Always a Witch (8 page)

"Stop," Jessica shrieks. Her cheeks are two red flags, and she has half risen from her chair.

The pen hovers motionless in the air.

La Spider looks up from the letter, one eyebrow arched. "I must say, Mr. Finnegan is quite ... ardent."

"How did you get that letter? No one ... I should have burned it," Jessica finishes at last, sinking back in her seat.

"Do you think you can hide anything from me?" La Spider says, her voice soft and pitying. The pen dances mockingly. "To your health. And to Mr. Finnegan's
continued
health," she adds, then raises her glass and swallows half the contents. She raises one eyebrow again. "You won't drink?"

Jessica examines her own glass. "No, thank you, Mother. I don't care for this ... vintage that you and Liam seem to love so much."

La Spider shrugs, then drinks again. "I do find that it gives me such a zest for life, such a vitality."

I study Jessica's face. From this distance, I can't tell, but it seems that tears are oozing down her cheeks. "It seems you're running low again, Mother. What next? You can't keep
losing
lady's maids, you know, even if they don't have any family. People will start to talk. Wasn't Livie the fourth one to have disappeared?"

"She wouldn't have died," La Spider says lightly. "Not if you hadn't been so stubborn."

"Stubborn?" Jessica says with a brief laugh.

"Enough," La Spider says. With a swift movement, she flicks the letter into the fireplace. Flames eat the paper within seconds. I watch Jessica's eyes briefly close then open again. Her expression is once again blank, impassive.

"Edward Newcastle will be given to understand that you are a stupid young girl." Here La Spider pauses and looks at her daughter again. "Which is nothing but the truth. He will understand that you were overcome with a fit of nerves and therefore your engagement is back on.
You will not attempt to break it off again.
Is that clear?"

Jessica glances down at the pen, daggerlike, still hovering over her heart. Suddenly, she reaches out, snatches the pen, and with one move rakes the sharp quill tip across her bare arm. Blood boils to the surface of her skin, spills over from the edges of the cut. In a low, emotionless tone, Jessica says, "I wish on all the elements that I could drain this away. Then I would be no different from those ordinary, filthy humans you so love to use."

La Spider gazes at her daughter, her profile serene. "Heal yourself," she says quietly. "Before you ruin my carpet."

Jessica shrugs, and presses her right hand against the seep of blood. Then she takes her hand away, wipes it on her skirt.

La Spider sighs, then says, "Need I remind you that Edward Newcastle is a rising political star? That one day, with our help, he will be the president of this country? Need I remind you of what power that will bring to us all? Any girl would trade places with you in a second."

"They would regret that soon enough," Jessica murmurs, and she closes her eyes as if exhausted. "May I go now?"

"You may," La Spider says, and she turns back to her papers as Jessica shuffles up from her chair. "Oh," La Spider says, and her tone is lighter.

Jessica pauses at the door but doesn't turn back.

"I've hired a new maid for you."

"How long will this one last, I wonder. Until Liam kills her in one of his
experiments,
" Jessica says, and I can't decide if I'm more horrified at her words or at the casual tone in which she utters them.

"Well, if he does, we'll just have to find another one," La Spider replies almost absently as she selects another pen and pulls a fresh sheet of writing paper from an ornate golden stand on her desk. Then she lifts her head and stares into the fire. "She has no family, apparently, so that's something. I'll never hire another girl with family. It's
such
a nuisance."

"You mean it's such a nuisance to kill them if the family comes asking questions? Yes, I can see how that could really put you off your dinner, Mother," Jessica comments dryly.

La Spider waves her hand through the air as if swatting a fly and returns her gaze to the desk. Jessica opens her mouth as if she's about to add something else, but then seems to change her mind in favor of pulling open the door and leaving the room.

I press my lips together to keep from screaming. It's very clear why Horace seemed so eager to bring me to Rosie once I told him that I didn't have any family and why Liam seemed so willing to hire me. And why Rosie didn't even care that he was flirting with me in the kitchen.

Until Liam kills her in one of his experiments.

I find myself praying that my borrowed Talent of freezing people doesn't desert me just when I need it the most.

