Sammy the Sorcerer
by Ronald Schulte
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
“Didn’t think so,” he continues. “Most people haven’t. That’s pretty much all I ate down there, Marc. Raw rabbit, like I was some kind of wild animal. Occasionally I came across a frog or a bird. But mostly rabbit, washed down by whatever condensation I managed to lick from the floor.”
Pacing again. “A strange ecosystem to be sure. At first I couldn’t for the life of me understand what sort of hell I was in, even though I found a lot of clues as I wandered. Scarves. Ropes. Money. Watches and cell phones — I treasured those as temporary light sources. Rings. Playing cards. Plastic wands...”
“Props from magic tricks,” I blurt out as I suddenly realize the connection. Am I really having this conversation?
“Exactly, Marc. Exactly! Still, it took me a while before everything clicked. That place I was in was obviously some sort of magical void. A dimension where illusionists hide — and sometimes lose — things. And that got me thinking. How had I gotten there, exactly? Was it possible somebody sent me there on purpose?”
He pauses again, and I’m glad. I’m not sure how much longer I can listen to Sammy’s ramblings. A magical void full of rabbits? Come on. We all know he ran away during the brief power outage he accidentally caused with his ill-advised rabbit-bomb. No one who’s met Sammy would deny his inexplicable magical gifts, but the man talking to me tonight is clearly delusional. He needs help, and I need to tell him that.
The chandelier swings back and forth, clinking and tinkling. I change my mind and decide to keep my thoughts to myself.
“I wandered and survived and thought. I had suspicions but figured I’d never be able to prove anything. Then, one day, I found this.”
Sammy pulls something from his pocket and hands it to me. It’s a playing card. A Bicycle, I can tell that immediately from the popular pattern on the back. It’s old and tattered. And utterly familiar. I flip it over just to be sure, but of course I know what I’m going to see.
Deuce of clubs.
My hand is shaking and I can’t make it stop. Not just any deuce of clubs; my deuce of clubs, from the talent show, complete with Mr. Krumsky’s signature.
And I haven’t seen it since it disappeared from Mr. Krumsky’s fingers.
As I try to process what I’m seeing, I sense the atmosphere around me changing. The air feels heavier, somehow. And Sammy is staring at me. I can feel his gaze on my forehead, burning like a beam of acid. I don’t dare look him in the eye right now; it would be like staring directly into the sun.
“Where did you find that?” I risk in a quiet voice.
A bottle of Grey Goose explodes behind the bar, soaking us in alcohol. I cringe; Sammy doesn’t. Everyone else shrieks and presses even further against the walls. But no one leaves.
“You almost got away with it,” says Sammy. “I should have known. You were always jealous of my talent. I never paid attention because I thought you were harmless with your silly little card tricks. You slow-played me, and I fell for it. But you messed up, didn’t you, Marc? You didn’t think I’d ever find that card in the darkness. Maybe you thought I’d die first. Or maybe you knew I’d find it and simply didn’t care because you figured I’d never get out. That’s probably closer to the truth, isn’t it? Such arrogance.” Sammy shakes his head.
“Sammy, I don’t know what you think I did to you,” I say frantically. “But I don’t know how to do anything like that. My magic was fake, Sammy! Make-believe. Misdirection and trickery. I have no idea how that card disappeared, it wasn’t even part of the trick!” And that’s the honest truth; when that card had disappeared, I’d been as shocked as anyone.
The chandelier crashes to the floor, not far from where Phil and I were standing earlier.
Holy crap.
Most magic is a sham, my own included. But Sammy’s sure isn’t. Until tonight, we’d all figured he’d simply jammed a bunch of firecrackers up that rabbit’s ass all those years ago. Yeah. Pretty sure we were wrong about that.
“You are a terrible liar,” he snarls. He points at the deuce in my hand and shouts, “That’s all the proof I need! You sent me to the void, just like you sent that card! Except — unlike that card — I have a brain! I realized that if there was a way into that place, there had to be a way out. And I found it. Quite by chance, I found it, in the midst of a temper tantrum after losing a rabbit I’d been tracking for hours. Explosion here, explosion there, you know the drill!
“I happened to have a light source with me on this occasion, a nice little iPhone X with maybe fifteen percent battery remaining. I switched on the phone’s flashlight and looked around to see if maybe I’d hit the rabbit or one of its buddies by chance. I hadn’t, but I found that I’d carved some nice six-inch gouges out of the floor. After that it was just a matter of time, patience, and brute force.
“It took me months to tunnel out of there. Like a prisoner digging through a wall with a spoon. Eventually I broke through. I landed hard, right there on the stage in the high school, where it all began. In a way, I wish we were there now. Wouldn’t that be a fitting place to end this? But this place will do. It’s taken me all these years to work up the nerve. Time to finally set things right.”
