Before The Magician’s Assistant Course - part 1 - Seance

I don’t remember much about the day after the night after the charity dinner. When I got home it was too late to go to bed, so the chores got done; shopping (minimally, just the stuff me and my flat-mate, Linda, had noted on the small whiteboard in the kitchen as running low), cleaning and cooking; actually I chickened out of the cooking (despite it being my turn) and ordered in a Chinese takeaway. I slept very soundly, but I dreamed of being squashed, vanished, run through and chopped to bits and, strangely, it was not a nightmare.

When I woke up after that first sleep for two days, I caught myself wondering what it would be like to be divided lengthwise, as if that were a normal thought that anyone might have, like wondering whether a melon you are looking at was properly ripe. It was clear to me that my adventure with Jack and the tools of his magical trade had effected me more than I had anticipated, even after experiencing four illusions turned up to eleven(-plus).

Later the same day. I found myself staring at a kitchen knife and wondering if I could cut my hand off with it. I stopped myself when I got to the point of pressing the blade against the back of my wrist. I needed to decide if I was going to see Jack again or pay off the bet. Three and a half thousand is a lot of money, especially when my original intention had just been to donate a thousand to the charity to participate in an illusion.

I cranked up my ageing laptop to check my bank balances to see if I had the funds to pay my debt; I did and a bit spare so I would not have to tighten my belt too much, but replacing the computer would have to go on the back burner, again.

While I was online an e-mail from Jack arrived.

Hi Abi,

While I was clearing up, I found your dress.

Would you like me to deliver it, send it or keep it for you to collect?

I look forward to your response to this question and my offer.

Jack.

I quickly replied that he should keep it until I had decided what to do about his offer, as I had no parties to go to before the time I had promised him an answer.

The next few days at work, I must have seemed distracted. Jack’s offer of letting me off the lost bet, if I became his magician’s assistant, ran in circles through my head. Did I want to be a magician’s assistant? The initial answer seemed to be ‘yes’. But what if I discovered that I did not like it, after all? I liked Jack well enough not to want to muck him about, by saying ‘yes’ and then later, once he had gone to the expense of making props, getting costumes and training me up, deciding that the answer should have been ‘no’. Maybe I should pay up and just date him, but that seemed doomed to failure; how does someone who works the normal 9-to-5 date someone who works the irregular hours of the entertainment industry? Anyway that seemed as if it would either lead to me becoming his assistant by default or some emotional mess; knowing how jealous I felt of his college friend, Charlotte, how would I feel about an assistant, if he got one and I was his girl-friend? The remaining alternative seemed to be to pay him and never see him again; I had experienced magic and liked it (a lot) although the terror of the buzzsaw blade cutting off my head, I did not want to repeat. ‘Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, now walk away.’

In my dreams, during those nights, my mind reprised the good parts of being involved with magic, while another part of my sub-conscious reminded me of the less good things that had happened; like the near-hypothermia after the sword box, the terror of the buzz saw's teeth whirling inches from my ear and the irritation of being abandoned on the sawing table while Jack went on an, at the time, unknown errand.

On the fourth night, I had a new dream.

I sat at the kitchen table of the flat and toyed with the kitchen knife; it seemed sharper in the dream than the real thing. I pressed the knife against my wrist to feel how much sharper it was and then pushed it into and through my left wrist, severing my hand. I watched as my left hand rose up on its finger tips and walked across the table. Somehow I knew I was controlling the movement of the hand, but I was watching like it was a separate thing; an independent five-legged creature. My hand wandered about for a little while, but when I decided it was time to re-attach it, it tried to get away, so I picked up the knife with my right hand and pinned my left hand to the table with it.

I did not get to finish the dream, because I was woken up by Linda screaming in the kitchen. When I got there she was breathing heavily and staring at the kitchen knife stabbed into the centre of the table. How did that happen?

I thought, ‘I had better talk to Jack, to find out what was going on.’ A small paranoid bit of my brain advanced the theory that Jack was doing things to get me to decide however he wanted me to decide, but I put the theory aside, like most people do with conspiracy theories, but did not discount it totally. Besides, I could not tell which way the signs wanted me to go.

I rang Jack’s number and got the answer-machine. I left a message asking him to call me back, because, I said, I was having some after-effects of the magic.

Jack rang back just after midnight. I was in bed reading, like I do before turning the light out for sleep, when Linda, who more often got phone calls at that kind of hour, shouted, “Abi, it’s your boyfriend.”

