FOR MY READERS.
THIS BOOK WOULDN’T EXIST WITHOUT YOU.
Prologue Power and Responsibility
“Ladies and gentlemen, our time together is nearly at an end,” Joey announced. “For my final trick, I need a volunteer to join me onstage. Somebody special,” he added, raising a finger in the air. “Preferably someone with a touch of magic in their soul. I don’t suppose anyone here tonight fits that description.…”
The floorboards creaked beneath Joey’s feet as he waited for an answer that wouldn’t come. He looked out to where the audience should be. But there was no audience. The seats were all empty, and Joey was alone on the stage. He was wearing a tuxedo and standing beside a table with his old magic set, Redondo’s Mystery Box, resting on top. Joey had no idea how he’d gotten there. The situation didn’t make any sense.
Despite his young age, Joey Kopecky was a master magician, but he wasn’t a stage magician. It was true he spent nearly all his free time in the Majestic Theatre, but he never performed there. No one did. The Majestic was more of a clubhouse. It was a treasure trove of magical objects that had been left to Joey and his friends by their former mentor, Redondo the Magnificent. Magic shows had been Redondo’s stock in trade, not Joey’s. He had no plans to become a world-famous magician. He had actually taken great pains to avoid the spotlight, but there he was, dressed up like he was trying to be Redondo for some reason. Even the words Joey had used to address his nonexistent crowd were not his own. He remembered hearing Redondo recite those lines the last time he ever performed in public.
“What am I doing?” Joey wondered aloud.
“It looks like you’re doing my act,” a familiar voice called out behind Joey. “You seem to have stolen everything except my mustache.”
Joey turned around and saw Redondo standing at the edge of the stage. In that instant, he understood what was going on. “I get it now. This is a dream.”
Redondo walked over to where Joey was standing. “That’s one way of looking at it. I prefer to think of it as a special appearance. One night only.”
Joey smiled, glad to see Redondo, even if he was just a manifestation of Joey’s subconscious, sleeping mind. Redondo was exactly as Joey remembered him. Stylish and confident, he was the classic stage magician. Redondo was dressed, as usual, in a black tuxedo with a white dress shirt, vest, and bow tie. His stark white hair was combed perfectly, and his pencil-thin mustache completed his polished look. “Aren’t we a pair?” Redondo asked, noting their identical outfits.
“I don’t know why I’m dressed like this,” Joey said. His own standard uniform was a T-shirt and jeans. The only jacket Joey ever wore was a hoodie.
“I like this look on you,” Redondo told him. “Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Can I tell you a secret, though? I always hated these things.” He untied his bow tie and let it hang loose around his collar. “There. That’s better.”
“You? Telling secrets?” Joey said. “Now I know I’m dreaming.”
“If you say so. I hope I’m not intruding.”
“No way,” Joey told Redondo. “I wish you were here for real.”
Redondo furrowed his brow. “Who’s to say I’m not?”
Joey hiked his shoulders an inch. “I don’t know. You are dead.”
“And?” Redondo asked, as if death were a small matter, hardly worth mentioning. “When magic is involved, not to mention a magician of my caliber, nothing is impossible. I stuck around to say goodbye after I died, if you recall.”
“Exactly,” Joey agreed. “You died. You said goodbye. That was over a year ago.”
“And what a year it’s been,” Redondo replied, beaming. “You’ve been busy. I said you flattered me before, but the truth is, you’ve put me to shame. I’ve been watching. You’ve discovered secrets even I never knew. The secret history of the world! You found out what happened to rob the earth of its magic all those years ago, and now you’re in a position to do something about it.” Redondo pointed an aiming finger at Joey. “That’s the part that’s got you worried, I expect. What comes next?”
“I’m not worried,” Joey said a little too quickly.
“Really?” Redondo’s lips curled up in a knowing smile, not fooled at all. “I heard you ask for volunteers just now.” He looked around the empty theater. “So far I don’t see anyone raising their hand. You’re all alone, young Kopecky. Why is that?”
