Twelve

The area above the stage was cast in shadows, and I couldn’t make out the faces of the two figures who crept along the catwalk. Yet from the glimpses I caught of the long-haired man, he looked vaguely familiar.

As he stepped past a set of metal lights and into the dim glow cast by the Ghost Light, I got a better look at his face. I stifled my gasp. It was the elderly volunteer from the show the previous night. Wallace Mason, who’d played the Floating Lady!

Between Peter and Penelope’s strange actions and the lurking figures above us, I was more confused than ever. What was going on here? Stage show “volunteers” were often planted in the audience, themselves performers who were part of a show. It was an easy way to be sure the volunteer would behave exactly as they were supposed to in a complex illusion. But Wallace and his accomplice weren’t revealing themselves to Peter and Penelope. They weren’t part of the act.

As soon as Peter lifted the lid of the trunk, I temporarily forgot about the men spying on the magicians. Stuck to the inside of the trunk’s lid was a poster for the Queen of Magic, Adelaide Herrmann. That’s who Persephone had reminded me of the previous night. Adelaide Herrmann was the first famous female magician who had equal billing. Along with her husband, Alexander Herrmann, she had captivated audiences across Europe and America in the late 1800s.

The two magicians removed a child-size backpack from the trunk, secured the lock, then left. A heavy door clanked shut. It echoed through the empty theater.

Dorian and I didn’t dare move. Any sound we made would alert the other intruders to our presence.

“They’re gone,” a somber voice said from above.

“Shhh.”

“You’re too careful.”

“And you’re not careful enough. I bet they’ve got it with them. There’s no use staying here.”

“We might as well look around. Since we’re here.”

The men climbed down from the rafters. They made enough noise on the rungs of the narrow metal stairs that Dorian and I nodded at each other and crept from our hiding spot behind the curtains. Dorian scampered toward the back door, but I hung back when I saw what he’d left in his wake. Another small piece from his left foot had fallen off and was rolling along the floorboards. Another claw? I had no idea if stone claws could grow back on their own, so I ran after it. If I was able to save Dorian’s life, I wanted him to be as whole as possible.

Where had it gone? Footsteps sounded behind me. I didn’t have time to find it.

I caught up with Dorian just inside the back door. He climbed back into the duffel bag just as the lights clicked on above us.

“I told you I heard something,” Peter’s voice said. I turned and saw him and Penelope staring at me and Dorian.

“What have you got there?” Penelope asked, indicating the lumpy sack that contained Dorian.

“She’s stolen something. Only I can’t tell what would be that shape.”

“Stolen?” I said. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I knocked and nobody answered, so when I found the door open—”

“The door is locked,” Penelope said.

“Maybe one of your crew forgot to lock up,” I said. “It was wide open. Try it yourself.”

“Why would we do that?” Peter said. “If it’s unlocked, all it means is that you’re a good burglar. Pen, why don’t you search her for lock picks.”

Penelope crossed her arms and leaned against the black wall. She smiled as if she was watching an amusing television show she wasn’t participating in. “If she’s that good, Peter, I’ll never find the lock pics. They could be under a fake scar, hidden in her mouth. She might even have swallowed them if she’s a regurgitator.”

Dorian made a gagging noise as she spoke the word “regurgitate.”

I quickly coughed to cover up the sound, but Penelope looked to the duffel bag.

“I’m terribly curious,” she said, “about what you’ve got in the bag. We like our possessions to remain inside the theater. I’m sure you understand.”

“I’m sorry. I think we got off on the wrong foot. I live locally and run an online business called Elixir. We’ve got lots of really cool antiques that I thought could serve as props in your stage show. I brought over one of my statues to show you. Just to give you a sense of the kind of things I’ve got.”

I hoped Dorian was up for playing dead as a stone gargoyle. I unzipped the bag. Inside I found a stone gargoyle, his snout flared more than usual and his face set in an angry scowl.

“Remarkable,” Penelope said. “Peter, are you looking at this?”

He wasn’t. He was tapping the screen of his phone. “Elixir, huh. This is your website?” He held up the screen.

“That’s right.”

“You expect us to believe you make a living off this site? It’s not even mobile friendly.”

“I set it up before smartphones,” I said.

“How is that possible? You can’t be older than twenty-five.”

“I’m twenty-eight, actually.” That was the age I was when I accidentally discovered the Elixir of Life.

“We’ll take him,” Penelope said.

“What?”

“The gargoyle. The reason you’re here. We’ll take him.”

“Oh! Oh. This is an example. A prototype. He’s not for sale. You can order a custom carving through me, to your specifications.”

“We like this one.”

“Great. I can have one made that looks identical.” I named a price, hoping it would be too high.

“Perfect.”

“Perfect?”

“Is there a problem?” Penelope asked.

“Of course not,” I stammered, thinking I would have been better off letting them think I was a thief. Where was I going to find someone who could make a cast of Dorian? “I’ll come by on Monday with some paperwork and to discuss materials options.”

“We look forward to it,” Peter said.

I cringed when the exit door squealed as I departed, even though there was no longer any need for secrecy. In the alley, I hesitated. Why hadn’t they called the police? Isn’t that what people would do if they found a burglar in their place of business? Unless they really did have something to hide.

But there was something more important than worrying about the magicians’ motives. To hide, Dorian had turned himself completely to stone. Would he be able to bring himself back to life?

As I lugged the duffel bag to my car, I got my answer. The bag kicked me.

“That hurt,” I said.

“Not as much as it’s going to hurt me to have a plaster cast made of my body,” the bag mumbled.

“You’re lucky they didn’t see you moving.”

An older woman passing by on the sidewalk gave me a strange look. Better wait until we were inside the car to say anything else. I squeezed the bag into the space in front of the passenger seat on the floor of the pickup truck. Once we were both safely inside, I leaned over and unzipped a few inches. A pouting gargoyle looked up at me.

“You okay?”

“Why,” he said thoughtfully, “did they not call the police when they saw you inside their theater?”

“That’s what I was wondering.”

“And why did you not tell Monsieur Silverman you know him to be an alchemist? This was the point of our expedition!”

“Hey, what are you doing? You need to stay inside the bag until we get home.”

“I am attempting not to get out of the bag, but to stretch. I cannot move my legs.”

My own legs felt weak at that news. “Let me get you home.”

“Non!”

“What do you mean, no?”

“Do not worry about my present state. It is not what happens to me today that matters. The feeling is already beginning to return to my legs.” He wriggled inside the bag. “It becomes more difficult each time, Zoe. You must confront the magician.”

“You’re forgetting something.”

“I forget nothing. I simply do not say everything at once. I am a civilized Frenchman,” added the face peeking out from the old duffel bag.

“The two intruders,” I said.

“Yes. I recognized them as the volunteers from the performance last night.”

“There was only one volunteer. The man with the long gray hair was The Floating Lady.”

“The other man,” Dorian said, “was the friend with whom he sat in the audience.”

Where had the other trespassers gone? What were they after? And what was the item Peter and Penelope had removed from the trunk that Wallace and the other man had noted? I bet they’ve got it with them, he had said.

“I’m not going to rush off and confront anyone without knowing what’s going on,” I said. “I’ve got a better idea.”

Dorian didn’t experience heat and coldness the same way people do, so I left him inside my locked truck, hoping he didn’t stretch so forcefully that he’d rock the truck and draw attention to himself.

I was in luck. The box office was opening. Opening night had been sold out, but I hoped the early box office hours meant there were still tickets left. I approached the ticket office and bought myself a ticket for that night’s performance.