Eleven

I HURRY BACK ALONG THE
passageway, my hands outstretched like a blind person's until I literally run into the small grated door. Fighting my way free of the smothering wool tapestry, I emerge once again into the salon, which is still thankfully empty. Then I lean against a bookshelf and stare at the empty fireplace. Either Dawn or Lily, the two housemaids, must have scoured it this morning, because not one single speck of ash mars the pristine marble. Restless, I pace to the large multipaned windows that line one side of the room. Dusk is creeping along the sills, edging the frames and gathering under the trees of Madison Square Park. All along the street, gas lamps have flared to life. Most of the din of the street is blocked out, but I can still hear the faint creaking of carriage wheels and a persistent ringing noise, which I pinpoint from a vendor who is lugging a small wagon behind him. Even in the gloom I can make out a brightly painted pair of scissors and a knife on one side of his cart. Every so often he stops, puts his hands to his mouth, and cries out, "Razors, scissors, knives to grind!" I follow his progress up the street, and then my eyes flicker back.

There is a man standing on the street corner opposite the house. Draped in a dark coat, he waits just outside of the circle of light cast by a gas lamp. In the bustling street, he alone is perfectly still. Something about the way he is standing makes me think he's been stationed there for a while. I lean forward, craning my neck, but it's no use. I can't make out his features. My first thought is that it's Alistair. But he's carrying a cane, and also he seems shorter than Alistair, and thicker. Just then he looks up, directly at me. And then suddenly the light from the street lamp winks out.

I back away from the window and sink down into a leather-covered chair. My head is whirling, and when I press my fingers to my eyes, it only makes it worse. Images of La Spider and her flying pen, Jessica's bleeding arm that suddenly wasn't bleeding a minute later, and Mr. Tynsdell spinning Rosie around and around the room and then Liam stepping out of the butler's body all scurry past my eyelids until I feel like my brain is swelling up inside my skull.

"Focus, Tam," I mutter to myself, and the images flicker, then recede. Okay. So far I've discovered that Alistair hasn't arrived yet. Good. That Liam and La Spider are presumably experimenting and killing housemaids and drinking their blood. There's no telling if they're also already controlling humans the way Alistair could control my sister. And presumably they haven't started experimenting on people with Talents.

Yet.

Without realizing it, I've gotten to my feet and have been pacing the length of the library, back and forth. Now more than ever it's crucial to find the Greenes and warn them. Before Alistair visits again.

Gabriel.

On the one hand, I could really use some help right now of the Gabriel kind. On the other hand, if La Spider and Liam get their claws into him...

There are other ways to maim you that aren't so visible.
La Spider's voice oozes through my head. If she would do that to her own daughter, what wouldn't she do?

Digging my fingers into my temples, I come to a comlete stop by one bookcase-lined wall. "I can't let you," I say as if Gabriel is actually standing in front of me. Rowena probably backed down by now. No, she must have at least tried to use her Talent to compel him to stay in the twenty-first century; otherwise he'd be here already. But she could change her mind at any minute and decide to stop compelling him.
Think, think, think.

I summon my grandmother's words, trying to take comfort in them.
It's up to you to allow when a person's Talent can work on you and when it can't. It's entirely your
choice.
Closing my eyes, I sink inward, pouring all of my Talent into a silent mantra.
Don't find me, don't find me, don't find me. I resist, I resist, I resist.

I cross to the door with those words echoing through me.

"Wake up, Tam," Agatha's annoyingly cheerful morning voice greets me.

"Ugh," I mumble, and roll away from her hovering presence, pulling my comforter over my head. But then my feet are bare and suddenly freezing and my comforter feels thinner than usual.

"Wake up or you'll be late for your first day," Agatha insists, her voice blurring into the raindrops pattering against the windows. Then the covers are yanked back and a pain twists through my upper arm.

"Ow," I shriek, bolting upright in bed. "What the—"

Rosie is standing over my bed, fully dressed in her black uniform, her face freshly scrubbed and her hair smoothly pinned into a neat chignon.

I rub my arm, staring at the red marks on my skin. "Thanks," I mutter.

She shrugs. "You don't want to be late on your first day. Lady Jessica will want her morning chocolate in fifteen minutes and you'd better be ready."