Joey said nothing.
“It’s got to mean something. Could it be because you feel like you’re all alone, up against impossible odds?”
“This is just a dream,” Joey maintained. “I’m not alone in real life. I’ve got friends. Shazad, Leanora, Janelle… they’re with me. We’re the new Order of the Majestic.”
“That’s good. That’s important. The purest, most powerful form of magic cannot be created alone, but there’s no getting around the fact that you’re the one with the wand. When the time comes, you’re the one who has to say the magic words.”
Joey looked down and realized he was holding the wand. Had it been in his hand this whole time? He didn’t remember having it earlier.
Redondo held out his hand. “May I?”
Joey gave him the wand.
It was made of polished black wood and had white silver tips at each end. The average person probably would have thought it was a prop from an expensive magic set or a high-end Halloween costume. Only a handful of people knew what it really was. Most of the world’s magical objects were enchanted relics that had survived through the ages. They were ancient artifacts that had been infused with a finite amount of power long ago. The wand was more than that. It was a conduit for pure, undiluted magical energy and could be used to do almost anything. It could literally bring imagination to life. Redondo waved the wand in the air as if to cast a spell. Nothing happened. He lowered his hand, disappointed.
“If I could take this back, I’d do it in a heartbeat, but that’s not in the cards for either of us. Everything’s been building up to this moment. It’s your wand now. Your turn.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Joey took the wand back. Even in a dream, it could have only one master at a time. Right now that master was him.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind,” Redondo said. “Say it out loud. Make it real. Then we can deal with it.”
Joey held up the wand, seeing it for what it truly was—a double-edged sword. “A thousand years ago, Merlin used this wand to save the world from a tyrant, a mad emperor determined to wipe magic off the face of the earth. He almost did it, too. Merlin stopped him, but after the fight was over, he didn’t use the wand to set magic free. He used it to hide away whatever was left.”
“He created a refuge for magic and more,” Redondo said, defending Merlin’s choice. “A hidden country where fantastic, unbelievable things could thrive in secret. Merlin saved magic by making it disappear.”
“And that’s what killed him,” Joey countered. “The wand killed Houdini, too. It killed you.”
Redondo scoffed. “The wand didn’t kill me. I sacrificed myself to keep it out of the wrong hands. It was terribly heroic,” he added, sounding slightly wounded, as if Joey wasn’t giving him the credit he deserved.
“It was definitely heroic,” Joey agreed. “But you were already dying by then. That was because of the wand, wasn’t it? It was too much… too much power.”
Redondo nodded, a grim look on his face. “As far as I know, that wand has zero limits. People are a different story. Even people like us.” He turned his palms up. “You once told me that you wanted a magical life. There’s no free admission to this show. If you fly too close to the sun, eventually you’re going to fall. But still… you get to fly. Most people never get that chance.”
>
Joey grimaced. Redondo was confirming his worst fears, which wasn’t surprising. If this was a dream, he wasn’t even talking to Redondo. He was talking to himself. But that didn’t mean he shouldn’t pay attention. Like Redondo had said, nothing was impossible. What if it was a dream, but at the same time, it was also something more? Joey couldn’t pass up the chance to ask the old man for advice.
“Is it worth it?” he asked. “Using the wand to do something big like that? Like, really big?”
“That depends on what you have in mind. It could be, but you have to wield the wand wisely. Don’t try to do too much at once. You need to make your actions count.” Redondo shrugged. “On the other hand, you could choose to do nothing at all. That’s an option as well. You could hide the wand away, keep your head down, and live your life. A very comfortable life, too, I might add. It wouldn’t take much. Just a touch of magic here and there whenever you felt the need.”
“No,” Joey said. “I can’t do what you did.” Redondo had spent twenty years living off the grid, mired in depression as he and the wand gathered dust in the Majestic Theatre. He changed course at the end of his life, but Joey didn’t get the impression that he had ever been comfortable.
