Miss Mystery: More Minor Magic

Trying to organise stuff for Miss Mystery's first public show, turned out a lot more long winded than either Mike or Judy had expected. This was not helped by the emails from her always being received by Mike even it was a question for Judy, despite Judy supplying her email address and occasionally sending a reply directly from her account. Most of the emails concerned what Judy would wear and some suggestions of illusions. Mike's costume for the event had be finalised in three emails; he was to wear a plain white shirt, dark trousers, a dark waistcoat and black shoes.

Three weeks after their previous encounter, an email arrived that got them excited as well as puzzled.

Hi Mike and Judy,
Please meet Miss Mystery for a rehearsal at Barbara's Boudoir about ten Saturday morning.
Magda.

This came from a different email address than the one we had been using to discuss costume and content, which implied that Magda had a surname Møller. Having consulted with Judy that she was available, Mike sent back a reply saying that they would be there, but also asking why Magda was sending this email, rather than Miss Mystery.

The email he got back thanked him for confirming that he and Judy would be there and implied that Miss Mystery had stopped communicating with anyone, due to concerns about how this rehearsal would go. There was no real reference to Miss Mystery's fear that the magic might not work in front of an audience, but Mike inferred this was the reason for Miss Mystery's concern.

Another puzzling element was why they were meeting Miss Mystery at a lingerie shop in the Five Maples mall, but they assumed that this was a convenient rendezvous, before they went to wherever the rehearsal was going to be held.

Mike stayed over on Friday night and they enjoyed the evening together. Before they went to bed Judy laid out one of the outfits that Judy and Miss Mystery had been discussing; it consisted of a skirt and matching jacket in navy blue and a short-sleeved scarlet blouse with a white bow tie, which was Mike's.

In the morning the couple dressed in their outfits and headed for Five Maples. With the Saturday morning traffic they thought they needed to leave in plenty of time, but found that they got there with enough time to get a coffee. While they sipped at their coffees they were approached by a pair of young women who asked, "Are you Mike and Judy?"

The couple admitted that they were and asked how the girls knew.

"We saw you volunteer at that magic show. We were so jealous, we stood up to volunteer too. How was it, being sawn in half and having another woman's bottom half?" one of them asked.

They spent the next quarter hour chatting about magic shows they had seen and experienced. At about five to ten Judy glanced at her watch and said, "Sorry, we've got to go, we have an appointment that we'll be late for if we don't go now."

Mike and Judy got up to go and their new found friend, Monika, pressed a card into Mike's hand. He slipped it into his waistcoat pocket without glancing at it, then rushed after Judy in the direction of the meeting place.

They arrived at the shop with the name 'Barbara's Boudoir' across the shop front and found that the plate window and glass of the door had been painted white, except for a patch where a sheet of paper that told them that Barbara's Boudoir had relocated to an address in a nearby town. They were wondering whether they had come to the wrong address and how to get in touch with Miss Mystery to let her know that they would be late, because they had gone to the wrong address.

Their deliberations were interrupted, by the door opening and a woman putting her head round the door. "Good, you're here. Please come in."

As the door was opened wider Judy stepped through, followed by Mike. The interior of the shop was dim, primarily illuminated by light from the outside the whitewashed windows, but there was an area further back in the empty shop where a red curtain and a section of red carpet were reflecting light from a source that they could not see. In front of the area were four chairs facing away from the entrance.

The woman who had let them in said, "It is good you are aa punctual as Miss Mystery said you would be." Her accent had a Scandinavian lilt to it, which Mike recognised from the phone call that brought about their first planned meeting with Miss Mystery.

"I guess you're Magda," he said as he put out his hand towards the tall blond woman who was busy relocking the door. "It's nice to meet you in person at last."

"Yes, I'm Magda, but I can't stay long. I was asked to pass on some instructions and then I need to go out the back and let Miss Mystery know that you have arrived." She strode to the area where the red glow was most intense and asked them to sit. "She wants you, Mike, to go out and find an audience of two or three people. And while he does that, Judy, you should relax and think pleasant thoughts, so that you'll be ready for whatever happens." She stepped forward and placed a key into his hand. "This is the door key; you can let yourself in and out, but please keep the door locked when you are not using it; Miss Mystery says that any unexpected interruptions could cause problems and she is worried enough about what she is planning to do, without the unexpected happening too."

