“What?”
The weight in my chest is unbearable, making each word a struggle. “I don’t know. It was as if the shadows started to move . . . I’ve never seen anything like it . . . some hideous creature.” For some reason, it feels good to pour out to a complete stranger what I’ve been holding in from everyone else.
“Your mother took her own life, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” I whisper, astonished that he knows this.
“She was lucky.”
“How dare you—”
“Trust me, she was lucky not to be taken by that thing. As for my brother, he was not so fortunate.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing you can fight.”
“I saw it again. On the carriage ride here. I had another . . . vision.”
He’s alarmed. I can see the fear in him, and now I’m sorry I’ve told him anything. In one move, he’s off the altar and in front of me. “Listen to me well, Miss Doyle. You are not to speak about what you’ve seen to anyone. Do you understand?”
Moonlight pokes through the stained glass in weak slices. “Why not?”
“Because it will put you in danger.”
“What was that thing I saw?”
“It was a warning. And if you don’t want other, terrible things to happen, you will not bring on any more visions.”
The night, the pranks, the fear and exhaustion—they all collide in a sneering laugh I can’t seem to stop. “And how, pray tell, am I supposed to do that? It’s not as if I asked for it in the first place.”
“Close your mind to them and they’ll stop soon enough.”
“And if I can’t?”
Without a sound, he reaches out quickly and clamps a hand around the delicate bones of my wrist, squeezing tightly. “You will.” Down the center aisle, a mouse makes a bold run for it, rushing across to the other side of the church, where it’s only a scratching sound again. I’m bending under the pressure on my wrist. He lets go, a satisfied smirk on his face. I pull my arm close and rub at the sting on my skin.
“We’ll be watching you, Miss Doyle.”
There’s a clattering sound at the chapel’s heavy oak doors. I can hear Reverend Waite’s drunken singing as he fumbles to lift the bolt, cursing as it falls back into place with a thud. I don’t know whether to be thankful or terrified that he’ll find me here. In the instant I turned to look, my tormentor has vanished. He’s simply gone. The door is unguarded. I have a way out. And then I see it. The decanter of communion wine sitting full and ready in its cubbyhole.
The wooden bolt slides free. He’s almost in. But tonight Reverend Waite will be denied his wine. It’s cradled in my arm as I bound through the side door and stop at the top of a dark stairwell. What if he’s waiting for me down those shadowy stairs?
Reverend Waite calls out, half-drunk. “Is anyone there?”
I’m down the stairwell and out behind the chapel as if I’ve been shot from a cannon. Not till I’ve stumbled my way down the hill and have the imposing bricks of Spence in sight do I stop for breath. A crow caws, making me jump. I feel eyes on me everywhere.
We’ll be watching you.
What did he mean by that? Who is “we”? And why would anyone want to keep an eye on a girl who wasn’t clever enough to outwit a quartet of boarding school pranksters? What does he know about my mother?
Just keep looking at the school, Gemma. You’ll be all right. I keep my eyes on the rows of windows ahead. They bob up and down with each step. You will not bring on any more visions.
It’s ridiculous. Galling, in fact. As if I have any control over them. As if I could just shut my eyes, like this, right now, and will myself into one. The sound of my breath slows, grows louder. My whole body has gone warm and relaxed, as if I’m floating in the most delicious bath of sweet rose water. At the smell of roses, I snap my eyes open.
The little girl from the alley stands in front of me, shimmering. She beckons me with her hand. “This way.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“WHERE ARE WE GOING?”
She doesn’t answer, just darts into a thicket of trees, her brightness leading the way in the night, like a flame under glass.
“Wait,” I say. “Not so fast.”
“We’ve got to hurry.”
She flits ahead on the path. What am I doing? I’ve gone and done the one thing I’ve been asked not to do—bring on more visions. But how could I know that I could do it at will? We’re in a clearing of some kind. There’s a dark mound just before us. I’m terrified that these shadows will come alive and I’ll hear that ghastly voice from the alley, but the little girl doesn’t seem afraid. The mound is hollowed out inside, a sort of makeshift cave. She leads me down into the dank-smelling darkness. Her light fills the cave but even so, I can barely make out anything beyond a bit of rock, a spot of shiny moss.
“Behind that rock.” Her hand, incandescent and tiny, points to the near wall of the cave, where a large rock sits just at the base. “She says you’ve got to look behind it.”
“Who is she?”
“Mary, of course.”
“I’ve told you—I don’t know any Mary.” I’m arguing with a vision, a spirit. Next I know, I’ll be calling myself the queen of Romania and wandering down the lane wearing my bed linens for a cape.
“She knows you, miss.”
Mary. It’s only the most common name for a girl in all of England. What if this is all a trick, a way of testing me? He said I was in danger. What if this otherworldly little girl is a malevolent spirit who means to do me harm? What if the bedtime stories used to keep children at heel—tales of ghosts and goblins and witches ready to trick you into giving up your soul—are true? And now I’m trapped here in a dark cave with some sinister force who only seems like a lost urchin?
I swallow hard but the lump in my throat stays. “Suppose I don’t want to look.”
“She says you must, miss. It’s the only way to understand what’s happening to you. To understand the power.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about. I only know I don’t particularly fancy turning my back on her.
“Why don’t you get it, then?”
She shakes her head. “She says you have to find it yourself. That’s the way of the realms.”
I’m tired and cold and in no mood for a mystery anymore. “Please, I don’t understand. Just tell me what this is all about!”
“You’d best hurry, miss.” Those large brown eyes flit toward the mouth of the cave and back again, and I shudder to think of what she could be afraid of out there in the dark.
Whatever happens, I can’t end up knowing less than I do right now. The rock is solid, but not unmovable. With effort, I push it away. There’s a hole in the cave wall, about an arm’s length deep. My heart is racing as my fingers feel their way inside the cold, hard rock. God only knows what’s crawling around in there, and I have to bite my lip to stifle a scream. I’m in up to my shoulder when I feel something solid. It’s stuck fast, and I have to pull hard to bring it into the light. It’s a leather-bound diary. I open to the first page. A stream of dirt trickles free; the rest I brush away. An envelope has been tucked into the book’s binding. The paper crackles in my fingers as I pull out one of the pages roaming loose inside.
What frightens you?
What makes the hair on your arms rise, your palms sweat, the breath catch in your chest like a wild thing caged?
Is it the dark? A fleeting memory of a bedtime story, ghosts and goblins and witches hiding in the shadows? Is it the way the wind picks up just before a storm, the hint of wet in the air that makes you want to scurry home to the safety of your fire?