A world fair, magic, and romance
Seventeen-year-old Jack Nevin is the thieving assistant of the international magician the Enchantress. Evangeline's other assistant, Lucia, possess a mechanical mind and a fine eye for detail. When combined with Jack's thievery, Evangeline-as-The Enchantress is able to performing stunning feats of stage magic. However, one stolen trick too many forces the trio to flee Europe for America.
Wilhelm Gessler is also an assistant, but his situation is far more unfortunate: his master, Teddy, is a thief who abuses Wilhelm's actual magical ability of teleportation to steal a number of valuable goods throughout America. Wilhelm hates being an accomplice to Teddy's crimes, but is unable to leave: Teddy keeps Wilhelm under a tight thumb by making the teenage boy dependent on his care.
When the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition
draws the attention of both Evangeline and Teddy, a competition ensues between the Enchantress and Laszlo, Teddy's newest alias: the Enchantress's natural charisma and feats of stage magic quickly draws in an audience, while Leszlo's featured trick- bolstered by Wilhelm's teleportation- snatches up some of that same audience's attention.
As the feud grows, Evangeline orders Jack to figure out how Teddy is performing his impossible feat of magic so she can co-opt it for her own act. This leads Jack to finding out about Wilhelm, his mysterious ability, and his mistreatment at the hands of Teddy. A romance develops between the two, but it may end before it can begin: Teddy has another heist planned, one that will have dire consequences for Wilhelm if Jack, Lucia, and a couple other unexpected allies don't come up with the most stunning illusion yet.
Before We Disappear is a 2021 historical young adult novel by Shaun David Hutchinson. The story is told in first person through the perspectives of Jack and Wilhelm, with chapters alternating between the two.
This novel provides examples of:
- Abusive Parent: Evangeline is the closest thing to a mother Jack and Lucia have. She isn't physically abusive like Teddy, but she is cold, distant, selfish, and only sees them as a means to an end. Jack is certain that the moment he and Lucia are no longer of use, Evangeline will dispose of them. The two even know they shouldn't disagree with her on anything and she makes all decisions for them. When Jack fails on one of her cons, she forces him to sleep in the workshop, offering no bedding for him until Lucia finds one for him.
- Beta Couple: Ruth and Jessamy's developing romance is a minor subplot, with the two of them officially becoming a couple by the end of the book.
- The Big Damn Kiss: Jack and Wilhelm kiss when the two are alone in the Beacon after a "Church" party. Because of Wilhelm's powers to increase feeling beyond the physical in the Between, the kiss is almost a spiritual experience for Jack.
- Breaking the Fellowship: The ending sees the characters go their separate ways in groups once Teddy's arrested. Jessamy and Ruth leave to the US East where Ruth will start medical school and Jessamy will try becoming a journalist at Pinkerton. Evangeline and Lucia run away (possibly on their separate ways) after one or both of them steal the gold Teddy was after. Wilhelm and Jack go off somewhere to see if they can find Wilhelm's family.
- The Caper: Towards the end, the story focuses on two parties: Teddy's and Jack's. While Jack wants to rescue Wilhelm from Teddy's hands, Teddy intends to use Wilhelm to perform a magic trick that will allow him to steal the gold in the exposition, giving both him fame and fortune. Jack- with the help of Lucia, Evangeline, Ruth, and Jessamy- plans out a counter-caper to publicly expose Teddy and keep him away from the gold. In the end, Lucia and Evangeline use the entire thing to steal the gold themselves.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The gold in the exposition that Jack and Ruth come across on two different occasions, turns out to be Teddy's real target in the exposition.
- The pink pills that Teddy feeds Wilhelm are iron supplements; Teddy tricked Wilhelm into taking them daily in order to keep him sick and weak.
- The Phoenix is an illusion that Lucia comes up with but gets shot down by Evangeline. Evangeline decides to use it to make one grand, final show at the exposition that will steal all the notoriety from Teddy's attempted caper.
- Cold Iron: Wilhelm has the ability to teleport through use of a temporal space he terms the Between. Trying to use this ability through iron is impossible and being around it for too long makes him weak.
- Con Artist: Part of Evangeline's business is to make the many wealthy men that fall for her dispose of their money for her, usually by manipulating them into business ventures that end with her taking their money away.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Wilhelm was taken from his home by Teddy at the age of four. Teddy physically mistreated him to monstrous levels, including bleeding him to keep him weak, keep him chained to a bed so he can't teleport away, and any attempt at making an escape was met with the brutal deaths of the people who tried to help him. First it was Wilhelm's tutor when he asked for help, then a boy he befriended and saved using his powers.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After years of abuse under Teddy, Wilhelm is now free to search for his family with the boy he loves at his side.
