Zigzag Effect

by Lili Wilkinson

  ‘Huh,’ said Sage. ‘I never would have guessed.’

  ‘It’s why I’ve never left Armand,’ said Bianca. ‘I’ve had plenty of offers from other magicians, believe me. But when my dad left my mum, I made myself a promise. I was never going to be that stupid.’

  Bianca looked down at Warren, her face suddenly miserable. Sage thought about the box of chocolates and decided to be bold. ‘What about Jason Jones?’

  ‘What about him?’ Bianca tried and failed to look casual.

  Sage gave her a flat look. ‘I did see you with him the other day,’ she said. ‘And these chocolates are from him, right?’

  Bianca closed her eyes for a moment and bit her lip. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said quietly. ‘Just a fling. Nothing serious.’

  ‘How long have you been seeing him?’

  ‘Not long. A few months. He came and saw the show and asked me out for a drink afterwards. It’s hard to say no to Jason, he’s so charismatic. And one thing led to another …’ She blushed.

  ‘Isn’t he about a million years older than you?’ asked Sage.

  Bianca shrugged. ‘I like to think of him as experienced. He is amazing, you know. In the bedroom.’

  Sage felt suddenly aware that even though Bianca was only six years older than her, they were a really important six years. ‘Cool,’ she said, and then felt like the biggest dork in the world.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Bianca. ‘I often forget that you and Herb are younger than me. You seem so mature.’ She frowned. ‘You do, that is. Not so much Herb.’

  So Bianca had fallen for Jason’s phoney charm. Suddenly the chocolates didn’t taste so good. Sage pushed the box away.

  ‘You’re disappointed, aren’t you?’ There was a little tremble in Bianca’s voice. ‘I’m sorry. I know Jason can be unbearable, but he’s nice to me and makes me feel special. Please don’t hate me. You’re the only real friend I have.’

  Sage felt a wave of sympathy. ‘Of course I don’t hate you. But I think you can do better.’

  Bianca smiled a sad smile. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘It’s hard. This industry. People tend to judge you based on how you look, not who you are.’

  ‘And does Jason judge you based on who you are?’

  ‘Probably not. But he does a good job of faking it.’

  ‘Would you work with him?’

  Bianca shook her head firmly. ‘Absolutely not. I made myself that promise. But you won’t tell anyone? I know how much Herb and Armand hate him. Armand would probably fire me on the spot.’

  ‘Of course I won’t tell.’

  Bianca stroked Warren’s fur for a minute, and Sage caught a glimpse of how lonely Bianca was. Could it be true that Sage was her only real friend? Then Bianca rolled her eyes and laughed.

  ‘This is all very maudlin!’ she said. ‘Let’s talk about something fun. Like you and Herb.’

  Sage made a face. ‘I hate all boys.’

  Bianca made a sympathetic noise. ‘You really liked him, didn’t you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ muttered Sage. ‘He’s an idiot. I’m moving on.’

  ‘Did things … go very far? Between you guys?’ Bianca put her hands over Warren’s ears and whispered. ‘Tell me everything.’

  Sage felt her insides twist. She didn’t really want to talk about it. ‘Um,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure there’s much to tell. We kissed—’

  Bianca let out a squeak, and Warren looked up sleepily. ‘When?’

  Sage told her about the kiss in the storeroom, and again on the street the other day.

  ‘But I guess it didn’t mean anything after all,’ she said glumly. ‘It turns out that my Year Eight PE teacher was right: all boys are the same, and they do all just want one thing.’

  ‘Oh, honey.’ Bianca reached over and gave her arm a squeeze. ‘I’m sorry. I should have warned you about Herb.’

  Sage swallowed a mouthful of coffee and suddenly felt sick. ‘Has he done this before?’

  Bianca looked away. ‘He doesn’t exactly have the best romantic track record.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t really think I should say. I–I know that Herb is annoying, but he’s my friend too.’ Bianca looked uncomfortable. ‘I just don’t want to cross a line.’

  Sage felt a strange, sickly heaviness inside, like her blood had turned to lurching treacle.

  ‘Do you think you’ll stay?’ asked Bianca.

  ‘Stay where?’

  ‘Here. With us. I mean, I’d hate to lose you. But I’d understand. It must be very hard to be around someone you … have feelings for.’

