The Sweet Far Thing (3 page)

All around me, the girls jump about in merry treasure hunting. But I can’t feel happy here. This is a place of ghosts, and I don’t believe that new beams and a warm fire in a marble hearth will change that. I want no souvenirs of the past.

A fresh round of hammering sets a family of birds squawking toward the safety of the sky. I stare at the pile of discarded remnants and think of my mother. Did she touch that pillar there? Does her scent still
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linger in a fragment of glass or a splinter of wood? A terrible emptiness settles into my chest. No matter how much I go about living, there are always small reminders that make the loss fresh again.

“Oi, there’s a beauty.” It’s the man with the red patch on his shirt. He points to a jagged wooden pillar eaten through at one end with rot. But much of it has managed to survive the wrath of the fire and the years of neglect. Carved into it is an assortment of girls’ names. I run my fingers over the grooves and the fanciful scrapings. So many names. Alice. Louise. Theodora. Isabel. Mina. My fingers move across the bumpy wood, feeling it like a blind person’s. I know that her name must be here, and I am not disappointed. Mary. I flatten my palm against the years-worn carving, hoping to feel my mother’s presence beneath my skin. But it is only dead wood. I blink against the tears that sting my eyes.

“Miss?” The man is looking at me curiously.

Quickly, I wipe my cheeks. “It’s the wind. It’s blown cinders into my eyes.”

“Aye, wind’s strong. More rain comin’. Maybe a storm.”

“Oh, here comes Mrs. Nightwing!” Cecily hisses. “Please, let’s go! I don’t want to get in trouble.”

Quickly, we gather our sketches and sit a safe distance away on a stone bench by the still-hibernating rose garden, our heads bent in desperate concentration. But Mrs. Nightwing takes no note. She appraises the progress on the building. The wind carries her voice to us.

“I had hoped to be farther along by now, Mr. Miller.”

“We’re putting in a ten-hour day, missus. And then there’s the rain. Can’t blame a man for nature.” Mr.

Miller makes the grave error of smiling at Mrs. Nightwing in a charming way. She does not succumb to charm. But it is too late for me to warn him. Mrs. Nightwing’s withering glare sends the men’s heads down over their lumber. The sound of hammers and saws hard at work is deafening. Mr. Miller’s smile vanishes.

“If you cannot finish the job in a timely manner, Mr. Miller, I shall be forced to seek other workers.”

“There’s building all over London, mum. You won’t find the likes of us growing on trees.”

By my count, there are at least twenty men working day in and day out, and still Mrs. Nightwing isn’t satisfied. She clucks and fusses and badgers Mr. Miller daily. It is very queer. For if the old building has lain hollowed out for this long, what do a few months more matter?

I try to capture the likeness of the new turret on my paper. When completed, it will be the tallest part of Spence, perhaps five stories high. It is wide as well. A man stands near the top, pressed against the gathering rain clouds like a weather vane.

“Do you not find it odd that Nightwing’s in such haste to complete the East Wing?” I ask Felicity.

Cecily overhears and is compelled to give her opinion. “It’s not a moment too soon, if you ask me. It’s a disgrace they’ve let it go so long.”

“I hear it’s only now they’ve secured the funds,” Elizabeth reports.

“No, no, no!” Mrs. Nightwing strides toward the masons with purpose, as if they were her charges.

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“I’ve told you—these stones must be placed in order, here and here.”

She points to an outline made in chalk.

“Begging your pardon, missus, but what does it matter? She’s goin’ up sturdy and strong.”

“It is a restoration,” she sniffs as if speaking to a simpleton. “The plans are to be followed exactly, without deviation.”

A worker calls down from atop the turret’s third floor. “’Ere comes the rain, sir!”

A splat hits my cheek in warning. A rhythm of drops follows. They splatter across my page, turning my sketch of the East Wing into rivulets of charcoal. The men look to the sky with upturned palms as if asking it for mercy, and the sky answers:
No quarter.

Quickly, the men scamper down the turret’s side and race to cover their tools and save them from rust.

With sketch pads held over our heads, we girls dash through the trees like frightened geese, squawking and squealing at the indignity of such a soaking. Brigid waves us in, her arms a promise of safety and a warm fire. Felicity pulls me behind a tree.