“My situation was different,” Redondo argued. “I had the Invisible Hand after me. You don’t have that problem anymore. No one can make you do anything you don’t want to do. You’re not pressured by anyone.”
“Except by me,” Joey replied. “I can’t just sit on the sidelines when I have the power to make the world a better place. Also, Janelle would never let me get away with that. This wand is like a weapon of mass creation. I’ve got to do something with it.”
“I understand.” Redondo nodded. “Where there is great power, there is also great responsibility.”
“You stole that line from Spider-Man.”
“Actually, I was quoting Winston Churchill, but you make a good point. This is no comic book. In real life, heroes often pay a very high price. I’ve been there.” The expression on Redondo’s face had turned very serious.
“I don’t want to go there,” Joey said. “I’m not looking to be a hero. I just want to make a difference. I don’t want to…” Joey’s voice trailed off as the Majestic Theatre started to wither, aging rapidly from the restored, grand palace he knew and transforming back into the ruined, abandoned wreck it had been when Joey first found it. In the blink of an eye, it changed from a vibrant, glamorous venue into something that was, for all intents and purposes, dead.
“Do I have to end up like you?” Joey asked.
“You already have.” Redondo took in the sight of the decrepit, burned-out husk the theater had become. He nodded to the wand. “You inherited the Majestic Legacy, just as I did, and Houdini before me. But you’re different, young Kopecky. You and your friends have a chance. You might be the ones to complete Merlin’s last great trick.”
Joey scrunched up his face. “What do you mean complete it? What trick?”
“Merlin left behind unfinished business. His story isn’t over yet.” Redondo opened the Mystery Box and found his old deck of fortune-telling cards inside. “Every magic trick, big or small, is like a story. And, like any good story, it has three parts, or acts. The first of these is called The Pledge.” Rather than drawing his customary three cards off the top of the deck, Redondo took only one. It had the image of a heart icon with a hand placed over it. The words on the card read THE PLEDGE. “This is our pledge to the audience that something incredible is going to happen. That what we plan to do is worth their time. We present them with something: an object, a scenario, or sometimes with nothing at all. Even nothing can be something if you look at it the right way. Nothing now represents the possibility of something later.” He ripped off a corner of the card and gave it to Joey. “Hold that.”
Joey took the torn piece, and Redondo flipped the card over. The other side had a bent arrow symbol like a U-turn sign. Below that it read THE TURN. “Our second act is The Turn, in which we deliver on our promise. We take our ordinary something and do something extraordinary with it. Or, more precisely, we begin to. The possibilities here are endless, but it could be as simple as making the item disappear.” Redondo snapped his fingers and the card vanished from sight. “But that alone is not enough. People make things disappear all the time. They lose them, hide them, waste them, and forget about them. Making something disappear does not qualify as magic. More is required.”
Redondo’s eyes went up to the ceiling of the dilapidated theater, which had several large holes in it. A bird had swooped in through one of them. They watched as the bird flew a wobbly path around the theater. Something was wrong with one of its wings. Redondo held out his hand to it. The tiny bird came down and perched on his finger. “It’s not enough to change something or make it disappear. The real magic comes in the third act, The Prestige—when we bring it back.”
Redondo cradled the bird with the injured wing in his hands, hiding it from sight. When he opened them back up, the bird was gone and the card had returned. This time it had the image of a twinkling star on its face. The words at the bottom of the card read THE PRESTIGE. Redondo retrieved the torn piece from Joey and put it back into place. It reattached seamlessly, as if the card had never been ripped off at all. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Joey took the card from Redondo and stared at it. “I think so.”
Redondo’s trick was an analogy for Joey’s dilemma. The severed corner of the card was like the wand, something magical left in his care. The card and the bird with the busted wing were like the world. They were both broken, and Joey had the power to make them whole again. At least, the wand had that kind of power inside it. Joey wasn’t sure if he had it inside him. He could finish Merlin’s final act, but he worried that if he did, it would also prove to be his own.
