The Sweet Far Thing

“Hello, pet,” he calls in a drowsy voice.

“Hello, Father.” I sit by his bedside. He reaches out a hand and I take it.

“Dr. Hamilton was here earlier,” he says.

“Yes, I know.”

“Yes.” He closes his eyes for a moment, then startles awake. “I think…I think I see that tiger. The old fellow’s back.”

“No,” I say quietly, wiping my cheeks. “There’s no tiger, Papa.”

He points to the far wall. “Don’t you see his shadow there?” There’s nothing but the murky outline of my father’s raised arm. “I shot him, you know.”

“No, Papa,” I say. He’s shivering. I pull the linens to his neck, but he pushes them down again in his delirium.

“He was out there, you see? I could not live…with the threat of it. I thought I killed him, but he’s come back. He’s found me.”

I blot his brow with a damp rag. “Shhh.”

His eyes find mine. “I’m dying.”

“No. You only need to rest.” Hot tears burn my cheeks. Why are we compelled to lie? Why is the truth too bright for our souls to bear?

“Rest,” he murmurs, settling into another drugged sleep. “The tiger is coming….”

If I were braver, if I thought the truth would not blind us forever, I would ask him what I have longed to ask since Mother died: Why was his grief more powerful than his love? Why couldn’t he find it within himself to fight back?

Why am I not enough to live for?

“Sleep, Papa,” I say. “Let the tiger go for tonight.”

Alone in my room, I beg Wilhelmina Wyatt to show herself once again.

“Circe has the dagger. I need your help,” I say. “Please.”

But she will not come when called, and so I fall asleep and dream.

Under the shade of a tree, little Mina Wyatt sits drawing the East Wing of Spence. She shades in the side of a gargoyle’s mouth. Sarah Rees-Toome blocks the sun, and Mina frowns. Sarah crouches beside her.

“What do you see when you look into the darkness, Mina?”

Shyly, Mina shows her the pictures she has secreted in her book. Trackers. The dead. The pale things that live in the rocks. And last, the Tree of All Souls.

Sarah traces her fingers lovingly over it. “It’s powerful, isn’t it? That’s why they don’t want us to know about it.”

Mina flicks a glance toward Eugenia Spence and Mrs. Nightwing playing croquet on the lawn. She nods.

“Can you show me the way?” Sarah asks.

Wilhelmina shakes her head.

“Why not?”

It will take you, she scribbles.

Suddenly, I’m in the forest in the Winterlands where the damned hang from barren trees. The vines hold them fast at their necks; their feet dangle. One struggles, and the sharp branches press into her flesh to keep her.

“Help me,” she says in a strangled whisper.

The fog clears and I see her face going gray.

Circe.

CHAPTER SIXTY

FOR TWO IMPOSSIBLY LONG DAYS, I’M TRAPPED IN OUR house in London with no way to get word to Kartik, Ann, or Felicity. I don’t know what is happening in the realms, and I’m sick with worry. But each time I become brave enough to draw on the magic, I remember Circe’s warning that the magic has changed, that we’ve shared it, that it might be joined to something dark and unpredictable. I feel the corners of the room grow threatening with shadows of what I may not be able to control, and I push the power down, far away from me, and crawl, trembling, into my bed.

With no plan of escape in sight, I’ve been resigned to the life of a cosseted young lady of London society as Grandmama and I pay calls. We drink tea that is too weak and never hot enough for my liking. The ladies pass the time with gossip and hearsay. This is what they have in place of freedom—time and gossip. Their lives are small and careful. I do not wish to live this way. I should like to make my mark. To venture opinions that may not be polite or even correct but are mine nonetheless. If I am to be hanged for anything, I should like to feel that I go to the gallows on my own strength.

I spend the evenings reading to Father. His health improves a bit—he is able to sit at his desk with his maps and books—but he will not be well again. It is decided that after my debut, Father will travel to a warmer clime. We all agree that this will restore his vitality. “Hot sun and warm wind—that’s what’s needed,” we say through tight smiles. What we cannot bring ourselves to say seeps into the very bones of the house until it seems to whisper the truth to us in the stillness: He is dying. He is dying. He is dying.