The Plastic Magician (A Paper Magician Novel)

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  Fortunately, her driver did not demand more than the coin she handed him, so all was well. Alvie was incredibly grateful the Praffs had allowed her to take a buggy, since the train ran past the hospital. She did not want a repeat of her first night in London.

  The hospital was a large building; Alvie thought Mg. Praff had said it was an abbey at some point. It was wide and rectangular, with narrow windows embedded in the yellowish brick exterior. She walked up the steps to the building and opened the heavy door leading inside. The room was built of dark wood in need of a coat of polish, but was otherwise clean and well kept. A secretary manned a desk to the left of the entry. There sat a sofa with an exposed frame and a few chairs for waiting to the right. A tall broad-leaved plant squatted in the far corner, where the room opened into a hallway.

  “May I help you?” asked the secretary. She looked about the age of Alvie’s mama.

  “Uh, I’m Alvie Brechenmacher. I’m here to volunteer.”

  The woman looked down at a book and flipped a few pages. “Oh yes. One moment.” She selected another book, this one with paper torn at the bottom. Alvie recognized it—a mimicry communication booklet, made by Folders. The pages were each torn in half, and whoever possessed the other half of the booklet would receive any messages written therein. The secretary turned to a page with a line of writing at the top and crossed it out. Beneath it she wrote, Volunteer for Nurse Padson has arrived at the front desk. She waited a second for the ink to dry, then closed the book. Perhaps the other half of that page was tacked to a bulletin board somewhere.

  Alvie took a seat on the couch, fiddling with the straps of the small bag that contained her money, her identification, a few plastic beads—just in case—and her key to the polymery. She didn’t need a key to the house; there was always a servant ready to answer the door at any given time.

  She studied the hem of her pin-striped slacks. She hadn’t worn the apprentice’s apron today. Mg. Praff had said it wasn’t necessary. “Your time there is about the patients, not about your magic.” Good enough reason.

  “Oh, you’re Magician Praff’s new apprentice?” Alvie looked up as a nurse in a light-blue dress, white apron, and white cap strode into the room with shoes that clacked prettily against the floor, though Alvie thought nice shoes and white aprons were inappropriate for work that involved a lot of standing and blood. She rose without making the comment aloud and extended her hand.

  “Yes, I’m Alvie. Here to volunteer. With . . . I’m not sure.”

  The nurse smiled. She wore faded red lipstick, and her skin was tanner than that of most Englishmen, but Alvie thought it becoming. By appearance, the woman was no more than five years Alvie’s senior. The nurse shook her hand and said, “I’m Nurse Padson. It’s very good to meet you, Alvie. A German name, yes?”

  She nodded.

  “Come right this way. We won’t have you do anything too intense, don’t worry. Except mopping the floor.” She laughed. Alvie didn’t quite get the joke, but she smiled nonetheless. “A lot of our patients are receiving intensive care or have sustained terrible injuries. What they need more than anything is cheering up. Socialization. That’s the best thing you can do.”

  “Socialize?”

  Nurse Padson held open a door to a room with two sinks and shelves full of towels and soap and other amenities. “Yes. And seeing to their comfort. I’ll give you a tour so you’ll know where we keep bedding, food, water, and the like. We have a small library as well, and our patients borrow books from it. If they make a request, you have permission to retrieve the items for them. There’s a limit to snacks, and you can’t handle any medication, but most of our patients know that and won’t try their luck. Here, wash up to your elbows.”

  Alvie went to the sink and rolled up her sleeves, washing well. She kept her sleeves rolled after drying off and tied on the white apron Nurse Padson handed her. They proceeded to the tour, as promised. Alvie noted with relief that Woosley Hospital was much smaller and easier to understand than Briar Hall, especially since she was only permitted in a small, easy-to-memorize area.

  “Try not to disturb sleeping patients.” Nurse Padson led Alvie into a large room with a dozen beds, six against each wall. White curtains stretched between them, providing privacy from other patients, but the beds were still exposed to nurses and visitors. “This is the recovery room, where you’ll be spending most of your time. Sometimes no one is in need of anything, and it’s best to just pace until someone calls for you. There’s always laundry to be done and floors to be swept if everything is a little too quiet. Dishes, too.”

