The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray Page B

welcome me as friend?”
    “Of course,” Ann says, reaching toward the small frail shell of her.
    At last Pip comes to me. “Gemma.” She gives me a sad little smile, biting her bottom lip nervously. Her teeth have grown sharper, and her eyes change back and forth from a beautiful violet to an unsettling milky blue with tiny pricks of black at the center. Her beauty has changed, but she is still mesmerizing.
    Her hair, always long and dark, is now a tangle of curls as untamed as the vines twisting round the castle.
    She catches me staring. Her laugh is quick and bitter. “Gemma, you look as if you’d seen a ghost.”
    “I thought you’d gone to the Winterlands,” I say, uncertainly.
    “I nearly did,” she answers, shivering.
    “But what happened?” Felicity asks.
    Pippa calls out toward the forest. “It’s all right! You can come out! It’s safe. These are my friends.”
    A ragged group of girls emerge one by one from their hiding places behind the trees and the bushes.
    Two carry long sticks that look as if they could do damage. As the girls come closer, I see the singed tatters of their dresses, the horrific burns on their faces and arms. I know who they are—the factory-fire girls we met months ago. We last saw them marching toward the Winterlands, toward corruption. I am relieved to see that they did not meet their end there, but I cannot imagine how they escaped.
    One of the stick holders—a big-boned lass with coarse skin and wounds running the length of her arms—takes a stand beside Pippa. I remember speaking to her in the realms before. Bessie Timmons.
    She’s the sort I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of.
    She glances at us suspiciously. “Everfin’ all righ’, then?”
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    “Yes, Bessie. These are my friends, the ones I told you all about,” Pippa says proudly.
    “The ones wot took the Temple magic and lef ’ you ’ere?” Bessie snorts.
    “But you see they came back.” Beaming, Pippa puts her arm around Felicity.
    Bessie doesn’t like it one bit. “I wouldn’t be too ’appy. They’re not ’ere to stay.”
    Pippa wags a finger as a schoolmarm would. “Bessie, remember our motto: Grace, strength, beauty. A lady must be gracious when welcoming guests.”
    “Yes, Miss Pippa,” Bessie says contritely.
    “But, Pip…where have you been? I want to know everything!” Felicity says, embracing Pippa again.
    I know I should embrace her as Fee and Ann have done, but I can see only those disturbing eyes and sharp teeth, and I am afraid.
    “I shall tell you everything. But come inside. It’s far too chilly out here.” Pippa takes hold of Ann’s and Felicity’s hands, pulling them toward the castle. Grumbling, Bessie Timmons follows. The remaining girls fall into line, and I bring up the rear.
    Pippa throws back the iron latch on the castle’s warped wooden door. The weeds snake through the planks, plastering themselves to the front.
    “Here we are,” Pippa says, pushing open the door. “Home.”
    It seems as if it might have been a beautiful stronghold in its day, but now it is nothing more than ancient bricks with vines for mortar. The walls are slick with moss. It smells of damp and decay. Brittle daisies, dead on their stalks, peek up between broken flagstones. The only thing that seems to grow is belladonna. The poisonous purple flowers hang above our heads like little bells.
    “This is where you’ve been…” I stop myself from saying living. “Where you’ve been all this time?”
    “It’s all that’s left for me. A moldering castle for the Lady of Shalott.” Pippa laughs, but it is hollow. She rubs her palms across the elaborate carvings etched into a hearth. The carvings are like saints’ faces gone black with time. “But you can tell it was once magical and beautiful.”
    “What happened to it?” Ann asks.
    Pippa glares at me. “It was forgotten.”
    Felicity pulls aside a