The sorcerer bore a bittersweet smile as he spoke. “And with the last of our talented young performers completing their act, I would like to once again thank you, the audience, for your time, your attention, and your cheers and encouragement. We’ve had a wonderful time performing for all of you, and hope that you enjoyed it every bit as much as we did. And I hope that we have all come out better for having been here today. I would like to extend another ‘thank you’ to those in our audience that volunteered to help our performers: Nate, Katie, Suzie, Phillip, Margery, and Charles,” he gestured toward each child in the seats as he spoke their names. “We thank you for helping us put on a good show.”
Spectra paused for a moment, and stepped stage left. “And now, one final, small performance from each of our young magicians.” He reached behind the curtain, and pulled out the wooden fox marionette again. “Starting with our dancing friend, Rosewood.”
The Dance of the Sugar Plum fairy filled the audience's ears.
With Spectra’s hands on the marionette’s cross, Rosewood nimbly skipped, spun, and pirouetted across the stage, in ways that seemed impossible without tangling her strings. When the two of them reached center stage, they faced the audience, and Rosewood took a bow.
Then she fell to pieces.
Her head, jaw, torso, tail, arms and legs each hung from the end of a seperate string. Some children gasped, others laughed softly. Nate was surprised to see that Rosewood was truly a puppet. With such coordinated movements, he had been convinced she had to have been an exceptionally small kid in a costume.
Spectra shook his head, acting as if this wasn’t part of the show.
“Sorry, boys and girls." Came Rosewood's voice seemingly from the head. "I get a little nervous sometimes. I need to pull myself together.” Spectra tugged the cross upward, and all her dangling parts snapped right back into place.
Rosewood took another bow as the children clapped and gave a soft “ooh.”
"If any in our audience likes ballet too, you know where to find me! I'm always willing to lend a hand!" She brought her hands to her face and giggled and did some final dramatic pirouettes across the stage followed by powerful leap that nearly touched the ceiling, the audience loved it and cheered. And in the back of their minds, more powerful than anything, they appreciated Rosewood's performance, thinking of it as her dance, she was the star here, not Spectra. And some kids in the audience hoped they'd be able to dance as well as her one day.
She skipped offstage, Spectra right behind her and the ballet music faded.
Flute music played softly in the background as a basket on stage left suddenly shook. Its lid slowly lifted up as Penny emerged from it, Copper slithering up her once more before settling on her head like a crown. Penny slithered out of her basket and toward center stage. Nate and Katie watched eagerly to see what the snake girl that had charmed them would do next.
“Thank you all for coming to our ssshow, boys and girlsss. Just like your parentsss tell you at home, it’s important to clean up after yourssself. Soo my last trick will help get a few of these props off the ssstage.” She reached a large top hat Spectra had used to hold the swords in Wesley’s act, and pulled out one of the remaining swords. “Did you know that sssnakes ssswallow their food whole?”
Some children nodded, others shook their heads.
“Well then, allow me to demonssstrate!” She stuck her snout up, and opened her jaws wide, then slid the blade down her throat. The children gasped and stared. “I ‘ink we can fid ‘ore in ‘ere,” Penny said, her voice muffled. She picked up the two remaining swords, and slowly slid them down her throat next to the first. The audience watched with bated breath as each weapon went down her throat to the hilt. Then, she snapped her jaw shut. Made an exaggerated swallowing motion, before facing the audience, and opening her mouth to reveal it to be empty. The children cheered as Penny took a bow before slithering behind the curtain.
The flute music went quiet as Chelly stepped onto the stage. The flute was replaced with intense dance-pop. The lights went dim, revealing that a starscape had been painted on the curtains, and the walls and ceiling of the tent, in glow-in-the-dark paint. With so many shining spots, the tent almost looked like a planetarium. Then the children noticed a small collection of glowing spots on the stage were moving on their own. Seeing a pair of feline eyes alongside those 'stars' made them quickly remember that the cheetah girl’s spots had been covered in a similar paint. The audience’s eyes followed the glowing girl as she moved across the stage, eventually stopping and lining her spots up perfectly with a pattern of stars on the wall, before going absolutely still.
