Sisters' Fate (6 page)

“So do I.” I take the coins he proffers. “Thank you, Mr. Moore. Have a good night.”

“We’ll see you on Thursday, then, miss.”

I nod and smile as I watch him go.

Mei pops back in, clutching a clockwork dragon. Her round face is troubled. “Have you heard anything about an outbreak of fever? Down near the river?”

“No, but I haven’t been in that part of the city since—” I wince. Since I helped Tess on her unsuccessful mission to free the Richmond Square prisoners, including Mei’s sisters.

“There have been a handful of deaths already. All in the river district.” Mei swipes her bangs out of her black eyes. “At Cora’s funeral, one of the nurses from Richmond Hospital mentioned they were overworked. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but—”

“Should we volunteer to help?” Since Sister Sophia’s off getting the Harwood girls settled at another safe house, we haven’t been making our usual rounds at the hospital.

Mei nods. “Perhaps we can stop it before it gets out of hand.”

“Of course. Do you want to go look for presents for your sisters? We’re not very busy here. Then we can watch the puppet show together.”

“Sure,” Mei agrees, handing me the toy. “Watch this for me?”

The clockwork dragon is dead clever. I pull on the tiny lever that makes its tail whip back and forth and its mouth open in a silent, ferocious roar.

“Sister Cate?” The words are unfamiliar, but the voice isn’t.

I drop the dragon onto the pile of scarves as I turn.

Finn’s ears are flushing red, the way they do when he’s embarrassed. His brow is furrowed, the space between his eyebrows pulled into the upside-down V that my fingers itch to smooth. His coppery hair is messy as ever, as though he’s run his hands through it a dozen times since it last saw a comb.

But behind his wire-rimmed spectacles, his eyes are different. Not full of love or want. He doesn’t look at me like I’m
his
anymore.

My heart breaks all over again.

“Brother Belastra.” I choke out the words. They feel foreign, too formal on my tongue. “How are you?”

He gives me a smile that reveals the tiny gap between his front teeth, but it’s only polite. The smile he’d give a stranger, a customer at the bookshop. “Very well, and you?”

“Fine.” I’m not fine. I pull my elbows in tight, folding my arms across my chest. “Are you enjoying the bazaar?”

“Yes. I’ve been hunting down a gift for my sister.” He examines the wares. “Are any of these yours?”

I laugh, short and staccato, before I realize he won’t know his question is ridiculous. “Er, no. I’m a terrible seamstress. I prefer to spend my time in the gardens with my hands in the dirt—or now that it’s winter, in the conservatory.”

It’s futile, testing him like this. He won’t know. Won’t remember the way he snuck out and met me there and kissed me senseless. But—

“I remember,” he says, and hope blooms through me, bright and lovely as an April tulip.

“You do?” My voice is too sharp, too desperate.

“Your father told me. We were—I don’t quite remember.” Finn frowns, the V in his forehead deepening. “He said you weren’t the scholarly sort, that you preferred gardening to books. Funny that you’ve ended up in the Sisterhood.”

Funny?
An ache cuts through me, bitterer than the December wind. “I could say the same for you.”

Finn glances over his shoulder. There are no Brothers in the vicinity. He gives me another bland smile, but now his eyes are curious. “I’ve always liked books.”

What is the point in this? What am I trying to prove? I know I’m being foolish, and yet—

“But you’ve never been the Brotherly sort.” My voice is so low, he has to lean over the booth to hear it.

He stares at the ground, shifting his feet. “I confess, of late, I’m not entirely certain what sort of man I am.” His tone is rich with disgust. What must he be feeling, having found himself a member of the Brotherhood, with no notion of why?

“What do you mean?” I ask, then flush. In his mind, we barely know each other; I’ve been an occasional customer at his mother’s bookshop, nothing more. Nothing to invite confidences. But I can’t bear the notion that he’s confused and alone and—damn Maura for doing this to him.

“Nothing.” Finn straightens, running both hands through his hair. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.” His voice has gone starched and his shoulders stiff as he remembers the proprieties.

