His hair: impossible as ever, thick and unruly. His cheeks and nose, dusted with brown-sugar freckles. His full, cherry lips. His chocolate eyes, sad behind wire-rimmed spectacles.
The long black cloak that falls to his feet and covers his wrists. The silver ring of the Brotherhood that catches the firelight as he gestures. Guilt crushes me. He’s had too many responsibilities since his father’s death, but this new heaviness in his bearing—this is my fault. Whatever he’s done in the last few weeks, it weighs on him.
He joined the Brotherhood for me.
I drop my eyes to the dead grass at my feet. I’m suddenly warm, suffocating despite the brisk air; I claw at the ribbon that ties my hood, and it falls back, revealing blond hair wound in braids around my temples.
I want to cross the plaza and go to Finn, take his hand, and lead him far away from here. Take him somewhere private where I can tell him the truth: I love him, I will always love him, no matter what they force me to do.
Does he still love me? Can he ever forgive what I’ve done?
I raise my eyes again, and this time they collide with his. I stumble back, reaching, unthinking, for Rilla’s arm. My feelings must be written plainly across my face, but I cannot read him. Does he miss me, even a little? This terrible longing, this urge to run across the grass and hurl myself into his arms—that can’t be one-sided, can it?
“Finn,” I breathe. His name on my lips is a sigh, a love song, a plea for forgiveness.
And he turns away.
We are separated by twenty yards and hundreds of people, but it still feels like a rejection.
“Case,te?” My roommate stares up at me, her hazel eyes full of concern. How many times has she said my name? “Cate, are you all right?”
“Yes.” The word breaks from my throat. I press my fingertips to the corners of my eyes, hiding the tears, holding my breath to try and keep them from coming.
A movement—a flash of pink—catches my eye. Sachi Ishida, my best friend from Chatham, and her half sister, Rory Elliott, are waving their handkerchiefs frantically to get my attention. I pull my hood back up to shadow my face, to hide the stupid traitorous tears that will come despite my best efforts. “Excuse me, Rilla. I see some girls I know.”
I weave through the crowd, dodging children playing tag. Sachi and Rory have a prime spot at the back of the crowd beneath a red maple. There are a few pigtailed girls playing near the tree but no adults within earshot. I launch myself at Sachi, almost knocking her down with the force of my hug. It’s not seemly, but I don’t care. She squeezes me tight, the gray fur of her hood tickling my nose, and then Rory air-kisses my cheeks with brash smacking noises. If anyone had told me two months ago that I would consider these girls trusted friends, that I would greet them with such blinding delight, I’d have insisted they were mad.
“I’m so glad to see you! What are you doing in New London?” I demand.
“We might ask you the same question, Sister,” Rory says.
Sachi’s dark eyes rest on my face. “What possessed you to join the Sisterhood, Cate?”
“I don’t know what you mean. I’m very happy here in New London,” I evade, glancing over my shoulder. A little blond girl gets her feet tangled in the hoop and tumbles to the ground. Her Indo friend helps her up, dusting off the back of her navy cape.
“Liar.” Rory isn’t one to mince words. “You’ve been crying, plain as day.”
“You don’t have to tell us now,” Sachi says, eyeing me sideways. “Father’s here for the duration of the council meeting. Finn, too. I take it you’ve seen him? Did he speak to you?”
I shake my head, unable to speak past the lump that’s reappeared in my throat.
“Oh, Cate, you look a mess.” She tosses me her bright pink lace handkerchief.
“Has he”—I wipe my eyes, battle my pride, and lose—“has he said anything about me?”
Sachi frowns. “To me? No. But I’m hardly his confidante. Father thinks he’s marvelous, you know. He’s always going on about Finn, what a brilliant mind he has, how he put his own mother out of business and so on. But there were moments in the carriage—when Father was asleep and he thought no one was looking—Finn seemed miserable. Just like you do now,” she says, touching my arm with her gloved hand. She’s got new pink satin gloves with mother-of-pearl buttons, and Rory has matching red ones. They’re utterly impractical in this cold, but pretty.
