Somewhere in the nothingness, a clock begins to strike midnight.
Stop, she thinks.
The clock continues to chime, but she feels the stillness fall.
The breaking is the easy part, Celia realizes.
The pulling back together is the problem.
It is like healing her sliced-open fingertips as a child, taken to an extreme.
There is so much to balance, trying to find the edges again.
It would be so simple to let go.
It would be so much easier to let go.
So much less painful.
She fights against the temptation, against the pain and the chaos. Struggling for control with herself and her surroundings.
She picks a location to focus on, the most familiar place she can think of.
And slowly, agonizingly slowly, she pulls herself safely together.
Until she is standing in her own tent, in the center of a circle of empty chairs.
She feels lighter. Diluted. Slightly dizzy.
But she is not an echo of her former self. She is whole again, breathing. She can feel her heart beating, fast but steady. Even her gown feels the same as it did, cascading around her and no longer wet from the rain.
She spins in a circle and it flares out around her.
The dizziness begins to fade as she collects herself, still amazed at the accomplishment.
Then she notices that everything in the tent around her is transparent. The chairs, the lights hanging above her head, even the stripes on the walls seem insubstantial.
And she is alone.
*
FOR MARCO, THE MOMENT of the explosion lasts much longer.
The heat and the light stretch endlessly as he clings to Celia through the pain.
And then she is gone.
Nothing remains. No fire. No rain. No ground beneath his feet.
His sight begins to shift continuously from shadow to light, darkness replaced by expansive white only to be consumed by darkness again. Never settling.
*
THE CIRCUS SHIFTS AROUND CELIA, as fluid as one of Marco’s illusions.
She pictures where she wishes to be within it, and she is there. She cannot even tell if she is moving herself or manipulating the circus around her.
The Ice Garden is silent and still, nothing but crisp, cool whiteness in every direction.
Only a fraction of the Hall of Mirrors reflects her own countenance, and some contain only a shimmering blur of pale-grey gown, or the motion of the billowing ribbons as they float behind her.
She thinks she catches glimpses of Marco in the glass, the edge of his jacket or the bright flash of his collar, but she cannot be certain.
Many of the mirrors sit hollow and empty within their ornate frames.
The mist in the Menagerie slowly dissipates as she searches the tent, finding nothing concealed within it but paper.
The Pool of Tears does not even ripple, the surface calm and smooth, and she is unable to grasp a stone to drop within it. She cannot light a candle on the Wishing Tree, though the wishes that hang on its branches continue to burn.
She moves through room after room in the Labyrinth. Rooms she created leading to ones he made and back again.
She can feel him. Close enough that she expects him around each turn, behind each door.
But there are only softly drifting feathers and fluttering playing cards. Silver statues with unseeing eyes. Chessboard-painted floors with vacant squares.
There are traces of him everywhere, but nothing for her to focus on. Nothing to hold on to.
The hallway lined with mismatched doors and covered in fallen snow bears traces of what could be footprints, or might only be shadows.
And Celia cannot tell where they lead.
*
MARCO GASPS AS AIR FILLS HIS LUNGS, as though he had been underwater and unaware of it.
And his first coherent thought is that he did not expect being trapped in a fire to feel so cold.
The cool air is sharp and stinging, and he can see only white in all directions.
As his eyes adjust, he can discern the shadow of a tree. The hanging branches of a frosty white willow tree cascading around him.
He takes a step forward, the ground disconcertingly soft beneath his feet.
He stands in the middle of the Ice Garden.
The fountain in the center has halted, the normally bubbling water quiet and still.
And the whiteness makes the effect difficult to see, but the entire garden is transparent.
He looks down at his hands. They are shaking slightly but they appear to be solid. His suit remains dark and opaque.
Marco lifts his hand to a nearby rose and his fingers pass through its petals with only a soft resistance, as though they are made of water rather than ice.
He is still looking at the rose when he hears a gasp behind him.
*
CELIA HOLDS HER HANDS TO HER LIPS, not quite believing her eyes. The sight of Marco standing in the Ice Garden is one she has imagined so many times before while alone in the icy expanse of flowers, it does not seem real despite the darkness of his suit against a bower of pale roses.
Then he turns and looks at her. As soon as she sees his eyes all her doubts vanish.
For a moment, he looks so young that she can see the boy he was, years before she met him, when they were already connected but still so far apart.
There are so many things she wants to say, things she feared she would never have the opportunity to tell him again. Only one seems truly important.
“I love you,” she says.
The words echo throughout the tent, softly rustling the frozen leaves.
*
MARCO ONLY STARES at her as she approaches, thinking her a dream.
“I thought I’d lost you,” she says when she reaches him, her voice a tremulous whisper.
She seems to be as substantial as he is, not transparent like the garden. She appears rich and vibrant against a background of white, a bright flush in her cheeks, her dark eyes brimming with tears.
