The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray
Delicately, I push the long, thin blade aside. “Might I have a word, d’Artagnan?”
She bows low. “Lead the way, Cardinal Richelieu.”
We steal into the small sitting room downstairs. It’s where Pippa famously spurned her intended, Mr. Bumble, before being claimed by the realms forever. The loss of Pippa is one more I feel acutely today.
“What the devil did you do to Cecily?” Felicity plops into a chair and dangles her legs over the arm in a most unladylike way. “She’s telling everyone who’ll listen that you should be hanged at dawn.”
“If it would keep me from hearing her voice ever again, I’d happily submit to the noose. But that isn’t what I need to tell you. I had another look through Wilhelmina Wyatt’s book. We missed something the first go-round. The drawings. I think they’re clues.”
Felicity makes a face. “To what?”
I sigh. “I don’t know. But one of them seemed as if it might have been the East Wing tower. And in the very front of the book was a room that I keep seeing in my visions.”
“Do you think that room was once part of the East Wing, then?” Fee asks.
“Oh,” I say, deflating. “I’d not thought of that. If so, it’s long gone.”
“Well, let’s have a look,” Felicity says.
“We can’t. Miss McCleethy threw it in the oven,” I explain.
Felicity’s mouth opens in outrage. “That cost us four shillings.”
“Yes, I know.”
“And tonight’s meal shall taste strangely of book.” She sticks the tip of her foil into the floor and scrapes a small F there.
“There’s something not right about it,” I say, pacing the room and nibbling my fingernails, a habit I should stop, and will. Tomorrow. “I don’t trust McCleethy. She’s hiding something for certain. Do you know what she said to me? She referred to Wilhelmina Wyatt in the past tense. What if McCleethy knows Wilhelmina is dead? And if she does, how does she know it?”
“Dr. Van Ripple said Wilhelmina was betrayed by a friend,” Felicity adds. “Could it have been McCleethy?”
I chew my nail, shredding it to ribbons. It hurts, and I am instantly sorry I’ve done it. “We must speak with Dr. Van Ripple again. He may know something more. He may know where the dagger is hidden. Are you for it?”
A wicked grin spreads across Felicity’s mouth. She touches her foil to my shoulders as if knighting me. “All for one and one for all.” Her expression changes suddenly. “Why do you think she did it?”
“McCleethy or Miss Wyatt?” I ask.
“Ann.” She leans on the hilt of her foil. “Freedom was within her grasp. Why turn away from it?”
“Perhaps it was one thing to yearn for it and another to hold it.”
“That’s ridiculous.” With a scoff, she sprawls across the chair again, one foot on the floor, the other leg hanging over the arm.
“I don’t know, then,” I say with no small irritation.
“I’ll not turn my back on happiness. I can promise you that.” She jabs at the air with her foil. “Gemma?”
“Yes?” I say with a heavy sigh.
“What will happen to Pip? When I was one with the tree, I saw…”
“Saw what?”
“I saw her alive and happy. I saw the two of us in Paris, the Seine glittering like a dream. And she was laughing, as she did before. How could I see that if…Do you think it could be true? That she could come back?”
She rolls her head toward me, and I can see the hope in her eyes. I want to tell her yes, but something deep inside me says no. I don’t think it could ever be this way.
“I think there are some laws that cannot be broken,” I say as gently as I can, “no matter how much we wish they could be.”
Felicity draws in the air with her blade. “You think, or you know?”
“I know if it were possible, I should bring my mother back tomorrow.”
“Why don’t you, then?”
“Because,” I say, searching for the right words. “I know she’s gone. Just as I know that time when we were all together in India is gone, and I shan’t get it back.”
“But if the magic is changing—if everything is changing, then perhaps…” She trails off, and I don’t try to correct her. Sometimes the power in a perhaps is enough to sustain us, and I shan’t be the one to take it from her.
I can hear Brigid’s off-key warbling in the hall, and it gives me an idea. “Fee, if one wanted to know about a certain inhabitant of a house, a former schoolgirl perhaps, where would one turn for the most trustworthy account?”
