Jane and Sharon had been selected to take part in the next illusion. It appeared that the main selection criteria the magicienne had used were they were about the same size and had put their hands up when volunteers were requested. When they got to the stage the pair were also wearing the same outfits; Avenue Patriots T-shirts and black shorts, although Jane's legs were bare down to her black sneakers, while Sharon wore black tights on her legs and red sneakers.
After introducing her latest ad-hoc assistants to the rest of the crowd and telling the audience that they were brave, she added. “While I really like your outfits, I am going to need you both to change into something that I will provide; it saves the risk of damaging you clothes and will make the result of the magic we will be performing more easily seen.”
The two women readily agreed to change, but were less enthused when the magicienne directed them to screens that had been set up at the back of the stage. Despite their misgivings, the volunteers went to the the screens and changed, with the directions to strip off everything and put on the garment provided.
While the volunteers changed the magicienne performed a cut and restored rope trick. At the end of the routine she called the volunteers from behind the screens. Each stepped bare-foot from behind the screen in a full-body leotards, that exposed their feet, hands and heads. The leotards were tight enough to flatter the ladies' figures without exposing excess detail. Jane's new costume was white which contrasted with her dark hair, while Sharon's fair hair was enhanced by the black costume she wore. The magicienne called from more applause for the volunteers.
“Now to show you what you volunteered to be part of.” At this announcement a crew member wheeled a low platform onto the stage. In the centre of the platform stood a waist-high pillar of glass with steel reinforcement at the corners; it was a foot wide on the side that faced the audience, but as deep at the platform in the other direction. At the top of the pillar was a disk about two feet in diameter. A ladder-like frame stood next to pillar and stood twice as high.
A second crew person push on a trolley stacked with boxes and a frame from which hung a large number of blades each the size of the broad face of the boxes. The magicienne collected a box from the trolley, showed it to the audience; demonstrating that it was square tray with sides about ten inches deep. She fitted the side of the tray to the ladder-like frame in its middle and slid it down to the low platform. She leaned down and pressed something that produced an ominous click.
“Now before we can proceed any further, you need to decide between yourselves, which of you is braver. Please don't take too long or I'll have to get the audience to decide for you.”
Jane and Sharon conferred. After about twenty seconds, Jane announced that they had come to the conclusion that she was the braver of the two.
“Great! Then you can go up the steps and help assemble the cabinet, while Sharon steps into the cabinet, such as it is, and can have the cabinet build around her.” A stage hand rushed forward with a step ladder that he set up at the rear, before guiding Jane to climb it. Sharon with doubt-filled steps moved towards the low platform. The magicienne guided her to stand in the tray and push the toes of her left foot through a hole in the audience-facing side.
The magicienne took another box from the trolley. She showed that it was the same size as the tray that Sharon stood in but lacked top and bottom. She passed the box to Jane and asked her to fit the connecting section to the frame of the illusion and slide it down. As the box section slid down to where the magicienne took it and guided it the rest of the way until it rested on top of the tray in which Sharon stood.
“Sharon, please lift your right foot and put your toes through the hole in the front. I know that balancing can be a bit difficult, but please stick with it and use the frame to your side for support if you need to.”
When Sharon had shown her right toes, the magicienne handed Jane another section to fit to the framework and slide down over her co-volunteer. This one and the next one had no holes, but constrained Sharon enough that she did not need to hold the frame to her side to maintain balance, but she did.
The following section stopped at waist height and Sharon was asked to put her right hand through the hole in the middle of the front. The magicienne presented a silky cloth matching Sharon's black costume, with an instruction to try as best she could to keep it moving, to remind the audience that there was a living, breathing person inside the cabinet. Sharon jiggled the cloth and was told that was plenty enough movement; “This is a magic show, not a rhythmic gymnastics competition.”
The next three sections added to the stack lacked holes, but Sharon was asked to raise her left hand above the top of the rising stack as her face was hidden by a section and the crown of her head was hidden by the next. Each of these sections had been four side of a box ten inches high, but without a top or a bottom. The last section was a tray like the first, but instead of having a bottom it had a top. Sharon was asked to reach up and put her raised hand through the hole in the front face of the lid to the cabinet, before it was fully fitted and, when it had been, a white cloth was put into Sharon's fingers.
The magicienne invited Jane to climb down the step-ladder and then repositioned it. “I'll need your help for then next bit, Jane. Sharon, don't worry, but we are going to tip you on your side; just keep everything that's showing showing and everything will go just fine. Jane grab that ring at the bottom and help me lift this end.”
