by Libba Bray
Fowlson and Jackson rush out onto the sidewalk, looking wildly left and right. They spot us. Miss McCleethy follows. Kartik still stands as if he doesn’t know which way to turn.
“Come on,” I say, looping my arm boldly through his. "We’re going for a walk.”
We do our best to blend in with the people bustling about on the streets, the men leaving their clubs after dinner, cigars, and brandy; the couples on their way to the theater or to a party.
Behind us, I can hear Fowlson whistling a military tune, something I’ve heard English soldiers sing in India.
“I wouldn’t have done it,” he says.
“Just walk, please,” I say.
“I would have let you get away.”
Fowlson’s whistling, dishonestly pure, cuts through the street noise and traffic to chill my very bones. I glance behind us. They are getting closer. I face forward to see a greater horror: Simon and his father are just leaving the Athenaeum club. They must not see me here. I drop Kartik’s arm and turn back.
“What are you doing?” he says.
“It’s Simon,” I say. "I can’t be found out.”
“Well, we certainly can’t go that way!”
I’m in a panic. Simon steps out from under the watchful eye of the Athena statue atop the club’s grand entrance. He is headed our way. His carriage waits at the curb. Someone steps from a hansom, paying the driver. Pushing another couple out of the way, Kartik opens the door for me.
“Duchess of Kent,” he says, smiling at the outraged man and woman. "She’s needed at once at Saint James’s Palace.”
The man sputters and shouts, drawing the attention of people on the street, including Simon and his father. I duck out of sight.
The furious man demands that I leave his cab. “I must protest, madam! It was rightfully ours!”
Please, please let me have it. Fowlson’s sighted us. He’s stopped his whistling and quickened his step. He’ll be to us in a matter of seconds.
“What seems to be the trouble?” It’s Lord Denby’s voice.
“This young woman has taken our cab,” the man sniffs. "And this Indian boy claims she’s the Duchess of Kent.”
“I say, Father, isn’t that Mr. Doyle’s former coachman? Why, it is!”
Lord Denby squares his shoulders. "Here, now, boy! What is the meaning of this?”
“Should we call for a constable?” Simon asks.
“If you please, miss,” the man says imperiously, offering his hand through the window as I struggle to stay out of sight. “You’ve had your fun. I’ll thank you to leave our cab at once.”
“Come now, miss,” the driver calls. "Let’s not ’ave all this trouble on such a raw nigh’.”
This is the end. Either I shall be found out by Simon and his father and my reputation shattered forever, or Fowlson and Miss McCleethy shall lead me away to who knows what.
My hand’s on the door handle when Kartik suddenly jumps about like a madman, singing a jaunty tune and kicking up his heels.
“Is he drunk or mad?” Lord Denby says.
Kartik leans into the cab. "You know where to find me.”
He throws his hands into the air and brings one down hard, slapping the horse’s hide. With a loud whinny, the horse lurches into the street, the driver shouting, “Whoa, ’old there, Tillie!” to no avail. The best he can do is aim the beast away from the clubs and into the flow of traffic leaving Pall Mall. When I steal a last glance behind me, I see that Kartik is still acting the mad fool. A constable’s arriving, blowing his whistle. Fowlson and Jackson pull back. They shan’t get to Kartik for now. Only Miss McCleethy is nowhere to be seen. She has disappeared like a ghost.
“Where to, miss?” the driver calls down at last.
Where can I go? Where can I hide?
“Baker Street,” I shout, giving Miss Moore’s address. “And hurry, please.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
WE’VE REACHED BAKER STREET IN TIME FOR ME to realize that I have no handbag. I have no means to pay the fare.
“ ’Ere you are, miss,” the driver says, helping me from the cab.
“Oh, dear,” I say. “I seem to have forgotten my handbag. If you will give me your name and address, I’ll see that you are paid handsomely. I promise.”
“And the Queen’s me mum,” he says.
“I’m in earnest, sir.”
A constable makes his way down the opposite side of the street, the brass buttons of his uniform glinting in the gloom. My blood quickens.
“Tell it to the constable, then,” he says. "Oi! Bob! Ofer ’ere!”
