Phoenix and Ashes

But she couldn't help contrasting herself with her stepsisters, whenever they sailed out of the house in their modish tennis-dresses or flirty tea-gowns. Once, perhaps, she had been the equal of her stepsisters, and might have been able to pass herself off as belonging in Reggie's social set. Money was still not the equal of breeding in the eyes of some, but it was certainly approaching that equivalency—and to Reggie's generation, perhaps it had achieved equality. At least, so long as one had the right accent, the right education, the right manners and conversation, the right outward appearance.

Now—well, he might sit with her in a meadow and be amused by her conversation, but her hands were callused and rough with manual labor, her clothing was fit only for the lowest servants, and with those two handicaps, it didn't matter how fine her mind was. If he'd been penniless but blue-blooded, perhaps—but not while he was lord of Longacre Park. With that insurmountable social gulf between them, while he might amuse himself in private, he would never acknowledge the friendship in public.

And a friend who won't treat me the same, in public as in private, isn't worth having.

She tried not to feel eaten up with envy as the girls chattered about "dear Reggie" and tormented one another over which he had paid more attention to that day. But it would have been difficult enough to watch them swanning about with their airs and their chatter about going "up the hill." It was very difficult indeed to hear them boasting about "dear Reggie" this and "dear Reggie" that.

She took what grim solace she could in her study of Elemental Magic. The sooner she mastered that, the sooner she could free herself. And then—well, then she would worry about when she was freed.

She'd had no trouble getting to sleep; now that it was June, the days were getting longer, and longer days just meant that Alison found more work for her to do. And she was not at all surprised to find herself immediately in a dream.

The dream began now in a familiar pattern; Eleanor found herself as the Fool, resolutely turned away from the cliff-edge, and passed up the path to the Magician. The Tarot cards were providing the framework for the quest for Mastery; there was no doubt in her mind about that. But this time, the Magician was not Sarah, but a stranger. Still, she asked the right question, became the Magician, and prepared to pass on—

The Salmon of Wisdom did not appear in the cup now that she had the key to this card. She was able at this point to actually pick up the blade, the cup, the wand and the coin—and yet she sensed she was not able to use more than a fraction of the power in each, not even of her own Element. And she would not—she knew that now—until she had journeyed through all of the Major Arcana. But she needed to prove that she could handle the tools of the four Elements, so she picked each up in turn from the altar, sensed and identified the magical energies in each, then turned and walked up the path that appeared behind her. It led between two severely manicured flowerbeds, and she followed it until she came to a pavilion. She had been here before and knew who awaited her.

The High Priestess was an ageless woman, seated on a throne, holding a scroll in one hand. Crowned with all three phases of the moon, cloaked in blue, and poised between a black pillar and a white, she also represented Intelligence. The blue robe gave her Element away; it had been no challenge to figure out that it was Air. But not only did she represent Intelligence—more than that, she stood for Balance. The Priestess was all about balance, calm, emotional self-sufficiency. Nothing ever ruffled her feathers. She represented the mystic side of the mind in harmony with the physical side as well, and her negative aspect was to be without true emotion, sterile rather than celibate, to stagnate rather than be in balance, to be emotionally empty rather than controlled. Eleanor had been here before; it had taken some thinking to work out that she should ask "What is the key to Wisdom?" She asked that question now, and she accepted the scroll from the Priestess. As she had become the Magician, so she now became the Priestess, and this had provided her first real temptation. Because she didn't really want to go on to the next card. The Fool was full of questions, the Magician full of knowledge—but the Priestess was full of a calm, balanced, and ordered wisdom. If she had ever dreamed of being "like" anything when she attained her Mastery, it would have been to be like this.

And yet, that was a trap. She had a long, long way to go yet.

And that, too, was wisdom. She rose and descended the three shallow steps that led to her throne, and went back into the garden.