The Night Circus

by Erin Morgenstern

  In response, Celia only looks at him, staring directly into his eyes without wavering.

  Widget returns her gaze silently for some time while Poppet watches them curiously. Eventually, Widget blinks, the surprise evident on his face. Then he looks down at his shoes.

  Celia sighs, and when she speaks she addresses them both.

  “If I have not been completely honest with you, it is only because I know a great deal of things that you do not want to know. I am going to ask that you trust me when I tell you I am trying to make things better. It is an extremely delicate balance and there are a great many factors involved. The best we can do right now is take everything as it comes, and not worry ourselves over things that have happened, or things that are to come. Agreed?”

  Widget nods and Poppet reluctantly follows suit.

  “Thank you,” Celia says. “Now please go and try to get some rest.”

  Poppet gives her an embrace before slipping out the door back into the hall.

  Widget lingers a moment.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “You have nothing to be sorry about,” Celia tells him.

  “I’m sorry anyway.”

  He kisses her on the cheek before he leaves, not waiting for her to reply.

  “What was that about?” Poppet asks when Widget joins her in the hall.

  “She let me read her,” Widget says. “All of her, without concealing anything. She’s never done that before.” He refuses to elaborate as they walk quietly back down the length of the train.

  “What do you think we should do?” Poppet asks once they have reached their car, a marmalade cat crawling onto her lap.

  “I think we should wait,” Widget says. “I think that’s all we can do right now.”

  *

  ALONE IN HER BOOK-FILLED CHAMBER, Celia begins tearing her handkerchief into strips. One at a time she drops each scrap of silk and lace into an empty teacup and lights it on fire. She repeats this process over and over, working until the cloth burns without charring, remaining bright and white within the flame.

  Pursuit

  EN ROUTE FROM BOSTON TO NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 1, 1902

  It is a cold morning, and Bailey’s faded grey coat does not look particularly elegant paired with his new charcoal suit, and he is not entirely certain the two shades are complementary, but the streets and the train station are too busy for him to worry much about his appearance.

  There are other rêveurs headed to New York, but they end up getting tickets for a later train, so there is a round of farewells and the confusion of sorting dozens of bags before they manage to board.

  The journey is slow, and Bailey sits staring out the window at the changing landscape, absently gnawing at his fingernails.

  Victor comes to sit by him, a red leather-bound book in his hands.

  “I thought you might like something to read to pass the time,” he says as he gives the book to Bailey.

  Bailey opens the cover and glances through the book, which he is surprised to see is a meticulously organized scrapbook. Most of the black pages are filled with articles clipped from newspapers, but there are also handwritten letters, the dates ranging from only a few years previous to more than a decade ago.

  “Not all of it is in English,” Victor explains, “but you should be able to read most of the articles, at least.”

  “Thank you,” Bailey says.

  Victor nods and returns to his seat across the car.

  As the train chugs on, Bailey forgets the landscape entirely. He reads and rereads the words of Herr Friedrick Thiessen, finding them both familiar and entrancing.

  “I have never seen you take such a sudden interest in a new rêveur,” he overhears Lorena remark to her brother. “Especially not to the point of sharing your books.”

  “He reminds me of Friedrick” is Victor’s only reply.

  They are almost to New York when Elizabeth takes the empty seat opposite him. Bailey notes his place in the middle of an article that is comparing the interplay of light and shadow in a particular tent to Indonesian puppet theater before putting the book down.

  “We lead strange lives, chasing our dreams around from place to place,” Elizabeth says quietly, looking out the window. “I have never met so young a rêveur who clearly feels as strongly toward the circus as those of us who have been following it for years. I want you to have this.”

  She hands him a red wool scarf, the one she has been knitting on and off. It is longer than Bailey expected from watching her knit, with intricate patterns of knotted cables at each end.

  “I can’t accept this,” he says, part of him deeply honored and the other part wishing people would stop giving him things.

  “Nonsense,” Elizabeth says. “I make them all the time, I am at no loss for yarn. I started this one with no particular rêveur in mind to wear it, so clearly it is meant for you.”

  “Thank you,” Bailey says, wrapping the scarf around his neck despite the warmth of the train.

  “You are quite welcome,” Elizabeth says. “We should be arriving soon enough, and then it will only be a matter of waiting for the sun to set.”

  She leaves him in his seat by the window. Bailey stares out at the grey sky with a mixture of comfort and excitement and nervousness that he cannot reconcile.

  When they arrive in New York, Bailey is immediately struck by how strange everything looks. Though it is not that different from Boston, Boston had some passing familiarity. Now, without the comforting lull of the train, it strikes him how very far he is from home.

  Victor and Lorena seem equally discombobulated, but Elizabeth is on familiar ground. She ushers them through intersections and herds them onto streetcars until Bailey begins to feel like one of his sheep. But it does not take long for them to reach their destination, a spot outside the city proper where they are to meet up with another local rêveur named August, the same whose room Bailey had inherited in Boston, who has graciously invited them to stay with him at his home until they can find rooms elsewhere.

