Wishes and Desires PARIS, MAY 1891

When the beaded curtain parts with a sound like rain, it is Marco who enters the fortune-teller’s chamber, and Isobel immediately flips her veil from her face, the impossibly thin black silk floating back over her head like mist.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Ignoring her question, he holds out an open notebook, and in the flickering light Isobel can discern a bare black tree. It is not like the trees that are inscribed in so many of his books, this one is covered in dripping white candles. Surrounding the main drawing are detailed sketches of twisting branches, capturing several different angles.

“That’s the Wishing Tree,” Isobel says. “It’s new.”

“I know it’s new,” Marco says. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“I haven’t had time to write you,” Isobel says. “And I wasn’t even sure whether or not it was something you had done yourself. It seemed like something you might have made. It’s lovely, the way wishes are added to it, by lighting candles with ones that are already lit and adding them to the branches. New wishes ignited by old wishes.”

“It’s hers,” Marco says simply, pulling the notebook back.

“How can you be certain?” Isobel asks.

Marco pauses, looking down at the sketch, annoyed that he could not properly capture the beauty of the thing in hastily rendered drawings.

“I can feel it,” he says. “It is like knowing that a storm is coming, the shift in the air around it. As soon as I walked into the tent I could sense it, and it is stronger closer to the tree itself. I am not certain it would be perceptible if one were unfamiliar with such sensation.”

“Do you think she can feel what you do in the same way?” Isobel asks.

Marco has not considered this before, though it seems it would be true. He finds the idea strangely pleasing.

“I do not know” is all he says to Isobel.

Isobel pushes the veil that is slipping over her face back behind her head again.

“Well,” she says, “now you know about it, and you can do whatever you want to it.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Marco says. “I cannot use anything she does for my own purposes. The sides need to remain separate. If we were playing a game of chess, I could not simply remove her pieces from the board. My only option is to retaliate with my own pieces when she moves hers.”

“But there can’t possibly be an endgame, then,” Isobel says. “How can you checkmate a circus? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“It’s not like chess,” Marco says, struggling to explain something that he has finally begun to understand even though he cannot properly articulate it. He glances at her table where a few cards remain laid faceup, one in particular catching his attention.

“It’s like this,” he says, pointing out the woman with her scales and sword, La Justice inscribed below her feet. “It’s a set of scales: one side is mine, the other is hers.”

A set of silver scales appears on the table between the cards, balancing precariously, each side piled with diamonds that sparkle in the candlelight.

“So the object is to tip the scales in your favor?” Isobel asks.

Marco nods, turning through the pages of his notebook. He keeps flipping back to the page with the tree.

“But if you both keep adding to your sides of the scale, increasing the weight on each side in turn,” Isobel says, watching the gently swaying scale, “won’t it break?”

“I do not believe it is an exact comparison,” Marco says, and the scales vanish.

Isobel frowns at the empty space.

“How long is this going to go on?” she asks.

“I have no idea,” Marco says. “Do you want to leave?” he adds, looking up at her. Unsure of what response he wants to the question.

“No,” Isobel says. “I  …  I don’t want to leave. I like it here, I do. But I would also like to understand. Maybe if I understood better I could be more helpful.”

“You are helpful,” Marco says. “Perhaps the only advantage I have is that she does not know who I am. She only has the circus to react to and I have you to watch her.”

“But I haven’t seen any reaction,” Isobel protests. “She keeps to herself. She reads more than anyone I have ever met. The Murray twins adore her. She has been nothing but kind to me. I have never seen her do a single thing out of the ordinary beyond when she performs. You say she is making all these moves and yet I never see her do anything. How do you know that tree is not Ethan Barris’s work?”

“Mr. Barris creates impressive mechanics, but this is not his doing. Though she’s embellished his carousel, I’m certain of that. I doubt even an engineer of Mr. Barris’s talent can make a painted wooden gryphon breathe. That tree is rooted in the ground, it is a living tree even if it does not have leaves.”

Marco turns his attention back to his sketch, tracing the lines of the tree with his fingertips.

“Did you make a wish?” Isobel asks quietly.

Marco closes his notebook without answering the question.

“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 deep 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.

Mme. Padva is gracious as always, her gown the warm copper of autumn leaves glowing in the candlelight. The Burgess sisters and Mr. Barris have apparently already been making light of the fact that the three of them have all worn various shades of blue, an unplanned detail, and Celia’s gown is cited as proof that it must simply be in fashion.

There is some mention of another guest that may or may not be attending, but Celia does not catch his name.

She feels slightly out of place in this gathering of people who have known each other for so long. But Tsukiko makes a point of including her in the conversation, and Mr. Barris pays such attention to her every word when she does speak, that Lainie begins to tease him about it.

While Celia knows Mr. Barris quite well, having met with him several times and exchanged dozens of letters, he does an impressive job of pretending they are mere acquaintances.