Excerpt
“You’re really
going to make me do magic, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I can’t
believe your story otherwise.”
He reached out
to some fresh roses that were in a vase on my desk. “Watch,” he said.
No magical
energy came from his fingers, and nothing felt or looked any different. He was
just... touching them. But he looked at me as if he’d done something. “...You
didn’t do anything,” I said.
“Touch the
petals.”
As I reluctantly
reached out to the petals he’d been touching, his fingers, drawing away,
touched my hand. “C’mon, they won’t bite you,” he said. Then he reached out
again, and guided my hand across the petals of the flower.
The roses had
been real that morning—I’d put them in fresh water.
But now they
were fake flowers, made of silk. “You have nice hands,” he said.
I took back my
hand. “What did you do to my flowers?”
“Magic,” he
said.
“Slight-of-hand
magic, you mean. You could have just distracted me...”
Zach sighed and
raised his hand, showing me his palm, the fingers splayed out like he was about
to start pointing to it and lecturing me about palm-reading. Then he lowered it
down until his hand was laid out flat on my desk. I watched his hand lower,
then I watched it sit there, waiting for something to happen. His hand didn’t
move... nothing seemed to move... though there was some slight change I
couldn’t put my finger on.
After a few seconds,
I looked more closely around his hand at the desktop. The top of the desk was
transparent.
My desk had been
made of wood. Now, however, the entire desk was made of glass.
It was still
exactly the same shape. It was at least the same weight, since it didn’t budge
when I pushed at it.
I pulled out a
drawer. A glass drawer slid out, on metal wheels turning on metal rails screwed
into the glass by metal screws. I hadn’t really needed to pull out the drawer—I
could already see, somewhat, what was inside: regular-old, boring white
envelopes, some staples, paperclips, pens.
All faintly
visible through see-through glass, glass with a woody brown tint to it... and a
sort of vague wood grain set into it somehow...
“Don’t worry,
it’ll only last a few hours, then it’ll change back to wood,” Cutter assured
me.
What. In the
world.
I stared at him
for almost half a minute. He looked at me patiently. It was as if we were
trying to “read” each other, trying to figure out... I don’t know. Each other,
I guess.
I looked away
first. “I’m sorry, Zach, but you’re not a client of mine yet... I can’t...
until I get to know you... I don’t just give out sleeping pills... I’m sure
other doctors might, but...”
“I don’t want
another doctor. I want you, Cynthia.”
Great. The first
handsome, smart guy I’d met in a while, and not only did he have to be a
potential client, he was some sort of... magician...? “I’m not sure that would
be...” I said, “I mean...” On top of everything else, I found that I was
blushing.
“What if I told
you that...well, uh... I actually... it’s not just sleeping pills... seriously,
I do have some real problems...”
“What sort of
problems...?”
“...Repressed
memories.”
“Oh? When did
that start?”
He smiled
weakly. “After Celeste died. The time right before that is very fuzzy. And the
time right after that is pretty much lost to me. I lost months... probably a
lot more time than that.” He glanced at a clock on the wall and grinned a
winning smile. “But I imagine my time’s up for today...”
“Yes, I suppose
it is...”
“Unless you’d
like to go out to dinner with me...?”
“Mr. Cutter, if
you’re to be my client, I can’t... we can’t meet socially...”
“I’ve always
liked women who have a bit of an authoritarian side to them...”
I took out my
appointment book. “Let’s get you an appointment for next time. I don’t really
appreciate walk-ins, and...”
“—Argh, I hate sticking to appointments. Being a
magician isn’t exactly a 9-to-5 job...”
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