Sisters' Fate (15 page)

A tiny white kitten comes barreling out of the room, slides across the wooden floor, and plows into the wall. It shakes its tiny, furry head and sits there, looking perplexed. Vi comes chasing after it. “Cate, Tess, look what Papa gave me!” She scoops up the kitten and cuddles it to her bosom, beaming. “There are two. I’ve named this one Noelle, and her brother Nicholas, on account of being Christmas kittens. Come see!”

We follow her into the parlor, where Grace is knitting in the silk chair by the fire, her needles flashing. Lucy and Bekah are playing with the other kitten and a pink hair ribbon. There’s a pewter punch bowl on the tea table, half full of some sweet-smelling concoction. Rory hands me a glass.

“What are you doing in here?” I wonder, joining Sachi on the settee.

“I couldn’t stomach watching your sister lord it over everyone for another minute.” Sachi rolls her dark eyes. “Something’s put her in a good mood.”

“I can’t imagine what.” And although I tell myself it’s Christmas and I don’t want Maura miserable, the truth is I hoped she’d be lonely without us. I take a sip of the punch, which tastes of oranges and sugar with a kick of something stronger.

“Elena and some of the other governesses are drinking mulled wine and singing carols in the library, so we decided to make this our headquarters.” Prue flings out her arm, sloshing punch onto the brown carpet. “Livvy plays beautifully, but if I hear one more badly tuned Christmas carol, I’ll scream. I’m not feeling very merry.”

“She’s a bit foxed,” Rory whispers loudly. “Put out at her brother for babying her.”

“Well, that’s Alistair for you,” I admit. Now is obviously not the time to tell Prue that her brother is planning some sort of scheme for tomorrow.

“Oh, and Alice sent a message. Her father’s taken sick, so she’s going to stay with him tonight.” Sachi traces the flowers etched into her glass. “The fever must be spreading like the dickens if it’s reached a wealthy neighborhood like Cardiff.”

“The convent felt so empty this morning.” Most of the girls who could afford it went home. Mei is spending the day across town with her aunt and little sisters. Pearl and Addie took the train to Addie’s family’s dairy farm in Pennsylvania, and Rilla left this morning for Vermont. She interviewed Livvy and Caroline about their time at Harwood before she went—and gave me strict instructions to watch while Merriweather read her article.

I watch as Tess strokes the second kitten’s wriggling back. Nearby, Prue stretches out on the carpet. I wonder where her brother is tonight. He must be missing her. For all that he is a conceited, condescending fop, Merriweather’s heart is in the right place. He loves his sister; he wants to protect her. I can understand that.

“Jennie Sauter and one of the other new girls ran off,” Rory says. One of the kittens makes a mad dash out into the hall, and Lucy and Tess scramble after it.

“Why?” I ask, taking another sip of the punch. “Jennie didn’t seem unhappy here.”

“Maybe they were homesick.” Rory shrugs. “It
is
Christmas. If you’ve got anywhere else to be—well, you’d want to be there, wouldn’t you?” Her brown eyes are sad. Is she thinking of her drunk of a mother—or remembering her dead stepfather, who was by all accounts a kind man? She glances down at the empty serving tray. “I’m going to fetch more gingerbread.”

I look to Sachi, wondering if she’s missing her parents, too.

“How are you managing?” she asks me, smoothing her frock—a bright fuchsia with turquoise polka dots. “You must be missing Finn.”

“Actually . . .” I launch into the story of our reconciliation. I’m at the bit about him needing more time when Lucy comes running pell-mell into the room.

“Cate! Come quick. It’s Tess!”

I dart down the hall, the others scrambling after me, to find Tess crumpled on the first-floor landing in a heap of green brocade and blond curls. “What is it? What happened?”

She isn’t crying this time, but her face has gone pale as milk and she’s shaking like a leaf. “The—the kitten,” she says, pointing at the limp little body lying at the foot of the stairs.

Vi falls to her knees, scooping it up in her hands. But it doesn’t wriggle or meow or lick her with its sandpapery tongue. It doesn’t do anything. My heart sinks.