I reach out, fingertips just brushing his wool cloak. “You’re no bother. If I can do anything to help—”

“That’s very kind of you. Very—neighborly.” He barely glances at me as he pulls his hood up and steps away. “Thank you, Miss Cahill.”

Neighborly?
I watch him blend back into the crowd, my eyes blurring with tears. Then I kneel, ducking out of sight behind the counter, pretending to riffle through the boxes at my feet.

“Are you all right?” Rilla is at my side, wrapping an arm around me.

This time I can’t summon up a lie. “No,” I croak, burying my tearstained face in her shoulder.

“Of course. It was a stupid question. Do you want to go home?” she asks.

“I told Mei I’d watch the puppet show with her.” And Brenna said something awful would happen. I’ve got to wait and see what it is.

Rilla smiles. “Mei would understand.”

“No, I want to stay. I’ll be all right.” I struggle to my feet. All around us, people burst into applause while I try to swallow the ache in my throat. “It sounds like the hurdy-gurdy man’s finished. Let’s go to the stage.”

I don’t trust myself to be here when Maura shows up for her turn working the booth.

We’re halfway to the stage when Brother O’Shea begins to speak. I recognize his loud, affected voice immediately. Other people must, too, because they stop shopping and begin to drift toward the stage by the dozens. Mothers call their children; fathers gather their families close. Along the main thoroughfare, vendors hover outside their booths, keeping wary eyes on customers who listen with merchandise in hand. Whatever dreadful thing Brenna foresaw, it’s happening.

Where is Tess? I scan the crowd, searching for her small figure, but there are hundreds of people and too many black cloaks. I walk faster, practically dragging Rilla behind me. At the end of the aisle, Brother O’Shea stands on the makeshift stage, his horsey face stretched into a counterfeit smile.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Brothers and Sisters, I’d like to interrupt our entertainment for just a few moments. As you know, last week there was a mutiny at Harwood Asylum for the Criminally Insane. Hundreds of witches escaped. They were helped by one of our own—Sean Brennan, who has fled the city rather than face justice for his treason.” He swaggers across the stage like a man twice his size, and I get the sense that his speech is as rehearsed as his smile. He lacks the appeal of Brother Covington, who—despite his abominable politics—was a warm, charismatic speaker. “These women are a threat to all of New England. I have deployed our National Guardsmen to hunt them down, and I’m pleased to report that over the last week, we have recaptured two dozen witches hiding in empty barns and abandoned homes in the countryside.”

My heart plummets, though I knew this might happen. Some of the Harwood patients fled as soon as the doors were open. They were free to make their own choice: come with Sisters to one of three safe houses or try to make it on their own. Over half of them chose the latter.

“If you have any knowledge of the whereabouts of more of these wicked girls, it is your duty to report it immediately.” O’Shea’s pale blue eyes sweep the crowd. “They may appear weak or confused, even pretend that they were beaten or starved, but this is only a witch’s glamour. They are liars and deceivers all. You must harden your hearts against them.”

He’s clever, I’ll give him that. I’d hoped that once I earned Merriweather’s trust, I could tell him the truth about what happened at Harwood and he would run an article in the
Gazette
about the terrible conditions there. Now the people will be skeptical.

O’Shea ushers a tall woman onstage. “Don’t be afraid, Mrs. Baldwin. Your fellow citizens deserve to hear the truth.”

Her blue hood is down so that her fellow citizens can see her honest face. She’s a broad woman with steel-colored hair pulled back into a bun and a plump face marred by a strawberry birthmark on her right cheek.

This is the nurse who killed my godmother, Zara Roth.

Who shot her, I correct myself. Technically,
I
killed her.

“What can you tell us about the conditions at Harwood Asylum, Mrs. Baldwin?” O’Shea asks.

