Thank you SO SO SO much for all the positive feedback I've got on this... especially from InfiniteReverie and ThreeOranges. This one's quite long because a lot of this get sorted out here. Hope you enjoy. P.S. always appreciate reviews!
I wake feeling curiously light and giddy. My limbs seem as unstable as those of a newborn lamb, and I laugh at Ann's expression of incredulous surprise when she tries to stand and instead falls to the floor heavily, like a sack of potatoes.
"I'm terribly sorry, Miss Bradshaw, it's just that..."
"There was nothing funny about that at all." She uses the bed to right herself and bades me try. I find that I can stand, albeit shakily, and reach out to help her up.
"What on earth is wrong with us? Are we ill?" Her face becomes pinched and pale, and I realise that she did not have the same experience that I did last night. She wasn't alive and glowing golden, the moonlight wasn't a gossamer blanket, Kartik wasn't rough and smooth, both at the same time... Kartik. What happened? I try to remember, but the scene flits teasingly close to my fingers, then darts off again, into the blurred caverns of my unreliable mind. I sigh, forget, and instead collapse several times during dressing.
We clutch tightly to the banister as we enter the dining hall. Spying Felicity and Pippa sitting at the middle table, surrounded by adoring acolytes, Ann turns to me.
"Where shall we sit?" And I realise that it is now 'we', whether I like it or not. And to my surprise, I like it.
"With Fee and Pip," I say boldly, and Ann smirks at my intimated use of their nicknames. Felicity sees us, and shoos the other girls away, making room for us next to her. Pippa, for once, is smiling. Not in the nasty, spiteful, catty way that I have seen so many times. Properly smiling. Infuriatingly, it makes her look even more beautiful. But Fee is the one that I cannot take my eyes off. Her pale skin seems to be glowing with life and energy, and her hair is the colour of burnt silver. Her eyes, huge and grey, are sparkling with our wicked secret, and for once I feel as though I have been accepted.
"We must go again tonight," she hisses to me the moment I sit. "Wasn't it the most wonderful feeling? Me and Pip could scarcely stand this morning!"
"Neither could we," I say, invoking the word that has Ann smiling privately down into her breakfast.
"Promise? Promise we can go?"
I hesitate, and Felicity sees the answer in my eyes. "Why not? Why not?"
I don't want to tell her, and either do Pippa or Ann. We sit silently, fingering the hems of our dresses, none of us daring to look Felicity in the eye.
"Pippa? What is it? Gemma, what's going on?"
I look up, and for a second I revel in the power that I hold over Felicity. Her face and tone are trying desperately to regain composed, but there is a flicker of desperation in her eyes, and this makes me smile.
"Because, Fee, something happened to you last night. You ... wandered off or something, and came to that place. The one I told you about ... your eyes went all black, and you were screaming, and ... my god, fee, you were terrifying."
She doesn't say anything for a while, and instead returns to daintily picking at her meal. I can see the hatred and resentment burn fiercely in her eyes. She was the weakest of us all, she realises now. And there is nothing she can do about it.
"I don't know what it was, Fee, but you were looking at my mother, and ... it could have happened to anyone."
"But it didn't."
"No."
Felicity rises quietly, and returns to her room. Pippa begins to follow her, but Ann catches her eye and she reluctantly sits down. I gaze at the two of them, and a feel a twinge in my stomach as I realised that a bond is being forged, and I will be alone once more.
Miss Moore gazes intently at me as I enter the classroom. I shiver, as I can still feel the magic coursing through my veins. I wonder if she can see it, if she hasn't closed off her mind to the possibility of there being more than tea and cakes, and ballroom dances, and proper curtsies. But I smile at her, and take my seat. Fee is nowhere to be seen, but our teacher does not question her absence. She doesn't seem to care.
"Class, today we are going to be discussing magic."
A chill runs through my veins and she, once more, fixes her eyes on me as if I am the artwork she is analysing.
"Miss Moore, I for one want to be doing something. Painting or drawing or SOMETHING. My parents are not going to appreciate me having discussions, if I've nothing to show for it."
Miss Moore seems not to hear Cecily's whining tones, and instead smiles broadly.
"Miss Doyle, do you know anything of magic?"
I can still feel the magic buzzing in my blood as I make my way to the great hall after dinner. Fee grabs my arm, and I turn in surprise, for I haven't seen her all day.
"Where on earth have you been?" I whisper, for I can feel the beady eyes of Miss Temple on me even now.
"Exploring. No-one asked after me, did they?"
"No. Where were you?"
She grins wickedly, exposing her pearly white teeth. She leans close, and I can feel her seductive tongue in my ear.
"Amongst the gypsies."
I gasp, and she smiles triumphantly. She is back there once more, the powerful one, the one that takes risks and breaks rules and shocks us all.
"I went to find that gypsy boy of yours."
"Why?"
"Because I saw him yesterday returning you to your room in the middle of the night."
