Chapter 11 Charlotte #2
A flash of smoke and a drum roll, and Steamblack was gone, vanishing into the air.
After another cheer, most of the crowd began to file out.
Kelly led Charlotte down to the front where they waited by the side of the stage along with a group of other people who had been offered a backstage tour.
Charlotte continued to protest about the purported illusion planned for Christmas Eve, but Kelly pulled her aside and whispered, ‘Do you want to go backstage or not? It’s just a magic trick.
He won’t really make Father Christmas appear. ’
‘I hope not. All those kids who’ll miss out on presents—’
‘Charlotte, we’ll discuss it when we’re back in the car.’
A pair of the dancers, now clad in sequinned dresses, appeared from a side door, and with friendly smiles, waved the group through.
Backstage, everything looked completely different to what they had seen during the show.
The dancers introduced them to two identical golden retrievers, suggesting the solution to one trick in which the dog had disappeared from a box on one side of the stage, only to reappear in another on the far side.
They were then shown a number of props and pulley systems, all of which gave hints to the stage trickery, but none were explained in enough detail to give away the illusions.
‘So, where is he?’ Kelly whispered, twenty minutes into the tour, as they gathered round a wide table with a velvet tablecloth, while one of the assistants explained an old card trick which hadn’t been featured in the show at all. ‘I thought we’d get a meet and greet.’
Charlotte just shrugged. She tried to see over the shoulders of the people standing in front of her, but suddenly the floor gave way beneath her feet, and with a gasp and a momentary sense of weightlessness, she plunged down into darkness.
As the floor above her snapped back into place, Charlotte only had time to let out a little gasp, then she was landing on something wide and soft.
As her body settled into the air mattress, the plastic tickling her arms, a dim light slowly appeared, and she made out a figure sitting in an armchair nearby with one leg crossed over the other.
‘Welcome,’ James Steamblack said, standing up, then bowing to her with a flourish. He dropped to one knee, lowered his head, and held out a hand. Charlotte, struggling to get up from the mattress, managed to grab the end of his fingers and let him pull her up.
‘Your name,’ Steamblack said.
‘Charlotte. Charlotte Harding,’ Charlotte said.
Steamblack nodded. ‘A more delightful name I have not heard in all my long years. Tell me, Charlotte, do my illusions fool you?’
‘Ah, yes. I mean, I’ve seen a few episodes of Penn and Teller, but they don’t tell you everything, do they?’
‘Not everything, but even the most elaborate trick has a simple answer. But, my dear Charlotte, what I deal in is simple illusion. When I encounter true magic, however, I am unable to turn away.’
‘True magic?’
‘The magic of your beauty.’
Had someone given her such a line in a nightclub, Charlotte would have laughed, or told them to shut up. Coming from Steamblack, though, all she could do was stare at him while heat built up in her cheeks.
‘When I saw you for the first time, it left me bewitched,’ Steamblack said. ‘I would be honoured if you would allow me to take you to dinner. Tomorrow.’
‘Ah, I can’t tomorrow,’ Charlotte said. ‘I have my grandmother’s funeral.’
Steamblack sighed. ‘Oh, if only I had the power to restore life,’ he said. ‘Tuesday. I wish for you to be waiting on the plaza outside this theatre at five o’clock sharp. Not a minute later. I will take you for a dinner that will leave you astounded.’
Charlotte stared at him. He was obviously handsome, but a little scary at the same time.
However, the offer was just too intriguing to refuse, and besides, Kelly would never forgive her if she said no.
While it was likely she would have a lot of work to catch up with on Tuesday night, a little dinner wouldn’t hurt.
‘As long as it’s not too late,’ she said. ‘I have work on Wednesday.’
‘Five o’clock, outside the theatre. The honour is all mine.’
Steamblack leaned down and kissed her hand in a weird way where he didn’t actually touch her skin, just blew on it a little. Then he looked up, smiling again.
‘Until Tuesday. I will be waiting.’
He suddenly spun around, aiming a dramatic flying kick at a lever nearby, and with a hiss of hydraulics, Charlotte found herself rising up into the air.
The floor above rapidly approached but before she had time to let out a cry of horror, trapdoors opened and she rose up into the backstage area she had only recently left.
Disorientated, she spun around, catching sight of the rest of the group a little further ahead, investigating a pulley system hung from the ceiling above.
‘There you are,’ Kelly said, turning around as Charlotte came up behind her. ‘I thought you’d disappeared into thin air.’
Charlotte smiled. ‘I did,’ she said.