Sisters' Fate (24 page)

The girl jumps—and plummets toward the ground. She screams. I reach up with my magic, cradling her, slowing her descent until she seems to float rather than fall. She hovers above the ground for a second, then touches down gently.

“You’re a real witch!” Her blue eyes are round; her face is full of wonder.

“I am,” I admit.

“That was fun!” She looks up at the dark-haired boy, still framed in the window above Elena. “Come on, Jamie! Don’t be a scaredy-cat!”

“What’s your name, honey?” Rilla asks.

“Mary Fowler.” The girl grins.

Rilla raises her voice. “Mary Fowler is the bravest girl in the whole orphanage! Who wants to come down next?”

Rory and Sachi come charging up next to me. “The fire is out over by the train depot. The tracks served as a natural fire break,” she announces. “What’s happening here? Why haven’t the children been evacuated?”

I explain what Brother Coulter did.

“That bastard. I’d like to get my hands on him,” Rory seethes, and this time Sachi doesn’t chide her for her language. To our left, children are trickling out the front door. Some of them clutch blankets or rag dolls in their hands, and when they see the nightmarish sky and the flames licking at the building next door, they begin to cry. Bekah stands at the door and directs them farther down the street.

Meanwhile, Jamie jumps and is guided down by Elena. He looks a bit pale, but he raises his arms and cheers when he lands. “Come on, lads!” he shouts as other faces fill the windows.

“Girls are braver than boys!” Mary hollers, and another little girl positions herself above me.

“My friends Sachi and Rory are here to help, too. Four children at a time, please,” Rilla instructs as Sachi and Rory wave. “Let’s see who gets out first: boys or girls!”

Children line up at the windows to jump, one after the other. Sachi and I catch all thirty-seven girls before Rory and Elena catch the thirty-seventh of forty boys. Some of the girls cheer, while the defeated boys bluster, but most seem to recognize the gravity of the situation once they’re on the ground. These were wards full of the oldest children in the orphanage, anywhere from eight to fourteen, and some beg to be allowed to go back inside to fetch younger siblings and friends.

Bekah grabs a wriggling boy determined to save Susie, his four-year-old sister. He hits and kicks at Bekah until a fireman picks him up and sets him down in the street. Rilla tries to direct the children to a tavern that has promised to feed and shelter them for the time being, but some flat-out refuse to go until they see their friends come out. There’s a great reunion when Susie finally emerges, one of a handful of children led by Sister Edith.

Daisy and her friend Alexa run out, each carrying a squirming baby. “The roof is catching on the other side. We don’t have much time,” Daisy informs us breathlessly. She thrusts one baby at Rilla while Alexa hands hers to one of the older orphans waiting in the street. “We’ve got the third and fourth floors clear—they were the four- to seven-year-olds—but there are still babies and toddlers on the second floor. We need to form a brigade and pass them out.”

That’s it. I can’t carry babies with a broken arm and I’m not going to just stand here. “I’m going up to the roof to help Tess,” I announce, hurrying into the building, squeezing past a snaking line of firemen, Brothers, and witches passing cherubic babes from arm to arm. Most of the Brothers have shed their black cloaks in the hot, close quarters, and without them, they look like—well, like regular men instead of the villains of my nightmares. They are helping, their shirtsleeves rolled up, sooty faces streaked with sweat, indistinguishable from the firemen except for their rings of office and their upper-class speech.

I run to the far stairwell, which is beginning to fill with smoke. I pound up the steps and pause on the third-floor landing, trying to draw a proper lungful. I cough and keep going. On the fifth floor, a ladder leads up to the roof. I crawl up it with a sense of déjà vu. Truth be told, I am none too eager to stand on another rooftop tonight.

“Tess?” She stands near the edge of the roof, staring out over the city. The wind has died down to nothing. The air feels perilously still, the way it sometimes does before a storm. The muscles of Tess’s neck and arms are taut as she fights the wind. The far side of the roof is smoldering, fire licking at the drain spouts. Finn and a few other men—Brothers? fire brigaders?—are trying to beat it out. Water from a relocated fire engine arcs onto the roof, forming a great puddle in the center, but it’s not enough.

Tess is trembling, every ounce of her energy focused on battling the fire, but she’s losing ground. She opens her eyes when she hears my boots next to her. “Let me help,” I say, slipping my hand into hers.