  Sage frowned. She hadn’t yet considered leaving. Maybe it would be for the best. But how would she pay for her photography classes?

  ‘I want to stay,’ she said slowly. ‘I like working here. And … and I don’t want to give Herb the satisfaction, you know? If I feel awkward around him, then he’s going to feel awkward around me too. He deserves that.’

  Bianca stiffened. ‘Did you hear that?’

  Sage closed her eyes and listened. She could hear something. A knocking sound. It sounded like it was coming from beneath them.

  ‘You said there was a basement. Where Renaldo’s wife died.’

  ‘There was,’ said Bianca. ‘But the stairway was blocked up years ago.’

  ‘Maybe it’s just an old pipe or something,’ said Sage.

  ‘Maybe …’ Bianca levelled a meaningful or a ghost look at Sage, who shivered.

  The knocking noise sounded again. Bianca said something, but Sage couldn’t quite get her ears to work. She felt foggy, somehow, as if she was underwater and every movement was an effort. Bianca was looking at her as if she’d just asked a question.

  ‘Hmm?’ said Sage. Her head felt fuzzy. She was so tired all of a sudden. The coffee hadn’t done anything.

  ‘I’m just going to put my head down for a moment,’ she said. Or at least she tried to say it. She wasn’t sure if it came out right or not. She looked over at Bianca, but she was already asleep, her golden hair spilling out over her pillow.

  ‘So much for the coffee,’ Sage murmured, before sinking into sleep.

  Someone was shaking her awake. Sage struggled to open her eyes, the clawing hands of sleep trying to pull her back down. Someone came blearily into focus. Was it Bianca? She looked different. Paler. Her hair was long and dark, instead of its usual blonde. She wore a long, loose white dress, like an old-fashioned nightie. Her lips moved, but Sage couldn’t hear anything.

  Foggily, she wondered if this was the theatre’s ghost. Maybe it had taken on Bianca’s appearance so as not to frighten her. She slowly got to her feet. The room spun around a little. Sage’s head felt as though it were full of cotton wool, and for a moment she started to sink down again. Maybe she should just go back to sleep.

  Images floated around her. She was on the stage at the Lyric Theatre. Then she was among the empty seats in the auditorium. Faint shapes loomed in the corners of her eyes. Dimly, she made out the sharp black-and-white lines of the Zigzag cabinet. Then she felt herself sinking back into darkness.

  The ghost grabbed her hand, with icy cold fingers, and pulled her up into a sitting position. Sage looked around as the world undulated gently around her.

  She was in a small, cramped room bathed in strange red light. There was another door on the opposite side of the room, and a dirty sink. And sitting in the very centre of the room, there was a desk. Sage struggled to her feet, the floor twisting and buckling underneath her. She took a few tottering steps forward. It looked like Herb’s desk. It had Herb’s notebook, Herb’s plaster Houdini bust, Herb’s stack of magic magazines, Herb’s chair. The bucket he had used to drop dollar coins sat on the floor. A half-chewed carrot belonging to Warren was on the seat of the swivel chair. It was definitely Herb’s desk. Except … there was a typewriter on it that hadn’t been there before. Sage leaned forward to read what was typed on the white sheet that fed through the typewriter.

  PU UOY EIT OT TN
AW I

  Sage frowned. It looked like one of the letters from the stalker. She looked at the other sheets of paper on the desk. They were all covered in what looked like gibberish. Sage’s tongue felt as if it were made of carpet. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying to shake off the fuzziness. She looked at the papers again. It was backwards. All the writing on Herb’s desk was backwards. She gazed at the sheet of paper in the typewriter again, squinting.

  I WANT TO TIE YOU UP

  Sage tasted something metallic. There was a flyer for the magic show to the left of the typewriter. Sage felt her heart start to hammer. Someone had cut out the eyes from The Great Armand’s picture. The flyer had been impaled on a mail spike – the sharp silver spike erupted through Armand’s forehead.

  13. Misdirection: to lead attention away from a secret move.

  Sage looked up to where the ghost was … or had been. She was gone. In her place on the floor was a sprig of green leaves with small white flowers.

  Suddenly Sage understood.

  She was dreaming.