  Alvie nodded, spying between the partitions. One man, who appeared to be sleeping, had a bandage around his head and one of his eyes. The sight made Alvie shiver, but she tried not to show it. She’d requested the hospital, after all. Another man had no visible ailments—though a blanket covered a good bit of his body—and was reading a well-worn book. Alvie couldn’t see the title without being obvious. There was a woman with a blond braid whose eyes followed Alvie as she passed, and then another man with bandaging around his neck. An older woman in a smart violet hat and jacket sat on a chair beside him, talking gently.

  “Any questions?” asked Nurse Padson.

  Alvie paused and turned about, taking in the room. “Only . . . where will you be, if I have one?”

  “I’ll be in and out of the recovery ward. If it’s crucial, and I’m not here, you may go upstairs and speak to a nurse there. At eleven I’ll be back in the pantry to help provide lunch. You’re welcome to assist.”

  Alvie’s hours were technically over at eleven, but she nodded. “All right. Sounds easy enough.”

  Nurse Padson offered a smile and strode from the room, her heels clacking as she went.

  Alvie walked the rest of the hall. Two more patients sleeping, another reading. One was sitting up in bed, penning a letter. The two at the end had moved their partition and were deep in conversation, laughing over something about Napoleon. Turning around, Alvie retraced her steps, pacing as instructed. At least she’d get some good exercise out of this.

  “You’re a volunteer?”

  Alvie slowed to see the blond woman with the braid. “Yes. It’s my first day. Can I help you with something?”

  She smiled. Alvie guessed her to be about Nurse Padson’s age. She was a little pale and tired looking, but otherwise pretty. “I’m sure I could think of something to need.”

  “A book?”

  She sighed. “Not much up for reading. Hard to hold the book.”

  She lifted her left arm from the blanket, and Alvie tensed her stomach muscles to keep a gasp of surprise from escaping her. The poor woman’s arm ended just below the elbow. Her forearm and hand were gone, replaced by a bundle of off-white bandages.

  “Oh dear. I’m terribly sorry,” Alvie offered.

  She shrugged and rested her arm back against the mattress. “Everyone is.”

  Seeing a chair near the bedside, Alvie sat upon it. “My name is Alvie.”

  The woman smiled, just a little, and it warmed Alvie’s insides. “Ethel. I like that you wear slacks. I only wear breeches when I’m working, but I have to change into them there. People around here aren’t as sensible as they are in the States.”

  Alvie nodded, remembering that her accent gave away her homeland—something she’d need to get used to. “They’re not very popular back home, either.” She considered for a moment. “Where do you work?”

  “Did work,” the woman corrected with a small frown. “My father owns a Siping factory. I worked there. I wanted a job, and that was one of the more exciting options.”

  “Your father is a Siper?”

  “Oh no,” she laughed. “He just runs the factory that makes supplies for them. Rubber buttons and strings, tires, that sort of thing. I supervised the assembly lines. Got mixed up with a new hire who wasn’t practicing the best of safety. Too close to the machine, and . . .” She raised her stump again.

  Alvie frowned. “I’m
sorry. Was the new hire okay?”

  “Yes.” She seemed a little relieved at that. “Yes, I heard he was.”

  “Are you right-handed?”

  “Thankfully, yes. But I do love to play, Alvie. The pianoforte, that is. And that needs both hands.”

  “Oh.” Alvie scratched her knee, trying to think of something to say. A few too many seconds passed before the words came. “Well, you’ll be better at the piano with one hand than I am with two.”

  Ethel chuckled. “Not a musician, then.”

  “Oh no. I don’t have the ear for it, or so my mother says. I’m actually apprenticing to be a Polymaker.”

  “Really?” Ethel pushed herself more upright in bed. “That’s exciting. My brother is an apprentice, too.”

  “Oh? What discipline?”

  A masculine voice startled Alvie. “Sorry I’m late, Ethel. I just wanted to—oh, I’m sorry. Am I interrupting?”