- Everyone Has Standards: Jack is a thief that makes a living out of stealing the tricks of other magicians, but he is appalled by how Teddy treats Wilhelm as basically a prisoner.
- Lima Syndrome: Teddy genuinely believes that he loves Wilhelm and sees him as a son, and that Wil should see him as a father figure in return. Teddy is so thoroughly twisted, however, that he doesn't realize that his way of treating Wilhelm is genuinely abusive and horrifying.
- Foreshadowing: When Teddy traps Wilhelm in a cage, the latter describes the cage's bars as being as thick as his arm. When Jack is visiting the exposition of the Alaskan gold, he uses a similar description for the display where the gold is being held. They both realize that Teddy is forcing Wilhelm to teleport through the bars of the cage to prepare him for doing the same to steal the gold.
- Gentleman Thief: Teddy's initial attempt at fame and fortune was to become a famous thief by exploiting Wilhelm's teleportation ability. He stole things and left behind an origami animal as his calling card. When this produces none of the attention he wanted, he moves on to trying to become an acclaimed magician. This turns out to be a front for his plan of stealing the gold in the Alaska exposition.
- Historical Fiction: The story is set in early 1900s Seattle with the main story taking place during the Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Teddy's desire for fame ends up coming back to bite him when Jessamy traces his crimes and finds the people that hired private eyes to find him. She contacted them and each one pointed her towards Teddy, gaining more than enough evidence to convict Teddy as the thief he is.
- Ironic Name: "Church" is the name given for the night-time parties with illegal booze at the Bohemian. The participants couldn't exactly go around admit that that's what they're doing, so they picked a perfectly respectable location in order hide that fact.
- Lovable Rogue: Jack is a gleeful thief who enjoys and almost compulsively pickpockets those around him, but he is also incredibly charming to those around him.
- Lovely Assistant: Both Jack and Wilhelm are a Gender-Inverted version of this, both being magician's assistants and good-looking young men, though as part of his act, Lazslo calls Wilhelm an "ugly caterpillar". Jessamy, the "butterfly" of Lazslo's main illusion, is a much more typical example, being a beautiful young woman that appears in a magician's act.
- Pet the Dog: Deconstructed. Wilhelm believed that Teddy might still have some good in him deep down because of the rare occasions in which he showed good will towards him, such as a Christmas gift. Over the course of the story, though, Teddy reaches ever lower lows in how he treats Wil, culminating in Teddy kidnapping and torturing Jack in from of Wil. This event completely changes Wilhelm's tune.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Teddy is a foul man that abuses Wilhelm and has kept him since he was a child. He is also a raging racist who scowls whenever Ruth, a black woman, comes in his view. Wilhelm explictly states in his narration that Teddy is the type to hate anyone who doesn't look like him.
- Queer Romance: While the stage magic, actual magic, and eventual heist are the main draw of the story, Jack and Wilhelm's blossoming romance is another. Both plots get an equal amount of development.
- Riddle for the Ages: Wilhelm's powers are never explained to the reader or to any character in-story. One can make a guess it is some sort of fae-related power due to his weakness to iron, but they are never expanded upon.
- Stage Magician: The story contains two competing magicians: on one side is the Enchantress, an internationally well-known magician that secretly stole acts from other magicians, and Lazslo, the latest venture of a man named Teddy that craves fame and fortune.
- Title Drop: Wilhelm's narration in the final chapter includes the line "before we disappear" when he kisses Jack and teleports them to what he believes to be his childhood home.
- Riddle for the Ages: Wilhelm's powers stick out in a setting that's mainly grounded in reality. He's the only character to possess the ability to access the between or even knows that it exists. Why he can see it and use it to teleport is likewise left unexplained.
- The Unfavorite: At first it seem that Evangeline has a clear preference for Jack over Lucia. Evangeline tends to downplay Lucia's achievements and even ridicule some of what Lucia does. When they confront each other about this, Evangeline explains she always expected Lucia to do more, that she had the potential to be her equal, while Jack was always meant to be only an assistant.
- Wrench Wench: Lucia is Jack's adoptive sister. She's the one responsible for building the contraptions and machinery necessary for the illusions performed by the Enchantress. It's doubtful the Enchantress would have gotten as popular as she did if Lucia wasn't so skilled.