Magda turned and disappeared behind the curtain.

"You heard the lady, go find us a small audience. I guess you will need to be quite quick about it too, because I don't suppose that Miss Mystery will want to wait for long." Mike moved to the door. "And remember to lock the door once you're out, because I won't be able to relax properly if there might be people wandering in."

Outside with the door locked and the key tucked in his pocket, Mike wondered where to find an audience for Miss Mystery's first performance for an audience. It did not take long for inspiration to strike; the girls who had recognised them from a magic show they had volunteered in. He rushed back to the coffee shop, but they had gone. Out of desperation he asked the couple that were sitting at the same table, but got told they had more important things to do.

He went back outside, looking for likely prospects, when he remembered the card Monika had given him. He pulled it out and was relieved to see a mobile number. He called it and Monika answered.

"I know this will sound strange, but where are you?" Mike asked.

"We're heading back to the car, we've got what we came for and if we don't get out of here in the next few minutes, the price for the parking with tick into the next hour."

"What if I invited you to see a magic trick?"

Monika paused, clearly from the overheard but unclear conversation consulting with Keisha. "When?" she replied.

"Now," Mike answered. "Well, as soon as you can get there. My guess is it won't take more than half an hour. It's something like a rehearsal, but we want an audience so that we can get some feedback."

"Sounds good. We'll drop our shopping in the car, because we're nearly there, then head straight back to meet you. So where's that?"

"You know where Barbara's Boudoir is?"

"Haven't they moved into town?" queried Monika.

"Apparently so, but we are using their old shop as a rehearsal space. Meet me outside as soon as you can!"

"So, who's the magician?"

"She's called 'Miss Mystery'."

"Never heard of her," announced Monika.

"I think you'll like her. We hadn't heard of her before we accidentally found her either. Come and find out."

"Ok, see you there." Monika hung up, leaving Mike to wander back to the ex-lingerie shop and wait for their audience to arrive.

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Inside the shop, Judy tried to relax and was finding it difficult. On top of her reflections on Miss Mystery's worries that the magic might not work with an audience, she was also worried that the audience could be hostile to the magic and discourage their magician. A further anxiety was that she might find an audience frightening; yes she had been on stage as a volunteer before, but the audience had been invisible behind the stage lighting and it had been such a whirlwind that she had no time to fear looking stupid or anything that did not directly involve the magic.

It was a relief to hear the key in the door and Mike return with the young women that they had been talking to in the coffee shop. Their presence helped Judy relax, because she knew that they were friendly and enjoyed magic, so it would be more like doing this in front of friends.

As Mike asked Keisha and Monika to take seats, Magda returned from behind the curtain. "Miss Mystery says she is as ready as she can make herself. Please let me out and lock the door behind me, because I really need to go." While Mike opened the door, Magda added in a confidential tone, "All you need to do, my dear, is bring out the chair from behind the curtain and follow the instructions on the card on the seat." Mike was trying to fix Magda in his memory, in the hope of recognising her in future. He found there was already something familiar about her; but the long blond hair, blue eyes and the tall, but well-proportioned, figure with the Scandinavian accent did not recall anyone specific for him.

Mike made his way back to the chairs, telling Judy that Magda had left him some instructions and that they might as well get on with it. He went round the edge of the curtain that divided the shop. On the other side it seemed the same, but darker. It was not so dark that he could not tell that apart from the scatter of shop-fitting debris the only item of note here was the chair. The chair he thought he recognised as the same chair that had been occupied by Miss Mystery on their previous encounters with her.

As he lifted the chair to carry it to the other side of the curtain, it felt as substantial as it looked, but not excessively heavy. On the chair's seat was a sheet of white card with the word 'Mike' on it in marker pen. Across the crooks of the chair, where the arms met the back was a cloth-wrapped rod. Careful not to dislodge these items, Mike carried the chair to the outside of the curtain and placed it facing the small audience of three. He positioned it centrally and then moved it backwards to be closer to the curtain.

The card said:-

"Place chair in the middle of the carpet, and quarter of the way from the curtain to the front. Unravel the cloth and hold it in front of the chair, speak a summoning, then count to five and drop the cloth."

This did not seem to Mike to be much to work with, especially the part that said, 'speak a summoning'.

