"The locket is the key, and you are the lock." I repeat the message to a confused Felicity the next morning. She chews her lip and then looks sideways at me.
"Gemma, darling. You know dear Pip..."
"What about her?" I say, trying not to let my irritation shine through. I smile pleasantly and tilt my head until I'm the perfect English lady. Felicity regards me coolly for a moment, before bursting out into an uncontrolled peal of laughter.
"Oh, Gemma, darling, you should see yourself! You look positively like a meek little wife." She leans forward, and places an arm intimately round my waist. I blush at the contact, for the only arm ever there has been my mother's and father's. And now Kartik's.
But that doesn't count, I remind myself.
"Anyway, Pippa ... Pippa says she would like to meet you. Properly."
"You mean she's jealous that you have a new friend. I thought she was supposed to be 16, not 6." The bitterness in my voice surprises even me. Felicity, I can see, knows that I speak the truth.
"She has been my dearest friend since I arrived here, Gemma. You have to understand that she ... she and I share a special bond."
"So ... what are you suggesting?" I gaze through the windows at the sky ... the watery sunshine trickling down from the clouds, and warming the frost that has gathered on the grass. I can tell it is going to be a bitter winter.
"Perhaps ... we ... form a group? Like the ones that your gentleman friend spoke of. It would be fun, and she would be pacified."
I don't bother to reply, just glare at Felicity until her skin begins to smoulder. Almost.
"I'm not suggesting that you tell her everything, but we could steal away and have some fun of our own. What do you think?"
I know what I think. I think that it is a very bad idea, but a deliciously bad one, like midnight feasts and flicking ink and laughing as loud as we can. Small rebellious acts.
"Alright. But ..." and here it is my turn to look abashed, "Ann will join too."
"Ann ... Bradshaw?" The incredulity is clear on Felicity's face. "I refuse."
"Then I'm afraid that the people in your little group will consist of yourself and Pippa and that is all."
Felicity thinks quickly. I can see the cogs of her mind whirring. I can almost feel the pulse of her hatred and passion and mockery and wickedness flow through my veins, until I cannot separate us, until we are one being, flowing through clouds like the purest of water. Oh god... it's happening.
Felicity does not seem to notice my eyes fluttering and my breathing quickening. I try to remember what it feels like to be there, but I cannot block it out. I see Felicity again this time, and she is smiling. A true smile, not one stifled and shaped by etiquette and society. Not the pleasant, demure smile of proper English ladies. She is dancing, but I cannot see where. And then ... I wish to see. And I do.
She is in a garden, of sorts. It looks too wild to be anywhere in England, yet the flowers and animals are quintessentially British. She has a butterfly in her hand, and then closes her eyes. When she opens them again, the butterfly has gone, but she herself has grown beautiful, cobweb thin wings. She laughs in excitement, and floats above the ground, before swooping towards the waterfall, barely visible amongst the lush green of the garden. Then I see the girl again, the girl who claims to be my sister. She looks paler, more drawn, and I can see a hollowness in her eyes, grey and bleak and hopeless. She looks slowly up, and seems to see me somewhere, even though I cannot see myself.
"Gemma, I cannot wait much longer. You have to save me. Please. Else I travel to the Unknown, just like the others."
I am back, so quickly and suddenly that I am disorientated and frightened. I grapple with Felicity's small, white hands, trying to escape from her cold fingers, pressed so firmly against my skin I think I will freeze.
"Gemma? Gemma!" Her eyes are wide and worried, but I see a flash of understanding in them. She came. She saw. She knows.
"Gemma, who was that girl? What was wrong with her eyes? They were dead."
I lay still and silent for a minute, until I regain myself completely, and then turn my gaze on Felicity. "I don't know. She says to be my sister."
"She looks like you."
I smile wanly, trying to escape the gnawing dread in the pit of my stomach. "Come, we have Art, and your next painting must improve."
Miss Moore smiles at me as I enter the classroom, and then her attention slips to Felicity. "I am presuming that you have been practising your Art, Miss Worthington."
Felicity smiles guiltily, and Miss Moore looks away, and I wonder how it must feel to have that complete power over someone.
"Class, today we are going to be discussing, not drawing. I think it would benefit nearly all of you here in the room." She looks pointedly at Felicity, who stares ahead of her, that mocking smile in place.
