Caireann rubbed her chin and stared at a point above Emily’s head, thinking.
“Marcom’s a damn fool, and so are yeh, come to that. He’s gotten himself in trouble now, and likely yeh as well.” She sighed. “As curious as a cat and too bleedin’ soft-hearted for his own good.”
“Why? We weren’t hurting anything. You never said we couldn’t go out in the gardens before dawn.”
“No…that’s true…” Caireann still seemed to be thinking hard.
“Look,” she said at last. “I’ll try to get to Marcom so yer stories match. Yeh saw him practicing and yeh went out to see what he was doin’. Yeh can leave out the bit about him inviting yeh for a bloody tournament in the middle of the night.”
“Leave it out of what?”
Caireann sighed again and looked down at Emily. “The mistress saw yeh out there this mornin’. She wants to see yeh…now.”
Emily stared. “But…the two weeks…”
“She wants to see yeh now. Go upstairs, get yerself bathed and presentable, then come find me in my study. Yeh remember how to find it?”
Emily nodded.
“Good. Off with yeh then.” Caireann walked briskly away, and, after one last look at her retreating back, Emily turned and began to climb the stairs.
* * *
She gazed down into the basin, trying to ignore the apprehension that was clawing at her insides. Her reflection stared back, warped by the dented copper and the murky water. Her eyes were wide and worried, her damp hair clung to the sides of her face, and the freckles across her nose and cheekbones stood out in stark relief against the suds and her pale skin. All those hours out in the garden, and all she had was a sunburnt neck.
She’d grown used to the smell of sulphur in the water, learning to ignore it by concentrating on the acidic scent of the coarse soap they’d been given. She missed her bathroom at home; it was one of the only things she missed from Danvers Avenue. Long, hot showers had been an escape from her parents’ insanity. How she wished for one now.
She set the soap down and closed her eyes, scooping up handfuls of water and beginning to rinse away the gritty lather.
What was going to happen to her? If Marianne sent her away, where would she go? The thought of leaving Celine behind filled her with a deep dismay. It wasn’t just that she’d been depending on her new friend to help steer her through this crazy, confusing world. She liked Celine. She felt protective of her. They needed each other. The other girls, particularly Josephine’s wiry friend whose name Emily still did not know, had been looking for a reason to bully the smaller girl for days. Emily thought that perhaps, after this morning, they might think twice about doing so, but only if Emily was still around.
Damn. What a mess.
She opened her eyes. Soap suds swirled in the water, almost obliterating her reflection. Staring into them was like peering through dense, gray fog. Her face flickered, there one minute, then gone the next. Sunlight from the window reflected on the tiny bubbles, making them dance before her eyes.
Emily blinked. For a moment, she’d very distinctly seen a pair of horns spiraling outward from amidst the strands of dark hair at her temples, just like the boy she’d seen in the market.
Startled, she reached up and clasped the sides of her head in her hands, panicked thoughts of contagious diseases and radiation-induced mutations filling her mind.
Nothing.
Great, she thought, on top of everything else, I’m seeing things. Or maybe I’ve just watched too many X-Files reruns.
With a grimace, she pulled the stopper from the basin and reached for her towel.
Whatever lay ahead, it was time she braced herself and faced it. There was no arguing with a ref. She’d pressed her luck, however unwittingly, and now she’d just have to serve her time in the box.
* * *
She found Caireann pacing nervously in front of one of the bookcases when she came into the study. As soon as she saw her, Caireann threw herself down on the divan and motioned Emily to join her. Emily had never seen her so drawn and agitated. She made her way to the divan and sat down, the unease that had been gnawing at her stomach blooming into fear.
“We haven’t much time,” Caireann said, meeting her gaze steadily. “I’m gonna ask yeh again. If yeh trust me, tell me…where are yeh from, Emily?”
Emily stared into Caireann’s gold-brown eyes. She could detect no duplicity there. On the contrary, she saw only a deep and honest concern, and a desperate urgency that she did not understand.
