Nights at the Circus: Part Three, Siberia
Trekking through the snow
You can do anything you like, as long as nobody takes you seriously.
Not caught up yet? Here’s part one:
And part two:
Here we are at the final part of the novel, where Fevvers has just escaped from the Grand Duke. Spoilers ahead!
The entire circus is packed up on the train Fevvers managed to just catch, and they’re now crossing the Siberian tundra on their way to Asia. However, a group of outlaws have decided that Fevvers can help them - through her connections to the royal family - get in contact with the Tsar. In order to get to Fevvers, they derail the train, throwing the circus into chaos. The tigers are trapped inside the shards of mirror scattered across the snow, but the Princess and Mignon are beside themselves at the loss of their tigers and piano; the Strong Man, still rehabilitated, helps to carry them. Fevvers, too, is loaded onto a stretcher, hysterical at being unable to find Walser, who she has realised she’s in love with, and the circus is marched away to the outlaw’s camp. Walser, knocked unconscious, has been buried under a pile of linen tablecloths, but we’ll come back to him.
Segue to a panopticon prison for murderesses, set up in Transbaikalia to attempt to reform its prisoners. As Countess P sits in her watchtower, slowly rotating to keep eyes on the prisoners, she’s failed to realise that she has also created a prison for her guards, who are dressed in gloves and masks to keep them unidentifiable, and that all of the women are plotting against her. They work together to trap the countess inside the panopticon and escape.
The escapees find the detritus of the train crash, and uncover a nonsensical Walser, who has lost his memory and his speech. The women debate taking him with them, but decide that their troubles have mostly started with men, and so they’re safer to leave him where he is. They leave him behind in the hopes that a rescue mission will find him soon enough. Walser hides in the forest, finding a shaman mid-journey, who takes him under his wing.
Fevvers tells the convicts that the rumours they have heard about her are untrue, that she’s not engaged to the Prince of Wales, and cannot help them, and she and Lizzie come up with a plan, though without her handbag, Lizzie’s magic is wearing thin. The clowns to put on a show for the convicts, to cheer them up (and to distract them), and a blizzard blows both the clowns and the convicts away, leaving Fevvers, Lizzie and their small band to escape. They find a dilapidated building on the edge of a river, and disturb the Maestro, who lives there. The Princess and Mignon are immediately cheered at the sight of a grand piano, as it turns out that the building was to be a music school. While Fevvers goes out to search for food, the Princess plays the piano, and lures a pack of Siberian tigers onto the roof, where they are lazing happily when Fevvers returns. The music has, too, brought the shaman out from his hidden village, and with him is Walser, now almost fully shaman himself. Fevvers and Lizzie leave the music school to find him, Colonel Kearney leaves to found a new circus, and the Princess, Mignon, and the Strong Man stay to set up a new music school with the Maestro.
Fevvers finds Walser, and he regains his memory on seeing her. They ring in the new century together, and Fevvers (maybe?) finally admits the truth; telling Walser “to think I really fooled you!”
What did you think? Is Fevvers really feathered, or is it all an act? Maybe more importantly, can Lizzie really move time?
More reading…
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