No. 352

 Mickey Dallas was a magician, a long-time fixture of the children’s-birthday-party circuit.

“It’s magic!” he would always insist when asked the secret behind his illusions. Of course that wasn’t true. The real secret was time spent practicing, and a devotion to his art.

But, since 10-year-old Madison Green’s pool party two weeks ago, he’d been pausing before answering those questions. There, under the close scrutiny of two dozen 4^th graders, Mickey had performed an illusion that not even he fully understood.

The idea that he’d tapped into some form of actual magic frightened him immensely.

 

Now Mickey was performing in front of another crowded room full of children. He reached the penultimate movement of his act, the same one where the unknown had occurred before.  

Even as he prayed silently to himself that he was mistaken, and for the illusion to fail, Mickey was compelled to perform. He needed to know for certain if the prior episode had been a fluke.

Breathing deeply, he closed his eyes and said the magic word.

“Abracadabra!”

And, with a flash of light, Mickey’s worst fears were confirmed.