The Haunted House: The Keys

by Vaughan

----------

"I knew it. We're talking to a control freak ghost,"
she complained. Turning to René she added, "I suppose you
want us to do more magic to each other to get the keys, if there
are any keys."

René looked pained by the accusation, but nodded to indicate
that we would be doing more magic. The prospect pleased me,
because being victim did not hurt and actually doing it was
exciting. Sally began to rant about the exploitation of women,
but I tuned it out and watched over René's shoulder as he
wrote an explanation that the keys had vanished into the fabric
of two of the illusions and could only be released by performing
the illusion in the correct way. He also noted that breaking the
illusion apart would mean that the key would be lost forever. I
relayed this to Sally and asked the ghost which illusions they
were.

After a fairly heated discussion, Sally said she would give it
a try, but if there was no key when they were finished, she would
leave.

René lead me to a prop that looked like a pair of back-to-back
chairs with a double head box mounted on the joint back. I put
away the disembodied princess illusion and carried the next one
to the cleared area in front of the mirror. René wrote a note
saying he would give me the instructions and I was to pass on
anything on to Sally. Sally seemed suspicious of this arrangement,
but agreed.

The first instruction was to sit on the chair, with our heads
in the head boxes. I sat down straight away and then waited for
Sally to finish arranging herself on the other seat. The next
instruction was the remove the blade from the holder under the
seat and place on our laps so we could get it later. The next
instruction, which worried me a bit, was to shut the door on the
front of the head box. I asked how I going to get instructions.
René demonstrated by putting his hand with the pad through the
side of head box. When I heard Sally's door shut, I shut my
door.

I called out, "Sally, can you hear me?"

"Yes, I can hear you. What do we do now...?" came
the slightly muffled replied. "On second thoughts, don't
tell me. Let me guess. I'm going to be expected the push
this blade into a slot in the bottom of this box and through my
own neck."

A ghostly hand appeared in front of me with its thumb upraised.

"René says that's exactly what you've got to
do. And me too." I interpreted.

"That figures!" came Sally's voice.

"Tell me when you're ready. That way I won't do
whatever comes next before you're ready," I called.

I felt in my lap for the blade. It was obvious from the width
and the wooden handle on the edge which way it was to be inserted.
I reached up with one hand to locate the guide slot in the bottom
of the box. It felt wrong as I located the leading edge of the
blade into the slot. I gently slid the blade down the slot until
I felt the edge against my neck. I felt in a terrible quandary,
should I or should I not. I decided that if it hurt I could stop
quickly, so I would try it. At that moment I heard the sound of
Sally's neck blade slicing into place. I felt slightly
shamed, by being beaten to the cut by a girl. I applied pressure
to the handle and felt the tickle of the blade travel round my
neck as the handle smoothly settled against the bottom of the
front of the box.

A ghostly sheet of paper became visible in front of me. The
glowing writing on the page said, "Reach down to your left.
Turn the handle two turns."

I reached down careful and found a handle that I had not
previously noticed. My first thought was which way should I be
turning the handle, then I realized that magicians are used to
saying what they mean, without meaning what they say, so I turned
the handle two turns clockwise. As I turned the handle its two
turns, I could feel the bottom edges of the head box, which had
been resting my shoulders lift.

"What's happening?" asked Sally.

I felt up to neck to find a two-inch gap between the stump of
my neck and the blade under the box. I answered Sally's
question by saying, "I think I've lifted the head box
an inch or two clear of our necks."

The sound of groping and tapping came behind me, as Sally
discovered what I had. "So you have. What happens next?"

I was about to return, "I don't know," when
another sheet from the ghostly pad materialized before my eyes.

Written on the was, "Reach down to your right. Turn the
handle two turns." This note had been made from the former
note by scribbling out "left" and inserting "right"

I reached down and discovered the other handle, which I had
also overlooked. I began to turn the handle and instantly felt
dizzy, but having been instructed to, I carried on turning. The
sensation was a bit like feeling you get in a twisted room at a
theme park, but instead of vertical being in the wrong place,
there was a rotary component. I put up my left hand and found out
the cause of the dizziness. The double head box was rotating on a
pivot in the chair backs.

Suddenly, the rotation stopped.

"Did you stop the head box going round?" I asked.

