Bensiabel's Second Tale: Poison

“Love, true love, is the most dangerous thing. It is a poison that flows in one’s veins, that pieces their heart like an arrow and fills them with infinite bliss and the pain of a thousand swords. Those who love the most are the most hurt. Pain is beautiful, tragedy is rapturous. That is why so many of the world’s greatest love stories end in sorrow, because passion and pain invariably go hand in hand. That is why solitude is safe, and there is no safer place to be than on one’s own.

There was a young man, alone in a distant corner of the world. Isolated. But he was striking, smart. So much so that he caught the attention of the servants of the Queen of Night, and was led by them to her kingdom, where nighttime reigned. Believing there was nothing to live for, he followed them.

The servants guided him across the world, to a point where the sun almost never reached. They led him through a grove of night blooming flowers, past creatures with glossy, black eyes. They brought him into a throne room, where upon a silver throne sat a woman of unspeakable beauty. A woman all of pallor and shadows, hidden by a veil of stars, with a gown cut from the night sky.

The servants bowed, and the youth followed suit, as the Queen of Night approached. She could not be real; she could not be more than a dream bound in silver and stars. She was a phantom of moonlight and darkness, eyes as silver as the moon, her gown fashioned from night sky. Around her, shadows deepened, the flames on the walls flickered silver.

The Queen, in a voice the soft velvet of night and the piercing edge of ice, placed before the youth a hero’s quest. Her daughter, the daughter of night, had been stolen away by the wicked of sorcerers and the king of the Sun. She had wept many nights, and storms had raged across the world with her pain, tempests of her tears. Yet she had hope, as fragile and delicate as the light of a faraway star that the youth could cross into the kingdom of the Sun King and save her daughter.

’Why can you not save her yourself?’ he asked the Queen.

‘Because I have not the strength. Day and Night will never overrule one another. We are each in our own power. While he is the fire that scorches the earth, I am the sea that floods it. I have no power against him.’

‘Why would you not rule alongside him? Your dominions do not cross one another.’

‘But they do. In the very rarest and most sacred of places, in the most unique of places, our kingdoms overlap. And they are the most dangerous of places, for we can never co-exist.’

As the Queen of Night spoke plumes of smoke, in tendrils like roots of the earth, illustrated her story with scrolling lines of symbols and scenes carved in mist and shadow. The young man saw the sorcerer’s fortress, a stronghold concealing a beautiful temple of tiles and fountains and alluringly beautiful mosaic myths. He saw the sky break into darkness and light, the moon winged by green clouds, the sun blazing like tiger’s eye. Lastly, he saw the Queen of Night’s daughter, and he was convinced he had never seen anything more beautiful.

The youth could barely respond. He had seen the Night Queen’s daughter and could not be more besotted. He had only one request preluding his journey, and his heart beat so loudly he barely heard himself ask it.

’Your majesty, I will undertake this task without doubt, if you would grant me one thing.’

The Queen of Night’s eyes sparkled like starlight as she waved a hand to the young man. ‘I would ask you the boon of your daughter’s hand in marriage.’

The Queen of Night regarded the striking young man with the eyes of all nocturnal beings. Despite his fear, he did not back down. Finally she bowed her head and proclaimed her daughter’s hand in marriage if he returned her daughter to her.

For his journey the Queen of Night bestowed upon the young man the gift of music. ‘It can change the hearts of men,’ she cautioned him.

He rode the Queen’s stallion as far as it could carry him, until the heat and light of the sun were too much, and it could not move for fear of being burned. The young man went onward, unaffected by the sun’s fire and brilliance.

The sorcerer resided in he centre of a huge gilded temple, a dome of gold surrounded by spires and towers with carved cupola’s of crystal, ablaze as though lit from within. The young man entered cautiously, surprised there was no guard. He was surprised even further when he proceeded through the winding hallways, without direction or navigation, to a large circular room filled with sunlight.

There was no sound in the room, for a moment, like the calm before a storm when the air is alive with electricity. Suddenly he heard a voice. The young man tried to run, but his feet were rooted to the floor, as though he had grown from it like a tree. And he did not want to move; the voice was intoxicating.

The voice belonged to a lady, a girl he knew only from a nighttime illusion. She was as diaphanous as that dream he had first glimpsed in the Night Queen’s palace.

The Queen of Night’s daughter saw the youth as she entered the room and she froze. Their eyes locked.

The air was filled with fire, it burned and swept through the temple, like a roll of thunder before a storm. His skin tingled, her lungs burned as though filled with crisp winter air. The feeling was intimate, whispers in the dark, spreading to the tips of their fingers, the depths of their chests, and farther, deeper.

