This short story featuring my creation, stage performer and ‘real magic’ practitioner Finella, is a little less extreme than my other ones. No saws. No swords. Not much peril, and no sexytimes either. Really it’s just a little something to get me back in the magic writing mood.

Finella scanned the bar. Ah, that group looked rather promising. Three woman, all with wine glasses, talking away in the familiar fashion of long-time friends, but not so engrossed that they’d resent an interruption to their chat. And now Finella thought about it, she remembered the blond one pausing on her way back from the loos to watch Finella perform a simple rip-the-banknote trick to a different group half an hour ago.

She approached them with a cheery smile. “Hi! Would you mind if I joined you?” she asked.

“Of course not,” the blonde replied. “Pull up a stool.” She paused. “You’re the magician Fiona hired for her wife’s birthday, aren’t you? I saw you over there, doing a trick for Dawn and her friends.”

Finella settled on the stool. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll be doing a few big tricks later.” She didn’t add that Fiona would be invited to star in the finale, as that was meant to be a surprise arranged specially for the magic-obsessed woman by her wife and the fewer people who were in on it the better. Not that it took a genius to guess, and Fiona was no fool – Finella had spotted the woman eying the cloth-covered cabinets on the improvised stage several times.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I’m meant to be getting you all in a magical frame of mind before the big tricks start. So how about you all introduce yourselves then I’ll do a little something for you.”

The introductions were simple enough. The blonde was Roz. The brunette in an autumn gold blouse and black slacks was Kate. Jess was the shortest, and had a tattoo of a fairy on the side of her neck.

“I’ll need a couple of props first,” Finella said. “Jess, can you get that nice new iPad out of your bag?” Jess opened her mouth as if to ask how Finella knew of the device she’d only treated herself to last weekend but Finella cut her off with a simple tap on the side of her nose.

“Magic, that’s how.” She paused, then looked pointedly at Jess’s bag.

Jess removed the tablet and set it on the bar.

“And the handcuffs too,” Finella added.

“I don’t have any…” Jess began, but Finella cut her off again. Jess reached into her bag for a second time. Her face was a picture as she withdrew a set of heavy police-style cuffs that most definitely had not been there a minute ago. The cuffs already had a key in one lock, with a ring and a blank cardboard tag. The only other remarkable thing about the cuffs, apart from their appearance from nowhere, was that the chain between the two halves was a good deal longer than normal – at least two feet at a glance.

Finella took hold of the cuffs. “Roz?” she asked. The blonde cottoned on almost instantly and held out her hands, palms up, wrists bare and ready to be restrained. Finella obliged.

“That’s cold!” Roz exclaimed. Finella ignored the comment, instead simply turning the key and removing it. She locked the other side too, then dropped the key into Jess’s blazer coat pocket before addressing the group.

“Check the cuffs are secure and locked, please,” she said. “All of you.”

After some tugging and rattling of the chain and several attempts to pry the cuffs open, the three women nodded.

“Locked tight,” Kate said, speaking for them all.

“Good,” Finella replied. “Now Jess, please get that key out of your pocket and sign the tag. I’m sure you must have a pen somewhere in that cavernous bag of yours.”

Jess complied, scribbling her moniker and showing it to the other two for good measure.

“Now what?” Kate asked.

“Now you open your mouth and keep it open,” Finella replied. She turned to Jess again. “Put the key in Kate’s mouth, Jess. Right on her tongue.”

That done, Finella picked up Kate’s wine glass and handed it to her. “Take a good gulp and swallow it down,” Finella said. “Key and all.”

That actually took several goes to achieve, but soon Kate’s glass was empty and so was her mouth. Empty, and open for inspection.

Finella counted to ten. “Should be in your stomach now,” she said, “but let’s check.” Kate flinched as if expecting Finella to reach over and palpitate her stomach, but Finella had a different plan. Without asking, she picked up Jess’s iPad, typed in the pass code and scanned the home screen.

“Good, the latest camera x-ray app,” she muttered as she aimed the camera at Kate’s middle. She invited Jess and Roz to lean in and watch as she angled the device too and fro, giving them a live x-ray view of Kate’s internals along with a distinctly key-shaped blob with an attached tag.

