by Libba Bray
The room was silent save for the flickering of the candles in the slight draft. At last the voice echoed down into the chamber.
“Then you must kill her.”
CHAPTER ONE
DECEMBER 1895
SPENCE ACADEMY FOR YOUNG LADIES
AH, CHRISTMAS!
The very mention of the holiday conjures such precious, sentimental memories for most: a tall evergreen tree hung with tinsel and glass; gaily wrapped presents strewn about; a roaring fire and glasses filled with cheer; carolers grouped round the door, their jaunty hats catching the snow as it falls; a nice fat goose resting upon a platter, surrounded by apples. And of course, fig pudding for dessert.
Right. Jolly good. I should like to see that very much.
These images of Christmas cheer are miles away from where I sit now, at the Spence Academy for Young Ladies, forced to construct a drummer boy ornament using only tinfoil, cotton, and a small bit of string, as if performing some diabolical experiment in cadaver regeneration. Mary Shelley’s monster could not be half so frightening as this ridiculous thing. The figure will not remind a soul of Christmas happiness. More likely, it will reduce children to tears.
“This is impossible,” I grumble. I elicit no pity from any quarter. Even Felicity and Ann, my two dearest friends, which is to say my only friends here, will not come to my aid. Ann is determined to turn wet sugar and small bits of kindling into an exact replica of the Christ child in a manger. She seems to take no notice of anything beyond her own two hands. For her part, Felicity turns her cool gray eyes to me as if to say, Suffer. I am.
No, instead, it is the beastly Cecily Temple who answers me. Dear, dear Cecily, or as I affectionately refer to her in the privacy of my mind, She Who Inflicts Misery Simply by Breathing.
“I cannot fathom what is giving you such trouble, Miss Doyle. Really, it is the simplest thing in the world. Look, I’ve done four already.” She holds out her four perfect tinfoil boys for inspection. There is a round of oohing and aahing over their beautifully shaped arms, the tiny woolen scarves—knit by Cecily’s capable hands, but of course—and those delicate licorice smiles that make them seem overjoyed to be hanging by the neck from a Christmas tree.
Two weeks until Christmas and my mood blackens by the hour. The tinfoil boy seems to be begging me to shoot him. Compelled by a force larger than myself, I cannot seem to keep from placing the crippled ornament boy on the side table and performing a little show. I move the ugly thing, forcing him to drag his useless leg like Mr. Dickens’s treacly Tiny Tim.
“God bless us, every one,” I warble in a pathetic, high-pitched voice.
This is greeted by horrified silence. Every eye is averted. Even Felicity, who is not known as the soul of decorum, seems cowed. Behind me, there is the familiar sound of a throat being cleared in grand disapproval. I turn to see Mrs. Nightwing, Spence’s frosty headmistress, staring down at me as if I were a leper. Blast.
“Miss Doyle, do you suppose that to be humorous? Making light of the very real pain of London’s unfortunates?”
“I—I . . . why . . .”
Mrs. Nightwing peers at me over her spectacles. Her graying pouf of hair is like a nimbus warning of the storm to come.
“Perhaps, Miss Doyle, if you were to spend time in service to the poor, wrapping bandages as I once did in my own youth during the Crimean War, you would acquire a healthy and much-needed dose of sympathy.”
“Y-yes, Mrs. Nightwing. I don’t know how I could have been so unkind,” I blabber.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Felicity and Ann hunched over their ornaments as if they were fascinating relics from an archeological dig. I note that their shoulders are trembling, and I realize that they are fighting laughter over my terrible plight. There’s friendship for you.
“For this you shall lose ten good conduct marks and I shall expect you to perform an act of charity during the holiday as penance.”
“Yes, Mrs. Nightwing.”
“You shall write a full account of this charitable act and tell me how it has enriched your character.”
“Yes, Mrs. Nightwing.”
“And that ornament needs much work.”
“Yes, Mrs. Nightwing.”
“Have you any questions?”
“Yes, Mrs. Nightwing. I meant, no, Mrs. Nightwing. Thank you.”