The children watched where she had stopped, looking for any sign of movement, not wanting to miss whatever she was doing. Then on the other side of the stage, they saw something shuffle out of the corner of their eyes. The kids turned their eyes to the right of the stage as the lights slowly came back on, revealing Chelly on a completely different part of the stage than she had stopped at.
“How’d she get across the stage without us seeing her?” Katie whispered to her brother as the cheetah girl took a bow. Nate shrugged, not having any guesses.
As Chelly left from stage right, Em flew in from stage left, Tott and Paul silently trailing in after her on the ground. Tribal drum music played from the sound system. Paul looked up at the bird, then down at his smallest sibling, and mimed and upward arc from the ground to Em. Tott nodded, and straightened out his “bushy” tail behind him, and held it back horizontally. Paul stepped onto the squirrel’s tail, and gave a thumbs up.
Tott grinned, and flicked his tail upward, catapulting his larger brother into the air with surprising ease. The wooden crocodile landed directly on top of Em’s head, maintaining perfect balance as the eagle mimed a pained expression, but still kept the two of them in the air. Tott scrambled under his flying siblings, leaping up and grabbing ahold of Em’s talons. In spite of her beak giving an exaggerated expression of exasperation, the eagle remained airborne, prompting an applause from the crowd.
Paul leapt down to the ground, and Tott took his place atop his brother’s head once again, while Em perched on Tott’s tail. They then each took a bow in turn, starting at the top of the totem pole, and working their way down. The children couldn’t help but laugh when Em continued to stand perfectly still atop Tott’s head even when the squirrel’s bow reached ninety degrees, and laughed harder when both Em and Tott stuck out horizontally during Paul’s bow.
As the Totem Trio took their leave, O’Hara stepped onstage. Piano swing music played. She undid the buttons on her white gloves and removed them (not that it was easy to tell aside from her paw pads being visible). She held them each to a side and shook them out. The children stared at the glove as they both seemed to grow. Katie wondered how it was possible to make a prop appear to grow like that, much less two at the same time.
The audience’s curiosity grew alongside O’Hara’s gloves, as the accessories grew nearly as large as her. Each glove then 'stood' at her side on their ring and index fingers, she went 'arm in arm' with both of them, walking across the stage.
Just before she reached the other side, one of the walking gloves seemed to 'stare' eyelessly at the other, before flicking it with its thumb. The other let go of O’Hara’s arm, stood in front of her, and 'put up it’s dukes' causing the other glove to respond in kind. O’Hara sighed and shook her head. She gave each glove a firm slap, and both shrank down to their previous size. O’Hara picked the gloves up and slipped them back on, took a bow, and stepped offstage. The swing music ended, filling the tent with silence again.
Wesley entered next, with a confident stride. A stride which was broken when a sword was dropped from the ceiling, pinning the weasel’s cape to the floor. He rolled his eyes and turned around to pick it up, only for another sword to drop down and pin a different part of his cape. The children gasped as a third sword fell from the ceiling, and went straight through Wesley’s hood, seemingly impaling the weasel and pinning him to the ground under his cape.
The next thing to drop from above, to the audience’s surprise, was Wesley, hanging from a thick rope. A short jingle of cymbals played. He slid down to the floor, and took a bow as the audience cheered. “Thank you all! I’m glad I could entertain all you wonderful people!”
Tommy walked in as Wesley took his leave, carrying a piece of paper folded into the the shape of a tiger, and a flaming stick in the other.
“You know,” he said. “They usually say that a paper tiger is something that looks scary, but can’t actually do anything. Well, this paper tiger might not look scary, but there’s something it can do, and that, is dance!”
Tommy held the paper craft up in front of his face, and placed the burning end of the stick in between it and his mouth, and gently blew, causing the origami tiger to go up in flames. Epic trumpets played. Then it literally “went up” rising out of Tommy’s hand, and began moving on its own. The flames enveloped the paper, making it look as if the flame itself was dancing as the figure began to spin and sway rhythmically above Tommy’s head.
