The Sweet Far Thing

Glowering, I return to form. I should like to show Cecily—show them all—what I can do. No sooner have I thought it than the magic rears inside me with new force, and the ball is all I can see. I’m as bold as Richard the Lion-Hearted as I race down the field, outwitting my opponents. This time, the play will be mine.

Cecily is quick, though. She’s nearly to the ball. “I have—”

I run hard, knocking Cecily down. She sprawls on the grass and begins to wail. Miss McCleethy comes at a clip.

“M-Miss M-McCleethy!” she blubbers. “She deliberately charged me!”

“I did not!” I protest, but my red cheeks show the lie for what it is.

“You did so!” Cecily wails.

“You’re being babyish,” I say, putting the blame back on her shoulders.

“All right, that’s enough. Miss Temple, part of sportsmanship is keeping a stiff upper lip.” Cecily’s mouth opens and I gloat. “And you, Miss Doyle, are far too hot, it seems. Cool your temper off the field, please.”

“But I—”

“Your recklessness might cause an even graver injury, Miss Doyle,” Miss McCleethy says, and I know she isn’t speaking solely of the game.

My cheeks burn. The other girls snicker. “I am not reckless.”

“I’ll have no further argument. Off the field until you have regained your composure.”

Mortified and angry, I walk past the smirking schoolgirls and the chuckling workers and straight into the school, not caring that I’m demonstrating the most appalling lack of sportsmanship.

Bloody McCleethy. If she knew what I know—that Eugenia Spence is alive in the Winterlands and trusts me and not her—she might not speak to me that way. Right, I’ve more important matters at hand. I crawl into Felicity’s tent, where I’ve left our copy of A History of Secret Societies, and, lounging on the settee in the great room, proceed to read it anew, hoping for some clue to the hiding place of the dagger. With a sigh, I resign myself to combing through it page by page, though 502 pages is so many to wade through, and I curse authors who write such lengthy books when a few neat pages of prose would do.

First is a title page. Next is a poem. “The Rose of Battle,” by Mr. William Butler Yeats.

“‘Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!’” I read aloud. “‘You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled / Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring / The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.’”

It seems a fine poem, from what I can tell, as it doesn’t make my teeth ache, and I decide it shall be the poem I’ll recite at our masked ball.

Opposite that page is one of the illustrations that grace the book. I must have glanced at it a half dozen times without really seeing it—a simple ink drawing of a room with a table and a single lantern, a painting of boats hanging on the wall. With growing excitement, I realize it is rather like the room I’ve seen in my visions. Could it be the same one? And if so, where is it? Here at Spence? And could this be where Wilhelmina Wyatt took the dagger? I run my fingers over the inscription beneath it: The Key Holds the Truth.

Quickly, I flip through the pages, searching for other illustrations. I locate the tower again, and I wonder, could it be the East Wing as it once stood? Flip again, and there’s a drawing of a leering gargoyle above the inscription Guardians of the Night. Another drawing shows a merry magician, much like Dr. Van Ripple, placing an egg inside a box, and the next panel shows the egg vanished. It is entitled The Hidden Object.

The drawings don’t correspond with the text, from what I can tell. It’s as if they exist as their own entity, a form of code. But for what? For whom?

Miss McCleethy enters, fuming. “Miss Doyle, I’ll not tolerate such an appalling lack of discipline and sportsmanship. If you don’t care to play the game, you may sit on the field and cheer your schoolmates.”

“They are not my mates,” I say, turning a page.

“They might be, if you weren’t so desperately in love with being all alone in the world.”

It’s a shame Miss McCleethy did not take up riflery, for she’s an excellent shot.

“I tired of the game,” I lie.

“No, you tired of the rules. That would seem to be a habit of yours.”

I turn another page.

Miss McCleethy steps forward. “What are you reading that is so captivating you feel it necessary to ignore me?”

“A History of Secret Societies by Miss Wilhelmina Wyatt.” I glare at her. “Do you know it?”