“I cannot make that choice for you. It is yours alone to make.”
Her eyes well with tears. “It is so very hard.”
“Yes, it is,” I say, and hold her hand because that is all the magic I can muster.
In the end, she makes the choice to go—if I will accompany her across the river on the barge steered by Gorgon. It is my first journey of this sort, and my heartbeat quickens. I want to know what lies beyond what I have already seen. The closer we get to the shore, the brighter it grows, until I have to turn my head away. I hear only the knowing sigh of the girl. I feel the barge lighten and I know she has gone.
My heart is heavy as we turn back. The gentle laps of the river’s current are but the whispered names of what has been lost: my mother, Amar, Carolina, Mother Elena, Miss Moore, Miss McCleethy, and some part of myself that I shan’t get back.
Kartik. I blink hard against the tears that threaten. “Why must things come to an end?” I say softly.
“Our days are all numbered in the book of days, Most High,” Gorgon murmurs as the garden comes once more into view. “That is what gives them sweetness and purpose.”
When I return to the garden, a gentle breeze blows through the olive grove. It smells of myrrh. Mother Elena approaches, her medallion shining against her white blouse.
“I would see my Carolina now,” she says.
“She’s been waiting for you across the river,” I say.
Mother Elena smiles at me. “You have done well.” She places a hand to my cheek and says something in Romani that I do not understand.
“Is that a blessing?”
“It is only a saying: To those who will see, the world waits.”
The barge drifts, ready to carry Mother Elena across the river. She sings some sort of lullaby. The light grows, bathing her in its glow till I can no longer tell where the light ends and she begins. And then she is gone.
To those who will see, the world waits. It feels like much more than a saying. And perhaps it is.
Perhaps it is a hope.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
I WAIT FOR SOME TIME TO SPEAK PRIVATELY WITH MRS. Nightwing. At five minutes after three o’clock, the door to her room opens, admitting me entrance to the inner sanctum. I’m reminded of the first day I arrived at Spence, in my black mourning dress, lost and grief-stricken, without a friend in the world. How much has happened since then.
Mrs. Nightwing folds her hands on her desk and gazes at me over the tops of her spectacles. “You wished to speak to me, Miss Doyle?” Good old Nightwing, as constant as England.
“Yes,” I start.
“Well, I do hope you shall be quick about it. I’ve two teachers to replace, now that Mademoiselle LeFarge is to be married and Miss McCleethy…now that Sahirah…” She trails off, blinking. Her eyes redden.
“I am sorry,” I say.
She closes her eyes for the briefest moment, her lips trembling ever so slightly. And then, like a dark cloud that only threatens rain, it passes. “What was it you wanted, Miss Doyle?”
“I shall be most grateful for your help in the matter of the realms,” I say, straightening.
Nightwing’s cheeks redden with a true blush. “I don’t see what assistance I could possibly offer.”
“I shall need help maintaining the door and keeping watch, especially while I am away.”
She nods. “Yes. Certainly.”
I clear my throat. “And there is one more thing you may do. It is about Spence. And the girls.” She cocks an eyebrow, and I feel it like a gunshot. “You could truly educate them. You could teach them to think for themselves.”
Mrs. Nightwing does not move save for her eyes, which she narrows to suspicious slits. “You are in jest, I trust?”
“On the contrary, I have never been more in earnest.”
“Their mothers shall be overjoyed to hear it,” she mutters. “No doubt they’ll race to our doors in droves.”
I bang my fist on the desk, rattling Mrs. Nightwing’s teacup and Mrs. Nightwing in that order. “Why should we girls not have the same privileges as men? Why do we police ourselves so stringently—whittling each other down with cutting remarks or holding ourselves back from greatness with a harness woven of fear and shame and longing? If we do not deem ourselves worthy first, how shall we ever ask for more?
“I have seen what a handful of girls can do, Mrs. Nightwing. They can hold back an army if necessary, so please don’t tell me it isn’t possible. A new century dawns. Surely we could dispense with a few samplers in favor of more books and grander ideas.”