Acts of Violet(18)

At this point, Ace was having trouble hiding his impatience, but he remained even-tempered, asking where she’d hidden the card.

Violet pointed to a table near the stage holding a sheet cake covered in pink icing roses. She told Cyndi to cut herself the corner piece with the biggest rose. Before anyone could stop her, Cyndi ran over to the cake and, in her excitement, didn’t bother with any utensils. She grabbed at the corner of the cake with her bare hand and shrieked as she pulled out a playing card. It was smeared with vanilla icing, but it was unmistakably the five of clubs.

CAMERON FRANK: Wow. So, was Violet part of the act?

ELEANOR TOBACK: That’s what I thought at first, but Ace’s confusion seemed genuine. He jumped offstage and ran over to examine the card himself. It wasn’t until he uttered an expletive that I began to suspect Violet had somehow hijacked his trick. He just kept staring back and forth between the five of clubs that had come out of the cake and the ten-year-old girl with the tangled hair and crooked smile who’d somehow upstaged him.

Finally, he raised his hands in surrender and led us in a round of applause for Violet, who was still onstage, watching us like this was what she’d been waiting for. She bowed, held up a finger, and took a few slow backward steps. She outstretched her arms and …

Now, this was broad daylight and I saw no wires, no harnesses, no way she could’ve—but she did—the girl levitated off the stage, a good ten inches, and just hovered in place for what felt like a full minute before lowering herself back down.

We were all stunned, Ace Morgan included, but at that point I was sure Violet had to be part of the show. What other explanation was there?

[MALE VOICE]: She wasn’t part of the show. I still can’t figure that one out.

CAMERON FRANK [STUDIO]: That’s Ace Morgan. We’ll hear more from him in a later episode.




August 30, 1990

Dear Violet,

Congrats on nailing the diagonal palm shift! I don’t know why you’re surprised. You practice so much, you probably do card manip in your sleep. Do you even need magic camp anymore? Haven’t you learned everything by now?

My summer has been a snooze fest, except for a trip to Hershey Park (the Flying Falcon was awesome!).

Big news. You better sit down for this.

What’s the craziest and coolest thing that could happen?

No, Mike D, Ad Rock, and MCA haven’t asked me to be the fourth Beastie.

We’re moving!

I think it has something to do with the “vacation” Mom’s been on (she’s still in Florida taking care of her “sick friend”). Dad stopped shaving and smelled like beer all the time until Aunt Carol came to stay with us. She’s kinda bossy but her grilled cheese was the best thing I ever ate after weeks of nothing but cereal. Aunt Carol kept telling Dad “get ahold of yourself!” and “forget that floozy!” Finally, he decided he was sick of Pennsylvania and sick of the college he writes grants for (grants are like fancy letters asking for money, except when I wrote him a fancy letter asking him to raise my allowance, it didn’t work, so I guess he’s better at it than I am). He was probably sick of his sister bossing him, too. Long story short: he got a new job. Only this one isn’t at a college. It’s at the Witkin Theater. You know what that means?

We’re moving to Willow Glen!

I know, I know, you think Willow Glen is the most boring place on earth, but there’s no way it’s more boring than Carlisle. And duh, you won’t be bored with me around.

No! Sleep! ’Til Jersey!

—Gabe

P.S. For the record, Evil Dead 2 is not better than The Evil Dead. ED2 is funny and has the big effects, but you gotta give props to the original, which is a horror classic.

February 20, 1991

V—

This is stupid. You’ve been giving us the silent treatment for weeks. If you don’t want to be friends with me because I like your sister, that’s on you. But you can’t keep ignoring Sasha. She didn’t do anything wrong. Neither of us did. I thought you were cooler than that.

If you want to stop being lame, come hang out with us at lunch tomorrow. Sasha and I will be in the locker hall outside the computer lab. I brought in the latest Fangoria, but it was too big to fit in your locker. It’s a special 100th issue—very awesome, you need to see it. If you’re nice, you can borrow it.

If you’re extra nice, I’ll get my dad to sneak us into the Witkin again next week so you can practice your magic onstage …

—G.




YOU ARE MAGIC

By Violet Volk

For QD

May your wings and fins never fail you



AUTHOR’S NOTE

Let’s get one thing out of the way right now: I fucking hate self-help books.

Anybody who claims to be an expert at living a better life is an asshole and should be avoided at all costs. We’re all blindly running around our existential rat mazes, hoping to find a piece of cheese. I’m not here to feed you so-called wisdom cloaked in platitudes, encouraging you to take baby steps to nowhere.

In other words, I’m not an expert, and I’m not here to help you. I’m here to grab you by the shoulders and wake you up.

Actually, I need you to help me.

You read that right. I need your help. Because our world is in a precarious state. There is an ever-widening sinkhole of mediocrity trying to consume us all and we need to find higher ground.