The Night Circus

by Erin Morgenstern

  “I don’t know,” Marco says. “Perhaps, but—”

  Before he can conclude the thought, one of the chairs hanging above them falls, its ribbons snapping. It comes close to hitting Widget as it crashes to the ground, splintering into pieces.

  “Bloody hell,” Marco says as Bailey jumps back, almost colliding with Poppet and sending her hair into another brief wave of motion. “Through there,” Marco says, indicating the side of the tent that is some distance away. Then he vanishes.

  Bailey looks back at Poppet and Widget. Poppet’s hair settles again, unmoving. Fragments of the fallen chair rest on Widget’s boots.

  Turning away, Bailey moves carefully around stationary figures to reach the edge of the tent. He casts nervous glances upward at the additional chairs and the round iron cages suspended by nothing but fraying ribbon.

  His fingers shake as he undoes the ties in the wall.

  As soon as he passes through, he feels as though he has walked into a dream.

  Inside the adjoining tent there is a towering tree. As large as his old oak tree, growing right out of the ground. The branches are bare and black but they are covered with dripping white candles, translucent layers of wax frosting over the bark.

  Only a fraction of the candles are burning, but the sight is no less resplendent as they illuminate the twisting black branches, casting dancing shadows over the striped walls.

  Beneath it, Marco stands with his arms around a woman Bailey recognizes instantly as the illusionist.

  She appears as transparent as Marco does. Her gown looks like mist in the candlelight.

  “Hello, Bailey,” she says as he approaches. Her voice echoes around him, softly, as close as if she were standing next to him, whispering in his ear. “I like your scarf,” she adds when he does not immediately reply. The words in his ears are warm and strangely comforting. “I’m Celia. I don’t believe we were ever properly introduced.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Bailey says.

  Celia smiles, and Bailey is struck by how different she seems from the way she did when he watched her perform, even beyond the fact that he can look through her at the dark tree branches.

  “How did you know I was coming here?” he asks.

  “Poppet mentioned you as part of the series of events that occurred earlier, so I hoped you would arrive eventually.”

  At the mention of Poppet’s name, Bailey glances over his shoulder at the wall of the tent. The suspended party seems farther away than just beyond the canvas stripes.

  “We need your help with something,” Celia continues as he turns back. “We need you to take over the circus.”

  “What?” Bailey asks. He is not sure what he was expecting, but it was not this.

  “Right now the circus is in need of a new caretaker,” Marco says. “It is drifting, like a ship without an anchor. It needs someone to anchor it.”

  “And that someone is me?” Bailey asks.

  “We would like it to be, yes,” Celia says. “If you are willing to make the commitment. We should be able to assist you, and Poppet and Widget would be able to help, as well, but the true responsibility would be yours.”

  “But I’m not … special,” Bailey says. “Not the way they are. I’m not anyone important.”

  “I know,” Celia says. “You’re not destined or chosen, I wish I could tell you that you were if that would make it easier, but it’s not true. You’re in the right place at the right time, and you care enough to do what needs to be done. Sometimes that’s enough.”

  As he watches her in the flickering light, it strikes Bailey suddenly that she is a fair deal older than she appears, and that the same is likely true of Marco. It is like realizing someone in a photograph is no longer the same age as they were when it was taken, and they seem farther away because of it. The circus itself feels far away, even though he stands within it. As though it is falling away from him.

  “All right,” Bailey says, but Celia holds up a transparent hand to stop him before he agrees.

  “Wait,” Celia says. “This is important. I want you to have something neither of us truly had. I want you to have a choice. You can agree to this or you can walk away. You are not obliged to help, and I don’t want you to feel that you are.”

  “What happens if I walk away?” Bailey asks. Celia looks at Marco before she answers.

  They only look at each other without speaking, but the gesture is so intimate that Bailey glances away, looking up at the twisting branches of the tree.

  “It won’t last,” Celia says after a moment. She does not elaborate, turning back to Bailey as she continues. “I know this is a great deal to request from you, but I do not have anyone else to ask.”

  Suddenly the candles on the tree begin to spark. Some of them darken, curls of smoke replacing the bright flames only momentarily before disappearing themselves.

  Celia wavers, and for a moment Bailey thinks she might faint, but Marco steadies her.

  “Celia, love,” Marco says, running his hand over her hair. “You are the strongest person I have ever known. You can hold on for a while longer, I know you can.”

  “I’m sorry,” Celia says.

  Bailey cannot tell which one of them she is speaking to.

  “You have nothing to be sorry about,” Marco says.

  Celia holds tightly to his hand.

  “What would happen to the two of you, if the circus … stopped?” Bailey asks.

  “Truthfully, I’m not entirely certain,” Celia says.

  “Nothing good,” Marco mutters.

  “What would you need me to do?” Bailey asks.

  “I need you to finish something I started,” Celia says. “I … I acted rather impulsively and played my cards out of order. And now there is the matter of the bonfire as well.”

  “The bonfire?” Bailey asks.

  “Think of the circus as a machine,” Marco says. “The bonfire is one of the things that powers it.”

  “There are two things that need to happen,” Celia says. “First, the bonfire needs to be lit. That will … power half the circus.”

  “What about the other half?” Bailey asks.

  “That’s more complicated,” Celia says. “I carry that with me. And I would have to give that to you.”

  “Oh.”

  “You would then carry it with you,” Celia says. “All of the time. You’d be tied very tightly to the circus itself. You could leave, but not for extended periods of time. I do not know if you would be able to give it to someone else. It would be yours. Always.”