Mike thought, 'This is as cryptic as many of the notes and emails. It usually works if I follow what I understand and go with what inspiration comes for the bits I don't.'

He picked up the cloth and began to unfurl it, while allowing Judy, Monika and Keisha to get a better look at the chair. The hem of the red velvet cloth had weights sewn in, meaning that it hung from the rod without getting tangled with itself. When it was all unrolled from the supporting rod, it was four feet wide and five feet tall. He stepped forward and hid the chair from the audience.

This was the part he had been dreading for the last minute; speaking a summoning. Without knowing where the idea came from he lowered his voice and said, "Miss Mystery, I summon you!" In the same deep voice he counted to five, but he only made it to four when a hand tugged the rod from his grasp and began re-rolling the cloth onto the rod.

On the chair sat Miss Mystery in her crimson fortune teller/gypsy outfit. The three young woman facing her clapped. Quietly Miss Mystery said to Mike, "Very effective summoning, My Dear, but we may have to work on the words, perhaps a few more words and we can do away with the counting completely." Mike smiled at the praise, despite the caveats it came with.

Miss Mystery's green eyes were wide with what Mike interpreted as exhilaration and triumph. He was aware of her anxiety about performing for an audience that would not be participating in her magic and guessed that appearing in front of them had shown the magician that magic for an audience was possible.

"Welcome, My Dears, I am glad you found time to join us." Miss Mystery handed the furled cloth to Mike and suggested with a glance that he go to the remaining seat. "My name is Miss Mystery, may I have yours?"

"I'm Monika," said Monika, "and this is Keisha; we're roommates up at the college and huge magic fans, so the chance to see a new magician was a chance not to be passed up."

Miss Mystery seemed slightly taken aback by the enthusiasm in Monika's response. "So, you've seen a lot of magic, My Dears?"

It seemed it was Keisha's turn to speak. "We've seen a lot of magic and we've been involved in a lot too."

Keisha seemed to draw breath as if readying herself to tell of every occasion when they had be participants in the magic. Miss Mystery interrupted. "You'll know what you are looking at and be able to critique what we do, with something more than 'That was amazing!' Please, let Judy and Mike know what you thought, when we have finished; we will need some feedback if we are to put together a show that will be worth attending."

The two members of the audience nodded.

Miss Mystery leant backwards, reached behind her chair and brought forward a low folding table which she erected in front of her chair. Onto the table she scattered four nuts; a walnut, a brazil nut, hazel nut and a peanut in its shell. She invited the audition to gather round the table and watch; she asked Mike to video what she did next, in response to a suggestion that he had made in an email.

Mike picked up the camera that sat on a shelf and joined the group congregated round the table. As they watched, Miss Mystery passed her hands over the table hiding and revealing the nuts, which moved from place to place at her whim; covered by one hand and revealed from under the other. This was performed with grace in silence, except for occasional intake of breath that acknowledge the skill with which the nuts moved from one place to another without Miss Mystery ever seeming to touch them unless it was to move them in plain sight.

"Thank you, you may return to your seats, Monika and Keisha, to sit, and Judy, My Child, put her jacket over the chair and return to me. Mike, you'll find something behind the curtain, please bring it here and take the table with you."

The audience sat in the chairs and wondered what the next piece of magic would be. Judy also wondered this, but with more anticipation and fear. Mike, found the basis of the next act of magic, but felt none the wiser. He placed the table out of the way and picked up a tripod with a horizontal plate on top. It occurred to him that he did not remember seeing it when he had come to fetch the chair. A quick look round, brought to his attention a cushion, so he snagged that too, on the assumption that if it was not part of the intended act, he might get to sit on it to see what came next.

As he rounded the edge of the curtain returning to the reddish lit area, Judy returned to the area too.

Mike held up the items he had collected, in the hope of receiving some instruction about what to do with them.

"How considerate," observed Miss Mystery to Judy, "a cushion for you, My Child; it's almost as if he knew it would make things better." Taking the hint, Mike handed the cushion to Judy who stared at it puzzled about what use a cushion might be. "The stand goes here, My Dear," Miss Mystery said, reaching forward with a ruby-slippered toe to tap its proper location. Mike placed the tripod in the indicated position and stepped back to see what would happen next.

