Last time on Gemma, Gemma finally figures out her mom was part of the Order and involved in the whole destruction fiasco.

Gemma runs to the garden to confront her mother.

My mother is not at all the woman I thought she was. I’ve never really known her. She is Mary Dowd. A liar and a sorceress. A killer.

Note how sorceress is in the middle of the list of awfulness, because this may be a book about female power, but female power is still evil.

Sorceress is just such a terrible word, isn’t it? You can almost hear the sneer in it. Sorceresses are almost always evil and always weaker. A male one can be amoral and is often a powerhouse. A female one is evil unless a big deal is made of her being on the good guy’s side, and like the god/goddess distinction, the good sorceress is even more of a pushover than the evil one.

Gemma explains what we’ve already figured out, that her mom was lying about not being involved. She says her mom lied about everything, her mom says well, not everything, and besides, it was to protect Gemma.

“It was all so very long ago, Gemma.”
“And that excuses everything? You led that little girl into the East Wing. You killed her!”
“Yes. And I spent every day of my life atoning for it.”

Come on, how exactly did you atone?

“Everyone assumed I had died, and in a way, I had. Mary Dowd was gone and in her place was
Virginia. I made a new life for myself, with your father, and then Tom and you.”

Oh, you atoned by making a new great life for yourself and never being punished for the whole murdering a kid thing. And then when you finally die, you use the kid as your ghost slave.

“Oh, Gemma, how could I tell you what I’d done? That’s the curse of mothers, you know. We’re never prepared for how much we love our children, for how much we wish we could protect them by being perfect.” She blinks fast, trying not to cry. “I thought I could start again. That it was all forgotten and I was free. But I wasn’t.”

She’s not even being consistent here, now she’s admitting that she wasn’t atoning, she was hiding from the past and pretending it never happened.

The way this section’s written I don’t think that’s intentional at all. I think we’re supposed to see Gemma as understandably upset but overreacting, and her mother’s excuses as actual explanations for why she acted this way instead of a pile of self-serving bullshit.

Her mother claims that she thought it was all over, but then realized Gemma had the power, but she figured if she didn’t say anything maybe nothing would happen, and then much later, that Circe wasn’t dead and would be coming for them either way. Note that she found out the latter part an entire year ago, so she did have plenty of time to realize Plan A, bury head in sand, was a no-go. The message is brought by Kartik’s brother Amar, because their group is connected to this mess by still unclear reasons.

told me she was using her link to the creature to find us all. She’d heard that one of us was a portal to the realms again. She just didn’t know who.

Wait, what?

So she’s not the creature. She’s using it to hunt. The reason she’s using it to hunt is that she wants a way to reopen the realms, which are currently inaccessable to keep the shadow locked away. In other words, if she can use the shadow to hunt she shouldn’t need to hunt them, she’s already wedged the door open all by herself.

You could sort of read this as meaning that she’s got some sort of passive communication thing going on, except she is either summoning or pulling in enough power for a transformation into the shadow. Last time I checked, that wasn’t possible in the real world.

“Fine. You’ve completed your soul’s task. You’ve told me the truth,” I say, spitting out the last word.
“Why don’t you go on and leave me alone, then?”
“My soul’s task is in your hands,” she says softly in that voice that once sang me to sleep, told me I was lovely when I wasn’t. “It’s your choice.”
“What could I possibly do for you now?”
“Forgive me.”

Oh what the hell.

Gemma only just started to be mad right now! Why would forgiveness from the person she fucked over least be her dying wish? And she obviously didn’t want it all that much when what Gemma hates her over is the lying she did after dying.

Presumably this actually means “forgive me for murdering the girl, getting someone else stuck in hell and fucking up the realms for everyone” but why the hell is that something for Gemma to forgive?

As usual, there’s an easy alternative that isn’t so awful. Instead of forgiveness, it could be that her soul can’t rest until she knows Gemma doesn’t hate her – that, not forgiveness, really seems like her motivation for so much of this, like lying about who she was all this time.

