The elevator doors opened onto thick, velvety darkness.
Phyllis carried Daisy out onto the landing of the basement, flicked on the light switch and set her down. Instantaneously, the vast underground place was flooded with brightness.
Daisy scampered down the stairs and jumped onto her favourite sofa, in a small area Phyllis had cleared in the middle of the enormous jungle of props and tricks that crammed the basement. Phyllis reached into the elevator, removed her special key from the control panel, shut the elevator doors and pressed a button by her elbow, sending the cage back up to the lobby. The only way to gain access to the basement using the elevator was with her special elevator key, or with the duplicate key her father had on his key ring.
The young prestidigitator went down the stairs and over to join Daisy, who was busily licking her paws in a hurry up and come and settle here with me sort of way. Out of habit, Phyllis picked up her favourite top hat—the one she always wore when she was rehearsing down here—and plonked it on her head, pulling her fringe down under the brim so the hat sat right.
She joined Daisy on the sofa and absentmindedly began rubbing Daisy’s ear, the one that was permanently folded over.
Usually when Phyllis came down into her basement she started practising a trick or a card move or some new sleight-of-hand she was learning. But not today. This evening, Phyllis didn’t feel like rehearsing or exploring the yet-to-be-discovered props and apparatus and magic books and theatrical wonders of her great-grandfather’s that lay stored down here.
This evening, Phyllis was thinking about her mother.
Mostly, Phyllis didn’t think too much about her. It was only occasionally, when something reminded Phyllis that she wasn’t around (like Leizel Cunbrus’s taunting earlier that afternoon), that Phyllis felt the full weight of her mum’s absence. It was as if, when Phyllis wasn’t thinking about her mum, all the longings for her got saved in some hidden place inside Phyllis, and then when something happened to break that place open, they spilled out in a huge torrent, as though a riverbank had burst, and Phyllis was flooded with heaviness.
Phyllis sat there, patting Daisy. The little terrier could sense that Phyllis was feeling low, and she gave Phyllis’s hand a quick, gentle lick before resuming the grooming of her own paws.
Everything was still, apart from the patting and Daisy’s tongue darting in and out. The basement felt quiet . . . calm . . . almost timeless . . . and so absorbed was Phyllis in her thoughts, and Daisy in her paw-licking, that they didn’t notice the sudden glow of bright green light emanating from a place near the top of the stairs.
The light grew more intense, and it swelled, wider and higher, until it formed the shape of a giant, shimmering almond. The edges of this bright, hazy shape wafted tremblingly on the air.
And then, from the midst of the swirling green vapour, a man stepped out, treading lightly onto the stairs.
He was a youngish man, about the same age as Phyllis’s dad, and he stood tall and slender. He was dressed in a sleek tail coat of midnight-blue silk with matching trousers, a low-cut white silk waistcoat, a white wing-collared shirt and white bow tie.
His glossy black hair was in disarray, and was sticking up at strange angles all over his head, like dark crests on the top of a hairy meringue cake. He had a long, fine nose; a pencil-thin, neat moustache; high, angular cheekbones; and ears that were small and a little pointed at the tops.
He stayed on the stairs for a moment, blinking, accustomising himself to the place he had just stepped into. His eyes glowed strangely, pulsatingly, a vibrant, sharp green—not just his irises, but the whites of his eyes as well.
Then he opened those eyes wide and surveyed the cavernous basement. His gaze fell upon Phyllis and Daisy on the sofa, and he smiled.
‘Great-granddaughter,’ the man said, his voice deep and smooth.
Phyllis jumped, and Daisy sprang to her paws, leapt off the sofa, and raced across to the stairs. She bounded up them like a furry miniature steam train, yapping loudly and excitedly.
The man scooped her up. Holding her under his arm, he came down the steps and over to Phyllis, who was on her feet and beaming.
‘W.W.!’ she exclaimed, rushing to give him a hug. ‘I was wondering when you’d be back!’
Phyllis’s thoughts about her mum were instantly washed away as she embraced Wallace Wong, Conjuror of Wonder!
‘Why,’ he said, tousling her hair, ‘it’s been hardly any Time at all since we last Transited. How long?’
‘Oh,’ she answered, ‘only a couple of months. By here Time, that is.’
‘Ah, yes, you were brilliant in your investigation of those foul papers.’*
He squeezed her and then Daisy yapped even louder—it was getting a little airless where she was, trapped between Wallace Wong’s waistcoat and Phyllis’s shoulder. Wallace quickly stepped back and deposited Daisy on the floor.
‘Let me look at you,’ he said to Phyllis. ‘Ah, you are appearing well, my dear girl. But—’ he squinted slightly, his eyes throbbing green and curious ‘—I detect the merest hint of something sad? Tell me, Phyllis, are you troubled by things?’
Phyllis managed a smile, which wasn’t difficult, so happy was she to be with Wallace Wong again. ‘Not really. Not by anything I can’t do something about.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yep.’ She beamed at him, then rushed into another hug.
‘For troubles can be like the bent coin that has been dropped into the donut batter,’ he added in his muddled manner.
