Eli walked around his large house which fully decorated for Christmas. He had christmas music playing throughout every room and his front yard had a massive Christmas display. To Eli this was always a magical time of year. Yet he still felt something was off.

He sat at the table, scratching his pet dove’s neck. “I don’t know Judy, something feels off about all this,” he said as he took a sip of hot cocoa.

He then heard people singing carols outside as they walked down the street. “That’s it Judy, that’s what I need live music!” Eli exclaimed as he put his mug down hard on the table. The bird wasn’t impressed though and squawked at him and bit his finger. “That wasn’t very nice of you Judy, I guess it’s time for you to go back in your cage.” Eli summoned his want from thin air and aimed it at the bird which vanished from the table and into a portrait hanging in living room.

After that Eli headed outside to see if he could find the carolers. As luck would have it they had already approached his house and were currently admiring his display.

“Enjoying the show ladies?” Eli asked them as he stepped outside.

“Oh my goodness, it’s Eli the Extraordinaire!” one of the ladies exclaimed, recognizing the magician. “We didn’t know this was your house. You’ve done a wonderful display.”

Her two friends looked at each other wondering who this man was. “Wait wasn’t he the magician who’s assistant mysteriously vanished?” One of them realized.

Eli gave a short and fake smile to the ladies. “Well since you’ve heard of me, why don’t the three of you come inside, I could show you a few tricks free of charge,” he offered.

The ladies didn’t hesitate as they followed the man inside. One of the things they saw straight away, outside the decorations was the portrait of Judy. “That’s a lovely painting,” one of them complimented.

“Thank you, my assistant left it for me before she ran off,” Elie stated as he took the girls to his prop room with all his magical equipment. “Alright ladies I need one of you in the Zigzag box, another lying on the table and another holding that red cloth.

The girls got into position straight away as Eli walked over to the lady with the cloth first. “Okay What I need you to do is wrap that cloth around you everything below your neck is underneath,” Eli instructed. Once she did that, he grabbed the cloth and gave it a tug, causing it to pull away and making the lady’s body vanish in the process. He managed to catch her head before she fell to the ground and he held her while he walked over to the lady lying on the table. He placed the head down next to her leg and then grabbed his guillotine and attached it to the tabled before sliding it up to the second lady’s neck. With a pull of the string he separated her head as well and picked it up, placing it next to the first lady’s head. Finally he walked over to the zigzag box and grabbed one of his saws, all he did there was slide the blade through the top box before picking it up and opening it, taking the third lady’s head out and placing her with her friends.

“Thank you for your assistant lady’s,” Eli said as he placed them all on a tray he then took them out of the room, leaving the two bodies behind as he took them to his study.

“Wait what are you doing?” One of the ladies asked. “You said you were going to show us a few tricks, aren’t you going to give out bodies back now?”

Eli placed the tray on a coffee table. “First of all I never promised that,” Eli stated. “Secondly I usually charge people a restoration fee, but for you three lovely ladies I’d be more than happy to waver that cost if you sing carols for me up until Christmas.”

“But we are terrible singers!” They protested.

Eli looked down at them for a moment. “Weren’t you three caroling down the street a moment ago?”

“That wasn’t us, that was another group of people!”

Eli sat down feeling sad once more. He looked at the three heads and wondered what to do with them now. He wanted a group of people that could sing for him and it turned out that he grabbed three random strangers instead.

“Wait, those other ladies are still out there, they can’t have gotten far!” Eli realized as he jumped up off the chair and ran out of the room.

“Wait what about us?!” The three other heads called out but Eli was already gone.