Part II
ILLUMINATION
There is so much that glows in the circus, from flames to lanterns to stars. I have heard the expression “trick of the light” applied to sights within Le Cirque des Rêves so frequently that I sometimes suspect the entirety of the circus is itself a complex illusion of illumination.
—FRIEDRICK THIESSEN, 1892
Opening Night I: Inception
LONDON, OCTOBER 13 AND 14, 1886
Opening day, or opening night, rather, is spectacular. Every last detail is planned, and a massive crowd gathers outside the gates long before sundown. When they are finally allowed to enter, they do so wide-eyed, and as they move from tent to tent, their eyes only get wider.
Every element of the circus blends together in a wonderful coalescence. Acts that have been training in separate countries on separate continents now perform in adjacent tents, each part melding seamlessly into a whole. Each costume, each gesture, each sign on each tent is more perfect than the last.
The air itself is ideal, clear and crisp and cool, permeated with scents and sounds that entice and enchant one patron after another.
At midnight, the bonfire is ceremoniously lit, having spent the earlier part of the evening standing empty, appearing to be a simple sculpture of twisted iron. Twelve of the fire performers quietly enter the courtyard with small platforms that they set up along the perimeter like numbers on a clock. Precisely one minute before the hour, they each ascend their respective platforms and pull from their backs shimmering black bows and arrows. At thirty seconds before midnight, they light the tips of their arrows with small dancing yellow flames. Those in the crowd who had not noticed them previously now watch in wonder. At ten seconds before the hour, they raise their bows and aim the flaming arrows at the waiting well of curling iron. As the clock begins to chime near the gates, the first archer lets his arrow fly, soaring over the crowd and hitting its mark in a shower of sparks.
The bonfire ignites in an eruption of yellow flame.
Then the second chime follows, the second archer sends his arrow into the yellow flames, and they become a clear sky-blue.
A third chime with a third arrow, and the flames are a warm bright pink.
Flames the color of a ripe pumpkin follow the fourth arrow.
A fifth, and the flames are scarlet-red.
A sixth brings a deeper, sparkling crimson.
Seven, and the fire is soaked in a color like an incandescent wine.
Eight, and the flames are shimmering violet.
Nine, and violet shifts to indigo.
A tenth chime, a tenth arrow, and the bonfire turns deepest midnight blue.
On the penultimate chime, the dancing flames change from blue to black, and for that moment, it is difficult to discern the fire from its cauldron.
And on the final strike, the dark flames are replaced with a blinding white, a shower of sparks falling like snowflakes around it. Huge curls of dense white smoke swirl up into the night sky.
The reaction from the crowd is uproarious. The spectators who had been considering taking their leave decide to stay just a bit longer and comment enthusiastically about the lighting of the fire. Those who do not witness it themselves hardly believe the stories told minutes or hours later.
People roam from tent to tent, wandering down paths that loop over each other, never seeming to end. Some enter each tent they pass, while others are more selective, choosing tents to enter after careful consideration of signs. Some find a particular tent so fascinating that they are unable to exit it, opting instead to stay there the duration of their visit. Patrons make suggestions to other patrons they pass on the concourses, pointing out remarkable tents they have visited already. Their advice is always taken with pleasure, though often the advisees are distracted by other tents before they locate the recommended ones.
It is difficult to usher the remaining patrons out as the dawn creeps up, and they are only consoled by assurances that they may return when the sun sets again.
All told, opening night is an undeniable success.
There is only one minor mishap of sorts, one unexpected occurrence. It passes unnoticed by any of the patrons, and many of the performers are not aware of it until after the fact.
Just before sunset, while the last-minute preparations are being made (costumes adjusted, caramel melted), the wife of the wild-cat tamer unexpectedly goes into labor. She is, when not in a delicate state, her husband’s assistant. Their act has been subtly modified for her absence, but the cats themselves seem agitated.
She is expecting twins, though they are not due for a few more weeks. People joke afterward that perhaps they did not want to miss opening night.
A doctor is brought to the circus before it opens to the public and escorted discreetly backstage for the delivery (an easier feat to accomplish than moving her to a hospital).
Six minutes before midnight, Winston Aidan Murray is born.
Seven minutes after midnight, his sister, Penelope Aislin Murray, follows.
When the news is relayed to Chandresh Christophe Lefèvre, he is mildly disappointed that the twins are not identical. He had thought up various roles in the circus for identical twins to perform once the children were old enough. Fraternal twins, on the other hand, lack the amount of theatricality he had expected, but he has Marco arrange the delivery of two enormous bouquets of red roses anyway.
They are tiny things, each with a rather surprising amount of bright red hair. They barely cry, staying awake and alert, with matching pairs of wide blue eyes. They are wrapped in spare bits of silk and satin, white for her and black for him.
A steady stream of circus performers comes to see them in between acts, taking turns holding them and inevitably remarking on their exquisite timing. They will fit right in, everyone says, save for their hair. Someone suggests hats until they are old enough for hair dye. Someone else remarks that it would be a travesty to dye over such a color, a shocking red much brighter than their mother’s auburn.
“It is an auspicious color,” Tsukiko comments, but she refuses to elaborate on her meaning. She kisses each twin on the forehead and later makes strings of folded paper cranes to hang above their cradle.
Close to dawn, when the circus is emptying, they are taken for a walk around the tents and into the courtyard. The purpose is ostensibly to lull them to sleep, but they stay awake, watching the lights and the costumes and the stripes on the tents around them, strangely alert for being only a few hours old.
Not until the sun has risen do they finally close their eyes, side by side in the black wrought-iron cradle lined with striped blankets that already awaits them, despite their early arrival. It was delivered as a gift a few weeks earlier, though it had no card or note. The Murrays assumed it was a gift from Chandresh, though when they thanked him for it he claimed he had no idea what they were talking about.
The twins quite like it, regardless of its dubious origins.
No one recalls afterward exactly who it was that dubbed them Poppet and Widget. As with the cradle, no one takes credit for it.
But the nicknames stick, as nicknames do.
Opening Night II: Sparks
LONDON, OCTOBER 13 AND 14, 1886
Marco spends the first several hours of opening night taking surreptitious glances at his watch, waiting impatiently for the hands to reach midnight.
The unexpected early arrival of the Murray twins has complicated his schedule already, but if the lighting of the bonfire proceeds as planned, that should be enough.
It is the best solution he can come up with, knowing that in a few weeks the circus will be hundreds of miles away, leaving him alone in London.
And while Isobel may prove helpful, he needs a stronger tie.
Ever since he discovered the venue for the challenge, he has been slowly taking on more responsibility for the circus. Doing all that Chandresh asked of him and more, to the point where he was given free rein with everything from approving the design of the gates to ordering the canvas for the tents.
It worries him, the scope of the binding. He has never attempted anything on this scale, but there seems no good reason not to start off the game as strongly as possible.
The bonfire will provide him with a connection to the circus, even though he is not entirely certain how well it will work. And with so many people involved, it seems sensible to add an element of safety to the venue.
It has taken months of preparation.
Chandresh was more than willing to let him organize the lighting, having already deemed him invaluable to the circus planning with only mild coercion. A wave of a hand, and the details were all up to him.
And most important, Chandresh agreed to let it be a secret. The lighting itself took on the air of a Midnight Dinner, with no questions permitted as to the ingredients or menu.
No answers provided as to what the arrows are tipped with to create such an astounding effect. How the flames are made to shift from one vibrant hue to another.
Those who did inquire, during preparations and rehearsals, were told that to reveal the methods would ruin the effect.
Though, of course, Marco has been unable to rehearse the most important part.
It is easy enough for him to slip away from Chandresh in the crowded courtyard just before midnight.
He makes his way toward the twisted iron, moving as close as he can to the empty cauldron. He takes a large, leather-bound notebook from his coat, a perfect copy of one that has been safely locked in his office. No one in the milling crowd notices as he tosses it into the bottom of the cauldron. It lands with a thud that is muffled by the ambient noise.
The cover flips open, exposing the elaborate ink tree to the starspeckled night sky.
He stays close to the edge of the twisted metal while the archers take their places.
His attention remains focused on the flames despite the press of patrons around him as the fire is amplified through a rainbow of hues.
When the last arrow lands, he closes his eyes. The white flames burn red through his eyelids.
*
CELIA EXPECTED TO FEEL like a poor imitation of her father during her first performances, but to her relief the experience is vastly different from the one she watched so many times in theater after theater.
The space is small and intimate. The audiences are modest enough that they remain individual people rather than blending into an anonymous crowd.
She finds she is able to make each performance unique, letting the response of the audience inform what she chooses to do next.
While she enjoys it more than she thought she would, she is grateful that she has stretches of time to herself in between. As it nears midnight, she decides to see if she can find a place to discreetly watch the lighting of the bonfire.
But as she makes her way through the area that is already being referred to as backstage despite the lack of stage, she is quickly swept up in the somewhat ordered chaos surrounding the impending birth of the Murray twins.
Several of the performers and staff have gathered, waiting anxiously. The doctor who has been brought in seems to find the entire situation strange. The contortionist comes and goes. Aidan Murray paces like one of his cats.
Celia endeavors to be as helpful as she can, which consists mainly of fetching cups of tea and finding new and creative ways to assure people that everything will be fine.
It reminds her so much of consoling her old spiritualist clients that she is surprised when she is thanked by name.
The soft cry that sounds minutes before midnight comes as a relief, met by sighs and cheers.
And then something else immediately follows.
Celia feels it before she hears the applause echoing from the courtyard, the shift that suddenly spreads through the circus like a wave.
It courses through her body, sending an involuntary shiver down her spine, almost knocking her off of her feet.
“Are you all right?” a voice behind her says, and she turns to find Tsukiko laying a warm hand on her arm to steady her. The too-knowing gleam that Celia is beginning to find familiar shines in the contortionist’s smiling eyes.
“I’m fine, thank you,” Celia says, struggling to catch her breath.
“You are a sensitive person,” Tsukiko says. “It is not unusual for sensitive people to be affected by such events.”
Another cry echoes from the adjoining chamber, joining the first in a gentle chorus.
“They have remarkable timing,” Tsukiko says, turning her attention to the newborn twins.
Celia can only nod.
“It is a shame you missed the lighting,” Tsukiko continues. “It was remarkable as well.”
While the Murray twins’ cries subside, Celia tries to shake the feeling that remains tingling over her skin.
She is still unsure who her opponent is, but whatever move has just been made, it has rattled her.
She feels the entirety of the circus radiating around her, as though a net has been thrown over it, trapping everything within the iron fence, fluttering like a butterfly.
She wonders how she is supposed to retaliate.
Opening Night III: Smoke and Mirrors
LONDON, OCTOBER 13 AND 14, 1886
Chandresh Christophe Lefèvre enters not a single tent on opening night. Instead, he wanders through pathways and concourses and walks in loops around the courtyard with Marco in tow, who is taking notes whenever Chandresh finds something to comment upon.
Chandresh watches the crowd, discerning how people decide which tents to enter. He identifies signage that needs to be adjusted or elevated to be easier to read, doors that are not visible enough and others that are too predominant, drawing too little attention or too much of a crowd.
But these are minute details, really, extra oil for inaudible squeaking. It could not be better. The people are delighted. The line for tickets snakes around the outside of the fence. The entire circus glistens with excitement.
A few minutes before midnight, Chandresh positions himself by the edge of the courtyard for the lighting of the bonfire. He chooses a spot where he can view both the bonfire and a good portion of the crowd.
“Everything is ready for the lighting, correct?” he asks.
No one answers him.
He turns to his left and his right, finding only giddy patrons streaming past.
“Marco?” he says, but Marco is nowhere to be found.
One of the Burgess sisters spots Chandresh and approaches him, carefully navigating her way through the crowded courtyard.
“Hello, Chandresh,” she says when she reaches him. “Is something wrong?”
“I seem to have misplaced Marco,” he says. “Strange. But nothing to worry about, Lainie, dear.”
“Tara,” she corrects.
“You look alike,” Chandresh says, puffing on his cigar. “It’s confusing. You should stay together as a set to avoid such faux pas.”
“Really, Chandresh, we’re not even twins.”
“Which of you is older, then?”
“That’s a secret,” Tara says, smiling. “May we declare the evening a success yet?”
“So far it is satisfactory, but the night is relatively young, my dear. How is Mrs. Murray?”
“She is doing fine, I believe, though it’s been an hour or so since I heard any news. It will make for a memorable birthday for the twins, I should think.”
“They might be useful if they’re as indistinguishable as you and your sister. We could put them in matching costumes.”
Tara laughs. “You might wait until they can walk, at least.”
Around the unlit cauldron that will hold the bonfire, twelve archers are taking their positions. Tara and Chandresh halt their conversation to watch. Tara observes the archers while Chandresh watches the crowd as their attention is drawn to the display. They turn from crowd to audience as though choreographed along with the archers. Everything proceeding precisely as planned.
The archers let their arrows fly, one by one, sending the flames through a rainbow of conflagration. The entire circus is doused in color as the clock tolls, twelve deep chimes reverberating through the circus.
On the twelfth knell, the bonfire blazes, white and hot. Everything in the courtyard shudders for a moment, scarves fluttering despite the lack of any breeze, the fabric of the tents quivering.
The audience bursts into applause. Tara claps along, while beside her Chandresh stumbles, dropping his cigar to the ground.
“Chandresh, are you all right?” Tara asks.
“I feel rather dizzy,” he says. Tara takes Chandresh by the arm to steady him, pulling him closer to the side of the nearest tent, out of the way of the crowd that has started moving again, spilling out in all directions.
“Did you feel that?” he asks her. His legs are shaking and Tara struggles to support him as they are jostled by passersby.
“Feel what?” she asks, but Chandresh does not reply, still clearly unsteady. “Why did no one think to put benches in the courtyard?” Tara mutters to herself.
“Is there a problem, Miss Burgess?” a voice asks behind her. She turns to find Marco hovering behind her, notebook in hand and looking quite concerned.
“Oh, Marco, there you are,” Tara says. “Something is wrong with Chandresh.”
They are beginning to attract stares from the crowd. Marco takes Chandresh’s arm and pulls him into a quieter corner, standing with his back to the courtyard to provide a modicum of privacy.
“Has he been like this long?” Marco asks Tara as he steadies Chandresh.
“No, it came on quite suddenly,” she replies. “I worry he might faint.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Marco tells her. “The heat, perhaps. I can handle this, Miss Burgess. It’s nothing to concern yourself with.”
Tara furrows her brow, reluctant to leave.
“It’s nothing,” Marco repeats emphatically.
Chandresh looks at the ground as though he has lost something, not seeming to register the conversation at all.
“If you insist,” Tara relents.
“He’s in perfectly good hands, Miss Burgess,” Marco says, and then he turns before she can say another word, and he and Chandresh walk off into the crowd.
“There you are,” Lainie says, appearing at her sister’s shoulder. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Did you see the lighting? Wasn’t it spectacular?”
“Indeed,” Tara says, still scanning the crowd.
“Whatever is the matter?” Lainie asks. “Did something happen?”
“How much do you know about Chandresh’s assistant?” Tara asks in response.
“Marco? Not very much,” Lainie says. “He’s worked for Chandresh for a few years, specializes in accounting. Before that he was a scholar of some sort, I believe. I’m not entirely sure what he studied. Or where, for that matter. He’s not particularly talkative. Why do you ask? Seeking another dark and handsome conquest?”
Tara laughs, despite her distraction.
“No, nothing like that. Only curiosity.” She takes her sister by the arm. “Let us go and seek out other mysteries to explore for the moment.”
Arm in arm they navigate the crowd, circling around the glowing bonfire that many patrons are still gazing at, mesmerized by the dancing white flames.
T H E H A N G E D M A N
In this tent, suspended high above you, there are people. Acrobats, trapeze artists, aerialists. Illuminated by dozens of round glowing lamps hanging from the top of the tent like planets or stars.
There are no nets.
You watch the performance from this precarious vantage point, directly below the performers with nothing in between.
There are girls in feathered costumes who spin at various heights, suspended by ribbons that they can manipulate. Marionettes that control their own strings.
Normal chairs with legs and backs act as trapezes.
Round spheres that resemble birdcages rise and descend while one or more aerialists move from within the sphere to without, standing on the top or hanging from the bars on the bottom.
In the center of the tent there is a man in a tuxedo, suspended by one leg that is tied with a silver cord, hands clasped behind his back.
He begins to move, extremely slowly. His arms reach out from his sides, first one and then the other, until they hang below his head.
He starts to spin. Faster and faster, until he is only a blur at the end of a rope.
He stops, suddenly, and he falls.
The audience dives out of the way below him, clearing a space of bare, hard ground below.
You cannot bear to watch. You cannot look away.
Then he stops at eye level with the crowd. Suspended by the silver rope that now seems endlessly long. Top hat undisturbed on his head, arms calmly by his sides.
As the crowd regains its composure, he lifts a gloved hand and removes his hat.
Bending at the waist, he takes a dramatic, inverted bow.
Oneiromancy
CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS, OCTOBER 1902
Bailey spends the entire day willing the sun to set, but it defies him and keeps its usual pace across the sky, a pace that Bailey has never really thought about before but today finds excruciatingly slow. He almost wishes it were a school day so he would have something to help pass the hours. He wonders if he should take a nap, but he is far too excited about the sudden appearance of the circus to possibly sleep.
Dinner passes the same way it has for months, stretches of silence broken by his mother’s attempts at polite conversation and Caroline’s occasional sighs.
His mother mentions the circus, or more specifically, the influx of people it will bring.
Bailey expects the silence to fall again, but instead Caroline turns to him.
“Didn’t we dare you to sneak into the circus the last time it was here, Bailey?” Her tone is curious and light, as though she truly does not remember whether or not such a thing occurred.
“What, during the day?” his mother asks. Caroline nods, vaguely.
“Yes,” Bailey says quietly, willing the uncomfortable silence to return.
“Bailey,” his mother says, managing to turn his name into a disappointment-laced admonishment. Bailey is not certain how it is his fault, being the daree and not the darer, but Caroline responds before he can protest.
“Oh, he didn’t do it,” she says, as though she now recalls the incident clearly.
Bailey only shrugs.
“Well, I would hope not,” his mother says.
The silence resumes, and Bailey stares out the window, wondering what exactly constitutes nightfall. He thinks perhaps it would be best to get to the gates as soon as it could even remotely be considered dusk and wait if necessary. His feet feel itchy beneath the table, and he wonders how soon he will be able to escape.
It takes ages to clear the table, an eternity to help his mother with the dishes. Caroline disappears to her room and his father pulls out the newspaper.
“Where are you going?” his mother asks as he puts on his scarf.
“I’m going to the circus,” Bailey says.
“Don’t be too late,” she says. “You have work to do.”
“I won’t,” Bailey says, relieved that she has neglected to specify a time, leaving “too late” up to interpretation.
“Take your sister,” she adds.
Only because there is no way to leave the house without his mother watching to see whether or not he stops at Caroline’s room, Bailey knocks at the half-closed door.
“Go away,” his sister says.
“I’m going to the circus, if you would care to join me,” Bailey says, his voice dull. He already knows what her answer will be.
“No,” she says, as predictable as the dinnertime silence. “How childish,” she adds, shooting him a disdainful glare.
Bailey leaves without another word, letting the wind slam the front door behind him.
The sun is just beginning to set, and there are more people out than usual at this time of day, all walking in the same direction.
As he walks, his excitement begins to wane. Perhaps it is childish. Perhaps it will not be the same.
When he reaches the field there is already a crowd gathered, and he is relieved that there are plenty of patrons his own age or much older, and only a few have children with them. A pair of girls around his age giggles as he passes them, trying to catch his eye. He cannot tell if it is meant to be flattering or not.
Bailey finds a spot to stand within the crowd. He waits, watching the closed iron gates, wondering if the circus will be different than he remembers.
And he wonders, in the back of his mind, if the red-haired girl in white is somewhere inside.
The low orange rays from the sun make everything, including the circus, look as though it is aflame before the light disappears completely. It is quicker than Bailey expected, the moment that shifts from fire to twilight, and then the circus lights begin flickering on, all over the tents. The crowd “ooohs” and “ahhs” appropriately, but a few in the front gasp in surprise when the massive sign above the gates begins to sputter and spark. Bailey can’t help but smile when it is fully lit, shining like a beacon: Le Cirque des Rêves.
While the day of waiting was tediously slow, the line to enter the circus moves remarkably fast, and soon Bailey is standing at the ticket booth, purchasing a single admission.
The winding path speckled with stars seems endless as he feels his way through the dark turns, anxiously anticipating the brightness at the end.
The first thing he thinks when he reaches the illuminated courtyard is that it smells the same, of smoke and caramel and something else that he cannot place.
He is not sure where to start. There are so many tents, so many choices. He thinks perhaps he should walk around a bit first, before deciding which tents to enter.
He thinks, also, that by simply wandering the circus he might improve his chances of happening upon the red-haired girl. Though he refuses to admit to himself that he is looking for her. Silly to look for a girl he only met once under extremely strange circumstances several years ago. There’s no reason to believe that she’d even remember him, or recognize him, and he is not entirely sure he would recognize her, either, for that matter.
He decides to walk into the circus, through the courtyard with the bonfire and out the other side, and then attempt to work his way back. It is as good a plan as any, and the crowd might not be as thick on the far side.
But first, he thinks, he should get a mulled cider. It does not take him long to find the proper vendor in the courtyard. He pays for his cup, the steaming concoction contained in black-and-white marbled swirls, and wonders for a moment before his first sip if it won’t taste as good as he remembers. He has recalled that taste countless times in his head, and despite the wealth of apples in the area, no cider with or without spices has ever tasted as good. He hesitates before taking the tiniest of sips. It tastes even better than he remembers.
He picks a path to take and along it, between the entrances to the surrounding tents, there is a small group gathered around a raised platform. A woman stands on the platform in a very fitted costume covered in black-and-silver swirls. She is twisting and bending in such a way that it seems both horrible and elegant. Bailey stops to join the spectators, even though it is almost painful to watch.
The contortionist lifts a small silver metal hoop from the ground, brandishing it with a few simple but impressive movements. She passes it to a man in the front of the crowd, in order to establish that it is solid. When he hands it back to her, she passes her entire body through it, extending her limbs in fluid, dance-like motions.
After discarding the hoop, she places a small box in the center of the platform.
The box looks no more than a foot wide or high, though in reality it is slightly larger than that. While the act of a fully grown (if below-average-size) woman condensing herself into such a confined space would be impressive regardless of the details of the box, it is made even more impressive in this case by the fact that this box is made of glass, completely transparent.
The edges are metal, oxidized to a blackish tinge, but the side panels and the lid are clear glass, so she is visible the entire time as she bends and twists and folds herself into the tiny space. She does it slowly, making each minute movement part of the show, until her body and head are completely within the box and only her hand remains without, sticking out the top. The view from Bailey’s perspective looks impossible, a bit of leg here, the curve of a shoulder there, part of her other arm underneath a foot.
Only one hand remains, it waves cheerfully before pulling the lid closed. It latches automatically, and the box is undeniably closed, with the contortionist clearly visible inside.
And then the glass box with the woman trapped inside slowly fills with white smoke. It curls through the tiny cracks and spaces not occupied by limbs or torso, and seeps between her fingers as they press against the glass.
The smoke thickens, obscuring the contortionist completely. There is only white smoke visible inside the box, and it continues to ripple and undulate against the glass.
Suddenly, with a popping noise, the box breaks. The glass panels fall to the sides and the lid collapses downward. Curls of smoke rise into the night air. The box, or, rather, the small pile of glass upon the platform that had once been a box, is empty. The contortionist is gone.
The crowd waits for several moments, but nothing happens. The last wisps of smoke dissipate, the crowd begins to disperse.
Bailey takes a closer look as he walks by, wondering if the contortionist is somehow concealed in the platform, but it is solid wood and open underneath. She has vanished completely despite the plain evidence that there was nowhere for her to go.