He brings his hand to her face, petrified that his fingers will pass through her as easily as they had with the rose.
The relief when she is solid and warm and alive to his touch is overwhelming.
He pulls her into his arms, his tears falling onto her hair.
“I love you,” he says when he finds his voice.
*
THEY STAND ENTWINED, each unwilling to release the other.
“I couldn’t let you do it,” Celia says. “I couldn’t let you go.”
“What did you do?” Marco asks. He is still not entirely certain he understands what has happened.
“I used the circus as a touchstone,” Celia says. “I didn’t know if it would work but I couldn’t let you go, I had to try. I tried to take you with me and then I couldn’t find you and I thought I’d lost you.”
“I’m here,” Marco says, stroking her hair. “I’m here.”
It is not what he expected, being liberated from the world and reinstated in a confined location. He does not feel confined, only separate, as though he and Celia are overlapping the circus, rather than contained within it.
He looks around at the trees, the long frosted willow branches cascading down, the topiaries that line the nearby path like ghosts.
Only then does he notice that the garden is melting.
“The bonfire went out,” Marco says. He can feel it now, the emptiness. He can feel the circus all around him, as though it hangs on him like mist, like he could reach out and touch the iron fence despite the distance from it. Detecting the fence, how far it is in every direction, where every tent sits, even the darkened courtyard and Tsukiko standing within it, is almost effortless. He can feel the entirety of the circus as easily as feeling his shirt against his skin.
And the only thing burning brightly within it is Celia.
But it is a flickering brightness. As fragile as a candle flame.
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“You’re holding the circus together,” he says.
Celia nods. It is only beginning to weigh on her, but it is much more difficult to manage without the bonfire. She cannot focus enough to keep the details intact. Elements are already slipping away, dripping like the flowers around them.
And she knows that if it breaks, she will not be able to put it back together again.
She is shaking, and though she steadies when Marco holds her tighter, she continues to tremble in his arms.
“Let go of it, Celia.”
“I can’t,” she says. “If I let go it will collapse.”
“What will happen to us if it collapses?” Marco asks.
“I don’t know,” Celia says. “I suspended it. It can’t be self-sufficient without us. It needs a caretaker.”
Suspended
NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 1, 1902
The last time Bailey entered this particular tent, Poppet was with him, and it was filled with a dense white fog.
Then, and Bailey has difficulty believing it was only days ago, the tent had seemed endless. But now without the cover of mist, Bailey can see the white walls of the tent and all the creatures within it, but none of them are moving.
Birds and bats and butterflies hang throughout the space as if held by strings, completely still. No rustling of paper wings. No motion at all.
Other creatures sit on the ground near Bailey’s feet, including a black cat crouched pre-pounce near a silver-tipped white fox. There are larger animals, as well. A zebra with perfectly contrasting stripes. A reclining lion with a snowy mane. A white stag with tall antlers.
Standing next to the stag is a man in a dark suit.
He is almost transparent, like a ghost, or a reflection in glass. Parts of his suit are no more than shadows. Bailey can see the stag clearly through the sleeve of his jacket.
Bailey is debating whether or not it is a figment of his imagination when the man looks over at him, his eyes surprisingly bright, though Bailey cannot discern their color.
“I asked her not to send you this way,” he says. “Though it is the most direct.”
“Who are you?” Bailey asks.
“My name is Marco,” the man says. “You must be Bailey.”
Bailey nods.
“I wish you were not so young,” Marco says. Something in his voice sounds profoundly sad, but Bailey is still distracted by his ghostlike appearance.
“Are you dead?” he asks, walking closer. With the changing angle, Marco appears almost solid one moment, and transparent again the next.
“Not precisely,” Marco says.
“Tsukiko said she was the only living person here who knew what happened.”
“I suspect Miss Tsukiko is not always entirely truthful.”
“You look like a ghost,” Bailey says. He can think of no better way to describe it.
“You appear the same way to me, so which of us is real?”
Bailey has no idea how to answer that question, so he asks the first one of his own that comes to mind instead.
“Is that your bowler hat in the courtyard?”
To his surprise, Marco smiles.
“It is, indeed,” he says. “I lost it before everything happened, so it got left behind.”
“What happened?” Bailey asks.
Marco pauses before he answers.
“That is a rather long story.”
“That’s what Tsukiko said,” Bailey says. He wonders if he can find Widget, so he can do the storytelling properly.
“She was truthful on that point, then,” Marco says. “Tsukiko intended to imprison me in the bonfire, the reasons for which are a longer story than we have time for, and there was a change of plan that resulted in the current situation. I was pulled apart and put back together again in a less concentrated state.”
Marco holds out his hand and Bailey reaches to touch it. His fingers move through without stopping, but there is a soft resistance, the impression that there is something occupying the space, even if it is not completely solid.
“It is not an illusion or a trick,” Marco says.
