Eternal

by Gillian Shields

  I didn’t know what to think. “I suppose it could be a good omen,” I said cautiously. “Let’s hope it is. But why would Agnes’s study be sealed against us? Who—or what—is behind that?”

  Evie answered hurriedly. “What if it’s Agnes herself? Maybe this is her way of telling us that our time with the Mystic Way is finished. And if the mark on Helen’s arm is for protection, maybe Agnes is telling us there is nothing more we need to do.”

  “And what if the mark is hostile and it’s Mrs. Hartle or the coven stopping us going through the door?” I asked.

  Evie looked self-conscious and replied in a strained, artificial voice. “Of course,” she said, “there’s the possibility that the mark could be some kind of psychosomatic phenomenon—”

  “How sane and rational!” Helen’s pale eyes flashed with quiet anger. “Yes, it could be that. I could have imagined the whole thing. Everyone says I’m half-crazy anyway. Is that what you think too, Evie?”

  There was a silence. It was the nearest we had ever come to a quarrel. I had to sort it out, be the peacemaker.

  “Evie doesn’t think that, Helen. She’s just tired and upset. It’s all been so difficult for her, we have to remember that.”

  “I know—,” began Helen.

  “Do you? Do either of you really know what is feels like to be me?” Evie said with a sob in her voice. “I am so tired of hiding in the shadows, of dealing with death and sorrow and ancient wrongs and powers. Sebastian wanted me to move on, to live in the light, and that’s what I’m trying to do. I just don’t think I can cope with any more of this.”

  “Don’t you think I’ve had stuff to cope with too?” replied Helen wildly. “I’d been tormented by my mother long before you even came to Wyldcliffe, Evie. You and Sarah both take the fact that you have your families for granted. And you had Sebastian, if only for a short time. You were loved! No one . . . no one . . . has ever loved me.”

  Helen’s face was tight with pain, and she leaned against the wall in despair. I wanted so much to reach out to her, but she seemed to radiate a cold, invisible barrier. Evie was crying quietly, wrapped up in her own unhappiness.

  This couldn’t happen. We had to stay together. “Stop it, both of you,” I begged. “Please, we mustn’t fight. Evie, don’t let this happen!” She took a deep breath and scrubbed the tears from her eyes, then pulled herself together before making a stilted apology.

  “I’m sorry, Helen, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “We love you, Helen,” I added. I gave her a hug, but she didn’t respond. “And don’t you remember what Miss Scratton said? That one day you will meet someone who will love you—”

  “Beyond the confines of this world,” finished Helen in a shaky voice. “Yeah, I remember. But I don’t see how that can ever happen. Anyway, it doesn’t matter about me. Please forget what I said. The mark is my problem, not yours. And I do want you to be happy, Evie. I want you to find the peace you’re looking for, I really do.”

  The moment of anger was over. We were sisters again, but for how long?

  Chapter Seven

  Evie sighed. “It’s not just your problem, Helen. Sarah was right. We’re in this together. So what are we going to do?”

  Helen shook her head hopelessly. “I don’t know. I’ve run out of ideas. And I feel that I’m running out of time.”

  “Don’t worry,” Evie murmured. “Everything will be okay.” But I felt she was speaking with her lips, not from her heart. The bonds between the three of us suddenly seemed so fragile. We stood there, waiting silently in the dark, and it seemed that it was left to me to come up with some kind of plan.

  “We could walk away,” I said slowly, “and pretend none of it ever happened—Sebastian and Agnes and the coven. But there’s the mark on Helen’s arm. It appeared after her dream, or vision, about Mrs. Hartle, which can’t be a coincidence. And I’ve had—”

  I paused. For some reason I didn’t want to tell them about my dreams. They had been menacing, with their drums and grotesque images, but I couldn’t forget the look in those eyes. There had been someone looking at me, someone who knew me, right the way through. Someone who loved me, and I had longed for his kiss. . . . It was too personal, too private for even my dearest friends to know about.

  “Well, like I told you, I feel something is watching us,” I went on. “And now something is stopping us getting into Agnes’s study. Don’t forget that the Book is locked away in there. Why are we being prevented from getting hold of it?”

