The Night Circus

She unties the ribbons slowly, working the knots out with her fingernails. When they are loosened enough for her to remove the lid, she pulls it off gingerly, as though she fears what she might find inside.

Inside the box is a hat.

It is just as she left it. An old black bowler hat, showing some wear around the brim. It is tied with more black and white ribbons, wrapped like a present in light and dark bows. Beneath the knots of the ribbon there is a single tarot card. Between the hat and the card there is a folded white lace handkerchief, its edges embroidered with looping black vines.

They were such simple things. Knots and intent.

She had laughed through her lessons, much preferring her cards. They seemed so straightforward in comparison, despite their myriad meanings.

It was only a precaution. Precautions are wise in such unpredictable circumstances. No stranger than bringing along an umbrella for a walk on a day that feels like rain, even if the sun is shining brightly.

Though she cannot be certain it is doing much more than gathering dust, not really. She has no way to be sure, no barometer on which to measure such insubstantial things. No thermometer for chaos. At the moment, it feels like she is pushing against an empty void.

Isobel lifts the hat carefully from the box, the long ends of the ribbons spilling in a waterfall around it. It is oddly pretty, for being an old hat and a handkerchief and a card tied up in fraying ribbon. Almost festive.

“The smallest charms can be the most effective,” Isobel says, taken aback when her voice catches, almost on the brink of tears.

The hat does not reply.

“I don’t think you’re having any effect at all,” Isobel says.

Again, the hat has no reply.

She had only wanted to keep the circus balanced. To prevent two conflicting sides from causing damage to each other or their surroundings.

To keep the scales from breaking.

Over and over in her mind, she sees them together in the ballroom.

She remembers snatches of an overheard argument. Marco saying he had done everything for her, a statement she had not understood at the

time and forgotten soon after.

But now it is clear.

All the emotion in the cards when she would try to read about him, it was all for Celia.

The circus itself, all for her. For every beautiful tent he creates, she builds one in return.

And Isobel herself has been helping to keep it balanced. Helping him. Helping them both.

She looks down at the hat in her hands.

White lace caressing black wool, ribbons intertwined. Inseparable.

Isobel tears at the ribbons with her fingers, pulling at the bows in a sudden fury.

The handkerchief floats down like a ghost, the initials C.N.B. legible amongst the embroidered vines.

The tarot card falls to the ground, landing faceup. The image of an angel is emblazoned on it, the word Tempérance is lettered beneath.

Isobel stops, holding her breath. Expecting some repercussion, some result from the action. But everything is quiet. The candles flicker around her. The beaded curtain hangs still and calm. She suddenly feels silly and stupid, alone in her tent with a pile of tangled ribbon and an old hat. She thinks herself a fool for believing she could have any impact on such things. That anything she ever did mattered at all.

She reaches down to retrieve the fallen card, but her hand freezes just above it when she hears something. For a split second it sounds like the squealing brakes of a train.

It takes a moment for Isobel to realize that the noise coming from outside the tent is actually the sound of Poppet Murray screaming.

Darkest Before the Dawn