Arcana

by Jessica Leake

  I steel my spine. “Perhaps it would be better if I never married.”

  My father nearly spits out his tea. “Katherine! What has gotten into you?”

  The warmth of a blush creeps up my neck. “I’m just not certain I will ever meet a man who will find me . . . agreeable.”

  My father shakes his head, lets out a soft chuckle. “How utterly ridiculous. You have your mother’s striking beauty and a wit and sensibility all your own. Any man who would think otherwise is the worst sort of fool and should be beneath your notice.”

  I glance out the window at the snow swirling in the breeze. Mama and I do share some similarities, with our willowy frames, large eyes, and high cheekbones. The older I get, the more I recognize her in the mirror. But it is not my appearance that concerns me. “And what if he realizes what I truly am—what I can do?” I whisper.

  He reaches over and clasps my hand in his. “It never prevented me from marrying your mother.”

  I meet his kind hazel eyes. “Perhaps you’re the only one.”

  “Nonsense. There is a man out there who is your perfect match, and I will do everything in my power to put you in the path of such a suitor.” He fumbles in his coat pocket for a moment before pulling out a folded letter. “It is for this reason I have shamelessly asked a favor of someone whose very presence at your side will draw the attention of every eligible bachelor in England.”

  My eyebrows wing up, for I cannot help but be curious. My father rarely leaves the estate save for business, and I can’t imagine who he means.

  “The Earl of Thornewood.”

  “The earl?” I repeat a bit breathlessly. My father never made mention of him before, but it is of little consequence. Having such a lofty member of the peerage in my favor would make my coming out noteworthy indeed.

  I cannot imagine anything more horrible.

  My father nods. “Your dear Grandmama believes him to be a rake, but I know better. Colin is the mirror image of his late father, who received the very same label. Utter rubbish.”

  My hands are gripped so tightly in my lap that my knuckles turn white. The late earl’s son. This would be no father-like figure to ease me into society. This would be a highly sought after London bachelor. Any other girl would be in raptures, but a cold fear grips me. An earl’s patronage will assure I will be the center of attention at every ball and party—more scrutiny and censure than I will ever be comfortable with.

  “Katherine, are you well?” my father asks, his eyes full of concern. “You look rather distraught.”

  I take a few steadying breaths and nod.

  “Shall I call for some smelling salts?”

  “No,” I say, finally finding my voice again. “That won’t be necessary. I was just surprised at such an illustrious person offering me aid.”

  My father grins. “It may be true I love the lifestyle I have now, but before your mother made an honest man of me, I ran with a different sort. Colin’s father and I were close growing up and were never far from White’s.” I draw my eyebrows together as I try to place the name. “The gambling house,” he says when he notices my confusion. “Though we were always careful not to risk too much. Robert Thornewood always said we would need money for dowries one day.”

  I nod but don’t meet his eyes. I loathe the subject of dowries almost as much I hate speaking of the marriage mart. They go hand-in-hand, and I always feel like ladies are a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder. Even in this modern age, with our electricity and railway carriages, women still have shockingly few rights. But such thoughts go against everything high society says on the subject of marriage, and I would be much happier if I could tear them from my mind.

  “When will I leave for London?” I ask.

  “Your train will leave in two days. Your brother will accompany you on his way back to Oxford.”

  “If I am to leave in so short a time, I must get my things in order.” I stand and bend at the waist to give my father a kiss on the cheek, and he pats my shoulder.

  “Katherine,” he says when I reach the door. I stop and turn back to him. “Your mother and I protected you the last time this happened, and though I no longer have her wisdom to guide me, I will keep you safe.”

  “Yes, Papa,” I murmur, already caught in the snare of my own memories.

  I leave his study in a daze, and I am powerless to stop my mind from returning me to the last time I was caught using arcana.

  TWO

  ASIDE from my siblings, I had one close friend growing up.