“The girls there were well looked after, sir. They had two square meals a day and afternoon tea,” she says, and how glad I am that Parvati and Livvy and the others aren’t here to witness her lies! Mei pushes up next to me, her jaw set, black eyes snapping. “We had an infirmary with trained nurses to look after them when they were sick. They got fresh air every day, by way of a walk in the courtyard. And we tried to care for their souls as well as their bodies. A Brother came in every week and gave a sermon in the chapel. The girls who were well enough were given little tasks, helping in the garden or the kitchen. Idleness breeds devilry, you know. But those who weren’t well enough—why, they didn’t have a lick of work to do besides getting better.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Baldwin.” O’Shea gazes out over the crowd and smiles his thin-lipped, reptilian smile. Around me, people are hanging on every word. Hearing a firsthand tale of Harwood—why, that’s much better entertainment than the hurdy-gurdy man! “You saw no evidence of mistreatment, then?”

“No, sir,” she lies, folding her hands together in a prayerful manner. “Not once in my twelve years.”

“Sounds as though they had it better than many of us who work for a living! Two square meals a day, plus tea, and free room and board!” O’Shea laughs, but it’s a harsh, jeering sound. “Now, tell us, Mrs. Baldwin, what happened on the night of the mutiny.”

The nurse shudders. “I usually work the day shift, see, so I wasn’t even supposed to be there, but Mrs. Snyder’s husband sent word she couldn’t come on account of her baby was sick. So I was working, and I remember going down to the matron’s office to fetch something. And then I sort of woke up with all the other nurses, and we were locked in the ward where the uncooperative girls were kept. We didn’t know how we came to be there, but we were awful afraid those girls were going to burn the place down with us still in it. We got down on our knees and prayed, sir. And thank the Lord, the morning watchman came and found us there.”

“Thank the Lord!” Brother O’Shea echoes, and the crowd around us offers their gratitude as well. “You’re telling me, Mrs. Baldwin, that you have no memory of the mutiny? Someone went into your mind and erased that completely?”

“Yes, sir.” The nurse’s lip wobbles, her double chins quivering. “And I don’t mind saying, it gives me the willies.”

“I should imagine so. Knowing that a witch had been poking around in your mind—that would give even the bravest of us the willies!” O’Shea pats her sympathetically on the shoulder. “Thank you for your testimony, Mrs. Baldwin.”

She nods and curtsies, scurrying offstage, and I breathe a small sigh of relief. That was ludicrous, but not as horrifying as Brenna made it out to be.

“The night watchman and six other nurses suffered the same mental violation. So, you see why these wicked girls cannot be allowed freedom. Among them are witches of the most evil, deceptive nature. They must be hunted down and punished!” O’Shea punches his fist into his open palm. “Fortunately, last week we were given intelligence that led us straight to a viper’s nest. Yesterday, our guards located a farmhouse in Connecticut where no less than thirty-five witches were hiding.”

Mei grabs my hand.

“They used magic to resist arrest. They were subdued, however, and are on their way back to New London under heavy guard.” The crowd, led by a group of Brothers at the front, claps. O’Shea’s grin is a ghastly thing. “Ladies and gentlemen, it has been many years since witches were put to death. It is not a sentence we assign lightly. But today, after much prayer, the National Council voted in favor of reinstating it. The wickedness of the sixty women we have recaptured knows no bounds; they must not be permitted to infect our society, to terrorize our nation, to threaten our safety, for one more day. Some of our soldiers are across the street, beginning to erect a gallows. Tomorrow, at noon, the hangings will begin.”

CHAPTER

6

A FEW MEN IN THE CROWD YELL OUT EPITHETS
against the witches—but there are no cheers. Has it come to this, that I’m relieved my neighbors don’t clap at the prospect of hanging sixty innocent girls? O’Shea swaggers offstage and the puppetry begins, but no one seems in the mood for it. A grave silence has settled over the bazaar.

This—well, this is awful. Brenna was right.

Of course she was.

Tess pushes through the dispersing crowd, Lucy and Bekah trailing after her, their mouths set like straight pins. “Sachi and Rory—” Tess begins.

“I know.” They would have been the first to fight back, too, so Lord only knows what condition they’re in. I don’t imagine the guards would be stinting in their use of force.