I don’t want Finn miserable, but the thought is still cheering. I stuff Sachi’s handkerchief in my pocket and try to pretend I’m not scanning the crowd for his face. “Truly?”
“Truly. But you aren’t the only one with news.” Sachi raises her cider in a toast, then clinks her mug against Rory’s, ignoring her sour look. “I’m betrothed!”
That snags my attention. “To your cousin Renjiro?”
“Father wouldn’t stand for anything else.” Brother Ishida is head of the Chatham council. He has no notion that his daughters are witches—or that Sachi knows about Rory’s paternity. Rory herself doesn’t know. Sachi thinks it’s safer that way, as Rory has a tendency toward heedlessness enhanced by her sherry habit.
“She can’t marry him. He’s a dreadful prig. That’s where you come in, Cate.” Rory gives me her rabbtak me herity smile. Save their dark, straight hair, she and Sachi look nothing alike. Rory is tall and voluptuous and always a little coarse-looking; Sachi is petite and dark-eyed and elegant. But they’re both dressed in the latest fashions, with heeled calfskin boots and fur hoods and bright, gaudy lace dresses peeking out beneath. At a glance, one would assume they’re vapid society girls—not the sort to make trouble.
That would be a grave mistake.
“Me?” I ask. “How?”
“I don’t see how I can get out of it, unless—” Sachi’s cheeks go as violently pink as her gloves. “I hoped you might put in a good word for me with the Sisters.”
“The Sisters?” I echo stupidly. I glance over at them. From here it’s hard to discern one figure cloaked in Sisterly black from another; I can’t even pick out Rilla. It would be a boon for me to have a friend in New London—a true friend I could trust with all my secrets. And Sachi is a witch, though she doesn’t know the Sisterhood’s true purpose. She must be truly desperate to suggest posing as a nun for the rest of her life.
“Do you think they would take me? I’m not very religious, but Lord knows I’m good at pretending to be things I’m not,” she sighs.
“I don’t know,” I say slowly, though my heart leaps at the thought. “I could speak to Sister Cora for you. You, too, Rory?”
Rory lets out a raucous bark of laughter, tucking a strand of black hair beneath her hood. “Can you imagine me a nun? No, thank you.”
“Do you really want to go home and marry Nils?” Sachi frowns. “You’ll become his property. And you’re twelve times cleverer than he is. You can’t want—”
“I do,” Rory interrupts. “I want to be a wife and a mother. I want to be a normal girl. I’ve never had that. I want my daughter to have that.”
Sachi’s hands clench around her mug. “But—if you go back to Chatham, we’ll be separated.”
“We were always going to be separated. You can come visit me at holidays.” Rory smiles. “And I suppose I’ll have to behave, since you won’t be there to intervene with your father. I don’t want to end up like Cousin Brenna.”
“Father wouldn’t send you to Harwood,” Sachi insists, lowering her voice despite the cacophony of the crowd.
Rory raises her thick eyebrows. “You give him more credit than I do. I suspect he’d be glad to see the back of me.”
I bite my tongue out of deference to Sachi, but I suspect Rory’s right.
Rory’s wide mouth is set as she lounges against the trunk of the maple, staring at the bonfire. “Old hypocrite. He had no right.”
“We’ll find another copy,” Sachi promises, tucking Rory’s arm through hers. “Perhaps, when you get home, you could ask Mrs. Belastra.”
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Rory shakes her off. “It won’t be the same! It won’t be mine.”
“Who? What’s happened?” I ask, perplexed. At the front of the square, guards emerge from the cathedral, escorting a broad-shouldered figure all in black, and I know that must be Covington. People begin to press eagerly toward the stage. They say Covington is a wonderful speaker; people travel for days to hear his sermons, though they’re printed the next day in the Sentinel for anyone to read.
“Father wanted to contribute to the bonfire,” Sachi explains. “He went through our things while we were out shopping yesterday and took some of our books. There was one that was very special to Rory.”
“Cassandra,” Rory says. Tess had that book when she was little. I thought it was creepy, myself—the adventures of a doll that comes to life while the child is sleeping. “I know that book by heart. There’s a jam sara’s a pot on page thirteen. Mama was in such good spirits, she wasn’t even cross with me for it. We had a tea party with my dolls that afternoon.”
