“But all the things you said…Don’t do this,” I pleaded. “It doesn’t have to be like this. We can find a better way, like we planned. It’s not too late for you,” I added quietly. “Every soul is worthy of redemption, even to the very end, even yours. Stop this madness. Let me heal you.”
For one moment, she looked so very tired and old. Then she tried to laugh it off. “What nonsense you talk!”
“Mother, please—”
She gave a ghastly, haggard grin. “How touching to hear you call me that. I believe you really do care for me, poor fool. And that made everything so much easier for me. All I had to do was get your trust with a few scraps of half-truths and a little false humility. You should have shunned me like a foul disease, but you believed what you wanted to believe. You brought this on yourself. As we talked—what lovely talks we had, Helen!—I sensed that the Seal was waiting for you to call it. But I wanted it back, to conquer it this time. I will not serve the Seal—the Seal will serve me! It will belong to the Priestess! You all belong to the Priestess!” She raised her hand to strike.
“Run! Run!” I shouted. Kundar leaped forward and snatched up the Book, then disappeared down the tunnel we had come through, but the others seemed mesmerized and didn’t move. I flung myself in front of them. “I won’t let you touch my friends!”
“Really?” With one flick of her wrist a whiplash shot out and imprisoned Evie, Sarah, and the boys behind a wall of dark energy. They threw themselves wildly against it to escape, but they were trapped. I had to face the Priestess alone.
“I was ready to trust you,” I gasped, feeling sick with rage and disappointment. “I wanted to help you, I wanted to love you….”
“How noble and unselfish you are, Helen. But nothing good ever came of unselfishness and sacrifice,” the Priestess replied, as though trying to explain something to an obstinate child. “You see, you should have abandoned Laura to her doom and kept me shut in the rock for all eternity. You could have done that, couldn’t you? But no…you’re far too nice, far too heroic…far too stupid!”
“Yes, I was stupid,” I said bitterly. “So everything you said, it was all just lies?”
“As you see,” Mrs. Hartle replied ironically.
I bowed my head in despair. Every nightmare I’d ever had was coming true. “I was stupid to imagine that you could ever love me,” I whispered.
“Love, love, love—your love sickens me. I have something in my heart far more powerful than your pathetic love. I have hatred and revenge! I have hated you, Helen, from the moment you were born. Oh, I admit I felt some slight pangs of conscience over it. Once, long ago, I wanted to be a mother—and a good one. Once, I was like all of you, poisoned with this taint of love and hope and joy and all your fairy-tale ragbag of emotions. But that was before I was offered the Seal. After that, nothing could compare with the glory I had glimpsed and that was then cruelly snatched away from me.”
“It wasn’t snatched away! You gave up the Seal of your own free will! Besides, the Seal was never intended to give you glory—it would have bound you to a path of service—”
“An easy kind of service that brings with it everlasting life and infinite powers! I see now that I could have used the Seal to my own advantage, but I was like you. Too stupid—too human and frail—to see it at the time. I listened to fears and said no, and then it was too late. You cannot imagine the anguish of my regret. Nothing meant anything to me after that. I told you that after I had turned away from the Seal my inborn powers diminished, but that wasn’t true. I could still do everything that I had done before, but I was alone and directionless. I panicked. It was then that I met your poor weak father, but I soon tired of him and found other companions. He had given me one thing, though—a child. I had you. I thought that would distract me from my loss. My daughter! You!” Her face contorted with fury. “The moment you were born I felt it happening. My beautiful mystic powers left me and entered you, like my lifeblood draining away. You destroyed me! I had no choice after that but to crush your spirit so that I could one day regain what you had stolen from me, and have your powers—my powers!—under my control again. And that moment is coming. Very soon, oh so soon….”