The children let out “oohs” and “aahs” as the paper tiger danced, and the tiger boy twirled his fiery baton around his body underneath the floating fiery figure. Both tigers danced across the stage. When they reached the other side, Tommy reached up, and grabbed the burning paper tiger in his paw. When he opened it for the audience to see, the original origami tiger, completely intact, with the flames put out. Tommy took a bow and the audience cheered.
As Tommy stepped offstage, Betty flew in, doing two quick loops before landing. A simple horror movie pipe organ melody briefly played. She took a bow, then raised one of her wings in front of her face, in much the way vampires were often depicted with their capes. Suzie grinned as she saw the “vampire” that had flown with her earlier.
“Thank you all for visiting with us this evening. Goodnight!” A puff of smoke covered Betty, and when it cleared, a small, seemingly mundane bat flew a few circles around the stage, before finding its way behind the curtain. Suzie let out a “wow,” at the bat girl’s apparent shapeshifting.
Adrian trotted onstage next, with the little pegasus girl Zeal on his back. 80s fantasy music sounded in all its pride and glory. As he marched from stage left, he looked across the audience. With a smile, he motioned toward a couple of kids in the front row. Zeal grinned back, and tossed some smoke bombs their way. Margery and Charles took cover under their seats, though the bombs came nowhere near them. The two children Zeal had actually aimed at were engulfed in smoke, and where once had been 7 year old humans were a wide-eyed gecko girl, and a fluffy marten boy, who both gasped as they looked over themselves, as did the children sitting by them. Like those changed by Adrian before, fur hid anything naughty.
“How’d they get those costumes on them so fast?” Nate wondered aloud.
“Maybe they switched the kids out with actors?” Katie suggested. Adrian had actually wanted to change them with them still wearing their clothes, but that would have been pressing what the audience would accept as stage magic.
As Adrian reached center stage, he tipped his hat (in place of a bow, as being a quadruped made that a little difficult). “Thank you,” He looked back at Zeal. “How about another round of smoke bombs?”
“You got it!” Zeal said. Phillip looked giddy with anticipation as, Zeal tossed a pair of smoke bombs on the two already changed children, but was disappointed when a second pair was thrown at a couple of other boys, rather than one hitting him. When the smoke cleared, the gecko girl and marten boy were human once more, and the two boys hit by the other bombs had become a blue jay and a frog.
The audience stared at the changed and restored children in amazement. Adrian continued across the stage, Zeal getting off his back and tossing a final pair of smoke bombs at the two anthro boys in the audience, the glow of the unicorn’s reversing the spell just before he stepped off stage right.
Zally and Zabrina flew in from stage left and from above the stage. The two pegasus fillies waved to the audience, then dashed to center stage, as Zeal did the same.
“Thanks for coming to our show!” The triplets cheered, before a smoke bomb went off in front of them. When it cleared, the fully matured pegasus mare Zabrina Zahlee Zealand stood before them and took a bow.
“We hope you all have a wonderful evening,” she said, before flying off stage right. The music faded.
Finally, Spectra returned to the stage, the glued-on stars and moons on his robe glittering under the stage lights. “And with that, our show is complete. Once again, I would like to thank you for your time, and say that I hope you had a wonderful evening. And when you leave this tent, and go back to your mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, remember; they do love you and care about you, even if they can’t always do everything right. Be thankful to them for being there for you. Not every child is so lucky.”
The audience went quiet at Spectra’s somber tone.
“It’s been a joy entertaining you all.” Spectra took a bow. “And a joy helping those that needed help finding their place. But now, it is time for us to part ways. Enjoy the rest of your evening at the carnival; and remember to enjoy life."
The performers then came in a line behind the wizard, Rosewood included, and held hands (well, withers in Adrian's case). Rosewood's crosses were held by Penny, but it was like they were just for show, the audience appreciated this final trick of stage magic. The performers faced their audience, and bowed as well.
"Perhaps someday in the future, you will once again bear witness to THE WONDERS OF SORCERER SPECTRA! But for now, we must all say ‘goodnight.’”
