Born of Illusion (32 page)

Only she doesn’t give me anything. She just goes to her dressing-room table and drinks down her wine in several long gulps. She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t look at me. Picking up her hairbrush, she runs it through her hair awkwardly, her movements lacking her normal catlike grace.

I bite my lip, wanting her to say something, anything, so I can defend myself. I want to let her know I’m different, that things have changed, but she remains silent. I begin to feel more and more like a child too naughty to be acknowledged.

The door opens behind me and Jacques comes in. He rushes to my mother, a frown on his face. “Magali, darling, are you all right?” He bends over my mother and she leans her head against him. “I could tell from your performance that you were not feeling right. Anna was brilliant, but you did not seem well at all. Is there anything I can do?”

His voice is creased with worry and concern. In the mirror, I can see that her eyes are closed, and I am struck by how drawn and tired she looks. Not like my mother at all. Her hand snakes up and he reaches out to grasp it, bending down to put his lips against her hair.

Then, for the first time, Jacques’s emotions transmit themselves to me strong and clear from across the room.

He’s achingly in love with my mother.

Suddenly I feel as if I’m peeping in on something I shouldn’t be seeing. Forgotten, I slip from the room, more alone than I’ve ever been.

Twenty-five

I
stumble down the hall, looking for Dante and Mr. Darby, and instead find the short, compact figure of Harry Houdini waiting for me.

He smiles. “I couldn’t leave without congratulating you on your performance. You really
are
a magician, Anna.”

Tears prick at my eyes, but I blink them away. “Thank you, Mr. Houdini.”

“And your mother. She is as lovely as I remember. Did she tell you that we knew each other long ago?”

His voice is mild, but his eyes are not. The look he levels at me burns right down to my soul. “Yes. She did,” I answer simply.

“Ah. I thought she might.” He pauses. “I must go. Please give my regards to your mother and again, congratulations on a fine performance.”

He turns to leave, but I catch his sleeve. I may never get another chance to ask. “Are you a . . .” I catch myself and rephrase the question. “
Do
you have psychical powers, Mr. Houdini?”

He laughs, his eyes amused. “You must have been reading the ravings of my former friend, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”

“Anna!”

I hear Mr. Darby calling from behind me, but I press on. “Do you?”

Houdini’s face stills. “I’ve said it before and I will say it again. I do not. Now, you should go; your friend is calling for you.”

Frantically, I send out a ribbon only to find it . . . blocked.

With another unreadable look, the great magician turns and walks down the hall.

I stand there looking after him, loss, grief, and desolation warring in my chest. Without another word, I turn to where Mr. Darby and Dante are waiting for me.

I accept their congratulations woodenly as we wheel the table to the waiting truck.

Cole is fidgeting outside when we come through the doorway. I stand slightly away from the group as the table is loaded into the back.

“Careful now.” Mr. Darby grunts, gripping his end. “This thing is worth its weight in gold.”

I don’t tell him that I’m not sure I have the heart to use it again.

Ezio is waiting to take his son home. I can’t tell which one is prouder, Dante or his father. I bend and give Dante a hug. “You were wonderful.” I hand him a five-dollar bill, which he pockets.

“Anytime you need me, I’m your man!”

I watch them leave, the father’s hand on his son’s shoulder.

Without a word, Cole’s arm folds around me. I tilt my head back to look into his eyes. He’s hardly spoken to me for days, but he knows without a word how I’m feeling.

I give him a small half smile, liking the feeling of his arm across my shoulder. I shuffle closer, noticing Mr. Darby has already climbed into the truck to leave us alone. I want to tell Cole that I’m sad and confused and lonely. I want to tell him how much I love my mother and how much I hate her at the same time. I want to tell him how desperately I wish she loved me back the same way I love her. I want to tell him how I feel about Houdini, who may or may not be my father. “I forgot my coat,” I say instead.

“Do you want me to go get it?”

I shake my head, thinking of the scene I just left. “No.”

“You’ll get cold,” he objects.

I move even closer into the protective circle of his arm. “No, I won’t.”

Heat flares in the depths of his dark eyes and his arm tightens, but all he says is “We should get home, then. We need to get the table unloaded and return the truck. Besides”—he looks up at the sky—“I think it’s going to snow.”

The ride home is quiet. Cole keeps his arm around me and I’m grateful that he doesn’t press me for answers to the questions I sense swirling in his mind.

The first flakes are falling as we unload the table. After we put it away, Mr. Darby leaves to take the truck back before the snow starts to accumulate.

“You want to tell me what happened?” Cole asks, handing me a cup of tea. We’re sitting at the kitchen table, the fire from the stove warming my frozen limbs.

I stare at the steam coming off the tea as tears sting my eyes. Putting my head in the crook of my arms, I sob until I can’t sob anymore. I hear Mr. Darby return, but he slips out as quietly as he came in.

I wipe my eyes and then tell Cole everything from the very beginning. I tell him about seeing the
Titanic
sink and the time I envisioned stacks of dead bodies in the street just before the Spanish flu made that vision a reality. I tell him about my fear of policemen and about all the menial jobs I took in order to research clients. I tell him about my mother’s obsession with Harry Houdini and how badly I wanted to believe he was my real father.

I talk until I’m almost hoarse, and as the words pour out of me, I realize how much time I’ve spent alone, waiting for my mother to come home.

At some point during my monologue, Cole places his hand over mine. I become aware of his concern as I wind down with the scene in the dressing room. I don’t tell him about talking to Houdini. It’s too personal, and I don’t know how I feel about it yet.

“Do you think your mother loves Jacques, too?” Cole asks.

I raise a shoulder. “I don’t know if she’s even capable of love.”

“Everyone’s capable of love, missy,” Mr. Darby says from behind me.

