Yay, new fic. I've been thinking about this one for a long time, but I finally got around to actually writing something for it. It's really knotty and twisted, so I had to do an outline for this one – just to make sure I don't step on my own toes. Even though it's seen through the eyes of my own original character, there's still a strong Gemma & Co flavor to it, so don't be put off.

Oh, and FYI – "Pippa" is short for "Phillipa." (I'm not sure if that was ever mentioned in the books.)

-

London, England 1910

I sit in the jostling carriage, staring out the window. Surely I cannot be so fortunate. The past sixteen years have been naught but hardship and strife – it's inconceivable that such a stroke of luck should suddenly come into my life.

I smooth my hands over the letter in my lap, then look down to reread for the umpteenth time.

Dear Miss Phillipa,

As Headmistress of the Spence Academy for Girls, it is with great pleasure that
I write to inform you that you have been selected by an anonymous benefactor
to receive a full scholarship to our school. Spence upholds a strong tradition of
turning out meticulously refined girls, who go on to successful personal and
public lives.
A carriage will arrive to retrieve you. Please be ready at the gate with your
possessions at eight o'clock, the morning of July twelfth.
Until then, fondest wishes for you.

Miss Emma Godley

As my sixteenth birthday drew closer, I spent every day and night anguishing over what would become of me. At sixteen, I would be too old for any orphanage or reform school. I'd be tossed into a street, with nary a backward glance from anyone at the reform school, forced to make a life for myself, though I had no skills for employment, nor prospects for marriage. I'd even considered joining the convent, but the sour-faced, heavy-handed sisters at St. Joseph's scared that idea right out of me.

That this good turn should come when I'd lost all hope… well, I think I might believe in the God that the Sisters were always invoking.

The driver raps smartly on the hood of the carriage. "We'll be at Spence in twenty minutes, Miss."

"Thank you," I say, my voice choked. Though I'm terribly grateful for this lucky break, I can't help but be nervous. What if the other girls hate me? What if they think I'm worthless because of where I come from? They will, won't they, because I'm a penniless, untitled orphan. My heart beats faster in my chest and I curl my fingers into fists, trying to keep from screaming or laughing, whichever wins the fight in my throat.

My limbs feel strangely heavy, as if they've been filled with sand. A distant ringing fills my ears. I lift my arm slowly, to press on my ear, and it feels like I am moving through warm taffy. My vision grows foggy, blurred, as if I'm peering through a rain-streaked window. I gasp frantically, trying to regain control of my body, but the effort is futile. I am sinking into the velvet-covered seat, down, away from the world. I see the carriage swimming away from me, and suddenly I am plunged into darkness.

Wind rushes over me so fiercely that I feel my skin will be stripped from my body. I drop to my knees, clutching my arms to myself, cowering against the frightful blast. I can feel tall, sharp grass prodding at me from the ground. It is bitterly cold, coated in ice, and as stiff as hatpins. Thorns scratch at my arms, tearing at the sleeves of my only decent dress – my Sunday dress.

In the distance, I can see a cold, garish glow. It is the sharp, cruel blue of a new moon, slowly spreading its light over the barren landscape as it rises in the ink black sky. There are no stars to soften the endless void, no trees overhead to shelter one from its omnipresence.

In the cold light, I can see for miles. The ground is covered in sharp spires of dead grass, coated with a deadly frost, and interspersed with patches of stony rubble. Dark trees dot the landscape, twisted and gnarled, curled over as if the weight of the sky is too much to bear. Their limbs are like wicked claws; the bark is blackened as if it was once set afire.

I have been dropped into a patch of thorny bracken, just behind a large, grey stone. I am about to stand, to figure out where I am, to find a way out, anything – when I hear a strange voice. It is a woman's voice, husky and sweet, but there is a hard edge that frightens me. I flatten myself to the ground, pressing closer to the rock.

"What do you mean 'she's gone?'" The woman demands impatiently.

A hissing, slithery, awful voice answers her, "The Priestess has found her." The terrible voice gives me the sensation of snakes crawling over my body, wrapping around my limbs, slithering over my skin.

The woman does not answer immediately, but even though I cannot see her, I can feel the fury in her expression.

"What shall I do, Mistress?" the slithery voice pleads. Any woman who can fill something so terrifying with fear must be truly frightful herself. I edge along the rock, stretching my neck to peer at the woman and her mysterious, terrible companion.