“Fee! The rain!” I protest.

“Ann returns this evening. We could try to enter the realms.”

“And what if I can’t make the door appear?”

“You only need to put your mind to it,” she insists.

“Do you think I didn’t put my mind to it last week or last month or the time before that?” The rain is coming down harder now. “Perhaps I am to be punished. For what I did to Nell and Miss Moore.”

“Miss Moore!” Felicity spits. “Circe—that’s her name. She was a murderer. Gemma, she killed your mother and countless other girls to get to you and your power, and she would surely have destroyed you had you not dispatched her first.”

I want to believe that this is true, that I did right to imprison Miss Moore in the realms forever. I want to believe that binding the magic to myself was the only way to save it. I want to believe that Kartik is alive and well and making his way to me here at Spence, that in these woods at any moment I shall see him wearing a smile meant only for me. But these days, I’m not certain of anything.

“I don’t know that she’s dead,” I mumble.

“She’s dead and good riddance to her.” Life is ever so much simpler in Fee’s world. And for once, I wish I could crawl into the solid lines of it and live without question. “I have to know what happened to Pippa. Tonight we’ll try again. Look at me.”

She turns my face to hers so that I cannot avoid her eyes. “Promise.”

“I promise,” I say, and I hope she cannot see my doubt turning to fear.

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CHAPTER THREE

THE RAIN HAS LOOSED ITS WRATH IN FULL. IT SOAKS THEsleeping rose garden and the lawn, the yellow green of the leaves struggling to be born. It has also found my friend Ann Bradshaw.

She stands in the foyer in a plain brown wool coat and a drab hat dotted with droplets. Her small suitcase rests at her feet. She has spent the week with her cousins in Kent. Come May, when Felicity and I make our debuts, Ann will go to work for them as governess to their two children. Our only hope for changing her prospects was to enter the realms and attempt to bind the magic to all of us. But no matter how hard I try, I cannot enter the realms. And without the realms, I cannot make the magic flare to life.

Not since Christmas have I seen that enchanted world, though in these past few months I have tried dozens of times to get back. There have been moments when I’ve felt a spark, but it is short-lived, no more consequential than a single drop of rain in a drought. Day by day, our hopes dim, and our futures seem as fixed as the stars.

“Welcome home,” I say, helping Ann out of her wet coat.

“Thank you.” Her nose runs, and her hair, the color of a field mouse’s fur, slips loose of its moorings.

Long, thin strands of it hang over her blue eyes and plaster themselves to her full cheeks.

“How was your stay with your cousins?”

Ann does not smile at all. “Tolerable.”

“And the children? Are you fond of them?” I ask, hopefully.

“Lottie locked me in a cupboard for an hour. Little Carrie kicked my leg and called me a pudding.” She wipes her nose. “That was the first day.”

“Oh.” We stand uncertainly under the glare of Spence’s infamous brass snake chandelier.

Ann lowers her voice to a whisper. “Have you managed to return to the realms?”

I shake my head, and Ann looks as if she might cry. “But we’ll try again tonight,” I say quickly.

A glimmer of a smile lights Ann’s face for a moment. “There’s hope yet,” I add.

Without a word, Ann follows me to the great hall, past the roaring fires and the ornately carved columns, the girls playing whist. Brigid thrills a small circle of younger girls with tales of fairies and pixies she swears live in the woods behind Spence.

“They don’t!” one girl protests, but in her eyes I see she wants to be proven wrong.

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“Aye, they do, miss. And more creatures besides. You’d best not go out past dark. That’s their time.

Stay safe in your beds and you’ll not wake to find you’ve been carried away in the company of the Others,” Brigid warns.

The girls rush to the windows to peer into the vast expanse of night, hoping for a glimpse of fairy queens and sprites. I could tell them they won’t see them there. They’d have to travel with us through the door of light to the world beyond this one to keep company with such fantastical creatures. And they might not like all that they see.

“Our Ann has returned,” I announce, parting the curtains to Felicity’s private tent. Ever the dramatic one, Felicity has cordoned off one corner of the enormous room with silk curtains. It is like a pasha’s home, and she lords over it as if it were an empire of her own.

