The Magic Shop

A Promise is a Promise





“You sure know how to pick friends, Jason,” Ellie said once Mirella had left the room. “With all the killing that seems to go on around here, you’re lucky to be alive.”

“Shut it, will ya?” Jason snapped. He kicked over a pile of boxes by the door, and then sat down on a nearby chair. “Let’s just sit tight for a while until the others come back. I don’t understand why they want to keep you kids around anyway.”

“Since when are you okay hanging out with a bunch of murderers?” Marcus asked then sighed. “What happened to you? You seemed so nice the night of the talent show.”

“I was,” Jason said, staring at a wall a moment before continuing, “until I came to this place.”

“What do you mean?” Ellie asked, pulling herself up on her knees and pressing her face against the bars with bated breath. “What did this place do to you?”

Jason didn’t say anything but began to pace. He adjusted something in the room every now again, and kicked a box a little bit.

Marcus watched him wander aimlessly until a thought popped into his head. “You wanted to be like them, didn’t you?”

Jason stopped pacing and ran a hand through his hair. “Yes,” he sighed, and then shook his head, “I’ve always loved magic,” he paused, “uh, stage magic, that is. That contest was my ticket to a crowd-pleasing career.”

“I don’t get it,” Ellie said. “You participated in the magic show to win a place at The Magic Box, and you’re here now, working with the Great Faustino Forsyth. What’s not to—”

Marcus’s eyes widened with understanding. “He was runner-up,” Marcus said, shifting in his cell. “Remember? Elizabeth won the contest.”

“That’s debatable,” Jason said sharply. “She beat me by one judge’s score.”

“What’s so questionable about that?” Marcus asked.

“One of the judges was her father,” Jason said as he folded his arms. “Pretty questionable, huh? When I complained that the scores were rigged, they said they didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention, and that they’d take me on as co-apprentice.”

“And from what I’ve seen, this apprenticeship isn’t what you thought it would be. They give all the exciting jobs to Elizabeth.”

Ellie looked confused. “I don’t get it. If it’s so bad, why don’t you just leave?”

“Look, I shouldn’t be talking to you guys about this, okay?” he said. “Just shut—”

Marcus’s eyes widened. “Because they won’t let him leave. It’s the only explanation. He knows too much, and they won’t let him go.”

“You don’t know what you are talking about, not one bit. If you had seen half of the stuff that I—”

“That was kind of my point,” Marcus said.

“What have you seen?” Ellie asked. “Maybe we can relate.”

Jason leaned against a stack of boxes and considered her for a moment. “What’s the point?” he asked, raising a hand. “It’s not like you two can help me. I already know what you’ve seen, and it wouldn’t help me at all.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, leaving it a mess. “I knew you recognized us when we took the old man. You even called out Elizabeth’s name. And, while we’re opening up, why do you care so much about this place, anyway?”

“That was you?” Ellie said through gritted teeth. “You sick… lunatic. How can you kidnap a helpless old man who has never done you any harm?”

“Didn’t you hear Sol? The old man is not as innocent as you think he is.”

“Really? What does that even mean? And, isn’t this is the same Sol you just said that you were trying to get away from?”

Marcus felt the tension in the room starting to rise. He wanted to flatten Jason just as much as the next person, but Marcus needed him to sympathize with them, not turn on them. Without his help they would never get out of there in one piece.

“Look,” Marcus said after clearing his throat, “we need each other to get out of here, Jason. If you keep us in here, we won’t be able to help you escape.”

Chuckling, Jason plopped down on the chair and sighed. “You’re in no position to help me escape. I thought we covered that.”

“I’ve still got this,” Marcus said, cracking a smile as he held up his brim, “and this puts us in a better-than-average position to help you escape.” Marcus hoped that Jason’s understanding of the brim was at least as limited as his was.

On what seemed like instinct, Jason stepped back, and then he paused. “Wait, you can’t do anything with that, you were just drained.”

Marcus’s smirk fell from his face. He hadn’t considered that before but he knew that Jason was right. He had been drained of his magic, and the only thing he knew how to do with the brim was drain magic. Now the crystal sphere was virtually worthless.

“Not so fast.” Ellie reached into her pocket and pulled out the small vial she had received at The Magic Box event earlier that day. She wiggled the vile between two fingers in a sassy sort of way. “I have this.”

“Where did you get that?” Jason asked, taking another step back. “You shouldn’t have that.”

“Mirella gave it to me. And I’ll use it if I have to.”

Jason seemed to consider her for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth or not. Still, he became very calculating, very quickly.

“If I were to let you out they would kill me for sure,” Jason said. “You heard Mirella; she said it was extremely important that you don’t go anywhere.”

“She’s mistaken, Jason,” Marcus said. “They don’t want to keep us around. They want to kill us. You saw Sol. He tried to kill me. I’m lucky to be alive.”

Jason considered this and furrowed his brow. “How do I know you won’t turn on me? How do I know you will keep your word and help me escape?”

“We swear it on our parents’ graves.” Marcus regretted saying it almost as quickly as Ellie could give him the nasty look that she did.

Jason put his hands in his pockets and stood still. “Your parents are dead?” he asked. Marcus and Ellie nodded.

Jason shook his head. “On your parents’ graves, then,” he said as he retrieved the cage key from the top of an old crate and walked over to Marcus’s cage, bending down on one knee.

“Say it into the crystal,” Jason said, his tone becoming serious.

Marcus glanced at Ellie, who returned a confused look as he raised the brim, now the only thing between his face and Jason’s besides the bars of the cage, and said, “We swear on our parents’ graves that we will help Jason escape from The Magic Box.”

As Marcus was finishing his sentence, Jason stuck his hand between the bars and grasped both the brim and Marcus’s hand in his own, and then continued, “Else the living die, or the dead live again to haunt and torment the oath breakers.”

As Jason removed his hand, Marcus felt like their hands had been superglued together and then ripped apart. “Ow,” he began, but stopped as a purple strand of energy left Jason’s hand and wrapped around Marcus’s wrist, only to disappear into his brim a moment later. Marcus stared in distress as the single wisp of purple light darted around in his crystal, looking hungry and violent.

“Now then,” Jason said, getting back to his feet, “let’s get out of here.”

“What did you do?” Marcus asked, still staring at the active magic that had invaded his brim.

“If you keep your promise, you will never have to find out.”

“Where did you learn that?” Ellie asked. “That was no card trick.”

“I’ve learned a thing or two since being here. Let’s just say that this magic will bind us to what we agreed to. I needed some insurance that you wouldn’t double cross me.”

“But our parents are dead,” Ellie said. “What could you possibly do to them?”

“How am I supposed to know if you were lying?” Jason unlocked each of their cages. “So I made sure my wording covered the living and the dead.”

Ellie and Marcus got to their feet and stretched out. Marcus put away the brim and Ellie put away the vial. “That whole dead thing was kind of strange, man,” Marcus said. “I mean, those were our parents you were talking about, but thanks for letting us out.”

“Hey,” Jason said, “I’m not doing you any favors, remember? You’re the ones doing me a favor. Don’t forget that or things are going to get a whole lot weirder.”