Chapter 13

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We sneak out just past midnight, weaving through the woods by lantern light till we're

deep inside the dark womb of the caves. Felicity lights candles she's stolen from a

cupboard. Within minutes, the place is alight, the drawings dancing again on the rocky

walls. In the eerie glow, the skulls of the Morrigan twist and bend like living things till I

have to look away.

"Ugh, it's so damp in here," Pippa says, sitting gingerly on the cave floor. Felicity has

managed to talk her into coming, and all she's done so far is complain about everything.

"Did anyone think to bring food? I'm famished."

Her gaze falls on Ann, who has pulled an apple from her cape pocket. It sits in Ann's

hand while she debates which will win, her hunger or her need to belong. After an

excruciating minute she offers it to Pippa. "You could have my apple."

"I suppose it will have to do" Pippa says with a sigh. She reaches for it, but Felicity grabs

first.

"Not yet. We have to do this properly. With a toast."

There's a gleam in Felicity's eye as she reaches into her shift and pulls out the bottle of

communion wine. Pippa's squeals of delight fill the cavernous space. She throws her arms

around Felicity. "Oh, Fee, you're brilliant!"

"Yes, I am rather, aren't I?"

I want to remind them that I'm the one who risked life, limb, soul, and explusion to get

the wine, but I know it would be pointless and I'd just look sullen.

"What's that?" Ann says.

Felicity rolls her eyes. "Cod-liver oil. What do you think it is?"

The color leaks from Ann's face. "It's not spirits, is it?"

Pippa clutches at her throat melodramatically. "Heavens, no!"

Ann is just realizing what she's in for. She tries to make light of the situation by putting

the joke on someone else. "Ladies don't drink spirits," she says, mimicking Mrs.

Nightwing's plummy tones. It's a dead-on imitation, and we all laugh. Thrilled, Ann

repeats the joke again and again till it's gone from amusing to irritating.

"You may stop now," Felicity scolds. Ann retreats behind her mask again.

"Mrs. Nightwing certainly never misses her sherry at night. Oh, they're all such

hypocrites. Cheers," Pippa says, taking a generous, unladylike swig from the bottle.

She passes it to Ann, who wipes its mouth with her hand and hesitates.

"Go on, then, it won't bite you," Felicity says.

"I've never had drink before."

"Really? I'm shocked." Pippa giggles in mock astonishment, and I can't help wondering

what it would be like to pour that bottle right over her perfect ringlets.

Ann tries to hand the bottle back, but Felicity is firm. "It's not a request. Drink or you're

out of the club. You can make your way back to Spence by yourself."

Ann's eyes widen. The spoiled girls haven't any idea how agonizing it is for Ann to break

the rules. They can always charm their way out of a certain amount of trouble, but for

Ann, an infraction could be her undoing.

"Let her alone, Felicity."

"You're the one who wanted her to come—not us," she says, letting the cruelty sink in.

"No more favors. If she wants in, she has to drink. The same goes for you."

"Fine, then. Hand it over," I say. The bottle passes my way.

"And no spitting it back in," Felicity taunts.

Raised to my lips, the bottle smells sweet and harsh at the same time. The scent is all

things powerful, magical, and forbidden. It burns going down, making me cough and

sputter, as if someone has set a match to my lungs.

"Ah, the vine of life." Felicity breaks into a devilish grin, and they all laugh, even Ann.

There's gratitude for you.

I can barely croak out, "What is this?" It's like no wine I've ever sipped from my parents'

glasses, and I'm sure it's something the servants use to clean floors or mix varnish.

Felicity is more pleased than I've ever seen her. "Whiskey. You accidentally took

Reverend Waite's private collection."

Tears sting at my eyes from the pungency, but at least I'm breathing again. A surprising

warmth floods my entire body, weighing me down in a delicious way. I like the feeling,

but Felicity has already snatched the bottle away and sent it to Ann who takes her

medicine like a good girl with just the slightest grimace at the taste. Once Felicity has her

drink, we've all been initiated. Into what, I'm still not certain. The bottle goes around a

few more times till we're all as loose-limbed as new calves. I'm floating inside my skin. I

could go on floating like this for days. Right now, the real world with its heartbreak and

disappointments is just a pulse against the protective membrane we've drunk ourselves

into. It's somewhere outside us, waiting, but we are too giddy to bother with it. Watching

the rocks glimmer, my new friends talking in soft murmurs, I wonder if this is what the

days look and feel like for my father, wrapped tight inside his laudanum cocoon. No pain,

only the distant beating of memory. The sadness of that is overwhelming, and I'm

drowning in it.

