It smelled of salt air and dust, like an old warehouse full of memories. The tent of the Circus Semi-Narc had sprung up on the coast like a huge white mushroom, with canvas stretched taut in the wind and ropes that moaned quietly as they were snatched away by the gusts from the bay. Mira stood at the edge of the arena and watched as Julek hung the last lamps in the crown of the tent. In the light of the late afternoon, Julek's face looked like a map: lines of sweat, shadows of sleepless eyes, dots of dust. - 'Higher, a little to the left,' she called out, and he waved a hand at her, then moved the spotlight by that little bit that made the rope at altitude look like a glittering trail drawn in the air. Mira was seventeen and had feet that knew the planks of any makeshift platform better than the cobbles of any city. She was a funambulist - a girl who walks on nothing. She had learnt balance from childhood, developing a memory in her fingers and shoulders that you can't see, but without which a person falls. While others were changing their shoes after school, she would swap her trainers for soft gym shoes and climb the narrow metal ladder until the air grew cooler and more stubborn. At the Salt Harbor, the circus was breaking ground for the first time in years. She remembered this harbour from her childhood: the chipped plaster, the fishermen's boats like abandoned bones, the sandy streets that steamed her feet through the soles in summer. Posters on poles greeted them even before they turned off the road - the letters would dance in their eyes: "Circus of the Semi-North. One evening. The return of the number that was whispered about." Someone in town still remembered how, once upon a time, long ago, an artist named Alma Fiska had stood in the same tent on a line that seemed to fade into the twilight. She did not finish that number. People didn't talk about it out loud, especially when they passed Mira; instead of words there was a mixture of glances - curious, sympathetic, aware. The kind that weigh. Director Kordian Vela came to them late, as is his custom. His coat was navy blue, long, his waistcoat embroidered with silver thread, and his walking stick with a carved moth head. When he opened his mouth, his voice creaked like the boards of a stage, but he could make a promise from it that made your skin shiver. - 'Tonight,' he said, looking at everyone in turn, 'we will close the circle. We're going to show a number that hasn't been here for two decades, and give them a new heart. Mira, it's you they'll look at when the snare drum dies down. She didn't ask 'why me'. In the circus, questions are better in the hands than in the mouth: better to look through the ropes with your fingers, count the seams, check the buttons. Julek hid his face behind the spotlight, but Mira saw his cheekbones move - a sign that he had clenched his teeth. After a moment, he came over and left her a small metal disc on the toolbox. - This I found in the crown, between the beams. Probably old ballast,' he muttered. She picked up the disc and felt a chill. It was a pendant with an imaginary moth - wings like fans, feelers like delicate hooks. Exactly the same one that adorned Kordian Vela's walking stick. She smiled uncertainly. - Did you get déjà vu? - She asked. - 'No. 'I just don't like it when things that should be downstairs are suddenly upstairs,' Julek replied and walked away, pretending to be occupied by a cable. Before the rehearsal, she was holding a balancer in her hands - a long, light rod that shifted her body weight like an invisible hand. The rope was soft from the wrapping, pleasant under her fingers, but on that day it sounded different. As she stepped onto it, she heard a quiet tone, as if someone had pulled a string. The sound trembled in her sternum. - It was the dampness - Noah, the fiddler, stood at the bottom with the instrument under his chin. - The canvas caught water from the mist. The tent becomes a sounding box. - He smiled briefly. - Or it's an omen, if you like words like that. She didn't. She liked the numbers written in chalk on the black boxes: the height of the platform, the span of the rope, the time of ascent, the pace. She liked the repetition, the fact that the muscles, when you listen to them, tell the same story of balance over and over again. Later, as the sun broke through the clouds and the tent darkened, the first lights hung over the arena. The rehearsal went smoothly, until Mira, standing on the platform, noticed something amiss. The belay net, which was normally taut as a drum, was dangling a few fingers lower. She squatted down and looked up: one of the tensioners was threaded through an extra ring, as if someone - or something - wanted to lower the edge on the side where the rope disappeared into the shadows. - Julek! - she called