We have to stop this, but how? How? The question pounds like a drumbeat in time with my footsteps crunching against the wide graveled walk. I don’t even know where I’m walking. The night is growing late, and the hour or the chill in the air or O’Shea’s declaration or all three have people leaving the bazaar in droves, rushing home to the comfort of their own hearths.

The gates are packed with people leaving, so we wander up and down the aisles a bit. Rilla makes a good show of cooing over the merchandise, drawing Bekah and Lucy’s attention to jeweled hair clips and cuddly stuffed animals. I buy a cider and press it into Tess’s hands.

“I don’t want it,” she insists, shoving it away. A few drops spill onto my cloak.

“You’re pale. Drink,” I command, and she sighs and obliges. Even the vendors are beginning to pack up their booths. A few laughs ring out from the puppet show, but most of the children have been taken home. No one seems to be having fun anymore.

We wait while Lucy purchases a hot cake studded with currants and dusted with sugar. Mei is clutching Yang’s toy dragon in a death grip. “Did you find something for your sisters?” I ask, and she nods, pulling a packet of colorful hair ribbons from her pocket. They’re covered in vivid prints—strawberries, red and white polka dots, and yellow songbirds—that will stand out in her sisters’ dark braids.

“Those are pretty,” I say. “I bet they’ll love them.”

Mei’s face twists beneath her dark fringe. “Cate, what are we—?”

“Not here.” I can’t help feeling as though the Brothers’ eyes and spies are everywhere. Who told them about the farmhouse in Connecticut? Did a neighbor notice something suspicious? Only the fifteen girls who went on the Harwood mission knew about the safe houses, and most of them wouldn’t have had access to the maps—certainly not in enough detail to tell the Brothers. Tess. Me. Sister Mélisande, who was to drive that wagon before Rory and Sachi took her place. Who else?

It couldn’t have been one of us. The girls at the other safe houses will be all right. They’ve got to be.

We’ve made our way back to the Sisters’ booth. I spot Maura’s bright curls in the back. Elena is selling mittens at the front.

“
There
you are,” Elena says, whirling on me the second her customer’s gone, the smile slipping from her face. “Inez and some of the others have already left.”

“We’ll meet you at home?” I ask, and she nods.

When did I start thinking of the convent as my home, as a safe place to retreat?

And with Inez in charge, how long can that possibly last?

• • •

Dozens of girls have gathered in the dining room. They sit slumped in their chairs, chins propped on hands. A few of them sip from cups of tea, but most haven’t bothered to take off their cloaks or boots. They’re just—waiting. Quietly. With an air of funereal desperation. The only sound is the click of Grace’s knitting needles.

When the six of us walk in, faces brighten.

“Cate!” Addie pushes up her spectacles with one finger. “What are we going to do?”

I’d have thought Inez would be down here scheming and denouncing the Brothers, but none of the teachers are present. Perhaps she and the others are locked away in her new office; she moved into Cora’s suite of rooms right after the funeral.

“We didn’t save them for them to be executed!” Vi’s big plummy eyes are furious. “We’ve got to stop it!”

“How can we?” Alice toys with a strand of golden hair that’s escaped from her pompadour. “The Brothers will keep them in the prison in the National Council building, with dozens of guards watching over them all night.”

I’ve been going over our options on the silent walk home, and Alice is right. “We’ll have to wait and free them tomorrow, then.”

“In front of everyone?” Vi shrinks against the high back of her wooden chair. “But there’ll be hundreds of people there!”

She’s right, too. Hundreds will show up: a large contingent of Brothers and their guards, plus the curious, the terribly devout, and those who wish to be seen and thought terribly devout. Not to mention anyone with a loved one in Harwood who might be hoping to see her—or
not
see her—among the victims.

“Thousands, maybe,” I agree, pulling off my cloak. “But a crowd that size—that’s all the better to hide in, isn’t it?”

Alice smooths her black velvet skirts. “What are you planning?”

Heeled boots tap, tap, tap their way across the wooden floor behind me. The familiar sound of Inez’s approach makes me feel ill. “Whatever it is, Miss Cahill, put it out of your head this minute. The war council has voted not to intervene.”

