Eternal

by Gillian Shields

  “Sebastian! Sebastian—oh it is, it is you!”

  He bent down from his horse and gathered Evie in his arms, and for a moment they clung together. Then Sebastian pulled her onto the horse’s back. It reared up and shrieked, and Sebastian’s hood fell from his face. He no longer looked like a beautiful boy. This was not Sebastian Fairfax, neither in life nor in death. A ghastly, skeletal figure held Evie cruelly as she writhed in its grasp, trying to escape, but it was too late. The horse plunged and whinnied and galloped away over the slope that led to the moors.

  “Evie, Evie!” I shouted as I ran after them, but they had already vanished.

  One by one, they had been taken: Helen, Miss Scratton, and now, dearest of all to me, Evie. What were they going to do to her? Where was she being taken? The image of Evie floating in the water came back and overwhelmed me with horror. I was alone. We had been divided and crushed by the Priestess and her plots, and there was nothing I could do. I sank to the ground and cried like a lost child.

  Then a voice in my head spoke. A promise cannot be broken except with a curse. I had made a promise to cherish and care for my sisters, through good and bad, hope and despair, whatever happened. I was the only one left. S for Sarah. This was my time. I had to use it.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  For once, I decided that I would try to trust the school authorities. Perhaps just this one time, if I told someone that I had seen Evie being abducted, the teachers in charge of our lives would behave as they were supposed to and call the police. I wasn’t quite sure what the police could do, but it had to be worth trying.

  I went straight to the High Mistress’s study and knocked loudly, hoping that someone I could even half believe in, like Miss Hetherington or Miss Clarke, would be there. But there was no answer. I tried the handle, and the door was locked. Undeterred, I strode away and headed up the marble stairs to the mistresses’ common room on the second floor. Classes had finished for the day and girls were pouring down the staircase, going to music and art clubs or on their way to the library to do prep. It was as though they all lived on the other side of a glass wall to me. My Wyldcliffe wasn’t the same as theirs. Only Velvet and Sophie and Laura had unwittingly brushed against my world, and as I threaded through the chattering students, I wondered how long it would be before all the Wyldcliffe girls came under the shadow of the Priestess. Why would she stop at hurting the three of us? Why not destroy all that was young and good and hopeful?

  I reached the door of the staff common room and was just about to knock when it opened. To my relief it was Miss Hetherington.

  “Oh, please, Miss Hetherington, I wanted to see you about Evie.”

  “So you’ve heard already, have you?”

  “Heard?”

  “I’m afraid Evie’s father has been taken ill whilst he was on leave in London. She’s had to catch a train to go and see him straightaway. It’s a long journey, but she’ll get there later tonight, and I’m sure it will be a comfort to them both to be together.”

  “She’s gone to London?” Miss Hetherington looked so sincere, but was she bluffing? “Are you sure?”

  “Of course. Miss Dalrymple took the call from London and arranged everything for Evie.”

  I bet she did, I thought grimly. So that was the way the coven was playing this. Miss Dalrymple and the rest of them must be obeying the Priestess’s orders. They had obviously planted this story about Evie having to dash to London to cover up her absence.

  “Are you all right, Sarah? You look rather pale.”

  “No, I’m fine,” I answered. Miss Hetherington might simply be an innocent messenger, but she might equally be one of them. There was only one teacher in this place that I could really trust, and that was Miss Scratton. She was the person I needed right now. Trying to make a connection with Maria, as Evie and I had planned, would have to wait. But our High Mistress was still in the hospital at Wyldford Cross. I backed away from the door of the staff room, trying to look unconcerned.

  “Oh well, I guess Evie will be back soon enough,” I said. “Thank you. I’d better go and do my prep.”

  I headed down the marble staircase and walked to the library, but I didn’t go in. I carried on walking until I reached the windowless red corridor. Its crimson walls looked almost black in the lamplight. I opened the door of our common room. Thankfully no one was there, so I went straight over to the corner where a new telephone had been installed. You were supposed to write your name in a book with the date and length of your call, but I didn’t bother. I flipped through the telephone directory until I found the number of the hospital.

  “Hello? Hello? Can I please speak to Miss Scratton?” I asked the receptionist, speaking as quietly as I could.

  “Miss who?” said the woman at the other end.

  “Scratton,” I repeated. “She was admitted on Sunday afternoon. She’s one of the teachers at Wyldcliffe Abbey.”

  “Do you know which ward she is in, dear?”

  “No, I’m sorry—but she had head injuries. She’d been in a road accident. Is she okay? Is it possible to speak to her?”

  “What did you say her first name was?”

  “I didn’t—I don’t know—”

  “Well, I can’t seem to find her on the patient list.”

  “But you must!” I begged. “It’s really urgent.”

  “Just wait a moment, I’ll go and inquire. I’m putting you on hold.”

  Her voice snapped off, and some irritating music played in my ear. I waited nervously, expecting Miss Dalrymple to come in and snatch the phone from me at any moment, and I cursed Wyldcliffe’s long-held rule forbidding cell phones.

  “Come on, come on,” I groaned under my breath; then the music stopped and the woman spoke again.