She takes my remaining magic—and with it, most of my strength. It suddenly requires an inordinate amount of effort to remain standing. My eyes sting and tear, and the sound of my own wheezing breath reminds me horribly of Maura’s last moments. I look down as a wagon clatters up and several firemen leap out, running to gather children into the back. They need more time.

Cinders fall all around us. One falls on Tess’s shoulder and I let go her hand for a moment to slap at the smoking spot before her cloak can ignite. She barely reacts. The wagon clatters away down the street below us, full of older children and firemen holding babies, and then comes barreling back a few minutes later. Bekah and Daisy lift toddlers into the wagon. Rory stumbles out the front door, leading Sachi by the hand. My vision is tunneling again; my legs are shaking with the effort to stay upright.

Tess thwacks me on the back of the head. “Your hair!” she shrieks, beating out a spark.

“Don’t worry about me!
Focus,
” I insist as the wind surges around us.

Finn rushes across the roof. The other firemen have already gone. “Everyone’s out. Let’s go, ladies.” The bump on the back of my head hurts something fierce, and spots dance before my eyes. I try to draw in a deep breath, but everything tastes of ash and my throat burns. It’s so hot up here. Finn unties a wet handkerchief from around the lower half of his face—it makes him look rather like a highwayman from one of Maura’s novels—and ties it gently around mine. It makes breathing easier, but I flinch when he touches the back of my head. “You’ve got a hell of a goose egg back there. Can you make it down the ladder?”

“I’ve got a better idea.” Tess steps onto the ledge. “Elena! Can you catch us?”

“You’ve got to be mad,” I mumble. But a gust of wind sends the flames closer toward the ladder, and Elena is waiting below us.

I jump.

It is terrifying. Not like flying at all—like dropping, like that horrid half-asleep sensation of falling. I shriek as the street rises up below me at an alarming rate. My boots touch down gently enough, but my knees buckle. I am not half as brave as ten-year-old Mary Fowler.

Rilla wraps a steadying arm around my waist as Elena helps Tess and then Finn to the ground. “We’ve got to get you to the infirmary. You look ready to collapse.”

“I’ll take her.” Finn scoops me up in his arms, and I yelp as pain surges through my broken arm. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’ll try to be careful.”

He called me sweetheart. I try to smile up at him, but it comes out more a grimace.

“I’m taking Sachi to Mei, too,” Rory says, marching up to us and practically dragging her sister behind her. “She can’t see.”

“It’s all the smoke,” Sachi insists, but the whites of her eyes are flushed red, and she can’t seem to focus on Rory’s face.

“Prue?” I ask.

“Already at the infirmary. She got a dreadful burn on her back earlier,” Sachi explains.

I twist my head back to Finn. “Father?”

“Took some of the orphans to the Green Dragon. Tess is going to meet him there. I’ll take you when you’re healed,” Finn promises, striding down the street. I look over his shoulder and gasp. The orphanage is engulfed in flame already.

I relax into him, trying not to wince against the jostling of his steps, comforted by the rumble of his voice through his chest as he and Rory talk. When we reach the park, he stops and sets me down on a patch of grass. The park is crowded with people—the injured, with their burns and cuts and broken limbs; witches from the Sisterhood with some healing magic; and working-class women with some nursing skill. Finn slides his cloak beneath my head as a makeshift pillow.

He sprawls down on the grass next to me, stretching out his long legs. “Three of the four fires are out,” he announces. “And the firemen are making another stand on the far side of the orphanage. I think they’ll get that one soon. It could have been much worse.”

He’s right, I know. Things could
always
be worse. Still, my eyes fill with tears.

“What is it?” He leans over me. “Where does it hurt?”

“Maura.” I close my eyes, but tears trickle out from beneath my lashes. “She’s dead.”

“Good Lord. How?” Finn takes my hand.

I tell him everything. “There was nothing I could do besides sit with her,” I say. Finn wipes away tears that are rolling toward my ear. “I know she—she was awful to you, and you must hate her, but—”

I break off as the truth of it hits me. If Finn can’t grieve with me—if he’s
glad
of her death—I don’t see how we can survive this.

“No.” Finn runs a hand through his wild hair, sending bits of ash flying. “What she did to me—to
us
—was awful. But she was still your sister, Cate.”

“I love you,” I whisper. “But I loved her, too.”

“Of course you did.” He brushes another tear from my face with the pad of his thumb.

I thought I was all cried out, but it turns out I’m not. Finn picks me up again and—heedless of the impropriety of it—holds me against him, stroking my hair while I sob.