To him there was no one else in the world. The sky above them and the ground beneath they’re feet disappeared.

She could not remove her gaze from his. It was the first time she had seen him, and the reaction was immediate, delicate and astral, flaring across the room as though reflected by a multitude of mirrors.

But they spoke few words to each other, for the Queen of Night’s daughter was whisked away by the spirits of the sun, down the long passages of the temple into the heart of the sorcerer’s kingdom, and he was brought to the sorcerer’s presence chamber. He was forced to his knees before a man so brilliant it was as though the youth was gazing at the sun, and white dots danced before his eyes. He was filled with the sudden heat of a hundred summers, so intense it burned him.

The sorcerer of the Sun pronounced himself the Sun King, and indeed all the plants around him bowed their heads, like flowers bobbing in the wind. His power did not ebb, but the young man’s skin felt no longer scorched and when the heat in his lungs did not ravage him, he drew to stand.

’I come from the Queen of Night, who wishes to reclaim her daughter. You have no right to hold her prisoner, you must let her go!’

’The sorcerer smiled wolfishly. ‘Why must I? She is my daughter as well, and I would not trust her in the land of night. Night has no power. The moon itself is as weak as a child in battle, playing with their father’s sword. It is a mirror of the sun’s power. I would not entrust my daughter to such an existence.’

’Would you not let her choose herself?’ the young man asked.

But the sorcerer did not answer. Instead he asked ‘What is your purpose? Has the Queen of Night become so desperate as to send a child to do her work?’

’I am promised your daughter’s hand in marriage if I bring her back.’

The sorcerer roared with laughter, and the walls shook, the flames casting dancing shadows around them. ‘You believe you love her.’

’I do love her,’ the young man said as his hands began to shake.

’Then prove it. If you complete three tasks, I will bestow her, not to the Night Queen, but to you.’

The youth agreed without hearing of the three tasks. He was lost in the memory of the Night Queen’s daughter. He remembered everything about her: her lotus blossom perfume, her subtle smile, the radiance of her white skin and dark eyes. Yet he wanted to know everything about her; how she spent her time, what she liked to read, how soft her skin was. He could not bring himself to ask the sorcerer, so he waited for his next chance, the moment he would next see her. No matter how brief the moment, he could not forget it.

The sorcerer wasted no time in presenting the first task. He smiled, and the trees in his sacred grove wilted in the heat. ‘Temptation is among those killers of faith. And it is a very rare man who is impervious to it. For my daughter you must show nothing but the purest and strongest fidelity.’

The young man was led to a temple within the temple, where all of his trials would take place. It was a place of moonlight and incense, of swaying lanterns and lovers’ velvet words. H was left alone.

The young man waited in silence, still as a statue, for so long her believed to wonder if the sorcerer had forgotten him. He was prepared to leave when the door opened, only a slip. Red smoke, as vivid as rubies, trickled into the chamber. It had a cloying scent, like too many lilies or roses, but it was spicy like cinnamon, dark like wine, and coppery. The smoke took the shape of three women, swathed in scarlet silk, who moved with the grace of snakes toward the young man. They whispered words of love, desire and longing in his ears.

The youth did not glance at the beautiful women, at their wine red lips and sphinx eyes, while they circled him like the eye of a storm. They faded as easily as sylphs, like smoke whisked away by the breeze.

So the first test was passed and the young man was left alone, to his own devices, whilst the sorcerer debated his next trial. The young man explored the temple around him, unaware of the Queen of Night’s daughter watching him from an alcove hidden by a fig tree.

She had thought him handsome from afar, yet up close he was beautiful.

She could not bear to reveal herself to him, her heart was not delicate and fluttering like a small bird, but like the tribal drums of a foreign tribe and the pounding of an animal’s hooves on earth. Her fear did not matter, for when she moved she knocked over a crystal lantern and the young man swung to see her.

From there on there is no history, no record or diary, of what was spoken. Their words are a mystery, but her must have asked her to sit with him for they made their way to the fountain and sat.

They sipped wine in the fractured twilight, and ate fresh berries from the late summer.

He held her close, as closely as he could, and told her stories. He savoured the warmth of her skin in the candlelight, the smell of her perfume. She captured the sounds of his voice in her memory, stroked his hair as she shared her own tales and legends.

When daylight came and bathed the temple in coin-golden light, they rose together from their makeshift bed and she wrapped up his flute in its silk bag and he held it to his heart.

Sadly, he left her presence, returning to his chambers, though not before promising to return to their hidden meeting spot. The Queen of Night’s daughter returned to her own rooms.

