Blinking as her eyes adjust to the light, Isobel first sees Marco in front of her, but something is different. There are no drops of rain on the brim of his hat. There are no drops of rain at all; instead, there is sunlight casting a soft glow around him. But that is not what makes Isobel gasp.
What elicits the gasp is the fact that they are standing in a forest, her back pressed up against a huge, ancient tree trunk. The trees are bare and black, their branches stretching into the bright blue expanse of sky above them. The ground is covered in a light dusting of snow that sparkles and shines in the sunlight. It is a perfect winter day and there is not a building in sight for miles, only an expanse of snow and wood. A bird calls in a nearby tree, and one in the distance answers it.
Isobel is baffled. It is real. She can feel the sun against her skin and the bark of the tree beneath her fingers. The cold of the snow is palpable, though she realizes her dress is no longer wet from the rain. Even the air she is breathing into her lungs is unmistakably crisp country air, with not a hint of London smog. It cannot be, but it is real.
“This is impossible,” she says, turning back to Marco. He smiles, his bright green eyes dazzling in the winter sun.
“Nothing is impossible,” he says. Isobel laughs, the high-pitched delighted laugh of a child.
A million questions rush through her head and she cannot properly articulate any of them. And then a clear image of a card springs suddenly into her mind, Le Bateleur. “You’re a magician,” she says.
“I don’t think anyone has actually called me that before,” Marco responds. Isobel laughs again, and she is still laughing when he leans closer and kisses her.
The pair of birds circle overhead as a light wind blows through the branches of the trees around them.
To passersby on the darkened London street, they look like nothing out of the ordinary, only young lovers kissing in the rain.
False Pretenses
JULY — NOVEMBER 1884
Prospero the Enchanter gives no formal reason for his retirement from the stage. His tours have been so sporadic in recent years that the lack of performances passes mostly without notice.
But Hector Bowen still tours, in a manner of speaking, even if Prospero the Enchanter does not.
He travels from city to city, hiring out his sixteen-year-old daughter as a spiritual medium.
“I hate this, Papa,” Celia protests frequently.
“If you can think of a better way to bide your time before your challenge begins — and don’t you dare say reading — then you are welcome to it, provided it makes as much money as this does. Besides, it is good practice for you to perform in front of an audience.”
“These people are insufferable,” Celia says, though it is not exactly what she means. They make her uncomfortable. The way they look at her, the pleading glances and tear-streaked stares. They see her as a thing, a bridge to their lost loved ones that they so desperately cling to.
They talk about her as though she is not even in the room, as if she is as insubstantial as their beloved spirits. She must force herself not to cringe when they inevitably embrace her, thanking her through their sobs.
“These people mean nothing,” her father says. “They cannot even begin to grasp what it is they think they see and hear, and it is easier for them to believe they are receiving miraculous transmissions from the afterlife. Why not take advantage of that, especially when they are so willing to part with their money for something so simple?”
Celia maintains that no amount of money is worth such an excruciating experience, but Hector is insistent, and so they continue to travel, levitating tables and producing phantom knocking on all manner of well-papered walls.
She remains baffled by the way their clients crave the communication, the reassurance. Not once has she ever wished to contact her departed mother, and she doubts her mother would want to speak with her if she could, especially through such complicated methods.
This is all a lie, she wants to say to them. The dead are not hovering nearby to knock politely at teacups and tabletops and whisper through billowing curtains.
She occasionally breaks their valuables, placing the blame on restless spirits.
Her father picks different names for her as they change locales, but he uses Miranda often, presumably because he knows how much it annoys her.
After months of it she is exhausted from the travel and the strain and the fact that her father barely lets her eat, as he claims looking like a waif makes her seem more convincing, closer to the other side.
Only after she genuinely faints during a session, rather than perfectly executing the choreographed dramatic swoon, does he relent to a respite at their home in New York.