definition. “They are my young sisters of—of the spirit.”
Malina’s face cleared and she beamed at the three of them. “I understand. The goddess has given them to you, though you have not birthed them, nor has your mother.”
“Quite so,” Claire said with some relief.
Lizzie exchanged a look with her twin, then both the green eyes and the blue turned to Claire. “Izzat wot wards are?” Lizzie asked. “Sisters?”
“Technically, no, but I rather like ‘sisters of the spirit,’ don’t you?” Claire smiled down at Maggie, who leaned against her. “It’s like flock, only closer. Nicer.”
They looked so comfortable together that Alice’s heart ached just a little, missing something it had never really had.
“I like it,” Maggie said. “Now all we ’ave to do is find a dad for Alice.”
The words were no sooner out of her mouth than they heard a commotion outside, muffled by the walls of the house. It sounded like a crowd of people were arriving, and Alice heard hoofbeats and shouts, along with the barking of dogs.
But the women of the household did not move, other than the two young women operating the mechanical contraption, who put another kettle of water on to heat.
Alice got halfway to her feet, but Malina leaned over from her bench and put a hand on her knee. “They must give thanks to the goddess for good hunting, and prepare the kill. Then he will come. Drink tea and I will talk story.”
Standing on the tip of Alice’s tongue was a refusal—they had to be going, they had come a long way to find Frederick Chalmers—but Malina began to speak in a soothing tone. The hasty words settled like chickens on a roost and instead, pictures formed in Alice’s head … of a beautiful woman birthing stars, of whales that came to her hand to feel the joy of her touch, of caribou and wolves bowing to her and offering her children their lives so that all might be sustained through the winter.
And as she concluded and the final image—a man bowing to a strong, brown-skinned woman before she took him as her husband, and offering her food and drink and a home—the door opened and daylight poured in.
Alice sucked steam- and tea-scented air into lungs that didn’t seem to be working right. But they had to work. Otherwise, she’d faint in a heap on the floor.
Malina stood while Claire and the Mopsies looked a little dazed, as if they were struggling to come back from the place where legend was still alive, and influenced the hours of every day in this village.
Alice found herself on her feet, watching a tall man push through the door and close it behind him. “Malina, we saw the landau and the watch told me we have guests? It’s hard to believe it would be the Dunsmuirs, but—”
He stopped. Alice swayed, taking in his face, trying to match it to the hazy one in her memory. He was fair complected, as she was, his skin reddened from wind and sun. He had frizzy blond hair, as she did, though his was cropped close to his head, she saw as he pulled the fur hat from it. One eye was blue, the other covered by an ocular device held over the socket by a leather strap. It seemed to move in tandem with the gaze of the healthy one.
Both false and real eye locked on her, standing motionless and voiceless next to the fire. “Alice?” he said.
She had dreamed of this day for years and years,arsn>< had figured out a speech that would make him sorry for leaving them, make him respect her, even if he didn’t love her.
But she couldn’t remember a word of it. All she could remember was strong hands, and a hard knee that formed a horsie she had loved to ride on as a tiny girl.
Both his gazes seemed to devour her from head to foot. “Is it really you?” He stepped closer, his hands coming up to touch her face, and she stepped back.
“Surprised?” Whose voice was that? And what had it said that for? Where was her speech? Where was her brain, for that matter?
But he took her at face value. “Surprised. Overjoyed. Astonished.” His voice dropped to a whisper, but his gazes did not leave her face for an instant. “Relieved.”
What?
“The last pigeon came back with no photographs of you. I’ve been living in fear that Ned Mose—that he finally—” Moisture glistened in the corner of his good eye.