Conjured

Chapter Twenty-Three

The doll laid on the bench and counted the boxes on the ribbon, the silk scarves, the potion bottles, and the bird skulls. And then she counted them again.

Across the wagon, the boy wouldn’t stop talking. “I think each skull is from a different kind of bird. You can see the differences in the shapes. Hooked bills … they have to be raptors. And the ones in the corner must be seed eaters. Sparrows and such. I think most are songbirds. Don’t know if that means he likes songbirds or hates them. He must have practiced killing birds and worked his way up to humans. You know, a common sign of a disturbed kid is torturing animals—it’s a sign he or she lacks empathy. You don’t lack empathy, Eve. When the Magician walked through the door, you hesitated. You’re more human than he is, not less.”

The boy was tied to a cot on the opposite side of the wagon. The doll was tied to a bench with the same steel-like yarn. The Magician was asleep—or feigning sleep—in his cot. She knew better than to trust he was truly asleep.

After the transformation, while the Magician slept, she’d used magic to sever the yarn and had tried to reach the boy. The Magician had caught her before she’d crossed the wagon, and the vision had taken her. The vision had been full of death and screams, and when she had woken, the Magician had hurt the boy.

Next time, she’d waited until she was certain his breathing was deep and even, and she’d used her magic to free the boy. Awakening, the Magician had broken the boy’s fingers.

She’d tried once more, changing the Magician into a tree, hardening his body with bark and sealing his face with leaves, but she’d lost consciousness before she could reach the boy. When she woke, it was five days later, and the boy’s face was streaked with blood and bruises. That was when she’d stopped thinking of him by name.

The Magician released the boy from his bindings twice a day, and the doll lay on her bench while the boy ate, drank, and relieved himself in a pot. The Magician never released the doll. But he did allow the boy to talk to her.

At first, the doll thought this was a kindness. But after a while, she changed her mind. It was a constant reminder that the boy was here because of her and that she couldn’t save him. He chattered fast, like a magpie. The doll found that if she didn’t focus on individual words, she could let his voice swirl around her like birdsong.

Every few days, the wagon would move. The boxes and skulls would sway as the wagon lurched forward, and she’d listen to the clatter and clang and clink of the bottles and bones. When the wagon reached its next destination, the Magician would entrap her and the boy in separate boxes and leave. Sometimes she slept, though as a doll she didn’t need to. Sometimes she’d lie awake, curled into a ball of cloth, and try not to think.

She’d be jolted awake when the Magician released her from the box, took her magic, and then trapped her again while he performed another show. When he returned, he’d release her, secure her to a bench, and talk for hours. He’d tell her about the new world outside and how much the audience had loved his show. The carnival had been dying, he said, but now that she’d returned, his shows were full of magic again and his tent was full of people. The other dolls had been too weak, too new, too empty, to give him what he needed, but she was marvelous! He’d be giddy for a while, even kind, and then he’d fall silent again.

After a while, he grew more ambitious. He wanted his shows to have more magic, instill more wonder, and inspire more awe, but there were limits to how much magic he could inhale and how long it would last. He was efficient in his magic use—a single breath could sustain him for multiple tricks—but it wasn’t enough for him. So he began to train her. He fed her lines to say, and he positioned her to hold his hat, his cloak, his Tarot cards. He choreographed how he would siphon magic from her mid-show, a subtle breath here and a brush past there, so the audience wouldn’t notice. He practiced with her in the confines of the wagon, and then he’d leave to conduct his shows without her. He returned between sets to breathe in her magic.

She woke one night with his sour breath in her face. She held still and wished she could stop breathing. He grinned when he saw her eyes open. His teeth were brilliant white, gleaming in the candlelight from the lantern that hung in the corner of the wagon. “I have a surprise for you,” he said.

The doll looked up at the shuttered windows. No light leaked in. It had to be night. She wondered how many days she’d been here, and then she squelched the thought. The boy was tied to a bench across the wagon. He was awake as well.

With a flourish, the Magician pulled a dress out of a paper bag. It had been sewn with hundreds of bird feathers and set with thousands of jewels. It fluttered and sparkled as he waved it through the air.

He pointed to a bucket in the corner. “Clean and dress yourself. You’ve accumulated filth from the road.” After untying the yarn that bound her, he yanked her to her feet. Her cotton-stuffed legs shook, and she caught herself on the wall of the wagon as the world tilted. It had been many hours since she had last stood, not since their last practice session. She stumbled to the corner of the room with the bucket.

The Magician paced through the wagon while the doll slowly peeled off the clothes that she had worn for days and days. She hadn’t sweat into them, of course—she couldn’t—but dust and dirt had seeped into the wagon and onto her. She found a sponge in the bucket, and she rubbed it over her cloth body. The fabric that was her skin soaked up the water. She scrubbed her green marble eyes, and she wet her yarn hair. The water in the bucket grayed, and a puddle formed around her fabric feet. She tried to dry herself with a towel, dabbing her body as best she could, and then she pulled on the dress. The feathers scraped and poked into her cotton. She fastened the buttons hidden within the feathers and jewels. For her yarn hair, the Magician presented a comb inlaid with clusters of the same starlight jewels, and for her feet, he had golden shoes.

