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CHAPTER
12
THE SIMMERING TENSION WITHIN THE convent comes to a head the next afternoon during history of witchery. Sister Sophia is teaching in place of ancient Sister Evelyn, who took a tumble down the front porch steps and broke her arm, just as Tess predicted. Most of our classes are based on magical skill rather than age, but history of witchery is an exception; it’s made up of twelve of the oldest convent girls. We sit at our desks—narrow wooden benches with slanted, scarred desktops attached—in neat rows of four by four, with the back row empty.
Sister Sophia is reading us passages about the Brotherhood’s increasingly restrictive measures in the early 1800s, back when they first outlawed theater and public dances. It seems silly to focus on things that happened nearly a hundred years ago when we could be talking about the protest yesterday or all the girls being snatched up. Hardly anyone is paying attention. The fire in the hearth is burning hot enough to make the room feel close and drowsy. In front of me, studious Pearl copies down notes on her slate, but Alexa’s ~andreis blond head is nodding and Maud and Eugenia are passing notes. To my left, Rilla’s drawing hearts on her slate with her pencil.
To my right, Mei is counting her ivory mala beads and worrying about her sisters. Her brother Yang came to the convent last night with the disquieting news that Li and Hua had snuck out to the protest and were among the two hundred people arrested by the Brothers’ guards. There isn’t enough room for them in the New London prison, so they’re being held like cattle in a warehouse along the river.
“Baba went to see them, and the guards gave him a talking-to for raising right troublesome girls,” Mei told us last night. “He thinks they’ll hold the men a few days, to teach ’em a lesson, and put the women on trial for public indecency.”
Nothing good can come from that. I glance over at Mei, whose mouth is moving in a silent mantra as she thumbs the beads draped over her middle finger.
There are heavy footsteps in the hall, and Sister Gretchen appears in the doorway. “Pardon me, Sophia. I hate to interrupt, but Cora’s asking for you.”
Sister Sophia snaps the book shut with a loud crack that startles Alexa awake and jostles everyone else out of their stupors. “Girls, you’re dismissed.”
Sister Cora must be in great pain to call her away from class.
“Is Sister Cora dying?” Daisy asks Sister Sophia. I twist to face her, noticing that she and Rory have been playing a game of Birds, Beasts, and Fishes on her slate. Rory hasn’t guessed many letters, and the sight of the half-drawn man dangling from a hangman’s noose gives me a chill even in the hot classroom.
“Not today,” Sister Sophia says briskly. “If she were, there would be nothing I could do for her.”
I catch at the yellow silk of her sleeve as she passes down the aisle. “Can I help?”
She pats my shoulder with a distracted smile. “No, dear, but it’s good of you to ask.”
She and Sister Gretchen take their leave, whispering. Even though we’ve been dismissed, we all stay in our seats, shaken. It’s the first time any of the teachers have admitted publicly that Sister Cora is dying.
“I saw her in the hall this morning when I was running an errand for Sister Gretchen,” Daisy says in her slow drawl, wiping the game off her slate with a rag. “She looked dreadful. Could barely walk.”
Rilla sets her pencil aside. “I was helping in the kitchen at breakfast, and Sister Gretchen said Cora can’t keep anything down but broth and tea. It won’t be very long now, I expect. My grandmother was like that, at the end.”
Maura saunters to the front of the room, pushes aside the stack of books on Sister Evelyn’s desk, and perches right on top. “We ought to make Sister Inez the head now, so we can get on with things instead of just waiting for Cora to die. With the Brothers all caught up in oracle hunting and the protest, it’s the perfect time to strike.”
Mei flinches and stuffs the beads back into the pocket of her orange gown. “It’s a dangerous time, with so many Brothers in town for the National Council meeting. Sister Cora says we should be extra careful.”
“Sister Cora’s too old and too cautious. We need someone with guts to lead us,” Maura says, swinging her feet like a child. She’s wearing heeled brown slippers with gold tassels on the toes. “There have been a dozen girls arrested and held without trial as potential oracles. If we could break them out of the National Council building, think what a splash that would make! The Brothers would be furious.”