Bailey continues down the winding path. He finishes his cider and finds a bin to discard his cup, though as soon as he places it within the shadowed container it seems to vanish.
He walks on, reading signs, trying to decide which tent to enter. Some are large and decorated with flourishes and long descriptions of their contents.
But the one that catches his eye is smaller, as is the tent on which it hangs. Looping white letters on a black background.
Feats of Illustrious Illusion
The entrance is open, and a line of patrons files into the illusionist’s tent. Bailey joins them.
Inside it is lit by a line of black iron sconces along the rounded wall and contains nothing but a ring of plain wooden chairs. There are only about twenty of them, in two staggered rows so that the view from each seat is comparable. Bailey chooses a seat in the inside row, across from the entrance.
The rest of the seats fill quickly, save for two: the one to his immediate left and another across the circle.
Bailey notices two things at once.
First, that he can no longer see where the entrance had been. The space where the audience had entered now appears to be solid wall, seamlessly blending with the rest of the tent.
Second, there is now a dark-haired woman in a black coat sitting to his left. He is certain that she was not there before the door disappeared.
Then his attention is removed from both these events as the empty chair across the circle bursts into flame.
The panic is instant. Those occupying the chairs closest to the flaming chair abandon their seats and rush for the door, only to find that there is no longer a door to be found, only a solid wall.
The flames grow steadily higher, staying close to the chair, licking around the wood, though it does not appear to be burning.
Bailey looks again at the woman to his left, and she winks at him before standing and walking to the center of the circle. Amidst the panic, she calmly unbuttons her coat and removes it, tossing it with a delicate gesture toward the burning chair.
What had been a heavy wool coat becomes a long piece of black silk that ripples like water over the chair. The flames vanish. Only a few lingering wisps of smoke remain, along with the sharp smell of charred wood that is slowly changing to the comforting scent of a fireplace, tinged with something like cinnamon or clove.
The woman, standing in the center of the circle of chairs, pulls back the black silk with a flourish, revealing a still-intact chair on which now perch several snow-white doves.
Another flourish, and the black silk folds and curves in on itself, becoming a black top hat. The woman places it on her head, topping off an ensemble that looks like a ball gown fashioned out of the night sky: black silk dotted with sparkling white crystals. She acknowledges her audience with a subtle bow.
The illusionist has made her entrance.
A few people, including Bailey, manage to applaud, while those who had abandoned their seats return to them, looking both disturbed and curious.
The performance is continuous. The displays Bailey has difficulty thinking of as tricks meld one into the other. The doves vanish frequently, only to reappear on hats or under chairs. There is also a black raven, far too large to have been cleverly concealed. It is only after the performance has gone on for some time that Bailey slowly realizes that because of the circle of chairs, the shape and closeness of the space, there is no room for mirrors or tricks of the light. Everything is immediate and palpable. She even transforms one audience member’s pocket watch from metal to sand and back again. At one point all the chairs float some distance off the ground, and while the movement is steady and secure, Bailey’s toes barely graze the floor and he clutches the sides of his chair nervously.
At the end of the act, the illusionist takes a bow with a pivoting turn, acknowledging the entire circle as the audience applauds. As she completes the rotation, she is no longer there. Only a few sparkling shimmers remain, echoes of the crystals in her gown.
The door reappears in the side of the tent and the small audience makes their way out. Bailey lags behind, glancing back as he leaves at the spot where the illusionist had been.
Outside, though it was not there before, is another raised platform, much like the one the contortionist stood on. But the figure on this platform does not move. Bailey almost thinks it is a statue, dressed in a white gown edged in matching fur that cascades beyond the platform to the ground. Her hair and skin, even her eyelashes, are an icy white.
But she moves. Very, very slowly. So slowly that Bailey cannot pinpoint exact motions, only slight changes. Soft flakes of iridescent snow float to the ground, falling from her like leaves from a tree.
Bailey walks around, looking at her from every angle. Her eyes follow him, though the snow-flecked lashes do not blink.
There is a small silver plaque on the platform, partially obscured by the cascading gown.
It reads in memoriam, but it does not specify who it is for.
Rules of the Game
1887-1889
There are fewer Circus Dinners now that the circus itself is up and running properly, gaining its self-sufficiency, as Chandresh phrased it at one dinner not long after opening night. The original conspirators still gather for dinner occasionally, particularly when the circus is performing nearby, but this has become more and more infrequent.
Mr. A. H— does not appear, despite his standing invitation.
And as these meetings were the only opportunity Marco was given to see his instructor, the continued absence frustrates him.
After a year without a sign, without any word or a single glimpse of the grey top hat, Marco decides to call on him.
He does not know his instructor’s current residence. He assumes, rightly, that it is likely a temporary place and by the time he tracked down the proper location his instructor would have moved to a new, equally temporary residence.
Instead, Marco carves a series of symbols into the frost on the window of his flat that faces out to the street, using the columns of the museum beyond as a guide. Most of the symbols are indistinguishable unless the light hits them at precise angles, but they are collectively set into the shape of a large A.
The next day there is a knock at the door.
As always, the man in the grey suit refuses to enter the flat. He only stands in the hall and fixes Marco with a cool grey stare.
“What is it that you want?” he asks.
“I would like to know if I am doing well,” Marco says.
His instructor looks at him for a moment, his expression as inscrutable as ever.
“Your work has been sufficient,” he says.
“Is this how the challenge is going to proceed?” Marco asks. “Each of us manipulating the circus? How long will it go on?”
“You have been given a venue to work within,” his instructor says. “You present your skills to the best of your ability and your opponent does the same. You do not interfere with each other’s work. It shall continue in this manner until there is a victor. It is not that complex.”
“I’m not certain I understand the rules,” Marco says.
“You don’t need to understand the rules. You need to follow them. As I said, your work has been sufficient.”
He starts to leave, but then hesitates.
“Do not do that again,” he says, pointing over Marco’s shoulder at the frost-covered window.
Then he turns and walks away.
The symbols on the window melt into meaningless streaks.
*
IT IS THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY and the circus sleeps quietly, but Celia Bowen stands in front of the Carousel, watching as black and white and silver creatures file past, suspended on coordinating ribbons, riderless.
“I don’t like this thing,” a voice behind her says.
Hector Bowen is no more than an apparition in the dimly lit tent. His dark suit vanishes into the shadows. The shifting light catches and releases the brightness of his shirt, the grey of his hair, illuminating the disapproving glare on his face as he watches the Carousel over his daughter’s shoulder.
“Whyever not?” Celia responds without turning. “It’s extremely popular. And it was a great deal of work; that should count for something, Papa.”
His derisive scoff is only an echo of what it once was, and Celia is relieved that he cannot see her smile at the softness of the sound.
“You would not be so reckless were I not … ” His voice trails off with a wave of a transparent hand next to her arm.
“Don’t be cross with me about that,” Celia says. “You did it to yourself, it’s not my fault you cannot undo it. And I am hardly being reckless.”
“How much did you tell this architect of yours?” her father asks.
“I told him as much as I thought he needed to know,” Celia says as he drifts past her, moving to inspect the Carousel. “He’s fond of pushing boundaries, and I offered to help him push them further. Is Mr. Barris my opponent? That would be quite devious of him, building me a carousel to avoid suspicion.”
“He is not your opponent,” Hector says with a dismissive gesture, the lace cuff of his shirt fluttering like a moth. “Though such a thing could very well be considered cheating.”
“How is utilizing an engineer to execute an idea not working within the venue, Papa? I discussed it with him, he handled the design and construction, and I … embellished it. Would you like to ride it? It goes quite a bit farther than around and around.”
“Obviously,” Hector says, looking down at the darkened tunnel that the line of creatures disappears into. “I still don’t like it.”
Celia sighs, walking to the edge of the Carousel to pet the head of an oversized raven as it passes by.
“There are already countless elements in this circus that are collaborative,” she says. “Why can I not use that to my advantage? You keep insisting that I have to do more than just my performances, but I need to create opportunities in order to manage that. Mr. Barris is quite helpful in that capacity.”
“Working with others will only drag you down. These people are not your friends, they are inconsequential. And one of them is your opponent, don’t forget that.”
“You know who it is, don’t you?” Celia asks.
“I have my suspicions.”
“But you won’t tell me what those are.”
“The identity of your opponent does not matter.”
“It matters to me.”
Hector frowns, watching as she absently toys with the ring on her right hand.
“It shouldn’t,” he says.
“But my opponent knows who I am, yes?”
“Indeed, unless your opponent happens to be profoundly stupid. And it is unlike Alexander to choose a profoundly stupid student. But it doesn’t matter. It is better for you to do your own work without influence from your opponent, and without any of this collaborating as you call it.”
He waves an arm at the Carousel and the ribbons shudder, as though the softest of breezes has wandered into the tent.
“How is it better?” Celia asks. “How is anything better than anything else here? How is one tent comparable to another? How can any of this possibly be judged?”
“That is not your concern.”
“How can I excel at a game when you refuse to tell me the rules?”
The suspended creatures turn their heads in the direction of the ghost in their midst. Gryphons and foxes and wyverns stare at him with glossy black eyes.
“Stop that,” Hector snaps at his daughter. The creatures return to their forward-facing gazes, but one of the wolves growls as it settles back into its frozen state. “You are not taking this as seriously as you should.”
“It’s a circus,” Celia says. “It’s difficult to take it seriously.”
“The circus is only a venue.”
“Then this is not a game or a challenge, it’s an exhibition.”
“It’s more than that.”
“How?” Celia demands, but her father only shakes his head.
“I have told you all the rules you need to know. You push the bounds of what your skills can do using this circus as a showplace. You prove yourself better and stronger. You do everything you can to outshine your opponent.”
“And when do you determine which of us is shinier?”
“I do not determine anything,” Hector says. “Stop asking questions. Do more. And stop collaborating.”
Before she can respond, he vanishes, leaving her standing alone in the sparkling light from the Carousel.
*
AT FIRST, the letters Marco receives from Isobel arrive frequently, but as the circus travels to far-flung cities and countries, weeks and sometimes months stretch wordlessly between each missive.
When a new letter finally arrives, he does not even take off his coat before ripping open the envelope.
He skims the opening pages that are filled with polite inquiries into his own days in London, remarks about how she misses the city, misses him.
The goings-on of the circus are dutifully reported, but with such matter-of-fact precision that he cannot picture it in the richness of detail that he desires. She glazes over things she considers mundane, the traveling and the train, though Marco is certain they cannot be moving solely by train.
The distance of the circus feels more pronounced despite the tenuous contact through paper and ink.
And there is so little about her. Isobel does not even inscribe her name upon the pages, referring to her in passing only as the illusionist, a precaution he advised himself and now regrets.
He wants to know everything about her.
How she spends her time when not performing.
How she interacts with her audiences.
How she takes her tea.
He cannot bring himself to ask Isobel these things.
When he writes her in return, he requests that she continue to write as often as possible. He emphasizes how much her letters mean to him.
He takes the pages inscribed with her handwriting, descriptions of striped tents and star-speckled skies, and folds them into birds, letting them fly around the empty flat.
*
IT IS SO RARE to have a new tent appear that Celia considers canceling her performances entirely in order to spend the evening investigating it.
Instead she waits, executing her standard number of shows, finishing the last a few hours before dawn. Only then does she navigate her way through nearly empty pathways to find the latest addition to the circus.
The sign proclaims something called the Ice Garden, and Celia smiles at the addendum below which contains an apology for any thermal inconvenience.
Despite the name, she is not prepared for what awaits her inside the tent.
It is exactly what the sign described. But it is so much more than that.
There are no stripes visible on the walls, everything is sparkling and white. She cannot tell how far it stretches, the size of the tent obscured by cascading willows and twisting vines.
The air itself is magical. Crisp and sweet in her lungs as she breathes, sending a shiver down to her toes that is caused by more than the forewarned drop in temperature.
There are no patrons in the tent as she explores, circling alone around trellises covered in pale roses and a softly bubbling, elaborately carved fountain.
And everything, save for occasional lengths of white silk ribbon strung like garlands, is made of ice.
Curious, Celia picks a frosted peony from its branch, the stem breaking easily.
But the layered petals shatter, falling from her fingers to the ground, disappearing in the blades of ivory grass below.
When she looks back at the branch, an identical bloom has already appeared.
Celia cannot imagine how much power and skill it would take not only to construct such a thing but to maintain it as well.
And she longs to know how her opponent came up with the idea. Aware that each perfectly structured topiary, every detail down to the stones that line the paths like pearls, must have been planned.
It would be so taxing to manage something similar, she feels fatigued even considering it. She almost wishes her father were there, as she is beginning to understand why he had always been so adamant about building up her strength and control.
Though she is not entirely certain she wants to thank him for it.
And she likes having the space to herself, the stillness and the calm sweetened with the subdued scent of frozen flowers.
Celia remains in the Ice Garden long after the sun rises outside, and the gates have been closed for the day.
*
THE CIRCUS ARRIVES NEAR LONDON for the first visit in some time, and the afternoon before it opens there is a knock on the door of Marco’s flat.
He opens the door only partway, holding it in place when he finds Isobel in the hallway.
“You changed your locks,” she says.
“Why did you not tell me you were coming?” Marco asks.
“I thought you might like the surprise,” Isobel says.
Marco refuses to let her enter the flat, but he leaves her waiting in the hall for only moments before returning, bowler hat in hand.
The afternoon is crisp but bright and he takes her to tea.
“What is that?” Marco asks, glancing down at Isobel’s wrist as they walk.
“Nothing,” she says, pulling the cuff of her sleeve down to obscure his view of the bracelet, a carefully woven braid of her hair entwined with his.
He does not inquire further.
Though Isobel never takes the bracelet off, it is gone when she returns to the circus that evening. Vanished from her skin as though it had never been there.
Tasting
LYON, SEPTEMBER 1889
Herr Friedrick Thiessen is on holiday in France. He often goes on holiday in France in the autumn, as he is a great lover of wine. He picks a region and roams the countryside for a week or perhaps two, visiting vineyards and collecting bottles of pleasing vintage to be shipped back to Munich.
Herr Thiessen is friendly with several French winemakers and has made clocks for many of them. He visits one such winemaker on this particular trip, to pay his respects and sample the latest bottles. Over a glass of burgundy, the winemaker suggests that Friedrick might enjoy the circus that is in town, set up in a field a few miles away. A rather unusual circus, only open at night.
But it is the clock, the elaborate black-and-white clock situated just inside the gates, that the winemaker thinks might particularly interest Herr Thiessen.
“Reminds me of your work,” the winemaker says, gesturing with his glass to the clock on the wall above the bar, shaped like a cascading bunch of grapes that tumble into a wine bottle that fills with wine as the hands on its label (an exact replica of the vineyard’s label) tick by the seconds.
Herr Thiessen is intrigued, and after an early dinner, he puts on his hat and gloves and begins walking in the general direction his winemaker friend had indicated. It is not difficult to locate his destination, as several townspeople are walking in the same direction, and once they pass out of town and into the fields, the circus cannot be missed.
It glows. That is Herr Friedrick Thiessen’s first impression of Le Cirque des Rêves, seen from half a mile away and before he even knows its name. He walks toward it on this chilly evening through the French countryside like a moth to a flame.
There is a considerable crowd outside when Herr Thiessen finally reaches the gates, and despite the crowd, he would have spotted his clock instantly, even without having been informed of its placement. It looms across from the ticket booth, just inside the large iron gates. It is about to strike seven o’clock, and he stands back to watch it, letting the line for tickets pass in front of him as the harlequin juggler pulls out a seventh ball from thin air, as the dragon’s tail twitches and the clock chimes seven quiet chimes, barely audible over the din of the circus.
Herr Thiessen is pleased. The clock appears to be in perfect working order and has obviously been well taken care of, despite being left out in the elements. He wonders if it might need a stronger varnish, and wishes he had been informed that it would be used out of doors when he was constructing it, though it looks none the worse for wear. He keeps his eyes on it as he waits in line, wondering if he should try to contact Mr. Barris about the matter, if he still has the London address in his files back in Munich.
When it is his turn, he gives the posted amount of francs to the ticket seller, a young woman in a black dress and long white gloves, looking more prepared for an elegant evening at the opera than for a night selling tickets at a circus. As she pulls out a ticket he inquires, first in French and then in English when she does not catch his meaning, if she might know whom he could contact about the clock. She does not reply but her eyes light up when he identifies himself as the person responsible for its construction. She returns his francs with his ticket despite his protestations, and after rummaging through a small box, she produces a business card which she hands him as well.
Herr Thiessen thanks her, moving out of line and off to the side, inspecting the card. It is a high-quality card on heavy stock. A black background embossed with silver.
Chandresh Christophe Lefèvre, Proprietor
The back has an address in London. Herr Thiessen places it in his coat pocket along with his ticket and his saved francs, and takes his first steps into the circus.
He begins by simply wandering, casually investigating the odd home of his Wunschtraum clock. Perhaps because of the months he spent absorbed in working on the clock itself, the circus feels familiar, comfortable. The monochromatic color scheme, the endless circles of the pathways like clockworks. Herr Thiessen is amazed at how well his clock fits the circus, and how well the circus fits his clock.
He enters only a fraction of the tents that first night, stopping to watch fire-breathers and sword dancers, sampling a very fine eiswein in a tent marked DRINKERY, MATURE VISITORS ONLY. When he inquires about it, the bartender (the only person in the circus that Friedrick encounters who speaks when spoken to, albeit minimally) informs him that it is a Canadian wine and notes the vintage for him.
By the time Herr Thiessen departs the circus, motivated solely by exhaustion, he is completely and utterly besotted. He attends twice more before returning to Munich, paying his admission in full both times.
He writes a letter to M. Lefèvre upon his return, to thank him for giving his clock such a wondrous home and for the experience of the circus itself. He goes on at length about the mastery of it, and says he gathered there is no rhyme or reason to its itinerary, but expresses his hope that it will come to Germany.
Some weeks later, he receives a letter from M. Lefèvre’s assistant, stating that M. Lefèvre greatly appreciates Herr Thiessen’s compliments, especially coming from such a talented artist. The letter speaks highly of the clock, and mentions that should there be any kind of problem with it, Herr Thiessen will be contacted immediately.
The letter mentions nothing of the current location of the circus or anything about it coming to Germany, much to Herr Thiessen’s disappointment.
He thinks about the circus frequently, often as he works, and it begins to have an influence upon his work. Many of his new clocks are done in black and white, some with stripes and many with scenes from the circus: tiny acrobats, miniature snow leopards, a fortune-teller who lays out minuscule tarot cards on the hour.
Though he fears he never does the circus justice in these clockwork tributes.
Chaperoned
CAIRO, NOVEMBER 1890
While the Murray twins are more or less allowed to run rampant around the hidden corners of what is often referred to as backstage—a sprawling mansion’s worth of space dispersed into nooks and passageways where the occupants of the circus live their lives when they are not performing—if they wish to be out and about in the circus proper during performance hours they must have a chaperone. They protest this rule loudly and often, but their father insists that these rules will stay in place until they are eight years old, at the very least.
Widget asks often if the eight years counts if it is a combined total, in which case they already meet the criteria.
They are repeatedly reminded that they must have some sort of structure to their nocturnal schedule, being the only children in a rather unconventional household.
For now they have a rotating company of chaperones, and tonight the illusionist is on twin-supervising duty. She is not often assigned this role, though the twins are quite fond of her. But this evening she has enough time to spare between performances to escort them for a while.
None of the patrons recognize Celia without her top hat and black-and-white gown, even those who watched her perform earlier in the evening. If passersby pay her any notice it is only to wonder how the children at her heels ended up with such red hair when her own is so dark. Beyond that she appears to be just a young woman in a blue coat, wandering the circus as any other patron might.
They start in the Ice Garden, though the twins grow impatient with the leisurely pace that Celia prefers to take around the frozen trees. Before they have traveled halfway through the space they are begging to ride the Carousel instead.
They argue over who will get to ride the gryphon but Widget relents when Celia tells them the story of the nine-tailed fox just behind it, which suddenly sounds much more appealing. As soon as they disembark, a second ride is requested. For the subsequent trip through the loops of silver clockwork and tunnels they end up on a serpent and a rabbit with no complaints to be heard.
After the Carousel rides, Widget wants something to eat, so they head for the courtyard. When Celia procures him a black-and-white-striped paper bag of popcorn, he insists he wants caramel as well, and will not eat it plain.
The vendor dipping apples on sticks into dark, sticky caramel obliges him, drizzling it over the top. Several patrons nearby request the same.
Poppet claims she isn’t hungry. She seems distracted, so as they walk down a quieter passage away from the courtyard, Celia asks if anything is bothering her.
“I don’t want the nice lady to die,” Poppet says, tugging gently at Celia’s skirt.
Celia stops walking, putting out a hand to keep Widget, who is oblivious to anything other than his popcorn, from continuing along in front of her.
“What do you mean, dearest?” she asks Poppet.
“They’re going to put her in the ground,” Poppet explains. “I think that’s sad.”
“What nice lady?” Celia asks.
Poppet scrunches up her face while she thinks.
“I don’t know,” she says. “They look the same.”
“Poppet, sweetheart,” Celia says, pulling the twins aside into an alcove and bending down to talk to her face-to-face. “Where is this lady in the ground? Where did you see her, I mean?”
“In the stars,” Poppet says. She stands on tiptoes as she points upward.
Celia glances up at the star-filled sky, watching the moon disappear behind a cloud before returning her attention to Poppet.
“Do you often see things in the stars?” she asks.
“Only sometimes,” Poppet says. “Widge sees things on people.”
Celia turns to Widget, who is eating his caramel-drizzled popcorn in messy handfuls.
“You see things on people?” she asks him.
“Fumtimes,” he mumbles through a mouthful.
“What kind of things?” Celia asks.
Widget shrugs his shoulders.
“Places they’ve been,” he says. “Stuff they’ve done.”
He shoves another handful of sticky popcorn into his mouth.
“Interesting,” Celia says. The twins have told her a great many odd things before, but this seems like more than childish fancies. “Can you see anything on me?” she asks Widget.
Widget squints at her while he chews his popcorn.
“Rooms that smell like powder and old clothes,” he says. “A lady that cries all the time. A ghost man with a frilly shirt that follows you around and—”
Widget stops suddenly, frowning.
“You made it go away,” he says. “There’s nothing there anymore. How did you do that?”
“Some things are not for you to see,” Celia says.
Widget pushes his lower lip out in an impressive pout, but it only lasts as long as it takes him to bring another fistful of popcorn to his mouth.
Celia looks from the twins back in the direction of the courtyard, where the light from the bonfire gleams along the edges of the tents, casting dancing shadows of patrons across the striped fabric.
The bonfire never goes out. The flames never falter.
Even when the circus moves it is not extinguished, moved intact from location to location. Smoldering the entire length of each train journey, safely contained in its iron cauldron.
It has burned steadily since the ceremonious lighting on opening night.
And at the same moment, Celia remains certain, something was put in motion that impacted the entire circus and everyone within it once that fire was lit.
Including the newborn twins.
Widget born just before midnight, at the end of an old day. Poppet following moments later in a new day only just begun.
“Poppet,” Celia says, turning her attention back to the little girl who has been playing with the cuff of her jacket, “if you see things in the stars that you think might be important, I want you to tell me about them, do you understand?”
Poppet nods solemnly, clouds of red hair bobbing in waves. She leans in to ask Celia a question, her eyes dreadfully serious.
“May I have a caramel apple?” she asks.
“I’m out of popcorn,” Widget complains, holding out his empty bag.
Celia takes the bag from him and folds it up into ever-smaller squares while the twins watch, until it disappears completely. When they clap, Widget’s hands are no longer covered in caramel, though he does not notice.
Celia considers the twins for a moment, while Widget tries to figure out where the popcorn bag has gone and Poppet casts thoughtful glances up at the sky.
It is not a good idea. She knows it is not a good idea but it would be better to keep them close, to watch them more carefully given the circumstances and their apparent talents.