An act of charity? Over the holiday? Would enduring time with my brother, Thomas, count toward that end? Blast. I’ve done it now.
“Mrs. Nightwing?” The sheer sound of Cecily’s voice could make me froth at the mouth. "I hope these are satisfactory. I do so want to be of service to the unfortunate.”
It’s possible that I shall lose consciousness from holding back a very loud Ha! at this. Cecily, who never misses an opportunity to tease Ann about her scholarship status, wants nothing to do with the poor. What she does want is to be Mrs. Nightwing’s lapdog.
Mrs. Nightwing holds Cecily’s perfect ornaments up to the light for inspection. “These are exemplary, Miss Temple. I commend you.”
Cecily gives a very smug smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Nightwing.”
Ah, Christmas.
With a heavy sigh, I take apart my pathetic ornament and begin again. My eyes burn and blur. I rub them but it does no good. What I need is sleep, but sleep is the very thing I fear. For weeks, I’ve been haunted by wicked warnings of dreams. I cannot remember much when I awaken, only snatches here and there. A sky roiling with red and gray. A painted flower dripping tears of blood. Strange forests of light. My face, grave and questioning, reflected in water. But the images that stay with me are of her, beautiful and sad.
“Why did you leave me here?” she cries, and I cannot answer. “I want to come back. I want us to be together again.” I break away and run, but her cry finds me. “It’s your fault, Gemma! You left me here! You left me!”
That is all I remember when I wake each morning before dawn, gasping and covered in perspiration, more tired than when I went to bed. They are only dreams. Then why do they leave me feeling so troubled?
“You might have warned me,” I protest to Felicity and Ann the moment we are left alone.
“You might have been more careful,” Ann chides. From her sleeve she pulls a handkerchief gone gray with washing and dabs at her constantly leaking nose and watery eyes.
“I wouldn’t have done it had I known she was standing directly behind me.”
“You know that Mrs. Nightwing is like God—everywhere at once. In fact, she may be God, for all I know.” Felicity sighs. The firelight casts a golden sheen upon her white-blond hair. She glows like a fallen angel.
Ann looks around, nervous. “Y-y-you oughtn’t to talk about”—she whispers the word—“God that way.”
“Why ever not?” Felicity asks.
“It might bring bad luck.”
Quiet descends, for we are all too well and too recently acquainted with bad luck to forget that there are forces at work beyond the world we see, forces beyond all reason and comprehension.
Felicity stares at the fire. “You still assume there is a God, Ann? With all we’ve seen?”
One of the noiseless servants flits down the dim hallway, the white of her apron outlined by the somber gray of her uniform so that all that is seen against the darkness is the apron; the woman disappears entirely into shadow. If I follow her movement as she rounds a corner, I can see the happy, firelit hall from whence we’ve just come. A swarm of girls of varying ages, from six to seventeen, breaks out into spontaneous caroling, entreating God to rest ye merry gentlemen. No mention of God’s resting gentlewomen, merry or not.
I long to join them, to light the candles on the grand tree, to pull at the strings on the bright Christmas crackers and hear the paper pop with a satisfying, jolly sound. I long to have no concerns other than whether Father Christmas will be kind this year or I shall find coal in my stocking.
With arms linked like paper dolls cut from the same paper, a trio of girls sways back and fo
rth; one places her soft, curly head on the shoulder of the girl next to her, and she in turn gives a tiny kiss to that one’s forehead. They have no idea that this world is not the only one. That far beyond the formidable, castle-like walls of Spence Academy, far beyond the barrier of Mrs. Nightwing, Mademoiselle LeFarge, and the other instructors here to mold and shape our habits and characters like so much willing clay, beyond England itself, there is a place of such beauty and fearsome power. A place where what you dream can be yours, and you must be careful what you dream. A place where things can hurt you. A place that has already claimed one of us.
I am the link to that place.
“Let’s gather our coats,” Ann says, moving for the immense, coiling staircase that dominates the foyer.
Felicity regards her curiously. "What ever for? Where are we going?”
“It’s Wednesday,” Ann says, turning away. “Time to visit Pippa.”
