“Does she still perform on the quarter hour?” he asks, drawing a watch from his pocket.
“Yes, but … you’re going to sit there and watch her show?” Isobel asks. “There’s barely room for twenty people in her tent, she’ll notice you. Won’t she think it strange that you’re here?”
“She won’t even recognize me,” Marco says. The watch vanishes from his hand. “Whenever there is a new tent, I would appreciate it if you would let me know.”
He turns and walks away, moving so quickly that the candle flames shiver with the motion of the air.
“I miss you,” Isobel says as he leaves, but the sentiment is crushed by the clatter of the beaded curtain falling closed behind him.
She tugs the black mist of her veil back down over her face.
*
AFTER THE LAST of her querents has departed in the early hours of the morning, Isobel takes her Marseilles deck from her pocket. She carries it with her always though she has a separate deck for circus readings, a custom-made version in black and white and shades of grey.
From the Marseilles deck she draws a single card. She knows which it will be before she turns it over. The angel emblazoned on the front is only a confirmation of what she already suspects.
She does not return it to the deck.
Atmosphere
LONDON, SEPTEMBER 1891
The circus has arrived near London, the train creeping in just after nightfall without drawing any notice. The train cars collapse, doors and halls sliding apart, silently forming chains of windowless rooms. Canvas stripes unfurl around them, uncoiled ropes snapping taut and platforms assembling themselves amongst carefully draped curtains.
(The company assumes there is a crew that accomplishes this feat while they unpack their trunks, though some aspects of the transition are clearly automated. This was once the case, but now there is no crew, no unseen stagehands moving bits of scenery to their proper places. They are no longer necessary.)
The tents sit quiet and dark, as the circus will not be open to the public until the following evening.
While most of the performers are spending the night in the city visiting old friends and favorite pubs, Celia Bowen sits alone in her backstage suite.
Her rooms are modest in comparison to others hidden behind the circus tents, but they are filled with books and well-worn furniture. Mismatched candles burn merrily on every available surface, illuminating the sleeping doves in their cages hanging amongst sweeping curtains of richly colored tapestries. A cozy sanctuary, comfortable and quiet.
The knock on the door comes as a surprise.
“Is this how you intend to spend your entire night?” Tsukiko asks, glancing at the book in Celia’s hand.
“I take it you came to suggest an alternative?” Celia asks. The contortionist does not often visit solely for the sake of visiting.
“I have a social engagement, and I thought you might join me,” Tsukiko says. “You spend too much time in solitude.”
Celia attempts to protest, but Tsukiko is insistent, taking out one of Celia’s finest gowns, one of few with any color, a de
ep blue velvet embellished with pale gold.
“Where are we going?” Celia asks, but Tsukiko refuses to say. It is too late an hour for their destination to be the theater or the ballet.
Celia laughs when they arrive at la maison Lefèvre.
“You could have told me,” she says to Tsukiko.
“Then it would not have been a surprise,” Tsukiko responds.
Celia has attended only a single function at la maison Lefèvre, and that was more pre-circus-opening reception than proper Midnight Dinner. But despite visiting the house on only a handful of occasions between her audition and the opening of the circus, she finds she is already acquainted with each of the guests.
Her arrival with Tsukiko is a surprise to the rest of them, but she is greeted warmly by Chandresh and swept into the parlor with a glass of champagne in her hand before she can apologize for her unexpected presence.
“See that they set an additional place for dinner,” Chandresh says to Marco, before taking her on a cursory spin around the room to make sure she has met everyone. Celia finds it odd that he does not seem to remember.