Zigzag Effect

by Lili Wilkinson

  They sat on the back step and drank glasses of milk, looking out over the tangled vines and bent shrubs of the backyard.

  ‘How far back does it go?’ asked Zacky, squinting.

  ‘Not far,’ said Sage. ‘It’s not a very big block.’

  ‘It looks like the forest that surrounded Sleeping Beauty’s castle,’ Zacky observed. ‘You’d need a brave knight with a sword to hack through it.’ His face brightened. ‘I could use one of Mum’s big kitchen knives.’

  ‘No knives,’ said Sage. ‘Definitely no knives.’

  Zacky scowled. ‘Stupid garden.’

  Sage stared at the grey and green tangle of ivy. She couldn’t believe anything else would ever grow there, because it never seemed to get light. Everything was dark and damp and grey. Their old garden in Queensland had featured a swimming pool and a mango tree, and it had been at least three times bigger than this one. Sage remembered the lush green ferns and tropical flowers, and the warm, honey-soft sunlight. She remembered playing Loch Ness Monster with Zacky in the pool, and building a fairy bower out of bright purple trails of bougainvillaea.

  ‘Do you want to hear a story?’ she asked. ‘About some little girls in England who found some fairies in their garden?’

  She told Zacky about the Cottingley fairies and Arthur Conan Doyle, leaving out the bit where the girls confessed to faking the whole thing.

  ‘D’you think there might be fairies in this garden?’ breathed Zacky, his eyes wide.

  Sage shrugged. ‘You never know.’ She imagined the kind of fairies that might want to live in their backyard. They’d be all brown and twisted, like the roots of trees. She wasn’t sure if they’d be nice fairies. Certainly not the dainty, beautiful creatures that Elsie and Frances had photographed.

  ‘Grab your camera!’ shouted Zacky. ‘Let’s see if we can find one!’

  Sage went inside and unplugged her camera from her computer. The ghostly photo was still up on her monitor, and she shuddered at the sight of it, feeling suddenly cold again.

  She should tell Bianca.

  Except Bianca would instantly believe in it. She needed a more neutral opinion. The opinion of a photography expert, perhaps. Sage hit Print, and slid the resulting page into her photography portfolio.

  ‘I found something!’ she heard Zacky shout.

  She hurried outside again. Zacky had crawled through the tangled ropes of ivy, and was near the back fence. She followed him, bending low to duck under branches. Ivy trails wrapped themselves around her ankles, and with a shudder Sage remembered that the forest around Sleeping Beauty’s castle was filled with the bones of all the knights who didn’t make it.

  ‘It’s a trapdoor!’ said Zacky, pointing at the ground.

  Underneath dried old leaves, twisted ivy roots and a good deal of dirt, Sage could make out a few slats of wood. She crouched down further, and rapped on one. It gave a hollow sound.

  ‘Do you know,’ she said to Zacky. ‘I think you’re right. It’s some kind of door.’

  She pushed away the leaves and dirt. The trapdoor was about two feet square, and looked very old.

  ‘Do you think it leads to a secret tunnel?’ Zacky hopped up and down with excitement, causing dry brown leaves to rain around them. ‘Or treasure?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Sage, tugging at the door. It came free with a shower of dirt and wriggling things. The wood was so old that Sage was afraid it would fall apart in her hands. Zacky’s excitement was infectious. What if it was a tunnel? Or an old bomb-shelter, or a secret cache full of fascinating historical secrets?

  They peered into the hole. It wasn’t a tunnel. It was just a small, square space carved into the dense clay earth. It looked as if it had once held a box.

  ‘It’s empty,’ said Zacky, his voice suddenly small and sad.

  He was right. The space was completely empty. Sage snapped a few half-hearted photos, but the light was so grey and dull that she doubted they’d amount to much. Zacky kicked the wooden door resentfully.

  ‘No buried treasure,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe there was once,’ suggested Sage. ‘But they were afraid someone would find it, so they moved it somewhere even more secret.’

  Zacky’s face cleared. ‘D’you think there might be another tunnel somewhere else?’ he asked hopefully. ‘Or a secret passage? Or a hidden room?’

