Prophecy of the Sisters (6 page)

Luisa tugs on Alice’s sleeve. “Someone’s coming!”

Victoria rolls her eyes. “We can hear that, Luisa.”

Luisa’s onyx eyes flash in anger, but before she can defend herself the door is pulled open. In almost the same moment, we
are met with a dark stare from the woman standing on the threshold.

“Yes?” She levels each of us with her gaze, as if to see who among us is sure to be the troublemaker. I should like to point
her in Victoria’s direction, but I don’t have the chance or the nerve.

Alice pulls herself up straight, putting on her haughtiest air. “Good morning. We have come to see Sonia Sorrensen.”

“And who, may I ask, is calling. And for what purpose?” The woman’s skin is the color of dark caramels, her eyes a shade lighter,
almost amber. She reminds me of a cat.

“We would like to pay her for a sitting, if you please.” Alice’s manner is imperious, as if the woman has no right to question
her, though Alice is a mere girl who should not even be on the streets without a chaperone.

The woman’s eyebrows rise ever so slightly. “Very well. You may step into the foyer. I shall see if Miss Sorrensen has time
for visitors.” She holds the door open as we file in, our skirts rustling and crowding around our legs in the small entry.
“Please wait here.”

She ascends a simple wooden staircase, and we are left in a perfect silence broken only by the ticking of an unseen clock
in a room beyond the parlor. The desire to flee presses upon my chest as I realize we are standing in a strange house with
who-knows-who upstairs and not a soul in the world to know where we are.

“What are we doing here, Alice? What is this place?”

Alice’s smile is cold and hard. In it I see the pleasure she finds in knowing things other people do not know. “We are here
to see a spiritualist, Lia. Someone who can speak to the dead and see the future.”

I do not have time to ponder Alice’s reasons for wanting to know the future. Voices drift from the room above us, and we look
to each other in the crowded vestibule. Our eyebrows lift in silent question as heavy footsteps rattle the floorboards over
our heads.

The woman peers down the steps, beckoning us up the staircase. “You may come.”

Alice pushes to the front. Victoria and Luisa follow her up the stairs without hesitation. It is only when Luisa reaches the
third step and turns to me that I realize I haven’t moved.

“Come on, Lia. It’s all in good fun.”

I swallow my sudden fear and smile a response, following her up the narrow steps and through a door at the right of the landing.

The room is dark, the shades drawn over the windows so that only the faintest whisper of light lurks about the edges of the
frame. But the girl sitting at the table is full of light, surrounded by candles flickering gold against her creamy skin.
Her hair shimmers even with the meager glow from the covered windows, and although the room is full of shadows, I can see
the curve of her cheek and am sure even from the doorway that her eyes are blue.

“Miss Sorrensen is a touch under the weather.” The woman who brought us to the room glances accusingly at the girl. “She can
only offer you a brief sitting.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Millburn.” The girl’s voice is a murmur to the older woman, who closes the door behind her without reply.
“Please sit down.”

Alice and Victoria move cautiously toward the table, taking the chairs opposite the girl. I, on the other hand, am so drawn
to her that I take the seat to her right. Luisa sits next to me, closing our mismatched circle.

“Thank you for coming. I am Sonia Sorrensen. You’ve come for a sitting, then?”

We bob our heads, unsure what to say. No social lesson at Wycliffe has prepared us for such an outrageous occasion.

She meets our eyes, one at a time. “Is there someone with whom you’d like to make contact, a message you hope to retrieve?”

Only Victoria speaks. “We would like to see what you know about the future. Our future.” She sounds impossibly young, and
I wonder if I might remember her shaking voice to call upon the next time she is mean at Wycliffe.

“Well…” Sonia looks at each of us again before settling her eyes first on Alice, and then me. “Perhaps I shall have a message
for
you.
”

Alice’s eyes find mine through the dark. For a moment, I think I see cold fury there, but I quickly discount it. I am not
thinking clearly. The forbidden outing and strange house, a house likely
made
strange as a way to make Sonia’s task easier, has loosened the strings of reality. I take a deep breath.