She waited impatiently to see him again. His face burned behind her eyelids. The girl pined for him steadfastedly, awaiting a time she could see him again.

And at this time, the young hero was awaiting his second trial.

His next task was silence, to remain quiet and voiceless until the sorcerer bid him worthy to speak.

Once again he was to enter the inner temple, the sanctum. This time, however, he was not alone. He held him tongue, silent and solemn, as countless servants and spirits passed him by, speaking to him, presenting him with riddles and jokes, hoping for a laugh or an outcry. Guards threatened him with curved daggers and stone arrowheads. He did not speak.

Finally the Queen of Night’s daughter, unable to rest from a mind disquiet with infatuation, appeared. She rushed to his side to bid him hello.

Yet he did not speak to her. She implored him, begged for his voice and his words. Her voice cut into him more than the sharpest knife in the temple guard, but he could not talk. Night’s daughter felt her heart break a thousand times. She turned away before he could see her tears. He held his silence, long after she fled his presence.

He wanted to chase her, to find her and beg for her forgiveness. Instead he returned to the sorcerer for his verdict. The sorcerer smiled benevolently, and approved of the young man’s silence. He had passed the second test.

‘Was it worth it?’ The sorcerer asked.

The young man had no reply.

He waited impatiently in the inner temple for his third trial, and for Night’s daughter. When she did appear, her eyes rimmed with the red of someone who has shed tears, he crossed to her, his arms outstretched to hold her, but she would not come near.

’I love you,’ he told her.

’You would not speak to me,’ she said.

‘I wanted to. I wanted to promise I love you. I do,’ he told her.

She was silent, and the air seemed to still before she spoke. ‘I cannot love you.’

The young man did not realize he was falling to his knees. He caught her hand, touching his thumb to the inside of her wrist. ‘I don’t understand. What do you mean?’

She knelt before him and touched her fingertips to his cheek. ‘I cannot live without you. I could not even stand the idea you do not love me. I never shall. But I cannot live with you,’ she told him, stroking his hair back. ‘I promise you I will not suffer this way. I hope you will not.’

‘Do you not know how I feel for you? I had thought I could not be happy without you, but I cannot live without you. Please believe me.’

Tears began to roll down her cheeks, glistening like diamonds in the moonlight. ‘I cannot endure this pain. I will not suffer. You are my weakness and-‘

‘And you are mine.’

‘-and I am not strong enough for it. If I must endure a life without you, then I will do it.’

She pulled her hand back, slipping from his grasp like air. Her reached for her again but she stepped away. ‘I cannot stay here. I will go to my mother. The night must be the safest place to seek comfort. Nothing can touch you there. No one.’

‘No, you cannot mean that. Please, do not leave me.’

She did not answer; she could not. Her tears were choking her; she could not look at him. She turned away.

‘I love you,’ he said, struggling to stand, reaching for her again.

‘And I you,’ she whispered, turning to face him. She gazed at him for a moment, capturing his face in her memory, before turning away.”

Suddenly there seemed no greater place to either lover than the cover of night, than the darkness and refuge of stars. He could not call her back, not even with the power of music. He could not change her heart, and he would not if he could."

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Faire Monter les Enchères

Farrin has gone off to the menagerie, a nameless tent filled with origami beasts that move like real animals. Sage and Bensiabel spend the majority of the earlier evening perambulating around the less busy parts of the circus.

They enter a tent almost completely taken up with a dreamcatcher strung with beads and crystals and silver bells. They take turns plucking at strands of the web, watching the motion pass through each wire, rattling pieces of quartz and ruffling black feathers. 

Bensiabel tries to memorize their path from the tent to the Moon Mirror, in the case that they may wish to revisit it, but Sage convinces him to abandon the effort when a new tent catches her attention.

The sign invites them to Uncover What Is Secret and the addendum below warns them to mind their heads. It is a useful suggestion, as upon entering the tent Bensiabel almost walks into a myriad of stars hanging level with his forehead.

The tent is full of small paper stars hanging from the ceiling. The stars are affixed to diamond threads, as fine as the veins in a leaf.

They cover the floor, appearing clusters on black metal frames that twist and twine like windblown trees.

On each wall is a small shelf holding an inkwell and quills stained with silver. Small signs instruct them to Disclose Secrets on the strips of paper stationed beside the quills.

The tent is illuminated by flickering silver flames in metal sconces.

Hundreds of paper stars, secrets in black and silver cursive and print, sway in the white light on the ends of strings.

Bensiabel steps between the trees of stars protruding from the floor, weaving his way to the centre of the tent and gently touching the soft paper wishes.

