Eternal

by Gillian Shields

  “I have arranged for our rather meager stock of computers to be upgraded and new books to be ordered for the library,” Miss Scratton went on. “The unused rooms in the red corridor, beyond the library, have been converted into common rooms for students to use in the evenings. They have been equipped with radio and television, games and magazines. Of course, these new facilities must be used sensibly and only when all prep and study has been done. In addition, I am determined to open Wyldcliffe’s doors to the local community. For too long we have been regarded as exclusive and excluding, and this must change. I have arranged for a group of children from the village elementary school to come once a week to use our swimming pool and tennis courts. I hope this will be the beginning of many such schemes. There will also be a program of activities this term that will take us out of the school walls and into the wider world. This will culminate in a summer celebration. For the younger girls there will be a garden party and swimming races. For you older students I have arranged a dance at the boys’ school St. Martin’s Academy, which as you know is located some twenty miles away in the town of Wyldford Cross. If this event is a success, we will invite the gentlemen of St. Martin’s to a Christmas ball here at the Abbey. Ladies, we must let the light into Wyldcliffe.”

  There was absolute silence. Then enthusiastic applause and cheering broke out from the students. I felt pretty surprised myself. Wyldcliffe hadn’t changed for generations, but if anyone could drag it into the twenty-first century, it would be Miss Scratton. This dry, severe teacher was more than she seemed. She had helped us in our battle with the coven, and revealed herself as a visionary Guardian, who had been intertwined over the years with Wyldcliffe’s long history. Now she smiled and acknowledged the applause, then held up her hands for quiet. As she did so, someone entered the dining room. It was Velvet.

  She was wearing the regulation school uniform, but she managed to make it look incredibly sexy. Perhaps it was the fact that she had hitched up her skirt and loosened her collar, or perhaps it was the five-inch black spiked heels she was wearing, or perhaps it was simply the confidence with which she made her entrance—whatever it was, she looked stunning, and she knew it. Everyone fell silent and stared, except Helen, who gave a tiny gasp of breath and clutched her arm as though she had been stung. I turned and gave her a questioning look, but she shook her head warningly as Miss Scratton spoke again.

  “Good evening, Velvet,” she said. “As I have not yet said grace, you are not officially late, but try to be a little less tardy in the future. Please take your place next to Celeste van Pallandt.” She indicated an empty place next to Celeste, who didn’t look very thrilled to have Velvet as a neighbor. Celeste was used to queening it over the rest of us as one of Wyldcliffe’s most glamorous students, and it looked as though she had finally been upstaged. My heart sank. Girls competing about looks and clothes and money—I hated all that. I wished I could be out riding, galloping over the moors with the wind in my hair and hoofbeats echoing in my heart. Then my head was filled with the sound of insistent, tormenting drumming that almost made me cry aloud. I saw the dull red light of the torches, I smelled the acrid smoke, I felt a blade against my throat and saw the eyes hovering over me turn savage—

  I gripped the back of my chair and forced myself to wipe the images from my mind. Helen was plucking at my sleeve.

  “Can you both meet me tonight?” she whispered. “In the usual place? We can’t talk here. I wasn’t going to tell you, but—there’s something . . . well, I just need you.”

  “Of course,” I whispered back. “Evie?”

  She hesitated for a fraction of a second, then nodded. Miss Clarke, the untidy, harassed-looking Latin teacher, frowned in our direction, and we had to be attentive again.

  “And now let us say grace and give thanks for the good things put before us,” Miss Scratton was saying. “Benedic, Domine, nos et dona tua . . .”

  As the students joined in with the archaic words, I secretly made a prayer of my own. “Please watch over my sisters, Great Creator, and don’t let the shadows of Wyldcliffe touch them.” Miss Scratton had spoken about letting in the light, but as I looked up through the row of long windows I saw that the bright spring day was over. Night, and darkness, brooded over the Abbey once more.