“You and your mother had a tea party?” Sachi asks. Around us, children pick up their toys and return to their parents, fidgeting as they wait for the ceremony to begin.
“She wasn’t always the way she is now.” Rory blinks away tears, her shoulders hunched, hands shoved in the pockets of her cloak. “When I was little, she was sweet. She used to sew dresses for my dolls. We’d make up stories about the adventures they had while I was sleeping, like Cassandra.”
I think back, trying to recall this version of Rory’s mother. She must have been respectable once, but I can’t remember it. I know her only as a strange shut-in, supposedly suffering from nerves, actually plagued by drink. It’s a wonder she hasn’t been arrested—or perhaps it’s not. Perhaps Brother Ishida worries what secrets might come out if she were put on trial.
I know what it’s like to miss a mother. I can’t imagine having to miss her when she’s right there.
Sachi loops her arm through Rory’s, and we take a few steps toward the stage as a handsome, broad-shouldered man steps up onto it. He has sharp cheekbones and black hair peppered with gray at the temples, and somehow he makes the Brothers’ standard black cloak look like a fine suit. I’ve never seen him before, but I know who he is. Everyone in New England knows who he is. Brother William Covington is the head of the National Council.
Now he stands above us all as the crowd sputters into silence. Fathers lift children up onto their shoulders for a better look. A dozen guards in their black and gold livery surround the platform. I lift my face respectfully toward the stage. Covington is speaking now, in a drawl rich as honey:
“Fiction cultivates the imagination in dangerous ways. It encourages our girls to play dangerous games of what-if, when the truth is, it does not matter what if. What matters is the here and now. What matters is the path the Lord has set out for you.” Covington’s eyes scan the crowd, and he gestures in a way that makes it seem as though he is speaking directly to me. “We must cultivate other qualities in our girls. We must raise them to be good, obedient daughters and humble, obedient wives. Our girls must be pure of heart, and meek of spirit, and chaste of virtue. If they have questions, if they have longings they do not understand, they must offer them up to the Lord—and to us, the Lord’s vessels here on earth.”
The sky is an inky blue now. The bonfire crackles and belches smoke, but the night air has grown cold. Across the street, Richmond Cathedral looms up, blotting out the stars. I shove my hands into my fur muff, trying to search the crowd for Finn while giving the appearance of listening to Covington.
“I have asked the faithful to bring fodder for our fire. I am pleased to see so many of you have brought books.” People in the crowd wave their offerings in the air, delighted by his approval. “In a moment, I will ask you to step forward, but first—”
Two guards drag a woman forward. She is crying, struggling against them, her hands bound behind her. A third guard pulls a cart piled high with books. “This woman, Hannah Maclay,” Brother Covington says, “has been dealing in forbidden books. Selling them right here in the streets of New London.”
The crowd boos. People crane their necks to see around their neighbors; children dance forward and are yanked back by their mothers.
Finn’s mother is—was, until very recently—a bookseller.
“She has been poisoning the minds of our women and children with the kind of tawdry romances and macabre tales that are popular overseas. She claims that these novels are a treasure rather than treaso th than tn. I would like to show her—show all of you gathered here tonight—just how little they are worth.”
Two of the guards gather up great handfuls of books and toss them into the fire. The pages begin to blacken and curl, the words inside rendered dead and useless. Hannah Maclay lurches away from the guard holding her, and he shoves her, and—
She falls, shrieking, right into the bonfire.
Her black cloak catches fire. Her long brown hair.
Good Lord, will they just let her burn? Will no one help her?
No one is moving. The crowd seems frozen. A few children begin to shriek, and their fathers, unprepared for this spectacle, set them hastily on their feet. I want to shriek, too.
My magic bristles, rising in my throat. I’m about to cast a silent animation spell to move her out of harm’s way when I realize I won’t be the one the Brothers blame. They’ll assume she used magic to save herself. And if they think she’s a witch, they might toss her right back into the fire.
I force the magic down and pray instead. Please don’t let the guards be as heartless as they seem.
