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Kris sat at a small table. He was once again wearing his red cape and hood. Behind him was a three-paneled wooden screen, the sort that people step behind to change clothes. There was a wooden chair opposite his own, and he motioned to it.
“Please have a seat, Mannie Candler.”
The little tabletop was set with a mat of green felt, a deck of cards, three small brass cups, a magician’s wand, and other items. I recognized them at once as the contents of a child’s magic kit. I sat down, and Kris smiled.
“When I was your age, I once attended a performance by a traveling magician. I was fascinated, even though my mother had told me that the fellow was simply doing tricks. It wasn’t until I came to Very North that I was able to learn a few of my own. Oh, by that time, I had already been chosen by the strange magics, and had even cast protective spells against the Grim Frost. But, I thought I’d better teach myself a few conjuring tricks. You know, to amuse young visitors.”
He picked up the deck of cards, fanned them out. He presented them, backside up, to me.
“Select a card,” he said, and I did. It was the Eight of Diamonds. “Would you be impressed if I told you that it is the Eight of Diamonds?” he said.
“Well, it depends. Are all the cards the same?”
He flipped over the deck, revealing all fifty-two cards were, in fact, identical.
“It didn’t fool me, either. Let me show you a better one.”
He reached below the table and brought out a wooden platform that he set up top. There were four shallow, circular indentations on the platform, and a narrow wooden groove that ran horizontally along the center, separating the two front circles from the two in the back. Kris set a small cake in the front left circle.
“This is an enchanted dessert tray. I have only this one cake, and it’s very small.”
He picked up a mirrored panel and slid it along the center groove. Now the cake at the front of the platform was reflected in the mirror.
“By sliding this mirror into place, it looks as though there are now two cakes, one in the front row and one in the back. Of course, you and I both know that the second cake is just a reflection of the first. But keep looking.”
He slid the mirror away, and now there was a second cake in the second row, no longer a reflection but a tangible reality.
“Happily, we now have two cakes. One for each of us. But I am feeling greedy. Let us tempt the enchanted tray again.” He took the cake from the back and set it beside the first cake in the front row. He then slid the mirror through the groove once again.
“With the mirror’s reflection, it now appears as if there are four cakes. Perhaps there are.” He slid the mirror away, and now, four cakes indeed graced the tray.
“Whatever happens in front of the mirror becomes real behind it.” He slid the mirror into place once more.
“I am keeping my hands visible at all times. Now, I want you to take one of those cakes up front. Pick it up and take a nibble out of it. Go on.”
I took the right hand cake, and bit just a little off. It was slightly stale. My face probably showed my disappointment.
“I know. Magic these cakes may be, but I didn’t say they would be tasty, now did I.”
I smiled.
“Now, put the cake back,” he said, and I placed the now partly eaten cake in the shallow indentation. Kris slid the mirror away, and the cake on the right hand side of the back row now had a nibble taken out of it as well.
“What happens in front comes true on the other side. If only all mirrors could do this. What do you think?”
“It’s very good.”
“This illusion was handmade, very expensive. Martin found it for me.”
I nodded and gave a mild laugh. It was a nice trick, but next to the wonders I had seen that night, it was a comparative also-ran.
Kris leaned forward from his side of the table, and motioned me to move closer.
“May I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Right now, where do you believe you are?”
“In my bed, asleep and dreaming,” I said.
“Many who visit here think that. But this isn’t like any dream you’ve had before. In your heart, you must know that you aren’t asleep at all, right?”
“Yes. I do know I’m not asleep.”
“But it’s easier to think so, isn’t it. Because saying what seems to be true is sometimes confounding.”
“Yes,” I answered, and knew what he would ask next.
“So, where do you truly think you are, right now?”
“Someplace called Very North, which seems to be in a forest. I think maybe I’m in Finland.”
Kris’s smile showed that this was the answer he was hoping for. “A thousand blessings, young friend, on your pure, trusting soul.”
He stood up and with his right arm, indicated the chair he had just been sitting in. “Would you please take my place in this seat?”
“I can if you want,” I said.
“Good, but first, I should mention something. I have found that there are two kinds of people. Some of them, when they see this trick, want to know how it’s done. They want to see the secret mechanisms that make it possible. Others, well, they simply want to believe that several cakes magically appeared and be content with that. Which of the two are you?”
“I’m the sort that wants to know how it works.”
“Yes, I thought you might be. Now, why do you want to know? To satisfy your curiosity? To add to the sum of all the other things you know?”
“All of that, I guess. But really, I think I would want to know so I could do the trick for others.”
Kris held his arms aloft and looked upward. “Yes! That is a perfect answer! How happy it makes me to hear you say it.”
He indicated again his chair. “Please, come over and look for yourself.” I stood and stepped past Kris. As soon as I sat down, I saw that the entire table was really a narrow, hollow box. There were levers and gears hidden within it.
“The table is cleverly designed to assist in all kinds of conjuring tricks. It was built and used by Professor Carabello, a conjuror who traveled the world in the eighteen-nineties. Examine the whole works closely, but be careful. It’s all very delicate.”
