Prince of Air by Ann Hood Page A

too,” Felix said, getting that sad feeling he got whenever he thought about how far away their father had moved. “He’s an artist. A sculptor. But he took a job at a museum in Qatar.”
    â€œThe Middle East,” Maisie added.
    â€œHe’ll send for you?” Harry asked. “When he gets settled?”
    Felix shook his head. “We live with our mother.”
    â€œFamilies sometimes have to do this,” Harry said matter-of-factly. “Separate in order to survive.”
    â€œTell us how you got so good at magic,” Felix said. He didn’t want to talk about families separating. He didn’t want to feel sad.
    â€œWhen I was just nine years old, I learned to pick up needles with my eyelids, hanging upside down,” Harry said, boasting. “I was the Prince of Air! And people paid to come see me in our backyard in Appleton. I loved to perform. And then one day, my father took me to see a magician named Dr. Lynn. Dr. Lynn’s most famous trick was to cut up a man—”
    â€œCut him up?” Maisie said. “What do you mean?”
    Harry made a chopping motion with his hands. “Cut off an arm and a leg and even his head, then throw them all into a cabinet, close the curtain, and after a while, the man shows up, all in one piece. I watched that trick, and I knew I had to be a magician like Dr. Lynn. Better than Dr. Lynn!”
    â€œYou will be,” Felix said.
    â€œHa!” Harry said. “I already am! I’m a magician and an escape artist, and now I’m working on cracking locks. All kinds of locks. This is an interest I’ve had my whole life, and I just keep getting better and better at it.”
    Mrs. Weiss laughed from the kitchen. “You learned to open locks just so you could get at my pies, Ehrie. That’s what I think.”
    â€œAin’t that the truth,” Harry said.
    He glanced at Maisie. “I mean,
isn’t
it?”
    For half a second, Harry Houdini almost charmed her.
Almost.

    After the dinner of goulash and wide egg noodles followed by peach pie, Harry sequestered himself in his room to practice for his opening at Tony Pastor’s the next night.
    â€œLet’s take a nice long walk,” Maisie suggested to Felix.
    They had tried to help Mrs. Weiss with the dishes, but she’d scowled at them and ordered them out of the kitchen.
    It was a warm June night, and even with the windows open, the Weisses’ apartment on East 69th Street felt stuffy and airless. A walk sounded like a great idea to Felix.
    But once outside, Maisie grabbed his shoulders and, with her eyes bright with excitement, said, “Let’s go see our old apartment.”
    Felix groaned. “Not again,” he said.
    When they’d held the coin and ended up following Alexander Hamilton from Saint Kitt’s to New York City, Maisie had insisted that if they went to Bethune Street they might be able to figure out how to time travel forward enough to land smack into the time before their parents got divorced, when they’d all lived there together and been happy. But when they finally found the spot, Bethune Street was not even a street yet—it was under the Hudson River.
    â€œDon’t worry,” Maisie continued. “I just want to see it, that’s all.”
    â€œReally?” Felix asked, doubtful.
    â€œPromise,” Maisie said. “Besides, it’s probably still underwater.”
    Felix let himself picture their old apartment. He imagined the kitchen with the old six-burner stove their father had salvaged and repaired as a gift for their mother. And he pictured his mother at that stove, stirring spaghetti sauce and humming a song from an old Broadway show. He could see his father’s bike hung on the wall in the entryway, and the clutter of their rain boots and Rollerblades and sneakers beneath it. The way those shoes mingled, with Felix’s laces tangled in his father’s and