"Yes," responded Sally, "I was getting dizzy
and I'm getting tired of this playing around."

"But I was told to do two turns and I only just done one,"
I objected.

René's hand appeared between my face and the closed door
to my end of the head box. The hand bore a note saying that it
was all right and that I should turn the left handle back two
turns. As expected, the head box resumed its place on top of our
necks.

A further note told me that it was time to remove the blades.
I passed this good news on to Sally, who immediately pulled the
blade from the head box above her body.

I had the most bizarre feeling. The first three things I could
positively identify as being wrong were a very tight constriction
around the base of my ribs, my hands were pulling at the handle
of the blade, when a moment before they had been at seat level
and my feet pointing down towards the floor. These three things
lead me to suspect something that I hoped would not be the truth.
I reached up the hands and used them to open the door on my end
of the head box. Part of my suspicion was confirmed, by the fact
that the view out of the box was not the same view I had seen as
I closed the box. My point of view had been turned through 180
degrees, which could only mean that the body under my head was
not mine, but Sally's. I brought a hand into view and it was
Sally's hand, but completely under my control.

I leant forward and tried to stand, but the unaccustomed high-heeled
shoes and the change of balance cause by having breasts instead
of just a chest, sent me sprawling on the floor. I, for the
briefest moment, was worried about what Sally would say if I got
her precious dress dirty. This thought was immediately trampled
into insignificance by the more dreadful thought, "What is
Sally going to say about my apparent usurpation of her body?"

With my mind occupied by fevered imaginings of Sally's
reaction, Sally's body had picked itself up and turned me to
look at the apparatus. I tried to take a step and nearly fell off
Sally's shoes. It seemed to me that being a head on a
strange body was like being a hijacker, in that while a hijacker
can tell the pilot to take him to Cuba, if he took direct control
he would soon be in trouble. So I could think about where I
wanted this body to go, but if I attempt to take direct control,
I would probably end up flat on Sally's back.

After this short introspective period, I return to the world
of here and now. It sounded as if Sally was screaming
incoherently inside the half of the head box resting on the
shoulders of my male body. I looked over at René. He seemed
amused by the situation, but had a note already written. The note
said, "Pull the other blade to get the key." I stopped
for a moment to think about what to do, that would cause least
trouble.

I took my courage in my hands and tapped on the box. The
response, after a moments pause, was a torrent of abuse and
colorful phrases, the gist of which was, "What have you
done to my body? I can't feel a thing below my neck. You've
vanished my entire body, haven't you?" after the
threats and swearing had been removed.

Speaking clearly, so as to be heard, I told Sally, that her
body had not been vanished, but I thought I could give it back to
her if she really wanted it back now, the catch was that we were
one step away from getting the first key. René nodded to
indicate I was telling Sally the truth. I added that she was
probably not going to like the result of the last step, but she
could have her body back after that.

Sally seemed calmer this time. The phrase, "Get on with
it you idiot," came from the box, with the proviso that she
got her body back as soon after the key was obtained as possible.

Standing to the side I pulled the blade that separated the top
of Sally's neck from the bottom of mine. As the blade slid
clear of the box, a tinkle of metal on the floor indicated that
the first key had been released from the illusion.

I allowed the body my head stood on to crouch down and scoop
up the key. I wondered where to put it, but the body seemed to
have the answer. It carried the key to where my jacket was hung
and dropped it into a pocket.

By this time Sally had come to a full realization of the
bizarre situation. I could not decide whether our heads had been
swapped or was it our bodies. Whichever way round it was, Sally
evidently did not approve. She also pointed out that I had
promised to give her body back as soon as the key was secured.

"Why don't you look on this as a unique opportunity
experience what it is like to be a man?" I asked, mainly
because I would quite like to have borrowed this body for an hour
or two, to experiment with ways of turning it on.

"I suppose, next you were going suggest that we have sex,"
she accused, using my lungs to power her vocal cords.

"Well, I hadn't actually thought about it, although
it sounds like a fascinating idea. On the other hand, I didn't
bring any condoms. The evening wasn't planned to involve sex...
Unless you brought some?"

"You're disgusting, you are!" she shouted at me.

"You brought it up!" I countered.

We stood there fuming for a minute, until Mr. Plustard waved
another note at us. This one read, "You've got the
first. Do you want to go for key number two?"

