Last time on Gemma, the girls become pagans.

It’s interesting, actually, how little the girls seem to think of what they’re doing. Gemma’s not religious and was still freaked out by taking some wine, but praying to goddesses is fine. Even if we assume she’s shaky on the whole mono- half of monotheism, what’s the other girls’ excuse?

The next morning Gemma’s hungover.

Elizabeth takes in the rumpled sight of me and scowls. “Whatever is the matter with her?” she says, trying to cozy up to Felicity and Pippa again.

Okay, book. I’ve been pretty tolerant of the fact every single interaction between the characters boils down to jealousy and hate. I’ve been tolerant of the fact half the named characters have no purpose in life but to be jerks, and even the moments they’re being friendly toward Gemma is them deciding they’d rather taunt someone else and using her as a prop. When are we done with this?

Not now. The teacher is suspicious Gemma smells like alcohol but can’t prove it, and they start passing notes.

At the end of class the teacher tells Gemma to watch the “marmalade” because men like thin women, but we also learn apparently she’s engaged despite being old and fat (ie, not thin and twenty).

Interestingly, Gemma does feel bad about lying to her because she says the teacher’s a nice person. Honestly, all the people other than the wolf pack seem nice. It’s just for some reason Gemma is hanging out with the wolf pack.

Speaking of which, alpha alpha wolf leaves a note from beta alpha wolf in Gemma’s notebook showing that beta alpha wolf said she could have try on her new gloves but not to tell Gemma because Gemma’s hands are fat and would just mess them up. Gemma apparently finds this really hurtful.

Pippa’s fiance visits and everyone’s super impressed.

“Oh, wot a luv’ly match our Miss Pippa has made. Let this be a lesson to you—if you take to heart all that Mrs. Nightwing and the others—including yours truly—impart, you could be where Miss Pippa’s headed. To the altar in a rich man’s carriage.”
It seems the wrong time to mention that if Mrs. Nightwing and the others, including Brigid, were so knowledgeable they might be altar-bound themselves.

It’s not the wrong time, it’s just that you’re wrong and stupid.

A well-born girl who isn’t trained as an actual lady isn’t marriageable. A lower-born girl who’s trained isn’t either. It’s a combination of the circumstances you’re born into and your own ability to act like the perfect wife. The object of the school, as anyone of the time could tell you, is to teach you to behave perfectly so there’s as few limits on your potential marriages as possible.

Brigid, as the book is making clear with that ungodly phonic accent, is not even in the class of people where this matters. Someone like Mrs. Nightwing is someone like Ann, who learned all the lessons but lacked some other crucial factor that isn’t up to the girl. A poor, lower-class girl with good musical ability likely won’t marry but a wealthier or higher class girl who doesn’t have any training and can’t operate in proper society likely won’t marry either, unless they’re so wealthy their family can bribe a man well below their current station to take her off their hands.

This is why Gemma’s mother’s behavior only makes sense if we assume she’s a radical, and also if the family is wealthy enough that Gemma would never need to get married or could safely marry someone far lower on the social totem pole and still have a decent life. I know shipping the girls off to Australia where people had lower standards was an option, but it was also one where you were likely going to be spending a lot of time scrubbing the floors. I’m pretty sure India still had a similar level of standards, so the mom couldn’t just have expected to make a match in India.

Anyway, next chapter Pippa rants that she doesn’t love him and he brought her red carnations and do you know what that means she doesn’t want to marry him!!! She keeps insisting she’s only seventeen and it’s too young.

“Why is she in such a hurry to see you married?” Ann asks.
“She doesn’t want anyone to know . . .” Pippa stops, stricken.
“Doesn’t want anyone to know what?” I ask.
“What they’re getting before it’s too late.”

Interesting… Apparently Pippa’s family is wealthy, although they’re merchants.

Ann wants to know how you handle suitors and for once, this doesn’t just lead to snarls and bites from the alpha wolves about how like she’ll ever need to know. Pippa summarizes how to flirt and they joke around until Felicity says her mom’s going to marry her to the guy.

