A Great and Terrible Beauty

by Libba Bray

  Kartik’s tongue slips between my lips for a second, jarring me. I push away, gasping, my face gone bloodred. I can’t look at anyone, especially not Felicity and Ann. What must they think of me now? What would they think if they knew how much I’d enjoyed it? What kind of girl am I to enjoy a kiss I’ve seized so boldly, without waiting to have it asked for and taken from me, the way I should?

  A burly man in back booms out laughing. “I see she is yours after all!”

  “Yes,” Kartik croaks. “I’ll take them to Mother Elena to have their fortunes told. Get back to drinking. It’s their money we need, not their trouble.”

  Kartik escorts us to Mother Elena’s tent. Along the way, Felicity glances back, taking in the sight of Kartik beside me. Her eyes dart from me to him and back again. I make my face a stone, and finally, she turns away. Kartik opens the flap for Felicity and Ann but pulls me sharply aside. “Just what do you think you’re doing here?”

  “Having my fortune told,” I say. It’s a stupid thing to say but my lips are still warm from his kiss and I’m too embarrassed to come up with something clever. “I apologize for my conduct,” I barely manage to say. “It was necessary under the circumstances. I hope you won’t think me too forward.”

  He grabs an acorn from the ground, tosses it into the air and whacks at it with the cricket bat. The bat is so old and split it’s largely ineffectual. His mouth is set in a tight line. “I’ll never hear the end of it from them later.”

  The tingling in my stomach goes cold. “Sorry to have put you out on my behalf,” I say. He says nothing, and I’m so humiliated I wish I could disappear on the spot.

  “Where’s the other one of your little foursome? Hiding in the woods?”

  It takes me a second to realize he means Pippa. I remember the way he looked at her in the woods. He obviously hasn’t stopped thinking of her. It’s the first real kindness he’s shown, and it’s surprising how much it stings.

  “She’s ill,” I say, irritably.

  “Nothing serious, I hope.”

  I don’t know why I feel so wounded by Kartik’s obvious infatuation with Pippa. There’s no romance between us. There’s nothing that tethers us but this dark secret neither of us wants. It’s not Kartik’s longing that hurts. It’s my own. It’s knowing that I’ll never have what she has—a beauty so powerful it brings things to you. I fear I will always have to chase the things I want. I’ll always have to wonder whether I’m truly wanted or whether I’ve just been settled for.

  “Nothing serious,” I say, swallowing hard. “May I go in now?” I move to lift the flap but his hand grips my wrist.

  “Do not do this again,” he warns, pushing me inside the tent while he walks off toward the forest to become the night’s eyes, always watching me.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “THERE YOU ARE,” FELICITY CALLS TO ME FROM A SMALL table where she and Ann are sitting with the old Gypsy. “Mother Elena was just telling us the most interesting story about Ann becoming a great beauty.”

  “She told me I’m going to have many admirers,” Ann interrupts, excited.

  Mother Elena crooks a finger. “Come closer, child. Mother Elena will tell you your fortune.”

  I make my way through a tent strewn with piles of books, colorful scarves, and bottles of herbs and tinctures of all kinds. A lantern hangs from a hook behind the old woman. The light is harsh and I can see how creased and brown her face is. Her ears are pierced, and she wears rings on every finger. She offers me a small basket with a few shillings in the bottom.

  Felicity clears her throat, whispers. “Give her a few pence.”

  “But then I’ll have nothing till my family’s visit on Assembly Day,” I whisper back.

  “Give. Her. The pence,” she says through smiling teeth.

  With a heavy sigh, I drop my last few coppers into the basket. Mother Elena shakes it. Satisfied with their jingling sound, she empties the basket into her coin purse.

  “Now, what will it be? The cards? The palm?”

  “Mother Elena, I think our friend would be very interested in the story you were telling us—about the two girls from Spence?”

  “Yes, yes, yes. But not with Carolina in the room. Carolina, fetch some water now.” There’s no one else in the room. I’m starting to feel uneasy. Mother Elena’s hands pat her cards. She tilts her head as if she’s listening to something she has forgotten—a bit of song or a voice from the past. And when she looks up at me, it’s as if we’re old friends reunited.