Before I could answer, Sally said, "Of course, we do. I've
been vanished and deprived of my body twice already. I'm not
giving up now until we get the prize. What do we have to do next?"

"Don't I get a say in this?" I objected.

"Don't you want to inherit half of the magician's
estate?"

"Of course, if there's a chance, but this is all
getting a bit weird and I need some time to think."

"If you were still in your man's body I'd knee
you in the nuts. We've survived everything our spirit friend
has thrown at us. I think we have done the worst, anything else
has got to be easier and therefore more fun. Besides, I'm
sure you can put up with some really serious weirdness for sixty-eight
million."

"And where, pray, did you get that figure from?" I
asked.

Her answer surprised me. "It was half the figure
mentioned on that sheet the organizers gave us as the value of
the estate when he died. I suppose it is worth heaps more now,
after twenty-odd years."

"Less whatever his relatives have spent," I sniped
back.

"That's very much beside the point. We have um..,"
She looked at my watch and continued, "Four hours to kill,
before dawn for this charity thing, which I, for one, intend to
spend productively. You've got to admit that we've had
some unusual experiences. And if we end up rich so much the
better. I'm not going to let you get in my way."

I capitulated, saying that if she wanted to carry on I would
not stop her. She seemed satisfied.

She turned back the René, who looked a bit too smug. "OK
Mr. Plustard, How do we get the second key?"

René began to write in his notepad.

I asked if we had to stay in each other's bodies. He
indicated that we would be better in our own bodies and dressed
in something less formal.

I sat on the seat where I had sat before in a different body
and positioned my head in the box that Sally's head had so
recently occupied.

"And why are you sitting there?" asked Sally.

"Because I know how to operate this device from here. So
tell me when you are ready with the blade in place." I shut
the door on the front, locate the blade and slammed it through my
neck.

After a longer time than I expected, Sally called that she was
ready. I turn the left handle two turns, rising the head box from
our shoulders. I then raised the pair of hands I controlled,
which turned out to be Sally's, I rotated the head box a
half turn by hand, rather than take my chances with the right
hand handle. I used the left handle to lower the box onto our
respective shoulders.

I put my hand to the blade and hesitated. I reasoned that if I
used the hands I controlled to pull that blade, I would be re-uniting
Sally's head and body, without gaining control over my own
body until Sally chose to pull the blade between my head and body.
I felt uncomfortable about this possible situation.

"Sally," I called, "are you ready to pull your
blade?"

A muffled reply of "Yes" returned.

"Great, On the count of three."

"OK"

"One ... Two ... Three!"

As we dragged our respective blades from the slots in the head
box, The moment of being in charge of my own body once more was
ecstatic. Before opening the door in front of my face, I sat a
while treasuring the sensation of being back in my body.

There was a tap on the door and Sally said, "Are you
alright in there?"

I opened the door and stood from the seat. I swept Sally into
my arms and kissed her fervently.

"What was that for?" asked Sally in voice that
blended curiosity and offense.

After a moments thought, I replied, "Aren't I
allowed to kiss the head whose body I just now borrowed?"
and we both dissolved into helpless laughter.

It was about five minutes before we were coherent enough to
think of what we were going to do next.

I opened my backpack and extracted the items we had not
previously eaten and a flask of coffee. While we were settling
down, we asked René what to expect. He was tight lipped about
the nature of what we were going to be asked to do next, but he
did suggest that we use some of the less formal costumes from the
costume trunks as our current attire was entirely unsuitable.

Once we had cleared up the food, we went to the wardrobe
trunks. René was good enough to indicate to each of us which
type of costume would be most appropriate to the effect which
would reveal the second key to us.

I went behind the screen first and changed into a plain white
T-shirt, white shorts and white gym shoes. Sally went behind the
screen and soon emerged wearing a pale blue T-shirt and a short
skirt in a darker blue. The ghost of the magician, showed her a
note and she went back behind the screen and a little while later
came out again.

Curiosity overcame me, so I asked, "What did the note say?"

"Well, Mr. Nosey, it said 'No Bra,'" she
said, tweaking my nose. Sure enough, when I checked she was quite
obviously bra-less. "Put your eyes back in your head, John.
If we're going to be working together, we're going to
have to get used to each other."