She closed her eyes in ecstasy and began to speak in wild exultation. “Until then, the secret lore that I garnered in the long years of study at Wyldcliffe and the deathless energy of my dark master will sustain me. He knows that I am his loyal servant, and he will reward me. He is the Eternal King of the Unconquered lords, the greatest of all those who have escaped death and dwell in the Shadows, a mighty mind who wrenched life from its petty course and reinvented it in his own way. He will support me to the end. He has promised me that if I serve him well, I will not merely be his servant, but a great Mistress of Darkness, for all eternity. And these Keys of Power, which you were too stupid to understand fully, will be mine too, and add to my strength and glory!” She raised her arms high and gave a harsh cry. The Seal, the Talisman, and the Crown flew through the air to her and were encased in a globe of green light, which spun in the air above the Priestess’s head. “These mystic Keys will give me not only what you can offer me, Helen, but the powers of your lesser sisters—water, fire, and earth.”
“The Keys!” I groaned. “So it was simple…we had them all the time….” I reached up to the shining globe that held the Keys and tried to snatch them back, but I was blasted to the ground by a hail of jagged fire bolts. I was in pain, but hardly felt it as I wept in frustration. “Why didn’t we realize? Why didn’t I guess?”
“Oh, I can tell you why, dear, darling Helen. Because your thoughts should have been bent on increasing your powers. You should have been trying to destroy me, using these tokens to discover the furthest depths of your mystic abilities. But instead, as usual, you were sidetracked into your pitiful heroism. ‘Oh, I must save Laura—I must look after my friends—I must save my mother.’ You save me! Such ridiculous presumption! And you had something else on your mind, didn’t you, Helen? White roses and secret meetings and your heart beating quickly at the sight of a handsome face…your beautiful stranger…” My mother laughed wildly, and I saw Evie and Sarah glance at each other in astonishment. “You were so busy with your tiresome little love affair. I saw it all…. You had contacted my mind through the spirits of the air, and I wasn’t so easily shaken off as you thought. I saw everything, and I can tell you how it will end. You will abandon your pretty musician, and all your friends, and you will yield at last to me!”
“Never, never, never!” I cried. “I’d die first!”
“Then maybe this will concentrate your mind.” She raised her arms again and murmured a savage incantation, and the invisible wall that kept my friends back dissolved. They rushed over to me, but as Evie helped me to my feet, she looked up at Josh and screamed. Mrs. Hartle had lashed out at him with her whip of fire, and he was trapped in its agonizing coils.
He fell lifeless to the ground. With an insane cry of triumph the Priestess pulled her robes around her. Catching hold of the spinning globe that contained the Keys she vanished in a plume of black smoke. When the air cleared, we stood looking at one another, unable to speak. Josh and the Keys were gone.
I had done what I had set out to do. Oh, we had done something fine and noble, as the Priestess had said. We had freed Laura, but my mother had already struck back in revenge. She had taken the Keys, and she had captured Josh.
This was the triumph of all our plans. This was our great disaster.
Twenty-eight
FROM THE DIARY OF HELEN BLACK
OCTOBER 31, 5:00 A.M.
What have I done? How can we ever survive this disastrous loss?
Evie is in shock, cut to the heart for Josh. Sarah says that she saw his face as he fell and that the light had died in his eyes. But I don’t know if that woman (I will never call her my mother again) would actually allow him to escape into the arms of death. Wouldn’t she devise some barbaric torture for him instead? She loses Laura as her Bond
soul and so she takes Josh as her new slave—that would be more like her warped way of thinking.
Poor Josh, his only crime was to love Evie. He shouldn’t have come, I should have made him stay behind— Oh, I should I should I should have done everything differently!
Cal has sworn to scour every inch of the moor and caves to find Josh, dead or alive, but now that the Priestess is roaming free it’s not safe for him to be out on Wyldcliffe’s hills. What happened to Josh could happen again. But Cal was burning with impatience to do something for his friend and so he is gone, and the three of us are back in the school. Just the three of us, like it used to be. Agnes remains silent and hidden, and I can’t comfort my sisters. As we crept back to the dorms, I could hardly bear to look at Sarah and Evie.
