Free Saving Houdini by Michael Redhill Page B

Blumenthal. “The one in the mirror is the real one,” he said, and he shot his hand out toward the glass and snatched the reflected ring out of the mirror.
    Walter went white and ran out of the room.
    “You
are
the guy who invented the Soap Bubble Vanish.”
    “Sure, I am. And I invented horse-racing too.” He
pshaw
ed and went to flick the lights on again. “Your friend has a weak constitution?”
    “Please, Mr. Blumenthal. I came a long way to find you. The Soap Bubble Vanish
is
your trick. Maybe you … you just haven’t invented it yet.”
    “How would you know that? You a medium?”
    “A medium?”
    “A person that talks to ghosts.”
    “No. But, um, I do know some things.”
    “Like what?”
    Dash sighed. “Look. I was
in
a trick called the Soap Bubble Vanish, and it was a trick everyone said you invented. Something went wrong with it.”
    “It turned you into a terrible liar?”
    “No. It sent me back in time. Eighty-five years, to be exact.”
    The minimal warmth in Blumenthal’s eyes had faded. “Excellent. A comedian.” He threw a soiled towel into his suitcase.
    “Sir—”
    “Ah-ah-ahh!” said Blumenthal, his index finger raised in warning. “We are finished, thank you very much. Goodbye.” He stood and grabbed Wolfgang’s cage in his other hand. “Say hullo to Gluckman for me.”
    “Gluckman?”
    “Too late to play dumb. Herman Blumenthal wasn’t born yesterday, all right? So long, kid.”
    Dash protested, “Wait—”
    “SAYONARA!”
    Blumenthal grabbed the case with all his effects in it and left the room. Dash stood there a moment, despondent, then trudged back out into the hallway. Walt was waiting at the end of it, by the rear exit.
    “Thanks a lot,” Dash said to him.
    “That guy’s a warlock.”
    Dash put his head in his hands. “I need to get home, and ‘that guy’ is the person who’s supposed to do it! But I’m in Montreal
tomorrow
? Why?”
    “I don’t know!”
    “Put on your thinking cap, Walt!”
    Walt said, “Mine is already on, okay? Gosh, you’re bossy!” And he exited through the door to the back alley.
    That night, Dashiel Woolf felt he was truly alone in the universe. Nobody knew what was happening to him. The dark outside the curtainless window had distressed him the night before; now it overpowered him. He was lost in time and space.
    He laid one of his dimes in the light and watched it gleaming, as if it were something alive to keep him company, and then he picked it up and began scraping his name in the brand new lacquer. He finished the
D
and stopped, unable to listen to thedisturbing sound of the dime scraping against the floor of an empty house.
    Finally, he fell asleep under his jacket on the wooden floor, his face in the little patch of moonlight coming through the window. His dreams were full of urgent voices. Bodies rushed one way and the other. He saw faces he knew and the faces of strangers. The world of his dreams was so chaotic that when he finally awoke, he was still exhausted. A gloomy orange light filled his room. At least the night was over.
    He stood in the window and looked out toward the woods, and the sun was coming over them, setting the tops of the trees aglow. The red and yellow leaves were fierce in the light.
    He was hungry again. Fear and hunger were things he’d only ever imagined until now. He knew that people in other parts of the world suffered from them. Every year in their house, they’d make a decision—the three of them together—what two charities they would send money to. His parents would write a cheque and Dash would forgo his allowance for two weeks and contribute. It was a good feeling to know the money he’d spend on hockey cards and comic books would, for those two weeks, be helping someone somewhere else in the world.
    But now he needed help himself.
    He put his jacket on and went downstairs. He stepped out into the crisp dawn air and took it deep into his lungs. Fresh air made you feel so alive, no