“Would the two of you like to learn how to do things like that?” Celia asks them
Widget nods immediately, with such enthusiasm that his hat slips forward over his eyes. Poppet hesitates but then she nods as well.
“Then when you are a little bit older I shall give you lessons, but it will have to be our secret,” Celia says. “Can you two keep a secret?”
The twins nod in unison. Widget has to straighten his hat again.
They follow Celia happily as she leads them back to the courtyard.
Wishes and Desires
PARIS, MAY 1891
When the beaded curtain parts with a sound like rain, it is Marco who enters the fortune-teller’s chamber, and Isobel immediately flips her veil from her face, the impossibly thin black silk floating back over her head like mist.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Ignoring her question, he holds out an open notebook, and in the flickering light Isobel can discern a bare black tree. It is not like the trees that are inscribed in so many of his books, this one is covered in dripping white candles. Surrounding the main drawing are detailed sketches of twisting branches, capturing several different angles.
“That’s the Wishing Tree,” Isobel says. “It’s new.”
“I know it’s new,” Marco says. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“I haven’t had time to write you,” Isobel says. “And I wasn’t even sure whether or not it was something you had done yourself. It seemed like something you might have made. It’s lovely, the way wishes are added to it, by lighting candles with ones that are already lit and adding them to the branches. New wishes ignited by old wishes.”
“It’s hers,” Marco says simply, pulling the notebook back.
“How can you be certain?” Isobel asks.
Marco pauses, looking down at the sketch, annoyed that he could not properly capture the beauty of the thing in hastily rendered drawings.
“I can feel it,” he says. “It is like knowing that a storm is coming, the shift in the air around it. As soon as I walked into the tent I could sense it, and it is stronger closer to the tree itself. I am not certain it would be perceptible if one were unfamiliar with such sensation.”
“Do you think she can feel what you do in the same way?” Isobel asks.
Marco has not considered this before, though it seems it would be true. He finds the idea strangely pleasing.
“I do not know” is all he says to Isobel.
Isobel pushes the veil that is slipping over her face back behind her head again.
“Well,” she says, “now you know about it, and you can do whatever you want to it.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Marco says. “I cannot use anything she does for my own purposes. The sides need to remain separate. If we were playing a game of chess, I could not simply remove her pieces from the board. My only option is to retaliate with my own pieces when she moves hers.”
“But there can’t possibly be an endgame, then,” Isobel says. “How can you checkmate a circus? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s not like chess,” Marco says, struggling to explain something that he has finally begun to understand even though he cannot properly articulate it. He glances at her table where a few cards remain laid faceup, one in particular catching his attention.
“It’s like this,” he says, pointing out the woman with her scales and sword, La Justice inscribed below her feet. “It’s a set of scales: one side is mine, the other is hers.”
A set of silver scales appears on the table between the cards, balancing precariously, each side piled with diamonds that sparkle in the candlelight.
“So the object is to tip the scales in your favor?” Isobel asks.
Marco nods, turning through the pages of his notebook. He keeps flipping back to the page with the tree.
“But if you both keep adding to your sides of the scale, increasing the weight on each side in turn,” Isobel says, watching the gently swaying scale, “won’t it break?”
“I do not believe it is an exact comparison,” Marco says, and the scales vanish.
Isobel frowns at the empty space.
“How long is this going to go on?” she asks.
“I have no idea,” Marco says. “Do you want to leave?” he adds, looking up at her. Unsure of what response he wants to the question.
“No,” Isobel says. “I … I don’t want to leave. I like it here, I do. But I would also like to understand. Maybe if I understood better I could be more helpful.”
“You are helpful,” Marco says. “Perhaps the only advantage I have is that she does not know who I am. She only has the circus to react to and I have you to watch her.”
“But I haven’t seen any reaction,” Isobel protests. “She keeps to herself. She reads more than anyone I have ever met. The Murray twins adore her. She has been nothing but kind to me. I have never seen her do a single thing out of the ordinary beyond when she performs. You say she is making all these moves and yet I never see her do anything. How do you know that tree is not Ethan Barris’s work?”
“Mr. Barris creates impressive mechanics, but this is not his doing. Though she’s embellished his carousel, I’m certain of that. I doubt even an engineer of Mr. Barris’s talent can make a painted wooden gryphon breathe. That tree is rooted in the ground, it is a living tree even if it does not have leaves.”
Marco turns his attention back to his sketch, tracing the lines of the tree with his fingertips.
“Did you make a wish?” Isobel asks quietly.
Marco closes his notebook without answering the question.
“Does she still perform on the quarter hour?” he asks, drawing a watch from his pocket.
“Yes, but … you’re going to sit there and watch her show?” Isobel asks. “There’s barely room for twenty people in her tent, she’ll notice you. Won’t she think it strange that you’re here?”
“She won’t even recognize me,” Marco says. The watch vanishes from his hand. “Whenever there is a new tent, I would appreciate it if you would let me know.”
He turns and walks away, moving so quickly that the candle flames shiver with the motion of the air.
“I miss you,” Isobel says as he leaves, but the sentiment is crushed by the clatter of the beaded curtain falling closed behind him.
She tugs the black mist of her veil back down over her face.
*
AFTER THE LAST of her querents has departed in the early hours of the morning, Isobel takes her Marseilles deck from her pocket. She carries it with her always though she has a separate deck for circus readings, a custom-made version in black and white and shades of grey.
From the Marseilles deck she draws a single card. She knows which it will be before she turns it over. The angel emblazoned on the front is only a confirmation of what she already suspects.
She does not return it to the deck.
Atmosphere
LONDON, SEPTEMBER 1891
The circus has arrived near London, the train creeping in just after nightfall without drawing any notice. The train cars collapse, doors and halls sliding apart, silently forming chains of windowless rooms. Canvas stripes unfurl around them, uncoiled ropes snapping taut and platforms assembling themselves amongst carefully draped curtains.
(The company assumes there is a crew that accomplishes this feat while they unpack their trunks, though some aspects of the transition are clearly automated. This was once the case, but now there is no crew, no unseen stagehands moving bits of scenery to their proper places. They are no longer necessary.)
The tents sit quiet and dark, as the circus will not be open to the public until the following evening.
While most of the performers are spending the night in the city visiting old friends and favorite pubs, Celia Bowen sits alone in her backstage suite.
Her rooms are modest in comparison to others hidden behind the circus tents, but they are filled with books and well-worn furniture. Mismatched candles burn merrily on every available surface, illuminating the sleeping doves in their cages hanging amongst sweeping curtains of richly colored tapestries. A cozy sanctuary, comfortable and quiet.
The knock on the door comes as a surprise.
“Is this how you intend to spend your entire night?” Tsukiko asks, glancing at the book in Celia’s hand.
“I take it you came to suggest an alternative?” Celia asks. The contortionist does not often visit solely for the sake of visiting.
“I have a social engagement, and I thought you might join me,” Tsukiko says. “You spend too much time in solitude.”
Celia attempts to protest, but Tsukiko is insistent, taking out one of Celia’s finest gowns, one of few with any color, a deep blue velvet embellished with pale gold.
“Where are we going?” Celia asks, but Tsukiko refuses to say. It is too late an hour for their destination to be the theater or the ballet.
Celia laughs when they arrive at la maison Lefèvre.
“You could have told me,” she says to Tsukiko.
“Then it would not have been a surprise,” Tsukiko responds.
Celia has attended only a single function at la maison Lefèvre, and that was more pre-circus-opening reception than proper Midnight Dinner. But despite visiting the house on only a handful of occasions between her audition and the opening of the circus, she finds she is already acquainted with each of the guests.
Her arrival with Tsukiko is a surprise to the rest of them, but she is greeted warmly by Chandresh and swept into the parlor with a glass of champagne in her hand before she can apologize for her unexpected presence.
“See that they set an additional place for dinner,” Chandresh says to Marco, before taking her on a cursory spin around the room to make sure she has met everyone. Celia finds it odd that he does not seem to remember.
Mme. Padva is gracious as always, her gown the warm copper of autumn leaves glowing in the candlelight. The Burgess sisters and Mr. Barris have apparently already been making light of the fact that the three of them have all worn various shades of blue, an unplanned detail, and Celia’s gown is cited as proof that it must simply be in fashion.
There is some mention of another guest that may or may not be attending, but Celia does not catch his name.
She feels slightly out of place in this gathering of people who have known each other for so long. But Tsukiko makes a point of including her in the conversation, and Mr. Barris pays such attention to her every word when she does speak, that Lainie begins to tease him about it.
While Celia knows Mr. Barris quite well, having met with him several times and exchanged dozens of letters, he does an impressive job of pretending they are mere acquaintances.
“You should have been an actor,” she whispers to him when she is certain no one will overhear.
“I know,” he replies, sounding genuinely sad. “Such a shame that I missed my true calling.”
Celia has never spoken with either of the Burgess sisters at much length—Lainie is more talkative than Tara—and tonight she learns in greater detail the touches that they have put on the circus. While Mme. Padva’s costumes and Mr. Barris’s feats of engineering are obvious, the mark of the Burgess sisters is more subtle, though it permeates almost every aspect of the circus.
The scents, the music, the quality of the light. Even the weight of the velvet curtains at the entrance. They have arranged each element to appear effortless.
“We like to hit all of the senses,” Lainie says.
“Some more than others,” Tara adds.
“True,” her sister agrees. “Scent is often underestimated, when it can be the most evocative.”
“They are brilliant with atmosphere,” Chandresh remarks to Celia as he joins their conversation, switching her empty glass of champagne with a freshly poured replacement. “Both of them, absolutely brilliant.”
“The trick is to make it seem as though none of it is purposeful,” Lainie whispers. “To make the artificial feel natural.”
“To tie all the elements together,” Tara finishes.
It seems to Celia that they provide a similar service within the present company. Celia doubts that these gatherings would have continued so long after the circus began without the Burgess sisters’ infectious bubbling laughter. They ask the perfect questions to keep the conversation flowing, warding off any lulls.
And Mr. Barris provides an ideal contrast, serious and attentive, keeping the dynamic of the group in balance.
A movement in the hall catches Celia’s eye, and while anyone else might have credited a number of candles or mirrors for the reflection, she knows the cause immediately.
She steps out into the hall unnoticed, slipping out of sight into the shadowed library across from the parlor. It is lit only by a panel of stained glass stretching in a glowing sunset along one wall, sending its warm hue cascading over the closest shelves and letting the rest of the room fall into shadow.
“Can I not have one evening to enjoy myself without you following me?” Celia whispers into the darkness.
“I do not think social engagements of this sort are a proper use of your time,” her father replies, the sunset light catching part of his face and the front of his shirt in a distorted column of red.
“You do not get to dictate how I spend every moment of my time, Papa.”
“You are losing your focus,” Hector replies.
“I cannot lose my focus,” Celia says. “Between new tents and embellishments, I actively control a significant part of the circus. Which is closed at the moment, if you hadn’t noticed. And the better I know these people, the better I can manipulate what they’ve already done. They created it, after all.”
“I suppose that is a valid point,” Hector says. Celia suspects he is scowling despite the admission, though it is too dark to tell. “But you’d do well to remember that you have no reason to trust anyone in that room.”
“Leave me alone, Papa,” Celia says, and sighs.
“Miss Bowen?” a voice says behind her and she turns, surprised to find Chandresh’s assistant standing in the doorway, watching her. “Dinner is about to begin, if you would care to join the rest of the guests in the dining room.”
“My apologies,” Celia says, her eyes darting back to the shadows, but her father has vanished. “I was distracted by the size of the library. I did not think anyone would notice I was missing.”
“I am certain that they would,” Marco says. “Though I have been distracted by the library, myself, many times.”
The charming smile that accompanies the statement catches Celia off guard, as she has rarely seen anything but varying degrees of reserved attentiveness or occasional nervousness on his countenance.
“Thank you for coming to fetch me,” she says, hoping that dinner guests talking to themselves while supposedly perusing books without the aid of proper lighting is not an unusual occurrence at la maison Lefèvre.
“They likely suspect you vanished into thin air,” Marco responds as they walk through the hall. “I thought perhaps that was not the case.”
He holds each door open for her as he escorts her to the dining room.
Celia is seated between Chandresh and Tsukiko.
“This is preferable to spending the evening alone, is it not?” Tsukiko asks, smiling when Celia admits that it is true.
As the courses progress, when she is not distracted by the astounding quality of the food, Celia makes a game of deciphering the relationships between the guests. Reading the way they interact, intuiting the emotions hidden beneath the laughter and conversation, catching the places that gazes linger.
Chandresh’s glances at his handsome assistant grow more obvious with each glass of wine, and Celia suspects Mr. Alisdair is well aware of it, though Marco remains a quiet presence at the edge of the room.
It takes her three courses to determine which of the Burgess sisters Mr. Barris favors, but by the time the artfully arranged plates of what appear to be whole pigeons spiced with cinnamon arrive, she is certain, though she cannot tell if Lainie herself knows.
Mme. Padva is called “Tante” by the entire company, though she feels more like a matriarch than merely an aunt. When Celia addresses her as “Madame,” everyone turns to look at her in surprise.
“So proper for a circus girl,” Mme. Padva says with a gleam in her eye. “We shall have to loosen those corset laces if we intend to keep you as intimate dinner company.”
“I expected the corset unlacing would take place after dinner,” Celia says mildly, earning a chorus of laughter.
“We shall be keeping Miss Bowen as intimate company regardless of the state of her corset,” Chandresh says. “Make a note of that,” he adds, waving a hand at Marco.
“Miss Bowen’s corset is duly noted, sir,” Marco replies, and the laughter bubbles over the table again.
Marco catches Celia’s glance with a hint of the smile from earlier before he turns away, fading into the background again almost as easily as her father vanishes into shadows.
The next course arrives and Celia returns to listening and observing, in between trying to figure out if the meat disguised in feather-light pastry and delicate wine sauce is actually lamb or something more exotic.
There is something about Tara’s behavior that Celia finds bothersome. Something almost haunted in her expression that comes and goes. One moment she is actively engaged in the conversation, her laugh echoing her sister’s, and the next she seems distant, staring through the dripping candles.
It is only when the echoed laugh sounds almost like a sob for a moment that Celia realizes that Tara reminds her of her mother.
The dessert course halts the conversation entirely. Globes of thinly blown sugar sit on each plate and must be broken open in order to access the clouds of cream within.
After the cacophony of shattering sugar, it does not take long for the diners to realize that, though the globes appeared identical, each of them has been presented with an entirely unique flavor.
There is much sharing of spoons. And while some are easily guessed as ginger with peach or curried coconut, others remain delicious mysteries.
Celia’s is clearly honey, but with a blend of spices beneath the sweetness that no one is able to place.
After dinner, the conversation continues over coffee and brandy in the parlor, until an hour most of the guests deem extremely late but Tsukiko points out that it is comparatively early for the circus girls.
When they do begin to say their goodbyes, Celia is embraced no differently than anyone else, and given several invitations to meet for tea while the circus remains in London.
“Thank you,” she says to Tsukiko as they leave. “I enjoyed that more than I had expected to.”
“The finest of pleasures are always the unexpected ones,” Tsukiko replies.
*
MARCO WATCHES FROM THE WINDOW as the guests depart, catching a last glimpse of Celia before she disappears into the night.
He does a round through the parlor and dining room, and then downstairs to the kitchens to make certain everything is in order. The rest of the staff has already departed. He extinguishes the last of the lights before ascending several flights to check on Chandresh.
“Brilliant dinner tonight, don’t you think?” Chandresh asks when Marco reaches the suite that comprises the entire fifth story, each room lit by a multitude of Moroccan lanterns that cast fractured shadows over the opulent furniture.
“Indeed, sir,” Marco says.
“Nothing on the agenda for tomorrow, though. Or later today, whatever time it is.”
“There is the meeting in the afternoon regarding next season’s ballet schedule.”
“Ah, I had forgotten,” Chandresh says. “Cancel that, would you?”
“Of course, sir,” Marco says, taking a notebook from his pocket and marking down the request.
“Oh, and order a dozen cases of whatever that brandy was that Ethan brought. Marvelous stuff, that.”
Marco nods, adding it to his notes.
“You’re not leaving, are you?” Chandresh asks.
“No, sir,” Marco says. “I had thought it too late to be going home.”
“Home,” Chandresh repeats, as though the word sounds foreign. “This is your home as much as that flat you insist on keeping is. More so, even.”
“I shall endeavor to remember that, sir,” Marco says.
“Miss Bowen is a lovely woman, don’t you think?” Chandresh remarks suddenly, turning to gauge the reaction to the question.
Caught by surprise, Marco only manages to stammer something he hopes resembles his standard impartial agreement.
“We must invite her to dinner whenever the circus is in town, so we might get to know her better,” Chandresh says pointedly, emphasizing the statement with a satisfied grin.
“Yes, sir,” Marco says, struggling to keep his expression impassive. “Will that be all for tonight?”
Chandresh laughs as he waves him away.
Before he retires to his own rooms, a suite three times the size of his flat, Marco quietly returns to the library.
He stands for some time in the spot where he found Celia hours before, scrutinizing the familiar bookshelves and the wall of stained glass.
He cannot guess what she might have been doing.
And he does not notice the eyes staring at him from the shadows.
Rêveurs
1891-1892
Herr Friedrick Thiessen receives the card in the mail, a plain envelope amongst his invoices and business correspondence. The envelope holds no letter or note, simply a card that is black on one side and white on the other. “Le Cirque des Rêves” is printed on the front in silver ink. On the back, handwritten in black ink on white, it reads:
Twenty-nine September
Just outside Dresden, Saxony
Herr Thiessen can barely contain his glee. He makes arrangements with his clients, finishes his clocks in progress in record time, and secures a short-term flat rental in Dresden.
He arrives in Dresden on September 28, and spends the day wandering the outskirts of the city, wondering where the circus might set up. There is no indication of its impending arrival, only a slight electricity in the air, though Herr Thiessen is unsure if anyone, save himself, can sense it. He feels honored at having been given advance notice.
On September 29, he sleeps in, anticipating the late night ahead. When he leaves his flat in the early afternoon to find something to eat, the streets are already buzzing with the news: a strange circus has appeared overnight, just west of the city. A gargantuan thing, with striped tents, they are saying when he reaches the pub. Never seen anything like it. Herr Thiessen stays silent on the matter, enjoying the excitement and curiosity around him.
Shortly before sunset Herr Thiessen heads west, finding the circus easily as there is a large crowd assembled outside already. While he waits with the crowd, he wonders how the circus manages to set up so quickly. He is certain that the field it sits in now, as though it has always been there, had been empty the day before when he walked around the city. The circus has simply materialized. Like magic, he overhears someone remark, and Herr Thiessen has to agree.
When the gates open at last, Herr Friedrick Thiessen feels as though he is returning home after an extended absence.
He spends almost every night there, and during the day he sits in his rented flat or at the pub with a glass of wine and a journal and he writes about it. Pages and pages of observations, recounting his experiences, mostly so he will not forget them but also to capture something of the circus on paper, something he can hold on to.
He occasionally converses about the circus with his fellow pub dwellers. One of these is a man who edits the city paper, and after some persuading and several glasses of wine, he manages to get Friedrick to show him the journal. After a shot or two of bourbon, he convinces Friedrick to allow excerpts of it to be published in the newspaper.
The circus departs Dresden in late October, but the newspaper editor keeps his word.
The article is well received, and followed by another, and then another.
Herr Thiessen continues to write, and over the following months some of the articles are reprinted in other German papers, and eventually they are translated and printed in Sweden and Denmark and France. One article finds its way into a London paper, printed under the title “Nights at the Circus.”
It is these articles that make Herr Friedrick Thiessen the unofficial leader, the figurehead, of those most ardent followers of the circus.
Some are introduced to Le Cirque des Rêves through his writing, while others feel an instant connection with him as they read his words, an affinity for this man who experiences the circus as they do, as something wondrous and inimitable.
Some seek him out, and the meetings and dinners that follow herald the formation of a kind of club, a society of lovers of the circus.
The title of rêveurs begins as a joke, but it sticks, secure in its appropriateness.
Herr Thiessen enjoys this immensely, being surrounded by kindred spirits from all over Europe, and occasionally even farther, who will discuss the circus endlessly. He transcribes the stories of other rêveurs to include in his writings. He constructs small keepsake clocks for them depicting their favorite acts or performances. (One of these is a marvel of tiny flying acrobats on ribbons, made for a young woman who spends most of her hours at the circus in that massive tent, staring upward.)
He even, somewhat unintentionally, starts a fashion trend amongst the rêveurs. He comments at a dinner in Munich—where many of the dinners are held near his home, though they are also held in London and Paris and countless other cities as well—that when he attends the circus he prefers to wear a black coat, to better blend in with his surroundings and feel a part of the circus. But with it, he wears a scarf in a brilliant scarlet, to distinguish himself from it as well, as a reminder that he is at heart a spectator, an observer.
Word spreads quickly in such select circles, and so begins a tradition of rêveurs attending Le Cirque des Rêves decked in black or white or grey with a single shock of red: a scarf or hat, or, if the weather is warm, a red rose tucked into a lapel or behind an ear. It is also quite helpful for spotting other rêveurs, a simple signal for those in the know.
There are those who have the means, and even some who do not but creatively manage anyway, to follow the circus from location to location. There is no set itinerary that is public knowledge. The circus moves from place to place every few weeks, with the occasional extended break, and no one truly knows where it might appear until the tents are already erected in a field in a city or the countryside, or somewhere in between.
But there are those few people, select rêveurs who are familiar with the circus and its ways, who have made polite acquaintance of the proper individuals and are notified of impending locations, and they in turn notify others, in other countries, in other cities.
The most common method is subtle, and works both in person and by post.
They send cards. Small, rectangular cards, much like postcards, that vary but are always black on one side and white on the other. Some use actual postcards, others choose to make their own. The cards state simply:
The circus is coming. …
and list a location. Sometimes there is a date, but not always. The circus functions in approximations more than exacting details. But the notification and location is often enough.
Most rêveurs have a home base and prefer not to travel terribly far. Rêveurs who call Canada home may be hesitant to travel to Russia but easily make extended visits to Boston or Chicago, while those in Morocco may travel to many destinations in Europe but perhaps not all the way to China or Japan.
Some, though, follow the circus wherever it may lead, through money or luck or extensive favors from other rêveurs. But they are all rêveurs, each in their own way, even those who only have the means to visit the circus when it comes to them, rather than the other way around. They smile when they spot each other. They meet up at local pubs to have drinks and chat while they wait impatiently for the sun to set.
It is these aficionados, these rêveurs, who see the details in the bigger picture of the circus. They see the nuance of the costumes, the intricacy of the signs. They buy sugar flowers and do not eat them, wrapping them in paper instead and carefully bringing them home. They are enthusiasts, devotees. Addicts. Something about the circus stirs their souls, and they ache for it when it is absent.
They seek each other out, these people of such specific like mind. They tell of how they found the circus, how those first few steps were like magic. Like stepping into a fairy tale under a curtain of stars. They pontificate upon the fluffiness of the popcorn, the sweetness of the chocolate. They spend hours discussing the quality of the light, the heat of the bonfire. They sit over their drinks smiling like children and they relish being surrounded by kindred spirits, if only for an evening. When they depart, they shake hands and embrace like old friends, even if they have only just met, and as they go their separate ways they feel less alone than they had before.
The circus knows of them, and appreciates them. Often someone approaching the ticket booth in a black coat with a red scarf will be waved in without paying admission, or given a mug of cider or bag of popcorn gratis. Performers spotting them in the audience will bring out their best tricks. Some of the rêveurs wander the circus continuously, methodically visiting every tent, watching each performance. Others have their favorite spots which they rarely leave, choosing to pass the entire night in the Menagerie or the Hall of Mirrors. They are the ones who stay the latest, through the small hours when most visitors have gone to seek their beds.
Often, just before dawn, there is no color to be seen in Le Cirque des Rêves save for their small splashes of scarlet.
*
HERR THIESSEN RECEIVES DOZENS OF LETTERS from other rêveurs, and he responds to each. While some remain single letters, content with their onetime replies, others evolve into longer exchanges, collections of ongoing conversations.
