The Night Circus(52)

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.





REFLECTIONS AND DISTORTIONS




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.