Sammy turns away from me. I can sense my classmates squishing themselves against the wall, trying to avoid Sammy’s gaze as he addresses them.
“You only got to see half of my trick at that talent show before Marc sent me into the void. You only got to see the ugly part. The second half of the trick was going to be beautiful. I was going to bring that rabbit back to life.”
The crowd gasps. If it were anyone else, they’d probably laugh. No one is laughing at Sammy the Sorcerer tonight.
“That’s right. I can do that. That poor rabbit was supposed to get a second chance, a triumphant return, but no one got to see that part. Well, tonight I’m going to perform my trick the way it was meant to be performed, from start to finish, with the exception of one minor detail.”
He turns and fixes me with nastiest sneer I’ve ever seen. “I forgot to bring a rabbit.”
The sharp pain in my head strikes suddenly, without warning, and is ten times worse than any migraine I’ve ever suffered. It feels like my head is being squeezed in a vise. Or maybe it feels like it is being ripped apart, it hurts so bad I can’t rightly tell. I drop to my knees, holding my head with both hands, trying to keep it in place. In that moment, I’m aware of only two things in the whole world aside from the pain. The first is that my nose is bleeding, gushing down my chin and all over the place. The second is that someone stands silhouetted in the doorway to the convention hall.
The lights flicker and go out.
That’s it, then. I’m dead. Except I can still feel the hard floor beneath my knees, and I can hear people murmuring and shuffling around. Also my head no longer hurts.
The lights come back on, and I stare up at the person standing beside me.
That person is Amy, my wife. Sammy is nowhere to be seen. She helps me to my feet, and I wipe awkwardly at the bit of blood that still dangles from the tip of my nose.
The class of ’94 watches in silence for a few seconds. Then the room erupts in applause.
“Did you see that?” someone shouts.
“How did they do that?”
“Where did he go?”
Pete Quisenberry, our old class president and self-appointed social coordinator, walks forward with a microphone and gestures for silence.
“Wow! What an unexpected surprise! A terrific impromptu performance! Let’s give it up for the Magic Club!”
The crowd cheers. Phil comes running from some corner of the room and takes a bow. Amy rolls her eyes and follows suit. I just stand there hoping my head doesn’t fall off my body.
“Where’s Sammy? Sammy, come take a bow with your club-mates! I can’t wait to hear where you’ve been all this time, and how you guys managed to pull this off!”
“He won’t be back tonight. It would ruin the trick,” says Amy with a wink.
“I read you loud and clear, Amazing Amy! We certainly wouldn’t want that. Thanks again and enjoy the rest of the evening!”
The crowd applauds politely, and just like that the spell is broken. People begin to move around the room freely, and discussion begins again. I watch the bartender move cautiously back to his position behind the bar. He begins to clean up the broken glass and Grey Goose spatter as a few other workers enter the room to clear away the remains of the chandelier.
“I’m ready to leave now,” I say to Amy without turning to look at her. She nods and takes my hand.
“You guys should have let me in on that trick!” Phil hisses as Amy leads me toward the door.
* * *
We don’t talk about it. We should, but we don’t.
Back in high school, her shtick was mentalist stuff. I suppose it would have been a little too obvious if she’d performed disappearance tricks. No, she kept that power all to herself, with a very few discrete exceptions. Like in the case of a certain deuce of clubs. And a certain Sorcerer.
Amy knew. Somehow, she’d always known. She’d noticed at the talent show when Sammy’s gaze had fallen on Mr. Jennings during the chaos. She’d noticed when Mr. Jennings’ nose had started bleeding... And then she’d sent Sammy away before it got any worse.
Maybe I’d sleep better if I knew I wasn’t apt to wake up in total darkness, surrounded by rabbits. I walk on eggshells, careful not to piss her off now that I know what she can do.
Sometimes, as I drift off to sleep, I hear things. Loud bangs. Doctors call it “exploding head syndrome,” which is perhaps a bit more accurate in my case than they understand. They tell me not to worry about it, that it is simply a random firing of neurons in my brain, very common.
Except every time I experience that sensation, I picture an explosion. A small explosion of rock, somewhere in the darkness...
Time.
Patience.
Brute force.
I lie awake wondering about his outrageous claim. Can he truly reanimate exploded flesh?
I doubt I’ll ever find out.
Next time we see him — and I have no doubt that we’ll see him again — I can’t imagine he’ll be in a mood to exercise that particular talent after blasting us to smithereens.
Copyright © 2023 by Ronald Schulte