“Let us join hands.” Sonia holds her hands out to either side. Hands are clasped until it is only mine that is left to be
joined with Sonia’s to complete the circle. When I reach out, careful to conceal my wrist, her hand is cool and dry in mine.
“I must ask for silence. I never know what I will see or hear. I work at the will of the spirits, and sometimes they have
no will to join me at all. You must not speak unless directed.” Her eyelids flicker and then close.

I peer at the faces, distorted and shadowed, around the table. In them I see remnants of the girls I know, but here no one
is as they seemed in the sunlit street. With nothing to do but stare at Sonia, they close their eyes one by one. Finally,
at last, I close mine as well.

The room is so completely sealed that I do not hear a sound — no horses’ hooves or shouts from the streets below, not even
the ticking clock in the house below us. Only the whispery in and out of Sonia’s breathing. I settle into it —
in, out, in, out
— until I am not sure if it is her breathing or my own pacing the seconds and minutes.

“Oh!” The sound bursts forth from the seat next to me, and I jump as my eyes fly open to Sonia’s face. Her eyes are already
open, though she seems very far away. “There
is
someone here. A visitor.” She looks at me. “He’s here for you.”

Alice looks around, wrinkling her nose. I smell it a moment later. Pipe smoke. Just the memory of it, really, but a memory
that my soul knows no matter what my mind says.

“He wants to tell you that everything will be all right.” Sonia closes her eyes for a moment, as if trying to see something
that cannot be seen with them open. “He wants you to know that…” And here she stops. She stops and opens her eyes wide in
surprise, staring at me before turning her gaze to Alice and then back again. Her voice is the murmur of whispered secrets.
“Shhhhh… They know you’re here.”

She begins to shake her head, muttering as if to herself or someone else very near, though it is quite clear she is not speaking
to us. “Oh no… Oh no, oh no, oh no. Be gone, now,” she says softly, as if negotiating with a wayward child. “Go on. It is
not me. I am not the one. I didn’t summon you.” Her voice, held in quiet calm until now, cracks with the strain of her false
demeanor. “It is no use. They will not listen. They’ve come for…” She turns to me, lowering her voice to a whisper as if afraid
someone might overhear. “They’ve come for you… for you and your sister.” She is perfectly lucid, looking directly into my
eyes with such clarity that it is impossible to think her mad, though her words should make it easy to believe.

The room grows quiet. I don’t know how long we sit in the surprised silence before Sonia finally blinks, looking around her
as if realizing where she is for the first time. When she sees me she sits up straight, fixing me with a stare filled with
accusation and fear.

“You shouldn’t have come.”

I shake my head. “What… What do you mean?”

She looks into my eyes, and even in the flickering candlelight I see that they
are
blue, just as I thought. Not the saturated ocean blue of James’s eyes, but a blue as brittle as the ice that forms on the
deepest parts of the lake in winter.

“You know,” she says softly. “You must know.”

I shake my head, not wanting to look at the other girls.

“Please, you should go now.” She pushes back from the table so fast her chair tips to the floor.

I look up at her in shock, frozen in my seat.

“Well, if this isn’t a load of poppycock!” Alice rises, her voice breaking through the awed silence. “Come, Lia. Let’s go.”

She marches over, pulling me up from my chair and turning stiffly to Sonia, who still stands with such horror on her face
that I’m almost immobilized all over again. “Thank you, Miss Sorrensen. What is the fee for the sitting?”

Sonia shakes her head, blond curls bouncing. “Nothing… Just… Please do leave.”

Alice pulls me toward the door. She does not have to say a word to Victoria, who is already making her way out of the room.
Luisa waits for Alice and me to leave. I hear her footsteps on the floor behind us, an unfamiliar comfort as we make our way
from the room.

I hardly know what I am doing as Alice leads me down the stairs, past the woman called Mrs. Millburn, and out the front door.
I have the vague sensation of pressed bodies and swishing skirts as Victoria and Luisa work their way out around me.

