“What did you see, Joseph?”

The ten-year-old Joseph stood at rigid attention. “Nothing, sir.” It was a lie. His father had flashed, a term in magic meaning the illusionist had accidentally revealed part of the method. Karl Swann had begun to do it quite a bit of late.

“No flash?”

“No sir.”

“Are you certain?”

Joseph hesitated, and thus sealed his fate. “Yes, sir,” he said. But it was too late. There came into his father’s eyes a tempest of disapproval. Joseph knew this would mean a night of terror.

For his punishment, his father brought him into the bathroom, where he strapped him into a straightjacket. It was an adult straightjacket, and within minutes of his father leaving the room for the hotel bar, Joseph was able to maneuver his arms to the front. He could have easily worked the buckles free, but he dared not.

And thus he sat.

At midnight his father returned and, without a word, unlaced the straightjacket, and carried the sleeping Joseph to his bed. He kissed the boy on the top of the head.

IN THEIR TOURS OF TEXAS, Oklahoma, and Louisiana they would often encounter the young people who drifted along the fringes of the shows, which were mostly county fairs. These were the strays, the unwanted, children who were not missed at home. These runaways, most often girls, became Joseph’s playmates during the long hours when his father was drunk, or searching for the local brothel.

Molly Proffitt was twelve years old when she escaped her abusive home in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Slight and agile, a tomboy with cornflower eyes and sandy hair, she joined the Great Cygne’s traveling show at a stop in Chickasha, having been on the road herself for more than a month. Karl Swann introduced her to everyone as his niece, and Molly soon became a vital part of the show, helping to dress Odette, cleaning and polishing cabinets, even passing the hat after impromptu performances on town squares.

Karl lavished attention on the girl, as if she were his own. She began to replace Joseph not only in his father’s act, but also his life.

Within weeks Molly lobbied for Joseph’s spot onstage in a particularly complex illusion called the Sea Horse, an escape trick featuring a large water tank. Every evening, before dinner, she would get on and off the platform hundreds of times, even going so far as to practice her curtsy at the end.

One evening Joseph spied on the girl. He watched her walk up the stairs to the top of the tank, pose, and walk down again. Over and over she practiced her moves. At 7:00 PM she went to dinner—a meager bill of fare consisting of beans and salt pork, eaten in the step van—then returned. She climbed the stairs again. This time, when she reached the top, the platform collapsed.

Molly fell into the tank. On the way down, she hit her head on the sharp edge of the glass, opening a huge gash on her forehead, knocking her unconscious. As she slowly descended to the bottom, Joseph approached the tank, bringing his face to within inches. The sight fascinated him, especially the plait of blood that floated above the girl’s head, the undulating scarlet shape that, to Joseph’s eye, did not look unlike a sea horse.

Later, long after the air bubbles ceased rising to the surface, long after the water turned a crystalline pink, Joseph climbed the stairs and replaced the four bolts that originally held the platform in place.

At just after midnight he peered out of the hotel window. In the dim streetlight he saw his father and Odette carry a large canvas bag out the back door. They placed it in the trunk of a black sedan, then sped off into the night.

It was the first of many times this scenario was to be repeated. For Joseph there were yet to come myriad rivals to his place in the Great Cygne’s show, as well as his father’s heart. One by one Joseph saw to it that no one replaced him.

By 1980, when magic was relegated to television specials and big Las Vegas acts, the Great Cygne had become a relic, a man reduced to roadhouse comedy routines. Karl Swann was drinking heavily, embarrassing himself and Odette onstage, sometimes missing performances altogether.

Then came “The Singing Boy.”

1982

JOSEPH SPENT MOST of the stifling summer in the basement workshop at Faerwood, a spacious room fitted with a lathe, table saw, drill press, as well as a peg-boarded wall of the finest hand and power tools. For more than three months he was not allowed to leave the basement, although every time his father left Faerwood, Joseph picked the locks within seconds and roamed the house at will.

It was during this summer he learned the craft of cabinetry.

THE SINGING BOY was an illusion of Karl Swann’s invention, a trick wherein three boxes are rolled onto the stage, each in its own spotlight.

In the illusion, the magician opens each box, showing them all empty. A boy then walks onto the stage, enters the center box. The magician closes the cabinet as the boy begins to sing, muffling the sound. Suddenly the voice is thrown stage left. The magician opens the box on the left to reveal the boy, who continues the song. The illusionist closes the door, and the voice instantly travels to stage right. Again, the boy is seen in the box. The magician closes the door one last time, then waves a hand. In a spectacular flourish, all three boxes collapse to reveal six doves in each, which immediately take flight.

But the singing continues! It comes from the back of the theater where the boy, now dressed in pure white, stands.

AFTER NEARLY EIGHT MONTHS of work, the effect was complete. On a brutally cold January evening, with snow drifts halfway up the windows at Faerwood, Karl Swann entertained two of his friends in the great room. Wilton Cole and Marchand Decasse were other has-beens of the magic world, a pair of third-tier card and coin men. That night they drank their absinthe poured over sugar cubes, shared more than one pipe of opium. Joseph watched them from one of the many hidden passageways at Faerwood.

At midnight the Great Cygne, in full costume, presented the illusion. Joseph—already far too big for the role of the Singing Boy—fulfilled his role. He entered the room, and stuffed his growing body into the center box. His father closed the door.

Joseph waited, his heart racing. The air became close, rich with body smells, dank with fear. He heard a muffled burst of laughter. He heard a loud argument, breaking glass. Time seemed to stall, to rewind.

The bottom of the box would drop any second, as they had rehearsed. He waited, barely able to breathe. He heard sounds drifting in, the two men discussing stealing the illusion from Joseph’s father. It seemed the Great Cygne had passed out, and the men found the prospect of the boy spending the night in the box amusing.

An hour later Joseph heard the front door slam. Faerwood fell silent, except for the skipping LP record, a recording of Bach’s Sleepers Awake.

Blackness became Joseph Swann’s world.

When his father opened the box, eleven hours later, the daylight nearly blinded him.

OVER THE NEXT SIX WEEKS, after school, Joseph followed the two men, noting their daily routes and routines. When their houses and places of business were empty, he learned their locks. In late February, Wilton Cole was found by his wife at the bottom of the stairwell in their home, his neck broken, apparently the victim of an accidental fall. Marchand Decasse, who owned a small electrical-appliance repair shop, was found three days later, electrocuted by faulty wiring in a thirteen-inch Magnavox portable television.

Joseph kept the news clippings beneath his pillow for two years.

THE GREAT CYGNE never performed the Singing Boy illusion in front of a live audience. Instead, he sold the drawings and schematics to magicians all over world, claiming exclusivity to each of them. When his ruse was discovered, he became an exile, a recluse no longer welcomed or wanted on any stage. Karl Swann began his final spiral.