Born of Illusion by Teri Brown

the knowledge he gained from doing it.
    For years he worked on his own career and never gave a thought to mediums defrauding the public of money, but all that changed when his beloved mother died. He had been desperate to get in touch with her and offered a substantial amount of money to anyone who could contact her spirit. Many tried, but Houdini exposed them all as frauds. He became bitter and increasingly convinced it could not be done. After a time, it became his mission in life to expose spiritualism as a sham.
    I get off the streetcar and walk half a block to the Hippodrome. With its stately spires, flags, and ornate detailing, it looks like a castle, out of place among New York’s businesslike streets. A throng of people are already gathered outside, and I join the line.
    Just one of the crowd.
    It’s as one of the crowd that I pay for my ticket. It’s as one of the crowd that I buy a hot pretzel wrapped in brown paper, and it’s as one of the crowd that I take my seat in the mammoth auditorium.
    But it’s as Houdini’s daughter that I pull out a notebook and pencil to take notes on what I see. The people around me are tense, excited, and I’m reminded again of just how famous he actually is.
    I hold my breath as Houdini is introduced. I’ve seen him perform before, of course. I was on the pier when he jumped into the Hudson River when I was a child. I saw him hanging, eight stories up, when he escaped from a straitjacket in Chicago. But those events were attended with my mother, who took me just before the escape occurred and hurried me away soon after. This is different. This time I can study him at my leisure.
    Houdini steps out onstage and I lean forward, tension coiling my stomach like a rope. He’s shorter than I remember, all compact muscles and strength. But it’s his voice that really surprises me. His persona is all masculine bravado. But his voice, high-pitched, almost effeminate—doesn’t seem to match.
    “I declare that nothing has been revealed to me in my twenty-five years of research to convince me that intercommunication exists between the spirits of the departed and those still in the flesh.”
    My skin crawls, remembering the Ouija board. I wonder what Houdini, the great skeptic, would make of Walter.
    Houdini goes on to explain that he’s not attacking spiritualism as a religion, but only those mediums taking advantage of the grief of others to defraud them of their money.
    I shift uncomfortably. He means people like my mother and me.
    I struggle to remain calm and to follow the thread of his lecture. “Imagine the medium’s horror when halfway through the séance, I throw off my disguise and cry out, ‘I am Houdini and you are a fraud!’”
    My blood chills. Oh, I can imagine.
    He expounds on how the mediums research their clients before they give each séance, and I remember how many small-town graveyards I visited before my mother and I set up shop. How often I would eavesdrop at the general store, blending into the background, listening for tidbits of information that could be used.
    After Houdini finishes discussing the forethought and care that goes into each séance, his assistants join him onstage.
    “Now, I will show you some of the more common tricks used by mediums to make you, the unsuspecting public, believe in their treachery.”
    He begins with the slate-writing trick, during which the spirit writes a message to one of the clients from “beyond the grave.” Houdini shows the small ring on his finger that contains a piece of chalk. He demonstrates how the slate is held by both the medium and the client and how the medium can write on the bottom side without the client’s knowledge. One diversion later (usually created by an accomplice) the slate is momentarily pulled from the client’s fingers and flipped over, without the client even knowing.
    My heart sinks. One of my mother’s better tricks is now worthless. We’ll have to come up with a whole new variety of