Felicity takes in the sight of Ann’s damp, mud-caked skirt hem. “Mind the carpets.”

Ann wipes her soiled skirts, dropping crumbs of dried mud onto the floor, and Felicity sighs in irritation.

“Oh, Ann, really.”

“Sorry,” Ann mumbles. She pulls her skirts close to her body and takes a seat on the floor, trying not to dirty it further. Without asking, she reaches into the open chocolate box and takes three, much to Felicity’s annoyance.

“You needn’t take them all,” Fee grumbles.

Ann puts two back. They are imprinted with her hand. Felicity sighs. “You’ve touched them now; you might as well eat them.”

Guiltily, Ann shoves all three into her mouth at once. She cannot possibly be enjoying their taste. “What do you have there?”

“This?” Felicity holds out a white card with beautiful black lettering. “I’ve received an invitation to Lady Tatterhall’s tea for a Miss Hurley. It shall have an Egyptian theme.”

“Oh,” Ann says dully. Her hand lingers over the chocolate box. “I suppose you’ve gotten one, too, Gemma.”

“Yes,” I say guiltily. I hate that Ann’s not included—it is beastly unfair—but I can’t help wishing she didn’t make me feel quite so horrid about it.

“And of course there is the ball at Yardsley Hall,” Felicity continues. “That promises to be quite grand.

Did you hear about young Miss Eaton?”

I shake my head.

“She wore diamonds before evening!” Felicity nearly squeals with delight. “It was the talk of London.

She’ll never make that mistake again. Oh, you should see the gloves Mother sent round for the Collinsworth ball. They’re exquisite!”

Ann pulls a thread on the hem of her dress. She won’t attend the Collinsworth ball or any other unless it is as chaperone to Lottie or Carrie someday. She will not have a season or dance with handsome suitors.

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She will not wear ostrich feathers in her hair and bow to Her Majesty. She is here at Spence as a scholarship student, sponsored by her wealthy cousins so that she might make an appropriate governess to their children.

I clear my throat. Felicity catches my eye.

“Ann,” she says, far too cheerfully. “How was your time in Kent? Is it as lovely in the spring as they say?”

“Little Carrie called me a pudding.”

Felicity tries not to laugh. “Ahem. Well, she’s only a child. You’ll have her in hand soon enough.”

“There’s a small room for me at the top of the stairs. It looks out on the stables.”

“A window. Yes, well, quite nice to have a view,” Felicity says, missing the point entirely. “Oh, what do you have there?”

Ann shows us a program for a production of
Macbeth
at the Drury Lane Theatre, starring the great American actress Lily Trimble. Ann gazes longingly at the dramatic drawing of Miss Trimble as Lady Macbeth.

“Did you attend?” I ask.

Ann shakes her head. “My cousins went.”

Without her. Everyone who knows Ann at all knows how much she adores plays.

“But they let you keep the program,” Felicity says. “That’s quite nice.”

Yes, just as a cat that lets a mouse keep its tail is nice.
Felicity can be so beastly at times.

“Did you have a fine birthday?” Ann says.

“Yes, ever so enjoyable,” Felicity purrs. “Eighteen. What a glorious age. Now I shall come into my inheritance. Well, not straightaway, mind. My grandmother did insist I make my debut as a condition of her will. The moment I curtsy before the Queen and back away again, I shall be a rich woman, and I may do as I please.”

“Once you make your debut,” Ann repeats, swallowing the last of her chocolate.

Felicity takes a chocolate for herself. “Lady Markham has already announced her intention to sponsor me. So it’s as good as done. Felicity Worthington, heiress.” Fee’s good spirits vanish. “I only wish Pippa were here to share it.”

Ann and I exchange glances at the mention of Pip. Once, she was one of us. Now she is somewhere in the realms, most likely lost to the Winterlands. Who knows what she has become? But Fee still clings to the hope that she might be found, might yet be saved.

The tent opens. Cecily, Elizabeth, and Martha crowd inside. It is far too close with all of us here.

Elizabeth falls into Felicity while Martha and Cecily take a seat next to me. Ann is pushed to the very
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