Having got up and put on a dressing gown, I padded barefoot to the phone; Linda had left the handset dangling by its cord from the wall mounting in the kitchen. I said to Linda as our paths crossed, “He’s not my boyfriend,” then I felt forced to add, “Well, not yet; I haven’t decided what to do about that yet.”

“So, just a friend,” she said, with the implied addition of ‘-with-benefits’ unspoken.

“Yes, but not like you think!” I countered as I stepped into the kitchen.

I picked up the phone and suddenly felt very conscious of the gouge the knife had left in the table.

I said, “Hello,” into the receiver.

“Evening, Abi. I’m sorry about the hour, but your tone said you’ve got a problem, that you think is related to the magic we did last weekend. So I thought it might be better to call now rather than leave it ‘til tomorrow.”

“Well, I’m not sure it was really that urgent and you could have left it to a more civilised hour; but I suppose to you this is, kind of, a civilised hour. So, given that I’ve got you on the phone, we might as well talk, right?”

“OK. What’s on your mind?”

“That’s exactly it; things are on my mind. Every night, since you performed the challenges, I’ve been dreaming about the things you did.”

“That sounds pretty normal. If I’ve understood the psychobabble right, dreams are you mind’s way of processing what’s happened to you. And what happened to you was very much out of the ordinary, so it seems to me only natural that you will dream about our night together for a few nights, because there must be a lot to process, especially given the exceptional degree of the magic.”

“I guess you’re right. But the dreams seem to mostly replay the bits I enjoyed, but with a, sort of, background commentary of all things that could have gone wrong and their negative consequences.”

“You seem to have a very active subconscious. I reckon it’s trying to help you make the decision about whether to become a magician’s assistant. Let me guess; you are still in two minds about it.”

“Well, yes, and I come up with three options, none of which feels totally satisfactory. But that’s not why I called you.”

“Oh, yes?”

“I had another dream last night; different from anything you did to me or anyone at the dinner, as far as I remember.”

“And did this new dream frighten you?”

“Well, no. Erm, well, maybe. Perhaps, if I tell you what happened, you can tell me what’s going on.”

“Go ahead! I’ll see what I can do to interpret your dream.”

“Well, in the dream, I was playing with a kitchen knife and I cut my hand off; not accidentally, but deliberately; I meant to cut my hand off and I did it.”

“Interesting. Do you often play with kitchen knives?”

“Umm, no. Well there was the time a couple of days ago when I was wondering if I could cut my hand off and pressed the blade against the back of my wrist to see how sharp it is.”

“Hmm,” muttered Jack, “I’m guessing again, but that sounds like more subconscious processing. What happened after that? Because I’m guessing there was more to the dream than that.”

“Well, yes. My hand wandered about on the table for a while.”

“Wait, table? What table?”

“The kitchen table, here in our flat. The one I’m sitting at, at the moment. Why?”

“Well, I half expected you to say it was my coffee table, because that’s the only table where you’ve experienced magic, right? Erm, except the table of the buzzsaw, but that isn’t the kind of table you might sit at.”

“I suppose that would have made sense. And before you ask the knife was the one I had pressed against my wrist, but in the dream is seemed sharper.”

“I think that’s easily explained.” He paused, allowing me the option of asking what the explanation was, before crashing ahead and explaining unprompted. “In dreams, things look like the things they are meant to be, because that’s the image your mind has on file, as it were. But also things are the essence of what they are, so the essence of a knife is sharpness, so a dream knife looks like a knife of the right size that you have handled recently, but is the image of sharpness. No, ‘Image’ is the wrong word… Umm, that’s it, ‘Epitome’.”

“I suppose that’s about as much sense as I can expect at this time of night.”

“You say your hand wandered around. How was that?”

“It, kind of, rose up on its fingers, like they were legs and walked about on the table. It was like a pink five-legged thing with a wrist-stump for a tail.”

“Ok, go on. I’m sensing there’s more.”

“Erm, I, somehow, knew I was controlling it, but I wasn’t doing it consciously. Then when I decide I’d try to put it back, you know, reconnect it to the rest of me, it made a bid for freedom.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, so, to stop it getting away, I stabbed it with the knife, pinning it to the table.”

“Then what happened?”