Sighing, I put my feet on the floor, then immediately retract them to the scant warmth of the bed. Apparently, rich nineteenth-century employers don't believe in a trivial thing like heat in the servants' quarters. I blink up at Rosie's unsympathetic face and then across at her neatly made bed. Her neatly made, clearly unslept-in-all-night bed.

After stumbling to the dresser, I pick up the white enameled pitcher and slop a few inches of water into the wide-lipped basin. I set the pitcher back down on the dresser, and then there's no more delaying. I plunge my hands into the ice water and splash my face once, twice. Gasping for breath, I reach for the thin cotton towel that seems incapable of drying anything. I scrub at my face with it, more to get the blood circulating than anything else, and then yawn my way into my clothes.

Through all this Rosie watches me impassively, and finally, when I present myself to her, she nods once. "Twenty minutes after you bring Lady Jessica her morning chocolate, you will come back and help her get dressed. She has a music lesson at a quarter to ten in the drawing room, so a shirtwaist and her blue poplar skirt will do. Then she is to take lunch with the Ladies Auxiliary Charity, so she'll need to dress in a gray wool, most likely. Then she'll go coaching in the afternoon and perhaps a bit of shopping, so her gray wool with her scarlet cape and fur muff for that, and then tonight is their night at the theater ... Are you listening to all of this?" Rosie plunks one hand on her hip.

But I can't help it. My eyes have wandered to our little dormer window, checking the street corner where that man was standing the night before. Pieces of last night's dreams trickle through my head.

"Agatha!"

I straighten to attention. "Yeah—yes. Gray wool, fur muff, blue poplar, got it. Music lesson, charity lunch, coaching, shopping, theater." Sounds like a rough life.

Rosie gives me a look. "I'll manage," I say to her now. She rolls her eyes and I decide to refrain from asking her just when is my day off.

It doesn't seem like exactly the right moment for that question.

Getting through Jessica's door while balancing a large tray with a cup, a saucer, and a full pot of hot chocolate, not to mention a basket full of bread and dishes of butter and jam, is no small feat. But I manage, even though the pot lurches once and the cup rattles in its saucer.

"Good morning, Lady Jessica," I say in a singsong voice that I imagine a lady's maid would use. I figure I might as well play my part to the fullest. I glance toward the bed, expecting to see her blinking sleepily at me. But the bed is empty. Instead, she is standing by the fire, which Dawn or Lily must have lit earlier this morning. And she's fully dressed. Okay, good, that makes my job easier, since I was wondering how to deal with all the little hooks and buttons and thingies.

Setting down the tray on a small side table, I say, "I'm your new—"

"Yes. I know who you are. Agatha Smiterdone." Her fingers clutch a piece of paper.

"Smithsdale," I interject, but she barely nods. She strides toward the fire, then whirls suddenly and comes toward me. I step back. It's hard to reconcile this girl with the one I saw in her mother's study. She is full of restless movements and a sharp, jumbling energy. Stopping a few feet away from me, she studies my face intently. I wait for the prickle across my skin to let me know that she's trying to use her Talent on me, but I feel nothing. Besides, it seems her Talent is being able to heal, so unless she wants to fix the scrape on my thumb that I just got when trying to open the door, there's not much else she could do.

"I need your help," she says finally.

I blink. "Of course, my lady. Would you like to change your dress or ... your hairstyle?" I finish weakly, examining the sloppy bun Jessica's pulled her hair into. Definitely not one of the hairstyles Rosie taught me.

She shakes her head, although she does put one hand up to her hair as if to check that it's still piled on her head. "I need to leave the house. Without anyone noticing."

"Oh," I say, more interested now. I glance toward the door, which I managed to shut with my hip. "But your music lesson starts in—"

She fans away my words by waving the piece of paper through the air. "I canceled it. Unbeknownst to my mother."

"What would you like me to do?" I say carefully, trying to ignore the wisps of buttery-smelling steam that curl up from the breadbasket on the table. when I stumbled into the kitchen, Mr. Tynsdell informed me in a pinched voice that I was too late for breakfast and needed to get these things up to Lady Jessica in a hurry.

