Chapter 19

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"There you are" Felicity calls to me from a small table where she and Ann are sitting with

the old Gypsy. "Mother Elena was just telling us the most interesting story about Ann

becoming a great beauty."

"She told me I'm going to have many admirers," Ann interrupts, excited.

Mother Elena crooks a finger. "Come closer, child. Mother Elena will tell you your

fortune."

I make my way through a tent strewn with piles of books, colorful scarves, and bottles of

herbs and tinctures of all kinds. A lantern hangs from a hook behind the old woman. The

light is harsh and I can see how creased and brown her face is. Her ears are pierced, and

she wears rings on every finger. She offers me a small basket with a few shillings in the

bottom.

Felicity clears her throat, whispers. "Give her a few pence."

"But then I'll have nothing till my family's visit on Assembly Day," I whisper back.

"Give. Her. The pence," she says through smiling teeth.

With a heavy sigh, I drop my last few coppers into the basket. Mother Elena shakes it.

Satisfied with their jingling sound, she empties the basket into her coin purse.

"Now, what will it be? The cards? The palm?"

"Mother Elena, I think our friend would be very interested in the story you were telling us

—about the two girls from Spence?"

"Yes, yes, yes. But not with Carolina in the room. Carolina, fetch some water now."

There's no one else in the room. I'm starting to feel uneasy. Mother Elena's hands pat her

cards. She tilts her head as if she's listening to something she has forgotten—a bit of song

or a voice from the past. And when she looks up at me, it's as if we're old friends

reunited.

"Ah, Mary, what a nice surprise. What is it Mother Elena can do for you today? I've got

lovely honey cakes, sweet as can be. Come now."

Her hands place imaginary cakes on an imaginary tray. We all exchange curious looks. Is

it an act, or is the poor old thing really as mad as a hatter? She offers the pretend tray to

me.

"Mary, dear, don't be shy. Have a sweet. You're wearing your hair differently. It suits

you."

Felicity nods, urges me to play along.

"Thank you, Mother."

"Now, where is our lively Sarah today?"

"Our Sarah?" I falter.

Felicity jumps in. "She's off practicing the magic you taught her."

Mother frowns. "That I taught? Mother doesn't dabble in such things. Only the herbs and

the charms for love and protection. You mean them."

"Them?" I repeat.

Mother whispers. "The women who come to the woods. Teaching you their craft. The

Order, No good can come of it, Mary you mark my words."

We're building a house of cards. One wrong question can send the whole tower tumbling

before we reach the top.

"How do you know what sorts of things they teach us?" I ask.

The old woman taps the side of her head with a gnarled finger. "Mother knows. Mother

sees. They see the future and the past. They shape it." She leans toward me. "They see the

spirit world."

The whole room spins out of focus and comes back. Though the night is cold, sweat

trickles down my neck, dampening my collar. "Do you mean the realms?"

Mother nods.

"Can you enter the realms, then, Mother?" I ask. The question reverberates in my ears.

My mouth is dry.

"Oh, no. Only glimpse it. But you and Sarah have gone, Mary. My Carolina has told me

you brought her sweet heather and myrtle from that garden." Mother's smile fades. "But

there are other places. The Winterlands. Oh, Mary, I'm afraid of what lives there… afraid

for Sarah and you…"

"Yes, what about Sarah…" Felicity says.

Mother frowns again. "Sarah is a hungry one. She wants more than knowledge. She

wants power, that one. We must keep her from the wrong path, Mary. Keep her from the

Winterlands and the dark things that live there. I fear she will call them, bind one to her.

And it will corrupt her mind."

She pats my hand. Her skin is dry and cracked against my knuckles. I feel I might faint.

It's a struggle to get the next part out.

"What… dark things?"

"Wounded spirits of such rage and hate. They want to come back to this world. They will

find your weakness and exploit it."

Felicity doesn't believe a word of this part. Behind Mother's back, she makes an ogre

face. But I've seen the dark move and shriek.

"How could she call such a thing to her?" Despite the chill, I'm sweating and woozy.

"A sacrifice is what it wants, and then the power is hers," Mother whispers. "But she'll be

forever bound to the dark."

"What sort of sacrifice?" I barely croak. Mother Elena's eyes glaze over. She's fighting

something in her memory. I say it again, stronger. "What sort of sacrifice?"

"Don't get so carried away… Mary," Ann says quietly through gritted teeth.

Mother's faraway look has evaporated. She regards me with suspicion. "Who are you?"

Felicity tries to get her back. "It's your Mary, Mother Elena. Don't you remember?"

Mother whimpers, a frightened animal. "Where is Carolina with the water? Carolina,

don't be naughty. Come to me."

"Mary can take you to her." Felicity jumps in.

"Stop it!" I shout.

