A Great And Terrible Beauty (8 page)

“What took you so long?”

“It’s only been a few minutes,” Felicity says.

“I don’t like waiting down here. All those eyes on the columns. It’s as if they’re watching me.”

In the dark, the marble sprites and nymphs take on a ghoulish quality. The room feels alive, taking note of our every move, counting every breath.

“Don’t be such a ninny. Let’s be brave girls, shall we? Where are the others?” As if on cue, two girls descend the stairs and join us. I’m introduced to Elizabeth, a tiny ratlike creature who offers an opinion only after everyone else has, and the pinch-faced Cecily, whose narrow upper lip curls when she takes in the sight of me. Martha, the tripper in the chapel, isn’t among them, and I realize she’s not part of the club; she only wishes she were. That’s why she was willing to trip Ann—to curry favor with them.

“Ready?” Cecily sneers.

What have I gotten myself into? Why don’t I simply say,
All right, girls, it’s been lovely.
Thanks ever so for the midnight gambol about the old palatial grounds. Wouldn’t have wanted to miss the way the parlor flares to life at night with a wonderful, nightmarish glow, but I’ll just be getting back to bed now.
Instead, I follow them outside onto the back lawn, where the full moon bleeds yellow behind a thin, high bank of clouds. The bloody fog is still there and it’s frightfully cold. I’m dressed in only my nightgown. They’re clever girls with their blue velvet capes on.

“Follow me.” Felicity starts up the hill toward the chapel, the fog swallowing her whole in just a few steps. I fall in behind her and the others fall in behind me so that turning back is no longer an option. Suddenly I’m second-guessing my decision to follow the Mystery Sisters out onto the vast, foggy night all the way to the chapel doors.

“We have a tradition here at Spence,” Felicity says. “A little initiation ceremony for new girls who might prove worthy of our inner circle.”

“Can you really have an inner circle with only four people?” I ask, sounding braver than I feel. “Seems more like an inner square, doesn’t it?”

“You’re lucky to be here,” Cecily snaps.

Yes, I feel incredibly lucky to be standing out here in the freezing cold in only my nightgown. Some people might call it remarkably stupid, but I’m feeling quite optimistic.

“So, what is this secret initiation?”

Elizabeth looks to Felicity for permission to talk. “You only need to take something from the chapel.”

“As in steal something?” I ask, not liking where this is going one bit but feeling too far in to get out now.

“It’s not stealing. After all, it will never leave Spence. It’s just a way to prove that you are trustworthy,” Felicity says.

I have a few seconds to think and even though the most reasonable answer is to say I’m not interested and go back to bed, I say instead, “What do you want me to take?”

The clouds thin into wisps. Buttery moonlight spreads out and down. Felicity’s mouth opens, her tongue rubbing against her top teeth, feeling them. “The communion wine.”

“Communion wine?” I repeat.

Pippa makes a coughing noise in her throat before dissolving into giggles and I can see this is an impromptu request, an extra bit of daring on Felicity’s part.

Cecily looks aghast. “But Fee, that’s sacrilege!”

“Yes, I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I begin.

“Really? I think it’s an excellent idea,” Felicity snaps. The admiral’s daughter doesn’t like it when her crew disobeys. “What about you, Elizabeth? What do you think?”

Elizabeth the puppet looks between her two masters, Felicity and Cecily. “Oh, I, I suppose—”

Pippa breaks in. “I think it’s a tip-top idea.”

I could almost swear I hear the trees whispering
idiot
. What have I gotten myself into?

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid to go in there by yourself?” Felicity says.

That’s exactly what I’m afraid of, but I can’t very well say it. “What happens when Reverend Waite discovers the communion wine is missing? Won’t he be suspicious?”

A contemptuous “ha” escapes from Felicity’s mouth. “That drunkard will only suspect that he drank it himself. Besides, there are always Gypsy caravans around here this time of year. We can blame it on them if we have to.”

I don’t like this idea much. The chapel doors seem to have grown taller and more ominous since vespers. Despite my misgivings, I know I’m going in. “Where does he keep the wine?”

Pippa pushes me toward the doors. “Behind the altar. There’s a small cubbyhole.”

She slides the bolt back with all her strength. The doors creak open on the tomblike darkness inside.