I make a run for it, the constable’s whistle blowing sharply behind me. Quickly, I slip into the shadows of an alley and wait. The snow has turned to sleet. The tiny, hard ice bites at my cheeks, makes my nose run. The houses shimmer in the new sheen of frost and gaslight. Every breath is a painful rasp, a fight for air against the cold. But it is more than that. The magic has begun to wear me down. I’m feeling odd, as if I’ve a fever.
The constable’s steps are sharp and close.
“And then he said she was the Duchess of Kent,” the cabbie explains.
I flatten myself against the wall. My heart’s thumping hard against my ribs; my breath is locked up tight as a criminal in irons.
“You might do well not to pick up odd women, mate,” the constable says.
“ ’Ow was I to know she was odd?” the cabbie protests.
Arguing on, they pass within inches of me without so much as a glance in my direction till their footsteps and voices are no more than faint echoes that are finally swallowed by the night. The breath I’ve been holding back comes out of me in a whoosh. I waste no time. I’m hobbling down the street and to Miss Moore’s flat as quickly as I can move in my weakened state. The house is dark. I rap loudly, hoping I can devise a ruse that will get me inside. Mrs. Porter sticks her head out the top window, calling down irritably.
“Whachoo wont, then?”
“Mrs. Porter, I’m terribly sorry to disturb you. I’ve an urgent message for Miss Moore.”
“She’s no’ a’ ’ome.”
Yes, I know, and it’s all my fault. I feel I shall faint. My face is numb from the cruel pelting of the sleet. At any moment, the constable could come back. I’ve got to get inside. I just need a place to hide, to think, to rest.
“ ’Ere, now, it’s late. Come back tomorrow.”
Footsteps echo on the slick cobblestones. Someone is coming.
“Dear Mrs. Porter,” I say desperately. “It’s Felicity Worthington. Admiral Worthington’s daughter.”
“Admiral Worthington’s daw’er, you say? Oh, me dear chil’, ’ow is the admiral?”
“Quite well, thank you. I meant, no, he’s not well at all. And that is why I’ve come for Miss Moore. It’s quite urgent. May I wait for her?” Please, let me in. Just long enough to get my bearings.
Down the street, I can hear the steady clip-clopping of the constable’s shoes returning.
“We-uwll . . . ,” Mrs. Porter says. She’s already in her nightclothes.
“I wouldn’t ask except that I know you are a good and kind soul. I’m certain that my father will wish to thank you personally, once he is able.”
Mrs. Porter preens at this. “I won’t be a minute.”
The constable’s lantern spreads fingers of light in my direction. Please, Mrs. Porter, do hurry. She’s at the latch, letting me in.
“Evenin’, Mrs. Porter,” the constable calls out, tipping his hat to her.
“Evenin’, Mr. John,” she answers.
She closes the door. I steady myself with a hand against the wall.
“ ’Ow nice to ’ave comp’ny. So unexpected. Le’ me take yer coat.”
I pull my coat tight at my aching throat. “Dear Mrs. Porter,” I croak. “Forgive me, but I’m afraid I must get to my business with Miss Moore and then return to Papa’s bedside.”
Mrs. Porter looks as if she’s bitten into a piece of chocolate cake o
nly to discover it has a pickled filling. “Hmph. ’S not right for me to admit you to ’er room. I run a honest establishment, see.”
“Yes, of course,” I say.
Mrs. Porter ponders her dilemma for a moment before emptying a vase on a side table and shaking the key to Miss Moore’s rooms from its hiding place. “This way, if you please.”
I follow her up the narrow staircase and to Miss Moore’s door. “Bu’ if she ain’t back by ’alf past, you’ll ’ave to leave,” she says, jangling the key in the lock. The door opens and I step inside.
“Yes, thank you. Please don’t trouble yourself to wait, Mrs. Porter. I feel a draft here, and if you were to catch cold on my account, I should never forgive myself.”
This seems to mollify Mrs. Porter for the moment, and she leaves me, descending the stairs with a heavy step.
