Extreme Magic Vignette - Studio - Ann and Beth


Ann was cursing her soft-heartedness; how else could she explain being in the front row of the audience at another magic show. After the magicians' party, where they had waitressed, Beth had been given two tickets to attend this recording of Terry's magic show. Beth had invited her to come along and when Ann had suggested that Hannah would probably be a better choice of companion, Beth had said that she had already asked, but Hannah was substituting for Annika that evening; Ann did not know how to feel about not being first choice.

The show had been good, displaying some eccentric twists on some of the staples of magic and then they had been shown an illusion that had been filmed on location locally. Ann was beginning to think she might get out of the studio without getting involved in any magic; which suited her just fine.

Terry came forward allowing a couple of stagehands to set up some equipment in the middle and rear of the performance area. "Apart from Sandra and Jacob, none of you have seen my magic up close, except what you've seen it projected on the big screen." He was referring to the large projection screen that had been lowered from the lighting gantries above to show what the camera, that was closely following the action, was seeing. "So, I am going to invite two more of you to come down and be more involved."

This announcement resulted in a crop of raised hands, including Beth's, much to Ann's chagrin.

"The young lady in the front row and bring your friend as well." Beth's disbelief at being chosen was edited from the show as broadcast and then the action moved onto the introductions.

"I'm Beth," she self-introduced. "This is the second magic show I've been to, but I was working at the other one, so didn't get to see much."

Ann threw her friend a sceptical glance, because despite not being able to see exactly what had happened at the time she knew that Beth had been part of her being bundled into a wicker coffin and stabbed multiple times with swords.

"Thank you, Beth. I don't need an introduction to Ann, because she has helped me before."

Ann smiled at the memory of dancing on the lake with Terry and the glory of jet-skiing after the magic was done, the back of her mind also niggled at the horror of being driven through by that same jet-ski.

"For the next section of this show, I shall be vanishing one of you and the other will help me with my cross-bow act."

Ann heard the phrase 'cross-bow act' an immediately decided that she wanted nothing to do with it. "I'll do the vanishing bit; I'm sure that Beth is much braver than me."

"I sounds like Ann knows what she wants to do. Is that alright with you, Beth?"

"I guess? So, you're shooting me with the cross-bow are you?"

"The plan is it to shoot at you without actually shooting you," stated Terry.

"Ok, you have a willing volunteer for each of your tricks, or illusions or whatever," said Beth. "Which are you going to do first?"

"The vanish comes first, partly because it looks like Ann wants to get her bit over and done first. I think she wants to somewhere else before I start firing the arrows about."

Ann's nodding showed that she agreed with that assessment. "So, what are you going to be vanishing me from? And where will I end up? I'm guessing from what I've heard of you that a crystal casket or a plain trunk is a bit too straight-forward for you. I've always wondered what a Star Trek transporter would feel like, but I don't see anything like that here."

"I'd love to do something like that myself," Terry commented. "And, of course, there would not need to be anything here; we'd just beam you up, to wherever the equipment was. In fact we are going to vanish you from that box over there." He guided the attention of the audience to the piece of apparatus by going to it and dragging it to the centre of the performance area.

Ann was the first to comment; after all she was the intended occupant of the box. "It doesn't much like a box to me; it looks more like some fancy coffee table made of clear plastic stood on that stand."

"I guess does," said Terry. "In point of fact, it's meant hold the volunteer in an easy to hold position, so that are no problems when I bring them back; I assume you wanted to come back."

Ann's face expressed her horror at the thought of not coming back.

"Sorry; it's just that I meet a lot of very strange people. Rest assured I fully intend on bringing you back and you'll be able to see what's going on in your absence (because I wouldn't want you to miss out). The box is shaped like that so you get into a particular position and stay in it while you are away. Let's get you in here and vanished, so I can start firing arrows at Beth."

Beth did not have time to dwell on the prospect, because Terry positioned her with her forearms sticking forward from her body and pulled some panels from the odd-shaped box and piled the clear plastic sheets up on them.

"It's time to get you into the box, although it might be better if the shoes came off first."

Ann slipped off her shoes before asking how to get into the box.