"My Child, please kneel so that when the time comes you can reach across the metal on top of the stand; the cushion will save your knees a bit, if you use it." Judy took this to mean that she should place the cushion on the floor next to the stand and kneel on it. While Judy arranged herself, Miss Mystery reached behind the chair and brought forth three wooden blocks about five inches in each dimension, which she placed on the plate. To the audience and Judy they looked like solid blocks, but from his higher position he could tell that they were square tubes. This Miss Mystery proved to Monika, Keisha and Judy, by turning each in turn, so that they could be seen through and placing each one back on the plate so that the tubes were sideways to the small audience.

"Put your arm through the tube, My Child. Mike, My Dear, have you got something that Judy can hold, to give her fingers something to do? A clean handkerchief or something."

Judy reached her arm through the tubes; she held the nearest section and Miss Mystery placed a hand on the remaining sections to prevent them from moving. As her hand emerged from the tube, Mike handed her a white cotton handkerchief.

Judy tried to wave the cloth square, but found that her movement above her wrist was very restricted; she settled for twitching it to show her hand was under her control. While she did her best to show that her arm reached through the combined wooden tubes, Miss Mystery once more reached behind her chair. From the shadows behind the chair came four pieces of metal, each five inches square, with a rim on three of its edges. The magician fanned the squares and showed both sides; they appeared to be plain and devoid of trickery.

Miss Mystery put two of the back to back, so that the unrimmed edges were together and the rims were outward. She introduced the unrimmed edges into the gap between top edges of the first two tubes and pressed the edges together to hold the pair of plates in position while she moved her hand away.

She leaned forward to whisper into Judy's ear. Only the apprehensive Judy heard her say, "This, My Child, is the moment of truth. If the magic is going to fail it will fail now."

Judy watched as Miss Mystery placed a hand on the uppermost edges of the twinned metal plates and pressed them down through the gap between the sections of the tube. She felt the edge press against her upper arm a little above her elbow; the pressure built to the level just short of painful, then there was no sensation from the blades at all.

Miss Mystery's green eyes sparkled with the joy of achieving what she had feared impossible and with renewed confidence repeated the process with the second pair of blades between the second and third sections of tube. Monika and Keisha clapped and clapped louder and more energetically when the magician pushed the central section toward them and then lifted it from the plate. She showed them the metal end caps she had fitted to the tube and placed it on top of the capped section next to Judy's shoulder. This isolated the remaining tube section on the other side of the metal plate with Judy's hand sticking out of it.

While the blades were being inserting into the gaps between the tube's sections, Judy had forgotten to continue moving her hand and Mike's handkerchief. She resumed the movement, more from an instinct to check that she still had control of the remote appendage, rather than any stagy motive, but the effect of demonstrating her hand was still alive, renewed the small audience's appetite to show their appreciation.

As the adulation of the small audience began to fade, Miss Mystery lifted the third block from which Judy's hand emerged and held it out to Mike. "Please show our audience, My Dear," she said.

Mike stepped forward stunned and hesitant, as if he had be asked to display his fiancée's severed head to the public. Judy considered giving him some encouraging words, but felt unable to formulate a phrase to express her acceptance and wonder at the situation; instead she moved her hand into a 'thumbs up' pose. This proved enough.

Mike took the tube section offered and displayed it to the audience, showing the square wooden tube capped with a metal plate at one end and sprouting a human hand from the other.

As Mike stepped forward to give the two audience members a closer look, Keisha asked, "May we touch it?"

Judy looked at Miss Mystery, because she wondered what it would feel like to have her hand touched at such a distance and detached, but also because she after a moment's consideration the question of whether an audience member touching a detached part was participation, rather than passive observation, struck as unresolved. Looking into the magician's eyes, she detected some worry that such interaction might invalidate the purpose of the rehearsal. "I think not. We are still working on this trick and wouldn't want to damage anything until we've got it better rehearsed," said Judy. Miss Mystery's green eyes and the hint of a smile under her veil, were all the approval Judy needed to feel she had given the right response.

The magician lifted down the middle section of the tube and pressed again the other section still on the tripod-supported plate while withdrawing the blades that separated them. Mike returned with the last section and held it in place while the magician removed the last pair of blades.

