Page 37 of Borrowed Time

He had a point there. Would someone like me, jaded a bit by all the various streaming shows and movies I’d seen, even find that much interesting in a variety act put on by a group of itinerant performers with probably varying levels of skill?

You’ll have fun if you let yourself have fun,I told myself, which were probably words to live by in a variety of situations and not just our current one.

Although my heavy bustle skirts and tight-laced corset wouldn’t exactly allow me to settle against the back of the chair, I still scooched myself backward a bit, getting settled in a more comfortable position. Seth, meanwhile, opened the little program the usher had given us.

“It looks as though they’re starting with some monologues and then a few selected scenes from various plays, and ending with a magic act.”

“You mean a sleight-of-hand act,” I replied with a grin. “We both know it’s notrealmagic.”

Seth’s eyes twinkled. “Well, true,” he said, then added, “Unless the magician is really a warlock.”

“I can’t imagine any clan putting up with that.” I knew my tone sounded flat, emphatic, but it was the truth. We all had to work so hard to conceal our magic from outsiders that I found it extremely difficult to believe any self-respecting witch family would allow one of its members to blatantly practice their gift in public.

“Probably not,” he allowed, although he still looked amused. “I suppose we’ll see for certain once that part of the show rolls around.”

In the meantime, we’d have to sit through scenes from Shakespeare and whatever other playwrights the people organizing the show deemed acceptable. I had to admit I was a little hazy when it came to the theater side of literature. Was 1884 late enough that they might be presenting something from George Bernard Shaw or maybe Oscar Wilde?

Maybe I should have paid more attention in my English lit classes.

The gaslamps flickering in the sconces dimmed, which I guessed was a signal to let everyone know it was time to get in their seats and quiet down. To be fair, the audience seemed sedate enough, a far cry from the rowdy gun-toting and heckling bunch inTombstone,one of my grandfather’s favorite movies, which seemed to be on in the background at least half the time when I went over to visit my grandparents.

Someone stepped out on stage to touch a flame to the gaslights that illuminated the stage, and a lot of people in the audience started clapping. Seth and I joined in, even as we sent each other puzzled glances. Was this a tradition in theaters of the time, or something peculiar to the audience in Flagstaff?

Since I doubted we’d be able to travel the globe and sample theaters in various countries, I guessed that particular detail would forever remain a mystery.

The first two monologues were, as I’d guessed, from Shakespeare. In the first, an actress in a pale, filmy gown, with golden hair that I guessed wasn’t real cascading down her back, performed Ophelia’s “mad” scene fromHamlet.She was better than I’d expected, and I joined in the enthusiastic clapping that followed her scene. The next was a speech I didn’t recognize at all — and neither did Seth, since he only looked at me and shrugged when I sent him a questioning look.

A quick peek at the program told me the speech was fromCoriolanus,which didn’t clarify much except to confirm that I knew absolutely nothing about the play.

The audience, however, seemed rapt enough and applauded with equal enthusiasm once the actor reciting those lines was done.

After that came scenes from plays I also didn’t recognize, but I told myself I should just relax and enjoy myself rather than trying to figure out the provenance of every single offering.

And then there was an intermission, although Seth and I decided to stay in our seats rather than wander downstairs and go in search of any refreshments. Even though I’d had good luck so far with maneuvering in my hand-me-down bustle dresses, I didn’t think it was a very good idea to head into such a crush and risk having the silken train of my gown tromped on by some rancher who’d decided to come into Flagstaff for the evening and get some culture.

With everyone coming and going, though, Seth and I kept our conversation studiously neutral, talking only about the weather and if we should stroll in the park again the next day, or whether we should go over to the train station and see if the schedules might allow us to jump on and travel to Kingman or Winslow for the day before returning to town in the evening.

I had a feeling that probably wouldn’t work, but it still didn’t seem like a bad idea to at least check and see what was feasible. Being in Flagstaff in 1884 was a confirmation of everything my mother had told me about the place, and yet I thought it would be fun to see what those other settlements were like, even if they might not offer as much in the way of amusement.

But then the lights dimmed again, and once more, everyone hurried to their seats if they weren’t already sitting down. The program told me there would be a few more scenes from plays before the magic act, and I resigned myself to sit through those, although it was the magician I was really interested in. When I was little, my family had watched some specials featuring magicians on TV, and even as a child, I’d known it was all smoke and mirrors, not real magic like we witches and warlocks practiced. Honestly — well, unless your gift involved throwing fireballs or lightning bolts — our kind of magic wasn’t all that showy. Anyone coming to watch us give a performance would most likely be pretty disappointed.

The post-intermission scenes actually went faster than I’d thought, however, probably because they included multiple actors and had more interactions, so they were snappier and held my interest more. All the same, I found myself sitting up straighter and focusing much more on the stage after the performers had exited and the magician walked out from behind the heavy red velvet curtains.

He was tall and had near-black hair slicked back from a lean, hawkish face, and he wore white tie and tails. For a moment, he only stood there in the center of the stage, surveying the audience with gleaming dark eyes that seemed to pick out every detail of each individual sitting there.

Without speaking, he spread his arms wide — and a pair of doves fluttered out of nowhere and settled on his shoulders.

I blinked, and the audienceoohedandaahed. Next to me, Seth shifted in his chair and whispered, “I’m sure he had those birds hidden in his sleeves.”

Probably. It was a pretty old trick. But to a bunch of people who might never have seen a magician perform before?

It definitely would look like magic…the real kind.

Then the man pulled out a pair of silver rings, and it was all I could do to keep myself from rolling my eyes. Seth leaned close to me and murmured, “Let me guess…you’ve seen this one before, too.”

“Once or twice,” I drawled, and he grinned.

“I suppose it’s still better than sitting in our hotel rooms and staring at the wall.”

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