“It was dead. Right in my hands. I picked it up and it was all—all broken and bloody.” Tess shudders.

Vi’s plummy eyes are filled with tears, but she blinks them back valiantly. “It’s dead, but—” Her hands search its spotless white fur. There is no blood, no wound save the obvious. Its little head droops at a strange angle.

“She dropped it.” Lucy wipes away tears with the backs of both hands, and draws in a deep breath. “Tess picked it up, and then she just—dropped it.”

“It was already dead!” Tess stands, hanging on to the wooden railing. “I thought—it
looked
dead. There was blood all over my hands.”

She holds up both palms, as if to prove her point—but they’re spotless, too.

I turn to Lucy. “Did you see the illusion?”

Lucy shakes her head, caramel braids swinging. “No.”

“Nothing at all?” I press. “Was anyone else in the hallway?”

“I don’t think so.” Lucy twists her pudgy hands together. “I looked up when Tess cried out, but then she dropped it and—it was too late. It tumbled right down the steps.”

“I saw it!” Tess’s voice is anguished as she makes her shaky way down to us. “I swear I did. I’m not making it up, and I’m not going mad!”

“Course you aren’t!” Bekah sounds indignant. “You’d never.”

“Vi, I’m—I’m so sorry,” Tess says.

“I know.” Vi is staring at the kitten cradled in her hands; she doesn’t meet Tess’s eyes.

Bekah links her arm through Tess’s. “Come on, let’s go back to the parlor,” she suggests, leading her away.

“Why don’t you give him to me?” Sachi holds out her hands, and Vi brushes her fingers over the kitten’s furry head one more time before she relinquishes it. Tears spill over her cheeks. “It’s all right. Get Noelle and take her upstairs. I’ll take care of this.”

She and Vi go their separate ways, but Lucy lingers on the bottom step. “Is there something else?” I ask.

Lucy toys with one of her braids. “I don’t want to be a tattletale.”

“If it’s about Tess, I need to know so I can look after her,” I say.

“I’m worried about her.” Lucy’s gaze is still trained on the floor. “On Tuesday, we were going up to my room so she could help me with my Latin, and she swore she heard music.”

I lean against the wooden banister as dread blooms through me. “What kind of music?”

“A funeral dirge. Only I didn’t hear a thing. I even ran down to check if Livvy was playing the piano, but no one was there. And then yesterday morning, Tess asked me to come in and help her do up the back of her dress. She was looking in the mirror and she started screaming. She said—” Lucy gulps. “She said the front of her dress was all covered in blood. She tore it off and threw it in the fireplace. I tried to stop her, but—”

My hand flies to my mouth. “No one was there but you? No one else saw?”

“No. But all of these—episodes—they’ve got one thing in common, haven’t they?” Lucy whispers, her brown eyes enormous. “It’s like she’s preoccupied with—”

“Death,” I finish. Fear shivers up my back. Is this how madness begins? Is this how it started for the oracles before Tess?

“You mustn’t tell anyone else. Let me handle this,” I insist. “Promise me.”

Lucy nods. “I promise.”

CHAPTER

15

I KNOCK LIGHTLY ON MAURA’S DOOR JUST
after dawn.

She opens it a few inches. “What is it? Parvati’s still sleeping.”

I crook a finger, beckoning her out. “I need to talk to you.”

She tiptoes out in stocking feet, closing the door softly behind her. Her hair falls in bright curls to her waist. She’s already dressed in a black wool frock with rabbit fur at the wide belled sleeves. “I thought you and Tess washed your hands of me.”

I don’t know what to say. We’re sisters, and no matter how angry I am, that still means something. I’ve been awake half the night, worried sick about Tess. What if her worst fears are being realized, and she
is
beginning the slow descent into madness? Brenna’s brokenness was due in part to Alice’s mind-magic gone wrong, but Brenna wasn’t the first oracle to go mad. And Tess—brilliant, capable, curious Tess—how could she bear it?

Tess saw something that Brenna feared would break her. Something Tess confessed she couldn’t keep from me forever. Did she foresee her own madness?