“That’s impossible,” Eugenia blurts. She hazards a glance over her shoulder at Alice and flushes, fiddling nervously with her brown chignon. “The National Council building is an absoings ilute fortress. Brother Covington has a grand apartment inside, and the Brothers’ guards patrol constantly.”
I feel a second of déjà vu: Rory, in the sitting room, asking me, Do you think it would be impossible to break someone out of Harwood?
For once, I don’t stop to think things through. “If we’re thinking of staging a jailbreak,” I say slowly, my eyes on Rory, “what about Harwood?”
Rory’s slate falls from her hand and clatters to the ground. “Really?” she gasps.
Maura folds her arms over her cream-colored bodice. “The girls there aren’t in imminent danger.”
“That’s where the oracle is, though.” I drum my fingers against the wooden desktop. “Brenna’s the one who’s putting everyone else in danger, including us. If we could get Brenna out—”
“And Sachi!” Rory interrupts, bending to pick up her cracked slate.
“We already know how to get in. Cate and Pearl and I go every week on nursing missions,” Mei adds. “The question would be how to get them out.”
“Why, Cate Cahill.” Alice narrows her blue eyes at me, lips pursed. “You might actually have a few good ideas in that head of yours after all. If we’re risking our necks to save girls, they might as well be witches, and where are there more potential witches than Harwood? Besides here, of course.”
“If we broke them out somehow—say, if Harwood were to catch fire—we would have better numbers when the war starts,” Maura muses, caught in the rising tide of enthusiasm.
“Catch fire?” I shake my head. “The women there are drugged. If there were a fire, how many of them would be burnt alive in their beds?”
“It doesn’t have to be a fire,” Alice snaps, rolling her eyes. “We just need something to send the nurses into a tizzy, so they’ll call the fire brigade, so the gate will be left open and they won’t notice if a few girls escape in all the fuss. We could see to it that your sister got out, Rory.”
“What about Lucy Wheeler’s sister? She’s in there too, but she’s not a witch,” Daisy says, her dark brow furrowed.
“I think we ought to limit it to witches,” Alice insists. “We can’t save everyone.”
“That’s cruel.” Mei swipes her bangs out of her eyes. “I’ll tell you right now, if Li and Hua are sentenced there, I won’t let them rot just because they aren’t witches. They’re still my sisters.”
Maud waves her hand in the air as if for permission to speak, and I nod at her. She’s a short girl with red hair—not Maura’s pretty curls but straight, carroty red—and more freckles than I’ve ever seen on a person in my life. “My cousin Caroline’s there,” she says. “She’s not a witch, though; she was arrested for having an affair with one of the Brothers on our town council. He was already married, but he didn’t get in any trouble at all.”
“That’s how it always goes,” Rory says bitterly, tugging on the pink lace at her cuffs.
“I’m with Alice on this. There are hundreds of girls there. We can’t bring them all back to the Sisterhood. Even if they were grateful at first for saving them, who says they’ll keep our secrets?” Maura smooths her cream-colored skirt. “We have to put the Sisterhood first.”
“And you’re friends with the architect on the Harwood construction, aren’t you?” Alice gives Maura
a calculating smile. “A little flirting, and I bet you could find out how to pull this off. We’ll glamour ourselves to look like construction men, and then we’ll create some sort of distraction, and in the midst of all the fuss, we’ll sneak the witches out.”
I have a sudden suspicion of what job brought Paul back to New London. Hisew action, a firm must be overseeing the construction on Harwood. Curious that Maura never mentioned that. I bite my lip. How did she and Alice get to be in charge so quickly? It was my idea, and now they’re the ones making decisions about who will be saved and doling out instructions?
Rilla shakes her head, brown curls bouncing. “I think Mei’s right. If only some of the girls escape, won’t the Brothers retaliate against the rest? If conditions there are already as bad as you say—”
“They are,” Mei and Pearl chorus.
“I won’t leave Caroline behind to be punished,” Maud says stubbornly.
“Oh, fine, we can rescue your stupid cousin. But we can’t worry about everyone. There are some risks in waging war,” Alice says. And though I know she’s right, and Sister Cora herself would agree, it doesn’t sit well with me.