  Without waiting for Sage to reply, he sprinted back into the house. Sage stood up, brushing dirt from her knees, and swung the wooden gate back over the hole. She followed the muddy footprints through the house, and found Zacky in the living room, tapping on the walls with his eyes closed, listening intently.

  ‘Any luck?’ asked Sage.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Zacky, and got down on his hands and knees, tapping on the musty floorboards. ‘D’you think there’s a cellar?’

  ‘I don’t think this kind of house has a cellar.’

  ‘How about a basement?’ asked Zacky. ‘Or is that the same thing?’

  Sage frowned, remembering something Bianca had said last night. She’d been talking about Jasmine, Renaldo’s wife.

  Most people thought she just moved to another city, away from the public eye. But some people say she came back to this theatre and locked herself in the basement, and killed herself.

  Sage thought of those white, ghostly arms, reaching up. Pleading.

  ‘Sage?’ Zacky stood up and poked her in the ribs. ‘What’s the difference between a cellar and a basement?’

  ‘I think a basement is bigger,’ said Sage slowly. She looked down at Zacky and smiled brightly. ‘And this kind of house definitely doesn’t have a basement. Sorry, kiddo.’

  Zacky groaned loudly. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Can we at least go up the secret stairs to the attic? There might be a treasure map or something up there.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Sage. ‘It’s definitely worth a look.’

  Zacky tore up the stairs and Sage followed slowly, turning something over and over in her mind.

  Did the theatre really have a basement? And if so, how did you get down there?

  ‘You’re here.’ Bianca looked surprised when Sage stuck her head around Bianca’s dressing-room door.

  ‘Of course I’m here,’ said Sage. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  Bianca shrugged. ‘You know,’ she said. ‘The dream you had. Herb. I thought you might not come back.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ Sage thought about the ghost photo in her folder. Why would she leave now, when things were starting to get interesting? ‘I’m hardly going to quit my job just because some stupid guy stood me up for dinner.’

  ‘Good for you.’ Bianca flashed Sage a dazzling smile.

  Their second show without Armand was much better, but it still felt a little flat without Bianca’s sparkling glamour. Herb was visibly nervous, but he got through each trick with only a few stumbles. Sage felt completely twisted in knots every time she looked at him. She tried to avoid him backstage, and didn’t meet his eyes when they took their curtain call together after Assistant’s Revenge.

  After the matinee, he burst into their office, his eyes shining. ‘I think I’m ready!’

  ‘Oh?’ said Sage, hoping she’d sink into the ground and disappear.

  ‘My new effect.’ He bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, unable to contain his excitement. ‘My masterpiece. I’m going to debut it tonight.’

  ‘Great,’ said Sage, trying to look busy. She wanted to ask him why he’d stood her up, but didn’t want him to know how upset it had made her. Plus there was her dream. The spike through Armand’s head. What if there was more to Herb than met the eye?

  ‘I’ve made some changes since our … er, rehearsal in the storeroom. I think it’s perfect. I can’t wait for you to see it.’

  Sage nodded and smiled what she hoped was a distantly polite smile. Herb’s own enthusiastic grin faltered.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure,’ said Sage. ‘I’m fine. Just a bit of a headache.�
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  ‘Well, then,’ he said. ‘Let’s drop Assistant’s Revenge. I’ll do my masterpiece as a finale. I’m calling it Houdini’s Return. It’s mostly a solo thing, but there’re a couple of lighting cues I’d like to go over with you, if you feel up to it.’

  ‘Sure.’ Sage remembered with a wave of misery what had happened the last time they went over lighting cues. ‘Just let me grab my notebook.’

  The Saturday-night show was a triumph. Every little thing that had gone wrong the previous day was now perfect, as if Herb was a well-oiled machine who had been performing the routine for years. Throughout the show Sage could feel his energy, fizzing off him in waves. He was practically vibrating with excitement and anticipation, and it was hard not to get caught up in his enthusiasm. Even Warren was infected, waggling his ears comically when Herb produced him from the top hat. Sage found herself grinning at him from the wings when he produced the ace of spades from an audience member’s wallet, and for a moment she forgot about everything else. For a moment he was just Herb, doing what he loved.