  Henry and I were inseparable as children. He lived in the village just down the road from Bransfield, and he came every day to fish with me in our creek or walk through the woods. The day my secret was revealed, we were both around seven years old. We went to the stables to check on the barn cat that had her litter of kittens the week before. For whatever reason, the cat foolishly decided to situate her litter in the hayloft, close to the edge. It was only a matter of time before one of the kittens fell.

  That day, we walked into the cool stables, happy to be out of the hot summer sun.

  “I’ll climb up and see how the mama is doing,” Henry said. “You wait here.”

  Before he could shimmy up the narrow ladder, one of the runts of the litter wandered too close to the edge.

  “She’ll fall!” I cried, pointing to the fluffy white kitten.

  Henry climbed faster, but he didn’t make it in time.

  The kitten fell, breaking her neck instantly upon impact. I scooped her up, tears streaming down my face. I can still remember the feel of her in my hands, her light body limp but not yet stiff.

  Henry jumped the last few rungs of the ladder and rushed over to me. “Is she dead?” he asked, his own eyes shiny with tears.

  I nodded sadly. Then I felt it, that little spark of life. It was there, but faint. I knew I had only seconds. I held my hands over her and closed my eyes. She was such a little thing, barely bigger than a mouse. The amount of energy I needed was small, but I still had to borrow it from living things around me. I had nowhere near the stores of energy I have now.

  Luckily, the stables were full of horses. I siphoned minuscule amounts of their considerable energy, filling the kitten with it.

  “What are you doing?” Henry asked, his voice wavering with fear and unshed tears.

  My hands were glowing, imparting life back into the cat. And then her chest started to rise and fall with her breaths.

  When I opened my eyes, a relieved smile on my face, Henry was looking at me with huge eyes and a pale face.

  “Henry, it’s okay,” I whispered. “She’s alive.” I held the now-squirming kitten toward him as proof. My seven-year-old self didn’t understand that Henry’s hesitancy wasn’t due to disbelief the kitten was alive but rather horror I had brought her back. He had heard the rumors about my family that had circulated around the village ever since my mother had come to Bransfield. He just hadn’t had reason to believe them—until I gave him one.

  He shook his head, coming shakily to his feet. “What did you do?” he demanded.

  “I helped her,” I said, holding the little cat close to my chest. She purred, but I could take no comfort from it.

  “She was dead,” Henry said. “I saw her.”

  “Yes, but I helped her.”

  He shook his head again. “No.”

  “Henry, please,” I said and reached for him.

  He pushed me away. “No! Stay away from me. You’re a—a witch.”

  I barely understood his words, but I understood his meaning. Henry fled from the barn like I’d taken a life instead of resurrecting one. His story of my abilities spread throughout the village not long after. None of the adults believed him, of course. But the children did. Because of my lofty social status, I could not be obviously shunned, but I could be avoided. Children averted their eyes as they curtsied or bowed when they met me in the village, treating me as though I truly was a witch to be feared and hated. No one would dare come anywh
ere near Bransfield.

  In time, the children’s memories of that terrible day faded, and I was treated with vague suspicion instead of outward disdain. My friendship with Henry, though, was destroyed for good.

  My mother comforted me over my loss of a friend, but she also told me resurrection arcana was the most dangerous form. She said I was to never attempt anything like it again.

  I stand before my open wardrobe and stare, biting my lower lip in dismay. The vast majority of it consists of skirts and blouses suitable for any number of leisurely pursuits but which fail miserably as an appropriate wardrobe for the season. Most are only appropriate for long country walks as they are certainly not the latest Parisian fashion, being rather plain with not a single bit of lace or even ornate buttons. Some of the skirts are meant to be worn with matching jackets, but I have long since ruined them—too often I visit the horses in the stables and end up so filthy, no amount of washing will repair the damage.