"Gemma? Are you all right?" It's Felicity, sitting up and looking at me, confused, and I

realize I'm crying.

"It's nothing," I say, wiping at my eyes with the back of a hand.

"Don't tell me you're going to be one of those maudlin drunks," she says, trying to joke,

but it only makes the tears come faster.

"No more for you, then. Here, have something to eat." She puts the bottle behind a rock

and hands me the still uneaten apple. "This party is getting very dull. Who's got a clever

idea for us?"

"If this is a club, shouldn't we have a proper name?" Pippa's head lolls against a rock. Her

eyes glisten from the drink.

"How about the Young Ladies of Spence?" Ann offers.

Felicity makes a face. "Makes us sound like spinsters with bad teeth."

I laugh a little too loudly, but I'm grateful that the tears have stopped, even if I'm still

having trouble catching my breath.

"It was just my first thought," Ann snaps. The whiskey has given her fangs.

"Don't get prickly on us," Felicity shoots back. "Here, have another go."

Ann shakes her head, but the bottle is still there at the end of Felicity's hand, so she takes

another tight-lipped swig.

Pippa claps her hands. "I know—let's call ourselves the Ladies of Shalott!"

"Does that mean we're all going to die?" I ask, starting to giggle uncontrollably. My head

is a feather on the breeze.

Felicity joins my snickering. "Gemma's right. Too moping by far."

We throw out names, laughing at the completely outrageous—Athena's Priestesses!

Daughters of Persephone!—and groaning at the truly terrible—Love's Four Winds!

Finally, we fall silent, leaning against the rocks, our heads touching softly. On the walls,

the goddesses hunt and cavort, free from all restraints, these makers of their own rules,

punishers of trespassers.

"Why not call ourselves the Order?" I say.

Felicity sits up so quickly I can still feel the warmth of her next to me, trailing behind her

by seconds. "How absolutely perfect! Gemma, you are our genius." I'm a little

embarrassed, so I twist the stem of the apple in my hand till it breaks with a snap. Felicity

pulls my hand to her mouth and bites into the fruit cupped there. Her mouth is still sticky

sweet from it as she kisses me full on the lips. I have to put my hand to them to stop the

tingling, and a blush has flooded my entire body.

Felicity raises the apple and my arm into the air, both held tight in her pale fist. "Ladies, I

give you the Order, reborn!"

"The Order, reborn!" we all echo, our voices bouncing around the cave in ripples of

sound. Pippa actually embraces me. We're alive with our new secret, with the way we

belong to each other and to something other than the dull passing of hours with nothing to

look forward to besides our routines. It makes me feel even more powerful than the

whiskey, and I want it to go on forever.

"Do you suppose there was really such an order of women?"

Felicity snorts. "Don't be daft, Pip. It's a fairy tale."

Pippa is hurt. "I only wondered, that's all."

I don't want the spell of our evening to be broken so fast. "What if it were true?" The slim

leather-bound diary is in my hands and out in the open before I can really think about it.

"What's that?" Ann asks.

"The secret diary of Mary Dowd."

Ann is afraid she has missed something. "Who's Mary Dowd?"

I tell them what I know of Mary Dowd, her friend Sarah, and their participation in the

Order. Felicity grabs the diary from me, and the pages turn faster and faster as they read,

their mouths hanging open in astonishment.

"Have you found the part where she goes into the garden?" I ask.

"We're past that," Felicity says.

"Wait a minute! I haven't even read past that! Where've you got to?" I say, sounding like a

whining child.

"March fifteenth. Here, I'll read aloud," Felicity says.

"Sarah and I were quite naughty today and entered the realms again without the guidance

of our sisters. At first, we feared we were lost as we found ourselves in a misty wood

where many lost spirits, those poor, wandering, wretched souls, asked us for help, hut

there was naught we could do for them yet. Eugenia says—"

"Eugenia! Do you think she means Mrs. Spence?" Ann asks.

We all shush her, and Felicity continues.

"Eugenia says they cannot cross over until their soul's work is done, whether on one

plane or another, and only then can they take their rest. Some of these wanderers never

find release, and they are corrupted, becoming dark spirits who can cause all manner of

mischief. These are banished to the Winterlands, a realm of fire and ice and shadows.

