Hugo DeCroix

Part One

Chapter One - Hugo DeCroix

1897

Hugo DeCroix has always been a strange, mysterious man, who, once I finally uncovered the vague, masked identity he hides within, has let my mind expand to what is real and true, and what I had once thought impossible, reveal as possible. He has achieved and opened the door to the impossible and fantastic, the wonderful and marvellous, though terrifying and avant-garde. Hugo DeCroix, was always a shy, solitary man, never involving himself with the world, used his solitude to let his ingenious mind run wild, pouring over books, writing his ideas, inventing his illusions, and savouring those precious moments where his mind could librate itself and conceive thoughts as mad but as brilliant and radical as time-travel. In those brilliant hours, he evolved the time machine, for so great was his intellectual prowess, it was almost supernatural. You might be reading this book in search of answers about his Machine, but be patient, dear Reader, for you must know of the man and then the Machine.

I still remember the first time I met Hugo DeCroix, but it must have been at least twenty years since I am writing this currently in 1908. There are certain times that I will remember vividly forever, and the first time I met Hugo DeCroix was one of those times. Forever unforgettable. I was at a young, naive sixteen years of age, and Hugo; seventeen. The setting; September 17, 1897, New York City, near the stairs of a fine boarding school, the autumn breeze cooling the dirty, smoke-filled New York air. The general hustle-bustle of New York was no different from any other Friday afternoon, the clamourof busy people, the clop of hooves on the stone-paved ground, the weak tide lapping up on the chalky banks in frothy white foam. It was all dead noise to me now, for I had gotten used to it. Nonetheless, in that busy scene, I had taken a glance at a boy on a stairwell, a strange, mysterious boy, who would later change my life and the lives of many others. He would later change the world, but then he looked as any other ordinary shifty newsboy. He had been alone, as I often saw him, for I attended the same school he worked at, with small shining objects in his dirty, sun-stained hands. I had nervously and slowly walked up to him, being the curious girl I was. In his hands were small brass buttons and copper coins and seeing I had ventured near him, he looked up at me with greyish-blue eyes full of uncanny, devious genius. Those metallic grey eyes, burrowed under dark eyebrows, were the strange highlight of the boy's face, not to mention the scar marred along his left eyebrow.

"A penny if I can guess which one of these buttons you choose." he had bargained, his voice tinged with a strange half-Irish, half-French accent. I, a risk-loving, audacious girl nodded, retrieving a small shilling coin from my pocket. He had placed my coin on the crate before him and instructed me to tie a scarf around his eyes. I tied it tightly around those clever, crafty eyes, and his head shrouded with long dark hair. He then placed twelve buttons in a row and told me to choose one. I did, the one with the Queen of England's face engraved onto it.

"Clasp it with your hands and put it to your head." I grasped the button tightly in my hand and put it up to my forehead.

"Mix it with the others now." the boy instructed, and I did, memorising Queen Victoria's face in the mix of buttons and coins. He then untied the scarf and looked at the array of objects. Flipping them over one by one, he finally came to mine and asked me if it was the one I had chosen. I nodded, dumbfounded at the spectacle. He took my coin and pocketed it.

"How did you know?" I asked, almost speechless. Only those words would leave my mouth, for I told you, I was a curious girl, who must know everything about the thing that stupefied her. He shrugged, collecting the buttons into a scarlet handkerchief.

"A great magician never tells his secret." came the blunt reply from that strange, mysterious boy. I would not give up and I would learn his secret. But to learn one secret of that strange boy, you must learn them all. And to do that; that would take a lifetime and I later made it my mission to do just that. My whole life would come to chasing his secrets and writing them down in this book you read.

"Who are you?" I asked for I must know at least one thing about him.

"Hugh Calvary." He had answered, and I, unbeknownst that he had lied, believed him in his every word.

The next instance I saw him, he held a deck of playing cards in his hand, and a small, surveying crowd had eagerly flocked around him like dumbfounded chickens to see what he was doing. He then suddenly pulled the four kings from the top of the deck with a fantastic, almost magical flourish. The crowd gasped and I saw the boy who then I knew as Hugh Calvary, take a few coins from where they sat in front of him. It is amazing to me how great magic illusions play incredible tricks with your mind, making the impossible believable, but it also makes me marvel at what magic truly is: deception and delusion, to make a sort of game from it. Dressed in splendour and glory, but without it exposes the truth that magic is just a game of lies between the magician and the viewer. Why do we want to be swindled from our mental trust with ourselves? Or is that the entire thrill of a magic illusion? Straying from what you think is real, betraying it, to believe the impossible.

Some of the bystanders were shocked and amazed while others grumbled and lamented, having been fooled and swindled from their money.

Some of the people left, but one man, a vexed hulk of a man, stayed. Brawn and muscle covered every inch of his colossal frame and he was a head taller than his already lanky figure of Hugh and much stronger than him, anyone could tell. But as I watched, Hugh shuffled the deck, showing it was a normal deck, but as he gave it to the man, the man could not shuffle it nor tear it apart. Hugh smiled with his devious grin and started to take the man's money. A boy perched on the stairwell Hugh performed on, started to see the man's frustration and anger at Hugh.

"Howard?" he asked, frightened as the man seethed in anger. But who was this "Howard"? Hugh looked up at the boy in response to the name. He was Howard? Now the magician had been able to provoke me as well in his lie. This only piqued my interest in the curious life of the vague, dark mystery of the magician.

The man suddenly grabbed the magician by his shirt and shook him yelling for him to give back his money. The boy suddenly kicked the man in the foot and he let go for an instant, but there the two boys ran, and I followed them into the dark alley they sprinted to. The man was close behind us, shouting at the two and...

I am sorry, Dear Reader, I am straying off the path. This book is about Hugo's Machine, and I am deeply sorry for the wait, but this part is certainly important to the story of Hugo DeCroix's life, and especially my life, for this is where I finally met the man behind the mask.

The two boys rounded a corner and dashed up into a window of an old abandoned abode. I stopped and rushed into the house, racing up the flight of stairs, leading up to the window. The furious man ran off thinking we had gone someplace else. I climbed the stairs and listened to the panting boys,

"I told you not to do it -" Hugh's companion chided him with a flustered accent and clutched a bannister as he regained his breath. Hugh laughed like the whole ordeal had been great entertainment to him.

"Ah, but Aaron. We fooled him. He couldn't figure it out!" argued Hugh, filled with pride at his own invention. I suddenly came out of my hiding place and entered the boys' view.

"What are you doing here?" Hugh quickly asked, startled at my arrival. I was greeted by a salvo of confused, flustered greetings from the other boy, not knowing how to start.

"I want to know who you really are." I stated, "You said your name was Hugh Calvary, but - but-" So flustered from running I made myself stop for a moment. My face flushed, and I felt a surge of embarrassment rush into my face. I stood there, all that rushed through my mind was how stupid I must seem. His companion laughed, and so did the magician,

"Hugh Calvary isn't my name, nor is Howard LaCross. The name's Hugo. Hugo DeCroix."