On a blustery October night the Circus Oscuro came to town. This was no ordinary circus. They came in the dead of night, when all the townspeople were asleep. The circus wagons turned into the long field at the bottom of the hill that overlooked the town of Larde, and creaked to a halt in neat rows with barely a sound. A small boy, huddled in a large wooden barrel high on the side of the hill, watched the raising of the big top, awakened from his sleep by the shouts of the circus people. The boy's name was Miles Wednesday. He was an orphan and the barrel was his home. His life is about to be changed forever as an extraordinary adventure leads to the Palace of Laughter, where fun and mirth are strictly forbidden.