It is a long moment before they reach in and haul her out. She is flailing, screaming. They push her to the ground and throw a cloak over her, dousing the flames, hiding her from view. She goes quiet.
The crowd is silent. I look to the Sisterhood. This time I spot Rilla, her freckled hands clasped over her mouth in horror. In front of her, the woman with the baby in the red hat is cuddling him close, turned slightly away from the stage as if to shield him from the sight. Her son is clutching at her skirts.
I look up at Brother Covington. Everyone is looking to him.
His handsome face is arranged in solemn lines. He shakes his head as the guards carry the woman away. Is she alive? She is so quiet. “A regrettable accident,” he says. “Caused by her own disobedience.”
That did not seem an accident. It seemed a carefully orchestrated statement. A warning.
Sachi and Rory are huddled close together, their hands clasped, faces ashen.
The ceremony continues as though nothing’s amiss. As though we haven’t just seen a woman set on fire, perhaps killed. Certainly burnt and scarred for life.
A row of Brothers moves forward, each holding a book or two in his hands. They toss them into the fire and nod as if performing a sacrament. It’s silent as a church service.
Have Maura and Tess received Sister Cora’s letter yet? Are they still in Chatham, being forced to witness a bonfire of their own tonight? I know they’ll think it sacrilege; I know they’ll want to intervene. Even Father will be hard-pressed to stand by and watch this.
The woman pushed into the fire could have so easily been Marianne Belastra.
“That woman wasn’t hurting anyone,” Rory hisses suddenly. “And neither is my book. This is ridiculous!”
Her father has moved to the front of the line. Her eyes are focused on the book in his hands—a slim book with a painting of a doll on it and pink letters that spell out the name Cassandra.
“He’s got to follow the rules.” Sachi’s shoulders have gone tight with worry. “You know that. He doesn’t believe in exceptions.”
“Even for his own daughters?” A muscle jumps in Rory’s jaw.
Daughters? I almost fall over with shock. Rory knows?
“Even then,” Sachi says, her guilty eyes meeting mine. When did she tell Rory?
“Are you defending him?” Rory’s voice rises, and around us, people be
gin to stare.
“Hush!” Sachi drags her backward, under the shelter of the maple, and I trail after them. “No. Of course not. I am on your side. I am p w side. always on your side, Rory.”
Rory is trembling with anger. “I hate him,” she spits, staring across the square as Brother Ishida drops Cassandra into the fire.
And the fire leaps higher, flames jumping twenty feet. The Brothers scramble backward to avoid the heat of the sudden inferno. Women in the crowd are screaming. People are beating sparks from their cloaks, stamping them out with boots, muttering in consternation.
“Witchery!” Brother Covington barks.
I turn to Sachi and Rory, and then I see it: the book winging its way through the smoky air, over the heads of the terrified crowd, over the heads of the Sisters, and straight toward us.
The bonfire is reflected in Rory’s vacant brown eyes.
It’s Rory. She’s the one doing this. She’s lost control.
“Rory,” I whisper, trying to bring her back to herself. The book is almost upon us, and then—
Sachi stretches up on tiptoe and snatches it. She hugs it to her chest with both hands, arms clasped around it as though it’s a precious, precious treasure.
Around us, the crowd draws away, erupting in cries of horror and fear. People point and gasp. “Witchery!” “Magic!” “Lord help us!” Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse a rich girl in white fur fainting dead away. A thickset man with muttonchop whiskers and plaid pants catches her. I suppose most of these people have never seen true magic before. Two dirty-faced boys dash toward us, curious, before their mother screeches at them to stay back.
I throw a quick glance toward the Sisters and find everyone—Sister Cora, Inez, Alice, Rilla—staring not at Sachi or Rory, but at me. I flush. I shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t draw any attention to myself, but I can’t slip away now; I can’t just leave them like this.
“Sachi, no!” Rory tries to wrestle the book away from her sister, but Sachi shoves her, hard. Rory falls to the ground.
“Stay away from me,” Sachi growls.
Good Lord, what has Rory done?
Star Cursed: The Cahill Witch Chronicles, Book Two Page 5