Also, while it’s generally a dick move to try to force people to stop being mad at you by threatening harm to yourself, asking not to be hated is, I think, a bit less than asking for actual forgiveness. Forgiveness tends to come with the idea that whatever it is is completely over and done with.

Gemma, upset, tells her that she’s wrong about the rune magic, they’ve used it twice and they’re fine. Her mother is horrified.

“Then the realms have been left unguarded. Circe’s creature could already have been here and corrupted one of us. Gemma, how could you?”

Gemma blows this off. OBVIOUSLY if her mom was lying about her past history for clear reasons, she’s also lying about everything else ever, even though Gemma knows that there’s a shadow and it totally eats people and someone thought keeping it out was important enough to lock the whole place down.

I mean, even if Gemma assumes her mom can’t be trusted, that just means she now has no idea what’s safe and what isn’t, not that everything’s safe. For all she knows just entering the realms the first time could have destroyed the barrier and the shadow’s been messing with things for weeks.

As Gemma storms away, the huntress appears.

God damn it book.

We’re really going to do this, aren’t we? Felicity’s going to be the evil one for wanting power, because feminism is important and all, but ambitious women are still terrible. The only time women are allowed to be special is if they’re born special.

The huntress offers Gemma some berries, because the shadow apparently doesn’t do subtlety.

“No, thank you,” I say, walking on a bit more quickly.
As if I haven’t moved, she is in front of me, the berries in her outstretched hand. “Are you certain? They are delicious.”
The hair on the back of my neck stands up. Something isn’t right.

No shit, Gemma.

She hurries away, and she hears a voice whispering “at last” over and over behind her.

That night the girls come to get her for their Order meeting.

Gemma explains about how the realms have been invaded by the shadow, the huntress at least has been corrupted, and that she’s not even sure how much of what they’ve learned is true because her mother can’t be trusted either, and they may be in danger even in the real world.

PSYCHE

Gemma says she doesn’t feel good and doesn’t want to play tonight.

“Well,” Felicity sighs after a while, “I hope you recover. But don’t expect to get off quite so easily tomorrow night.”
I have no intention of stepping through into the realms. Not tomorrow. Not ever.

Gemma, I know I can’t hope you die for this stupidity, because this is the first of a trilogy, but I just want you to know, I wish you would.

Not only can I not believe she wouldn’t trust them, this isn’t something that’s only a threat to her. She’s refusing to even warn them that they’re in danger.

Next chapter we get an update on the Bumble situation.

He’s gone to the Crosses, told them everything. The Crosses are horrified that they’ve lost control over the one thing that should always be in their control—their daughter. Their collateral. They’ve assured Mr. Bumble that it’s all some youthful folly invented by a girl nervous about her wedding day. After all, how could a girl as lovely as Pippa be anything other than the very picture of health?

Ah, my long-time enemy, retroactive hate. How lovely to see you yet again.

Why is Bumble constantly described as an asshole in the preceding chapters? Apparently because he becomes one here, near the end of the book in what may well be his last appearance.

Incidentally, don’t buy this at all. Bumble should already be suspicious they’re so desperate to marry off a girl “as lovely as Pippa”. And this is the timeperiod they thought women were fragile flowers and fetishized death by tuberculosis, lovely and healthy were hardly synonyms. Why would they even be so worried about anyone finding out if apparently they can convince a suitor everything’s fine by just saying it’s a pack of lies?

Also

The Crosses are horrified that they’ve lost control over the one thing that should always be in their control—their daughter.

Okay, look.

The explanation for Pippa getting married off is specifically that her dad has gambled a bit too much. Do you know what Victorians didn’t have? Bankruptcy laws. If people came to collect and you couldn’t pay up, you were fucked. There’s a difference between being greedy and being about to be thrown into prison to die.