I had to tell them that I had been in contact with my—with the Priestess. That I had been lulled into trusting her and had latched on unthinkingly to what she had said about the Eye of Time. That I had led them into a trap. How can I ever put this right?
Sarah asked me about Lynton. I told her there was nothing to say. That he was just a boy. A musician. A practical arrangement made by a teacher. That was all. Everything I felt and hoped doesn’t seem real now. Only the look in Evie’s eyes is real. Only the pain is real.
When we finally got back from the White Tor, we hid at first in the grotto, trying to hold ourselves together, numb with pain and shock. It seemed impossible that in a few short hours we would have to go back into the meaningless life of school.
Evie didn’t cry, or complain. “Now I know,” she said in a dry, strained whisper. “Now I know that I loved him. This agony—this is love, isn’t it? This is love.”
Yes. This was love, this torment for the beloved. I was hurting for my sisters, and for their loved ones, Josh and Cal. But I would never, never again shed one tear for my mother. I remembered so clearly what Miss Scratton had said: In some part of her sad heart she still loves you, which makes her hate and fear and anger even more terrible…. Her love has become corrupt. It fuels her hatred now. The Priestess will try to destroy you—all of you—the whole of Wyldcliffe, in order to tear the last trace of love from her soul….
Well, now she had torn the last trace of love that I had ever felt for her from mine. I didn’t know whether I would ever be able to forgive her, but I knew that I was alone, and my terrible loneliness would give me the strength to fight her to the very end.
Eventually we’d had to get ourselves back to the dorms in the early light of the new day. Evie lay hunched on her bed in dry-eyed silence while I wrote feverishly, hopelessly, in my diary trying to make sense of what had happened. Soon the bell rang to wake the school, and we had to get up and pretend that everything was normal. It seemed unbelievable that all around us life went on just the same. Lessons, meals, prayers, laughter; girls playing hockey, girls speaking French, girls talking and whispering and carrying their dreams around, aching for something different. I caught a glimpse of Velvet. She was boasting of the “ordeal” of her all-night detention, and saying that she expected her father to come and take her away soon. I hoped he would. I wished I could get all the students away from Wyldcliffe, now that the Priestess was back.
The day slipped by. Time doesn’t stop, not even for our griefs. By suppertime there had been no word from Cal, no news of Josh. Our torment of anxiety about them dragged on, but there was nothing we could do. At the end of the meal, before prayers, Miss Hetherington called the school to attention to remind everyone that there would be a rehearsal that evening for the Memorial Concert. I had forgotten all about it. Lynton would be there, I thought blankly, but why was that important to me now? I felt so old, and tired, weighed down with guilt and worry about everything I had done wrong. It was hard to imagine I had ever believed in his love.
Miss Hetherington told the students to assemble after supper in the chapel ruins, where the Memorial Procession was held every year. I didn’t care now whether I sang or not; I didn’t care about anything but finding Josh and getting the Keys back. And then we had to defeat the Priestess, forever, whatever it took. I would give anything, anything, to get her out of our lives.
Mr. Brooke was supposed to be in charge of the rehearsal, organizing the students and getting the musical instruments carried down to the chapel. But it was really him—Dr. Franzen—who was controlling everything. He was walking about like a prison guard, watching everyone, giving orders, making his presence felt. We all had to help carry chairs and stuff, and I was told to look after a little group of the youngest students who were getting ready to play a simple violin piece. As I was helping them, I overheard Mr. Brooke speak to Dr. Franzen.
“Er…excuse me, Master. I can’t help feeling—with all due respect—that this would all go much more smoothly if we were allowed to perform indoors—perhaps in the dining hall or even the ballroom. It’s cold and damp at this time of year—not good for the instruments or the girls’ voices. I must ask you to reconsider.”
