A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle #1)(22)
“Behind that rock.” Her hand, incandescent and tiny, points to the near wall of the cave, where a large rock sits just at the base. “She says you’ve got to look behind it.”
“Who is she?”
“Mary, of course.”
“I’ve told you—I don’t know any Mary.” I’m arguing with a vision, a spirit. Next I know, I’ll be calling myself the queen of Romania and wandering down the lane wearing my bed linens for a cape.
“She knows you, miss.”
Mary. It’s only the most common name for a girl in all of England. What if this is all a trick, a way of testing me? He said I was in danger. What if this otherworldly little girl is a malevolent spirit who means to do me harm? What if the bedtime stories used to keep children at heel—tales of ghosts and goblins and witches ready to trick you into giving up your soul—are true? And now I’m trapped here in a dark cave with some sinister force who only seems like a lost urchin?
I swallow hard but the lump in my throat stays. “Suppose I don’t want to look.”
“She says you must, miss. It’s the only way to understand what’s happening to you. To understand the power.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about. I only know I don’t particularly fancy turning my back on her.
“Why don’t you get it, then?”
She shakes her head. “She says you have to find it yourself. That’s the way of the realms.”
I’m tired and cold and in no mood for a mystery anymore. “Please, I don’t understand. Just tell me what this is all about!”
“You’d best hurry, miss.” Those large brown eyes flit toward the mouth of the cave and back again, and I shudder to think of what she could be afraid of out there in the dark.
Whatever happens, I can’t end up knowing less than I do right now. The rock is solid, but not unmovable. With effort, I push it away. There’s a hole in the cave wall, about an arm’s length deep. My heart is racing as my fingers feel their way inside the cold, hard rock. God only knows what’s crawling around in there, and I have to bite my lip to stifle a scream. I’m in up to my shoulder when I feel something solid. It’s stuck fast, and I have to pull hard to bring it into the light. It’s a leather-bound diary. I open to the first page. A stream of dirt trickles free; the rest I brush away. An envelope has been tucked into the book’s binding. The paper crackles in my fingers as I pull out one of the pages roaming loose inside.
What frightens you?
What makes the hair on your arms rise, your palms sweat, the breath catch in your chest like a wild thing caged?
Is it the dark? A fleeting memory of a bedtime story, ghosts and goblins and witches hiding in the shadows? Is it the way the wind picks up just before a storm, the hint of wet in the air that makes you want to scurry home to the safety of your fire?
Or is it something deeper, something much more frightening, a monster deep inside that you’ve glimpsed only in pieces, the vast unknown of your own soul where secrets gather with a terrible power, the dark inside?
If you will listen, I will tell you a story—one whose ghosts cannot be banished by the comfort of a roaring fire. I will tell you the story of how we found ourselves in a realm where dreams are formed, destiny is chosen, and magic is as real as your handprint in snow. I will tell you how we unlocked the Pandora’s box of ourselves, tasted freedom, stained our souls with blood and choice, and unleashed a horror on the world that destroyed its dearest Order. These pages are a confession of all that has led to this cold, gray dawn. What will be now, I cannot say.
Is your heart beating faster?
Do the clouds seem to be gathering on the horizon?
Does the skin on your neck feel stretched tight, waiting for a kiss you both fear and need?
Will you be scared?
Will you know the truth?
Mary Dowd, April 7, 1871
Is this the Mary who thinks she knows me? I don’t know any Mary Dowd. My head aches and I’m cold out here in just my nightgown.
“Tell Mary to leave me alone. I don’t want this power she’s giving me.”
“She’s not giving you the power, miss. Just showing you the way.”
“Well, I don’t want to follow! Do you understand, Mary Dowd?” I’m shouting at the cave till my voice echoes in my ears. It’s enough to pull me hard from the vision, until I’m alone in the cave, the diary in my hands.
The life of Mary Dowd sits on my bed, taunting me. I could burn it. Take it back and bury it. But my curiosity is too strong for that. Alone in my bed, I light a candle, place it on the windowsill, and read as much as I can in that weak light. I discover that Mary Dowd is sixteen in 1871. She adores walks in the woods, misses her family, wishes her skin were fairer. Her dearest friend in the world is a girl named Sarah Rees-Toome who is the “most charming and virtuous girl in the world.” They are like sisters, never apart. I find myself jealous of a girl I’ve never met. All in all, the first twenty pages of the diary are a thudding bore, and I can’t understand why the little girl wanted me to have it. The threat of sleep makes my eyelids flutter and my head nod, so I place the diary at the back of my closet behind Father’s cricket bat. And then I’m off to sleep, banishing it from my mind.
When I dream, it’s of my mother. She pulls my hair back gently in her hands, her warm fingers weaving through it like sunlight, making me drowsy and content. Her arms hold me close, but I slip out of her embrace into the ruin of an ancient temple. Snakes slither along deep green vines grown heavy over an altar. A storm blows in fast, thick ropes of clouds knotting up the sky. Mother’s face looms, tight with fear. Lightning fast, she takes off her necklace, tosses it to me. It hangs in the air, making slow spirals, till it lands in my hands, the corner of the silvery eye cutting my palm. Blood seeps from the cut. When I look up, Mother is shouting to me over the storm. The howling wind makes it hard to hear. But I catch one word above all the others.