The Sweet Far Thing Page 7

  “Thank you for the bread,” I say, though it’s turned to lead in my belly.

  “You’re welcome, luv. Best get back. You’ll be missed.” She looks again at the dark beyond. “Ain’t right putting it back. I can feel it. Ain’t right.”

  The all-seeing eyes of Eugenia Spence watch me climb the stairs to my room. Her white hair is arranged in the fashion of the day, with curls on her forehead and a mass of coiled hair at the back of her head. Her dress has a high collar and an elaborate ruffle running down both sides of the bright green bodice—no sedate gray or black for Eugenia Spence. And there at her neck is the crescent eye amulet that now hangs from my own, hidden beneath my gown.

  My mother caused your death.

  In my room, I take out my mother’s diary and read again of Eugenia’s heroism, of how she offered herself as a sacrifice in place of Sarah and my mother.

  “I will have payment,” the creature cried, grabbing fast to Sarah’s arm.

  Eugenia’s mouth tightened. “We must hie to the Winterlands.” We found ourselves in that land of ice and fire, of thick, barren trees and perpetual night. Eugenia stood tall.

  “Sarah Rees-Toome, you will not be lost to the Winterlands. Come back with me. Come back.”

  The creature turned on her. “She has invited me. She must pay, or the balance of the realms is forfeit.”

  “I shall go in her place….”

  “So be it. There is much we could do with one so powerful….”

  Eugenia threw to me her amulet of the crescent eye. “Mary, run! Take Sarah with you through the door, and I shall close the realms!…”

  The thing caused her to cry out in pain then. Her eyes were filled with a pleading that took my breath away, for I had never seen Eugenia frightened before. “The realms must stay closed until we can find our way again. Now—run!” she screamed…and the last I saw of Eugenia, she was shouting the spell to close the realms, even as she was swallowed by the dark without a trace.

  I close my mother’s diary and lie on my back, staring at the ceiling and thinking of Eugenia Spence. If she hadn’t thrown her amulet to my mother and closed the realms for good, there’s no telling what sort of terrors might have been visited upon this world. In that one act, she saved us all, though it meant her destruction. And I wonder what became of her, what terrible fate befell the great Eugenia Spence because of my mother’s sin, and if I could ever possibly be enough to atone for it.

  When my dreams find me, they are disquieting. A pretty lady in a lavender dress and hat races through London streets thick with fog. Her ginger hair falls loosely about her frightened face. She beckons me to follow, but I cannot keep pace; my feet are as heavy as lead and I can’t see. The cobblestones are coated with paper adverts for a spectacle of some sort. I reach for one: Dr. Theodore Van Ripple—Illusionist Extraordinaire!

  The fog clears, and I’m mounting the stairs of Spence, past the enormous portrait of Eugenia Spence. I climb until I find myself on the roof in my bedclothes. The wind rips through me. On the horizon, storm clouds gather. Down below, the men continue their work on the East Wing. Their hands are as quick as an owl’s blink. The stone column rises higher. A shovel strikes the ground and will not go farther. It has hit something solid. The men look to me. “Would you like to open it, miss?”

  The lady in the lavender dress opens her mouth. She’s trying to tell me something, but there is no sound, only alarm in her eyes. Suddenly, everything moves very fast. I see a room lit by a single lamp. Words. A knife. The lady running. A body floating upon the water. I hear a voice like a whisper in my ear: “Come to me….”

  I wake with a start. I want to sleep again but I can’t. Something’s calling to me, pulling me downstairs and out to the lawn, where a full moon spreads its buttery light over the wooden skeleton of the East Wing. The turret rises into lowlying clouds. Its shadow reaches across the lawn and touches my bare toes. The grass is cold with dew.

  Upon the roof, the gargoyles sleep. The ground seems to hum beneath my feet. And once again, I am drawn to the turret and the stone there. I step down into the hole. The framing of the East Wing looms above my head, and the night clouds move like lashes from an angry whip. The crescent eye glows, and in the faint light, I see an outline in the stone that matches the amulet’s shape.