“Bensiabel,” Sage’s voice comes from behind him, soft and hesitant. He looks up and finds the expression on her face lightly distressed. Before he can ask if something is the matter she asks, “Have you ever thought- has anyone told you that everything that happens in the cirque is real?”

“What?”

“I mean…” Sage trails off, her eyes on the floor, keeping her gaze from Bensiabel as she decides what to say. “I know you can do things. Illusions and such. I know you travel with the circus, with the fortuneteller.” She looks up, then quickly down, averting her gaze. “I travel with someone too, I follow the circus.”

Bensiabel watches her, feeling dumbstruck. He has had inklings of suspicion, and idea that she is more involved than she has said, but hearing the words from her lips is different, far more shocking. He cannot think of anything to say.

“Has she, has she ever shown you things? Like magic?”

“Who?”

“The fortuneteller.”

Bensiabel thinks back to all of his encounters with Pamina. Their lessons are so contained and involve so much concentration it seems they never do anything. But he has seen small things occur, things appearing and disappearing, that he is certain would not be possible for anyone but Pamina.

“Yes,” he answers.

“So has Tamino,” Sage says, taking a step forward, her eyes meeting his for the first time since they have entered the tent.

“Who is Tamino?” Bensiabel has never heard the name before, but the mention of a ‘him’ tugs at his memory.

“Tamino is the one I… work for?” Sage shakes her head. “The way you work for Pamina. But I do something else, and it is for Tamino.”

She watches silently while Bensiabel tries to reconcile the knowledge that there is another in the circus with a secondary motive, and that it is Sage. When he has been silent too long, Sage shifts uncomfortably.

“Would you like to…” Sage trails off, gesturing to the canopy of paper stars suspended above them.

He does not ask what she means.

Sage focuses on a string of stairs before them they drop off of their thread, hovering in mid air. Several other stars follow suit. Sage clasps her hands behind her back as the stars, one by one in a garland of silver and jet streak in arcs and loops in the space between them. They pause in a circle, a halo of glittering patterned paper, bobbing in the air as Sage raises an eyebrow at Bensiabel and smiles playfully. The stars line up and ascend to the empty strings hanging suspended from the ceiling.

“You can do the same thing, can’t you?” Sage asks as the stars settle on their respective strings once more.

Bensiabel is not sure he could. He has never tried to influence an object in such a way. He has not received as much education as he had initially anticipated he would and manipulation has not come up before. “I don’t know. I haven’t really tried before.”

Sage tilts her head, regarding him steadily. “I’ve seen you though and you can. I wouldn’t know much about it, but Tamino insists on honing my abilities, though I have no idea what it has to do with my responsibilities, as he calls them. It is like being caught in a wind and waiting for a storm that never comes, though you can hear thunder and feel the first rain drops.”

Sage walks around a circle of star speckled trees, widening the distance between them, holding his gaze. “What are you meant to do?”

Bensiabel follows her, circling in the opposite direction, his eyes occasionally returning to the stars around them. “Pamina said I was supposed to watch the circus. She did not specify what for, only that I should watch the patrons and the tents and for anything, or anyone, unusual.” He pauses uncertainly. “For the wellbeing of the circus,” he recites. It now strikes Bensiabel as odd that he had been given such vague instructions, and that while Pamina expressly told him that only a handful of people understood the true inner workings of the cirque, she has emphasized the observation of suspicious characters within the circus.

“What are you looking for?” Bensiabel asks, curious as to what else there is to seek if not for the safety of the cirque.

“Cracks.”

“Cracks?”

“Nightmares, is what he also calls them. Places where the circus becomes dangerous or dark. He says those are the cracks, where no one is controlling them.”

The stars quiver; strands of them swaying with the motion, as though a short breeze has disturbed them. Sage closes her eyes, appearing to compose herself, and the stars settle.

“What does that mean?” Bensiabel asks.

Sage seems to struggle with a way to explain it. She has never been given the chance to relate it to someone in a similar position, and it makes her feel both relief and anxiety.

“Has Pamina explained energy to you?”

Bensiabel nods.

Sage continues, looking away from Bensiabel, focusing on a path lined with silver stars before her, emitting soft incandescent light. “Everything requires energy. Every manipulation needs a power source, a conduit. Power can be obtained from within yourself, it is called working from the inside out. The opposite is called working from the outside in, drawing power from an external source. Other people, fire, wind,” Sage glances up, as though gazing through the canvas ceiling to the sky beyond. “The moon. Something as complicated as the circus requires a great amount of energy, too much to work within oneself. Tamino believes the circus uses power from the moon, as an indirect energy source.”

“Indirect?”

