The Sweet Far Thing (4 page)

back of the tent.

“I’ve just had an invitation to a ball hosted by the Duchess of Crewesbury,” Cecily says. She settles herself on the floor like a spoiled Persian cat.

“And I as well,” Elizabeth adds.

Felicity does her best to look bored. “My mother received ours ages ago.”

I haven’t received such an invitation, and I hope no one will ask me if I have.

Martha fans herself, grimacing. “Oh, dear. It is rather close in here, isn’t it? I’m afraid we cannot all fit.”

She glances at Ann. Cecily and her lot have never treated Ann as more than a servant, but since our unfortunate attempt to pass her off in society as a duke’s daughter of Russian blood last Christmas, Ann has become a complete pariah. The gossip has spread in letters and whispers and now there isn’t a girl at Spence who doesn’t know the story.

“We shall miss you dearly, Cecily,” I say, smiling brightly. I should like to kick her squarely in the teeth.

Cecily makes it quite clear she won’t be the one to leave. She spreads out her skirts, taking up even more space. Martha whispers in Elizabeth’s ear and they break into tittering. I could ask what they are laughing about, but they won’t tell me, so there’s no point.

“What is that smell?” Martha asks, making a face.

Cecily sniffs dramatically. “Caviar, perhaps? All the way from Russia! Why, it must be from the czar himself!”

The venal little trolls. Ann’s cheeks blaze and her lips quiver. She stands so quickly she nearly topples over as she rushes for the tent’s flaps. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve needlework to finish.”

“Please do give my best to your uncle, the duke,” Cecily calls after her, and the others snicker.

“Why must you taunt her so?” I ask.

“She doesn’t deserve to be here,” Cecily says with easy certainty.

“That isn’t true,” I say.

“Isn’t it? Some people simply don’t belong.” Cecily fixes me with a haughty stare. “I’ve recently heard your father is unwell and resting at Oldham. How worried you must be. Pray, what is his affliction?”

All Cecily lacks is a forked tongue, for she is certainly a snake beneath that beautiful dress.

“Influenza,” I say, the lie tasting sharp in my mouth.

“Influenza,” she repeats, glancing slyly at the others.

“But he is much improved, and I shall pay him a visit tomorrow.”

Cecily doesn’t yield just yet. “I am glad to know it, for one hears such unsavory stories at
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

times—gentlemen being found in opium dens and forced into sanitariums for it. Scandalous.”

“Cecily Temple, I shall not hear slander this evening,” Felicity warns.

“It is influenza,” I repeat, but my voice has lost its steadiness.

Cecily’s smile is triumphant. “Yes, of course it is.”

I hurry after Ann, calling her name, but she doesn’t stop. Instead, she quickens her pace till she’s nearly running, desperate to be away from us and our talk of parties and teas. All that glittering promise close enough to touch but not to have.

“Ann, please,” I say, stopping at the bottom of the stairs. She’s halfway up. “Ann, you mustn’t pay them any mind. They’re not true girls. They are hideous fiends—troglodytes in ringlets!”

If I’d hoped to make Ann laugh, I’d missed my mark. “But they are the ones who rule,” she says without looking up. “They always have and they always shall.”

“But, Ann, they’ve not seen the things you have in the realms. They don’t know what you’ve done. You turned rocks to butterflies and sailed through a curtain of gold. You saved us from the water nymphs with your song.”

“Once,” she says flatly. “What does any of it matter? It won’t change my fate, will it? Come May, you and Felicity will have your season. I shall go to work for my cousins. It will end, and we’ll never see each other again.”

For a moment, she looks into my eyes, obviously hoping to find comfort there.
Tell me I am wrong; tell
me you’ve got another trick up your sleeve, Gemma,
her eyes plead. But she isn’t wrong, and I’m not quick or glib enough to lie. Not tonight.

“Don’t let them win, Ann. Come back to the tent.”

She doesn’t look at me, but I can feel her disgust. “You don’t understand, do you? They’ve already won.” And with that, she retreats into the shadows.

I could return to Fee and the others, but I’m in no humor for it. A melancholy has settled over my heart and will not yield, and I want solitude. I find a proper reading chair in the great hall far away from the chatter of girls. I’ve read no more than a few pages when I notice that I am only an arm’s length away from the infamous column. It is one of the many odd touches at Spence. There is the chandelier of carved snakes in the foyer. The leering gargoyles upon the roof. The ridiculous ostrich-feather paper on the walls. The portrait of Spence’s founder, Eugenia Spence, looming at the top of the stairs, her piercing blue eyes seeing all. I would count among these oddities the giant hearths that seem less like mantels and more like the open maws of terrible beasts. And then there is this column in the center of the great room.

It boasts carvings of fairies, satyrs, sprites, nymphs, and imps of all sorts.

It is also alive.

Or it was once. Those “carvings” are realms creatures stuck here for eternity. Once, we foolishly brought them to life with the magic, and we were nearly destroyed by it. Some of the mischievous creatures tried to escape; others attempted to compromise our virtue. In the end, we forced them back to their prison.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

I peer closely at those tiny bodies frozen in stone. The creatures’ mouths are open in a scream of anger.

Their eyes stare through me. If they got loose, I shouldn’t want to be here. Though it frightens me, I’m compelled to touch the column. My fingers come to rest on a fairy’s rigid wings, stopped in midflight. A shudder passes through me, and I lay my palm elsewhere. It lands on a satyr’s snarling lips, and my heartbeat quickens, for I feel a curious mixture of fascination and repulsion. I close my eyes and allow my fingers to explore the rough grooves and rises of its threatening mouth, the tongue, the lips, the teeth.

