“Hello?”
“Mr. Beevers will return soon.” I noted a slight German accent in the voice.
“No, he won’t,” I said. “I imagine his mistress will keep him occupied for some time still.”
Emboldened, I moved toward the back of the cellar. A lamp flared to life and drove back the darkness. I felt exposed and a little foolish that I’d been caught so easily. At the far end of the room stood a cage roughly half the size of my own room in Mr. Dubois’s house, which was to say quite small.
“What is this?” I asked. “Why are you in this cage? Does Percy Beevers keep you prisoner?” Anger bubbled up from within me that a charlatan such as the Virtuoso could treat anyone so cruelly. Mr. Dubois might have beaten and cursed at me, but he never would have imprisoned me in such a manner.
I crossed the rest of the distance to the cage and shook the bars. I searched for a door or hinge or lock but found none, which only added to the mystery and further stoked my rage. “Tell me how to open this cage!”
“He’ll be angry if he finds you here.”
“This is inexcusable,” I said. “I should fetch the constable.”
“Please don’t.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
The young man stood and pressed his face to the bars of his cage. He was dressed not in the fine suit he wore each night on stage, but rather in plain clothes, ragged and filthy. His hands were manacled and his hair unruly. Though not consciously, I committed every curve and angle and detail of his face to memory. The scar under his left eye, the constellation of freckles across his nose, the one slightly crooked tooth in his smile. He was beautiful.
“This is where I belong.”
“I refuse to leave you here like this,” I said.
“You must.”
“I won’t.”
“I know who you are,” he said, which startled me. “You’re the Mystic Mycroft’s assistant.”
“Alfred,” I said.
“Wilhelm Gessler.”
We stared at each other for some time, neither speaking. I was at a loss for what to do. I’d come to steal another magician’s secrets and had found something I couldn’t explain. Why would the Virtuoso keep Wilhelm locked in a cage that seemingly had no door? I was baffled and angry and uncertain what to do.
“You’ve come to learn the true nature of the Butterfly, yes?” Wilhelm said finally.
“Yes,” I said, almost ashamed to admit it.
“Then return the day after tomorrow. Mr. Beevers will be otherwise engaged and I’ll tell you what you wish to know.”
“Why then?” I asked. “Let me free you now and you can explain everything when you’re safe.”
“You must trust me,” Wilhelm said.
“Trust you? I barely know you!” But part of me did trust this young man, though I couldn’t explain why. There was an honesty in his face I didn’t believe he was faking.
“The day after next,” Wilhelm said again. “Return then.”
I didn’t want to leave Wilhelm alone in the cellar, but I had few options. I couldn’t see a way to open the cage, and unless I was willing to fetch the constable and explain why I was in Percy Beevers’s workshop to begin with, I had no choice but to do as Wilhelm had asked. Despite my lingering questions and against my better judgment, I nodded and left.
* * *
Two days later I waited for the Virtuoso to leave his shop. He usually spent Saturday entertaining acquaintances and wouldn’t return until the following day.
More boldly than before, I picked the lock to the workshop and made my way to the cellar. I’d brought my own lantern this time and lighted it before descending the stairs. Wilhelm was standing in his cage, holding the bars, as if he’d anticipated the hour of my arrival.
“I brought you something to eat.” I unslung a bag from my shoulder and pulled out a corner of fresh bread, an apple and a wedge of cheese I’d stolen from the kitchen.
“Mr. Beevers feeds me well,” Wilhelm said, but he took the food regardless and set to eating.
I sat down on the ground outside of the cage. “Why are you locked in this cage?” I asked.
Wilhelm sat as well. Only the bars separated us.
“The answer is also part of the answer to what you really wish to know.”
“What is the secret of the Butterfly?” I said, though I’d only meant to say it to myself.
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“The secret is me.”
“I don’t understand.”
Wilhelm sighed heavily. “I was born in Wernigerode, the son of a butcher. My life was dull until, when I was fourteen, I was trapped in a burning building. I was certain I was going to die, and I wished only to hug my mother one last time. Suddenly, I found myself standing beside her in our kitchen. With nothing more than a thought, I had transported myself from the building.”
I listened intently to Wilhelm’s story. Of how his parents, rather than being glad he was still alive, were horrified by what he’d done and had beaten him, believing he was possessed by demons. He was rescued by Percy Beevers, who had been passing through on his way to Munich and heard about the demon boy who could vanish and reappear at will. He’d paid the Gesslers a fortune for Wilhelm and had incorporated him into his act.
Such a thing could not have been possible, and I struggled to believe him. Had anyone else spun such a fantastical story, I would have called them a liar, but if Wilhelm could do what he said, it would have explained why I hadn’t been able to detect the trick behind the Butterfly.
“Can you...?” I asked.
Wilhelm nodded once and without preamble vanished from where he was sitting and instantaneously reappeared outside of his cage beside me. Then, before I could register my astonishment, the world dimmed and I found myself on the other side of the cage.
I patted my own body to make certain I was whole. Panic gripped me; I grabbed the bars and shook them, my brain unwilling to believe what my eyes were showing me. My hands trembled and my voice broke as the thought of him leaving me there forever became a real possibility in my mind.
