The Sweet Far Thing - Page 209/257

“I heard the voice whisper sweetly in my head: So special you are. You are chosen. I will exalt you.”

She smiles brightly with a giggle. Cold fear slithers in my belly.

“I am the chosen one. I am the way. To follow me, you must be as I am.”

With two fingers, Felicity turns Pip’s face gently to hers. “Pip, what are you saying?”

Pippa wrenches free of Felicity’s touch and marches purposefully to Bessie. She offers the chalice of berries. “Would you follow me, Bessie?”

“Yes, miss,” Bessie answers hoarsely. She opens her mouth obediently.

With her eyes on Felicity, Pippa places the berry on Bessie’s waiting tongue. Horrified, Felicity runs for her and grabs her hand, knocking the berry free. Pippa pushes her, and Felicity shoves back hard. Pip’s face crumples for a moment, her eyes roll back in her head, and a high keening escapes her, like a laugh gone wrong. Her limbs jerk as she falls to the ground, her body swept into a dance of beautiful violence.

“Pippa!” Felicity calls. “Pippa!”

Bessie and the others back away, frightened. At last, the fit subsides; Pippa’s clawlike hands go limp, and she lies upon the ground, a misshapen stick. Slowly, Pip sits up, her breathing labored. A bit of drool runs from her mouth; there is dirt in her hair and along her dress where she has fallen. Felicity cradles her.

“Wh-what has happened?” Pippa whimpers. She tries to stand and stumbles, her legs as weak as a newborn colt’s.

“Shhh, it was a fit,” Felicity says softly. She guides Pip to the altar and helps her sit.

Pip’s lips tremble. “No. Not here. Not now.”

She reaches toward Bessie, offering the berry once more, but Bessie shrinks from her touch. The factory girls stand apart from her. Fear shows on their faces.

“No!” Pip wails. “I am special! Chosen! You will not leave me!”

She throws out her hands, and we’re surrounded by a wall of fire. The heat of it blows me back several steps. This is no magic-lantern show, no illusionist’s trick meant to frighten and entertain. This is real. Whatever power Pippa has inside seems to have grown with her seizure into something new and terrible.

The girls fall back even more, the flames shadowing the terror and awe in their widening eyes. A strange smile lights Bessie’s broad face, a cross between ecstasy and fear. She falls to her knees in devotion. “Oh, miss, you’ve been touched by the hand of God!”

Mae prostrates herself as well. “I knew it when you saved us from those ghouls.”

Even Mercy falls to her knees, swayed by the might of Pippa’s power.

“We saw it! We all did! A miracle it was. A right sign!” Bessie exclaims with the passion of the converted.

“A right sign of what?” I ask.

“It’s proof that she’s chosen, like she said.” Tears stream down Mae’s face. She believes she has witnessed a miracle, and I cannot tell her otherwise.

Felicity keeps a tight grip on Pip’s arm. “It was a fit. You have to tell them.”

I witnessed one of Pip’s fits when she was alive. It was frightening in its fury, but nothing like this.

Pippa stretches her arms wide. “I will lead you to glory. Who will follow?”

“You must tell them the truth!” Felicity hisses.

“Shut yer mouth,” Mae warns, and in her eyes I see a devotion that would kill.

“Don’t order me about!” Pippa snaps. “Everyone’s forever ordering me about.”

Felicity looks as if she’s been hit hard. Pip twists out of her grip and walks among the factory girls, who reach up to touch her. She graces them with a soft laying of hands and they cry out in happiness, eager for a blessing. Pippa glances at us, tears in her eyes, her smile the picture of innocence.

“It was meant to be. It was all preordained! That is why I could not cross,” she says. “How else to explain why the magic has grown in me?”

“Pip,” I begin, but I do not finish. For what if she is right after all?

“You had a fit,” Fee says, shaking her head.

“It was a vision, like Gemma’s!” Pippa shouts.

Felicity slaps Pippa, and Pip turns on her with the ferocity of a cornered animal. “You’ll be sorry for that.”

The factory girls are on Felicity, Ann, and me, holding our arms behind our backs till we are forced to bend. I could try for the magic. I could. I try to summon it, and see Circe in my head, and then I’m gasping for air, terrified and woozy.

“I felt that, Gemma!” Pippa shouts. “Don’t try again.”