"Working together? Who said anything about that?" I
asked, although the prospect appealed.

"Weren't you paying attention earlier?"

"What to?"

"René, when he told us why he wanted us to inherit his
estate. He said, ... well wrote, that he wanted to pass on his
knowledge to us to preserve his heritage and name and that means
long nights practicing and inevitably at least some performances.
I suspect that we are already being groomed to be the magical
sensation of the decade," she explained. "I don't
think my studying law or your physics, will be of much value to
us, when we have to put together a show, do you?" she added.

I was in awe of her memory and deduction. "So, how do you
feel about this?" I asked.

"I'll tell you when we have the second key."

"Well, for my part I like the idea, even though it wasn't
comfortable being sawn in half. I like you, you have got a great
personality in a great body. I think, if we could stop arguing,
we would make a good team," I admitted.

"We don't argue!" Sally objected.

"Yes, we do!" I retorted.

She immediately saw the funny side and giggled.

When the giggles subsided, we shook hands, which evolved quite
quickly into a hug.

We disengaged after about a minute. René stood there smiling.

"I think we're ready for the next ordeal," I
commented, "Lead on!"

René led us to a section of mirror and pointed to a section
of the mirror and made motions of pressing a particular place in
the mirror. I pressed the section indicated and much to my
surprise, it yielded and there was a rumble as a large section of
mirror swung back and slid sideways. Behind the mirror was a
black curtain, which I pulled aside. Beyond the curtain was a
large room, dimly illuminate from the main room. This room was
mostly crammed with equipment, except for an area about ten feet
from the mirror, where there were two low pedestals. René showed
us where the light switch was and how to close the mirror so we
could see what was happening. We switched on the light and closed
the mirror. The lighting was such that only the area immediately
around the podia was illuminated, making the equipment seem more
mysterious and threatening.

René told us to stand on a podium each and press the button
on the top with a foot each time the machinery stops. He informed
us that once it had been through a complete cycle the key we
needed to the inheritance would drop from the ceiling.

Sally was the first to step on to a podium. "Are we
supposed to place our feet on the foot marks up here?" she
asked. The ghost gave an affirmative nod.

I jumped up onto the other podium and positioned myself on the
painted footmarks on the top. I could now see the button the
shade had mentioned; it was red.

"Are you ready?" I asked Sally.

"Yes, ready as I'll ever be," she answered.

"Before I press this button, René, what is this illusion
called?"

Mr. Plustard scribbled, "It has not been given a proper
name, but I think of it as my Multi-illusion."

Not getting any feel for what we might expect from such a
thing, I pressed the button.

For a few moments silence reigned, then a whirring noise began
to emanate from the gloom around us. The first movement I noticed
was metal bars with metal clamps on the end, these extended from
the darkness and clamped each of mine and Sally's forearms.
These bars gently rose and rotate so that our arms were raised to
level with our shoulders and straight out. The next things to
appear from the dark were two cabinets that quickly enfolded us,
so that both our bodies were enclosed in a narrow cabinet each
with only our arms, legs and heads outside.

Another pair of contraptions rolled out of the dark. These
looked like a cross between an industrial robot and a Victorian
dentist's drill. These devices rolled towards our sides and
halted. To our combined horror they each reached back into a tall
basket behind them and brought out a very real looking sword.
What happened to Sally I do not really know, because I was
concentrating on what was happening to me, but as the result was
the same as it was for me, I assume the same was happening to her.
The machine leveled the sword at the box and pushed it forward.
For a moment I thought it was going to miss the cabinet, but with
the point of the sword level with the side, the sword was swung
forward so that it located in a slot in the side of the box and
swiftly re-emerged from another unnoticed slot on the other side
of the cabinet. As it entered the flesh at the top of my right
buttock, it felt as if I was being prodded by a palette knife and
the same feeling announced the sword's emergence from just
above my left hip. Experimentally, I tried to move but found that
the restriction on my movement imposed by the tightly fitting
cabinet had been increased by presence of a sword through my
abdomen. The arm had reached back into its basket and withdrawn
another sword, which with the smooth efficiency of a machine it
inserted through a slot near the front of the near side and out
through a similar slot to the rear of the other side. The sword
went from the front right to the rear left of my belly. The
machine implacably drew another sword and pushed it mercilessly
through the box and between my lowest ribs. This sword had the
blade horizontal, unlike the previous two, where the blade was
vertically aligned. The next sword also had its blade horizontal,
but once it had been located in the flat slot under my arm, the
angle of the blade was changed before pushing it through my
immobilized and unresisting body. The change of angle was such
that the tip of the sword came out of a slot in the top of the
box above my left shoulder. The final sword was inserted in a
matching slot in the top above my right shoulder and appeared
through a slot below my left arm. The arm reached back into the
basket and removed a gloved hand, which it proceeded to wave in
front of the cabinet. I would have laughed if my transfixed state
had permitted it. The robotic mystical passes completed the
device dropped the hand back into the basket and withdrew a yard
or so. The silence that followed lasted three seconds, before the
machinery with a whir opened the double doors on the fronts of
both of our cabinets. I could still feel the entry and exit point
of each of the five swords as if I was being pressed quite hard
with a round ended piece of metal, but in the mirror in front of
me all I could see inside the cabinet was the blades of the five
swords. The room fell silent.