“I don’t know, because I woke up to Linda screaming.” I carried on quickly, because I did not want to be interrupted at this point in the story. “She was screaming, because someone had stabbed the kitchen knife into the kitchen table. There’s a gouge mark in the table where I had to pull it out.” I placed my left hand over the mark and it felt, worryingly, familiar. “I’ve just noticed. There’s also a deep scratch in the table where, in the dream, I cut my wrist.”

“So, something from the dream came true? Have you got poltergeists?”

“What?”

“Poltergeists. Surely you’ve heard of unruly spirits that disrupt domestic life?”

“I know what poltergeists are, but aren’t they myths, just attention-seeking teens acting up?”

“Generally, I gather that is the case, but there have been some cases of genuine poltergeist activity. And before you say something like, ‘I thought it was all fake,’ I’m betting you thought that about magic and magicians too before we met.”

“Well, I don’t think we’ve got poltergeists. We’ve certainly never had a problem like this before.”

“Would you like me to come over and check?”

“What?”

“I can come over and check your place for poltergeists, if you like, and quieten them down if they are there.”

“You’re a spiritualist as well as a magician?”

“No, but I did pass the ‘Basic Spirit Control’ course at college; most magicians do; you need to be able to quieten spirits so they don’t interfere with your act. There are a lot more haunted theatres than most people think. The ones that went on to do the ‘Advanced Spirit Control’ course can do the spirit cabinet illusion purely with the help of the spirits; I need the help of other magic to achieve the same effect.”

“Oh. Um, a quick check for poltergeists would be good, when can you come over?”

“I’ll be over in an hour, maybe a little less. That OK?”

“I was thinking about tomorrow evening or something like that.”

“No, the sooner the better with poltergeists. It’s easier to quieten them down or move them on if they haven’t had time to get their metaphorical feet under the metaphorical table.”

“If you say so. Ok, I’ll see you in about an hour.” I then told him the flat number so I could buzz him in without him waking the rest of the building.

I let Linda know that Jack was coming over. She seemed sceptical about the poltergeist thing and made some joke about him making me float above my bed. I told her to get her mind out of the gutter and that was a different movie.

I used the time before Jack arrived to get dressed again; a plain t-shirt and jeans.

When Jack got there, Linda got to the intercom first and buzzed him through the outer door, having given him directions to the flat. I managed to be at our door to let him in when he got there.

Before I could say anything more than, “Hello. Thanks for coming,” Linda began asking questions about what happened during our night together and expressing a heavy level of scepticism about the existence of poltergeists and the possibility of us having acquired one. Fortunately, I think, Jack took a firm line that a gentleman does not discuss what he did in private with a lady, which while it stopped Linda asking more questions, allowed her imagination to run riot.

On the question of poltergeists, Jack said that poltergeists exist and that they were rarer than reports would have you believe. He also added that he doubted that we had a poltergeist, but he was here to make sure, on the principle of ‘better safe than sorry’.

Jack had us sit round the kitchen table and placed the white-board marker in the centre of the table; it lay there next to the hole in the table’s surface; it did not roll because it had a cross-section that was a rounded triangle. Then he had us place our hands on the table so that our fingers were touching the fingers of the people on either side.

“We’re going to have a séance?” asked Linda.

“Exactly,” said Jack. “So, if you could curb your scepticism a bit, this is going to be easier for all of us and more likely to get some kind of positive result. Ok?”

Linda gave Jack a smile that said, ‘Whatever!’

Jack began to mutter in a language I did not know, but I heard enough to conclude it was probably Latin. As his muttering continued I found myself concentrating on the pen sat in the middle of the table, while noticing that the lighting seemed to get dimmer, which in our kitchen should be impossible as the light is either on or off. After about two minutes of muttering, the marker wobbled and a minute later it rolled to another of its faces away from the gouge mark.

Suddenly Jack stopped muttering and the room returned to its normal brightness.

Jack took a deep breath and said, “I’ve got good news and better news.” We were both silent waiting to hear what Jack thought these items of information were. “The good news is, ‘You haven’t got a poltergeist’.”

I released the breath that I had been unaware I had been holding; thus giving an impression of relief I did not feel. If it had not been poltergeists that stabbed the knife into the table, what had?

Linda said, “See! I said we don’t have a poltergeist. Mainly because they don’t exist, but that was a nice trick with the pen, Jack.”