“Things are going to change,” he says. “The Brothers can’t continue to outlaw witchery, not after what’s happened tonight. The people won’t stand for it. Witches and common people and Brothers have been working together all over the city. Look. It’s happening right here, in this park. Things are going to be different after tonight.”

CHAPTER

22

TEN DAYS LATER, WE GATHER IN CHATHAM FOR
Maura’s funeral.

It is strange to be home when, two weeks ago, I thought returning was impossible. It’s even stranger without Maura. I expect to hear her voice calling me in for dinner, to see her running down the stairs to share some madcap scene from her book or popping into my bedroom to ask me to tie a troublesome sash. Last night, I sat at her dressing table, surrounded by old hair ribbons and the ghost of her laughter. In her jewelry box, I found a rhinestone bracelet she wore everywhere when she was little—she loved the way it sparkled when it caught the sun—and I burst into tears.

Now I stand in the family cemetery, surrounded by Cahill graves and sobbing mourners, and my eyes are dry. To our right is Mother’s tomb—
Anna Elizabeth Cahill, beloved wife and devoted mother
—and the five small stones marking the babies she lost. Next to them is a gaping grave and a mound of dirt and a mahogany casket from which I avert my eyes.

Elena stands beside me in her finest black brocade. Father was surprised when I asked that she be treated as family, but when I told him it was what Maura would have wanted, he agreed readily enough. Tess stands on my other side, her small face pale, next to Father; our housekeeper, Mrs. O’Hare; and our coachman, John. Mrs. O’Hare is dabbing at her eyes with a frilly white handkerchief, her gray curls bobbing as she cries. We only arrived yesterday; she has not had much time to get over the shock of Maura’s death.

Not that we are very used to it yet ourselves.

Brother Winfield refused to allow the funeral of a known witch to be held in the church proper, but Father prevailed upon Brother Ralston to perform the service. Father was furious that we’ve been banned from church, but I wasn’t bothered by it. Maura would have liked this better; she hated every moment she spent in that stuffy clapboard room, listening to sermons about our wickedness. It’s a pity we can’t have her funeral in a bookstore. She’d like that best of all.

Brother Ralston strokes his brown whiskers, then clears his throat. “Blessed are those who mourn,” he begins, “for they will be comforted. We have come here today to remember before the Lord our sister Maura, to give thanks for her life . . .”

I bite my lip. Truth be told, I do not feel very much like giving thanks at the moment. I shift and my footsteps crunch on the grass beneath me. It snowed yesterday as we were driving into Chatham. The ground is covered in four inches of sugary white that glistens whenever the sun hits it right—just like the rhinestone bracelet tucked into my cloak pocket.

I prick the tip of my thumb on the white rose I’m holding. Soon, we’ll drop our roses on the casket and the gravediggers Father hired will lower Maura into the ground. It seems impossible. It feels as though any minute she’ll come banging out of the house and dash up the hill, yelling, “Wait for me!”

A mound of white hothouse roses already rests on the coffin, along with an enormous bouquet of imported white tulips. Merriweather sent them; they must have cost a fortune. He didn’t come, but he sent Prue with Sachi and Rory.

I glance across the gravesite, where my friends stand. Neither Mei nor I have been able to heal the stubborn infection in Sachi’s eyes. She’s meant to rest them completely—no reading, no needlework, nothing taxing at all. She oughtn’t even be out in this bright sunlight. She can see blurry shapes now, but nothing more, and the specialist isn’t sure if she’ll ever fully regain her sight. Mei was able to heal Prue’s burns, though, and Rory escaped the fire unscathed. She sees me looking at her and tilts her head. She’s wearing a white feather in her hair, and beneath her black cloak, a white hem peeks out. Mei told her about the Indo-Chinese custom of wearing white for mourning, and Rory’s decided to adopt it for her own. She says she’s spent too much of her life wearing black already.

Rilla and Vi are here, too. Rilla stands with a motherly arm around Vi, whose eyes are as bloodshot and swollen as Sachi’s—though hers are from crying. Two days ago, we attended Vi’s father’s funeral. Robert was trying to save a little boy trapped in a house when the roof collapsed on them both. He was the only family Vi had; now she’s an orphan.