“It wasn’t until Mr. Beevers purchased me that I discovered I could also transport others,” Wilhelm said, smiling.
“Let me out of here immediately!”
And then Wilhelm once again reversed our positions, returning me to the outside of the cage. I steadied myself against the floor, feeling disoriented.
“Don’t ever do that again!” I said.
Wilhelm bowed his head and turned his eyes from me.
“I apologize,” he said. “I only meant to show you how it worked.”
“I was startled is all.” I held my hands up to my face and looked at them—first the fronts and then the backs—to verify that everything was as it ought to be. Once the shock wore off, I felt exhilarated. I’d been transported through the air! If I hadn’t experienced it for myself I scarcely would have believed it. Mr. Dubois was going to be inconsolable when he discovered that we could never hope to reproduce the Butterfly. “This thing you can do is magnificent. It’s real magic, not simply the sleight of hand performed by the rest of us.”
“It’s a curse,” Wilhelm said.
“How can it be a curse? How can anything you do be a curse?”
“You cannot understand.”
I thought not only of the ways in which Wilhelm’s ability could be used in a stage act, but of what I might have done with it before I’d been found by Mr. Beevers. With such a power, I could have become the greatest thief London had ever known. I could have traveled the world, vanishing in one city and reappearing in the other, my life limited by only my imagination.
“How far can you travel?” I asked. “Can you only move other people to switch places with them?”
Wilhelm shook his head. “I can travel as far as my e
ye can see,” he said. “Or to places I have previously traveled, no matter their distance. I’ve only used my ability to carry Mr. Beevers with me, but I believe it would be possible to carry more than one person. And I can move another without needing to take their place.”
The possibilities were endless. But one question burned within my mind, demanding an answer above all others. “If you can do these things, then why do you remain the Virtuoso’s prisoner?”
I was not sure what answer I expected. It seemed possible that Mr. Beevers might be holding Wilhelm’s family hostage in exchange for his good behavior, but I doubted Wilhelm held much love for the parents who sold him in the first place. I was not, however, expecting the answer Wilhelm finally gave.
“The cage was my idea.”
“What?”
“I owe Mr. Beevers my life. He took me in when my parents would have killed me, believing me to be possessed by a demon. Mr. Beevers has assured me such is not the case, though I’m not sure I believe him. I am cursed. There are those who would use me for more nefarious purposes than my master, so I stay in this cage to make certain no one may take me against my will and force me to do things that might cause harm to others.”
Though I had only known Wilhelm Gessler for a few scant hours, I didn’t believe him capable of ever hurting another living soul. That he voluntarily spent his days in a cage said more about him than anything else.
“Come with me,” I said. “Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Dubois. You’ll have the finest rooms and we’ll tour the world. You do not have to stay caged. You could be free. You deserve to be free.”
Wilhelm shook his head. “You should leave now.”
“Please—” I began and then I found myself standing outside the Virtuoso’s workshop, staring at the door. Wilhelm had transported me out of the cellar and into the street in the space of a single breath.
* * *
Mr. Dubois would never think of me as a son or even care for me more than he cared for the pigeons he’d used in the first show I’d seen him perform in, but he had given me a better life than I might have had otherwise, and for that I owed him a debt.
Yet however strong my allegiance to Mr. Dubois, I found myself unwilling to tell him about Wilhelm’s strange abilities. No good would have come from revealing Wilhelm’s secret without the means to replicate it, and I didn’t believe it possible without convincing him to betray Mr. Beevers.
My guilt over withholding vital information from Mr. Dubois caused me to finally agree to perform in the Inferno despite my serious misgivings that it might result in my death.
Despite Wilhelm having ejected me from the cellar during my previous visit, I returned the following night after the Virtuoso had left for the evening, and I did so each night thereafter. Wary of again offending Wilhelm, I didn’t speak of escape.
Instead we spoke of our lives before we each met our equally ignoble magicians. I shared stories of thieving on the streets of London. Of the days spent in hiding, of the nights spent hungry and cold. Of my favorite memory of my mother—I remember that she sang to me but couldn’t remember the song, only her voice.
Wilhelm told me of his own life in Wernigerode. Before he discovered his abilities, his home had been filled with warmth and love the likes of which I’d never experienced. That Wilhelm’s parents had loved him so dearly and yet still rejected him must have caused him pain I could scarcely begin to comprehend.
Nearly two weeks after first discovering Wilhelm, I returned to the cellar in a foul state.
“You’ve injured yourself,” Wilhelm said, glancing at my hand. Since the first time he’d used his gift to reverse our places, he had not left his cage, and I had not asked him to, fearing he would send me away again.
I looked at the back of my right hand, where a watery blister, about the size of a shilling, had risen angry and red.
“It’s nothing,” I said, but Wilhelm reached through the bars of his cage and took my hand.
“How did you do this?”
“During rehearsals for our newest act,” I said. “The Inferno.”
When Wilhelm didn’t speak, I explained how the Butterfly and the Virtuoso’s success were ruining Mr. Dubois, and that we had less than two weeks to reclaim our audiences or face eviction from the theater.
