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Every single moment of Trucy Wright’s shows is planned to a T: the time she gets to the Wonder Bar, the time she spends getting the stage ready and giving her special guests ample time to arrive and sit in their assigned seats (a regular table with their names handwritten on sheets of paper), and how long each segment of her show will last.
Everything about tonight is meticulously planned out, and it starts off as perfect as ever. Daddy got off work half an hour early and came down to spend time with her before the show, and this time Auntie Maya and Pearl came all the way from Kurain Village shortly after Daddy arrived and they gave her a huge bouquet of flowers. After giving them to Daddy to hold onto and being wished good luck, she proceeds to give Mr. Hat his daily pep talk backstage.
“Now Mr. Hat,” she starts, “this isn’t your average show. Auntie Maya and Pearls are here, and they’re never here. We need to give them the show of a lifetime, and I know we can do it! We just have to give it our all!”
She tucks him away and patiently waits for the Wonder Bar owner to announce the entrance of the effortlessly amazing Trucy Gramarye. When called on stage, all her nerves and jitters fade away and it’s like she’s home. When she’s on the stage, no one can hurt her.
Each trick goes off perfectly. That is, until she gets to the trick where she saws Mr. Hat in half.
She pulls a large and heavy box onto the stage, muffling her grunts until it’s brought to the centre of the stage. She gestures towards it and announces that for her next trick, she’s going to need an assistant.
Out comes Mr. Hat. “Hold on, this is what you want me to do? Have you gone mad, kid?”
“Oh, don’t you worry Mr. Hat!” She beams at him. “My saw is very sharp. You won’t feel a thing!”
“What saw-CHEESE AND CRACKERS!” Seemingly out of nowhere, Trucy pulls a saw out from behind her. It’s not very big (Daddy wouldn’t let her get the huge one she wanted), but it still draws a collective gasp from the crowd. “This is unbelievable.” Mr. Hat turns to face the crowd. “You all expect me to subject myself to this?”
The crowd cheers encouragingly, causing Trucy to smirk mischievously. “There’s your answer, Mr. Hat.”
He heaves a heavy sigh. Trucy almost feels sorry for him. “Fine. The show must go on, after all.”
Trucy giggles, opening the box and placing Mr. Hat inside. After shutting it, she faces the crowd and holds her saw above her head, waiting for the oohs and ahhs to quiet down before she presses the blades against the wood and begins moving them back and forth. Back and forth. Back and fo-
She pauses for a split second, hearing the sound of ripped fabric. Have her pants ripped or something? She feels the eyes of the crowd on her and resumes sawing away, deciding that if her pants have ripped she can always use Daddy’s hoodie to wrap around her waist on the way home.
Her eyes drift downwards a bit, and that’s when she sees it. Somehow her cape has gotten caught in the box and she’s sawing right through it. Her movements falter for a moment, too long of a moment, but not wanting to open the box and free her cape and ruin the trick she keeps sawing away. By the end of the trick, a chunk of her cape at the bottom is gone. If she were old enough, she would have sworn under her breath.
When she opens the box back up to reveal a still intact Mr. Hat, she moves so she’s standing in front of the box and the scrap of fabric that’s still stuck. She promptly removes it when moving the box off stage, hopefully doing it discreetly enough that no one in the crowd notices.
The rest of the show goes perfectly, but Trucy’s mistake sticks in her mind. If she weren’t wearing gloves her hands would’ve started sweating, and every time she swallows it gets harder and harder to do so. She needs the show to be over , and that thought sends a chill down her spine. She’s never wanted a show to be over before.
~~
The second the show ends, she finds herself running backstage to the little closet she transformed into a dressing room and searching for a needle and some thread. She doesn’t care if the thread doesn’t match her cape, she needs to fix it before Daddy and-
The door opens. “There’s our little star!” Daddy’s voice cuts through her frantic craze. “Great show out there, Truce.”
“Amazing job out there, Trucy!” Trucy turns to face them and is tackled in a hug from Pearl. She wants to savour this moment, Pearl hugs are so rare and she cherishes each one of them, but right now- “That hand-ker-chief trick you did was so awesome!” Pearl pulls away and cups her own face. “You just get better and better each time we come to see you!”
“Aw, thanks Pearls!” Trucy puts on a smile. If she doesn’t mention her mistake, hopefully nobody will notice. “Where’s Auntie Maya?”
“Harassing the waiters for some more bread and butter,” Daddy laughs. “I knew them leaving some out on our table was a mistake. Come here, kiddo.” He pulls her in for a side hug and takes her hat off, ruffling her hair. “It never gets old, seeing you up there. You’re a genius, you know that?”
Before Trucy can respond, she hears Pearl gasp. “Oh no, your cape!”
Oh no, indeed.
“What about it?” Daddy asks before glancing down at it. “Oh, when did that happen?”
“On stage, I think.” Trucy’s gaze flickers to her shoes. “It was probably during the saw trick.”
“Oh well, accidents happen.” Daddy squeezes her shoulder reassuringly, though it doesn’t help much. “We can fix it when we get home.”
Something bad settles in Trucy’s stomach. They normally don’t go home right after a show; there’s fans to meet, and what kind of magician would Trucy be if she let this get in the way of spending time with her fans? Not to mention that it’s past dinnertime and shows always make her hungry. She’ll have to join Auntie Maya on her bread and butter rampage. It’s a good thing she never wears her cape when she eats, anyways. “Yeah, okay!” She beams.
~~
Pearl and Auntie Maya catch a train home while Daddy calls a cab to take him and Trucy home. She keeps her smile on until they get in the cab and she can look out the window, looking out at the dreary street the Wonder Bar is on as they drive away.
She feels a hand on top of hers. “You doing okay, Truce?” Daddy asks.