I looked about and finally noticed Sally in the same
predicament.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

"I've been run through by five swords and my body
vanished, although this time I can still feel it. What do you
think?" she replied.

"So you're alright then."

"Well, I was the one who said it couldn't get any
worse. Next time I say something stupid like that, kick me."

"I'd love to, but I'm a bit stuck at the moment,"
I rejoined.

"Do you think we should press the button again?" she
asked, "Come to think of it I don't think I can quite
reach mine."

"I think we should, if only because I haven't a clue
how else we might get out of this mess we seem to have got
ourselves into," I observed.

"Who got us into this mess?" Sally said archly.

To forestall the probable argument, I wiggled my foot to the
button and pressed it.

Before Sally could get into her stride about it being my fault
that we were in this preposterous situation, the illusion machine
audibly cranked up.

"You could warn a person when you do something like that,"
Sally complained.

The robot arms once more waved the fake hands in front of the
now closed boxes, with mechanical assurance extracted the swords
and withdrew to the unlit edges of the room. The cabinets
unfolded from about us, leaving us held by the forearms, but
otherwise free on the podia.

I quick self-examination showed that the T-shirt I wore now
had ten slits in its fabric. I looked over at Sally who had
noticed the same thing on her clothing. "I can see why we
were told to wear something cheap," Sally shouted over the
continuing rumble of the machinery.

More metal arms like the ones that restrained our arms reached
from the darkness and clamped round our ankles and necks. Our
arms were lowered and released but not before being handcuffed
together.

The next thing to happen was another cabinet. These cabinets
were constructed surprisingly rapidly about us by a ballet of
mechanical arms and other devices. The resemblance to the cabinet
for the disembodied princess was noticeable. The cabinets each
consisted of a box that covered the occupant from neck to hip,
the bottom of my shorts and the hem of Sally's skirt were
visible. The clamps round our ankles then moved up our legs until
we were both held by our thighs just at the lower edge of our
clothes. The last bit preparation that the machines did was to
wrap foam padding over our heads so that only our faces and the
backs of our heads were exposed to view.

The machinery fell silent for a moment. The silence was the
more oppressive because our ears were covered in foam padding.
The sound, when it came, seemed like a very quiet clicking. The
cause of this noise soon came into sight. From the ceiling
descended two claw-like robot hands. One hand clamped over Sally's
head, the other over mine. I was glad of the encasing foam
because the grip was rather hard. I had just enough breath to
make a pointed comment about the excess pressure to René.

True to form he smiled and watched without comment. Before I
could start berating him for his attitude to his potential heirs,
the hand gripping my head began to turn and the grip on my head
was such that my head was being turned to my right. I glimpsed in
the mirror Sally's wrapped head being turned in the opposite
direction. My neck felt strange, as I was not turning my head but
my body, and there was quite a bit of tension in my side like
cramps but not so painful. The mechanical hand continued to turn
our heads far beyond anything that would be physically possible.
After three-quarters of a turn, Sally and I were face to face. I
could see a tear welling up in Sally's eye. The rotation of
our heads continued until we were both facing front again for the
third time.

