The Night Circus
When the boy is ready, the man in the grey suit takes him from the grey stone building, and he does not return.
Magic Lessons
1875–1880
Celia grows up in a series of theaters. Most often in New York, but there are long stretches in other cities. Boston. Chicago. San Francisco. Occasional excursions to Milan or Paris or London. They blend together in a haze of must and velvet and sawdust to the point where she sometimes does not recall what country she is in, not that it matters.
Her father brings her everywhere while she is small, parading her like a well-loved small dog in expensive gowns, for his colleagues and acquaintances to fawn over in pubs after performances.
When he decides she is too tall to be an adorable accessory, he begins abandoning her in dressing rooms or hotels.
She wonders each night if perhaps he will not return, but he always stumbles in at unseemly hours, sometimes petting her gently on the head while she pretends to be asleep, other times ignoring her entirely.
Her lessons have become less formal. When before he would sit her down at marked, though irregular, times, now he tests her constantly, but never in public.
Even tasks as simple as tying her boots he forbids her to do by hand. She stares at her feet, silently willing the laces to tie and untie in messy bows, scowling when they tangle into knots.
Her father is not forthcoming when she asks questions. She has gathered that the man in the grey suit whom her father called Alexander also has a student, and there will be some sort of game.
“Like chess?” she asks once.
“No,” her father says. “Not like chess.”
*
THE BOY GROWS UP in a town house in London. He sees no one, not even when his meals are delivered to his rooms, appearing by the door on covered trays and disappearing in the same manner. Once a month, a man who does not speak is brought in to cut his hair. Once a year, the same man takes measurements for new clothing.
The boy spends most of his time reading. And writing, of course. He copies down sections of books, writes out words and symbols he does not understand at first but that become intimately familiar beneath his ink-stained fingers, formed again and again in increasingly steady lines. He reads histories and mythologies and novels. He slowly learns other languages, though he has difficulty speaking them.
There are occasional excursions to museums and libraries, during off-hours when there are few, if any, other visitors. The boy adores these trips, both for the contents of the buildings and the deviation from his set routine. But they are rare, and he is never permitted to leave the house unescorted.
The man in the grey suit visits him in his rooms every day, most often accompanied by a new pile of books, spending exactly one hour lecturing about things the boy is unsure he will ever truly understand.
Only once does the boy inquire as to when he will actually be allowed to do something, the kinds of things that the man in the grey suit demonstrates very rarely himself during these strictly scheduled lessons.
“When you are ready” is the only answer he receives.
He is not deemed ready for some time.
*
THE DOVES THAT APPEAR ONSTAGE and occasionally in the audience during Prospero’s performances are kept in elaborate cages, delivered to each theater along with the rest of his luggage and supplies.
A slamming door sends a stack of trunks and cases tumbling in his dressing room, toppling a cage full of doves.
The trunks right themselves instantly, but Hector picks up the cage to inspect the damage.
While most of the doves are only dazed from the fall, one clearly has a broken wing. Hector carefully removes the bird, the damaged bars repairing as he sets the cage down.
“Can you fix it?” Celia asks.
Her father looks at the injured dove and then back at his daughter, waiting for her to ask a different question.
“Can I fix it?” she asks after a moment.
“Go ahead and try,” her father says, handing it to her.
Celia gently strokes the trembling dove, staring intently at its broken wing.