"It's quite easy, you know you said it looked like a table, you kneel in this section, so that your thighs are inside the legs of the table at this end, then you lean forward and feed your arms down the legs at the other end. When you are in position, I'll re-fit the panels I just removed so that you can get in, then we can get you vanished and you don't need to worry about cross-bows."

Ann tried to kneel where she had been told, but her skirt was getting in the way and it took a few extra seconds to rearrange it in a modesty fashion and out of the way. While Ann was trying to work out her next move, Terry pulled a panel from the pile on Beth's arms and fitted to made the fourth side of the upright tubes that Ann was kneeling in and trapping her lower legs outside the box. Without much option she leant forward, tucking her arms down the hollow square tubes at the other end, this resulted in her lying forward on the plate that was supported by the table's legs, with her fingers emerging through holes at the bottoms of the legs and her neck resting in a semi-circular cut-out at the top of the far end of the table. She had little time to wonder what this meant, because Terry quickly fitted the top half of the stock trapping her head. A sliding sound announced to Ann the insertion of the table's top, putting some pressure on her back until she relaxed enough to trust her weight to the clear plastic sheet she was lying the front of her body on.

"Now that we have you locked in a box on your hands and knees, how are you feeling, Ann?"

"A bit nervous, because it's about at this point some magicians will say that they have changed their mind and decided to cut me in half or something equally ghoulish. I hope your plan is to cover me with a cloth or something and then when you remove it I'm gone, despite having next to no space to move at all."

"Not exactly a cloth, but you've got the general idea; but then I guess most of the audience had some similar idea when I mentioned vanishing in the first place." Terry allowed a short pause for the audience to agree, before continuing. "There are some covers over there. Beth would you mind going to fetch them?"

The items Beth returned with resembled boards with roll blinds attached to three edges. She held them up for Terry to chose which one he wanted, because she could tell the they were a little different from each other, but not enough to tell which one the magician needed. He took one and pointed Beth back to the foot end of the box with the other.

"That one is easy enough to fit just slide it down the end of the box so that the cut-outs go over Ann's calves," Terry instructed. "This one is a little more tricky, because I have to undo this section of cloth so that I don't try pushing anything through Ann's neck as I slide it into place. Now that it is in place, I clip the cloth back into place. That's the ends covered. Now we bring the blinds to meet at the middle and hook them together so that people can't see exactly when Ann disappears."

"Won't my head and feet disappearing be a bit of a clue?" asked Ann. "Hey something feels a bit weird!"

Terry tapped the catches on the blinds and they retracted to boards with a thud. "I guess nobody was expecting that."

"Something's happened, but I can't tell what."

"Will you tell her? Or shall I?" Terry asked Beth.

Rather than answer the magician's question, Beth said, "It looks like everything that was inside the box has vanished, Ann; your body and your clothes. the box is completely empty."

Ann strained to see backwards, but the board round her neck only allowed her to see her own fingers resting through the holes in the base of the board. For her own reassurance she wriggled her fingers to make sure that the fingers she could see were her own; which they were. She then moved her legs. She felt and heard the bump as her shins made contact with the top of the stand that the box was mounted on. She also noticed that she could not feel the top of the box against her back or the plate that her torso had lain on. She tried arching her back in the hope of having some clue about where her body might be, but any clues got lost in the strange sensations that told her that there was magic being done.

"You seem to have vanished part of me. I thought you were going to do a proper job of it and vanish me all at once."

"Almost anyone can vanish someone. It takes skill to bring them back and more skill to do it by sections; especially non-connecting sections. But as it seems you'll be trouble until I complete making you disappear, here goes!"

What the audience and the cameras saw was Terry give a sudden sharp push to the tops of the boards and so that they pivoted outward from their bases and in the time it took for anyone to blink there was no Ann and the boards clattered on the stand, on which the empty box stood, and then fell onward to the floor.

Ann's experience included feeling the falling rear board landing on her calves and heels and a disorienting rotation forward of her head with the feeling that she was falling forward towards the stand, while her body stayed still. She blinked. The next moment she felt whole and on all fours in an enclosed space. The walls of this space were matt black, but without any light initially, she could not tell this.