  “The Book,” said Helen, looking with up with interest. “There might be something in it about this mark on my arm. It might tell us more. I need to know what this thing is.”

  The Book of the Mystic Way, describing ancient secrets and spells, had been discovered by Sebastian. It had survived the years since then and was a priceless treasure. The other relic of the Mystic Way that had come down through the years was Evie’s Talisman, bequeathed to her by Agnes. The Talisman was a finely wrought charm of silver, with a glittering crystal at its center, and it was hanging safely on a chain around Evie’s neck. The Book, however, was hidden in Agnes’s old writing desk, on the other side of the sealed door.

  I glanced at my watch and shivered with cold. We had been up in the lightless attic for over an hour. Every minute that we spent out of our beds in the middle of the night was putting us at risk of being caught by one of the mistresses. If Miss Scratton found us breaking the school rules, I was sure she would understand and forgive us. But there were others—the plump, gushing geography mistress Miss Dalrymple, for instance—who were secret members of the coven and would love to discover our meeting place.

  “Look, we’d better not stay up here much longer,” I said. “Why doesn’t Helen try one last time to pass through the door and retrieve the Book? At least then we could see if it would tell us anything about the sign on her arm.”

  “All right,” said Helen.

  “And, Evie?” I asked. “Are you willing for Helen to make one more attempt?”

  “If we must,” she said. Then she shook herself and spoke more enthusiastically. “Yes, of course. Let’s try.”

  “We should make the Circle,” I said. “That will strengthen our efforts.”

  I bent down and drew a Circle in the dust on the floor. Standing up again, I whispered, “Lord of Creation, we draw this Circle, round and whole like your sacred earth. Let it protect us. Let it be a holy place, where we seek only truth.”

  We all stepped inside the Circle and held hands.

  “We are sisters of the Mystic Way,” said Helen. “We put our gifts in the service of the Light.”

  Together we began to chant the familiar words, “The air of our breath, the water of our veins, the earth of our bodies, the fire of our desires . . .” As the chanting quieted our minds, we went deep into ourselves, reaching out to the mysteries. Then Evie finished the incantation, saying, “Water . . . Fire . . . Earth . . . Air . . . we ask the mystic elements to work through us for the common good.”

  When the opening invocation was over, Helen closed her eyes and began to murmur secret words, swaying slightly from side to side. The air stirred in the stuffy attic, and Helen’s hair whipped around her face. She seemed to burn with silver light, until she was so bright I could hardly look at her. The next moment she vanished. Evie clutched my hand tightly and whispered, “Oh, Sarah, I hope she’ll be all right.”

  I strained to listen for any sound to indicate that Helen had made it to the other side of the door and was drawing back the bolts to let us in. There was nothing—just a dreadful, cold silence. All the things that could go wrong began to race through my head. I didn’t really know how this gift of Helen’s worked. We had simply accepted it when she had first revealed her ability to dissolve into the air and reappear somewhere else. It was just one more of the marvels we had stumbled across. But now I wondered anxiously what was happening. What if she got trapped in the in-between state? What if the spirit of Mrs. Hartle was a
ble to enter that hidden place and ensnare her? I stared down at the circle in the dust and repeated, “Protect her, protect her, protect her . . .”

  An eternity later, Helen crashed into us, coughing and gasping. There was blood on her face, streaming from a gash over her eye. “I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t find my way. Something was pushing me. . . .” We waited for her to get her breath. “I went into the tunnel of wind, as usual, but I couldn’t control it. I fell out at the other end, far up on the hills, near those huge stones on Blackdown Ridge.”

  “And you’re bleeding—”

  “Oh that, yes. I fell against one of the stones.”

  “But how did you end up on the Ridge?” asked Evie anxiously.

  “Someone sent me,” Helen replied, sounding dazed. “And then I was blasted back here.”

  “At least you came back safely,” I said.

  “Am I safe?” Helen’s yellow-green eyes looked strange in the dim light. “I heard something out there on the moor. It sounded like—I don’t know, voices, far away. And then—”

  “What?”