The children gave a round of applause as the stage lights went dark. When light filled the tent again, to let the children find their way out, Spectra was nowhere to be seen.
“That was really cool,” Nate said, as he and Katie shuffled out of their seats and into the aisle. “I told you it’d be fun. And you wanted to leave because of that sign.”
“Okay, okay, you were right,” Katie replied. “It really was fun. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. I can’t wait to tell mom and dad all about it!” Nate then saw that when his sister had reached the aisle, she wasn’t heading back toward the tent’s entrance, but toward the stage. “Hey, where are you going?”
“I wanna see the wizard again before we go. And try to see how they do those tricks.”
“But we’re probably not allowed back there! And that snake girl will probably hypnotize us again.”
“Aw come on, being an otter was fun.”
“Okay, yeah, it was… But we weren’t really otters, she just made us think we were.”
“I still wanna go.” She climbed up onstage. “You wanna come?”
“...Alright.” Nate said, climbing onstage with her. He didn’t want his sister getting into trouble all alone.
As the two stepped backstage, they saw the animal kids putting away props and talking amongst themselves.
“Well, I’m just saying that it’s never too early to start planning for the next town’s act,” Betty said, feeding the mundane bat that had been part of her final trick a handful of fruit before setting it to rest in its cage. “There’s a lot to consider; the materials you’ll need, the time it’ll take…”
“Taking a break after the show’s done isn’t gonna hurt anyone,” Tommy said. “And besides you and Chelly both tend to get too wrapped up in your acts. You could use…” He stopped and turned toward the twins peeking behind the curtain. “Hey, we have guests!”
“Heh, it looks like Penny’s otters couldn‘t get enough of her charming personality.” Wesley chuckled.
“Well, that was kinda fun, but it’s not what we came here for,” Nate said. Penny looked slightly disappointed.
“Nate and Katie?” Spectra’s voice came from outside the “employees only” entrance to the tent, before the wizard himself stepped in, still wearing his robe and mask. “Well, what DID bring you back here?”
“I wanted to see if you could teach us some of those tricks,” Katie said.
Spectra smiled and shook his head. “I’m sorry young lady, but a magician never reveals his secrets. That said, I can show you how to do an old favorite of mine.”
“That’d be fun!” Katie said. “Please show me!”
"Do you both promise not go around telling all your friends and family how it's done?"
The twin nodded.
“Very well.” The sorcerer held out his right hand, revealing a coin in his palm. “Here, we have a perfectly ordinary coin. Now you see it...” He moved to place it in his left hand, then closed both. When he opened his left palm, there was no sign of the coin. “And now you don’t. But where could it have gone? Oh, wait… I think I see something…” He reached his right hand behind Nate’s ear, and pulled the coin out. “Looks like your brother forgot to wash behind his ears.”
“Cool,” Nate said.
“How’d you do that?” Katie asked.
“It’s a very easy trick to learn,” Spectra said, holding the coin in his right palm again. “All you have to do is make it look like you’re moving the coin to your other hand, while keeping it in the first one.” He motioned as if he was moving the coin from his right hand to his left again, this time keeping both palms open, allowing the twins to see that the coin never actually left the wizard’s right hand. “Then you reach behind someone’s ear, and presto!”
“Nice,” Nate said. “I’d love to use that trick on my friends!”
“Thanks, mister Spectra.”
“You’re both welcome,” Spectra replied, handing the coin to Katie. “I hope you enjoy it.”
Adrian quietly shook his head in amusement at the children’s fascination with the old parlor trick, when a third child poked his head behind the curtain; the youngest of the children Adrian had transformed in his magic act.
“Mister unicorn?”
“Oh, hello there… Phillip, right?” Adrian said. “What can I do for you?”
“I asked my mom if she would still love me if I was a big lizard, and she told me yes, even if I got scales on the couch. Could you please turn me into a lizard again?”
Adrian’s face was beaming at the thought. A volunteer offering him a chance to show off his magic outside of a stage show? That was an opportunity that didn’t come along everyday. But out of the corner of his eye, the unicorn saw Spectra shaking his head. Adrian sighed. “As much fun as that would be, we can’t always get what we want. There are rules about how I can use these spells, and we could both get in trouble if I broke them. Sorry.”
