The Vanishing Trick

by Jenni Spangler

  Having been so interested, Madame Pinchbeck now seemed very keen to change the subject. She put the sugar bowl back in the sack and pulled out the candlesticks, turning them upside down, weighing them in her hands.

  Leander wondered why Lord Litchfield was untrustworthy, but it seemed rude to ask. It was probably a good thing that Madame Pinchbeck didn’t much like him – she probably wouldn’t be too worried about Leander stealing his silver. Leander shook off the strangeness of the conversation and turned his attention back to selling his wares.

  ‘Look lovely in your drawing room, miss,’ he said in his most persuasive voice.

  She laughed. She was pretty when she laughed. Leander guessed Madame Pinchbeck was about thirty – old enough to be his mother, though not by much. Her eyes were deep brown and lively. She was thin but, unlike Mrs Smart with her hard edges and stern face, it suited her.

  She tapped the metal with a fingernail. ‘Not the finest I’ve ever seen . . .’

  Leander swallowed a big mouthful of tea to hide his nervousness. It was bitter and burned his throat all the way down. Gritty flecks were left behind on his tongue.

  ‘And I presume you have the master’s permission to be selling off his treasures?’ Her eyes were piercing, though her expression was gentle.

  He looked at his feet. ‘They’re not needed any more,’ he said. Again, it wasn’t untrue. ‘I want the money for a ticket to the city. I’m going to get myself a position.’

  ‘Is that so?’ She smiled.

  ‘An apprentice shoemaker. Or bookbinder. Or I could work in the mills.’ He took another gulp of tea. The taste wasn’t as bad this time, but the grit was still unpleasant.

  ‘It’s a hard life in the mills, child.’

  ‘I can work hard.’

  ‘Ah yes. The plucky orphan. When did your parents die?’

  ‘My father when I was seven. My mother passed this spring.’ An unexpected tear stung the corner of Leander’s eye. He didn’t want to look like a baby and blinked it away, hard.

  ‘You must miss her.’

  ‘Terribly.’ He bit his bottom lip so it wouldn’t tremble. No one ever asked him about his mother.

  She leaned in and lowered her voice. ‘I’m a medium, Leander. I help people speak to the dead.’

  ‘You . . . how?’

  ‘It’s a gift. To lift the veil that separates our world from the realm of the dead.’

  ‘Heaven?’ he said.

  ‘In a manner of speaking. People pay me to help them speak to their loved ones. I could help you, too.’

  ‘You mean . . . I could talk to my mother again?’

  ‘I think we can come to an agreement,’ she said. ‘But first let us see if you’re the sort of boy I’d like to do business with.’

  From within the folds of her cloak she withdrew a small metal case, which opened to reveal a deck of cards. Not the hearts and spades the men gambled with in the inn – these cards were red and purple and yellow, with intricate patterns of owls and spiders and bats on the back. She flipped them over and fanned them out – the faces were all different. The top card was a picture of a tower struck by lightning, people falling from the crumbling walls.

  She turned them back so the pictures were hidden and shuffled them deftly before fanning them out again, face down.

  ‘Are you going to tell my fortune, miss?’ He’d seen a fortune-teller’s tent at a fair once, but his mother wouldn’t let him go inside. He had always wanted to see how they did it.

  ‘In a sense. Which one?’

  ‘I don’t know which to choose, miss.’

  ‘The cards know. Take whichever you are drawn to.’

  Leander pinched a card between finger and thumb, watching the woman’s face for any clue that he had chosen correctly.

  ‘Good. Now show me.’

  He handed her the card and she turned it over. The picture showed a boy climbing a mountain, yellow cloak slung about his shoulders and carrying a staff that was bigger than him.

  ‘The Page of Wands,’ said the woman.

  ‘What does it mean?’ Leander swallowed nervously. What if the card told her he was a thief – could the cards do that? ‘It tells me you are loyal, full of energy, capable of learning.

  It tells me you are about to embark upon a great adventure.’

  ‘One card says all that?’ Leander couldn’t help smiling. Loyal and capable. He sat up a little straighter, pleased that a lady like Madame Pinchbeck saw him as more than just a beggar boy.

