A Great and Terrible Beauty

"Please hurry. I'm going to be sick. I can feel it," Pippa whimpers. Finally, it's my turn. The sharp point of the moon hovers over my finger. I'm remembering a snippet of a dreama storm, I think, and my mother screaming, my hand gaping open, wounded.

"Go on, then," Felicity urges. "Don't tell me I'll have to do you, too."

"No," I say, and plunge the point into my finger. Pain shoots up my arm, forcing a hiss from my lips. The small crack bleeds quickly. My finger stings as I drag it softly over Felicity's china-white cheekbones.

"There," she says, looking around at us, newly christened in the candlelight. "Put your hands out." She sticks out her hand and we lay our palms over hers. "We swear loyalty to each other, to keep secret the rites of our Order, to taste freedom and let no one betray us. No one." She looks at me when she says this. "This is our sanctuary. And as long as we're here, we will speak only truth. Swear it."

"We swear."

Felicity moves a candle into the center. "Let each girl tell her heart's desire over this candle and make it so."

Pippa takes the candle and says solemnly, "To find true love."

"This is silly," Ann says, trying to pass the candle to Felicity, who refuses it.

"Your heart's desire, Ann," she says.

Ann won't look at any of us when she says, "To be beautiful."

Felicity's grip on the candle is strong, her voice determined. "I wish to be too powerful to ignore."

Suddenly, the candle is in my hand, hot wax trickling over the sides and searing my skin before cooling into a waxy clump on my wrist. What is my heart's desire? They want the truth, but the most truthful answer I can give is that I don't know my own heart any better than I know theirs.

"To understand myself."

This seems to satisfy, for Felicity intones, "O great goddesses on these walls, grant us our heart's desires." A breeze blows through the mouth of the cave, snuffing out the candle, making us all gasp.

"I think they heard us," I whisper.

Pippa puts her hands to her mouth. "It's a sign."

Felicity passes the bottle one last time and we drink. "It seems the goddesses have answered us. To our new life. Drink up. The first meeting of the Order has come to a close. Let's get back while our candles hold."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I am positively dead during mademoiselle LeFarge's French class the next morning. The aftereffects of whiskey are the devil himself. There isn't a moment when my head doesn't pound, and breakfastdry toast with marmaladesits precariously on the sea of my stomach.

I will never, ever drink whiskey again. From now on, it's strictly sherry.

Pippa looks as washed out as I do. Ann seems fine--though I suspect she pretended to drink more than she did, a lesson I might heed next time. Except for the half-moon shadows under her eyes, Felicity doesn't seem any worse for the long evening,

Elizabeth takes in the rumpled sight of me and scowls. "Whatever is the matter with her?" she says, trying to cozy up to Felicity and Pippa again. I wonder if they'll take the bait, if last night's friendship will be forgotten and Ann and I will find ourselves on the outside looking in once more.

"I'm afraid we cannot divulge any of the secrets of our Order," Felicity says, giving me a furtive glance.

Elizabeth sulks and whispers to Martha, who nods. Cecily is not giving up easily, though.

"Fee, don't be cross," she says, oozing sweetness. "I've gotten new writing papers from the stationer's. Shall we write letters home tonight in your sitting area?"

"I'm afraid I'm otherwise engaged," Felicity answers, crisp as can be.

"So that's how it is, then?" Cecily purses her thin lips. She would make the perfect vicar's wife, with that deadly combination of self-righteousness mixed with an unforgiving streak. I'd enjoy her comeuppance a bit more if I weren't feeling so completely wretched. A belch escapes me, much to everyone's horror, but I feel much better.

Martha waves a hand in front of her nose. "You smell like a distillery."

Cecily's head is up at this. She and Felicity lock eyes--Felicity looking grim as a small, unfriendly smile pulls at the corners of Cecily's lips. Mademoiselle LeFarge barges into the room, spouting French phrases that make my poor head spin. She assigns us fifteen sentences to translate into our books. Cecily folds her hands on her desk.

"Mademoiselle LeFarge"

"En Fran?ais!"