Horten's Incredible Illusions Read online

  “Excuse me?” A soft-voiced man was peering down at Stuart. “I see from your badge that you’re the curator. You seem kind of young for that.”

  “I’m ten,” said Stuart.

  “Okay. Well, I’d like to be shown around the exhibition. Is that at all possible?”

  Stuart nodded. “Are you American?” he asked.

  “Canadian. Maxwell Lacey—good to meet you.”

  They shook hands. Maxwell Lacey was wearing an expensive-looking jacket and emerald cufflinks. He looked about the same age as Stuart’s father but had a black mustache and neatly brushed pale-gray hair.

  “So how did you get to be in charge?” he asked Stuart.

  “Partly because I found the tricks in the first place, and partly because Teeny-Tiny Tony Horten was my great-uncle.”

  “Really? Well, isn’t that something!”

  Maxwell Lacey paused by the first exhibit. He leaned over the rope and gazed at the great bronze throne surrounded by intricately worked flowers and tendrils, and then he switched his attention to the little card pinned to the wall next to it.

  THE REAPPEARING ROSE BOWER

  A large bronze seat surrounded by metal stems and flowers. The illusion involves the disappearance and reappearance of the roses.

  “We didn’t have a lot of time to write the cards,” said Stuart apologetically. “And we still haven’t worked out how the trick operates, so the second sentence is a bit of a guess. We’re going to have another try tomorrow.”

  “And by we, you mean …”

  “Me and April. One of the triplets over there.”

  “And is April also related to Tony Horten?”

  “No, that’s just me.”

  “I see.”

  They moved on to the Arch of Mirrors. “We didn’t have a lot of time to look at this one, either,” said Stuart quickly.

  THE ARCH OF MIRRORS

  An arch that is completely covered in mirrors. How the illusion operates is currently not known.

  “It’s a fine-looking object,” said Maxwell Lacey, adjusting his tie in one of the many reflections that bounced back at him. “And this workshop where you found the illusions—was it on your property?”

  “No, it was in the town park, underneath the bandstand.”

  “I see. And who owns the park?”

  “I don’t know. The council, maybe?”

  As they progressed past the Cabinet of Blood (which Stuart and April still hadn’t managed to open) and the Fan of Fantasticness (which they hadn’t managed to close), Maxwell Lacey asked several more odd questions about local council land ownership.

  Stuart was running out of answers and was relieved to see one of the triplets approaching him.

  “I’m April,” she said pointedly, “just in case you can’t tell. I’m sorry to interrupt, but someone’s just turned up who I think you’ll want to see.” She squinted over at the doorway.

  There, wearing a shiny purple suit with a sparkly bow tie, and holding a bundle of yellow paper, stood Clifford Capstone. Until a week ago he’d been an unpaid assistant to the mayoress, but he had realized her true nastiness just in time and had helped April and Stuart when they’d been in dire need of it.

  “Hello!” he called, catching sight of them and hurrying over. “I thought this would be a good place to hand these out. Have a leaflet,” he added, thrusting one into each of their hands.

  MYSTERIOSO

  THE MAGGICIAN

  PERFORMING FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME HIS

  HUGELY EXCITING

  NEW ACT

  at

  St. Cuthbert’s Church Hall

  Fig Street

  Beeton

  6 p.m. Tuesday, August 20

  “I’m Mysterioso,” explained Clifford, “just in case you were wondering.”

  “You’ve spelled magician wrong,” said April.

  “Have I?” Clifford gaped at the leaflet and then looked crestfallen. “I didn’t notice; I’ve printed out six hundred now—I can’t really change them.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Stuart. “I’ll come.”

  “And me,” said April. “And, tell you what, I’ll review it for my paper.”

  “Will you? I’ve been rehearsing very hard, but it’ll be my first solo show and I’m not convinced I’ve really come up with the right ingredients yet. Leaflet?” he added, offering one to Maxwell Lacey.

  “Thank you kindly,” said the Canadian. “So this is your hobby, is it?”

  Clifford’s eager round face became suddenly strained and serious. “It’s far more than a hobby,” he said. “It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I gave up my job and used up most of my life savings to train as a magician, but now I’ve realized that the only way to become one is just to go ahead and do it.”

