Magician's Fire
Authors: Simon Nicholson
Copyright © 2014 by Simon Nicholson
Cover and internal design © 2014 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover illustration © 2014 Brandon Dorman
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systemsâexcept in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviewsâwithout permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious and used fictitiously. Apart from well-known historical figures, any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Originally published in 2014 in the United Kingdom by Oxford University Press, an imprint of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the publisher.
To Olive, Eliza, and Roxy
May they know no fear
Harry Houdini was a magician and escape artist like no other. At the dawn of the twentieth century, he traveled the globe, subjecting himself to spectacular and terrifying ordeals, the likes of which had simply never been seen before.
He escaped from nailed-shut crates thrown to the bottom of icy lakes. He writhed his way out of a straitjacket while dangling from a bridge more than 200 feet high. Lashed to the front of a loaded cannon, he sprung from the ropes just before the fuse detonated the charge; incarcerated by Europe's most ruthless police force in their cruelest prison, he mocked them by walking miraculously free. Nothing defeated himâand no one could explain his mysterious powers.
Who was Harry Houdini and how did he acquire such phenomenal skills? I couldn't stop thinking about what might have happened to him as a boy to turn him into such an extraordinary man.
All great stories have a great beginning. This is the story of Houdini: the boy magician.
1
The train was coming. Harry could see the puffs of blackened steam rising over a row of broken-down houses. He could hear the clatter of the engine. Down by his feet, vibrations were wobbling along the iron rails, and the ragged hems of his trousers were wobbling too.
Won't be long now
. He stood there a little longer, his boot-polish-stained fingers twitching, his eyes narrowing in the direction of the thundering roar.
He tugged a sturdy-looking padlock out of his jacket pocket and continued chaining himself to the spot in the middle of the track.
“You've really lost it this time, Harry!”
“Harry! Are you absolutely sure about this?”
A boy and a girl stood just a few paces away. Billie, the girl, wore a ragged, glue-spattered factory smock and was leaning casually against a concrete stump, her head cocked to one side, an eyebrow raised.
Typical, not even the tiniest bit impressed
, thought Harry with a smile, glancing across at the boy, who was a far more satisfying sight. Arthur was completely beside himself with excitement, hopping from foot to foot, his neatly tailored tweed suit flapping, his hands racing through a copy of the
New
York
City
Train
Timetable
.
“Do you really think this is a good idea, Harry? My calculations have turned out right, you see.” Stitches popped in the tweed suit and the younger boy's tie swirled as he flung an arm toward the puffs of smoke. “That's the 3:24 from Grand Central. Which by my estimate is due to hit this exact spot⦔ He tugged a pocket watch from his waistcoat, dangled it in front of his face, and stared at it with eyes the size of half-dollar coins. “â¦in exactly two minutes and twenty-seven seconds!”
“So we have to hurry, Artie!” Harry looped a chain around his left leg, pulled it up around his head, and adjusted it so that it was at a jaunty angle. He heard his voice echo around, still full of the accent of his faraway Hungarian home, so different from his friend's English tones. “Good job on the calculations, but I'm not even properly manacled yet! Another chain, Billie?”
“One of the really heavy ones? Or perhaps something a little lighter, sir?” Another grin and Billie pushed off the concrete stump, reached into the sack at her feet, and yanked out a clinking length of iron. “I managed to find you a nice selection, heavy ones, light ones, that sort of thing⦔ Her voice bounced along with drawls and twangs as she swung the chain around a bit. “Any other deadly situations you'd like me and Artie to rustle up for you? Dangle you by a rope off the Brooklyn Bridge? Or smuggle you into the lion's cage at the Central Park menagerie, maybe? We're getting pretty good now. I'm sure we could do it⦔
“You'd do a great job, both of you, but can we talk about it later?” Harry wrapped the chain around his middle, making sure that it also was at a jaunty angle. “Let's just concentrate on the Great Trainâ”
“The Great Train Escape, I know.” Billie's left eyebrow lifted a little higher. “Hey, Artie, seeing as we're busy with trains today, did I ever tell you about my own brush with one? The Louisiana Express Hay Wagon Ride, that's what I call it, and it was pretty rough⦔
“There's no time, Billie!” Harry slid the padlock through the links.
“Sure there's time! So, I was desperate for a ride, and so I hung out on a bridge near a freight station, waiting. When the train rattled underneath with a load of wagons of hay, I just jumped down! Nearly broke a leg!” Billie reached behind her back, pulled around the little ukulele she kept strapped there, and started strumming a tune. “But that's what it's like on the road. You've got to grab any chance you can. So there I was, riding all the way to Arkansas, strumming my uke, andâ”
“Billie! Not now! Everyone's waiting. Look!”
Harry snapped the padlock shut and managed to jerk his head toward the crowd of about fifteen people lined up along the top of the bank on the far side of the tracks, framed against the blue September sky. Passersby, shopkeepers, and even a couple of washerwomenâBillie and Arthur had spent nearly an hour drumming them up by racing around the surrounding streets. Every one of them seemed gripped by what was going on, their gazes fixed in his direction.
They'll stare even harder now
, Harry thought as he plucked the key from the padlock and sent it flying through the air. It vanished into a patch of thorny bushes some distance away.
“You've really done it.” Billie's ukulele playing stopped. Even she was looking impressed now, staring after the key.
“Exactly!” Harry jerked his head toward the crowd. “That's what everyone's thinking!”
“Yes, but you really
have
done it!” Arthur was a high-speed hopping, page-flicking, watch-waggling blur. “We'll never be able to find it in all those thorns!”
“It's all part of the act.” Harry breathed deeply and stared at the padlock as hard as he could. “Look, I shouldn't really be talkingâI'm supposed to be pretending to have magical powers.”
