When the Circus Phenomenon tent sprang up overnight on the site of a former railway siding, many swore that as late as midnight there were still only rusting wagons and weeds. In the morning there were red and black sheets, shiny ropes, a row of flags that fluttered in the wind like tongues of fire. There was a smell of tar, dried wood and caramelised orange peel, and empty coffee cups rolled over the sprawling gravel of the workers who had pounded poles and stretched canvas all night until the dome stood firm like a heart ready to beat. Lidia got out of the taxi with an old black trunk in which the smells of talcum powder, velvet and card paper mingled. The brass corners of the trunk showed dents, souvenirs of distant travels. It had been years since she had seen this tent, yet from her first step she knew where to turn, where the floor of the tent rippled slightly, and where the draught was always trying to steal feathers from the boas. - Is it really you? - came from between the crates and rolls of rope. Out of the shadows came Marcel, the master of ceremonies, dressed as usual in a tailcoat that never got dusty, and with a cane with a black shiny knob. He had grey temples and the eyes of an actor who also sees the audience when the auditorium is empty. - 'I'm going back for one night,' Lidia replied, not quite sure whether this was a promise or a threat to herself. Marcel nodded. - One night can change a whole tour. You start first. 'A passage without a shadow'. Remember? She remembered. Her number used to make people get up from their seats, make someone in the third row cry and someone else laugh in disbelief. She also remembered the evening after which she packed her trunk and disappeared without a word, as if she had been drawn through a tunnel between two sheets of glass. Years passed and only her fingers remembered the movements: the circulation of the coin, the soft grip of the cards, the exercise of breathing when everything has to synchronise. There was a controlled hustle and bustle backstage: Rosa, an acrobat on a sash, was warming up her arms, her skin shining like varnished wood; Victor, a technician with the eyesight of an eagle, was apologising to the spotlights for making them shine harder than usual again; someone was untangling the long hair of the make-up brushes, someone else was sharpening knives for a number that always looked more dangerous than it actually was. Only the eagle, Marcel's mother's old bird, slept unsteadily on the pole, as if it knew that people's tricks are loud but always end in applause. - Chief! - shouted Viktor from the side of the ramp. - A package has arrived. Without a sender. No one had signed for it. The box stood under a bench, still damp from the fog. It had dark, almost tarry wood and a wax seal embossed with the symbol of an eye, which seemed to blink as it passed by. Next to the seal someone had scraped a zero with a knife. - 'We didn't order anything this size,' Marcel muttered. - 'Open it, but gently. The boards gave way without resistance, as if they had not been nailed together at all, but folded into the shape of a box to hide what was inside. Inside rested a mirror, as tall as a man and as wide as a door. The dark wood frame bore the marks of old hands, slipped at the corners. On the top slat someone had burned in thin letters: Number Zero. Lidia came closest. The glass was clean, too clean for wandering sideways. In the taffy, she saw herself - the same profile, the same navy blue jacket, the same strand of hair unruly slipping out from under a bobby pin. Only... the reflection blinked a little later than she did. Almost imperceptibly. Almost. - Strange,' she said before she could bite her tongue. - 'Strange is our daily bread,' Marcel snorted, but his hand clenched tighter on his cane. - 'He won't come on stage until we've checked the mechanisms. Rosa moved closer, tilted her head. - 'If it's number zero, how about rehearsal general to rehearsal general? - She chuckled with a smile that was meant to relieve the tension. The tension, however, refused to dissipate, like smoke that finds no exit from under the dome. - Viktor, let's strap it to the trestle. Let it stand behind the scenes. Lidia, this mirror is not on your list. We stick to the plan. The plan was simple, almost classic. In the first act, solo numbers are supposed to warm up the audience: Rosa's veil falling like a waterfall, the twins' juggling étude where no ball ever falls out, and Lidia's illusion, during which a shadow detaches itself from its owner for a moment and dances in the spotlight, only to return when the audience isn't sure at what point it happened. Then an intermission of roasted corn and curly potatoes. The second act was to end with a surprise finale for Marcel, which, as usual, no one knew about except himself and the book he kept in his closed tailcoat pocket. The night slipped away from the roof of the tent, dark, soft, with isolated stars that, if the tarpaulin had been lifted, would probably have fallen inside like confetti. People gathered at the entrance, paying with cash, card, smile. The cold prompted them to approach with their emotions, if not their bodies. Children leaning on their parents' hips were carried in their arms by younger men, older women pulled their noses at the smell of caramel. But on this evening, Lidia felt the audience differently, as if each chair was a separate language