Smiling, Fee bends the foil in her hands. “Why, I should think the servants would have that sort of knowledge.”
I throw open the door and peek my head out. “Brigid, might we have a word?”
She scowls. “Wot you doin’ in there? Emily’s cleaned it just yesterday. I won’t ’ave it set to ruin.”
“Of course not,” I say, biting my lip in a fashion I hope passes for wistful. “It’s only that Felicity and I are heartbroken now that Ann’s gone. We know you loved her, too. Will you sit with us for a moment?”
I’m a bit ashamed of twisting Brigid’s sympathies this way—even more so when it works. “Oh, luv. I miss ’er, too. She’ll be fine, though. Just like ’er old Brigid.” She barrels past, giving me a warm pat on the shoulder, and I couldn’t possibly feel more deplorable.
“’Ere now. Sit proper, miss,” Brigid scolds, seeing Felicity. Felicity slides both of her feet to the floor with a loud stomp, and with a glance I beseech her to behave.
Brigid runs a finger over the mantel and scowls. “That won’t do.”
“Brigid,” I begin, “do you remember a girl who attended Spence—”
“Lots of girls ’ave attended Spence,” she interrupts. “Can’t remember them all.”
“Yes, well, this one was here back when Mrs. Spence was still alive, before the fire.”
“Oh, so long ago.” She tuts, wiping the mantel with the edge of her apron.
Felicity clears her throat and glares at me. I suppose she thinks she’s helping.
“This girl was a mute. Wilhelmina Wyatt.”
Brigid whirls around, a funny expression on her face. “Blimey, now wot you want to know about that one fer?”
“It was Ann who knew of her. Had a book written by her. And I—we—just wondered what sort of person she was.” I finish with a smile that can only be described as feeble.
“Well, it were a long time ago,” Brigid repeats. She dusts a small Oriental vase with her apron. “But I remember ’er. Miss Wil’mina Wyatt. Mrs. Spence said she was special, in ’er way, that she saw wot most of us don’t. ‘She can see into the dark,’ she said. Well, I didn’t pretend to know wot that meant. The girl couldn’t even speak, bless her soul. But she were always with ’er little book, writing and drawing. That’s ’ow she spoke.”
Just as Dr. Van Ripple told us.
“How did she come to be here? She had no family, I know,” I say.
Brigid’s brow furrows. “Bless me, she did, too.”
“I thought—”
“Wilhelmina Wyatt was Missus Spence’s own blood. Mina was ’er niece.”
“Her niece?” I repeat, for I wonder why Eugenia didn’t tell me this.
“Came to us after ’er mother died, bless ’er soul. I remember the day Missus Spence went to town to fetch ’er. Lil Mina ’ad been put on a boat by ’erself and was found near the Customs ’Ouse. Poor thing. Must’ve been terrifyin’. And things weren’t much better ’ere.” Brigid returns the vase and gets to work on the first of a pair of candlesticks.
“What do you mean?” Felicity asks.
“Some o’ the girls picked on ’er. They pulled on ’er braids to see if she would talk.”
“Did she have friends at all?”
Brigid frowns. “That awful Sarah Rees-Too me would sometimes sit with ’er. I’d ’ear ’er askin’ Mina if she really could see into the dark, and wot it was like in
“Did Miss Wyatt have haunts that were special to her—hiding places, perhaps?” Felicity presses.
Brigid thinks for a moment. “She liked to sit out on the lawn and draw the gargoyles. I’d see ’er wif her book, lookin’ up at ’em and smilin’, like they were ’avin’ a tea party of their own.”
I recall my strange hallucination as I left for London at Easter. The gargoyle with the crow in its mouth. It gives me a shiver to think of Wilhelmina smiling at those hideous stone watchers. Guardians of the Night, indeed.
