The Night Circus(55)

“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.