“It’s Tess,” I say finally. “Are you
absolutely certain
Inez isn’t terrorizing her?”

Maura sighs, propping one hand on her hip. “I told you, it’s not her. What’s happened now? It must be something awful for you to come to me.”

“You asked me to come to you.” I purse my lips. “But you’ve got to promise—before I tell you, Maura, I want you to swear you won’t tell Inez. That you won’t tell
anyone.
Swear it on Mother’s grave.”

“Good Lord,” Maura breathes. She knows that for me to invoke Mother, it must be serious. “What—very well, I swear on Mother’s grave that whatever it is, I won’t breathe a word of it to anyone. Will that do?”

“Thank you.” I twist Mother’s pearl ring round and round on my finger, avoiding Maura’s eyes. “There have been other episodes. Several of them now. And I’m—well, I’m afraid it may all be in her head.”

“That she’s going mad.” Maura steps closer as she utters the words I can’t bring myself to say aloud.

“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper, sinking back against the green flowered wallpaper. “She must be so scared.”

Maura’s shoulders slump. “I would be terrified.”

“Me too.” Not being able to trust my own senses—I can’t even imagine it. “We’ve got to look out for her, without letting her know. She needs us.”

“We?” Maura squints up at me. “You want us to work together? Does that mean you’re willing to put the past behind us?”

I set my jaw. “I’m willing to try and work with you. For Tess’s sake.”

Maura laughs her new, brittle laugh. “How gracious of you. Cate, do you even hear yourself? How condescending you are?”

“What do you expect?
You erased me!
” My hands vibrate as magic hums through me, and I clasp them tightly behind my back. “Perhaps if you apologized . . .”

Her blue eyes meet mine as she shakes her head. “No.”

I gape at her.
No?
I offer her an olive branch, and she throws it to the ground and stomps on it.

I try. I try and try and even when I swear I’ve turned my back on her, I wind up trying again.

She won’t tell me she’s sorry because she’s not. Maura’s never been one for a polite lie. She’s never had my compunctions about mind-magic, never thought it wicked or wrong. She didn’t hesitate to use it on Father or the O’Hares. Her friends, Finn, the Head Council: They’ve all been recipients of her ruthlessness. Maura wouldn’t hesitate to—

Another puzzle piece fits into place. “What did you do to Jennie Sauter?”

Maura folds her arms across her chest, smirking. “She ran off. Didn’t you hear?”

“Did she really? Don’t lie to me.” I smooth my black skirts, hands trembling.

Maura tosses her head, curls dancing. “They’re not witches, Cate. Having them here put us all in danger. I was rectifying
your
mistake.”

My anger simmers like a teakettle, but I ignore the jab. “If anyone recognizes them—if they’re arrested—they’ll be executed without a trial. Did that occur to you?”

“We only erased their memories from the last few weeks—since the night of the Harwood breakout. They won’t know how they escaped, but they’ll know enough to be careful,” Maura explains, in a tone that implies she’s done them a great kindness.

“Who is ‘we’?” I ask.

“Parvati and me. She needed to practice.” Maura lifts her chin, forestalling my outburst. “I stand behind what I did. To them, to the Head Council—and to Finn. I’m not ashamed of any of it, so don’t you stand there and judge me.”

“I do judge you!” It tears from my throat. “If Mother could see you, she would be ashamed of you.
I’m
ashamed of you.”

Maura recoils as though I’ve slapped her. “How dare you speak for her! Do you think she would be proud of
you,
turning your back on me over a man? A man who doesn’t even
remember
you, at that? What kind of great love affair do you suppose you had, if he could forget you so easily?”

I lunge for her. In the fury of the moment, I forget magic and simply throw myself at her, knocking her back into the wall, the way I would have when we were children. I don’t care if we wake the entire convent.

“What is
wrong
with you two?” Elena whisper-shouts, storming down the hall. She grabs Maura’s arm and whips her around. Her chocolate eyes are snapping; every line of her elegant body is tense. I’ve never seen her like this. Not when I lied to her about my mind-magic. Not when I dismissed her and threw her out of the house.

She glares at Maura. “I heard what you said. Bad enough that you did this to her, but to
taunt
her about it?”

