I lay my head down, glad of the softness of my pillow, when I hear the window creak open again. I know who it is, whose soft footsteps are padding across the floorboards towards my bed, and I do not want to see him. I do not turn, and instead lie gazing at the wall; eyes wide open trying to will him to leave.
I can do no such thing.
"Miss Doyle, I know you are awake."
Even when whispering, his languid drawl is so cock-sure and confident that I cannot rise above it. I sit straight up in bed, hardly noticing or caring that I am only in my nightgown, that my hair is loose and wild, tumbling down my back in those rebellious curls that threaten to destroy my facade of being a good little Englishwoman. I glare at him, my eyes narrowing until, no doubt, I resemble a bad tempered and hissing cat.
"Do you not realise that it is 3 o'clock in the morning and that I am trying to sleep? Do you not realise that you always seem to announce yourself whenever I am least dressed? Kartik, do you not realise that I do not value your company and would like you and your too enthusiastic dagger to go away and leave me the bloody hell alone?" It comes out in a hiss, but he seems not to notice, and instead laughs lightly and comes to sit on my bed.
"Gemma, darling, don't flatter yourself with delusions in which I am infatuated with you. Please."
He still has the ability to make the hot prickly tears burn at the backs of my eyes. I try to blink them away, but they blasted things instead decide to fall down my face and spill onto his hand, which is holding me loosely by the throat.
"Kartik, just leave me alone. I don't care about your mysterious organisation, and what secret tasks are keeping you here ... just please leave. I don't care for your company."
His answer is to kiss me roughly on the mouth, and pull at the neckline of my nightgown, exposing my pale neck and collarbone. I hear the grating sound of fabric ripping, and his warm fingers are on my skin. Once more, he intoxicates me, but I have enough dignity to be the one that pulls away first, and leaves him wanting.
"Kartik, you have a bloody cheek." My voice is flustered and breathy, and his hand, still on my skin, is sure to feel the fluttering of my heart as it pounds against my ribcage, like a bird struggling against the metal bonds that encage it. He smiles into my hair, but draws back, and I think I see hurt in his eyes. They twinkle sharply in the light streaming in through the window, like shards of broken glass.
Tread carefully, my dear Gemma.
And then I realise that I do need him.
"Kartik, how do I help my sister and my mother cross over? Evelyn said something about facing my fears and letting go of my weaknesses and forgiving my mother. But it seems impossible."
"Nothing's impossible, my dear Miss Doyle." His eyes dance around my room, resting on the mirror, the comb, the pins lying scattered across the table, before finally returning his eyes to me. I remember what I said, earlier in the realms, and blush instantly. Although he could never find out.
But he could.
I can feel him inside of me already, delving deep into my thoughts, dragging out dusty boxes filled with memories and scarps of conversations from long ago.
"Don't you ever think it might be rude to explore someone's head without asking?" I inquire icily, but he just chuckles slowly and retreats. And then I realise that I do not know why he is still here. Why did he not just give me my mother's message and leave, go back to his puny organisation that seems to sit around plotting the murders of innocent young girls, just because they're jealous. Pitiful.
He sees this somewhere, in my eyes perhaps, and he twists, becoming cold and angry in the blink of an eye. I find that I am becoming tired of his constant mood swings, and so ignore him and lie back down once again. I shall ask him the next time he turns up, peering through the window, perhaps, or sitting silently behind the changing screen, or perhaps even waiting for me in my own bed.
In my bed.
Kartik.
I can feel the blush beginning once more. Even the though of being ... ravished, as Fee put it, is so alien and strange that I cannot help but feel a little nauseous. I pull the blankets up around my face, so that only my inquisitive eyes peek out. He leans down, places a soft kiss on my forehead, and stands to leave. And instantly, it is as if I cannot bear his departure. It reminds me perversely of the games that I used to play with my mother as a child.
If I were angry with her, I would refuse to give her a goodnight kiss. Yet when she reached my bedroom door, I would cry out for her. When she returned to my side, I would have thought of another reason to reject her, and this to-ing and fro-ing would continue until she tired of it and left me, alone and regretful in the dark.
I wonder if Evelyn had ever played this game with her. I wonder if she tired of Evelyn.
He seems to sense the fact that I do not want him to leave. He pauses by the window, glances back at me, and lets the words, "Don't be playing games, Miss Doyle," drift across his lips. He is gone, and I am alone and aching once more.