He takes my untouched cup of tea and pours it down the sink, then adds water to the kettle and puts it back on the stove to heat. I wonder how much he’s heard about my visions and decide I don’t much care.

“Your mother did the best she could with the talent and beauty God gave her. She was a woman alone raising a child, and instead of giving you up, she kept you with her. You spent your life traveling, meeting new people, and seeing new things.” He raises a hand when I try to speak. “No, what you saw wasn’t always pretty. Sometimes it was ugly and hard. But life is both the pretty and the ugly. Sometimes you were alone and afraid and hungry. Lots of people are alone and hungry.”

I sit silent, taking it in. Part of me wants to argue, but I’m too tired to find the words.

The kettle whistles and Mr. Darby makes me a fresh cup of tea. I notice for the first time that the sink is full of dishes and crumbs cover the counters. He sees me looking at the mess as he hands me my cup.

“The cleaning girl didn’t show up today. It’s so hard to find good help. Now drink this and you’ll feel better.”

I sip obediently.

“I don’t want to be too hard on you. Your mother is a cold woman. But I bet in all that travel you had some real good times too, didn’t you?”

I think of Swineguard, Kam Lee, and all the rest who went out of their way to befriend me and teach me how to survive. I nod reluctantly. Parts of our journey have been wonderful.

“There you go,” Mr. Darby says smugly.

“There I go what?” I’m irritated and exhausted and I hate being told that I’m wrong. It’s another thing I have in common with my mother.

“I think what he means is that you take the good with the bad because you don’t have a choice. That’s what life is made up of.” Cole gives my hand a gentle squeeze and I feel his sadness.

I wonder if he’s talking about the war. About losing his father. It’s no wonder he takes life so seriously. I squeeze his hand back.

Mr. Darby nods. “The question is, missy, what do you do now? You’re an adult, or will be soon. No one says you have to headline with your mother for the rest of your life. Sounds to me like she’s pushing you out of the nest, anyway. She has her work and a man who loves her. She’s taken care of. What about you?”

I can’t help it; I shoot a glance at Cole. His dark eyes are as calm and steady as they were the first time I met him. I glance away, not wanting him to see the confusion in mine.

What about me?
I wonder as Cole escorts me upstairs. This time he doesn’t put his arm around me. Instead, he surprises me by pulling me close. I rest my head against his chest and listen to the steady rhythm of his heart. Then I feel the block he always has up when he’s around me quaking. “Anna,” he murmurs, his hand rubbing gentle circles on my back. Suddenly a floodgate inside him opens, and a sea of warmth washes over me. Startled, I tilt my head back to find his dark eyes smoldering with something I’ve never seen, or felt, before. He bends his head and presses his lips gently against mine. I tremble and lean against him, letting our emotions swirl around us, merging and melding together, creating something altogether new. Too soon he lifts his head.

“Get some sleep,” he murmurs softly. “You’ve had a long day. We can talk more tomorrow. There are some things I have to tell you.”

I look up at him, my lips still burning, even though it had been merely a whisper of a kiss. “What things?”

Cole smiles and kisses me on the forehead. “Tomorrow.”

He waits until I’m safely inside and the door is locked before he heads back down the stairs.

The apartment is dark and chilly after the warmth of Mr. Darby’s kitchen. I flick on the lights and start up the heat, then I grab a throw and curl up on the sofa.

What am I going to do now? I know for certain that for whatever reason, Mother doesn’t want me in the show anymore. Especially after tonight.

But what do I want?

For years, I just wanted to have a normal home—a normal, respectable home with a normal, respectable family. A home just like this one. But when I finally got it, I started following Harry Houdini around like a lost child. I wonder what he was doing at the show tonight. He usually leaves mentalists who perform onstage alone. He seems to think them harmless entertainment. It’s the séances that he hates. If only I can convince Mother to give them up. At any rate, I won’t be participating in any more of them. I may not know what I want, but I do know what I don’t want. If we find ourselves out in the cold again, I’ll do what other people do when they need money—

I’ll get a job.

So if the great magician wasn’t there to discredit my mother, why was he there? For me?

My pulse quickens as I remember how he asked if I knew that they had known each other.

What if everything my mother told me is true? What if Harry Houdini really is my father? What if I
did
get my abilities from him?

I sit up, pulling the blanket tighter around me as I consider the thought. What would change if that were true? Would I be a different person? He would never acknowledge the connection. He is utterly devoted to his wife. So what would change?

Nothing.

Whether or not Houdini is my father, whether or not my mother loves me, I would still be me. A girl who loves magic. A girl with strange abilities. I will never be a normal girl. But maybe, just maybe, that’s all right.

Thinking about my abilities brings me back to my thoughts of Cole and I snuggle into the couch cushions, reliving the moment he kissed me.
I could love him,
I think drowsily. My body relaxes and I let sleep overcome me.

It’s the vision. I know as it’s happening that it’s not real, but I’m powerless to stop it. I’m being washed away on an ocean of distorted images. My mother, terrified. Her fear comes to me in waves of panic. My body, broken. I feel the warm stickiness of blood running down my face. He’s coming for me. Helpless. I’m so helpless. She’s screaming. I’m sorry, Mama. Then the vision shifts and I’m back in the water, my lungs burning for air. Then my mother’s face, her eyes wide with terror and grief.

She thinks I’m dead. And in that moment, I know just how very much she loves me.

I wake myself up, screams ripping from my throat. Bolting upright, I blink several times, completely disoriented. I wait for my mother to call out to me, to ask if I’m all right. Nothing. My heart pounds painfully in my chest. This wasn’t supposed to happen. With Mrs. Lindsay out of the picture, I wasn’t supposed to have another vision. But I just did.