by Mercy Levy
“Try me,” she said. Without answering, he turned and faced the audience.
“I am going to show you how to make a maiden disappear. Men, take note, as I am sure you can use this on your wives!” A chuckle spread through the crowd, and he turned back to her.
“Very well, now is your chance to show me what you can do. There is a trap door at the bottom of this barrel. I am going to throw this cape over you, and at the same time I do I need you to slide into the barrel, understand?” he whispered with his back once again turned to the audience, and Betty nodded. He took the cape he had placed on her shoulders, then lifted it high into the air, causing it to blow in the breeze.
He then threw it down over her, while at the same time pulling open the trap door with a thin wire he had tied to the bottom of his shoe. Betty was used to slipping into small spaces quickly and easily, and without any trouble at all, she slipped into the barrel, concealing herself from the crowd.
She could see through the thin cracks in the barrel that the cape had fallen to the ground, and many of the people in the group gasped.
“What did you do to her?”
“Where did she go?”
“Impossible!”
The murmur spread through the entire crowd, and Betty smiled to herself. Though she was not out with William, she felt that she had been a crucial part to the performance, and that she had done her part well. William picked up the cape from the ground and placed it over his shoulders, then stepped back and sat on top of the barrel she was hiding in.
“Ladies! Gentleman! Please! I assure you the young woman is quite safe. I imagine right now the King of England is quite amazed that a beautiful young woman has appeared at his dining table!” Another chuckle spread through the crowd, and many of the group started asking for more tricks.
However, William put his hands up into the air and declined, stating that he needed to conjure up a spell to bring Betty back. Though they pressed him to continue, he declined until they at last gave up, and Betty could see them slipping away into the streets.
At last, she was alone with William, and she saw him get off the barrel carefully, untying the small wire that was secured to his shoe, and opening the top of the barrel.
“There you are, then. Come out,” he said jovially, and Betty allowed him to put his hands on her waist and lift her out of the barrel.
“How did I do?” she asked and he crossed his arms, holding one of his hands to his face and stroking his goatee with his fingers.
“I would say that you will do, but I can’t have you wearing that horrifying attire. Sure, it was a good trick to make them think that you came straight off the streets, but if you are going to be my assistant, you are going to have to do something about—this.” He motioned to her dress, and Betty’s heart sank.
She drew herself up to her full height, doing her best to keep the hem of the skirt off the ground, but to no avail.
“This is all I have, I’m afraid. I’m from New York. I saw one of your fliers, and I came out here to play the part. I’m an actress, you see, and though I am highly successful, it’s been a while since I have gotten any kind of consistent pay, and I am in desperate need of perhaps an extension on my pay?” She looked at him with a stern look on her face, trying to maintain her composure.
She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but she found William incredibly attractive. He wasn’t as tall as she thought he would be, and he was of a thin frame. He had scruffy facial hair, with a short goatee on the end of his chin. His brown eyes, though fierce, were kind. He hesitated a moment, clearly debating within himself whether she was worth the trouble.
At last, he pulled out a small pouch from his pocket and pulled out a few bills.
“All right then, consider this your first payment. Get yourself something decent, and meet me at this address tomorrow, and we’ll begin discussing the roles you will be playing in the shows.” He handed her a piece of paper and the money, and Betty profusely thanked him. She then turned on her heel and began running out of the ally, when he suddenly stopped her.
“Yes?” she asked as she turned.
“What is your name?” he asked.
Chapter 7
The Secrets of the Show
“Excellent. I feared that you weren’t going to show up.” William clasped his hands and rubbed them together in a conniving manner as Betty ran into the building. She was wearing her new dress—a dark colored gown with a white bosom that showed off all her womanly curves.
William paused when he looked at her, and she smiled before giving him a light bow.
“How could I be late? An assistant is supposed to be on time, or the show may not go on,” she said with a teasing laugh, and she could see he was unamused.
“The show must always go on, my dear. If you are to be successful in this business, know that for a fact,” he said rather bluntly, and Betty nodded, though she wanted to argue that she had merely been teasing him. He looked her over from head to toe, and Betty wished she could see inside his mind, and read what he was thinking.
“I suppose that will do,” he said at last, then motioned for her to follow. Betty grabbed the skirts of her new gown and lifted the hem as she had so often been in the habit of doing, though now she realized she no longer needed to, and she felt foolish. Dropping her skirt, she smoothed it with a light brush of her fingers, hoping that he didn’t notice what she had done.
William seemed to be so entrenched in his own thoughts, he didn’t notice anything that was going on around him. By the time she had lightly brushed off her skirts, he was already nearly to the other side of the hall, and she had to hurry to catch up with him.
Betty caught him as he entered another room, and he whirled around to look her right in the eyes.