“The moon reflects the sun’s light. The way energy works is parallel. But whoever is controlling the circus cannot control the energy. Cirque de la Lune is too big to control alone, so there are cracks. Excess of energy, like a fire with too much wood that flares out of control.”

Bensiabel pictures it in his mind, a set of scales in which the energy on one side outweighs the effects on the other side.

“How did you know it was me?” Bensiabel asks. It bothers him that perhaps he was not as inconspicuous as he had thought.

“When Tamino suggested you were the other I began to watch you more, though I hardly suspected you. But you seem so at home in the circus, as though you belong in it. And the circus is different with you in it. It’s almost sharper. After you mentioned… Pamina I was sure.” She pauses. “I hadn’t mean to confront you about it. There seemed no point. How long have you known?”

Bensiabel shakes his head. “I didn’t know until now.” He feels suddenly exposed, aware that she has known much longer than he that they both have roles within the circus. That she has possibly witnessed far more amazing things in the tents surrounding them, and been able to explain them all. That every conversation they have had, she has been aware of where they stand. “Has it been easier to look for nightmares, knowing what I’ve been looking for?”

Sage smiles.

“I believe neither of us have has had any advantages like that.”

Bensiabel turns to the stars between them, countless lights bound in paper and ink. The focus is immense, beyond what little he has practiced before. The stars rise en masse and tremble in the air.

Sage circles around the field of stars until she stands next to Bensiabel. She reaches for his hand, her fingers brushing bare skin.

The air ripples, the stars expand and shift in a flurry of reflective paper folds and corners. A sensation, the same sense of wonder and magic he feels in the circus, begins at Bensiabel’s palm, spreading up his arm and through his veins.

“I’m focusing for you,” Sage breathes next to him. She sounds breathless with the strain of controlling her own energy as well as his.

Bensiabel can feel her own energy, palpable and sharper than his, pinpointing his intent.

Sage sends a star soaring across the abyss and Bensiabel responds in kind.

Sage laughs delightedly as shooting stars collide in bursts of silver ink.

“Your parents don’t really follow the circus, do they?” Bensiabel asks.

A star falters, plummeting several feet before halting and reversing direction, following its companions into the air. A tempest of stars.

“That I was adopted by the Beaulieus is the truth. I have never lied, I just evaded.”

Bensiabel decides against pursuing the subject. He does not feel as though she has lied.

“What can you do with other inanimate things? Bensiabel asks, returning to the stars still quivering in the air, and curious as to how their instructors’ methods might overlap, and how they differ.

“Not much,” she replies. “Not with intent. I impact my surroundings more than I actually control them. My biggest effects occurred in the orphanage. Before Mr. Mrs.Beaulieu plucked me from it and brought me to live with them.”

It is not the straightforward answer Benisabel has been asking for but he does not press the subject.

“Do you remember you parents?” he asks her.

“No,” she responds quietly. “I have a theory that Tamino orchestrated the adoption.” She seems about to add something more, then falls silent.

Bensiabel feels suddenly unsure. He had assumed Sage was chosen as randomly as he, as a patron of the circus who met with some unspecified criteria. Knowing she may have been chosen long before him, from before her first encounter with the cirque, he wonders what other dimensions there are to this conflict between their instructors.

“My earliest memory is of the orphanage,” Sage continues, though when he turns to her she is looking away, focused on a star of such supple blue paper that is caves under her gaze, points and edges folding in until it is two dimensional and has innumerable points. “A man in black approached me with the mistress of the orphanage, and she looked nervous. I had never seen her look nervous. He asked me strange questions and I answered. I could not tell what he was thinking, but the air around him felt odd. Different. As though he was more aware of the very air than everyone else. He left and I had not seen him for seven years after that.”

“When were you asked to watch the circus?”

“Only a month or so before I met you. When he told me of the circus and the magic behind it, he was a stranger. He was still a stranger when he asked if I would take to watching the circus,” Sage says.

“But why did you say yes?” Bensiabel asks, mystified.

Sage does not look at him as she speaks, but at a star hanging in the vast chasm of space between them. “He was the first person I met who could do the things I do. I wanted answers. I cannot say he has been very helpful thought. And I fancied the idea of learning magic in secret. I didn’t anticipate it would take such concentration. I have been taught more of containing myself than of actually manipulating things. I am not very god at manipulating people. And you hardly need that talent. People always seem to like you.”

“People like you too,” Bensiabel says. “Farrin and Mr.Hansen and Pamina. Pamina even knows who you are. I don’t think I could enchant people that way if I tried.”