How is that possible? They can’t mean to stand by and do
nothing.

But I see the satisfied gleam in Inez’s brown eyes and know that’s precisely what she means. Before Cora died, the war council was evenly split—Cora and Gretchen and Sophia versus Inez and her lackeys Evelyn and Johanna. Now, with Sophia away, Gretchen would be the sole dissenting vote. I glance at her as she shuffles into the room, noticing the red that spiderwebs through the whites of her tired eyes. She has aged ten years in the last two weeks.

“You can’t mean—you’d just stand by and watch them hanged?” Rilla’s stocky body is practically vibrating with indignation.

Inez nods. “Sit down, girls.”

I take the nearest chair, with Mei and Rilla at my elbows. Inez strides to the head table. The other teachers sit, but she stands behind her chair like a general before his troops. Her brown hair, graying slightly at the temples, is pulled back severely into a bun at the nape of her neck. In her unrelieved black, with her pinched face, hollow cheeks, and heavy brows, she is not a pretty woman—not even what Father would call handsome—but she commands the room nevertheless.

“This is a terrible thing the Brothers have voted to do,” she says. “Anyone suspected of witchery will be killed, without trial. Without being permitted a word in her own defense. Soon, anyone who speaks up on a witch’s behalf will be murdered as a sympathizer. What we are witnessing now is the beginning of a second Terror.”

The room falls silent, save the crackling of logs in the fireplace. I shiver at the sound, remembering Brother Ishida’s words on the night before I left Chatham:
’Twere up to me, I’d resurrect the burnings.

Well, he’s about to get his wish. His daughters will be among the first victims. They’ll be hanged, not burnt, but why quibble over methods? Surely he’ll be glad to see them dead, a devout man like that.

I look up at Inez. My emotions are churning, sending blood pumping through my veins. My stomach tumbles and my face flushes as my brain scrambles to think up ways to stop this. I will not see Rory and Sachi hanged. But Inez looks—calm. Her hands rest on the back of her wooden chair without trembling.

“They’re doing this because of
you,
” I say. Several of the younger girls gasp at my impudence. “Because of what you did to the Head Council.”

“That’s a heavy accusation, Miss Cahill.” Inez purses her thin lips. “Do you think this is what I wanted? To see sixty innocent girls suffer? No. Those girls would still be safe in their beds if you and your friends had not freed them.”

“Safe in our beds?” Parvati leaps to her feet. “No. We were never
safe
there.”

“The fact remains—
I
am hardly responsible for this. If you wish to blame someone for the Brothers’ sudden violence, Miss Cahill, I suggest you look in the mirror.” Inez sniffs. “I regret what the Brothers are planning to do, but it is not our obligation to stop it. Most of those girls are not witches. They are not our responsibility.”

Sister Edith, the skinny art teacher, steps forward. “If they’re not witches, that makes it worse. They’re being murdered for crimes we’ve committed!”

“It’s unfortunate,” Inez admits, her eyes roving over the huddled group of girls. “But as head of the Sisterhood, my charge during these difficult times is to protect our members. Had it been up to me, I would not have taken in those of you not capable of magic.”

Grace puts down her knitting and turns to her sister, panicked. “But I’ve got nowhere else to go!”

“I don’t intend to turn you out onto the street now that you’re here, Miss Wheeler.” Inez waves a hand, her silver ring glinting orange in the firelight. “But there will be thousands of people gathered tomorrow: Brothers and their guards and people greedy for the spectacle of a mass execution. If we try to stop it, we risk drawing attention to ourselves. It would be tremendously difficult, if not outright impossible, to maintain glamours while doing that much magic. If we were caught, we wouldn’t only risk individuals being arrested or executed—we’d risk exposing the entire Sisterhood and every girl in it.”

Individuals must be sacrificed for the good of the whole. She doesn’t say it, but it hangs there in the air along with the scents of tea and wood smoke. She doesn’t give a damn about any one of us, only the power we collectively represent.

And Inez isn’t wrong about the risks. It will require very difficult magic; it’s terribly dangerous. But not to even
try
? I couldn’t live with myself.