Joey shuffled the full deck of cards in his hand. Over the last year, he had gotten in the habit of pulling three at a time, just as Redondo had often done when he was alive. The pictures on the face of each card were always different and always offered cryptic messages about the future. This time, when Joey drew three cards off the top, there was nothing on them. He turned the deck over and fanned the cards out.
“They’re all blank.”
Redondo stroked his mustache, thinking for a moment. “What do you suppose that means?”
Joey grimaced. “No future.”
Redondo seemed unconvinced. “That’s one possibility. You can’t change the cards you’re dealt. Only how you play the hand.”
“Bringing magic back to the world is a pretty big deal. Tell me the truth, Redondo. You think I can do it without dying in the process?”
“The truth?” Redondo thought for a moment. “No. But everybody dies. The question is, what do we leave behind when we go?”
Joey looked up, upset that Redondo was speaking so casually about his impending death. “I was hoping you might have a better answer.”
“Oh, I do,” Redondo assured him. “But it’s not my place to say.” He patted Joey on the shoulder. “This is your time in the spotlight. I have every confidence in your ability to put on an unforgettable show.”
It suddenly felt like Redondo was saying goodbye again, and Joey wasn’t ready. He still had so many questions. “You’re not going to help me?”
Redondo laughed. “Help you? How? According to you, I’m not even real!”
“Yeah, but—”
“You don’t need my help. Not anymore. You’ve got everything you need right here.” Redondo tapped at his temple. “Think about it, young Kopecky,” he added with a wink. “Where’s your imagination?”
1 Showtime
The roof of the Majestic Theatre was Joey’s “go-to” spot when he needed a quiet place to think. He had a bit more on his mind than the average fourteen-year-old boy, so he needed a place like that pretty often. Joey spent a lot of time up there with a foot on the ledge, staring out at the city in silence. In that one respect, the nigh
t was no different from any other, but the night was still young.
The theater was not as tall as Joey’s apartment building across the river in Hoboken. At home, he had a clear view of Manhattan’s iconic skyline, but he preferred to be on top of the Majestic. The city had grown on Joey. The neighboring buildings towered over the theater like an urban forest, and Joey liked being in the thick of it. He liked the city’s energy. Tonight, however, that energy was noticeably absent. It was eleven o’clock on a warm October evening, and New York was eerily quiet. The streets should have been bustling with activity as the nearby theaters released their audiences and the sidewalks filled with people, but that wasn’t going to happen. The lights had all gone out, and not just on Broadway. An invisible enemy had swept across the globe, shuttering businesses, taking lives, and forcing everyone into isolation. It wasn’t an evil scheme by dark magicians that had done it, but a virus. The latest crisis in a world filled with problems that were spinning out of control. For Joey, it was the final straw. People everywhere were desperate for the pandemic to end and life to return to normal, but Joey took a different view. In his mind, normal life wasn’t enough. Normal didn’t work, and the truth was, it never had. Joey was after something better.
“You finished brooding up here, Dark Knight?” Janelle asked him.
Janelle liked to tease Joey for spending so much time up on the roof looking serious. She was convinced that he secretly wanted to be Batman, but really, he was more of a Spider-Man/Winston Churchill type.
“I’m not brooding,” Joey said. “I’m thinking. You hear that?”
Janelle paused a moment to listen. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly. It’s like some kind of post-apocalyptic disaster movie out there. Only it’s real.”
“I know,” Janelle agreed. “It’s scary how fast everything changed.”
“You know what’s scary? How much I miss going to school. I never thought I’d say that.” Exemplar Academy, the school for gifted students that Joey and Janelle both attended, had switched to all-virtual classes when the pandemic began. Only the students who were working on a vaccine were allowed back in the building. Joey and Janelle were not part of that effort, but they had their own plan to make good on the school motto and change the world for the better.
The New World Page 1