Kris flipped the hood back from his head, revealing his bald pate and the ring of white hair that surrounded it. He began to wriggle his way out of the coat. “I hope you don’t mind. It’s warmer here on this upper floor. Heat rises, you know.” He turned and set the coat on a hook mounted to the wall. I leaned over a bit, and saw that there were two more hooks to the left of it. His green bishop’s vestments were on the next over, and the rugged brown fur coat was set on the hook next to that.
“Please pardon me. I must change,” he said, and he stepped behind the hinged screen, directly behind the chair I was sitting in. He continued speaking, though he was now out of my sight.
“Take all the cakes off of the platform, and line them up on the markers you see at the back of the hollow shelf.” I had no trouble finding the marks he was talking about. “When you start the trick, you’ve got one cake with a nibble already taken out of it. There are six cakes in all, and they get moved around and lifted into place by moving plates and levers. All you’ve got to do is slide the mirror in and out of the groove in the platform. Try it. Always slide the mirror from your left to your right. You will feel it catch halfway across, and then you will see what happens.”
I did as he said. I was fascinated to see the intricate movement of sliding and rotating parts. With impressive precision, the shallow circles along the back row would lower down, receive their cargo, and lift back up into place, locking in just as the mirror slid out of the way.
“It’s amazing,” I said. “It’s more amazing from here than when I was watching you do it from the other side.”
“That is exactly how I felt about it!” I heard him say. “The secret is more remarkable than the illusion.” From the other side of the divider, there was the sound of a faucet turning on, and water running. I hadn’t thought about it, but I supposed that even a place like Very North would need such amenities.
“The cake platform is just one of many illusions the Carabello table makes possible. There are other traps and secret compartments as well. Switches and tiny mirrors and all manner of gimmicks made to deceive. But it is a friendly deception.”
I had started to wonder what was behind this demonstration, but I was getting an idea. “Excuse me, sir,” I said. “If you don’t mind my asking, are you really Father Christmas?”
“Not any longer,” came the reply.
“What I mean is, were you ever?”
“Come over here, my boy. To this side of the room.”
I got out of the chair and stepped around the divider. On the other side, I saw that I was in a dressing room, the kind found backstage at a theatre. Kris sat before a mirror, surrounded by small incandescent light bulbs. There were trays and tables on either side of him, wet cloths and towels. He was wearing an undershirt, and suspenders. He turned in his chair, and I saw right away that his beard was gone. But it hadn’t gone far. It was sitting on the counter just in front of him.
“You have correctly guessed why I spoke of deceit. I am a fraud. An imposter. Or, to put it another way...” and he began to pull at his scalp, just above his brow. It looked as though he was lifting the top of his hea d right off of his skull. His baldness peeled away, and revealed a head of long brown hair beneath. “I am an actor,” he said.
When he had removed the false top, he ran a towel over his face and head, and then he leaned forward, and put his hands to his eyes. I watched as first one then another tiny glass lens fell into his palm. He held them out to me.
“The twinkling blue eyes of Father Christmas,” he said. “Mine are a more mundane brown, you see. These are the finest lenses ever made for such a disguise. Very expensive, too. They used to hurt like the devil when I put them in, but now, I’m quite used to them.”
He set the lenses carefully into a small tray with a cover that closed over them. Then he looked back up at me, and I recognized him at once. He was the man with the long hair and the sad face, the one I had seen visiting my father alongside Mr. Prassler, just days ago.
“My name is Michael Brams. I am delighted to finally meet you, Mannie Candler.”
I stared at him, disbelieving. But for the remnants of face paint and latex skin still clinging to a few spots on his face, I would have found it impossible to accept that this was the same man who had shown me the enchanted cake trick just minutes ago. I finally remembered to answer him.
“I ... I’m pleased to meet you...” I said, and he gave a salutary nod.
“I would shake your hand, Mannie, but I’m a mess. Give me a moment to apply a little more cold cream, and to scrub my face into better shape. Oh, and if you go back out the door, the next to the right is a bathroom, in case you need it.”
The moment he mentioned it, I discovered I needed it very badly.
A few minutes later, I emerged from the loo. Michael Brams was standing by a door further down the hall. He was talking to somebody else, but when he saw me, he motioned me over. He had changed into a flannel shirt and dungarees. He was as tall as Father Christmas had been, but skinnier. His hair was mussed.
“You must have a thousand questions, and I promise to answer them all. But let’s start with the biggest question.”
“Where am I?” I said.
“Yes, that’s the one. Follow me.” We walked to the end of that rather plain corridor, and around a corner, where the walls were bare concrete. Just in front of me was a steel door with an iron push bar. The words EMERGENCY EXIT were stenciled in red across it.
“Go ahead and push it open,” said Michael. When I did, I felt a surge of warm air. I stepped out onto a balcony of metal grating, from which steel steps extended and continued on down. I looked up into the expanse of night sky. The smell of the air, the sounds of the natural world beyond were immediately familiar to me. This was a clear, warm December night in New Zealand.
“If you turn around and look toward the roof, you’ll see where you’ve actually been the last several hours,” the man told me. I spun around and looked up. There was one more story above us. In the dim moonlight, I could make out the words painted on the upper corner of the giant warehouse. MARBURY MEATS