In the mirror I could see the glistening track of the tear on
Sally's cheek. The machine was ominously quiet, then a creak
was heard as the doors on the front of our confining boxes slowly
opened. Inside the boxes were our bodies twisted like wrung out
towels with our hands still handcuffed sticking out at odd angles.
The twisting had caused the T-shirts to ride up, baring both of our bellies.

The mechanisms fell silent.

A few more tears traced their way down Sally's face.
Through the foam covering my ears I could hear Sally whimper.

Trying to speak clearly but sympathetically, I asked, "Are
you alright, Sally?"

"What do you think? I've been twisted up like a
pretzel. Am I meant to be enjoying myself?"

"You haven't been twisted like a pretzel. Pretzels
aren't twisted this way," I commented.

"Pedant!" Shot back Sally.

"Sorry! I couldn't resist," I apologized.
"I was just asking why you are crying. I know, because it's
happening to me, that this is darned uncomfortable, but it doesn't
really hurt. And the predicament is very peculiar, but it's
nothing that I haven't seen in TV."

"No, it's not that. I'm just regretting being
so pig-headed and getting us into this mess. What if this bizarre
contraption breaks down?"

"If it helps," I offered, "think of the money!"

She tried to nod her head, but the machinery held it rigidly.

"Are you ready for the next stage of this?" I asked,
"It can't get any worse."

"Don't say that!" said Sally, "I said that
after the head-swap and look at us now."

"OK, so let's get it over with. I'll press the
button on 'three'. One... Two... Three."

On "Three" I moved my foot on to the button and
pressed.

The quiet was suspenseful. After ten seconds, that felt like
as many minutes, the doors on the fronts of the cabinet creaked
closed and our heads began to be untwisted. Once we had been
twisted back three turns, the cabinets were disassembled and
taken away. The machinery paused.

I took the opportunity to check myself for any damage caused
by the twister. The only thing I noticed was that the twisting
had elongated the sword slits in our T-shirts.

Once again the machine clattered into life. As before the
first thing it did was to change our restraints. The new
restraints were at our ankles, wrists and necks. The new cabinet
the machinery built was like a cocoon, seemed to be a frame of
thin tubes covered by a sheath of overlapping pieces of black
stretchy fabric, leaving only our feet, hands and heads visible.
The mechanism paused again.

"What do you think is going to happen this time?"
asked Sally.

"Haven't the foggiest idea," I replied, "It
doesn't look like anything I've seen before."

When things started to happen, we did not notice anything at
first except a soft ratcheting noise. The feeling in the wrist
restraints changed subtly. It took us a few moments to identify
why we felt strange. Eventually, Sally noticed that our hands had
been moved down the cocoons and they were already level with our
knees and continuing on down. The stretchy cloth covering the
frame seemed to be stretched in such a way that as the wrist
restraints moved the covering parted and closed again. Soon our
hands were at the bottom of the cabinet and could touch the
pedestals we stood on. Almost immediately, I felt my feet leave
the podium and watched in horror as my left foot traveled up the
front of the cabinet and my right foot disappeared from view up
the back. A squeal of surprise from Sally confirmed to me that
something similar was happening to her.

"I think I know what this thing is, now," I
commented.

"Oh, do tell, Mr. Know-it-all."

"This seems to be a variation of an illusion called the
Stretcher," I explained.

"The what?" she asked.

"The Stretcher. Surely, you've seen that one."

By this time our right feet had stopped at about chest height
and left feet were continuing up our backs.

"Well, I haven't! Please explain!" said Sally.

"It's the one where the assistant gets into a huge
cabinet and sticks her head, hands and feet through holes in the
front of the cabinet. The magician hypnotizes her and then
stretches her by pulling her hands and feet to the extreme
corners of the cabinet and moving her head to the top and then
the bottom. There is usually a point where the assistant's
head is turned upside-down as well," I explained.

"So, This is a variant of the stretcher?"

"Yes. I've never seen it done, but I've read
about it. The variant is normally called 'The Body Slide'.
I thought it was a fictitious illusion, until now. Basically,
instead of stretching the victim in vast cabinet, the exposed
parts are just rearranged around the cabinet in impossible
positions."

"Then, what happens?"

"You don't want to know," I commented.

"Yes, I do!" Sally insisted.

