Mary: The Tools Of The Trade

November 11th, 2008:

Josh and I woke up in our posh, adjoining hotel rooms in Adelaide, and while we both slept a bit fitfully- him because of the pain in his ankle from the eel bite, me because every dream eventually morphed into a nightmare of Crayton licking my ear- we made up in quantity what we missed in quality, only getting out of our beds after a good twelve hours.

Once we'd wolfed down our enormous trays of breakfast goodies, Josh trekked out to see a doctor about getting some antibiotics for his ankle while I placed the Magician's knife, cape and top hat on the bed and stared at them intently for a long, long time before examining them one after the other.

First, the knife: Like the hat and cape, the Magician's knife was obviously very old, perhaps a hundred years or more, though unlike the other two the knife was far from being in pristine condition, the blade razor-sharp but adorned with numerous scratches, the wooden handle worn smooth. The blade was slightly curved, and the only discernible markings on the handle were the letters, "G.G.", carved by hand. I picked it up and gave it a couple of test-cuts through the air before I remembered that this was the weapon that was used to disembowel poor Mrs. Walentowicz back in Milwaukee and hastily put it back down on the bedspread.

Second, the cape: I looked it over, front and back, and even dared to try it on, finding the silkiness of the interior to be quite comfortable, but after a moment of wearing it I recalled Taras' story about the disappearing boy, broke out in a cold sweat and immediately tossed it back down next to the knife. The exterior of the cape was black, the interior crimson. It contained no pockets or tags to indicate where it may have been purchased.

Finally, the top hat: Like the cape it had an antique look, but there was not so much as a frayed string anywhere on it. I almost put it on, but I still had the shivers from wearing the cape and decided against it. I peered inside the hat, finding nothing.

Josh returned from the doctor's then, popping pain pills and in a much better mood, though he gave all the items on the bed a wide berth, eyeing them suspiciously. Eventually he slumped down in one of the hotel chairs and joined me in simply staring at them, hoping that some secret would be revealed by the mere act of observance.

After a few minutes he asked, "There's nothing in the hat? In Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, Bullwinkle is always pulling stuff out of his hat." I shook my head, then because he'd got me thinking about it I looked inside again, finding nothing.

He pressed on. "Maybe you have to say some magic words?"

"Judging by what we've seen come out of the Magician's assistants' sleeves, I'm not sure we want something to pop out of there, Josh."

"What about the practical magic Yoshida was studying? Maybe we could test out some phrases, or toss a red-string Kabbalah bracelet in there. I'm just spitballing here."

"Clearly."

Growing inspired, he stood up and limped around as he spoke. "Maybe it responds to physical, sexual energy! We could find a couple of volunteers to give each other rubdowns nearby, thereby triggering-"

I rolled my eyes, "How many of those pain pills have you had, exactly?"

"Five. I wasn't talking about us, necessarily. Though if that's what you're proposing, I'm on record as saying I'll take one for the team, as unpleasant as it might be."

Deciding to ignore him, I once more picked up the hat, turning it over and over again in my hands. "I think you're right, Josh."

His eyes widened. "Excuse me?"

I gave his arm a whack, shaking my head. "Not about that. About Yoshida. More specifically, about his abandoning the study of practical magic and getting more into stage magic. Let's look at how a stage magician would use it."

Josh rubbed his arm, then his chin as he pondered it. "Does the bottom come off, so stuff can pass through it?" The two of us inspected the underside of the hat, taking our time but finding nothing. "Nice try, anyway. We went over every damn inch of it."

That struck me. "Did we? Let's be sure." I picked up the hotel phone, called down to the front desk and asked if they could bring up a sewing kit. In minutes I had one, and from it I pulled out a yellow and black tape measure. Josh held the hat steady as I began to measure it, inside and out, a smile creeping over my face when I'd finished. "It's over an inch longer on the outside than in."

"Whoa. False bottom! Which isn't a bad name for a gay spy band, either, now that I think of it."

Shooting him a look, I dug down inside the hat, feeling around the dark interior for any sign of abnormalities, and eventually my finger snagged on a tiny tag at the bottom edge. I tugged at it, and a moment later I pulled the hat's false bottom up, revealing a secret compartment within.

Not wanting to reach my hand in where I couldn't see just in case there was some nasty, sharp surprise waiting, I turned the hat upside down on the bed, and when the contents fell out with a clatter on the comforter, Josh and I stared for a long moment, befuddled.

Lying on the bed was an old skeleton key attached by a thin chain to a small plastic globe of the Earth, the kind you could find for sale in any tourist trap or airport newsstand. Josh scowled. "A cheesy key chain? Fantastic. It was all worth it."

"When we were opening it up you were thinking about Raiders of the Lost Ark again, weren't you?"

His scowl deepened. "That's hardly detective work. When aren't I thinking of it?" Picking up the hat again and peering inside it, he asked, "So the key chain rattled on the bed... how come it didn't jingle around in the hat when we were shaking it?" He carefully reached down into it and pulled loose a rolled-up piece of newspaper, tossing it down with disdain on the bed next to the key chain. "Wow. A wad of trash. Hide it before the Nazis find out. I stabbed a guy in the spine for this crap?"

I unrolled the piece of newspaper, the paper yellow with age. The page was half-torn, but at the top were the words, "Het Laatste Nieuws". A quick Google search discovered that it was a Belgian newspaper.

Now Josh began nodding. "Okay. That's something. My uncle- rather, my great-great-great-great grandfather Leopold was from Belgium. I don't know just what that means, but it's better than nothing, I guess."

I stared at the torn sheet, gazing fixedly at it for so long that Josh eventually had to tap me on the shoulder. "What? It's Belgian, I get it. What do you see?"

"I don't know what this means exactly either, Josh, but I know that Indiana Jones can eat his heart out. This piece of paper looks to easily be decades if not a hundred years old. The page is yellowed and you can just feel how fragile it is to the touch. I bet if we had it carbon dated it would confirm what we see and feel." Josh leaned in, wanting more, but I couldn't take my eyes off the page.

"Tell me."

I pointed. The date at the top of the page read: February 1st, 2009.

Josh's jaw dropped. "But... how... it's what, November of 2008!"

All I could do was shake my head slowly and place the page and the key chain carefully back inside the hat, closing the false bottom over it once more as Josh popped pain pills number six and seven of the morning.