  The wardrobe contains several hats, but they are like my surviving shirts and skirts: too plain and practical for London. I do have one hat, a nightmare gifted to me by a distant aunt, with no less than five plumes of ostrich feathers. It was buried at the very bottom and is hopelessly crushed.

  I have two tea-gowns that I quite like, but as they have no boning in the bodices, they would be shameful presented at a dinner or ball in London. Composed of light and airy chiffon, they are dresses meant to be worn around the house only. My shoulders slump.

  The assembly at Mrs. Quinn’s tonight will be difficult enough. If it weren’t for the music, I would feign a headache. But of course I must go—if only to ease my mind that Margaret really hasn’t told anyone else. I pray only our servants know.

  I hear a soft shoe scrape the floor, and then my younger sister throws her arms around me in a tight hug.

  “Oh, Wren,” she says in her breathy voice, “I am so excited about London.”

  I give her a little squeeze back. “I’m glad you are.”

  Her hazel eyes widen. “How could you not be? This will be your coming out!”

  “Oh yes, all my dreams are finally coming true,” I deadpan.

  She laughs. “Maybe not all. But I’m sure it could be delightfully fun if you’ll let it. I can’t tell you how happy I am Papa is allowing me to accompany you.” She reaches out and touches the skirt of my tea-gown, and a stab of guilt goes through me. If this was Lucy’s debut, she would be excited and thankful. Not resentful and resistant as I am. Her smile loses some of its brilliance when she catches sight of my expression. “You truly do not wish to go?”

  I pick up a framed painting of Mama, her dark blue eyes smiling back at me. She was beautiful in a way that was not quite human. Though I share some of her physical traits, I could never emulate that otherness she possessed, that natural grace she had just from being Sylvani. “If there were a way to escape to Mama’s land and never go to London, I would do so in an instant.”

  Lucy’s eyes, the mirror images of Mama’s, widen. “You wouldn’t really, would you? We know almost nothing about it.”

  A sad smile touches my lips as I replace the painting. “It doesn’t matter if I would or wouldn’t. Mama never told us where to find the entrance to her realm.” Relief wars with regret on my sister’s face. I recognize it because it’s what I always felt when Mama spoke of her homeland. There has always been a part of me that has longed to see my mother’s homeland, if only to feel closer to her.

  Most children heard fairytales in the nursery. My siblings and I had our mother’s stories of Sylvania. Late into the night, she would enthrall us with accounts of the many ways her world differed from ours: forests with trees so old they had a language of their own, sparkling cities carved into the mountains, and what I liked to hear of most of all, immortal people who could use arcana freely.

  My mother’s soft voice flickers in my mind. “Sylvania was where all the magic from the human world escaped when humans decided they had outgrown such fantasy,” she said. “Dragons guarded caves high in the mountains, while faeries and unicorns maintained the forests. Every creature could communicate, if you only knew its language.”

  I had told her I wanted to go there, to see the dragons and unicorns for myself.

  “It wasn’t all perfect, darling,” she said. “Just as in this world, there was a struggle for power. My family was in the thick of it, and I’m only glad I was able to escape.”

  As a child, I couldn’t understand what she meant. She never elaborated, and I am still at a loss. Was she as bound by the whims of Sylvania’s society as I am by London’s?

  “Perhaps we should be thankful Mama never told us where to find the entrance,” Lucy says, as if she has shared the same memory. “She said she could never return.”

  “Perhaps,” I say to appease her. “It would take a monumental catastrophe to make me leave our family, in any case. How could I possibly survive without Rob’s teasing? Or your kindness?”

  “You wouldn’t,” Lucy says, “and neither would we. Oh, but I’m sure you will find London agreeable if you let yourself. Think of the dancing!”

  “You are the one who loves dancing, but you’re right. I should at least try to enjoy myself, though I’m sure Grandmama will keep me so busy I won’t have time for homesickness.”

  “What do you think she’ll be like?” she asks quietly.

