He, his sister Caroline and her friend, as well as two other children, are perched in an oak tree, and Caroline asks him truth or dare, a game that has apparently been around in the same form as today at least since 1897.
Also this chapter marks the point at which the timeline goes all screwy, because this takes place 13 years after the other events in the book.
Really making this easy for me, Morgenstern. 'Preciate it.
My frustration aside, Bailey chooses "Dare", and his sister, a wonderful plot-developing tool, tells him he has to break in the Night Circus and bring back proof.
He accepts, as the Night Circus has arrived in...wait...Bailey lives in Concord, Massachusetts?
I really didn't read this book carefully the first time around, or at least I didn't read the little captions at the beginning of each chapter very carefully.
Annnyway, back to 19th century truth or dare.
The casual walk to the circus provides Bailey with just enough time for some backstory, and we find out that:
1. The Night Circus apparently thinks Concord, Massachusetts is a significant enough place for a return trip, because they stopped there five years ago.
2. Using the maths, Bailey is "not quite" eleven.
3. Bailey loves the circus. Like seriously.
When he gets to the circus, he sees that under the sign describing the opening and closing time, there are letters saying:
"Trespassers Will Be Exsanguinated"
According to Dictionary.com:
"exsanguinate: to drain of blood; make bloodless"
Yeesh.
Wandering through the empty grounds and for some reason staring at the ground and mentally describing the dirt, yes the dirt, in detail, he nearly runs into a girl.
And here is where (spoilers) the hopelessly romantic part of me screams into a pillow in anticipation.
No, this isn't Celia either. Based on the timeline, Celia, right now, is in her late twenties, and Marco, his early thirties, and around this time, they're pretty busy with the competition...and each other.
Yet another lovely and awful-in-hindsight run-on sentence that I'm gonna leave in.
Oh, I am all over the place with this one.
The girl, who has red hair, is about his age, and is wearing "a white dress made from bits of every fabric imaginable, scraps of lace and silk and cotton all combined into one" that I would pay so much money for.
At first, she confronts him about going where he's not supposed to, but offers to lead him out the way he came.
When they get to the fence, he thanks her, but then remembers that he was supposed to bring proof.
I'm about to quote about a half-page of the book, something Eliana hates, but sorry, I can't think of a good enough way to recap this.
"'Bring something back?' she repeats.
'Yeah,' Bailey says, looking down at his scuffed brown shoes, and at her white boots on the other side of the fence. 'It was a dare,' he adds, hoping she will understand.
The girl smiles. She bites her lip for a second and looks thoughtful, and then she pulls off one of her white gloves and hands it to him through the bars. Bailey hesitates.
'It's okay, take it,' she says. 'I have a whole box of them.'
Bailey takes the white glove from her and puts it in his pocket.
'Thank you,' he says again.
'You're welcome, Bailey,' the girl says, and this time when she turns away he does not say anything, and she disappears behind the corner of a striped tent."
More screeching from my inner hopeless romantic.
This chapter ends with both Bailey and me being confused by the girl knowing his name (her name is Poppet, by the way), because as far as I know, she's one of the circus's only residents that isn't magical.
Chapter Nine should be out before next Saturday.
As I said here: http://midnightharbor.blogspot.com/2015/03/sorry.html,my review schedule is going to slow down, and that's going to start Monday. I'm still going to do my absolute best to stick to the one-post-per-week minimum, but they might be more spread out than they are now.
You're right Audrey I do hate that. But in that instance it was acceptable.
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