Melody – Three

“Okay… I’m counting five girls out there who are still, lets say, themselves.”
Some of the audience laughed.
“Anyway, let’s get uh… you, and you, up here.” Steve pointed to a sweet looking Mexican girl, and then to Elaine, the girl who Miranda and Melody had met on their way in.
The two introduced themselves, and the Hispanic girl said her name was Annie. In spite of the expectations many seemed to hold, she spoke perfect English. Annie wore red heals and a long green dress, while Elaine was dressed simply in khakis and a white t-shirt.
“So, do either of you have any sorts of requests?”
Both of them hesitated.
“Yea, I didn’t think so. Never hurts to ask though. So, I’ll just go ahead, if you two don’t mind…”
Steve reached into his pocket and pulled out the coin again.
“Elaine – call it.”
“Heads.”
“Nope. Tails. You lose. This means you go first.” He smiled, while Elaine laughed nervously, more out of stage fright, it seemed than anything else. She glanced back at Charlie, who looked genuinely worried. It was sort of cute, but also way too mushy.
Steve took out the cloth, and manipulated it until it was 9x9 again, then he folded it in thirds so that it was about 3x9, and asked Elaine to hold one end. She took grasp of it, almost as if it were about to bite her – it was obvious that she wasn’t quite as comfortable with ‘losing’ as some of the others had been. Melody thought, “Definitely not the girl to pick for the head-switcher.”
Steve wrapped the cloth around Elaine’s upper body once, and then beckoned Annie to come. Annie did so, and Steve wrapped the other end of the cloth around Annie in the same manner, forming a sort of large, curly S with a girl in each center.
Steve shouted, “Ready?” causing Annie to nod excitedly, and Elaine to force a smile.
“One.”
Elaine looked at Charlie again.
“Two.”
Annie closed her eyes, overflowing with anticipation.
“And three.”
Nothing seemed to happen. It wasn’t so simple this time for Steve to simply rip the sheet away, since there were, at least presumably, the two girls still interwoven into it. However, a change was immediately apparent, not on the bodies of the girls, but in their faces – Elaine began looking a little more confused than scared, while Annie’s mouth twisted from a smile into a wicked grin.
“Could each of you turn counter-clockwise, and we’ll see what I’ve done.”
The girls complied, and before a moment had passed, the sheet fell to the floor, exhibiting Steve’s latest transformation. To begin with, Elaine was missing her arms. They simply ended, at the shoulder, as if they had been amputated.
But the real masterpiece was Annie – who now had four arms, her own, and Elaine’s two much paler arms underneath those. It seemed almost difficult for her to move all of them – Melody imagined that she would have to concentrate harder – yet she did manage a few simple things, such as holding hands with herself, touching her nose, and the like. Meanwhile Elaine, the surprise over, seemed content to accept her plight, understanding that it would not be permanent, and as Steve promised, he could change her back at the end of the show.
Annie assisted Elaine with the stairs, and walked her over to her seat, then graciously thanked her for the use of her arms, just for a while, and returned to her own seat.
After this, Steve picked two more volunteers, leaving only one girl who had not yet been chosen. The two, whose names were Claire and Laura, both brunettes and dressed in loose fitting leather, explained that they were sisters, who thankfully seemed to get along pretty well.
Steve began, “Well, I think we’re going too need a little more levitation for this trick. Would you two please execute a stage dive?”
Claire seemed paralyzed, while Laura shrugged a little, and walked over to the edge of the stage. Looking back at Steve, she winked, and leapt out as if to make a perfect belly flop on the wooden floor below. She did levitate though, just an inch off the ground, then turned to her sister and shouted “C’mon, already!”
Claire, who looked to be the younger, Slowly ambled to the edge, and then hesitated. Laura, who by now had floated up to Claire’s head level, smiled, then grabbed her around the neck and flung her earthward. A quick scream escaped from Claire, just before she found that she was supported by something though it was obviously unclear exactly what.
Steve floated the two back over the stage, at let them rest with their feet touching at about waist-level. Next, he picked up the sheet and flung it out over them so that it covered the two of them entirely.
“Now, I guess we should just do the same count. So, here we go. OneTwoThree!”
Steve motioned upwards with his hands, and the two girls, still covered, began to rise, and spin at the same time. Their rotation got faster and faster, and Steve let them settle at about 10 feet in the air, at which point the whole works was pretty much just a blur. Steve let them gradually slow down, until they were stopped, and lowered it a little. By now it was apparent that whatever was under the sheet had gotten smaller.
Before anyone could speculate too much on what might have happened, Steve flung the sheet to the side, exposing Claire and Laura to be, well, merged was the best way Melody could think to put it. Claire was entirely normal from the waist up. So was Laura. Yet, instead of legs, Clair had Laura and Laura had Clair – they joined at the waist, and their legs seemed to have vanished entirely. Steve levitated the pair over to their seat, and set them down in an empty couch. The two propped themselves up as best they could, each with a mischievous smirk on their faces.
By now, there was only one girl left. She walked up to the stage before Steve could even ask her to, obviously she wasn’t very intent on missing out.
Steve invited her up on stage, and asked her name.
“Kim,” she said. Kim looked Spanish, and was tall with long dark hair, dark eyes, and a captivating smile. In spite of her supermodel curves and stunning appearance, she seemed rather shy. Also, instead of a short skirt or halter-top she’d elected for a long black and baggy skirt, and a tightly fitted black turtleneck.
“Well, Kim… This is it. The finally. Any ideas?”
Kim blushed and nodded. Steve smiled, waiting for to speak, and Kim leaned forward and whispered something into his ear. Steve drew back with an ironic smile on his face, then opened his mouth a little and said “Great idea.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, regrettably this will be my final trick. However, to make it extra special for all of you to witness, I will not even use a single prop, other than the beautiful Kimberly herself.”
