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I close the door to her room quietly and pull the case from its hiding place. There's a latch. Most likely it is locked and so that will be the end of it. My fingers tremble at the latch, which opens, I'm surprised to discover, quite easily. There is very little inside: an advert for a bookseller's, the Golden Dawn, in London. An odd ring of gold and blue enamel with two serpents intertwined round the band. Stationery and a pen set.

A scrap of paper falls to the floor and beneath the bed. Panicked, I am down on all fours looking for it. I reach my hand under the bed skirt, pull it out. It is a list: Miss Farrow's Academy for Girls. The MacKenzie School for Girls in Scotland. Royal College of Bath. Saint Victoria's, Spence Academy for Young Ladies. They've all been crossed off save for Spence. I slip the paper back into the case as best I can, hoping that nothing looks amiss, and tuck the whole thing under the bed again, safe and sound. "If that is your idea of not dawdling, Miss Doyle, I should hate to see you when you are less than quick," Miss McCleethy admonishes when I return.Advertisement

I do not anticipate that Miss McCleethy and I shall ever become friends now. She pulls the new glove on quickly, wincing as it slides over her injured hand.

"I am sorry," I offer again.

"Yes, well, do try to be more careful in the future, Miss Doyle," she snaps in her strange burr.

"Yes, Miss McCleethy," I say, unable to stifle a yawn. Miss McCleethy's eyes narrow at my rudeness."Forgive me. I've not been sleeping well."

"More exercise is what you need. Moving about in the brisk air is wonderful for the constitution and for sleep. At Saint Victoria's, I insisted my girls take walks and breathe in the sea air no matter what the weather. If it rained, we wore our macintoshes. In the snow, we wore our coats. Now, let's return to the lawn, if you please."

It is possible that Miss McCleethy hasn't a bone of humor in her body. And I have just become her least favorite pupil. Suddenly, Christmas cannot come soon enough.

CHAPTER TEN

THE EVENING STARTS WITH A TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS pageant in the ballroom. It is less a formal play than it is a dramatic reading of Christmas stories in costumes pulled from trunks stored in one of Spence's many unused rooms. Rushing through the halls, laughing on the stairs is an odd assortment of high-spirited girls of all ages dressed as shepherds, angels, fairies, fauna, and flora. One little girl has gotten into the wrong trunk. She flits about like a ballerina, all the while wearing a threadbare pirate's coat and ragged trousers. Ann is Christmas Past in a long brown tunic tied at the waist with a silver sash. Felicity looks like a medieval princess in a lovely red velvet gown with gold braid on the sleeves and hem. She insists she's Christmas Yet to Come, but really, I think she's found the best gown of all and decided to call it whatever she wishes. I am Christmas Present in a green robe, a crown of holly atop my head. I feel a bit like a lumbering tree, though Ann assures me that I look"appropriately seasonal."

"It's a wonder Miss McCleethy didn't take your head today. She looked as if she could have," Ann says as we make our way to dinner past a clump of gossiping fairies and a wise man or two.

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"I didn't do it intentionally," I protest, straightening my mother's amulet--my amulet--at the base of my throat. I've polished the hammered metal until it gleams. "She's strange. I don't care for her at all," I say."Don't you think she's odd?"

Felicity glides across the rugs like the princess she is."I think she is just what Spence needs. Refreshingly frank. I quite like her. She asked all sorts of things about me."

"Just because she paid you a compliment, you've decided she's your friend," I protest.

"You're jealous because she singled me out."

"That isn't true," I scoff, though I suspect it is a bit. Felicity seems to have become Miss McCleethy's favorite already with very little effort, while I shall be lucky if she says good morning to me. "Do you know that she has a list of schools in a secret case she keeps hidden beneath her bed?"

Felicity raises an eyebrow. "And how would you know about that?" I'm going pink."It was open."

"Nonsense! You were snooping!" Felicity taunts. She hooks her arm through mine; Ann takes the other. "What else was there? Tell!"

"Not much. A ring with snakes on it; it looked very old. An advert for a bookseller's called the Golden Dawn. The list."

Two younger girls try to push past. They've got wicked smiles and angel dresses. Felicity yanks the soft wings of the closer girl, nearly toppling her."We've got rank. To the back of the line with you." pqdm.com