My fingers slip on the stone; a harsh edge cuts my skin. I gasp at the pain. Blood beads in the slim crevice. I’ve no handkerchief, so I plunge my finger into my mouth, tasting the bitter tang of it. The column is silent, but I can feel its menace in the throb of my injury. I move my chair closer to Brigid’s comforting patter, her motherly maxims, and far away from the column’s dangerous beauty.

At ten o’clock, our eyes heavy and our bodies longing for the warmth of blankets and the forgetting of sleep, we girls climb the stairs to our rooms for the night.

Felicity squeezes past me. “Half past twelve. The usual spot,” she whispers. She does not wait for my nod. She has given the order and that is all.

The lamps still burn softly in my room. Ann is asleep, but she has left the sewing scissors where I can see them. The blades are closed, but I know they have done their work marking the insides of her arms. I know she is covered in fresh welts that will soon blend into the tapestry of old scars woven into her flesh.

If I had a way into the realms again, a way to the magic, I might be able to help her. But for now, I cannot change her fate. I can only wonder if she will.

CHAPTER FOUR

WHENIFIRST ARRIVED AT THE SPENCEACADEMY FORYoung Ladies, I knew nothing of its past and its relation to my life. I had come in mourning weeds, my mother having died only months before. Cholera was the official explanation for her death. But I knew better. In a vision I had seen her die, hunted by a hideous wraith from another world, a tracker, that meant to take her soul had she not taken her own life in self-defense.

It was the first of my visions but not the last. I came to have many of them. I had inherited a power; a lineage passed from my mother to me, a gift in some ways, a curse in others. It was here at Spence that I learned of my bond to a world beyond this one, a world of extraordinary power called the realms.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

For centuries, the realms were ruled by a powerful tribe of priestesses called the Order. Together, they used the realms magic to help the dead complete their souls’ tasks when needed and cross the river.

Over time, their power grew. They could cast grand illusions, influence people and events in the mortal world. But their greatest duty was to keep the balance between good and evil within the realms. For there are many tribes there, and some of them—the malevolent creatures of the Winterlands—would do anything to seize control of the magic, that they might rule the realms and perhaps our world as well. To keep the magic safe, the Order sealed it in a circle of runes. Only they could draw upon its power then.

The other tribes of the realms grew disenchanted and resentful. They wanted to have equal say.

Even the Order’s allies became untrustworthy over time. The Order was once united in protecting the realms with the Rakshana. These men kept law there and watched over the priestesses. They were also their lovers. But they, too, grew resentful of the Order’s control over the realms and its great magic.

And so it had been for ages: every side grappling to hold the magic—until the fire twenty-five years ago.

On that night, my mother and her best friend offered a sacrifice—a young Gypsy girl—to the Winterlands creatures in exchange for power. But something went wrong. The child was accidentally killed, and thus her soul could not be taken. Enraged, the creatures demanded the girls themselves, for they had foolishly entered into the bargain, and now it would be honored, one way or another. To save the lives of my mother and Sarah, Eugenia Spence, the Order’s great teacher and the founder of Spence Academy, gave herself to the Winterlands creatures in payment for the girls’ terrible deed. Her last act was to throw her amulet to my mother. Eugenia closed the realms, sealed them so that no one and nothing could go in or come out until a powerful priestess was born, one who could open the realms again and chart a new course for the magical world.

I am that girl. And no one seems at all happy about it. The Order thinks me headstrong and foolish. The Rakshana find me dangerous. They sent one of their own, a young man named Kartik, to watch me, to warn me not to enter the realms, and when that did not work, they told him to kill me. Instead, he betrayed his brotherhood and saved my life, putting a price on his own head.

They may not like it, but the facts are these: I was the one who was able to open the realms again, and so far, no one may enter without my help. I was the one who broke the seal on the magic by shattering the runes. And I was the one to find the source of the magic, in a protected place called the Temple. It was at the Temple that I fought Circe, my mother’s foe and an enemy of the Order, to keep the magic safe. In so doing, I killed her and bound the magic to myself for safekeeping. I promised to join hands with my friends, with Kartik, and with the tribes of the realms to make an alliance, with a share of magic for all.

But since that time, I’ve had no visions and no way to enter the realms. I haven’t a clue why this has happened. I know only that each time I have tried to make the door of light that leads into the other world, it has not come. Instead, I am tormented by a momentary glimpse of Circe, as I left her, trapped beneath the surface of the well of eternity inside the Temple. Lost forever in that magical well turned watery grave.

I am the one who must decide the future of the realms and their power, and I haven’t the slightest idea how to get back.

Right.

But tonight will be a different story. We’ll find our way in. I shall find my courage. I shall feel the magic spark in my veins again. My friends and I will step into the fragrant gardens of the realms, and a new

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

chapter will begin.

For if not, I fear that the realms are lost to us for good.

When the school is dark and silent, and the day’s merry schoolgirl chatter is no more than an echo’s echo in Spence’s halls, Ann and I tiptoe to meet Felicity near the stairs. The East Wing sleeps tonight—no hammers to disturb us. Yet it has a power all its own.

Be silent, East Wing. I shall not listen to your whispers this evening.

Felicity has something cupped in her hand.

“What do you have there?” I ask.

She opens her hand to show us a dainty lace handkerchief. “It’s for Pippa, if we see her.”

“It’s very nice. She’ll adore it,” I say, because I shan’t be the one to take Felicity’s hope away.

We follow her down the long staircase. Our shadows stretch taller as we descend, as if they would reach for the safety of our beds. We slip into the great hall, to Felicity’s tent, and sit on the floor, legs crossed, as we have so many times before.