Felicity and I cannot stop staring at our feet. To my surprise, she nudges me in the ribs with her elbow. “Yes,” she says, without cracking a smile. “That’s a sobering thought indeed, Mrs. Nightwing. I’m sure we’re both grateful for your good advice.”
“Yes, well, see that you’re careful in the future,” Mrs. Nightwing harrumphs, preening a bit under Felicity’s skillful manipulation. “All right, girls, back to the school. There’s still daylight and work to be done.”
Mrs. Nightwing rallies the girls and starts them back on the path. I throw my cape over Felicity’s shoulders.
“That was a bit melodramatic, wasn’t it? ‘We’re both grateful for your good advice’?” I don’t want her to think she can put anything over on me.
“It worked, didn’t it? If you tell them what they want to hear, they don’t bother to try to see,” she says.
Pippa comes running over to us, breathless. “Good heavens, what really happened? You must tell me before I die of curiosity!”
Ann is a sudden shadow at my side. She says nothing, just follows along with sure, plodding steps.
“It’s just as Gemma said,” Felicity lies. “I fell in the water and she pulled me out.”
Pippa’s face falls. “That’s it?”
“Yes, that is all.”
“There’s nothing more?”
“Isn’t it enough that I nearly drowned today?” Felicity huffs. She’s so good I could swear she almost believes it herself. Now I know that she’s never confessed about her Gypsy beau to Pippa, her closest friend. Felicity and I have a secret, one she’s not sharing with anyone else. Pippa senses that we’re not telling the whole truth. Her eyes take on that suspicious, wounded look girls get when they know they’ve fallen off the top rung of friendship and someone else has passed them, but they don’t know when or how the change took place.
She leans in close to Felicity. “What were you doing with her?”
“I do believe that one headmistress is enough, Pippa,” Felicity scoffs. “Really, your imagination is so brilliant you should put it to use as a novelist someday. Gemma, walk with me.”
She loops her arm through mine and we pass Pippa, who can do nothing to save face now but make a show of snubbing Ann to run off and talk with the other girls.
“Sometimes she is such a child,” Felicity says when we’re a few steps behind them all.
“I thought you were the best of friends.”
“I adore Pippa. Really. But she’s very sheltered. There are things I could never tell her. Like Ithal. But you understand. I can tell that you do. I think we’re going to be great friends, Gemma.”
“Would we still be great friends if I didn’t hold a secret over your head?” I ask.
“Don’t friends always share secrets?”
Would I ever share my secrets with any of these girls? Or would they run in horror to know the truth about me? Up ahead, Miss Moore shepherds the younger girls through the trees and out onto the great lawn. She watches us with a curious expression, as if we’re windows into the past. Ghosts.
“Come along, girls,” she calls. “Don’t dawdle.”
“Dawdle? I can barely breathe from trudging up this hill at a gallop!” Felicity sniffs.
“How long has Miss Moore taught at Spence?” I ask.
“She arrived this past summer. She’s a breath of fresh air in this staid old place, I can tell you that. Oh, what’s this?” Felicity says.
“What’s what?” I ask.
“This remnant in your bodice. Bit torn. Ugh, and muddy. If you need a proper handkerchief, you only have to ask. I’ve got scads of them.” She puts the scrap in my open palm. It’s blue silk, torn and soiled around the edges, as if it might have been ripped by a branch. My legs shake so that I have to lean against the first tree I see.
Felicity looks puzzled. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” I say, my voice whispery tight.
“It’s as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
I might have.
The muddy blue silk is a promise in my hands. My mother was here. I’d choose her. It’s what I said before I fell asleep. Somehow, I’ve changed things. I’ve brought her back with this strange power of mine. For the first time, I want to know everything about it. If Kartik won’t tell me, I’ll find out on my own. I’ll hunt down Mary Dowd and get her to tell me what I need to know. They can’t stop me.
Felicity gives my hand a pull. “Don’t be so slow.”
“I’m coming,” I say, quickening my pace till I’m clear of the trees and into the warm sun again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AFTER DINNER, I PRETEND I’VE GOT A HEADACHE AND Mrs. Nightwing sends me straight to bed with a hot-water bottle. It means passing up an invitation to Felicity’s suddenly open sanctuary in the great hall—thanks to my newfound status as the keeper of her secrets—but there’s only one thought in my mind: There has to be a way to control my visions rather than have them control me.
I’m in the hallway when a small thump stops me. Shadows flit across the floor and wall. Someone is in my room. Heart racing, spine flat against the wall, I creep toward my room and peek in. Kartik is at my desk, no doubt leaving me another cryptic warning. Right. Not this time. Fast as I can, I streak to the open window where he’s come in and latch it tight. He whips around, ready for a fight.
“There’s only one way out now,” I say, breathless.
His eyes narrow. “Step aside.”
“Not until you answer a few questions.”
I’ve blocked off his only means of escape. If I make a sound, scream, he’ll be caught. For the moment, he’s trapped. He folds his arms across his chest and glares, waiting for me to talk.
“What are you doing in my room?”
“Nothing,” he says, crumpling the paper in his fist tightly enough for me to hear it.
“Leaving another message?”
He shrugs. We’re going nowhere fast.
“Why did you help me today in the woods?”
“You needed it.”
My temper flares. “I most certainly did not.”
He scoffs, and it makes him look less menacing. He’s all of seventeen again. “As you wish.”
“My plan worked, didn’t it?”
The arms unfold. His eyes widen. “Your plan worked because I talked Ithal into leaving. What do you think would have happened if I hadn’t?”
The truth is that I don’t know. I can’t think of anything to say.
“Right. I’ll tell you. That stubborn Gypsy would have stayed and your little friend who likes to play with fire would have been very badly burned—expelled, ruined socially, whispered about for the rest of her life.” He mimics the high, prim voice of a society matron. “‘Oh, did you hear about her? Oh, my dear, yes, caught in the woods with a heathen.’ Tell your friend to stick to her own kind and stop toying with Ithal.”
“She’s not my friend,” I say.
He arches an eyebrow. “Who are your friends, then?”
I open my mouth but nothing comes out.
He smirks. “May I go now?”
“Not yet.” It’s bold of me when I don’t feel bold at all. But I need more information from him. “Who is the ‘we’ that you mentioned? Why are they afraid of my visions?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything.”
I hate him, standing in my room as if he owns it and me, issuing warnings and insults, sharing nothing. “Shall I tell you what happens if I scream bloody murder right this minute and you’re caught as a thief?” It’s the wrong thing to say. Lightning fast, he’s got me pinned against the wall, his arm to my throat.
“Do you think you can stop me? I am Rakshana. Our brotherhood has existed for centuries, stretching to the time of the Knights Templar, Arthur, and Charlemagne. We are the guardians of the realms now, and we have no intention of giving it back. The time of the old ways is past. We won’t let you bring it back.”
The pressure of his arm makes me feel dizzy. “I—I don’t understand.”
“You could change everything. Enter the realms. That’s why they want you.” He loosens his hold, lets me go.
My eyes water. I rub at my throat. “Who? Who wants me?”
“The Order.” He spits out the name. “Circe.”
Circe. That was the name Kartik’s brother told my mother in the marketplace.
“I don’t understand all these names. Who are the Rakshana, the Order, Circe—”
He cuts me off. “You only need to know what I tell you, and that is to stop these visions before they lead you into danger.”