He kept doing just that. The clattering roar was louder now. The rails were vibrating faster, and his ragged trouser hems were flapping faster, but he didn't bother about any of those things. Instead, he kept staring at the chains with that deliberately mysterious gaze. He even tugged the padlock up to his mouth and muttered to it.
See
a
boy
free
himself
through
the
speaking
of
ancient
charms
. That was what Billie and Arthur had told the crowdâand from the excited gasps he could hear drifting from the bank, it sounded like his audience was well on the way to believing it too.
Harry kept muttering to the padlock, deliberately using phrases of Hungarian, knowing that the unfamiliar words would sound particularly mysterious to the listening crowd. He muttered even louder and made his eyes roll about, pretending to lose himself completely in a magical trance, even as he detected faint odors of oil and soot curling up his noseâ
“The train! The train!”
Harry's eyes stopped rolling. They flicked toward the crowd. Every one of those fifteen heads had swiveled to the left because the train had shot out from behind the buildings and was curving steadily around the track. Arms pointed, faces turned white. The engine, a hurtling bulk of iron, was still several hundred yards away, but steam shrieked from it as it clanged along the rails, and it was gathering speed. Harry watched it. The odors of oil and soot weren't just curling up his nose now. They were snaking down into his mouth, flavoring the spit trickling down his throat.
Time
to
get
a
move
on
. But he couldn't resist squeezing in just a bit more bug-eyed magical staring at the chains.
“Harry! You've left it too late!”
A yell from Arthur as he raced for the thorny bushes. Billie was pulling off a well-rehearsed swoon, tottering about with the back of a hand against her forehead.
Nicely done
, thought Harry, as he watched Billie collapse onto the gravel. Meanwhile Artie arrived at the bush and started rooting about as if all was lost.
All
part
of
the
act
.
Still, they had been right earlierâthere wasn't any way they could find the key and run back to set him free before the train hit. The thought made the chains holding him in place feel particularly heavy. Under his threadbare shirt, he felt a drop of sweat glide down between his shoulder blades.
Yes, time to get a move onâ¦
“Stop the train!”
“Somebody
do
something!”
Screams from the crowd. One of the washerwomen had dropped her basket, the clothes inside tumbling down the bank, but no one seemed to have noticed.
Utterly
gripped
. More drops of sweat were gathering now on his forehead, his neck, under his arms, and Harry could feel strange little twitches quivering through his body.
Good
âevery twitch, every drop of sweat would help him concentrate on the trick that lay ahead.
He lifted the padlock to his mouth again and muttered a bit more of that spell. He surrounded the padlock with his hands so no one would see the tiny bulge in his upper lip as his tongue curled up inside. Harry closed his eyes and felt his tongue deftly fetch down the little bent nail that was lodged there and nudge it around until it was gripped between his teeth. The bent end poked out of the corner of his mouth and he shot it into the padlock's keyhole.
Concentrate
.
Harry tilted his head. He had carefully bent the nail so it fit the padlock perfectly. He had practiced endless times, first with his hands, then with his mouth. But he still felt his jaw shudder slightly as it shifted so that the nail angled upward. His brain throbbed with the clatter of iron wheels, the shriek of steam.
Concentrate, concentrate
. He stared straight at the train, just a hundred yards away now, as he continued picking the lock. And then the nail slipped.
Unexpectedly, the padlock had jerked to the left, tugging the nail from his teeth. For a couple of seconds, the little length of metal balanced precariously on his lower lip. He felt his whole body turn cold as he tried to fetch it back with his tongue. His vision blurred and he realized that his eyes had crossed, struggling to hold the nail in view as it balanced such a short distance away. His tongue strained, and the twitches raced through every part of him.
Concentrate
.
The nail was back between his teeth. He shot it back into the lock again, his jaw re-angling. He checked the train, which had jammed on its brakes but was hurtling forward anyway, an iron blur, just forty yards away.
Thirty, twenty
. The brakes screeched, but all he could hear from deep inside the padlock was the stretching of tiny springs, the grind of tiny levers.
Then, echoing out of the keyhole, a click.
The clasp sprang open. The chains, heavy and cold, slithered away from him. One of them snagged on his left elbow but he shook it off, shaking off the other chains too, sending them flying away from the track. He looked up and saw the train's vast front racing toward him. His legs, he had to admit, were a little less steady than usual, but he managed to spring into the air, just in time, and thudded onto the gravel next to the tracks.
He tucked the nail back inside his lip. Briefly, he remembered that troubling moment when it had dangled so precariously, and took in a shaky breath. But then he jumped up, brushing the dust from his clothes. He stumbled away from the track, his ragged clothes billowing in the thundering breeze of the train's cars as they clattered past, picking up speed again.
Ahead of him was the crowd. Everyone was clapping, cheering, waving hats in the air, and throwing coins in his direction. Harry stopped walking and stood there for some time, watching the coins land. The train was gone now, but he still stood there. His vision blurred, and for a while he stopped thinking of anything other than his still-pounding heart, his still-trembling body. Then he felt something jab him in his side.
“Harry? We are
here
, you know?”
It was Billie. She was standing next to him, laughing, and her elbow was doing the jabbing, quite hard. Harry blinked and then looked around at Arthur, who was on his other side, a smile on his face too.
“Sorry.” Harry blinked again and felt his face grow warm. “Sometimes takes me a bit of time to come aroundâ”
“Don't worry. We're used to it.” Billie rolled her eyes.
“Thanks.” Harry held out his hands. “So anywayâlet's give them what they want, shall we?”
He waited for his friends to grab his hands. Then, together with them, he performed the move that he had practiced more than any other.
A slow, elegant bow.