She turns to look at him, smiling once again. “Yeah, I’m great! Why do you ask, Daddy?”
“You’re so quiet. Normally after shows you’re practically bouncing off of walls.”
Her performance is slipping. This isn’t good . “I guess I’m just tired.”
Daddy doesn’t seem convinced, but thankfully he doesn’t press her on it further. She looks back out the window and watches the streets pass them by, wishing it was raining so she could watch raindrops glide down the window and pretend they’re racing. That’s usually a good distraction when something is on her mind.
When they finally get home, she immediately heads to her room and looks for a needle and thread. There aren’t many places to look, seeing as her room isn’t very big and is normally quite tidy most of the time, and her mood gets worse the more she looks and doesn’t find anything.
“Looking for this?”
Trucy looks up at her doorway and sees Daddy holding some red thread with a needle sticking out of it. “Daddy, you’re the best!” She cries, taking them and heading to the kitchen so she can take off her cape and put it down on the table. “Okay, now we just need the bit that fell off.” She looks down at her hands, only to see they’re empty.
Oh no.
Trucy takes a deep breath. “Daddy, where’s the rest of my cape?”
“You don’t have it?” He asks. “Shoot. When did you last have it?”
“I don’t know,” she admits. Her head starts to spin. Swallowing is difficult again. “I don’t know. Daddy, I don’t know.”
“Hey, that’s okay.” He kneels down and puts his hands on her shoulders. “Tomorrow we can go shopping and get some fabric that looks exactly like your cape. Sounds like a plan?”
“No, it’s not the same,” she whines. Her breathing starts to pick up and suddenly her legs wobble just a bit. “I can’t do that, I need it, I need it-”
Daddy pulls out a chair for her. “Come, sit down. I’ll get you some water, okay? Try breathing in for four seconds, holding it for another four, and letting it go. You’re okay. I’m right here.”
She sits down and squeezes her eyes shut, doing as told as she hears Daddy opening and closing cupboards before turning the sink on. She doesn’t open her eyes again until he comes back and puts a glass of water in front of her, and she manages to steady her breathing enough so she can chug the water.
“Feel any better?”
She looks down at her lap, shutting her eyes again. “That...I…” She grips what’s left of her cape in her hands. “Daddy, it’s ruined. The cape is ruined.”
“No it’s not, we can always fix it.” He pulls up a chair so he can sit next to her. “And if we can’t find any cloth similar to yours, we can get a new one. How’s that sound?”
For some reason, that’s what breaks her. Tears rise up and spill down her cheeks, making her whole body shake as she frantically tries to wipe them away. Daddy pulls her in for a hug which she immediately accepts, gripping onto the back of his hoodie like he’ll vanish if she doesn’t and crying into his shoulder, not caring that her cheerful performance has come to an end. Right now there’s simply nothing to be cheerful about.
Ages later she finally calms down enough to stop crying, but her grip on Daddy doesn’t lessen in the slightest. “Daddy…”
“Hmm?”
“Daddy...was the one who got me my cape.”
Daddy’s quiet for a moment. “Oh yeah?”
She sniffles into his shoulder. “After Mommy went away, he wanted to cheer me up...so we went to a tailor to have me fitted. I wanted a cape just like his, and he said one of the most important things about being a magician is your appearance. You always have to look perfect, or the audience won’t be interested. He kept saying that over and over. Every time I’d spill something on my cape he’d get upset and say that.”
“Is that why you take your cape off every time you eat?”
She nods, feeling him rub her back. “My cape reminds me of him. Of the gift he gave me to make me happy. Now that it’s ripped…” She trails off for a moment. “What if he comes back and sees what happened? He might kick me out of the troupe.”
“Oh Truce, he would never do that.”
“What if he never comes back, Daddy?” She feels tears slowly begin to well up, and she doesn’t have the strength to fight it. “He said he’d be watching over me. What if he saw what happened tonight and doesn’t wanna come back?”
“Well that would make him the biggest moron in the world,” Daddy says, holding her tighter. “Truce, you made a mistake. Lots of performers make mistakes. Honestly, I’m glad the cape got messed up and not you. You’re so much more than your magic, and if your Daddy can’t see that then he’s missing out big time.”
She sniffles, wiping her nose on his sweater. “You promise?” He isn’t lying, she knows that, but she finds she craves reassurance like it’s air.
“I pinky promise.” She looks up as he takes one arm off her and extends his pinkie. She giggles as she wraps hers around his, confirming for her everything he just said. “Do you feel any better?”
“A little.” She pulls her finger away and hugs him again. “Thank you, Daddy.”
“Anytime, kiddo.” He squeezes her back. “If you want, tomorrow morning we can talk about where to go from here. I think you need some sleep.”
“It’s not even that late, Daddy.” But as if on cue, she yawns. “Fine, I’ll sleep. As long as you tuck me in.”
“You say that like I don’t always.” And with that, Daddy picks her up and swings her over his shoulder. “Come on, it’s bedtime for genius magicians.”
She lets out a happy squeal as she squirms in his grip, finally having something to be happy about again.
~~
The next morning, Daddy lets Trucy miss school in the morning so they can go out and get her a new cape. They find an affordable fabric store nearby and walk there right after breakfast, Trucy tugging him along the whole way.
They’re greeted by an employee who asks what kind of fabric they were looking for, and Trucy doesn’t even have to think about her answer.
“I was thinking light blue. Kinda like the sky, you know?” She looks over at Daddy, who is very clearly caught off guard. “My daddy has a blue suit and I wanna match with him.”
She looks away before she can see his widening smile wobble. The employee smiles at her and leads them to where nice shades of blue are waiting to be used, and the last bit of sentiment Trucy felt towards her old cape has officially gone out the window.
After all, she has a new daddy she can match with.