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“I don’t know,” I say, looking about. Tall slabs of stone have been erected in a seemingly random pattern that puts me in mind of Stonehenge. Winding through them is a faint dirt path that reaches from the door to the realms beyond. The path is difficult to see, as if it hasn’t been used in a very long time.
“There’s a little trail here,” I say. “We’ll follow it.”
As we walk away, the door fades into the rock.
“Gemma,” Ann gasps. “It’s gone!”
It’s as if someone has tightened a string around my heart. I try to keep my wits about me. I take a step toward the rock, and the door glows once again.
“Oh, thank heavens,” I say, letting my breath out in a whoosh, relieved.
“Come on,” Felicity pleads. “I want to see the garden. I want…” She doesn’t finish her sentence.
We follow the path through the stones. Despite being pockmarked with age and dirt, they boast an impressive array of friezes showing women of all sorts. Some are as young as we are; others are as old as the earth itself. Some are clearly warriors, with swords held aloft to the rays of the sun. One sits surrounded by children and fawns, her hair flowing in loose waves to the ground. Another, dressed in chain mail, wrestles a dragon. Priestesses. Queens. Mothers. Healers. It is as if the whole of womanhood is represented here.
Ann gawks at the woman with the dragon. “Who do you suppose they are?”
“Perhaps they were of the Order or older still,” I say. I run my hand across a carving of three women on a barge. The one on the left is a young lady; the one on the right is a bit older; and in the center is a crone holding a lantern aloft, as though she’s waiting for someone. The picture gives me a strange sensation in my belly, as if I’ve glimpsed the future. “They’re remarkable, aren’t they?”
“What’s remarkable is that there isn’t a single blasted corset among them,” Felicity says with a giggle. “Oh, Gemma, let’s do hurry. I can’t wait much longer.”
The path leads us through tall fields of wheat, past neat rows of olive trees and the grotto where the Runes of the Oracle once stood. At last we find ourselves in the garden we have come to think of as our own private fiefdom.
The moment we’re on familiar ground, Felicity is running. “Pippa?” she calls. “Pippa! Pippa, it’s me, Felicity! We’ve come back!” She searches every corner. “Where is she?”
I cannot bring myself to say what I’m thinking—that our dear friend Pippa is lost to us forever now. Either she has crossed the river to the land beyond or she has banded together with the Winterlands creatures and become our enemy.
I am waiting for the magic to spark inside me, but it doesn’t behave as it has in the past. I am out of practice. Right. Begin with something simple, Gemma. I grab a handful of leaves and close my fingers over them.
I shut my eyes. My heart flutters a few beats faster, and then a sudden fever takes me. It is as if the whole of the world—all experience, past and present—flows through me as quickly as lightning. My blood pulses with new life. A rapturous smile spreads across my lips. And when I open my eyes, the leaves have turned to rubies in my palm.
“Ha! Look!” I shriek. I toss the gems into the air and they fall like red rain.
“Oh, it’s been so long since we’ve played with magic.” Ann gathers leaves in her hands and blows. The leaves fly on her breath, then drift in a slow spiral to her feet. She frowns. “I wanted them to become butterflies.”
“Here, let me try.” Felicity grabs a handful, but no matter how hard she tries, they become nothing new; they are only leaves. “Why can’t I change them? What’s happened to the magic? How were you able to make the rubies, Gemma?”
“I simply wished it, and there they were,” I say.
“Gemma, you clever girl! You did bind the Temple magic to yourself after all!” Felicity says with a mix of awe and envy. “Every bit of it must live inside you now.”
“I suppose that’s true,” I say, but I can’t make myself believe it. I turn my hands palms up, palms down, staring at them as if I’ve never seen them before. They’re the same dull, freckled hands I’ve always had, and yet…
“Do something else!” Felicity commands.
“Like what?” I ask.
“Turn that tree into a dragon—”
“Not a dragon!” Ann interrupts, wide-eyed.
“Or make the flowers into gentleman callers—”
“Yes, I like that,” Ann says.
“Oh, honestly, Gemma! You’ve the whole of the Temple inside you. Do whatever you wish!”
“All right,” I say. There’s a small rock at my feet. “Hmmm, I’ll, um, I’ll just turn this into a…a…”
