Wilhelm

Seattle, WA—Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition

Tuesday, June 15, 1909

HE WAS THERE again. The Enchantress’s assistant. I recognized him the first moment I saw him walking arm in arm with a beautiful young woman near the Cascades a week ago. I thought I saw him during our first show, though I was too nervous to do anything other than concentrate on The Butterfly, so I couldn’t be certain. Now he had shown up again, though alone this time. He was among the first to arrive as Teddy donned the persona of Laszlo and began our performance in the wooded space in front of the Hoo-Hoo House. I don’t know how he found us so quickly—Teddy insisted that we should perform in a different location each evening—but his cheeks were ruddy and he was breathing hard.

Teddy was executing a simple illusion with a silver dollar where he passed it from hand to hand for a time and then asked someone from the audience to guess which hand it was in. He loved this portion of the show and took pride in his ability to carry out these straightforward sleights of hand without my help. Common legerdemain was not the reason people flocked to see Laszlo. It was merely the warm-up that provided the opportunity for word to spread that Laszlo had arrived. The Butterfly was the actual reason for Laszlo’s popularity. The simplicity and beauty of the illusion had been written about numerous times in the local newspapers. Some journalists had even attempted to speculate how Laszlo transformed me into Jessamy Valentine, though none had yet come close to the true explanation. Regardless, Teddy was starting to receive the recognition he sought.

“You, young man, what’s your name?”

I looked up to see who Teddy had focused his attention on, and I was mortified to discover that he’d singled out the Enchantress’s assistant. Either Teddy didn’t recognize him or he had and was tempting fate.

“Jack Nevin,” he said. I was hidden at the edge of the crowd, but Jack still found me and offered the barest hint of a smile, as if daring me to interfere.

“Well, Jack,” Teddy said. “I want you to watch the coin. Watch it as it moves between my hands as if by magic. Watch closely.”

Jack’s grin spread wider. “Oh, I will.”

Teddy began shuffling the coin between his hands, rolling it across his knuckles and flipping it through his fingers so quickly that even I had trouble following. But no matter how fast Teddy moved, there never seemed a moment when Jack didn’t know exactly where the coin was.

Finally, Teddy held his fists out, the coin tucked safely in his left hand. Jack pursed his lips and furrowed his brow, pointing hesitantly from one fist to the other. Most in the audience shouted for Jack to choose the right hand, because that’s where they were meant to believe it was. A couple of people called for the left, and a suspicious young woman near the front suggested Jack should check Laszlo’s pockets, which earned a round of laughter, but Jack’s vacillation was for show.

“The right?” Jack called. “You think the right?” His question was met with approval, and he turned back to Teddy. “Then I think the ri—” He stopped, shook his head, and said, “No, I’m gonna go with the left.”

Teddy stiffened. “The left? Are you certain?”

Jack shrugged, feigning indecision. It was a ruse that I could see through even if Teddy could not. “My gut says left, though that could be the frankfurter sandwich I had earlier.” He was slowly stealing the show. If Teddy opened his hand and proved Jack correct, Laszlo would be a laughingstock. Instead of stories in the Seattle Star about the master magician Laszlo and his beautiful butterfly, they would write stories about the incompetent illusionist who had been humiliated by a young man from the audience. Whatever Teddy’s game was here, it would be over.

Impulsively, I shifted the coin from Teddy’s left hand to his right, and the only evidence that he had noticed was a slight twitch of his shoulders.

“Let’s see what we have.” Teddy opened his left hand and showed that it was empty, immediately followed by his right hand, which held the dollar. “Sorry, Jack, maybe next time.”

As Teddy moved on, Jack stood motionless, poleaxed. He stared at the space where Teddy’s hand had been as if he couldn’t believe what he’d seen. Guilt blossomed within me, its thorns piercing my heart, for what I’d done to Jack Nevin. His brain simply couldn’t process that the coin hadn’t been in Teddy’s left hand, where it should have been, and nothing could explain its absence. But that was because Jack didn’t know about me and my talent.

I felt Jack’s eyes on me a moment later, watching me when he should have been watching Teddy. I avoided his gaze, hoping he’d lose interest, but when Teddy announced The Butterfly, Jack was still fixed upon me. His eyes bored through the silk that Teddy wrapped me in. It was a relief when I entered the between and prepared to switch places with Jessamy, who was hiding around the corner of the Hoo-Hoo House, out of sight of the audience. From the between, the exposition sounded like the creation of the universe and smelled like humanity’s boundless ingenuity. The world’s fair was filled with magic, and I was part of that. Small and insignificant but still a part.

But while I saw the winged souls of every person surrounding Teddy as time slowed and he prepared to unveil his butterfly, one burned more brightly than any other. It was a soul that seemed too big for its body, a soul so bright that it seared an afterimage into my vision that lingered for an hour. There was only one person in the audience to whom it could belong.

“. . . a butterfly!”

The silk began to fall and I was still inside. Faster than the arrival of the end of a perfect day, I changed places with Miss Valentine. I had nearly ruined the entire performance, yet I touched my lips and found myself smiling.