A Great and Terrible Beauty

Page 107

A shiver travels up my arm. I am so very grateful for Miss Moore. I do not deserve her kindness.
"Will you do that?" she asks.
"Yes." I hear myself agreeing.
Head held high, she releases my hands and sails through the door toward the carriage. Halfway there, she calls back. "You'll have to find a way to make those still lifes interesting."
With that, she steps into the carriage and raps twice. The horses whinny into action, trotting toward the gate, kicking up dirt as they go. I watch the carriage getting smaller in the distance till it turns a corner and folds quickly into the night and Miss Moore is gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
At half-past ten, Mrs. Nightwing makes her rounds to ensure that all her tender chickens are accounted forlying safely in bed, far away from any wolves. When the downstairs clock gongs midnight, there's a scratching at our door by Pippa and Felicity, letting us know that it's safe to come out for one last evening together. "How will we get out?" I ask. "She's locked the doors." Felicity dangles a key. "It seems that Molly the upstairs maid owed me a favor after I caught her with the stable boy. Now, get dressed."
The caves welcome us one last time. The nights have grown colder, and we huddle together for warmth over the last of our candles. When they realize that I won't take them into the realms, they're furious with me.
"But why won't you take us?" Pippa cries.
"I've told you. I don't feel well."
I have no intention of going back through the shimmering door. Instead, I shall master French. Perfect my posture. Learn how to curtsy and draw clever pictures. I shall be what they want me to besafe. And nothing bad will ever happen again. It's possible to pretend I'm someone other than who I am, and if I pretend long enough, I can believe it. My mother did.
Pippa kneels at my feet and puts her head in my lap like a child. "Please, Gemma? Darling, darling Gemma. I'll let you wear my lace gloves. I'll let you keep them!"
"No!" My shout slaps at the cave's walls.
Pippa plops onto the ground to sulk. "Fee, you talk to her. I'm doing no good."
Felicity is surprisingly cool. "It would seem Gemma won't be moved this evening."
"Now what shall we do?" Pippa whines.
"There's still some whiskey left. Here, have a little. " Felicity pulls the half-empty bottle from its hiding place inside a rocky crevice. "This will change your mind." After two quick swallows, she dangles the bottle in front of me. I get up and move to another rock. "Are you still cross about Miss Moore?"
"Among other things." I'm cross that we let her down so terribly. I'm cross that my mother is a liar and a murderer. That my father is an addict. That Kartik despises me. That everything I touch seems to go wrong.
"Fine," Felicity says. "Go off and sulk, then. Who wants a drink?"
How can I tell them what I know? I don't even want to know it. I wish I could make it all go away, just go back to that first day in the realms when everything seemed possible again. Felicity keeps passing the bottle, and soon, they're all flushed and glassy-eyed, noses running a bit from the sudden warmth of the whiskey in their blood. Felicity twirls around the cave, reciting poetry. "But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often thro' the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot"
"Oh, not this again," Ann snarls, leaning her head against the boulder.
Felicity is taunting me with the poem. She knows it reminds me of Miss Moore. Like a whirling dervish, she throws out her arms, spiraling faster into ecstasy.
"Or when the Moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed.
'I am half sick of shadows,' said
The Lady of Shalott."
Her hands fly out against the cave wall to stop her fall. She rolls her body against the craggy surface till she's facing us again. Strands of hair, wet with perspiration, stick to her forehead and cheeks. She's got a strange look on her face.
"Pip, darling, do you really want to see your knight?"
"More than anything!"
Felicity grabs Pip's hand and runs toward the cave's mouth.
"Wait for me," Ann yells, following after.
They spill out into the night like Bedouins, with me trailing in their wake. The cold air is a shock to our damp skin.
"Felicity, what are you up to?" I ask.
"Something new," she teases.