  “Ah, Mary, what a nice surpise. What is it Mother Elena can do for you today? I’ve got lovely honey cakes, sweet as can be. Come now.”

  Her hands place imaginary cakes on an imaginary tray. We all exchange curious looks. Is it an act, or is the poor old thing really as mad as a hatter? She offers the pretend tray to me.

  “Mary, dear, don’t be shy. Have a sweet. You’re wearing your hair differently. It suits you.”

  Felicity nods, urges me to play along.

  “Thank you, Mother.”

  “Now, where is our lively Sarah today?”

  “Our Sarah?” I falter.

  Felicity jumps in. “She’s off practicing the magic you taught her.”

  Mother frowns. “That I taught? Mother doesn’t dabble in such things. Only the herbs and the charms for love and protection. You mean them.”

  “Them?” I repeat.

  Mother whispers. “The women who come to the woods. Teaching you their craft. The Order. No good can come of it, Mary, you mark my words.”

  We’re building a house of cards. One wrong question can send the whole tower tumbling before we reach the top.

  “How do you know what sorts of things they teach us?” I ask.

  The old woman taps the side of her head with a gnarled finger. “Mother knows. Mother sees. They see the future and the past. They shape it.” She leans toward me. “They see the spirit world.”

  The whole room spins out of focus and comes back. Though the night is cold, sweat trickles down my neck, dampening my collar. “Do you mean the realms?”

  Mother nods.

  “Can you enter the realms, then, Mother?” I ask. The question reverberates in my ears. My mouth is dry.

  “Oh, no. Only glimpse it. But you and Sarah have gone, Mary. My Carolina has told me you brought her sweet heather and myrtle from that garden.” Mother’s smile fades. “But there are other places. The Winterlands. Oh, Mary, I’m afraid of what lives there . . . afraid for Sarah and you . . .”

  “Yes, what about Sarah . . . ,” Felicity says.

  Mother frowns again. “Sarah is a hungry one. She wants more than knowledge. She wants power, that one. We must keep her from the wrong path, Mary. Keep her from the Winterlands and the dark things that live there. I fear she will call them, bind one to her. And it will corrupt her mind.”

  She pats my hand. Her skin is dry and cracked against my knuckles. I feel I might faint. It’s a struggle to get the next part out.

  “What . . . dark things?”

  “Wounded spirits of such rage and hate. They want to come back to this world. They will find your weakness and exploit it.”

  Felicity doesn’t believe a word of this part. Behind Mother’s back, she makes an ogre face. But I’ve seen the dark move and shriek.

  “How could she call such a thing to her?” Despite the chill, I’m sweating and woozy.

  “A sacrifice is what it wants, and then the power is hers,” Mother whispers. “But she’ll be forever bound to the dark.”

  “What sort of sacrifice?” I barely croak. Mother Elena’s eyes glaze over. She’s fighting something in her memory. I say it again, stronger. “What sort of sacrifice?”

  “Don’t get so carried away . . . Mary,” Ann says quietly through gritted teeth.

  Mother’s faraway look has evaporated. She regards me with suspicion. “Who are you?”

  Felicity tries to get her back. “It’s your Mary, Mother Elena. Don’t you remember?”


  Mother whimpers, a frightened animal. “Where is Carolina with the water? Carolina, don’t be naughty. Come to me.”

  “Mary can take you to her.” Felicity jumps in.

  “Stop it!” I shout.

  “Mary, is it you come back to me after all this time?” Mother cups my face in her weathered hands.

  “I’m Gemma,” I say with difficulty. “Gemma, not Mary. I’m sorry, Mother.”

  Mother Elena withdraws her hands. Her scarf falls open, revealing the shine of the crescent eye around her weathered neck. She backs away. “You. You brought it on us.”

  The dogs bark at the rise in her voice.

  “I think we had best leave,” Ann warns.

  “You destroyed us. Lost it all . . .”

  Felicity tosses another shilling onto the table. “Thank you, Mother. You’ve been most helpful. The honey cakes were delicious.”

  “It was you!”