  The secret room, the desk of backwards writing, the typewriter. The ghost.

  She was dreaming. Sage felt her knees go weak with relief. All she had to do was wake up. She sank down onto the floor, pressing her cheek against the cold concrete, and closed her eyes. When she woke up, everything would be normal again.

  ‘Sage?’ It was Bianca, back to being blonde, wearing her floaty hippy dress. Definitely not a ghost.

  Sage sat up, putting a hand to her aching head. Her mouth felt dry and tasted disgusting. She wondered if this was what hangovers felt like, and pre-emptively swore never to find out. She looked around and saw she was in Bianca’s dressing-room.

  It had all been a dream.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘No,’ said Sage, her voice croaking. ‘I feel awful.’

  Bianca put a cool hand on Sage’s forehead. ‘You’re pretty warm,’ she said. ‘Maybe you’re coming down with something. You were out cold all night. You should go home and get some rest. Herb and I can handle the matinee.’

  Sage shook her head. ‘No, I’m fine, I just have this headache. And …’ She glanced at Bianca. ‘I had the weirdest dream.’

  ‘Really?’ said Bianca. ‘Weird how?’

  Sage told her about the Bianca-ghost, and Herb’s desk, and the creepy note. Bianca’s face grew pale, almost as pale as the ghost’s had been.

  ‘It was Renaldo,’ she said in a choked whisper.

  Sage shook her head. ‘It was a woman,’ she said. ‘She looked like you, but with darker hair.’

  ‘Maybe it was a warning,’ said Bianca. ‘A vision. Maybe they want us to leave the theatre.’

  Sage shook her head. ‘No, it was definitely just a bad dream. The ghost turned into a sprig of flowers at the end.’

  Bianca’s head snapped up. ‘What kind of flowers?’

  ‘Um,’ said Sage, trying to remember. ‘White ones.’

  Bianca’s eyes grew wide. ‘Jasmine?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sage frowned. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Remember last Wednesday when we all could smell jasmine?’

  Sage nodded. ‘Was that what it was? Okay.’

  Bianca leaned forward, her expression intense. ‘Renaldo’s wife was named Jasmine.’

  Sage looked around Bianca’s dressing-room. Could she smell the jasmine now, faintly? Or was her mind playing tricks on her?

  ‘Holy crap,’ said Bianca. ‘It was Jasmine. It was Renaldo’s wife. She probably appeared looking like me because she was his assistant, and she knew that you’d link her to me. Maybe she’s trying to get revenge for her husband’s death! Did she say anything? Mention the curse?’

  Sage thought of the mail spike through Armand’s head. ‘Not exactly,’ she said. ‘But it was … sinister. And there was a note – like the ones you’ve been getting. It said I want to tie you up.’

  Bianca made a face. ‘Ugh,’ she said. ‘That sounds like our guy. Maybe it’s the ghost that’s been sending those letters all along, though. Maybe it’s Jasmine.’

  ‘Why would a dead magician’s assistant be sending creepy notes to another magician’s assistant?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe because she’s jealous that I’m still performing.’

  Sage opened her mouth to tell Bianca about the time-lapse camera she’d set up, and to suggest that it might reveal some sort of clue. But she suddenly remembered Herb explaining how humans wanted to find meaning in everything. Pareidolia, he’d called it. Seeing random things and interpreting them as significant. What if that was what her brain had been doing, in her sleep? What if her unconscious brain had put together all of the random clues and occurrences, and came to a logical conclusion?

  And what if that conclusion was correct?

  ‘Bianca, what if it wasn’t a ghost or a dream? What if it was my mind? What if my unconscious mind has figured out something terrible? Something about …’ Sage couldn’t say it out loud.

  Bianca stared at her. ‘About Herb.’

  Sage flinched. ‘How did you know that’s what I was trying to say?’

  ‘It’s obvious,’ said Bianca. ‘You had a portentous vision featuring Herb’s desk with all the creepy letters on it.’

  ‘That’s crazy, right?’ asked Sage, hoping with everything she had that Bianca would agree.

  ‘Is it crazy to suggest that Herb is sending creepy notes and trying to sabotage his own show? Yes. But …’ Bianca hesitated. ‘Is it crazy to suggest that your subconscious is feeling wounded by Herb, and wants you to stay away from him? Maybe not.’