A few days ago, a statement like this would have turned my blood to ice in my veins, but now I only smile slightly at Fee and slip an arm around her waist.
"Something happened last night. Something ... strange. I didn't have a chance to tell you this morning, and then you disappeared all day, and ... I don't know how you didn't get caught."
She pulls me into a corner, and her eyes glint as she spies Ann and Pippa making their way over to us.
"Quick, tell me now."
"I ... I touched the necklace. Kartik was there. I touched the necklace, and then my blood started pulsing through my veins, and I could feel it. I could feel everything. I knew everything. Some of the magic had come back with me. I felt dizzy and drowsy and ludicrously happy. I think I started laughing, but Kartik took me to the woods because he was terrified I would wake someone up. I can't remember what else happened. It's all a..." Blur? Not quite, not any more. It's like I know what's happened, but my mind won't accept it, refuses to acknowledge it. I wonder what could be so wicked.
She frowns slightly, and then grabs at my wrist again, drawing my closer. She speaks quickly, every so often darting glances at the approaching figures of Ann and Felicity.
"I asked some of the gypsies about the school. It turns out there was a fire here, in the tower, 16 years ago. 4 girls died. Apparently, they had been dabbling in magic, one of them said. And another said that they weren't really dead, just trapped in another world."
I don't know how to respond to this. I don't know where it fits in. but clearly Felicity has an idea. I begin to ask her, but she shushes me with a finger on my lips/
Pippa and Ann have arrived now, and they are smiling and glowing with this newfound friendship. Fee glances at me out of the corner of her eye, and I feel that twinge again. She sees it too.
"Gemma, darling, may we go back? Please?"
I am taken aback that Pippa, sweet, selfish, cowardly Pippa, wants to return to that place. Ann nods along, with her eyes wide and pleading, and I find myself agreeing, even though I do not want to.
"What time shall we meet?" Ann, as always, the sensible scholarship student. We decide on an hour, and then settle down in the alcove, close and warm and together, talking and laughing and whispering and giggling over our newfound power. I find the worry and trouble ease out of me, like someone is unwinding a coiled loop of string, until I am straight and flat and smooth and here.
Mrs Nightwing, I know, will be glancing in our direction every so often, smiling at her ability to mend and mould students to her will. She has made me friends; she has let Ann be accepted. She is in control.
We know she is wrong.
The candle flickers as me and Ann make our way to the great hall. Felicity and Pippa aren't here yet, and so we settle and sink into the marble floor. Ann sweeps her hand across the smooth cold stone, and her eyes glitter with something. Longing, perhaps. And I get that feeling again, the feeling that I know this room, I have been here before, and then I see my sister again. She is cold, alone and broken, the tears slipping down the grime coating her face. Her hair is paler, weaker, and her eyes are dull and dead. And I know I have to go, and I know it must be soon.
Felicity and Pippa come soon, and I hear a soft clinking sound, like water hitting harbour walls. And I wonder at this, for I have never seen a harbour.
Fee produces from behind her back a glass bottle, 3 quarters full with a black liquid.
"What on earth is that?" Ann recoils, nervous and shaking.
"Rum. There was some in the kitchen. One of the places I visited today." She looks victorious, and I have to wonder at what sort of childhood she had.
"Rum ... isn't that a spirit?" Ann whispers hoarsely.
"Well done, Miss Bradshaw." Felicity does not look up as she unstoppered the bottle and took an unladylike swig. From the impassive expression on her face, it was clear, at least to me, that this was not the first time she had tried rum.
"Miss Doyle, care to take a sip?"
The answer was no. I didn't want to. But I knew that I was going to.
The liquid burned its way down my throat, leaving me raw and warm and strangely light. I wanted to cough and cry, but Felicity's eyes were upon me, and so I composed my features into something resembling indifference.
"Miss Bradshaw?" I offer the glass, swinging is slowly back and forth like a pendulum, teasing her, mocking her. I can see her thoughts whirring at full speed. Is it worth it? To be accepted? Is it?
Finally she grabs the bottle from my hand and takes a small sip, grimacing as it made its way down her throat. She splutters, and Felicity's lips curved in a hateful smile. Pippa takes a small sip next, and then it is back to Felicity, and once more to me.
After a while I began to feel light headed and curiously floaty. Everyone shimmers and ripples before my eyes, and I find myself giggling foolishly at the most banal of things. I am joined by Felicity, and soon we are close, our bodies pressed against each other. I think back to last night. Kartik's body pressed against mine. This is friendship, close, solid, true friendship. That was something different. Hatred, danger, lust...
"Lust, Gemma?" Fee smirks, and I realise that I have been speaking out loud.
"Who do you hate?" Ann inquires, her hair glowing before my eyes. They all twirl and loop and dance before me, and I find myself laughing merrily on the marble of the hall, the cold pressed against my cheek, the shadows whispering my name.
I jerk upright, and the smiles fade from their faces. "Gemma, what is it?" "What spooked you so?"