"You shall find the girl," she answers coldly, her tone brooking no room for excuses.

"Mistress, the Priestess will protect –"

"Find her." Her tone sends a shiver of dread down my spine. I shift ever so slightly, until I can see them. The woman is tall and thin, with long, ice-blonde hair. Her small, grey eyes are cold and furious. An aura of power radiates from her with fierce determination. My heart makes a startled jump as I realize that she looks like me.

But it is her companion that is truly awful. The creature is barely distinguishable as being alive. Rotting flesh hangs from its frame in shredded, moldering strips – under which, thick yellow fluid oozes, drying in festering clumps. Angry, blood red eyes peer around with a desperate, hungry fixation. Long, yellowed fangs charge from its mouth like a cluttered drawer of butcher's knives.

I gasp sharply upon taking them both in. The woman's head snaps in my direction, her cold grey eyes fixing on me immediately. The creature follows her gaze. I have only a moment to notice the slow, satisfied smile that curls the woman's lips. The creature fixes its eyes on me. With a lurch of terror, I realize that the creature's eyes are not blood red – its empty eye sockets are filled with old, clotted blood. It opens its mouth with an almighty roar, and in the blast of it's fury, I can smell the putrid scent of decaying flesh.

The creature lunges for me. I can only scream in terror, pinned between two boulders. My scream seems to come from outside of me, as if I am gasping for air while the heavens themselves shriek in agony.

-

"Pippa, easy! Pippa!"

I lash out viciously, my fist connecting solidly with the unyielding column of someone else's collarbone while my knee bangs painfully against the side of the carriage. My adversary hisses in pain, but keeps a tight grip on my shoulders, pressing me into the seat cushions.

Eyes open, I'm ready to lunge for the face, to tear eyes out with my fingernails, but I'm arrested by the eerie gaze of a strange woman. Her expression is not hostile, and while she struggles to restrain me, she's dealt me no harm.

I let my hands drop, and when I've relaxed, she releases me. I'm still breathing hard and fast, alert, ready in case she should prove to be a danger. I can see a red mark on her collarbone where I struck her. It will surely develop into an ugly bruise.

The strange woman surveys me mildly, an amused half-smile tugging at her mouth. "You must be Phillipa," she says gently, as if we're meeting over tea and crumpets.

"Wot you know 'bout me?" I demand harshly, slipping into the street-urchin speech that the nuns at St. Joseph tried to drill out of me.

The woman smiles. "More than you do, in all probability."

Her cryptic answer irritates me, and I draw away from her, ready to leap out the other side of the carriage door. I can't be sure that she's safe. What happened to the driver? Why hasn't he come to help me? Why has he let a stranger into the carriage? Did she kill him?!

"Well then, come along. I'll show you inside," she says, before I can reach the handle. I halt immediately.

"Eh?"

She ignores my rudeness and poor speech. "Dinner begins in two hours. You'd probably like to be settled in before then."

Slowly, the cogs start turning. "Ah, this is Spence?"

"Yes." She nods, maintaining her mild manner.

"Oh." Feeling chagrined, I take my carpet bag – conspicuously light – and follow her from the carriage. When I step outside, Spence takes my breath away. If ever I've seen a gothic fortress, this is it. Old, dark stone walls, covered in ivy, rise up into towers and a dark roof, covered with gargoyles and moss.

"Spence is an imposing mistress at first sight," the woman says with a smile. "But I think you'll find she's quite congenial to those she harbors."

I spare one last glance for the grimacing stone beasts on the roof before we enter through large, ancient doors. As she leads me through the school, I survey the strange woman. We stride through the entryway, into a grand hall, up a flight of stairs, down a long corridor… but I hardly notice an of it.

The woman is tall, like me. She is slender, though my build is much slimmer. Her most striking features, though, are her glass-green eyes, large and upturned; and her fiery red hair. She is relatively young, perhaps thirty, and the state of her dress tells me she is not without means. While she is not the belle of the ball, she is still a handsome woman. But there is no ring on her finger – why hasn't she married?

She leads me into a small office, and takes a seat behind a broad mahogany desk. She gestures for me to take a seat across from her.

I sit nervously, watching as she shuffles through papers. The room seems to bear down on me the longer she flips through papers, and finally I blurt, "Who are you?"

