The Masquerading Magician Read Free

wasn’t dangerous. He was simultaneously alluring and safe. A rational detective who’d learned the teachings of his grandmother, an herbalist and apothecary in China. He was in his early forties, single after his wife died years ago. Losing her caused him to live his life in the present rather than the past, and part of this mantra made him avoid all talk of the past. It was one of the reasons it was easy to spend time with him. He didn’t push me to open up about a past I could never make him understand.
    But I knew Max and I would never work in the long run, because even if he accepted me for who I was, he would continue to age naturally while I never would. Yet, I could imagine myself comfortably settling into life with him and the many friends I’d made here in a short time.
    Persephone bantered with the crowd while she peeled the orange she’d plucked from the miraculous orange tree. This wasn’t as elaborate an illusion as Robert-­Houdin’s original, but the audience was captivated. Persephone threw the peeled orange into the audience. A young man I knew caught the fruit.
    â€œIt’s real!” he shouted, holding up the orange.
    My young neighbor Brixton was attending the show with his friends, sitting several rows in front of me and Max. Dorian had gotten both of us excited about the classic magic act, and Brixton had convinced his friends Ethan and Veronica to attend the show.
    Fourteen-year-old Brixton was the one person in Portland who’d learned my secret and Dorian’s. It hadn’t been on purpose, and I’d been terribly worried about it at first, until events that winter had cemented his loyalty. At first he’d tried to convince Ethan and Veronica that he’d really seen a living gargoyle, but that was long behind us. I hoped.
    â€œMay I ask,” Persephone said, “if there is someone here tonight who would like to escape from Prometheus’s trickery? I can send you away to the Underworld, where you will be safe.” She paced the length of the stage, the spotlight following her deliberate steps. “In this early part of the evening, the spirits are only strong enough to carry one of you. I’ll do my best to protect the rest of you. A volunteer?”
    â€œBrixton volunteers!” Ethan shouted, raising Brixton’s arm for him. Brixton snatched it back and scowled at Ethan.
    â€œThank you, my young friends,” Prometheus cut in, “but in this modern age, unfortunately I must insist on a volunteer who is at least eighteen.” The mechanical orange tree was now gone from his head. I didn’t see it anywhere. We’d all been paying attention to Persephone.
    â€œHow about closer to eighty?” The spotlight followed the voice and came to rest on two elderly men. A bulky man with gray hair and huge black eyebrows was grinning and pointing at his friend, a skinny throwback to the 1960s in a white kurta shirt and with long white hair pulled into a ponytail.
    Persephone ushered the smaller man to the stage and asked him his name.
    â€œWallace,” he said with a calm voice that struck me as out of place on the dramatic stage. “Wallace Mason.” He wore the Indian-style cotton shirt over faded jeans and sandals. While most of the audience had dressed up, he looked like a man who thought the embroidered neckline on his shirt was dressing up.
    Persephone continued an easygoing patter with the crowd, the spotlight remaining on her while Prometheus prepped the man. A minute later, the stage lights flickered. As they did so, an astringent scent assaulted my nostrils.
    â€œThe spirits are ready,” Persephone said. “They have sent ether to carry my friend here to safety.” She raised her arms, and Wallace Mason began to float. His white hair fell free of its ponytail and flowed past his shoulders. As his feet left the stage, the image of a flowing evening gown appeared over his clothing. The