As the days pass, I think about Evelyn's words to me. Do not lay your trust in pretty things, Gemma.
Surely she could not mean Pippa? My darling Pippa, who is to be married in one week from today? Surely not. My darling Pippa.
And so, like the proper English girls we are, we pretend not to notice the days slipping by, the hours falling through our grasp as we try to catch hold of them. We do not try to create more time than we have. We know that some things are not possible.
We visit the realms often, most nights. Felicity and I have not mentioned the night of the lake since we stumbled, dripping and strangely glum, back up to the school that evening. Indeed, Felicity wanders off purposefully by herself most nights in the realms. The statue is still there, carved perfectly, watching my movement with large and mocking eyes.
This is no longer a haven for me.
I don't think it is for anyone.
Ann is pinched and pale, and Pippa sullen and pouting. I catch sight of Felicity's white gold hair through the trees on several occasions, hear the ribbon of her laughter float on the breeze to where I am laying in the sweet grass. Blushing daisies tickle my bare calves as the stems sway. I am alive.
Surely that should feel important to me? Just a bit?
No.
I do not hear the laughter that fell so plentifully during our first visits. I hear stifled sounds, but cannot be sure if they are giggles or sobs. I don't really care.
We come here to escape, and now even here is not far enough. Perhaps if we were to stay forever, perhaps if we were to forget everything out there. None of us have parents who love us, who care for us. They pack us away to school because they have too much money and not enough love, that is the problem. That is always the problem.
Miss Moore tries to engage us in art, but to no avail. She seems at a loss for what to say. Everyone is. Firstly she congratulated Pippa, and then noticed the tears and fell silent. It's what we all do.
We are English, after all.
Do not lay your trust in pretty things, Gemma.
What did she mean? Why she did have to speak so cryptically, and then leave me crying, desolate and alone, watching her blurred and tumbling figure fade behind the waterfall. My darling, sister. My darling mother.
Now all I have left is Tom and father.
Tom is working in the city, proud and haughty as ever. I occasionally get word of him, through letters sent as an after thought. Goodness, we haven't written to Gemma in quite a while. I suppose I should do something about that.
Father is a husk. His papery voice and papery face haunts my dreams. I see him, sunken and humiliated, lying in some hospital bed, crying out for his darling wife, the darling daughter that he lost all those years ago. He doesn't give a thought to the darling daughter that he still has.
Second best is bitter.
Do not lay your trust in pretty things, Gemma.
Pippa. Not Ann. Not Felicity, even though she is beautiful. Who else? What else could she have meant? What do I trust that is pretty? Kartik? He certainly in beautiful, but it can't be him, it surely can't. My fingers unconsciously twist my locket on its fine chain, spiralling it round and round and round and round.
And round and round and round.
Pattern and rhythm. They don't make me calm, but they make me real. Songs and lines and snatches of melody, something that I can repeat, can hold onto and create again and again.
My locket twirls faster, spinning almost impossibly fast, one way and then the other. Such beauty.
Do not lay your trust in pretty things, Gemma.
Such deadly beauty.