# Read the first page of Mister Magic by Kiersten White Read the opening of Mister Magic by Kiersten White free, no signup. Former child stars reunite to uncover their show's dark secret. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/mister-magic-kiersten-white - Genre: Horror - Year: 2023 - ISBN: 9780593359273 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9780593359273&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9780593359273 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9780593359273 ## The opening Your favorite childhood television program feels like a fever dream. You don't remember it at all until I start humming the theme song and then—oh, I can see it in your eyes. That wash of images, ideas, feelings. Because that's what you remember. Not the title of the show. (Was it Mister Magic? The Magic Show? Magic Time? Everyone will tell you something slightly different.) Not any of the plots or individual episodes. Not even the names of the six children who were as real to you as your own friends. You only remember how it made you feel. The excitement when those kids stood in a circle in that featureless black room, said the magic words, and then threw that ephemeral cape up into the air. The terrible, delicious tension as you watched it drift down, impossibly slow. Waiting. Hoping. Always with the strangest undercurrent of fear that maybe this time it would fall straight to the floor, nothing special or wonderful revealed, the magic lost. And then a release of breath and clapping as the cape elegantly defines the sudden figure of Mister Magic himself. He’s an impression more than he’s a man. Top hat, looming presence. The black background coming to life with just a splash of red on the underside of his cape. What did Mister Magic look like? He was tall and enormous. He was slight and lithe. He didn’t have arms or legs. He was all arms and legs. He was a person. He was a puppet. One thing everyone agrees on is that we never saw his face. But don’t you remember—you saw it once, didn’t you? Did you? The one exception to our failing memories of the show: the theme song. You still know it all these years later. Go on. It’s right there. I’ll start. Take my hand Stand on your mark Make a circle In the dark Close your eyes And wish with me Keep them closed And now we see Magic Man! Magic Man! Magic Man! He’s here for me! Doesn’t it feel good to sing it, to have the magic back for a moment? The magic that was always there for you, that always worked. Until the day it didn’t. Across the internet, you can find people who swear—and this isn’t possible, because the show wasn’t broadcast live—that they saw it. Saw the episode the cape fell and hit nothing. And then saw little Kitty, the smallest of the circle of friends, scream. (You didn’t remember it was called the circle of friends until you read it just now, and it feels like a puzzle piece settling into place, doesn’t it? That circle, those friends, your friends.) Some swear they saw Mister Magic disappear on the spot. Some swear they saw the sets crumble to the ground. Some swear they saw the whole place catch on fire. (The fire took place later, after the show ended.) Obviously, none of the people posting their vivid memories actually watched anything violent on their screens, but their spongy kid minds filled in that gaping darkness, that absence where Mister Magic had been. Where the magic, at last, failed. But that’s the thing about childhood memories. We can’t trust them. And, in the case of Mister Magic, we can’t verify them, either. Try to look up any version of the title on YouTube. It’s not there. You can’t find copies, bootleg or otherwise, anywhere. So, you remember the show, but you don’t. Absent recordings, or scripts, or literally any ephemera from when it aired, I’ve got the next best thing: The circle of friends. Back together, at last. Thirty years after tragedy shut down production and they were flung out of their loving magic circle and into the real world—whatever that meant for them. Some were easy to find, excited to reminisce and reconnect. And some were deliberately impossible to track down. But I have a little magic up my sleeve. ## Books with a similar feel - [A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay](https://uncovered.ink/read/a-head-full-of-ghosts-paul-tremblay.md) - [Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix](https://uncovered.ink/read/witchcraft-for-wayward-girls-grady-hendrix.md) - [The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-last-house-on-needless-street-catriona-ward.md) - [Necronomicon by Donald Tyson](https://uncovered.ink/read/necronomicon-donald-tyson.md) - [The Handyman Method by Nick Cutter](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-handyman-method-nick-cutter.md) - [Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia](https://uncovered.ink/read/silver-nitrate-silvia-moreno-garcia.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.