“One of Circe’s spies. Her tracker. Her assassin.”
I can’t look at her. I’m bending a blade of grass into an accordion of squares. “But why did you . . .”
“Kill myself?” I look up to see her giving me that penetrating gaze. “To keep it from claiming me. If it had taken me alive, I would be lost, a dark thing too.”
“What about Amar?”
Mother’s mouth goes tight. “He was my guardian. He gave his life for me. There was nothing I could do to save him.”
I shudder, thinking of what could have become of Kartik’s brother.
“Let’s not worry about that now, shall we?” Mother says, sweeping stray strands of hair from my face. “I’ll tell you what I can. As for the rest, you’ll have to seek out the others to rebuild the Order.”
I sit up. “There are others?”
“Oh, yes. When the realms were closed, they all went into hiding. Some have forgotten what they know. Others have turned their backs on it. But some are still faithful, waiting for the day the realms will open and the magic can be theirs again.”
Rippling blades of grass tickle the tips of my fingers. It seems so unreal—the sunset sky, the raining flowers, the warm breeze, and my mother, close enough to touch. I close my eyes and open them again. She is still there.
“What is it?” Mother asks me.
“I’m afraid this isn’t real. It is real, isn’t it?”
Mother turns her face toward the horizon. The glow softens the sharp lines of her profile into something muted, like the fraying paper edges of a well-loved book. “Reality is a state of mind. To the banker, the money in his ledger book is all very real, though he doesn’t actually see it or touch it. But to the Brahma, it simply doesn’t exist the way the air and the earth, pain and loss do. To him, the banker’s reality is folly. To the banker, the Brahma’s ideas are as inconsequential as dust.”
I shake my head. “I’m lost.”
“Does it seem real to you?”
The wind blows strands of hair against my lips, tickling them, and beneath my skirt, I can feel the dewy moisture of the grass. “Yes,” I say.
“Well, then.”
“If everyone comes here from time to time, why does no one speak of it?”
Mother picks dandelion fluff from her skirt. It floats up, sparkling like crushed jewels in the sun. “They don’t remember it, except as fragments of a dream that they can’t seem to gather into a whole no matter how they try. Only the women of the Order could walk through that door. And now you.”
“I brought my friends with me.”
Her eyes widen. “You were able to bring them over by yourself?”
“Yes,” I say, uncertain. I’m afraid I’ve done something wrong, but Mother breaks into a slow, rapturous grin.
“Your power is even greater than the Order had hoped, then.” She frowns suddenly. “Do you trust them?”
“Yes,” I say. For some reason, her doubt irritates me, makes me feel like a small child again. “Of course I trust them. They’re my friends.”
“Sarah and Mary were friends. And they betrayed each other.”
Far off in the distance, I can hear Felicity’s shouts of joy, Ann’s following after. They’re calling my name.
“What happened to Sarah and Mary? I see other spirits. Why am I not able to contact them?”
A caterpillar crawls over my knuckles. I jump. Mother gently removes it and it becomes a ruby-breasted robin, hopping about on frail legs.
“They no longer exist.”
“What do you mean? What happened to them?”
“Let’s not waste time discussing the past,” Mother says dismissively. She gives me a smile. “I just want to look at you. My goodness, you’re already becoming a lady.”
“I’m learning to waltz. I’m not terribly good at it, but I am trying, and I think I should have it down fairly well by our first tea dance.” I want to tell her everything. It’s all coming out in a rush. She’s listening to me with such attention that I never want this day to end.
A cluster of blackberries, plump and inviting, lies nestled in the ground. Before I can bring one to my mouth, Mother takes it from my hand. “You mustn’t eat those, Gemma. They’re not for the living.” Mother sees the confusion on my face. “Those who eat the berries become part of this world. They can’t go back.”
She gives them a toss and they land in front of the deer, which gobbles them down greedily. Mother glances at the little girl—the one from my visions. She’s hiding behind a tree.
“Who is that?” I ask.
“My helper,” Mother says.
“What is her name?”
“I don’t know.” Mother closes her eyes tightly, as if she’s fighting off pain.
“Mother, what is it?”
She opens them again, but seems pale. “Nothing. I’m a bit tired from all the excitement. It’s time for you to go now.”
I’m on my feet. “But there’s so much I still need to know.”
Mother rises, places her arms around my shoulders. “Your time has ended for today, love. The power of this place is very strong. It must be taken in small doses. Even the Order came here only when they needed to. Remember that your place is back there.”
My throat aches. “I don’t want to leave you.”
Her fingers give the lightest of touches on my cheeks, and I can’t stop the tears from coming. She kisses my forehead and bends to look me square in the face.
“I’ll never leave you, Gemma.”
She turns and walks up the hill, the child’s hand in hers. They walk toward the sunset till they merge with it and there’s nothing left but the deer and me and the lingering scent of roses on the wind.
When I find my friends again, they’re frolicking like happy lunatics.
“Watch this!” Felicity says. She blows gently on a tree and its bark changes from brown to blue to red and back again.
“Look!” Ann scoops water from the river and it turns to golden dust in her hands. “Did you see that?”
Pippa is stretched out in a hammock. “Wake me when it’s time to leave. On second thought, don’t wake me. This is too divine a dream.” She extends her arms overhead and dangles a leg over the side of the hammock, resting in her cocoon.
I am changed and spent. I want to go back to my room and sleep for a hundred years. And I want to run back down into that valley and stay here with my mother forever.
Felicity puts her arm around me. “We simply must come again tomorrow. Can you imagine if that prig Cecily could see us now? She’d be sorry she didn’t want to join up.”
Pippa drops an arm down to pick a handful of berries.
“Don’t!” I shout, slapping them out of her hands.
“Why not?”
“If you eat them, you have to stay here forever.”
“No wonder they look so tempting,” she says.
I hold out my hand. Reluctantly, she drops them in my palm, and I toss them into the river.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
WE’RE SLEEPWALKING THROUGH THE DAY, RIDICULOUS smiles on our faces. The other girls rush past us in the halls like nettles blown across a lawn. We drift through them from class to class, going through the motions, absorbing nothing. We keep last night’s promise alive through furtive glances and little asides spoken in code that perplex our teachers and make us all smile.
We understand each other. We share a secret.
Not a terrible secret like the one that binds me to my family and to Kartik, but a deliciously forbidden secret that bands us together. Anticipation races through our veins, stretching our skins tight to the point of bursting. It’s all we can do to get through the day and wait for night to come so that we can open that door of light into the realms again. We are as one. There will be no outsiders. No intruders on our experience.
During our music lesson, Mr. Grunewald drones on for the whole of the hour about the merits of a particular opera. Elizabeth, Cecily, and Martha listen like the good girls they are, taking perfect little notes, their heads bobbing up and down in unison. Listen, write, listen, write.