CHAPTER TWO
WE MAKE OUR WAY THROUGH THE BARREN TREES behind the school until we reach a familiar clearing. It is frightfully damp, and I’m glad for my coat and gloves. To our right lies the pond where we lay lazily in a rowboat under early September skies. The rowboat sleeps now on the frostbitten rocks and the bitter, dead grass of winter at the water’s edge. The pond is a smooth, thin sheet of ice. Months ago, we shared these woods with an encampment of Gypsies, but they are long gone now, headed for warmer climes. In their party, I suppose, is a certain young man from Bombay with large brown eyes, full lips, and my father’s cricket bat. Kartik. I cannot help wondering if he thinks of me wherever he is. I cannot help wondering when he will come looking for me next, and what that will mean.
Felicity turns to me. “What are you dreaming about back there?”
“Christmas,” I lie, my words pushing out in small, steam engine puffs of white. It is miserably cold.
“I have forgotten that you’ve never had a proper English Christmas. I shall have to acquaint you with it over the holiday. We’ll steal away from home and have the most splendid time,” Felicity says.
Ann keeps her eyes trained on the ground. She’ll stay here at Spence over the holiday. There are no relations to take her in, no presents to shake or memories to warm her till spring.
“Ann,” I say too brightly. "How lucky you are to have the run of Spence while we’re away.”
“You needn’t do that,” she answers.
“Do what?”
“Try to paint a bright face on it. I shall be alone and unhappy. I know it.”
“Oh, please don’t go and feel sorry for yourself. I shan’t be able to bear the hour with you if you do,” Felicity says, exasperated. She grabs a long stick and uses it to whack at the trees as we pass them. Shamed into silence, Ann trods on. I should say something on her behalf, but more and more, I find Ann’s refusal to speak up for herself an annoyance. So I let it go.
“Will you be attending balls over Christmas, do you think?” Ann asks, biting her lip, torturing herself. It is no different from the small cuts she makes on her arms with her sewing scissors, the ones her sleeves hide, the ones I know she has begun again.
“Yes. Of course,” Felicity answers, as if the question is tedious. “My mother and father have planned a Christmas ball. Everyone shall be there.”
Everyone except you, she might as well say.
“I shall be confined to close quarters with my grandmama, who never misses an opportunity to point out my faults, and my infuriating brother, Tom. I promise you, it shall be a very taxing holiday.” I smile, hoping to make Ann laugh. The truth is that I feel guilty for abandoning her, but not guilty enough to invite her home with me.
Ann gives me a sideways glance. “And how is your brother, Tom?”
“The same. Which is to say impossible.”
“He hasn’t set his hopes on someone, then?”
Ann fancies Tom, who would never look twice at her. It’s a hopeless situation.
“I do believe he has, yes,” I lie.
Ann stops. "Who is it?”
“Ah . . . a Miss Dalton. Her family is from Somerset, I believe.”
“Is she pretty?” Ann asks.
“Yes,” I say. We press on, and I hope that is the end of it.
“As pretty as Pippa?”
Pippa. Beautiful Pip, with her dark ringlets and violet eyes.
“No,” I say. "No one is as beautiful as Pippa.”
We’ve arrived. Before us stands a large tree, its bark mottled with a thin coat of frost. A heavy rock sits at its base. We remove our gloves and push the rock out of the way, revealing the decaying hollow there. Inside is an odd assortment of things—one kid glove, a note on parchment secured by a rock, a handful of toffees, and some desiccated funeral flowers that the wind takes the moment it whips through the old oak’s ancient wound.
“Have you brought it?” Felicity asks Ann.
She nods and pulls out something wrapped in green paper. She unfolds the paper to reveal an angel ornament constructed of lace and beads. Each of us has had a hand in sewing bits of it. Ann wraps the gift in the paper again and places it on the makeshift altar with the other remembrances.
“Merry Christmas, Pippa,” she says, speaking the name of a girl who lies dead and buried these two months some thirty miles from here. A girl who was our dearest friend. A girl I might have saved.
“Merry Christmas, Pippa,” Felicity and I mumble after.