“Lovely,” the Magician said. “You will enchant them.”

The boy was watching her. She wondered if she enchanted or repulsed him, and then she reminded herself not to think about him.

“Spin,” the Magician ordered.

Cloth legs wobbling, the doll turned in a circle. The skirt whispered around her, rising lightly into the air as if it would lift her higher and higher until she flew. She remembered she had flown … with the boy who laid bound across the tent.

Looking at him, she faltered.

The boy began to talk again, “He may call himself the Magician, but he’s a fraud. He has no magic of his own. He’s a parasite.”

The Magician plucked an empty box from the ribbon, and he clicked it open.

The boy shrank back, but he didn’t stop talking. “You’re the magic one, Eve. He has no magic. He steals it all from you. You’re the special one. You have to believe that.”

The Magician pressed the clasp to the boy’s skin, and the boy vanished into the box. The Magician shut the lid. “You may hold the magic, but you can’t use it, not without dropping into dreamland. We built that ‘quirk’ into you. A sensible precaution, as it turns out.” He smiled, pleased with himself. “Obey me in all things, and we will all three return here unharmed after the show. Disobey me, and you and I return alone.”

He held out his arm, bent at the elbow, as if to escort a lady. “Our audience awaits.”

Inside the tent, the acrobats were performing. Rings dangled from the rafters of the tent, and three men and two women dangled from them by one hand or one foot or one knee. They spun in sync, five pinwheels in the wind. In unison, they unfurled ribbons from their sleeves. It looked as though their shirts were unraveling. The ribbons plummeted into the audience, and the acrobats shimmied onto the ribbons. Dancing in the air, they wrapped the ribbons around their bodies and swooped and soared with them. The ribbons twisted together in midair above the audience, and then they released from the rings and fluttered down on the crowd. The acrobats hung in midair, suspended by seemingly nothing, as the audience applauded, and then they somersaulted down, bowed, and exited.

“Come,” the Magician said to the doll. He hauled her through a silver mirror at the back of the tent. He kept a grip on her arm tight enough to bruise if she’d had human skin, and they stepped out of a second mirror onto the stage—a dramatic entrance. At his signal, a stagehand wheeled away the silver mirror.

The audience clapped politely. They had seen portals before. In most worlds, they were ubiquitous. A few patrons fidgeted and rustled their bags, gathering their belongings as if preparing the leave. But they quieted when she walked forward on her shaky cloth legs—a living doll. Somewhere in the tent, a baby cried.

“My beautiful assistant!” the Magician said.

The audience laughed at her thread face, her yarn hair, her wobbling legs.

And the Magician began the show.

He started with sleight of hand, magicless tricks with cards, balls, and scarves. But then he added real magic: he tossed the scarves into the air, and they didn’t fall. Over his head, the scarves twisted slowly as if they were underwater. And then the scarves burst into flame.

The audience gasped, their attention rapt.

Silent on the stage, the doll watched the audience through glass eyes. Children. Men. Women. Most had painted faces: leopard spots, zebra stripes, fish scales, feathers. Their clothes were fashioned out of fur, feathers, and scales to match their faces. A few held caramel popcorn in a red-and-white-striped bag, forgotten as the Magician performed. One child sucked endlessly on a lollipop.

Near the center of the audience, one face was unpainted: a perfect face with blond tousled hair and bright-blue eyes. He watched the Magician as intently as a hawk watches a mouse.

The doll watched this boy as she took the Magician’s cloak and waved it with a flourish, the perfect assistant. The Magician pretended to kiss her cheek in thanks and instead stole her breath. She kept watching as he tossed card after card into the air. Each card stopped in midair until at last he had a ladder of cards leading up to the scarves.

The Magician climbed the card ladder up to where the fiery scarves spun and sparked. On one foot, he stood on the top card, and he juggled the silken balls of fire. As the scarves dissolved into ash, the applause was thunderous.

The boy in the audience didn’t clap.

The doll knew his name. Aidan. She fought against the memories that rose inside her, and she fixed her eyes instead on the Magician.

Coming down from the ladder of cards, the Magician held his hand out toward the audience. A girl in the front row leaped to her feet and scrambled onto the stage.

No, the doll thought.

The girl looked so innocent. Her face was painted like a swan. She wore white feathers in a skirt. She was smiling as if she’d won a prize. With broad gestures, the Magician invited her to climb the ladder. Laughing, the girl climbed, and he stood beneath her. On the tenth card, her foot slipped. She grabbed at the card above, but it slid out of her hand. Screaming, she fell.

