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 half-read 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.