  Alvie turned in her seat to see a man in a clean white shirt and pressed brown slacks, holding a bouquet of pink carnations under one elbow. His short, straight hair looked like sunshine over the dark brown of his eyes.

  Alvie blinked. “You!” She hadn’t thought she’d run into him again, knowing he lived in a different area of London. England was much smaller than she’d realized. Her smile was so broad it pinched her cheeks.

  Bennet’s face softened. “I know you. Euston Station, right? Alice?”

  “Alvie,” Ethel corrected. “This is my brother, Bennet. The one I was just talking about.”

  “Folding,” Alvie said aloud, answering her own question. Bennet raised an eyebrow. “I mean, that’s what I was asking your sister just now. What you did for your discipline. But I already know because you told me. But I didn’t, uh, know it was you. Ethel’s brother.” She swallowed and rubbed the back of her neck. “Younger brother?”

  Bennet smiled and stepped around to the other side of the bed, offering his sister the carnations. She took them with her right hand, beaming. “Younger, yes. Ethel here turns twenty-six next month. I’m twenty-two.”

  “I hope to be out of here by then, but, well, we’ll have to see.” Her smile faded.

  Alvie stood from her chair. “Would you like a vase, Ethel? I can fetch one.”

  “Oh yes, please. Thank you, Alvie.”

  Alvie nodded and hurried from the room, slowing her steps so she wouldn’t get lost. She remembered where the vases were from her tour and found one, which she filled halfway with water. When she returned, Bennet was still standing, obviously reluctant to take Alvie’s seat. Alvie rearranged a few things on a small table by Ethel’s head and set the vase down, then snuck by a sleeping patient to borrow the chair at his bedside.

  “Here,” she said, setting the chair down for Bennet.

  He looked surprised. “You didn’t have to—”

  “I’m a volunteer. It’s my job.”

  She offered a smile, and her stomach fluttered just a little when Bennet smiled back.

  “You don’t need to leave,” Ethel said to her. “I like you. I don’t get a lot of female conversation outside of how I’m feeling or my pain level.”

  The fluttering died. Softly, Alvie asked, “Does it hurt an awful lot?”

  Ethel shrugged. “Sometimes. Sometimes I just . . . I feel my hand still there, and it aches, but I can’t do anything about it because, well, it’s . . . not.”

  A pained look came over Bennet’s face, creasing his forehead. Alvie had the urge to smooth out the lines, but of course that would be silly. Right? Yes, silly.

  “The doctor said it will get better with time.” Bennet drew his gaze from his sister to Alvie. “It’s only been a week.”

  “Eight days,” Ethel said. “They had to cut off more in surgery—oh, Alvie, I’m sorry. You probably don’t want to hear that.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” Alvie said, “if it’s what you want to talk about. It’s oddly fascinating, in a way.” She blanched. “Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said—”

  Ethel laughed. “No, don’t worry about it. Everyone tiptoes around me. Please don’t do the same. I suppose it is oddly fascinating. I just wish . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence, only looked at the space where her arm and hand should be.

  And then it struck.

  The idea.

  The idea.

  Alvie’s shoulders tingled, and the sensation spread down her arms and chest, clear to her legs. That was it. The discovery. She didn’t know enough to do it, but Mg. Praff did. Was such a thing possible?

  “Alvie?” Bennet asked.

  “Um. I’m sorry. I need to write something down. But I’ll be back soon.” The last bit was for Ethel. “You two, uh, have some privacy for a bit.”

  Should she curtsy? No, this was a hospital. And . . . oh, bother it. It didn’t matter!

  Alvie scurried from the room, begged some paper from the secretary, and began to draw.

  “Magician Praff!” Alvie shouted as she ran from the hired buggy up the drive to the front doors of Briar Hall. She pulled open the heavy door and sprinted through the vestibule, startling the butler, who scowled as she passed. “Magician Praff!”

  Mrs. Connway, the housekeeper, ran in from the gallery. “Miss Alvie! What is the matter?”

  Alvie danced. She couldn’t hold still. “Where is Magician Praff? I must speak to him.”

  “Well . . . I think I last saw him in the den . . .”

  Alvie raced down the main hall, stopped, and turned around. “Where’s the den, again?”

