With a sudden lurch, she slips below the water. Her hands thrash violently. She pops up, coughing up water, desperate for air.
“Gemma!” she screams, terrified. “Help me!”
Panic seizes me. Is that what is supposed to happen? But no, I’ve seen other souls cross without such anguish. “Pip!” I scream. I lean far over the boat. She grabs my hand and I pull her aboard.
“Go back,” she says, coughing. “Go back!”
It isn’t until we reach the shore safely and Pippa falls into the garden on her knees that she begins to breathe easily.
“What happened?” I say.
“I couldn’t cross,” she cries. “It wouldn’t let me.” Her eyes are wide with fear. “It wouldn’t let me!”
“She cannot cross. It’s too late.” Gorgon slides into view.
Pippa grabs my arm, frantic. “What is…she…saying?”
“You ate the berries,” Gorgon hisses. “Over time, they have worked their magic on you and claimed you for the realms. You are one of us now.”
I think back to that horrible day when Pippa was left behind while we escaped. I remember the creature chasing her into the river. I remember later finding her, cold and pale, in the water. And I remember the fateful moment when she made her choice to stay by eating the berries. Why did I leave her? Why didn’t I fight harder to save her?
Pippa rushes toward Gorgon and beats her with closed fists. The snakes roar to life, snapping and hissing. One nips Pip. She yelps and falls to the grass, cradling her hand. Her sobs come as hard as a choking rain.
“Do you mean…to tell me…that I shall have to stay here? Forever?”
Gorgon’s yellow eyes betray no emotion. “Your lot is cast. You must adapt. Accept and live on.”
“I can’t!” Pippa wails. She chokes out words between sobs. “Gemma…you! You told me…I…had to cross!”
“I’m sorry. I thought—”
“Now…now you tell me I shall have to stay here…in the realms forever! All alone!”
Pippa is in a heap upon the ground. She rolls her forehead back and forth against the cool grass.
“You’re not alone. You have Bessie and Mae and the others,” I say, desperate to offer some hope, but even I can hear how hollow it sounds.
Her head whips up quickly; her eyes glitter with tears. “Yes, those horrid girls, with their hideous burns and coarse manners! What sort of friends are they? They were a way for me to pass the time—they’ll never replace Fee and you and Ann. Please don’t leave me here, Gemma. Take me back. Please, please, please…” She grabs fistfuls of grass in her tiny hands, crying as if her heart will break. I can scarcely hold back my own tears.
I sit beside her, try to stroke her hair. “There, there, Pip.”
She pushes my hand away. “It’s your fault!”
I’ve never felt so desperate, so awful. “Wh-what if you had magic to help you?” I blurt out between my own sobs.
Pip’s tears slow. “Magic? Like we used to?”
“Yes, I—”
Gorgon cuts me off. “Most High. May I have a word?”
The ship’s plank lowers to the ground with a soft creaking, and I climb on board and take my preferred seat near her face. “What is it?”
Gorgon whispers to me in that syrupy hiss of a voice. “I would warn you against hastiness, Most High.”
“But I can’t leave her here like this! She was one of us!”
“The girl has made her choice. Now she must accept the terms. She may choose the Winterlands, or she may choose another path. She need not fall.”
I look over at Pip, who’s tearing blades of grass neatly in two. Her skin is pale, but her cheeks are ruddy with grief. She seems a lost lamb.
“Pip has no talent for making decisions,” I say, feeling more tears threaten.
“Then it is time to learn,” Gorgon says.
She’s behaving as if she were my mother, as Miss Moore and Miss McCleethy have. I’ve done with people telling me what to do. Tom and Grandmama and Mrs. Nightwing. So many who would lace me up tightly with their good intentions.
Gorgon is unbothered by my tears. “Sympathy can be a blessing and a curse. Be careful yours does not trap you. This is her battle, not yours.”
“You are too hard by half. I don’t wonder that you are the last of your kind,” I say. I am sorry for it at once. But the damage is done. Something like pain moves across Gorgon’s usually mysterious face. The snakes lie down softly, rubbing against her cheeks like children in need of soothing.