Moonshine and Mist

The circus is not glowing. That is Bensiabel’s first though upon his arrival to the dark cirque. Even the gates are not shimmering. He recognizes the poor weather sign atop the gates. From his vantage point Bensiabel can see the tips of the tents are black as ink, despite the sparkling luminaries swaying on the Ferris wheel rim.

As he nears he spots Sage, who paces anxiously before the gate.

“Hello,” he says, fighting back the feeling of dread that settled in the pit of his stomach the moment he spotted the circus devoid of light. “What’s happened?”

“I don’t know, it was like this when I got here,” she says, waving a hand at the winding path beyond the gate, which leads into shadow instead of its usual gossamer silver light. “I’ve never seen this before, even on nights when the weather is bad.”

“Me neither,” Bensiabel says, still looking at the gates, half expecting Farrin to come around the corner and tell them they have simply turned the lights off and the circus will resume its regular appearance later. But the circus more than looks wrong; it feels wrong.

Bensiabel glances at Sage but she is focused on the gate. Under her gaze it rattles slightly, then with increasing strength as Sage furrows her brow. The shaking stops and Sage relaxes, her expression dismayed. “I can’t open it.”

Bensiabel prowls around the gates, searching for some opening. There is nothing but bars, and the doors, which are locked from the inside.

He comes to stop a little ways away from the entrance, at a spot where the gap between bars is bigger. Big enough for him to squeeze through.

Sage helps him, pushing on his ribs and helping him turn his head when he discovers it won’t go in sideways. Eventually, with much holding of breath and pushing on Sage’s, Bensiabel is through the gate.

Sage has slightly less trouble following him, though her gown down get caught on a curl of pearly metal.

Bensiabel would feel somewhat worse about trespassing, but he feels as though he is breaking into his own home, an unusual endeavor but not altogether wrong.

They proceed toward the Moon Mirror, in the hopes of seeing some light amidst the shadow.

The circus is dark, no gossamer glow radiates form sconces or lanterns or lamp posts. The first stars twinkle in the sky in the space between clouds.

The scent of the wind within the gates differs from that without. It is heavier, and deeply foreboding. The circus smells not of cinnamon and apple cider and woodsmoke, but of burnt paper and metal. Beneath the petrichor and char is a breath of autumn wind.

Decay with an undercurrent of the dying season.

Bensiabel and Sage emerge from the labyrinth of black and silver tents onto the promenade, the area clear of patrons and light, no performers or statues on platforms or pedestals.

The promenade is a grey landscape. Leaf-strewn blackened canvas, wet stone, and cinder and smoke.

The ground is covered in shards of glass, thin and sharp, sparkling.

Through the light mist and rain Bensiabel sees two figures standing by the Moon Mirror. When he comes closer he recognizes Pamina, and her silver and black dress fluttering in the wind, but the man by her side, wearing a black suit, is a stranger.

Before Bensiabel asks who the man is he is distracted by the Moon Mirror. Long cracks fragment the surface, and it is not silver. It is the first time Bensiabel has seen the mirror not glowing.

The frame of the mirror is bright though, glowing as though the metal is hot. It hisses where the rain hits it, small bursts of steam that disappear quickly.

“What happened?” Bensiabel asks.

Pamina turns quickly, the man in black turning with her. Pamina holds the man in black’s hand in her own.

She smiles, though it is not a happy smile. “Bensiabel, I’m glad to see you.”

Sage steps forward, her gaze fixed not on the fortuneteller, as Bensiabel’s is, but on the man in black, her expression one of confusion. “Tamino?”

The man in black nods at his pupil. “Good evening, Sage.”

Bensiabel looks at Tamino with a considerable amount of interest, having never seen Sage’s instructor her is suddenly curious about him. Perhaps if the circus did not look so desolate he would ask the man in black a question. “What happened?” he repeats.

Pamina answers, “The balance was upset.”

Sage removes her eyes from her instructor, staring instead at the fortuneteller. “What does that mean?”

Pamina sighs. “It is complicated,” she says. “But we have a favour to ask of you, Bensiabel.”

Bensiabel glances at Sage but she looks as startled as he feels. Pamina watches him, waiting to continue. “I need you to adopt the circus.”