Her defense only makes me angrier. It brings back memories I’d sooner forget.

“You’re one to talk.” My throat feels rusty. “You threatened to compel Finn once yourself. Perhaps that’s where Maura got the idea.”

Elena hardly spares me a glance. “I didn’t mean it, Cate. I wouldn’t have.”

I want to grab her, shake her until her teeth rattle in her pretty head. As threats go, it was damned convincing. Convincing enough for me to get up on the dais and announce that I’d join the Sisterhood instead of marrying Finn.

Lord, where would I be if she hadn’t threatened Finn? Married. Happy. It’s her fault as much as Maura’s. Hers and Cora’s and— I take a deep breath as my magic rises again. I can’t lose control or I don’t know where it will stop. It won’t be innocuous, snow and feathers. If I lose control now, there will be blood.

I can picture them flying down the hall, splintering the stained glass window above the window seat, falling to the cobblestones three stories below. Their bodies thump like heavy bags of flour to the ground. Maura’s red hair and Elena’s coral dress are bright against the pillow of snow that fell overnight; Elena’s black hair and Maura’s dress are shadows against it. Their bodies are bent at horrible, unnatural angles.

For a moment, I am lost to the violence of it. Then I blink, shoving the magic down into the hidden spaces between muscle and bone.

That’s not what I want.

Was it just a few weeks ago at Harwood that Brenna said I would kill, and I believed in my heart of hearts I could never hurt either of my sisters?

I could now.

“This has to stop, Maura,” Elena hisses. “Cora would have exiled you for it.”

“Cora’s dead.” Maura’s voice is careless, but her eyes don’t quite match. “Lucky for me, I suppose.”

“Don’t you disrespect her like that.” Elena is two inches shorter than Maura and petite where Maura is voluptuous, but she seems to tower over Maura nonetheless. “She took me in when my parents died. She was a good woman.”

Maura’s mouth twists. “Better than me, you mean.”

“Better than both of us put together.” Elena shakes her head. “Maura, you can’t let Inez make you—”

“Inez believes in me.” Maura lounges against the green-papered wall as if she hasn’t a care in the world, but I can see the way she draws in great gulps of air. This has unsettled her more than she’d admit. “I know why you hate her. You thought you’d be next in line after Cora. You’ve always been ambitious.”

“And because of it, I’ve made mistakes. I’ve hurt people I cared about.” Elena reaches out, her fingers curling around Maura’s black sleeve. “I’m sorry, Maura. I never should have lied, never should have pretended that that kiss didn’t mean something when it did.”

Maura wavers. She sways toward Elena, erasing the inches between them. “Why are you doing this?” Her eyes are wary. Elena is so lovely, her brown skin glowing against the coral silk of her dress, her black hair in perfect ringlets. “Why now? You haven’t spoken to me like this in ages.”

“Because you made it abundantly clear you wanted nothing to do with me.” Elena throws up her hands. “I thought you needed time. But I can’t stand by any longer. Erasing the council’s memories, attacking Finn, tossing Jennie out onto the street—that’s not the girl I fell in love with. I care for you too much to let you go on like this.”

I cringe back against the nearest doorway. It’s the wrong thing for her to say. Maura will go right past “in love with” and only hear—

“
Let
me? I hardly need your permission.” Maura scowls. “You chose Cate over me, remember? You gave up any right you had to weigh in on my decisions.”

Elena tosses a glance over her shoulder. My presence here isn’t making this easier for either of them.

“Cate doesn’t mean half what you mean to me, and if you weren’t so utterly consumed by this rivalry between the two of you, you’d see it. For Persephone’s sake, Maura,” she swears. “Why do you think I’m standing here embarrassing myself like this? You’re the one that I want, the only one I’ve ever wanted, and you’re the only one too stupid to see it.”

Elena curls her hand behind Maura’s neck, pulls Maura’s face down to hers, and kisses her.

Maura looks stunned, her blue eyes wide. Stunned and—ravenous, somehow. Her eyes flutter shut; her mouth begins to move hungrily against Elena’s.