“How does this make us any better than the Brothers?” I demand. “If we could stop it and don’t?”

“We don’t know for certain that we
could
stop it, do we?” Inez muses. “But the subject is not open for debate.”

“I think it should be.” Tess stands. “Don’t I deserve a vote?”

Murmurs rustle through the room like a wildfire.

“She
is
the oracle.” Rilla’s words are hardly necessary, but they seem to bolster Tess. She stands taller, shoulders back, pushing pale blond curls away from her heart-shaped face.

Inez puts a skinny finger to her lips. “Did you foresee the Brothers’ vote? Their recapture of these prisoners? Anything about tomorrow?”

The whole room seems to hold its breath. Tess’s face goes a patchy red. “No.”

Inez shrugs. “Then I don’t see how being the oracle is relevant. We don’t give Brenna Elliott a say, do we?”

“That’s a false equivalency. I am hardly in Brenna’s position.” Tess narrows her gray eyes. “The prophecy says that
I’ll
be the one to lead the resurgence of magic.”

“Or cause a second Terror.” Inez’s smile withers. “I haven’t forgotten that. You’re a bit of a double-edged sword, aren’t you? Nor have I forgotten that you are twelve and still sleep with a teddy bear. You have a great deal of growing up to do yet, my dear.”

Tess flushes hotter at Inez’s condescension, her shoulders slumping.

I rise. “Tess is old enough to know right from wrong, which is something you seem to struggle with.”

“I forbid you to interfere, Cate.” Inez plants her hands on her bony hips. “Richmond Square will be packed to the gills tomorrow. I doubt that you can save them, and in trying, you’ll put us all in danger. I won’t allow it.”

“You won’t
allow
it?” I let out a laugh. “What are you going to do, lock me in a closet? Immobilize me?”

There’s a long pause. Inez fidgets with the ivory brooch at her throat, her brown eyes holding mine. “I can’t stop you, that’s true,” she says finally. “But if you get caught, I will not risk other lives to save yours. My first concern, now and always, is the preservation of the Sisterhood.”

• • •

By the time we’ve developed a patchwork plan, the sun is only a few hours from rising.

I want as few girls involved as possible. It is, as Inez said, a dangerous thing, made more dangerous by the fact that some of our strongest witches refuse to help. In the end, we decide we’ll use only six—Elena, Mélisande, Rilla, Mei, Tess, and me.

I turn to Elena after everyone else has left her bedroom. “Do you think it will work?”

Even Elena, normally so elegant and unflappable, is a bit mussed at three in the morning. She’s sprawled on her yellow chintz settee, her head resting against the arm, her brown eyes sleepy. “I hope so, or we’ll all be dead,” she says, stifling a yawn.

I run my hands through my tangled hair. I took out the aching braids hours ago. “Lovely.”

“It’s magic, not science,” she says. “A lot depends on how quickly Sachi and Rory can think on their feet and what condition the girls are in. If they’ve been beaten, legs broken, anything like that—”

“They’ll never make it.” I prop myself against her four-poster bed.

“I hope that isn’t the case.” Now she does yawn, stretching her arms over her head, catlike. I yawn, too, and open my eyes to find her looking at me with feline watchfulness. “Have you talked to Maura yet?”

I turn away. “You saw what happened when we were in the same room together.”

“I saw her provoke you into losing your temper. I don’t blame you, Cate. She can be very provoking. But you can’t avoid her forever.”

“Can’t I? Let’s see.” My voice is all edges. “We can’t do any more tonight. Get some sleep.”

I slip out of her room and down the hall to my own. Turning the corner, I’m surprised to find Alice huddled outside my door, her head propped against the green flowered wallpaper.

“Finally!” She jumps to her feet. “I’ve been waiting forever.”

“What do you want, Alice? I’ve got to go to bed. If you’re here to argue with me about tomorrow—”

“Surprisingly, no. I need to tell you something.” She heads toward the stairs, beckoning me to follow. She’s wearing an ivory satin nightgown that just brushes the tops of her bare feet, and her golden hair is tucked into pin curls.