  Mrs. Connway pointed, and Alvie ran through the halls until she found it. She knocked on the door. No answer. Peeked inside, but the den was empty. Swiping hair from her face and pushing up her glasses, she ran back the way she had come, checking the music room and the salon. Then she sprinted across the Smelted path to the polymery so quickly the shifting spells on the metal tiles could barely keep up with her.

  The building was unlocked. She burst in. “Magician Praff!”

  “Alvie?” he called from the main lab. Alvie sprinted to the door. He met her there.

  “Are you quite all right?” He looked her up and down, concerned.

  “I’m perfect! Magician Praff, I have a wonderful idea for the Discovery Convention! I met a woman at the hospital—Ethel Cooper—and she lost an arm in a factory incident.”

  “Terrible, but—”

  “And she plays the piano. You can’t play the piano with just one hand. Not well, you see.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Magician Praff.” Alvie grabbed both his elbows and looked hard at his face. “Plastic is light and flexible and can be enchanted. Don’t you see? We could make her a prosthetic hand! Something to give her mobility again. Something to help her feel normal, and if the parts move right, and if we can find the right spells, well, it might move just like a real hand. Like that paper skeleton from the magazine!”

  Mg. Praff’s face was blank.

  Alvie shook him. “Well? I can’t do it by myself; I don’t know enough! I have a rough sketch, some ideas, and—”

  “Alvie.”

  Alvie snapped her mouth shut and, noting that she was still clawing at his arms, quickly dropped her hands to her sides.

  Mg. Praff moved stiffly, looking from her, to the lab, to the front door, and back to her. Slowly, so slowly, a smile split his face.

  “Alvie, you are a genius.” He hurried past her to the plastic display skeleton against the wall. He grabbed it and hoisted it off the ground, carrying it at an angle back toward the lab. Alvie hurried to the counter of the island, where she shuffled through her bag for her scribbled notes and sketches.

  “Prosthetics. I’ve never even considered prosthetics.” Mg. Praff set the skeleton beside the island. “Arms, hands, feet, legs . . . the leg is the simpler construction—”

  “Ethel doesn’t need a leg.”

  Mg. Praff made a pointed look at Alvie. “Ethel aside, the leg is a good place to start—”

  “T
he leg is less complex.” Alvie walked the length of the lab and back, pointing to her foot. “The ankle, the toe . . . their mechanics are more simple, not like a wrist and fingers. Important, yes, but”—she considered her words—“easier. Not as groundbreaking.”

  Mg. Praff watched her strides for a moment, then formed his thumb and index finger around his chin. “Yes, you’re right. The complexity of a hand and wrist . . . re-creating that would be the greater opportunity. That’s where science and medicine haven’t ventured yet. But”—he looked at the skeleton—“it will take a great deal of work. I have some ideas already. We’ll need to form a hand first, unenchanted. Learn more of how it works. Hmm . . . that new Gordon Museum? Maybe? Oh, better yet, the morgue!”

  “Morgue?” Alvie repeated, the word heavy on her tongue. Mg. Praff didn’t seem to hear her.

  He slid Alvie’s notes over. They were far simpler than whatever brewed inside his head, she was sure. He nodded. “There is a book,” he said, making his way to the stairs in the foyer. He took them two at a time, and Alvie lost her breath trying to keep up. A modest library filled one of the three rooms on the second floor. Mg. Praff studied the shelves for a long moment before reaching for a gray textbook above his head. “This. Here. Read this, specifically the sections on muscle movements, joints, hands, and arms. I believe it’s all in there. And then we’ll venture out tomorrow morning.”

  Alvie took the heavy book and read the title: Anatomy of the Human Body, volume 1. She’d never been more eager to read. “You’d have me be part of it?”

  He looked at her as though she’d grown horns. “Of course you’ll be part of it. You’re my apprentice. And this was your idea, Alvie. I expect many late nights from both of us to stay up to the task. The convention is six months away, and I’d like to present at least a partial sample!”

  A shrill squeal erupted from Alvie’s throat. She clamped her hand over her mouth, almost dropping her textbook. “Yes, of course,” she said through her fingers. “I’ll get to reading right now.”