Sleight of hand

The girl pushed through the crowds, only daring to glance behind her a couple times. Her heart was thumping wildly in her chest as she continued slipping under and around the annoyingly slow-paced audience. If she could just get near the stage and find a place to hide–

"Hey! Stop her!" a voice shouted behind the girl, too close for comfort. She continued on faster, more frantic. "Adeena, wait!" the voice said again, more desperate than they probably wanted to reveal. The girl didn't falter at the command–that wasn't her name.

She had gone mostly unnoticed by the people around her so far, but as she neared the stage, she had the strangest feeling of being watched. Scrutinized. Like they took one look at her and saw all her secrets, knew all the things she worked so hard to keep in the dark. But the girl didn't look around even then–she had spotted a place to hide and that was the only thing on her mind. There amongst a loud group of people near the front of the stage was enough children milling about that she could blend in well enough, especially if given the chance to use a charm to further hide herself. Though with the way things had gone so far, the girl didn't think that would be much of a possibility, there were too many witnesses nearby to take such a risk.

She slipped under the arm of a nearby woman and when she rose again, still slightly crouched, she was hidden amongst the crowd to avoid being seen by the group chasing after her.

"Alright, everybody!" A voice boomed from the stage above the girl. She looked up, squinting past the blinding lights. A man stood on the stage, dressed sharply in a matching gray suit, hat, and tie. Typical magician stuff. The girl kept herself from rolling her eyes; whatever "magic" the man above her was about to perform was not anything close to the real thing. But she was not allowed to perform it while around these people, much less even tell about such abilities. Frustrated, she only watched the man wander around the stage as he spoke. He used a low voice, one meant to capture the audience and keep them in suspense as they watched the show. The girl, though knowing the truth about the man's claims, was curious about how he was going to pull off such a feat. The typical crowds for magician shows were rather gullible, attending for the thrill of not knowing the secrets behind such a performance, but even then, the man would have to be quite convincing for his illusions and props to really sell the show.

He continued on for another few minutes, and the girl mostly stopped listening, more aware about keeping herself hidden from people across the room. But she was soon pulled out of her thoughts as the man said, "and now I will need a volunteer for the first trick! Someone brave, fearless! A person unafraid to take risks!" The man definitely sold his audience on that aspect. They oohed and awed, entranced by his marvelous words strung together only to deceive them. "How about you, young lady? Would you like to help me with this performance?"

It took a moment for the girl to realize the magician was asking her to come up on stage.

He mistook her hesitation for nervousness and reached out a hand. "Don't be shy! Come on up here. It's perfectly safe." The girl looked up; her eyes met his. He flashed her a grin, eyes sparkling in the bright lights. The girl wasn't sure how to politely decline the man's request. She was trying to avoid attention by hiding amongst the crowds, so going up on stage so everyone within fifty feet could witness was the exact opposite of the girl's ideal situation.

"I–" the girl started, but the man reached down farther and pulled at her wrist, his eyes flashed again, his smile a little more forced.

"Come on up, young lady. We've no time to waste by being shy." And with one fell swoop, lifted her up off the ground and onto the stage. The lights were even brighter when she was even just a couple feet closer to them. The crowd was smudgy and muffled; her vision went in and out so she could only somewhat see individual bodies amongst the crowd. She vaguely recognized that the people following her before had seen her come up onto the stage, and now they were pushing through the entranced crowds all the way up towards her.

"Come now," the magician said, startling the girl out of her trance, and he grabbed her arm once again to spin her around and face the crowd. Out of the corner of his mouth he said, "it's time for the first trick." Then louder to the audience, "let's give our lovely volunteer a round of applause!" The crowd cheered and hollered. The girl's stalkers were slithering their way up through the crowd–she was running out of time.

The man directed her to stay still as a stage assistant dragged out a large cabinet on wheels. The girl knew what was coming next; it was a rather obvious and overused trick–not that anyone cared about her opinion, she was just the living prop used to increase the magician's pay after the show was over.

The magician, though gentle with his posture and smile, was quite rough as he shoved her towards the box, turning to look at the audience every now and then to keep them engaged. He kept his voice low as he guided her to the box. "When you get in the box and the door closes, use the fake back to slip through until I give you the cue to come back, okay?" And she could do nothing but nod.

The girl, helpless in the situation she now found herself in, could only let the man shove her into the incredibly tiny box–she could stand in it but that did not mean it would be comfortable there. Her thoughts drowned out his words as he introduced the trick, explaining what he planned to do. The door shut on her all too soon, encasing her in the dark. She felt behind her for the false back and smiled to herself when she felt the wood give way. At the slight tapping on the door–the magician saying some nonsense words disguised as a spell and using his plastic wand to sell it–she pushed through the wood and carefully stepped out to the other side.

Then she looked all around her, took a step forward when she knew she was out of sight, and vanished out of the air. She ran through the back stage, careful not to hit anything. As she hurried towards the exit, she could hear the magician's confusion and anger when he realized she had not come back like the trick was supposed to have worked. But the girl didn't care, she had little time to waste before she was spotted and chased. She pushed open the emergency door, ran past the streetlights so she wouldn't be seen, and stole away into the darkness.

***

A/N A short story that I wrote a couple years ago and have enjoyed rereading and working on since. I doubt it'll ever become a full-fledged story, but I do really like what I have written as it is. The details are meant to be vague, and the ending a cliffhanger as I think that adds to the tension of not knowing what might happen or what had happened to get the girl to that point in time.

Hope you enjoyed!

***

9/2/2023