Does this make it okay to marry a kid off without caring about her opinion? No. But it should be pointed out that this whole setup isn’t as simple as just viewing Pippa as some livestock to trade, they have a very pressing reason to marry her off. Under the circumstances, it’s more like forcing a kid to get a job because the family’s going under – it’s still not fair the kid should be responsible for the dad’s gambling fuckup, but it’s not just a power trip on their part, and it’s understandable for the rest of the family to be upset if the kid wants to completely blow that off.

Furthermore, we don’t know that they ignored Pippa’s opinion on the matter. What we do know is that Pippa is being ridiculous about this and demanding Lancelot for a husband, so she’d be reacting like this even if they picked a basically decent guy. Indeed, her objections to Bumble amount to that he’s old and has a stupid name. He’s not, say, the other guy she mentions who pinched her ass until she was covered in bruises. Sure, if you’re a modern person who doesn’t think girls should be married off at all, this is still pretty awful, but that’s how it worked then.

Also? If they can’t marry Pippa off before the epilepsy thing comes out, she will not be able to get a husband at all. It’s quite possible they see this as being in her own best interest too. Bear in mind, Pippa does want to get married, she just wants it to be to a rich eighteen year old prince who’s drop-dead gorgeous – and even if Pippa wasn’t interested in marriage at all, marriage is necessary if she wants a decent life.

Now sure. Maybe it’s just that they don’t care about her in the slightest and expect quiet compliance. But there’s so much going on here that I really don’t think that’s the best assumption. They’re likely not awesome people, but they have other reasons for this than just because they like ruining Pippa’s life.

This whole subplot is ruined by the constant overstating of absolutely everything. Here is a more reasonable way to look at it: Pippa’s dad fucks over the entire family’s finances, because men can do what they want and her mother can’t stop him. Because of this, Pippa’s life is also fucked up. Being pretty, she’s highly marketable, which means that it just ends up a fast bidding war and she never has a chance to get to know a suitor and have their personalities click. Because it all comes down to breeding, her epilepsy is a nasty mark against her and she has to be married off fast so no one will find out. Because she’s both young and female, her parents think they know better than she does.

These are all real issues. They are all reasons to be upset with things. If, instead of the real issues, you just say “hey, her parents are telling her what to do so they must not see her as anything but a pawn” you sound stupid.

she will be married to Mr. Bumble by the week’s end. Hasty preparations have begun. Order will be restored. Pride upheld. Who cares about one girl’s lifelong happiness in the face of such important matters as maintaining appearances?

God knows I don’t. Her dreams of marrying Lancelot aren’t “lifelong happiness” material.

It occurs to me this all would work so much better if it was Pippa kissing the Gypsy boy. Giving her a legitimate love interest (ideally, showing they’re actually a healthy couple in the process) would make it tragic they’re getting split apart for Pippa to marry someone she doesn’t love.

I mean, for all we know, with the realms opened up again Pippa might be able to go there on her own. She can spend the rest of her life cheating on Bumble with her true love, Hot Imaginary Boy. She won’t even need to have sex with Bumble in the process, I’m sure a bit of magic can render him impotent.

Oddly, Pippa seems to have just given up. You know what would be convincing right now? An epileptic fit. Aside from the fact she seems desperate enough to fake one, if there’s anything at all that triggers her fits she should probably know about it by now, or, again, they have magic.

Mr. Bumble crinkles his mustache as if choosing a cigar. “I’m a reasonable man. But you should keep a much tighter rein on these girls. They shouldn’t be left to their own decisions. It’s not healthy.”

I know he’s supposed to be an asshole, but-

I close my eyes and imagine Mr. Bumble careening headfirst down the long staircase and snapping his neck before he can sip that port. The great irony is that we told him the truth.

And the greater irony is that he’s right. Gemma, we’ve been watching you idiots for nearly a book now and what exactly have you done to contradict him? You lie constantly about important things, you use magic for the stupidest shit imaginable, and Pippa’s “I wanna marry an imaginary knight” idiocy, I cannot overstate just how much I hate that. And that’s without getting into the epic clusterfuck of what happened in the past.