A memory floated up to the surface of her mind then, and suddenly she saw another pair of eyes. They were green instead of brown, but still filled with that same deep concern and desperate intensity. They’d belonged to her mother, rushing toward her as she’d been helped off the ice during the first tournament she’d ever played in. She’d fallen and slid face first into the boards behind the Tigers’ net. She’d blacked out, but only for a few seconds, and then Casey had been there, helping her onto her skates and guiding her back to the bench. Her mother had been terrified, and she’d looked at her with the same look that now met her gaze from Caireann’s pale and gentle face.
And Emily found, with some relief, that she did trust her.
“I’m from…” Emily hesitated, realizing how crazy it would sound, but not knowing any other way to put it. “I’m from…a long time ago.”
Caireann betrayed no surprise. No look of incredulity filled her face. She only looked sad, and perhaps a little relieved.
“A’right,” she said. “I thought that might be it, but now it’s said, there’s nothin’ to do but to be gettin’ on with it. Listen to me, Emily, very carefully. Yeh mustn’t tell her where…or I suppose when…yeh’re from. Yeh can tell her the rest. I don’t think it matters much one way or another, but you mustn’t tell her that. Do yeh understand me?”
Emily nodded, trying to make sense of it all. If Caireann worked for Marianne, why would she be telling her to deceive her?
“Tell her,” Caireann continued, speaking more rapidly, “that yeh don’t know how yeh got on that boat. That’s more or less the truth, isn’t it? Tell her, maybe, that yeh hit yer head. Maybe yeh did. But be careful. Don’t stretch the truth too far. She’ll know if yeh do. She may not know things the way we do, but sometimes she can sense them just the same. Tread lightly.”
Caireann got to her feet. “Come on. She’ll be wonderin’ what’s taken so long if yer not there right quick.”
She led Emily through the tower and out into the garden. The other girls were already hard at work, but they glanced up as Emily and Caireann passed them.
Emily spotted Celine working with her vines, and tried to offer her a reassuring smile. It must’ve only looked grotesque, though, because Celine’s look of consternation only deepened, and Emily let it fall from her lips.
They crossed the garden, making their way toward Seven Skies’ tallest tower. Once the others saw where they were heading, all chatter ceased, and the only sound in the whole of the courtyard was the murmuring of the water in the fountain. Once again, Emily could feel the weight of the other girls’ gazes on her.
They reached the base of the tower, and Caireann led her up a dozen steps to another set of those huge double doors. These, too, had a copper plate where they joined, etched with the symbol of the intertwined clover and rose.
Caireann pressed her palm to the plate and the doors slid smoothly aside, revealing a dark passage beyond.
“Yeh’re on yer own from here,” she said. “Remember what I told yeh.” She turned away and started down the stairs.
“Wait!” Emily called after her. “How will I know where to…”
But Caireann was shaking her head without looking back as she hurried across the garden.
With her heart thudding in her chest, Emily turned to face the open doors. She steeled herself and, with a deep breath, stepped into the cool darkness beyond.
The doors slid shut behind her with a mechanical whir, and
she blinked in the sudden gloom. A candle bobbed toward her, as they so often seemed to do in this place. It stopped before her and dipped as though the bearer had bowed. Emily’s skin broke out in gooseflesh. It was one thing to confront the idea of ghosts with a friend at your side, and quite another to do so alone in the dark.
“Okay,” she said, her voice sounding too loud and strained in her own ears. The candle began moving down the corridor. She followed.
The passage wound around in a circle. Doors and stairwells led both up and down at intervals along its length. Everywhere, lush greenery thrived. Trees seemed to burst right from the hard stone floor, their trunks coated with abundant green moss, and their limbs heavy with shiny red apples that gleamed in the candlelight. Vines crawled across the walls and ceiling, clinging to the gaps between the stones with leafy tendrils. Flowers bloomed everywhere, and the air was thick with the fragrance of lavender, jasmine, and roses. Patches of clover caressed her ankles as she pushed her way through the dense brush after the tiny flame that led her deeper into the tower.
