“The Eastern clan got who they wanted,” she said firmly. “They have no interest in the likes of me, you said so yourself.”
Charlock blinked, but from that tiny reaction Ember felt her mother’s surprise. “If you leave, you can’t come back.”
“I know.”
“Where will you go? What will you do?”
Ember trampled down the doubts that sprouted from her mother’s questions. “You have taught me well,” she said in a voice that didn’t waver. “I will find my way.”
Ember caught a glimpse of respect in her mother’s eyes, but then they hardened for one last attempt.
“I could make you stay.”
“You could.” Ember didn’t say anymore, but she knew her mother would comprehend the rest—that staying would be a kind of death, that she didn’t belong, she never did, that Raven would not protect her anymore, and the camp could no longer be her home.
Charlock stepped toward her and Ember stiffened. But Charlock pulled her close and enveloped her in a hug, holding her like she never wanted to let her go. In her mother’s arms Ember felt the love. In her kisses she felt the sorrow. Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over and Charlock was walking away. She never looked back. She never said good-bye.
Ember poured the contents of the sack onto the frozen ground. The tin and glass glinted in the moonlight. Poppy’s hands rifled through the remedies, seeking out those she needed.
“Will he live?” Ember asked.
She didn’t want to speak of Sorrel now when Poppy seemed so focused, but seeing Leo was like reliving the night’s events over again. The same shock, the hope, the dread. Poppy held up a tiny vial, trying to catch the light and read the label.
Ember leaned forward. “Capsaicin.” It was written in Sorrel’s hand and Ember’s heart contracted in her chest.
Poppy put the vial with the rest she had collected. “Are you all right?” she asked. Ember nodded, not wanting to lie out loud. “Can you stay with him all day?” Ember nodded her head again. “Your mother won’t miss you?”
Ember looked away at that, scared Poppy would see her sadness. “I can be here.”
Poppy started pouring, mixing, grinding the different ingredients. Her hands worked so swiftly, like they’d been doing this for years. Ember regarded her friend. She looked so much older and wearier, so different from the bold, rebellious girl she had met right here in this spot.
“Won’t you stay too? Do you have school?” Ember asked.
Poppy shook her head. She glanced up briefly but then looked away again, seeming to withdraw even further. “I’m not going to be living here anymore.” She announced this momentous news unemotionally, as though it held little importance.
“You’re leaving?” Ember reiterated, trying to stir the notion into her mind and make it stick.
“It’s not my choice,” Poppy replied.
Ember started to cry; she couldn’t help it. The tears fell for Sorrel, for Leo, for her mother, and mostly for Poppy. Then she pounced on an idea. How simple. How perfect.
“I could come with you. We could leave together. Just as we always wanted. Like swallows, remember?”
The mask from Poppy’s face fell, revealing a countenance full of heartache and suffering.
“Oh, Poppy,” Ember sobbed. “What has happened to us?”
From her pocket Poppy pulled out a letter. She lay it on the arm of the sofa. “Read it when I’m gone,” she said. “It explains everything.” Before Ember could object, Poppy picked up a jar and put it into Ember’s hand. “He’ll need these. Three drops, morning, noon, and night.” Then she placed a paste in Ember’s other hand. “This is for his bruises. Every hour.” She looked over to Leo, so pale and ailing. “One of us has to stay with him. You cannot leave his side.”
“It should be you,” wept Ember. “What good am I to him? I don’t know anything of herbs or healing. You have magic. You can cast a spell. You can look after him.”
Poppy closed Ember’s fingers around the remedies and kept her hands there, on top of Ember’s. Cool, they were, but Ember felt a sudden warmth in her heart.
“I will make him better. Then you will make him happy.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Through the mists of sleep Leo sensed someone was caring for him. He felt their touch on his skin, tending to his wounds, easing his pain. When he felt the shivers convulse him, a body lay next to him, sharing their warmth and stroking his hair. The voice was soft and soothing, like an echo, calling across a vast distance.
