The Night Circus

by Erin Morgenstern

  “Who?” the man asks. The woman tilts her head as though she did not catch the meaning of the question.

  “They’re twins, they do a show with kittens,” Bailey explains. “They’re my friends.”

  “The twins!” the woman exclaims. “And their wonderful cats! However did you come to be friends with them?”

  “It’s a long story,” Bailey says.

  “Then you should tell it to us while we wait,” she says with a smile. “You are off to Boston as well, yes?”

  “I don’t know,” Bailey says. “I was trying to follow the circus.”

  “That is precisely what we are doing,” the man says. “Though we cannot follow Le Cirque until we know where it has gone. That should take about a day.”

  “I do hope it turns up somewhere manageable,” the woman says.

  “How will you know where it is?” Bailey asks, in a state of mild disbelief.

  “We rêveurs have our methods,” the woman says, smiling. “We have awhile yet to wait, that should be plenty of time to exchange stories.”

  The man’s name is Victor, his sister is Lorena. They are on what they call an extended circus holiday, following Le Cirque des Rêves around to as many locations as they can manage. They normally do this only within Europe, but for this particular holiday they have decided to chase it around the other side of the Atlantic. They had been in Canada previously.

  Bailey tells them a shortened version of how he came to be friends with Poppet and Widget, leaving out the more curious details.

  As it creeps closer to dawn they are joined by another rêveur, a woman named Elizabeth who had been staying at the local inn and is headed to Boston as well now that the circus has departed. She is greeted warmly, and they appear to be old friends though Lorena says they only met her a few days ago. While they wait for the train Elizabeth takes out her knitting needles and a skein of deep red wool.

  Lorena introduces Bailey to her as a scarf-less young rêveur.

  “I’m not a rêveur, really,” Bailey says. He is still not entirely sure he grasps the meaning of the term.

  Elizabeth looks at him over her knitting, sizing him up with narrowed eyes that remind him of his sternest teachers, though he stands much taller than she does. She leans forward in a conspiratorial manner.

  “Do you adore Le Cirque des Rêves?” she asks him.

  “Yes,” he says without hesitation.

  “More than anything in the world?” she adds.

  “Yes,” Bailey says. He cannot keep himself from smiling despite her serious tone and the nerves that are still keeping his heart from beating at a steady rate.

  “Then you are a rêveur,” Elizabeth pronounces. “No matter what you wear.”

  They tell him stories of the circus and of other rêveurs. How there is a society of sorts that keeps track of the movement of the circus, notifying other rêveurs so they might travel from destination to destination. Victor and Lorena have followed the circus as often as their schedules allow for years, while Elizabeth typically only makes excursions closer to New York and this trip is an extended one for her, though there is an informal club of rêveurs based in the city that holds gatherings from time to time, to keep in touch while the circus is away.

  The train arrives shortly after the sun has fully risen, and on the way to Boston the stories continue, while Elizabeth knits and Lorena props her head up sleepily on her arm.

  “Where are you staying in town?” Elizabeth inquires.

  Bailey has not considered this, as he has been taking this endeavor one step at a time, attempting not to worry about what might happen once they reach Boston.

  “I’m not entirely sure,” he says. “I’ll probably stay at the station until I know where to go next.”

  “Nonsense,” Victor says. “You shall stay with us. We have nearly an entire floor at the Parker House. You can have August’s room, he went back to New York yesterday and I never bothered to alert the management that we have an unoccupied room.”

  Bailey attempts to argue but Lorena stops him.

  “He is terribly stubborn,” she whispers. “He will not take no for an answer once he has set his mind to something.”

  And indeed, Bailey is swept into their carriage almost as soon as they step off the train. His bag is taken along with Elizabeth’s luggage when they reach the hotel.

  “Is something wrong?” Lorena asks as he openly stares around the opulent lobby.

  “I feel like one of those girls in fairy tales, the ones who don’t even have shoes and then somehow get to attend a ball at the castle,” Bailey whispers, and she laughs so loudly that several people turn and stare.

  Bailey is escorted to a room half the size of his entire house but he finds he cannot sleep, despite the heavy curtains blocking out the sunlight. He paces the room until he begins worrying about damaging the carpet, and then he sits in the window instead, watching the people below.

  He is relieved when there is a knock at the door midafternoon.

  “Do you know where the circus is yet?” he asks, before Victor can even speak.

  “Not yet, dear boy,” he says. “We sometimes have advance notice of where it is headed but not as of late. I imagine we will have word by the end of the day, and if our luck holds we will depart first thing in the morning. Do you have a suit?”

  “Not with me,” Bailey says, remembering the suit packed in a trunk at home that was only ever pulled out for special occasions. He guesses he has likely outgrown it in the interim, unable to recall exactly what the last suit-worthy occasion was.

  “We shall get you one, then,” Victor says, as though this is as simple a thing as picking up a newspaper.

  They meet Lorena in the lobby and the two of them drag him around town on a number of errands, including a stop at a tailor for his suit.

  “No, no,” Lorena says while they look at samples. “These are entirely wrong for his coloring. He needs a grey. A nice deep grey.”

  After a great deal of pinning and measuring, Bailey ends up with a nicer suit than he has ever owned in his life, nicer even than his father’s best suit, in a charcoal grey. Despite his protestations Victor also buys him very shiny shoes and a new hat.

  The reflection in the mirror looks so different from the one he is accustomed to that Bailey has difficulty believing it is really him.