She wondered how all this grew, shut away in here from the fresh air and the light. It was insane, and yet there could be no doubt that it was real.
A low creaking disturbed the stillness, and she glanced up to see a twisted and gnarled tree limb twitch as she passed. It looked like a bony hand that yearned to snatch at her hair and clothes. With a shudder, she hurried on.
From between the branches, she caught glimpses of painted portraits hanging on the walls. Each depicted people in what Emily thought of as medieval garb—men in suits of gleaming armor, women in colorful silk finery. Behind them all was a backdrop of a wild forest filled with apple trees that almost seamlessly blended with the real foliage around her. The effect created a queer sort of conflict in her mind. She could sense the cold stone walls around her, but it also seemed that she was deep in a lush forest that was almost a jungle. A wave of dizziness washed over her, and she shook her head, trying to clear her mind.
The candle led her to the foot of a great granite staircase that spiraled upward toward the top of the tower. It waited for her to catch up, then slowly began to rise.
Here, too, branches jutted from the walls, the boughs thick with green leaves and ripe fruit that glistened in the candlelight and blossoms that smelled of apples and honeysuckle. Every few feet Emily was forced to duck beneath limbs that blocked the narrow stairwell. Pine needles crunched beneath her feet, and white rose petals drifted down lazily from somewhere far above. They caught in her hair like soft, dry snowflakes.
The coolness of the air and the rich scents that wafted from everything should have been pleasant, but their relentless profusion made the air seem thick and cloying. The sounds of her movements were swallowed up by the lush vegetation around her.
…If a tree falls in the forest… she thought disjointedly, and a frightened laugh escaped her. She shook her head, trying again to clear it and get a grip on herself, but every breath was filled with the sickly sweet perfumes of a thousand flowers that made her thinking sluggish and dull.
At last, the candle stopped at a huge oak door, and Emily paused a few steps from the top, suddenly finding that she was too afraid to go on. She’d seen no one anywhere. The tower’s sole inhabitants had been the greenery and the occupants of the portraits in the corridors far below. The silence weighed on her like a shroud. Her heart pounded in her ears, the only sound in all the world.
The oak door swung slowly open, and a dazzling golden light spilled from the room, wholly obliterating the meager flame of the candle that had led her here. All around her, the plants seemed to come to life with the groan of wood and the rustle of leaves. They reached up toward the light with their crooked limbs, or turned their faces to catch its warmth upon their petals.
“Come, child,” a musical voice called from somewhere beyond the doorway above. “Come into the light.”
Like someone in a dream, Emily felt as though she simply floated up the last few steps. The light seemed blinding after the gloom of the rest of the tower. It grew nearer, filling her world with its glare. She could see nothing beyond it, and she thought of the reflection of the fluorescents on the ice in her dream. This felt like a dream, too.
As she passed through the door, her head swam, and the world seemed to go out of focus, the way it had when she’d tried on Casey’s glasses when they were little.
Dizziness overwhelmed her, and she dropped to her knees onto a lush rug. She swayed and fell forward, only just catching herself on the palms of her hands. She shook her head again, staring at the patterns of ivy and holly branches that were worked into the weave of the rug beneath her.
Such a beautiful rug, she thought dreamily. It belongs in a museum.
When the world had settled a little, she slowly raised her head and looked around.
She was in a perfectly ordinary room. An enormous window faced eastward, and dazzling sunshine illuminated every corner. Thick velvet curtains of a deep forest green were pulled back and tied on either side with a gold cord, and a bouquet of fresh, white roses was arranged upon the sill.
The room was so large that the huge fourposter bed that rested at its center seemed too small for the space around it. Lavish sheets of green silk were embroidered with a pattern of golden leaves, and a mound of luxuriant pillows was piled high near the headboard.