Pippa’s quivering lip gives way to a quiet, desperate wail. “Please, Mother! Please don’t make me marry him.”
Mrs. Cross’s mouth tightens into an ugly, flat line that lets the words escape in a hiss. “You are shaming this family.”

I think the better way of dealing with the problem that your sixteen year old isn’t able to behave when you try to marry her off is, you know, not marrying her off at sixteen, but come on, it’s Victorian times, parents expecting a teenager to not whine in front of their future husband about how much he sucks isn’t unreasonable, and it’s really not helping Pippa.

Mrs. Cross’s mouth has relaxed and there are actually tears pooling in her eyes. She cups Pippa’s chin tenderly. “I know you despise me now. But I promise, someday you will thank me. There’s an independence in marriage. Truly. If you’re clever, you can have whatever you want. Now, let’s see about a dress, shall we?”

Seriously she really seems to have a good point throughout this. Yeah it sucks that society at large is set up with this but it’s not her mom’s fault that’s how things are.

They head out and the three girls stay behind for Nightwing to yank out the diary from her desk. Uh, kind of random there. Apparently they searched Felicity’s room for it.

Gemma says it’s hers, and when she says she found it in the woods, Nightwing pounces.

“It seems a great many things have been going on in the woods. Pippa has confessed to me.”

For some reason Pippa “confessed” Moore gave them it. Before Gemma can deny it, Felicity agrees. I don’t get this, why can’t they just say they found it? Okay, “the woods” is a lame explanation considering that books don’t like getting left out to the elements and she can hardly say that it was in a special protected hollow that a ghost lead her to in a vision because another ghost ordered it, but finding it in the library or in a drawer or anywhere else inside the actual building isn’t.

“No. That’s not true,” I say, finding my voice at last.
“You said yourself that you got it at the library.” Felicity has a hard, desperate look in her eyes. “And Miss Moore did tell us that if we wanted to know more about the Order, we should go to the library.”

O…kay. That’s not the same thing, also why not just say you found it in the library? I’m assuming there’s some idea here that if they blame a specific adult they figure they’ll get into slightly less trouble for having it than if they did it all on their own, but that reasoning seems flimsy.

Gemma keeps protesting but the other girls are happy to throw Moore under the carriage.

“These are very serious charges against Miss Moore.” Mrs. Nightwing has already taken the idea and shaped it into exoneration for us, for Spence, and for herself. She needs someone to blame. She needs to believe anything but the truth—that we are capable of all of it, all on our own. And that we did it all right under her very nose.

The girls still read the thing and looked at the porn. I just don’t see what the big difference is between finding it by chance and getting handed it. Either way once they saw what was inside they kept reading.

“I know how impressionable young girls are. I was a girl once myself,” she says, though I can only see her behind the bars of what she is now. “I know how much girls wish to please and how powerful a teacher’s influence can be.

But that’s not exactly what the kids were saying. They said that she gave them the idea to look for it and told them about the occult, which certainly is damning to Moore but still isn’t much excusing themselves. They did not say “Moore told us to read this” let alone “Moore led us along the whole time”. And if that’s what the book means for them to say, god, why not just have them saying that?

So Nightwing says Moore will be kicked out, which may not even matter if she’s secretly Sarah there to mess with them, and then Brigid screams.

Brigid’s eyes are wild with fear. She drops the thing in her hand onto the floor as if it were a snake. It’s a Gypsy poppet, slightly burned, with a lock of hair wrapped tightly about its throat.
Circe.
“She’s come back,” Brigid whimpers. “Sweet Jesus, she’s come back!”

Oh, those low-class women, always with the screaming and the panicking and the hysteria.

Not even sure why this is happening. Sarah shouldn’t really care about Brigid after all this time, and it’s not like she only just came back to life now, if she did care nothing was stopping her from doing something all these years. She even seems to have had access to at least the people-eating part of the magic. This seems to just be happening because drama.