Brigid slows her dusting. “I do recall Missus Spence frettin’ over Mina later on. The girl had taken to drawin’ dreadful things, and Missus Spence said she were afraid Mina were under a bad influence. That’s what she said. And then the fire happened shortly after, and those two girls and Missus Spence gone wif it, God rest ’em.” With a sigh, she returns the candlestick and takes the other.
“But what happened to Wilhelmina? Why did she leave?”
Brigid licks her thumb and works at a smudge on the silver. “After the fire, she were actin’ peculiar—’cause of the grief, if you ask me, but no one did.”
Felicity quickly intervenes. “Yes, I’m sure you’re right, Brigid,” she says, rolling her eyes at me. “What happened next?”
“Well,” Brigid continues, “Mina started scarin’ the other girls with ’er odd behavior. Writin’ and drawin’ those wicked things in ’er book. Missus Nightwing told ’er, relation or no relation to the missus, if she didn’ stop, she’d turn ’er out. But before she could, Mina left in the middle of the night, takin’ somefin’ valuable wif ’er.”
“What was it?” Felicity jumps in.
“I don’ ’ear ever’ fin’, Miss Pesterpants,” Brigid chides.
I mouth Miss Pesterpants to Felicity, who looks as if she could cheerfully strangle me.
“Wotever it was,” Brigid continues, “Missus Nightwing were very cross about it. I’ve never seen ’er so angry.” Brigid puts the candlestick back just so. “There. That’s better. I’ll ’ave to ’ave a word with that Emily. And you best get to prayers, before Missus Nightwing turns you out and me righ’ after.”
“What do you think it all means?” Felicity asks as we fall in with the other girls. They gather their prayer books and straighten their skirts. They crowd around too-small mirrors, pretending to tidy their hair when really they’re only gazing at themselves, looking for hopeful signs of budding beauty.
“I don’t know,” I say with a sigh. “Is Wilhelmina trustworthy or not?”
“She does appear in your visions, so it means something,” Felicity says.
“Yes, but so did the girls in white, and they were fiends who would have led me astray,” I remind her. The very girls who meant to lure Bessie and her friends into the Winterlands for who knows what purpose also came to me in my visions, giving me a measure of truth and lies. In the end, they led us straight into the clutches of the gruesome Poppy Warriors.
“So what is Miss Wyatt?” Felicity asks. “The lady or the tiger?”
I shake my head. “I honestly can’t say. But she took the dagger—that’s for certain—and that’s what we need to find.”
* * *
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
* * *
OUR TRIP TO THE REALMS ISN’T AS MERRY WITHOUT ANN. Even the magic can’t lighten the mood. The factory girls take her departure particularly hard. “Our lot got no chance,” Mae grumbles to Bessie.
“You must make your own chances,” Felicity retorts.
Bessie gives her a hard look. “Wot would you know of it?”
“Let’s not fight. I want to dance and play with magic. Gemma?” Pippa gives me a knowing look.
With a sigh, I tread the familiar path to the chapel and Pip follows. This time when we join together in the magic, the draw on me is hard. It’s as if I fall into her deeply. I’m part of her sadness, her envy, her bitterness—things I’d rather not see. When I break away, I’m tired. The magic itches beneath my skin like insects crawling.
But Pip sparkles once again. She nestles into my side and wraps her arms about my waist like a little girl. “It’s wonderful to feel special, even for just a few hours, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I say.
“If I were you, I should never give up this power but keep it always.”
“Sometimes I wish I could.”
Pippa bites her lip, and I know she’s worried.
“What is it?” I ask.
She picks berries from a bowl and moves them between her fingers. “Gemma, I don’t think you should give quite as much magic to Bessie and the others this time.”
“Why not?”
“They’re factory workers,” she says on a sigh. “They’re not accustomed to having such power. Bessie’s gotten quite full of herself.”
“I hardly think that’s—”
“She wanted to go into the Winterlands again. Without you,” Pip admits.
“She did?”
Pip takes my arm. We step carefully over the groaning vines slithering across the floor. “It’s better if I have more, don’t you think? That way they have someone to look up to, someone to guide them. They’re such children, really. And I can keep them safe for you.”