Anger rushes through me. Part of me wants to scream and shout and stamp my feet. She doesn’t get to have this! Not after what she’s taken from me. It isn’t fair.

But this might be the only thing that can save her.

And Elena’s been my friend.

So I slip back down the hall and into my room, and I shut the door.

• • •

Half an hour later, I’m back in the hall, hammering my fist on a different door.

Sachi opens it. She’s already dressed in a black-and-white houndstooth gown festooned with black lace. “Rory and Prue are still asl— What’s wrong?” she asks as I march to the window.

I shove the pink-pinstriped curtains open, letting the weak December sunlight spill into the room. Prue sits up, blinking and groggy, reaching for her spectacles.

“My sister’s a monster,” I explain.

Rory sticks her rumpled head out from beneath her quilt and groans. “You woke us up to tell us that? We already know that, Cate. Go back to bed.”

“I can’t. I’ve got to go to church.” I pace around their room, sidestepping slippers and petticoats and books dropped helter-skelter. It’s a pleasant change from pacing around my own room for the last thirty minutes, waiting for it to be late enough to wake them. “Finn said that Merriweather is plotting something and I’m afraid Alistair will get himself arrested. But Prue, we can’t leave you alone. Someone has to stay with you, every moment, until we get word to your brother. He’ll want you with him once he finds out you aren’t safe here.”

Prue swings her bare feet onto the floor. “I’m not safe here?”

Sachi catches my elbow, hauling me to a stop. “Cate, you’re not making any sense and you’re making me dizzy. What’s Maura done now?”

I went to Maura for help with Tess and somehow she turned everything around, the way she always does, and made it about her. And now—now I’ve got to worry about whom she and Parvati might take it into their heads to attack next. I’m afraid the leading candidate is sitting right in front of me on her trundle bed.

“Jennie and Elsie didn’t run off of their own accord.” My voice is tight. I am ashamed to say it out loud. How could my sister do such a thing? “Maura and Parvati erased their memories and threw them out. They don’t trust anyone who’s not a witch. I wouldn’t put it past Maura to go after you next, Prue. We had a huge row, and if she wants to get back at me—”

“She wouldn’t hesitate to attack one of your friends.” Rory sits up, straightening her red flannel nightgown. “Your sister’s a right bitch, Cate.”

I slump onto the bench in front of their dressing table. “I know.”

“All right then. Church it is.” Prue shucks off her nightgown and rummages through the armoire. She’s still too thin from her time at Harwood; I can see the knobs of her spine through the white muslin of her shift.

“What if someone recognizes you?” I protest. “I’d have to glamour you. My illusions are better than they used to be, but maintaining it the whole way through church would be tricky.” Particularly considering how little I’ve slept and how splintered my focus already is—furious with Maura, frightened for Tess, annoyed with Merriweather. “You’re better off staying here with Sachi and Rory.”

“Is she?” Sachi’s taken up my pacing. Her feet, clad in black silk stockings, whisper against the wooden floorboards. “Parvati can’t go to church. What if she tries to attack Prue? She could compel us to step aside and we’d have no choice in it.”

Prue’s pulled the black dress over her head. Now she turns her back and gestures for Sachi to fasten the hooks. “My brother’s smart, but he isn’t infallible, and that church will be overflowing with Brothers. If it were your sister taking such a mad risk, you’d go, wouldn’t you?”

She’s got me there. I sigh. “All right. I’ll ask Tess to help with the glamour.”

Sachi grabs my elbow again. Her smile is chilling. “I know Maura’s your sister, Cate, but if she does anything to hurt Prue, she’ll have to answer to me.”

“I won’t let that happen,” I promise.

I only hope I’m not telling a lie.

• • •

Despite the
Gazette
’s warnings about the fever, Richmond Cathedral is packed. Christmas Day is for prayerful commemoration of the Lord’s birth—and for showing off one’s finery to one’s neighbors. The air is cloyingly fragrant with the scents of perfume—lavender, lemon verbena, and rosewater. Girls wave at friends with their satin gloves and matrons toss their heads to display new earbobs, while men ostentatiously check their new pocket watches.