“You can’t very well expect me to find it in the dark.”

“Feel your way,” Felicity says, pushing me inside.

I can’t believe that I’m here inside a dark, gloomy chapel ready to commit complete sacrilege by stealing. Thou shalt not steal. I seem to recall that as being one of God’s
I’d rather you didn’t lest I have to smite you into ash
commandments. Nor do I think it will help my case that I’m stealing what the Church believes is the holy blood of Christ. It’s not too late. I could still turn back and go to bed. I could, but I’d forever yield what power I have now to those girls.

Right. Get this over quickly, then. The light from the open door brightens up the vestibule, but the far end, where the altar and wine are, is in complete darkness. I start toward it and hear the door creaking closed, the light vanishing with the girls, the heavy thud of the wooden bolt being thrown on the outside of the door. They’re locking me in. Without thinking, I throw myself shoulder first into the door, hoping for enough time to push it open. It doesn’t give. And actually, it hurts quite badly.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, Gem.
What did I expect? How could I have been taken in by that story about wanting me to be part of their private club? Ann’s voice swims in my head—
what’s the point? There’s no winning against them.
I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I’ve got to think.

There must be another way out of here. I only have to find it. All around me, the church seems to breathe with shadows. Mice scurry under pews, their claws scratching against the marble floor. My skin crawls at the thought. But the moon is strong. It falls through the stained-glass windows, bringing an angel to life, then the gorgon’s head, its eyes burning yellow in the dark.

I’m up and feeling my way from pew to pew, hoping I don’t run into furry rodents or worse. Every sound is magnified. The clicking of night crawlers. Creaking and groaning of wood in the wind. Silently, I berate myself for falling prey to such a nasty prank.
It’s just a little initiation we have here at Spence—we like to torture each other.
Beauty, grace, and charm my foot. It’s a school for sadists with good tea-serving skills.

Click-click. Creak.

Felicity’s probably no more related to Admiral Worthington than I am.

Click-click. Creak.

I don’t even want to go to Paris.

Click, creak. Cough.

A cough. I didn’t cough. And if I didn’t, then who did?

It takes just a second for this to sink down into my legs and now I’m stumble-running up the middle aisle as fast as I can manage. My foot finds the first step to the altar. I trip and land sprawled on the hard marble, the sharp edge biting into my leg. But I can hear footsteps running up behind me, so I’m on hands and knees, scrambling for what I see just behind the organ—a door, open just a crack. Feel the last step and I’m up on wobbly legs, running hard for the promise of what’s on the other side of that door. Reach out a hand and . . .

There’s something overhead. Dear God, I must be imagining things because something, someone, is flying over my head, landing with a thump in the space between the door and me. A hand clamps over my mouth, trapping my scream there. The other arm pulls me in, pins me tight.

It’s instinct that makes me bite the hand on my mouth. I’m unceremoniously dumped to the floor. And then I’m up on my feet again, leaping for the door. A hand snakes around my ankle, bringing me down hard till I see pinpricks of light behind closed eyes. I try to crawl away but my knee and head hurt too badly.

“Stop. Please.” The voice is young, male, and vaguely familiar.

A match flares in the darkness. My eyes follow the light as it fills the chamber of a lantern. The light spills out, catches the outline of broad shoulders, a black cloak, before rising to frame a face with large dark eyes fringed in a halo of lashes. I’m not imagining things. He’s really here. I jump up but he’s faster, blocking off all access to the door.

“I’ll scream. I swear I will.” My voice is no more than a scratching sound in the dark.

He’s tensed and ready, for what I don’t know, but it makes my heart hammer against my ribs. “No, you won’t. How will you explain what you’re doing here with me in the middle of the night without proper clothes, Miss Doyle?”

Instinctively, I put my arms around my body, trying to hide the shape of me beneath my thin white gown. He knows me, knows my name. My pulse throbs in my ears. How long would it take for my scream to reach someone? Is there anyone out there to hear me?

I step behind the altar, putting it between us. “Who are you?”

“You don’t need to know who I am.”

“You know my name. Why can’t I know yours?”

He ponders this before answering with a curt reply. “Kartik.”

“Kartik. Is that your real name?”

“I’ve given you a name. That’s enough.”

“What do you want?”

“Just to talk to you.”