  ‘It was stupid,’ said Sage quickly. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’

  ‘I think it was definitely the ghost, though,’ said Bianca. ‘It has to be Jasmine. That explains everything – my mirror, you guys getting locked in the storeroom, the fallen light, your dream. It’s the only explanation.’

  Sage nodded, but she wasn’t at all sure. Hopefully her time-lapse photos would hold the answers she was looking for.

  She arrived home just after nine to find her mother applying lip gloss in the hallway mirror.

  ‘Oh good, you’re home,’ said Mum. ‘Did you have a fun sleepover?’

  Sage thought about the ghost dream, and the mail spike. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘It was great.’

  ‘Good. Now, I really need to pop out for a few hours and do some shopping. Roman’s got a cold, so can you watch Zacky until I get back? I’ll be back by lunchtime, and I can drive you to the theatre for your matinee. Is that okay?’

  Sage thought longingly of combing through all the time-lapse photos on her digital camera, but she nodded, and Mum pecked her on the cheek. ‘Oops,’ she said and swiped at Sage. ‘Lipstick.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  Zacky came tearing down the stairs as Mum rushed out the door. ‘Sage!’ he bellowed. ‘We are going to have the best adventure! We’re going to discover buried treasure and fight some baddies and make potions!’

  ‘Great!’ said Sage, as her whole body suggested vehemently that crawling into bed and sleeping for twelve hours might be a preferable activity. ‘But I need to have a shower first.’

  Zacky nodded. ‘Okay. Can I watch TV while you do that?’

  Sage set him up with a Horrible Histories DVD in the living room, then went upstairs. She plugged her digital camera into her computer and set it to import all the time-lapse exposures she’d taken. Then she headed to the bathroom and peeled off her clothes, stepping under the hot stream of water with a weary sigh as the ancient pipes groaned and clanked.

  She couldn’t get the image of Armand’s flyer on the mail spike out of her head. Did she even believe in ghosts? It had been a very weird dream, but people had weird dreams all the time, right? But if it wasn’t a ghost … Sage remembered the hot, rushing feeling she got when Herb had kissed her. She liked Herb. She didn’t want him to be a crazed kidnapping loon.

  On the other hand, even if he wasn’t responsib
le for Armand’s disappearance, he’d still stood her up and lied to her. Sage felt a lump of misery rise in her throat, and she turned up the hot water defiantly. She wouldn’t cry over him. He wasn’t worth it. The pipes screeched their protest and the water sputtered, then without warning turned icy cold.

  Sage yelped and leapt away. She turned the cold tap off entirely, but it made no difference. The hot water wasn’t coming back, and Sage had a head covered in shampoo.

  Wrapped in a towel, she headed back to her bedroom, pink and trembling with cold. Cold showers were supposed to be healthy, right? Something about pores or circulation? She certainly hoped they were good for you, because otherwise they had no redeeming features whatsoever.

  Pulling on a clean pair of jeans and a black T-shirt, Sage glanced at the images popping up on her computer screen from the camera.

  She dropped the ball of socks she was holding, and stared at the screen. Then she hurried over and hit buttons until she was looking at one photo, blown up so it filled her entire monitor.

  Every photo from the time-lapse was exactly the same. The stage, dim and silent. Except for this one photo. In the centre of the stage, there was a glowing figure, crouching low, with two white arms reaching up and outwards, like someone was begging for something. Sage peered at it. The figure was blurred and indistinct, but it was there, pale and ethereal. It looked … like a crouching woman.

  She’d taken a photo of the theatre ghost.

  Zacky was sprawled on the couch, his eyes glued to Horrible Histories, but he leapt up when Sage entered the room.

  ‘Adventure time!’ he said. ‘I want to play in the garden.’

  They went outside into the grey, dreary morning. Sage watched Zacky zoom around the tiny patch of mossy brick paving on his broomstick, shouting out spells and waving his wand at invisible monsters. The icy terror she’d felt when she’d seen the photo thawed under the onslaught of Zacky’s cheerful enthusiasm, and she started to wonder if maybe she’d been mistaken. It could have been anything, really. A bit of fluff on the lens. Some kind of reflection off dust motes. Or maybe the digital file was somehow corrupted.