Only the strongest and wisest of our sisters is allowed there, for the dark ones of that

realm can whisper a thousand longings to you. They will make you a slave for power if

you do not know how to use and banish them as the elders do. To answer such a fallen

spirit, to bind it to you, could change the balance of the realms forever."

Felicity stops. "Oh, honestly, this is the worst attempt at a gothic novel I've ever read. All

we're missing are creaking castle floors and a heroine in danger of losing her virtue."

Pippa sits up, giggling. "Let's read on and find out if they do lose their virtue!"

"Today, we were once again in that garden of beauty where one's greatest wishes can be

made real…"

"This is more like it," Felicity says. "Bound to be something carnal here."

"Heather, sweet-smelling, the color of wine, swayed under an orange-gold sky. For hours,

we lay in it, wanting for nothing, turning blades of grass into butterflies with just the

touch of our fingers, whatever we imagined made real by our will and desire. The sisters

showed us wondrous things we could do, ways of healing, incantations for beauty and

love…"

"Ooooh, I want to know those!" Pippa shouts out. Felicity raises her voice, talking over

her till she shuts up again.

".. .for cloaking ourselves from the sight of others, for bending the minds of men to the

will of the Order, influencing their thoughts and dreams till their destinies shake out

before them like a pattern in the night stars. It was all written upon the Oracle of the

Runes. Just to touch our hands to those crystals was to be a conduit, with the universe

flowing through hard and fast as a river. Indeed, we could only stay for mere seconds,

such was its greatness. But when we came away from it, we were changed inside, 'You

have been opened,' our sisters said..."

Pippa giggles. "Perhaps they did lose their virtue after all."

"Would you allow me to finish, please?" Felicity growls.

"… and we felt it, too. We carried our small bit of magic inside us, across the veil into

this world. Our first attempt came at dinner. Sarah gazed at her measly soup and bread,

closed her eyes and pronounced it pheasant. And so it appeared to be, and tasted of it too,

every bite. So good was it that Sarah smiled heartily afterward and said, 'I want more.'"

I'm so lost in thought that I don't realize Felicity has stopped reading. It's quiet except for

the sound of water trickling down a wall. "Wherever did you find this?" She's looking at

me as if I were a criminal.

Why, a ghostly urchin led me to it in the night. Doesn't that ever happen to you?

"The library," I lie.

"And did you really think it was an actual account of the witching hour at Spence?"

Felicity is looking at me in a bemused way.

"No, of course not," I lie. "I was only having a bit of fun with you."

"Oooh, the witching hour of the Order. Is that just before vespers or right after music?"

Pippa is giggling so hard, she snorts like a horse. It is most unattractive, and I am just

horrible enough to take great pleasure in this fact.

"Very clever—you're quite a wit," I say, trying to sound good-humored when I feel surly

and humiliated.

Felicity holds the diary aloft in mock seriousness. "I have been opened, my sisters. From

now on, this shall be our sacred tome. Let us begin every meeting with a reading from

this compelling"—she glances my way—"and absolutely true diary."

This sends Pippa howling. "I think that's a splendid idea!" She slurs the word so that it

comes out splendid.

"Wait a moment, that's mine" I say, reaching for the diary, but Felicity pockets it.

"I thought you said it came from the library," Ann says.

"Ha! Well done, Ann." Pippa smiles at her and I'm already regretting the beginning of

their friendship. My lie has stuck me here, without the book and a way to understand

what's happening to me, what my visions may mean. But there's no getting hold of it

without telling them the whole truth, and I'm not ready to do that. Not until I understand

it myself.

Ann passes the bottle to me again but I wave it away.

"Je ne voudrais pas le whiskey," I slur in my terrible French-English.

"We've got to help you with your French, Gemma, before LeFarge bumps you down in

the ranks," Felicity says.

"How do you know so much about French?" I ask, irritated.

"For your information, Miss Doyle, my mother happens to run a very famous salon in

Paris." She gives salon the French pronunciation. "All the best writers in Europe have

been entertained by my mother."

"Your mother is French?" I ask. My thoughts are a bit foggy from the whiskey.

Everything makes me want to giggle.

"No. She's English. Descended from the Yorks. She lives in Paris."

Why would she live in Paris instead of here, where her husband would return after his

duty to Her Majesty had been completed? "Don't your parents live together?"

Felicity glares at me. "My father is away at sea most of the time. My mother is a beautiful

woman. Why shouldn't she have the companionship of friends in Paris?"

