"So it would seem," Mrs. Porter says.
Something horrible is fighting to take shape inside me. The paintings. Scotland. Spence. And that seascape is so very familiar, similar to the one from my visions. It could be Wales, I realize with a growing horror. Every place on Miss McCleethy's list is represented on these walls. But Miss McCleethy is the one who taught at all those schools. She was the teacher looking for the girl who could take her into the realms.
Unless Miss McCleethy and Kartik were telling the truth. Unless Miss Moore is not Miss Moore at all.
"No sense in waitin' for 'er now, Miss Worthington," Mrs. Porter says.
"Yes," I croak. "Perhaps I'll just leave a note to go with her things."
"Suit yourself," Mrs. Porter says, leaving. "You could ask 'er for the balance due me. Never got me rent."
Scrounging about, I find a pen and a sheet of stationery and take a deep breath. Not Miss Moore. It can't be. Miss Moore is the one who has believed in me. Who first told us about the Order. Who listened as I told her . . . everything.
No. Miss Moore is not Circe. And I shall prove it.
I write the words, big and bold: Hester Moore.
They stare back at me. Ann has already done an anagram for Miss Moore. It yielded nothing but nonsense. I stare at the note. Sincerely, Hester Asa Moore. Asa. The middle name. I cross it out and start again. With trembling fingers, I shift the letters of her name to make something new. S, A, R. At last, I put the remaining letters into place. H, R, E. The room falls away as the name swims before me.
Sarah Rees-Toome.
Miss Moore is Sarah Rees-Toome. Circe. No. I won't believe it. Miss Moore helped us rescue Ann. She told us to run as she battled Circe's creature. Her creature. And I took her into the realms. I gave her the power.
Things come back to me--Miss Moore's keen interest in Miss McCleethy. How she told us to keep her away from Nell Hawkins. The way the girls in white looked at her in the realms, as if they knew her.
When you can see what I see--that is what Nell said. "I need to see. I want to know the truth," I say. The vision comes down on me as fiercely as a sudden Indian rain. My arms shake, and I fall to my knees with the force of it. Breathe, Gemma. Don't fight it. I can't control it, and panic rises in me as I fall hard and fast.
Everything stops. There is calm. I know this place. I've seen bits and pieces of it before. The roar of the sea fills my ears. Its spray kisses the jagged cliffs and coats my hair and lips with its misty salt. The ground is cracked and worn, the skin of the rock splintering into thousands of tiny fissures.
Up ahead I see the three girls. But they are not ghostly specters. They are alive, happy and smiling. The wind catches their skirts. They flutter behind them like mothers' handkerchiefs. The first girl trips and wobbles, her shrieks turning to laughter when she rights herself.
Her laugh bounces round my head like a slow echo."Come along, Nell!"
Nell. I am living this moment as Nell. I am seeing what she saw.
"She's coming to give us the power! We shall enter the realms and become sisters of the Order!" the second girl in white yells. She's beaming with the promise of it. I am so slow. I cannot keep up.
The girls wave to someone behind me.
Here she is, the woman in the green cloak, striding across the broken land. They call to her. "Miss McCleethy! Miss McCleethy!"
"Yes, I'm coming," she answers. The woman pulls the hood back from her face. But it is not the Miss McCleethy I have known. It is Miss Moore. And now I understand Miss Moore's shocked expression when we first mentioned that name, her rush to discredit our new teacher. She understood that someone from the Order was hunting her. And I've had it all wrong from the start.
"Will you give us the power?" the girls call out.
"Yes," Miss Moore says, her voice faltering. "Walk out on the rocks a little farther." The girls clamber over the rocks, shrieking with a happy recklessness when the wind blows hard against them, making them feel mortal for a moment. I try to reach them.
"Nell!" Miss Moore shouts. "Wait with me."
"But, Miss McCleethy," I hear myself say. "They're getting ahead."
"Let them go. Stay with me."
Confused, Nell stands watching her friends out on the rocks. Miss Moore raises her hand. There is no snake ring on her finger. There never was, I come to realize. I told Miss Moore about the ring I'd seen, and the girls in white made me see what she wanted me to see.
Miss Moore mumbles in a tongue I cannot hear. The iron gray sky comes alive, twisting and turning. The girls sense the change. Their faces show alarm. The creature rises from the sea. The girls scream in terror. They try to run, but the great phantom stretches out like a cloud. It races over them and descends, swallowing the girls whole as if they had never existed. The creature sighs and groans. It unfurls its great wing-arms, and I see the girls trapped inside, screaming.