“I’m surprised at you, Mr. Brooke, very surprised. I have already made my feelings known on this subject. You are fully aware that the memorial for Lady Agnes takes place each year in the chapel ruins. Those are the terms of her father’s will for whoever took possession of the Abbey after the last of the Templetons died, and we are legally—and morally—bound to abide by those terms. This is our tradition, and we should uphold it. A little cold air never hurt anyone.”
“But really—”
“Mr. Brooke, we are educating our young women to have discipline and courage, not to run indoors at the first sight of a frost. Besides, with the lights and the music and the drama, this event is going to be quite spectacular, I can promise you that. I am sure everyone will be delighted with the results. And we have plenty of time to—ah—polish all the details before the actual performance in December.”
“I still don’t—”
“It is essential that that the concert, and the rehearsal, take place in the chapel ruins. It would be quite meaningless without this magnificent setting. So what is the problem, Mr. Brooke? Not frightened of the challenge, are you?”
I saw Dr. Franzen’s hearty smile, but there was a subtle threat in his voice as he passed on, leaving Mr. Brooke looking even less impressive than usual, small and defeated.
Eventually the whole school, both students and staff, had gathered within the chapel’s derelict walls. The space where the altar once stood was reserved for the performers. The mistresses lined up behind it in a wide semicircle, muffled in their dark academic robes. The rest of us filled the space where the nuns used to gather for worship in the old days, shivering with cold under our winter uniforms. The youngest girls looked overawed by the dramatic spectacle of the torch-lit ruins, and as we began to sing the first hymn conducted by Mr. Brooke, I saw Lynton slip into place at the end of the row of teachers. He was carrying his flute, and he caught my eye and smiled. I tried to smile back, but I couldn’t. I felt that I could never smile again. This whole exercise was totally meaningless. Dr. Franzen didn’t care about Agnes’s memory, only for the pomp and parade of dragging everyone out in the freezing night and showing how Wyldcliffe clung to the old ways.
The next piece was a slow funeral requiem, sung by both students and staff, each holding a shaded candle that flickered in the wind. As the swelling sound echoed around the ruins and reached a gloomy crescendo, it seemed as though other voices were joining us, adding deep tones of wild despair to the music. I looked around, uneasy, sensing that something was wrong. Evie and Sarah followed my gaze. From the darkness beyond the chapel, hooded women were approaching, and as the breeze fluttered their cloaks we saw that their faces were skeletal and that their clothes were like tattered shrouds.
It was the Dead, summoned by the hidden power that was pulsing under the music. It was the Dead, coming to prey upon the living. It was the Dead, the very first Dark Sisters risen from their graves to torment the innocent once again.
“Stop!” I shouted at them. “Get back!” But
it was like telling the sea to stop crashing against the shore. Some of the girls turned to look at me, and as they did they caught sight of the hideous figures gathering around us and began to scream. Others laughed uncertainly, as though it was some kind of elaborate Halloween stunt. Miss Hetherington tried to call for order, but Dr. Franzen thundered, “Silence!”
Everyone stood still. The music trailed away, but an ominous drumbeat still echoed through the night. It grew louder and louder. Mr. Brooke cried out, “No! Run! All of you—run!”
There was a tremendous crash, and the green mound of the old altar split in two and erupted like a volcano. Everyone screamed and cowered, and after the debris and smoke and dust had settled, she was there—my destiny, my nemesis, my shame.
The Priestess had returned to Wyldcliffe Abbey, dark and haggard, but charged with renewed power. Miss Dalrymple stepped forward and led the wild cheering that came from the Dark Sisters, now openly supporting their leader. Miss Schofield was one of them, and the math teacher, Miss Houseman, and a handful of others, and they were joined by women I recognized from the kitchen staff, and the woman from the village post office, as well as strange faces I didn’t know. And all the time the ghastly walking dead, the Dark Sisters from Wyldcliffe’s past, came closer. They were the relics of the very first women that Sebastian had recruited to his coven in the time of his madness, and as they came to a halt, they formed a tight circle that trapped the terrified students and teachers in the ruins.
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