“Aw… Is there any way you could do it, though? I won’t tell anyone about it!”
“You do realize, that even if you didn’t tell anyone, they would still see that you had scales and a tail, right? I think they’d be able to figure it out.”
“Oh, yeah…”
“How about this?” Adrian’s hat levitated above his head and flipped over, and a little card floated out of it, and drifted down into the boy’s hand.
Nate and Katie’s mouth hung open at the sight.
“That card has the address of a very special costume store in town who is friends with my teacher. I’m sure you’d find something interesting there.”
“But I liked having a real tail!”
“Phillip?” A woman’s voice came from the stage side of the curtain. It’s owner stepped backstage within seconds. “There you are! I told you to stay with me!” She ran over to her son, and picked him up.
“But mom, I was just-”
“Don’t ‘but mom’ me, you had me worried sick!” She looked over to Spectra. “Sorry about this. He doesn’t normally run off like that.”
“No need to apologize, ma'am,” Spectra said with a smile. He could tell that, even though this woman had doubtlessly been assuming her child was just asking her strange questions (as children that age were prone to do), that she would genuinely love her son, even if he was actually turned into a lizard. Though it would likely take a while to get over the initial shock. But ironically, that love was the very reason the child was not destined to become a part of the troupe, even if he would have wanted it.
“Your son clearly loved the show,” Spectra continued. "And as you can see.” He gestured toward Nate and Katie, “he’s not the only child that wanted to sneak backstage. We’re not strangers to some surprise company.” The sorcerer chuckled. “Though we do need to get back to packing, we’ve got to take our show to the next town.”
“Thank you for understanding,” The mother said. “Say goodbye, Phillip.”
“Goodbye mister Spectra. Goodbye mister unicorn.” Phillip waved as his mother carried him away.
“I guess we’d better get going too,” Katie said to her brother. “Mom and dad are probably looking for us, too.”
The siblings waved goodbye, and stepped out from backstage, making their way toward the tent’s entrance. “I can’t believe they were able to do those levitation tricks backstage,” Nick said. “They can’t have strings and stuff set up back there just in case someone sneaks in afterward, right?”
“Maybe they just hold that stuff a special way? Like with the coin trick.”
“I guess that could be it. But what do you think that kid meant by wanting a real tail? I mean… they must have just slipped a costume over him, on stage, or something. Why would he think he’d have a ‘real’ tail?”
“Well, we thought we really had fur and tails when Penny hypnotized us. They might have done something like that while they put him in a costume.”
Nate shrugged. “Makes as much sense as anything else, I guess.”
"Do you think the unicorn is a trained animal and they were throwing their voice? Or were they were a costume? They sure seemed super realistic!"
"Could be a combination, maybe a puppeteer controlling the final expressions with somebody inside working the body?"
"Could be..." Though Katie for a minute enjoyed pretending that that was a real unicorn colt they had just spoke with!
The two children left the tent, and found their parents waiting for them outside again. The twins smiled, and ran up to hug them.
“Hi there Nate, Katie!” Their father said as he returned the hugs. “Did you guys have fun at the show.”
“Yeah!” Kate said.
“Uh-huh!” Nate nodded.
“Well, we’ve still got another couple hours before the carnival closes,” Their mother said. “Do you guys want to stay and try a few more rides before we go?”
“Yeah!” The twins cheered in near-unison.
And so, the family went on to enjoy their time together, as they would for many years to come.
As the twins moved onto to other things with their family, Spectra and his troupe of magicians finished packing up their props, lighting, sets, and tent, and carried it out of the carnival (having magic to shrink the baggage to a convenient travel size certainly helped). Nobody thought it too odd to see a man dressed in a glitter-covered bathrobe traveling with a herd of animal people and a unicorn as they left the carnival grounds, given there had been stanger costumes in the years before. And even when they headed through town, toward the local train station, most passers by only briefly noticed something off, before some mysterious little voice in back of their mind told them that it wasn’t worth giving a second thought.
