“Ann?” I whisper, then more urgently, “Ann!”
“Gemma?” she says, as if briefly waking from a drugged stupor. “Is that you?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “We’ve come for you. Hold still.”
I loop the rope around Ann’s waist and tie it tight. My fingers are slippery with lagoon water, but I am able to loosen the knots that hold her feet and hands. Ann slides into the water with a little splash.
“Gemma!” Felicity whisper-yells from the shore. “Don’t let her drown.”
I pull up on the rope and Ann bobs to the surface, coughing, awake. She thrashes about.
“Ann! Shush! You’ll bring them . . .”
Too late. Across the lagoon, the nymphs have ended their meeting with the beastly girls in white. They see what I’m about. Angry and snarling, they let loose with a fierce screech that rips through me. They do not like that I’ve dared to take their pet. Then there is only the silvery bow of their backs as they dive under, one by one, swimming fast for us, hungry for our pretty skin.
I push off from the rock, towing Ann. I can feel Miss Moore drawing hard on the rope, but we’re both struggling against Ann’s dead weight.
“Come on, Annie, you’ve got to swim for it,” I plead.
She does a groggy crawl, her arms thrashing about in the water, but we’re no match for the furious nymphs coming our way.
I scream, no longer caring to keep quiet. “Pull! On the rope—pull hard!”
Felicity and Pippa rush to aid Miss Moore. Grunting and straining, they tug as hard as they can. We plow violently through the water. It’s not enough.
“Use the nets!” I screech, taking in a mouthful of foul water so that I cough and gag.
Pippa runs for the nets. She hurls one out. It sails overhead and splashes into the water. The nymphs scream in rage. The net has frightened them, but only temporarily. They renew their efforts. This time, Pippa’s net lands on four of the nymphs. There’s a horrible scream as the net burns their skin. They bubble and blister until they are nothing more than sea foam.
The others fall behind, afraid to go farther. Felicity and Pippa lug us from the water onto the sharp shoals.
Miss Moore helps me to my feet. “Are you all right?”
Ann vomits onto the shoals. She is weak but alive.
We’ve cheated them of their prize. I can’t help myself. I shout with glee and satisfaction. “Take our skin, will you? Ha! Take that!”
“Gemma,” Miss Moore advises, pulling me back from the water. “Do not taunt them.”
Indeed, the nymphs do not take kindly to my celebration. They open their mouths and begin to sing. The lure of it is like a net drawing me toward the water. Oh, that sound, like a promise that there need be no worry or want ever again. I could grow drunk on that tune.
Miss Moore places her fingers in her ears. “Don’t listen!”
Felicity wades into the warm water to her ankles, then her knees, drawn by the song. Pippa runs to the edge, screaming her name. “Fee! Fee!”
Ann’s begun to sing along. For a moment, I’m distracted by her voice. What am I doing in the water? I step out. Ann stops singing, and the nymphs flood me with their sweet promises again.
I’m vaguely aware of Miss Moore screaming, “Ann! Sing! You’ve got to sing!”
Ann finds her song again. It pulls me away from the water and the nymphs enough to see what is happening. Felicity’s swimming farther out.
“Sing, Ann!” I shout. My hands find the faint throb at her throat. “Sing as if your life depends on it.”
Ann’s song, thin at first, is no match for the temptation in Felicity’s ears. But her voice gains strength. She sings more loudly and more powerfully than I have ever heard her sing, until she is the song itself. She stares at those creatures like a warrior warning of the battle to come. In the water, Felicity stops. Pippa rushes in after her.
“Fee, come back with me.”
She reaches out her hand and Felicity takes it.
“Come on,” Pippa says softly, luring her from the water.
“Come on.”
Felicity follows Ann’s voice and Pippa’s hand until she is back on solid ground.
“Pippa?” Felicity says.
Pippa embraces her, and Felicity holds so tightly I fear she will break Pippa.
The nymphs, realizing they have lost, screech in rage.
“Let’s not wait around, shall we?” Miss Moore says. She gathers the rope onto her shoulder. I am so grateful for Miss Moore at this moment I could cry.