I don't know what I've said wrong. I start to apologize but Pippa runs right over me.

"I wish my mother ran a salon. Or did anything interesting. All she seems to do is drive

me mad with her criticism. 'Pippa—mustn't slouch. You'll never get a husband that way.'

'Pippa, we must keep up appearances at all times.' 'Pippa, what you think of yourself isn't

nearly as important as what others say of you.' And there's her latest protege—the clumsy,

charmless Mr. Bumble."

"Who is Mr. Bumble?" I ask.

"Pippa's paramour," Felicity says, drawing out the word.

"He is not my paramour!" Pippa screeches.

"No, but he wants to be. Why else would he keep paying his visits?"

"He must be fifty if he's a day!"

"And very rich or your mother wouldn't be throwing him at you."

"Mother lives for money." Pippa sighs. "She doesn't like the way Father gambles. She's

afraid he's going to lose all our money. That's why she's so desperate to marry me off to a

wealthy man."

"She'll probably find you someone with a clubfoot and twelve children, all older than you

axe" Felicity laughs.

Pippa shudders. "You should see some of the men she's paraded in front of me. One was

four feet tall!"

"You can't be serious!" I say.

"Well, he might have been five feet" Pippa laughs and it's contagious, sending us all into

hysterical fits. "Another time, she introduced me to a man who kept pinching my bottom

when we were dancing. Can you imagine? 'Oh, lovely waltz.' Pinch, pinch. 'Shall we

have some punch?' Pinch, pinch. I was bruised for a week."

Our shrieks are animal sounds, loose and rambunctious. They die down to coughing and

murmurs, and Pippa says, "Ann, Gemma. You don't have to worry about such things as

impossible mothers trying to control your every waking moment. How lucky you are."

All the breath leaves my lungs. Felicity kicks Pippa hard in the shin.

"Well, that wasn't very nice, was it?" Pippa makes a show of rubbing her leg.

"Don't be so touchy," Felicity says snidely, but when she catches my eyes, there's a hint

of kindness there and I understand she's done it for me, and I wonder for the first time if

we really might be friends.

"How revolting!" Ann has been flipping through the diary. She's got some sort of

illustration in her hands, which she tosses away as if it might burn her.

"What is it?" Pippa rushes over, her curiosity stronger than her pride. We lean in close.

It's a drawing of a woman with grapes in her hair coupling with a man in animal skins, a

mask with horns adorning his head. The caption reads, The Rites of Spring by Sarah

Rees-Toome.

We all gasp and call it disgusting while trying to get a better look.

"Methinks he's already sprung," I say, giggling in a high voice I don't even recognize as

my own.

"What are they doing?" Ann asks, turning quickly away.

"She's lying back and thinking of England!" Pippa shrieks, invoking the phrase that every

English mother tells her daughter about carnal acts. We're not supposed to enjoy it. We're

just supposed to put our mind on making babies for the future of the Empire and to please

our husbands. For some reason, it's Kartik's face that swims inside my eyes. Those

heavily fringed orbs of his coming closer, making my lips part. A strange warmth starts in

my belly and seeps under every edge of me.

"Ann, don't tell me you don't know what men and women do when they're together. Shall

I show you?" Felicity slithers off the rock and drags herself along the ground with her

hands, leaning close to Ann, who recoils, her back against the cave wall.

"No, thank you," she whispers.

Felicity holds her gaze for a moment, then licks Ann's cheek in one long stroke.

Horrified, Ann wipes at herself. Felicity only laughs and falls back against a low rock,

stretching her arms over her head. Her full breasts strain at the bodice of her gown. She

stares at a point beyond our heads. "I'm going to have many men." She says this matterof-

factly, as if commenting on the weather, but she has to know she's being scandalous.

Pippa doesn't know whether to gasp or giggle so she does both. "Felicity, that's

shocking!"

Felicity smells blood. She's on the scent of our discomfort and won't let go. "I am. Hordes

of men! Members of Parliament and stable boys. Moors and Irishmen. Disgraced dukes!

Kings!"

Pippa has her hands over her ears. "No!" she screams. "Don't tell me any more!" But she's

laughing, too. She loves Felicity's brazenness.

Felicity is up, dancing, throwing herself around like a whirling dervish. "I'm going to

have presidents and captains of industry! Actors and Gypsies! Poets and artists and men

who will die just to touch the hem of my dress!"

"You forgot princes!" Ann shouts, giving a small, guilty smile.