  “Someone calling my name.” Her head drooped. “Perhaps it was only in my mind. Crazy, like they say. I’m sorry. I can’t open the door.”

  “Has anyone got any other ideas?” I asked. “Evie?”

  “There’s one thing I could try.” She drew the Talisman from around her neck. It glinted in the torchlight, swinging on its silver chain. Lady Agnes had locked her powers and her love for Sebastian in its glittering heart. Evie held the necklace up and said, “Agnes, my sister and ancestor, I invoke your strength and wisdom. Help us now. If it is your will, open the door to us.”

  I knew somehow that nothing would happen. Perhaps Evie didn’t really want it to. Perhaps Lady Agnes really was no longer able or willing to help us. Or maybe this simply wasn’t the right moment. We have to wait for the signs and be ready for the way to be shown to us. There is a time for everything. I truly believe that.

  Evie lowered her arm and slowly let out her breath. “I’m sorry. I seem to have lost my way.”

  “But last term you did so much, with fire as well as water,” Helen said. “You were in control of the Talisman.”

  “Last term was different!” Evie’s anger flashed out; then she controlled herself, taking a deep breath. “Last term Sebastian was in Wyldcliffe. Just knowing that gave me strength. I’m sorry. I’m not ready for this.” She hid the Talisman away again. “Why don’t you try, Sarah?”

  I had no idea what I could do. My powers of earth were slow and deep; the movements of the seasons; the mysteries of plants and herbs; the way of animals; earth and bone and blood and clay; the innermost secrets of the heart. I walked up to the door and examined it. It was made of smooth wood, but here and there, knots and grooves showed in the grain. I tried to let the wood speak to me, to hear the sigh and sway of the living tree that it had come from.

  Let me pass, I thought, as I stretched my hands out and placed them on the door.

  It began to shake. A fine spray of dust began to spurt from the crack where the door fitted into its surround. The dust grew faster and thicker like a tiny avalanche, until it was pouring onto the floor in soft heaps. A tearing, splintering noise came from under my hands and at last I staggered back, falling against Evie and Helen.

  The surface of the wood had erupted into raw, fresh markings. They formed a pattern of letters that read:

  LISTEN TO THE DRUMS

  And below that, scored across the panels of the old door like an angry snake, there blazed the letter S.

  We stared in silence as the door of the hidden study swung open to reveal its treasures. An antique writing desk. Purple and scarlet drapes. Parchments and manuscripts and cobwebbed jars of spices and herbs. Carved boxes and leather trunks, stuffed with curious objects. All relics of Lady Agnes and her deep studies.

  Helen reached down cautiously and ran her fingers through the dust that had piled up on either side of the door. “Look,” she said. “It’s not dust. It’s earth, Sarah. It’s a sign. For you.”

  Chapter Eight

  MARIA MELVILLE’S WYLDCLIFFE JOURNAL

  APRIL 5, 1919

  Miss Scarsdale says that what I saw was a sign, from the past to the future. I don’t really understand what she means. I only know how I felt when the drums began.

  I can’t write about that, not yet.

  I am sitting up in bed in the infirmary, waiting for my ankle to heal. My other cuts and bruises are getting better, but it will be days, perhaps weeks, before I can walk or ride again. Miss Scarsdale has told Miss Feather-stone that she has given me books to study while I am an invalid, but really she wants me to carry on as I have begun, and write everything down that has happened to me since I arrived at Wyldcliffe.

  I will try. I will do my best. I am sorry if I cannot tell my tale well, but this is my story.

  Before I came to Wyldcliffe, Mother and Father protected me from every hurt, but they have always told me the truth, even when I was very young. Mother’s favorite line from the Gospel is “The truth will set you free,” and I have tried to live by that too. So when Daphne tried to shock me with her unkind gossip about my birth, what she said wasn’t actually a surprise. I have always known that Mother and Father, Katherine and William Melville, aren’t my blood parents. As far back as I can remember, I knew that my real mother had died when I was a baby. Her name was Adamina, like mine. It means “daughter of the earth,” and Adamina was a Gypsy. “One of the Roma, a proud and ancient people,” Mother always said when she talked of her. “Don’t ever forget that, Maria darling. Be proud of who you are.”

