“Tsukiko’s part of the circus and she’s not like this,” Bailey says, confused.
“I believe she plays by her own rules,” Marco says. “This way,” he adds, moving into the crowd of figures.
Navigating the party proves more difficult than walking around the paper animals, and Bailey takes every step with extreme caution, afraid of what might happen if he accidentally hits someone the way he knocked down the raven.
“Almost there,” Marco says as they maneuver their way around a cluster of people grouped in a broken circle.
But Bailey stops, staring at the figure the group is facing.
Widget wears his performance costume but his patchwork jacket has been discarded, his vest hanging open over his black shirt. His hands are lifted in the air, gesturing in such a familiar way that Bailey can tell he has been stopped mid-story.
Poppet stands next to him. Her head is turned in the direction of the courtyard, as though something pulled her attention away from her brother at the precise moment the party was halted. Her hair spills out behind her, waves of red floating in the air as if she were suspended in water.
Bailey walks around to face her, reaching out tentatively to touch her hair. It ripples beneath his fingers, undulating slowly before settling back into its frozen state.
“Can she see me?” Bailey asks. Poppet’s eyes are still yet bright. He expects her to blink at any moment, but she does not.
“I don’t know,” Marco says. “Perhaps, but—”
Before he can conclude the thought, one of the chairs hanging above them falls, its ribbons snapping. It comes close to hitting Widget as it crashes to the ground, splintering into pieces.
“Bloody hell,” Marco says as Bailey jumps back, almost colliding with Poppet and sending her hair into another brief wave of motion. “Through there,” Marco says, indicating the side of the tent that is some distance away. Then he vanishes.
Bailey looks back at Poppet and Widget. Poppet’s hair settles again, unmoving. Fragments of the fallen chair rest on Widget’s boots.
Turning away, Bailey moves carefully around stationary figures to reach the edge of the tent. He casts nervous glances upward at the additional chairs and the round iron cages suspended by nothing but fraying ribbon.
His fingers shake as he undoes the ties in the wall.
As soon as he passes through, he feels as though he has walked into a dream.
Inside the adjoining tent there is a towering tree. As large as his old oak tree, growing right out of the ground. The branches are bare and black but they are covered with dripping white candles, translucent layers of wax frosting over the bark.
Only a fraction of the candles are burning, but the sight is no less resplendent as they illuminate the twisting black branches, casting dancing shadows over the striped walls.
Beneath it, Marco stands with his arms around a woman Bailey recognizes instantly as the illusionist.
She appears as transparent as Marco does. Her gown looks like mist in the candlelight.
“Hello, Bailey,” she says as he approaches. Her voice echoes around him, softly, as close as if she were standing next to him, whispering in his ear. “I like your scarf,” she adds when he does not immediately reply. The words in his ears are warm and strangely comforting. “I’m Celia. I don’t believe we were ever properly introduced.”
“Nice to meet you,” Bailey says.
Celia smiles, and Bailey is struck by how different she seems from the way she did when he watched her perform, even beyond the fact that he can look through her at the dark tree branches.
“How did you know I was coming here?” he asks.
“Poppet mentioned you as part of the series of events that occurred earlier, so I hoped you would arrive eventually.”
At the mention of Poppet’s name, Bailey glances over his shoulder at the wall of the tent. The suspended party seems farther away than just beyond the canvas stripes.
“We need your help with something,” Celia continues as he turns back. “We need you to take over the circus.”
“What?” Bailey asks. He is not sure what he was expecting, but it was not this.
“Right now the circus is in need of a new caretaker,” Marco says. “It is drifting, like a ship without an anchor. It needs someone to anchor it.”
“And that someone is me?” Bailey asks.
“We would like it to be, yes,” Celia says. “If you are willing to make the commitment. We should be able to assist you, and Poppet and Widget would be able to help, as well, but the true responsibility would be yours.”
“But I’m not … special,” Bailey says. “Not the way they are. I’m not anyone important.”