I close the door behind me. In the dark, the room is unfamiliar, ominous. I slide my fingers along the yellowing wallpaper till I find the gaslamp. It hisses into life, the flame flickering against the glass shade. The room wakes from its slumber—the velvet settee, the globe on its stand, the writing desk in its usual state of shambles, the rows of well-loved books. The masks seem gruesome in the evening gloom. I can’t bear to look at them. I take comfort in Miss Moore’s paintings—the purple heather of Scotland, the craggy cliffs near the sea, the mossy caves in the woods behind Spence.
I perch on the settee to calm myself, trying to make sense of everything. So tired. I want to sleep, but I can’t. Not yet. I must think of what to do next. If the Rakshana are in league with Miss McCleethy, with Circe herself, then they cannot be trusted. Kartik was supposed to kill me once I found the Temple. But Kartik betrayed them to help me escape. The clock ticks off the minutes. Five. Ten. Pulling aside the curtain, I peek out at the street but see no sign of Mr. Fowlson or the black carriage.
A knock at the door nearly scares me to death. Mrs. Porter comes in with a letter.
“Dearie, you can stop waitin’. Seems I overlooked this. Miss Moore lef ’ it on me side tabuwl this mornin’.”
“This morning?” I repeat. That isn’t possible. Miss Moore is lost to the realms. “Are you sure?”
“Oh, yes. I saw her leave. ’Aven’t seen ’er since, though. But I only jus’ read the let’r. It says she’s gone to be with family.”
“But Miss Moore has no family,” I say.
“Well, she does.” Mrs. Porter reads aloud. “ ‘Dear Missus Por’er. Forgive the late no’ice, but I mus’ leave at once as I’f accep’ed a position a’ a school near London where moi sister is ’eadmistress. Oi shall send fer me fings as soon as possibuwl. Sincerely, Hester Asa Moore.’ Hmph. Runnin’ ou’ on the rent is more like. She owes me two weeks’ worth, Oi’ll ’ave you know.”
“A school? Where her sister is headmistress?” I ask faintly.
I’ve heard that phrase somewhere before, in Mrs. Morrissey’s letter from St. Victoria’s. But she was speaking of Miss McCleethy.
“So it would seem,” Mrs. Porter says.
Something horrible is fighting to take shape inside me. The paintings. Scotland. Spence. And that seascape is so very familiar, similar to the one from my visions. It could be Wales, I realize with a growing horror. Every place on Miss McCleethy’s list is represented on these walls.
But Miss McCleethy is the one who taught at all those schools. She was the teacher looking for the girl who could take her into the realms.
Unless Miss McCleethy and Kartik were telling the truth. Unless Miss Moore is not Miss Moore at all.
“No sense in waitin’ for ’er now, Miss Worthington,” Mrs. Porter says.
“Yes,” I croak. “Perhaps I’ll just leave a note to go with her things.”
“Suit yourself,” Mrs. Porter says, leaving. “You could ask ’er for the balance due me. Never got me rent.”
Scrounging about, I find a pen and a sheet of stationery and take a deep breath. Not Miss Moore. It can’t be. Miss Moore is the one who has believed in me. Who first told us about the Order. Who listened as I told her . . . everything.
No. Miss Moore is not Circe. And I shall prove it.
I write the words, big and bold: Hester Moore.
They stare back at me. Ann has already done an anagram for Miss Moore. It yielded nothing but nonsense. I stare at the note. Sincerely, Hester Asa Moore. Asa. The middle name. I cross it out and start again. With trembling fingers, I shift the letters of her name to make something new. S, A, R. At last, I put the remaining letters into place. H, R, E. The room falls away as the name swims before me.
Sarah Rees-Toome.
Miss Moore is Sarah Rees-Toome. Circe. No. I won’t believe it. Miss Moore helped us rescue Ann. She told us to run as she battled Circe’s creature. Her creature. And I took her into the realms. I gave her the power.
Things come back to me—Miss Moore’s keen interest in Miss McCleethy. How she told us to keep her away from Nell Hawkins. The way the girls in white looked at her in the realms, as if they knew her.
When you can see what I see—that is what Nell said.
“I need to see. I want to know the truth,” I say.
The vision comes down on me as fiercely as a sudden Indian rain. My arms shake, and I fall to my knees with the force of it. Breathe, Gemma. Don’t fight it. I can’t control it, and panic rises in me as I fall hard and fast.