  “And what type of magic does Mysterioso do?” asked Maxwell Lacey.

  “I thought I’d mix and match, seeing as it’s my first attempt,” said Clifford. “A couple of large illusions, a little bit of close-up magic, a wild-animal-based finale. I’ll see what goes down best and take it from there. You’re interested in magic, I take it?”

  “No,” said Maxwell Lacey unexpectedly, “but my employer is very interested indeed. As a matter of fact, I need to call her now. It’s good to meet you people.” Smiling, he folded the leaflet into his pocket and then left the room.

  April turned to Clifford again. “What sort of wild animal are you using in your wild-animal-based finale?” she asked.

  “Wait and see,” he said, raising his eyebrows mysteriously. “I guarantee it’ll be a surprise.”

  CHAPTER 9

  When Stuart came into the kitchen the next morning, he saw two letters pinned to the bulletin board. The first was addressed to Stuart’s father:

  Dear Alan,

  Have a lovely time while I’m away. Try and make sure that Stuart eats some vegetables and/o r fruit with every meal, and goes to bed befo re midnight.

  Much love to my kind, clever husband, and see you in ten days.

  Bernie xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

  The second was addressed to Stuart. As he stood reading it, his father joined him in the kitchen.

  Dear Stuart,

  Have a lovely time while I’m away. Be sensible, don’t fo rget to info rm Dad in writing where you are at all times, and always remember to take your key with you, just in case Dad goes out and fo rgets his.

  Much love to my brave, energetic son, and see you in ten days.

  Mom xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

  Father and son looked at each other.

  “Orange, banana, peach, plum, or melon with your morning repast?” inquired Stuart’s father, peering down at him.

  “Peach, please. And I’m going to the museum all day, with April, and then to St. Cuthbert’s church hall to see a magic show, with April—I’ll write it in a note for you. And I’ll bring my key.”

  “And I shall prepare a portable container of noontide comestibles for you,” said Stuart’s father, going over to the refrigerator.

  “Thanks,” said Stuart. He had a sinking feeling that the contents of his packed lunch were going to be very, very healthy.

  April was already waiting for him in the side room of the museum, sitting at the curator’s table. He was relieved to see that she was wearing new glasses. She was also wearing a new badge.

  “Rod Felton gave it to me,” she said gloomily. “He said it would make me more official. Don’t laugh.”

  The badge had a picture of a baby in a business suit, sitting at a computer:

  “You’re laughing,” said April.

  “No, honestly,” lied Stuart.

  “And I’ve been given a visitor’s survey as well,” said April. “It’s got questions like, Do you feel that the exhibition captions give sufficient information?“

  “Well, they don’t at the moment,” said Stuart. “We ought to get started while there are still no visitors to bother us. Do you want to choose which illusion to explore next?”

  �
��Okay.” April walked over to an empty space in the middle of the room, closed her eyes, spun around a couple of times, and pointed randomly.

  “The Arch of Mirrors,” she said, opening her eyes and staggering slightly. “We have two questions: How does the trick work, and where does the magic star fit in?”

  “Three questions,” corrected Stuart. “If we find where the magic star fits in, where will it take us?’

  To the desert again? he wondered. Or to a different magical world, with a different sort of puzzle?

  He followed April over to the arch. It was nearly as tall as Stuart’s father, and every inch of it was covered in small square mirrors. Each mirror was set at a slightly different angle, and in the sunny room, light beams seemed to bounce across the surface like Ping-Pong balls.

  April pushed and then pulled one of the small mirrors.

  “It feels quite springy,” she said, “as if it’s supposed to move. I bet one of them lifts up or swings around in some way.”

  Stuart walked right around the illusion, seeing his reflection shift and change a hundred times. It would take hours and hours to try every mirror, and it would be easy to lose track and forget which ones had been tried.

  “It’s making my eyes hurt,” complained April. “Too many reflections.”

  She went across to the light switch and turned it off, but sun still flooded in through the single window.

  “There’s a blind,” said Stuart, going over to where a cord was looped around a hook on the wall. He started to free it.

  April had crouched down beside the arch. “That’s odd …” she said.

  “What?”

  “One of them doesn’t reflect.”

