The Sweet Far Thing (91 page)

I put my hands to the broken earth. “I give this magic back to the realms and the Winterlands, too, that it may be shared equally among the tribes!”

The trackers shriek and howl as if in pain. The souls they have captured push through me on their way to wherever it is we go from here. I feel their passage. It is rather like the swoop of a carnival ride. And when they have gone, there is no one to lead the others, the dead. They stare in wonder, no longer sure what has happened or what will be.

The pale things that hide in the crevices and the cracks of the Winterlands crawl closer. The tree’s warmth melts a small patch of ice at its base. Thin shoots of grass struggle up through the new earth. I touch them and they are as soft as Kartik’s fingers on my arm.

Something in me breaks open. My face is slick with tears. So I do what I yearn to do. I sink into the burgeoning grass and cry.

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CHAPTER SEVENTY

MRS. NIGHTWING WAITS FOR US IN THE CHAPEL, WHEREshe cradles the body of Mother Elena.

“The creatures?” Ann asks, her voice ragged with the screams she’s spent.

Mrs. Nightwing shakes her head. “Her heart. She didn’t fall to them. There is that, at least.”

Mrs. Nightwing counts us as we file past—Felicity, Ann, Fowlson, me.

“Sahirah…?” she whispers. “And—”

I shake my head. She lowers her eyes, and nothing more is said.

The girls of Spence sit huddled together. Their eyes are wide and frightened. What they have seen tonight is beyond teas and balls, curtsies and sonnets.

Mrs. Nightwing puts her hand on my shoulder. “There is nothing more I can tell them. They’ve seen and they are frightened.”

“They should be.” Is it my voice that sounds so hard?

“They can’t know what has happened.”

She wants me to take what magic I have left and blot every memory of this evening from their minds. To make them forget so that they can carry on as before. There will always be the Cecilys, Marthas, and Elizabeths of the world—those who cannot bear the burden of truth. They will drink their tea. Weigh their words. Wear hats against the sun. Squeeze their minds into corsets, lest some errant thought should escape and ruin the smooth illusion they hold of themselves and the world as they like it.

It is a luxury, this forgetting. No one will come to take away the things I wish I had not seen, the things I wish I did not know. I shall have to live with them.

I wrench away from her grip. “Why should I?”

I do it anyway. Once I am certain the girls are asleep, I creep into their rooms, one by one, and lay my hands across their furrowed brows, which wear the trouble of all they’ve witnessed. I watch while those brows ease into smooth, blank canvases beneath my fingers. It is a form of healing, and I am surprised by how much it heals me to do it. When the girls awake, they will remember a strange dream of magic and blood and curious creatures and perhaps a teacher they knew whose name will not spring to their lips.

They might strain to remember for a moment, but then they will tell themselves it was only a dream best

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forgotten.

I have done what Mrs. Nightwing said I should do. But I do not take all their memories from them. I leave them with one small token of their evening: doubt. A feeling that perhaps there is something more. It is nothing more than a seed. Whether it shall grow into something more useful, I cannot say.

When it is time for me to visit Brigid, I find her awake in her little room. “That’s awl righ’, luv. I don’

care to forget, if it’s all the same,” she says, and there are no rowan leaves at her window anymore.

There is an ancient tribal proverb I once heard in India. It says that before we can see properly we must first shed our tears to clear the way.

I cry for days.

Mrs. Nightwing does not force me to go downstairs, and she doesn’t allow anyone, not even Fee and Ann, in to see me. She brings my meals on a tray, placing them on my table in the darkened room and leaving without a word. I hear only the rustling of her bustle as she treads the old wood floors, back and forth. Sometimes when I wake in the early hours, I feel as if I am emerging from a long, strange dream.

The velvety light softens every edge in the room, bathing it in possibility. In that blissful moment, I expect a day like any other: I shall study French, laugh with friends. I shall see Kartik coming across the lawn, his smile filling me with warmth. And just as I begin to believe that all is well, there is some subtle change in the light. The room takes its true shape. I fight to go back to that blissful ignorance, but it is too late.

The dull pain of truth weights my soul, pulling it under. I am left hopelessly awake.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

THE MORNING WE ARE TO LEAVE IS AS BEAUTIFUL A SPRINGday as I’ve seen.

When the time for goodbyes comes at last, Felicity, Ann, and I stand uncertainly on the front lawn, our eyes searching for the dust on the path that signals the coach’s arrival. Mrs. Nightwing flips down the collar of Ann’s coat, checks to be certain that my hat is pinned securely and Felicity’s case is latched properly.

I feel none of it. I am numb.

“Well,” Mrs. Nightwing says for about the eighteenth time in a half hour. “Have you enough
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handkerchiefs? A lady can never have too many handkerchiefs.”

She will be Nightwing, regardless of what horrors occur, and just now, I am glad of her strength, from wherever it springs.