  It is only then that Bailey realizes the scope of the commitment he is being asked for.

  It is not the handful of years committed to Harvard. It is, he thinks, an even greater commitment than inheriting responsibility for the family farm.

  He looks from Marco to Celia, and knows from the look in her eyes that she will let him go if he asks to leave, no matter what that might mean for them or for the circus.

  He thinks of a litany of questions but none of them truly matter.

  He knows his answer already.

  His choice was made when he was ten years old, under a different tree, bound up in acorns and dares and a single white glove.

  He will always choose the circus.

  “I’ll do it,” he says. “I’ll stay. I’ll do whatever it is you need me to do.”

  “Thank you, Bailey,” Celia says softly. The words resonating in his ears soothe the last of his nerves.

  “Indeed,” Marco says. “I think we should make this official.”

  “Do you think that’s absolutely necessary?” Celia asks.

  “At this point I’m not about to settle for a verbal contract,” Marco says. Celia frowns for a moment but then nods her consent, and Marco carefully lets go of her hand. She stays steady and her appearance does not waver.

  “Do you want me to sign something?” Bailey asks.

  “Not exactly,” Marco says. He takes a silver ring from his right hand, it is eng
raved with something Bailey cannot discern in the light. Marco reaches up to a branch above his head and passes the ring through one of the burning candles until it glows, white and hot.

  Bailey wonders whose wish that particular flame might be.

  “I made a wish on this tree years ago,” Marco says, as though he knows what Bailey is thinking.

  “What did you wish for?” Bailey asks, hoping it is not too forward a question, but Marco does not answer.

  Instead, he folds the glowing ring into his palm, and then he offers his hand to Bailey.

  Bailey hesitantly reaches out, expecting his fingers to pass through Marco’s hand as easily as they did before.

  But instead they stop, and Marco’s hand in his is almost solid. Marco leans forward and whispers into Bailey’s ear.

  “I wished for her,” he says.

  Then Bailey’s hand begins to hurt. The pain is bright and hot as the ring burns into his skin.

  “What are you doing?” he manages to ask when he can gasp for enough air. The pain is sharp and searing, coursing through his entire body, and he is barely able to keep his knees from buckling beneath him.

  “Binding,” Marco says. “It’s one of my specialties.”

  He releases Bailey’s hand. The pain vanishes instantly but Bailey’s legs continue to tremble.

  “Are you all right?” Celia asks.

  Bailey nods, looking down at his palm. The ring is gone, but there is a bright red circle burned into his skin. Bailey is certain without having to ask that it will be a scar he carries with him always. He closes his hand and looks back at Marco and Celia.

  “Tell me what I need to do now,” he says.

  The Second Lighting of the Bonfire

  NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 1, 1902

  Bailey finds the tiny, book-filled room without much difficulty. The large black raven sitting in the corner blinks at him curiously as he sorts through the contents of the desk.

  He flips anxiously through the large leather book until he finds the page with Poppet’s and Widget’s signatures. He tears the page from the binding carefully, removing it completely.

  He finds a pen in a drawer and writes his own name across the page as he has been instructed. While the ink dries he gathers up the rest of the things he will need, running through the list over and over in his head so he does not forget anything.

  The yarn is easily found, a ball of it sits precariously on a pile of books.

  The two cards, one a familiar playing card and the other a tarot card emblazoned with an angel, are amongst the papers on the desk. He tucks these into the front cover of the book.

  The doves in the cage above him stir with a soft fluttering of feathers.

  The pocket watch on its long silver chain proves most difficult to locate. He finds it on the ground beside the desk, and when he attempts to dust it off a bit he can see the initials H.B. engraved on the back. The watch no longer ticks.

  Bailey places the loose page on top of the book and tucks it under his arm. The watch and the yarn he puts in his pockets with the candle he pulled from the Wishing Tree.

  The raven cocks its head at him as he leaves. The doves remain asleep.

  Bailey crosses the adjoining tent, walking around the double circle of chairs as passing directly through it does not seem appropriate.

  Outside the light rain is still falling.

  He hurries back to the courtyard, where he finds Tsukiko waiting for him.

  “Celia says I need to borrow your lighter,” he says.

  Tsukiko tilts her head curiously, looking oddly like a bird with a catlike grin.

  “I suppose that is acceptable,” she says after a moment. She pulls the silver lighter from her coat pocket and tosses it to him.

  It is heavier than he had expected, a complicated mechanism of gears partially encased in worn and tarnished silver, with symbols he cannot distinguish etched into the surface.

  “Be careful with that,” Tsukiko says.

  “Is it magic?” Bailey asks, turning it over in his hand.

  “No, but it is old, and it was constructed by someone very dear to me. I take it you are attempting to light that again?” She gestures at the towering bowl of twisted metal that once held the bonfire.

  Bailey nods.

  “Do you want any help?”

  “Are you offering?”

  Tsukiko shrugs.

  “I am not terribly invested in the outcome,” she says, but something about the way she looks around at the tents and the mud makes Bailey doubt her words.

  “I don’t believe you,” he says. “But I am, and I think I should do this on my own.”

  Tsukiko smiles at him, the first smile he has seen from her that seems genuine.

  “I shall leave you to it, then,” she says. She runs a hand along the iron cauldron and most of the rainwater within it turns to steam, rising in a soft cloud that dissipates into the fog.

  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 rêveurs. 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 rêveurs 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