Magicienne and volunteer lifted the base of the cabinet, rotating it until it rested horizontally on top of the glass pillar. Sharon gave the cloths a wiggle to show that she had survived the manoeuvre. A stagehand pushed the trolley closer to the illusion and handed a blade to Jane. After a moment of confusion about what to do with it, she noticed the magicienne had climbed the stepladder and was reaching ready to receive it. Jane passed the blade the magicienne and was promptly given another to replace it.
The magicienne slid the blade in her hand between two sections of the cabinet that trapped Sharon, then reached for the next to be passed to her. Most of the audience noticed that Sharon's hand and feet twitched frantically as the blade passed through and then resumed calmer movements after the blade had penetrated where her waist should have been. The passing of the blades continued until each of the eight gaps between the nine sections of the cabinet contained a pair of blades. The magicienne dismounted the ladder and headed for the end of the cabinet where Sharon's hand still moved despite its apparent separation from the rest of her by a pair of blades.
“Ok, Jane, take hold of the handles we used to raise the cabinet to horizontal. Then, when I say 'now', take a few steps backwards, until you feel the handles resist your pulling. Do you understand?” Taking Jane's nod as an indication of her understanding, the magicienne counted down from three and then shouted, “Now!”
Despite her expectation of immediate resistance, Jane took four paces back, before she felt that resistance. Her jaw dropped when she saw what had happened to the cabinet; each section was separated from the ones either side by almost the thickness of a section, with the implication that Sharon was spread between the divided sections; an impression reinforced by the wriggling hands and feet sticking out of four sections.
While Jane gawked at what had happened, the magician collected a pile of stickers from the trolley of equipment and began slapping them on the front faces of the cabinet sections, showing a silhouette of the part of Sharon that might be assumed to be in that section. “While I'm doing this, would check that the feet and hands are real, please.”
Jane touched the nearest foot and jumped back in shock as the warm foot reacted to her touch. More cautiously, she walk along the expanded horizontal cabinet touching each appendage as she went. When she reach the section that the added sticker suggested contained Sharon's head, she whispered, “Are you alright in there?” She did not hear anything, but spotted that the hand made a thumbs up gesture followed by the hand flattening and spreading, then rocking side to side. Jane took this to mean that while Sharon was not hurt, she was not sure what was going on.
“Alright, Jane, I'm going to hand you a few things, please stack them on the table over there.” The magicienne pointed to an open-fronted box that a pair of stagehands had pushed to an area at the side of the stage, in the last minute. Before Jane could react more than a glance in the direction indicated, the magicienne had picked up the end box, where Sharon's hand twitched, and handed it to Jane.
The audience saw a mix of shock and impressedness combine on Jane's face as she stared at the box in her hands from which another hand sprouted; the impression was that it had belonged to Sharon, who was spread across the eight remaining separated box still on the frame, except that the next box had already been freed and was in the magicienne's hand waiting for Jane to deposit the first box.
A clearing of the magician's throat got Jane moving, and in about a minute the sections of the cabinet were stacked on the table in a near triangle, with a hand sticking out of the bottom corners and the toes twitch through the holes in the two boxes on the top row.
“And now we come to the reason I wanted to know which one of you was braver. We are going to do it again, but with you in the box, Jane.”
Jane's jaw dropped, but she did not make a run for it. She took a resigned step towards the frame which the magicienne had shrunk back to its previous length and returned to vertical. A pair of stage hands had appeared with more box sections and blades.
With two well-rehearsed stage-helpers, the constructing of the cabinet over Jane, turning her sideways and slicing her into sections, spreading the sections, applying the stickers and detaching the sections to stack them on another table on the other side of the stage, took about half the time it had with her as a helper.
The magicienne stood forward to accept the applauds. “As you have witnessed I have sliced both my lovely and brave volunteers into nine pieces each. Fortunately for Sharon and Jane, I can't leave them in this situation indefinitely; so it's time to rebuild them from the components that are currently stacked on these tables.” She stood back and clapped her hands in a 'begin!' manner.
The two male helpers collected the base slice of each volunteer, where their right toes were visible and placed them on the floor about an arms-length from the magician. Then went to pick up the next sections of the volunteer's cabinets, where the left toes were seen, still moving occasionally. It soon became obvious that the helpers were collecting section from alternating tables, but stacking the sections on the stack they had started, leading to the stickers on the sections changing from black silhouette to white silhouette as each section was stacked.
As the last parts with the hand sticking out where slid onto the top of the two stacks, it appeared that the magicienne was noticing the mixing of the stacks, but also realising that she did not have the time available to correct the error. The helpers began pulling the blades from the cabinets and slapping them onto the trolleys where they had originally been stacked. As the blades at about waist height were being extracted, the magician took the top sections from the stacks and told the volunteers to keep their hands raised and waving.