“Thank you, Hester,” I say.
“It is I who should thank you, Gemma.”
“For what?” I ask.
But there is no answer to that question. For the girls in white have returned. And they are not alone. They’ve brought the fearsome creature I’ve seen in my vision, the one who followed us back from the Caves of Sighs—a tracker. It emerges from behind them in the darkness, rising, spreading out till we are forced to look up at the vast, roiling expanse of it. The girls step inside it like children clinging to a mother’s skirts.
“At last . . . ,” it says.
Run. Get away. Can’t move. The fear. Such fear
. The wings unfurl revealing the horrible faces within.
The hate. The terror.
Miss Moore pushes me out of the way, her voice strong.
“Run!”
We tumble down the black rock. The slide is rough. It cuts my hands, but we reach the ground quickly.
“Get to the gorgon,” Felicity shouts. She is in the lead, Pippa just behind. I’m pulling Ann, who can barely run. But where is Miss Moore? I see her! She appears in the sulfur green mist. The beast and the girls are close on her heels.
She waves us on. “Go! Go!”
Pulling Ann along, I run as fast as I can till I see the gorgon in the shallows. The four of us clamber onto the boat.
Miss Moore emerges, but the thing is quick. It blocks her path.
“Miss Moore!” I shout.
“No! Gemma, run!” she shouts. “Do not wait for me!”
With a mighty groan, the gorgon sets us back on course for the garden. I climb to the railing, but Felicity and Pippa pull at my arms. I’m fighting like a madwoman.
“Gorgon, stop this instant! I’m ordering you to stop!”
But she doesn’t. We’re slipping away from the shore, where that terrible creature towers over my friend.
“Miss Moore! Miss Moore!” I shout till my voice is raw, till I’ve no voice left.
"Miss Moore,” I croak, sliding to the deck of the boat.
We’re back in the garden. My eyes are raw from crying. I’m exhausted and sick. I turn to the gorgon.
“Why didn’t you stop when I ordered you to do so?”
That thick, scaly head rolls slowly toward me. “I am ordered first to bring no harm to you, Most High.”
“We could have saved her!” I cry.
The head swivels away. “I think not.”
“Gemma,” Ann says gently. “You’ve got to make the door.”
Felicity and Pippa sit together, arms intertwined, loathe to leave each other.
I close my eyes.
“Gemma,” Ann says.
“Circe’s creature got her, and I wasn’t able to stop it.”
No one has a comforting thing to say.
“I’m going to kill her,” I say, my words hard as steel.
"I’m going to face her, and then I shall kill her.”
It takes tremendous effort to make the door of light appear. The others must steady me. But finally it shimmers into view. Pippa waves goodbye and blows kisses to us all. I’m the last to go through, and as I wait, I glance one last time at Pippa. She’s pulled something out from its hiding place behind a tree. It’s the carcass of a small animal. She stares at it longingly before crouching low, sitting on her haunches like some beast herself. She brings the flesh to her mouth and feeds, her eyes gone white with hunger.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
MISS MOORE IS GONE. SHE IS GONE. I’VE NOT FOUND the Temple. The Rakshana were wrong to trust me with this task. I am not Nell Hawkins’s Lady Hope. I am not the Most High, the one to bring back the glory of the Order and the magic. I am Gemma Doyle, and I have failed.
I am so tired. My body aches; my head feels stuffed with cotton. I should like to lie down and sleep for days. I am too tired even to undress. I lie across my bed. The room swirls for a moment, and then I am fast asleep and dreaming.
I’m flying over darkened, rain-slicked streets, through alleys where filthy children gnaw at mealy bread thick with buzzing insects. I fly on, till I’m floating down the halls of Bethlem and into Nell Hawkins’s room.
“Lady Hope,” she whispers. "What have you done?”
I don’t understand. I cannot answer. There are footsteps in the corridor.
“What have you done? What have you done?” she shouts. “Jack and Jill went up the hill; Jack and Jill went up the hill; Jack and Jill went up the hill.”
