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The words meant nothing to her. She didn’t even know what language they were in. Or maybe it was just made up nonsense.

  A agua esta fria.

  “Spanish?” she asked nobody.

  The phrase stuck to her and she wondered if it was from her dream.

  There was a knock at the door. She jumped and shook the odd words from her thoughts as she pulled back the curtain from the window. She recognized him; it was the guy from the front desk.

  She opened the door.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  He smiled. “Just finished my shift like I told you earlier and wondered . . .”

  “Wondered what?”

  “If you wanted some company. That was awfully nice when you checked in. It was worth the free night’s stay, that’s for sure.”

  Oh, God, Savannah. Really?

  Alannah tried to smile but she felt trapped.

  “No, I’m sorry, I need to—I need to do something.”

  She pushed the door shut and leaned against it. The door was flimsy and she could hear him mutter something, but she ignored it.

  Savannah wasn’t in the room. Alannah felt a stab of loneliness, but she felt happier when she heard the clerk walking away.

  Alannah showered, enjoying the hot water splashing down her face. It was one of life’s little pleasures.

  After drying herself and her hair, she dressed in a second pair of shorts that she’d brought for the trip and a white cotton top. It was going to be another hot day.

  Finally, she did what she’d planned ever since waking. Since she was alone in the room, she picked up Savannah’s journal and flipped to the last page.

  * * *

  Savannah –- July 15. It was a freakishly hot day and sad in many ways, but you know me. I don’t dwell on the sad things. I prefer the limitless possibilities of the future.

  Where will that future take us? I don’t know. I know that right now, we’re traveling to somewhere that will be exciting and interesting.

  I’m writing this at 4:42 in the morning. The sun is trying to rise and I just got back from a walk. Nothing beats walking in mid-night during summer.

  There’s a lake not far from here. Glen (the clerk who bartered a free room for us) told me about it and I walked over there tonight. It was serene and I walked out until the water was up to my knees.

  And I could have sworn I heard a little kid whispering something. A agua esta fria.

  I don’t know what it means or even if I’ve spelled it right. Have a feeling the “agua” means water, which made sense, but the rest means nothing. I’m pretty sure it’s Spanish.

  After I heard the phrase, I looked around but didn’t see anything. Maybe it was just the wind. Maybe it was my imagination. Who knows? LOL!

  I should get some sleep, but I’m too hyped up. Maybe I’ll go for another walk soon. We’ll see.

  * * *

  Alannah stared at the pages. There was that phrase again.

  “How the hell is that possible?”

  She was sure she’d dreamed that exact same phrase. Confused, she thought about Googling the unusual words but they didn’t have a computer. They probably had one in the office she could finagle using, but she didn’t want to run into that clerk again.

  The twins had the closest relationship anybody was capable of. She knew that. But dreaming a phrase that showed up in Savannah’s diary was just weird.

  She picked up the journal and flipped to the next page. They’d agreed that to reduce the amount of belongings they had to carry while hitch-hiking, they’d share a journal.

  * * *

  Alannah—July 16. I’m ready to hit the road again. I’m not as excited about this trip as Savannah, but I agree we needed a change.

  I’ll miss our home, but we’ll soon have a new one.

  * * *

  Alannah felt like she should write more, but she couldn’t think of any more words. A tear rolled down her cheek as she closed the book.

  Chapter 4

  1984

  Jeremiah Moore was ten years old when he decided he wanted to be a magician.

  Before that day, he’d hem and haw when anybody asked what he wanted to be when he grew up. The best answers he could come up with were a cop or a teacher. Maybe a monkey trainer at the zoo. But he always seemed to squirm inside when he said those answers.

  There was a guy who lived down the street named Paul something and he was a cop, but he mostly complained about his job, like it was totally boring. He seemed to want to find ways to avoid going to work by pretending he was sick. Jeremiah knew he was faking, because he was always well enough to want to toss a football around with him and the other kids on the street. Somehow being a cop didn’t seem as exciting as it did on television.

  As for a teacher? Well, he had Mrs. Simmons as his fifth-grade teacher and she was okay, but she seemed bored, too. She liked to assign desk work and then she’d just stare into space, like she was imagining a holiday in Mexico or maybe just a day away from the class.

  Monkey trainer? Who knew?

  Teacher? Cop?

  Once upon a time, when he could barely understand the concept of a job, he’d wanted to be a bus driver. His mom never stopped telling people about that, like it was the funniest joke ever. He hated her saying that. Didn’t somebody have to be bus drivers?

  That looked pretty boring these days, too, driving the same routes over and over again.

  At times he wondered if it’d be fun to be an actor. Or maybe a comedian. Something in front of an audience sounded right up his alley. He wasn’t shy and loved to be the center of attention.

  So, when grownups asked what he wanted to be, he’d politely answer, but never with anything close to what he really wanted . . . because he just didn’t know.

  He once watched a TV show about a drifter, a guy who moved around the country and helped people everywhere he went. If he was honest (and he never was about this topic), that was the way he’d like to live. Spend his life traveling around the United States, seeing everything, meeting lots of people who would be thrilled when he helped them out of a jam, and make sure everyone was always happy.