“Tamino, before I truly knew who he was, had the same charm. It is probably in part why I chose to follow the circus. I am not sure I would have chosen the same way I did if he had explained it all to me. If he had told me I would have an opponent. I wasn’t even aware there was someone working within the circus. I was only told what I should do; I didn’t know there would be another.”

Bensiabel pauses at a mobile of stars that emit flickering silver light, like some sort of celestial chandelier. He glances at Sage, who is watching the slowly spinning spectacle. Her face seems softer, as though a barrier between them has been lifted and she is closer that before. “When did you know I was the other?”

Sage turns her dark eyes on him and a curl of her hair falls across her cheek. “Not log ago. I had the impression you were involved with the circus more than you let on. You were also close to the fortuneteller. That’s how he knew. But I didn’t truly start to suspect it until you started following the circus too.”

Some of the stars unravel, long ribbons of paper inscribed with hundreds of wishes in varying sizes and calligraphy.

“I’ve always been told since I met him that balance is the most important aspect of manipulation. Among other things.”

“Pamina always stresses intent and meaning,” Bensiabel replies.

“He has mentioned that. Free will as well. Or, the inability to take away free will.”

“When did she explain it to you?” Sage asks, keeping her distance from him while she smiles.

“I still don’t understand it all,” Bensiabel confesses.

“They aren’t exactly forthcoming with their answers, are they?” Sage remarks. Bensiabel only nods, agreeing once he realizes that while he has a collection of answers to questions asked over the past year, he has only ever gotten obscure answers and clues, nothing concrete or outwardly informative.

Bensiabel continues. “Until a few days ago I knew only that there was another, some other chosen person told to watch the circus in almost precisely the same way as I. I considered everyone, every patron I saw or performer I watched. Though you aren’t watching the circus in the same way, are you?” He looks up to see her shake her head. When she does not speak he continues, curious and edging closer to her in the snow. Their boot prints have left a trail of counter directions and paths circling the trees. Sage stays on the opposite side of the fire, her face glowing, her eyes catching his only when she is not looking at the bright red flames. “I am meant to be watching you, though that isn’t exactly what I was told. I was told you were my opponent.”

Sage looks up, her eyes as dark as the swan-black sky around them, dancing with glints of gold. “Are we opponents?”

He is silent for some time. The idea of being at odds with Sage fills him with a frozen horror. He had not imagined sides in this nameless ordeal, only the circus as a whole. “I would not like to be. And I don’t think they have specified our roles in relation to one another. Before they do, in the interim, I would like to be friends. I will be honest with you.”

“I cannot see you as antagonistic, no matter how I try. It would break my heart if I had to,” Sage admits. “I would like to be honest with you as well.”

They glance at each other and do not look away, silently regarding each other with small smiles.

Sage turns her attention back to the stars revolving on the ends of their strings.

“Does it ever feel dangerous to you, Bensiabel?” she asks as the stars descend.

“Dangerous?” Bensiabel has felt elements of the circus act alone, separate from everything else. Yet he has never thought it unsafe.

“Like two winds pushing at one another so everything between is caught in it,” Sage elaborates.

“No,” Bensiabel answers, curious as to whether she has felt that way, to how her experiences within the gates have differed from his. He wants to hear her stories. He feels that now they are aware of their positions in respect with one another they can discuss aspects of the circus more freely. Though Sage seems to take into account the manipulation aspect of the circus, something Bensiabel has only considered in passing.

Sage breathes deeply, as though the entire conversation has made her anxious. Without the concern over their respective roles in the circus she can more easily enjoy herself. “Thank you Bensiabel,” she says, and leans forward to kiss his cheek, lingering. His ears feel rather warm.

They retrace their steps around garlands of stars, between secrets and whispers, making their way to the tent door. Bensiabel pauses as Sage pushes through the door, looking back at the space they occupied, starry with ink blots among wishes wrapped in gilded paper, secret hopes and dreams encased in stars and silver.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Rest In Peace

The ceremony is intimate, consisting of only circus folk, predominantly dressed in black and deep blue, save for Paikea, wearing a gown of deep charcoal and a lurid red veil that covers her face from the bottom lashes of her grey-rimmed eyes down.

Tamas arrives in a coal-dark grey suit that looks only slightly too big around the shoulders but is a wonderful shade with his colouring. He hovers at the edge of the crowd, not engaging directly in the mourning, but comforting mourners with salt-stained cheeks and red-rimmed eyes.

Many expect the elusive proprietor Sarastro to be in attendance, and despite the morbid excuse, they wait in eager anticipation for his arrival. He does not appear however, and when they discuss it after the fact they believe perhaps he is the anonymous benefactor who contributed to the paying of the expense for the funeral, and that he must currently be orchestrating the business end of the circus at his address in London, as there must be some financial compensation to be made for the time taken up by the company to organize Rose’s funeral.

