The Night Circus
Page 16

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.