I stand. “I’ve been to Harwood and seen the conditions there. It’s awful. I say we keep thinking until we can figure out a way to get all the girls out, witches or no.”
Mei pauses in her mantra. “I agree with Cate.”
“Me, too,” chorus Rilla and Maud and Daisy and Pearl.
“But you won’t take too long, thinking? We won’t let them languish there forever?” Rory presses.
I know she’s thinking of Sachi, of the trial that will be held tomorrow. “No, of course not. There’s got to be a way.”
“I’m disappointed in you all.” Maura glowers at me. “I knew Cate wouldn’t really go through with it, but I didn’t think you’d all fall in line with her like scared little ducks. We can make this work, I know it. If one of the nurses sees something she shouldn’t, Alice and I will just compel her.”
“That’s not the point,” I argue, hopping up on my desktop.
“And what if there’s more than one witness?” Vi speaks up for the first time, scooting her desk away from Alice’s with a sharp screeching noise. “What if your glamours fail and you expose all of us? You can’t bully your way through this.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alice snaps, toying with one of her onyx earbobs. “Maura’s marvelous at compulsion, and I’ll be there to help her.”
“What if you can’t? If it comes out that the Sisterhood is a nest of witches, what would happen to all of us? To my father?”
“Don’t be a fool,” Alice snaps. “Your father could tell everyone he was compelled, that he didn’t know anything about our magic. I could erase his memory so he wouldn’t even be lying.”
Vi slams her slate down on her desk, so hard it cracks right in two. Half the girls in the room jump in their seats. “The devil you will!”
“Vi!” Alice gasps, her ears flushing bright red.
“No! Mind-magic’s not a toy, for all you strut around boasting of it. I won’t have you ruining his mind like you did that poor girl last year.”
Alice’s hand flies to her bosom. If I thought she had a heart in there, I’d feel sorry for her. “How dare you!”
Vi glowers at her best friend, defiant. “You would understand if your father meant any more to you than his purse strings.”
Alice slips out from behind her desk and stomps over to Maura, in high dudgeon. “Well, now I see who my true friends are.”
“This is too important to wait. If we had more witches with mind-magic, we could protect ourselves,” Maura insists, refusing to acknowledge that she’s lost the crowd. “We wouldn’t have to wait for the Brothers to come and take us away one by one. We could go after them.”
“How?” Violet gives an unladylike snort. “You can’t go compelling every Brother you meet on the street.”
I wicould go’m surprised Alice’s glare doesn’t turn her right to stone. “Why not? It’s a sight better than sitting here waiting for that mad oracle to give us away. We ought to be doing something, and I for one am glad to have someone around”—she eyes Maura—“who isn’t such a yellow-livered scaredy-cat.”
“It’s not cowardly to think things through instead of rushing into something,” I argue, setting my jaw.
“Maybe you just want to delay attacking the Brothers. Maybe you have more sympathy for them than you want to let on, because of your beau,” Alice scoffs, and my heart falls. Did Maura tell her I’ve still been seeing Finn? “It’s pathetic, taking up for man who jilted you.”
“You had a beau who was a Brother?” Next to me, Rilla gasps. “You never said!”
“You always do this, Alice,” Vi complains. “You mock everyone who doesn’t agree with you. The rest of us are allowed to have opinions, you know.”
“You’re just jealous because we’d have no use for you in this. You can’t do mind-magic, and your illusions are terrible. If your father hadn’t offered to be the coachman without pay, it wouldn’t have been worth it to save you!” Alice shouts, her pretty face red.
“Is that so?” Vi narrows her eyes, and suddenly Alice’s green dress is crawling with spiders. Hundreds of spiders.
It’s an illusion—a terrifying one, if you’re frightened of spiders. Judging by the way Alice is shrieking and dancing around, she is. “Get them off! Get them off!”
Maura goes to Alice, brushing a few spiders onto the floor. They scuttle away with surprising speed, and several of the girls draw their feet onto their chairs, screeching. Daisy tosses a book at a particularly large spider, flattening it.
