Juniper looks again at her sisters, and Beatrice knows from the jut of her jaw that she’s about to say the thing which they agreed she shouldn’t say, at least not on the first meeting, and that there’s nothing at all she can do about it.
She smiles benevolently down at the Russian woman. “By calling back the Lost Way of Avalon.”
The faces of the gathered women contort into two dozen separate species of shock: shocked outrage, shocked disbelief, shocked confusion, shocked hunger. Then the room erupts as the ones who know the story relate it to the ones who don’t, as a handful of women gather their skirts and scuttle for the exit with horrified expressions, as Miss Quinn laughs softly into the chaos.
Juniper arcs her voice high over the noise. “We don’t have all the ways and words yet, but we will soon.” Beatrice wonders how she manages to sound so sure, so confident, as if they are likely to find the map to an ancient power tucked in their skirt pockets. “In the meantime, we propose an exchange. Each of you knows a spell or two or three, maybe more. Share them with the Sisters, and together—”
The Russian interrupts again. “Spells to clean laundry and scour pots! Feh.”
“I know a spell that can kill a man stone dead,” says Juniper, softly. “Would you like to hear it?” The Russian doesn’t answer. “I bet some of these other ladies know more than they’ve said. And even small spells are worth something. You heard about those union boys in Chicago? Look what hell they raised with nothing but a little bit of rust.” Beatrice refrains from noting that they were men, and thus far less likely to be hunted, tried, and burned by a jury of their peers.
One of the other mill-girls, a kerchiefed woman about Agnes’s age, says, unexpectedly, “My cousin was there, with Debs and the Railway Union. He’s back home now, at least for a while. I could . . . talk to him, if you like.”
Someone else sneers, “Men’s magic. Wouldn’t do a damn thing for us.” Jennie fidgets in the front row, cornsilk hair sliding to cover her face.
Juniper addresses the sneerer. “And who told you that? What if your daddy or your preacher or your mama was dead wrong?” She nods to the kerchiefed girl. “You—Annie?—talk to your cousin. Why not?” She throws her gaze around the rest of the room. “Why not at least try? Join us. Learn from us, teach us, fight with us, for all that more you want.” She gestures behind her, to where Beatrice’s notebook lies open on the table. “Add your name to the list and swear the oath if you’re interested. If not”—her eyes slant to the door—“head on home. Forget you ever dreamed of anything better.”
In the silence that follows, the Russian woman climbs to her feet. A pair of girls stand with her, so broad-shouldered and blue-eyed they can only be her daughters. There’s a long moment when Beatrice is certain the three of them are headed for the door, that half the room will follow, unswayed by the shine of Juniper’s smile. That the Sisters of Avalon will fail before it even begins.
The big woman stalks to the table. She grips the pen in awkward fingers and signs her name on the page, right beneath the heading written in Jennie’s neat hand: THE SISTERS OF AVALON.
Then Juniper is grinning and many chairs are scraping, many women are climbing to their feet. They form a rough line leading to the table and the book, their eyes bright, their chins high, their voices stuttering over the words of the oath: Tell your tale and tell it true, cross my heart and hope to die, strike me down if I lie.
Only Miss Quinn and her companions remain sitting.
Beatrice threads her way across the room and perches beside them.
“An excellent showing, Misses Eastwood.” Quinn nods.
“Thank you. Won’t—will you join us?”
Quinn’s eyes meet hers very briefly, a yellow flick, and Beatrice can’t name the thing she sees in them. Regret? Guilt? “Oh, I think not.”
There’s a rustle beside her as the oldest of her companions climbs to her feet: a small, very brown woman wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a black-lace veil. There’s something familiar about her that Beatrice can’t place. “I’m afraid we are not interested in”—she makes a gesture at the chattering women, the packed room—“publicity.”
“What are you interested in, then?”
A flash of teeth behind the veil. “Power, Miss Eastwood.” She nods regally and her companions stand beside her. “Please do let us know if you find any.”
The woman adjusts a handbag on her elbow and Beatrice imagines for a spine-prickling second that she sees an animal peering out of it—a sleek, furred creature with ember eyes—but then the woman and her handbag are gone, leaving behind the faint, peppery scent of cloves. Quinn follows shortly after.
Beatrice watches them go, wondering precisely what goes on at meetings of the Colored League.
She stations herself beside Juniper and watches the list of names growing longer. Some of their mother’s-names are the usual sort, alliterative and botanical—Annie Asphodel Flynn, Florence Foxglove Pearl—but some of them are strange and foreign. Gertrude Red Bird Bonnin. Rose Chava Winslow. Frankie Ursa Black. She wants to ask what they mean and where they come from, wants to follow them back to the ways and words used by their mother’s mothers.
The Russian woman stumps over to Juniper and crosses her arms again. Beneath the permanent scowl of her face there’s a little of the same glow Beatrice sees in the rest of the room: hunger, or hope.
“Not many of us,” she observes gruffly.
Juniper claps her on the back, slightly too hard. “Oh, there will be, Yulia my friend. I got an idea.”
Beatrice looks up to meet Agnes’s eyes. She and Agnes are still wary with one another, careful as cats, but at this moment Beatrice is certain they are both wondering the same thing: whether there is anything in the world more sinister than their youngest sister in possession of an idea.
“About this idea of yours,” Bella begins.
It’s past midnight and No. 7 South Sybil is finally empty again. Agnes rolled out spare quilts for her sisters and told them gruffly that it was too late to walk halfway across the city. Juniper is curled on her side, tired enough not to care how hard and flat the floor is, hovering right at the bleary edge of sleep.
She produces an eloquent hnnngh in response.
“Is it a dangerous idea?”
“Nah.”
“If you were to estimate the size and scale of the riot the idea would provoke—the number of innocent bystanders it would put in St. Charity’s—”
Juniper hurls a pillow at Bella and is satisfied by her subsequent squawk. “I was thinking of a few demonstrations, is all. Nothing dangerous.” She thinks unwillingly of Electa lowering herself carefully into her seat, clutching her cracked rib. Of Jennie’s bruised jaw going from midnight blue to dawn yellow. Of her sister asking what comes after?
“Demonstrations of . . . witching?” Bella asks.
“No, of knitting. Yes, witching.” Juniper folds her arms behind her head, watching the play of shadows through the gap beneath the door. A pair of legs walking past, doubling back, pausing in the hall. “Something to show them what we can do.”
“Who is ‘them’?”