After about a minute a panel faded to life. It seemed to be a flat-screen TV built into the floor of the box she was in. She could now tell the box was black inside and no larger than it needed to be contain her in the pose that she had been in when she arrived. She could hear something too and recognised the familiar experience of having earbuds in. As the picture on the TV resolved itself, she recognised the image as being the studio from which she had been vanished and the voices of Terry and Beth talking about her debut as the assistant in a cross-bow act.

The box that Ann had vanished from had been cleared away.

"So, how do you feeling about helping out with the cross-bow act, Beth?" asked Terry.

"A bit nervous. Is it really as dangerous as Ann seemed to think it is?"

"I have to admit it does come with some risks, but that's life; balancing risk and reward. I have done all I can to reduce the risk to you, without significantly effecting the reward; which in this instance is the entertainment of this audience. The studio insisted I drop one of the stunts I had planned, because they considered it too risky; they're a bit touchy about these things after I took a chainsaw to a spectator. In case you were wondering the stunt I had to drop was the William Tell shooting an apple, except you'd have been holding the apple in your teeth."

Beth visibly blanched. "I'm glad that has been dropped. What will I be doing?"

"You've the easy bit. You'll holding various thing in front of that target over there; it's extra thick to stop the arrows, so I don't have any stray arrows injuring anyone backstage. We'll start with something easy. So all you have to do is take the items I call for from the table and hold them in front of the target. I shoot it and we move on to the next thing. The first thing will be a balloon," he shouted across the studio space as Beth headed for the table.

Beth found three balloons on the table; two white ones blown up and another tethered by a string that floated above; this one was metallic yellow. "Which balloon?" she asked.

"Either of the white ones. The yellow one is for later." Terry was busy showing the cross-bow to a camera. It was longer than a usual cross-bow; the obvious explanation for this was that he had long arrows. The arrows were two and a half feet long steel shafts, rounded at the front and notched at the rear, with a pair of feathers that attached at the tail of the arrow at either end of the groove. Terry drew back the cord and located the first arrow in the guide groove.

"Hold the balloon in one hand and hold it in front of the target area; somewhere near the top and about a third of the way across."

Beth complied, but seemed a little nervous as Terry raised the bow and pointed it towards her. She did not have much time to get more nervous, because Terry squeezed the trigger and the bow twanged almost simultaneously with the thud of the arrow hitting the target, the pop of the balloon being burst and a surprised squeak from Beth.

Ann thought that thud of the arrow at the target was a bit louder than it should be, but assumed that she was hearing the unedited version of the sound through her ear-buds. She also reflected that if the feeling of stiffness in her shoulders was any guide, Terry would need to hurry up, or she would have to move position.

While he readied the bow and the next arrow, the magician told Beth that the other white balloon was to be the next target and that she should hold the knot between her teeth. He had her put her face up to the edge of the target so that the balloon was slightly higher than the feathered end of the previous steel shaft that stuck out of the face of the target by an inch or so.

Beth was relieved not to have to watch Terry prepare the arrow that was intended for a space less than six inches in front of her face. With a slight stoop she held the balloon where she had been told and murmured a prayer to herself through her clenched teeth. From the corner of her eye she spotted the stage manager, Bob, hold up a large piece of card that had the word 'SILENCE' written on it.

In the next moment the arrow passed across her line of sight as the balloon became a shred of white latex dangling from her lips. The arrow stopped with the last inch of its tail-end four inches in front of her nose. If she had not had her teeth and lips tight together holding the balloon, Beth would have screamed at the closeness of the shot. Instead, she straightened up and put up a hand to her mouth to pull away the remains of the balloon.

From her enclosed vantage, Ann again thought that the thud of the arrow into the target was too loud, and wondered if staring at the bright screen in the dark box was giving her a headache or if it was the volume of the arrow thuds.

"How are you holding up over there?" called Terry as he armed the bow again.

Beth replied, "I think I can do this, but I might be a nervous wreck when it is all finished."

"You'll be alright then. Only five more to go. The next target item is one of the carnations in the vase there. Take one and hold it under the first arrow!"