out. - It's different here. She pointed with her finger. Julek squinted, then nodded. - I'll tighten it up. Someone was playing with the equipment. - He threw it into space, with that indifference that does not reassure. As evening fell, the city flowed into the tent like a half-morning. People rubbed their coats against the canvas, children pulled adults by the arms, the ticket taker glued a smile to his lips. The smell of popcorn mingled with the petrol from the generator and the sweet smoke from Noah warming his bow against the string. From the speakers came the short screech of a snare drum and the hoarse voice of Kordian Vela. As he spoke, the lights dimmed and a silence fell inside the tent that was like a held breath. - 'Ladies and gentlemen,' he drawled, and the words hung under the dome, 'in the Salt Haven we are sometimes allowed to attempt the impossible. Tonight you will see a passage over what you cannot see. A bridge that bears only the certainty of feet. And you will be led by... Mira. She didn't have an appointment for the main announcement. Her breath came down. She looked towards Julk. In the semi-darkness, upstairs, he raised his hands - I don't know. Noah hugged his chin tighter to the instrument and played a phrase they hadn't rehearsed before: a narrow theme, climbing and falling like a ladder. Director Vela pointed his cane at it, and the moth-balled stylus shone for a second. In the spotlight, the rope glowed like a trace of chalk on a blackboard. Only now it no longer ended at the second platform - or to put it another way: the section it should have occupied was not visible. The shadow had eaten away a section of it, although Julek had repositioned the lamps so that there were no dark pockets. Mira rubbed her hands with resin, felt the stickiness. Applause came from the crowd - not the tumultuous ones, full of bravado, but small, like rain: falling nervously, uncertainly. She climbed the ladder. At the top, the air was different - thinner, cooler, suffused with a metallic aftertaste. The platform purred under her foot. She put the balance beam on the railing, looked down. In the front row, she spotted a woman with a moth pinned to her collar - identical to her pendant and to the head of Vela's cane. The woman did not clap. She stood as the others sat down, and stared stubbornly, as if she wanted to remind someone in advance of something that was not being recalled. Mira looked away. She saw the chalk marks on the beam - a circle crossed diagonally. Someone had left them so that they were only visible to the one with the courage to stand tall. She took the balance beam in her hands. The wood was smooth, slightly heated from her hands. She moved her finger along the rope: the sound spread through the tent again, but quieter, like a promise whispered into someone's neck. - Mira! - a whisper from below, from backstage, came from Julk. - Look at the mount on the right! She supported herself with her knee against the railing and glanced to the side. On the steel yoke that held the rope, someone had painted a fresh, still dull black arrow. It indicated not the rope itself, but a narrow, dark cord wrapped around it - something like a hair, like a thread. It wasn't up to standard. It wasn't anyone's she knew. - Noah? - She whispered. - Do you hear that? The violin replied with a short trill. And then a pause. The waiting. In that pause, she heard the rumble of the sea, the flutter of canvas, the whisper of people. Director Vela spread out his hands, like a priest before a gesture that would close the case. The lights dimmed by a hair more. Only one sheaf remained on the line. As if someone was sharpening a razor blade. Mira put her foot on the rope. She spread her arms, her fingers closed on the balancer, her stomach trembled. Underneath the sole she felt not only the softness of the wrapping, not only the coolness of the metal, but also the gentle trembling of that extra thread. As if the rope had a pulse of its own. The first step is always like a sentence that needs to be said out loud before someone cuts the silence with laughter. Before she clenched her teeth and stepped into the sheaf of light, the platform behind her trembled slightly, as if someone were standing on it. It was a weight no bigger than a bird, but distinct. The skin on the back of her neck curdled in on itself. Someone - or something - put a clay-coloured, cool finger on her shoulder, through the thick sleeve of her costume. She didn't have time to turn around. A snare drum played a single, low beat that got under her skin. - Mira Koźluk! - Kordian Vela's voice rang out, and the audience screamed like a wave. She stood with her other foot over the white void, light flooded her eyelids, and a shadow where the rope was eaten away by darkness invited her in without a word.