Paikea welcomes the guests with Farrin at her side, though he occasionally wanders off in the direction of the gardens beyond the cemetery wall, collecting bouquets of fresh flowers to fill crystal bowls and vases stationed at the end of the church pews. Farrin collects bouquets of lilies, carnations and magnolia. While he cannot find any roses there are countless bushels of them, damask roses, dogwood roses, draped over chairs or in crystal vases and bowls.

Though conversation among the sea of dour black dress is subdued, there are remarks about her youth, about her being struck down in her prime. Many sigh and remember her various tricks, their favourite acts of conjuring and transforming. There are quiet tears, murmured condolences to those closest to her, and whispers betraying curiosity as to her family’s whereabouts.

There are whispers about the transience of life, and about how hers came to an end. Few people know, and the answers others are met with prove dissatisfying.

The efforts are dismissed when it is time for the ceremony to take place. Mourners file out in groups and cluster around the grave.

The cemetery is full of mist, the attendees’ boots barely visible on the ground under a layer of white.

The wind carries the scent of wet cemetery loam and lilies and oakmoss that make many funeral goers shiver through the ceremony.

When it is over, the coffin is lowered slowly, and many white roses are tossed onto its lid as it descends.

Tamas tosses a black top hat onto the casket, a cage of black silk obscuring some of the roses. Someone sobs at the sight, though it may also be the sound of the restless wind.

The dirt is piled back in quickly at the sign of an approaching storm.

As the last shovelful of dirt is tipped onto the plot, Pamina steps forward out of the crowd and crouches next to Rose’s headstone. She places a hand against the damp compact earth.

A handful of performers move forward uncertainly, thinking perhaps the fortuneteller has been too overwhelmed by the ordeal, but the earth begins to shift, the dirt moving aside as a bright green shoot rises between her fingers. Other green shoots follow, branching off and turning white, bursting into star-white blossoms.

When Pamina straightens a white rosebush grows across the headstone, obscuring most words save from ‘In Loving Memory of Rose de Laqua’.

Some of the performers linger after the ceremony, looking at the fresh plot of earth and the bush of cloud-white roses.

By the time there is a steady enough drizzle to require an umbrella only a handful of attendees remain, Paikea and Tamas among them. Tamas holds an umbrella over the shorter woman while she does up the topmost buttons of her bolero jacket, meager protection from the increasing wind.

“What have you heard of how she died?” Paikea asks Tamas, her voice wavering slightly. She covers it with a cough and he pretends not to notice.

“Numerous things, none that make much sense. What I have heard most often is it must have been a failure of her heart. Though from what I knew of Miss Rose, she did not have a weak heart,” he replies.

Paikea waves a hand at the headstone. “Heart failure is it? It is the way of things, there is an unexplainable occurrence, and it is explained, in any way that makes sense. Simply pricking her finger on a rose thorn is nonsensical, so they have explained it away with heart failure. Even those who prefer a more romantic death would not believe she pricked her finger and passed away. It is the way of most things,” she pauses and shifts beneath the umbrella. “It is the way of the circus.”

There is something uneasy in her tone; Tamas turns to her, carefully to keep her under the protection of the umbrella, though his left shoulder is beginning to get damp. “May I ask what you mean by that?”

“I mean, Tamas, that we are constantly watched. We are a part of something meant to last forever; this is the first of any injury that has occurred since the inception of the circus. Anything that happens at this point I doubt is accidental.”

Tamas frowns, and turns back to the headstone, now slick with the increasing rain causing a pool of mud beneath their feet. “Do you think someone did this on purpose?”

“I think it cannot be explained as a simple misfortune.”

Tamas does not reply, and Paikea remains silent beside him. When they depart, the last of the crowd to seek shelter within the church, the white roses are bowing in the wind, petals in a flurry like snowflakes, pinned to the mud by the rain.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Suspicions Aroused

Paikea invites Tamas to tea at Claridge’s hotel hotel. He is surprised; though he has spoken at great lengths with the contortionist, she is inclined to demand him to attend current shows and performances in whatever country they are traversing, and meeting for tea is uncharacteristically tame an invitation. However, he accepts and arrives precisely on time to find her already seated on a couch across from an armchair in a corner of the lounge, a mahogany table between them holding two cups of lightly steaming tea. He notes, pleasantly, that there is a fireplace adjacent to the armchair.

Tamas shakes out his umbrella and places it in the almost full rack of umbrellas by the door. He makes his way around the many tables to Paikea who raises her head when he is feet away.