I glance at my father. He has been very present these last few days—not like after Mother’s death, when he disappeared into himself. He wants to spend most of his time in New London now; he plans to rent a proper house in Cardiff, and he has asked Tess and me to come live with him. We are considering it. Truth be told, I am not terribly used to having him fussing around us so solicitously; it feels equal parts comforting and annoying. Tess likes it, though.

“The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters; He restoreth my soul,” Brother Ralston recites.

My mind catches on “still waters.” I look at the pond, covered in a thick layer of ice. We used to go skating every winter when we were young—or rather, I did, with our neighbor Paul McLeod, and sometimes Maura tagged along. I was always racing Paul across the pond, while Maura twirled graceful figure eights and pretended to be a ballerina.

Paul sent a sweet note of condolence about Maura’s death. He wanted to come to the funeral, but he’s laid up in New London, recovering from the fever. I thought perhaps his mother would come, but Agnes McLeod is terribly devout. If she’s heard what Maura was—well, likely she’d turn up her nose and cross herself and think the world better off for being free of one more witch. The papers—even the Brotherhood’s mouthpiece, the
Sentinel
—have been full of news of the great fire in New London and the madness of Brother Covington, who’s slipped back into a coma.

Brother Brennan has returned from exile and ordered two squadrons of guards stationed at the convent—not to restrict our movements, but to protect us. The papers have reported on the shocking truth of the Sisterhood, and while some people are full of gratitude for our help with the fire and the fever, others hold deeply to their hatred. Rilla and Tess and I—commended in the firemen’s reports for our bravery in saving the orphanage—might well have targets painted on our backs. Finn and Father would prefer that I have guards trailing after me at all times. For this trip, they’ve let the matter rest, but I suspect we’ve not had our last argument on the subject.

Finn stands with his mother and sister and a bearded Brother I’ve never seen before. Finn is wearing an old black greatcoat instead of his Brotherly cloak, and his coppery hair shines in the sun. He and I haven’t seen each other alone since the fire.

“We thank You for Maura, the years we shared with her, the good we saw in her, the love we received from her,” Brother Ralston prays.

Love you too, Cate.
Maura’s last words—more breath than sound—flutter against my cheek. I look up into the cloudless blue sky—a brilliant blue like Maura’s eyes—as other mourners bow their heads.

“Now give us strength and courage to leave her in Your care . . .”

I do not want to leave her in the Lord’s care. I cannot help feeling as though He has already failed her. Or perhaps it was I who failed her. I remember the girl who used to sing bawdy songs and play her mandolin when Father was away; who would spend rainy afternoons with her tea going cold while she curled up on her window seat, enchanted by the exploits of dukes and governesses; who sent ghosts popping out of my closet to terrify me; who was enraptured with Elena’s velvet slippers and satin underthings when they first met. The girl who, to her dying day, believed that her magic was a gift, never a curse.

Maura was far from perfect, but then so am I.

No matter what I do, it never feels enough. I want so badly to protect the people I love from harm, but my love is not strong enough.

How can I learn to make my peace with that? How does anyone?

Fifty-seven people were killed the night of the fire; hundreds of homes were destroyed. The worst fire—the one that consumed the orphanage—was put out by Wednesday evening, twenty-four hours after it started. It could have been much worse, I know. If the witches hadn’t immobilized or compelled the guards to open up the quarantine checkpoints—if Alice hadn’t put out the fire on Bramble Hill—if the fire engines hadn’t reached the fire closest to the market district so quickly—if the train tracks hadn’t provided a natural fire break—if Tess hadn’t held the winds back until the orphanage was evacuated—hundreds could have been killed.

Still, the cost to the Sisterhood seems high. Alice was killed after she collapsed the water tower. Genie and Maud—both only fifteen—were killed when a building caved in. One of the Harwood refugees, little Sarah Mae, was badly burnt when she tried to rescue a kitten. Livvy broke her leg so badly we couldn’t heal it; the physician isn’t sure if she’ll ever walk without a limp. Old Sister Evelyn had an attack of apoplexy and is bedridden in the convent. And Sister Gretchen was fatally shot by a soldier when she tried to open up one of the checkpoints.

“We now commit her body to the ground: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . .” Brother Ralston says, and I startle to attention. I have avoided looking at the coffin, but now it’s time to place our roses on top of it. Father goes first. Then Tess. Then it’s my turn.

Everyone’s eyes are on me. It is not so very difficult, Cate. Put one foot in front of the other. It’s only five steps.

