We come to, as usual, on the dew-speckled grass where we first begun living. The waterfall is closer, it seems. Closer and more beautiful than before. Felicity stands first, as though proving an unspoken point. She will not break. "Gemma, what do I do?" Pippa's voice is breathy and barely discernible. I take her hands. They are cold.
"Just ... just walk through the waterfall. That's all you have to do."
"But I can't see the other side!"
"No-one can, Pip. You have to make that choice. And ... it has to be the true desire of your heart ... you saw what happened to Evelyn. Trapped here for sixteen years. For you, it would be forever. I would not be able to help you, Pippa. You have to understand that. Mother and Evelyn had unfinished business that I was able to complete on their behalf. But ... I don't know that I could do the same for you."
"I understand. But, Gemma..." and here she breaks off and bites her lips, looking as if she may spill over into tears, "Gemma, what is on the other side?"
There is silence. A wavering, papery, fragile silence, and Felicity grabs hold of it as if it were a lifebelt. "Pip, we have no idea what's on the other side. It could be anything. It could all be a trap."
I break. "Felicity!" her heads whips round as though slapped. "Do not speak of it like that. It is where my mother and sister are." Her gaze does not falter, cool and unnerving, but I she will not disarm me. Not this time. "Felicity, we have to leave Pippa to make her own choice. We cannot be selfish. Not this time."
"What does that mean?" she cries, but I ignore her. Pippa is gazing away. "Ann?" Her voice is tremulous.
Ann turns to face us. Her cheeks are waxy with tears but her gaze holds us fast. "I have made my decision." And I know that so has Pippa.
Felicity gazes around at us all. Her large grey eyes hold fast onto Pippa, a longing, pleading forced into submission. She will not cry, now I know. I'm not sure if she would cry for any of us.
"Pippa. I love you."
I am not sure if there is anything more in what she says. She has spoken of Sapphists and the love between women but I am not sure if this is what she means. I am not sure that she loves Pippa like a friend or like a lover. I am not sure it matters. Goodbyes hurt. I have learnt that, I've had plenty of opportunity to learn that. Whether you are saying goodbye to family or friend, parents or child, brother or sister, husband or wife, guardian or lover ... they all sting unbearably. That is what it means to love.
"Gemma. I am ready. I wish to go." Pippa turns to me, that beatific smile once more in place. She seems at peace, gone from us, from her worry and fear and pain and suffering already. She takes Ann's hand and it is only now that Felicity realises what is happening.
"Not Ann too. Not Ann, Gemma, not Ann. Ann isn't leaving us too." She says it like a statement, but there is a curious waver in her words that conveys to me just how much she is breaking inside. "Please, Ann, please don't leave us also?"
"Felicity, what have I left in this world? I have no parents, money, prospects. I am going to become the silent governess of some beastly little children and never get married, never fall in love. Do you not realise that I want that as much as the next girl? As much as you?"
"But you can't leave us, Ann. Pippa is to get married within days. You have many more to change the course of your life. Don't give up now. Ann, I'm begging you."
"Felicity. You will have Gemma and I will have Pippa. Gemma will have you and Pippa will have me. No one will be alone. Because that is what we are all so terrified of. Being alone. Felicity. This is right for me."
"I will never get married." I believe Felicity when she says this. It makes me hope, a small quiet thing rising in the back of me, a fragile winged creature just out of reach.
"Ann. Pippa." I take their hands and kiss their cheeks. I do not want to let go. But I must. Pippa's eyes are full of tears, spilling down her smooth white cheeks, but Ann holds fast, solid with her decision, and I feel an overwhelming wave of tenderness for the dumpy, dour scholarship girl. She was my friend.
"Come, Pip. Let us go. It awaits." Ann takes the hand of her friend and I take the hand of mine, and Fee and I watch in silence and they move away, carefully over the mossy stones slick with weeds and water. In unison, they reach out and tough the flow of water and are gone, melting into the stream like they never even existed. I feel a strange urge to see what their bodies have become in the real world. Empty, broken, dead, gone? Have they ever really existed? Has anyone?
Felicity watches the water desperately, unwilling to prise her eyes of the constant rush and fall. I grasp her chin in my hand and feel the terror and isolation well up in her. Her mouth opens and she screams, so good and pure and true and broken that I do not know what to do. I stand there, my hand resting on her face as she cries for what she has lost. I cannot feel it yet.
We stumble blindly back through the fall of light and colour and sound and hope and arrive, panting and flushed, on the floor of the great hall. The bodies of Ann and Pippa lie nearby. They are still breathing.