Chapter One: Rose

"So, my fine audience, I'm going to need an assistant. Any volunteers?" I ask, smiling at the enthusiastic crowd. Among my, considerably large for a small village, audience, I see my assistant Ginny. "You, smallish girl in the front, with the bronze hair."

"Me?" Ginny asked with false surprise in her tone.

"Yes you. Come up hear." I say as Ginny slowly walks up to the stage. When she's standing in front of me I say, "I bet that I can guess your name."

Ginny smiles and says, "No you can't, it's very uncommon."

"Yes I can," I say, using the rehearsed lines. "I'm sensing a G."

"Yes"

"Your name is Ginny. Your favorite color is green. Your hometown is London. Am I correct?"

"...how did you? That's right" Ginny was such a convincing actress when she wants to be. The audience gasped.

"Okay so, Ginny, for my trick I am growing to saw you in half." The audience gasped again, there were even some screams. I lead Ginny over to the saw box, opened it, and she climbed in. "Okay, now I need you to put your legs out these holes," I say, pointing to the bottom. She pushed the fake legs out.

"Okay Miss Ginny, you might feel a slight tingling, but you'll be fine," I say smiling. I start sawing, the crowd is screaming, I pull the two separate boxes apart. "Okay do you think, I should put her back together?"

"Yes, I would like that, very much so," Ginny said.

"Okay," I push the boxes together, open the box, out steps Ginny. "There we go, one whole Miss Ginny. Thank you all for coming to my show. Miss Ginny is going to get to stay behind because she was such a good sport. You were fantastic," I say, disappearing into a cloud of smoke. Ginny and I fell through the trap door in the stage.

"Good show tonight," Ginny says smiling.

"Yeah," I say, sighing.

"What is it this time?" Ginny says, is my sadness really that obvious?

"It's just, the same show every night? It gets old. I miss real magic."

"Well real magic doesn't miss you, you are being hunted down, if I remember correctly." I stick my tongue out at her, and she just laughs.