  “Are you still there, dear? I’ve just spoken to the manager, and he’s confirmed that we don’t have a patient called Miss Scratton.”

  “You mean she’s been discharged?” I said hopefully.

  “No, dear. She couldn’t have been discharged, as she was never here.”

  “Never there?”

  “That’s what I said. Sorry to disappoint you. Good night.”

  The phone went dead.

  For a moment I stood there, blinking stupidly at the phone. Then I slammed it down and ran out, my mind buzzing with questions. Where was Miss Scratton? What did it mean, she had never been in the hospital? She must have been there after the road accident. But if she wasn’t in the hospital, why hadn’t she come back to Wyldcliffe to help us? I had to find some answers somewhere.

  I raced down the corridor, opening classroom doors, looking for someone, anyone, but the school seemed deserted. One of the doors I opened was to a small music room. Mr. Brooke was giving a piano lesson to a golden-haired eleven-year-old with an earnest expression and heavy glasses. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I mumbled. I turned and fled until I reached the library, then tried to smooth my uniform and pull myself together before going in. A group of eighteen-year-olds was sitting at a table, deep in study.

  “Excuse me. I’m sorry to bother you,” I said, “but can I just ask you something?”

  One of the girls looked up, mildly surprised. It was one of Wyldcliffe’s traditions that you didn’t speak to older girls unless spoken to, but I knew Catherine Hedley slightly from home, as we had both ridden in the same summer polo matches. “Catherine, you went to over St. Martin’s with Miss Scratton, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did, worse luck.” She waved her wrist at me. It was bandaged heavily. “I can’t ride for at least two weeks after the crash. But I’m lucky it was nothing more serious, I suppose. Why do you want to know?”

  “Um . . . it’s just that Miss Scratton was our form teacher, and some of us were wondering about . . . um . . . clubbing together to get her some flowers. Do you know what ward she was in? Did you see her being taken to the hospital? How was she? Was she very badly hurt?”

  “I don’t really know,” said Catherine. “I can’t remember muc
h about what happened. We’d had a great time at St. Martin’s, and when we were driving back everything seemed fine. Then I remember seeing a huge deer leap out in front of the minibus. The next thing I knew I was waking up with a pain in my wrist and the minibus wrapped round a tree.”

  “So where was Miss Scratton?”

  “Miss Dalrymple said she’d already been taken to the hospital. Miss Scratton had been sitting at the front and was hurt worse than the rest of us. It’s a nice idea to send flowers. I’m sure she’ll be better soon, though.”

  “Miss Dalrymple was there?” I asked.

  “Yes, she organized getting us all back to school.”

  “Oh, yeah—of course. Well, thanks.”

  I turned away and left them to their books. It seemed that Miss Dalrymple had a finger in every pie.

  There were two possibilities. Either Miss Scratton, like Evie, had been spirited away by the Priestess and her followers against her will, or she was in league with Celia Hartle and had abandoned us just when we needed help.

  The second suggestion was impossible. I believed in Miss Scratton. I always would. Besides, Miss Scratton had known something like this would happen to her and had tried to warn us about it. “I will not be allowed to stay long,” she had said. And so she had tried to protect us with the spell we had made in the ruins, not foreseeing that Velvet’s blundering would undo it. Miss Scratton had done everything she could, but now she was gone. There was no wise guardian to help me. But I wasn’t the only one left. How could I have forgotten that I had one remaining sister who might be able to tell me what to do? I had Agnes, and I still had the Talisman. Somehow, I had to use it to reach her.

  That night I crept out of the school one more time, tracing Evie’s footsteps down the secret steps to the old servants’ quarters and out to the stables. I was shivering under my jacket, and I told myself it was simply because I was cold. I was doing this for Evie, and for Helen, and I couldn’t be afraid. When I had gone back to the infirmary before the lights-out bell, the nurse had told me that Helen had improved slightly and had just fallen asleep. “I’m not going to let you disturb her now,” she had said with a smile. “She’ll be right as rain in the morning.”

  I clung to that hope, and a hundred others. That Agnes would respond to my call. That I would find Evie. That no harm would come to me alone at night, with the Priestess roaming the land. Besides, I had the Talisman with me. I told myself again and again that it would protect me from the Priestess, but as I crept down the tree-lined drive to the school gates, I couldn’t help feeling naked under the stars, as though Mrs. Hartle’s spirit was watching my movements like a spider waiting for its prey.

  When I reached the locked gates, two figures were waiting for me in the shadows of the lane.

  “Cal?”

  He threw a rope over the wall. I scrambled up and dropped down lightly to the other side, where he and Josh were waiting for me. Cal hugged me briefly and Josh nodded, grim-faced, his golden smile wiped away by the terrible loss of Evie.

  “We’ll find her, Josh, I promise,” I said, moved by his pain. I had been worrying about Evie as my friend, my sister, my responsibility; for an instant I saw through his eyes, and felt his anguish. He had loved Evie all this time, and yet they hadn’t even kissed; he had her friendship and gratitude, but nothing more. And now he might never see her again.

  “We’ve got to find her,” he replied, in a strained, broken voice. “We’ve just got to.”