Everything stops. There is calm. I know this place. I’ve seen bits and pieces of it before. The roar of the sea fills my ears. Its spray kisses the jagged cliffs and coats my hair and lips with its misty salt. The ground is cracked and worn, the skin of the rock splintering into thousands of tiny fissures.
Up ahead I see the three girls. But they are not ghostly specters. They are alive, happy and smiling. The wind catches their skirts. They flutter behind them like mothers’ handkerchiefs. The first girl trips and wobbles, her shrieks turning to laughter when she rights herself.
Her laugh bounces round my head like a slow echo. "Come along, Nell!”
Nell. I am living this moment as Nell. I am seeing what she saw.
“She’s coming to give us the power! We shall enter the realms and become sisters of the Order!” the second girl in white yells. She’s beaming with the promise of it. I am so slow. I cannot keep up.
The girls wave to someone behind me.
Here she is, the woman in the green cloak, striding across the broken land. They call to her. “Miss McCleethy! Miss McCleethy!”
“Yes, I’m coming,” she answers. The woman pulls the hood back from her face. But it is not the Miss McCleethy I have known. It is Miss Moore. And now I understand Miss Moore’s shocked expression when we first mentioned that name, her rush to discredit our new teacher. She understood that someone from the Order was hunting her. And I’ve had it all wrong from the start.
“Will you give us the power?” the girls call out.
“Yes,” Miss Moore says, her voice faltering. “Walk out on the rocks a little farther.”
The girls clamber over the rocks, shrieking with a happy recklessness when the wind blows hard against them, making them feel mortal for a moment. I try to reach them.
“Nell!” Miss Moore shouts. “Wait with me.”
“But, Miss McCleethy,” I hear myself say. “They’re getting ahead.”
“Let them go. Stay with me.”
Confused, Nell stands watching her friends out on the rocks. Miss Moore raises her hand. There is no snake ring on her finger. There never was, I come to realize. I told Miss Moore about the ring I’d seen, and the girls in white made me see what she wanted me to see.
Miss Moore mumbles in a tongue I cannot hear. The iron gray sky comes alive, twisting and turning. The girls sense the change. Their faces show alarm. The creature rises from the sea. The girls scream in terror. They try to run, but the great phantom stretches out like a cloud. It races over them and descends, swallowing the girls whole as if they had never existed. The creature sighs and groans. It unfurls its great wing-arm
s, and I see the girls trapped inside, screaming.
Miss Moore’s hand shakes. She shuts her eyes.
The creature turns its hideous head in our direction.
“There is one more, I see,” it hisses. The sound makes my blood go cold.
“No,” Miss Moore says. “Not this one.”
“She cannot bring you in. Why do you care if she is sacrificed?” it screeches in that doomed voice.
“Not this one,” Miss Moore repeats. “Please.”
“We decide who shall be spared, not you. It is your misfortune if you come to care for them.” The thing expands to fill the sky. The skeletal face is large as the moon. The mouth opens to reveal jagged teeth.
“Run!” Miss Moore screams. “Run, Nell! Keep running! Block it from your mind!”
I do. In Nell’s body, I’m running as fast as I can, slipping over rocks. My heel catches in a crevice, and my ankle gives way with a sharp twist. Wincing in pain, I hobble on, down the cliffs, the thing hunting me.
The creature shrieks in rage.
The fear is overwhelming. I shall die from fright. Have to keep it from my mind. “Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.”
I’m out on the slippery rocks. The sea grabs at my ankles, soaking me through. It’s coming. Oh, God, it’s coming for me. “Jack and Jill, Jack and Jill, Jack and Jill . . .”
It’s so close. I let go, falling into the restless sea. I’m sinking. Lungs ache for breath. Bubbles race for the surface. I’m fighting the current. I shall drown! I open my eyes. There they are: the three of them. Such pale faces! The dark hollows beneath their eyes. My scream is buried underwater. And when I’m pulled from the depths by a pair of fisherman’s hands, I’m still screaming.
The pressure’s back. The vision’s ending, and I find myself once again in the yellow light of Miss Moore’s flat.
I know the truth. I try to stand and my legs give way. With effort, I stand. When I leave, I don’t even bother to shut the door. The stairs shift before me. I go to put my foot on one and fall.