"I'll be leaving the house by the side entrance. I need you to go ahead of me and let me know if the way is clear. And then"—she takes a tremulous breath—"and then, I'll need a chaperone. I'll need you to come with me..." Her words trail away and she blinks rapidly. Then she recovers and adds, "Simple enough?"

It doesn't really sound like a question.

I nod, watch as she gathers up a little black purse and a shawl and bustles toward the door.

"Oh, and Agatha?" she says when we're at the door. "I know servants like to gossip, but truly, if you mention this to anyone..." She narrows her eyes at me.

Suddenly, I get the oddest feeling that she's been practicing these words in front of her mirror all morning. I try to look suitably intimidated. "Of course not, my lady," I murmur.

She bites her lip, then nods once and motions for me to step ahead of her.

We skim along the silent hallway of the second floor, our footsteps swallowed up by the thick maroon carpeting, and hurry down the wide staircase. So far, so good. As we cross the gold and white foyer, gleaming in the morning sunshine, the light sound of laughter spills from the door to our left.

"Mother's entertaining the ladies from her club," Jessica mutters. "She can't stand them, but ... keep going," she hisses at me as I pause.

Finally, we reach the side door. Motioning for me to go first, Jessica falls in behind me, so close that she's breathing on my neck. "All clear?" she whispers, and I nod once and we slip out the door, shutting it behind us with barely a sound.

"Where are we going?" I ask a little breathlessly as Jessica cuts up an alleyway and then darts across the street, narrowly avoiding two horse-drawn carriages.

"To the circus," she gasps back.

"Step up, step up, step up, ladies and gentlemen, one and all," bawls a man in a dark suit. He is standing on a milk crate, and above him hangs a bright banner.
THE ONE AND ONLY TIMMONS FAMILY CIRCUS
is spelled out in curling blue and gold letters. The man's hands move in a blur, exchanging bills and coins and tickets as Jessica comes to a halt. She turns her head rapidly, scanning the crowds, and then goes very still and she seems to stare at a tall young man dressed in a black suit. He has taken his bowler hat off and is fanning his face with it even though there's already a brisk wind blowing.

"Mr. Finnegan," Jessica calls in a high voice, and I recall the name that La Spider threw at her in the study.

"Jessica," the man says, and comes toward us at a half run. "I almost thought you weren't coming."

"I wasn't going to," she says stiffly, her face slightly averted. "But your letter ... I ... Here," she says, and abruptly thrusts her closed fist toward him. A bewildered expression crosses his face and then he reaches out. A little cameo pin winks from her hand into his.

"I ... don't understand."

"But you do," she says, gazing at him steadily now. "It's over, William. I can't indulge this any longer."

"If it's your family, I..."

"I'm engaged to be married." The words seem chiseled out of stone.

"But you said you'd break it off." His voice trails away as he studies her set features. He pauses for a moment, his eyes skipping over me, and I look down at my feet. "At least, Jessica, let me take you to the circus. For one hour. It's all I ask. Please," he whispers as she opens her mouth again.

The smell of sawdust and sweat fills the air, as well as the scent of something burning. Glancing sideways, I watch as a half-naked man painted in blue symbols swallows a whole torch full of fire to the accompaniment of gasps from the crowd. I really hope the burning smell isn't coming from him.

"One hour," she says finally. "Agatha will accompany us," she adds with a jerk of her head.

"I could just wait here for you, my lady," I say desperately. In one hour, I could ask at least one hundred people if they know the Greenes.

"No," Jessica says coldly.

For a second I think about walking away. What could she do to me? I'm not here in 1887 just to brush hair and pick out ball gowns. And then I remember Alistair will inevitably return to the Knight house. If I can stop him from ever reaching La Spider, that's accomplishing something.

I nod and fall in three paces behind them as they head toward the ticket line. They'd better be buying me a ticket.

Once inside the small park, I follow at a discreet distance, sidestepping hordes of people. I've figured out that we're just a few blocks south and east of Hell's Kitchen, which happens to be the home of one of my favorite flea markets. But judging from the pretty shabbily dressed people and the rows and rows of warehouses and shacks lining the park—okay,
park
is stretch: a small green space—it's not quite yet the neighborhood that I know.