Pippa’s laugh dies. “You don’t really think so, do you?”
“No,” Felicity says quickly. “No, it was a bad joke, that’s all.”

Are we finally moving on from the endless nastiness?

Anyway, explaining why Pippa was willing to admit that bit about “not wanting anyone to know”, it turns out they’re at the next meeting of the Order. Gemma reads the next entry.

Felicity raises an eyebrow. “Sounds naughty. Mary and Sarah are probably Sapphists.”

The other girls don’t know what that means, so Felicity paints them a picture.

Pippa squints at Felicity as if she might read the meaning in her forehead, but slowly, a blush creeps up her neck into her cheeks and she’s gasping. “Oh, my heavens, you can’t honestly mean that . . . that they . . . like husband and wife . . . ?”

Yes yes author it’s all terribly edgy are you done yet.

Gemma goes back to reading and the diary mentions the Gypsy woman Gemma met on the way to school. They’re there for a fortune telling, but Mother Elena gets creeped out by whatever she’s seeing and just tells them they’re on a dark journey, then insists she’s got to get going on something really important, probably packing up and getting the hell out of Dodge.

Ann bumps her so she drops the diary, and in the process Gemma sees more of the scratches and figures out they’re self-inflicted. She goes back to reading the diary, at a different entry which, naturally, just happens to be super plot relevant too.

See, Sarah, the diary-writer’s best friend, is losing her power. (We also learn that people without power can still piggyback on those with it, so I assume Gemma’s going to end up letting everyone in the group into the realms.)

Eugenia saw my misery and bade me sit with her in her own room. She says it is often that way—a girl’s power flares, then fades. The power must be nurtured deep in the soul, else it’s nothing more than grasping. Oh, diary, she confided that Sarah’s power is such, fleeting and unanchored. She says that the realms make the decision about who shall rise in the Order and learn all the ancient mysteries and who must stay behind.

Something about this just rubs me the wrong way. Basically, it’s tolerable to have magic be some sort of innate thing that some people have and some don’t, but if you start tying it into the state of your soul it really does come off as saying some people are just worthier than others.

Mary is told that hey, who cares, her own power is the worthy kind, but she’s still upset about her friend and tells Sarah she’ll do anything to help out.

That’s great, says Sarash. See, I’ve been to the Winterlands and decided to make a deal with a demon :D

She explains that she’s not losing the power, it’s being stolen by the elders because they don’t want her to have it. Considering the whole evil spirit thing I can’t really blame them even if that’s true – I mean, yeah, you could argue that the reason she’s doing it is set off by losing her power, but she made the choice so fast that she was either already going to the Winterlands or it was her first stop when she was worried her magic was fading, instead of asking around and seeing if maybe this was a normal temporary thing.

Also, the spirit requires something to pull this off.

A small sacrifice, nothing more. A grass snake or a sparrow, perhaps. She will tell us.

This is a pretty good bit. Not only are we primed to think blood magic is probably bad, the whole “perhaps” and “she’ll tell us” bit leaves it open that it’s actually something much worse that’ll only be revealed once they’ve committed themselves.

Mary gives her usual overwrought bit about “oh diary” and how she’s not sure this is a good idea but she’s going along with it anyway.

All the girls really get out of this is what if the crazy Gypsy woman does fortune-telling should they get their fortunes told??? Felicity finds it dubious because the crazy Gypsy is crazy.

There’s a scene break and the next scene starts with Pippa saying “I have the most marvelous idea,” Pippa trills, and suddenly, I know we’re in for it. “Let’s see if we can make our own magic.” which seems like it should come right after what Felicity says so why is there a break? Is this supposed to be a different meeting of the Order?