Jack did not argue with Linda about poltergeists. He said, “I did not move the pen, that’s the better news.” He paused to allow us to ask; which we did not. “The better news is that there is a benign spirit that lives here; here being this floor of the flats. I’m not totally sure but I have a feeling that it was here before the flats were build, it used to be the spirit of the orchard that was here before.”

“Would that be why the flats smell of apple blossom in the spring?” speculated Linda.

Jack looked at me to see if Linda was setting a trap for him. I said, “I always assumed there were some apple trees nearby, and never gave it another thought.”

Jack considered my response and commented, “It’s possible, but Abi may be right that there are still some remaining apple trees in the vicinity.”

“So, who is this spirit?” asked Linda, I was fairly sure that she was going to be making mental notes and doing some research later to confirm or disprove any checkable facts that Jack came up with.

“It’s not a ‘who’. The spirit is not the spirit of a person, it was the spirit of this place and when the place was built on it moved up to this floor. I haven’t a clue why, but there it is.”

“You said it was ‘benign’; what do you mean by ‘benign’?” I intervened.

“By ‘benign’ I, sort of, mean the opposite of malignant. Most ‘spirits of place’ are not out to get you. They are kind and gentle and about keeping their place the way they like it, which in most cases is a good thing; the scent of apple blossom, for example. Sometimes what the spirit wants may not be so convenient for the people in the place. Let me guess, in the spring, when the place smells of blossom you get a lot of flying insects, right?”

“Yes,” confirmed Linda. “It’s quite a nuisance.”

“The insects are attracted by the spirit to pollinate the orchard that is no longer here.”

“That sounds like a good theory, but if it has moved in to the flats, why is it still trying to attract insects to pollinate an orchard that isn’t there any more?” I queried.

“I’m guessing, but I expect that the spirit is still coming to terms with being a residential spirit having been a pastoral spirit most of its existence. Along the lines of ‘old habits die hard’.”

“So, was it this spirit that stuck the knife into the table?” Linda asked.

“Definitely not,” said Jack. “The spirit isn’t powerful enough. I had to lend it the power to roll the marker.”

“So, it was you who caused the pen to roll,” Linda accused.

“Not exactly, I provided the power to allow the spirit to manifest itself, the spirit decided what to do with the power. I’ll admit I provided the obvious prop for the demonstration, but it could just as easily opened the hob extractor or knocked a spoon onto the floor. I had no idea what would happen, but hoped that having given it the obvious item to move it would move that instead of something else and I hadn’t a clue which way it would roll the pen.”

“So all that mumbling in Latin was to ask the spirit what it was and to ask it to move the pen? It was Latin? Why Latin?” I asked.

“Yes, I asked if there was a spirit and, if there was, for it to make a manifestation. And I used Latin, because it’s usually the best way to contact spirits; kind of, a lingua franca that most of them understand, although some recent spirits seem not to have learnt it yet and need to be spoken to in the native language of the area. I did hear of a spirit in a building built on part the former Jewish ghetto in Warsaw that did not respond until someone thought to try communicating with it in Yiddish, but most ‘spirits of place’ are old enough that Latin works.”

“So?” asked Linda, “are we any closer to finding out how and why there was a knife stuck in the table overnight?”

“Well, yes-ish.”

“What’s that meant to mean?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer.

“I’m pretty sure that the knife in the table is related to Abi’s dream, but I felt I needed to eliminate the only obvious alternative, before bringing it up, because if it had been poltergeists and they knew what I was trying to check they might have done something to mislead me into thinking that they were not there to give them more time to get a foothold. Poltergeists can be very sneaky.”

“What was this dream, Abi?” Linda asked. I gave her the short version. Her response was to ask Jack, “I can see the similarity between the dream and the thing that happened, but it doesn’t explain how it happened. So?”

“My theory is:- We did some very high energy magic that night and usually magician’s assistants vent the energy harmlessly, but Abi is not only inexperienced as an assistant, but is still working through the dilemma that I posed her; so some of the energy has come out in unusual and unexpected ways.”

“Correct me if I’ve got this wrong, but you’re saying that you put so much magic into me that as an inexperienced assistant with a lot on my mind, some of the magic you used on me came out and threw the knife at the kitchen table.”

“Pretty much, although, if someone had been watching, the knife would, probably, have been moving like it was being used to stab something scurrying across the table.”

“Assuming that’s what happened,” I shot Jack a sceptical glance, “What can we do, so it doesn’t happen again?”