  Somehow, even at ten, Jeremiah sensed that wasn’t actually a very likely career path.

  His world-view changed on May 24, 1984. He had just had his birthday two days earlier, so he’d easily remember exact the date forever.

  “Mom, do we have to watch this?”

  He was sitting at the kitchen table with his mother. Dad was working late again, and it was just the two of them sharing some leftover ham and scalloped potatoes. Mom had cooked a big meal the day before, because that was just what she always did on Sundays, and Mondays were relegated to being leftover day.

  No wonder Dad works late a lot on Mondays, he thought.

  He picked at the food, wishing they could at least watch something interesting on TV like Fraggle Rock, The Transformers, or Fat Albert, but Mom never budged. It was time for reruns of The Phil Donahue Show.

  Mom loved Mr. Donahue’s talk show. She never called him Phil. Jeremiah couldn’t understand it. Well, maybe he could. He was funny enough, but his guests were mostly old, so he didn’t really care about them.

  “Quiet, sweetie.”

  He picked at some potatoes and sipped his milk. He wondered what would happen if he just dumped the milk on the table. Would that take priority or would Mr. Donahue?

  “My next guest is amazing! He’s performing at the Selton Theater in Times Square. Please welcome the amazing Michael Cooper!”

  The studio audience went crazy, presumably knowing who this guy was. Jeremiah had no clue.

  He walked on stage, and magic happened. Literally.

  It wasn’t just the actual magic tricks he performed, it was the effect it had on Jeremiah. He had never really watched a stage-magician perform. Cooper started with some fast tricks, one after the other: making a top hat appear out of nothing; conjuring at least a dozen white doves out of the hat, then the birds flew around the
stage and disappeared one after the other back into the hat, which promptly vanished.

  “Whoa . . .”

  His mom glanced at him and smiled.

  The magician’s assistant rolled in a contraption that looked like a box on wheels. Cooper waved a wand around it (where did that come from?) to show that there wasn’t anything connected to the box. His assistant climbed inside, and he did some hocus-pocus to make the box levitate.

  He twirled his wand and the box rotated in time with his movements. It spun faster and faster, until Jeremiah figured the girl inside must be about ready to puke her guts out.

  Suddenly Cooper stopped, and the box crashed to the floor, splintering into a hundred pieces.

  The audience gasped.

  There was no sign of the girl.

  Jeremiah’s mouth hung open. He was riveted, along with the audience, not to mention his mom.

  That was the exact moment he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up.

  * * *

  The Toy and Game Emporium was almost a mile from Jeremiah’s home. He lived in a suburb of Cleveland, a city that seemed to stretch forever. There were three toy stores that Jeremiah knew about, but the Emporium was the only one he knew how to walk to. He also knew he shouldn’t do it, but he figured he could go there and get back in an hour. Mom was watching her soaps on TV and wouldn’t notice he was gone.

  He hoped.

  He ran much of the way, but every few minutes he’d stop and walk. He didn’t really know why he did that, but he was nervous and figured if anyone saw him running, they might think something was wrong. Jeremiah didn’t want anybody to ask what he was doing. Even though there was no school today and lots of kids were out on the streets because it was a nice warm day, they weren’t running alone down the main street.

  The Emporium had a grander name than it deserved. It was a narrow store that stretched back quite a long ways, crowded with shelving that only allowed two tight passages.

  There was a teenager sitting at the front behind a desk. He was reading a tattered paperback book with an almost-naked girl on the cover. He barely noticed when Jeremiah entered.

  Jeremiah had been in the store before, but never by himself. His mom had taken him a few times to buy toys with money he’d received for birthdays or Christmas from relatives who’d had no idea what a ten-year-old boy might like.

  The front of the store displayed the most popular toys: Barbie dolls and accessories, Yo-Yos, Legos, and other stuff that he never cared for. As he moved down the aisle, he found stacks of toys he’d never heard of and then a big section of board games.

  He was beginning to think he would be out of luck until he noticed a section to his right containing magic tricks.

  Jeremiah stared at the items. He didn’t know where to start. There were big packages and small ones, all promising Amazing! Stupendous! Real! Magic!

  He grabbed one and looked at it: Dr. Magico’s Deluxe Magic Kit #1.

  Dr. Magico’s name appeared on a lot of the toys.

  “Oh, wow . . .”

  There were about a dozen magic tricks included in the box, and he felt a rush of excitement, imagining learning every one of them and putting on a magic show for his friends.

  He knew that this was the beginning of his new life.

  Then he saw the price tag. $59.99.

  Jeremiah’s heart sunk. He only had about two dollars in his pocket.

  Unlike some of his friends, Jeremiah didn’t receive an allowance from his parents. They thought it was stupid to pay their kids for surviving another week. Occasionally they’d offer him a dollar if he’d take all the garbage out or help clean up the garage or run to the corner store to pick up some milk. That wasn’t very often, though.

  He wasn’t sure how many of his friends received an allowance, but he thought most of them did. It was something nobody talked about. He never talked about it because he didn’t want to have to admit he didn’t get any money. He figured his friends who did have an allowance didn’t talk about it, either, because they didn’t want to feel awkward saying they got money to somebody who didn’t. So, it was one of those secrets that none of the kids in the neighborhood talked about.