I get as far as the coffin, and then I can’t seem to make myself move. I stand there, frozen, breath strangling in my chest. Panic sinks its sharp teeth into me. I feel such a fool, clutching the white rose in my ungloved hands, staring blindly at my sister’s casket. I am not the sort of girl who falls to pieces, even in moments like this. But my corset feels cinched too tight and I cannot breathe and—

Footsteps crunch across the grass, and someone takes my arm. A freckled hand stained with blue ink pulls the rose from my clenched fingers and sits it lightly on top of the casket. Finn escorts me back to my family and wraps an arm around my waist. “Breathe,” he whispers, his lips very near my ear.

Brother Ralston’s voice eventually stops, and the mourners begin to make their way back to the house. I can hear them offering Father and Tess their condolences. I ought to hurry in and help Mrs. O’Hare lay out the food. But the notion of making small talk with our neighbors is dreadful, and I know Marianne and Clara and Rilla will be eager to help.

Finn doesn’t rush me.

“Take as long as you need.” Behind his spectacles, his brown eyes are solemn. “I’m here. Or I can go, if you want a moment alone.”

“I don’t know what’s the matter with me.” I flush, pulling away from him and huddling into myself. “I didn’t fall to pieces when Mother died. Maura and Tess needed me. I couldn’t.”

Finn’s brow rumples into the upside-down V. “You’ve lost your sister, Cate. Grieving her doesn’t make you weak. I cried when my father died. Perhaps it’s not manly to admit it, but I did. Do you think less of me for that?”

I scowl up at him. “Of course not.”

“Then stop being so hard on yourself.” He tucks a strand of blond hair behind my ear. “It’s only been ten days. You need time.” I shove my hands in my cloak pockets, miserable, and he chuckles. “That was the wrong thing to say, wasn’t it? Your face is transparent as glass sometimes.”

I’ve never been good with words—not like Tess—but now they rush out of me, raw and urgent. “I can’t help feeling lost, somehow. I
promised,
Finn. I promised Mother I would look after both of them, keep them safe, and that promise has been everything to me for the last four years. And then there was the prophecy. I haven’t gone a day without thinking of it for months, but I couldn’t stop it, and now Maura is gone and—I just don’t know!” I falter.

“Now what do you do, you mean?” Finn suggests.

“Yes,” I whisper. “Am I terrible for thinking it?”

“You are never half as terrible as you think you are,” he promises, grinning at me. “I actually wanted to talk to you about that, but I wasn’t sure it was the right time.”

“About me being terrible?” My lips tilt into—not quite a smile. But close.

I turn, noticing the bearded Brother standing in our gazebo. “Who is that?”

“Ah. I wanted to introduce the two of you. He’s got to get back to New London, but he wanted to pay his respects.” Finn adjusts his spectacles. “It’s Sean Brennan.”

“Brother Brennan?” I wince. “He’s just been standing out here in the cold, waiting for me?”

Brennan sees us approaching and steps forward. “Miss Cahill.” He bows. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” I pause, uncertain whether I ought to kneel in order to receive the customary blessings. In the end, I do not. “And thank you for coming. I daresay you have more important things to do.”

He shakes his head. He’s perhaps thirty-five, with a closely trimmed brown beard and kind brown eyes. Laugh lines radiate from his mouth and crinkle the corners of his eyes. “Actually, speaking with you was one of the first things on my agenda. I don’t wish to intrude on your grief, though. If you don’t feel ready to discuss—”

I wave away his polite assurances. “You came all this distance. I’d like to hear what you have to say.”

“Very well.” He folds his hands in front of him. “I came back into the city the day after the fire, and since then I’ve been meeting with members of the Resistance as well as members of the National Council, trying to figure out how we can move forward. Covington’s orders regarding the quarantine and the fires were a travesty. Even before that, the public was unhappy with the Brothers’ most recent measures.” He glances at Finn. “Measures that I voted against. Brother Belastra can vouch for me.”

“Mr.,”
Finn corrects. “I’ve left the Brotherhood.”

“I’m still hoping to change your mind on that. We could use a man of your character,” Brennan says, before turning his attention back to me. Every other Brother I’ve met has treated me with casual condescension, assuming that I am some mindless, submissive creature—or ought to be. But he speaks to me with the same quiet respect he shows Finn. “I think repealing the measure against women working will make a vast difference in the lives of ordinary families. I’m planning to make aid available to those who were hit hardest by the fire and the fever. And as soon as possible, I’d like to pass a new measure that makes witchery legal.”