  August turns out to be a pleasant, heavyset fellow and Bailey’s first impression is that he resembles his house: a squat sort of building with a porch wrapping around the front, warm and welcoming. He practically lifts Elizabeth off the ground in greeting and shakes hands so enthusiastically while being introduced to Bailey that his fingers are sore afterward.

  “I have good news and bad news,” August says as he helps them lift their bags onto the porch. “Which should come first?”

  “The good,” Elizabeth answers before Bailey has time to consider which would be preferable. “We have traveled too long to be met with bad news straight off.”

  “The good news,” August says, “is that I was indeed correct in predicting the exact location and Le Cirque has set up less than a mile away. You can see the tents from the end of the porch if you lean properly.” He points down the left side of the porch from where he stands on the stairs.

  Bailey rushes to the end of the porch with Lorena close on his heels. The tops of the striped tents are visible through the trees some distance away, a bright punch of white against grey sky and brown trees.

  “Wonderful,” Elizabeth says, laughing at Lorena and Bailey as they lean over the railing. “And what is the bad news, then?”

  “I’m not certain it is bad news, precisely,” August says, as though he is not sure how to explain. “Perhaps more disappointing, really. Regarding the circus.”

  Bailey steps down from the railing and turns back to the conversation, all the elation he had felt moments before draining away.

  “Disappointing?” Victor asks.

  “Well, the weather is not ideal, as I’m certain you’ve noticed,” August says, gesturing up at the heavy grey clouds. “We had quite a storm last night. The circus was closed, of course, which was odd to begin with as in all my time I have never seen it set up only to be closed the first night for inclement weather. Regardless, there was some sort of, I don’t even know what t
o call it, a noise of some sort around midnight. A crashing sound that practically shook the house. I thought perhaps something had been struck by lightning. There was a great deal of smoke over the circus, and one of the neighbors swears he saw a flash of light bright as day. I took a walk down there this morning and nothing appears to be amiss, though the closure sign is still up on the gates.”

  “How strange,” Lorena remarks.

  Without a word Bailey leaps over the porch railing and takes off in a full run through the trees. He heads toward the striped tents as fast as he can, his red scarf trailing out behind him.

  Old Ghosts

  LONDON, OCTOBER 31, 1902

  It is late and the pavement is dark despite the streetlamps dotting the line of grey stone buildings. Isobel stands near the shadowed stairs of the one she called home for almost a year, what now seems like a lifetime ago. She waits outside for Marco to return, a pale blue shawl pulled around her shoulders like a patch of day-bright sky in the night.

  Hours pass before Marco appears at the corner. His grip on his briefcase tightens when he sees her.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks. “You’re supposed to be in the States.”

  “I left the circus,” Isobel said. “I walked away. Celia said I could.”

  She takes a faded scrap of paper from her pocket, bearing her name, her real name that he coaxed from her years ago and asked her to write in one of his notebooks.

  “Of course she did,” Marco says.

  “May I come upstairs?” she asks, fidgeting with the edge of her shawl.

  “No,” Marco says, glancing up at the windows. A dim, flickering light illuminates the glass. “Please, just say whatever it is you’re here to say.”

  Isobel frowns. She looks around the street but it is dark and empty, only a crisp breeze blowing through, rustling the leaves in the gutter.

  “I wanted to say that I was sorry,” she says quietly. “For not telling you that I was tempering. I know what happened last year was partly my fault.”

  “You should apologize to Celia, not to me.”

  “I already have,” Isobel says. “I knew she was in love with someone, but I thought it was Herr Thiessen. I didn’t realize until that night that it was you. But she loved him as well, and she lost him and I was the cause.”

  “It was not your fault,” Marco says. “There were a great many factors involved.”

  “There have always been a great many factors involved,” Isobel says. “I didn’t mean to get so tangled up in this. I only wanted to be helpful. I wanted to get through … this and go back to the way things were, before.”

  “We cannot go backward,” Marco says. “A great deal is not how it used to be.”

  “I know,” Isobel says. “I cannot hate her. I have tried. I cannot even dislike her. She let me carry on for years, clearly suspicious of her, but she was always kind to me. And I loved the circus. I felt like I finally had a home, a place I could belong. After a while I didn’t feel like I needed to protect you from her, I felt I should protect everyone else from both of you, and both of you from each other. I started after you came to see me in Paris, when you were so upset about the Wishing Tree, but I knew I had to continue after I read Celia’s cards.”

  “When was this?” Marco asks.

  “That night in Prague when you were supposed to meet me,” Isobel says. “You never let me read for you, not even a single card before last year. I had not realized that before. I wonder if I would have let this go on so long if I’d had the opportunity. It took ages for me to truly understand what her cards were saying. I could not see what was right in front of me. I wasted so much time. This was always about the two of you, even before you met. I was only a diversion.”

  “You were not a diversion,” Marco says.

  “Did you ever love me?” Isobel asks.

  “No,” Marco admits. “I thought perhaps I could, but … ”

  Isobel nods.