  A tingling begins in my fingers. It travels through my body. Something inside me wants release. I can’t control it, and I’m afraid of whatever it may be.

  I put my hands to the stone. A surge of power pushes through me. The stone glows white-gold, and the world pitches. It is like looking at the negative of a photograph: Behind me is Spence; before me are the skeletal East Wing and, farther on, the woods. But if I turn my head, shimmering there is another image of something else that stands between. I blink, trying to clear the image.

  And when I look again, I see the outline of a door.

  “Gemma, why have you brought us out here in the middle of the night?” Felicity grouses, wiping sleep from her eyes.

  “You’ll see,” I say, shining the light of a lamp over the back lawn.

  She shivers in her thin nightgown. “We might at least have brought our cloaks.”

  Ann wraps her arms about her middle. Her teeth chatter. “I w-want to go b-b-back to b-bed. If Mrs. Nightwing should f-find us…” She glances behind us for signs of our headmistress.

  “I promise you won’t be disappointed. Now. Stand here.” I position them beside the turret and place the lantern at their feet. The light washes them in an unearthly white.

  “If this is some childish prank, I shall kill you,” Felicity warns.

  “It isn’t.” I stand on the ground above the old stone and close my eyes. The night air nips at my skin.

  “Gemma, really,” Felicity complains.

  “Shush! I need to concentrate,” I snap. Doubt whispers cruelly in my ear: You can’t do it. The power’s left you.

  I won’t listen. Not this time. Slowly, I let go of my fear. The ground vibrates beneath my feet. The land itself seems to call to me, pulling me under its spell. My fingers thrum with an energy that both frightens and excites. I open my eyes and put out my hand, searching for the hidden door. I don’t see it so much as feel it. The sensation is one of exquisite longing and joy. A wound of desire that cannot be healed. It’s whispering to me secrets I don’t comprehend, languages I do not know. The wind howls. It whips up small tornados of dust.

  The land shimmers. The faint outline of the door appears again.

  “Blimey,” Ann gasps.

  Felicity reaches out tentatively. “You believe that leads to the realms?”

  “On the night of the fire, the Winterlands creature came to take Sarah,” I remind them. “And Eugenia Spence offered herself in Sarah’s place. She threw her amulet—this amulet—to my mother and sealed the door into the realms. The East Wing burned. All traces of the door were gone.”

  “We don’t know that this is the same door,” Ann says, shivering. “It could lead anywhere. To the Winterlands, perhaps.”

  “I’m willing to take that chance,” I say, embracing the glimmer of hope I’ve been offered.

  “W-we c-c-could be trapped,” Ann says.

  “We’re already trapped,” Felicity says. “I want to find out what has happened to Pip.” She takes my arm. I grab the lantern.

  “Ann?” I reach out, and she slips her cold fingers into mine, holding tightly. I take a deep breath, and we step forward. For a second, it feels as if we’re falling, and then there is nothing but the dark. It smells musty and sweet.

  “Gemma?” Ann’s whisper.

  “Yes?”

  “What has happened to Felicity?”

  “I’m here,” Fee says. “Wherever that may be.”

  I swing the lamp in first and am able to see a few feet ahead. It’s a long passageway. The lamplight falls on high arched ceilings of pale stone. Roots dangle through cracks here and there. In back of us, Spence sleeps, but it’s as if that world lies behin
d glass, and we push on.

  As we pass, the walls flicker with a faint glow, like hundreds of fireflies lighting the way ahead, while the path behind us shifts into darkness again. The passageway twists and turns in a confusing fashion.

  Ann’s jitters echo in the tunnel. “Don’t get us lost, Gemma.”

  “Will you be quiet?” Felicity scolds. “Gemma, you’d best be right about this.”

  “Keep walking,” I say.

  We come to a wall.

  “We’re trapped,” Ann says in a shaky voice. “I knew it would come to this.”

  “Oh, do stop it,” Fee barks.

  It has to be here. I won’t give up. Let the magic go, Gemma. Feel it. Unleash its power. Something’s calling to me. It’s as if the stones themselves are waking. The outline of another door appears in the wall, fierce light bleeding around its corners. I give the door a shove. It swings open, accompanied by a flurry of dust, as if it has been sealed for ages, and we step into a meadow redolent of roses. The sky is a clear blue in one direction and the golden orange of sunset in the other. It’s a place we know well but have not seen for some time.