“What?”

“The circus requires someone to take care of it. I would hope for that someone to be you.”

Bensiabel is almost too shocked to speak. “Why?” he manages.

“I was negligent,” Pamina say. “I miscalculated the extent of what was under my control, and now the circus is falling apart.” Bensiabel does not understand how the circus could fall apart, it has always felt as strong as a fortress, but now, looking closely, he can see elements of it are beginning to fade. The trees surrounding them are unfocused, like a blurry photograph. Where their branches stretch into the sky-like ceiling they appear to dissolve like the crystals of a snowflake. The light from the fire is dim, and growing dimmer.

The dry leaves crackle as they skate across the ground in the occasional breeze.

“Why me? Why don’t you do it?” Bensiabel asks Sage. “You’re better at these things than I am.”

Sage shakes her head. “I’m not involved like you are Bensiabel. I never have been. It must be you.”

Bensiabel turns to Pamina, feeling helpless. “I can’t do it. I’m not like you, or Sage or Farrin. I can’t do all of this magic.”

“True magic, as you call it. You expect it to transcend everything. But it does not,” Tamino says.

“What does?” Bensiabel asks.

Tamino does not answer, but instead glances back at Pamina. Their eyes meet for only a second yet in that second the looks on their faces answers Bensiabel’s question.

Bensiabel turns to Sage. “Why did you say yes? Why did you agree to travel with the cirque?”

Sage sighs. “I had no reason to say no. I was lonely and bored, and I desperately wanted to belong somewhere. I didn’t wish to stay in one place.”

“Why did you say yes, Bensiabel?” Pamina asks.

Bensiabel doesn’t answer, but his eyes are drawn to the heart of the circus, in the direction of many spiraling paths in canvas.

“What would happen otherwise?” Sage asks.

“The circus would be like a machine with nothing to power it. It would be empty. Every illusion and vision would be gone. It would be a husk, a shell of what is was.” Pamina glances at Tamino. They share a look of profound sorrow, though there is something more intimate beneath it. “The circus would be gone.”

Bensiabel cannot think what is worse, the decision he must make or that he is the only one who can make it.

There is a moment of silence when time seems to slow like paper slowly sinking to the ground. The only sounds in the promenade are the wind and the pattern and hiss of rain on the mirror frame.

Bensiabel thinks of each moment he has spent in the circus, the lights and sugar and performances, and how he cannot live without it. He is already bound in his heart to the circus. He cannot imagine saying no.

“Alright,” he says. As Pamina’s shoulders relax and Tamino smiles he asks, “What do I have to do?”

Pamina holds out her hand to him and Bensiabel sees a scorch mark on her palm. He wonders why she has not healed it and thinks perhaps it is because it is from the Moon Mirror.

Bensiabel approaches her slowly, his eyes flicking back and forth between her hand and her face. When he takes her hand, one of the few times he has touched her despite their many lessons, he is surprised by the warmth of her palm, and the solidarity of it in the wavering visions of the circus. He has almost expected Pamina to fade with the circus.

“Close your eyes.”

Bensiabel closes his eyes, plunged into an even deeper darkness than that of the circus.

He feels a very strange sensation, like falling, but as it continues it becomes something else entirely. Bensiabel feels as though he is floating, there is no ground beneath his feet, only an expanse of empty air, like a void. Time stretches on behind his eyelids, seconds feeling like hours. Then there is a weight on his shoulders, the settling of something of monumental size, big enough to take his breath away. He can feel his knees about to buckle, but he stays standing.

It is the feel of being in the circus, but magnified a hundred times. He feels elated with wonder and magic, the air of mystery, the depth of etherealness.

Slowly the feeling ebbs, and Bensiabel is aware of Pamina’s hand once again, of the wind and the smell of wet, burnt canvas.

“Open your eyes, Bensiabel.”

Bensiabel opens his eyes to the familiar tents, and to Tamino and Pamina looking at him with something akin to pride, and a little sadness.

“What-“

“I just gave you the circus,” Pamina says. “But that is only part of it. Right now the circus can’t function, it doesn’t have enough power.”

Pamina leans forward, bringing her lips close to his ear, she whispers, “You must draw down the sun.”

Text by Lucie MacAulay