  They return to the Parker House with a multitude of packages in tow, stopping by their rooms for hardly enough time to sit before Elizabeth comes to take them down to dinner.

  To Bailey’s surprise, there are almost a dozen rêveurs waiting in the restaurant downstairs, some who will be following the circus and others who are remaining in Boston. His anxiety at the fanciness of the restaurant is eased by the casual, boisterous manner of the group. True to form, they are clad almost entirely in black and white and grey with bright touches of red on ties or handkerchiefs.

  When Lorena realizes that Bailey has no red, she surreptitiously removes a rose from a nearby floral arrangement to tuck in his lapel.

  There are endless stories from the circus related over each course, mentions of tents Bailey has never seen and countries he has never even heard of. Bailey mostly listens, still rather astounded that he has stumbled upon a group of people who love the circus as much as he does.

  “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 ou
tside 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.”

  Celia nods.

  “I know,” she says.

  Neither of them speaks for some time.

  “I am trying to make the circus independent,” Celia says. “To untie it from the challenge, from us. From me. I needed to learn your system to make it work properly. I cannot let a place that is so important to so many people fade away. Something that is wonder and comfort and mystery all together that they have nowhere else. If you had that, wouldn’t you want to keep it?”

  “I have that whenever I’m with you,” Marco says. “Let me help you.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “You cannot do this alone.”

  “I have Ethan Barris and Lainie Burgess,” Celia says. “They have agreed to assume management for the basic operation. With a little more training, Poppet and Widget should be able to handle the manipulation aspects that Ethan and Lainie cannot manage. I … I do not need you.”

  She cannot look him in the eye.

  “You don’t trust me,” he says.

  “Isobel trusted you,” Celia says, looking at the ground. “So did Chandresh. How can I believe that you are honest with me and not with them, when I am the one you have the most reason to deceive?”

  “I never once told Isobel that I loved her,” Marco says. “I was young and I was desperately lonely, and I should not have let her think I felt more strongly than I did, but what I felt for her is nothing compared to what I feel for you. This is not a tactic to deceive you; do you think me that cruel?”

  Celia rises from her chair.

  “Good night, Mr. Alisdair,” she says.

  “Celia, wait,” Marco says, standing but not moving closer to her. “You are breaking my heart. You told me once that I reminded you of your father. That you never wanted to suffer the way your mother did for him, but you are doing exactly that to me. You keep leaving me. You leave me longing for you again and again when I would give anything for you to stay, and it is killing me.”

  “It has to kill one of us,” Celia says quietly.

  “What?” Marco asks.

  “The one who survives is the victor,” she says. “The winner lives, the loser dies. That’s how the game ends.”

  “That—” Marco stops, shaking his head. “That cannot be the intent of this.”

  “It is,” Celia says. “It is a test of endurance, not skill. I’m attempting to make the circus self-sufficient before … ”

  She cannot say the words, still barely able to look at him.

  “You’re going to do what your father did,” Marco says. “You’re going to take yourself off the board.”

  “Not precisely,” she says. “I suppose I was always more my mother’s daughter.”

  “No,” Marco says. “You cannot mean that.”

  “It’s the only way to stop the game.”

  “Then we’ll continue playing.”

  “I can’t,” she says. “I can’t keep holding on. Every night it becomes more difficult. And I … I have to let you win.”

  “I don’t want to win,” Marco says. “I want you. Truly, Celia, do you not understand that?”

  Celia says nothing, but tears begin to roll down her cheeks. She does not wipe them away.

  “How can you think that I don’t love you?” Marco asks. “Celia, you are everything to me. I don’t know who is trying to convince you o
therwise, but you must believe me, please.”

  She only looks at him with tear-soaked eyes, the first time she has held his gaze steadily.

  “This is when I knew I loved you,” he says.

  They stand on opposite sides of a small, round room painted a rich blue and dotted with stars, on a ledge around a pool of jewel-toned cushions. A shimmering chandelier hangs above them.

  “I was enchanted from the moment I first saw you,” Marco says, “but this is when I knew.”

  The room around them changes again, expanding into an empty ballroom. Moonlight filters in through the windows.

  “This is when I knew,” Celia says, her voice a whisper echoing softly through the room.

  Marco moves to close the distance between them, kissing away her tears before catching her lips with his own.

  As he kisses her, the bonfire glows brighter. The acrobats catch the light perfectly as they spin. The entire circus sparkles, dazzling every patron.

  And then the immaculate cohesion stops as Celia reluctantly breaks away.

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  “Please,” Marco says, refusing to let her go, his fingers holding tightly to the lace of her gown. “Please don’t leave me.”

  “It’s too late,” she says. “It was too late by the time I arrived in London to turn your notebook into a dove; there were too many people already involved. Anything either of us does has an effect on everyone here, on every patron who walks through those gates. Hundreds if not thousands of people. All flies in a spiderweb that was spun when I was six years old and now I can barely move for fear of losing someone else.”

  She looks up at him, lifting her hand to stroke his cheek.

  “Will you do something for me?” she asks.

  “Anything,” Marco says.

  “Don’t come back,” she says, her voice breaking.

  She vanishes before Marco can protest, as simply and elegantly as at the end of her act, her gown fading beneath his hands. Only her perfume lingers in the space she occupied moments before.

  Marco stands alone in an empty tent with nothing but two rings of chairs and an open door, waiting for him to leave.

  Before he departs, he takes a single playing card from his pocket and places it on her chair.