Escapement CONCORD AND BOSTON, OCTOBER 31, 1902

Bailey walks circles around the empty field for some time before he can convince himself that the circus is well and truly gone. There is nothing at all, not so much as a bent blade of grass, to indicate that anything had occupied the space hours before.

He sits down on the ground, holding his head in his hands and feeling utterly lost though he has played in these very fields ever since he was little.

He recalls Poppet mentioning a train.

A train would have to travel to Boston in order to reach any far-flung destination.

Within moments of the thought crossing his mind, Bailey is on his feet, running as fast as he can toward the depot.

There are no trains to be seen when he gets there, out of breath and aching from where his bag has been hitting against his back. He had been hoping that somehow the circus train he was not even entirely certain existed would still be there, waiting.

But instead the depot is all but deserted; only two figures sit on one of the benches on the platform, a man and a woman in black coats.

It takes Bailey a moment to realize that they are both wearing red scarves.

“Are you all right?” the woman asks as he runs up to the platform. Bailey cannot quite place her accent.

“Are you here for the circus?” Bailey says, gasping for breath.

“Indeed we are,” the man says with a similar lilting accent. “Though it has departed, I trust you have noticed.”

“Closed early as well, but that is not unusual,” the woman adds.

“Do you know Poppet and Widget?” Bailey asks.

“Who?” the man asks. The woman tilts her head as though she did not catch the meaning of the question.

“They’re twins, they do a show with kittens,” Bailey explains. “They’re my friends.”

“The twins!” the woman exclaims. “And their wonderful cats! However did you come to be friends with them?”

“It’s a long story,” Bailey says.

“Then you should tell it to us while we wait,” she says with a smile. “You are off to Boston as well, yes?”

“I don’t know,” Bailey says. “I was trying to follow the circus.”

“That is precisely what we are doing,” the man says. “Though we cannot follow Le Cirque until we know where it has gone. That should take about a day.”

“I do hope it turns up somewhere manageable,” the woman says.

“How will you know where it is?” Bailey asks, in a state of mild disbelief.

“We rêveurs have our methods,” the woman says, smiling. “We have awhile yet to wait, that should be plenty of time to exchange stories.”

The man’s name is Victor, his sister is Lorena. They are on what they call an extended circus holiday, following Le Cirque des Rêves around to as many locations as they can manage. They normally do this only within Europe, but for this particular holiday they have decided to chase it around the other side of the Atlantic. They had been in Canada previously.

Bailey tells them a shortened version of how he came to be friends with Poppet and Widget, leaving out the more curious details.

As it creeps closer to dawn they are joined by another rêveur, a woman named Elizabeth who had been staying at the local inn and is headed to Boston as well now that the circus has departed. She is greeted warmly, and they appear to be old friends though Lorena says they only met her a few days ago. While they wait for the train Elizabeth takes out her knitting needles and a skein of deep red wool.

Lorena introduces Bailey to her as a scarf-less young rêveur.

“I’m not a rêveur, really,” Bailey says. He is still not entirely sure he grasps the meaning of the term.

Elizabeth looks at him over her knitting, sizing him up with narrowed eyes that remind him of his sternest teachers, though he stands much taller than she does. She leans forward in a conspiratorial manner.

“Do you adore Le Cirque des Rêves?” she asks him.

“Yes,” he says without hesitation.

“More than anything in the world?” she adds.

“Yes,” Bailey says. He cannot keep himself from smiling despite her serious tone and the nerves that are still keeping his heart from beating at a steady rate.

“Then you are a rêveur,” Elizabeth pronounces. “No matter what you wear.”

They tell him stories of the circus and of other rêveurs. How there is a society of sorts that keeps track of the movement of the circus, notifying other rêveurs so they might travel from destination to destination. Victor and Lorena have followed the circus as often as their schedules allow for years, while Elizabeth typically only makes excursions closer to New York and this trip is an extended one for her, though there is an informal club of rêveurs based in the city that holds gatherings from time to time, to keep in touch while the circus is away.

The train arrives shortly after the sun has fully risen, and on the way to Boston the stories continue, while Elizabeth knits and Lorena props her head up sleepily on her arm.

“Where are you staying in town?” Elizabeth inquires.

Bailey has not considered this, as he has been taking this endeavor one step at a time, attempting not to worry about what might happen once they reach Boston.

“I’m not entirely sure,” he says. “I’ll probably stay at the station until I know where to go next.”

“Nonsense,” Victor says. “You shall stay with us. We have nearly an entire floor at the Parker House. You can have August’s room, he went back to New York yesterday and I never bothered to alert the management that we have an unoccupied room.”

Bailey attempts to argue but Lorena stops him.

“He is terribly stubborn,” she whispers. “He will not take no for an answer once he has set his mind to something.”

And indeed, Bailey is swept into their carriage almost as soon as they step off the train. His bag is taken along with Elizabeth’s luggage when they reach the hotel.

“Is something wrong?” Lorena asks as he openly stares around the opulent lobby.

