Horten's Incredible Illusions Read online

  “Enjoy the workshop,” he said in a whisper. “It has many surprises.” Great-Uncle Tony himself had spoken those words to Stuart on the stage of a Victorian theater, just five days (and over a hundred and ten years) ago …

  There was a noise behind him, and he turned to see Rod Felton coming into the room, holding a stepladder and a lightbulb. Close behind him was April.

  “I got the job!” she announced gleefully.

  “Which job?”

  “Reviewer for the Beech Road Guardian. And guess what the first thing I’m going to review is?”

  “What?”

  “This exhibition! Mr. Felton’s just given me permission to see it—not that there’s much to see yet. Shall we take all the other covers off?”

  Before Stuart could protest, April had darted past him and was ripping the dustsheets off the other illusions. He felt as if he’d just woken up on Christmas morning and found that someone else was opening his presents. And then Rod Felton fitted the lightbulb and turned on the light, and the room that had been full of mystery and excitement just a second ago now looked like a brightly lit shop-window display.

  “Seven,” said April. “Seven magic tricks.”

  Rod Felton climbed back down the ladder and stood with his hands on his hips. “What we really need is a name and a short description for each illusion—how it works and so on. Do you think you could make a start on that for us, Stuart?”

  “I’ll try,” said Stuart.

  “Right. I’ll leave you to it. Incidentally, er”—he looked rather embarrassed—“er, your father’s still sitting in my office. He seems to be talking to himself. I don’t know how to get him out.”

  “Tell him the bookstore’s about to close,” said Stuart.

  The curator nodded and strode out, and the heavy door closed with a bang.

  For a moment there was silence.

  “So, do you know if these tricks even have names?” asked April.

  “Some of them do,” said Stuart. “When the mayoress was a little kid, she saw Great-Uncle Tony’s stage act—she told me about it.” That had been on the first occasion he’d ever met the mayoress, Jeannie Carr, and he had learned two things about her: the first was that she loved magic tricks and the second was that she loved money to a frightening degree.

  He began to walk around the room. “The Pharaoh’s Pyramid,” he said, lightly touching a golden pyramid taller than himself.

  “The Reappearing Rose Bower…and the Book of Peril …” Stuart trailed off, glancing first at a bronze throne entwined with silver wire and flowers enameled in pink and scarlet and then at a giant book whose jet-black cover was locked by a huge key. “The Well—”

  “—of Wishes,” finished April, and they both stood for a moment beside the object that had led them on such a manic and magical hunt through Beeton.

  “It’s odd …” said April hesitantly.

  “What’s odd?”

  “The Well of Wishes doesn’t look quite the same as it did when it was in the room under the bandstand. I mean, it’s the same shape and everything, but …”

  Stuart frowned. “It doesn’t look different to me.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t put my finger on what’s changed, but something has. Anyway, what’s this one called?” she asked, pointing at a graceful arch made of mirrored glass.

  Stuart had no idea, but telling April things she didn’t already know was a new and pleasant sensation, so he paused to invent something.

  “This trick is the Arch of Mirrors,” he said, not very imaginatively. “And the next one”—he took a moment to consider the giant fan, studded with turquoise jewels—”is the Fan of Fantasticness, and this one,” Stuart said, returning to his starting point, “is the Cabinet of Blood.”

  “Ugh,” said April.

  Like Stuart, she tried pulling at one of the swords, though unlike him she could reach the top one. “How do you open it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Do you see, the base of the cupboard’s resting on a sort of disc. I wonder …” She gave the sword hilt a sideways push, and the whole cabinet spun around in a blur of red and gold. As the reflections flickered across the room, Stuart noticed something very strange. While the other illusions glinted and flashed in the spinning light, the Well of Wishes seemed to have lost its luster. No light bounced across its surface. It was as dull as if carved out of rubber.

  “You’re right about the well,” he said to April.

  She nodded slowly, staring in the same direction as him. “Very peculiar,” she said. “Anyway, do you want to start the descriptions? I’ll take your dictation—I’m a very fast writer.”

  She whipped out her purple reporter’s notebook from her pocket and stood poised.

  Stuart felt under pressure. “I’d better start with the book, I suppose,” he said, “seeing as I know how it works.” He had climbed into it while hiding from the mayoress in the room directly under the bandstand.

  He walked over to the giant, upright book. The words OPEN AT YOUR PERIL were written across the front in letters of silver and red. He turned the key and lifted the heavy front cover to reveal an empty interior.

  April had followed him, still holding the notebook. “Okay,” she said. “Fire away.”

  Stuart cleared his throat. “When you open the front cover of this illusion, it just looks like a big, empty metal cupboard. But if you get inside it and close the front cover, the back cover opens so that you can climb out without anyone seeing you. And then, if someone opens the front cover again, the back cover shuts automatically—so to the audience it just looks like an empty cupboard. And there’s a sort of safety catch at the back, which Tony Horten invented.”

  He waited for April to stop scribbling. “Is that all right?” he asked.

  “I’ll just sub it,” she said. “That’s the phrase us journalists use for improving a story.” She made some rapid notes, and what appeared to be a large number of crossings out.