  She took a small round loaf from a leather pouch and broke it in half, handing Leander the bigger piece. He bit off a huge chunk. Madame Pinchbeck nibbled her piece delicately, so Leander forced himself to chew more slowly, suddenly aware of his bad manners.

  ‘I suppose I can give you a little something for these things, so you can buy your ticket,’ she said after a moment. ‘Even though it will be very hard to sell them on, with the monogram on them all.’ She patted Leander on the knee. ‘But I’d like you to find your position.’

  He gulped down the dry bread and washed it back with the last of the bitter tea. She was going to buy the silver! He wondered if she’d let him travel to the next town with her. Where was the nearest train station? Or perhaps he should buy himself new boots first, for the journey.

  ‘Although,’ she said, ‘I wonder . . . but no. You wouldn’t be interested.’ She folded her hands in her lap and sighed.

  ‘Yes, miss?’ She looked very sad, and Leander felt strongly that he wanted to help her.

  ‘No, no, you want your money and your job in the mills . . . You don’t want to hear my worries.’

  ‘If you please, miss, I should like to know.’

  ‘My business keeps me on the road for long stretches. A lady travelling needs a strong pair of hands to help with the horses, fetching and carrying, delivering messages . . .’

  Did she mean what he thought? Was she offering him a position? He’d never dealt with horses before, but he could learn. Capable of learning. That’s what the card said.

  ‘I can’t offer you much but hot suppers and a dry place to sleep. The occasional penny or two for yourself. Nothing to match the excitement of a town like Manchester.’

  Leander nodded his head eagerly. He had missed hot suppers. ‘No, miss. I mean, yes, miss. I should like it very much.’ He was perching on the very edge of his seat with eagerness.

  ‘But first – how can I be sure you won’t rob me in my sleep? We both know these things are stolen. How do I know I can trust you?’

  Leander recoiled as though she’d slapped him. So there it was. His job was slipping away. He almost started to beg, but pulled himself back. It was never a good idea to show how desperate you were. It gave other people too much power. He plastered on a cheeky grin and said, ‘I’ll give you a chance if you give me a chance.’ It was said with more confidence than he felt.

  She smiled. ‘Very well. Let’s make an agreement. You give me something of yours as security. I will return it once you’ve proven your loyalty. How about the locket you’re so fond of?’

  He hesitated for a moment, then carefully unfastened the clasp of the necklace. After all, he would prove his worth to Madame Pinchbeck and then it would be returned to him. ‘And, if I go with you, you’ll help me speak to my mother?’ he asked hopefully.

  Madame Pinchbeck nodded slowly. ‘Do we have a deal?’ she asked.

  Leander lowered the chain into her open hand.

  4

  Five of Wands:

  Disagreement, Conflict, Strife

  The carriage door slammed open and the girl leaped out.

  ‘Idiot!’ she shouted.

  The girl from the coach house. Leander had forgotten all about her! Had she been listening all this time? Why hadn’t Madame Pinchbeck mentioned her?

  ‘Behave, Charlotte,’ said Madame Pinchbeck, barely glancing in the girl’s direction. Her slender fingers curled tightly round Leander’s locket and she closed her eyes, a serene smile on he
r lips. A strange sensation of tingling pressure came over Leander, like standing in front of a hot fire, or a hug that was too tight.

  The girl glared at Leander. ‘You have no idea what you’ve done!’

  ‘Where did you—’ Leander tried to shout back at her, but barely managed a whisper. It was as though all the air had been knocked from his lungs, like the time he fell through the ice into the river. He stood up, knocking the stool over into the dirt as he pulled a long gulp of air into chest and coughed it back out.

  The girl was ablaze before him, cheeks flushed red with fury. ‘You ran away! Why did you come back?’

  Madame Pinchbeck smoothed the fabric of her cloak, watching the girl as if she was of no more consequence than a bluebottle.

  She turned her scowl towards Madame Pinchbeck. ‘I know what you’ve done. You traded his locket for a position, instead of money. That was his valuable thing.’

  ‘Yes, dear, how clever of you.’ Madame Pinchbeck sounded entirely bored. ‘Have you quite finished with your outburst?’

  ‘Never.’ She spun round in a blur of silk and crêpe and vanished.

