The locket is lying in a little pool of malice in the sleepy light of dawn. Everything I see seems clearer, more precise until I feel I can see the very edges of the tiniest particles of every little thing. I feel I can truly know the depths of the souls of all of us. But I do not want to; we all have secrets that belong to us and us alone.
If you walk to the edge of something, you will find an end to the world you know, and a beginning to a world that you don't. If you choose to fall off the edge, perhaps you will find something to cling to. Perhaps you will not. But I know that I would rather be falling, than gazing into the immeasurable depths of what we are not supposed to question.
The necklace is nothing. It is useless. It was simply a way to encapsulate something that we did not understand. We could do things that no one else could, and we ourselves could not understand why, or how. So we put a name to it; call it magic. Call it sorcery or witchcraft or the word of the devil.
God and the devil, angels and demons.
Do you not find it strange that God and Devil are just letters away from good and evil? Embodiments.
But what we did not understand is that the power, the intense ability of our clean young minds ... it was our minds, and nothing else.
My mind.
For it is none of them. It is not even the necklace. The bauble on a string. It is in me, and I do not try to understand it, because I am young and foolish and I have an awful lot to learn. But I know that one day – one day, far off in the distant future – I may be able to begin to understand it all.
I know that that future is not here.
Walking under the waterfall was not right for Evelyn. It was right for her friends. Who knows what you will find on the other side? But what I do know is that they both seemed so happy. Happy, and at peace.
And that is enough for me.
Instead of us grouping around the locket, they hang back fearfully, and it is jarring to see the expressions on their faces. We no longer wear masks. Pippa looks broken, weary and indifferent. She seems as though she would not protest if the silver leapt up and began to strangle her with the intricate chain. Ann, on the other hand, seems completely terrified. The Ann, the meek and mild Ann, who used to hide behind a façade of dusty dignity, is gone. Ann the child is in her place. She looks younger, and, ironic as it may seem, the fear pools on her face as loveliness. She is pretty, and she is terrified.
I can see my face, reflected on one of the polished mirrors of the great hall. The dominating portraits scare me, the cracking oils and murky colours blending into one haughty, superior face. A mass of blonde ringlets drips like liquid light onto an ermine collar. The eyes are little smaller than my fist, and painted with such detail that I can feel the contempt streaming onto me as I stand in the gaze of a long dead aristocrat.
My eyes grow wide with fear, I realise. They are wide and green, like twin pools of water I could drown myself in. But I do not look lovelier when I am frightened, not like Ann. My face grows pale, alabaster pale, and although that may seem fashionable, to me it seems that I look dead, risen freshly from the ground to stop my heart for a second or two, every single time. My hair is not glossy and perfectly styled. I have not drenched it in sugar water, or tied it in rags, for there are more important things to do. It splays out like a mermaids tail over my back, down to my waist, and although it is wild, it is, to me, more beautiful than ever. I look free.
And Fee? Fee looks stripped, naked under my new gaze. Fee looks beautiful and white and black and gone. Felicity needs saving, but she must first save herself, and I cannot say whether it is already too late.
I approach the necklace, lining benignly on the marble. It looks beautiful too, and I remember how easy it was for me to believe, without question, that my mother was telling the truth, and a piece of silver really could contain so much. So much mystery, so much magic, so much...
So much choice. I could be anything I want, and yet know I want to be nothing more than myself. Than what I can do. What I choose to do with this power is what will make me, and, until now, I have been selfish, keeping it to myself, to myself and a select few. I wanted all of that love, that opportunity, that recklessness and giddiness that the power instilled in me. I wanted it all, and so many people went without. I helped myself. But did I ever really help even those I loved the most? My father, my brother, my dear, dear Pip.
And my Felicity.
The metal is cool to the touch, and no sparks fly as my flesh touches the silver, no burning sensations spreads through my palms and around my body. The magic is not there. It was never there. It was simply a way of letting it go, exploding of me in faith and belief in a god that didn't exist. In a power that didn't exist. I was fooled, and I am foolish, and I am glad.
