The After-Room by Mailie Meloy
The Scotts talked on around him.
“The twins’ uncle is doing a magic show at the party,” Janie said.
“Oh, no,” her father groaned. “Like, pick a card—any card?”
Benjamin agreed with Mr. Scott, for once. When you had flown as a bird and become invisible, it was hard to get excited about someone waving a wand over a hat.
“He’s supposed to be good,” Janie said. “Promise you won’t embarrass me?”
“He’s the uncle on which side?” her father asked.
“You mean is he black or white?” Janie said, narrowing her eyes at him.
“I just want to imagine him in my mind!” her father said.
“He’s their father’s brother, I think,” Janie said. “A Doyle.”
“Okay, so a pasty white beanpole,” her father said.
“Dad!”
“I might stay home,” Benjamin ventured.
“I knew this was coming,” Mrs. Scott said.
“You can’t!” Janie told him.
Benjamin looked back at her, in a silent struggle. “I don’t want to go,” he said.
“But the twins have been so nice to us.”
“It’s true,” Mrs. Scott said. “They have.”
“Look, it’s an afternoon magic party,” Mr. Scott said. “How bad could it be?”
He was being sarcastic, but they were all three staring at Benjamin, worrying about him. Benjamin hated it. “Fine!” he said. “I’ll go.”
• • •
At the Doyles’ house, the twins’ mother took Benjamin’s coat at the door. She was pretty and brown-skinned and looked like the twins, except that they were both taller than she was. She wore her hair pulled back and a lavender dress. “I’m so glad you could come,” she said.
There were other university people at the party, and a buffet table in the dining room, and the Scotts disappeared into conversation. The twins took Benjamin and Janie upstairs to see their bedrooms, which were identical, with striped wallpaper and neat single beds and tennis trophies lined up on matching shelves on the walls.
Janie sat on Valentina’s bed. “What kind of magic does your uncle do?” she asked.
“Close-up stuff,” Valentina said. “Card tricks.”
“He makes things disappear,” Nat said.
“He’s cutting me in half today,” Valentina said. “He had a girlfriend who was his assistant, but she broke up with him for drinking too much.”
“How does it work?” Benjamin asked.
“I can’t tell you!” she said, smiling.
Nat said, “I’ll bet you five bucks you can’t figure out any of his tricks. They’re really good.”
“Is that his only job, being a magician?” Janie asked.
The twins glanced at each other.
“Actually, I think he makes more money playing poker,” Nat said.
“Kids!” a voice called. “The show’s starting!”
Downstairs, a corner of the parlor had been made into a makeshift stage, and the party guests gathered around it. The twins’ uncle was tall, thin, and redheaded: a pasty white beanpole, just as Mr. Scott had said, in a black tailcoat. He had pale green eyes and wore a silk top hat, which he swept off in greeting.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” he said, in a portentous voice. “I am Doyle the Magnificent!”
Benjamin groaned inwardly.
“Before we begin,” the magician intoned, “I ask you to put your hand in your pocket and identify some object there. Trouser pocket, jacket pocket—makes no difference, only please notice something you have carried here. It might be a slip of paper. It might be a key, a money clip, a pair of eyeglasses. Simply make note of the object and its contours, and leave it where it is.” He stared at them all intently, with those unsettling green eyes.
Benjamin didn’t want to play this game, but still he reached into his pocket and felt the small gold charm there. It was shaped like a human skull. He felt the smooth forehead, the indentations for the eyeholes, the grid of teeth. A sailboat called the Payday had once rescued him in the vast Pacific, with his father and Jin Lo aboard, and the skipper’s wife had given him the charm to keep. “It’s supposed to remind you that you’re going to die someday,” she’d said. “And I don’t need to be reminded of that.”
“Now, please turn your attention to this deck of cards,” the magician said, and the show began.
Doyle the Magnificent was good. He produced cards out of nowhere. Benjamin was close to the front of the room, and he couldn’t keep track of the hand movements. He was still trying to figure out the last trick when the magician asked a young man in a Michigan sweater to choose a card—any card—and show it to the audience. The student, who had pink ears that stuck out like jug handles, took a card from the deck and held it up. But then it turned out not to be a card. It was a piece of paper.
The magician plucked it from his fingers. “What’s this?” he said. “Shall we read it?”
The young man’s ears turned bright red, and he reached for the paper. “No!”
But the magician was tall and long-armed. He leaned back out of reach and squinted at the handwriting. “Georgia,” he read. “And a telephone number. Now, who might be the lovely Georgia who has given her number to this nice young man?”
Benjamin looked around and saw a girl in a red cardigan, just behind him in the crowded parlor, blushing furiously.
“There she is!” the magician cried. “You can tell because she’s turned the color of her sweater!”
Georgia looked like she wanted to vanish.
“Oh, he’s a very worthy young man, my dear!” Doyle said. “Getting an excellent education! You were right to give him your number. Let’s give these two lovebirds a hand.”
