The Sweet Far Thing (41 page)

Ann clutches the letter to her chest. “We’ve got what we came for. Come on. I want to know my fate.”

A sliver of day remains as we hurry to the chapel, but the sun is falling below the horizon fast.

“What does it say?” Felicity tries to steal a peek at Ann’s letter but she won’t relinquish it just yet.

“Ann!” Fee and I protest.

“All right, all right.” Ann passes it to us, and we grab it greedily from her hands. “Read it aloud. I should like to know that I’m not dreaming!”

“‘My Dear Miss Washbrad,’” Fee and I begin in unison. Eyes shut, lips in a grin, Ann mouths every word. “‘I hope this letter finds you well. I have spoken to Mr. Katz and he is disposed to offer you an appointment with him on Monday next, at two o’clock in the afternoon. I advise you not to be late, my dear, as nothing puts Mr. Katz in a darker mood than a lack of punctuality. I have recommended your talent. Your beauty speaks for itself.

“‘Yours Affectionately, Lily Trimble.’”

“Oh, Ann, that’s wonderful,” I say, handing back the letter, which she tucks into her dress next to her heart.

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

“Yes, yes, it is, isn’t it?” Ann’s joy transforms her. She walks taller for this token of hope.

Holding hands, we race for the chapel as the day slips free from its moorings and sinks below the land, leaving behind a fiery wake of pink.

One of the younger girls reads from the large Bible at the pulpit. She is a small thing, no more than ten, and she has a pronounced lisp, which threatens to turn our prayers into giggles at any moment.

“‘And the therpent thaid unto the woman, Ye thall not thurely die…’”

“Gemma,” Ann whispers. “I cannot possibly keep my appointment with Mr. Katz.”

“What do you mean?” I murmur from behind my Bible.

A sudden cloud passes over her face, extinguishing her earlier joy. “He thinks that I am Nan Washbrad.”

“It’s only a name. Lily Trimble changed hers.”

Cecily shushes me and I do my very best to show I’m ignoring her.

“But what she said—‘Your beauty speaks for itself.’ Don’t you see? I am not that girl. It’s one thing to create an illusion, but how—how do you live it forever?”

“‘For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyeth thall be opened, and ye thall be ath godth, knowing good and evil.’”

“We thall be ath godth,” Felicity mimics, and there is a sudden round of coughing in our pew to cover our snickers.

Miss McCleethy cranes her head and narrows her eyes at us. We raise our Bibles as if we were a school of missionaries. My gaze travels to Mrs. Nightwing. She sits straight, eyes ahead, her expression as inscrutable as the Sphinx’s.

My thoughts turn to the letter hidden in her wardrobe. What warnings could Mrs. Nightwing have ignored? What plan?

Suddenly, the words in my Bible blur, and the world once again slows to stillness. At the lectern, the girl’s tortured recitation has stopped. The room is stifling; my skin crawls with sweat.

“Ann? Felicity?” I call, but they belong to that other time.

A syrupy hiss echoes in the chapel.

“F-Fee,” I whisper, but she can’t hear me. The hiss comes again, stronger. To the right. I turn slowly, my heartbeat gaining speed. My eyes travel the impossible distance from the floor to the stained-glass window with the angel and the gorgon’s head.

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

“Oh, God…”

Panic has me scrambling backward, but the motionless girls block my path, so I can only gaze in horror as the window comes alive. Like a moment from the Wolfson brothers’ magic-lantern show, the angel walks toward me with the severed gorgon’s head held aloft. And then the thing opens its eyes and speaks.

“Beware the birth of May,” it hisses.

With a loud yelp, I fall back, and the world comes to its full speed again. I’ve collided with Ann, who has bumped into Felicity, and so on, like a row of dominoes.

“Gemma!” Ann says, and I realize I’m holding fast to her.

“S-sorry,” I say, wiping the sweat from my brow.

“Ugh. Here.” Felicity hands me a handkerchief.

The pump organ’s blast of missed notes calls us to sing, and I hope its garish tones can mask the frantic beating of my heart. Hymnals are lifted and girlish voices rise without question of a bulwark ever failing.

My lips move but I cannot sing. I’m trembling and drenched in a cold sweat.

Don’t look.
But I must, I must….

I slide my eyes ever so carefully to the right, where moments ago an angel’s bloody trophy hissed a warning I don’t understand. But now the angel’s face is peaceful. The gorgon’s head sleeps. It’s only a picture in a window, nothing more than colored glass.

My blood will not settle, so I sit, alone, and read the letter from home I put away earlier. It is the usual twaddle from Grandmama, with mention of this party and that social call and all the latest gossip, but I’ve no head for it at present. I am surprised to read that Simon Middleton asked after me, and for a moment, my gloom is dispelled, and then I hate myself for allowing my thoughts to be turned so easily by a man; and just as quickly, I forget to hate myself and read the sentence three times over.

Just behind Grandmama’s letter is a note from Tom.

