by Libba Bray
“That’s grand!”
“Yes,” I say, brightening a bit at the prospect. “It is, isn’t it?”
Felicity holds more tightly to my arm. “I don’t know if you have heard the news, but I would tell you before anyone else does. Miss Fairchild has accepted Simon’s suit. They are betrothed.”
I nod. “That’s as it should be. I wish them happiness.”
“I wish her luck. Mark my words, Simon will lose all his hair and be fat as Fezziwig before he’s thirty.” She giggles.
A new dance is called. It brings fresh excitement to the crowd. The floor fills as a lively tune gives new life to the party. Holding hands, standing together in a crush of silk and flowers, Felicity and I watch the dancers moving as one. They spin about like the earth on its axis, enduring the dark, waiting for the sun.
Felicity squeezes my hand, and I feel the slightest hint of realms magic pulsing there. “Well, Gemma, we survived it.”
“Yes,” I say, squeezing back. “We have survived.”
* * *
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
* * *
ON FRIDAY, THOMAS AND I ACCOMPANY FATHER TO Bristol, where the HMS Victoria awaits, ready to take him home to India. The docks are awash in well-dressed travelers—men in fine suits, ladies in wide-brimmed hats to keep out the rare English sun, which has obliged them by shining brightly today. The boards are stacked with trunks bound with twine, stamped for other destinations. They stand as testament that life is a constant heartbeat, pulsing everywhere at once, and we are but a small part of that eternal ebb and flow. I wonder where Ann is at this moment. Perhaps she is standing center stage at the Gaiety, ready to embark on a path where nothing is certain and she can be whoever she wishes. I should like very much to see her in this new life.
Father has spoken to Grandmama about my decision. She is scandalized, of course, but it is done. I shall go to university. After that, I shall have a modest allowance upon which to live, administered by Tom, who has done his best to convince Grandmama that I shall not fall to ruin in the streets. But if I truly desire independence, I shall need to work. It is unheard of. A black mark. Yet I find that I am excited by the prospect of having my own pursuits and earning my own keep. At any rate, it is the price for my freedom, so there you have it.
Father is wearing his favorite white suit. It is not snug the way it should be; he’s far too thin. But he cuts a dashing figure anyway. We stand on the docks, making our goodbyes, as people push past in a flurry of excitement.
“Safe voyage to you, Father,” Thomas says. He and Father shake hands awkwardly.
“Thank you, Thomas,” Father says, coughing. He must wait for the spasm to subside before finding his voice again. “I shall see you at Christmas.”
Tom looks down at his feet. “Yes. Of course. Till Christmas.”
I embrace Father. He holds me a moment longer than usual, and I can feel his ribs. “Thank you for seeing me off, pet.”
“I’ll write to you,” I say, trying not to cry.
He releases me with a smile. “Then I shall eagerly await your letters.”
The ship’s horn bellows its deep warning. Stewards raise their voices, giving the final call for all passengers to board. Father mounts the plank and makes his way slowly to the edge of the ship amidst a crowd of other travelers waving goodbye. He stands tall, hands on the railing, face forward. The sun, that great magic lantern, casts its illusory light, catching my father’s face in such a way that I see no lines, no pallor, no sadness. I do not see the shadow of what is to come sitting in the hollows under his eyes, slowly thinning the planes of his cheeks. There are some illusions I’m not prepared to give up just yet.
As the ship pulls slowly away and out to the blinding sea, I see him as I wish to: healthy and strong and happy, his smile a bright, shiny promise of new days, whatever they may bring.
Mademoiselle LeFarge’s wedding is to take place on the last Friday in May. I return a day early, Thursday, and carry my trunk to my old room. The trees have grown such a full coat of leaves that I can no longer see the lake and the boathouse from here. A hint of color flickers in the ivy beneath my window. I throw open the sash and reach down. It is a fragment of the red cloth. Kartik’s signal to me. I pluck it free and tuck it into the waist of my skirt.