  I cover my ears with my hands to hide the sound. The woods echo with it, the howl of a mother animal mourning its young, a tiny creature lost to a predator in the great cycle of things. It’s the sound more than anything else that sets me to running, past the Gypsy men, who are too drunk to come after us now, past the protesting Felicity and Ann I’m leaving behind. I’m deep into the woods when I stop. I cannot catch my breath and feel as if I will faint. The damned corset. With cold fingers I pull hard at the laces but can’t undo them. In the end I’m on my knees sobbing with frustration. I feel his gaze before I actually see him. But there he is, watching—doing nothing but watching.

  “Leave me alone!” I shout.

  “Well, that’s a fine way to treat us,” Felicity says, huffing into view. Ann is just behind her, breathing heavily, too. “What the devil got into you back there?”

  “I—I just got spooked,” I say, trying to catch my own breath. Kartik is still there. I can feel him.

  “Mother Elena may be mad, but she’s harmless. Or perhaps she’s not mad at all. Perhaps if you hadn’t run off, her little performance would have ended and we could have had our fortunes told instead of wasting five pence for nothing.”

  “I’m s-sorry,” I stammer. There’s no one behind the tree anymore. He’s gone.

  “What an evening,” Felicity mutters as she walks ahead, leaving me on my knees under the watchful eyes of the owls.

  In the dream, I’m running, my feet sinking into the cold, muddy earth with each step. When I stop, I’m at the mouth of Kartik’s tent. He’s asleep, blankets thrown back, bare chest exposed like a Roman sculpture. A line of dark hair snakes over a taut stomach. It disappears into the waistband of his trousers, into a world I do not know.

  His face. His cheeks-nose-lips-eyes. Under the lids, his eyes move back and forth rapidly. Thick lashes rest against the tops of his cheekbones. The nose is strong and straight. It slopes down to a perfect point at the top of his mouth, which is open just slightly to let his breath in and out.

  I want to taste that mouth again. Wanting brings me down in a whoosh, feet planted, breathing shallow, head light. There’s only the wanting. Bring my lips to his and it’s like melting. Those black eyes flutter open, see me. The sculpture comes alive. Every muscle in his arms flexing as he pushes himself up, pulls me under, slides on top. The weight of him forces the air from my lungs like a bellows, but still it comes out as the lightest of sighs. And there’s his mouth again on mine, a heat, a pressure, a promise of things to come, a promise I’m rising up to meet.

  His fingertips are a whisper on my skin. A thumb inches toward my breast, traces circles over and around. Move my mouth to the salty skin of his neck. Feel my thighs moved apart by a knee. Something inside me falls away. It’s as if I’ve stopped breathing for a moment. I’m hollowed out. Searching.

  The warm fingers trail down, hesitate, then brush past a part of me I don’t understand yet, a place I haven’t let myself explore.

  “Wait . . . ,” I whisper.

  He doesn’t hear or won’t listen. The fingers, strong and sure and not entirely unwanted, are back, the whole of his palm cupped against me. I want to run. I want to stay. I want both things at once. His mouth finds mine. I’m pinned to the earth by his choice. I could just float here, lose myself inside him and come out reborn as someone else. The thumb on my breast rubs my skin into a delicious rawness, as if I’ve never truly walked in my skin before. My whole body strains up to meet the pressure of him. His choice could be mine. He could swallow me up, if I just let go. Let go. Let go. Let go.

  No.

  My hands slide up against the slick skin of his chest and push him back. He falls away. His weight gone feels like a limb missing and the need to pull him back is nearly overpowering. There’s a fine glisten of sweat on his brow as he blinks in his sleep-state, confused and groggy. He’s asleep again, just as I found him. A dark angel just out of reach.

  It’s a dream, only a dream. That’s what I tell myself when I wake up, gasping, in my own bed in my own room with Ann snoring contentedly a few feet away.

  It’s only a dream.

  But it felt so real. I put my fingers to my lips. They’re not swollen with kissing. I’m still whole. Pure. A useful commodity. Kartik is miles away, lost in sleep that does not involve me. That part of me I haven’t explored aches, though, and I have to lie on my side with my knees clamped together to stop it.