  “Gemma,” Felicity murmurs. Her awe gives way to jubilation. “You’ve done it! We’ve made it back to the realms at last!”

  * * *

  CHAPTER NINE

  * * *

  “IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL!” FELICITY SHOUTS. SHE TWIRLS ABOUT, making herself so dizzy she falls down in the tall grass, but she’s laughing as she does.

  “Oh, it is like the most wondrous spring I’ve ever seen,” Ann murmurs. And indeed, it is. Long velvet ropes of moss hang from the tops of trees like gossamer green curtains; branches blossom with pink and white flowers. A gentle breeze sweeps them onto our upturned cheeks and lips. They nestle in my hair, making it smell sweet as new rain. I rub a flower between my fingers, inhaling its scent; I have to be sure that it is real, that I am not dreaming.

  “We’re really here, aren’t we?” I ask as Fee entwines herself in the moss as if it were ermine.

  “Yes, we are,” Fee assures me.

  For the first time in months, hope flutters up through my soul: If I can do this, bring us into the realms, then all is not lost.

  “This isn’t the garden,” Ann says. “Where are we?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, looking about. Tall slabs of stone have been erected in a seemingly random pattern that puts me in mind of Stonehenge. Winding through them is a faint dirt path that reaches from the door to the realms beyond. The path is difficult to see, as if it hasn’t been used in a very long time.

  “There’s a little trail here,” I say. “We’ll follow it.”

  As we walk away, the door fades into the rock.

  “Gemma,” Ann gasps. “It’s gone!”

  It’s as if someone has tightened a string around my heart. I try to keep my wits about me. I take a step toward the rock, and the door glows once again.

  “Oh, thank heavens,” I say, letting my breath out in a whoosh, relieved.

  “Come on,” Felicity pleads. “I want to see the garden. I want…” She doesn’t finish her sentence.

  We follow the path through the stones. Despite being pockmarked with age and dirt, they boast an impressive array of friezes showing women of all sorts. Some are as young as we are; others are as old as the earth itself. Some are clearly warriors, with swords held aloft to the rays of the sun. One sits surrounded by children and fawns, her hair flowing in loose waves to the ground. Another, dressed in chain mail, wrestles a dragon. Priestesses. Queens. Mothers. Healers. It is as if the whole of womanhood is represented here.

  Ann gawks at the woman with the dragon. “Who do you suppose they are?”

  “Perhaps they were of the Order or older still,” I say. I run my hand across a carving of three women on a barge. The one on the left is a young lady; the one on the right is a bit older; and in the center is a crone holding a lantern aloft, as though she’s waiting for someone. The picture gives me a strange sensation in my belly, as if I’ve glimpsed the future. “They’re remarkable, aren’t they?”

  “What’s remarkable is that there isn’t a single blasted corset among them,” Felicity says with a giggle. “Oh, Gemma, let’s do hurry. I can’t wait much longer.”

  The path leads us through tall fields of wheat, past neat rows of olive trees and the grotto where the Runes of the Oracle once stood. At last we find ourselves in the garden we have come to think of as our own private fiefdom.

  The moment we’re on familiar ground, Felicity is running. “Pippa?” she calls. “Pippa! Pippa, it’s me, Felicity! We’ve come back!” She searches every corner. “Where is she?”

  I cannot bring myself to say what I’m thinking—that our dear friend Pippa is lost to us forever now. Either she has crossed the river to the land beyond or she has banded together with the Winterlands creatures and become our enemy.

  I am waiting for the magic to spark inside me, but it doesn’t behave as it has in the past. I am out of practice. Right. Begin with something simple, Gemma. I grab a handful of leaves and close my fingers over them.

  I shut my eyes. My heart flutters a few beats faster, and then a sudden fever takes me. It is as if the whole of the world—all experience, past and present—flows through me as quickly as lightning. My blood pulses with new life. A rapturous smile spreads across my lips. And when I open my eyes, the leaves have turned to rubies in my palm.

