The Isadora Interviews (6 page)

“Do you feel better?” Isadora asked.

Camille stopped to think it over.

“Yes,” she said. “A little.”

“I thought so. I’d like to invite you to Miss Mabel’s School for Girls, Camille.”

Camille’s eyes shot up to meet hers.

“What?”

Isadora leaned back in her seat, but her twisted spine made it look like she was hunching forward.

“Welcome to Miss Mabel’s School for Girls. You are invited to attend, if you would like to accept the offer.”

Camille blinked, rendered speechless for the first time in her life.

“You’re accepting me?”

“Yes.”

“B-but why?”

“Because you belong.”

“I can’t belong there. I have so many weaknesses. You just told me all of them.”

Isadora chuckled. “Yes, well, there’s more to Miss Mabel’s than that.”

“Like what?”

“I’m accepting you for more reasons than your academic abilities, or lack thereof,” she replied in an easy tone.

“So you’re accepting me because you feel sorry for me?” Camille said, tears welling up in her eyes once more.

“No. I’m accepting you because you have an incredibly large heart, which is often a characteristic lacking at a school like Miss Mabel’s. Your ability to love and be loved is much stronger than most witches’, which is not a weakness at all. You belong at Miss Mabel’s because you are more than just a student; you’re a friend. And, from what I can see, you will be a very important friend to many people. You may not have found your purpose yet,” Isadora allowed with a little twinkle in her eye, “but trust me when I say that you do have a path. Once you find it, it will be as clear as day.”

A world of understanding seemed to pass between them in that moment.

Camille thought over what Isadora had said. Something was filling her, and she wasn’t sure if it was relief or a new kind of fear—the kind of fear that came before she’d take on something much bigger and more frightening than she’d ever known before.

“Accepting the invitation to Miss Mabel’s will mean a few things,” Isadora said. “You’ll be required to work hard over the summer to make sure you’re caught up with the required education level, and you’ll have to maintain that level of work ethic throughout your whole stay at Miss Mabel’s. Learning doesn’t come as easily for you as it does others, but with a lot of hard work, you can earn your marks.”

Camille leapt to her feet with a happy cry.

“I accept!” she squealed. “Oh, Isadora, thank you. Thank you!”

Camille threw her arms around Isadora, a few more happy tears leaking onto her cheeks. Isadora patted her arm with a low chuckle.

“I’m so happy!” she said, and it flooded through every bone in her body. “So very happy!”

Priscilla

P
riscilla studied the string of pearls with unnecessary scrutiny.

Although their luster impressed her, the sheen coating the top layer couldn’t have been natural. Another fraud. Incensed, she tossed them across her dresser with a careless flick of her wrist. The pearls hit with a clacking sound and slid to the end, where they dropped to the floor and rested in a heap.

“Poor excuse of a man,” she muttered. “Even at fifteen I deserve better than fake pearls.”

No,
a little voice whispered inside her, sounding an awful lot like her mother.
Not unless you’re perfect. If you were perfect, Mr. Rutherford’s son would have bought you real pearls.

Father had bought her real pearls the year he’d forgotten about her birthday, but the beauty of the necklace still hadn’t swallowed the sting of his carelessness. It pinched her heart, even now. She never wanted to see another string of pearls—real or fake—again.

Priscilla’s father, Jaxton, was the Coven leader for the prosperous city of Ashleigh, one of the wealthiest cities in the Central Network. He had worked hard to build and maintain that reputation, and Ashleigh delivered. Unfortunately, his job meant long hours away from home, running a city, and forgetting his family. It had been a week since they’d spoken. Priscilla brushed away the sudden pang in her stomach that meant she missed him. They’d been close, once.

“Doesn’t matter,” Priscilla said, shaking the voice off with a reminder of their wealth. “We can buy real pearls.”

Not that she wanted them.

The smell of lilacs and candied almonds drifted towards her on the breeze. “At least I’m not a poor forester living in Letum Wood,” she said with a petulant sigh. “Things could always be worse.”

Sun streamed onto her face, warming her porcelain skin. For a moment she considered lingering there because it felt so good but instead stepped away from the light.

Tanned skin on a girl? Vulgar,
Mother’s voice whispered.
Your skin should look as white as snow.

Priscilla folded her arms on the sill, keeping her head a safe distance from the sun, and gazed out at the ornate buildings surrounding their mansion. The elaborate iron fences, gardens fluffy with white, pink, and purple summerflowers, and sturdy oak trees with magnificent arms seemed to stretch out and embrace the city. A few witches walked by below, holding parasols over their heads. Their dresses, Priscilla noted, had fewer ruffles than last year’s fashion. Something Mother had predicted.

“Blasted woman is always right,” she muttered, envying the girls for their freedom. Escaping her bedroom and walking around Ashleigh would be a welcome reprieve from the monotony.

A complexion like yours can’t handle the harsh sun, and we wouldn’t want a blemish, would we?
Mother’s voice echoed like a bell in her mind with all the certainty in the world that a single flaw would bring about the collapse of Antebellum.

Not a single imperfection.

Priscilla rolled her eyes.

“Cilla, darling.” A shrill voice called up the stairs, making her cringe. “Time for tea!”

She glanced over her shoulder. The closed wooden door was no barrier to a voice like Mother’s. Steel couldn’t stop something so high and demanding.

Priscilla walked over to a dress hanging from a padded hanger on a nail in the far wall. The crushed white velvet felt divine on her fingertips. Truth be told, a more ridiculous choice for tea didn’t exist. The sleeves lacked the right lace and the extravagant figure wouldn’t fit such a simple event. Mother would scorn it.