“I feel like one of those girls in fairy tales, the ones who don’t even have shoes and then somehow get to attend a ball at the castle,” Bailey whispers, and she laughs so loudly that several people turn and stare.

Bailey is escorted to a room half the size of his entire house but he finds he cannot sleep, despite the heavy curtains blocking out the sunlight. He paces the room until he begins worrying about damaging the carpet, and then he sits in the window instead, watching the people below.

He is relieved when there is a knock at the door midafternoon.

“Do you know where the circus is yet?” he asks, before Victor can even speak.

“Not yet, dear boy,” he says. “We sometimes have advance notice of where it is headed but not as of late. I imagine we will have word by the end of the day, and if our luck holds we will depart first thing in the morning. Do you have a suit?”

“Not with me,” Bailey says, remembering the suit packed in a trunk at home that was only ever pulled out for special occasions. He guesses he has likely outgrown it in the interim, unable to recall exactly what the last suit-worthy occasion was.

“We shall get you one, then,” Victor says, as though this is as simple a thing as picking up a newspaper.

They meet Lorena in the lobby and the two of them drag him around town on a number of errands, including a stop at a tailor for his suit.

“No, no,” Lorena says while they look at samples. “These are entirely wrong for his coloring. He needs a grey. A nice deep grey.”

After a great deal of pinning and measuring, Bailey ends up with a nicer suit than he has ever owned in his life, nicer even than his father’s best suit, in a charcoal grey. Despite his protestations Victor also buys him very shiny shoes and a new hat.

The reflection in the mirror looks so different from the one he is accustomed to that Bailey has difficulty believing it is really him.

They return to the Parker House with a multitude of packages in tow, stopping by their rooms for hardly enough time to sit before Elizabeth comes to take them down to dinner.

To Bailey’s surprise, there are almost a dozen rêveurs waiting in the restaurant downstairs, some who will be following the circus and others who are remaining in Boston. His anxiety at the fanciness of the restaurant is eased by the casual, boisterous manner of the group. True to form, they are clad almost entirely in black and white and grey with bright touches of red on ties or handkerchiefs.

When Lorena realizes that Bailey has no red, she surreptitiously removes a rose from a nearby floral arrangement to tuck in his lapel.

There are endless stories from the circus related over each course, mentions of tents Bailey has never seen and countries he has never even heard of. Bailey mostly listens, still rather astounded that he has stumbled upon a group of people who love the circus as much as he does.

“Do you  …  do you think anything is wrong with the circus?” Bailey asks quietly, when the table has fallen into separate conversations. “Recently, I mean?”

Victor and Lorena glance at each other as though gauging who should respond, but it is Elizabeth who answers first.

“It has not been the same since Herr Thiessen died,” she says. Victor frowns suddenly while Lorena nods in agreement.

“Who is Herr Thiessen?” Bailey asks. The three of them look somewhat surprised by his ignorance.

“Friedrick Thiessen was the first of the rêveurs,” Elizabeth says. “He was a clockmaker. He made the clock inside the gates.”

“That clock was made by someone outside the circus? Really?” Bailey asks. It is not something he had ever thought to ask Poppet and Widget about. He had assumed it was a thing born of the circus itself. Elizabeth nods.

“He was a writer as well,” Victor says. “That is how we met him, years and years ago. Read an article he wrote about the circus and sent him a letter and he wrote back and so on. That was before we were even called rêveurs.”

“He made me a clock that looks like the Carousel,” Lorena says, looking wistful. “With little creatures that loop through clouds and silver gears. It is a wonderful thing, I wish I could carry it around with me. Though it is nice to have a reminder of the circus I can keep at home.”

“I heard he had a secret romance with the illusionist,” Elizabeth remarks, smiling over her glass of wine.

“Gossip and nonsense,” Victor scoffs.

“He did always sound very fond of her in his writing,” Lorena says, as though she is considering the possibility.

“How could anyone not be fond of her?” Victor asks. Lorena turns to look at him curiously. “She is extremely talented,” he mumbles, and Bailey catches Elizabeth trying not to laugh.

“And the circus isn’t the same without this Herr Thiessen?” Bailey asks, wondering if this has something to do with what Poppet had told him.

“It is different without him, for us, of course,” Lorena says. She pauses thoughtfully before she continues. “The circus itself seems a bit different as well. Nothing in particular, only something  … ”

“Something off-kilter,” Victor interjects. “Like a clock that is not oscillating properly.”

“When did he die?” Bailey asks. He cannot bring himself to ask how.

“A year ago tonight, as a matter of fact,” Victor says.

“Oh, I had not realized that,” Lorena says.

“A toast to Herr Thiessen,” Victor proposes, loud enough for the entire table to hear, and he raises his glass. Glasses are lifted all around the table, and Bailey raises his as well.

The stories of Herr Thiessen continue through dessert, interrupted only by a discussion about why the cake is called a pie when it is clearly cake. Victor excuses himself after finishing his coffee, refusing to weigh in on the cake issue.

When he returns to the table, he has a telegram in his hand.

“We are headed to New York, my friends.”