A new crew of men is hard at work on the East Wing. The turret takes shape nicely. No longer a wound but not quite whole. It is between, and I’ve come to feel a kinship with it. The door into the realms is closed just now, giving us all time to think, to take stock. When I return from university, we—the tribes of the realms, my friends, Fowlson, Nightwing, and I, and all who wish to have a say—shall work together to forge a constitution of sorts, a document and a government to guide the realms.
Not that it matters much where I am concerned. It seems that, rather like unruly red hair and skin that will freckle, my ability to enter the realms is a part of me. So on a beautiful last Thursday in May, I sit on my old bed in my room in Spence and make the door of light appear.
The realms are not the place of awe I remember from my first days here; nor are they a place of fear. They are a place I have come to know and would know more of.
Gorgon is in the garden, hoisting the silver arch that leads to the grotto back into position. It is battered but unbroken.
“Most High,” she calls. “A hand would be most appreciated.”
“Certainly,” I say, pulling on the other side. We push until the arch catches in the dirt. It wavers for a moment, then stands.
“I wish to see Philon,” I say.
“My legs are weak from years of imprisonment,” she says, leaning against a tree for support. “But my spirit is strong. Come, I shall take you there.”
She leads me to the river and the boat that was her prison for centuries.
I back away. “No. I couldn’t ask you to become one with this ghastly ship again.”
She arches an eyebrow. “I only meant to steer.”
“Yes,” I say, sheepish. “Carry on.”
Gorgon takes the wheel like a proper captain, setting a course for the home of the forest folk. We pass through the golden mist and I let it shower me with jewel-like flecks. Some land on Gorgon as well. She shakes them free. The shore comes into view. It is not as verdant as it once was. The creatures’ damage was great. Burned trees stand like spindly matchsticks, and the earth is as tough as leather. Many of the folk are gone. But children still laugh and play along the shore. Their spirits are not vanquished easily.
Several of them approach Gorgon shyly. They are curious about the great green giantess striding through their homeland. Gorgon turns on them quickly, letting her snakes hiss and snap. The children run away screaming with a mixture of dread and delight.
“Was that necessary?” I ask.
“I have told you before. I am not maternal.”
We find Philon overseeing the building of huts. But it is not only the forest folk who raise beams and hammer roofs. They stand side by side with the Untouchables, the nymphs, several shape-shifters. Bessie Timmons hauls water, strong and sure. A shape-shifter girl follows her, admiring her strength. I even spy one of the Winterlands creatures brushing shimmering pitch onto the roofs. In the forest are souls of all sorts; creatures of every imagining; mortals, too. Asha offers water to Gorgon, who drinks it and returns the glass for more.
“Priestess!” Philon greets me with a clasp of hands. “Have you come to take your place beside us?”
“No,” I say. “I’ve only come to say goodbye for a while.”
“When will you return?”
I shake my head. “I cannot say just yet. It is time for me to take my place in the world—my own world. I am to go to New York.”
“But you are a part of the realms,” Philon reminds me.
“And they shall always be a part of me. Do look after things. We have much to argue about when I return.”
“What makes you think we shall argue?”
I give Philon a knowing loo
k. “We’ve the realms to discuss. I don’t delude myself that it shall go smoothly.”
“More tribes have heard. They will come to sit with us,” Philon says.
“Good.”
Philon reaches into the burned leaves and blows on them. They spiral and flutter until they form an image of the Tree of All Souls. The image lasts for only a moment. “The magic is in the land again. In time it will come back a hundredfold.”
I nod.
“Perhaps we shall visit you in your world sometime. Your world could do with a bit of magic.”
“I should like that,” I say. “But you will behave yourself, won’t you? No taking mortals for playthings.”
Philon’s lips twist into an enigmatic smile. “Would you come after us?”
I nod. “I would indeed.”
The creature extends a hand. “So let us remain friends.”
“Yes, friends.”
Gorgon accompanies me as far as the Borderlands. “The rest of this journey is mine alone, I’m afraid,” I say.