I’m floating away on her ramblings, floating high above the corridor, where the lady in the green cloak sweeps down the darkened hall, unnoticed. I’m floating out into the inky night over St. George’s when I hear Nell Hawkins’s faint, stifled cry.
I do not know how late I have slept, what day it is, or where I am when I am awakened by an anxious Mrs. Jones.
“Miss, miss! You’d best dress quickly. Lady Denby has come to call with Mr. Simon. Your grandmother sent me to fetch you straightaway.”
“I’m not feeling well,” I say, flopping back on the pillows.
Mrs. Jones pulls me to a sitting position. "Once they’ve gone, you can rest all you like, miss. But for now, I’m to get you dressed and be quick about it.”
When I descend, they’re all assembled in the parlor, huddled tightly over teacups. If this is a social call, it is not going well. Something is amiss. Even Simon isn’t smiling.
“Gemma,” Grandmama says. "Sit down, child.”
“I’m afraid I have some rather troubling news concerning your acquaintance Miss Bradshaw,” Lady Denby says. My heart stops.
“Oh?” I say, faintly.
“Yes. I thought it strange that I wouldn’t know of her family, so I’ve made inquiries. There is no Duke of Chesterfield in Kent. In fact, I was able to turn up nothing on a girl discovered to be of the Russian nobility.”
Grandmama shakes her head. "It is shocking. Shocking!”
“What I did discover is that she has a rather vulgar cousin—a merchant’s wife who lives in Croydon. I’m afraid your Miss Bradshaw is little more than a fortune hunter,” Lady Denby says.
“I never cared for her,” Grandmama says.
“There must be some mistake,” I offer weakly.
“That is a kind assessment, my dear,” Lady Denby says, patting my hand.
"But remember that you too have been tainted by this scandal. And Mrs. Worthington, of course. To think that they opened their home to her. Of course, Mrs. Worthington isn’t known for her sound judgment, if I may be so bold.”
Grandmama gives her edict. “You are to have no further acquaintance with that girl.”
Tom enters. His face is drawn and pale.
“Thomas? What is the matter?” Grandmama asks.
“It’s Miss Hawkins. She took ill in the night with a fever. She will not wake.” He shakes his head, unable to continue.
“I dreamed about her last night,” I blurt out.
“Did you? What did you dream?” Simon asks.
I dreamed of Circe and Nell’s stifled cry. What if that was no dream?
“I—I don’t remember,” I say.
“Oh, poor dear, you’re pale,” Lady Denby says.
"It is very hard to hear that one has been duped by a supposed friend. And now your Miss Hawkins is ill. It must be a terrible shock.”
“Yes, thank you,” I say. "I’m not feeling well.”
“Poor dear,” Lady Denby murmurs again. “Simon, do be a gentleman and help Miss Doyle.”
Simon takes my arm and escorts me from the room.
“I can’t bear to think of Ann in such trouble,” I say.
“If she misrepresented herself, she deserves what comes,” Simon says.
"No one likes to be deceived.”
As I am deceiving Simon, letting him think me this uncomplicated English schoolgirl? Would he run if he knew the truth? Would he feel I had misled him? Keeping secrets is as much an illusion as acting out an elaborate charade.
“I know this is a horrible imposition, Mr. Middleton,” I say. “But could you possibly delay your mother’s visit to Mrs. Worthington until I’ve had a chance to speak with Miss Bradshaw?”
Simon gives me a smile. “I’ll do my best. But you should know that once my mother sets her sights on something, there is little you can do to change the course of it. I think she’s set her sights on you.”
I should be flattered. And I am, in a small way. But I cannot shake the feeling that in order to be loved by Simon and his family, I shall have to be a very different sort of girl and that if they knew me—truly knew me—they would not welcome me so warmly.
“What if you were to be disappointed in me?”
“I could never be disappointed in you.”
“But what if you discovered something . . . surprising about me?”
Simon nods. "I know what it is, Miss Doyle.”
“You do?” I whisper.
“Yes,” he says in earnest. “You have a hump on your back that only appears after midnight. I shall take your secret to the grave.”