No one says anything for a moment. The wind’s cold here in the clearing with little to block it. Sharp pellets of mist cut through the wool of my winter coat, pricking my skin into gooseflesh. I look off to the right where the caves sit, silent, the mouth closed off by a new brick wall.
Months ago, the four of us gathered in those caves to read the secret diary of Mary Dowd, which told us of the realms, a hidden, magical world beyond this one that was once ruled by a powerful group of sorceresses called the Order. In the realms, we can make our fondest wishes come true. But there are also dark spirits in the realms, creatures who wish to rule it. Mary Dowd discovered the truth of that. And so did we when our friend Pippa was lost to us forever.
“Frightfully cold,” Ann says, breaking the silence. Her head is down and she clears her throat softly.
“Yes,” Felicity says halfheartedly.
The wind pulls a stubborn brown leaf from the tree and sends it skittering away.
“Do you suppose we’ll ever see Pippa again?” Ann asks.
“I don’t know,” I answer, though we all know she’s gone.
For a moment, there’s nothing but the sound of the wind scuttling through the leaves.
Felicity grabs a sharp stick, pokes it at the tree aimlessly. “When are we going back? You said . . .”
“. . . that we’d go back once we’ve found the other members of the Order,” I finish.
“But it’s been two months,” Ann whines. “What if there are no others?”
“What if they refuse to allow Ann and me to enter? We’re not special, as you are,” Felicity says, giving “special” a nasty tone. It’s a wedge between us, the knowledge that I alone can enter the realms; that I have the power, and they do not. They can enter only if I take them.
“You know what my mother told us: The realms decide who shall be chosen. It isn’t left to us,” I say, hoping that is the end of it.
“When, pray, will these ladies of the Order make contact, and how?” Felicity asks.
“I’ve no idea,” I admit, feeling foolish. “My mother said they would. It isn’t as if I can simply take an advert in the newspaper, is it?”
“What of that Indian boy sent to watch you?” Ann asks.
“Kartik? I haven’t seen him since the day of Pippa’s funeral.” Kartik. Is he out there even now in the trees, watching me, preparing to take me to the Rakshana, those men who would stop me from ever going back into the realms?
“Perhaps that’s it, then, and he’s gone away for good.”
This thought makes my heart ache. I can’t stop
thinking of the last time I saw him, his large, dark eyes filled with some new emotion I couldn’t read, the soft heat of his thumb brushed across my lip, making me feel strangely empty and wanting.
“Perhaps,” I say. “Or perhaps he’s gone to the Rakshana and told them everything.”
Felicity mulls this over as she scrapes her name into the dry tree bark with a pointed stick. “If that were the case, don’t you think they would have come for us by now?”
“I suppose.”
“But they haven’t, don’t you see?” She pushes too hard on the stick and it breaks off on the Y so that her name reads FELICITV.
“And you still haven’t had any visions?” Ann asks.
“No. Not since I smashed the runes.”
Felicity regards me coolly. "Nothing at all?”
“No-thing,” I answer.
Ann folds her hands under her arms to keep warm. "Do you suppose that was the source of it, then, and when you destroyed the runes you stopped your visions for good?”
I hadn’t considered this. It makes me uneasy. Once, I was afraid of my visions, but now, I miss them. "I don’t know.”
Felicity takes my hands in hers, giving me the full seductive powers of her charm. “Gemma, think of it—all that lovely magic going to waste. There’s so much we haven’t tried!”
“I want to be beautiful again,” Ann says, warming to Felicity’s plan. “Or perhaps I could find a knight as Pippa did. A knight to love me true.”
It isn’t as if I haven’t argued with myself over these very things. I ache to see the golden sunset over the river, to have all the power that I am denied in this world. It’s as if Felicity can sense my resolve weakening.
She gives me a kiss on the cheek. Her lips are cold. "Gemma, darling, just a quick look around? In and out, with no one the wiser.”
Ann joins in. "Kartik is gone and no one is watching us.”
“What about Circe?” I remind them. “She’s still out there somewhere, just waiting for me to make a mistake.”
“We’ll be very careful,” Felicity says. I can see how this will go. They will push me until I agree to take them in.