  It’s only a dream.

  But most frightening of all is how much I wish it weren’t.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  DR. THOMAS HAS PRONOUNCED PIPPA FULLY RECOVERED, and as it’s Sunday and church has been dispensed with, we have the afternoon to luxuriate as we wish. We’re down by the water, casting the last petals of late-summer flowers onto the calm surface. Ann has stayed behind to practice her aria for Assembly Day—the day when our families will descend upon Spence and see what marvels of womanhood we’re becoming.

  I toss a handful of crumbling wildflowers. They sit on the lake like a blight before the breeze whips them out toward the deep middle. They settle, take on more and more water till they finally go under in silence. Across the lake, a few of the younger girls sit on a blanket, talking and eating plums, happy to ignore us as we ignore them.

  Pippa is lying in the rowboat. She can’t remember anything before her seizure, for which I’m grateful. She’s horribly embarrassed by her loss of control, by what she might have said or done.

  “Did I make any vulgar noises?” she asks.

  “No,” I assure her.

  “Not at all,” Felicity adds.

  Pippa’s shoulders relax against the bow. Seconds later, a new worry has them knotted up again. “I didn’t . . . soil myself, did I?” She can barely say this.

  “No, no!” Felicity and I say in a tumble.

  “It’s shameful, isn’t it? My affliction.”

  Felicity laces tiny flowers together into a crown. “It’s no more shameful than having a mother who’s a paid consort.”

  “I’m sorry, Felicity. I shouldn’t have said that. Will you forgive me?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive. It’s only truth.”

  “Truth,” Pippa scoffs. “Mother says I can’t ever let anyone know about my seizures. She says if I feel one coming on, I should say I have a headache and excuse myself.” Her laugh is bitter. “She thinks I should be able to control it.”

  Her words pull me down like an anchor. I want so desperately to tell her I understand. To tell my secret. I clear my throat. The wind changes. It blows the petals back against my hair. I can feel the moment slipping away. It sinks under the surface of things, hidden from the light.

  Pippa changes the subject. “On a cheerier note, Mother said that she and Father have a wonderful surprise for me. I do hope it’s a new corset. The boning in this one practically impales me with each breath. Ye gods!”

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t eat so many toffees,” Felicity says.

  Pippa is too tired to be truly outraged. She offers a show of hurt. “I’m not fat! I’m not! My waist is a
tidy sixteen and a half inches.”

  Pippa’s waist is wasp-thin, as men are rumored to prefer waists. Our corsets bind and bend us to this fashionable taste, even though it makes us short of breath and sometimes ill from the pressure. I haven’t a clue how large or small my waist is. I’m not delicate in the slightest, and I have shoulders like a boy’s. I find the whole conversation tedious.

  “Is your mother coming this year, Fee?” Pippa asks.

  “She’s visiting friends. In Italy,” Felicity says, finishing her crown. She places it on her head like a fairy queen’s.

  “What about your father?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so. I’d love for the three of you to meet him, and for him to see that I have actual flesh-and-blood friends.” She gives a sad smile. “I think he was afraid I’d become one of those sullen girls who never get invited to anything. I was a bit that way after Mother . . .”

  Left.

  That’s the word that hangs in the air, unspoken. It joins shame, secrets, fear, visions, and epilepsy. So many things unsaid weight the distance between us. The more we try to close the gap, the more its heaviness pushes us apart.

  “How long has it been since you’ve seen him?” I ask.

  “Three years.”

  “I’m certain he’ll come this time, Fee,” Pippa says. “And he’ll be very proud to see what a lady you’ve become.”

  Felicity smiles and it’s as if she’s turned the sun on us both. “Yes. Yes, I have, haven’t I? I think he’ll be pleased. If he comes.”

  “I’d loan you my new kid gloves but my mother expects to see them on my fingers as proof that we’re somebody,” Pippa sighs.

  “What of your family?” Felicity turns her sharp eyes on me. “Are they coming? The mysterious Doyles?”

  My father hasn’t written in two weeks. I think of my grandmother’s last letter: