A Great and Terrible Beauty
Page 4

The man's smile fades, replaced by a look of fear. He's speaking to the other man in sharp bursts of a dialect I don't understand. Faces peek from windows and doorways, straining to see what's bringing the trouble. The old man stands, points to me, to the necklace. He doesn't like it? Something about me has alarmed him. He shoos me away, goes inside and shuts the door in my face. It's refreshing to know that it's not just my mother and Sarita who find me intolerable.
The faces at the windows remain, watching me. There's the first drop of rain. The wet seeps into my dress, a spreading stain. The sky could break open at any moment. I've got to get back. No telling what Mother will do if she ends up drenched and I'm the cause. Why did I act like such a petulant brat? She'll never take me to London now. I'll spend the rest of my days in an Austrian convent surrounded by women with mustaches, my eyes gone bad from making intricate lace designs for other girls' trousseaus. I could curse my bad temper, but it won't get me back. Choose a direction, Gemma, any direction just go . I take the path to the right. The unfamiliar street leads to another and another, and just as I come around a curve, I see him coming. The boy from the marketplace.
Don't panic, Gemma. Just move slowly away before be sees you. I take two hurried steps back. My heel catches on a slippery stone, sending me sliding into the street. When I right myself, he's staring at me with a look I cannot decipher. For a second, neither of us moves. We are as still as the air around us, which is either promising rain or threatening a storm.
A sudden fear takes root, spreads through me with cold speed, given wings by conversations I've overheard in my father's studytales over brandy and cigars about the fate of an unescorted woman, overpowered by bad men, her life ruined forever. But these are only bits of conversation. This is a real man coming toward me, closing the distance between us in powerful strides.
He means to catch me, but I won't let him. Heart pounding, I pull up my skirts, ready to run. I try to take a step and my legs go shaky as a calf's. The ground shimmers and pitches beneath me.
What is happening?
Move. Must move, but I can't. A strange tingle starts in my fingers, travels up my arms, into my chest. My whole body trembles. A terrible pressure squeezes the breath from me, weighs me down to my knees. Panic blooms in my mouth like weeds. I want to scream. No words will come. No sound. He reaches me as I fall to the ground. Want to tell him to help me. Focus on his face, his full lips, perfect as a bow. His thick dark curls fall across his eyes, deep, brown, foot-long-lashes eyes. Alarmed eyes.
Help me.
The words stick fast inside me. I'm no longer afraid of losing my virtue; I know I must be dying. Try to get my mouth to tell him this but there is nothing but a choking sound in my throat. A strong smell of rose and spice overpowers me as the horizon slips away, my eyelids fluttering, fighting to stay awake. It's his lips that part, move, speak.
His voice that says, "It's happening."
The pressure increases till I feel I will burst and then I'm under, a swirling tunnel of blinding color and light pulling me down like an undertow. I fall forever. Images race by. I'm falling past the ten-year-old me playing with Julia, the rag doll I lost on a picnic a year later; I'm six, letting Sarita wash my face for dinner. Time spins backward and I am three, two, a baby, and then something pale and foreign, a creature no bigger than a tadpole and just as fragile. The strong tide grabs me hard again, pulling me through a veil of blackness, till I see the twisting street in India again. I am a visitor, walking in a living dream, no sound except for the thumping of my heart, my breath going in and out, the swish of my own blood coursing through my veins. On the rooftops above me, the organ-grinder's monkey scampers quickly, baring teeth. I try to speak but find I can't. He hops onto another roof, A shop where dried herbs hang from the eaves and a small moon-and-eye symbol--the same as on my mother's necklaceis affixed to the door. A woman comes quickly up the sloping street. A woman with red-gold hair, a blue dress, white gloves. My mother. What is my mother doing here? She should be at Mrs. Talbot's house, drinking tea and discussing fabric.
My name floats from her lips. Gemma. Gemma . She's come looking for me. The Indian man in the turban is just behind her. She doesn't hear him. I call out to her, my mouth making no sound. With one hand, she pushes open the shop's door and enters. I follow her in, the pounding of my heart growing louder and faster. She must know the man is behind her. She must hear his breath now. But she only looks forward.
The man pulls a dagger from inside his cloak, but still she doesn't turn. I feel as if I'll be sick. I want to stop her, pull her away. Every step forward is like pushing against the air, lifting my legs an agony of slow movement. The man stops, listening. His eyes widen. He's afraid .