by Libba Bray
Felicity lets the falcon go. It soars higher and higher, making daring loops. It is free, and even the sky cannot stop it.
The river announces the arrival of something new. A great ship creaks upon the water. Along the bow is a massive fearsome creature with a green face, yellow eyes, and a head full of hissing snakes. The gorgon! I run to greet her, waving wildly.
“Gorgon!” I call. “Gorgon, it is I, Gemma! We’ve returned!”
“Greetings, Most High,” she answers in her slithery, whisper-thick voice. Her eyes register neither surprise nor happiness. She nestles into the grassy shore and lowers her plank, allowing me to clamber on board. The ship’s planks are a seaworn gray. Along the sides hang nets of silver and a tangle of ropes. The boat is large but dingy. Centuries ago, the once-proud warrior was joined to this ship as punishment for her part in a rebellion against the Order. She is free to leave it now, but she hasn’t yet. “We had expected you sooner.”
“I’ve not been able to enter the realms since I saw you last. I feared I’d never return. But we’re here now, and oh, Gorgon, you’re well? Of course you’re well!” I’m overcome with happiness, for the magic has returned to me. I feel it setting my blood aflame. Yes, we’ve come back to the realms at last. We’ve come home.
I venture onto the bow, taking a perch very near Gorgon’s giant green face. The snakes about her head slither back and forth, watching me, but they make no move to strike.
Gorgon’s eyes narrow as she looks out to the horizon. “The realms have been strangely quiet these days. I’ve heard nothing from the Winterlands creatures.”
“I should think that is good news.”
“I wonder…,” Gorgon murmurs.
“And what of Pippa?” I ask, out of Fee and Ann’s earshot. “Have you seen her anywhere?”
“No,” Gorgon answers, and I don’t know if I am relieved to hear it—or afraid. “I am ill at ease, Most High. I’ve not passed so many days without a single sign from those creatures.”
The air is scented with blossoms. The river sings pleasantly, as always. The magic sparks in my veins with such sweet ferocity that it is impossible to imagine that anything shall ever be amiss again.
“Perhaps they’ve gone,” I say. “Or crossed over at last.”
The snakes rise and coil atop Gorgon’s massive head, their pink tongues snapping into and out of their small cruel mouths. “I’ve seen no souls crossing the river.”
“That doesn’t mean they didn’t go. And it’s quite possible none needed assistance.”
“Perhaps,” Gorgon hisses, but the worry does not leave her face. “There are other matters at hand. Philon is asking after you. The forest folk have not forgotten your promise to form an alliance with them, to join hands at the Temple and share the magic. Shall I take you to them now?”
I’ve not been in the realms a half hour, and already I am burdened with obligations. “I think…” I look over at my friends scooping up handfuls of flowers and hurling them into the sky, where they fall in flakes of silver. “Not just yet.”
Gorgon’s yellow eyes stare through me. “You do not wish to part with the magic?”
I hop down and gaze at my reflection in the pleasant surface of the river. It stares back at me, waiting. Even it has expectations, it would seem. “Gorgon, I thought I’d lost everything. I’ve only just returned. I need to explore the realms and the magic, to sort out the best course,” I say slowly, thinking out loud. “And I’ve need of it in my world, too. I should like to help my friends, to change our lives while we can.”
“I see,” Gorgon says, and I cannot read her feelings about the matter. The giant beast lowers her voice to a soft growl. “There are other concerns, Most High.”
“What do you mean?”
“No person has ever held all the power. There must be a balance between chaos and order, dark and light. With the Temple magic bound to you, the realms are no longer in balance. The power could change you…and you could change the magic.”
My happiness is evaporating. I drop a small pebble into the river. Ripples move across my reflection, distorting my face till I no longer recognize it. “But if I hold the power, there is no magic for anyone to take,” I say, thinking aloud again as the idea forms in my mind. “The realms might be safe at last. And”—I watch Ann pull a leaf from a tree and turn it into a butterfly with one breath—“I wouldn’t hold it for long.”
“Is that a promise?” Gorgon hisses, her yellow eyes meeting mine.