Today he is replying to a letter he finds particularly intriguing. The author writes about the circus with stunning specificity. And the letter is more personal than most, delving into thoughts on his own writings, observations about his Wunschtraum clock containing a level of detail that would require observing it for hours on end. He reads the letter three times before he sits at his desk to compose his reply.
The postmark is from New York, but he does not recognize the signature as belonging to any of the rêveurs he has met in passing in that or any other city.
Dear Miss Bowen, he begins.
He hopes that he will receive another letter in turn.
Collaborations
SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 1893
Marco arrives at Mr. Barris’s London office only a few minutes before his scheduled appointment, surprised to find the normally well-ordered space in near bedlam, full of half-packed crates and stacks of boxes. The desk is nowhere to be seen, buried beneath the chaos.
“Is it that late already?” Mr. Barris asks when Marco knocks on the open door, unable to step inside due to a lack of available floor. “I should have left the clock out, it’s in one of those crates.” He waves at a line of large wooden crates along the wall, though if one of them is ticking it is impossible to tell. “And I meant to clear a path, as well,” he adds, pushing boxes aside and picking up piles of rolled blueprints.
“Sorry to intrude,” Marco says. “I wanted to speak with you before you left the city. I would have waited until you were settled again, but I thought it best to discuss the matter in person.”
“Of course,” Mr. Barris says. “I wanted to give you the spare copies of the circus plans. They are around here somewhere.” He sifts through the pile of blueprints, checking labels and dates.
The office door closes quietly, untouched.
“May I ask you a question, Mr. Barris?” Marco inquires.
“Certainly,” Mr. Barris says, still sorting through rolls of paper.
“How much do you know?”
Mr. Barris puts down the blueprint in his hand and turns, pushing his spectacles up on the bridge of his nose to better regard Marco’s expression.
“How much do I know about what?” he asks after the pause has gone on too long.
“How much has Miss Bowen told you?” Marco asks in response.
Mr. Barris looks at him curiously for a moment before he speaks.
“You’re her opponent,” he says, a smile spreading across his face when Marco nods. “I never would have guessed.”
“She told you about the competition,” Marco says.
“Only in the most basic of terms,” Mr. Barris says. “She came to me several years ago and asked what I might say if she were to tell me that everything she does is real. I told her that I would have to take her at her word or think her a liar, and I would never dream such a lovely lady to be a liar. And then she asked what I might design if I did not have such constraints as gravity to concern myself with. That was the beginning of the Carousel, but I imagine you knew that already.”
“I assumed as much,” Marco says. “Though I was not certain to what degree you were knowingly involved.”
“I am in the position to be quite useful, as I see it. I believe stage magicians employ engineers to make their tricks appear to be something they are not. In this case, I provide the opposite service, helping actual magic appear to be clever construction. Miss Bowen refers to it as grounding, making the unbelievable believable.”
“Did she have anything to do with the Stargazer?” Marco asks.
“No, the Stargazer is purely mechanical,” Mr. Barris says. “I can show you the structural plans if I can locate them in this mess. It was inspired by a trip to the Columbian Exposition in Chicago earlier this year. Miss Bowen insisted there was no way to improve it, though I think she may have something to do with keeping it running properly.”
“Then you are a magician in your own right, sir,” Marco says.
“Perhaps we simply do similar things in different ways,” Mr. Barris says. “I had thought, knowing Miss Bowen had an opponent lurking somewhere, that whomever you might be, you were not in need of any assistance. The paper animals are astonishing, for example.”
“Thank you,” Marco says. “I have improvised quite a bit trying to come up with tents that did not require blueprints.”
“Is that why you’re here?” Mr. Barris asks. “For something of the blueprint variety?”
“Primarily, I wanted to be certain about your awareness of the game,” Marco says. “I could make you forget this entire conversation, you know.”
“Oh, there is no need for such precaution,” Mr. Barris says with a vehement shake of his head. “I assure you, I am capable of remaining neutral. I am not fond of taking sides. I will assist either you or Miss Bowen as much or as little as you would each prefer and I shall reveal nothing to the other that you or she tell me in confidence. I will not say a word to anyone else about the matter. You can trust me.”
Marco rights a toppling pile of boxes while he considers the matter.
“All right,” he says. “Though I must admit, Mr. Barris, I am surprised at how accepting you are of all this.”
Mr. Barris chuckles in response.
“I admit that of the lot of us, I seem the least likely,” he says. “The world is a more interesting place than I had ever imagined when I came to that first Midnight Dinner. Is that because Miss Bowen can animate a solid wooden creature on a carousel or because you could manipulate my memory, or because the circus itself pushed the boundaries of what I dreamed was possible, even before I entertained the thought of actual magic? I cannot say. But I would not trade it for anything.”
“And you will keep my identity from Miss Bowen?”
“I shall not tell her,” Mr. Barris says. “You have my word.”
“In that case,” Marco says, “I would appreciate your assistance with something.”
*
WHEN THE LETTER ARRIVES, Mr. Barris fears for a moment that Miss Bowen will be upset with the turn of events, or inquire as to who her opponent is, as she will have easily figured out that he is now aware of that fact himself.
But when he opens the envelope, the enclosed note reads only: May I make additions to it?
He writes back to inform her that it has been specifically designed to be manipulated by either side, so she may add whatever she wishes.
*
CELIA WALKS THROUGH a hallway full of snow, sparkling flakes of it catching in her hair and clinging to the hem of her gown. She holds out her hand, smiling as the crystals dissolve over her skin.
The hall is lined with doors, and she chooses the one at the very end, trailing a melting breath of snow behind her as she walks into a room where she must duck to avoid colliding with the cascade of books suspended from the ceiling, pages tumbling open in frozen waves.
She reaches a hand out to brush over the paper, the entire room swaying gently as the motion passes from page to page.
It takes her quite a while to locate another door, hidden in a shadowed corner, and she laughs when her boots sink into the powdersoft sand that fills the room beyond.
Celia stands on a shimmering white desert with a sparkling night sky stretching in every direction. The sense of space is so vast that she must put her hand out in front of her to find the wall hidden in the stars and it is still a surprise when her fingers hit the solid surface.
She feels her way around the star-speckled walls, searching the perimeter for another way out.
“This is abhorrent,” her father’s voice says, though she cannot see him in the dim light. “You are meant to be working separately, not in this … this debauched juxtaposition. I have warned you about collaborating, it is not the proper way to exhibit your skills.”
Celia sighs.
“I think it’s quite clever,” she says. “What better way to compete than within the same tent? And you cannot rightfully call it a collaboration. How can I collaborate with someone whose identity I don’t even know?”
She only catches a glimpse of his face as he glares at her and then she turns away, returning her attention to the wall.
“Which is superior, then?” she asks. “A room full of trees or a room filled with sand? Do you even know which ones are mine? This is getting tiring, Papa. My opponent clearly possesses comparable skills. How will you ever determine a winner?”
“That is not your concern,” her father’s voice hisses, closer to her ear than she would like. “You are a disappointment, I expected better from you. You need to do more.”
“Doing more is exhausting,” Celia protests. “I can only control so much.”
“It’s not enough,” her father says.
“When will it be enough?” Celia asks, but there is no reply, and she stands alone amongst the stars.
She sinks to the ground, picking up a handful of pearl-white sand and letting it fall slowly through her fingers.
*
ALONE IN HIS FLAT, Marco constructs tiny rooms from scraps of paper. Hallways and doors crafted from pages of books and bits of blueprints, pieces of wallpaper and fragments of letters.
He composes chambers that lead into others that Celia has created. Stairs that wind around her halls.
Leaving spaces open for her to respond.
The Ticking of the Clock
VIENNA, JANUARY 1894
The office is large but looks smaller than it is due to the volume of its contents. While a great deal of its walls are composed of frosted glass, most of it is obscured by cabinets and shelves. The drafting table by the windows is all but hidden in the meticulously ordered chaos of papers and diagrams and blueprints. The bespectacled man seated behind it is almost invisible, blending in with his surroundings. The sound of his pencil scratching against paper is as methodical and precise as the ticking of the clock in the corner.
There is a knock on the frosted-glass door and the scratching pencil halts, though the ticking clock pays no heed.
“A Miss Burgess to see you, sir,” an assistant calls from the open door. “She says not to bother you if you are otherwise occupied.”
“Not a bother at all,” Mr. Barris says, placing his pencil down and rising from his seat. “Please, send her in.”
The assistant moves from the doorway and is replaced by a young woman in a stylish lace-trimmed dress.
“Hello, Ethan,” Tara Burgess says. “My apologies for dropping by unannounced.”
“No apologies necessary, my dear Tara. You look lovely, as always,” Mr. Barris says, kissing her on both cheeks.
“And you haven’t aged a day,” Tara says, pointedly. His smile wavers and he looks away, moving to close the door behind her.
“What brings you to Vienna?” he asks. “And where is your sister? I so rarely see the two of you apart.”
“Lainie is in Dublin, with the circus,” Tara says, turning her attention to the contents of the room. “I … I wasn’t in the mood so I thought I would do some traveling on my own. Visiting far-flung friends seemed a good place to start. I would have sent a telegram but it was all a bit spontaneous. And I wasn’t entirely sure if I would be welcome.”
“You are always welcome, Tara,” Mr. Barris says. He offers her a seat but she does not notice, drifting through the tables covered in highly detailed models of buildings, stopping here and there to investigate a detail further: the arch of a doorway, the spiral of a staircase.
“It becomes difficult to tell the difference between old friends and business associates in cases like ours, I think,” Tara says. “Whether we are the kind of people who make polite conversation to cover shared secrets or something more than that. This one is marvelous,” she adds, pausing at a model of an elaborate open column with a clock suspended in the center.
“Thank you,” Mr. Barris says. “It’s quite far from completion. I need to send the finished plans to Friedrick so he can start construction on the clock. I suspect it will be much more impressive when built to scale.”
“Do you have the plans for the circus here?” Tara asks, looking over the diagrams pinned to the walls.
“No, I don’t, actually. I left them with Marco in London. I meant to keep copies on file but I must have forgotten.”
“Did you forget to keep copies of any of your other plans?” Tara asks, running a finger along the line of cabinets fitted with long thin shelves, each one piled with carefully ordered papers.
“No,” Mr. Barris says.
“Do you … do you find that strange?” Tara asks.
“Not particularly,” Mr. Barris says. “Do you think it strange?”
“I think a great many things about the circus strange,” Tara says, fidgeting with the lace at the cuff of her sleeve.
Mr. Barris sits at his desk, leaning back in his chair.
“Are we going to discuss whatever it is you are here to discuss instead of dancing around it?” he asks. “I was never a particularly good dancer.”
“I know for a fact that is not true,” Tara says, settling into the chair opposite, though her gaze continues to wander around the room. “But it would be nice to be direct for a change, I sometimes wonder if any of us remember how. Why did you leave London?”
“I suspect I left London for much the same reasons that you and your sister travel so often,” Mr. Barris says. “A few too many curious looks and backhanded compliments. I doubt anyone realized that the day my hair stopped thinning was the same as the opening night of the circus, but they did begin to notice after a time. While our Tante Padva might simply be aging well and anything and everything about Chandresh can be written off as eccentric, we are put under a different kind of scrutiny by being somewhat closer to ordinary.”
“It is easier for those who can simply disappear into the circus,” Tara says, gazing out the window. “Once in a while Lainie suggests that we follow it around ourselves but I think that would only be a temporary solution, we are too mercurial for our own good.”
“You could just let it go,” Mr. Barris says quietly.
Tara shakes her head.
“How many years until moving cities becomes insufficient? What is the solution beyond that? Changing our names? I … I do not enjoy being forced into such deceptions.”
“I don’t know,” Mr. Barris says.
“There is a great deal more going on than we are privy to, of that I’m quite sure,” Tara says with a sigh. “I tried to talk to Chandresh, but it was like we were speaking two different languages. I do not like sitting idly by when something clearly isn’t right. I feel … not trapped but something like it, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“And you are looking for answers,” Mr. Barris says.
“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” Tara responds, and for a moment her face crumples as though she might burst into tears, but then she composes herself. “Ethan, do you sometimes feel like you are dreaming, all the time?”
“No, I can’t say that I do.”
“I am finding it difficult to discern between asleep and awake,” Tara says, tugging at her lace cuffs again. “I do not like being left in the dark. I am not particularly fond of believing in impossible things.”
Mr. Barris takes off his spectacles, wiping the lenses with a handkerchief before he replies, holding them up to the light to check for rogue smudges.
“I have seen a great many things that I might once have considered impossible, or unbelievable. I find I no longer have clearly defined parameters for such matters. I choose to do my work to the best of my own abilities, and leave others to their own.”
He pulls open a drawer of the desk and after searching for a moment he takes out a business card that contains only a single name. Even looking at it upside down, Tara can easily discern the A and the H if nothing else. Mr. Barris picks up a pencil and writes a London address beneath the printed name.
“I don’t think any of us knew that night precisely what we were getting ourselves into,” he says. “If you insist on delving deeper into all of this I think he might be the only one of us that may help, though I cannot guarantee that he will be entirely forthcoming.”
He slides the card across the desk to Tara. She regards it carefully before slipping it into her bag, as though she is not entirely sure it is real.
“Thank you, Ethan,” she says without looking at him. “I appreciate this, truly.”
“You’re welcome, my dear,” Mr. Barris says. “I … I hope you find what you are looking for.”
Tara only nods distractedly, and then they discuss other matters of little import while the clock ticks through the afternoon hours and the light beyond the frosted-glass windows fades considerably. Though he asks her to join him for dinner, she declines politely and leaves alone.
Mr. Barris returns to his drafting table, scratching pencil and ticking clock in harmony once more.
The Magician's Umbrella
PRAGUE, MARCH 1894
The sign upon the gates of Le Cirque des Rêves tonight is a large one, hung with braided ribbon that wraps around the bars just above the lock. The letters are tall enough to be read from some ways off, though people still walk right up to it to read it.
Closed Due to Inclement Weather
it says, in a fancy script surrounded by playfully painted grey clouds. People read the sign, sometimes twice, and then look at the setting sun and the clear violet sky and scratch their heads. They stand around, and some wait to see if the sign will be removed and the circus opened, but there is no one in sight and eventually the small crowd disperses to find alternative activities for their evening.
An hour later it starts, sheets of rain pouring down and wind that ripples across the surface of the striped tents. The sign on the gates dances in the wind, shimmering and wet.
*
AT THE OTHER END OF THE CIRCUS, at a part of the fence that looks nothing like a gate but opens nonetheless, Celia Bowen steps out from the shadows of darkened tents and into the rain, opening her umbrella with some difficulty. It is a large umbrella, with a heavy curved handle, and once Celia manages to get it open it provides quite good cover against the rain. Though the lower half of her wine-colored gown is quickly soaked to the point where it appears almost black.
She walks without much notice into the city, though there is not much notice to attract in such a downpour. She passes only a handful of other pedestrians on the cobblestone streets, each partially hidden beneath an umbrella.
Eventually Celia stops at a brightly lit café, crowded and lively despite the weather. She adds her umbrella to the collection gathering in the stands by the door.
There are a few unoccupied tables, but the empty chair that catches Celia’s eye is one by the fireplace across from Isobel, where she sits with a cup of tea and her nose buried in a book.
Celia has never been entirely certain what to make of the fortuneteller. Though she has an innate distrust of anyone whose occupation involves telling people what they wish to hear. And Isobel sometimes has the same look in her eye Celia often catches in Tsukiko’s glances, that she knows more than she lets on.
Though perhaps that is not unusual for someone in the business of telling other people what their future holds.
“May I join you?” Celia asks. Isobel looks up, the surprise clear in her expression, but the surprise is quickly replaced by a bright smile.
“Of course,” Isobel says, marking her page before placing her book aside. “I can’t believe you ventured out in the weather, I only just missed the start of it earlier and I thought I’d wait it out. I was meant to be meeting someone but I don’t think they’ll be coming, considering.”
“I can’t blame them,” Celia says, pulling off her damp gloves. She shakes them gently and they dry instantly. “It’s rather like walking through a river out there.”
“Are you avoiding the inclement-weather party?”
“I made an appearance before I escaped, I am not in a party mood this evening. Besides, I don’t like giving up an opportunity to leave the circus for a change of atmosphere, even if it means practically drowning to do so.”
“I like to escape once in a while, myself,” Isobel says. “Did you make it rain to have a night off?”
“Of course not,” Celia says. “Though if that were true I think I overdid it.”
Even as she speaks, Celia’s rain-soaked gown is drying, the almostblack color returning to a rich wine, though it is not entirely clear whether this is caused by the nearby fire burning merrily or if it is a subtle transformation she is performing herself.
Celia and Isobel chat about the weather and Prague and books, not purposely avoiding the topic of the circus, but keeping the distance from it alive. Remaining for the moment only two women sitting at a table, rather than a fortune-teller and an illusionist, an opportunity they are not frequently presented with.
The door of the café blows open, sending a gust of rain-spiked wind inside that is met with howls of annoyance from the patrons and the clattering of the umbrellas in their stands.
A harried-looking waitress pauses at their table and Celia requests a mint tea. As the waitress departs, Celia casts a long look around the room, scanning the crowd as though she is looking for someone but not finding a point to focus on.
“Is something the matter?” Isobel asks.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Celia says. “A hint of feeling that we’re being watched, but it is likely just my imagination.”
“Maybe someone has recognized you,” Isobel suggests.
“I doubt that,” Celia says as she looks at the surrounding patrons, not finding a single eye turned in their direction. “People see what they want to see. I’m sure this place has had more than its share of unusual patrons with the circus in town. That makes it easier for us to blend in.”
“I am always amazed that no one recognizes me out of context,” Isobel says. “I’ve read for a handful of people in this very room over the past few nights and not one of them has so much as given me a second glance. Perhaps I do not look so mysterious when not surrounded by candles and velvet. Or perhaps they pay more attention to the cards than they do to me.”
“Do you have your cards with you?” Celia asks.
Isobel nods. “Would … would you like a reading?” she asks.
“If you do not mind.”
“Not once have you ever asked me to read for you.”
“I am not usually in the mood to know anything about my future,” Celia says. “Tonight I am feeling a tiny bit curious.”
Isobel hesitates, glancing around at the clientele, a mostly bohemian crowd sipping absinthe and arguing about art.
“They will not even notice,” Celia says. “I promise.”
Isobel turns her attention back to Celia, and then she pulls a deck from her bag; not her black-and-white circus cards but her original Marseilles deck, worn and faded.
“Those are lovely,” Celia says as Isobel starts to shuffle, watching the shifting blur of cards.
“Thank you.”
“But there are only seventy-seven of them.”
Isobel’s hands falter only momentarily, but a single card falls from the deck onto the table. Celia picks it up, briefly glancing at the two cups upon the surface before handing it back to Isobel, who replaces it in the deck and resumes shuffling, the cards falling seamlessly from one hand to the other.
“One of them is … somewhere else,” Isobel explains.
Celia does not question her further.
The waitress brings Celia’s mint tea, not even glancing at the cards before departing again.
“Did you do that?” Isobel asks.
“I diverted her attention, yes,” Celia says after blowing gently on the surface of her steaming tea. It is not exactly what she means, but the invisible veil she has drawn over the table seems too difficult to explain. And the fact that the feeling they are being watched has not faded despite its presence bothers her.
Isobel stops shuffling and places the deck facedown on the table.
Celia cuts the deck in three without waiting for Isobel to instruct her, holding the edges of the cards carefully as she places each pile in a row across the table.
“Which one?” Isobel asks.
Celia regards the three piles of cards thoughtfully while she sips her tea. After a moment she indicates the center pile. Isobel stacks the deck once more, keeping that section of cards on the top.
The cards that she places on the table have no immediate clarity to them. Several cups. The two of swords. La Papessa, the enigmatic Priestess.
Isobel only barely manages to contain her involuntary intake of breath as she lays Le Bateleur over the already placed cards. She covers it with a cough. Celia appears not to notice anything amiss.
“I’m sorry,” Isobel says, after staring silently at the cards for a few moments. “Sometimes it takes awhile for me to translate properly.”
“Take your time,” Celia says.
Isobel pushes the cards around the table, focusing on one and then another.
“You carry a great many burdens with you. A heavy heart. Things you’ve lost. But you are moving toward change and discovery. There are outside influences that are propelling you forward.”
Celia’s expression reveals nothing. She looks at the cards and occasionally up at Isobel, attentive yet guarded.
“You’re … not fighting, that’s not really the right word for it, but there’s a conflict with something unseen, something shadowed that’s hidden from you.”
Celia only smiles.
Isobel places another card on the table.
“But it will be revealed soon,” she says.
This catches Celia’s attention.
“How soon?”
“The cards do not make for the clearest of timelines, but it is very close. Almost immediate, I would think.”
Isobel pulls another card. The two of cups again.
“There’s emotion,” she says. “Deep emotion but you are only on the shore of it, still near the surface, while it is waiting to pull you under.”
“Interesting,” Celia remarks.
“It’s nothing that I can clearly see as good or bad, but it is … intense.” Isobel pushes the cards around a bit, Le Bateleur and La Papessa surrounded by fire-tinged wands and watery cups. The crackle of the fire next to them mingles with the rain pattering against the windows. “It almost contradicts itself,” she says after a moment. “It’s as if there is love and loss at the same time, together in a kind of beautiful pain.”
“Well, that sounds like something to look forward to,” Celia says drily, and Isobel smiles, glancing up from the cards but finding little to read in Celia’s expression.
“I’m sorry I cannot be more clear,” she says. “If anything comes to me later I will let you know, sometimes I need to ruminate on the cards before I can make any real sense of them. These are … not unclear, precisely, but they are complex, which makes for a great deal of possibilities to consider.”
“No need for apologies. I cannot say I’m terribly surprised. And thank you, I very much appreciate the insight.”
Celia changes the subject then, though the cards remain on the table and Isobel does not move to put them away. They discuss less substantial matters until Celia insists that she should be getting back to the circus.
“Do wait until the rain lets up, at least,” Isobel protests.
“I have monopolized enough of your time already, and the rain is only rain. I hope the someone you were waiting for turns up.”
“I am doubtful about that, but thank you. And thank you for keeping me company.”
“It was my pleasure,” Celia says, rising from the table as she replaces her gloves. She navigates the crowded café with ease, pulling a darkhandled umbrella from the stand by the door and giving Isobel a parting wave before bracing herself for the walk back to the circus in the pouring rain.
Isobel pushes the tangled path of the cards on the table around a bit.
She did not lie, exactly. She finds it near impossible to lie about the cards.
But the competition is clear, so much so that everything else is tied to it, past and future.
At the same time, it seems to be more of a reading for the circus as a whole than for Celia in particular, but it is so emotional that it overwhelms the details. Isobel piles the cards and shuffles them back into the deck. Le Bateleur floats to the top as she shuffles, and she frowns at the card before glancing around the café. While there are a few scattered bowler hats amongst the patrons, there is no sign of the one she is looking for.
She shuffles until the Magician is buried deep within the deck and then she puts her cards away and returns to her book to wait out the rain alone.
*
OUTSIDE, THE RAIN IS HEAVY and the street is dark and almost completely deserted, glowing windows dotting the streets. It is not as cold as Celia had expected, despite the chilling wind.
She cannot read the tarot well herself, there are always too many possibilities, too many meanings. But once Isobel pointed out specific elements, she could see the complicated emotion, the impending revelation. She is unsure what to make of it, though despite her skepticism, she hopes it means she will finally be certain who her opponent is.
She remains distracted as she walks, considering the cards, but she slowly realizes that she is rather warm. At least as warm if not warmer than she had been sitting near the fire with Isobel. More than that, her clothes are still dry. Her jacket, her gloves, even the hem of her gown. There is not a single drop of rain upon her although it continues to pour, the wind causing the rain to fall in several directions beyond the standard gravitational pattern. Drops splatter upward from pond-like puddles and blow in sideways but Celia does not feel any of them. Even her boots are not the slightest bit damp.