  Chapter Five

  MARIA MELVILLE’S WYLDCLIFFE JOURNAL

  APRIL 3, 1919

  There is a terrible darkness here in Wyldcliffe, and I am frightened, really frightened, for the first time in my life. Miss Scarsdale has asked me to write everything down while I am laid up with my broken ankle. She has given me this book for the purpose and says that when I have finished, the nightmares will stop. Thank heavens for Miss Scarsdale. Without her, I think I would have gone crazy.

  It is hard to know where to begin, but I must do my best.

  My name is Maria Adamina Melville, and I am fifteen years old. I am a pupil at Wyldcliffe Abbey School. At first I was excited to come here, although I was sad to leave my home, Grensham Court. Grensham is the nicest house in the whole of Kent, or at least I think so, and Mother and Father are the best parents in the world. I am truly grateful for them and everything they have taught me. For as long as I can remember they have been my dearest friends and companions. I miss them so much.

  It is best not to think about home. Father wanted me to come here, and so I have to be brave like a soldier. Peter Charney in our village did not come back from the Great War, and he was only seventeen. I must be brave like he was. Mother also said it would be good for me to come to school and make friends of my own age. Instead of doing lessons with dear old Miss Frenchman, my governess, I would be taught by some of the finest women teachers in the country, and perhaps even go on to study at university. Mother said that the world has changed now, after this dreadful war, and that women can do all sorts of things, not just wait for a husband. We are even allowed to vote now, thanks to Mrs. Pankhurst and her brave supporters. Wyldcliffe is the best girls’ school in all England. Here I can learn mathematics and Latin and science, just like a boy. But I cannot make any friends. That is what Mother did not know.

  On that first day when Mother brought me here, the High Mistress, Miss Featherstone, showed us around the school. Miss F. was all smiles and bows and nods, but I didn’t like her. She didn’t smile with her eyes, only her lips. Miss Featherstone made a big fuss of Mother because she and Father are rich, but it seemed to me that the High Mistress was secretly angry about something. Daphne Pettwood and her cronies told me later what that was.

  “You’re only here because your parents paid the school to take you,” Daphne sneered.

  “But we all have to pay fees to come to boarding school, don’t we?” I didn’t understand what she meant.

  Daphne laughed. “Yes, but your parents had to pay an awful lot more. Five thousand pounds is what I heard they had to give to make Miss Featherstone agree to have you. She didn’t want you here.”

  I felt dizzy. Even to rich people, five thousand pounds is a fortune. “Don’t be silly, Daphne. That can’t be true.”

  “I heard ten thousand,” said her friend Florence Darby.

  “I heard twenty,” added Winifred Hoxton spitefully.

  “Stop it! What do you mean?”

  Daphne pushed her face close to mine. She was almost shaking with rage and excitement. “Your parents had to give money to the school—a big fat donation—just so that you would be allowed to come. Wyldcliffe doesn’t usually accept people like you.”

  “People like what?” Now my voice was shaking too.

  “Gypsies. That’s all you are—a dirty Gypsy.”

  “Dirty Gypsy!”

  “Thieving Gypsy!”

  “You don’t belong at Wyldcliffe, and you never will,” Daphne whispered savagely. “Really, I don’t know why your parents bothered to spend their money on you. My mother told me all about it. She told me that they’re not even your real parents. I don’t know why they don’t send you back to the disgusting Gypsy
camp where they found you.”

  “Send you back, send you back!” Winifred and Florence mocked, pushing and jostling me. They shrieked with laughter at my distress, congratulating Daphne for putting me in my place, and at last they all flounced away. And they were supposed to be intelligent young women—the cream of polite society! I was trembling with shock and rage and injustice. I didn’t want to cry, but I couldn’t help it. That’s when Miss Scarsdale found me and told me to take no notice of such ignorance and petty-mindedness. If it hadn’t been for her, I would have run away right then. I wanted to run and never stop until I found my way home to Grensham.

  My bruised wrist aches from writing this, but the weight in my heart is far worse. I wish I could forget everything that I have seen in the wild hills of this strange place, but when I close my eyes I see it all again. I feel as though I am still in the dark, and the monsters are reaching out to destroy me.

