The Magician's Assistant
Plot Summary: Terrence Masters, a year ago learning that he is the son of a famous trapeze artist in Germany has spent all his time finding any information about her.. His stepmother, Isabella has arranged a meeting with Waldo Weirton, an eccentric candy maker in Bavaria, whose wife just happens to be Isabella's own sister Rosa Marie. Aided by his not so cured mother Wendy, William must learn that on the way to reaching the top you have to expect a stumble or two.
Prologue
The attic of Terrence's house held many secrets. Small secrets, big secrets and secrets that some people didn't want found. However, Terrence himself was the one who found that particular secret. It was a book of notable people throughout the years of 1960 and 1970. He flipped through it and found the woman he was looking for.
Emcee Darrow: Formally Jessica Lynn Darrow. Born in Bristol to parents Lynn and Patrick Darrow, she was the subject of many arguments. The pair had divorced when Emcee was two years old and they both could not bring themselves to decide whom she should live with. Then a struggling circus acrobat, Patrick took his daughter to the travelling fair he was then involved with. Entranced by this new world, she started up as an acrobat at the tender age of five. Often called "The One Child Wonder" by spectators, her fame skyrocketed, leading to her father being promoted to ringleader. Lynn, realizing her daughter's talent settled her differences with her husband to allow Jessica to spend half a year every year with him. By the late 1950's, the father daughter duo were legends until Jessica met a fellow travelling circus performer who happened to have the job that Jessica would take on. He was a trapeze artist. She took nine months off from the show in early 1959 and gave birth to a baby boy named Terrence, named after Jessica's childhood dog, Terry, a small terrier. Rumours swirled soon after the birth of her boy that an unexpected debt had fallen upon the family's home. Following this, Jessica's father retired from the show and Jessica, being the only attraction, led spectators to stop attending. The circus show went bankrupt leaving Jessica with a multitude of unpaid bills. She moved to Germany soon after this and became the ringmaster of a travelling circus group. Her son was not to be found. The father lives in Amberg, Bavaria and never speaks of his son when asked…
"Bavaria…" Terrence said quietly to himself. Did he know someone there? The name rung a bell.
No wait! He didn't know any one living there but he knew someone who was going there. Isabella, his stepmother, had arranged a visit with her estranged sister Rosa Marie in Walsdorf. She had recently married an eccentric candy maker named Waldo Weirton, with whom Terrence's best friend William had been interested in meeting. Wendy, William's mother, recently released from a mental hospital still had something funny about the way she walked, but other than that she was completely normal. She was the one who spent days, no weeks, finding out every scrap of information on Emcee. Maybe there was a chance they could meet.
Suddenly, there came a scaping of footsteps along the staircase to the attic. Terrence quickly shut the book and sat on it. To his relief it was only William.
"Hey Will. Shouldn't you be in the kitchen making chocolate explode or…something?"
"Good idea but maybe a bit too dangerous for today. Is this a bad time?" Will added when he noticed the book Terrence was sitting on.
"Well…yes. I mean no. No, I was just looking up my mother." Terrence said, pulling the book out from under him.
"Do you spend all your time looking her up? Doesn't it get boring looking at the same stuff all the time?"
"Dont' you get bored making candy all the time?" Terrence asked, flipping the book open again.
"Of course not! I never…Oh! Right. Point taken."
Terrence smiled and looked at his friend.
"You know it's been a month but I still am having a hard time not seeing you without those braces."
"I'm just glad to feel a breeze around my skull." William said.
Terrence chuckled and turned back to the book.
"So Bavaria. That should be fun. Too bad I won't have any entertainment when your gone. I mean, there's Veronica and Ruthy…but Corny Collins was cancelled a week ago. And what was it replaced with? Ask me!" Terrence demanded.
"Disco balls." William said.
"Disco balls." Terrence repeated and flipped back to the page in the book with his mother.
"Well it's a new era and a new world. Everything might change."