"Mary, is it you come back to me after all this time?" Mother cups my face in her

weathered hands.

"I'm Gemma," I say with difficulty. "Gemma, not Mary. I'm sorry, Mother."

Mother Elena withdraws her hands. Her scarf falls open, revealing the shine of the

crescent eye around her weathered neck. She backs away. "You. You brought it on us."

The dogs bark at the rise in her voice.

"I think we had best leave," Ann warns.

"You destroyed us. Lost it all…"

Felicity tosses another shilling onto the table. "Thank you, Mother. You've been most

helpful. The honey cakes were delicious."

"It was you!"

I cover my ears with my hands to hide the sound. The woods echo with it, the howl of a

mother animal mourning its young, a tiny creature lost to a predator in the great cycle of

things. It's the sound more than anything else that sets me to running, past the Gypsy

men, who are too drunk to come after us now, past the protesting Felicity and Ann I'm

leaving behind. I'm deep into the woods when I stop. I cannot catch my breath and feel as

if I will faint. The damned corset. With cold fingers I pull hard at the laces but can't undo

them. In the end I'm on my knees sobbing with frustration. I feel his gaze before I

actually see him. But there he is, watching—doing nothing but watching.

"Leave me alone!" I shout.

"Well, that's a fine way to treat us," Felicity says, huffing into view. Ann is just behind

her, breathing heavily, too. "What the devil got into you back there?"

"I—I just got spooked," I say, trying to catch my own breath. Kartik is still there. I can

feel him.

"Mother Elena may be mad, but she's harmless. Or perhaps she's not mad at all. Perhaps

if you hadn't run off, her little performance would have ended and we could have had our

fortunes told instead of wasting five pence for nothing."

"I'm's-sorry," I stammer. There's no one behind the tree anymore. He's gone.

"What an evening," Felicity mutters as she walks ahead, leaving me on my knees under

the watchful eyes of the owls.

In the dream, I'm running, my feet sinking into the cold, muddy earth with each step.

When I stop, I'm at the mouth of Kartik's tent. He's asleep, blankets thrown back, bare

chest exposed like a Roman sculpture. A line of dark hair snakes over a taut stomach. It

disappears into the waistband of his trousers, into a world I do not know.

His face. His cheeks-nose-lips-eyes. Under the lids, his eyes move back and forth rapidly.

Thick lashes rest against the tops of his cheekbones. The nose is strong and straight.

It slopes down to a perfect point at the top of his mouth, which is open just slightly to let

his breath in and. out.

I want to taste that mouth again. Wanting brings me down in a whoosh, feet planted,

breathing shallow, head light. There's only the wanting. Bring my lips to his and it's like

melting. Those black eyes flutter open, see me. The sculpture comes alive. Every muscle

in his arms flexing as he pushes himself up, pulls me under, slides on top. The weight of

him forces the air from my lungs like a bellows, but still it comes out as the lightest of

sighs. And there's his mouth again on mine, a heat, a pressure, a promise of things to

come, a promise I'm rising up to meet.

His fingertips are a whisper on my skin. A thumb inches toward my breast, traces circles

over and around. Move my mouth to the salty skin of his neck. Feel my thighs moved

apart by a knee. Something inside me falls away. It's as if I've stopped breathing for a

moment. I'm hollowed out. Searching.

The warm fingers trail down, hesitate, then brush past a part of me I don't understand yet,

a place I haven't let myself explore.

"Wait…" I whisper.

He doesn't hear or won't listen. The fingers, strong and sure and not entirely unwanted,

are back, the whole of his palm cupped against me. I want to run. I want to stay. I want

both things at once. His mouth finds mine. I'm pinned to the earth by his choice. I could

just float here, lose myself inside him and come out reborn as someone else. The thumb

on my breast rubs my skin into a delicious rawness, as if I've never truly walked in my

skin before. My whole body strains up to meet the pressure of him. His choice could be

mine. He could swallow me up, if I just let go. Let go. Let go. Let go.

No.

My hands slide up against the slick skin of his chest and push him back. He falls away.

His weight gone feels like a limb missing and the need to pull him back is nearly over'

powering. There's a fine glisten of sweat on his brow as he blinks in his sleep-state,

confused and groggy. He's asleep again, just as I found him. A dark angel just out of

reach.

It's a dream, only a dream. That's what I tell myself when I wake up, gasping, in my own

bed in my own room with Ann snoring contentedly a few feet away.

It's only a dream.

But it felt so real. I put my fingers to my lips. They're not swollen with kissing. I'm still

whole. Pure. A useful commodity. Kartik is miles away, lost in sleep that does not involve

me. That part of me I haven't explored aches, though, and I have to lie on my side with

my knees clamped together to stop it.

It's only a dream.

But most frightening of all is how much I wish it weren't.