  Leander was dizzy with shock, though his breathing was returning to normal. He turned to Madame Pinchbeck for answers.

  ‘I’m sorry, Leander. Charlotte can be quite rude.’

  ‘Who . . . how . . .’ Leander’s brain couldn’t settle on the right question.

  ‘Charlotte is my daughter. So to speak.’ She pursed her lips. ‘My ward. She is an orphan, like you. We’ve been travelling together for quite some time. Sometimes she forgets her place.’

  ‘I saw her in the coach house,’ said Leander. ‘But she wasn’t in the carriage. I’m sure she wasn’t in the carriage.’

  Madame Pinchbeck stood up and opened the carriage door like a footman.

  Leander craned his neck to see if the girl was there – though she couldn’t have passed through the door without opening it. ‘But how did she—’

  The woman ignored him. ‘Exsisto,’ she said.

  There was a crackle in the air like the moment before a lightning strike. The hairs on Leander’s arms stood on end. From a tiny glass box on a shelf Charlotte began to appear, pouring out like liquid and becoming solid before his eyes. She wore the same scowl as she hopped down from the carriage.

  Leander’s legs felt as if they had been turned to rubber. It was like falling into a dream and jerking awake – sudden and unsettling. He sank down, forgetting the stool had fallen over until it was too late to right himself, and fell both-buttocks on to the forest floor. He scrambled back to his feet, ashamed to look a fool.

  Behind Charlotte was a boy. So now there were two people in the carriage? In the carriage where Leander had sat alone not long ago . . .

  The boy was younger than Charlotte – Leander guessed about ten years old – with tanned skin and large, serious eyes, dressed in a tweed jacket and bowler hat.

  ‘I am going to find a seamstress in the village, since you can’t be trusted with my alterations. I shall be back shortly.’ Madame Pinchbeck hooked a long finger under Charlotte’s chin. ‘You would be wise not to test my patience further.’ She gave Leander’s locket to the boy. ‘Felix, find a safe place for this, and look after Leander. Teach him our ways.’

  She drew her cloak round her body in a sweeping motion, then stalked off up the road without looking back.

  ‘I don’t need looking after, miss.’ Leander didn’t want to stay with these strange children, but he didn’t want to annoy his new employer by trailing along where he wasn’t wanted. He followed her a few dozen steps along the road, wondering what to do.

  Nothing was going the way he expected. Had he made a dreadful mistake by coming here? Leander swallowed the lump at the back of his throat. More than anything, he wanted an explanation. But, whatever the answer, there was no going back now.

  Things would be fine. He would be fine.

  Probably.

  ‘Disaster,’ said Charlotte.

  ‘We’ll have to make the best of it,’ the boy, Felix, said to her in a measured and calm voice.

  ‘There can’t be three of us! This boy—’

  ‘Be kind.’

  ‘Don’t tell me to be kind! I didn’t cause this mess!’

  ‘Neither did I so don’t snap at me.’ He folded his arms and frowned.

  They spoke as though Leander was invisible.

  The surprise of seeing the children appear from nowhere was subsiding in Leander, only to be replaced by a creeping sense of dread. Who were these children who could vanish and return like a witch’s familiar?

  If Madame Pinchbeck was a medium, as she’d told him, did that mean they were ghosts?

  ‘What are you?’ Leander demanded. ‘Are you ghosts?’

  ‘I tried to warn him,’ Charlotte said to Felix, not even acknowledging that Leander had spoken. ‘I thought I’d scared him away.’

  ‘You’re not see-through,’ Leander continued.

  ‘You did your best, Charlotte,’ said Felix.

  Leander moved closer and reached out to poke Charlotte’s arm. She was solid.

  She pulled away with an expression of disgust. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Leander.

  ‘You’ve been stolen, that’s what!’ Charlotte growled. ‘And put us all in danger by doing so.’

  ‘Stop it,’ said Felix. ‘You’ll frighten him.’

  ‘He should be frightened if he has any sense.’ She looked Leander up and down. ‘Which is unlikely.’

  Why did she want to make him afraid? Horrible girl. Leander wouldn’t give her the pleasure. ‘I’m not scared of you.’ He tilted his head back. ‘Madame Pinchbeck gave me a job. I have as much right to be here as you.’