All this wealth, Emily thought, and a garden outside…and all we get to eat is porridge. A thread of resentment stole into her heart, but was swallowed up and swept away again by the sweet unreality in her head. If this was a high, no wonder her mother had become addicted to them. It was so…so…nice…
Beside the window sat a woman in an oak rocking chair. The light spilled over her like honey, giving her a kind of golden aura. Light glinted in her blonde hair, as if it were spun from gold, and she was dressed in a pale-green, gossamer gown that was all but transparent. It made Emily think of the wings of dragonflies. She could have been any age between twenty and sixty, it was impossible to tell. Her face was unlined, but seemed to project a maturity that only older women possess.
She watched Emily impassively for a time and hardly seemed to be breathing. If not for her eyes, which gleamed with a fierce intensity, Emily might have thought her a particularly intricate, and particularly beautiful, statue.
“Come to me, child,” the woman said, and she raised one narrow arm to beckon her closer.
Emily felt herself rise to her feet, as though it were happening to someone else. She crossed the room to stand before the woman, who motioned that she should sit on the floor at her feet, and Emily did so without question. Everything around her seemed thin and unreal. She thought distantly that she could tear a hole in the world by simply reaching out and pulling it apart with her bare hands.
“What is your name, child?” the woman asked. Her voice still rang like music, and as her breath stirred the air, the faint scent of jasmine seemed to emanate from her.
“Emily,” she murmured dreamily.
“Speak up, dear. We can’t carry on a conversation if you don’t speak clearly.”
“Emily,” she repeated a bit louder, blinking and trying to bring the woman into focus. “My name is Emily.”
“How old are you, Emily?”
“Sixteen.”
The woman rocked gently in her chair, continuing to examine her intently.
“Sixteen,” she echoed thoughtfully. “Older than some, but not too old.” She leaned forward toward Emily, resting her elbows on her knees.
“I saw you fencing with Marcom this morning. Tell me, Emily, how did you learn to wield a weapon like that?”
“I don’t know,” Emily responded truthfully, and it was like some door buried deep inside her mind swung slowly open.
Be careful, Emily, a voice spoke to her from beyond that door. Whose voice was that? Caireann’s? Celine’s? Her mother’s? No, she thought it was a man’s voice…
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
> “I don’t know where I learned it.”
The woman studied her for another long moment. Emily stared into eyes that were such a dark blue they were nearly black. She could get lost in those eyes…
“Very well. Where are you from? Where were you living before you came to Seven Skies?”
An image of the rink where she’d last played hockey filled her head in breathtaking detail. For a moment, she forgot where she was, as an ache of loss and longing filled her. She saw the lights reflected on the glass; she saw the clumps of snow conjured up across the ice by their skates.
“Ice…” she muttered, but she stopped, listening.
This time there was no mistaking the voice that drifted through the doorway in Emily’s head. Yeh mustn’t tell her where…or I guess when…yeh’re from, Caireann had said. And then, …don’t stretch the truth too far…she doesn’t know things…but she can sense things…
“Where are you from, Emily?”
Feeling like she was trying to speak underwater, Emily said, “I…don’t…remember…”
“You don’t remember?”
“I think I hit…hit my head or something.”
The woman frowned. It was like watching the Mona Lisa suddenly come to life and scowl at you from her frame. Another door creaked open in Emily’s mind, and the world lost some of its unreality. Her heart began to race faster.
“Do you know who I am, child?” the woman asked. Her voice was soft and had not lost its musical quality, but there was an edge of menace in it now—only the faintest note, like a single discordant string in an orchestra of properly tuned instruments.
“You are Marianne,” Emily said, and when the woman only continued to stare at her, she added, “The sorceress.”
The majestic figure leaned back, and the last of the cobwebs seemed to fall away from Emily’s mind. The woman before her now seemed only tired. She reached up and ran a hand through her thick, long hair, and Emily caught a glimpse of a clover amidst the locks.
“That is one name,” she said with a sigh. “I have had so many of them, each more wearisome than the last.” Suddenly, it seemed to Emily that the woman had aged all at once. A fine network of lines etched outward from the corners of her eyes, and there were streaks of gray in her hair, though it was hard to be sure in the bright sunlight.
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