Born of Illusion Read Online Free PDF

is, my mother isn’t really a mentalist, a medium, or a magician. She’s just an actress with the ability to make people believe what she wants them to. And at the end of the show, as we take our bows to thunderous applause, we have several hundred new believers.

Four
     
    A fter the show, the evening becomes a blur of congratulations, best wishes, and interviews with the press. I respond to their questions with well-rehearsed answers.
    “Yes, of course, I love performing with my mother.”
    “No, I didn’t miss a normal childhood. I love traveling!”
    “I’ve always loved magic so it just seemed natural to add it to my mother’s show. . . .”
    Then posing for pictures with my mother. Click, snap, poof.
    By the time we finally get back to our apartment, I’m exhausted.
    “Make some coffee,” Mother snaps after my third yawn. Her charm disappeared with the newspaper men. She flips on the electric light. “I need you awake.”
    Of course she does. It’s time for the evening’s big finale, an “honest-to-god” séance, performed for some of the city’s swankiest sophisticates.
    I wonder what she’d do if I refused to participate.
    On second thought, I don’t want to find out. Her temper is monstrous, and though she’s never hit me, I’ve seen her bring grown men to their knees with one small, well-placed fist.
    We have about an hour until midnight, when the “guests” will arrive. I make a pot of coffee and pour my mother a cup to take back to her room as she prepares for the next “act.” She usually changes into something more mysterious for the séances. I can wear whatever I want.
    She takes a step into the hall and then turns. “How did you know about the two needles?” Her forehead knots with puzzlement.
    The coffeepot in my hand jerks as I’m pouring myself a cup. I set it down with a clatter and grab a rag to mop up the spill. So she didn’t know. I babble away, not meeting her eyes. “What do you mean? The same way I always do. It’s not that hard. And this fellow was really easy. . . .”
    “Hmm” is all she says.
    Silence.
    Then the measured clicking of her heels as she moves down the hall.
    I take a deep breath. I don’t need any special powers of perception to know that this isn’t the end of the discussion.
    My mother stays in her room for the next hour, leaving me to set up alone and giving me plenty of time to wonder about Colin Archer. Does mother know he lives downstairs from us? Why else would she pick him out of an audience of hundreds? I don’t believe in coincidences, but on the other hand she really didn’t seem to know about the two pins.
    By the time the first knock sounds on the door, I’m wide awake and as ready as I ever am. Tension creeps down my spine as several guests enter our drawing room. There are so many bad memories associated with these séances—I’ll never be able to take them for granted. Once, after one of our séances was busted up by the law and my mother was led off to jail, a well-meaning townswoman bundled me up and took me home with her. I was only seven years old, but nothing she said could induce me to move from her front window. I even slept on the window seat, my cheek pressed against the pane. I think some part of me was terrified my mother would just move on without me. Three days later, I had my first and only fit of hysterics when I saw her coming up the walk with our bags.
    Even now, habit compels me to continually evaluate our guests with one vital question in mind: Are we safe?
    I glance furtively around the room at the high-society crowd who’ve come to enjoy my mother’s unique set of talents. The bored gentleman wearing a small bejeweled blonde on his arm like the latest accessory—he looks like a high hat who’s never worked a day in his life and probably wouldn’t take the time or trouble to complain to the authorities, even if he thought he had cause. And the bosomy woman whose pince-nez glasses keep slipping