“As you wish,” she says, bowing. Her snakes dance about her head in a merry halo. She does not try to follow me, but she doesn’t leave, either. She lets me leave her. By the time I have crossed into the Winterlands, I no longer see her, but I feel her all the same.
Tiny blossoms have sprouted on the branches of the tree. Their defiant colors push up through the gnarled bark. The tree blooms again. The land is not what it was before. It is strange and new and unknown. It pulses with a different magic, born of loss and despair, love and hope.
I rest my cheek on the Tree of All Souls. Beneath the bark, its heart beats sure and strong against my ear. I stretch my arms round the tree as far as they will go. Where my tears hit, the bark glistens silver.
Little Wendy steps up shyly. She has survived. She’s pale and thin and her teeth are sharper. “It’s beautiful,” she says, admiring the tree’s majesty with her fingers.
I step away, wiping my eyes. “Yes, it is.”
“Sometimes, when the wind blows through them leaves, it sounds like your name. It’s like a sigh, then,” she says. “The most beautiful sound I ever heard.”
A gentle breeze catches in the branches then and I hear it, soft and low, a murmured prayer—Gem-ma, Gem-ma—and then the leaves bend down and trail delicate fingers across my cold cheeks.
“Wendy, I’m afraid I can’t help you cross over now that you’ve eaten the berries. You will have to remain in the realms,” I tell her.
“Yes, miss,” she says, and she doesn’t sound sad. “Bessie and me, we’re stayin’ on, makin’ a go of it. Can I show you sum’thin’?” Wendy asks.
She takes my hand and leads me to the valley where our battle was recently fought. Amidst the patches of icy snow, unexpected plants grow. Their roots burrow deep under the ice; they grow despite it.
“Tell me what you see,” she says.
“Lovely shoots sticking up. Like early spring,” I say. “Did you plant these?”
She shakes her head. “I done only this one,” she says, fingering a tall plant with thick, flat, red leaves. “I put my hands in the soil, and it was like I could feel the magic there, waitin’. I put m’mind to it, and up it grew. And then, it’s like it took hold, and the rest come up all on their own. It’s a start, innit?”
“Yes,” I say. The valley stretches out long and far, a mixture of color and ice. The injured land struggles to be reborn. It is a very good start.
A man approaches me timidly, his hat in his hand. His terror shows in his shaking limbs and searching eyes. “Beggin’ your pardon, miss, but I was told you be the one to help me cross on to the next world.”
“Who told you this?”
His eyes widen. “A fearsome creature with a head full o’ snakes!”
“You mustn’t fear her,” I say, taking the man’s hand and leading him toward the river. “She’s as tame as a pussycat. She’d probably lick your hand given the chance.”
“Didn’t seem harmless,” he whispers, shuddering.
“Yes, well, things are not always as they appear, sir, and we must learn to judge for ourselves.”
The ones who need my help come out here and there: This one wants to tell his wife he loved her, as he never could in life; that one is sorry for a falling out she had with her sister, a grudge she held till the end; still another, a girl of perhaps eighteen, is frightened—she cannot walk away from the past so easily.
She holds tightly to my arm. “Is it true what I hear, that I do not have to cross? That there is a place where I might live on?” Her eyes are wide with a desperate hope fanned by fear.
“It is true,” I answer. “But it is not without cost. Nothing is.”
“But what will become of me when I cross over the river?”
“I cannot say. No one can.”
“Oh, will you tell me which path to take, please?”
“I cannot make that choice for you. It is yours alone to make.”
Her eyes well with tears. “It is so very hard.”
“Yes, it is,” I say, and hold her hand because that is all the magic I can muster.
In the end, she makes the choice to go—if I will accompany her across the river on the barge steered by Gorgon. It is my first journey of this sort, and my heartbeat quickens. I want to know what lies beyond what I have already seen. The closer we get to the shore, the brighter it grows, until I have to turn my head away. I hear only the knowing sigh of the girl. I feel the barge lighten and I know she has gone.