Otherwise, it is nothing but a dream as we hurry down the street in awkward silence.

The cool afternoon air, together with the possibility of being caught having taken our leave from the bookstore, should be
enough to force me back to reality. But somehow it isn’t, and my earlier unease with my sister is forgotten as I stumble through
the streets with my hand in hers as though I am a child. Victoria walks a few steps ahead, while Luisa trots alongside, saying
nothing.

When Mr. Douglas’s shop comes into sight, I see Miss Gray, standing outside and speaking harshly to James and Mrs. Bacon.
They turn their eyes to us as we come into view. I avoid looking at Miss Gray’s face. If I do, I shall know for certain how
very much trouble we are in. Instead, I focus on James. I stare intently into his face, creased with worry, until it is only
him I see.

Alice and I pull on our coats in silence, Miss Gray’s reprimand ringing in our ears. Luisa’s stricken face as she was sent
to her room is still fresh in my mind, making it impossible to feel sorry for myself.

It is only Miss Gray’s pity for our recent loss that has saved us from a report to Aunt Virginia, and by the time we close
Wycliffe’s door behind us, it is near enough to dismissal that Edmund is already waiting, standing tall beside the carriage.
Alice marches down the walk and is already settling into the darkness of the carriage when I hear the voice behind me.

“Excuse me, Miss! Miss?”

It takes a moment to find the person belonging to the voice. She is so small — only a child — that I look around and above
her before coming to the conclusion that it is, in fact, the little girl who is speaking to me.

“Yes?” I look back toward the carriage, but Alice is hidden inside and Edmund is bent over, inspecting one of the spokes with
both hands and singular concentration.

The child walks toward me, golden ringlets gleaming and a confidence in her step that makes her seem older than she probably
is. She has the face of an angel, plump and pink at the cheeks.

“You’ve dropped something, Miss.” She bows her head a little, holding out her hand, her fingers closed into a fist so that
it is impossible to make out the thing she holds.

“Oh no. I really don’t think so.” I look down at my wrist, noting the small bag still swinging there.

“Yes, Miss. You have indeed.” She meets my eyes, and something there makes me hold very still. My heart beats hard and fast
in my chest until I look more closely at her small hand. The white teeth of my small ivory hair comb are revealed in the girl’s
fingers, and I exhale a breath I did not realize I was holding.

“Oh my goodness! Thank you ever so much!” I reach out and take the comb from her hand.

“No, thank
you
ever so much, Miss.” Her eyes darken, her small face sharpening as she dips in a curtsey every bit as odd as her gratitude.
She turns and skips away, her skirts swishing behind her, a childish hum fading with her footsteps.

Alice leans forward in her seat, calling to me from the open door of the carriage. “Whatever are you doing, Lia? It’s positively
freezing, and you’re letting all the cold air into the carriage.”

Her voice shakes me from my position on the street. “I dropped something.”

“What is it?” She surveys me from the cushioned seat near the window as I climb in beside her.

“My comb. The one Father brought me from Africa.”

She nods, turning to stare out the window as Edmund closes the door to the carriage, wrapping us in muffled silence.

I am still clutching the comb, but when I open my hand it isn’t the ivory comb that gets my attention but a loop of black
velvet that trails from behind it. Something cold and flat lies in my palm behind the comb, within the velvet, but I do not
dare unravel it for fear of Alice discovering it at the same time.

The teeth of the comb bite into the soft flesh of my palm as I close my fingers around it, and it is then that I remember.
Reaching back, I touch my hair, recalling my rush to get ready for Wycliffe this morning. I didn’t have time for coffee, and
in my hurry I barely managed to pin my hair into place.

But I
had
used the pins — it was the comb I’d skipped in my rush to leave the house. I can still see it, sitting on the dressing table
as I rushed out of my room a few hours before. How it traveled from my chamber at Birchwood all the way to town and into the
little girl’s hands is another mystery I cannot begin to solve.