Contents Book Info About the Voting 1 A Final Performance 2 The Audition 3 The Contract 4 The Callback 5 Casting 6 Surprise Announcement 7 Opening Credits 8 The Arrival 9 First Challenge 10 Pretense of Fairness 11 Picking Teams 12 Spa Day 13 Two Magicians Leave 14 Metamorphosis Challenge 15 Into the Box 16 Manual Labor 17 Red Team Elimination 18 Construction Plans 19 Zig Zag Cabinet 20 Uneven Teams 21 Wand Pond 22 Size Matters 23 Cards and Hats 24 Rings and Silks 25 Farewell Dinner 26 Producer's Warning 27 Tiger Trainer Challenge 28 Special Surprise 29 Blast from the Past 30 Aftermath 31 Big Top Challenge 32 Playing the Game 33 Final Four 34 Dressing Up 35 Boardwalk Magic 36 Rumor Mill 37 Scoring the Performance 38 Final Prep 39 Sands of Time 40 The Winner Is 41 Walk of Fame Vote 1 - Focus Group Vote 2 - Two Team Vote 3 - Metamorphosis Vote 4 - Gold to Red Vote 5 - Four Props Vote 6 - Circus Week About the Author About this Story Recommended Reads A Note from Jordan Magic Mansion Jordan Castillo Price Find more titles at www.JCPbooks.com JCP Books LLC • PO Box 153 • Barneveld, WI 53507 Cover art by Jordan Castillo Price Magic Mansion. Copyright © 2012 Jordan Castillo Price. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. ISBN 978-1-935540-46-5 This book is a work of fiction. the names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. NOTICE: This eBook is licensed to the original purchaser only, and may be stamped with the purchaser’s name, IP address and order number for inventory control purposes. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. JCP Books e-books are for sale to adults only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by underaged readers. 1.0 About the Voting Magic Mansion was written serially in the author’s newsletter. At six points during the story, readers were able to vote a character on or off Magic Mansion. If you’re curious about the real voting outcome, you’ll find the results at the end of the story. Links to results are also listed in the ebook’s table of contents. Sign up for Jordan Castillo Price’s newsletter, JCP News, at www.psycop.com/newsletter Chapter 1 A FINAL PERFORMANCE Magic might not be as popular as it had once been, back in its golden age, but it beat watching soap operas or reading mangled comic books with missing pages, and nipples drawn in ballpoint pen on the costumes of all the lady-characters. And it beat getting your temperature taken, or your blood drawn. And it especially beat swallowing those big, nasty pills. The audience might not be enthusiastic, but they were there. And that was enough. They sat in their molded plastic chairs, four children in all. A young boy, badly burned. Something to do with crystal meth and a back door that was nailed shut. His pain was constant. A teenager who’d shattered his foot, and his clavicle, and five bones in his hand on a skateboard. He was too old for magic, or so he thought, but his bones knit faster when he was in its thrall. A boy whose brother had shot him in the leg with the family’s gun, a semi-automatic with its serial numbers filed off, which his mother said they kept for protection. And maybe they did. Their neighborhood hadn’t been fit to live in for years. A girl with pneumonia who’d had too many “uncles.” She was better off in the hospital. John—stage name, Professor Topaz—had carefully enticed the children to abandon their skepticism. First, he presented himself as a consummate magician: coiffed hair, immaculately groomed goatee, starched shirt, impeccable silk tie, and a spotless black suit—which was beginning to go shiny around the seams, though in the current lighting, it shouldn’t be detectable. He wooed them with a series of simple but rapid tricks so as not to lose their attention, a few solemn words, and the token discovery of a silver dollar behind each of their ears. He let them keep the coins, which cemented their interest. Now they’d been enthralled for the past fifteen minutes with nothing more than three lengths of rope. All three pieces began the act apparently the same length, and then, as he slid the knots between his agile fingers, they seemed to lengthen and shorten. Another slide, and all three were even once more. It was all a clever manipulation of one long rope and two short stubs, which appeared to be the ends of medium-sized lengths. But in John’s talented hands, the illusion looked quite real. “Tell me, young lady, is this rope intact?” My God. Far too many “uncles.” “Yes? Very good. Excellent. And now, you see….” A loop. His long fingers curled around a second, hidden knot as he slid the other up and down, to the delight of even the jaded teenager. “Now,” he said gravely. “Observe what happens…when I cut it.” He slipped the knot to the end, brandished a pair of scissors that had Pediatrics written in marker on the plastic handle, and snipped the rope. There were gasps, and four pairs of eyes went wide—because they’d seen him cut it, and surely that was no sleight of hand. It wasn’t. But the few inches he’d trimmed off the yard-long length were hardly worth noticing. He palmed the rope stubs, then slid them into his pocket along with the scissors. “You have seen them grow…and shrink…and now, before your very eyes, watch…as three become…one!” He snapped open the rope with a flourish—and even the teenager laughed. Good progress. The boy wouldn’t be in the hospital long, and if John could reach that part of him that was blighted,