“I promise.”
Gorgon searches the horizon with an air of unease. “There is much we do not know about the Winterlands, Most High. It is best to make the alliance, and quickly.”
This fear of Gorgon’s is odd. I’ve not seen this side of her before.
“Tell Philon…” I stop. What can I tell Philon? That I need more time? That I’m not sure of anything just now except that I am happy to be in the realms—and I can’t give up that happiness yet? “Tell him we’ll discuss that matter.”
“When?” Gorgon presses.
“Soon,” I say.
“How soon?”
“When I return,” I answer quickly, for I want to join my friends.
“I shall wait for you to return, Most High.” And with that, she closes her haunting eyes and sleeps.
For hours we play, allowing the magic to flower fully within us till we feel that time itself is ours to hold. The hope that has been dormant in each of us blooms again, and we are giddy with the happiness that possibility brings. Felicity lazes in a swing she has fashioned from soft, leafy vines. She lets it cradle her and she drags her toes across the velvety grass.
“If only we could show the world the depth of our power…” Felicity trails off, smiling.
Ann picks a dandelion puff from the tall grass. “I should stand on the stage beside Lily Trimble.”
I correct her. “Lily Trimble should beg to stand beside you!”
Ann brings her hands dramatically to her bosom. “‘Fair is foul, and foul is fair!’”
“Bravo!” Felicity and I applaud.
“Oh, and I should be very, very beautiful. And wealthy! And I should marry an earl and have ten children!” Ann closes her eyes in a wish and blows hard on her dandelion, but the wind carries only part of the fluff away.
“What would you wish for, Gemma? What do you want?” Felicity asks.
What do I want? Why is that simple question—four little words—so impossible to answer? I would wish for things that cannot be: my mother alive again, my father well. Would I wish to be shorter, fairer, more lovable, less complicated? The answer, I fear, is yes. I would wish to be a child again, safe and warm, and yet I would also wish for something far more dangerous: a kiss from a certain Indian boy whom I have not seen since Christmas. I am a jumble of passions, misgivings, and wants. It seems that I am always in a state of wishing and rarely in a state of contentment.
They are waiting for my answer. “I should wish to perfect my curtsy so that I might not scandalize myself before Her Majesty.”
“That will take magic,” Ann says dryly.
“Thank you for your confidence. I do so appreciate it.”
“I should bring Pip back,” Felicity says.
Ann bites her lip. “Do you suppose she really is lost to the Winterlands, Gemma?”
I look out over the endless meadow. The flowers sway in a gentle breeze. “I don’t know.”
“She isn’t,” Felicity says, her cheeks reddening.
“That is where she was headed,” I remind her gently.
The last time we saw our dear friend, she was already turning, becoming one of them. She wanted me to use the magic to bring her back to our world, but I couldn’t. The creatures cannot come back. It is a rule I couldn’t break, and Pippa hated me for it. Sometimes I believe Fee hates me for it too.
“I know Pip, I tell you. She would never leave me like that.”
“Perhaps we’ll see her soon,” I say. But I’m not looking forw
ard to it. If Pippa has truly become a Winterlands creature, she is no longer our friend. She is our enemy.
Felicity grabs her sword and sets off for the trees.
“Where are you going?” I shout.
“To find Pip. You may come or not.”
We go, of course. Once Fee has set her mind on something, there’s no talking sense into her. And I want to know the truth, though I hope we’ll not see Pip. For her sake and ours, I hope she’s already crossed over the river.
Felicity leads us through a flower-laden meadow. It smells of hyacinth and my father’s pipe tobacco, fresh dosa, and my mother’s skin-warmed rose water. I turn around, half expecting to see my mother behind me. But she isn’t. She’s gone, dead nearly a full year now. Sometimes I miss her so deeply it is as if I cannot breathe without feeling an ache lodged in my ribs. Other times I find that I’ve forgotten small things about her—the shape of her mouth or the sound of her laugh. I cannot conjure her memory. When that happens, I’m nearly in a panic to remember. I am afraid that if I cannot hold on to these memories exactly, I’ll lose her forever.