"Princes!" Felicity shouts with glee. She takes Ann's hands, dances her around in circles,

Felicity's blond hair whipping at the air.

Pippa is up, joining the circle. "And troubadours!"

"And troubadours who sing about the sapphires of my eyes!"

I'm joining them, caught up in the swirl of it all. "Don't forget jugglers and acrobats and

admirals!"

Felicity stops. Her voice is cold. "No. No admirals."

"I'm sorry, Felicity. I didn't mean anything by it," I say, straightening my dress while

Pippa and Ann stare awkwardly at their feet. The silence is raw electricity between us all

—one touch, one wrong word and we'll burn up. The bottle is in Felicity's hand. She

takes a long, hard draw on it, doubles over from the force of the whiskey and rakes the

back of her pale hand across her lips, dark with drink.

"Let's have a ritual, shall we?"

"Wh-wh-what sort of r-r-ritual?" Ann doesn't realize that she's taken a few steps away

from us, toward the yawning mouth of the cave.

"I know—we could make up an oath!" Pippa is rather pleased with herself.

"It needs to be more binding than that," Felicity says, her eyes faraway. "Promises can be

forgotten. Let's do a blood ritual. We need something sharp." Her eyes fall even with my

amulet, which is hanging free. "That would do nicely, I think."

Instinctively, my hand goes to it. "What are you going to do?"

Felicity exhales, rolling her eyes dramatically. "I'm going to eviscerate you and leave

your organs on a pike in the yard as a warning to those who wear large jewelry."

"It was my mother's," I say. Everyone is looking at me, waiting. Finally, I bow to the

silent pressure and hand over the necklace.

"Merci." Felicity curtsies. With one quick motion she brings down the edge of the moon

and slices into the pad of her finger. Blood bubbles up instantly.

"Here," she says, streaking her blood across both of my cheeks." We'll mark one another.

Form a pact."

She passes the necklace to Pippa, who makes a face. "I can't believe you want me to do

this. It's so animalistic. I hate the sight of blood."

"Fine. I'll do it for you, then. Shut your eyes." Felicity breaks Pippa's skin and Pippa

screams as if she's been mortally wounded. "Good heavens, you're still breathing, aren't

you? Don't be such a ninny." Using Pippa's fingers, she streaks the blood over Ann's

ruddy cheeks. In return, Ann wipes her bloody fingers on Pippa's porcelain skin.

"Please hurry. I'm going to be sick. I can feel it," Pippa whimpers.

Finally, it's my turn. The sharp point of the moon hovers over my finger. I'm

remembering a snippet of a dream—a storm, I think, and my mother screaming, my hand

gaping open, wounded.

"Go on, then," Felicity urges. "Don't tell me I'll have to do you, too."

"No," I say, and plunge the point into my finger. Pain shoots up my arm, forcing a hiss

from my lips. The small crack bleeds quickly. My finger stings as I drag it softly over

Felicity's china-white cheekbones.

"There," she says, looking around at us, newly christened in the candlelight. "Put your

hands out." She sticks out her hand and we lay our palms over hers. "We swear loyalty to

each other, to keep secret the rites of our Order, to taste freedom and let no one betray us.

No one." She looks at me when she says this. "This is our sanctuary. And as long as we're

here, we will speak only truth. Swear it."

"We swear."

Felicity moves a candle into the center. "Let each girl tell her heart's desire over this

candle and make it so."

Pippa takes the candle and says solemnly, "To find true love."

"This is silly," Ann says, trying to pass the candle to Felicity, who refuses it.

"Your heart's desire, Ann," she says.

Ann won't look at any of us when she says, "To be beautiful."

Felicity's grip on the candle is strong, her voice determined. "I wish to be too powerful to

ignore."

Suddenly, the candle is in my hand, hot wax trickling over the sides and searing my skin

before cooling into a waxy clump on my wrist. What is my heart's desire? They want the

truth, but the most truthful answer I can give is that I don't know my own heart any better

than I know theirs.

"To understand myself."

This seems to satisfy, for Felicity intones, "O great goddesses on these walls, grant us our

heart's desires." A breeze blows through the mouth of the cave, snuffing out the candle,

making us all gasp.

"I think they heard us," I whisper.

Pippa puts her hands to her mouth. "It's a sign."

Felicity passes the bottle one last time and we drink. "It seems the goddesses have

answered us. To our new life. Drink up. The first meeting of the Order has come to a

close. Let's get back while our candles hold."