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“Did she have friends at all?”
Brigid frowns. “That awful Sarah Rees-Too me would sometimes sit with ’er. I’d ’ear ’er askin’ Mina if she really could see into the dark, and wot it was like in that place, and Mrs. Spence took Sarah to task for that and forbade them from playin’ together.”
“Did Miss Wyatt have haunts that were special to her—hiding places, perhaps?” Felicity presses.
Brigid thinks for a moment. “She liked to sit out on the lawn and draw the gargoyles. I’d see ’er wif her book, lookin’ up at ’em and smilin’, like they were ’avin’ a tea party of their own.”
I recall my strange hallucination as I left for London at Easter. The gargoyle with the crow in its mouth. It gives me a shiver to think of Wilhelmina smiling at those hideous stone watchers. Guardians of the Night, indeed.
Brigid slows her dusting. “I do recall Missus Spence frettin’ over Mina later on. The girl had taken to drawin’ dreadful things, and Missus Spence said she were afraid Mina were under a bad influence. That’s what she said. And then the fire happened shortly after, and those two girls and Missus Spence gone wif it, God rest ’em.” With a sigh, she returns the candlestick and takes the other.
“But what happened to Wilhelmina? Why did she leave?”
Brigid licks her thumb and works at a smudge on the silver. “After the fire, she were actin’ peculiar—’cause of the grief, if you ask me, but no one did.”
Felicity quickly intervenes. “Yes, I’m sure you’re right, Brigid,” she says, rolling her eyes at me. “What happened next?”
“Well,” Brigid continues, “Mina started scarin’ the other girls with ’er odd behavior. Writin’ and drawin’ those wicked things in ’er book. Missus Nightwing told ’er, relation or no relation to the missus, if she didn’ stop, she’d turn ’er out. But before she could, Mina left in the middle of the night, takin’ somefin’ valuable wif ’er.”
“What was it?” Felicity jumps in.
“I don’ ’ear ever’ fin’, Miss Pesterpants,” Brigid chides.
I mouth Miss Pesterpants to Felicity, who looks as if she could cheerfully strangle me.
“Wotever it was,” Brigid continues, “Missus Nightwing were very cross about it. I’ve never seen ’er so angry.” Brigid puts the candlestick back just so. “There. That’s better. I’ll ’ave to ’ave a word with that Emily. And you best get to prayers, before Missus Nightwing turns you out and me righ’ after.”
“What do you think it all means?” Felicity asks as we fall in with the other girls. They gather their prayer books and straighten their skirts. They crowd around too-small mirrors, pretending to tidy their hair when really they’re only gazing at themselves, looking for hopeful signs of budding beauty.
“I don’t know,” I say with a sigh. “Is Wilhelmina trustworthy or not?”
“She does appear in your visions, so it means something,” Felicity says.
“Yes, but so did the girls in white, and they were fiends who would have led me astray,” I remind her. The very girls who meant to lure Bessie and her friends into the Winterlands for who knows what purpose also came to me in my visions, giving me a measure of truth and lies. In the end, they led us straight into the clutches of the gruesome Poppy Warriors.
“So what is Miss Wyatt?” Felicity asks. “The lady or the tiger?”
I shake my head. “I honestly can’t say. But she took the dagger—that’s for certain—and that’s what we need to find.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
OUR TRIP TO THE REALMS ISN’T AS MERRY WITHOUT ANN. Even the magic can’t lighten the mood. The factory girls take her departure particularly hard. “Our lot got no chance,” Mae grumbles to Bessie.
“You must make your own chances,” Felicity retorts.
Bessie gives her a hard look. “Wot would you know of it?”
“Let’s not fight. I want to dance and play with magic. Gemma?” Pippa gives me a knowing look.
With a sigh, I tread the familiar path to the chapel and Pip follows. This time when we join together in the magic, the draw on me is hard. It’s as if I fall into her deeply. I’m part of her sadness, her envy, her bitterness—things I’d rather not see. When I break away, I’m tired. The magic itches beneath my skin like insects crawling.
But Pip sparkles once again. She nestles into my side and wraps her arms about my waist like a little girl. “It’s wonderful to feel special, even for just a few hours, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I say.
“If I were you, I should never give up this power but keep it always.”
“Sometimes I wish I could.”