"Pippa, Ann, it's alright. It was never ... it was never here. It was ... part of us, part of something hidden away that we could not decipher. The necklace will do you no harm. It will do you no good."
They hang back, weary and watchful, large eyes reflecting the oil paintings surrounding us. Shiny and cracked. We are all shiny, and we are all cracked. We are all new and broken. Imperfect.
"We cannot be expected to be perfect. And yet that is precisely what they ask of us. Why do they deserve it? Why do they deserve anything? Pippa, soon you will be married. Mrs Bartleby Bumble. You will leave us, leave Spence, leave your childhood rocking in a coffin. Pippa, can you swim against the current? Will you swim against the current?"
I know the answer before she closes her eyes and opens her lips. There is a breathy sigh, like a great pressure being released, like she is free to see the world again as though we are but children.
"Gemma, I am tired of struggling. I am tired of fighting. Do you know how draining it is for people to feel as though they have the right to own you? To decide how you will live your life, what will make you happy? I am so weary of swimming against the current. Please. Understand."
I close my eyes, swallow the panic pooling in my throat. We have all been so selfish. We have thought of ourselves and no one else. Now is not the time for my pain, my fears. This power, this ability, it makes me no better than anyone. It is what I do with the power that chooses. It is what I do with myself, my life that's matters.
"Pippa ... there is another way. You could be ... free. Happy. You could decide what makes you happy, and you could pursue it. There is another way, but not in this world."
She bites her lip, her white teeth resting on the petal pink skin. She knows what I mean. We all do.
"Pip, no, you can't!" Felicity is almost shouting, her eyes wide and wild and desperate. I can see how frantically she is trying to cling on to her past life, but what she does not know and cannot understand is that her past life is dead. She killed it.
"Felicity, we cannot be selfish about this. It is Pippa's choice."
"I will go with her!"
"Felicity!" My voice echoes around the dead old hall. She stops, staring at me, tears pooling in her eyes. She tries, furiously, to blink them away, but instead they spill haphazardly down her cheeks. "Felicity, you saw what happened to Evelyn. You saw what happened to my sister. You are not ready. It is not right."
"Gemma, please, please..." she is moaning as though I have hurt her, as though I have delivered the fatal stab wound and I am now turning away, leaving her alone on this hateful flagstone floor.
"I'm so sorry, Fee, but we cannot. We cannot trick ourselves, trick others, into believing we are different. We belong here. Pippa ... Pippa knows in her heart what is right for her. Whether she can bear to be Mrs Bartleby Bumble, whether she has the strength left to go on fighting."
"I don't."
The words are simple but Felicity cannot contain her panic. "Pippa, you can't, you can't leave me, Pip, oh, Pippa, please!"
It is the first time I have seen Pippa stronger than Felicity. I feel as if I should retreat, as though I am witnessing something humiliating and degrading and entirely private. Pippa does not know where to look, what to do. It has constantly been the other way around. After everything, it is Pippa that reigns. She is a princess at long last.
"Felicity. I love you. Know that, always."
The tears have stopped. Her face is waxy white, ethereal. Silver-gold hair spirals fiercely down her spine. Her eyes are empty.
"Oh, Fee." Pippa presses her lips together, the outer corners of her eyes curving downwards in dismay. Ann sits, a little way off from us, seemingly deep in thought. A lonely tear trickles from underneath her eyelid. I know what she is going to do. It terrifies me.
"We have to go. We must hurry." It is a lie. I simply cannot bear watching my friends destroy each other, themselves. Pippa nods, takes a deep breath and sighs. Smiles. Closes her eyes. She has never seemed so full of life.
We ignore the necklace, lying on the floor. Instead, we link hands. I can feel the magic begin to bubble, gently smouldering away inside me and trickling down my veins, across my fingertips, through my dearest friends. It is slower than before. I am having to concentrate twice as hard on the rising, falling feeling. But then it happens. The ground gives way beneath us, and I open my eyes for a second to see the serene, beatific smile of Pippa. This is what she wants.