“Well there’s two things that would help. First; the sooner you decide, the sooner your subconscious will be able to do the job of venting the magical power harmlessly; and secondly, don’t dream until then, because it seems to follow your dreams.”

“So, I guess, you’re here to tell Abi what her decision should be,” suggested Linda.

“Definitely not. I wouldn’t consider telling Abi what to do; one way or the other. It is not my decision to make. I know which way I hope it goes, but even saying that may unduly influence the final decision. If the decision is not entirely Abi’s then it’s unlikely to be the right decision for her and I don’t want to effect her life that much, because if it is the wrong decision it will lead to bad things in the longer-term.”

“Way to go, you just make deciding a bigger deal than it already seemed,” I commented.

“Well, it makes some kind of sense,” commented Linda, on Jack’s side for the first time since meeting him, “if someone tells you ought to just pay the money and cut your losses or says you should go for it and become a magician’s assistant and it turns out to be the wrong decision for you, they are going to suffer, because you are going to blame them for influencing you into something that turned out badly. You’d suffer the consequences and you’d probably lose a friend and they’d lose you as a friend. And I don’t suppose Jack wants an assistant who feels they’ve been coerced into it.” Jack nodded.

There was a silence, while I tried to work out what Linda had just said. It made sense that it was my decision alone to make, for good or ill, but it seemed they both felt whichever way I decided, it would be the right decision for me.

“Let me get this straight; neither of you are going to help me make this decision.”

Jack answered, “Neither of us said that, even indirectly. If you ask us a straight question, I feel sure either of us would give you a straight answer, but we will not be expressing an opinion of which way your decision should go.” Linda nodded agreement.

“That’s a fat lot of use. So in the meantime, I’m leaking magic and juggling kitchen knives in my sleep.”

“That’s where the second thing that might help comes in. I can help you get a night of dreamless sleep which will give your subconscious some time to dispose of some magic and you’ll feel much better in the morning and more able to decide, with the added benefit there won’t be dreams to have the magic enact overnight.”

“You’re thinking that doing some more magic on me will help me decide and control the magic better?”

“In a nutshell, yes.”

“If you think that’ll help, what would I need to do?”

“Just lie on your bed and let me do the rest. You’ll get a restful night’s sleep and Linda won’t get any shocks in the morning.”

“So you expect me to let you into my bedroom? Why should I do that, we hardly know each other?”

“I’m sure Linda won’t mind chaperoning and letting me out once you’re asleep.”

Linda made a noise that said that she was willing to observe Jack doing whatever he planned and would intervene if she thought he was doing something I would not like.

So it was that I ended up lying on my bed, above the duvet, still in jeans and a t-shirt, with Jack beside the bed and Linda on the other side in the doorway. Then Jack made mystical gestures over me and I felt myself lift from the bed.

“I thought this gesturing was unnecessary,” I whispered.

“It is. I’m doing it for the sake of our audience. If I didn’t gesture it might look as if I wasn’t in control of what’s happening. You might look like you’ve been possessed, like in that scene in the Ghostbusters movie,” he whispered back.

“I liked that scene, although it was a bit spooky, but I’d love to have a dress like the one Sigourney Weaver had in that scene.”

“I’ve always wondered about re-enacting the scene during a show, but I’ve never seen anyone that would do the floating justice. Well, until I met you. I think if you had included levitation in your note and if I hadn’t already done the chair suspension at the dinner, I’d have done some approximation of that. Your dress wouldn’t have been perfect, but it would have been ok. By the way, I’m sorry I didn’t bring it with me, but I spotted a stain on it, so it’s at the dry-cleaners.”

“That’s beside the point really,” I commented and added louder for Linda’s benefit, “Why are you levitating me? How will this help me get some restful sleep?” By this time the only part in touch with the bed below was my hair resting on the pillow a short distance below the back of my head.

“Well, it’s like this. When I go, the levitation will slowly decay and you will drift down to the bed, but your subconscious will use its attention and the residual magic to control that descent, so it won’t have time to dream or create any surprises for the morning.”

“I hope that works,” I said as my hair began to swing freely behind my head. It occurred to me to wonder why my hair was hanging down when the rest of me was supported, but that was a speculation for another day.

“It’s time for you to sleep, Abi; deep dreamless sleep,” said Jack as he looked intensely into my eyes and then passed his hand down over my face.

The next thing I remember is waking up, under the duvet in my nightshirt. It was morning.