The Night Circus(104)

“Do you … do you think anything is wrong with the circus?” Bailey asks quietly, when the table has fallen into separate conversations. “Recently, I mean?”

Victor and Lorena glance at each other as though gauging who should respond, but it is Elizabeth who answers first.

“It has not been the same since Herr Thiessen died,” she says. Victor frowns suddenly while Lorena nods in agreement.

“Who is Herr Thiessen?” Bailey asks. The three of them look somewhat surprised by his ignorance.

“Friedrick Thiessen was the first of the rêveurs,” Elizabeth says. “He was a clockmaker. He made the clock inside the gates.”

“That clock was made by someone outside the circus? Really?” Bailey asks. It is not something he had ever thought to ask Poppet and Widget about. He had assumed it was a thing born of the circus itself. Elizabeth nods.

“He was a writer as well,” Victor says. “That is how we met him, years and years ago. Read an article he wrote about the circus and sent him a letter and he wrote back and so on. That was before we were even called rêveurs.”

“He made me a clock that looks like the Carousel,” Lorena says, looking wistful. “With little creatures that loop through clouds and silver gears. It is a wonderful thing, I wish I could carry it around with me. Though it is nice to have a reminder of the circus I can keep at home.”

“I heard he had a secret romance with the illusionist,” Elizabeth remarks, smiling over her glass of wine.

“Gossip and nonsense,” Victor scoffs.

“He did always sound very fond of her in his writing,” Lorena says, as though she is considering the possibility.

“How could anyone not be fond of her?” Victor asks. Lorena turns to look at him curiously. “She is extremely talented,” he mumbles, and Bailey catches Elizabeth trying not to laugh.

“And the circus isn’t the same without this Herr Thiessen?” Bailey asks, wondering if this has something to do with what Poppet had told him.

“It is different without him, for us, of course,” Lorena says. She pauses thoughtfully before she continues. “The circus itself seems a bit different as well. Nothing in particular, only something … ”

“Something off-kilter,” Victor interjects. “Like a clock that is not oscillating properly.”

“When did he die?” Bailey asks. He cannot bring himself to ask how.

“A year ago tonight, as a matter of fact,” Victor says.

“Oh, I had not realized that,” Lorena says.

“A toast to Herr Thiessen,” Victor proposes, loud enough for the entire table to hear, and he raises his glass. Glasses are lifted all around the table, and Bailey raises his as well.

The stories of Herr Thiessen continue through dessert, interrupted only by a discussion about why the cake is called a pie when it is clearly cake. Victor excuses himself after finishing his coffee, refusing to weigh in on the cake issue.

When he returns to the table, he has a telegram in his hand.

“We are headed to New York, my friends.”





Impasse

MONTRéAL, AUGUST 1902




After the illusionist takes her bow and disappears before her rapt audience’s eyes, they clap, applauding the empty air. They rise from their seats and some of them chatter with their companions, marveling over this trick or that as they file out the door that has reappeared in the side of the striped tent.

One man, sitting in the inner circle of chairs, remains in his seat as they leave. His eyes, almost hidden in the shadow cast by the brim of his bowler hat, are fixed on the space in the center of the circle that the illusionist occupied only moments before.

The rest of the audience departs.

The man continues to sit.

After a few minutes, the door fades into the wall of the tent, invisible once more.

The man’s gaze does not waver. He does not so much as glance at the vanishing door.

A moment later, Celia is sitting in a chair across the circle from him, still dressed as she had been during her performance, in a black gown covered with delicate white lace.

“You usually sit in the back,” she says.

“I wanted a better view,” Marco says.

“You came quite a ways to be here.”

“I had to take a holiday.”

Celia looks down at her hands.

“You didn’t expect me to come all this way, did you?” Marco asks.

“No, I did not.”

“It’s difficult to hide when you travel with an entire circus, you know.”

“I have not been hiding,” Celia says.

“You have,” Marco says. “I tried to speak with you at Herr Thiessen’s funeral, but you left before I could find you, and then you took the circus across the ocean. You’ve been avoiding me.”

“It was not entirely intentional,” Celia says. “I needed some time to think. Thank you for the Pool of Tears,” she adds.

“I wanted you to have a place where you felt safe enough to cry if I could not be with you.”

She closes her eyes and does not reply.

“You stole my book,” Marco says after a moment.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“As long as it is somewhere safe it does not matter whether I keep it or you do. You could have asked. You could have said goodbye.”