“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Nightwing,” Ann says.

“Ah, good, good.”

Felicity has given Ann her garnet earbobs. I’ve given her the ivory elephant I brought with me from India.

“We shall read of your admirers in the papers,” Felicity says.

“I’m only one of the merry maidens,” Ann reminds us. “There are other girls.”

“Yes, well. Each of us must start somewhere.” Mrs. Nightwing tuts.

“I’ve written to my cousins and told them not to expect me back,” Ann says. “They were awfully angry.”

“As soon as you’ve become a sensation on the London stage, they’ll be clamoring for tickets and telling everyone they know you,” Felicity assures her, and Ann smiles. Felicity turns to me. “I suppose the next time we meet, we shall be proper ladies.”

“I suppose so,” I reply.

And there’s nothing more to say.

A cry goes up from the younger girls crowded on the lawn. The carriage is coming. They nearly trample each other to be the first in with the news.

“Enough,” Felicity grouses, and slides into the carriage away from the throng.

Ann’s trunk is secured with ropes. We embrace and do not let go for the longest time. At last, she climbs the steps into the carriage for the trip to the train and London and then the Gaiety Theatre.

“Goodbye,” she calls, waving from the carriage’s open window. “Till tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow!”

I raise my hand in a half wave, and she nods, and we let that be enough goodbye for now.

Within a few hours, I’ll be back in London at my grandmother’s house, preparing for the dizzying whirl of balls and parties that comprise the social season. Come Saturday, I shall curtsy before my Queen and make my debut in society while my family and friends look on. There will be supper and dancing. I shall wear a beautiful white dress and ostrich plumes in my hair.

And I couldn’t care less.

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CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

THE CARRIAGE COMES TO CARRY US TOSAINTJAMES’SPalace. Even our housekeeper cannot hide her excitement this evening. For once, she looks at me instead of around me. “You look quite beautiful, miss.”

“Thank you,” I say.

The seamstress is just putting the finishing touches on my dress. My hair is piled high upon my head and crowned with a tiara and three ostrich feathers. I have long white gloves that reach the tops of my arms.

And Father has presented me with my first real diamonds—in a delicate necklace that shimmers against my skin like dewdrops. “Lovely, lovely,” Grandmama pronounces until she is presented with the bill.

Then her eyes grow large. “Why on earth did I agree to those roses and beads? I must have been out of my mind.”

Tom gives me a peck on the cheek. “You look wonderful, Gem. Are you ready to take that long walk?”

I nod. “I think so. I hope so.” My stomach flips.

Father offers me his arm. He is very frail, but charming. “Miss Gemma Doyle of Belgravia, I presume?”

“Yes,” I say, laying my hand upon his, my arm at the proper angle to my body as I’ve been taught. “If you say so.”

We wait in the procession with the other girls and their fathers. We’re all as nervous as new chicks. This one checks to be certain her train is not offensively long. That one holds so tightly to her father’s arm I fear he shall lose the use of it. I do not see Felicity yet but I wish I did. We strain our necks for an early glimpse of the Queen on her throne. My heart is beating so very fast.
Steady, Gemma, steady. Breathe
in.

We move forward by excruciating inches, the courtier calling the name of each girl in the procession.

One girl wobbles slightly, and word snakes back through the line in terrified whispers. No one wishes to be singled out.

“Courage,” Father says with a kiss, and I wait my turn to be alone in the chamber of Saint James’s Palace. The doors are opened. Down at the end of a very long red carpet sits the most important woman in the world, Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. She is rather stern in her black silks and white lace. But her crown sparkles so that I cannot look away. I am to be presented to Queen Victoria. I shall proceed as a girl and return as a woman. Such is the power of this ceremony.

I feel I shall faint. Oh, I shall be ill.
Stuff and nonsense, Gemma. You’ve faced worse. Stand tall. Back
straight, chin out. She is but a woman.
Indeed she is—a woman who happens to be Queen and who holds the entirety of my future in her wizened hands. I shall be ill. I know it. I shall fall upon my face and

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live the rest of my days, disgraced and odd, in a hermitage in the south of England, accompanied by fourteen cats of varying size and color. And when I venture out in my old age, I shall still hear people whisper, “There she goes…the one who fell….”

The courtier calls my name, loud and strong: “Miss Gemma Doyle!”

The longest walk of my life is under way. I hold my breath as I travel the stretch of carpet, which seems to lengthen with each step. Her Majesty is a solemn monument of flesh and blood in the distance. She is so very like her portraits that it is startling. At last, I reach her. It is the moment I have both wanted and feared. With as much grace as I can muster, I lower myself like a soufflé falling in upon itself. I bow low to my Queen. I do not dare breathe. And then I feel her tap upon my shoulder firmly, compelling me to rise. I back slowly from her presence and take my place among the other girls who have just become women.