The audience applauded, laughing.
“Now, Georgia,” the magician said, producing a small black tube. “You might want some lipstick to set off that fetching blush.”
Georgia gasped, and pushed her way to the front, past Benjamin. “That’s mine!” she said, grabbing the lipstick back.
At that moment, everyone realized what was going on. Benjamin reached into his pocket, and the little gold skull wasn’t there. It had been there five minutes ago—he had felt it with his hand. Around him, people were finding their own pockets empty, and a murmur went up from the crowd.
The magician held up his hands for silence. “Don’t fret, my friends,” he said. “Your possessions are quite safe with me.”
Benjamin checked his back pockets. All eyes had been on the magician the whole time. He had stayed on the makeshift stage. How had he stolen so many objects? Did he have an accomplice? Benjamin knew only one pickpocket good enough to go through all those pockets without getting caught, but Pip was in London.
“Next, a lucky coin!” the magician said, peering at the date on it. “A 1929 half dollar. Not such a lucky year. Who would keep a memento of the year the stock market crashed?” He gazed around the room, and his eyes settled on a man who looked about thirty, in a sweater and tie, whose lips were pressed firmly together, as if he was determined not to tell the magician anything.
“Ah,” Doyle said. “I see. It was minted the year your dear wife was born.”
The man’s closed expression dissolved. His face was naked with astonishment. “How did you—” he began, but the magician made the coin disappear, showed his empty hand, and then made it appear again. He stepped into the audience to hand it back, and the owner checked the coin to make sure it was his.
“Yes?” the magician asked.
“Yes,” the man with the coin said, amazed.
“And now,” Doyle said, clapping his hands together, “I will saw my lovely assistant in half!”
A long box on wheels had been parked against the parlor wall, and Doyle rolled it out and demonstrated how it opened: n
Doyle produced a metal saw, made it wobble in the air, passed it through the middle of the box and separated the two halves. Two feet in black stockings wiggled at the end of one half. Valentina’s head stuck out of the other. She had a forced, uncomfortable smile on her face, but the audience seemed impressed.
Benjamin looked for Janie across the parlor, to gauge her response to the show, but she was watching the magician reassemble his niece. Valentina climbed out of the box, held up an arm in triumph as the audience applauded, and curtsied.
“I would like to thank each of you for your patience,” Doyle was saying. “And for being part of my humble show. I couldn’t do any of this without you. We create the magic together!”
There was more scattered applause, mixed with murmurs about the stolen objects. But the magician was just preparing for his finale. He moved toward an old man with a white beard. “You sir, I would like to thank for the gift of your time,” he said. “The most valuable gift. The one we can never replace.” He held up a silver pocket watch by its chain and let it swing.
The man reached for the pocket watch with awe. “It was my father’s,” he said.
“It was five minutes slow, so I wound it.”
The old man flipped open the silver cover to check.
Doyle turned to the twins’ mother. “My dearest sister-in-law!” he said. “I can see you aren’t pleased with my little tricks. But your guests will be made whole, just like Valentina was, don’t you worry.” He produced a small brass key from between his fingers. “And you may have the key to your liquor cabinet back. I know you were keeping it from me, in particular.”
There was a ripple of laughter across the room. The twins’ mother looked furious. She took the key from him and put it in her pocket.
Next, Doyle produced a fountain pen that Benjamin recognized. It was Janie’s father’s pen: silver, with vertical ridges on the cap. Benjamin watched as the magician found Mr. Scott in the crowd. “Your pen, sir,” Doyle said. “And say, when are you going to use it to write again, instead of teaching those ungrateful kids?”
Janie’s father took the pen stiffly, surrounded by his university colleagues. “Teaching is very—gratifying,” he said.
“Mmm-hmm,” the magician said.
Mr. Scott slipped the pen into his shirt pocket, his mouth pressed tight.
“And you, my dear girl,” Doyle said, turning to Janie so abruptly that Benjamin saw her jump. “So full of secrets. I almost didn’t take your little red notebook, as I knew it had been taken from you before.” He held up the notebook that Janie carried everywhere, and she snatched it out of his hand.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t read it!” he said, all mock innocence. The audience laughed.
Janie looked over to Benjamin, appalled.
Next, the magician held up a car key and studied it in the light. “A key for a German car—a Mercedes-Benz, I believe. Am I right?” He returned the key to a plump, shiny man in a blue suit. “They make good American cars right here in Michigan, you know,” he said.
Approving laughter from the audience, and disapproving glances at the Mercedes driver, who took his key and made his way out of the room.
“Auf wiedersehen!” the magician called after him.
Then he produced a driver’s license, held it up between two fingers, and read the name. “Nathaniel Lincoln Doyle,” he said. “A brand-new license. I should probably keep this, for the safety of the pedestrians of Ann Arbor.”
Nat grabbed the license from him, irritated. The audience laughed again. They were delighted with Doyle’s jokes, and delighted to see their things. As each item was returned, the owners began to drift back toward the buffet in the dining room, talking and guessing at how he’d done it. The room thinned out.