  But then the vision of the spike through Armand’s head snapped into Sage’s mind, followed by the white blur in the ghost photo, and her world zigzagged back to strange and complicated.

  When the finale drew close, Sage helped reset the stage with a velvet curtain (repurposed from Assistant’s Revenge) with a comfy, old-fashioned armchair in front of it. Next to the armchair there was a small side table with two brass candlesticks holding long white candles. Sage also rolled a heavy wooden wine barrel onto the stage, and set it up on the other side of the chair, in front of the curtain, with a third candlestick on top.

  Then she returned to her position in the wings, and dimmed the lights.

  Herb walked onto the stage, holding an empty wine glass. Removing the candlestick, he lifted the lid from the barrel and dipped the glass into it, filling it halfway with red wine.

  ‘For the past hundred years,’ he said, ‘a battle has been fought. A battle between the magicians and the spiritualists.’

  He leaned over and set the wine glass on the side table, then produced a hammer and nails and proceeded to hammer the lid of the wine barrel back into place. Then he lit the candle by waving a hand over it, and placed it back on top of the barrel.

  ‘Two of its greatest warriors are names I’m sure you’ll all know: Harry Houdini, the world’s greatest escapologist, and Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, the world’s most logical literary detective. Houdini was a renowned sceptic, and devoted much of his life to debunking spiritualists at seances. Conan Doyle literally believed there were fairies at the bottom of the garden.’

  Herb lit the two candles on the side table, and Sage faded out the stage lights completely.

  ‘At first, Conan Doyle and Houdini were firm friends. But Houdini was scathing of seances and mediums, and did everything he could to expose spiritualism as fraudulent. Conan Doyle, on the other hand, was convinced that Houdini himself was psychic, but just didn’t know it. Houdini laughed this off. Applesauce, he said. Hogwash.’

  Herb sat down in the armchair, took a sip of his wine, and nodded to Sage, who hurried out from the wings carrying several links of padlocked chains.

  ‘Houdini was best known for his escapology routines,’ Herb went on, as Sage looped the chains around his arms, legs and waist, fastening padlock after padlock. ‘He escaped from water-filled milk cans and beer-filled barrels. He was buried alive and submerged in a lead coffin at the bottom of a swimming pool. He was suspended from a crane in a straitjacket, and could escape in two minutes and thirty-seven seconds. Once he even escaped from the belly of a beached whale. But could he escape death? Could anyone?’

  Sage snapped the last padlock into place and returned to her position in the wings, leaving Herb chained tight to the chair. He leaned over with difficulty, and blew out the candles.

  The stage was plunged into darkness. Herb’s voice floated out, quiet and calm.

  ‘Houdini proposed an experiment with his wife, Bess. He told her a secret keyword – Rosabelle believe – and told her that if it were possible for a spirit to return to the world of the living once dead, he would return and deliver that keyword. It was to be his ultimate proof against the claims of the spiritualist. After Houdini’s death, Bess lit a candle next to a photo of him.’

  One of the candles on the side table sputtered into life. Sage could see members of the audience leaning forward, peering at the armchair and murmuring.

  ‘She kept that candle burning for ten years, and every year on the anniversary of his death, she held a seance. Houdini never made an appearance. After the tenth seance, Bess blew the candle out. Ten years is enough to wait for any man, she said. So it appears that Houdini was very good at getting out of things – barrels, coffins, safes – life itself. But he wasn’t so good at getting back in. And I’ve been thinking – what if you wanted to get back in? What if there was someone else in that locked cabinet or whale belly? Someone you wouldn’t mind being trapped with?’

  Sage’s cheeks grow hot. She felt wretched.

  ‘When Houdini escaped from underwater,’ Herb’s voice continued, ‘he invited his audience members to hold their breath along with him, and see how long they could last.’

  Sage couldn’t help herself. She held her breath as she counted to twenty, as Herb had asked her to do. Then she slid a fader up, bringing a soft glow of light to the stage.