  Chapter Six

  When I opened my eyes, it was dark. I had slept dreamlessly for a couple of hours, and now the miniature alarm clock I kept under my pillow had woken me. The numbers on its tiny face glowed luminous green, and I saw that it was just before midnight. I sat up cautiously. Velvet, who had sighed and complained and flopped around on her narrow bed for ages before finally falling asleep, was lying on her back with her arm flung up over her pillow. A thin gleam of moonlight passed over the window, and I saw that she looked younger and prettier without her makeup, as if she were dreaming innocently. She sighed and turned over as I got out of bed, but she didn’t wake up. I was safe. Ruby was deeply asleep as usual, snoring slightly. I put on my robe and crept out of the room, carefully feeling my way.

  I knew exactly where I was heading. There was a hidden staircase in the corridor outside Evie and Helen’s dorm, concealed by a curtained door. It led up to the abandoned attic on the third floor, and down to the disused servants’ quarters and old kitchens way below us. Evie had used these secret stairs many times to sneak out and meet Sebastian at night, and lately we had discovered Agnes’s private study in the old attic. That was our special meeting place. I reached the curtained alcove, quietly opened the door, stepped through, and shut it behind me. The air was stale and musty in this closed-up wing of the old building, but I didn’t care. I began to climb the narrow stairs. A faint light wavered ahead, and I guessed that the others were already there.

  “It’s me—Sarah,” I called softly, and soon I had reached the dusty wooden landing that led to a warren of attic rooms. Helen and Evie were standing outside the door of one of them. Behind that door was a rich store of potions and ingredients, books and learning, which had been used by Agnes in her work of healing and her study of the Mystic Way.

  “What’s the matter?” I whispered. “Why haven’t you opened the door?”

  Helen turned to me, looking sickly pale in the harsh rays of Evie’s flashlight. “We can’t open it. We’ve already tried. It’s locked from the inside, like it was when we first discovered it.”

  “Can’t you pass through the door, Helen?” I asked in surprise. Locks and bolts were usually no barrier to Helen, our sister of air, who could travel distances by the power of her thought. Dancing on the wind, she called it. She had first opened Lady Agnes’s study for us by vanishing like a silver mist in front of our eyes and stepping invisibly through the air to the other side of the door, where she had unfastened the inner bolts.

  “No, I’ve tried twice,” Helen replied. “Both times I get turned back. Some stronger force stops me getting through. That’s never happened before.”

  “What do you think it is?” I asked. “Could it be the coven?”

  “But the coven was broken and scattered the night that Mrs. Hartle died,” said Evie. “Isn’t everything safe now that Miss Scratton is in charge? It’s like I said before—perhaps we don’t really need our powers now. Perhaps it’s all over for us.”

  I recognized the hope in her voice, and the fear in her eyes. Poor Evie, she had already been through so much. It was as though one minute she could convince herself that she was strong, and the next she simply wanted to run from the past. If at that moment I could have made everything how she wanted it to be, I would have done it. I would even have made it so that she could enjoy the warmth of Josh’s smile and the comfort of his arms.

  “I can’t believe it’s going to be so simple, Evie,” I said gently. “Don’t you think that the coven will band together again? Those women hate us. Why would they just leave us alone? And Mrs. Hartle’s body might be dead, but her spirit isn’t. We saw her go with her Unconquered master into the shadows.”

  “Yes, but we don’t know that she can enter this world again,” Evie replied. “Anyway, it was Sebastian’s powers that she wanted, and now Sebastian is . . .” She stopped, then began again with an effort. “Sebastian has gone. He’s at peace. Surely the coven has no reason to pursue us anymore?”

  “Then why do I have this feeling that we are still being watched?” I asked.

  Evie shuddered. “I hope that you’re wrong, Sarah. I really do.”

  “I don’t think she is,” said Helen in a low voice. “Something, or someone, is trying to reach us. Trying to reach me, at least. I didn’t want to tell you, Evie. I wanted this term to be a new start. You deserve that, after everything that happened. But Sarah’s right. It’s not over yet.”