Dear Gemma, Lady of Pointed Tongue,
he writes.
I am writing this under duress, as Grandmama
will not grant me peace until I do. Very well, I shall meet my obligation as a brother. I trust you
are well. I, myself, am simply superb, never better. My gentlemen’s club has expressed a very keen
interest in me, and I’ve been told I shall face a rigorous initiation into their sacred rites before the
season commences. They’ve even been so kind as to ask after you with all manner of questions,
though I can’t imagine why. I’ve told them exactly how disagreeable you can be. So you see that
you and Father are wrong about me after all, and I shall try to be kind and acknowledge you on
the street with a nod and a smile when I am a peer. And now, my duty finished, I leave you.

Fondly as is possible given your unsuitable temperament, Thomas.

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

I crumple the note and throw it into the fire. I desperately need advice—about my brother, the Order, Wilhelmina Wyatt, the realms, and this magic inside me that both astounds and frightens. There is only one person I can turn to who might hold the answers to all my questions. And I shall go to her.

CHAPTER THIRTY

AT THE BRAMBLE WALL, ILEAVE MY FRIENDS . ANN PUTSher face close to the barbs that separate us. “Aren’t you coming?”

“Yes, later. There is a matter I must attend to.”

Felicity is suspicious. “What is it?”

I sigh dramatically. “I must speak to Asha about a matter between the Untouchables and the forest folk.

A dispute.”

“Sounds terribly dull,” Felicity says. “Best of luck.”

Arm in arm, they hurry toward the castle, which juts up from its nest of vines like a bony mirage.

The smudge pots that line the dusty road to the Temple belch their colorful smoke. Usually, the scent is of the sweetest incense, but today, there’s a different smell, something sharp and unpleasant. The Hajin seem agitated. It is as if they await a promised storm.

“Lady Hope,” Asha says with a bow.

“I must approach the well of eternity,” I say, heading for it without stopping.

Asha keeps pace with me through the maze of corridors. “Lady Hope, my people are afraid. The forest folk accuse us of collaborating secretly with the Order—”

“And have you?” I query.

“Surely you do not believe it also?”

I don’t know what I believe anymore. The Order has some plan, and I intend to have answers about that when I leave. We’ve reached the Caves of Sighs. “Asha, I need to be alone.”

She bows again, shielding her eyes. “As you wish, Lady Hope.”

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

Circe’s body floats beneath the glasslike surface of the well. She seems weightless, yet I feel her presence so heavily I can scarcely breathe.

“So you’ve come back after all.”

I need your help.
Try as I might, I cannot choke out those words.

“Something is at hand, and I want to know what it is!”

Her voice is like a dying woman’s. “You understand…the price…for my counsel?”

I swallow hard. Once this has begun, there is no turning back. And if I give her magic as she wants, who is to say that she can’t cause me harm? “Yes. I understand.”

“And you would give it…of your own free will?”

“What choice do I have?” I retort, and then I laugh bitterly, knowing full well what her response shall be.

“Yes, I know, there is always a choice. Very well. I choose to give you what you want in exchange for what I need.”

“Of your own free will…”

“Yes, I give it of my own free will!” I snap.

“Then come to me,” she whispers, no more loudly than the rustling of silk.

I approach the well, where her body presses against the seal of water like a phantom. It takes every bit of strength I have to look into those staring eyes.

“Listen closely, Gemma,” she says in her slow, hoarse whisper. “Do exactly as I say, else you will kill me and know nothing.”

“I’m listening,” I say.

“Put your hand on the surface of the well and bestow it with life—”

“But I thought it would kill—”

“Just until the seal breaks and the water clears.”

My fingers linger on the edge of the well.
Go on, then, Gemma. Get it over with.
Slowly, I lower my trembling hands to the surface and rest them there. It is like a sheet of ice that melts at my touch. The water clears and Circe rises till her face is nearly breaking the surface.

“Good, good,” she whispers. “Now, place your palm over my heart and give me a small bit of magic—but only a small token. I am weak and cannot take more.”

My hand sinks into those waters until it is flush against the soggy fabric of Circe’s bodice, and I stifle a scream.

“Now,” she sighs.

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

Soon, the magic travels between us, an invisible thread. I feel nothing of her thoughts, only my own reflected to me.

“There,” I say, pulling quickly away.

Miss Moore rises until she’s floating peacefully on the surface. Her cheeks and lips show the palest hint of pink. Those unseeing eyes blink for the first time. Her voice gains strength.

“Thank you, Gemma,” she murmurs.

“I’ve done what you asked. Now I’ll have my answers.”

“Of course.”

I circle the well as I talk, not wanting to look at her. “What did you mean when you said the Order was plotting against me? How can I stop the Rakshana? What should I know about the realms, about the Winterlands creatures, and this magic? And Pippa. What do you know of—”

“So many questions,” she murmurs. “And yet, the answer is very straightforward. If you want to defend yourself against the Order and the Rakshana, you’d be best served to look inside yourself first, Gemma.”

“What do you mean?” I approach the well with caution.

“Learn to master yourself—to understand both your fears and your desires. That’s the key to the magic.

Then, no one shall have any hold over you. Remember”—she takes a deep, wheezing breath—“the magic…is a living thing, joined to whomever it touches and changed by them as well.”

I pace the room, careful to avoid looking at her. “I am nearly seventeen. I should think I know myself.”

“You must come to know everything—even your darkest corners. Especially those.”