  ‘Job?’ Charlotte laughed. ‘You were tricked. Now you’re a prisoner. Like us. This—’ She snatched Leander’s locket from Felix and held it up, hand shaking, although with rage or fear, Leander wasn’t sure. ‘This is your cage now.’

  Cages. Prisoners. Stolen. The dread rose again in Leander. ‘You’re lying. How can we be prisoners? Madame Pinchbeck’s not even here. We could just walk away if we wanted.’

  Felix put his hand on Leander’s shoulder, steering him back to the seats by the already dwindling fire. Definitely solid. Not spirits, then? ‘You should sit down.’

  Leander shrugged him off. ‘I won’t. Stop teasing me and explain.’

  Felix sat on the carriage step. ‘When you gave Pinchbeck your locket, she caught a piece of your soul inside it.’

  Leander remembered the tingly feeling, the strange breathlessness when Madame Pinchbeck held the locket. Is that what a broken soul felt like? ‘No—’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charlotte.

  Felix continued. ‘When she gives her command, you’ll become air and be sucked into it.’

  ‘Sucked into it?’ Leander didn’t understand.

  ‘Into the locket,’ Felix told him.

  Impossible. But . . . ‘Like your vanishing trick?’ asked Leander.

  ‘It’s not a trick. It’s her magic. You can do it, too,’ said Felix.

  ‘Just cos I don’t wear smart clothes and talk fancy doesn’t mean I’ll believe anything,’ said Leander. ‘You can’t do magic.’ Although deep down he wasn’t so sure. They were so solemn and their voices so heavy with worry. He didn’t like it.

  ‘It’s Pinchbeck’s magic. The only scrap she has, whatever she promised you,’ said Charlotte.

  Leander was suddenly tired and wanted it to stop. He righted the stool and slumped down on to it.

  ‘I know it sounds strange, but you must pay attention,’ said Felix. ‘If we don’t teach you what’s expected before she returns, we’ll all be in for it.’

  ‘No! I don’t want to hear any more. Leave me alone.’

  ‘I wish we could,’ said Charlotte through clenched teeth. ‘If you weren’t so greedy and stupid as to barter with your locket, she wouldn’t have caught you.’

  ‘I wasn’t gre
edy!’ shouted Leander. ‘I was starving! Not that you could understand that.’ It was obvious from Charlotte’s fancy clothes and educated voice that she’d never had to struggle the way Leander had.

  ‘She caught you, too, Charlotte,’ said Felix. ‘What if I hadn’t helped you?’

  Charlotte narrowed her eyes and sighed heavily.

  ‘Now, Leander, there are things you need to remember to stay safe. Are you listening?’ Felix continued.

  Leander nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak – he would surely scream with frustration. How had he found himself here?

  ‘The locket is your Cabinet. You must always leave it open.’

  ‘Cabinet?’

  ‘A magical container,’ explained Felix. ‘They hold the pieces of our souls which means we can disappear into them.’ He unlatched the locket and pulled it open a crack. ‘When your Cabinet is open, you can move in and out of it at will. But, if it’s closed, Pinchbeck can make you vanish and you’ll have to wait for her command to reappear. You don’t want to be stuck inside, so never close it.’

  ‘And our Cabinets, too. They can never be shut,’ Charlotte said. ‘The glass lantern is mine and the violin case is Felix’s. You must never close them. Never. Promise!’

  ‘I promise,’ answered Leander through gritted teeth. He hated being bossed around, but the look on Charlotte’s face made it clear he shouldn’t argue.

  ‘Now you should practise vanishing inside your Cabinet,’ said Felix. ‘Pinchbeck will expect you to be able to do so when she returns.’

  It had to be a joke. He would try to disappear and they would both laugh at how gullible he was, before revealing how they did the trick. They probably thought Leander was trying to steal their jobs and replace them, which would explain the frosty reception. But Leander didn’t want to replace them. He just wanted to belong.

  ‘We’ll help you. You need to learn.’ Felix was kinder than the girl. His voice was gentle. He didn’t seem the type to play mean games.

  Even so, Leander wasn’t about to make a fool of himself. ‘No.’