The Night Circus

With no further advice or instruction she walks off down a black-and-white striped path, a thin curl of smoke trailing behind her, leaving Bailey alone in the courtyard.

He remembers Widget telling him the story of the lighting of the bonfire, the first lighting. Though he only now realizes that it was also the night that Widget was born. He had told the story in such detail that Bailey assumed he had witnessed it firsthand. The archers, the colors, the spectacle.

And now here Bailey stands, trying to accomplish the same feat with only a book and some yarn and a borrowed cigarette lighter. Alone. In the rain.

He mumbles to himself what he can remember of Celia’s instructions, the ones that are more complicated than finding books and tying strings. Things about focus and intent that he does not entirely understand.

He wraps the book with a length of fine wool yarn dyed a deep crimson, bits of it stained darker with something dried and brown.

He knots it three times, binding the book closed with the loose page against the cover, the cards securely pressed inside.

The pocket watch he hangs around it, looping the chain as best he can.

He throws it in the empty cauldron where it lands with a dull wet thud, the watch clattering against the metal.

Marco’s bowler hat sits in the mud by his feet. He throws that in as well.

He glances back in the direction of the acrobat tent, he can see the top of it from the courtyard, rising taller than the surrounding tents.

And then, impulsively, he takes out the remaining contents of his pockets and adds them to the collection in the cauldron. His silver ticket. The dried rose that he had worn in his lapel at dinner with the reveurs. Poppet’s white glove.

He hesitates, turning the tiny glass bottle with Widget’s version of his tree trapped inside over in his hand, but then he adds it as well, flinching as it shatters against the iron.

He takes the single white candle in one hand and Tsukiko’s lighter in the other.

He fumbles with the lighter before it consents to spark.

Then he ignites the candle with the bright orange flame.

He throws the burning candle into the cauldron.

Nothing happens.

I choose this, Bailey thinks. I want this. I need this. Please. Please let this work.

He wishes it, harder than he has ever wished for anything over birthday candles or on shooting stars. Wishing for himself. For the reveurs in their red scarves. For a clockmaker he never met. For Celia and Marco and Poppet and Widget and even for Tsukiko, though she claims she does not care.

Bailey closes his eyes.

For a moment, everything is still. Even the light rain suddenly stops.

He feels a pair of hands resting on his shoulders.

A heaviness in his chest.

Something within the twisted iron cauldron begins to spark.

When the flames catch they are bright and crimson.

When they turn to white they are blinding, and the shower of sparks falls like stars.

The force of the heat pushes Bailey backward, moving through him like a wave, the air burning hot in his lungs. He falls onto ground that is no longer charred and muddy, but firm and dry and patterned in a spiral of black and white.

All around him, lights are popping to life along the tents, flickering like fireflies.

* * *

MARCO STANDS BENEATH THE WISHING TREE, watching as the candles come alight along the branches.

A moment later, Celia reappears at his side.

“Did it work?” he asks. “Please, tell me that it worked.”

In response, she kisses him the way he once kissed her in the middle of a crowded ballroom.

As though they are the only two people in the world.

Part V DIVINATION

I find I think of myself not as a writer so much as someone who provides a gateway, a tangential route for readers to reach the circus. To visit the circus again, if only in their minds, when they are unable to attend it physically. I relay it through printed words on crumpled newsprint, words that they can read again and again, returning to the circus whenever they wish, regardless of time of day or physical location. Transporting them at will.

When put that way, it sounds rather like magic, doesn’t it?

— FRIEDRICK THIESSEN, 1898

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

— PROSPERO, THE TEMPEST, ACT IV, SCENE 1

FATES FORETOLD

It is late, so there is no line for the fortune-teller.

While outside the cool night air is scented with caramel and smoke, this tent is warm and smells of incense and roses and beeswax.

You do not wait long in the antechamber before passing through the beaded curtain.

It makes a sound like rain as the beads collide. The room beyond is lined with candles.