By the time the magician turned his green eyes on Benjamin, the parlor was empty. Doyle seemed exhausted. His orange hair was damp, slicked back from his face. He held out a freckled hand and Benjamin felt the gold death’s head drop into his palm. He was seized by the uncomfortable conviction that this magician could do actual magic. He could do things Benjamin had never seen before. The little skull was the same charm, unchanged: the smooth forehead, the eye sockets, the teeth.
“How do you do it?” Benjamin asked.
Doyle gave him a weary smile. There were beads of sweat at his temples. “A magician never tells his secrets!”
“It’s not a trick,” Benjamin said.
“All magic is a trick.”
“You know what I mean,” Benjamin said. “I need to talk to you.”
Janie appeared with Benjamin’s coat over her arm. “Let’s go,” she whispered.
“I have to talk to him,” Benjamin said.
He turned back to the magician, but Doyle had vanished in the moment when Benjamin looked away. They checked the other rooms. Doyle wasn’t at the buffet in the dining room, or in the front hall.
They found the twins in the kitchen, sharing a piece of cake. “Sorry, that was kind of weird,” Nat said, with a grimace.
“You were great, Valentina,” Janie said, her voice shaky and polite.
With a few quick strokes on a piece of paper, Benjamin drew the box and the way the assistant would fold up inside one end of it. “I don’t know how you move the false feet,” he said.
“I don’t,” Valentina said. “He does.”
“How?” Benjamin asked.
“I don’t know.”
Benjamin frowned at his drawing, then said, “Can I have his address?”
“He won’t tell you his secrets,” Nat said.
“I just want to know where he lives,” Benjamin said.
The twins looked at each other. Something passed between the two of them, without words. Then Nat wrote down an address over Benjamin’s drawing.
“It’s kind of a dump,” he said.
Chapter 8
Keep Mum
The runners were scheduled to bring supplies, so Ned made a hiding place for Jin Lo in the brush beyond his hut. Until now, his offense had only been one of inaction. He should have reported the girl to his superiors as soon as she arrived, and he hadn’t. But now he was actively hiding her, and that was a very different thing.
He’d been out here too long—that was the problem. During the war, he’d had a team: a translator, a Chinese weather expert, and a few Chinese guerrilla fighters. When the war ended, the others had danced on the beach, skinny from their limited food supplies, so happy to be going home. But Ned’s parents were dead and he had no home to go to. He spoke Mandarin and Cantonese, and when naval intelligence asked him to go back to China, he did.
There were always warnings, in the service, about beautiful spies. About keeping your mouth shut when you went on leave. Loose lips sink ships. Keep mum, she’s not so dumb. But this Chinese girl wasn’t a spy. She was something else. He just wasn’t sure what that something was.
He said nothing to the runners, while he helped them carry boxes of food and cans of kerosene up the beach. Jin Lo was utterly silent in the brush, as he’d known she would be. He hoped she was all right out there. It was a strange feeling, to worry again about someone else.
One of the runners handed Ned a sealed envelope. Then he helped them push off in their little boat. When they were gone, he tore open the envelope and found a message in code. He folded the piece of paper away in his shirt pocket and walked up to the hut.
Jin Lo emerged from the brush. Her steps were silent as she crossed the uneven, overgrown ground. She studied his face.
“Anything interesting?” she asked.
“Maybe chocolate,” he said. “We can sort through the boxes and see.”
She looked impatient. “About the men we are looking for?”
Chapter 9
The Deal
After the Doyles’ party, Janie walked home with her parents and Benjamin. She had her fingers wrapped around the red notebook in her jacket pocket. Her parents were talking about the magician.
“He shouldn’t be rooting around in people’s pockets,” her father said, still annoyed about his fountain pen and the dig at his stalled writing career.
“You have to admit he was good,” her mother said. The broken earring the magician had taken from her pocket had been of no significance, so she’d only been amused.
“The first rule of show business is ‘Leave the audience alone!’” her father said.
“No, it isn’t,” her mother said. “You’re just envious. If you could write a screenplay that could pick people’s pockets, you would.”
“I want to pick the studio’s pockets,” her father said. “The audience—I just want to pick their hearts.”
“Oh, is that all?” her mother asked, laughing. “How very unintrusive of you.”
Her parents didn’t seem to wonder how the magician had known about her father’s interrupted career. They thought that everyone knew that, because it was the central fact of their lives, and on their minds all the time.
Janie hung back on the front porch when they got home. Her parents went inside.
“Benjamin?” she began, uncertain. “What did the magician tell you?”
“That he was just doing tricks.”
“But you don’t believe it.”
“No,” he said. “It’s telekinesis, I’m sure of it! He took what was in people’s pockets. Vili can do it a little, he can turn the pages of books—but not like that. I want to see if there’s anything in the Pharmacopoeia about it.” He reached for the screen door, to go inside.