“What you are about to see is strictly secret. Is that understood?” he asked with a harsh tone to his voice, and Betty nodded enthusiastically. Her heart was pounding as he continued to stare at her for another moment, then he turned with an elaborate toss of his elbows, and threw open the door.
Betty didn’t know what to expect, but her heart was fluttering and her stomach was twisting and turning with each step that she took. She followed him into the dark room, waiting for her eyes to adjust. William looked through the curtains that were hanging over the windows, then he thrust them both aside, flooding the room with light.
Betty squinted as the bright light clashed with her now adjusted eyes, and she covered them with her arms.
“Here before you, are all my secrets. It is here that the magic is created, it is there that the magic is performed. Now, I need to know without a doubt that you will listen to be, no matter what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it, or how I tell you to do it. I have been doing this a long time, and I have learned that my shows aren’t made by my assistants, but they are certainly broken by them. I have given you a chance like none other, so don’t make me regret it.” William gave her another harsh look, and she nodded, hoping that he couldn’t read her thoughts.
“So what is it you want me to do?” she asked, and he once again motioned for her to follow. He led her through another hall to a room with a stage inside.
“You are going to learn how to work this. You are going to have to work it in any and every way, and you are going to have to do so without making anyone suspicious. When you disappear, you are going to come down through here. When you reappear, you are going to come up through there.
‘I am going to show you anything and everything you need to know, but it is up to you to learn it, apply it, and do it. I do not have the time to waste on another who can’t learn, is that clear?” He looked at her with intensity in his eyes, and she nodded. She didn’t know what it was about him, but he made her feel intimidated, and like she wanted to do anything he said, all wrapped into one.
He continued to stare at her with the same intensity as he had had before, but he at last seemed satisfied with her answer, and turned to the stage.
“Th
ere are trip wires and hooks all over the place. I want you to learn how to use them the right way, and how to miss them when you don’t want them. Trust me, Ms. Brown, you only have one real chance at this, or we are going to be forced to lead our separate ways.” He looked over his shoulder at her, and though they had just met, the thought of him firing her and sending her away was one that was nearly crushing to her spirit.
There was something so irresistible about him, Betty knew she just had to make it work.
Chapter 8
Falling in Love
“I saw the flick of your shoe. If you do that again, this isn’t going to work.” William crossed his arms as he watched Betty move through her part of the different acts. She had been coming to the stage nearly every day for two weeks, and she knew the time was quickly approaching in which they were going to perform their tricks life.
William the Great had intentionally postponed his shows, stating that he was seeing how well he fit with his new assistant, implying that Betty was shy of the stage and he was taking the time to familiarize her with things before he started the show officially.
Though part of Betty thought it rather rude how he approached the topic, she also knew she had little choice but to listen to him, and the more time she spent around him, the more she wanted to listen.
Throughout the past two weeks, however, Betty noticed that there was a slight change in the way he spoke to her. Though at one time he had been gruff and to the point, it seemed that now he enjoyed explaining things to her and showing her how he wanted them done. She noticed that he would stand closer to her than before, and more than once she caught him watching her with admiration written across his face.
Though he was still very insistent on how things were to be done, he was a lot more patient in explaining the act to her, and working with her to ensure that it was done the right way. Even when she did things improperly, he was willing to step in and lend a hand, though there were times when it was evident that his frustration was building.
“I apologize. I felt it happen. Next time, I think if I were to kick at it from back to front rather than from front to back it would be better,” she said, but he shook his head.
“No, no. Trust me, I know what I am doing with this. If you were to kick at it from back to front, it would be very clear to the sharp eyes in the audience that you were triggering something. the entire key to this working is to allow it to unfold naturally. You must disappear and look like you did, not like you triggered some event that led to your disappearance.” He shook his head and turned away, and Betty felt her cheeks burn with shame. She wanted to apologize to him, but there were times when she truly felt at a loss for words.
“What if we were to change it around a bit?” she asked suddenly, and he turned, looking at her with an amused and confused look on his face. It was clear he didn’t know what she was talking about, but he already assumed she wouldn’t know how to properly execute the trick if she were left to her own devices.
“No, listen to me. I do know what I am talking about here,” she said, running across the stage to him. She grabbed him by the hand and pulled him over to the left of the trap door.
“You know it’s going to be dark in here, but even in the darkness, there is a chance that someone is going to catch how I move and know that I set off a wire or something,” she explained as she pushed him into place. He nodded, still looking unamused by her words.
“Well, when they are expecting me to disappear, they are going to have all eyes on me. They aren’t going to be watching you to see me disappear, they are going to be watching me to see me disappear.” She smiled, and he raised one of his eyebrows, still looking at her with an unamused look on his face.
“Think about it! You can be as theatrical as you want, waiving your arms around, making a show of things. Remember when you threw the blanket over me and I crawled into the barrel? That was good. But there was still a lot that could go wrong, not to mention if someone with a more elusive mind had been present, they would have been able to tell you how it was done.” She paused, and he motioned with his fingers for her to continue.