Beth looked at the two carnations, one red and the other white. For a moment, she wondered which she should take, then thought that the colour was irrelevant and pulled the nearest one, which happened to be the white one. As she picked it out of the vase, she was told to hold it as low down the stem as she could manage. As she leant down, she grouped her thumb and middle fingers, of same hand that had held the first balloon, and fed the cut end of the stem into the little hole they made. With her hand making an impromptu vase, she held the carnation up towards the tail of the first arrow. The tension of waiting for the next shot was becoming to make her think that she would need to reposition the flower, when the bow twanged, the arrow pierced the target and the top half of the long stemmed carnation toppled to the floor.

Ann not only hear the thud of the arrow, but thought that she saw something cross the lower edge of her vision, but when she tried to move her head she found that she could not. It seemed that being vanished from a box was not all that was happening to her, but she could not at this stage tell exactly what. She tried to move her arm to feel if there was anything still there, but she found that she could not. She was now convinced that there was more to her being disappeared than being vanished in sections from a fancy-shaped box.

In the studio Terry was re-arming the bow while telling Beth that he needed her to take the red carnation and kneel beside the target with the flower horizontal from her lips. She was told that he wanted the flower head to be just beyond the line defined by the first and third arrows.

Beth knelt and thrust her head forward so that the flower was where the magician had asked for it to be. As the seconds ticked by she began to feel some stress, but could not tell if she was worried that Terry might miss the stem of the flower in her lips (and possibly hit her) or that she might twitch at the wrong moment and cause him to miss, thus spoiling the act.

She had a sense of great relief that followed the thud as the arrow penetrated the target and the flower's head dropped to the floor.

The over-loud thud and a glimpse of movement told Ann that there was definitely something more than her vanishing happening to her. She strained to see with her peripheral vision where the movement had been, but being unable to move her head and the dimness of the container meant that she could not tell exactly what was there, but only that there was something in the space between her wrists. Ann tried to move a hand to feel what it was, but found that her hands were unmoveable too.

When Ann returned to following the cross-bow act, she saw that while Terry had been putting another arrow in place, Beth had taken the tethered yellow balloon from the table and was squatting on the floor with the narrow ribbon held between her teeth; so that the balloon floated inches above her head. Terry took his time then pulled the trigger and the situation at the target changed; the balloon floated serenely up to the lighting gantries above and Beth had a length of limp ribbon dangling from her lips.

Ann noted the synchrony of the thud and an odd sensation in her hips; a kind of pleasant ache, but could not determine the cause. She decided that as none of the things, that appeared to be timed to coincide with the arrows hitting the target, were actually unpleasant, she had better not worry about them. She had a feeling that the promised next two arrows would be the most interesting.

Beth was unreeling a length of white thread about two feet long at Terry's behest. He had her sit on the floor in front of the target and raise her hands while holding the thread at each end between forefinger and thumb and her hands making 'OK' signs.

The wait for anything to happen seemed to go on for a very long time; then there was a thud of arrow into target. Beth had expected that the tension between hands would be released as the arrow severed the thread, but he had not hit the thread. She looked up and gave a shocked squeak when she saw that Terry had hit the thread, but it was the loose tail that trailed across the circle made by her thumb and forefinger near the bottom corner of the box.

Ann tried to work out what was happening to her, but the delay in the firing of the last shot had caused her concentration to wane. She felt something restrict the movement of her ankles, but had no idea what.

Back in the studio Terry loaded the bow and had Beth tie the thread to the previous arrow so that he could have another go at severing his smallest target yet. He told her to hold the other end in her teeth so that the thread was horizontal and wish him luck.

Twang! Thud! Squeak! Beth watched most of the thread she had been holding drift down from the target swinging from previous arrow's tail. The squeak was caused by the tail feather of the arrow that had severed the thread tickling her lips.

"Beth, you've been a marvellous volunteer and very courageous, would you like to help with one last arrow?"

"I don't think so," replied Beth. She noted that he was re-arming the bow and putting the arrow in place. "You've been getting closer to me each time and I don't want to risk it, because you can't get any closer without hitting me."