  I hesitate. “You don’t remember her?” I think of Grandmama’s cold indifference while our mother lay dying of an illness no doctor could cure. Blessedly, Lucy’s memory of that time has always seemed foggy.

  “Only a little.”

  I reach out and smooth one of her blond curls. “She will adore you.”

  Lucy turns to me with humble doubt in her eyes. “Truly?”

  “How could you doubt it? Everyone is instantly charmed by you.” I smile because I mean it.

  “Perhaps, but I haven’t seen Grandmama since I was very small. And I know she can be . . .” I watch with amusement as my kind sister tries to find a way of politely describing our curmudgeonly grandmother. “Discerning,” she says after a moment.

  “That’s one way to describe her. I’m hoping she will be so taken with you that she will overlook how much work it will require to turn me into a proper debutante.”

  “Nonsense, you’ll be the talk of society.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” I say to myself, and she shakes her head.

  “Are you afraid she will find out about your gifts?”

  “You have them, too,” I say, almost defensively. I know they don’t mean to, but Robert and Lucy often make me feel as if I’m something else entirely.

  Lucy touches her hand to my arm. “I only meant yours are more powerful than mine and harder to keep secret.”

  I stride over to my vanity and glance at my tangled hair in the mirror. I frown back at myself. My more obvious abilities are the sole reason Grandmama barely tolerates me. I remind her too much of Mama, and Mama scared her.

  Lucy walks up behind me.

  “I’m not afraid of her finding out,” I say. “She already knows.” I meet Lucy’s eyes in the mirror. “It’s why we haven’t seen her since you were small.”

  Her face falls, and guilt twists in my stomach like a serpent. Still, she needs to know what to expect. This won’t be a tearful reunion with a beloved grandmother. It will be nothing more than business, myself the merchandise.

  “Oh, I see,” Lucy says, and I turn and give her a brief embrace.

  “She will still love you, Luce. It’s me she cannot stand.”

  The room is stuffy from the number of people in such a small space. The lit fireplace at the other end of the room isn’t helping matters, its added heat causing me to flush before I’ve even set foot on the dance floor. I glance at the wall lined with windows, the golden curtains drawn back so that we may admire the view of the gardens beyond, and wonder if anyone would stop me from opening them. Hemmed in as I am by people on all sides, I can do nothing at the
moment but stare at the lovely painting of some ancient nobleman astride a white charger. The air smells of cloying perfume and whiskey—the latter because the gentleman behind me keeps sneaking a nip from his flask.

  “Remind me why we’re here again,” Robert says. He takes a sip of his wine and peers around the room with a bored look on his face.

  “For the simple reason that Mrs. Quinn cornered me in town the other day, and I was too distracted to come up with a proper excuse.”

  “Hm. Well, as inconvenient as this is, I suppose it’s a good opportunity to make sure Margaret’s testimony hasn’t spread throughout town.”

  “Yes, I suppose we should watch for anyone who treats me as more of a pariah than usual,” I say with a bitter edge.

  Robert snorts a laugh into his wine glass. “Lord, I’d forgotten how melodramatic you could be. No one treats you as a pariah. They have a healthy fear of you, perhaps, but that’s to be expected with such a biting wit.”

  I try to glare at him but end up grinning instead. “Because I know you are only teasing, I shall refrain from feigning a headache and leaving you to fend for yourself.”

  “Robert!” a nasally voice calls, and we both turn our heads in the direction of a girl around my age, sashaying her way over in a gaudy pink dress, the corset so tight I’m surprised she can breathe at all. The crowd parts, and I hear my brother groan.

  “Robert, I thought it was you,” the girl says. She practically bounces on her toes. “No one told me you’d be here.” She shoots me an accusing look before remembering her manners and smiling instead. Her family is new to Gloucestershire, new enough not to know our family history. This would be a wonderful thing—possibly even a chance for me to have a friend again, at last—only her character is so obnoxious I can hardly stand to be civil.

  “Good evening to you, Harriet,” I say.