“Leo . . . Leo . . . Leo,” it pleaded. “Open your eyes . . . open your eyes,” it begged.
Leo tried but he couldn’t comply. His lids were weighted shut and all his energy was directed inward, consumed by healing. His bones were knitting together; his bruises going from black, to blue, to purple, to pink; his cuts scabbing over. Processes that took days, weeks even, were happening to him in a matter of hours. It was the medicine. Leo comprehended that. It was some kind of nectar. He tasted the sweetness on his tongue and felt it rush through his blood, magically mending him.
“Leo,” the voice came again, but nearer now. “Can you hear me?”
He felt the breath on his face and then the heat of a mouth as lips touched his in a kiss. Very slowly he opened his eyes.
“Raven was wrong,” said the voice. “About a kiss. Maybe it does have the power.”
It was an angel, guarding over him, smiling down at him so lovingly. It was Ember.
“Ember?” Leo called, his voice weak and husky.
“Yes,” she replied, her hand on his face.
“Where’s Poppy?”
By nightfall Poppy had reached the hospital. A nurse with a down-turned mouth, thick lines to either side, told her sternly it was past visiting hours and that she’d have to come back tomorrow.
“Please. I’m . . . I’m her daughter. I have to see her. Just for a few minutes,” Poppy pleaded.
The nurse pursed her lips. “Ten to noon tomorrow, or four to six p.m. It’s hospital policy.”
“I have to tell her something. It’s important.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t wait until morning.”
“But it will help her.” Poppy heard her voice rising with anger and battled to control it. “You do want to help her, don’t you? Isn’t that your job?”
“Do I have to call security?”
The nurse’s hand reached for the phone but Poppy grabbed it. Eyes wide with alarm, the nurse tried to snatch it back, but Poppy clung on a second or two longer before she let it go.
“You want a real reason to be miserable? You have a tumor in your colon. Go home and be happy for the rest of the days you have left.”
The nurse’s mouth dropped open and Poppy strode past her, across the foyer, and into the elevator. As the doors shut, Poppy saw the woman sit down, her face white with shock. Poppy knew what she should be feeling—for herself, shame; for the nurse, pity—but she felt neither.
On the third floor a doctor spotted Poppy and called out to her, “You . . . miss, you can’t be here.”
Poppy whispered a spell underneath her breath, then walked right up to the doctor and looked him in the eye. Without blinking once, she gave him her commands. “You will go downstairs and see the nurse at the front desk. She needs a doctor.” The man nodded. “Now.”
Like an obedient dog, he turned and left.
Poppy walked along the corridor, looking for her mother’s room. Inside was a man cleaning the floor with a mop. The bed was empty. The man saw her in the doorway and smiled. With that single, welcoming gesture, the grimness Poppy felt lifted a little.
“You looking for Mrs. Hooper?” he asked. “She’s in the TV room.”
“Thank you,” Poppy said. “Thank you for looking after her.”
“She’s a nice lady. She your mom?” Poppy nodded. “Lovely lady.”
Poppy nearly cried at that. She’d never thought of Melanie as lovely, but perhaps she was when she
wasn’t being reminded of her daughter.
“She won’t want to miss her show, though,” continued the cleaner.
Poppy tried to smile back at the man but her bottom lip was quivering too much. “I’ll wait,” she said.
Later Poppy hid in the bathroom while an orderly tucked Melanie into bed. It felt demeaning to be standing there, fully dressed, inside the shower, when she had something so important and life changing to say. She hadn’t the heart to use her magic anymore, though, so she waited until her mother was alone and then she entered. Melanie looked up and saw her but didn’t seem to trust her eyes. She squinted at Poppy as if trying to figure out if she were real.
“Poppy?” Melanie shut her eyes, then opened them and looked again.
“It’s me,” Poppy reassured.
“Is it really you?” Melanie asked.
Poppy came and sat down on the bed and took Melanie’s hand. It lay limply in hers like it was anesthetized. “It’s really me.”
“Where’s your friend?”