  Herb was gone. The chains were still wrapped around the armchair, their padlocks unopened. There was another long pause. Sage’s ears started to pound, and she saw spots in front of her eyes. She let our her breath with a whoosh, and gulped in air. She glanced at Bianca, who was standing on the other side of the stage, concealed from the audience by the wings. Bianca twitched her head from side to side. Wait, her expression said.

  Sage felt fear rise up in her throat. Where was Herb? Why hadn’t he appeared yet? Why hadn’t she asked him more about the trick, so she’d know whether this was part of it?

  The audience started to murmur. Had something gone wrong?

  The wine barrel rocked very slightly, and Sage bit back a yelp. Herb was in the barrel.

  14. Ditch: to secretly dispose of an unneeded item.

  Sage signalled to Bianca again. A frown had creased Bianca’s brow. She shrugged slightly at Sage. What to do? Did Herb have a contingency plan?

  Seconds passed. The barrel rocked again.

  Sage felt like her heart was in her throat. She felt dizzy and sick as adrenaline coursed through her. This was wrong. Something had gone wrong.

  The barrel didn’t move again.

  Bianca stumbled onto the stage, pushing the barrel over, and knocking the lid free. Herb spilled out with a rush of water, coughing and gasping for air.

  Sage ran out to him, crouching down. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked. ‘Herb?’

  His face was pale, his eyes wide, heaving great breaths. Sage grabbed him under the arms and hauled him upright, digging her shoulder under his arm so she could support his weight.

  ‘Thank you for coming, ladies and gentlemen,’ announced Bianca with a beaming smile as Sage half-led, half-dragged Herb backstage.

  Bianca closed the curtain and flicked on the houselights, to confused murmurings from the audience. There was no applause.

  ‘Who did this?’ hissed Herb, his face purple with humiliation, matching the mohair blanket that Bianca had thrown around his shoulders. ‘Someone must have swapped the barrels. Did you check them?’

  They were in Bianca’s dressing-room. Sage had made sure the audience had all left, and dealt with the five or six patrons who were demanding refunds.

  Bianca took a deep breath. ‘Of course I checked them,’ she said, her voice patient. ‘Twice. Just like we practised.’

  ‘You mustn’t have,’ said Herb, kicking at the wastepaper basket. ‘Someone is sabotaging my work!’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Bianca, keeping her voice low. ‘Maybe Renaldo the Remarkable didn’t apprec
iate your mockery.’

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ Herb spat. ‘Don’t you dare spin your mumbo-jumbo bullshit with me. Not now. Not tonight.’ He stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

  ‘Way to thank me for saving your life,’ said Bianca to the door. ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Sage. ‘What went wrong?’

  Bianca shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘He’s been so cagey about his great masterpiece, he hasn’t really told me anything about how it works. My guess is there was a second barrel behind the curtain, and Herb got confused when he was moving them around in the dark.’

  ‘Poor Herb.’ Sage stood up. ‘I’ll go and see if he’s okay.’

  Bianca bit her lip. ‘Good idea. But … be careful. He can be kind of vicious when he’s angry.’

  Sage stopped halfway to the door. ‘Vicious?’

  ‘I really shouldn’t say anything,’ said Bianca. ‘It was over a year ago. I’m sure he’s grown up a lot since then.’

  Sage sat back down. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  Bianca sighed. ‘He’s too ambitious by far, is the problem. He’s wanted to take over from Armand since he started working here.’

  Ambitious enough to dispose of Armand completely? Sage swallowed. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Did he ever tell you we used to use three white mice in the act?’

  Sage nodded. ‘He said they went missing.’

  ‘Is that what he told you?’ Bianca nodded slowly. ‘That makes sense. We used them in the cups-and-balls routine. It was a cute finale – Armand lifted up the cups to reveal three white mice, who would run around on the table for a moment until Armand scooped them off into his hat and vanished them. But one day Armand and Herb had a fight. Herb wanted his own spot on the programme, and Armand refused. Herb was only seventeen at the time. He’d never performed to an audience before, except at little kids’ birthday parties and a couple of corporate gigs. Herb was furious. When Armand lifted the cups for the last time that night, the three mice underneath were dead.’