The Conjurer

Zuleika "The Conjuror" Watson

Zuleika arrived in Cambridge in the autumn of 1834, billing herself as "The Continental Enchantress" and renting rooms above a milliner's shop on King's Parade. Ostensibly a professional conjurer who performed sleight-of-hand for private parties and college entertainments, her true magic lay in the devastating effect her exotic beauty had on Cambridge's impressionable young gentlemen. With her distinctive pale blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, Zuleika seemed almost ethereal against the grey stone of the university - a living fantasy that drove normally sensible students to compose terrible poetry and challenge each other to duels for her attention.

Her "conjuring" performances were theatrical affairs where her beauty was indeed her primary talent - audiences came not for card tricks but to be enchanted by her presence. She would glide through her simple illusions with studied grace, her pale yellow gowns catching candlelight as she made silk scarves disappear and coins multiply. The real magic happened afterward, when besotted undergraduates would shower her with gifts, commission portraits, and compete for the privilege of escorting her through Cambridge's streets. For years, Zuleika thrived on this adoration while remaining utterly detached from her admirers' actual feelings - they were simply mirrors reflecting her own magnificence back at her.

Everything changed when a young Trinity student, driven to despair by her casual dismissal of his devotion, threw himself from the chapel tower one foggy November morning. The horror of realising that her vanity had actually cost a life shattered something fundamental in Zuleika's character. While she remained undeniably vain and still lived for admiration, she developed an unexpected protective instinct - particularly toward young women who reminded her of her former, heartless self. Behind the preening and the mirror-gazing, Zuleika now possessed a hard-earned wisdom about the genuine dangers of obsession and the difference between healthy confidence and destructive narcissism.

The ceramic ghost captures both sides of her nature: the pale yellow represents her golden hair and the warm glow she seemed to cast, while the light blue reflects her mesmerising eyes and the newfound depth that tragedy brought to her soul. Modern owners report that while Zuleika's ghost absolutely will judge your fashion choices and offer unsolicited beauty advice, she also seems to appear during moments of genuine crisis - particularly when someone's self-worth hangs in the balance. She may be 95% shallow, but that remaining 5% of soul ensures she'll be there when you truly need someone who understands both the power and the peril of beauty.

Every ghost is hand-made and unique - yours will be similar to the image shown but will vary in intensity and amount of streaking or other markings making it just as beautiful, but different.