  The blind rattled down, blocking out the sun. Stuart turned around.

  The arch had totally disappeared.

  “April!” he yelled.

  “I’m here!” She was laughing. “Lift up the blind again.” He hauled it up, and heard himself gasp. The arch was still there, but instead of being covered in mirrors, it was totally black.

  “And now look,” said April, still crouching beside it. She fiddled with something, and the mirrors suddenly appeared again, like an eye opening. “They’re all on a swivel,” she explained. “And one of the mirrors near the bottom isn’t a mirror at all, it’s just painted to look like a mirror. When you turn it around, they all turn around, and the backs are black.” She demonstrated again; the arch turned from brilliance to near-invisibility in a second.

  “So, really,” she went on, “it’s the Disappearing Arch of Mirrors. I bet they put the lights down in the theater, did a drumroll, and then all the audience screamed their heads off when it suddenly wasn’t there any longer. And look here …” she added in a quieter voice.

  Stuart knelt beside her. On the black side of the painted square was a series of grooves in the shape of a star—a star with just five spokes.

  They grinned at each other.

  “So maybe that’s how it works,” said April. “We find how the trick operates—the switch or the swivel or the lock or the handle or whatever—and that’s where the magic star goes.”

  She gave a bounce of excitement. “So let’s get going! This is the next one, isn’t it? The next adventure.”

  “Yes. Right. Okay.”

  Stuart realized that he was feeling a bit nervous. Those hours in the desert had seemed awfully real, and there’d been times when he’d felt a bit desperate, not to mention hungry and thirsty. He went over to his knapsack and took out a lunchbox and water bottle.

  “Right,” he said again, steeling himself, half thrilled, half frightened; at least he wouldn’t be on his own this time.

  He took out the star and knelt beside the Arch of Mirrors.

  “Can we hold hands?” asked April. “I don’t want to be left behind.”

  Stuart checked to see that no one else was in the room. “Okay,” he said reluctantly.

  April grabbed his left hand; with his right, he fitted the five-spoked star into its socket.

  And the world went black.

  CHAPTER 10

  It was only dark for a second, but when the lights came back on, everything had changed. Stuart was still standing in front of the Arch of Mirrors, but it was smaller than before—no taller than himself—and it was brilliantly lit, as if by a spotlight. The only other object in view was an easel, also spotlighted and facing away from the Arch. Everything else was in utter darkness; Stuart couldn’t see whether he was in a room or a hall or even on a stage. The silence was total. April was nowhere to be seen. Feeling anxious, he called her name, but his voice sounded thin and reedy. It disappeared into the gloom, unanswered.

  He stepped around to the front of the easel. Resting against it was an empty picture frame, at exactly Stuart’s head height. He could look straight through it and see the arch, a small image of himself reflected in every mirror. Written across the top of the picture frame were the words:

  WHO ARE YOU?

  Stuart picked up the frame and turned it over but there was nothing written on the back. As he returned it to the easel, he got the sudden feeling that something was wrong—that he wasn’t seeing something that he should be seeing. For a second time he picked up the frame, and realized with a chill that there was no answering movement from the reflections: all those rows of Stuarts had remained perfectly still …

  He walked over to the arch. He could see his own face in each mirror, brightly lit in front of a dark background. He could see the blue of his T-shirt and the dirty smudge that he appeared to have on his right cheekbone. But when he lifted a hand to his face, no hand appeared in the mirrors. He moved closer. The images in the mirrors weren’t painted: they had depth, they were alive, they were breathing, but they weren’t reflections. It was as if each were a TV screen, showing a continuous program of himself: The Stuart Channel. But each program was slightly different—one Stuart was smiling, another was biting his lip as if perplexed, a third seemed to be looking off to the left.

  “Weird,” said Stuart. He was still holding the picture frame, and on a sudden impulse he placed it flat against the arch. The mirrors that made up the surface were exactly the right size for the frame.

  “So do I have to choose one?” he asked out loud.

  He glanced from image to image, wondering what he was supposed to be looking for. Stuart after Stuart grinned, sneezed, stared, blinked, and shrugged at him.

