A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle #1)(90)

“Just take my hand. Please!”

“No!”

Why did I think I could win him over? Why did I think I could make him see me differently? Worse, what if the way he sees me is the way I really am—someone to be wary of, not loved? A sideshow abomination. A monster.

I turn and run as fast as I can, and he doesn’t chase me.



I’m making that long, miserable climb up to my room when Brigid stops me, candle in hand, nightcap on head. “Who goes there?”

“It’s only me, Brigid,” I say, hoping she doesn’t get any closer and notice I’m fully dressed.

“Wot are you doin’ skulkin’ round in the dead o’ night?”

“Please don’t tell Mrs. Nightwing. It’s just that I couldn’t sleep.”

“Thinkin’ about your mum, then?”

I nod, feeling craven for the lie.

“All right. It’s just between you and me. But get yourself to bed.”

It breaks me, this sudden kindness from Brigid. I can feel my borders unraveling. “Goodnight,” I whisper, passing her on my way up.

“Oh, by the way, I thought of that fancy name. The one Sarah started callin’ herself. Came to me clear as day as I was doin’ the washing up tonight. I remembered Missus Spence tellin’ me, ‘Oh, our Sarah thinks she’s a goddess of old, just like the Greeks.’ That’s when it come to me, when I was washin’ up the china cups with the Greek key pattern.”

“Yes?” I ask. I’m suddenly very tired and not in the mood for one of Brigid’s long-winded stories.

“Circe,” she says, descending the stairs, her shadow just ahead of her. “That were the name she used to call herself—Circe.”



Circe is Sarah Rees-Toome.

Sarah Rees-Toome, who did not die in a fire twenty years ago, but who is alive and well and waiting for me. She is no longer a shadowy enemy but flesh and blood. Someone I could get to before she gets to me. If only I had some idea where she could be or what she must look like.

But I don’t. I am completely at her mercy.

Or am I?

Circe, Sarah Rees-Toome, was once a Spence girl, class of 1871. A girl in a photograph that has been removed but still exists somewhere. Finding that photograph is no longer a matter of curiosity. It is a necessity, my only means of finding her before she finds me.





CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE


BY THE NEXT MORNING, OUR NIGHTTIME EXPERIMENTS in power and magic have begun to take their toll. Our faces are pasty and pale, our lips cracked. My mind’s in a fog, and I’m so tired that I can barely speak in English, let alone French, which presents problems in Mademoiselle LeFarge’s class. It doesn’t help that I’ve stumbled in, nearly late.

Mademoiselle LeFarge chooses to make a game of my tardiness. Now that I am her prize student, a shining example of her superior teaching skills, she’s inclined to be playful with me. “Bonjour, Mademoiselle Doyle. Quelle heure est-il?”

I know the answer. It’s on the tip of my tongue. Something about the weather, I think. If only I had enough magic left over to help me make it through her class. But sadly, I’m going to have to sail through under my own paltry steam.

“Er . . . the weather is . . .” Bloody hell. What is the French word for rain? Le rain? La rain? Is the rain masculine or feminine? It’s such a bother that it must be masculine. “Le weather est le rainy,” I say, mangling the last bit, though the le makes it sound more French.

The girls giggle, which only convinces Mademoiselle LeFarge that I’m making fun of her. “Mademoiselle Doyle, this is a disgrace. Just two days ago, you proved yourself an exemplary student. Now, you have the audacity to mock me. Perhaps you’ll fare better in a room of eight-year-olds.” She turns her back on me, and for the remainder of the class, it’s as if I don’t exist.



Mrs. Nightwing has noticed our pallor. She forces us to take a walk in the gardens, thinking the cool air will put roses in our cheeks. I take the opportunity to tell my friends about my run-in with Brigid last night.

“So Circe is Sarah Rees-Toome. And she’s alive.” Felicity shakes her head, incredulous.

“We’ve got to find that photograph,” I say.

“We tell Mrs. Nightwing we’re searching for a lost glove. She lets us search high and low. We scour the rooms one by one,” Ann suggests.

Pippa groans. “It will take us a year.”

“Let’s each take a floor, shall we?” I say.

Pippa gives me her large doe eyes. “Must we?”

I push her toward the school. “Yes.”

After an hour of searching, I still haven’t found it. I’ve paced the third floor so many times, I’m sure I’ve worn the carpets thin. With a sigh, I stand in front of the existing class photographs, willing them to talk, to tell me something about where I might find what’s missing. The ladies do not oblige me.

I’m drawn to the photograph from 1872, with its rippled surface. Gently, I remove it from the wall and turn it over. The back of the photograph is smooth, not ruined at all. Turn it back over and there’s the wavy front. How can that be? Unless it’s not the same photograph at all.

Hurriedly, I tug at the corners of the photograph, as if I’m pulling back a carpet. There is another photograph behind the one in the frame. A buzzing starts in my ears. Eight graduating girls sit grouped on the lawn. In the background is the unmistakable outline of Spence. At the bottom, in fine print, it reads Class of 1871. I’ve found it! Names are written along the bottom in a cramped hand.