I do not want to return to the realms that night, for the excitement is visible on our faces. Our skin in pale and dusky, our lids heavy and our words slurred. There are dark rings underneath our eyes, which Pippa has tried ineffectually to remedy with some herbs from the garden, smearing them on our skin, all the while insisting that they will leave us dewy and refreshed.
She was wrong.
We stumble about the day, banging into doorframes and spilling bottles of ink. Fee accidentally barges into Cecily Temple, who squawks unattractively and insists that it were on purpose. Fee is too tired to argue back, but Mademoiselle LeFarge, who is besotted with Felicity's beautiful French, ignores the protestations.
Even Art is uneventful. Miss Moore seems to be locked away in her own thoughts, much like myself, and wanders about the classroom, nodding and smiling absently at our work. We are to be concentrating on still lives, now that Assembly Day is so soon, and everywhere you look, you see insipid, bland girls daubing paint onto canvas, just so they can display some lifeless, flat picture of fruit to their parents, who will applaud lightly and lavish her with empty praise.
Felicity seems to have woken up somewhat, and is smiling wickedly as she daubs the paint onto her canvas. She has refused to let anyone see what she is painting, as and Miss Moore finally comes to a halt by her canvas, she steps back, and, with a flourish, breathes, "It's finished!"
I can tell from her smug expression that she has not just drawn bowls of fruit. I step closer, intrigued.
"Very interesting, Miss Worthington. What made you decide to take this approach?" Miss Moore is inspecting the painting carefully, as if there was something written finely on its surface, and when she steps back, I see what fee has created.
The bowl of fruit is pretty much the same: two apples, a pear, some grapes and a few other items. But the way she has painted them ... each piece of fruit is hideously rotten, worms and other unimaginable lice crawling over each piece of decaying food, the white furry mould and dripping green sludge ... it is enough to make my stomach turn, and many of the other girls call out in disgust, but Felicity looks strangely triumphant. Miss Moore, too, seems enthralled.
"Miss Worthington, you have shown exceptional originality and initiative, and for that you should be very proud. However, it seems to me as though your parents will not ... appreciate the level of effort and imagination gone into creating this, and so perhaps it would be best if you were to paint another one?"
Fee looks irritated, as though she only wants praise and admiration, and, I think with a ironic grin, but of course. That is Fee.
"But Miss Moore, I won't have time to paint another one. I shall simply have to show them this." She is talking nonsense – Assembly Days is two weeks away, and we have plenty of lessons before then – but, when I glance at her in confusion, I see why. Her bottom lip is stuck on is a petulant pout, and she is the epitome of the spoilt brat. She does not want to paint another one, have to admit defeat and become the perfect young lady everyone expects. She wants to show her parents this picture and have them applaud her. The famous Admiral Worthington and her wife. I wonder what they shall be like.
We file out dutifully, saying our thanks to our distracted teacher, before hurrying along to the main hall, eager to meet with friends, whisper gossip into ears, hold hands and share that closeness that only girls locked away at a finishing school can share. It is magical, delicious, a friendship with no boundaries or rules, when you love and you hate and you would die for and you would kill your truest and closest friends. I glance at Pippa, singing softly under her breath, and I wonder if she minds that Felicity has replaced her.
I wonder if she even knows.
She clasps my hand tightly, smiling a little secret smile at me that seems so full of hope and sadness that I know that something is wrong.
"Pip, what is it?"
She says nothing, shaking her head and glancing towards Felicity, striding on ahead, and Ann trailing awkwardly behind.
"Can I talk to you?" she whispers sweetly in my ear, and I feel I must say yes. I want to say yes.
We break away, finding ourselves on the same path, down by the forest, where Felicity and I first forged our unlikely friendship, a friendship based on lies and trickery and blackmail and gypsies. Her face, I can now tell, is troubled, saddened and withdrawn, and she stifles a small sob as we move into the forest and come upon the lake.
That lake, where I was pressed up against a tree and laid down in the grass and kissed and touched and made to feel alive.
That lake, where I was left and abandoned and given up on.
That lake, where I was deemed not special enough to fight for.
That lake.
"Gemma, you must promise not to tell anyone. I haven't told Ann or Fee yet, I can't ... I will, but not now."
"Pip, darling, what's the matter? What's happened? Are you sick?" A thought slithers into my mind like an emerald green snake, the vibrant colour a warning to its predators. "Are you leaving?"
"I am engaged."
There is nothing that you can say to a young lady who says this sentence with tears pooling in her eyes and panic fluttering in her throat. I know what she feels, and I know what she thinks, and I know she just needs me to hold her.