Celia stops walking as she reaches the open square, halting next to the towering astronomical clock where carved apostles are making their scheduled hourly appearance despite the weather.
She stands still in the downpour. The rain falls so thickly around her that she can hardly see more than a few paces ahead but she remains both warm and dry. She holds her hand out in front of her, beyond the cover of the umbrella, and regards it carefully but not a single drop of rain falls upon it. Those that come close suddenly change direction before hitting her glove, bouncing off as though she is surrounded by something invisible and impermeable.
It is around this time that Celia becomes certain that the umbrella she is holding is not her own.
“Excuse me, Miss Bowen,” a voice calls to her, lifted over the din of the rain and carried down the street. A voice she recognizes even before she turns to find Marco standing behind her, completely drenched in rain, droplets cascading from the brim of his bowler hat. In his hand he holds a closed black umbrella identical to the one she carries.
“I believe you have my umbrella,” he says, almost out of breath but wearing a grin that has too much wolf in it to be properly sheepish.
Celia stares up at him in surprise. At first she wonders what on earth Chandresh’s assistant is doing in Prague, as she has never seen him outside of London. Then comes the question of how he could possess such an umbrella.
As she stares at him, confused, the pieces of the puzzle begin to shift together. She remembers every encounter she has ever had with the man now standing before her in the rain, recalling the distress he had exhibited at her audition, the years of glances and comments she had read as no more than coy flirtation.
And the constant impression as though he is not really there, blending so well into the background that she would occasionally forget he was in the room.
Before, she thought it was the sign of a very good assistant, never accounting for how deceptive such an appearance might be.
She suddenly feels rather stupid for not once considering the possibility that this could be her opponent.
And then Celia begins to laugh, a buoyant giggle that harmonizes with the din of the rain. Marco’s grin wavers as he watches her, blinking water from his eyes.
Once Celia composes herself she gives him a low, perfect curtsey. She hands him his umbrella, gasping as the rain seizes her the moment the handle passes from her fingers. He hands her the identical umbrella.
“My sincere apologies,” she says, the amusement still sparkling in her eyes.
“I would very much like to speak with you, if you care to join me for a drink,” Marco says. His bowler hat is already dry as he attempts in vain to cover both of them with the open umbrella. The wind whips Celia’s dark curls in wet ropes across her face as she considers him, watching his eyes as the raindrops evaporate from his lashes.
For all the years of wondering, being faced with her opponent is not what she had expected.
She had expected it to be someone she knew. Someone inside the bounds of the circus rather than outside, but still involved.
There are so many questions, so many things she longs to discuss despite her father’s constant nagging about not concerning herself with her opponent. But at the same time, she feels suddenly exposed, aware that he has always known where each of them stood. Known every time he opened a door for her or took notes for Chandresh. Every time he stared at her as he does now, with those disconcertingly bright-green eyes.
Still, it is a tempting invitation.
Perhaps if she was not nearly drowning from the rain, she would accept it.
“Of course you would,” Celia says, returning Marco’s grin with one of her own. “Perhaps another time.”
She opens her own umbrella with some difficulty, and as she swings the canopy of black silk over her head, she and her umbrella vanish, leaving only drops of water falling onto the empty pavement.
Alone in the rain, Marco regards the space where Celia had been standing for some time before he walks away into the night.
R E F L E C T I O N S A N D D I S T O R T I O N S
The sign says Hall of Mirrors, but when you enter you find it is more than a simple hall.
You are met not with floor-length unadorned planes of mirrored glass, as you half expected, but hundreds of mirrors of varying sizes and shapes, each in a different frame.
As you move past one mirror reflecting your boots, the mirror next to it shows only empty space and the mirrors on the other side. Your scarf is not present in one mirror and then it returns in the next.
Reflected behind you there is a man in a bowler hat, though he appears in some mirrors and not in others. When you turn you cannot locate him in the room, though there are more patrons walking along with you than you had seen within the glass.
The hall leads to a round room, the light within it bright as you enter. It radiates from a tall lamppost that sits in the center, towering black iron with a frosted-glass lamp that looks as though it would be more at home on a city street corner than in a circus tent.
The walls here are completely mirrored, each long mirror placed to align with the striped ceiling visible above and the floor that is painted to match.
As you walk farther into the room it becomes a field of endless streetlamps, the stripes repeating in fractal patterns, over and over and over.
Cartomancy
CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS, OCTOBER 1902
As he continues to walk around the circus, Bailey’s path leads back to the courtyard. He stops briefly to watch the sparkling bonfire and then at a vendor to purchase a bag of chocolates to make up for his mostly uneaten dinner. The chocolates are shaped like mice, with almond ears and licorice tails. He eats two immediately and puts the rest of the bag in the pocket of his coat, hoping they will not melt.
He chooses another direction to leave the courtyard, circling away from the bonfire again.
He passes several tents with interesting signs, but none that he feels compelled to enter just yet, still playing the illusionist’s performance over in his mind. As the path turns, he comes upon a smaller tent, with a lovely elaborate sign:
Fortune-teller
He can read that bit easily, but the rest is a complex swirl of intricate letters, and Bailey has to walk right up to it to read:
Fates Foretold and Darkest Desires Disclosed
Bailey looks around. For a moment, there is no one else in sight in either direction, and the circus feels eerily similar to the way it had when he snuck through the fence in the middle of the day, as though it is empty save for himself and the things (and people) that are always there.
The ongoing argument about his own future echoes in his ears as he enters the tent.
Bailey finds himself in a room that reminds him of his grandmother’s parlor, only smelling less like lavender. There are seats, but all of them are unoccupied, and a sparkling chandelier captures Bailey’s attention for a moment before he notices the curtain.
It is made up of strings of shiny beads. Bailey has never seen anything like it. It shimmers in the light, and he is not entirely sure whether he should walk through it or wait for some sort of sign or notice. He looks around for an informatively worded sign but finds nothing. He stands, confused, in the empty vestibule, and then a voice calls out from behind the beaded curtain.
“Do come in, please,” the voice says. A woman’s voice, quiet, and sounding as though she is standing right next to him, though Bailey is sure that the voice came from the next room. Hesitantly he puts a hand out to touch the beads, which are smooth and cold, and he finds that his arm slips through them easily, that they part like water or long grass. The beads clatter as the strands hit one another, and the sound that echoes in the dark space sounds like rain.
The room he is in now is much less like his grandmother’s parlor. It is filled with candles, and there is a table in the center, with an empty chair on one side and a lady, dressed in black with a long thin veil over her face, seated on the other. On the table there is a deck of cards and a large glass sphere.
“Have a seat, please, young man,” the lady says, and Bailey walks a few steps to the empty chair and sits down. The chair is surprisingly comfortable, not like the stiff chairs at his grandmother’s, though they do look remarkably similar. It only now strikes Bailey that, other than the red-haired girl, he has never heard any person in the circus speak. The illusionist was silent for her entire performance, though he had not noticed it at the time.
“I am afraid payment is required before we may begin,” she says. Bailey is relieved that he has excess pocket money for the unplanned expense.
“How much is payment?” he asks.
“Whatever you wish to pay for a glimpse of your future,” the fortuneteller says. Bailey stops to consider this for a moment. It is strange, but fair. He pulls what he hopes is a suitable amount from his pocket and puts it on the table, and the woman does not pick the money up but passes her hand over it, and it disappears.
“Now what is it you would like to know?” she asks.
“About my future,” Bailey says. “My grandmother wants me to go to Harvard, but my father wants me to take over the farm.”
“And what do you want?” the fortune-teller asks.
“I don’t know,” Bailey says.
She laughs in response, but in a friendly way, and it makes Bailey feel more at ease, as though he is just talking to a regular person and not someone mysterious or magical.
“That’s fine,” she says. “We can see what the cards have to say about the matter.”
The fortune-teller picks up the deck and shuffles, shifting the cards from one hand to the other. They fold over and under each other in waves. Then she spreads them across the table in one fluid motion, forming an arc of identical black-and-white-patterned card backs. “Choose a single card,” she says. “Take your time. This will be your card, the one that will represent you.”
Bailey looks at the arc of cards and frowns. They all look the same. Slivers of pattern, some wider than the others, some not quite as evenly lined up as the rest. He looks back and forth from end to end and then one of them catches his eye. It is more hidden than the rest, almost completely covered by the card above it. Only the edge is visible. He reaches out for it but hesitates just before his hand reaches it.
“I can touch it?” he asks. He feels the same as when he was first allowed to set the table with the nicest dishes, as though he really shouldn’t be allowed to touch such things, mixed with an acute fear of breaking something.
But the fortune-teller nods, and Bailey puts a finger on the card and pulls it away from its compatriots so it sits separately on the table.
“You may turn it over,” the fortune-teller says, and Bailey flips the card.
On the other side it is not like the black-and-red playing cards he is used to, with hearts and clubs and spades and diamonds. Instead it is a picture, inked in black and white and shades of grey.
The illustration is of a knight on horseback, like a knight from a fairy tale. His horse is white and his armor is grey, there are dark clouds in the background. The horse is mid-gallop, the knight leaning forward in the saddle, with sword drawn as though he is on his way to a great battle of some sort. Bailey stares at the card, wondering where the knight is going and what the card is supposed to mean. Cavalier d’Épées it reads in fancy script at the bottom of the card.
“This is supposed to be me?” Bailey asks. The woman smiles as she pushes the arc of cards back into a neat pile.
“It is meant to represent you, in your reading,” she says. “It could mean movement or travel. The cards do not always mean the same things every time, they change with each person.”
“That must make them hard to read,” Bailey says.
The woman laughs again.
“Sometimes,” she says. “Shall we give it a try anyway?” Bailey nods and she shuffles the cards again, over and under, and then divides them into three piles and places them in front of him, above the card with the knight. “Pick which pile you are most drawn to,” she says. Bailey studies the piles of cards. One is less neat, another larger than the other two. His eyes keep going back to the pile on the right.
“This one,” he says, and though it is mostly a guess, it feels like the proper choice. The fortune-teller nods and stacks the three piles of cards back into one deck, leaving Bailey’s chosen cards on top. She flips them over, one at a time, laying them faceup in an elaborate pattern across the table, some overlapping and others in rows, until there are about a dozen cards laid out. They are black-and-white pictures, much like the knight, some simpler, some more complicated. Many show people in various settings, and a few have animals, while some of them have cups or coins, and there are more swords. Their reflections catch and stretch in the crystal sphere that sits alongside.
For a few moments the fortune-teller looks at the cards, and Bailey wonders if she is waiting for them to tell her something. And he thinks she is smiling, but trying to hide it just a bit.
“This is interesting,” the fortune-teller says. She touches one card, a lady in flowing robes holding a set of scales, and another that Bailey cannot see as well but looks like a crumbling castle.
“What’s interesting?” Bailey asks, still confused about the process. He knows no ladies in blindfolds, has been to no crumbling castles. He’s not even sure there are any castles in New England.
“You have a journey ahead of you,” the fortune-teller says. “There’s a lot of movement. A great deal of responsibility.” She pushes one card, turns another around, and furrows her brow a bit, though Bailey still thinks she looks like she is trying to hide a smile. It is becoming easier to see her expression through her veil as his eyes adjust to the candlelight. “You are part of a chain of events, though you may not see how your actions will affect the outcome at the time.”
“I’m going to do something important, but I have to go somewhere first?” Bailey asks. He had not expected fortune-telling to be so vague. The journey part does seem to favor his grandmother’s side, though, even if Cambridge is not very far.
The fortune-teller does not immediately respond. Instead she flips over another card. This time she does not hide her smile.
“You’re looking for Poppet,” she says.
“What’s a poppet?” he asks. The fortune-teller does not answer, and instead looks up from her cards and regards him quizzically. Bailey feels her taking in his entire appearance, or more than that, with her eyes moving over his face from his scarf to his hat. He shifts in his chair.
“Is your name Bailey?” she asks. The color drains from Bailey’s cheeks and all the apprehension and nervousness he had felt earlier returns instantly. He has to swallow before he can make himself answer, in barely more than a whisper.
“Yes?” he says. It sounds like a question, as though he is not entirely sure that it is indeed his name. The fortune-teller smiles at him, a bright smile that makes him realize she is not nearly as old as he had previously thought. Perhaps only a few years older than he is.
“Interesting,” she says. He wishes she would choose a different word. “We have a mutual acquaintance, Bailey.” She looks back down at the cards on the table. “You are here this evening looking for her, I believe. Though I do appreciate that you’ve chosen to visit my tent as well.”
Bailey blinks at her, trying to take in everything she’s said, and wondering how on earth she knows the real reason he is at the circus when he has told no one about it and hardly even admits it to himself.
“You know the red-haired girl?” he says, unable to fully believe that this is, indeed, what the fortune-teller means. But she nods.
“I have known her, and her brother, all their lives,” she says. “She is a very special girl, with very lovely hair.”
“Is … is she here still?” Bailey asks. “I only met her once, the last time the circus was here.”
“She is here,” the fortune-teller says. She pushes the cards around on the table a bit more, touching one and then another, though Bailey is no longer paying attention to which card is which. “You will see her again, Bailey. There’s no doubt about that.”
Bailey resists the urge to ask her when, and instead waits to see if she has anything else to add about the cards. The fortune-teller moves a card here and there. She picks up the card with the knight from where it sits and places it on top of the crumbling castle.
“Do you like the circus, Bailey?” she asks, looking up at him again.
“It’s like no place I’ve ever been,” Bailey says. “Not that I’ve been many places,” he adds quickly. “But I think the circus is wonderful. I like it very much.”
“That would help,” the fortune-teller says.
“Help with what?” Bailey asks, but the fortune-teller does not answer. Instead, she flips over another card from the deck, placing it over the card with the knight. It is a picture of a lady pouring water into a lake, a bright shining star over her head.
It is still difficult to discern her expressions through her veil, but Bailey is certain that she frowns at the card as she places it on the table, though when she looks back up at him the frown is gone.
“You will be fine,” the fortune-teller says. “There may be decisions to make, and surprises in store. Life takes us to unexpected places sometimes. The future is never set in stone, remember that.”
“I will,” Bailey says. He thinks the fortune-teller looks a bit sad as she begins to gather up the cards on the table, putting them back into a neat pile. She saves the knight for last, placing him on the top of the deck.
“Thank you,” Bailey says. He did not receive as clear an answer about his future as he had expected, but somehow the issue does not seem as heavy as it had before. He debates whether to leave, unsure of proper fortune-telling etiquette.
“You’re welcome, Bailey,” the fortune-teller says. “It was a pleasure to read for you.”
Bailey reaches into his pocket and pulls out the bag of chocolate mice and offers it to her.
“Would you like a mouse?” he asks. Before he can mentally berate himself for doing something so silly, the fortune-teller smiles, though for a moment there is something almost sad beneath it.
“Why, yes, I would,” she says, pulling one of the chocolate mice out of the bag by its licorice tail. She places it on the top of the crystal sphere.
“They’re one of my favorites,” she confides. “Thank you, Bailey. Enjoy the rest of your time at the circus.”
“I will,” Bailey says. He stands up and walks back to the beaded curtain. He reaches to part the strings of beads and stops, suddenly, and turns around.
“What’s your name?” he asks the fortune-teller.
“You know, I’m not sure any of my querents have ever asked that before,” she says. “My name is Isobel.”
“It was nice to meet you, Isobel,” Bailey says.
“It was nice to meet you, too, Bailey,” Isobel says. “And you might want to go down the path to your right when you leave,” she adds. Bailey nods and turns back, pushing through the strands of beads into the still-empty vestibule. The beads are not so loud as they settle, and when they quiet, everything is soft and still, as though there is no other room behind them, no fortune-teller sitting at her table.
Bailey feels oddly at ease. As though he is closer to the ground, but taller at the same time. His concerns about his future no longer weigh so heavily on him as he exits the tent, turning right down the curving path that winds between the striped tents.
The Wizard in the Tree
BARCELONA, NOVEMBER 1894
The rooms hidden behind the multitude of tents in Le Cirque des Rêves are a stark contrast to the black and white of the circus. Alive with color. Warm with glowing amber lamps.
The space kept by the Murray twins is particularly vivid. A kaleidoscope of color, blazing with carmine and coral and canary, so much so that the entire room often appears to be on fire, dotted with fluffy kittens dark as soot and bright as sparks.
It is occasionally suggested that the twins should be sent to boarding school to receive a proper education, but their parents insist that they learn more from living with such a diverse company and traveling the globe than they would confined by schoolrooms and books.
The twins remain perfectly pleased with the arrangement, receiving irregular lessons on innumerable subjects and reading every book they can get their hands on, piles of them often ending up in the wrought-iron cradle they would not part with after it was outgrown.
They know every inch of the circus, moving from color to black and white with ease. Equally comfortable in both.
Tonight they sit in a striped tent beneath a rather large tree, its branches black and bare of leaves.
At this late hour there are no patrons lingering in this particular tent, and it is unlikely that any other visitors to the circus will stumble upon it in the remaining hours before dawn.
The Murray twins lean against the massive trunk, sipping steaming cups of mulled cider.
They have finished with their performances for the evening, and the remaining hours before dawn are theirs to spend as they please.
“Do you want to read tonight?” Widget asks his sister. “We could take a walk, it’s not that cold.” He pulls a pocket watch from his coat to check the time. “It’s not that late yet, either,” he adds, though their definition of late is what many would consider quite early.
Poppet bites her lip in thought for a moment before answering.
“No,” she says. “Last time everything was all red and confusing. I think maybe I should wait a bit before I try again.”
“Red and confusing?”
Poppet nods.
“It was a bunch of things overlapping,” she explains. “Fire and something red, but not at the same time. A man without a shadow. A feeling like everything was unraveling, or tangling, the way the kittens pull yarn into knots and you can’t find the beginning or the end anymore.”
“Did you tell Celia about it?” Widget asks.
“Not yet,” Poppet says. “I don’t like to tell her things that don’t make any sense. Most times things make sense eventually.”
“That’s true,” Widget says.
“Oh, and another thing,” Poppet says. “We’re going to have company. That was in there somewhere, too. I don’t know if it was before or after the other things, or sometime in between.”
“Can you see who it is?” Widget asks.
“No,” Poppet answers simply.
Widget is not surprised.
“What was the red something?” he asks. “Could you tell?”
Poppet closes her eyes, remembering.
“It looks like paint,” she says.
Widget turns to look at her.
“Paint?” he asks.
“Like spilled paint, on the ground,” Poppet answers. She closes her eyes again, but then opens them quickly. “Dark red. It’s all sort of jumbled and I don’t really like the red bit, when I saw it, it hurt my head. The company part is nicer.”
“Company would be nice,” Widget says. “Do you know when?”
Poppet shakes her head.
“Some of it feels soon. The rest of it feels far away.”
They sit quietly sipping their cider for a bit, leaning against the trunk of the tree.
“Tell me a story, please,” Poppet says after a while.
“What kind of story?” Widget asks. He always asks her, gives her an opportunity to make a request, even if he has one in mind already. Only preferred or special audiences receive such treatment.
“A story about a tree,” Poppet says, looking up through the twisting black branches above them.
Widget pauses before he starts, letting the tent and the tree settle into silent prologue while Poppet waits patiently.
“Secrets have power,” Widget begins. “And that power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept and kept well. Sharing secrets, real secrets, important ones, with even one other person, will change them. Writing them down is worse, because who can tell how many eyes might see them inscribed on paper, no matter how careful you might be with it. So it’s really best to keep your secrets when you have them, for their own good, as well as yours.
“This is, in part, why there is less magic in the world today. Magic is secret and secrets are magic, after all, and years upon years of teaching and sharing magic and worse. Writing it down in fancy books that get all dusty with age has lessened it, removed its power bit by bit. It was inevitable, perhaps, but not unavoidable. Everyone makes mistakes.
“The greatest wizard in history made the mistake of sharing his secrets. And his secrets were both magic and important, so it was a rather serious mistake.
“He told them to a girl. She was young and clever and beautiful—”
Poppet snorts into her cup. Widget stops.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “Go on, please, Widge.”
“She was young and clever and beautiful,” Widget continues. “Because if the girl had not been beautiful and clever, she would have been easier to resist, and then there would be no story at all.
“The wizard was old and quite clever himself, of course, and he had gone a very, very long time without telling his secrets to anyone at all. Maybe over the years he had forgotten about the importance of keeping them, or maybe he was distracted by her youth or beauty or cleverness. Maybe he was just tired, or maybe he had too much wine and didn’t realize what he was doing. Whatever the circumstances, he told his deepest secrets to the girl, the hidden keys to all his magic.
“And when the secrets had passed from wizard to girl, they lost bits of their power, the way cats lose bits of fur when you pet them thoroughly. But they were still potent and effective and magical, and the girl used them against the wizard. She tricked him so that she could take his secrets and make them her own. She did not particularly care about keeping them; she probably wrote them down somewhere as well.
“The wizard himself she trapped in a huge old oak tree. A tree like this one. And the magic she used to do so was strong, since it was the wizard’s own magic, ancient and powerful, and he could not undo it.
“She left him there, and he could not be rescued since no one else knew he was inside the tree. He was not dead, though. The girl might have killed him if she could, after she had coerced his secrets out of him, but she could not kill him with his own magic. Though maybe she didn’t want to at all. She was more concerned with power than with him, but she might have cared about him a little, enough to want to leave him with his life, in a way. She settled for trapping him, and to her mind it served the same purpose.
“Though really she did not succeed quite as well as she liked to think. She was careless in keeping her new magic secret. She flaunted it, and generally did not take very good care of it. Its power faded eventually, and so did she.
“The wizard, on the other hand, became part of the tree. And the tree thrived and grew, its branches spreading up to the sky and its roots reaching farther into the earth. He was part of the leaves and the bark and the sap, and part of the acorns that were carried away by squirrels to become new oak trees in other places. And when those trees grew, he was in those branches and leaves and roots as well.
“So by losing his secrets, the wizard gained immortality. His tree stood long after the clever young girl was old and no longer beautiful, and in a way, he became greater and stronger than he had ever been before. Though if he were given the chance to do it all over again, he likely would have been more careful with his secrets.” As Widget finishes, the tent settles into silence again, but the tree feels more alive than it had before he started.
“Thank you,” Poppet says. “That was a good one. Kind of sad, though, but kind of not at the same time.”
“You’re welcome,” Widget says. He takes a sip of his cider, now more warm than hot. He holds his cup in his hands and brings it to eye level, staring at it until a soft curl of steam rises from the surface.
“Do mine, too, please,” Poppet says, holding out her cup. “I can never do it right.”
“Well, I can never levitate anything right, so we’re even,” Widget says, but he takes her cup without complaint and concentrates until it too is steaming and hot again.
He moves to hand it back to her and it floats from his hand to hers, the surface of the cider wavering with the motion but otherwise moving as smoothly as if it were sliding across a table.
“Show-off,” Widget says.
They sit sipping their newly warmed cider, looking up at the twisting black branches reaching toward the top of the tent.
“Widge?” Poppet asks after a long silence.
“Yes?”
“Is it not that bad to be trapped somewhere, then? Depending on where you’re trapped?”
“I suppose it depends on how much you like the place you’re trapped in,” Widget says.
“And how much you like whoever you’re stuck there with,” Poppet adds, kicking his black boot with her white one.
Her brother laughs and the sound echoes through the tent, carried over the branches that are covered in candles. Each flame flickering and white.
Temporary Places
LONDON, APRIL 1895
Tara Burgess does not realize until after she has returned to London that the address on the card given to her by Mr. Barris is not a private residence at all but the Midland Grand Hotel.
She leaves the card sitting out on a table in her parlor for some time, glancing at it whenever she happens to be in the room. Forgetting about it for stretches of time until she remembers it again.
Lainie attempts to persuade Tara to join her for an extended holiday in Italy, but she refuses. Tara tells her sister little about her visit to Vienna, saying only that Ethan asked after her.