The troupe loaded their supplies into the last car in an old-fashioned looking train with a special history of its own, then climbed into the cabin cars they had come to call home during their time in the troupe.
“I’m gonna miss this town,” Penny said. “Something about it just feels so familiar, you know?"
“I guess,” Adrian said. “But I’m ready to move on. We’ve got new places to see, new things to learn. Plus, something about that place felt divisive to me.”
“How do you mean?” Chelly asked. “The audience and the people in town were pretty friendly.”
“I don’t know… It’s hard to put into words.”
“That’s a first for you, huh?” Wesley chuckled. Adrian just rolled his eyes.
The performers didn't realize, but the totem trio were actually having a lively conversation with some of the local spirits as they floated along with the train, unseen by most eyes.
Zally, meanwhile, was playing with her dolls, and getting Rosewood involved. “More tea, darlings?” she made one of her dolls ask.
“Oh I would love some more tea, yes.” She made Rosewood say, before “pouring” the toy teapot. “It’s so nice to have someone that appreciates the finer things.”
“Thanks,” Zally replied.
“So, Chelly,” Zeal said, “when do you want to help us make our flying cooler?”
“Well, I’ll be doing a lot of training on my own on the weekdays. Maybe on Saturday, I can help you girls out.”
“Well be there!” Zeal smiled.
“Always glad to see some people take their act seriously,” Betty said, as she looked over her notes for future magic acts.
Zabrina looked over at Tommy, who was on a couch with a book of fairy tales in his paws. “Huh, I didn’t think you’d be the type to be interested in that stuff.”
“Well, I’m not all fire and sports, you know.”
“Yeah, I guess I should have known better. You're also into Chelly!”
The tiger boy blushed underneath his fur, hiding his face behind his book.
Meanwhile, near the front of the train, Spectra and O’Hara were discussing what to do next.
“The next town over has several couples that will make for loving families,” Spectra said. “With a long term glamour spell to keep people from finding the children odd, and some final minor reality alterations, our troupe will all finally have the loving homes that their original lives were denied.”
“That’s good,” O’Hara said. The transformation itself had been needed in order to break them away from their old fates. “But are you sure you want to split them up so soon? They’ve basically become their own little family over the course of the night.”
“I hate to see them go, too, but they’ll still live nearby each other. And a proper family will be able to do more good for their young hearts than all the magic I know.”
“You have a point. Still, I imagine Betty, Wesley, and Adrian are all still eager to be your apprentices.”
Spectra smiled. “We’ll let them decide when the time comes, but if they want to stay with us a little longer, I imagine their families will support their choices.”
“Speaking of their families… Will Adrian be staying in a human home? I imagine he’d go crazy if he had to hide his magic from them, even with a glamour helping somewhat.”
“Well, I happen to know of a herd of modern unicorns living not too far from town. He’ll be able to live a little more freely there.”
“That’s good. But you're not getting rid of me any time soon!"
"You are an adult O’Hara, you are free to go where you wish."
And this was completely true, O'Hara, unlike the others, remembered a boy who with controlling and aloof parents who had wanted more than what they'd already chosen for him. But those memories were of a timeline that was no longer hers, and her memories of living her life, growing up with a family who had encouraged and nurtured her before she had even met her mentor were crystal clear and as real as the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
O'Hara leaned back looking back at her fellow performers, she'd be lying if she said she didn't feel wistful at having to let them go, she was part of that 'little family' too after all.
"After that I guess the two of us set up our tent and hold a show for the next group of kids, eh?”
Spectra nodded. “Unfortunately, there will always be children whose families are uncaring, or whose lives will be cruelly cut short. But that means we will always have someone we can help find a better life.”
"... Then I'll look forward to meeting them too." O'Hara nodded with a smile.
He stood up, and headed into his personal cabin. “But for now, we could all use a good rest.”
And so, the evening’s show inside the magic tent drew to a close. But for the transformed children, a new story was beginning. And for Spectra and O’Hara, the show would go on.
The end.