about to erupt into an outcry. As the trumpet fanfare sounded, Marcel entered the arena with a slow stride that had you waiting and watching. His voice was soft, rough and warm at the same time, like cashmere rubbed over a favourite spot. - Ladies and gentlemen, dear passers-by, bystanders and those who have come here today with an intention they will not even reveal to themselves! - he called out. - The Circus Phenomenon bows to you as low as it can. And now, before the lights have time to blink and the breath is intertwined with applause, we ask you to be quiet, for we begin with a number that tolerates no haste. This is Lidia. The applause was like a wave: it rolled over, then came back as Lidia stepped into the circle of the yellow spotlight. A string of pearls flashed around her neck. In her hand was a silver coin, so thin that a ribbon of light could be cut with it. She smiled, with no guarantee that it was a smile or just a mask her body had found years later. The plan was for her to raise her hands, to make a few simple gestures that would open up the shadow choreography. But the plan did not foresee what she saw when she spread her fingers: in the middle of the arena, on a red carpet of sawdust, stood a mirror with a dark frame and a burnt inscription. It hadn't been there the last time she checked the space. It wasn't there when Marcel called her out from backstage. It now stood like a door that someone had left ajar between worlds. - Victor? - She hissed through clenched teeth, not moving her lips - Who put it up? No one answered. Wiktor's glasses glinted on the technical turret, but his face was motionless. The music, programmed for her entrance, flowed on as if nothing had happened: a gentle waltz, the first turn of a curtain of sound. The audience held their breath, uncertain whether they were watching a mistake or a miracle. For them, everything in the arena was intent. Lidia felt the air between her and the mirror have a different density, as if a cold sea had passed through. Goosebumps rose under the skin of her hand. She turned her hand over, showing everyone that there was nothing in it - no thread, no magnetic lashing, no clever mechanism. She took a step. And another. The coin in her hand clattered like a drop as she touched the frame with her fingernail. This was no ordinary glass. It did not buzz with the electricity of the backstage, did not reflect the multitude of lamps. It resembled the surface of water just before an evening rain - smooth, but ready to vibrate. Lidia saw more than just herself in it. Behind her back, in the reflection, there was the shadow of a man, although she knew that just behind her there was only a ring and darkness. The shadow raised a hand. Lidia hesitated and raised it too. Their movements again diverged by a fraction of a heartbeat. From the audience someone parried nervously. Someone else leaned over and whispered something to a neighbour. Marcel, on the edge of the arena, didn't even flinch, but the tip of his cane touched the sawdust, as if he was looking for answers in it. - 'Lidia,' she heard a whisper, as quiet as a hair dragged along a snare drum. Not from the backstage side. From the glass. The flags at the flagpoles fluttered, though there was no draught inside. The eagle on the bar opened one eye. Rosa, drawn up at half-height, rolled her sash around her wrist and stopped breathing, as if someone had switched off the movement in her with the press of a finger. - 'Lidia,' repeated the whisper, and a wisp appeared on the surface of the mirror - so delicate that it could be taken for the shadow of a cloud. Only no shadow leaves a trace of warmth. And this warmth struck her through her skin, like the memory of a hand she hadn't held for a long time. The audience heard nothing, but saw everything. Someone clapped uncertainly, as if to add rhythm to something that had none. The music fell silent, as if it had decided for itself that it should not interfere now. - 'There are no spoken effects in the programme,' muttered Marcel very quietly, more to himself than to any of them. - 'Stay the course, Lidia. Show them that you control every pixel of this canvas. She wasn't sure she controlled anything yet. Yet she did what she always did: she took a deep breath and, where others seek solid ground, she let the soil settle. She raised her free hand and slowly pressed it against the mirror. The glass receded like the surface of a river in August, warm and promising. Behind the surface something moved, the outline began to take on a density, as if someone from that side was blocking out the sun that wasn't here. The frame of the mirror twitched. Somewhere high up a thin string snapped, without releasing any of the flags, however. The light focused on a single point, just above Lidia's hand. In that brightness appeared the outline of fingers - long, slender, with a scar in a place she knew as well as her own fingerprints. The spectators leaned forward in one unforced agreement. Lidia felt that if she watched for one more second, she would forget who she was - where the trick ended and something they shouldn't be testing in front of so many people began. And yet she did not withdraw her hand. The mirror undulated more strongly, the light hoovered under the dome, and then, from behind the sheet, at the level of her thumb, the first shape, unlike anything she had seen before, began to emerge....