“Yes, that is it,” I say, smiling, blinking hard at the tears that sting my eyes.
“You see? I know everything about you,” Simon says. “Now get some rest. I shall see you tomorrow.”
I hear them in the parlor gossiping. I hear them because I am on the stair, soft as starlight. And then I am out the door, quiet as can be, and off to the Worthingtons’ house to warn them. And after, I shall find Miss McCleethy, and she will answer for Miss Moore, my mother, Nell Hawkins, and the others. For this purpose, I tuck the blade Kartik left me into my boot.
Felicity’s butler opens the door and I push my way inside, past his protests.
“Felicity!” I call out, not caring about manners or protocol.
"Ann!”
“In here!” Felicity answers from the library.
I barrel my way in with the butler on my heels. "Miss Doyle to see you, miss,” he says, determined to return some sense of decorum to the proceedings.
“Thank you, Shames. That will be all,” Felicity says. “What is it?” she asks, when we are alone.
"Is it something about Miss Moore? Have you found a way to get her back?”
I shake my head. “We’re found out. Lady Denby has made inquiries. She’s found your cousin, Ann. She knows we’ve been masquerading all this time.” I sink into a chair. I am so very tired.
“Then everyone will know. You may be sure of that,” Felicity says, looking truly terrified.
Ann pales. "I thought you said no one would be the wiser!”
“I hadn’t counted on Lady Denby and her hatred of my mother.”
Ann sits, trembling. “I’m ruined. And we shall never be allowed to see one another again.”
Felicity’s hand is a fist at her stomach. “Papa shall have my head.”
“It was your idea,” Ann says, pointing a finger at Felicity.
“You were only too happy to play along!”
“Please stop,” I say. “We have to keep Lady Denby from telling what she knows.”
“No one can keep her from that,” Felicity says. “She is a very determined woman. And this is the sort of gossip that she lives for.”
“We could come up with another story,” Ann says, pacing.
“How long before she makes inquiries on that one as well?” I say.
Ann sits on the settee, lays her head on her arm, and cries.
“We could use the magic,” Felicity says.
“No,” I say.
Felicity’s eyes flash. "Why not?”
“Have you forgotten last night? We shall need every bit of magic to find the Temple and face Circe.”
“Circe!” Felicity spits. “Pippa was right. You only look after yourself.”
“That isn’t true,” I say.
“Isn’t it?”
“Please, Gemma,” Ann blubbers.
“You’ve seen how the magic takes its toll upon me,” I say.
"I’m not myself today. And Nell Hawkins has fallen into a trance. Just last night I dreamed she’d been found by Circe.”
Felicity’s butler enters. “Is everything all right, Miss Worthington?”
“Yes, Shames. Thank you.”
He leaves, but he does not take our anger with him. It hangs about the room in wounded looks and a hostile quiet. My head aches.
“Do you think it’s true? Do you think Circe really has taken hold of Nell Hawkins?” Ann asks through her tears.
“Yes,” I say. “So you see it is imperative that we go into the realms again tonight. Once we find the Temple and bind the magic, you may use it to make them think you are Queen Victoria herself if you wish. But first we find the Temple.” And Circe.
Felicity exhales loudly. “Thank you, Gemma. I can keep Mother occupied and away from Lady Denby’s clutches until tomorrow. Ann, you are about to become very ill.”
“I am?”
“No one would dare to speak badly of an invalid,” she explains.
"Now, faint.”
“But what if they can tell that I am pretending?”
“Ann, it is not terribly difficult to faint. Women do it all the time. You simply fall to the floor, close your eyes, and don’t speak.”
“Yes,” Ann says. “Should I fall to the floor or here on the couch?”
“Oh, honestly, it doesn’t matter! Just faint!”
Ann nods. With the finesse of a born actress she rolls her eyes back and crumples to the floor dramatically, like a soufflé falling in on itself. It is the most graceful fainting spell I’ve ever seen. It is a pity it has been wasted on us.
“Tonight,” Felicity says, taking my hands.
“Tonight,” I agree.
We push through the parlor doors as frantically as we can. “Shames! Shames!” Felicity calls.
