’s book on Houdini (very interesting, actually, especially the bits about séances and Houdini’s abiding love for his wife Bess. They reminded me of Laurie and Iris)

  reading Troy’s project on Leonardo Da Vinci (A+, timmad)

  sending brief, uninformative messages to Rach and Em, via texts to Em’s phone, just enough to hint that they shouldn’t turn up unannounced at the front door but that I couldn’t wait to see them again next week at school, if not sooner. And,

  practising the sub trunk routine in readiness for the talent quest. Now that I was thinking of Harry and me as partners in escape the act seemed to be

  getting smoother. Harry and I practised for a

  couple of hours each day. Harry had determined that Sunday would be the date of the family dress rehearsal. He wanted me to read the details of the actual audition - the ‘real thing’ as he called it - for SHOW US YOUR TALENT. Apparently one of the letters Troy had brought to the door was from the producers of the show, containing information about everything we needed to know. Harry had waved it in front of me a couple of times. Times, places, confirmation of competitor number, cancellation rules, TV permissions, what happened if you went through to the next round and lots of other general stuff, he said, even about how the prize money would be paid out to the winner. ‘Just give me a précis,’ I said. ‘I can’t be bothered with all the small print.’

  The auditions, Harry said, were being held at the Town Hall during the last weekend in October. Each contestant was asked to come at the same time, nine am, although obviously they weren’t all going to go on stage together. Performances were going to be staggered throughout the day but the organisers wanted everyone to be there at the start in case they (the organisers) changed their minds about the order of events or if someone (one of the competitors) chickened out at the last second and had to be replaced with another act of the same sort. (‘Don’t you dare chicken out,’ said Harry.)