People love magic shows. The skill, the misdirection, the unexpected--what's not to like! So when I discovered as a young man that I could actually do magic, not just little tricks like palming a coin or trick-shuffling a deck of cards, I was overjoyed--at first. But as I managed to perform a few neat tricks here or there, I realized that I didn't have complete control over it. Sometimes I would feel a weird tingle in my spine, and the hairs on the back of my neck would stand up, and something even I wasn't expecting would happen.
It made me rethink everything. At first I tried to ignore what I could do, thinking that if I didn't do anything, nothing bad would happen. But that weird sensation would happen anyway, and something bizarre would happen outside my control. So I instead tried to practice, though I didn't really know how, and as far as I knew, nobody else did either.
I saved up and locked myself away in remote little cabins for days or weeks at a time, trying to control whatever I could, as far away from other people as possible. And I found out two things. First, that my mood affected what happened. If I was in a good mood, everything was harmless, but if I was in a bad mood, sometimes things would happen that were downright dangerous. Second, that regularly doing magic led to me having better control over what I did and when it happened, like it was relieving the pressure. It seemed like the healthiest thing to do was find a way to do little, harmless magic as much as possible, in as light and happy an environment as I could find.
So I started working kids' birthday parties, and it always went fine.
I limited myself to tricks that didn't involve anyone directly. I would pull very real rabbits from very empty hats. I would do crazy card and coin tricks. I would pull brightly-colored strings of silk handkerchiefs out of my mouth. And every once in a while, I would make something disappear and reappear. I never, ever tried anything like sawing someone in half--I had no idea how I would practice a trick like that, let alone pull it off reliably.
Flash forward to little Nelson's eighth birthday party. I walked out in front of everyone in my deliberately ridiculous tuxedo and suddenly opened my palms, and little sparkling bits of fireworks popped and fizzed in the air around me. Everybody oohed and aahed. I put on a big smile and started my usual spiel. The kids, about twelve of them, were laughing and cheering and clapping, and even most of the parents had smiles on their faces as they stood around watching.
I did a few of my usual tricks, but one of the kids there had apparently studied some magic--regular sleight-of-hand magic, not my stuff--and was hard to impress. He kept explaining how the things I was doing could be done if I had been a regular magician. It was funny--I was actually learning a lot by listening to him, because I had never spent a lot of time studying how sleight of hand was done. I hadn't needed to. But the kid was really good at ramping up the pressure, so I decided to do a couple of my favorite tricks to show off a bit.
The first was a simple card trick. I produced a deck of cards, took off my coat, and carefully rolled up my sleeves. I asked the audience to examine my hands, my sleeves, and the cards. I even turned out my pockets and left them like that. The cards were just a plain deck, and I asked them to make sure that there were no doubles or trick cards. The kids had some fun playing around with the cards and chattering about crazy ideas of how to mark a deck, and then they were about to hand the cards back to me.
I stopped them by putting my hand up, palm forward. “Before you give those back to me, I want you to select a card from the deck and put it in your pocket. Don't show it to me. Come on, huddle around and pick so I can't see.” The kids made a little circle and I turned around. I could hear them whispering to each other as they tried to pick the most unlikely card. Finally, they handed me back the deck, which I took between the thumb and index finger of my right hand, with my left hand nowhere near them.
“Keep an eye on my hands,” I said. “Make sure I don't reach anywhere you can't see.” The kids were riveted as I spread the cards out on a little felt-covered table I had set up while they were choosing. I spread the cards out in a nice fan, all face-down. Then, keeping my hands in plain sight and away from each other, I slid my finger along the cards until I got about two-thirds of the way across. I stopped, pulled the card out, and flipped it over. It was the eight of clubs.
“Is this your card?” I asked, and the kids all murmured with delight. Then the one who had kept the card put his hand into his pocket and nothing was there. He had never come within ten feet of me. The kids all screamed and laughed and even the one who had studied sleight of hand looked impressed.
But I guess I had gone too far. I was planning to do my other favorite trick, a neat coin trick where a volunteer draws something on a quarter where I can't see it and I produce a nickel with the same drawing. However, before I could even announce it, the knowledgeable kid started eagerly asking for me to do something else. He kept listing off different tricks in a flurry and asking me to do them. He walked toward me, and I tried to calm him down a bit by telling him to slow down. He took another step, and I felt that familiar shiver down my spine, and I took a step back, not really meaning to. But I must have stepped onto a wet stone or a bit of grass or something, because I slipped and fell backwards. The kid who had been walking toward me saw me stumble, and must have tried to jump forward to help me up, because he stumbled, too. He fell face-first into the soft grass of the lawn.
And vanished into a puff of smoke.
Oh crap, oh crap, I thought. Where did he go? One of the parents' jaws, probably his mom, dropped and she stared at me. I stood back up and waved my hands around, trying to act like this was all part of the act. This had never happened before. I had to get him back, but I didn't know how. I'll admit I got a little desperate. I felt my spine tingle again, and the whole sky darkened. Thick clouds came out of nowhere, and I heard a thunderclap rumbling from far off.
I decided to try to run with it. I asked the audience for a blanket or a big towel, and Nelson's mom went inside and soon came out with a big plaid blanket. They handed it to me and I asked everyone to step back. I held it up next to me, like a bullfighter or something. There was nothing behind it, of course. I closed my eyes and yelled some mumbo-jumbo, abracadabra or something, and shook the blanket with a flourish. Then I lifted it up, and opened my eyes, and--thank goodness--the kid was right there, standing with a confused look on his face.
Everybody clapped--except his mother, who was too stunned to do anything but stand there. They all rushed up and asked him where he had vanished to, and he mumbled something about sitting in a chair in the garage. The garage was twenty feet away and closed, to boot. I decided to let it go and try to get out of there without anything else happening.
I thanked everyone and said that was the end of the show. I returned the blanket to Nelson's mom, folded up my table, fixed my sleeves, and put my coat back on. I was carrying it out to my car when the kid who had disappeared walked up to me. He didn't say a word, but just grinned strangely, reached into his pocket and handed me something. He ran off before I realized what it was.
It was the eight of clubs.
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Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed Sleight of Hand! It was a fun short story idea that I came up with thinking about magic--specifically, uncontrolled magic.
While you're here, maybe you'd like to check out my novella What the Soul Still Fears? It's an homage to Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness and it deals with ancient occult magic from the perspective of a modern scientist!
I also recommend my free short story No Ticket. It's got a little magic in it, but it's a little more of a horror instead of a comedy.
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