Bailey’s brow furrows in thought, but after a moment he nods. Poppet said nothing is impossible, and he finds he is beginning to agree.
“I am not interacting with the surroundings as directly as you are,” Marco continues. “You and everything here appear equally insubstantial from my perspective. Perhaps we will be able to discuss it at greater length another time. Come with me.” He turns and begins walking toward the back of the tent.
Bailey follows, taking a winding path around the animals. It is difficult to find places to step, though Marco glides ahead of him with much less difficulty.
Bailey loses his balance stepping around the prone figure of a polar bear. His shoulder knocks into a raven hanging in the air. The raven falls to the ground, its wings bent and broken.
Before Bailey can say anything, Marco reaches down and picks up the raven, turning it over in his hands. He moves the broken wings and reaches inside, twisting something with a clicking noise. The raven turns its head and lets out a sharp, metallic caw.
“How can you touch them?” Bailey asks.
“I am still figuring out the logistics of interacting with physical things,” Marco says, flattening the raven’s wings and letting it limp down the length of his arm. It flaps its paper feathers but cannot fly. “It likely has something to do with the fact that I made them. Elements of the circus I had a hand in creating seem to be more tangible.”
The raven hops off by a mountainous pile of paper scales with a curling tail that looks as though it might once have been a dragon.
“They’re amazing,” Bailey says.
“They are paper and clockwork wrapped up in fairly simple charms. You could do the same with a bit of study.”
It has never crossed Bailey’s mind that he could do such things himself, but having been told as much so simply and directly, it seems strangely achievable.
“Where are we going?” Bailey asks as they approach the far side of the tent.
“Someone would like to speak with you,” Marco says. “She’s waiting at the Wishing Tree; it seemed to be the most stable.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen the Wishing Tree,” Bailey says, mindful of each step as they approach the other side of the tent.
“It is not a tent that is stumbled upon,” Marco says. “It is found when it is needed, instead. It is one of my favorite tents. You take a candle from the box at the entrance and light it from one that already burns on the tree. Your wish is ignited by someone else’s wish.” They have reached the wall of the tent, and Marco indicates a break in the fabric, a barely visible row of ribbon ties that reminds Bailey of the entrance to Widget’s tent with all the strange bottles. “If you go out here you will see the entrance to the acrobat tent across the way. I’ll be right behind you, though you might not be able to see me until we’re inside again. Be … be careful.”
Bailey unties the bows and slips out of the tent easily, finding himself in a winding path between tents. The sky above is grey but bright, despite the soft rain that is beginning to fall.
The acrobat tent looms higher than the tents surrounding it and the sign that reads DEFIANCE OF GRAVITY swings over the entrance only a few paces away.
Bailey has been in this tent several times, he knows the open floor with the performers hanging above it well.
But when he steps through the door he is not met with the wide-open space he expects.
He walks into a party. A celebration that has been frozen in place, suspended the same way the paper birds had been in the air.
There are dozens of performers throughout the tent, bathed with light from glowing round lamps that hang high above amongst ropes and chairs and round cages. Some are standing in groups and pairs, others sit on pillows and boxes and chairs that add flashes of color to the predominantly black-and-white crowd.
And each figure is perfectly still. So motionless that it
seems they are not even breathing. Like statues.
One near Bailey has a flute at his lips, the instrument silent in his fingers.
Another is pouring a bottle of wine, the liquid hovering above the glass.
“We should have gone around,” Marco says, appearing like a shadow by his side. “I’ve been keeping an eye on them for hours and they haven’t gotten any less disturbing.”
“What’s wrong with them?” Bailey asks.
“Nothing, as far as I can tell,” Marco answers. “The entirety of the circus has been suspended to give us more time, so … ” He lifts a hand and waves it over the party.
“Tsukiko’s part of the circus and she’s not like this,” Bailey says, confused.
“I believe she plays by her own rules,” Marco says. “This way,” he adds, moving into the crowd of figures.
Navigating the party proves more difficult than walking around the paper animals, and Bailey takes every step with extreme caution, afraid of what might happen if he accidentally hits someone the way he knocked down the raven.
“Almost there,” Marco says as they maneuver their way around a cluster of people grouped in a broken circle.
But Bailey stops, staring at the figure the group is facing.
Widget wears his performance costume but his patchwork jacket has been discarded, his vest hanging open over his black shirt. His hands are lifted in the air, gesturing in such a familiar way that Bailey can tell he has been stopped mid-story.
Poppet stands next to him. Her head is turned in the direction of the courtyard, as though something pulled her attention away from her brother at the precise moment the party was halted. Her hair spills out behind her, waves of red floating in the air as if she were suspended in water.
Bailey walks around to face her, reaching out tentatively to touch her hair. It ripples beneath his fingers, undulating slowly before settling back into its frozen state.
“Can she see me?” Bailey asks. Poppet’s eyes are still yet bright. He expects her to blink at any moment, but she does not.