  And I am, I really am. Stupid, ignorant girls like Daphne and Winifred cannot destroy that pride.

  When Mother and Father first got married they wanted to have a big family and dreamed of having lots of children to live with them at Grensham. But no baby came along, and when Mother was nearly thirty the doctor told her she couldn’t have a child. She and Father tried not to be sad, and because they loved each other so much they were determined to make a happy, useful life together, even without children. So they looked after their land and the tenants on the estate. Mother ran a school, and Father built a village institute and started a health clinic, with a doctor for the local people. But still Mother said that they sometimes felt empty.

  It must have been hard for them, having so much, but not the one thing they truly wanted.

  Life at Grensham carried on as it always had, following the seasons of the earth and the church and the quiet country life. Father had always let the Gypsies camp on his land every year, which some of the neighboring landowners didn’t like. There was trouble sometimes, but Father said it was an ancient right and the old ways of the land had to be respected. The Gypsy people came at harvest time and helped to bring in the crops, and Father was grateful and paid them fairly. They loved Mother especially and one year did her the honor of giving her a beautiful embroidered Romany dress in return for the help she gave to the women and their children. But one year there was dreadful trouble. Adamina was the most beautiful of all the young Gypsy wives, and she was expecting a baby. Her husband, Stefan, was accused of stealing from a local farmer and was sent to prison by the magistrate. The shock and upset made the baby come early, and Adamina died after the birth, with the baby in her arms. That baby was me.

  I feel so sad when I think about her, my real mother, but my sadness seems far away in the past, like a beautiful piece of music that soothes as well as hurts.

  After Adamina died, Mother helped to look after me, and soon she loved me as if I were her own baby. The Gypsies did not know what to do with me, as I belonged to the whole tribe, and yet to no one, as my father Stefan was still in prison. He had not yet claimed me by tying a red lace around my neck, according to the custom. Father knew that Stefan would never steal, and he went to great lengths to clear his name and get him freed. When Stefan came out of prison, he was heartbroken over Adamina’s death and said he was going to
travel far away to forget his grief and never come back to Grensham. It was a place of death and ill omen for his people now. But out of gratitude for the kindness he had received there from Mother and Father, he gave them the red lace and told them to claim Adamina’s child as their own. It was what they both had dreamed of ever since they had first seen me.

  And so that’s how this “dirty Gypsy” came to be adopted by a rich English couple. They have loved me so dearly and given me everything, even this fine education at Wyldcliffe. They did not imagine that the young ladies here would bully and despise me and drive me to seek more dangerous companions. . . .

  I must rest now.

  After the first couple of weeks I stopped trying to make friends with the stuck-up madams at Wyldcliffe, but in my heart I desperately wanted someone to love. Instead of trying to persuade Daphne and Winifred to like me, I looked for friends in other places. One comfort was darling Cracker, a beautiful, sturdy hill pony that Father had given me to ride. I was so glad Cracker was here with me. Sometimes I crept to the stables and wrapped my arms around his neck and breathed in his strong, warm scent. That felt like a little bit of love in this bleak place. Though perhaps if I had not had Cracker with me, none of this would have happened.

  I was allowed to get up early and ride him down to the village and along the banks of the little river, as long as the groom came with me. On Sunday afternoons, a small group of girls who had brought horses from home were given permission to ride over the lower slopes of the moors with the grooms. These were precious hours of freedom. And on my fifteenth birthday, a few weeks after I had arrived, I had an even greater treat. Miss Scarsdale rode out with me on her beautiful white mare, and we took the path right over the moor that leads to the standing stones on the top of Blackdown Ridge. She said the stones were brought there hundreds and hundreds of years ago by people who worshipped them as part of their gods. The great stones were eerie, standing on the horizon all black and cold against the sky. Miss Scarsdale knows so much about geology and archaeology and history, and so many other things. She makes me realize how much I have to learn. I loved being out on the open moor and hearing the bleat of the lambs and the cries of the birds. I saw a curlew and a lapwing. We also rode past the entrance to some caves. Miss S. told me that they spread under the hills like a honeycomb.