She looked up at him, strangely.
‘Oh, I know what I am meaning,’ he said quickly. ‘Are you really all right?’
‘I’m swell. Hey, W.W., I’m tickled pink to see you again!’
Wallace laughed—he was always delighted that Phyllis had picked up so many of the sayings from the old movies he’d appeared in. ‘I, too, am tickled pink to be reunited with my dauntless girl,’ he said, grinning. ‘Come, let us sit, and I shall tell you why I have returned.’
They settled themselves on the sofa and Daisy sprang up to wedge herself between them in the I’m going to take up the most space here way that small dogs often do.
Before Wallace could begin, Phyllis asked, ‘Where have you been Transiting to lately, then?’ (For Wallace Wong was a Transiter—one who is able to move from place to place and Time to Time—and he had passed on the knowledge of this secret to Phyllis, who he had been thrilled to discover also had the gift for being able to see beyond the here-and-now.)
Wallace gave her an inscrutable smile, and answered her question with a question of his own: ‘Do you remember, my dear, when you asked me why I Transited so much? Why I never stayed in the one spot for very long?’
‘Yes,’ Phyllis replied.
‘And do you remember what I answered?’
‘I sure do. You said you were searching for something.’
‘Yes.’
‘And that you’d been searching for this “something” for nearly a century, and that it’d become a way of life for you that you loved. And when I asked you what it was, this “something”, you wouldn’t tell me. I remember your words—I wrote them down in my journal. You said that it wasn’t the nowness to tell me, and that you’d tell me what you were searching for when the nowness was ready.’
‘Ah, you are very thorough. Well, Phyllis, I am pleased to tell you that the nowness is ripe.’
Phyllis bounced on the sofa. ‘You’re going to tell me?’
‘I am. First, however, I want you to recap something.’
‘Okay, what?’
‘Tell me once more about the Pockets. I want to make sure that you still remember their types and what they are capable of. And I am keen to know whether you have made any new discoveries about them which perhaps I am not aware of.’
The Pockets. Phyllis smiled. ‘No, no new discoveries. Not since the last time I saw you.’
‘Have you been Transiting since then?’
‘No. I almost did, but . . . well, I guess the foul papers trip sort of left me with a lot to think about.’
‘Ah, yes.’ Wallace Wong placed his hand on Phyllis’s. ‘It is good, I have found, not to pile on the Transits. It is a wise idea to leave some Time between trips, in order to reflect on where you have been and what has occurred during the Transiting. Not to mention, you need to get over the Transitaciousness. Me, I should listen to my own advice and leave more Time between my Transits . . . maybe then my eyes would settle down again more quickly.’
His eyes were still bright and green and throbbing, Phyllis observed.
‘Yes,’ Wallace went on, ‘that is the major mistake most Transiters make; they are no sooner back in one place and one Time than they run up some stairs again and are off, all willy-nilly, faster than a slippery pickle in the hands of a bricklayer.’
‘Huh?’
‘Oh, I know what I am meaning. Now, clearly, concisely, tell me what you remember of the Pockets.’
Quickly, Phyllis recapped what Wallace Wong had taught her: that as far as they knew, there were four different types of TimePockets—Anamygduleons, Andruseons, Anvugheons and Anaumbryons. These were all different in size and power, and they were always to be found on stairs.
She stopped and smiled at her youthful great-grandfather. He smiled back. Their smiles were nearly identical.
‘Very good,’ he said. ‘I knew you would retain the knowledge.’
‘Best things I’ve ever learnt,’ she said. ‘Now it’s your turn. Tell me: what is it that you’ve been searching for all this Time?’
Wallace Wong, Conjuror of Wonder!, stood. He walked to the centre of the rehearsal space and, as though he were back on stage in an enormous theatre, turned and faced Phyllis and Daisy.
‘Here is the next part of my story, Phyllis my dear,’ he began, his voice so powerful it sent ripples of anticipation through Phyllis. Without realising it, she brought her hands together and interlocked the little finger on her right hand with the thumb on her left hand, and curled the rest of her fingers gently around the backs of her hands. She always did this whenever she wished to focus deeply.
‘I am seeking something so wonderful,’ Wallace announced, ‘that it defies the imaginations of many. Something that I hope still exists somewhere in the wide world of the past and, perhaps, the present. A secret, Phyllis. The most profound and wonderful secret ever created!’
Phyllis felt goose bumps popping up along her arms and shoulders. Daisy, sensing the power in Wallace’s voice, remained still, watching him.
‘It is the secret of the Pockets I am looking for, my dear girl,’ Wallace said. ‘It is the reason for the Transiting, the whole method behind these extraordinary places where people like you and me are able to step through the boundaries of what is normal, what is logical, what is real!
‘And to find this secret, to find the reason why all of this is possible, I must find the one who created it. The one person who, long ago, discovered the first Pocket and developed it and created all the rules of Transiting . . . Phyllis, I am searching for the greatest magician the world has ever seen!’
* See Phyllis Wong and the Return of the Conjuror to find out more about this incident . . .