The lowest blades were coming out when the magicienne revealed the volunteer's flushed faces. Sharon's face smiled uncertainly from under her blond fringe, but the very top of her head showed dark hair, and her upraised arm switched from black to white along its length. Similarly Jane's arm changed colour between shoulder and wrist and her worried expression was framed by her dark hair, but with the addition of a blond patch on top.
The removal of the rest of the cabinet went faster with the help of the stagehands, until the magicienne led the volunteers to step out of the trays that had formed the bases of the cabinets. With Sharon in one hand and Jane in the other, she led them in a bow.
“Sadly, I don't have time before the interval to restore Sharon and Jane, so I will offer them options. Ok, we can end the part here and take you backstage and return you to normal, or you can restore you after the show, or we can restore you in another illusion at the beginning of the next act. Which would you prefer?”
From the hubbub in the auditorium, it was clear what the audience's preference was. The two volunteers leaned forward to see each other passed the magicienne; they agreed with the audience and Sharon allowed Jane to be their spokesperson. “I think we'll come back after the interval to be restored, besides I know I need a drink and I guess Sharon does too.”
“I hoped you'd say that. So we shall have an interval during which I shall be preparing for their restoration and the rest of the show. And you, lovely people in the audience, will be respectful of my volunteers, because they aren't feeling quite themselves.” The magicienne dropped the volunteer's hands and took three steps back to be concealed by the closing curtains.
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For Jane and Sharon the interval was a lot busier than they had anticipated when they had arrived for the show. Many people wanted to know if the magic was real and how it was done.
To answer the first question, they showed the questioners their bare feet; they neither matched in skin tone, shoe size or colour of nail polish. In answer to the second, they had to explain that they had no idea of how they had been sliced and then rebuilt with alternating slices, only that it had felt strange, but pleasant and, after the initial panic induced by feeling the first blade cut into their flesh, quite relaxing, maybe sexy even.
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After an introductory piece of sleight of hand magic, the volunteers were invited to return to the stage. “Are you ready to be restored?”
Both volunteers answered emphatically, “Yes.”
The curtain opened to show a pair of large cages on wheels. Each cage consisted of a board for a roof held above a board floor by a row of vertical bars, all held about two feet from the floor steel tube legs and casters. In the ends nearest the wings were doors which would slide up to allow entrance or exit.
The stagehands opened the doors, while the magicienne asked the volunteers to pick a cage each and get in. This was quickly achieved. The stage-helpers span the cages so that all sides of the cage and the volunteers could be seen. One volunteer that had been kneel inside their cage had to grab the bars to remain stable, while the other who sat cross-legged had no trouble.
The magicienne aided by her helpers covered each cage with a large crimson cloth, edged in golden tassels and bearing the logo for her show. “Now, Sharon, Jane, for this to work properly I need you to put your hands through the marked section in the cloth draped over your cage.” In a few seconds, a hand had appeared through a slit in the cloth below the magicienne's logo. “Good. This is the most important part! I am going to count to three. On the count of two, I want you to pull your hand back in. Do you understand?”
The volunteers both confirmed their understanding of the instruction, but their tone suggested that they did not see the point.
“I'm going to start counting! One! … Two!” both hands withdrew into the cages. “THREE!” The stage-helpers, grabbed the cloths and pulled them from the cages.
Inside the cages were not the volunteers, restored or otherwise; but each cage held a white tiger. Carefully, the magician and her helpers turned each cage, to show the magnificent beasts and the lack of anywhere for the volunteers to hide. The cages were then manoeuvred to touch each other and recovered with the cloths. The covered cages were pushed together and appeared to be merging into the size of a single cage.
The cloths were pulled away and inside sat two women in grey leotards, neither face seemed to be totally Sharon or Jane, but each seemed to have some intermediate resemblance to both. The cloths were slung back over the cages and the two cages were dragged apart.
When the coverings were removed again, one cage contained a black panther and the other a pale puma. The cages were rotated again before the covers were returned to covering the cages. After about ten seconds, the cloths were removed, to show Sharon in a black leotard where the panther had prowled seconds before, and Jane in white where the Albino cougar had been.
The stage-helpers opened the cage-doors and helped the volunteers to get out of the cages.
The magicienne took their hands and led them in a bow to the audience, while asking for appreciation for her brave volunteers. “Thank you, Sharon and Jane. And, as an extra thank you, you may keep the leotards and here are your clothes that you changed out of.” A stage-helper brought forward a pair of large paper carrier bags, one black, one white, with the show's logo.
The bags were handed to the matching volunteer. Sharon was seen to glance into the bag and smile that the clothes inside were indeed hers.
“And as an extra special thank you, for allowing me to restore you in front of this audience, I would like you to accept these, too.”
From behind her back, where there had been nothing, she produced two large, three foot long, plushies. One was a black panther that she presented to Sharon. The second was a mountain lion that she gave to Jane.