  “Why not?” Evie asked, looking scared. “What’s going on?”

  “I need to show you something.” Helen fumbled with the sleeve of her nightgown and rolled up the material to expose her slim white arm. There was a mark on her skin, a circle with a pattern across it shaped like a bird, or a pair of wings. Or even, perhaps, the crossed blades of two sharp daggers. “Look,” she said. “It won’t wash off. The mark is burned into my skin, like some kind of tattoo.”

  “How on earth did that happen?” I gasped.

  Helen covered her arm again. “It first appeared in the holidays.” She stared ahead, remembering. “I was staying with Tony—my father—and I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling confused. I was sleeping in the spare room in their apartment in London, of course, but at first I didn’t recognize it. I thought I was back in the children’s home and that I was locked in as a punishment, like I had been so many times. I needed to feel the air on my face, so I got out of bed and opened the window. There were bars on the window—the apartment was high up and Rachel had told me they were to protect the children, but I forgot all about that now. I thought I was in some kind of prison, and I just had to get out. I placed my hand on the bars and imagined them moving and dissolving and—well—they did. But perhaps it was only a dream.” She pushed her fair hair out of her eyes and frowned.

  “Anyway, I managed to squeeze through the bars until I was standing outside on the window ledge. It was a long way down to the ground. In my mind I was back in the children’s home and had crept up onto the roof, and I was looking down, wanting to stop hurting—to stop existing even—daring myself to jump. And then I saw my mother standing below me. She looked like a bright angel. I wanted to throw myself into her arms and be wrapped up in her love. I wanted that so badly.”

  “Oh, Helen—”

  She waved away my sympathy and carried on. “But that image was broken up like interference on an old TV set. Everything changed. I was seeing another scene. It seemed far away. My mother was young and pretty like she had been in those photos of my dad’s. But she was holding a baby and crying. She was crying about me. I saw her taking me to the home with just a few little dresses and keepsakes. One of them was a small gold brooch, which she pinned to my shawl. Then she left. After that I saw someone come in—I’m not sure who, a nurse maybe, I couldn’t see her face properly. Anyway, this nurse came in and picked me up. She saw the brooch and unfastened it and put it in her pocket.” Helen looked up hesitantly. “That brooch was the same shape as the mark on my arm.”

  “Go on,” I said. “What happened next?”

  “There was more interference
and flashing lights. I was back standing on the ledge with the road spread out below. My mother was waiting for me. ‘Come to me, Helen,’ she was saying. ‘All you have to do is jump. I’ll catch you.’ She was smiling, but when I looked again, her face changed to a . . . to a horrible mask . . . like a shrunken white skull. ‘Come to me, come to me, my daughter,’ she said, again and again. ‘No, never, never,’ I screamed, and there was this terrible noise. It was drums beating wildly, on and on, as though the sound itself could destroy me.”

  “Drums?” I whispered. “But I—”

  “That was only a dream, Helen,” said Evie. “You mustn’t let it get to you.”

  “Yes, but when I woke up a pain was burning in my arm. And this mark has been there ever since.” She touched her arm again, rubbing the place where the mark was hidden by her nightshirt. “It had stopped hurting, but the pain started again when Miss Scratton was speaking before supper. That’s why I decided I had to tell you.”

  Dreams. Faces like masks. The sound of drums. It was the same as I had seen and heard. For a moment I couldn’t speak. “So what—what do you think the mark means?” I stammered. “What do you think is happening?”

  “I think my mother is trying to contact me from the shadows and drag me into her world,” Helen replied. “She won’t let me alone until I am her creature. That night last term, out on the moors, she said I would acknowledge her as both mother and High Mistress before she was through.”

  “But she’s not the High Mistress anymore,” argued Evie. “She’s dead. She’s gone, Helen. Wasn’t all that stuff about seeing her just a bad dream?”

  “So how do you explain the mark?” asked Helen.

  “Well, I guess it could be a good sign,” Evie suggested. “A protection of some kind.” Helen looked unconvinced, and Evie turned to me pleadingly. “What do you think, Sarah?”