“Of course the key could just be taped to Kate’s blouse,” Finella said. “So to prove that’s not the case could you undo the bottom few buttons of your blouse, Kate, and tie it up?”

Kate did as asked, being careful not to give the bar staff, one of whom had started to take quite an interest in proceedings, an eyeful. Finella kept the iPad trained on her the whole time. The shadow of the key remained exactly where it was.

Finella set the tablet down and waited until the silence stretched out. “What?” she finally said. “You expect me to magic it back out? And there I was thinking we’d just let nature take its course.”

Roz held up her cuffed wrists. “I can’t go to work tomorrow like this,” she said.

“True,” Finella replied. “But I’m still not going to magic that key out. Nope.” She paused, then fixed Roz with a look. “You are.”

“I wouldn’t know how!” Roz protested.

“Just follow my directions,” Finella replied, ignoring the muttered “And look where that’s got us,” from Jess.

Roz and Kate looked at each other, then shrugged. “OK,” Kate said, speaking for both of them again.

Finella stood, motioning Roz and Kate to stand too. She had Kate face the bar with her arms up above her head, then told Roz stand behind her with her wrists out. Finella took the loop of chain hanging between Roz’s wrists, twisted it into a loop then eased it over Kate’s arms, pulling Roz’s wrists up the process. With a fair bit of tugging on Finella’s part, shimmying on Kate’s, and grumbling on Roz’s, Finella managed to work the chain down until it looped tightly around Kate’s exposed midriff. In the process Roz’s wrists had become crossed in such a way that any movement on her part would tighten the chain around Kate’s waist and nothing she could do would loosen it. It didn’t seem logical, but a few experimental tugs soon had Roz and Jess admitting that that was indeed the case, Kate going along with them if only to avoid further chafing.

“Now the tricky bit,” Finella said. She addressed Kate first, telling her to brace herself, suggesting that she reach over the bar to hold tight to the far side of it. Being tall and long of arm, Kate managed that quite easily.

Then she turned to Roz. “All you have to do is wait for my count of three. Then pull back, uncross your wrists sharply, and throw your arms as wide as you can. It’ll take a good strong tug, so don’t hold back. I promise Kate won’t be hurt.”

Roz was sceptical. Given the predicament they were in, the only way she could go backwards was by pulling the chain right through her friend’s waist, or by yanking her free of the bar to topple over backwards and let the chain slip back over her head. Even setting aside the impossibility of the first, both possibilities would cause hurt, the former presumably fatal. But then it was also impossible for Finella to have put a torn banknote back together, and Roz had seen that with her own eyes. Setting aside her doubts, she took a deep breath and nodded. Then waited.

On the count of three she pulled back. Hard.

Nothing happened. Nothing except for a grunt from Kate, that is.

“Harder,” Finella commanded.

Again the count. Again Roz pulled.

Again nothing.

But on the third go Roz heard a strange pop, a yelp, and suddenly she was staggering back, her arms outstretched, the chain back on her side, completely free of Kate (whose shoulders slumped as she gasped for breath). Remembering Finella’s instructions, Roz opened her arms as wide as she could, the chain giving a high pitched clink and tinkle as it was pulled taut.

No. Scratch that. The tinkle wasn’t the chain. It was the key which danced from the central link of the chain, its handwritten tag waving below.

Finella put a hand on Kate’s shoulder, checking she was OK and inviting her to turn back round. Then she gestured Jess to lean in.

“Is this the key tag you signed?” she asked Jess. Jess nodded dumbly. “Well you’d better use it to let your friend out of those cuffs, then!”

That done, Roz and Jess joined Kate in examining her midriff. The skin around her waist was still firm and unbroken, but instead of the expected red chaff marks there was a dull red pattern that more closely resembled a tattoo.

A tattoo of a chain, with a key hanging from it.

“Don’t worry,” Finella said. “It’ll fade in a week or two.” She paused. “Unless you don’t want it to. In which case it won’t. Your choice.”

With that, she gave each of the three women a heartfelt hug of thanks.

Then moved on, to find her next victims.

THE END