  “Okay.” She studied her notebook. “A disappearing cabinet, in which the front and back covers cannot open simultaneously unless the Horten ready-release mechanism is operated.” She looked up with a confident smile. “Next!”

  “Hang on,” said Stuart, feeling a bit jangled. “There’s no hurry, is there? This is the first time I’ve had a chance to really look at everything.”

  It was odd to think that no one (apart from himself) had used the trick in nearly fifty years. Great-Uncle Tony’s fingerprints were probably still on the inside.

  He started to close the cover again, and as he did so, some marks on the floor of the cupboard caught his eye. He crouched down and frowned. Incised into the metal, in very small print, were the words:

  AT YOUR PERIL

  CHAPTER 4

  “That’s odd,” said Stuart. “It says OPEN AT YOUR PERIL on the front of the book, but down here it just says AT YOUR PERIL.”

  April came up and peered over his shoulder at the tiny writing. “Very odd,” she agreed. “And why are the words in a box?”

  She was right. A rectangle about the size of a deck of playing cards had been incised around the writing.

  There was a pause while they both stared at it.

  “You know what?” said April. “It looks just like a small version of the front cover. Apart from the missing word.”

  Stuart nodded. “Apart from open,” he said softly. There was another pause, and then they both spoke simultaneously.

  “I know—”

  “What if—”

  “—the answer!”

  “—it’s another door?”

  They looked at each other, grinning.

  “The writing on the front cover’s an instruction,” said Stuart. “Open at your peril!”

  “Except there’s no little key for the mini-door,” April pointed out. “And no handle.”

  They squatted down beside the writing. April tried to pry open the tiny door with her fingernails, but it wouldn
’t shift. “So how do we do it?” she asked.

  Stuart thought about the puzzles that Great-Uncle Tony had set in the past. He thought about the very first puzzle: a tin with a base that unscrewed counterclockwise instead of the more usual clockwise. “What if it’s the opposite of what we expect?” he asked. “The front cover opens if you pull it. So maybe with this one—”

  April was there before him. She placed her fingers on the right side of the little door, and gave a push. There was a grating sound, and it sprang upward, revealing a shallow space beneath.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  Stuart reached in and took out a small object wrapped in wrinkled brown paper. It was a six-spoked star made of dark, heavy metal, its surface slightly rippled as if it had melted and then cooled. It was shaped a bit like a miniature wagon wheel but minus the outer rim.

  He turned it over on his palm. “I really have no idea …” he said slowly. “A Christmas decoration? Part of a toy?”

  “Hang on,” said April. “Is there something else in there?” She ran her fingers around inside the space and then shook her head. “No, I’m wrong. There’s just a short groove in the bottom.”

  Stuart glanced at the crumpled paper that the star had been wrapped in, and with an exclamation began to smooth it out. “It’s a message!” he said, peering at the faded letters, and April jumped up so that she could read it over his shoulder.

  You’ve found my workshop, but do you want to keep it? This star is made from all that was left of the first Well of Wishes after the fire, for I’ve discovered that once you start using magic, it’s very hard to stop. If you truly want to be the owner of these illusions, use the star to find the letters, and when you have all six, they’ll

  Stuart turned the note over and April groaned. There was a wide circular mark on the paper, almost as if someone had spilled bleach on it. It blotted out the whole center of the message:

  lead you to my w ou can decide if you

  truly wish to k rhaps give them

  away to someo ake care as the

  magic may b ttle stronger

  than I inte

  Yours affec ncle Tony

  P.S. When I was lost an old pal

  of mine named Ch so if you see him

  please look aft

  On impulse, Stuart placed the metal star on the page. It was exactly the same size as the missing chunk of writing.

  “Strange,” said April thoughtfully. “But you can still work out what some of the message says. The top bit’s about deciding if you really wish to keep the tricks, or whether you want to give them away to someone—but why would you want to give them away?”

  “Don’t know,” replied Stuart, mystified. “And what does it mean, lead you to my W? What word’s missing there?”

  “Winnings?” suggested April. “Wand? Watch? Wardrobe?”

  “And the old pal bit. What’s that about?”

  They looked at each other. “Once you start using magic, it’s very hard to stop,” quoted April, her voice breathy. “It’s another puzzle, isn’t it? Another adventure?”

  Stuart closed his hand over the star, and felt the six prongs dig into his skin. His heart was suddenly thumping; he felt both excited and slightly frightened, and he knew from April’s expression that she felt the same. The hunt for Great-Uncle Tony’s workshop had been a wild and exciting chase, sprinkled with danger and magic, and now another quest was beckoning. But for what? What was the prize this time?

  He felt his hand tingle, and he knew that the object he was holding was so full of magic that over fifty years it had bleached the paper it was wrapped in; he could feel its power.

  “I think we should—” he began, and then stopped as the door behind them opened.

  “Ah, I have located my offspring,” said Stuart’s father, looking pleased. “I have just been warned by Mr. Felton of the impending cessation of visitation hours.”

  Stuart groaned in frustration. “It’s closing time,” he translated, for April’s benefit.

