The Sweet Far Thing (7 page)

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“I think an English garden party is quite lovely and appropriate. It isn’t a Turkish ball, granted, but even Her Majesty finds such displays unseemly. Was it discussed among the young ladies? Did they find fault with it?”

“No, it was not discussed.” I sigh, leaning my head against the side of the carriage. The London gas fog is settling in. The streets are murky, the people appearing like phantoms. I spy a young man with dark curls and a newsboy cap, and my heart leaps. I half lean out the window.

“Pardon me! You there! Sir!” I call.

“Gemma Doyle!” my grandmother gasps.

The young man turns. It’s not Kartik. He offers the day’s news. “Paper, miss?”

“No,” I say, swallowing hard. “No, thank you.” I settle back against the seat, determined not to look again and raise my hopes unnecessarily.
Where are you, Kartik?

“That was most impolite,” my grandmother tuts. Her eyes narrow with a new thought. “Did they find something wanting in you, Gemma, at the party? You didn’t speak too freely or behave…strangely?”

I grew claws and bayed at the moon. I confessed that I eat the hearts of small children. I told
them I like the French.
Why is the fault always mine?

“We spoke of Mrs. Sheridan’s flowers,” I say evenly.

“Well, nothing wrong in that,” my grandmother says, reassuring herself. “No, nothing at all.”

By late evening of my last night in London, my misery has reached operatic proportions. Grandmama takes to her bed early, “exhausted” by the day’s events. Tom is to dine at the Athenaeum at the behest of Lord Denby.

“When I return, I shall be a great man,” he says, admiring himself in the mirror over the mantel. He has a new top hat, and it makes him look like a well-heeled scarecrow.

“I shall practice my genuflecting whilst you are away,” I respond.

Tom turns to me with a sneer. “I’d send you to a nunnery, but even those saintly women haven’t the patience for your petulance. But please don’t see me out,” he says, striding for the door with a spring in his step. “I shouldn’t want to interrupt your sulking by the fireside.”

“You needn’t worry,” I say, turning back to the fire with a sigh. “You shan’t.”

My season has not even begun and already I feel a failure. It’s as if I’ve inherited a skin I cannot quite fit, and so I walk about constantly pulling and tugging, pinning and pruning, trying desperately to fill it out, hoping that no one will look at me struggling and say, “That one there—she’s a fraud. Look how she doesn’t suit at all.”

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If only I could get into the realms. Oh, what is happening there? Why can’t I get in? What has become of the magic? Where are my visions? To think I once feared them. Now the power I cursed is the only thing I long for.

Not the only thing. But I’ve no power over Kartik, either.

I stare into the fire, watching the fat orange flames jumping about, demanding attention. Deep inside each one, a thin blue soul burns pure and hot, devouring every bit of tinder to keep the fire going.

The mantel clock ticks off the seconds; the steady sound lulls me into drowsiness. Sleep comes and I am lost to dreaming.

I’m enveloped by a thick mist. Before me is an enormous ash tree, its twisted arms reaching up toward a vanished sun. A voice calls to me.

Come to me….

My pulse quickens, but I can see no one.

You’re the only one who can save us, save the realms. You must come to me….

“Can’t get in,” I murmur.

There is another way—a secret door. Trust in the magic. Let it lead you there.

“I have no magic anymore….”

You’re wrong. Your power is extraordinary. It builds within you and wants release. Unleash your
power. That’s what they fear, what you must not fear. I can help you, but you must come to me.

Open the door….

The scene shifts. I am inside the Caves of Sighs before the well of eternity. Below the icy surface of the water lies Miss Moore, her dark hair spreading out like Kali’s. She floats beneath her glass prison, lovely as Ophelia, frightening as a storm cloud. I feel a shudder across the very marrow of my bones.

“You’re dead,” I gasp. “I killed you.”

Her eyes snap open. “You’re wrong, Gemma. I live.”

I wake with a start to find myself still in the chair, the mantel clock showing half past eleven. I feel odd, feverish. Strands of hair hang limp by my mouth, and my blood pumps ferociously. I feel as if I’ve been visited by a ghost.

It was only a dream, Gemma. Let it alone. Felicity’s right—Circe’s dead, and if her blood is on
your hands, you’ve nothing to feel shamed about.
But I cannot stop shivering. And what of the other part of the dream? A door. What I wouldn’t give for a way back into the realms, to the magic. I’d not be frightened of it this time. I’d cherish it.

Hot tears spring to my eyes. I’m useless. I can’t enter the realms. I can’t help my friends or my father. I can’t find Kartik. I can’t even be merry at a garden party. I’ve no place. I poke at the dying fire, but it
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falls to splinters. Seems I’m hopeless at that, as well. I toss the poker to the floor and bang my hand upon the mantel. I should like to drown in heat and banish the shivers.

My fingers tingle; my arms tremble. The same dizziness I felt earlier returns. I feel as if I might faint.

A sudden hot breath pushes through the mouth of the chimney. The fire blazes to life. With a loud shout, I pull my hand away and fall to the floor. At once, the fire sputters and dies.

I hold my hand in front of my face. Did I do that? My fingertips still tingle ever so slightly. I point them toward the quiet fireplace, but nothing happens. I close my eyes. “I command you to make a fire!” A blackened log splinters and falls to soot. Nothing.

Footsteps
tap-tap
nervously down the hall. Mrs. Jones hastens into the room. “Miss Gemma? What has happened?”

“The fire. It was out, and then it caught all of a sudden so that the whole of the fireplace was aflame.”

Mrs. Jones takes the discarded poker to the last of the kindling. “It’s out now, miss. Might be soot in the chimney. I’ll call the sweep tomorrow first thing.”