Lainie suggests that they might consider moving, and perhaps they should discuss it further when she returns.
Tara only nods, giving her sister a warm embrace before Lainie departs.
Alone in their town house, Tara wanders absently. She abandons halfread novels on chairs and tables.
The invitations from Mme. Padva to join her for tea or accompany her to the ballet are politely declined.
She turns all of the mirrors in the house to face the walls. Those she cannot manage to turn she covers with sheets so they sit like ghosts in empty rooms.
She has trouble sleeping.
One afternoon, after the card has sat patiently gathering dust for months, she picks it up and places it in her pocket, and she is out the door and on her way to the train before she can decide whether or not the idea is a good one.
Tara has never visited the clock-topped hotel attached to St. Pancras Station, but it strikes her immediately as a temporary place. Despite the size and solidity of the building, it feels impermanent, populated by a constant stream of guests and travelers on their way to and from other locations. Stopping only briefly before continuing to other destinations.
She inquires at the desk but they claim they have no such person listed as a guest. She repeats the name several times after the desk clerk keeps mishearing her. She tries more than one variation, as the words on the card from Mr. Barris have been smudged, and she cannot recall the proper pronunciation. The longer she stands there, the more unsure she becomes that she has ever even heard the smudged name on the card pronounced.
The clerk politely asks if she would like to leave a note, if perhaps the gentleman in question were to be arriving later in the day, but Tara declines, thanking the clerk for his time and replacing the card in her pocket.
She wanders the lobby, wondering if the address is incorrect, though it is not like Mr. Barris to provide anything less than exact information.
“Good afternoon, Miss Burgess,” a voice next to her says. She has not noticed him approach, but the man whose name she still cannot recall the proper pronunciation of is standing by her shoulder in his distinctive grey suit.
“Good afternoon,” she echoes.
“Were you looking for me?” he asks.
“I was, in fact,” Tara says. She starts to explain that Mr. Barris sent her. She reaches into her pocket, but there is no card within it and she stops, confused.
“Is something wrong?” the man in the grey suit asks.
“No,” Tara says, now unsure if she remembered to bring the card, or if it is still sitting on a table in her parlor. “I wanted to speak with you about the circus.”
“Very well,” he says. He waits for her to begin, his expression bearing something that could be construed as very mild interest.
She does her best to explain her concern. That there is more going on with the circus than most people are privy to. That there are elements she can find no reasonable explanations for. She repeats some of the things she mentioned to Mr. Barris. The concern of not being able to be certain if anything is real. How disconcerting it is to look in a mirror and see the same face, unchanged for years.
She falters frequently, finding it difficult to articulate precisely what she means.
The expression of very mild interest does not change.
“What is it you would like from me, Miss Burgess?” he asks when she has finished.
“I would like an explanation,” she says.
He regards her with the same unchanged expression for some time.
“The circus is simply a circus,” he says. “An impressive exhibition, but no more than that. Don’t you agree?”
Tara nods before she can properly process the response.
“Do you have a train to catch, Miss Burgess?” he asks.
“Yes,” Tara says. She had forgotten about her train. She wonders what time it is, but she cannot find a clock to check.
“I am headed toward the station myself, if you do not mind an escort.”
They walk the short distance from the hotel to the train platforms together. He holds doors open for her. He makes empty remarks about the weather.
“I think it may be in your best interest to find something else to occupy your time,” he says when they reach the trains. “Something to take your mind off the circus. Don’t you agree?”
Tara nods again.
“Good day, Miss Burgess,” he says with a tip of his hat.
“Good day,” she echoes.
He leaves her on the platform, and when she turns after him to see which way he went, the grey suit is nowhere to be found amongst the crowd.
Tara stands near the edge of the platform, waiting for her train. She cannot recall telling Mr. A. H— which train it was she would be taking, but he has deposited her on the proper platform nonetheless.
She feels as though there was something else she meant to ask, but now she cannot recall what it was. She cannot recall much of anything about the conversation, save for the impression that there is something else she should be spending her time on, somewhere else to be, some other matter that is more deserving of her attention.
She is wondering what that might be when a flash of grey on the opposite platform catches her eye.
Mr. A. H— stands in a shadowy corner, and even with the distance and the shadows Tara can tell that he is arguing with someone she cannot see.
Other people pass by without even glancing in their direction.
When the light from the arching overhead windows shifts, Tara can see who Mr. A. H— is arguing with.
The man is not quite as tall, the top of his hat sits leveled like a step down from the grey one, so much so that at first Tara thinks the man is only a reflection and finds it odd that Mr. A. H— would be arguing with his own reflection in the middle of a train station.
But the other suit is distinctly darker. The reflection’s hair is longer, though it is a similar shade of grey.
Through the steam and the crowd, Tara can make out the bright spots of lace at the cuffs of the shirt, the dark eyes that catch the light more than the rest of the man’s face. Aspects settle temporarily and then vanish into distorted shadows once more, never remaining steady for more than a moment.
The light filtering in from above shifts again, and the figure quavers as though she were watching through a heat haze, though Mr. A. H— remains comparatively crisp and clear.
Tara takes a step forward, her gaze fixated on the apparition on the opposite platform.
She does not see the train.
Movement
MUNICH, APRIL 1895
Herr Thiessen is always pleased when the circus arrives in his native Germany, but this time he is particularly delighted that it has arrived quite near Munich, so there is no need for him to secure rooms in another city.
Also, he has been promised a visit from Miss Celia Bowen. He has never met her, though they have been exchanging letters for years, and she expressed an interest in seeing his workshop, if he would not mind.
Friedrick replied that of course he did not mind in the least, and she would be welcome at any time.
Despite so many letters, each carefully filed in his office, he is uncertain what to expect when she arrives.
He is astonished to find the woman he knows as the illusionist standing in his doorway.
She is unmistakable, though she wears a gown of dusty rose rather than the black-and-white creations he is accustomed to seeing her in. Her skin appears warmer, her hair softly curled, and her hat bears no resemblance to the distinctive silk top hat, but he would know her face anywhere.
“This is an honor,” he says by way of greeting.
“Most people don’t recognize me outside of the circus,” Celia says as he takes her hand.
“Then most people are fools,” he says, lifting her hand to his lips and lightly kissing the back of her glove. “Though I feel a fool myself for not knowing who you were all this time.”
“I should have told you,” Celia says. “I do apologize.”
“No apology is necessary. I should have guessed you were not merely a rêveur from the way you wrote about the circus. You know every corner, better than most.”
“I am familiar with a great deal of the corners. Not all of them.”
“There remain mysteries in the circus even for its own illusionist? That is impressive.”
Celia laughs, and Friedrick takes her on a tour of his workshop.
The workshop is organized so that the front is occupied mostly by blueprints and sketches, moving on to long tables covered in various parts and a great deal of sawdust, drawers full of gears and tools. Celia listens with rapt attention as he describes the entire process, asking questions about the technical aspects as well as the creative ones.
He is surprised to learn that she speaks fluent German, though they have only written each other in English.
“I speak languages with more ease than I read or write them,” she explains. “It is something in the feel of the sounds. I could attempt to put them on paper but I am sure the result would be appalling.”
Despite his greying hair, Friedrick looks younger when he smiles. Celia cannot keep her eyes from his hands as he shows her the delicate clockwork mechanisms. She pictures the same fingers inscribing each letter she has received and read so many times that she has committed them to memory, finding it strange that she feels shy with someone she knows so well.
He watches her with equal attentiveness as they traverse the shelves of timepieces in varying stages of construction.
“May I ask you something?” he says as she looks at a collection of detailed figurines waiting patiently amongst curls of wood to be housed in their proper clocks.
“Of course,” Celia says, though she fears he will ask her how she does her magic, and she dreads having to lie to him.
“You have been in the same city as I on so many occasions, and yet this is the first time you have asked to meet. Why is that?”
Celia looks back at the figurines on the table before she responds. Friedrick reaches out and rights a tiny ballerina that has fallen sideways, returning her to balance on her ribboned slippers.
“Before, I did not want you to know who I was,” Celia says. “I thought you might think of me differently if you did. But after so long I felt I was being dishonest. I had wanted to tell you the truth for some time, and I could not resist the chance to see your workshop. I hope you can forgive me.”
“You have nothing to be forgiven for,” Friedrick says. “A woman I should like to think I know rather well and a woman I had always considered a mystery are, in fact, the same person. It is surprising, but I do not mind a good surprise. Though I am curious as to why you wrote me that first letter.”
“I enjoyed your writings about the circus,” Celia says. “It is a perspective that I am not able to view it from properly, because I … understand it in a different way. I like being able to see it through your eyes.” When she looks up at him, his soft blue eyes are bright in the afternoon sunlight that shines through the windows, illuminating the speckles of sawdust in the air.
“Thank you, Miss Bowen,” Friedrick says.
“Celia,” she corrects.
He gives her a thoughtful nod before continuing the tour.
The back walls are covered with finished or nearly finished timepieces. Clocks waiting only for final coats of varnish or other minor details. The clocks closest to the windows are already in motion. Each moving in its unique way, but keeping the same harmonious rhythm, a symphony of carefully ordered ticking.
The one that attracts Celia’s attention rests on a table rather than hanging on the wall or sitting on a shelf.
It is a beautiful piece, more sculpture than clock. While many of the clocks are wood, this one is predominantly dark, oxidized metal. A large, round cage set on a wooden base that has been carved into swirling white flames. Within, there are overlapping metal hoops marked with numbers and symbols suspended from the top, hanging amongst the visible gears and a series of stars falling from the filigree cap at the top.
But the clock sits quiet, unmoving.
“This one reminds me of the bonfire,” Celia says. “Is it not finished?”
“No, it is complete, but broken,” Friedrick replies. “It was an experiment, and the components are difficult to balance properly.” He turns it so she can see the way the workings extend through the entirety of the cage, stretching in all directions. “The mechanics are complex, as it tracks astronomical movement as well. I shall have to remove the base and dismantle it entirely to get it running again. I have not yet had the time it will require.”
“May I?” Celia asks, reaching out to touch it. When he nods, she removes one of her gloves and rests her hand on the metal bars of the cage.
She only watches it thoughtfully, she makes no attempt to move it. To Friedrick, it appears she is gazing through the clock rather than simply looking at it.
Inside, the mechanism begins to turn, the cogs and gears waltzing together as the number-marked hoops spin into place. The hands glide to indicate the proper time, the planetary alignments set themselves in order.
Everything within the cage rotates slowly, the silver stars sparkling as they catch the light.
Once the slow, steady tick begins, Celia removes her hand.
Friedrick does not inquire as to how she managed it.
Instead, he takes her to dinner. They do speak of the circus, but spend most of the meal discussing books and art, wine and favorite cities. The pauses in the conversation are not awkward, though they struggle to find the same rhythm in speaking that was already present in their written exchanges, often switching from one language to another.
“Why haven’t you asked me how I do my tricks?” Celia asks, once they have reached the point where she is certain he is not simply being polite about the matter.
Friedrick considers the question thoroughly before he responds.
“Because I do not wish to know,” he says. “I prefer to remain unenlightened, to better appreciate the dark.”
The sentiment delights Celia so that she cannot properly respond in any of their common languages, and only smiles at him over her wine.
“Besides,” Friedrick continues, “you must be asked such things constantly. I find I am more interested in learning about the woman than the magician. I hope that is acceptable.”
“It’s perfect,” Celia says.
They walk together to the circus afterward, past red-roofed buildings glowing in the dying light, going their separate ways only once they reach the courtyard.
Friedrick remains mystified as to why no one seems to recognize her as she walks anonymously amongst the crowd.
When he watches her performance she only catches his eye once with a subtle smile, giving no other hint of recognition.
Later, long after midnight, she appears by his side as he walks, wearing a cream-colored coat and a deep green scarf.
“Your scarf should be red,” Friedrick remarks.
“I am not a proper rêveur,” Celia says. “It would not feel right.” But as she speaks, her scarf shifts in hue to a rich, wine-like burgundy. “Is that better?”
“It is perfect,” Friedrick says, though his gaze remains fixed on her eyes.
She takes his offered arm and they walk together along the twisting pathways, through the dwindling crowd of patrons.
They repeat this routine in the following evenings, though the circus does not remain in Munich long, once the news arrives from London.
In Loving Memory of Tara Burgess
GLASGOW, APRIL 1895
The funeral is a quiet one, despite the number of mourners present. There are no sobs or flailing handkerchiefs. There is a smattering of color amongst the sea of traditional black. Even the light rain cannot push it down into the realms of despair. It rests instead in a space of thoughtful melancholy.
Perhaps it is because it does not feel as though Tara Burgess is entirely gone, when her sister sits alive and well. One half of the pair still breathing and vibrant.
And at the same time something looks strikingly wrong to everyone who lays eyes on the surviving sister. Something they can’t quite put their finger on. Something out of balance.
An occasional tear rolls down Lainie Burgess’s cheek but she greets each mourner with a smile and thanks them for attending. She makes jokes that Tara might have quipped were she not inside the polishedwood coffin. There are no other family members present, though some less familiar acquaintances assume that the white-haired woman and bespectacled man who seldom leave Lainie’s side are her mother and husband, respectively. While they are incorrect, neither Mme. Padva nor Mr. Barris mind the mistake.
There are countless roses. Red roses, white roses, pink roses. There is even a single black rose amongst the blossoms, though no one knows its origin. Chandresh takes credit only for the white blooms, keeping one pinned to his lapel that he toys with distractedly throughout the service.
When Lainie speaks about her sister her words are met with sighs and laughter and sad smiles.
“I do not mourn the loss of my sister because she will always be with me, in my heart,” she says. “I am, however, rather annoyed that my Tara has left me to suffer you lot alone. I do not see as well without her. I do not hear as well without her. I do not feel as well without her. I would be better off without a hand or a leg than without my sister. Then at least she would be here to mock my appearance and claim to be the pretty one for a change. We have all lost our Tara, but I have lost a part of myself as well.”
In the cemetery there is a single performer that even some of the mourners who are not part of Le Cirque des Rêves recognize, though the woman bedecked from head to toe in snowiest white has added a pair of feathered wings to her costume. They cascade down her back and flutter gently in the breeze while she remains still as stone. Many of the attendants seem surprised by her presence but they take their cues from Lainie, who is delighted at the sight of the living angel standing over her sister’s grave.
It was the Burgess sisters, after all, who originated the tradition of such statues within the circus. Performers standing stock-still with elaborate costumes and painted skin on platforms set up in precarious spaces between tents. If watched for hours, they sometimes change position entirely, but the motion will be agonizingly slow, to the point that many observers insist that they are cleverly crafted automatons and not proper people.
The circus contains several of these performers. The star-speckled Empress of the Night. The coal-dark Black Pirate. The one that now watches over Tara Burgess is most often referred to as the Snow Queen.
There is the softest of sobbing as the coffin is lowered into the ground, but it is difficult to pinpoint who it is coming from, or if it is instead a collective sound of mingled sighs and wind and shifting feet.
The rain increases and umbrellas sprout like mushrooms amongst the graves. The damp dirt turns quickly to mud and the remainder of the burial is hastened to accommodate the weather.
The ceremony fades out rather than ending properly, the mourners shifting from neat rows to mingling crowd without a distinct moment to mark the change. Many linger to pass additional condolences on to Lainie, though some move off to seek shelter from the rain before the last of the dirt has settled.
Isobel and Tsukiko stand side by side some distance from Tara’s grave, sharing a large black umbrella that Isobel holds over their heads in one black-gloved hand. Tsukiko insists she does not mind the rain but Isobel shelters her anyway, grateful for the company.
“How did she die?” Tsukiko asks. It is a question that others have asked in hushed whispers throughout the afternoon and has been met with various answers, few of them satisfying. Those who know the details are not forthcoming.
“I was told it was an accident,” Isobel says quietly. “She was hit by a train.”
Tsukiko nods thoughtfully, pulling a silver cigarette holder and matching lighter from the pocket of her coat.
“How did she really die?” she asks.
“What do you mean?” Isobel says, looking around to see if anyone is close enough to overhear their conversation, but most of the mourners have dissipated into the rain. Only a handful remain, including Celia Bowen with Poppet Murray clinging to her gown, the girl wearing a frown that seems more angry than sad.
Lainie and Mr. Barris stand next to Tara’s grave, the angel hovering over them close enough to lay its hands upon their heads.
“You have seen things that defy belief, have you not?” Tsukiko asks.
Isobel nods.
“Do you think perhaps those things would be more difficult to reconcile if you were not part of them yourself? Perhaps to the point of driving one mad? The mind is a sensitive thing.”
“I don’t think she stepped in front of the train on purpose,” Isobel says, trying to keep her voice as low as possible.
“Perhaps not,” Tsukiko says. “I contend it is a possibility, at the very least.” She lights her cigarette, the flame catching easily despite the dampness of the air.
“It could have been an accident,” Isobel says.
“Have you had any accidents recently? Any broken bones, burns, any injury at all?” Tsukiko asks.
“No,” Isobel says.
“Have you taken ill? Even the slightest of sniffles?”
“No.” Isobel racks her brain for the last time she felt under the weather and she can only come up with a head cold she had a decade ago, the winter before she met Marco.
“I do not believe any of us have since the circus started,” Tsukiko says. “And no one has died until now. No one has been born, either, not since the Murray twins. Though it is not for lack of trying, given the way some of the acrobats carry on.”
“I … ” Isobel starts but cannot finish. It is too much for her to wrap her mind around, and she is not sure she wants to be able to understand it.
“We are fish in a bowl, dear,” Tsukiko tells her, cigarette holder dangling precariously from her lips. “Very carefully monitored fish. Watched from all angles. If one of us floats to the top, it was not accidental. And if it was an accident, I worry that the watchers are not as careful as they should be.”
Isobel stays silent. She wishes Marco had accompanied Chandresh, though she doubts he would answer any of her questions, if he consented to speaking to her at all. Every reading she has done privately on the matter has been complicated, but there is always the presence of strong emotion on his part. She knows he cares about the circus, she has never had any reason to doubt that.
“Have you ever read your cards for someone who could not understand what they were dealing with, even though to you it was clear from only a short conversation and pictures on paper?” Tsukiko asks.
“Yes,” Isobel says. She has seen them hundreds of times, the querents who could not see things for what they were. Blind to betrayals and heartbreak, and always stubborn, no matter how gently she tried to explain.
“It is difficult to see a situation for what it is when you are in the midst of it,” Tsukiko says. “It is too familiar. Too comfortable.”
Tsukiko pauses. The curls of smoke from her cigarette slide between the raindrops as they wind around her head and up into the damp air.
“Perhaps the late Miss Burgess was close enough to the edge that she could see it differently,” she says.
Isobel frowns, looking back toward Tara’s grave. Lainie and Mr. Barris have turned and are walking away slowly, his arm around her shoulders.
“Have you ever been in love, Kiko?” Isobel asks.
Tsukiko’s shoulders stiffen as she exhales slowly. For a moment Isobel thinks her question will go unanswered, but then she replies.
“I have had affairs that lasted decades and others that lasted hours. I have loved princesses and peasants. And I suppose they loved me, each in their way.”
This is a typical Tsukiko response, one that does not truly answer the question. Isobel does not pry.
“It will come apart,” Tsukiko says after a long while. Isobel does not need to ask what she means. “The cracks are beginning to show. Sooner or later it is bound to break.” She pauses to take a final drag off her cigarette. “Are you still tempering?”
“Yes,” Isobel says. “But I don’t think it’s helping.”
“It is difficult to discern the effect of such things, you know. Your perspective is from the inside, after all. The smallest charms can be the most effective.”
“It doesn’t seem to be very effective.”
“Perhaps it is controlling the chaos within more than the chaos without.”
Isobel does not reply. Tsukiko shrugs and says no more.
After a moment they turn to leave together without discussion.
The snow-white angel alone remains, hovering over Tara Burgess’s fresh grave, holding a single black rose in one hand. She does not move, does not even bat an eyelash. Her powdered face stays frozen in sorrow.
The increasing rain pulls stray feathers from her wings and pins them to the mud below.
L A B R Y I N T H
You walk down a hallway papered in playing cards, row upon row of clubs and spades. Lanterns fashioned from additional cards hang above, swinging gently as you pass by.
A door at the end of the hall leads to a spiraling iron staircase.
The stairs go both up and down. You go up, finding a trapdoor in the ceiling.
The room it opens into is full of feathers that flutter downward. When you walk through them, they fall like snow over the door in the floor, obscuring it from sight.
There are six identical doors. You choose one at random, trailing a few feathers with you.
The scent of pine is overwhelming as you enter the next room to find yourself in a forest full of evergreen trees. Only these trees are not green but bright and white, luminous in the darkness surrounding them.
They are difficult to navigate. As soon as you begin walking the walls are lost in shadows and branches.
There is a sound like a woman laughing nearby, or perhaps it is only the rustling of the trees as you push your way forward, searching for the next door, the next room.
You feel the warmth of breath on your neck, but when you turn there is no one there.
Ailuromancy
CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS, OCTOBER 1902
Leaving the fortune-teller’s tent and heading right, as she had suggested, Bailey almost immediately encounters a small crowd watching a performance. He cannot tell what it is at first, there is no raised platform involved. Peering through the space between spectators, he can see a hoop, larger than the one the contortionist used, held in the air. As he moves closer, he glimpses a black kitten leaping through it, landing somewhere out of sight.
A woman in front of him with a large hat turns and then he can see a young man about his own age, but a bit shorter, dressed in a black suit made of all manner of fabrics, and a matching black hat. On his shoulders sits a pair of stark-white kittens. As he lifts his black-gloved hand, palm open, one of the kittens jumps into it and bounces off his palm, leaping through the hoop, executing a rather impressive somersault at the pinnacle of its leap. Several members of the small audience laugh, and a few, including Bailey, applaud. The woman in the large hat steps aside completely, clearing Bailey’s line of sight. His hands freeze in mid-clap when he sees the young lady who has just caught the white kitten and is now lifting it to her shoulder where it sits along with the black kitten.
She is older, as he expected, and her red hair is somehow concealed within a white cap. But her costume is similar to the one she had been wearing when he last saw her: a patchwork dress of every fabric imaginable, each in tones of snowy white, a white jacket with lots of buttons, and a pair of bright-white gloves.
She turns her head, Bailey catches her eye, and she smiles at him. Not in the way that one smiles at a random member of the audience when one is in the middle of performing circus tricks with unusually talented kittens but in the way that one smiles when one recognizes someone they have not seen in some time. Bailey can tell the difference, and the fact that she remembers who he is makes him inexplicably and utterly pleased. He feels his ears getting rather hot despite the cold of the night air.
He watches the rest of the act with rapt attention, paying a fair deal more attention to the girl than the kittens, though the kittens are too impressive to ignore, and they steal his attention back periodically. When the act is finished, the girl and boy (and kittens) take a short bow, and the crowd claps and hoots.
Bailey is wondering what he should say, if he should say anything, as the crowd begins to disperse. A man pushes in front of him, another woman blocks his way to the side, and he loses sight of the girl completely. He pushes through the throng of people, and when he is free of them, the girl and the boy and the kittens are nowhere to be seen.
The crowd around him quickly dwindles to only a few people wandering up and down the pathway. There are no other directions to go, as far as he can tell. Only tall striped walls of tents line the area, and he turns around slowly, looking for any possible place they might have disappeared to, some corner or door. He is kicking himself for coming so close only to fail, when there is a tap on his shoulder.
“Hello, Bailey,” the girl says. She is standing right behind him. She has taken off her hat, her red hair falling in waves around her shoulders, and she has replaced her white jacket with a heavy black coat and a knit scarf in a vibrant violet. Only the ruffled hem of her dress and her white boots give any indication that she is the same girl who was performing in the same spot moments ago. Otherwise, she looks like any other patron at the circus.
“Hello,” Bailey says. “I don’t know your name.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says. “I forgot that we were never properly introduced.” She holds out her white-gloved hand, and Bailey notices that it is larger than the glove he was given as proof of a long-ago dare. “I’m Penelope, but no one ever calls me that and I don’t really like it anyway, so for all intents and purposes my name is Poppet.”