"Miss Doyle, perhaps. Could you tell me what it is that makes a piece of Art special to you?"
I falter, and press my nail into the soft skin of my palm as I try to think of a suitable answer. "It has to be interesting. Something important must be being addressed in the painting. If it is just a pretty picture, then it is pleasant, but I will not remember it. If it is dark and scary and ugly, but has a meaning, I will be drawn to it."
My teacher seems to gaze at me for longer than appropriate when I finish saying this. Her eyes take on a dreamy, far-away look, and I wonder if I have said the wrong thing.
"That is brilliant, Miss Doyle. Perhaps Miss Cross should follow your example."
Pippa looks horrified when she hears her name being called out, but she answers smoothly and dully, as if she has been practising in front of her mirror. "To me, Art has to be pretty. It is all very well to say that Art has to have a meaning, but no one wants an ugly picture hanging on their wall. I want to learn how to paint pleasant pictures, not pictures that mean something. No picture means anything. They are just paint or pencil."
Miss Moore seems hurt when Pippa says this. She breathes out slowly, and then turns to hand out paper and paint. "Pippa, paint something pretty for your parents to forget when they come for Assembly Day." And I am sure that it was not a slip of the tongue.
Felicity, Pippa, Ann and I are sitting in the middle of the great hall, crossed legged and nervous. Pippa is wearing a bored expression on her face, and then hisses to Felicity, "I thought you said this was going to be fun."
Felicity stands, and then walks to an alcove in the great hall. "Come here. It will be more private, and we don't want Brigid sneaking up on us." We meekly do as she says, and, as I stand, my locket falls from my nightgown. Ann spies it curiously, always hypnotised by pretty things, things of wealth and riches, but says nothing. Before I can tuck it back in again, Felicity is upon me, her nimble fingers undoing the clasp at the nape of my neck.
"Felicity, what on earth-?"
"The key is in the silver," she says, mocking me. "And I wish to find the key." She places in down on the floor, the chain spilling around it as it falls. Pippa gazes at it longingly, and I wonder why the other girls feel compelled towards it, almost as if it were calling them.
"Here's what we shall do," Felicity instructs. "We shall sit in a circle around the locket and hold hands. Then we will feel the power."
Pippa starts to giggle, followed uncertainly by Ann. "What power, Fee? Does Gemma think that her necklace is magical?" I can feel myself blushing furiously as she mocks me.
"No. I do." Felicity answers, rather abruptly, and Pippa is silent. Ann hiccups, and goes back to gazing bleakly at the marble floor.
Although I feel ridiculous and childish, I join hands with Felicity and Ann.
"Close your eyes and concentrate on the locket." Felicity instructs, and I know that we all obey her. After sitting like this for a minute or more, I open one eye and then glance around our circle. Nothing has changed. The locket is still gleaming on the floor, and felicity knows it. Her hand clenches tighter on mine, and then she lets go, suddenly.
"We're doing it wrong. Perhaps we have to say something. Or keep our eyes open."
"or perhaps," pipes up Ann, rather sardonically, much to my surprise, "The locket isn't magical, and we are being foolish."
"Well, goodnight then, Miss Bradshaw, and I hope you sleep well." Felicity speaks calmly, but I can feel the ice in he tone, and so can Ann, who falters, and remains put.
"Maybe we should touch the locket. I've always been touching it when I've ..." But I trail, off, aware that I have already said too much, and also aware that Ann and Pippa's eyes are burning into mine.
"Let's each place a finger on the locket," says Felicity, and I finally realise that the locket, and the power, isn't mine anymore. This is Felicity's group, and, if we find the visions again, they will be Felicity's. Although they scare me, and I hate them, I do not like the idea of this curious china white creature taking them from me.
But we do as she says, and this time, I can feel it humming through me. I wrench my finger away, and the other girls look worriedly at me. "What?" Ann asks, looking at the locket as if it were about to burst into flames.
"Nothing. It's just ... cold, that's all." But they know that I am lying, and Felicity places her finger once more on the metal. Ann and Pippa do the same, but I shy back, wary of the electric heat that pulsed through me the last time.
"Gemma ... don't be scared. It's just a locket." Pippa's singsong voice infuriates me, and I find myself obeying her just to spite them all. The humming starts immediately, and I know they can feel it too. But this time I will stay, and this time they will see.