We come to the poppy fields below the Caves of Sighs. The bright red flowers show us their dark hearts. Felicity picks one and places it behind her ear. High above us, the cliffs rise. The char pots belch their rainbow of smoke, hiding the very top, where the Untouchables guard the Temple and the well of eternity. It is the last place I saw Circe.
She’s dead, Gemma. You killed her.
Yet I heard her voice in a dream, telling me she was still alive. I saw her face, ghostly white, in the well’s depths.
“Gemma, what is the matter?” Ann asks.
I shake my head as if I can clear it of Circe’s memory forever. “Nothing.”
We walk for some time, until the lush ripeness of the meadow gives way to thick copses of gnarled trees. The sky is gloomy here, as if it has been streaked with soot. There are no flowers, no bushes. In fact, there is no color at all, save for the brown of the brittle trees and the gray of the sky above them.
“Ugh,” Felicity says. She lifts her boot and shows us the bottom. It is dark and mealy, like rotted fruit. When I look up, I see that the trees are laden with what seem to be clusters of berries. They hang flat and defeated on the branches.
“Oh, what has happened here?” Ann wonders aloud, pulling a rotting husk from a branch.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Let’s change it back, shall we?”
We put our hands on a trunk. Color flows beneath its withered bark. Leaves burst through the broken skin of the tree with a sound like the earth itself cracking open. Vines slither along the dusty ground. The shrunken fruits grow fat and purplish red; the branches sag under their succulence. The magic surges in me, and I feel as ripe and beautiful as the fruit.
I grab Ann, who yelps as I lead her about in a giddy waltz. I let go and take hold of Felicity, who, being Felicity, insists on leading. Soon we’re all twirling round and round dizzyingly fast, my happiness fed by theirs.
Sudden thunder rumbles in the distance; the sky pulses red like an angry abrasion. I lose my hold on the others and we fly apart. Ann lands hard with an “oomph.”
“Really, Gemma!”
“Did you see that?” I ask, running toward the path. “The sky turned all funny for a moment.”
“Where?” Felicity searches the sky, which has settled into dusk again.
“That way,” I say, leading them on.
We walk until we reach a long wall of brambles whose thorns are both sharp and plentiful.
“What now?” Ann asks.
Through the small gaps in the brambles, I see a strange mixture of green and rock, fog and twisted trees, much like the English moors in the Brontë sisters’ eerie tales. And farther on, something rises from the mist.
“What is that?” I ask, squinting.
Felicity searches for a peephole. “This is hopeless. I can’t see a thing. Let’s find a way in.”
She sets off running down the hard path, stopping here and there to test the strength of the bramble wall.
“Ahhh!” I pull my hand back. I’ve pricked my finger on one of the sharp points. My blood stains the tip. With an anguished sigh, the brambles unclasp. The long, thorny threads slither free of each other like snakes scattering. We fall back as a wide hole appears.
“What should we do now?” Ann whispers.
“We go inside,” Felicity answers, and there is the hint of a dare in her smile.
We squeeze through the narrow opening and toward the barren forest. The air is noticeably cooler. It tickles our skin into gooseflesh. Thick vines twist along the ground, strangling the trunks of the trees, choking off much of what might grow here. A few valiant flowers poke their heads up here and there. They are few but large and beautiful—a deep purple with petals as fat as a man’s fist. Everything is coated in a blue light that reminds me of dusk in winter. The land here has a peculiar feel. I am drawn to it, yet I want to run. It is like a warning, this land.
We reach the edge of the forest and are astonished at what we see. On a hill is a magnificent ruin of a castle. Its sides are overgrown with a pale, sickly moss and thick, ropelike vines gone tough with age. Tree roots have grown into the stones. They are like bony fingers twisting and turning about the castle, holding it tight in an unwelcome embrace. One limestone tower refuses to be taken, however. It rises majestically from the hill’s grasping hands.
The ground near it is covered in a fine coating of frost. It is like a doll’s castle under a shaking of powdery sugar. It is odd here. Hushed as a first snowfall.