  “Ha! Look!” I shriek. I toss the gems into the air and they fall like red rain.

  “Oh, it’s been so long since we’ve played with magic.” Ann gathers leaves in her hands and blows. The leaves fly on her breath, then drift in a slow spiral to her feet. She frowns. “I wanted them to become butterflies.”

  “Here, let me try.” Felicity grabs a handful, but no matter how hard she tries, they become nothing new; they are only leaves. “Why can’t I change them? What’s happened to the magic? How were you able to make the rubies, Gemma?”

  “I simply wished it, and there they were,” I say.

  “Gemma, you clever girl! You did bind the Temple magic to yourself after all!” Felicity says with a mix of awe and envy. “Every bit of it must live inside you now.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” I say, but I can’t make myself believe it. I turn my hands palms up, palms down, staring at them as if I’ve never seen them before. They’re the same dull, freckled hands I’ve always had, and yet…

  “Do something else!” Felicity commands.

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “Turn that tree into a dragon—”

  “Not a dragon!” Ann interrupts, wide-eyed.

  “Or make the flowers into gentleman callers—”

  “Yes, I like that,” Ann says.

  “Oh, honestly, Gemma! You’ve the whole of the Temple inside you. Do whatever you wish!”

  “All right,” I say. There’s a small rock at my feet. “Hmmm, I’ll, um, I’ll just turn this into a…a…”

  “Falcon!” Felicity shouts as Ann says, “Prince!”

  I touch the rock, and for a moment, I feel as if we are one and the same; I’m part of the land. Something slimy bumps against my palm with a loud ribbet. The frog looks about with big eyes, as if shocked to discover that he is no longer a rock.

  Ann grimaces. “I’d hoped for a prince.”

  “You could always kiss him,” I offer, and Fee laughs.

  Ann pulls up a daisy and plucks its petals one by one. “If you hold all the power, Gemma, what does that mean for us?”

  Felicity stops laughing. “We’ll have none of our own.”

  “Once we make an alliance with the other tribes in the realms and join hands, we’ll share the magic—”

  “Yes, but that could take months,” Felicity argues. “What about now?”

  Ann cradles the mangled daisy in her lap. She won’t even look at me. A moment ago I was overjoyed. Now I feel terribly guilty that I have this power and my friends do not.

  “If I am the
Temple with all its magic,” I say, haltingly, “then I should be able to give some to you as the Temple has always given it to us.”

  “I want to try,” Felicity says. She puts a hand to my arm. Her craving warms the skin beneath my sleeve, and I want to shake it off. For if I give it to her, will I be left with less? Will she have more?

  “Gemma?” Felicity says. Her eyes are so very hopeful, and I’m a rotten friend for thinking of denying her.

  “Give me your hands,” I say. Within seconds, we are joined. There’s a sharp pull, almost an exquisite pain. It’s as if we’re the same person for a moment. I can hear echoes of her wishes inside my head. Freedom. Power. Pippa. Pippa is the strongest wish, and I feel Fee’s ache for our missing friend like a deep wound. We break apart, and I have to steady myself against a tree for a second.

  Fee sports a huge grin. “I feel it. I feel it!”

  As I watch, a shimmering breastplate appears over her nightclothes. Her hair hangs long and free. Strapped to her arm is a crossbow. On the other is a falcon. “Oh, if those dowagers could see me now!” She adopts an imperious tone. “I’m afraid, Lady Ramsbottom, that if you should sneer at me once more, I shall have to allow my falcon to eat you.”

  Ann looks at me hopefully.

  “Here, give me your hands,” I say.

  A moment later, Ann holds her arms out in front of her as if she can’t believe the miracle of her own skin. Tears stream down her face.

  “I feel alive again,” she says, laughing through them. “I was so dead inside, but now…Oh, don’t you feel it?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I say, thrilled. “Yes!”

  Ann gives herself a medieval gown of spun gold. She looks the part of a princess in a fairy tale.

  “Ann, you’re beautiful!” I call. I never want this night to end.