That’s a laugh coming from Pip, but the news about Bessie sounds an alarm inside me. “Yes, all right. I’ll give them less,” I agree.
Pip kisses my forehead. She drops the berries she’s been playing with into her mouth, one, two, three.
“Should you be eating those?” I ask.
Pippa’s eyes flash. “What does it matter now? The damage has been done.”
She drops the fourth into her mouth and wipes the juice from her lips with the back of her hand. Then she pushes the tapestry aside with a “Greetings, my darlings!” just like a queen greeting her subjects.
As promised, I give the factory girls sufficient magic to allow them the appearance of clear skin and fine dresses but not enough to create true change. They have no real power this time, only borrowed illusion.
“Don’t seem to work so good tonight,” Bessie grumbles. “Why’s that?”
I swallow the lump in my throat, but Pippa is cool as can be. “That’s the way of the realms, Bessie. It only takes in some. Isn’t that right, Gemma?”
“That is what I’ve been told,” I say, appraising Bessie to see if she will give anything away, but all I see is her disappointment.
“Maybe it’s ’cause we’re not the proper station,” Mercy says.
“Ain’t no stations here. That’s wot I like about it. And besides, it always took in Miss Ann, and she ain’t no better ’n’us,” Bessie says.
“Bessie, that’s quite enough,” Pippa clucks, and Bessie skulks off to sit at the hearth. She feeds small flowers to the fire, watching them spark and burn. “Come now, let’s not pout. I want to dance!”
I’m in no humor for a dance just now, and I can’t find it within me to pretend. Instead, I go for a walk. The cool air is refreshing; the dusky sky feels sheltering. I push on through the billowing mist, letting my yearning pull me. I want to put my hands on the Tree of All Souls once more, to be joined to it as if we are one being.
The gate opens without a word this time. It has what it wants from me. My feet sink into the black sand. The air, cold and gritty, presses itself against me; I put out my tongue, tasting it. I follow the roar of the river. A dinghy waits, so I step into it and head toward the heart of the Winterlands. I know not to fight the tide this time, and my little boat sails easily over the rapids, but the path is unfamiliar. It’s not the same one we traveled last time, and panic blooms in me. Where am I? How did I get so lost?
There’s a splash beside the boat, and a water nymph strokes the side of it. She gestures with her head at a cave to the right; then she swims toward it, knifing into and out of the water like a serpent.
Right. I shan’t let her ge
The water nymph’s webbed hand caresses my ankle. With a gasp, I shake it loose. Her colored scales remain on my skin in a jeweled handprint.
“You’ll not take my skin without a fight,” I warn, and my words echo in the cave’s emptiness.
The nymph slinks away, dipping below the surface of the water until only her glistening black eyes and water-slicked bald head are visible, and a new wariness steals over me. On the ledge, there is movement. The faces of ghastly, pale creatures squeeze out of the cracks in the rocks like moths’ heads. They have no eyes, but they sniff, crawling closer to the edge.
My heart’s a fist. Silently, I turn the boat around and am paddling back toward the mouth of the cave when the opening disappears. That can’t be. I hear a snort and the clip-clop of hooves, and Amar sidles into view on his magnificent white steed. He travels over the narrow land on the side of the cave until he is even with me in my boat. My breath catches. Up close he has the same full lips and proud carriage as Kartik. But his eyes are black swirls ringed in red. They hold me fast, and I can’t look away, can’t scream, can’t run.
Use the magic, the magic, my heart pleads. But it will not catch spark. I’m too afraid.
“I know you’ve seen the priestess. What did she tell you?” Amar asks. His teeth are jagged points.
“You’ll never know,” I manage to say.
Amar’s eyes waver, and for just a moment, they are as brown as Kartik’s. “Tell my brother to remember his heart in all things. That is where his honor and his destiny will be found. Tell him.”
And then, quickly, they revert to that terrifying black abyss circled in red. “We’ll have you yet. Beware the birth of May.”