  And, he reminded himself, there were all the mirrors on the other side of the arch as well; he ought to look at those, too. He started to walk around it and then found that he couldn’t: his feet were moving, but he made no progress, as if he were walking on a treadmill or an ice rink. After a couple of minutes of panting effort he gave up; clearly he was supposed to stay where he was.

  “Okay,” he muttered. “I’ll just have to pick one on this side. They’re all me, anyway.”

  He reached out randomly toward a Stuart who was yawning hugely. The mirror came away after just a single tug. There was a black gap in the arch where it had been.

  What now?

  Stuart walked back to the easel, fitted the mirror into the frame, and put the frame back on the little ledge where he’d found it.

  And in an instant the mirror in the frame disappeared.

  Stuart looked at it, startled, and even stuck his hand through the hole, just to make sure. And then he went back to the arch. The black gap had filled up again—he couldn’t even tell where he’d taken the mirror from.

  “So that was the wrong choice,” he muttered. “I must have to pick out one in particular—”

  “I’m bored,” said a voice behind him.

  Stuart spun around and saw—

  Himself.

  He yelled.

  Blue T-shirt, smudge on cheek, jeans, scuffed sneakers, hands stuffed in pockets.

  “I mean, what do you even do here?” asked the other Stuart, ignoring the yell. “This is the dullest place I’ve ever, ever been to, and I didn’t even bring an
y money with me, so I can’t buy anything, even if I found a shop.” He had a slightly whiny, irritating voice.

  Do I really sound like that? thought the real Stuart, still reeling from the shock.

  Bored Stuart yawned again. “I mean, it’s dark, there’s nothing to see, there’s nowhere to go, there isn’t even anything to sit on, I can’t put on any music, I can’t—”

  “Shhhh!” said the real Stuart. He could hear another voice somewhere, calling his name. He strained his ears.

  “I mean, there’s only another two weeks left of the summer vacation,” droned Bored Stuart, “and if I have to spend it in this place, then—”

  “Will you please be quiet,” said Stuart. He could hear the other voice again, and this time he was certain that it was April.

  “I CAN JUST ABOUT HEAR YOU!” he yelled. “WHERE ARE YOU?”

  A moment passed, and then he heard her distant answer: “IN FRONT OF THE ARCH. OPPOSITE WHERE YOU’RE STANDING, I THINK. HAVE YOU DONE IT YET?”

  “DONE WHAT?”

  “CHOSEN THE RIGHT MIRROR AND PUT IT IN THE FRAME?”

  “NO, I DON’T KNOW HOW TO. WHICH ONE’S THE RIGHT ONE?”

  “THE ONE THAT’S YOU.”

  “BUT THEY’RE ALL ME.”

  “NO, THEY’RE NOT.”

  “YES, THEY ARE.”

  “NO, THEY’RE NOT. IF YOU LOOK CAREFULLY, YOU’LL SEE THAT THEY MIGHT LOOK A LOT LIKE YOU BUT THEY’RE NOT ACTUALLy YOU. ALL EXCEPT ONE. IT ONLY TOOK ME A COUPLE OF MINUTES TO PICK THE RIGHT ONE, BUT THEN, OF COURSE, I’M USED TO SEEING PEOPLE WHO LOOK LIKE ME BUT AREN’T ACTUALLY ME.”

  She sounded (Stuart thought) a bit smug.

  “I’m just so bored,” said Bored Stuart.

  “Shhh.”

  “I can’t remember being as bored as this ever, not even when—”

  “Just SHUT UP,” snapped Stuart.

  “WHAT?”

  “I WASN’T TALKING TO YOU, APRIL.”

  “WHO WERE YOU TALKING TO, THEN?”

  “SOMEONE WHO LOOKS JUST LIKE ME BUT WHO ISN’T.”

  “I mean,” continued Bored Stuart, “there isn’t even a book or a magazine or anything, so how am I supposed to …”

  Stuart turned and stared at his almost-twin as he driveled on about how there was nothing to do. He examined every inch of the boy’s face and tried to compare each feature with what he saw in his own mirror every morning. But the trouble was, he hardly ever looked in his own mirror: four seconds for combing his hair, a quick glimpse of his teeth after brushing, and that was it. The truth was—and the realization made him feel more than a little uneasy—he didn’t really know what he looked like. And he just happened to be in a place where there wasn’t a mirror.