Brigid dips her needle into the fabric and pulls it through the other side. “The East Wing. Ain’t right putting that cursed place back as it was.”
“You mean because of the fire and the girls who died?”
Brigid cranes her neck to be sure we’re not overhead. Her sewing sits idle in her lap. “Aye, that, but I always felt that there were somethin’ not right about it.”
“What do you mean?” I say, taking another bite of bread.
“You just get a knowin’ in your very bones about such things.” She fingers the cross she wears around her neck. “And one day, I heard Missus Nightwing askin’ Missus Spence somethin’ about the East Wing and Missus Spence, God rest her as an angel, tellin’ ’er not to worry, that she would never let anything in, even if she ’ad to die first. Gives me a shudder jus’ thinkin’ abou’ it.”
Eugenia Spence giving her life to save everyone from the Winterlands creatures. The bread I’ve been chewing goes down hard.
Brigid looks through the windows at the dark woods beyond. “I wish they’d leave it be.”
“But, Brigid, think how lovely it will look when it is complete and Spence is as she once was,” I argue. “Wouldn’t that be a fine tribute to Mrs. Spence?”
Brigid nods. “Aye, ’twould. But still…” She cups my chin in her hand. “You won’t tell on your old Brigid ’bout the milk, will you?”
I shake my head. “Of course not.”
“There’s a good girl.” She pats my cheek, and that, more than any good-luck charm, has the power to rid my soul of ghosts. “When you first came in your mourning weeds, I thought you the strangest thing. It’s your green eyes—they put me in mind of that poor Mary Dowd ’oo died in the fire and her friend, Sarah. But you’re nothin’ like them. Nothin’ at all.”
“Thank you for the bread,” I say, though it’s turned to lead in my belly.
“You’re welcome, luv. Best get back. You’ll be missed.” She looks again at the dark beyond. “Ain’t right putting it back. I can feel it. Ain’t right.”
The all-seeing eyes of Eugenia Spence watch me climb the stairs to my room. Her white hair is arranged in the fashion of the day, with curls on her forehead and a mass of coiled hair at the back of her head. Her dress has a high collar and an elaborate ruffle running down both sides of the bright green bodice—no sedate gray or black for Eugenia Spence. And there at her neck is the crescent eye amulet that now hangs from my own, hidden beneath my gown.
My mother caused your death.
In my room, I take out my mother’s diary and read again of Eugenia’s heroism, of how she offered herself as a sacrifice in place of Sarah and my mother.
“I will have payment,” the creature cried, grabbing fast to Sarah’s arm.
Eugenia’s mouth tightened. “We must hie to the Winterlands.” We found ourselves in that land of ice and fire, of thick, barren trees and perpetual night. Eugenia stood tall.
“Sarah Rees-Toome, you will not be lost to the Winterlands. Come back with me. Come back.”
The creature turned on her. “She has invited me. She must pay, or the balance of the realms is forfeit.”
“I shall go in her place….”
“So be it. There is much we could do with one so powerful….”
Eugenia threw to me her amulet of the crescent eye. “Mary, run! Take Sarah with you through the door, and I shall close the realms!…”
The thing caused her to cry out in pain then. Her eyes were filled with a pleading that took my breath away, for I had never seen Eugenia frightened before. “The realms must stay closed until we can find our way again. Now—run!” she screamed…and the last I saw of Eugenia, she was shouting the spell to close the realms, even as she was swallowed by the dark without a trace.
I close my mother’s diary and lie on my back, staring at the ceiling and thinking of Eugenia Spence. If she hadn’t thrown her amulet to my mother and closed the realms for good, there’s no telling what sort of terrors might have been visited upon this world. In that one act, she saved us all, though it meant her destruction. And I wonder what became of her, what terrible fate befell the great Eugenia Spence because of my mother’s sin, and if I could ever possibly be enough to atone for it.
When my dreams find me, they are disquieting. A pretty lady in a lavender dress and hat races through London streets thick with fog. Her ginger hair falls loosely about her frightened face. She beckons me to follow, but I cannot keep pace; my feet are as heavy as lead and I can’t see. The cobblestones are coated with paper adverts for a spectacle of some sort. I reach for one: Dr. Theodore Van Ripple—Illusionist Extraordinaire!