Bailey takes her hand and shakes it. It is warmer than he expected, even through two layers of glove.
“Poppet,” Bailey repeats. “The fortune-teller told me that, but I didn’t realize it was your name.”
The girl smiles at him.
“You saw Isobel?” she asks. Bailey nods. “Isn’t she lovely?” Bailey continues to nod, though he’s not sure nodding is an appropriate response. “Did she tell you anything good about your future?” Poppet asks, lowering her voice to a dramatic whisper.
“She told me a lot of things I didn’t understand,” Bailey confesses.
Poppet nods knowingly.
“She does that,” Poppet says. “But she means well.”
“Are you allowed to be out here like this?” Bailey asks, indicating the steady stream of circus patrons that continues to wander by, completely ignoring them.
“Oh yes,” Poppet says, “as long as we’re incognito.” She indicates her coat. “No one really gives us a second glance. Right, Widget?” She turns to a young man standing nearby, who Bailey had not even recognized as Poppet’s performance partner. He has switched his black jacket for a tweedy brown one, and his hair under his matching cap is just as shockingly red as Poppet’s.
“People don’t pay much attention to anything unless you give them reason to,” he says. “Though the hair helps, too, for looking like we don’t belong in a black-and-white circus.”
“Bailey, this is my brother, Winston,” Poppet says.
“Widget,” he corrects.
“I was getting to that,” Poppet says, sounding a bit cross. “And Widge, this is Bailey.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Bailey says, offering his hand.
“Likewise,” Widget responds in turn. “We were off for a walk, if you’d like to join us.”
“Do come, please,” Poppet adds. “We hardly ever have company.”
“Sure, I’d like that,” Bailey says. He cannot think of a single reason to refuse, and is pleased that they both seem remarkably easy to talk to. “Do you not have to do any more, uh, circus things?”
“Not for a few hours, at least,” Widget says, as they start off down another pathway through the circus. “The kittens need to nap. Performing makes them sleepy.”
“They’re very good, how do you make them do all those tricks? I’ve never seen a cat do a somersault in midair,” Bailey says. He notices that all three of them are walking at the same pace, staying easily together as a group. He is much more used to following a few steps behind.
“Most cats will do anything if you ask them nicely,” Poppet says. “But it helps to train them early.”
“And to give them lots of treats,” Widget adds. “Treats always help.”
“Have you seen the big cats?” Poppet asks. Bailey shakes his head. “Oh, you should. Our parents do the big-cat show; their tent is down that way.” She points in a direction vaguely to the right.
“It’s like our performance, only with bigger cats,” Widget says.
“Much bigger cats,” Poppet elaborates. “Panthers and beautiful spotted snow leopards. They’re sweet, really.”
“And they have a tent,” Widget adds.
“Why don’t you have a tent?” Bailey asks.
“We don’t really need one,” Poppet says. “We can only do a few shows a night, and all we need are the kittens and hoops and strings and things. Anyone who doesn’t really need a tent performs wherever there’s room.”
“It adds to the ambience,” Widget says. “So you can see bits of the circus without having to pick a tent to go into, just wandering around.”
“That’s probably very good for indecisive people,” Bailey says, smiling when Poppet and Widget both laugh. “It is hard to choose a tent, you know, when there are so many.”
“That’s true,” Poppet says. They’ve reached the bonfire courtyard. It is quite crowded and Bailey is still surprised that no one pays them much attention, assuming that they are just the same as any group of young circus patrons visiting for the evening.
“I’m hungry,” Widget says.
“You’re always hungry,” Poppet retorts. “Shall we get something to eat?”
“Yes,” Widget says.
Poppet sticks her tongue out at him. “I was asking Bailey,” she says. “Shall we get something to eat, Bailey?”
“Sure,” Bailey says. Poppet and Widget seem to get along much better than he and Caroline ever have, and he assumes it is because they are closer to the same age. He wonders if they are twins; they certainly look enough alike to be twins, and he thinks it might be rude to ask.
“Have you tried the cinnamon things?” Poppet asks. “They’re rather new. What are they called, Widge?”
“Fantastically delicious cinnamon things?” Widget says, shrugging. “I don’t think all of the new things have names yet.”
“I haven’t, but they sound good,” Bailey says.
“They are good,” Widget says. “Layers of pastry and cinnamon and sugar all rolled into a twist and covered in icing.”
“Wow,” Bailey says.
“Exactly,” Widget replies. “And we should get some cocoa and some chocolate mice.”
“I have chocolate mice,” Bailey says, pulling the bag out of his pocket. “I bought them earlier.”
“Ah, you think ahead. Very good to be prepared,” Widget says. “You were right about him, Poppet.”
Bailey looks at Poppet quizzically, but she only smiles at him.
“Shall Bailey and I get cocoa while you get the cinnamon whatnots?” she asks, and Widget nods his approval of this plan.
“Certainly. Meet you at the bonfire?” he asks. Poppet nods, and Widget tips his hat to them both and goes off into the crowd.
Bailey and Poppet continue to walk around the bonfire courtyard. After a few moments of amicable silence, Bailey works up the nerve to ask a question, one he’s not sure he’ll be comfortable asking once they meet back up with Widget.
“Can I ask you something?” Bailey asks.
“Of course,” Poppet says. There is a bit of a line for cocoa, but the vendor notices Poppet who flashes three fingers at him, and he smiles and nods in return.
“When … um, when the circus was here last time and I, well … ” Bailey struggles for words, annoyed that the question seems simpler in his head.
“Yes?” Poppet says.
“How did you know my name?” Bailey asks. “And how did you know I was there?”
“Hmmmm … ” Poppet says, as though she is having difficulty finding the proper words to respond with. “It’s not easy to explain,” she starts. “I see things before they happen. I saw you coming, not long before you got there. And I don’t always see details well, but when I saw you I knew what your name was, like knowing that your scarf is blue.”
They reach the front of the line and the vendor has three cups of cocoa in striped cups waiting for them already, with clouds of extra whipped cream on top. Poppet hands one to Bailey and takes the other two herself, and Bailey notices that the vendor waves them off with no money having changed hands. He assumes that free cocoa is a benefit of being a member of the circus.
“So you see everything before it happens?” Bailey asks. He is not sure Poppet’s answer is entirely what he expected, if he expected anything at all.
Poppet shakes her head.
“No, not everything. Sometimes just bits of things like words and pictures in a book, but the book has lots of pages missing and it’s been dropped in a pond and some parts are blurry but other parts aren’t. Does that make sense?” she asks.
“Not really,” Bailey answers.
Poppet laughs. “I know it’s strange,” she says.
“No, it’s not,” Bailey says. Poppet turns to look at him, the skepticism at the statement evident on her face. “Well, yes, it is kind of strange. But just odd strange, not bad strange.”
“Thank you, Bailey,” Poppet says. They circle the courtyard, heading back to the bonfire. Widget is waiting for them, holding a black paper bag and watching the vibrant white flames.
“What took you so long?” Widget asks.
“We had a line,” Poppet says, handing him his cocoa. “Didn’t you?”
“No. I don’t think people have figured out how good these things are yet,” Widget says, shaking the bag. “Are we set, then?”
“I think so,” Poppet says.
“Where are we going?” Bailey asks.
Poppet and Widget exchange a glance before Poppet answers.
“We’re doing rounds,” she says. “Circles of the circus. To … to keep an eye on things. You do want to come with us, don’t you?”
“Of course,” Bailey says, relieved that he is not an imposition.
They walk in loops around the circus, sipping their cocoa and munching on chocolate mice and the sugary cinnamon pastry things, which are just as good as promised. Poppet and Widget tell him stories of the circus, pointing out tents as they pass by, and Bailey answers their questions about his town, finding it strange that they seem interested in what he considers very mundane things. They speak with the ease of people who have known each other for years, and the excitement of new friends with new stories.
If Poppet and Widget are keeping an eye on anything beyond their cocoa and himself, Bailey cannot tell what it might be.
“What’s the Stargazer?” he asks, catching sight of a sign he has not seen before, as they discard their empty cups and bags.
“Up for gazing, Poppet?” Widget asks his sister. She pauses before she nods. “Poppet reads the stars,” he explains to Bailey. “It’s the easiest place to see the future.”
“It hasn’t been all that easy lately,” Poppet says quietly. “But we can ride. It’s only open on clear nights, so who knows if we’ll get another chance while we’re here.”
They step inside, joining a line that ascends a curving stairway around the perimeter, separated from the interior of the tent by a heavy black curtain. The walls are covered in diagrams, white spots and lines on black paper, framed maps of constellations.
“Is it like the way the fortune-teller reads those cards with pictures on them?” Bailey asks, still trying to wrap his mind around the idea of seeing the future.
“Sort of like that, but different,” Poppet says. “I can’t read tarot cards at all, but Widget can.”
“They’re stories on paper,” Widget says, shrugging. “You see how the stories in each card go together; it’s not really that hard. But with those you have all different possibilities and things, different paths to take. Poppet sees things that actually happen.”
“But they’re not as clear,” Poppet explains. “There isn’t context, and most of the time I don’t know what things mean until later. Sometimes not until it’s too late.”
“Disclaimers accepted, ’Pet,” Widget says, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “It can just be a ride if you want.”
At the top of the stairs they reach a black platform, where everything is endlessly dark save for a circus worker in a white suit who is guiding patrons inside. He smiles at Poppet and Widget, with a curious glance at Bailey, as he escorts them through the darkness into something like a sleigh or a carriage.
They slide onto a cushioned bench with a high back and sides, the door on one side clicking closed as Poppet settles in between Bailey and Widget. It glides forward slowly, and Bailey can see nothing but darkness.
Then something around them clicks softly and the carriage falls just a bit, and at the same time it tilts backward so they are looking up instead of forward.
The tent has no top, Bailey realizes. The upper portion of it is open, with the night sky fully visible.
It is a different sensation than watching the stars while lying in a field, something Bailey has done many times. There are no trees creeping into the edges, and the gentle swaying of the carriage makes him feel almost weightless.
And it is incredibly quiet. As the carriage moves along in what seems to be a circular pattern, Bailey can hear nothing but a soft creak and the sound of Poppet breathing next to him. It is as though the entire circus has faded away into the darkness.
He glances over at Poppet, who is looking at him instead of the sky. She gives him a grin and then turns away.
Bailey wonders if he should ask if she sees anything in the stars.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Widget says, anticipating the question.
Poppet turns to make a face at him but then focuses her gaze upward, looking into the clear night sky. Bailey watches her carefully. She looks as though she is contemplating a painting or reading a sign from far away, squinting just a little.
She stops suddenly, putting her hands to her face, pressing her whitegloved fingers over her eyes. Widget puts a hand on her shoulder.
“Are you all right?” Bailey asks.
Poppet takes a deep breath before she nods, keeping her hands over her face.
“I’m fine,” she says with a muffled voice. “It was very … bright. It made my head hurt.”
She takes her hands from her face and shakes her head; whatever distress she had been in has apparently passed.
For the remainder of the ride none of them look up at the starspeckled sky.
“I’m sorry,” Bailey says quietly as they walk down another curving stairway in order to exit.
“It’s not your fault,” Poppet says. “I should have known better, the stars have been doing that lately, making no sense and giving me headaches. I should probably stop trying for a while.”
“You need some cheering,” Widget says as they return to the din of the circus. “Cloud Maze?”
Poppet nods, her shoulders relaxing a bit.
“What’s the Cloud Maze?” Bailey asks.
“You haven’t found any of the best tents yet, have you?” Widget says, shaking his head. “You’re going to have to come back, we can’t do all of them in one night. Maybe that’s why ’Pet got a headache, she saw us having to drag you through every single tent to see what you’ve been missing.”
“Widge can see the past,” Poppet says suddenly, diverting the conversation. “It’s one of the reasons his stories are always so good.”
“The past is easier,” Widget says. “It’s already there.”
“In the stars?” Bailey asks.
“No,” Widget says. “On people. The past stays on you the way powdered sugar stays on your fingers. Some people can get rid of it but it’s still there, the events and things that pushed you to where you are now. I can … well, read isn’t the right word, but it’s not the right word for what Poppet does with the stars, either.”
“So you can see my past on me?” Bailey asks.
“I could,” Widget says. “I try not to do it without permission if there’s nothing that jumps out automatically. Do you mind?”
Bailey shakes his head. “Not at all.”
Widget stares at him for a moment, not quite long enough for Bailey to become uncomfortable under the weight of his eyes, but almost.
“There’s a tree,” Widget says. “This massive old oak tree that’s more home to you than your house but not as much as this is.” He gestures around at the tents and the lights. “Feeling like you’re alone even when you’re with other people. Apples. And your sister seems like a real gem,” he adds sarcastically.
“That sounds about right,” Bailey says with a laugh.
“What are the apples?” Poppet asks.
“My family has a farm with an orchard,” Bailey explains.
“Oh, that sounds lovely,” Poppet says. Bailey has never considered the rows of short, twisted trees lovely.
“Here we are,” Widget says as they round a turn.
Despite his limited experience with the circus, Bailey is amazed that he has never seen this tent before. It is tall, almost as tall as the acrobat tent but narrower. He stops to read the sign over the door.
The Cloud Maze
Inside, the tent is dark-walled with an immense, iridescent white structure in the center. Bailey can think of nothing else to call it. It takes up the entirety of the tent save for a raised path along the perimeter, a winding loop that begins at the tent entrance and circles around. The floor beyond the path is covered with white spheres, thousands of them piled like soap bubbles.
The tower itself is a series of platforms swooping in odd, diaphanous shapes, quite similar to clouds. They are layered, like a cake. From what Bailey can see, the space between layers varies from room enough to walk straight through to barely enough to crawl. Here and there parts of it almost float away from the central tower, drifting off into space.
And everywhere, there are people climbing. Hanging on edges, walking through paths, climbing higher or lower. Some platforms move with the weight; others seem strong and sturdy. The whole of it moves constantly, a light movement like breathing.
“Why is it called a maze?” Bailey asks.
“You’ll see,” Widget says.
They walk along the path and it sways gently, like a dock on water. Bailey struggles to keep his balance while he looks up.
Some platforms are suspended from ropes or chains from above. On lower levels, there are large poles driven through multiple platforms, though Bailey cannot tell if they reach all the way to the top. In some places there are swoops of netting, in others ropes hang like ribbons.
They stop on the far side, where the path swings close enough to jump onto one of the lower platforms.
Bailey picks up one of the white spheres. It is lighter than it looks, and kitten soft. Across the tent, people toss them at each other like snowballs, though instead of breaking they bounce off of their targets, floating gently down. Bailey tosses the one in his hand back and follows Poppet and Widget.
As soon as they have walked a few paces into the structure, Bailey can see why it is called a maze. He had expected walls and turns and dead ends, but this is different. Platforms hang at all levels: some low by his knees or his waist, others stretch high above his head, overlapping in irregular patterns. It is a maze that goes up and down as well as side to side.
“See you later,” Widget says, hopping onto a nearby platform and climbing onto the one above it.
“Widge always goes straight to the very top,” Poppet says. “He knows all the fastest routes to get there.”
Bailey and Poppet take a more leisurely route, choosing platforms to climb at random, crawling up bits of white netting and maneuvering carefully through narrow passages. Bailey cannot tell where the edges are, or how high they have climbed, but he is relieved that Poppet seems much less troubled than she had been on the Stargazer as she laughs, helping him through the more difficult turns.
“How do we get down?” Bailey asks eventually, wondering how they will ever find their way back.
“The easiest way is to jump,” Poppet says. She pulls him over to a hidden turn that reveals the edge of the platform.
They are much higher than Bailey had suspected, even though they have not reached the top.
“It’s okay,” Poppet says. “It’s safe.”
“This is impossible,” Bailey says, peering out over the ledge.
“Nothing’s impossible,” Poppet responds. She smiles at him and jumps, her red hair trailing out behind her as she falls.
She disappears into the sea of white spheres below, enveloped completely before popping back up, her hair a shock of red against the white as she waves at him.
Bailey only hesitates for a moment, and he resists the urge to close his eyes as he leaps. Instead he laughs as he tumbles through the air.
Reaching the pool of spheres below it is truly like falling into a cloud, soft and light and comforting.
When Bailey climbs out, Poppet and Widget are both waiting on the path nearby, Poppet sitting on the edge with her legs dangling over the side.
“We should be getting back,” Widget says, pulling a watch from his pocket. “We have to get the kittens ready for another show and it’s nearly midnight.”
“Is it really?” Bailey asks. “I didn’t know it was that late, I should have been home by now.”
“Let us walk you to the gates, Bailey, please?” Poppet asks. “There’s something I want to get for you.”
They walk together back along the winding paths, making their way across the courtyard toward the gates. Poppet takes Bailey’s hand to pull him through the curtained tunnel, navigating the dark turns effortlessly. The field visible beyond the gates when they reach the other side is not crowded at this late hour, though a few scattered patrons coming or going linger nearby.
“Wait here,” Poppet says. “I’ll be right back.” She runs off in the direction of the ticket booth while Bailey watches the clock tick closer to twelve. Within moments, Poppet is back, something silver in her hand.
“Oh, brilliant idea, ’Pet,” Widget says when he sees it. Bailey looks back and forth at them, confused. It is a silver piece of paper, about the size of his ticket. Poppet hands it to him.
“It’s a special pass,” she explains. “For important guests, so you don’t have to pay every time you come to the circus. You show it at the booth and they’ll let you in.”
Bailey stares at it, wide-eyed.
This card entitles the holder to unlimited admission
is imprinted on one side in black ink, and on the reverse it reads:
Le Cirque des Rêves
and in smaller letters beneath that:
Chandresh Christophe Lefèvre, Proprietor
Bailey is dumbstruck, staring at the shiny silver card.
“I thought you might like it,” Poppet said, sounding unnerved by his lack of articulate response. “That is, if you want to come back while we’re here.”
“It’s wonderful,” Bailey says, looking up from the card. “Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome,” Poppet says, smiling. “And I told them to tell me and Widget when you arrive, so we’ll know when you’re here and we can come find you. If that’s all right with you.”
“That would be great,” Bailey says. “Really, thank you.”
“So we’ll see you soon, then,” Widget says, offering his hand.
“Definitely,” Bailey answers as he takes it. “I can come back tomorrow night.”
“That would be perfect,” Poppet says. As Bailey lets go of Widget’s hand, she leans forward and kisses him quickly on the cheek, and Bailey can feel his cheeks flush. “Have a good night,” she adds as she pulls away.
“Y-you too,” Bailey says. “Good night.” He waves at them before they slip back through the heavy curtain, and once they disappear he turns to walk home.
It seems a lifetime ago that he walked to the circus, though it was only a few hours. And more than that, it feels as though the Bailey who entered the circus was an entirely different person than the one leaving it now, with a silver ticket in his pocket. He wonders which is the real Bailey, for certainly the Bailey who spent hours in trees alone is not the Bailey who is granted special admission to a spectacular circus, who makes friends with such interesting people without even trying.
By the time he reaches the farm, he is sure that the Bailey he is now is closer to the Bailey he is supposed to be than the Bailey he had been the day before. He may not be certain what any of it means, but for now he does not think that it much matters.
In his dreams, he is a knight on horseback, carrying a silver sword, and it does not really seem that strange after all.
Tête-à-Tête
LONDON, AUGUST 1896
The Midnight Dinner is rather subdued tonight, despite the number of guests. The circus is preparing for a stretch near London, having recently departed Dublin, so there are a handful of performers present. Mr. Barris is visiting from Vienna as well.
Celia Bowen spends much of the meal talking with Mme. Padva, who is seated to her left, draped in lapis-blue silk.
The gown Celia wears is a Padva design, one that was created for her to perform in but then deemed inappropriate, the silver fabric catching the light at every tuck and curve in such a way that it proved too distracting. The effect was so flattering that Celia could not bear to give it up, and instead kept it for normal wear.
“Someone cannot keep his eyes off of you, my dear,” Mme. Padva remarks, subtly tilting her glass in the direction of the door, where Marco is standing quietly to the side, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Perhaps he is admiring your handiwork,” Celia says without turning.
“I would wager that he is more interested in the contents than the gown itself.”
Celia only laughs, but she knows that Mme. Padva is correct, as she has felt Marco’s gaze burning into the back of her neck all evening, and she is finding it increasingly difficult to ignore.
His attention only wavers away from Celia once, when Chandresh knocks over a heavy crystal wineglass that narrowly avoids crashing into one of the candelabras, spilling red wine over the gold brocade of the tablecloth.
But before Marco can react, Celia leaps to her feet from across the table, righting the glass without touching it, a detail only Chandresh has the proper perspective to notice. When she takes her hand away, the glass is filled again, the tablecloth spotless.
“Clumsy, clumsy,” Chandresh mutters, looking at Celia warily before turning away to pick up his conversation with Mr. Barris.
“You could have been a ballerina,” Mme. Padva remarks to Celia. “You are quite good on your feet.”
“I am good off my feet as well,” Celia says, and Mr. Barris nearly knocks over his own glass while Mme. Padva cackles.
For the remainder of the dinner, Celia keeps a watchful eye on Chandresh. He spends most of the time discussing some sort of renovation to the house with Mr. Barris, occasionally repeating himself though Mr. Barris pretends not to notice. Chandresh does not touch his wineglass again, and it is still full when it is cleared at the end of the course.
After dinner, Celia is the last to leave. During the exodus, she misplaces her shawl and refuses to let anyone wait for her while she searches for it, waving them away into the night.
It proves difficult, attempting to locate a length of ivory lace in the singular chaos of la maison Lefèvre. Though she traces her steps through the library and the dining room it is nowhere to be found.
Eventually, Celia abandons her search and returns to the foyer, where Marco is standing by the door with her shawl folded casually over his arm.
“Are you looking for this, Miss Bowen?” he asks.
He moves to place it on her shoulders but the lace disintegrates between his fingers, falling into dust.
When he looks up at her again she is wearing the shawl, tied perfectly, as though it had never been removed.
“Thank you,” Celia says. “Good night.” She breezes by him and out the door before he can respond.
“Miss Bowen?” Marco calls, chasing after her as she descends the front stairs.
“Yes?” Celia responds, turning back as she reaches the pavement.
“I was hoping I could trouble you for that drink we did not have in Prague,” Marco says. He holds her eyes steadily with his while she considers.
The intensity of his gaze is even stronger than it had been when it was focused on the back of her neck, and while Celia can feel the coercion of it, a technique her father was always fond of, there is something genuine as well, something almost like a plea.
It is that, coupled with curiosity, that causes her to nod her consent.
He smiles and turns, walking back inside the house, leaving the door open.
After a moment, she follows. The door swings shut and locks behind her.
Inside, the dining room has been cleared but the dripping candles still burn in the candelabras.
Two glasses of wine sit on the table.
“Where has Chandresh gone to?” Celia asks, picking up one of the glasses and walking to the opposite side of the table from where Marco stands.
“He has retired to the fifth floor,” Marco says, taking the remaining glass for himself. “He had the former servants’ quarters renovated to keep as his private rooms because he enjoys the view. He will not be down until the morning. The rest of the staff has departed, so we have the majority of the house to ourselves.”
“Do you often entertain your own guests after his have gone?” Celia asks.
“Never.”
Celia watches him while she sips her wine. Something about his appearance bothers her, but she cannot identify what, exactly.
“Did Chandresh really insist that all the fire in the circus be white so it would match the color scheme?” she asks after a moment.
“He did indeed,” Marco says. “Told me to contact a chemist or something. I opted to take care of it myself.” He runs his fingers over the candles on the table and the flames shift from warm gold to cool white, tinged with a silvery blue in the center. He runs his fingers back in the other direction, and they return to normal.
“What do you call it?” Marco asks.
Celia does not need to ask what he means.
“Manipulation. I called it magic when I was younger. It took me quite some time to break that habit, though my father never cared for the term. He’d call it enchanting, or forcibly manipulating the universe when he was not in the mood for brevity.”