  $59.99.

  He put the kit back.

  “Must be something . . .”

  He poked around, paying more attention to the prices than what the tricks were, but there was nothing he could afford.

  “Shit.”

  He glanced around, worried that somebody might have heard him swear, but there was nobody there. The guy at the front of the store was out of sight, nose buried in his titty book.

  Jeremiah wanted everything on the shelves. Everything. The big magic kits (numbered 1 through 4), the decks of cards, the wands, the magic candles, the coins, the little balls, the top hats, the handkerchiefs . . . everything. He needed it all for his new life.

  Unfortunately, he could afford not a single kit. The cheapest toy was $7.99: a set of magic balls that would disappear.

  “So cool . . .”

  Jeremiah picked up the kit. Dr. Magico’s Disappearing Balls.

  It was a plastic pouch, but he couldn’t see inside. All he knew was what was printed on the outside of the package:

  Your audience won’t believe their eyes. Right in front of them, these magic balls will disappear into thin air. Only you control them. Only you have the magic touch to make them reappear.

  Before Jeremiah knew what he was doing, the little plastic pouch was in his pocket. It bulged a bit, but he didn’t think it really showed.

  “I need it,” he whispered.

  As he walked to the front of the store, he thought of the probable phone call to his mother from the clerk, saying he’d caught her son stealing. He’d be in such crap. He slowed his walk, and almost gave up, wanting to put the magic trick back on the shelf.

  “Help you?”

  He almost jumped at the clerk’s voice. The guy was still sitting behind the old wooden desk, and he wasn’t really paying attention. Jeremiah figured he just wanted the kid to leave.

  “No, I’m good.” Somehow his voice didn’t crack, and he marched out the door.

  When he got home, his mother was still glued to the television watching Days of Our Lives. She didn’t notice when Jeremiah ran up the stairs to his bedroom and clicked the door closed.

  He didn’t have any scissors, so he had to rip the bag apart. At first he wasn’t sure he could do it, because the plastic was quite rigid, but he managed eventually. He poured the contents out on his bed.

  Three small, hard, rubber balls popped out, each about the size of a ping-pong ball, and a little piece of paper containing the instructions.

  Magic balls.

  His mouth hung open in amazement as he picked one up. It felt like a normal rubber ball, but smaller. He examined it but didn’t see anything special.

  Finally he read the instructions and realized something he hadn’t known about magic: it was a trick.

  The balls weren’t magic after all. There were three sections to the instructions. First, he would have to learn to juggle the balls. Second, he’d have to learn how to hide one of the balls in the palm of his hand and make it stick there. The instructions said he should practice with a quarter and then once he knew how to palm a coin, start practicing with the ball. Third, he had to combine the two steps so that when he juggled, he would make one of the balls “disappear” by palming it.

  The instructions covered one small piece of paper. There were a few diagrams to show how to juggle and palm, but not much more.

  “Eight bucks for this?”

  Surely the other magic kits were real magic. This must just be some weird thing to get people interested.

  But most of the others were also manufactured by Dr. Magico.

  He looked at the instructions again and tried to follow the steps to juggle the balls. He dropped them all.

  The balls lay immobile on his bed, and he was very close to throwing them into the garbage.


  Instead, he picked them up. He thought about the instructions and realized it didn’t matter that the balls weren’t actually magic, as long as it looked like they were.

  He studied the pictures and tried again. Again they fell.

  Two weeks later, he was able to juggle all three balls for minutes at a time without dropping them.

  Palming took longer. The coin he practiced with never wanted to stick properly, but three weeks later, real magic happened, and he could hide a coin easily. Another week, and he was able to hide one of the little balls.

  Putting the steps together took another few days to perfect, but he was soon at the point where he could juggle the three little balls and then one of them would just disappear . . . just like magic.

  At first, he thought he couldn’t show his mom or dad, because they’d want to know where he got the money to buy the balls. But then he realized the balls were probably only worth a few cents each. He could say a friend gave them to him.

  Jeremiah’s first magic show was on August 12. He made his mother and father sit in the living room while he shoved a towel down the back of his neck for a cape and came into the room with a flourish, welcoming them to the First! Ever! Jeremiah Moore! Magic! Show!

  They smiled.

  Then he started to juggle the little rubber balls, and they were startled to realize he could do that.

  When the first ball disappeared, their jaws dropped.

  He never told them how he did it.

  The following week, he walked to the Toy and Game Emporium and stole a magic wand.

  Chapter 5

  1987

  It took three years for Jeremiah to shoplift $1,000 worth of merchandise from the toy store. He knew exactly how much it was because he kept meticulous track of everything so that he could pay the money back one day. He never lifted more than one thing per month, worrying that the sleepy clerk would wonder why he was there so often. As it was, the guy never seemed to notice any damned thing.

  Twice he bought tiny items, cheaper toys from other parts of the store, hoping that nobody would connect him if they ever noticed that the supply of magic tricks was slowly dwindling.