Our left feet had moved over our shoulders by now and were now
level with our right feet. I braced myself for what I thought was
coming next. The feeling from the collar and the gasp of surprise
from the other cocoon told me that our heads were on the move
from their accustomed positions. I was taken a bit by surprise,
because instead of going forward down the front, my head was
moving sideways over my shoulder and down the side.

"Come on, Oh wise one! What are we in for, after our
parts have been rearranged?" asked Sally.

"Well, the truth is I don't really know," I
conceded, "but in the stories I've read a bridge is
fitted between the cabinets and things get very sexy as parts are
swapped between the cabinets. Then the extremities are removed
from the cabinet with the cuffs. The stories don't seem to
agree on what happens next. But all that is just fantasy. I
reckon we will just be restored ready for the next illusion."

By this time our heads were doing gentle 360-degree rotations,
as were our feet.

"So, what's going on with our bodies?" she
asked.

"The stories never seem to say, but I can still feel mine
as if it just standing inside this cabinet. Does yours?"

She responded, "I think mine feels the same, but how come
bits we can see are wandering about?"

The ballet of seemingly disconnected extremities continued.

"Let me think," I said, scratching the back of my
head with a passing hand. "Either our parts are disconnected
or we are performing some extreme contortions without knowing it.
I suppose our bodily sensations could be on hold."

Our heads returned to the tops of the cabinets, while our feet
and hands performed improbable gyrations. I yielded to the
temptation of removing the gym shoes and tossing them into the
enveloping dark.

"Why did you do that?" asked Sally with an air of
suppressed disgust.

"I'm not sure, really." I replied. "I
wanted to make sure that they were really my feet and they are,"
I rationalized.

I was going to add that my feet were feeling hot, which they
were not, when something new occurred. A mechanical arm reached
forward from the stygian blackness and installed a bridge between
the two cabinets.

"You know I was talking about a bridge between the
cabinets, so that things can be transferred from one cabinet to
the other." She nodded. "I think it has happened."

"You mean our bits are going to get shuffled together!"
she exclaimed, "But that's worse that having our heads
swapped."

"What ever happens, we are going to have to endure it,
because there is no turning back."

We watched in dismay as Sally's feet began to cross the
bridge from her cabinet to mine. My hands went up the front of my
cabinet as if to form a welcoming committee, while my feet when
round the back of my cabinet.

"I suppose your going to want to take my shoes off to
check that those are really my feet," observed Sally.

"If you don't mind," I conceded.

"If you must, but no tickling, I'm terribly ticklish."

"I'll be gentle with you," I promised.

As if on cue the whole thing stopped with Sally's feet
just below my left hand so I could undo the laces and above my
right hand so that I could remove the shoes and tossed then after
mine. I used my right hand to caress her left foot and Sally
burst out giggling. René rushed forward with a note, which he
waved at me.

The note read, "No tickling! It strains the mechanism."

I let go of Sally's foot and watched as the steady
movement of hands and feet resumed. All the feet collected
together at the foot of my cabinet, while my hands traveled over
the bridging-piece and onto Sally's cabinet. My cabinet had
all the feet and Sally's had all the hands."

Sally seemed to be purring for a short while, then said,
"John, are you playing footsy with me?"

"No, I was trying to avoid touching your feet, in case
you laughed too hard." Then the implication hit me. "You
were trying to play footsy with me and got the wrong feet. You
devious hussy, and you've been acting the innocent all
evening," I accused.

She had the decency to blush.

My left foot found its way across the bridge then her right
hand made the reverse journey. In short order all my hands and
feet were on her cabinet and her extremities were on mine. I
began to worry that another body swap was going to happen. It was
a kind of relief when Sally's head descended her cabinet and maneuver
itself across the bridge. My head moved to meet Sally's.
As our faces passed each other, I strained forward and gave her a
peck on the cheek.

"Hey, That's not fair," she objected.

"What do you mean 'not fair', I did warn you
that this thing gets quite sexy!"

My head was already half way across the bridge. It is rather
disconcerting to look down and see empty space below.

