Illusory

Chapter 3

"Evanescit!" Van's voice rang through the theater, sailing over the heads of the hundreds of audience members and echoing up into the rafters. The red curtain before me vanished momentarily, my eyes registering only darkness, and I appeared in a hidden place back stage where even the stagehands couldn't see me. My eyes burned for a moment, blinded by the dim lighting after facing such an impermeable darkness, but my vision quickly returned. I found myself staring at an ugly red sheet that was nothing like the one on the stage right now but that I had seen just as many times before.

There were gasps in the crowd, cries of amazement, murmurs of the awestruck and cynical alike. I sighed and looked around the cramped little storage closet, waiting for the time when he would stop showboating and finally bring me back. I noticed a mirror leaning against a dusty shelf before me, coated in grime but still useful. I smoothed the short skirt of my red dress, straightened a bit of the gold trim where it had begun to curl, and fluffed a few carefully curled tresses of chestnut-brown hair. I told myself that I was just making myself more presentable — you know, for Van's sake — but really, I was admiring myself. I mean, with long, sexy legs and milky white skin like mine, who wouldn't check themselves out every now and again?

Yeah, don't answer that.

I was just leaning forward to take a peek at my own cleavage when a shout of "Resurgit!" rumbled through the vast space. I reappeared in the coffin-like clear box that I'd vanished from, finding when my vision returned that I was still safely hidden behind the prettier red curtain. I had just enough time to straighten and put on an overwhelmingly cheery, teeth-baring grin before the curtain was jerked from my view, revealing me in all my magically reappeared glory. I pushed the plastic door open and stepped onto the stage, throwing my arms in the air as if to yell, "Surprise!" The crowd cheered wildly, applause and shouts and whistles coming from every direction, and Van took my raised hand in his and brought us both into a deep bow.

"Thank you, ladies and gentleman!" he said to the audience, his voice once again booming to every corner of the theater through the overpowering sound system. "Thank you very much!" The sincere gratefulness to his tone turned my forced smile into a real one, and I laughed as I straightened and then took us both into another low bow. He smiled at me, and when we rose to our full height again, he skipped from the stage and dragged me right along with him.

When we entered the darkness behind the scenes, he was laughing with me, and he didn't let go of my hand. "Didn't that go well?" he asked, an excitement to his voice that was only ever present after a show.

I grinned. "Of course it did. It always does. You're amazing on stage!"

He returned my grin, his smile oddly lopsided. "We wouldn't have such a massive audience without you, you know," he said slyly. "Most of the men only come to see you."

"Or they come because their wives drag them along," I countered, smirking. "You know, because they want to see you."

He laughed lightly and, with my hand still in his, started down a flight of stairs to the basement area, where our dressing room was located. "But they don't want to see me for the reason you're implying."

"Oh, really?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow at his know-it-all grin. "And you know this for a fact?" We made our way down a long, white hall filled with harsh florescent light, actually walking side-by-side for once. The perpetual hurry he seemed to be in had vanished for the moment, and I was able to keep up easily.

"Well, not for a fact." We reached the door to the dressing room, and his hand finally slipped from mine to turn the knob. "But I'm well aware that my physical appearance is nothing in comparison to my magical abilities." He pushed open the heavy wooden door.