In fact, I’d sneaked a look at Mr. Dubois’s personal ledger and learned that the situation was far more dire than he’d been willing to admit. Our debts were outrageous, and if we could not perform, Mr. Dubois’s debtors would surely see him imprisoned, where he would work until he could pay what he owed or he died. I couldn’t imagine him surviving long in the lice-and-rat-infested conditions, and I knew he would do anything to avoid such a fate, including risking my life to save his own.
“I’m not certain I can escape the Inferno without grave injury, but Mr. Dubois is desperate and won’t see reason.”
While I spoke, Wilhelm continued to hold my hand, and I did not pull it away. I felt a tingle of fear and excitement in his touch, and I wasn’t certain what it meant.
“You can’t do this,” he said. “Your life is worth at least as much as his. More, in my opinion.”
“I don’t see that I have any other choice.”
“What if you die?”
“I owe Mr. Dubois my life,” I said. “If he requires I give it, I can’t refuse him.”
Between breaths, Wilhelm vanished from his cage and appeared at my side. He was so close I didn’t even need the light of my lantern to see the curves of his angelic face. “Alfie,” he said. “Please.”
“What would you have me do?” I asked. “You keep yourself locked in this cage and yet beg me not to save the only person in this life who has ever cared for me.”
“Your master isn’t the only person who cares for you.”
Wilhelm’s bold statement struck me dumb, and I could only stare at him as he took my injured hand again and pressed his lips to it.
“Wilhelm...”
“Ask me to leave with you,” he said. “Ask me and I will go.”
“But Mr. Dubois,” I said. “If I leave him now it will surely ruin him.”
“Ask me, Alfie.”
“I owe Mr. Dubois everything.”
Wilhelm leaned forward, closing the scant distance between us, and kissed me. He pressed his lips to my lips and eased me gently back, the weight of his body against mine too powerful to resist. I lost track of time in Wilhelm’s embrace. In his kiss and the feel of his hands on my skin. We shed our worries as easily as we shed our clothing, and everything was forgotten until we lay together on the cellar floor, our bodies slick with sweat, the afterglow of what we’d done still surrounding us.
And it was in that moment that I understood what it meant to be loved. Not simply appreciated and cared for as Mr. Dubois had done my entire life, but to be truly and perfectly loved.
“Ask me,” Wilhelm said in the darkness.
I wanted to. I wanted to ask Wilhelm to run away with me where no one would find us. I wanted to see the world with him, to stand in the sun with him and explore what lay inside every shadow. But that would mean abandoning the man who’d raised me out of my wretched life and leaving him at the mercy of his creditors.
“I can’t.”
* * *
Mr. Dubois peered from behind the curtain into the audience. He’d been more excitable than usual in anticipation of the unveiling of the Inferno.
“The theater is full for the first time in weeks!” he said, giddy with glee.
“I’m not certain I can do this,” I said. Mr. Dubois believed we’d perfected the Inferno—I was to wear gloves to protect my hands, my suit would be soaked with water to keep from catching fire, and we’d even worked out the timing so that the flames extinguished within a second of my being dropped into the box—but I was still afraid.
My escape depen
ded upon my ability to unlock and escape the false backside of the airless, smoke-filled box. I’d successfully performed the trick eight times in ten, but if I couldn’t escape and forced the Mystic Mycroft to release me in front of an audience—or worse, if I suffocated before escaping—I might sentence us both to death. In the flames and smoke, I might suffocate quickly, but my master would suffer long before his inevitable end. Maybe if I hadn’t met Wilhelm, I might have been more willing to risk my life, but now I had something to lose and all I could think about was holding on to the thing I’d found.
Mr. Dubois gripped my shoulders and stared into my eyes with a frightening intensity. “You must do this, Alfred.”
“But, sir—”
He cuffed me across my cheek, sending me sprawling to the ground. He stood over me, a fierce, towering giant. “You were nothing but a worthless wretch before me,” he said. “And if you refuse to perform, then you may return to the streets from which I dragged you.”
His words stung more than his fist. “I could die, sir.”
“Then you shall die and consider yourself lucky to have lived at all.” Without another word, he stormed off, leaving me alone.
* * *
I hung hoisted by the ropes bound about my wrists over the raging inferno inside the box. The flames licked the inside and the heat radiated up and out, causing sweat to soak my suit and drip into my eyes as the Mystic Mycroft strutted about the stage. I scarcely heard his carefully prepared speech, as I was too preoccupied with my own potential demise.
I hadn’t seen Wilhelm since we’d lain together in the cellar but, other than the Inferno, I’d thought of nothing else. All I had to do was close my eyes and I could feel his hands caressing my chest and his lips brushing my ear. Neither of us had family to return to, but in Wilhelm I saw the possibility of more than the life I’d been leading. Of a future spent with someone who viewed me as a person rather than property to be discarded when it had outlived its usefulness. I vowed, if I survived the night’s performance, to go to Wilhelm and tell him the truth—that my heart beat for him alone.
All Out--The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens throughout the Ages Page 25
