The Sweet Far Thing
Page 72

Little Wendy cowers, covering her ears. “There it is again, the screamin’.”
Mr. Darcy hops wildly in his cage, and Wendy holds fast to it.
“Wendy, you stop that!” Mae scolds. “There ain’t no screamin’.”
“’Ere now, luv, take my hand,” Mercy soothes, wrapping an arm around Wendy.
Far off over the Winterlands, a streak of red floods the gray sky. It burns for a moment, then disappears.
“Did you see it?” Ann asks.
“Let’s get closer.” Bessie runs through the tall reeds and cattails that stretch between the forest and the wall into the Winterlands. The heavy fog seeps into the Borderlands here, coating us in a fine shroud till we are like handprints in wet paint. We stop short of the enormous wall. On the other side of the gates, sharp mountaintops, black as onyx, rise above the fog. Ice and snow cling to them precariously. The sky churns gray, a constant storm. It spreads a tingle through me. It is forbidden; it is temptation.
“Can you feel it?” Mae asks. “Slips under your skin, don’t it?”
Pippa steals in beside me and takes my hand. Felicity wraps an arm around Pip’s waist, and Ann comes to take my other hand.
“Do you suppose there really is such a place of power inside the Winterlands?” Pippa asks.
The Tree of All Souls lives. That was what the mysterious lady wrote upon the slate. But no one has ever mentioned it to me before. I realize, once again, that there is very little I know about this strange world I am to help govern.
“It is so quiet. We’ve seen no Winterlands creatures at all since we’ve returned. What do you suppose is there now?” Ann asks.
Pippa leans her head against mine sweetly. “We should find out for ourselves.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE MORNING BRINGS A FOYER FILLED WITH CASES AND trunks, girls going home for Easter week. They stand hugging goodbye as if they shall see each other never again rather than Friday next.
I have come down in my most sensible traveling dress—a brown tweed that will not show the train’s smudges and soot. Ann has donned her drab traveling suit. Felicity, of course, will not be outdone. She wears a beautiful moiré silk dress in the perfect color of blue to complement her eyes. I shall look like a field mouse beside her.
The carriages that will take us to the train station are brought round. Groups of girls are paired with their chaperones. Spirits are high, but the true excitement is happening between Mrs. Nightwing and Mr. Miller.
“One of our men went missing last night,” Mr. Miller says. “Young Tambley.”
“Mr. Miller, how is it that I may keep watch over scores of schoolgirls yet you cannot keep watch over grown men?”
Brigid looks up from the back of a carriage, where she’s instructing the footman on exactly how to secure our cases, much to his annoyance. “Whiskey! Devil whiskey!” she offers with a firm nod.
Mrs. Nightwing gives a sigh. “Brigid, if you please.”
Mr. Miller shakes his head fervently. “It weren’t whiskey, m’um. Tambley was on watch in the woods and up by the old graveyard, where we’d ’eard noises. Now ’e’s gone.” He hisses through gritted teeth. “It’s them Gypsies, I tell ya.”
“And the reason you were behind on the East Wing was the rain, as I recall. There is always some blame, some excuse.” Mrs. Nightwing sniffs. “I’m sure your Mr. Tambley will show up. He is young, as you said, and the young tend to be rebellious.”
“You might be right, m’um, but it ain’t like Tambley not to show.”
“Have faith, Mr. Miller. I’m sure he’ll return.”
Felicity and I embrace Ann. We’re both to go to London, whilst Ann will spend the holiday with her horrid cousins in the country.
“Don’t let those ghastly brats get the better of you,” I tell Ann.
“It will be the longest week of my life,” she says with a sigh.
“Mother will insist on paying calls so that we might ingratiate ourselves,” Felicity says. “I’ll be on display like some hideous china doll.”
I look about, but Miss McCleethy is nowhere to be seen. “Here,” I say, taking their hands. “A bit of courage to see you through.”
Soon we all have magic running under our skin; it brings a glow to our eyes, a flush to our cheeks. A crow flies past and with a loud cry settles on the turret, where one of Miller’s men shoos it away. I’m reminded of the bird I saw the other night that vanished. Or did it? It was late, I tell myself, and dark, and the two make for unreliable impressions. And anyway, with the magic running high, I feel lovely just now, too lovely to worry.