He turned her into a bird before she hit the ground.

The Magician scooped his hat from the doll’s hands. He laid it over the bird that fluttered on the stage. Slowly, he raised the hat up, and the girl stood under it, wearing his hat. She laughed and clapped her hands. The Magician bowed. The girl curtsied before scurrying back to her seat, and her parents hugged her with proud smiles on their painted faces.

The girl wasn’t his next victim. The doll wished her cold, dry eyes could cry. She wished she were more than cotton inside so she could feel relief in her heart, her stomach, and her breath. Perhaps no one would die today.

The show continued. Soon, other carnival people gathered at the back of the tent. The Magician’s shows never went so long. But the Magician didn’t slow or tire. Between tricks, he’d kiss his doll assistant on the cheek, secretly filling his lungs each time. He drew a cloud into the tent and caused it to rain on the stage. He transformed the raindrops into butterflies, and then he forced the butterflies to fly in patterns against the roof of the tent—and then he changed them back into rain that fell toward the audience, transforming at the last second to paper confetti that melted into nothingness.

He then caused the seats to sprout, as if watered by the vanished confetti. Vines spread over the arms and legs of the audience. Roses blossomed on the vine, and then just as quickly, they wilted. The vines blackened and crumbled. Each audience member was left with a rose on his or her lap.

The applause was thunderous.

The Magician bowed. “And now for my final trick …”

Plucking the cards from the air, the Magician displayed them, showing that each card had a drawing of a figure: an old woman, a young girl, a harlequin, a queen, a reaper … He blew on the cards, tapped them, and the figures detached from the card faces. The paper figures lurched across the stage. He sent them into the audience. They crawled over the audience members, their eyes flat and their progress unslowed. They climbed onto the shoulders or heads of different audience members, whose smiles faltered as the paper feet and hands touched them.

“This time, the cards choose you,” the Magician said.

A few of the audience members tried to remove the paper creatures and people. They clung fast. Some pulled harder, and the paper bodies tore.

The Magician shuffled the blank Tarot cards.

As one, the paper figures turned their heads toward the center of the audience. They climbed over people faster with a single-minded determination, converging on the boy Aidan. They climbed up his legs and over his body, laying against his clothes as if glued to him.

“Remember him,” the Magician said softly to the doll. The boy Aidan didn’t move as the paper figures stuck to his shirt and hair and skin. “He has magic.”

The doll met Aidan’s eyes.

And Aidan vanished with a soft pop.

Outside the wagon, after the performance, Aidan waited on the steps. He still had the paper figures from the Tarot cards on him. One sat on his shoulder, swinging his paper legs. Another clung to the pocket of Aidan’s shirt. Others were stuck to him like magnets.

“I believe these are yours.” Aidan flashed a dazzling smile at the Magician.

The doll felt unable to move, as if she were on strings but no one had tugged them to make her walk or talk. A part of her wanted to scream at Aidan to run. A part of her wanted to run to him. The rest of her did not move or speak.

The Magician smiled. “Did you like the performance?” He fanned the blank cards, and the paper figures clambered down Aidan’s body and crawled up the Magician and onto the cards.

“Very impressive.” Aidan stood up lazily, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He hadn’t looked at her yet, the doll noted. She stared at him with her green marble eyes that couldn’t blink. “But I am here on business.” Aidan drew a wallet from his back pocket and flipped it open. A badge with a ring of circles was inside.

The Magician’s smile did not waver. “Oh, it’s show and tell!” He drew out a box from the pocket of his robe. “Have you ever seen one of these?” He turned the box over in his hands, sliding it over the backs of his hands and around in a figure-eight. “Marvelous device. Impervious to strength or weapons or magic. Yet if you twist it in a particular way and squeeze, you can crush it and its contents with one hand. A trade secret.” He fixed his eyes on the doll as he said this. “Now, how can I help you, officer?”

“I’m looking for this girl.” Aidan held up a photograph. It was a photo she’d seen before—a girl with yellow hair and green eyes with this boy in a pizza parlor. In the photo, his arm was draped around her.

“I haven’t seen her,” the Magician said.

Aidan turned to the doll. “And you?”

The doll stared at the box. The boy was inside it. Zach, she thought. The Magician held the box in one hand, fingers curled around it, about to tighten. “She isn’t here,” the doll lied.

“But you’ve seen her?” Aidan asked.

“Come inside and we’ll talk,” the Magician said. His smile was frozen on his face. Don’t hurt him, the doll thought.

Smiling broadly, Aidan said, “I’d be delighted.” He followed the Magician up the cherry-red steps to the door of the wagon. The doll wanted to scream at him to run, to hurl magic at him to stop him, to scream for help with every bit of air trapped in her cotton body.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she followed Aidan and the Magician with Zach’s box inside. By the time she stepped over the threshold, there were two boxes in the Magician’s hands, and Aidan was gone.