The tall, icy butler appears. "Yes, miss?”
“Shames, Miss Bradshaw has fainted! I fear she has taken ill. We must call for Mother at once.”
Even the placid Shames is disturbed. "Yes, miss. Right away.”
As the house erupts into an excited frenzy—for everyone, it seems, loves the potential for disaster, a break in the numbing routine—I take my leave. I must admit that I find a savage delight in rehearsing what I will say to Grandmama about this visit.
“. . . and then Miss Bradshaw’s kind, gentle spirit was so injured
by these false accusations that she took ill and fainted. . . .”
Yes, that will be a most satisfactory moment. If only I weren’t so very tired.
Dusk has settled over London along with a bit of sleet. It’s a raw evening, and I shall be glad to sit at my fire. I wonder what has happened to Miss Moore, if there is anything I can do to save her from her terrible fate. I wonder if I shall ever see Kartik again or if he has been absorbed into the shadows of the Rakshana.
Jackson’s waiting patiently at the curb. That can only mean they’ve discovered me gone and come to the logical conclusion. I’m in for as much trouble as Felicity and Ann now. Most likely, Tom sits inside the carriage fuming.
“Evenin’, miss. Your grandmother was very worried about you,” Jackson says, opening the carriage door for me. He takes my hand to help me up and in.
“Thank you, Jack—” I freeze. It is not Tom or Grandmama waiting for me. Sitting in my carriage is Miss McCleethy. She is joined by Fowlson from the Rakshana.
“Get in, if you please, miss,” Jackson says, exerting pressure on my back.
I open my mouth to scream. His hand presses hard against me, trapping the sound in my throat. “Oi know where your family lives. Fink on your poor dad, lyin’ in the sickroom, all vulnerable like.”
“Jackson,” Miss McCleethy calls. "That will be enough.”
Reluctantly, Jackson lets go. He closes the door behind me and swings up behind the horses. The lights of Mayfair fade away as the carriage lurches into the traffic heading for Bond Street.
“Where are you taking me?” I demand.
“Somewhere we can talk,” Miss McCleethy says. “You are a very slippery girl to catch, Miss Doyle.”
“What have you done to Nell Hawkins?” I ask.
“Miss Hawkins is the least of my concerns at the moment. We must discuss the Temple.”
Fowlson douses a handkerchief with liquid from a small bottle.
“What are you doing?” I ask, the terror rising in my throat.
“We can’t very well have you knowing how to find our hideaway,” Fowlson says.
He looms over me. I fight back, turning my head left and right to avoid him, but he is too strong. The white of the handkerchief is all I can see as it floats lower, covering my nose and mouth at last. There is the inescapable, suffocating odor of ether. The last thing I see before succumbing to the darkness is Miss McCleethy popping a toffee into her mouth without a care in the world.
I come to by degrees. First, there is the taste in my mouth, a foul, sulfurous thing that sits on my tongue and makes me gag. Then there is the blurred vision. I have to raise my arm to block the wobbly, dancing light. I’m in a dark room. Candles burn. Is there no one else? I can’t see anyone, but I’m aware of others. I can feel them in the room. There’s a rustling sound coming from the darkness above.
Two masked men enter the room, escorting someone in a blindfold. They remove the blindfold. It’s Kartik! The other men back away, leaving us alone together.
“Gemma,” he says.
“Kartik,” I croak. My throat is dry. My voice cracks. “What are you doing here? Did they take you, too?”
“Are you all right? Here, have some water,” he answers.
I take a sip. “I’m so very sorry about what I said that day. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
He shakes his head. “It is forgotten. Are you certain you’re all right?”
“You must help me. Fowlson and Miss McCleethy kidnapped me and brought me here. If she has his loyalty, then we cannot trust the Rakshana.”
“Shhh, Gemma. No one brought me here against my will. Miss McCleethy is part of the Order. She’s working with the Rakshana to find the Temple and restore the Order to its full power. She’s come to help you.”
I lower my voice to a whisper. “Kartik, you know that Miss McCleethy is Circe.”
“Fowlson says she is not.”