A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle #1)(73)

Felicity brushes herself off and trails behind them. “Are you coming?”

“I’ll be there in a moment,” I call after her.

Mother resumes her meticulous yarn architecture. Her fingers fly, then stop. She closes her eyes and gasps, as if she’s been wounded.

“Mother, what’s the matter? Are you all right? Mother!”

When she opens her eyes, she’s breathing hard. “It takes so much to keep it away.”

“Keep what away?”

“The creature. It’s still looking for us.”

The dirty-faced girl peers out from behind a tree. She looks at my mother with wide eyes. Mother’s face softens. Her breathing returns to normal. She’s the commanding presence I remember bustling about our house, giving orders and changing place settings at the very last moment. “There is nothing to worry about. I can fool the beast for a while.”

Felicity calls to me. “Gemma, you’re missing out on all the sport.” She and the others are twirling each other about, dancing to the lute and the song.

Mother starts to build a cup and saucer from her yarn. Her hands tremble. “Why don’t you join them? I should like to see you dance. Go on, then, darling.”

Reluctantly, I amble toward my friends. Along the way, I spy the girl, still looking at my mother with her frightened eyes. There’s something compelling about the child. Something I feel I should know, though I can’t say what.

“It’s time to dance!” Felicity takes both my hands in hers, twirling me around. Mother applauds us in our jig. The knight strums the lute faster and faster, egging us on. We’re picking up speed, our hair flying, hands tight on each other’s wrists.

“Whatever you do, don’t let go!” Felicity shrieks, as our bodies lean back in defiance of gravity till we’re nothing more than a great blur of color on the landscape.



The sky is a softer shade of night by the time we return to our rooms. Dawn is mere hours away. Tomorrow we’ll have the devil to pay.

“Your mother is lovely,” Ann says as she slips under her covers.

“Thank you,” I whisper, running a brush through my hair. The dancing—and the subsequent fall in the grass—has left it tangled beyond hope, like my thoughts.

“I don’t remember my mother at all. Do you think that’s terrible?”

“No,” I say.

Ann is nearly asleep, her words a low mumble. “I wonder if she remembers me. . . .”

I start to answer but I don’t know what to say to that. And anyway, it doesn’t matter. She’s snoring already. I give up on the brushing and slide under my own blankets, only to feel something crackle beneath me. I feel around with my hand and discover a note hidden in the covers. I have to take it to the window to read it.

Miss Doyle,

You are playing a very dangerous game. If you do not stop now, I shall be forced to take action. I am asking you to stop while you can.

There’s another word scribbled hastily, then crossed out.

Please.

He hasn’t signed his name, but I know this is Kartik’s work. I tear the note into tiny pieces. Then I open the window and let the breeze take it.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE


FOR THREE DAYS, IT’S LIKE THIS. WE HOLD HANDS AND step into our own private paradise, where we are the mistresses of our own lives. Under the tutelage of the huntress, Felicity is becoming an accomplished archer, fleet and unstoppable. Ann’s voice grows stronger every day. And Pippa isn’t quite the pampered princess she was a week ago. She’s kinder, less shrill. The knight listens to her as no one else does. I’ve always been so irritated when Pippa opens her mouth, I haven’t stopped to think she may babble on because she’s afraid she won’t be heard. I vow to give her that chance from now on.

We’re not afraid to grow close to each other here. Our friendships take root and bloom. We wear garlands in our hair, tell naughty jokes, laugh and shout, confess our fears and our hopes. We even belch without restraint. There’s no one around to stifle us. No one to tell us that what we think and feel is wrong. It isn’t that we do what we want. It’s that we’re allowed to want at all.



“Watch this!” Felicity says. She closes her eyes and in a moment, a warm rain falls from that perpetual sunset. It wets us through to the skin, and it feels delicious.

“Not fair in the least!” Pippa screams, but she’s laughing.

I’ve never felt such lovely rain. Certainly I’ve never been allowed to wallow in it. I want to drink it up, lie in it.

“Aha!” Felicity shouts in triumph. “I made this! I did!”

We screech and run, slipping down into pools of mud and back up again. Coated in muck, we throw handfuls of it at each other. Each time one of us is hit with a great heaping mound of wet earth, we yelp and vow revenge. But truthfully, we’re in love with how it feels to be absolutely filthy, without a care in the world.

“I’m a bit soggy,” Pippa calls after we’ve thoroughly trounced her. She’s covered in mud from head to toe.

“All right, then.” I close my eyes, imagine the hot sun of India, and in seconds, the rain has gone. We’re clean, dry, and pressed, ready for vespers or a social call. Beyond the silver arch, inside their wide circle, the crystal runes stand, their power locked securely inside.