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"Miss Doyle, sit down at once!"
I drop into my seat. I can't look at Felicity.
"These are very serious charges against Miss Moore." Mrs. Nightwing has already taken the idea and shaped it into exoneration for us, for Spence, and for herself. She needs someone to blame. She needs to believe anything but the truththat we are capable of all of it, all on our own. And that we did it all right under her very nose. "Is this true, Ann?"
"Yes," Ann says, without stammering once.
"Mrs. Nightwing," I plead. "It's all my fault. You can punish me as you see fit, but please don't blame Miss Moore."
"Miss Doyle. I know your heart is in the right place, but there is nothing to be gained by protecting Miss Moore."
"But I'm not protecting her!"
Mrs. Nightwing softens. "Did Miss Moore read to you from this book?"
"Yes, but"
"And did she take you to the caves?"
"Just to see the pictographs"
"Did she tell you stories about the occult?"
I can't make a sound. I only nod. I've heard it said that God is in the details. It's the same with the truth. Leave out the details, the crucial heart, and you can damn someone with the bare bones of it. Mrs. Nightwing settles against the great wingback chair. It creaks and sighs under her weight.
"I know how impressionable young girls are. I was a girl once myself," she says, though I can only see her behind the bars of what she is now. "I know how much girls wish to please and how powerful a teacher's influence can be. I shall deal with Miss Moore at once. And so that this sort of behavior does not occur again, I shall see that all the doors are locked each evening and that the keys are in my keeping until such time as you have earned my trust again."
"What will happen to Miss Moore?" I ask. It's barely a whisper.
"I will not tolerate a reckless disregard for my authority in my teachers. Miss Moore will be dismissed."
This can't be happening. She's going to sack our beloved Miss Moore. What have we done? A bloodcurdling scream rips the quiet of the room. It comes from downstairs. Mrs. Nightwing is up and flying down the stairs with us right behind her. Brigid is standing on the diamond-patterned floor of the foyer, clutching something in her hand.
"May all the saints protect me! It's hershe's come for me."
Mrs. Nightwing has her by the shoulders. Brigid's eyes are wild with fear. She drops the thing in her hand onto the floor as if it were a snake. It's a Gypsy poppet, slightly burned, with a lock of hair wrapped tightly about its throat.
Circe.
"She's come back," Brigid whimpers. "Sweet Jesus, she's come back!"
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Reverend Waite has us standing, Bibles in hand, reading in unison from Judges, chapter eleven, verses one through forty. Our voices fill the chapel like a dirge.
" And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return I will offer it up for a burnt offering ."
"I had to tell her about Miss Moore," Pippa whispers low in my ear. "It was the only way to keep us together for one last night."
At the front of the church is a stained-glass window of an angel. There's a large chip of glass gone from the angel's eye like a gaping wound. I stare at the hole and say nothing, mouthing along to my Bible verse, listening to words swirl around me.
" and the Lord delivered them into his hands "
"It's not as if she was entirely blameless, you know."
" And Jephthah came ... unto his house, and behold, his daughter came out to meet him and she was his only child "
"Please, Gemma. I have to see him again. Do you know what it is to lose someone without saying goodbye?"
