“All magic has its limitations,” Toby murmured.
“Or it wouldn’t be magic. It would be sorcery,” Theo replied. “You can save that girl over and over inside the box. But once you return, it’s as if you never went back.”
“Of course,” Lucio said, “there are other small consequences of going back and meddling with the past. None of them is important at first. But the more you go and return, the greater these will be.”
I thought of the detritus from Toby’s explorations of the Dissolving World that was filling our attic room.
“The thing is,” Toby began, “I can’t even get close enough to save the girl. That memory is shut off to me. I can go almost everywhere else but there.”
“But why save the girl?” Theo asked. “Saving the girl will mean remaining in Las Vegas. And that is no place for your magic.”
“There are so many better places for you to go,” Lucio added.
Toby cleared his throat. His words emerged, devoid of their usual static. “I need to see whether I can save the girl before I can decide whether or not I want to go back there or anywhere else. I will keep trying until I save her.”
His visitors said nothing.
“I will keep trying,” Toby repeated.
I shivered and wondered if Toby would ever consider the charm of the present. “If that is what it takes for you to move on, then perhaps I can help you,” Lucio said.
“How?” Toby replied.
“Did you ever wonder where you sent your assistant?” Theo asked.
“Of course.” Toby sounded tired.
“I would think it’s a world not unlike the one you find inside that box. A world sprung from your imagination,” the elegant magician continued.
“Maybe you will not believe me,” Lucio began, “but you have always been able to conjure a world of your imagining. You are probably not aware of it.”
“Clearly not,” my magician said.
“Now,” the Italian said, lowering his voice, “have you ever conjured the perfect person to your side at the perfect moment?”
“I’m better at sending them away.”
“No, no,” Lucio said, his voice slipping into a smooth stage patter. “Think.”
“I can’t think of anything.”
“How did you and your wife meet?” Theo asked.
“Mel?”
“Yes.”
“We met in a small town in the middle of nowhere. A couple of hours outside Las Vegas.”
“And you got married that night?” Theo asked.
“Yes.”
“You must have been lonely,” Lucio wondered.
“Life on the road is lonely, and then—poof—there she is,” Theo said with a laugh.
I didn’t stay for the rest of the conversation. I forgot the cold and rushed to the attic, where I lay under several blankets feigning sleep until Toby arrived.
In the morning, Olivia picked up the phone on the first ring. Despite the hour, she was cheerful. I closed my eyes, imagining her standing in Leo’s world.
“He conjured me,” I said.
“What?”
“Toby conjured me.”
“When, just now?”
I took a breath, trying to suppress my panic. “No, from the beginning. It’s all an illusion.”
“Mel,” Olivia’s voice was sweet and soothing, “That can’t be true. First of all, you’re giving him too much credit. If he conjured you, which I’m fairly sure he didn’t, it was your choice to stay with him, right?”
I nodded in invisible assent.
“And there’s no way he keeps conjuring you morning after morning.”
“I guess not.”
“Anyway, Toby clearly loves you. Maybe it’s hard to tell sometimes behind all that magic. I mean he is a little strange, so he probably has strange ways of expressing himself.”
Despite myself, I wanted to laugh.
“It probably makes Toby feel better to think he’s conjured you. If you left, then he’d have a way to get you back. His greatest worry right now is that he’s going to lose you on top of everything else.”
“I wonder. But if he’s worried I’m going to leave, why doesn’t he ask me?”
“And why don’t you simply ask him if he conjured you?” Olivia didn’t wait for my response. “It would be too easy, right?”
“I guess. But sometimes I can’t shake this feeling that something in our relationship is just a game to him.”
“Magic is a game, isn’t it?”
“Sort of.”
“Look, these magicians are overgrown boys who are used to getting what they want. But there are many things their magic can’t do. One of them is making you stay somewhere you don’t want to be.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Well,” Olivia said brightly, “if you really think he conjured you, let’s conjure him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your quilt,” Olivia said. “It’s magic, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
“We’ll conjure him with your quilt and see what he has to say.” Olivia waited. I said nothing, and she continued, “I’ll pick you up at the station. Bring something that reminds you of Toby.”
I passed through Leo’s gate and felt warm again. It was winter, and the villa’s gardens were washed out, but somehow they revived me. Olivia I went to the studio, where she’d arranged a lunch of small sandwiches and salads.
“What did you bring?” she asked.
I pulled the Navajo marriage blanket from my bag. I also took out my old quilt, the one I’d started during my time in the West.
Olivia picked up a sandwich and went to a small chair in the far corner of the studio. “Now what?” she asked.
“I have no idea. I guess we wait.” I unfurled the patches that had sprung from my hands last time I’d been in the studio. I threaded