Terry seemed to expect this type of response. "What if I said you would be firing the bow and I would be at the target?"

Beth considered the matter. "You want me to fire an arrow at you?" Terry nodded. "I guess I could give it a go; they say that turnaround is fair play."

"Ok, come over here and I'll show you what you need to do and the extra wrinkle that I've added."

It seemed that in the time it took Beth to cross the performance area, Terry had attached a spool of red ribbon to the bow's stock and tied the loose end to the arrow. "The idea," he explained, "is that you fire the bow and I will try to catch the arrow and if I miss we can measure how far I was off, by how much ribbon there is between the bit of ribbon I catch and the arrow. Ok?"

"But, I've never fired a bow of any kind before, what if I hit you?"

"I'm the one taking the risk, so don't worry. And I have a back-up plan, if you hit me the arrow will go through, but we'll be able to show that it did go through, because the ribbon will form a marker for the trajectory. And don't worry about accidentally firing the bow and hitting anybody else; the studio insisted that it could only be fired at the target, so I had an inventor friend of mine make the necessary modifications. The bow will only fire when it is pointing at the target."

He lifted the bow and got her set, then walked to the target. "On the count of three! One... Two... Three!"

When Terry said 'three' Beth squeezed the trigger. She suddenly felt as if she had been kicked in the shoulder. She took a step back to recover her balance and the arrow took an upward trajectory. Somewhere in the lighting gantries a balloon popped and some shreds of yellow metallic foil descended, but that is not what drew the audience's attention; the arrow ricocheted from something and came down dragging the ribbon and hit the top of the target and buried itself, then over the next few seconds the length of ribbon fluttered down to show the path of the arrow across the stage from cross-bow to target.

There was a silence that lasted for nearly six seconds before the audience showed there appreciation of Beth's semi-failed attempt to shoot the target; most of them knew that they would not have had the will to point the cross-bow at anyone and pull the trigger.

"Well, that didn't seem to go as planned," commented the magician. "But, I guess it does mean that I didn't get an arrow in my chest, so let's continue to be positive.

A stagehand snipped the trail of ribbon from the reel and took the cross-bow from Beth's limp hands.

"Now that the cross-bow is gone, I think it may be safe to bring Ann back from where she has been vanished to. Could you help move the target to the centre of the stage, Beth?"

Ann did not hear the last request because the screen on the floor in front of her eyes went black. She then felt movement, but with no visual frame of reference found it difficult to tell what was happening.

Terry and, under his instruction, Beth moved the target to the middle of the performance area  and undid some clips. "When I say 'go', Beth, I want you to help me move the front part of the box forward and you take it to the side to show what's inside." When Beth had indicated that she understood, the magician said "Go!"

Between them they pulled forward the front part of the box which was a wheeled stand supporting the target area, the top and bottom and the sides of the box. As they moved it the feathered tails of the seven arrows were drawn inside. With the two stands holding the front and the back parts of the target seperated, Terry gave the part that they were moving a shove towards Beth to indicate that she should take over and move it to the side. Beth started to dragged the equipment aside, but then saw what she was revealing and stopped dead in her tracks. Fortunately, a stagehand who had come to help took over and the audience got to see what had caused Beth to falter.

The rear part of the stand supported the back of the target box, to which Ann was pinned, still on all fours, by seven arrows through her hips, knees, ankles, wrists, elbows, shoulders and head, just behind her ear. The icing on the cake from the audience's point of view was the arrow through her chest that trailed the red ribbon.

Terry took hold of the point of the arrow that penetrated Ann's torso and pulled. As the feathered tail of the arrow went through her, Ann giggled and then she sighed as the full length of the ribbon was pull through too; it felt pleasant in a way she had no words for.

Terry addressed Ann. "Are you regretting opting to be vanished, instead of helping with the cross-bow act?"

"No," replied Ann. "I think I'd have been a useless bag of nerves if you'd asked me to do what you got Beth to do and this doesn't hurt, but I think it might get uncomfortable after a while."

"Good." he turned to the audience. "While I get Beth to help me take Ann backstage and get her down from there, we will show you something I did recently out and about."