She looks up, startled. "Oh – please excuse my rudeness," she says apologetically. "In all the hubbub, I completely forgot to introduce myself." I blush at the recollection of our meeting. My eyes dart inadvertently to her shoulder, where the red mark is slowly developing a rich, purple blossom. "I am Miss Godley, Spence's headmistress."

Ah, so this is the woman who penned the letter that saved me from destitution.

"If you have any troubles at Spence, please tell me."

I nod politely. I'm hardly likely to bear my soul to a grown woman who I hardly know, but I won't tell her that.

"Any troubles," she stresses, catching my gaze with her striking green eyes.

"Of course," I reply demurely, falling back into the gentrified speech taught at St. Joseph's.

"Now," Miss Godley looks back down at her papers. "I'm afraid your records are rather haphazard. It seems you were shuffled through different orphanages – homes," she corrects herself with a slight flush, "You changed homes quite often."

"I don't care," I say, heartened by this show of humanness. People of authority have always been distant figures of unquestionable infallibility to me. Miss Godley's faux-pas won her greater admiration from me than any amount of propriety could have. "You can say 'orphanage.' That's what they were, after all."

Miss Godley's cheeks are still warm, but she smiles easily. "I appreciate your candor." She looks back to papers. "As I was saying, you were shuffled around quite a lot. Your records are largely incomplete. For example, we have no surname listed for you."

"I don't have a surname."

She looks at me a moment, nonplussed. "I can understand that you may not know your parents, but surely you were given a surname when you were taken in?"

"Not as far as I can remember."

Miss Godley furrows her brow. "That won't do." She contemplates the papers before looking back up at me. "For the sake of simplicity, would you mind terribly if I –"

"Please do," I say quickly, sitting up sharply. Since I was a young girl, I've never known a surname. I used to make up names to amuse myself, giving myself royal surnames, or silly word amalgams.

"Well then, I can safely say that your sponsor wouldn't mind if –"

"Who is my sponsor?" I ask suddenly, so curious that I don't even notice my rudeness in cutting her off.

Miss Godley gives me a sympathetic look, and I know the answer before she speaks. "I'm afraid your sponsor wishes to remain anonymous. But since the last name is fairly common, it will be safe for you to use as your own."

I sink back into my chair, disappointed. I'd nearly convinced myself that I was the long-lost descendant of some royal lineage, and that I'd been recently rediscovered, and would now be living as a queen.

If Miss Godley notices my disappointment, she does not comment. "You will be Miss Doyle. Does that suit you, Pippa?"

The name suits me just fine, but something else catches my attention.

"Who told you to call me Pippa?" I ask. Only my friends ever called me Pippa. The nuns always referred to me as Phillipa.

Miss Godley looks nervous. She looks down at her papers with a sudden flash of her eyes. "I… It's in your paperwork."

They could list no surname for me, but my nickname has been recorded? I am about to question her, but she speaks before I can.

"We need to discuss something else." Her voice is serious, dire.

"Yes?" I ask nervously.

"In the carriage, you… passed out." She says "passed out" with a tone that suggests she is skeptical of that explanation. "And you were screaming when I found you."

It is my turn to blush. I fear I will be chastised for striking her. Unbidden, my eyes search out the bruise on her shoulder.

"Pippa," she says gravely. "What did you see?"

Ooohhhh… what's all this now? Some of the "secrets" are fairly obvious, but this will get twistier and deeper as it goes. And pretty much everyone from the books will make an appearance at one point or another, though only a few will be featured characters. Hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Now that a lot of the set-up is out of the way, the next chapter will have a LOT more excitement, including a NEW bitchy clique and the introduction of a mysterious, sexy stranger. WOOT.

Oh, and before you Victoriana fans get all crazy on me about the "nuns" (because England is primarily Anglican) I will let you know that Roman Catholic orphanages were very common in the late 1800's - early 1900's, and St. Joseph's Reformatory School for Girls was an actual school/home for orphaned girls from ages 10 - 16. It was registered to hold a capacity of 90 girls at a time. There is not a lot to be found online about it, so any references to appearance/atmosphere of the orphanage are completely fabrications of my imagination.

And, finally - the title of this fic, as well as each chapter title comes from a specific poem. It was published in 1925. Whoever guesses the poem AND poet correctly, gets a big pat on the back and imaginary cookies. ;-)

Okay. That being said...

PLEASE REVIEW. (I still keep the Review Monkeys at my disposal and they haven't fed for many days.)