Steve turned to Kim, who clapped along with the audience.
“My dear, would you put your hands in your pockets please?”
Kim did this, and Steve reached down and pulled gently on the hem of her skirt, causing a slight ruffle. When Kim extracted her hands, she (and the audience) found them both to be completely missing, her arms terminating at the wrist. Kim blushed a little, and worried herself with how she could clap, now that she lacked hands.
“Next, I need you to fold your arms, and hold still.”
Kim did this, visibly having a little trouble without having some place to tuck her hands. Steve walked around behind her, and set his hands on her shoulders. Next, he began pushing downwards, causing Kim to give a little bit. However it soon became obvious that Kim wasn’t just caving under the force of Steve’s pushing – she was actually shrinking.
Though, upon even further observation, it wasn’t quite that either. More like her torso, completely enveloped in her black shirt, was slowly descending into itself, or vanishing all together. After Steve stopped, Kimberly seemed only a head set on a pair of legs. Her smooth shoulders, covered by the black turtleneck, extended directly out of her waist, and her arms had vanished with the rest of her. The applause was simply deafening, very impressive for such a small audience. Steve took a quick bow, and then motioned for quiet once more.
“Now, I realize, that well, all of you are somehow changed, and some of you might not wish to remain like this forever,” (Miranda shot Melody a look), “and I also realize that many of you would like time to explore your new uh… selves, so this is what I propose. I’m going to leave and come back in about an hour. Until then, the bar is open; so you can all have fun, do whatever you want. But remember, don’t get too far away – there aren’t a lot of you, but I’m still liable to forget one of you, and you might be stuck like that. Just be sure to be back here at 11. Goodnight.”
Steve turned and walked backstage.
Melody turned to Miranda and said “Now our chance.”
“What do you mean, ‘our chance?’ I wanna go talk to Elaine. She looks so cute like that.”
“Well just for a minute. It’s not like we have anything really different. I mean, different bodies, yea, but we’re still well, human.”
“Okay, but this can’t take too long. Remember, 11.”
“Yea. No problem.”
Passing by Timmy with a little smile, Miranda winked and said, “Can we uh…?”
Timmy nodded with a grin and said, “Yea, he’s back there.”
“Thanks.”
The girls passed through a plain wooden door and down a simple hallway, lit with a naked light bulb so bright it was painful to look at. The made a left, on the hunch that the stage would be there, and found themselves in a big dimly lit room, with amps stacked up in one corner, a card table, and three folding chairs.
“Steve?” said Melody.
Nothing.
“Steve?” she said again, a little louder.
“Hello.”
The girls whisked around to find Steve standing behind them.
“Sorry to scare you. What do you need?”
“I just wanted to uh… ask a few questions.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but I might not have the answers you’re looking for. I’ll try as best I can, it’s not that there’s any real secrets, it’s just… well, never mind, what did you want to ask?”
“I guess, just… how? And how, can I learn?”
“The truth is, I don’t know exactly. Magic isn’t something that you learn – you have it. There aren’t many who can perform it, and I only know about fifty in the whole world. It’s innate, somehow. And since so few have these powers, we don’t know much about it. The thing is, there are more people who have them, though how many we can’t even begin to guess, but there are many who can do magic, they just don’t know it. As for how, it’s just instinctive. You see it done, then you try it yourself.”
“Oh. And you need a cloth?”
“No, you don’t need anything at all, just take Kim for example. I just use the cloth because otherwise, the effect is spoiled.”
“And it just works on girls?”
Steve laughed. “No, it works on guys too, actually. I just don’t have enough tricks for everyone out there, so I said that. Anyway, it’s um… more fun for me with just girls.”
“Oh. Well, thanks, I think.”
“No problem. Sorry if I disappointed you.”
“It’s okay.”
The girls made their way back to the Blue.
The final hour seemed to fly by in one huge blur of insanity. Melody remembered only glimpses and bits – Anna handing Melody her balloon head, Miranda carrying Emily’s top half around, Jade-Zannah-Marie talking to people excitedly and shifting from friend to friend introducing the rest of herself to everyone, and Annie teaching herself to juggle. She remembered Brooke talking to her, but she could hardly formulate any response, her face like that was just too mesmerizing. She remembered how cute Kim was with only legs, and remembered helping her stand up again after she somehow tripped. But most of that hour seemed to be consumed with Melody’s introspection, reflecting back on what Steve had told her. She knew the chances were slim, but she had to try.
Finally, Steve appeared on the stage again. Everyone immediately quieted down and waited for him to talk.
“Hey, it looks like everyone is still here. So, what I need is, everyone, except Suzie I guess, to get up here on the stage.” All the girls made their way up, Emily with a little bit of assistance.
“Now. This won’t take a moment. And in case you want to every try this again, just keep checking by the Blue. I’m bound to come back someday.”
Steve took the sheet, which had now expanded enough to cover the entire stage, and levitated it up above everyone. He let it drift down over the mob, and they all heard him counting, maybe for the last time.
“One.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
And the sheet flew up quickly, out of her field of vision. At the same time, Melody knew something was different. Very different. The floor seemed a lot closer, and it took her a second to figure out just why she couldn’t move. Every one of the girls had been reduced to only a head. It was really pretty funny, she thought. Would have made a great photo.
“Just kidding.”
Before the cloth dropped again, Melody noticed that Anna was still a balloon, just bodiless, and Brooke’s face was still upside-down.
After the cloth was lifted, everyone was back to normal (physically at least). Everyone began to filter out, and Melody and Miranda sauntered back to their car.
“Well, thanks. That was the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
“You didn’t spend any of my money did you?”
Melody laughed.
“So… you promised drinks.”
“Right. My place.”

To be continued (again!)