“What is this place?” Ann asks.
“Let’s have a look inside!” Felicity leaps forward, but I pull her back.
“Fee! We’ve no idea where we are or who lives there!”
“Exactly!” she says, as if I have missed the entire point of our excursion.
“Might I remind you of the Poppy Warriors?” I say, invoking the name of those gruesome knights who lured us to their cathedral in hopes of killing us and taking the magic for themselves. As we ran for our lives, they transformed into enormous black birds, chasing us out onto the water. We were lucky to escape them, and I shan’t make the same mistake twice.
Ann shivers. “Gemma’s right. Let’s go back.”
The stillness is broken by the rustling of leaves. A call comes from the forest; it puts a shiver up my spine.
Whoo-oot!
“What was that?” Ann whispers.
“An owl?” I say, my breath coming fast.
“No, I don’t think so,” Felicity says.
We huddle close. Felicity draws her sword. Magic swoops through me, battling my fear. There’s movement to my right, a flash of white amidst the green. Just as quickly, something scurries through the thicket of trees on the left.
Whoo-oot. Whoo-oot.
It seems to be all around us. A sound here; a sound there. A streak of color darts past.
Whoo-oot. Whoo-oot.
Closer now. I hardly know which way to turn. The bushes are still. But someone’s watching us. I can feel it.
“Sh-show yourselves,” I say, my voice pale as a slice of moon.
She steps from behind a tree. Framed in the dusky purple of night, she seems to glow. Her white gown’s gone brown with dirt around the bottom; her skin is the color of the dead. In her matted hair, she wears a crown of flowers that have died and turned to weeds. But we know her all the same. She is the friend we buried months ago, the friend who would not cross the river, whom we thought lost to the Winterlands.
I say her name on a terrified whisper. “Pippa.”
* * *
CHAPTER TEN
* * *
FELICITY’S EYES WIDEN. “PIP? IS IT YOU?”
Pippa rubs her hands up and down her arms as if trying to warm them. “Yes. It’s me. It’s your Pip.” Not one of us dares to move. Tears streak Pip’s pale cheeks. “Will you not embrace me? Do I mean so little to you now? Have you forgotten me so quickly
?”
Felicity’s sword clatters to the hard ground as she runs headlong to Pippa and wraps her arms about our lost friend. “I told them you wouldn’t leave without telling me goodbye. I told them.”
Pip looks at Ann. “Darling Ann, will you still welcome me as friend?”
“Of course,” Ann says, reaching toward the small frail shell of her.
At last Pip comes to me. “Gemma.” She gives me a sad little smile, biting her bottom lip nervously. Her teeth have grown sharper, and her eyes change back and forth from a beautiful violet to an unsettling milky blue with tiny pricks of black at the center. Her beauty has changed, but she is still mesmerizing. Her hair, always long and dark, is now a tangle of curls as untamed as the vines twisting round the castle. She catches me staring. Her laugh is quick and bitter. “Gemma, you look as if you’d seen a ghost.”
“I thought you’d gone to the Winterlands,” I say, uncertainly.
“I nearly did,” she answers, shivering.
“But what happened?” Felicity asks.
Pippa calls out toward the forest. “It’s all right! You can come out! It’s safe. These are my friends.”
A ragged group of girls emerge one by one from their hiding places behind the trees and the bushes. Two carry long sticks that look as if they could do damage. As the girls come closer, I see the singed tatters of their dresses, the horrific burns on their faces and arms. I know who they are—the factory-fire girls we met months ago. We last saw them marching toward the Winterlands, toward corruption. I am relieved to see that they did not meet their end there, but I cannot imagine how they escaped.
One of the stick holders—a big-boned lass with coarse skin and wounds running the length of her arms—takes a stand beside Pippa. I remember speaking to her in the realms before. Bessie Timmons. She’s the sort I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of.
She glances at us suspiciously. “Everfin’ all righ’, then?”
“Yes, Bessie. These are my friends, the ones I told you all about,” Pippa says proudly.