“Calm yourself. They’re not real. You can’t fight back if you can’t focus,” Maura tells Alice.
“They shouldn’t be fighting in the first place,” I say, but with Maura’s coaching, Alice seems to have recovered her wits. She vanishes the spiders.
“Illusions? Let’s see,” Vi says, and then Alice is growing, taller than I am, tall as the bookshelves that line the back wall. Two curved horns like a ram’s poke through her golden hair, and her skin goes a gruesome olive-green, like a storybook monster’s.
Rilla bursts into giggles. Pearl covers her mouth with a hand. Even Eugenia and Maud, who usually defer to Alice, are hard-pressed not to smile.
Alice screams and runs to the gilt-edged mirror over the fireplace, bending and twisting so that her face is low enough to see. She screams again when she catches a bit of her reflection.
“Vi, that’s enough,” I reprimand, rising from my desk.
“No, it isn’t,” Vi argues, giving Alice a pig snout. Behind me, Rory laughs so hard she snorts. “She gives herself such airs. She’s not even the best witch here.”
“Neither are you. Don’t get above yourself,” Maura snaps, and Vi’s shoulders buck and bow, her black hair graying, perfect skin wrinkling, mouth puckering around missing teeth, until she’s a crone. The girls gasp, horrified, while Alice cackles. Even I take a step back, startled by the vividness of the illusion.
“Maura,” I groan, “you’re not helping.”
Maura smirks at me. “Break it—if you can.”
I want to—not only because I’m on Vi’s side in this, but because Maura’s thrown it down like a challenge, and I’ve never been one to turn away from a challenge. I reach for my magic and find it hovering, ready, stirred up by my mingled fear and anger. But I hesitate. If I can’t break Maura’s illusion, she’ll never let me forget it. And if I can, if I show her up in front of a dozen witnesses—will she ever forg sh. Iive me?
“What did you do to me?” Vi demands, her fingers exploring her wizened face.
“Made you as ugly on the outside as you are on the inside,” Alice taunts.
“Enough!” I bark. I focus on Vi first, knowing Maura’s illusion will be the more difficult to crack. As always in times of stress, I revert to casting aloud. “Acclaro!”
It’s not easy. When I tap the illusion with my
magic, it resists, stubborn. I push, and it wavers. Maura is watching me, a self-satisfied look on her pretty face. I shove, and the spell breaks, returning Vi to her elegant sixteen-year-old self.
“What about me?” Alice stomps toward me, enormous and angry, knocking desks aside in her wake. “You can’t just leave me like this!”
Maura waves a hand, and Alice shrinks to her normal size, horns disappearing, skin lightening.
Mei looks anxiously toward the hall. “Sister Inez’ll have a fit if she catches us.”
“It was only a bit of fun. Don’t be such a killjoy,” Maura snaps.
Alice combs her fingers through her mussed golden hair, sniffing. “Vi started it.”
“You provoked her,” I point out.
“Who are you to tell me what to do? You’re not a teacher, you—”
I cast silently, and she clutches at her throat, glaring, mute.
“I’m the strongest witch in this room, that’s who.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. Maura flinches as though I’ve struck her, but Rilla and Mei twist in their chairs to grin at me. “Things are getting worse. The Brothers came here, to our home, where we’re supposed to be safe, and took Hope away from us. I know you’re angry about it. I’m angry, too. But we’ve got to stick together. We can’t start fighting each other, and we can’t go off on mad schemes without thinking them through and giving everyone a chance to weigh in.”
“What a pretty speech.” Sister Inez strides to the front of the room, her heels ringing out with every step. “But may I remind you, you’re not in charge here yet, Miss Cahill.”
Neither are you, I think, and my suspicion of her hardens into something colder.
“Release your spell on Miss Auclair.”
I comply, swallowing a smile, lowering my eyes so she can’t see the triumph in them. If Inez has to ask me to do it, that means the spell is too strong for her to break. “I didn’t mean to overreach. You weren’t here,” I say.
It’s as close to an apology as she’s likely to get.
Star Cursed: The Cahill Witch Chronicles, Book Two Page 18