Poppy felt her ribs tightening against her chest. With everything she knew and everything she was about to say, the rejection still had the power to wound her.
“That’s why I’ve come. I wanted . . .” Poppy faltered as Melanie sat up and leaned forward, her eyes shining brighter and, as they did so, becoming just like Ember’s. Poppy swallowed and then tried again. “I wanted to tell you that you were right. You’ve always been right. About me. And about her.”
Melanie sat back against her pillows. There was no sense of vindication or triumph. Instead, a tranquil look came over her face, as though she had found peace at last.
“You’re not my baby,” she said calmly.
“No, I’m not.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m a witch.” Melanie just nodded, as though it didn’t sound utterly crazy, as though it wasn’t impossible to believe, as though it was simply fact. “I was switched for your baby.”
“Oh,” said Melanie. “Your poor mother.”
And for the first time Poppy really loved her. She squeezed Melanie’s hand, wanting to say so much but finding herself too moved by this plain, quiet acceptance of all that had happened. The hand that had laid so lifeless in hers squeezed back.
“My friend, Ember, is your daughter, like you said. So you must get yourself well now and say good-bye to this place.” Poppy recognized the fear in Melanie’s face. “It’s hard to start again. But Ember, she needs you.”
An idea struck Poppy and she reached into her bag and pulled out Ember’s clock. In her mind’s eye she saw Ember running after her, clambering up the slope of the dell, out of breath by the time she reached the top, thrusting the clock toward her, insisting that she have it, that she loved her. It was Ember’s most treasured possession and it had felt wrong to take it. But now Poppy knew what she was meant to do with it. She put it down on the bedside table so it faced Melanie. “She sent this for you.”
Melanie stared at it, then slowly her fingers stretched out to touch it, ever so softly as if the clock and all it meant was so fragile it might crack under the slightest pressure. “It’s so lovely,” Melanie whispered. “Just like her.”
Poppy smiled. Melanie was right. The clock was as pretty and delicate as Ember herself.
“Nine minutes past nine,” Poppy stated. “Time to start again.”
Ember had read Poppy’s letter and then folded it up and put it in the pocket of her long skirt. She felt a momentous loss, like someone had died. It wasn’t someone, though—it was her childhood she was grieving for. She hadn’t liked it much, but it had been hers. And now that she knew it was based on lies, she was no longer sure what was true anymore or even who she was. The timidity, the softness, the lack of confidence and sense of failure—was that her or who the coven made her?
Who would she have been without the spell? Ember tried to see herself as a regular chaff girl, at home, at school, in town, with family, with friends, but it seemed like make-believe. Ember’s past was still real, but all the memories she had stored away, high up on the dusty shelves of her mind, would have to be brought down, cleaned off and pulled apart. She felt exhausted by the very prospect of it.
Dusk was falling. Details were diminishing and shapes beginning to dim. Into the dark with them went Ember’s ideas, of home and of herself. She looked at Leo, who was sitting up now and watching her silently.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what she wrote?” Ember asked.
He shook his head. “Night is coming. We need to find shelter.” Leo tried to stand and Ember helped him up. “Thank you,” he said. “I owe you. Everything.”
Ember thought of telling him about Poppy. How she had been the one to find him, to call her, to heal him. But then she felt her mind tighten and close as she stopped herself. It was just her and Leo now. Poppy was gone.
They walked toward the town, and as they entered the streets, Ember saw it all differently. Not as an outsider but as someone who belonged there, in the lights, the dirt, the noise, the scale of it.
“I want to go to Paris,” she suddenly announced with a certainty that surprised her. “I want to see the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame and visit the Louvre and buy some clothes.” She held up her dirty skirt with disdain and glimpsed her muddy boots. “And shoes. And drink coffee. And get my hair cut short.”
“No,” Leo said suddenly, with a force that made Ember suspect he was thinking of Poppy and her short hair. Maybe she was being too sensitive, though, as then he mumbled, “Not the hair. It suits you like that,” and she felt a little better. “How do you know about Paris anyway?” he asked, turning the conversation onto safer ground.