Keep thinking, Gemma. Keep him talking.
“You’ve been following me. At the train station today. And earlier at vespers.”

He nods. “I stowed away on the
Mary Elizabeth
in Bombay. Rough passage. I know the English are terribly sentimental about the sea, but I can live without it.” The lantern casts his shadow up and across the wall like a winged thing, hovering. He’s still guarding the door. Neither of us moves.

“Why? Why come all this way?”

“As I told you, I need to talk to you.” He takes a step forward. I shrink back and he stops. “It’s about that day and your mother.”

“What do you know about my mother?” My voice startles a bird hiding in the rafters. Panicked, it flaps to another beam in a flurry of frantic wings.

“I know that she didn’t die of cholera, for one thing.”

I force a deep breath. “If you’re hoping to blackmail my family . . .”

“Nothing of the sort.” Another step forward.

Against the cool marble of the altar, my hands tremble, unsure whether they’ll have to put up a fight. “Go on.”

“You saw it happen, didn’t you?”

“No.” The lie turns my breath shallow and fast.

“You’re lying.”

“N-no . . . I . . .”

Fast as a snake, he’s up on the altar, crouched before me, the lantern inches from my face. He could easily burn me or snap my neck. “For the last time, what did you see?”

My mouth has gone completely dry with the sort of fear that will say anything. “I . . . I saw her killed. I saw them both killed.”

His jaw clenches tight. “Go on.”

There’s a sob riding hard on my ragged breath. I push it down. “I . . . I tried to call out to her, but she couldn’t hear me. And then . . .”

“What?”

The weight in my chest is unbearable, making each word a struggle. “I don’t know. It was as if the shadows started to move . . . I’ve never seen anything like it . . . some hideous creature.” For some reason, it feels good to pour out to a complete stranger what I’ve been holding in from everyone else.

“Your mother took her own life, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” I whisper, astonished that he knows this.

“She was lucky.”

“How dare you—”

“Trust me, she was lucky not to be taken by that thing. As for my brother, he was not so fortunate.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing you can fight.”

“I saw it again. On the carriage ride here. I had another . . . vision.”

He’s alarmed. I can see the fear in him, and now I’m sorry I’ve told him anything. In one move, he’s off the altar and in front of me. “Listen to me well, Miss Doyle. You are not to speak about what you’ve seen to anyone. Do you understand?”

Moonlight pokes through the stained glass in weak slices. “Why not?”

“Because it will put you in danger.”

“What was that thing I saw?”

“It was a warning. And if you don’t want other, terrible things to happen, you will not bring on any more visions.”

The night, the pranks, the fear and exhaustion—they all collide in a sneering laugh I can’t seem to stop. “And how, pray tell, am I supposed to do that? It’s not as if I asked for it in the first place.”

“Close your mind to them and they’ll stop soon enough.”

“And if I can’t?”

Without a sound, he reaches out quickly and clamps a hand around the delicate bones of my wrist, squeezing tightly. “You will.” Down the center aisle, a mouse makes a bold run for it, rushing across to the other side of the church, where it’s only a scratching sound again. I’m bending under the pressure on my wrist. He lets go, a satisfied smirk on his face. I pull my arm close and rub at the sting on my skin.

“We’ll be watching you, Miss Doyle.”

There’s a clattering sound at the chapel’s heavy oak doors. I can hear Reverend Waite’s drunken singing as he fumbles to lift the bolt, cursing as it falls back into place with a thud. I don’t know whether to be thankful or terrified that he’ll find me here. In the instant I turned to look, my tormentor has vanished. He’s simply gone. The door is unguarded. I have a way out. And then I see it. The decanter of communion wine sitting full and ready in its cubbyhole.

The wooden bolt slides free. He’s almost in. But tonight Reverend Waite will be denied his wine. It’s cradled in my arm as I bound through the side door and stop at the top of a dark stairwell. What if he’s waiting for me down those shadowy stairs?

Reverend Waite calls out, half-drunk. “Is anyone there?”

I’m down the stairwell and out behind the chapel as if I’ve been shot from a cannon. Not till I’ve stumbled my way down the hill and have the imposing bricks of Spence in sight do I stop for breath. A crow caws, making me jump. I feel eyes on me everywhere.