My heart is heavy as we turn back. The gentle laps of the river’s current are but the whispered names of what has been lost: my mother, Amar, Carolina, Mother Elena, Miss Moore, Miss McCleethy, and some part of myself that I shan’t get back.
Kartik. I blink hard against the tears that threaten. “Why must things come to an end?” I say softly.
“Our days are all numbered in the book of days, Most High,” Gorgon murmurs as the garden comes once more into view. “That is what gives them sweetness and purpose.”
When I return to the garden, a gentle breeze blows through the olive grove. It smells of myrrh. Mother Elena approaches, her medallion shining against her white blouse.
“I would see my Carolina now,” she says.
“She’s been waiting for you across the river,” I say.
Mother Elena smiles at me. “You have done well.” She places a hand to my cheek and says something in Romani that I do not understand.
“Is that a blessing?”
“It is only a saying: To those who will see, the world waits.”
The barge drifts, ready to carry Mother Elena across the river. She sings some sort of lullaby. The light grows, bathing her in its glow till I can no longer tell where the light ends and she begins. And then she is gone.
To those who will see, the world waits. It feels like much more than a saying. And perhaps it is.
Perhaps it is a hope.
* * *
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
* * *
I WAIT FOR SOME TIME TO SPEAK PRIVATELY WITH MRS. Nightwing. At five minutes after three o’clock, the door to her room opens, admitting me entrance to the inner sanctum. I’m reminded of the first day I arrived at Spence, in my black mourning dress, lost and grief-stricken, without a friend in the world. How much has happened since then.
Mrs. Nightwing folds her hands on her desk and gazes at me over the tops of her spectacles. “You wished to speak to me, Miss Doyle?” Good old Nightwing, as constant as England.
“Yes,” I start.
“Well, I do hope you shall be quick about it. I’ve two teachers to replace, now that Mademoiselle LeFarge is to be married and Miss McCleethy…now that Sahirah…” She trails off, blinking. Her eyes redden.
“I am sorry,” I say.
She closes her eyes for the briefest moment, her lips trembling ever so slightly. And then, like a dark cloud that only threatens rain, it passes. “What was it you wanted, Miss Doyle?”
“I s
hall be most grateful for your help in the matter of the realms,” I say, straightening.
Nightwing’s cheeks redden with a true blush. “I don’t see what assistance I could possibly offer.”
“I shall need help maintaining the door and keeping watch, especially while I am away.”
She nods. “Yes. Certainly.”
I clear my throat. “And there is one more thing you may do. It is about Spence. And the girls.” She cocks an eyebrow, and I feel it like a gunshot. “You could truly educate them. You could teach them to think for themselves.”
Mrs. Nightwing does not move save for her eyes, which she narrows to suspicious slits. “You are in jest, I trust?”
“On the contrary, I have never been more in earnest.”
“Their mothers shall be overjoyed to hear it,” she mutters. “No doubt they’ll race to our doors in droves.”
I bang my fist on the desk, rattling Mrs. Nightwing’s teacup and Mrs. Nightwing in that order. “Why should we girls not have the same privileges as men? Why do we police ourselves so stringently—whittling each other down with cutting remarks or holding ourselves back from greatness with a harness woven of fear and shame and longing? If we do not deem ourselves worthy first, how shall we ever ask for more?
“I have seen what a handful of girls can do, Mrs. Nightwing. They can hold back an army if necessary, so please don’t tell me it isn’t possible. A new century dawns. Surely we could dispense with a few samplers in favor of more books and grander ideas.”
Mrs. Nightwing is so very still I fear I may have stopped her heart with my outburst. Her normally commanding voice is but a squeak. “I shall lose all my girls to Miss Pennington’s.”
I sigh. “No, you shan’t. Only ninnies go to Penny’s.”
“Most ungracious, Miss Doyle.” Mrs. Nightwing tuts. She places the teacup exactly so on its saucer. “And you? You will forgo your season for a university in America. Are you truly prepared to turn your back on all of that privilege and power?”