“Well, I know this is your magic show, but what if you were to take some of the focus off the trick and start putting more of the focus on me? You know as well as I do when people come here they don’t know what is going to happen, they just know that it is going to be amazing. If you were to shift the focus off yourself and put it more on me, you can make tricks look even more convincing.” She reached down to the floor and untied the wire from the base of her shoe, then she handed it to him.
“If you were to lay the blanket on the floor next to this wire loop, when you say you are going to make me disappear you can pick up the loop with your finger as you pick up the blanket. No one will be able to see what you are doing. Then, when you sweep the blanket through the air, you are going to pull the wire at the same time, opening the trap door. I think you know what will happen next.” She crossed her arms and smiled at him triumphantly.
Though William stood for a moment in shocked silence, she could see in his eyes that he was mulling over her plan, and that he was beginning to like it. Grabbing the wire, he made a sweeping motion with his arm, opening the trap door silently and effortlessly.
Betty gave him a flirtatious look, and a satisfied smile spread across his lips.
“Well, Ms. Brown, I would have to say I like the way you think.”
Chapter 9
The Bad News and the Bet
“Thank you! Thank you! Yes, thank you! And here she is now!” William was bowing and gathering flowers that were being thrown toward him on the stage, and he put his hand on Betty’s back when she reappeared next to him, joining him from a box with a secret door on the bottom.
He had followed her advice and made her disappear using the trap door method she had proposed, but to Betty’s amazement and delight, he had taken the trick a step further by creating another trap door on the stage, and placing a wooden crate over it.
When she disappeared from beneath the blanket, she quickly ran from one side of the stage to the other, selecting and climbing back onto the stage through the proper trap door. All the trap doors beneath the stage were marked with various colors, indicating to her which one she needed to go through to complete the trick.
Though it had taken some time for Betty to get used to the color scheme beneath the cage, they had practiced enough for her to perfectly execute what she needed to do without William needing to give her any cues. She knew this made William very happy, and with his hand on her back right now, she felt on top of the world.
Looking up at him with admiration in her eyes, she felt a thrill run through her body as he winked down at her. Leaning over, he whispered in her ear.
“You did good, darling.” Betty felt her cheeks flush, and she thought that he may actually kiss her, when suddenly a voice broke through the cheering, and a man stepped out of the crowd.
“Nonsense! This is utter nonsense! You call that magic? I call that nothing more than trickery, and I will not give audience on this stage for such foolishness!” The voice belonged to Mr. McGregor, the man who owned the building. William looked at him in disbelief, but he tightened his grip on Betty’s shoulder.
“I host many different acts and many different shows on this stage, and it is my duty to ensure that each and every one performs up to standard. I sat here tonight in horror as you performed mere card tricks, then made this girl disappear! I’ve seen them all before, and I must say, I’ve seen them done better. You will forfeit your contract with me in the morning, and move along.” He was pointing at William as he spoke, and it was clear he intended to leave without giving him a chance to respond.
As soon as he had finished his humiliating speech, he turned on his heel to go, but William wasn’t about to be insulted in such a way without defending himself.
“Sir, am I to believe that you are not satisfied with the performance?” he asked coolly, maintaining his poise in fr
ont of the entire audience. There was a hush in the room, and the man turned back around to face William.
“Yes, you are to believe that very thing. I have made myself incredibly clear, and I mean every word that I say, Mr. Smith.” Betty felt a tension run through William’s body at the sound of his surname, and he let go of her as he took a step forward.
“Well, I hate to think that I have given a show that was anything less than completely satisfactory. But, I wish to challenge you, sir. Look around the room. It would appear that many of these fine men and women were happy with the performance. Let me propose this: I will put on an even better show tomorrow, one that will dazzle every mind in this room—including yours.
‘If you are not completely amazed at what you see, I will walk off this stage forever. Do we have a deal?” He extended his hand down to the man off the stage, and for a moment Betty thought Mr. McGregor was going to turn him down. However, the crowd began chanting their support, pressuring the owner to take William up on his offer.
He slapped his hand into William’s with a force that sounded throughout the room, and he gripped it so tightly, she could see that William’s fingers had turned white. William, however, maintained his cool poise, and merely smiled.
“What are we going to do? That was the hardest trick in the book, and it took so long for me to get it right! How are we ever going to come up with something better before tomorrow night?” Betty wailed when they were alone backstage.
William himself looked concerned as he paced back and forth, clearly showing more nerves now that they were out of the public’s eye. He threw his cape around his side as he turned, then threw it again the other way when he turned to pace the other way.
“We have to make it more amazing than before. We have to find a way to make you disappear but then reappear. We need proof that the trick is real!” He snapped his fingers as he continued to pace, and Betty’s eyes brightened as she had an idea.
