Free Steadfast by Mercedes Lackey Page A

that moment that she was rather tired of performing as a frail
     little flower. Being a bit of a devil would be a relief. “Your side, sir,” she answered,
     and thought a bit more. And then, another idea occurred to her. “Be good if I could
     wear a domino, or some other devilish mask . . .” The mere thought of being able to
     don a mask almost made her knees weak with a sudden sense of relief and liberation.
     If she wore a mask, even if Dick or Andy came looking for her, they’d never recognize
     her. All she had to do was keep her head down when she was outside the theater, and
     they would
never
find her!
    “Capital idea!” the magician applauded. “The more devilish you look, the better. That
     way, when you take Suzie’s place, no one will recognize you. All right then, Davey,
     let’s have a full run-through. Ladies, with me.”
    He led them off into the wings, then nodded to the pianist, who banged out the opening
     chords of the magician’s music with a will. She already knew this tune from last night;
     quite a lively piece that would be easy to dance to. On impulse, Katie ran out ahead
     of Lionel, who was pulling the “reluctant” Suzie along by ropes looped around her
     wrists. She did a series of leaps and tumbles across the stage, cartwheeled back,
     and ended up at Lionel’s side as he pulled Suzie to the table on which the “magic
     carpet” was lying. As Katie mimed evil laughter, the magician mesmerized his victim
     with a few passes of his hands, and laid her down on the carpet. And Katie rolled
     over to stage front, keeping on the floor, but starting a series of slow contortions
     as she watched the proceedings. Her job, after all, was to distract, so that no one
     noticed whatever trickery the magician was doing to perform the illusion.
    From out front last night, the carpet had appeared to levitate itself. But that had
     been when the backdrop curtain had been in place. Now, it was painfully clear that
     Suzie was lying on a board, over which the carpet had been draped. From the other
     side of where the curtain would be tonight, a burly stagehand inserted an iron bar
     under the board and with a clever mechanism and a lot of main strength, made Suzie
     “float.” And when the magician had passed a ring around her to prove that she wasn’t
     being hung on wires? Simple manipulation of the hoop in such a way that it
seemed
as if the hoop was passing over her twice, when in fact, the magician was manipulating
     the hoop to avoid the bar. Now that she was up in the air, Katie capered about as
     she watched this, like a devilish little monkey, clapping her hands and somersaulting,
     and pausing now and again to turn herself into another knot.
    The “flying carpet” didn’t look very comfortable for Suzie; it wasn’t nearly as long
     as she was tall, and her head and legs draped over either end. Well, it more or less
     had to be that way, Katie supposed, otherwise the hoop couldn’t make the passes around
     that bar.
    Suzie came down again, the stagehand pulled out the bar, and the whole apparatus was
     wheeled away to the side as the magician woke his victim back up again. Katie darted
     in, tugging at Suzie’s gauzy pantaloons, pretending to pinch her, and generally making
     a nuisance of herself to cover the sound of the apparatus being taken away backstage.
    The magician now brought out a lamp, and conjured up a “genie” out of it—a square
     of scarlet silk, knotted so that it vaguely resembled a figure, that danced about
     in the air, while Suzie wheeled in the next apparatus, the sword-basket. Since Katie
     already knew how this worked, she now imitated a cat chasing after the dancing silk,
     and eventually Suzie joined chasing it, with more graceful, dancing movements. For
     the life of her Katie couldn’t see how the magician was doing what he was doing, but
     that didn’t matter. She understood that
her
job was to provide enough distraction to the audience that