The Green Man by Michael Bedard Read Free Book Online Page B

magician performed tricks with cups and balls, sleights of hand with handkerchiefs and linking rings. Reaching into the wicker trunk, he brought out a pair of intricately wrought mechanical birds, which flapped their jewel-encrusted wings and sang on command. Next he withdrew the miniature figure of a man in Hindu costume, sitting cross-legged on a small decorated box. The automaton was less than two feet tall. He asked several volunteers up onto the stage to examine it. They were invited to ask the figure mathematical questions, which the automaton answered by reaching into a hatch beneath his left hand and sliding numbers in front of a small opening
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    The mechanical man was also able to play cards with them. The magician dealt the cards and placed those the automaton was dealt in an arc-shaped holder before him. The mechanical man selected the card he wished to play by swinging his arm up, plucking the card from the holder, and showing it to the audience. He won every game he played
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    “And now,” said the magician as he tucked the figure away, “we have come to the entertainment entitled the Mystic Mirror. I will need a volunteer from the audience.” He rolled the large mirror forward to the front of the stage. It was set in a heavily ornamented wooden frame, with a pattern of leaves and branches skillfully worked in the wood. Here and there, the hint of a face peered through the leaves
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    When the magician had asked for volunteers before, he’d given each of them a copy of a little book, which he said contained the secrets of his magic art. Several children clutched copies in their laps. But now there was a hesitation, for it suddenly seemed to the children that there was something oddly mechanical about the magician himself, as if behind the veil of flesh were only cogs and wheels and bloodless moving parts
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    “Come, come,” said the magician in his soothing voice. “I assure you, there is nothing whatever to fear. Surely you have all wondered what lies within the mirror’s depths. Is the world we see there the same as this? Is it simply an illusion, or can we enter the mirror world and return to tell the tale? Come now, I need one brave spirit, an adventurer in the realm of magic.”
    His deep eyes settled on a boy who sat among the others. Without a word, the boy rose and approached the stage
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    “Let’s give this brave young man a hand,” said the magician. He walked the boy over to the mirror, where he stood facing his reflection in the glass
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    “Now I want you to reach out and touch the surface of themirror,” said the magician. The boy reached out and touched the glass
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    “How does it feel?”
    “Cold,” said the boy
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    “Indeed. Then perhaps the mirror world is a colder world than ours. You must go prepared.” He reached into the wicker trunk and took out a heavy cloak. He laid it over the boy’s shoulders and drew its deep hood over his head
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    “Now, this time, I want you to reach out as if you were laying your hand on the handle of a door. Give that handle a turn and walk through. Are you ready?”
    From within the depths of the hood, the boy nodded his head. An uneasy silence fell over the room
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    As the boy reached out his hand again, something rose from the flat surface of the mirror to meet it. The boy’s hand closed over it. He gave it a twist and strode forward
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    A gasp went up from the crowd as first his arm and then his entire body slowly passed through the surface of the mirror. The cloak fell in an empty heap to the floor. One of the younger children screamed
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    Like the surface of a pool after someone has plunged in, the mirror settled into stillness again. Once more, the trappings of the stage were reflected in its calm
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    “Who knows what wonders await us on the far side of the mirror,” the magician said. “Perhaps our brave adventurer will tell the tale.”
    He turned, and from the deep shadows behind the stage, the boy walked forward. The magician pressed a copy of