  “He informs me that you may recommence your activities in the morn, the portals being flung wide at nine precisely.”

  “So we’ll start again tomorrow, then,” whispered Stuart. “See you here at nine on the dot?”

  “Quarter past nine. I’ve got to deliver the Beech Road Guardian midweek edition first. You won’t touch anything till I get here, will you?”

  Stuart hesitated. He wanted to start searching for the clues this second, and the thought of hanging around even for an extra quarter of an hour felt almost unbearable.

  “Please,” said April.

  Stuart nodded reluctantly. “Okay.”

  That evening, Stuart’s mother arrived home even later than usual. She was a research doctor in a hospital near Beeton, and most of her days were spent peering through a microscope. Most of her evenings, however, were spent worrying about Stuart (at least, that’s what it felt like to him). Unlike his father, she spoke in plain English, and mainly in questions.

  “So, do you feel that you’re starting to settle down in Beeton?” she asked, sitting on the end of his bed.

  Stuart closed his hand over Great-Uncle Tony’s message, which he’d been studying. “Sort of,” he said. He and his parents had only moved to the town four weeks ago, at the beginning of the summer vacation, but the four weeks had been packed with incident, and in some ways he felt as if he’d been living there for years.

  “And you’ve made really good friends with the little girls next door?”

  “Sort of,” said Stuart again. He was certainly friends with April, but the other two triplets were another matter.

  “And you’re not getting too bored?”

  “No,” said Stuart, relieved to get an easy question. “I’m not getting bored at all.”

  “Because one of my colleagues is running a junior statistics course for keen young mathematicians next week. I could get you a place on it, if you like.”

  “No, thank you,” said Stuart quickly. “I’ve got tons to do. For a start, I’m curating an exhibition at the museum.”

  “Really?” His mother looked astounded. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Didn’t Dad tell you? But he was there when they asked me. He was sitting right next to me.”

  She shook her head, her expression worried.

  “Oh well.” Stuart shrugged. “You know what Dad’s like. He was probably trying to think of a long word at the time and didn’t notice.”

  His mother smiled, but the worried look remained. “The thing is,” she said, “I’ve just been asked if I can go to a conference in Singapore. It’s very last minute—I’d be replacing a colleague who’s ill, and I’d be away for nearly ten days. And I’d have to fly out tomorrow afternoon.”

  She looked at him anxiously. “Would that be all right?”

  “Of course it would.”

  “Can you and Dad manage?”

  “Of course we can. I mean, we’ll miss you, but—”

  “Will you eat proper healthy meals and not just pick at whatever’s in the fridge?”

  “Yes.”

  “And change your clothes sometimes?”

  “Yes.”

  “And go to bed at a reasonable time?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if you go out during the day, will you stick with friends and leave notes for Dad so he knows where you are?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because if you only tell him things, he forgets. You have to write it down.”

  “I know.”

  She bit her lip, undecided.

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” said Stuart. “We’ll be absolutely fine.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The next morning he got to the museum early and was walking in small, impatient circles outside the main entrance when the caretaker turned up at ten past nine, shortly followed by the curator.

  “Don’t forget your official identification,” said Rod Felton, and Stuart pinned on his hideous MINI EXPERT badge and
then made his way to the side room. Sunlight was streaming through the window.

  “Can you finish those descriptions by midday?” asked Rod Felton, popping his head around the door. “Then we can print them up and laminate them, ready for the exhibition opening tomorrow.”

  Stuart nodded, sure that April would remember a notebook and pen. He checked his watch and frowned. How could she be late when there was so much to do?

  He waited another five minutes. Still no April.

  He got the little six-spoked wheel out of his pocket and studied it intently from every angle, but there was nothing new to see.

  He trudged along to Rod Felton’s office and borrowed some scrap paper and a pencil and—as an afterthought—a tape measure.

  He wrote THE PHARAOH’S PYRAMID in large careful letters at the top of the page and then underlined it. Twice. And then checked his watch yet again.

  It was ten o’clock.

  April was three-quarters of an hour late. She’d said, “Don’t touch anything till I get there,“ but if he didn’t, then he wouldn’t be able to describe the tricks properly, and he’d miss Rod Felton’s deadline. And besides, they were his tricks, even if he couldn’t actually prove it to anyone. So, of course he could touch them if he wanted to.

  “Right then,” he said out loud, secretly feeling rather pleased with himself. “I’ll just have to start on my own …”

  A gold-colored pyramid, the sides covered in swirly marks. The base is square, and each of the four sides is an equilatteral triangle. The appex of the pyramid is about 5 feet high.

  He had to write about because (as usual) he was too short to measure it properly.

  Each of the sides has a gold-and-silver handle right at the top, shaped like a curling snake. There are no obvios hinges joining the sides together.

  He stood on tiptoe, gripped the nearest snake-shaped handle, and pulled. The whole triangular side immediately swung down, cracking him on the head; it was hinged at the bottom, he realized, and was heavier than it looked. He lowered the side to the floor, and stood rubbing his skull for a moment, and then he stooped to get a clearer view of the inside of the pyramid.