Tom has come home, and though the hour is late, I hadn’t expected him until much later. He pours himself a tumbler of Father’s scotch and settles into a chair.

Mrs. Jones casts a disapproving eye. “Good evening, sir. Will you be needing me?”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Jones. You may retire.”

“Very good, sir. Miss.”

Tom glances at me with contempt. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

“How could I sleep knowing that the newest member of the Athenaeum Club would grace our home at any moment with his superior presence?” I bow with an excessive flourish and wait for Tom to return the jab. When he doesn’t, I’m not entirely sure he’s my brother. It isn’t like him to let me have the last word without even a feeble attempt to take me down.

“Tom?”

He’s slumped in his chair, his tie undone, his eyes red.

“They put Simpson through instead,” he says quietly.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and I am. I might find Tom’s preoccupation with the Athenaeum Club silly, but it matters to him, and it was cruel of them not to have seen it. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Yes,” he says, draining the last of his glass. “You can leave me be.”

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CHAPTER SEVEN

THOUGHINEVER THOUGHT I’D SAY IT, I’M OVERJOYED TOsee the dour, imposing lady that is Spence again. The three days I passed in London were torturous, what with Tom’s sulking, Grandmama’s constant fussing, and Father’s absence. I do not know how I shall survive the season.

And there is that other matter: my troubling dream and the strange occurrence with the fireplace. The sudden flare of fire was only from stubborn soot inside the chimney—the sweep confirmed it. The dream is harder to dismiss, perhaps because I want to believe that there is a secret door into the realms, that the magic still lives inside me. But wishing won’t make it true.

The chapel bell tolls, calling us to morning prayers. Dressed in our pristine white uniforms, our hair ribbons securely in place, we traipse the well-worn path up the hill to the old stone-and-beam chapel.

“How was your visit home?” Felicity asks, falling in beside me.

“Hideous,” I say.

Felicity grins. “Well, it was an absolute misery here! Cecily insisted on playing charades, as if we are all still in nursery, and then, when Martha guessed hers straightaway, Cecily pouted. It was
Wuthering
Heights,
and everyone knows that is her favorite book—it’s no mystery.”

I laugh at her tale, and for a second, I have the urge to tell her of my dream. But that will only bring up the subject of the realms again, so I think better of it. “It is nice to be back,” I say instead.

Felicity’s eyes widen in horror. “Are you ill, Gemma? Have you a fever? Honestly, I won’t shed a single tear when it is time to say goodbye. I cannot wait to make my debut.”

Annabelle’s hateful gossip weighs heavily on my soul. “And Lady Markham is to present you, is she not?”

“Yes, as I must have a sponsor to put me forth,” Fee says brusquely. “My father may be a naval hero, but my family hasn’t the standing yours enjoys.”

I ignore the swipe. The sun has blessed us with the first taste of the warm weather to come, and we turn our faces toward it like flowers.

“What sort of woman is Lady Markham?”

“She’s one of Lady Denby’s followers,” Felicity scoffs.

I wince at the mention of Simon’s mother. Lady Denby has no love for Felicity or for Mrs. Worthington.

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“You know how that sort is, Gemma. They like to be flattered and led to believe that you revere their every word as if it has dropped from Zeus’s tongue. ‘Why, Lady Markham, I thank you for your good advice.’ ‘How clever you are, Lady Markham.’ ‘I shall take it to heart. How fortunate am I to have your counsel, Lady Markham.’ They want to own you.” Felicity stretches her arms overhead, reaching for the sky. “I shall leave that to my mother.”

“And if Lady Markham were not to present you…what then?” I ask, my heart in my mouth.

Felicity’s arms drop to her sides again. “I’d be done for. If I do not make my debut, my inheritance shall go to the Foundling Hospital, and I shall be at Father’s mercy. But that won’t happen.” She frowns. “I say, you are quite keen on this subject. Have you heard something?”

“No,” I say, hesitating.

“You’re lying.”

There’s no getting around it. She’ll badger me until I tell her the truth. “Very well. Yes. I heard a bit of gossip in London that Lady Markham was having second thoughts about presenting you to court…because of…because of your reputation. And I only thought, with so much at stake, perhaps it would be best if you were to…to…behave.” The word is no more than a faint imprint.

Felicity narrows her eyes, but there is hurt in them. “Behave?”

“Just till after your season…”

Felicity sneers. “Shall I tremble at every scrap of nasty gossip? I’ve survived worse. Honestly, Gemma, since you’ve stopped taking us into the realms you’ve become a dull mouse of a girl. I hardly know you anymore.”

“I only meant to warn you,” I protest.

“I don’t need warnings; I need a friend,” she says. “If you wish to scold me like a schoolmarm, you might as well sit with Nightwing.”

She flounces away, joining arms with Elizabeth, and the sun, which felt so warm, is no longer a comfort.

I eschew Nightwing for Ann. The morning sun illuminates the musty chapel’s stained-glass windows. It shows the coating of grime on the angels and lends a fierce brightness to the bizarre panel of a lone warrior angel beside a severed gorgon’s head.

We bow our heads for prayer. We sing a hymn. And in the end, our French teacher, Mademoiselle LeFarge, reads a poem from William Blake.

And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon England’s mountains green?

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And was the holy Lamb of God

On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

Will this be my life forevermore? Careful tea parties and the quiet fear that I don’t belong, that I’m a fraud? I held magic in my hands! I tasted freedom in a land where summer doesn’t end. I outsmarted the Rakshana with a boy whose kiss I still feel somehow. Was it all for naught? I’d rather not have known any of it than have it snatched away after a taste.