When both our heads had reached the summits of the cabinets
the machines came forward then dismantle the cabinets and release
us. As the first sheets of the fabric came from the frames I saw
the white distressed T-shirt within the cocoon where Sally's
head and extremities had come to rest. Glancing down I saw the
blue of the T-shirt that Sally had been wearing. It became
immediately apparent that whatever had happened to our bodies the
clothing had stayed in place. It was not until the frame had been
removed that I could tell that it was my body in Sally's
clothes and Sally's body in mine.

Once the restraints were completely removed and all the
mechanical movements and noises had ceased, Sally turned to me
and started laughing.

"What's so funny?" I asked.

"You!" she replied, "In a skirt."

I was about to riposte with some comment about having got into
her panties, when there was a swish of silk ribbon as the key,
that we had been through so much to obtain, dropped from the
ceiling and hung five feet from the floor between us. I leapt
from the podium and ripped the key from the ribbon.

Sally joined me and we hugged and danced.

After a while, the celebration slowed. I quickly got
embarrassed by what I was wearing. I suggested we go back into
the main room and change. I went first and changed back into my
suit, leaving Sally's panties hanging on the corner of the
screen. She used the time to switch off the lights in the multi-illusion's
room and close the mirror. She was soon back in her green dress,
but I saw her stuffing the panties into her purse.

We sat down and relaxed for a bit.

"Let me get this straight," I said, thinking aloud,
"We have here the keys to claim René's fortune,
whatever's left of it. But what are the keys to?"

"They're the keys to a safety-deposit box."

"Yes, but which box? In which bank?"

"How should I know!" Sally protested, "Anyway,
even if we did know we can't just waltz into the bank and
say we want to open this box with these keys we found; we'll
probably get arrested."

I put my fingers to my mouth and gave a shrill whistle.

"I wish you wouldn't do that," complained Sally.

"Next time, I'll warn you."

Mr. Plustard had re-appeared with a very long note about how we
were going to convert the keys into an inheritance. I read it out
and left Sally's legal mind to root out the flaws and
ambiguities. It seemed straightforward enough to me. Go to the
named law firm and convince them that we were genuine claimants
to the Plustard fortune. They would take us to the bank where we
would use the keys to open the box and take possession of the
deeds and other stuff. Sally wanted to know how we were supposed
to convince a bunch of lawyers that a pair of college students
were the heirs to the estate. René wrote that he would be with us
every step of the way, but we would need to take some things with
us when we went. I looked at my watch and noticed that it was
nearly time to emerge from hiding to claim success in the
challenge.

The list of things that we were to take with us was short. A
particular cloth and a dress, which René insisted Sally should
wear when we went to the lawyers.

In order not to create suspicion, I stuffed the dress and the
cloth into my backpack. Having thought of people being suspicious,
I wondered out loud how we were going to prove, if asked, that we
had spent the night here, instead of having ducked out the back.
The ghost indicated that we should follow him.

We were led to the hall where we had entered and through the
left-hand door. The room was obviously faked up with glowing
skeletons and huge rubber spiders suspended from the ceiling.
Through the dusty panes of the windows the predawn glow was
visible. René indicated a panel in the wall, which I pressed,
causing it to open. Behind the panel was a video recorder and a
monitor. I hit rewind on the video and after a few seconds
stopped it. I switched on the monitor and pressed play. The
images on the screen were a jumbled mess, the only stable part on
the screen was a rapidly advancing clock. I hit the pause button
and saw us sitting in the basement room, the time read about half
an hour ago. Satisfied, I hit rewind again and eject when the
tape stopped.

"That will prove we were here," I told Sally. She
agreed.

By now, dawn was in full swing, so we decided to make our exit
in style. Sally opened the door, in case it was still electrified,
while I unwrapped the foil on top of her champagne bottle. We
stepped out into the early May morning and to draw attention, I
popped the cork on the bottle.

We were soon surrounded by people congratulating us on have
spent the night in the mansion. They told us how much money we
had raised and it was a large sum. After the champagne was drunk,
we were taken back to college. I walked Sally home and then went
to my room and slept until the evening.

That evening, I met Sally to arrange our trip to the lawyers.
During the evening, one of the organizers of the stunt came to
ask how we had managed to remain the night, while all the scaring
crew had left about one o'clock in the morning, being far
too frightened to stay. I was ahead of him and gave him the
security video. I did wonder what they would make of the magical
effects we had performed. Later, I gave Sally the dress she was
supposed to wear to the lawyer's office.

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