“Enchanting?” Marco repeats. “I had not thought of it as such before.”
“Nonsense,” Celia says. “It’s precisely what you do. You enchant. You’re clearly good at it. You have so many people in love with you. Isobel. Chandresh. And there must be others.”
“How do you know about Isobel?” Marco asks.
“The company of the circus is fairly large but they all talk about each other,” Celia says. “She seems utterly devoted to someone whom none of us has ever met. I noticed immediately that she pays particular attention to me, I even wondered at one point if she might be my opponent. After you appeared in Prague when she was waiting for someone it was rather simple to figure out the rest. I do not believe anyone else knows. The Murray twins have a theory that she is in love with the dream of someone and not an actual person.”
“The Murray twins sound quite clever,” Marco says. “If I am enchanting in that way it is not always intentional. It was helpful in securing the position with Chandresh, as I had only a single reference and little experience. Though it does not seem to be working quite so effectively on you.”
Celia puts down her glass, still not certain what to make of him. The shifting light from the candles enhances the indistinct quality about his face, so she looks away before she replies, turning her attention to the contents of the mantelpiece.
“My father used to do something similar,” she says. “That pulling, charming seduction. I spent the first several years of my life watching my mother pine for him, steadfastly. Loving and longing far beyond the time when he had lost what little interest in her he ever held. Until one day when I was five years old and she took her own life. When I was old enough to understand, I promised myself I would not suffer so for anyone. It will take a great deal more than that charming smile of yours to seduce me.”
But when she looks back, the charming smile has disappeared.
“I am sorry you lost your mother in such a way,” Marco says.
“It was a long time ago,” Celia says, surprised by the genuine sympathy. “But thank you.”
“Do you remember much about her?” he asks.
“I remember impressions more than actualities. I remember her constant crying. I remember how she looked at me as though I was something to be feared.”
“I do not remember my parents,” Marco says. “I have no memories before the orphanage that I was plucked out of because I met some unspecified criteria. I was made to read a great deal, I traveled and studied and was generally groomed to play some sort of clandestine game. I’ve been doing so, along with accounting and bookkeeping and whatever else Chandresh requests of me, for most of my life.”
“Why are you being so honest with me?” Celia asks.
“Because it is refreshing to be truly honest with someone for a change,” Marco says. “And I suspect you would know if I lied to you outright. I hope I can expect the same from you.”
Celia considers this a moment before she nods.
“You remind me a bit of my father,” she says.
“How so?” Marco asks.
“The way you manipulate perception. I was never particularly good at that myself, I’m better with tangible things. You don’t have to do that with me, by the way,” she adds, finally realizing what disconcerts her about his appearance.
“Do what?” Marco asks.
“Look like that. It’s very good, but I can tell it’s not entirely genuine. It must be terribly annoying to keep it up constantly.”
Marco frowns, but then, very slowly, his face begins to change. The goatee fades and disappears. The chiseled features become softer and younger. His striking green eyes fade to a green-tinged grey.
The false face had been handsome, yes, but consciously so. As though he was too aware of his own attractiveness, something Celia found distinctly unappealing.
And there was something else, a hollowness that was likely the result of the illusion, an impression that he was not entirely present in the room.
But now, now there is a different person standing next to her, much more present, as if a barrier has been removed between them. He feels closer, though the distance between them has not changed, and his face is quite handsome, still.
The intensity of his stare increases with these eyes; looking at him now she can see deeper, without being distracted by the color.
Celia can feel the heat rising up her neck and manages to control it enough that the flush is not noticeable in the candlelight.
And then she realizes why there is something familiar there as well.
“I’ve seen you like this before,” she says, placing his true countenance in a location in her memory. “You’ve watched my show like that.”
“Do you remember all of your audiences?” Marco asks.
“Not all of them,” Celia says. “But I remember the people who look at me the way you do.”
“What way might that be?”
“As though they cannot decide if they are afraid of me or they want to kiss me.”
“I am not afraid of you,” Marco says.
They stare at each other in silence for a while, the candles flickering around them.
“It seems a great deal of effort for a rather subtle difference,” Celia says.
“It has its advantages.”
“I think you look better without it,” Celia says. Marco looks so surprised that she adds, “I said I would be honest, didn’t I?”
“You flatter me, Miss Bowen,” he says. “How many times have you been to this house?”
“At least a dozen,” Celia says.
“And yet, you have never had a tour.”
“I have never been offered one.”
“Chandresh does not believe in them. He prefers to let the house remain an enigma. If the guests do not know where the boundaries are, it gives the impression that the house itself goes on forever. It used to be two buildings, so it can be somewhat disorienting.”
“I did not know that,” Celia says.
“Two adjoining town houses, one a mirror of the other. He bought both and had them renovated into a single dwelling, with a number of enhancements. I do not believe we have the time for the full tour, but I could show you a few of the more obscure rooms, if you would like.”
“I would,” Celia says, placing her empty wineglass on the table next to his own. “Do you often give forbidden tours of your employer’s house?”
“Only once, and that was because Mr. Barris was quite persistent.”
*
FROM THE DINING ROOM, they cross under the shadow of the elephant-headed statue in the hall, passing into the library and stopping at the stainedglass sunset that stretches the height of one wall.
“This is the game room,” Marco says, pushing the glass and letting it swing open into the next room.
“How appropriate.”
Gaming is more theme than function for the room. There are several chessboards with missing pieces, and pieces without boards of their own lined up on windowsills and bookshelves. Dartboards without darts hang alongside backgammon games suspended in mid-play.
The billiard table in the center is covered in bloodred felt.
A selection of weaponry lines one wall, arranged in pairs. Sabres and pistols and fencing foils, each twinned with another, prepared for dozens of potential duels.
“Chandresh has a fondness for antique armament,” Marco explains as Celia regards them. “There are pieces in other rooms but this is the majority of the collection.”
He watches her closely as she walks around the room. She appears to be attempting not to smile as she looks over the gaming elements artfully arranged around them.
“You smile as though you have a secret,” he says.
“I have a lot of secrets,” Celia says, glancing at him over her shoulder before turning back to the wall. “When did you know I was your opponent?”
“I did not know until your audition. You were a mystery for years before that. And I’m certain you noticed that you caught me by surprise.” He pauses before adding, “I cannot say that it has truly been an advantage. How long have you known?”
“I knew in the rain in Prague, and you know perfectly well that was when I knew,” Celia says. “You could have let me go with an umbrella to puzzle over, but instead you chased me down. Why?”
“I wanted it back,” Marco says. “I’m quite fond of that umbrella. And I had grown weary of hiding from you.”
“I once suspected anyone and everyone,” Celia says. “Though I did think it was more likely someone in the circus proper. I should have known it was you.”
“And why is that?” Marco asks.
“Because you pretend to be less than you are,” she says. “That much is clear as day. I will admit, I never thought to charm my umbrella.”
“I have lived most of my life in London,” Marco says. “As soon as I learned to charm objects, it was one of the first things I did.”
He removes his jacket and tosses it over one of the leather chairs in the corner. He takes a deck of playing cards off of a shelf, unsure if she will be willing to humor him but too curious not to try.
“Do you want to play cards?” Celia asks.
“Not exactly,” Marco answers as he shuffles. When he is satisfied, he places the deck on the billiard table.
He flips over a card. The king of spades. He taps the surface and the king of spades becomes the king of hearts. He lifts his hand, pulling it back and unfurling his fingers over the card, welcoming her to make the next move.
Celia smiles. She unties the shawl from her shoulders and drapes it over his discarded jacket. Then she stands with her hands clasped behind her back.
The king of hearts flips up, balancing on its edge. It stands there for a moment before slowly and deliberately ripping in half. The two pieces stay standing, separate, for a moment before they fall, the patterned back facing up.
Mimicking Marco’s gesture, Celia taps the card and it snaps back together. She pulls her hand back and the card flips itself over. The queen of diamonds.
Then the entire deck hovers in the air for a moment before collapsing onto the table, cards scattering out over the red felt surface.
“You are better than I am at physical manipulation,” Marco admits.
“I have an advantage,” Celia says. “What my father calls a natural talent. I find it harder not to influence my surroundings, I was constantly breaking things as a child.”
“How much impact can you have on living things?” Marco asks.
“It depends on the thing in question,” Celia says. “Objects are easier. It took me years to master anything animate. And I work much better with my own birds than I could with any old pigeon taken off the street.”
“What could you do to me?”
“I might be able to change your hair, perhaps your voice,” Celia says. “No more than that without your full consent and awareness, and true consent is more difficult to give than you might think. I can’t repair injury. I rarely have much more than a temporary, superficial impact. It is easier with people I’m more familiar with, though it is never particularly easy.”
“What about with yourself?”
In response, Celia goes to the wall and removes a thin Ottoman dagger with a jade hilt from where it hangs with its partner. Holding it in her right hand, she places her left palm down on the billiard table, over the scattered cards. Without hesitating, she plunges the blade into the back of her hand, piercing through skin and flesh and cards and into the felt underneath.
Marco flinches, but says nothing.
Celia pries the dagger up, her hand and the two of spades still impaled on the blade, blood beginning to drip down to her wrist. She holds out her hand and turns it slowly, presenting it with a certain amount of showmanship so that Marco can see that there is no illusion involved.
With her other hand she removes the dagger, the bloodied playing card fluttering down. Then the droplets of blood begin rolling backward, seeping into the gash in her palm which then shrinks and disappears until there is no more than a sharp red line on her skin, and then nothing.
She taps the card and the blood disappears. The rip left by the blade no longer visible. The card is now the two of hearts.
Marco picks up the card and runs his fingers over the mended surface. Then with a subtle turn of his hand, the card vanishes. He leaves it safely tucked within his pocket.
“I am relieved that we were not challenged to a physical fight,” he says. “I think you would have the advantage.”
“My father used to slice open the tips of my fingers one by one until I could heal all ten at once,” Celia says, returning the dagger to its place on the wall. “So much of it is feeling from the inside how everything is supposed to fit, I have not been able to do it with anyone else.”
“I think your lessons were a great deal less academic than mine.”
“I would have preferred more reading.”
“I think it strange we were prepared in drastically different ways for the same challenge,” Marco says. He looks at Celia’s hand again, though now there is clearly nothing amiss, no indication that it was stabbed only moments ago.
“I suspect that is part of the point,” she says. “Two schools of thought pitted against each other, working within the same environment.”
“I confess,” Marco says, “I don’t fully understand the point, even after all this time.”
“Nor do I,” Celia admits. “I suspect calling it a challenge or a game is not entirely accurate. I’ve come to think of it more as a dual exhibition. What else do I get to see on my tour?”
“Would you like to see something in progress?” Marco asks. Knowing that she thinks of the circus as an exhibition comes as a pleasant surprise, as he had stopped considering it antagonistic years ago.
“I would,” Celia says. “Especially if it is the project that Mr. Barris was going on about during dinner.”
“It is indeed.”
Marco escorts her out of the game room through another door, passing briefly through the hall and into the expansive ballroom at the rear of the house, where the moonlight filters in from the glass doors lining the back wall.
*
OUTSIDE, IN THE SPACE the garden formerly occupied beyond the terrace, the area has been excavated to sit a level deeper, sunken into the earth. At the moment it is mostly an arrangement of packed soil and stacks of stone forming tall but rudimentary walls.
Celia carefully descends the stone steps and Marco follows her. Once at the bottom, the walls create a maze, leaving only a small portion of the garden visible at a time.
“I thought it might be beneficial for Chandresh to have a project to occupy himself with,” Marco explains. “As he so rarely leaves the house these days, renovating the gardens seemed a good place to start. Would you like to see what it will look like when it is complete?”
“I would,” Celia says. “Do you have the plans here?”
In response, Marco lifts one hand and gestures around them.
What had been little more than stacks of rough stone moments before is now set and carved into ornate arches and pathways, covered in crawling vines and speckled with bright, tiny lanterns. Roses hang from curving trellises above them, the night sky visible through the spaces between the blossoms.
Celia puts her hand to her lips to muffle her gasp. The entire scene, from the scent of the roses to the warmth radiating from the lanterns, is astounding. She can hear a fountain bubbling nearby and turns down the now grass-covered path to find it.
Marco follows her as she explores, taking turn after turn through the twisting pathways.
The fountain in the center cascades down a carved stone wall, flowing into a round pond full of koi. Their scales glow in the moonlight, bright splashes of white and orange in the dark water.
Celia puts her hand out, letting the water from the fountain rush over her fingers as she presses against the cold stone below.
“You’re doing this in my mind, aren’t you?” she asks when she hears Marco behind her.
“You’re letting me,” he says.
“I could probably stop it, you know,” Celia says, turning around to face him. He leans against one of the stone archways, watching her.
“I’m certain you could. If you resisted at all it would not work as well, and it can be blocked almost entirely. And of course, proximity is key for the immersion.”
“You cannot do this with the circus,” Celia says.
Marco shrugs his shoulders.
“There is too much distance, unfortunately,” he says. “It is one of my specialties, yet there is little opportunity to use it. I am not adept at creating this type of illusion to be viewed by more than one person at a time.”
“It’s amazing,” Celia says, watching the koi swimming at her feet. “I could never manage something so intricate, even though they call me the illusionist. You’d wear that title better than I.”
“I suppose ‘The Beautiful Woman Who Can Manipulate the World with Her Mind’ is too unwieldy.”
“I don’t think that would fit on the sign outside my tent.”
His laugh is low and warm and Celia turns away to hide her smile, keeping her attention on the swirling water.
“There is no use for one of my specialties, as well,” she says. “I am very good at manipulating fabric, but it seems so unnecessary given what Madame Padva can do.” She twirls in her gown, the silver catching the light so she glows as brightly as the lanterns.
“I think she’s a witch,” Marco says. “And I mean that in the most complimentary manner.”
“I think she would take that as a compliment, indeed,” Celia says. “You are seeing all this as well, exactly as I see it?”
“More or less,” Marco says. “The nuances are richer the closer I am to the viewer.”
Celia circles to the opposite side of the pond, nearer to where he stands. She examines the carvings on the stone and the vines twining around them, but her gaze keeps returning to Marco. Any attempt at subtlety is ruined when he repeatedly catches her eyes with his own. Looking away again becomes more difficult each time.
“It was clever of you to use the bonfire as a stimulus,” she says, trying to keep her attention on a tiny glowing lantern.
“I’m not surprised you figured that out,” Marco says. “I had to come up with some way of staying connected since I am not able to travel with the circus. The lighting seemed a perfect opportunity to establish a lasting hold. I didn’t want you to have too much control, after all.”
“It had repercussions,” Celia says.
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s just say there is more that is remarkable about the Murray twins than their hair.”
“And you’re not going to tell me what that is, are you?” Marco asks.
“A lady cannot reveal all of her secrets,” Celia says. She pulls a rose down from a hanging branch, closing her eyes as she inhales the scent, the petals velvet soft against her skin. The sensory details of the illusion are so luscious, it is almost dizzying. “Who thought to sink the garden?” she asks.
“Chandresh. It’s inspired by another room in the house, I can show you that one if you’d like.”
Celia nods and they retrace their steps through the garden. She stays closer to him as they walk, close enough to touch though he keeps his hands clasped behind his back. When they reach the terrace, Celia glances back at the garden, where the roses and lanterns have reverted to dirt and stone.
*
INSIDE, MARCO LEADS CELIA across the ballroom. He stops at the far wall and slides one of the dark-wood panels open to reveal a curving stairway spiraling downward.
“Is it a dungeon?” Celia asks as they descend.
“Not precisely,” Marco says. When they reach the gilded door at the end of the stairs, he opens it for her. “Mind your step.”
The room is small but the ceiling is high, a golden chandelier draped with crystals suspended in the center. The rounded walls and ceiling are painted a deep, vibrant blue and ornamented with stars.
A path wraps around the edge of the room like a ledge, though the majority of the floor is sunken and filled with large cushions covered in a rainbow of embellished silk.
“Chandresh claims it is modeled after a room belonging to a courtesan in Bombay,” Marco says. “I find it marvelous for reading, myself.”
Celia laughs and a curl of her hair falls across her cheek.
Marco tentatively moves to brush it off her face, but before his fingers reach her, she pushes herself off the ledge, her silver gown a billowing cloud as she falls onto the pile of jewel-toned cushions.
He watches her for a moment before copying her action himself, sinking into the center of the room alongside her.
They lie staring up at the chandelier, the light reflecting over the crystals turning it into the night sky without need of any illusion.
“How often are you able to visit the circus?” Celia asks.
“Not as often as I’d like. Whenever it is near London, of course. I try to reach it elsewhere in Europe if I can escape from Chandresh for sufficient periods of time. I sometimes feel like I have one foot on both sides. I am intimately familiar with so much of it, and yet it is always surprising.”
“Which is your favorite tent?”
“Truthfully? Yours.”
“Why?” she asks, turning to look at him.
“It appeals to my personal taste, I suppose. You do in public things I have been taught in secret. Perhaps I appreciate it on a different level than most. I also very much enjoy the Labyrinth. I had been unsure whether or not you would be willing to collaborate on it.”
“I got quite the lecture about that particular collaboration,” Celia says. “My father called it debauched juxtaposition, he must have worked for days to come up with a worthy insult. He sees something tawdry in the combining of skills, I have never understood why. I adore the Labyrinth, I have had far too much fun adding rooms. I particularly love that hallway you made where it snows, so you can see the footprints left by other people navigating their way around.”
“I had not thought of it in such a lascivious manner before,” Marco says. “I look forward to visiting it again with that in mind. Though I had been under the impression that your father was not in the position to be commenting on such matters.”
“He’s not dead,” Celia says, turning back to the ceiling. “It is rather difficult to explain.”
Marco decides against asking her to try, returning to the subject of the circus instead.
“Which tent is your favorite?” he asks.
“The Ice Garden,” Celia answers, without even pausing to consider.
“Why is that?” Marco asks.
“Because of the way it feels,” she says. “It’s like walking into a dream. As though it is someplace else entirely and not simply another tent. Perhaps I am just fond of snow. However did you come up with it?”
Marco reflects on the process, as he has never been asked to explain the origin of his ideas before.
“I thought it might be interesting to have a conservatory, but of course it necessitated a lack of color,” he says. “I pondered a great many options before settling on fabricating everything from ice. I am pleased that you think it like a dream, as that is where the core of the idea came from.”
“It’s the reason I made the Wishing Tree,” Celia says. “I thought a tree covered in fire would make for a proper complement to ones made from ice.”
Marco replays in his mind his first encounter with the Wishing Tree. A mixture of annoyance and amazement and wistfulness that seems different in retrospect. He was uncertain he would even be able to light his own candle, his own wish, wondering if it was somehow against the rules.
“Do all of those wishes come true?” he asks.
“I’m not sure,” Celia says. “I’ve not been able to follow up with every person who has wished on it. Have you?”
“Perhaps.”
“Did your wish come true?”
“I am not entirely certain yet.”
“You shall have to let me know,” Celia says. “I hope it does. I suppose in a way, I made the Wishing Tree for you.”
“You didn’t know who I was then,” Marco says, turning to look at her. Her attention remains focused on the chandelier, but that alluring, secret-keeping smile has returned.
“I didn’t know your identity, but I had an impression of who my opponent was, being surrounded by things you made. I had thought you might like it.”
“I do like it,” Marco says.
The silence that falls between them is a comfortable one. He longs to reach over and touch her, but he resists, fearful of destroying the delicate camaraderie they are building. He steals glances instead, watching the way the light falls over her skin. Several times he catches her regarding him in a similar manner, and the moments when she holds his eyes with hers are sublime.
“How are you managing to keep everyone from aging?” Celia asks after a while.
“Very carefully,” Marco answers. “And they are aging, albeit extremely slowly. How are you moving the circus?”
“On a train.”
“A train?” Marco asks, incredulous. “The entire circus moved by a single train?”
“It’s a large train,” Celia says. “And it’s magic,” she adds, making Marco laugh.
“I confess, Miss Bowen, you are not what I had expected.”
“I assure you that feeling is mutual.”
Marco stands, stepping back up to the ledge by the door
Celia reaches out her hand to him and he takes it to help her up. It is the first time he has touched her bare skin.
The reaction in the air is immediate. A sudden charge ripples through the room, crisp and bright. The chandelier begins to shake.
The feeling rushing over Marco’s skin is intense and intimate, beginning where his palm meets hers but spreading beyond that, farther and deeper.
Celia pulls her hand away after she catches her balance, stepping back and leaning against the wall. The feeling begins to subside as soon as she lets him go.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly, clearly out of breath. “You caught me by surprise.”
“My apologies,” Marco says, his heartbeat pounding so loudly in his ears that he can barely hear her. “Though I cannot say I’m entirely sure what happened.”
“I tend to be particularly sensitive to energy,” Celia says. “People who do the sort of things you and I do carry a very palpable type of energy, and I … I am not accustomed to yours just yet.”
“I only hope that was as pleasurable a sensation for you as it was for me.”
Celia does not reply, and to keep himself from reaching for her hand again, he opens the door instead, leading her back up the twisting stairway.
*
THEY WALK THROUGH the moonlit ballroom, their steps echoing together.
“How is Chandresh?” Celia asks, attempting to find a subject to fill the silence, anything to distract herself from her still-shaking hands, and remembering the fallen glass at dinner.
“He wavers,” Marco says with a sigh. “Ever since the circus opened, he has been increasingly unfocused. I … I do what I can to keep him steady, though I fear it has an adverse effect on his memory. I had not intended to, but after what happened with the late Miss Burgess I thought it the wisest course of action.”
“She was in the peculiar position of being involved in all this but not within the circus itself,” Celia says. “I am sure it is not the easiest perspective to manage. At least you can observe Chandresh.”
“Indeed,” Marco says. “I do wish there was a way to protect those outside the circus the way the bonfire protects those within it.”
“The bonfire?” Celia asks.
“It serves several purposes. Primarily, it is my connection to the circus, but it also functions as a safeguard of a sort. I neglected the fact that it does not cover those outside the fence.”
“I neglected even considering safeguards,” Celia says. “I do not think I understood at first how many other people would become involved in our challenge.” She stops walking, standing in the middle of the ballroom.
Marco stops as well but says nothing, waiting for her to speak.
“It was not your fault,” she says quietly. “What happened to Tara. The circumstances may have played out the same way regardless of anything you or I did. You cannot take away anyone’s own free will, that was one of my very first lessons.”
Marco nods, and then he takes a step closer to her. He reaches out to take her hand, slowly brushing his fingers against hers.
The feeling is as strong as it had been when he touched her before, but something is different. The air changes, but the chandeliers hanging above them remain steady and still.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“You mentioned something about energy,” Marco says. “I’m focusing yours with mine, so you won’t break the chandeliers.”
“If I broke anything, I could probably fix it,” Celia says, but she does not let go.
Without the concern for the effect she might be having on the surroundings, she is able to relax into the sensation instead of resisting it. It is exquisite. It is the way she has felt in so many of his tents, the thrill of being surrounded by something wondrous and fantastical, only magnified and focused directly on her. The feel of his skin against hers reverberates across her entire body, though his fingers remain entwined in hers. She looks up at him, caught in the haunting greenish-grey of his eyes again, and she does not turn away.
They stand gazing at each other in silence for moments that seem to stretch for hours.
The clock in the hall chimes and Celia jumps, startled. As soon as she releases Marco’s hand she wants to take it again, but the whole evening has been too overwhelming already.
“You hide it so well,” she says. “I can feel the same energy radiating like heat in each of your tents, but in person it’s completely concealed.”
“Misdirection is one of my strengths,” Marco says.
“It won’t be as easy now that you have my attention.”
“I like having your attention,” he says. “Thank you for this. For staying.”
“I forgive you for stealing my shawl.”
She smiles as he laughs.
And then she vanishes. A simple trick of distracting his attention long enough to slip out through the hall, despite the lingering temptation to stay.
*
MARCO FINDS HER SHAWL left behind in the game room, still draped over his jacket.