  “I thought you did,” she says. “I was so certain that you did, even though you never said it. I couldn’t tell the difference between what was real and what I wanted to be real. I thought this was going to be temporary, even when it kept dragging on and on. But it’s not. It never was. I was the one who was temporary. I used to think that if she were gone, you would come back to me.”

  “If she were gone, I would be nothing,” Marco says. “You should think better of yourself than to settle for that.”

  They stand in silence on the empty street, the chill of the night air falling between them.

  “Good night, Miss Martin,” Marco says, starting up the stairs.

  “The most difficult thing to read is time,” Isobel says, and Marco stops, turning back to her. “Maybe because it changes so many things. I have read for countless people on innumerable subjects and the most difficult thing to understand within the cards is always the timing. I knew that, and still it surprised me. How long I was willing to wait for something that was only a possibility. I always thought it was just a matter of time, but I was wrong.”

  “I did not expect this to go on as long as—” Marco begins, but Isobel interrupts him.

  “It was all a matter of timing,” she says. “My train was late that day. The day I saw you drop your notebook. Had it been on schedule we never would have met. Maybe we were never meant to. It was a possibility, one of thousands, and not inevitable, the way some things are.”

  “Isobel, I am sorry,” Marco says. “I am sorry that I involved you in all of this. I am sorry that I did not tell you sooner how I feel for Celia. I do not know what else you want from me that I can give you.”

  Isobel nods, pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders.

  “I read for someone a week ago,” she says. “He was young, younger than I was when I met you. Tall in the way of someone who is not yet used to being tall. He was genuine and sweet. He even asked me my name. And everything was in his cards. Everything. It was like reading for the circus, and that has only happened to me once before, when I read for Celia.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Marco asks.

  “Because I thought he could have saved you. I didn’t know how to feel about that; I still don’t. It was there in his cards along with everything else, as plain as anything I have ever seen. I thought then that this was going to end differently. I was wrong. I seem to be wrong quite frequently. Perhaps it is time for me to find a new occupation.”

  Marco stops, his face going pale in the lamplight.

  “What are you saying?” he asks.

  “I am saying that you had a chance,” Isobel says. “A chance to be with her. A chance for everything to resolve itself in a favorable manner. I almost wanted that for you, truly, in spite of everything. I still want you to be happy. And the possibility was there.” She gives him a small, sad smile as she slides her hand into her pocket. “But the timing isn’t right.”

  She removes her hand from her pocket and uncurls her fingers. In her palm sits a pile of sparkling black crystals, silt as fine as ash.

  “What is that?” Marco asks as she lifts her palm to her lips.

  In response, Isobel blows softly, and the ash flies at Marco in a stinging black cloud.

  When the dust clears, Marco’s briefcase sits abandoned on the pavement by her feet. Isobel takes it with her as she leaves.

  Aftermath

  NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 1, 1902

  Though the surroundings have changed, the circus looks exactly the same as it did in his own fields, Bailey thinks when he finally reaches the fence, holding a stitch in his side and breathing heavily from running through an area that is more woods than fields.

  But something more than that is different. It takes him a moment of trying to catch his breath by the side of the gates, staring at the sign that reads:

  Closed Due to Inclement Weather

  hanging over the normal sign denoting the hours of operation.

  It is the smell, he realizes. It is not the smell of caramel blend
ed perfectly with the woody smoke of a warming fire. Instead it is the heavy scent of something burned and wet, with a sickly sweet undertone.

  It makes him nauseous.

  There is no sound within the bounds of the curling iron fence. The tents are perfectly still. Only the clock beyond the gates makes any motion, slowly ticking by the afternoon hours.

  Bailey discovers quickly that he is not able to slip through the bars of the fence as easily as he did when he was ten. The space is too narrow, no matter how he tries to shift his shoulders. He half expected Poppet to be there waiting for him, but there is not a soul in sight.

  The fence is too high to climb, and Bailey is considering simply sitting in front of the gates until sundown when he spots a curving tree branch that does not quite reach the fence but comes close, hanging above the twisting iron spikes at the top.

  From there he could jump. If he got the angle right he would land in a path between tents. If he got the angle wrong he’d likely break his leg, but that would be only a minor problem that could be dealt with, and then at least he would be inside the circus.

  The tree is easy enough to climb, and the limb closest to the circus wide enough to manage until he gets closer to the fence. But he is unable to balance well and while he attempts a graceful leap, it ends up being something closer to a planned fall. He lands heavily in the path, rolling into the side of the tent and taking a large amount of the white powder on the ground with him.

  His legs hurt but seem to be in working order, though his shoulder feels badly bruised and the palms of his hands are a mess of scrapes and dirt and powder. The powder brushes off his hands easily enough, but sticks like paint to his coat and the legs of his new suit. And now he stands alone inside the circus again.

  “Truth or dare,” he mutters to himself.

  Dry, fragile leaves dance around his feet, drawn in through the fence by the wind. Spots of muted autumn color disrupting the black and white.