Ember’s mind flashed to Poppy and how they had traded their books. She remembered lying on the ground, reading about all those other places in the world she thought she’d never see and looking at pictures of all those women she’d never be. And then her thoughts flicked unexpectedly to the image of her real mother, that ghostly lady lying so helpless in that bed, and Ember wondered if she had ever been to Paris and if she’d ever go anywhere else again.
Leo took Ember down a narrow street with homes stuck next to one another like one long house with many front doors. As they passed, Ember snatched glimpses of the lives within. She tried to picture herself like that, sitting and watching television, eating food out of a fridge, washing her clothes in a machine with a little round window. She could even have a car, a red one maybe, that she could park outside.
“Have you ever lived in one of these?” she asked Leo.
“I was in an apartment,” he replied, and when she looked confused he added, “Like half of one of these.”
“But better than a caravan?” she asked.
Leo shrugged. “Depends.”
“You didn’t like it?” she said, unable to fathom how that could be.
“Well, it wasn’t Paris,” Leo added, and for the first time since he had awoken his mouth turned up into the slightest and smallest of smiles.
At the end of the street they reached Mr. Bryce’s workshop. Leo banged on the large doors and eventually an old, bespectacled man opened one of them just enough to peer out. He didn’t seem at all happy to see them. Leo ignored the scowl and introduced Ember. Mr. Bryce’s unblinking eyes were round like an owl’s through his glasses as he scrutinized her. Ember stood straight and still, wishing that she was cleaner and that her hair was washed.
“A newbie?” growled Mr. Bryce, and Leo nodded.
“First night. And it’s a cold one. I think it’ll snow.”
“I’m not even going to ask what happened to you,” grumbled Mr. Bryce, but then he pulled open the door with a creak and muttered that they could stay but one night only and not to come asking again.
Inside, the room was piled high with furniture and ornaments. It reminded Ember of the dell, only you could tell this stuff meant something to someone. Giant mirrors with frames of gold and silver leaned against the walls. Before them sat furniture with velvet
seats and tassels and feet like animal claws. On the shelves danced china women in big skirts, and next to them posed painted creatures of all descriptions. It all seemed so fanciful and frivolous, so far from the coven, where nothing was just for show and everything had a use.
Mr. Bryce brought in some tea and pieces of bread and butter. The tea was very sweet but Ember gulped it down, relishing the warmth. The butter wasn’t half as good as her own. After, he showed her where the bathroom was and Ember looked around the tiny room with wonder. She turned the taps and watched the water pour and gurgle down the spout. Then she twisted the knob for the shower and marveled at the miniature waterfall that rained down. She pushed the running soap out of its container. She flushed the toilet and jumped back at the sound. And then she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Disheveled and dirty, she looked like something that belonged in the dell, not Bryce’s Restoration. Staring at her reflection, Ember thought of the river that was both her looking glass and her bath and remembered how she used to dream of letting it wash her away to a better future. And here she stood; her future now become her present.
She went back into the workshop with a new sense of purpose.
“What is this place?” she asked Leo, running her fingers over a table that gleamed. Ember had never thought wood could look like that.
“Mr. Bryce fixes things up. Makes old things new,” he replied, and the idea of that felt pleasing to Ember, like she had come to the right place. “He mended that clock of yours for me,” Leo remembered, and Ember thought of Poppy and missed her. Again she felt like speaking of Poppy and again she stopped herself, clenching her jaw shut, proud of her resolve.
They found another sofa to sleep on, this one deep and velvety soft. Ember shifted over as far as she could to leave room for Leo. He hesitated, though, and Ember saw that he looked nervous.
“You have to lie down,” she told him practically.
Leo shuffled awkwardly from one foot to the other. “I can sleep on the floor. I’m used to it.”
“Don’t be a silly goose,” she laughed, sensing what was needed to persuade him. “I laid next to you in the dell.”
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