“But she insisted I find something memorable,” she said out loud, as if the dress would answer back. It didn’t, leaving her even less certain. Priscilla bit her bottom lip and looked at the other dresses crowding her closet. There were so many, yet none of them seemed right. As she pulled out a light pink one, her mother’s voice played through her mind.

Pink is acceptable when you’re ten, dear. But we must put on a more mature look for you now that you’re fifteen and soon to be marriage material.

Stuffing it back into the closet with a huff, Priscilla eyed a light-yellow gown with an extra layer of lace around the top.

Too bright outside for yellow inside,
Mother’s voice chided in her mind.
You’d look like the sun, and one can’t compare with the sun.
Frustrated, Priscilla dropped the dress to the floor of the closet, slammed the door closed with a crack, and gave a satisfied nod.

“I’ll wear the white one,” she said, “and Mother can deal with it. This is all Abigail’s fault. If she didn’t take so long doing her chores she could have already picked my dress out with Mother.”

Blaming it on someone else eased the ball of anxiety in her chest.

If it’s not good enough for Mother,
Priscilla reasoned,
then it’s because Abigail didn’t come up after her lunch chores.

She’d need help preparing for tea to Mother’s satisfaction. Inevitably, there was always something she did wrong. Priscilla looked at the servant’s cord on the wall and cast a spell. The cord bobbed up and down, as if pulled by an invisible hand. Why pull the rope when magic could do all the work? A tinkling bell sang in the servants’ quarters far below, calling Abigail to her.

“Run, Abigail,” Priscilla muttered. “Run as fast as you can.”

It took several minutes, but eventually a light tap sounded on the door.

“Permission to enter, Miss Priscilla?”

“Granted.”

Abigail moved into the room with all the presence of a mouse, eyes averted and shoulders hunched.
Good,
Priscilla thought.
She remembered not to make eye contact.

“Prepare me for tea, Abigail. Mother has already called. We musn’t be late.”

“Yes, Miss Priscilla.”

Abigail limped into the room, her lame right leg trailing a little behind the left. However much it hurt, she hid the pain. Grimacing was not attractive, even in a servant, which Mother reminded Abigail often.

“Bring my dress,” Priscilla said, turning back to her mirror. Now that she’d completed her morning transformations, she could allow the servants inside. If they knew the truth, their gossiping little mouths would let all of Ashleigh know that the Mortons used transformative magic to look perfect. They’d be shunned and ridiculed, possibly ruining Papa’s career.

The equivalent of the fires of hell in Mother’s mind.

Secrets, secrets,
Priscilla thought, wondering what it would feel like to let the truth go free. Would Mother burn with embarrassment? What would Priscilla do with her free time if she didn’t have to practice more transformations? The appealing thought left as soon as it came.

Beauty is everything,
Mother’s voice reminded her.

Abigail appeared with the dress in hand, ready to slide over the see-through shift Priscilla’d been lounging in all day.

“Be careful!” Priscilla warned, nervous that a single out-of-place curl would draw Mother’s attention. “I spent an hour on my hair. I’ll not have you ruining my hard work.”

Abigail bowed her head once but said nothing, as Priscilla preferred. They wrestled the dress over Priscilla’s shoulders and down onto her curvaceous hips. Abigail pulled the silk ribbons up the back so that it tightened over Priscilla’s chest, accenting her natural hourglass figure. She gazed down to see the top swells of her bosom.

You did come in a bit early, didn’t you? Mother was right. Again.

“Cinch the waist a little tighter,” she said, earning a silent nod of approval from her Mother inside. “I’m not sure who is here. I need to be ready for anything.”

Abigail tightened and pulled the dress until it met Priscilla’s satisfaction. Too small around the chest already, it pushed her breasts up like a pedestal. Breathing could be a problem, but that wasn’t new. Priscilla stepped up to a gilded mirror and checked her reflection for any flaws. None, as usual. Not a single freckle on her alabaster skin. A little prickle of worry nagged at her anyway. Mother always found something.

“Would you like your new pearls?” Abigail asked, stooping to pick them up from the floor.

“No. They’re fake.”

Abigail’s bushy eyebrows rose, but she wisely posed no question.

“Mr. Rutherford’s son sent them over to me as a present for my birthday last week, but they aren’t real. I can tell by the painted gloss on the outside. Really, Abigail,” she drawled in a cruel tone, “don’t you know anything about jewelry?”

The deliberate barb hit the mark. A quiet flinch on Abigail’s face gave Priscilla a momentary feeling of power. Abigail wouldn’t know anything about pearls—she’d been working for the Mortons since she could carry a tray. The closest Abigail would ever get to pearls was cleaning them.

“Get me the real pearls Father gave me for my birthday last year,” Priscilla commanded. “The earrings as well. Mother will be upset if I don’t wear the earrings. And hurry! She’ll scold me for being late.”

Abigail hobbled over to the armoire, where she struggled to reach the appropriate black box. The nuisance of her short height added to that of her gimpy leg made Abigail doubly handicapped. Priscilla watched, wondering if Abigail would let her practice a few transformation spells on her round, freckled face.

No, Mother would never allow it.

Many years before, just to throw the servants off, Mother had made Priscilla practice transformation on Abigail and fail on purpose.

Then there won’t be the slightest suspicion,
Mother had said. Priscilla did a spell that shredded Abigail’s hair into short pieces and turned the ends purple.
An unfortunate accident,
Mother said, shaking her head back and forth while the servants bustled around them.
Priscilla won’t be doing transformations anymore, will she?

Abigail had worn a scarf around her head for months.

Priscilla shook her head, breaking off the memory. A little pang of remorse twisted her chest every time she thought of it.