Mike and Judy both seemed at a loss, what to do next. "Stand, My Child," instructed Miss Mystery. Judy stood lifting the tubes that still surrounded her arm from the plate. The magician moved the plate and its stand to the side and gestured that Mike should remove the tube from Judy's arm section by section. He removed the first section and placed it back on the table, the other two sections followed. Judy's bare arm appeared to be none to worse for having been trisected.

Miss Mystery reached down the side of the chair and lifted the cloth-wrapped rod from where she had deposited it. Leaning forward she rapidly unravelled it until it touched the floor. With a hand gesture, she indicated that Mike and Judy should take an end each and continue the unfurling of the cloth. The assistants took over the task and Miss Mystery sat back in her chair. With the cloth completely unwound from the stick, both Mike and Judy glanced at the chair to find guidance about what the next move was. They were both shocked to see the chair empty and dropped the cloth, revealing the vanishment of Miss Mystery to Monika and Keisha.

The small audience applauded with enthusiasm. Judy went directly to them and asked, "What did you think?" Mike picked up and read the note that had been left on the seat. It read, "Get some feedback, lock up and return the keys to the information kiosk. Another rehearsal may be needed. MM."

Monika was first to express an opinion. "That was amazing! How long have you been practicing?"

"That was our first try of that one," admitted Judy, "But I felt quite confident that it would work out well, although Miss Mystery was more doubtful."

"So, what are you rehearsing for?" asked Keisha.

"It just a small charity show on an off night at the Maidens Theatre; it's on the 16th next month. I guess you could get tickets, if you wanted to."

"That's alright, we've already got tickets, but we didn't know who the magician was going to be; it just said 'Magic by a Mystery Magician'. We had hoped it might be a big name magician and they were being coy about it," said Monika.

Keisha added, "Or Jack; he was the first magician we ever volunteered for. Well, Monika volunteered and I got dragged in for the sake of an extra five hundred for the charity."

"I don't think Miss Mystery was totally sure she had what it took to perform for an audience, so, I guess, they hedged their bets in case she pulled out. I'd assume they had a backup plan. So, how do you feel about having tickets now that you've seen a sample?"

"I don't think we'll regret going, especially if we get to be audience participants," said Monika. "Any idea what we can expect?"

Mike shrugged. "Not a clue, but I don't think it'll be anything much flashier than that. We'll have to see if my hand was steady enough to act as cameraman as well as helper; otherwise the camera will have to be on a tripod. We'll be showing the small magic on the screen there, either way."

Keisha asked, "So, who is she? Who is this Miss Mystery?"

Judy paused to consider. "I'm not sure; we don't know her real name, but she has magic. And she seems to like doing magic on me. And I like the weirdness and the possibilities it offers." Judy had already decided that she was not going to tell what she had allowed to happen to her, at this stage in what she hoped would be the start of a friendship.

"So, you liked what you saw?" asked Mike and received emphatic nods in answer. "That's good, but is there anything you think could be improved?"

"Well, the costume is a bit much; veiled gypsy woman isn't that a bit passé?" offered Monika.

Keisha said, "The thing seemed a bit static; not much movement. If she and you are going to keep an audience amazed and entertained, maybe something more, I don't know, perhaps, dynamic would be needed. I get that it will probably work in a small situation, but maybe a bit more movement and pizzazz is needed for a theatre stage."

It occurred to both Judy and Mike that they had not seen Miss Mystery in anything other than the gypsy outfit nor anywhere apart from sitting in the chair.

Mike said, "I think we ought to be leaving and let our helpful audience get on with their interrupted Saturday."

The four were soon outside and Mike locked the door.

"Any chance we could have her contact details, Mike? I feel sure that she would be a hit at one of our parties or some similar occasion," asked Monika. Keisha nodded agreement.

"I'd love to, but she seems, to me, to be a very private person and I don't think it would be right for me to give you her email address or mobile number without asking her first. I guess I could give her your email address and she might get in touch, but no promises."

After a little more parting chat the two couples headed in different directions.

Once the keys were handed to a surprised assistant at the information kiosk, Judy asked, "Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?"

"No," responded Mike. "Do you?"

"No. Any suggestions?"

"Well," pondered Mike, "we could go into town and see the new location of Barbara's Boudoir, and you could perhaps model some of the lingerie for me."

They smiled between themselves as the headed for Mike's car.