Paikea rises to greet him, stretching on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, though he bends his knees as well. She motions for him to sit and take his tea.

They speak of the city, of the art galleries and the shows.

Paikea makes a remark about the dismal weather, her attention flickering to the sheets of rain outside.

“I hope it will be more agreeable in Basel,” Tamas replies.

“Is that where we are headed next?” Paikea asks. “I believed we were en route for Denmark.”

“Pamina has not wanted to visit Denmark since Mr.Hansen’s passing, she has not had the taste for it these days.”

“How long have you known Pamina?” Paikea asks him conversationally, though now there is something behind the words that is beyond curiosity.

“Over ten years now,” Tamas replies.

Paikea tilts her head to the side, foregoing all efforts at discretion and speaking plainly.

“I am not here to discuss your friendship with Pamina,” she says. “I am here to discuss with you something I think has not been discussed before by anyone in the circus. And that is likely because it is not meant to be.”

“What would that be?” Tamas asks, a look of puzzlement shaping his sharp features.

“Our employer.”

“Pamina?” his confusion deepens.

“No, though that would seem to be the case. I believe most of us would come to that conclusion. I am talking about Mr.Sarastro.”

Tamas looks at Paikea questioningly. “Why would you like to talk to me about him?”

Paikea sets down her tea. She looks at it while she speaks. “What do you know of our employer, Sarastro?”

Tamas answers truthfully, “I do not know much. He is some eccentric tycoon I’ve never met. He seems to do everything through Pamina. I’ve received one letter from him since signing my contract. I have no impressions of him; I do not know anyone in the circus proper apart from Pamina who has spoken to him directly. I am afraid I know nothing.”

“Everyone knows nothing about Mr.Sarastro. It is a fact I find peculiar, too peculiar to be coincidence.”

Tamas waits for Pamina to continue, his face betraying concern.

“His address in London does not exist. Or rather, he does not exist at the address. He has not lived there for a long time, much too long a time for his business cards not to be changed. Which means he has lied about his whereabouts. I have not seen a single document baring his signature. I have received no mail since joining, no postage whatsoever.”

Tamas raises his eyebrows. “Do you mean to suggest that our Mr.Sarastro is hiding from us?”

Paikea meets his eyes with an inscrutable gaze. “Not at all. I am suggesting that Sarastro does not exist. We have seen no official documents, we have not met him, spoken to him. He has never attended the circus, or any auditions. He has never signed any cheques that I have seen. I believe he is, to put it rather fancifully, a ghost. He is a distraction, and we are being carefully monitored so as not to notice that he is a distraction. He is there to prevent us from seeing who is really in charge.”

Now Tamas relinquishes his hold on his tea. Both cups sit on the table, cooling despite the warmth of the fire near them.

“I think you know quite well who is in charge. While I know you and Pamina are close, I should wonder what she is or is not telling you.”

Tamas looks down at his tea as he considers his answer. When he meets her eyes his are much darker than she has seen them before.

“Pamina has given me a home, Miss Paikea. I do not know what I would have done had she not, I may still be sleeping in dirt and I would never understand myself and the extent of my…abilities. I can only repay her with friendship, and with my trust.”

Paikea calmly sips her tea before replying, weighing her answer carefully.

“Do you not feel watched? Do you not feel as though there is no ground beneath your feet and you grasp for a place to stand and only find room to fall? I believe some people have felt such a way, and it has led to the accidents of Mr.Hansen and our dear Rose. I am tired of secrets; I am not fond of living in artifice. I know Pamina loved Hansen very much, and she has had much to bear since his passing, but I do not believe it is simply his loss that is troubling her. And furthermore I do not think you believe it either.” Tamas opens his mouth to interject but Paikea continues on as tough he is passive. “If you know her as well as you say you do, if you truly are her friend, then you will know too.”

“That is not the case,” Tamas argues, even as Paikea rises from her chair.

Paikea gathers her coat before addressing Tamas. “I ask you to speak to her. That is all Tamas. If we were good friends I would think you would ask her for her complete honesty. For my sake if not everyone’s.” She turns and walks toward the door while Tamas watches her silently.

He watches as she picks up her umbrella and opens it in the rain, becoming a dot of red silk in the grey city. He watches her until she is no more than a scarlet shadow at the end of the street, obscured by sheets of rain. She turns the corner and disappears from view.

Tamas sits and watches their tea cool for some time. The fire beside him offers little heat. He reaches for the card on the table bearing a name and an address in London, then slips it into his pocket. He still does not leave for some time.   

Text by Lucie MacAulay