I don't know how to answer, so I relax once more. Just a trick of the light, and too much rum, I remind myself. Fee is close to me, and I rest my head on her shoulder, slumping sideways oh so gracefully. My necklace falls from my chemise, and Pippa catches sight of it.
"Are we ever to go?" she questions irritably. She and Ann have not drunk so much, I believe, and she is growing tired of Felicity and I.
"Of course, my dear Miss Cross." I stumble to my feet, leaning heavily against the wall, and untangle the necklace from my hair. Tossing it to the ground, I rejoin my friends, and we each place a finger on the locket.
The light and sound and time drowns us once more, but I close my eyes and think of the garden and then we are there.
Once again, the waterfall draws us close, but we drag ourselves away, remembering the words of the girl who calls herself my sister. She is on the bank, cheerful and smiling, her arms out and her heart open. She seems to have forgotten all I told her. She seems to have forgotten mother.
"Gemma, darling, you came back! Oh, I did miss you!" She embraces me, and I sink into her, no longer caring whether she is real or not. She smells of mother, and I inhale deeply, causing her to laugh, and release me.
"Am I smothering you, Gemma, dear?" she takes my hand and leads me to the tree where Ann and Pippa became friends and changed it all. It seems so long ago.
"Gemma, darling, I have much to tell you. You have to hear tonight."
I don't speak, but dumbly follow her. Pippa and Ann and Felicity move off, their eyes trailing to the hanging vines obscuring that hellish place from sight.
"Fee, remember: stay away." Evelyn calls out to my friend, and I frown in bewilderment. How does she know her? Why does she say this?
"Gemma, darling, you must listen closely. You have a task, I know. This will help you."
I watch Pippa and Ann and Fee as they settle to the ground, smiling and laughing and turning pollen into butterflies and butterflies into raindrops and raindrops into diamonds. I long to join them, but my sister needs to speak to me, and I wish to understand it all.
"Gemma, I was sixteen when you were born. Well ... not quite. I was dead when you were born, but there were sixteen years between us."
My sister is dead. The words fall heavily through my heart until they hit the bottom, jarring me and causing me to gasp involuntarily.
"Gemma, darling?" her eyes are large and loving, and I bade her continue.
"I was a pupil at Spence, and I have reason to believe that you are currently residing there." When I nod, she continues. "I had four dear friends. One was beautiful, one was clever, one was wild." The words sink in, and suddenly, it all makes sense. My sister, my sister and her friends, were the four girls who died at Spence. Only they didn't die. They were trapped. Here.
"Where are they?" I ask, glancing around, as if expecting them to coming creeping out from under a bush, the boughs of a tree.
"It's complicated. My beautiful friend was destined to marry a man she despised. My clever friend was poor, here through the money of somebody else, and so desperately wanted to be something, make something of herself. And my wild friend, she could not be content with a normal life, marrying, having children. She wanted something more." Her voice drops, and she looks sad. "We all did."
Beautiful Pippa. Clever Ann. Wild Fee. It all sinks in, horribly, bizarrely, yet it still makes sense.
"My friends, my dear sweet friends, they were all so desperate and innocent and hopeful. The locket worked for us, too. That was mine, Gemma." She motions to the locket around her neck, and I wonder if she missed it, the feeling she got when she touched it, the burning, pulsing, powerful desire for something more.
"We didn't have much time together. And so we created a plan. We would... leave. Live forever in the realms. We wrote letters to our families one last time, telling them we loved them. We did not tell them what we were to do. Well..." she looks away, almost shy. "I confess that I told mother. I did not want to go, I did not want to give up. I wanted to be something here. You understand ... don't you?"
And I must say that I did.
"Mother knew of this power... she belonged to an organisation that ... controlled it, almost."
So Kartik spoke the truth.
"Mother knew of my intentions, tried to catch me before we went, but she could not. The waterfall..." and here she motions to it, "is the key. You pass through it, and reach The Choice. To pass through it, your head and your heart need to be willing. Else you become trapped here, forever."
I do not say anything. There is nothing to say.
"My friends passed through before me, but I became trapped. We didn't know what would happen, and I told them to go on. I would catch them up." She sighs. "That was 16 years ago."
"What is The Choice?"
"It is the answer to everything. Choice. Endless choice. Because that was what we craved."
"And there ... there is no way for you to pass over?"
"Not that I know of. It is difficult ... there was so much that we were not aware of. We were foolish and ignorant and arrogant, and I hate myself for it."
I reach out, and clasp her hand. I feel her fingers, cold and hopeless, begin to warm, begin to live. The strength in me is passing through to her, I am sure of it.
"Evelyn ... I have been having dreams. Such dreams. Visions, almost. They grasp me even when I am not asleep."
She looks towards me questioningly, and I continue.
"I have seen mother. She has asked me to find someone, and to tell them that she is sorry. A girl ... a woman. Could it be you?"