Felicity may not have wanted to get her fortune told but talking to spirits makes her interested. Gemma protests weakly then gives in to peer pressure. Felicity asks the spirits to arrive, and then Pippa asks for Sappo spirits and Felicity tells her to knock it off. Ann asks them to come as well, and then despite Gemma claiming she thinks this is a terrible idea in the narration, she gives the most elaborate speech: I close my eyes and concentrate on Ann’s heavy, congested breathing, willing my mind to stay blank. “Sarah Rees-Toome and Mary Dowd. Wherever you are in this world, show yourselves. You are
welcome here.”

How does Gemma even know what to say? Even assuming regular Victorian girls have learned about seances, because I think I remember that this sort of thing was kind of popular at some point, it doesn’t seem like something her mother would have wanted her involved in.

Anyway the air goes sparkly and Gemma freaks, breaking the circle. The other girls say they felt something and Gemma insists that nope, nothing happened, she just freaked out because of all the nothing at all she just felt.

Felicity puts the tip of her hair in her mouth, moistens it with her tongue. “You didn’t feel anything at all?”
“Nothing.” I’m trying hard not to shake.
“Well,” she says, with a triumphant smile. “It would seem that the rest of us have a bit of magic in us. Pity about you, Gemma.”

But the other girls are dumb and fall for it.

Anyway, they decide they’re done for the day.

Miles above us, the moon has started to wane, the edges bitten off

Wait, edges as in more than one? That’s really not how moons work.

They complain about how hot it is? When is this taking place? It’s night and it seems to be getting dark early, and Gemma complained of the cold when they first took her out days ago and then during their daytime visit to the cave where they learned about the order it was even colder.

But that would get in the way of nubile young women unlacing each other’s corsets so they can skinny-dip in the lake, so it’s super hot.

They get in the water except for Ann, who says she’ll keep watch. Once the girls are chilling in the water, they hear something and Pippa rushes out to put on her clothes right as Kartik shows up, carrying a “makeshift cricket bat” for some inscrutable reason. She screams at him not to look at her.

Too astonished to argue, Kartik does, but not before I’ve seen the look in his eyes. Wonder and awe. As if he truly has seen a goddess made flesh. The visceral impact of her beauty is more powerful than any word or deed. The cloudiness of my mind clears long enough to record this.

Oh boy so we are doing the “women have power because boobies” thing.

“If this were ancient times, we would hunt you down and put out your eyes for what you’ve seen,” Felicity snarls from the lake.

Was that really included in Victorian education? They didn’t seem to know much about the goddesses except what Moore mentioned, and she didn’t say anything about things like that.

Her threats are unnecessary because Kartik is already leaving at top speed, but Felicity isn’t mollified and says that next time they’ll really do that.

Anyway, then it’s back in their room. Gemma asks why Ann’s cutting herself.

“I don’t know. Sometimes, I feel nothing, and I’m so afraid. Afraid I’ll stop feeling anything at all. I’ll just slip away inside myself.” There’s a cough and a sniffling sound. “I just need to feel something.”

Gemma tells her to stop doing that, and apparently that’s all that was needed? I’ll suspend judgment until we find out if Ann actually stops. Ann asks Gemma not to tell and Gemma agrees.

I feel like things are dragging a bit. Not exactly that this is filler, because the whole Order subplot seems to be progressing at a decent pace, but because all the pre-Order chapters seem pointless, so we’ve already blown a lot of space getting to this point. There just hasn’t been any payoff for all that. The story’s progressing as if she never talked to Kartik or had another vision. And because she did, the Order subplot seems pointless in its own way because we already know this is going to explode in their faces and we can guess too much of what’s going on in the diary – the shadow much be the same evil spirit kind of thing because it dragged someone into the Winterland, so it’s presumably the same one, so we already know the outcome is an evil spirit getting loose and dragging people there, and in turn the only real suspense with the current Order is “will the girls let another evil spirit out to get what they want and get pounced on, or will the existing evil spirit just pounce on them as soon as they do anything?” because we already have a pretty clear idea of how the thing functions. So the subplot’s build and development doesn’t work well, even when it’s being done fine on its own.