The Night Circus

“I picked up bits and pieces naturally, and Celia taught me how to find the patterns, to put the sounds together in complete sets.”

“I hope she was a better teacher than her father.”

“From what I know of her father they are quite different. She never forced Poppet or me into playing complicated games, for one thing.”

“Do you even know what the challenge you are alluding to was?” the man in the grey suit asks.

“Do you?” Widget asks. “It seems to me it was not entirely clear-cut.”

“Few things in this world are clear-cut. A very long time ago—I suppose you could say once upon a time if you wished it to sound a grander tale than it is—one of my first students and I had a disagreement about the ways of the world, about permanence and endurance and time. He thought my systems outdated. He developed methods of his own that he thought superior. I am of the opinion that no methodology is worthwhile unless it can be taught, so he began teaching. The pitting of our respective students against each other began as simple tests, though over time they became more complex. They were always, at the heart, challenges of chaos and control to see which technique was strongest. It is one thing to put two competitors alone in a ring and wait for one to hit the ground. It is another to see how they fare when there are other factors in the ring along with them. When there are repercussions with every action taken. This final challenge was particularly interesting. I will admit that Miss Bowen found a very clever way out. Though I do regret losing a student of my own in the process.” He takes a sip of his wine. “He was possibly the best student I ever taught.”

“You believe he’s dead?” Widget asks.

The man puts down his glass.

“You believe he is not?” he counters after a significant pause.

“I know he’s not. Just as I know that Celia’s father, who is also not dead, precisely, is standing by that window.” Widget lifts his glass, tilting it toward the darkened window by the door.

The image in the glass, which could be a grey-haired man in a finely tailored coat, or could be an amalgamation of reflections from customers and waiters and bent and broken light from the street, ripples slightly before becoming completely indistinguishable.

“Neither of them are dead,” Widget continues. “But they’re not that, either.” He nods at the window. “They’re in the circus. They are the circus. You can hear his footsteps in the Labyrinth. You can smell her perfume in the Cloud Maze. It’s marvelous.”

“You think being imprisoned marvelous?”

“It’s a matter of perspective,” Widget says. “They have each other. They are confined within a space that is remarkable, one that can, and will, grow and change around them. In a way, they have the world, bound only by his imagination. Marco has been teaching his illusion technique to me, but I’ve not yet mastered it. So yes, I think it marvelous. He thought of you as his father, you know.”

“Did he tell you that?” the man in the grey suit asks.

“Not in words,” Widget says. “He let me read him. I see people’s pasts, sometimes in great detail if the person in question trusts me. He trusts me because Celia does. I do not think he blames you any longer. Because of you, he has her.”

“I chose him to contrast her, and to complement. Perhaps I chose too well.” The man in the grey suit leans into the table, as though he might whisper his words conspiratorially, but the tenor of his voice does not change. “That was the mistake, you realize. They were too well matched. Too taken with each other to be competitive. And now they can never be separated. Pity.”

“I take it you are not a romantic,” Widget says, picking up the bottle to refill his glass.

“I was in my youth. Which was a very, very long time ago.”

/> “I can tell,” Widget says as he replaces the bottle on the table. The man in the grey suit’s past stretches back a long, long time. Longer than anyone Widget has ever met. He can only read parts of it, so much of it is worn and faded. The parts connected to the circus are clearest, the easiest for him to grasp.

“Do I look that old?”

“You have no shadow.”

The man in the grey suit cracks a smile, the only noticeable change his expression has displayed the entire evening.

“You are quite perceptive,” he says. “Not one person in a hundred, perhaps even a thousand, notices as much. Yes, my age is quite advanced. I have seen a great many things in my time. Some I would prefer to forget. It takes a toll on a person, after all. Everything does, in its way. Just as everything fades with time. I am no exception to that rule.”

“Are you going to end up like him?” Widget nods at the window.

“I certainly hope not. I am content to accept inevitabilities, even if I have ways of putting them off. He was seeking immortality, which is a terrible thing to seek. It is not seeking anything, but rather avoiding the unavoidable. He will grow to despise that state if he does not already. I hope my student and your teacher are more fortunate.”

“You mean … you hope they can die?” Widget asks.

“I mean only that I hope they find darkness or paradise without fear of it, if they can.” He pauses before adding, “I hope that for you and your compatriots as well.”

“Thank you,” Widget says, though he is not entirely certain he understands the sentiment.

“I sent your cradle when you were born to welcome you and your sister to this world, the least I can do is wish you a pleasant exit from it, as I highly doubt I will be there to see you off in person. I hope not to be, in fact.”