  The three of us set off in the direction of the village. There was a thin frost underfoot; one of those sudden returns to winter that often happened in Wyldcliffe’s northern valley.

  The church tower looked pale and ghostly against the sky. Ancient black yew trees stood at the entrance to the graveyard like sentinels. Cal took my hand. “The spirits of the dead lie here,” he murmured. “Tread carefully.”

  “We aren’t doing anything wrong,” I replied. “We seek Agnes in the light where she lives in peace, not in the shadows.”

  He didn’t reply but held my hand more tightly.

  I led the way to the old-fashioned stone tomb, surmounted by the angel statue. We gathered around it in silence. The statue looked down on us with worn stone eyes.

  When I had tried to call on Agnes once before, after my quarrel with Evie, nothing had happened. Agnes hadn’t responded to me. But here at her tomb, this place of power and protection, some special gift might be granted by my sister of fire. I set a circle of white candles around her grave, their little flames flickering bravely in the night air. Then I sprinkled herbs and flower petals and anointed the place with water sweetened with subtle oils. The boys shifted behind me uneasily, looking around for any sign of danger.

  “Great Creator,” I said. “I stand here, innocent of any crime. I pray for my sisters Helen and Evie and our Guardian, Miss Scratton. They have fallen victim to our enemies. Let me speak with our sister Agnes for guidance.”

  I took the Talisman from my pocket and hooked it over the outstretched hand of the stone angel. “Agnes, receive your own. Speak to me.”

  Nothing happened. My stomach began to tighten. Would she answer? The wind was getting stronger, sobbing through the branches of the trees. The hills around us seemed cold and menacing, and I thought how frail my faith was in the face of such a bleak, hostile world. But it was a thread of gold, made not just for this moment, but for eternity. Although I was afraid, I somehow knew that we were all being cared for by a higher power, and that the whole of Creation was fundamentally good, not twisted and crazed like the Priestess and her Unconquered lords had made it for themselves. “I believe in you, Agnes,” I whispered. “I believe in your message of love.” I heard my heart pounding, and I seemed to hear Cal’s heart pulsing in time with my own, a steady beat of youth and strength that would never give up. “Please, Agnes, please help me now.”

  The statue of the angel began to shine with a faint light. We saw it shimmer and change until Agnes was standing in its place. Josh gasped and knelt on the ground, shielding his eyes as the light grew stronger.

  Agnes did not speak, but gestured with her right hand. The light spilled from her hand in white flames, and in the center of the flames we could see vivid images. The first was of Evie, just as I had seen her before, still and silent under the water, her hair floating around her face and her eyes glazed in death. I cried out and the image changed. Now I saw Helen in bed in the infirmary. She was dreadfully ill and thin and struggling for every breath.

  “They told me she was better—but she’s dying!” I gasped. “And Evie is—oh, Evie—”

  Agnes laid her finger on her lips for silence and then gestured again. The flames glowed once more, and this time I saw a young girl with dark, curly hair. It was Maria, I was sure of it. She was lying with her eyes closed at the foot of the tallest standing stone, wearing a circlet of leaves like a crown. Then Agnes looked right into my eyes and pointed at me. A single word formed on her lips: “Seek.” Her voice echoed through the graveyard. “Seek . . . seek . . . seek . . .” The next moment I was staring at the stone face of the angel, blank and meaningless.

  I turned to Cal in a panic. “What shall I do? Evie—where is she? What’s happened to her? And Helen looks so ill!”

  “Was that other girl Maria?” asked Cal.

  “Yes, I’m sure it was her. That’s exactly how I saw her up by the standing stones. But what did Agnes mean? Seek—which one of my friends must I seek first?”

  I felt pulled in every direction. Josh spoke unsteadily. “I’d tear Wyldcliffe to pieces to find Evie, but we still have no idea where to start. And Maria—wasn’t that just an image of the past? At least we know where Helen is. Perhaps you should start by helping her.”

  His words made sense, though I was now gripped with a dread that Helen might already have been smuggled out of the school by Miss Dalrymple and the coven. I began to run.

  “Wait!” Cal said, running after me. “We’ll come with you.”

 
; “No!” I stopped for a moment. “If you want to help, go and—” I could hardly bear to say it. “Go and search the river for Evie. If she really is—if her body is there . . .”

  “She’s not dead, Sarah, I promise,” Josh said, and for a brief moment a faint smile softened his expression.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I feel her, in here,” he said, and he lightly touched his forehead. “And I see her, like a bright flame in the dark.” I hoped with all my being that he was right and that his hidden link with Agnes would guide him now. “But we’ll search for her, all the same,” he added. “We’ll go to the river.”

  “Thank you, thank you so much,” I gabbled. “I’ll see you back at school. I’ve got to get back to Helen now. I can’t lose any more time.”

  For a moment Cal and I stood face-to-face. “I hate you going alone,” he said, frowning. “It’s not safe.”

  “I’m not alone,” I answered. “I’ve got you.” I reached up and kissed him, then broke away. “You’ll try to find Evie with Josh? You promise?”

  “I promise.” He kissed me again. “And I never break my promises.” Then he and Josh turned away in the direction of the moors, and I set off back to the Abbey, running as fast as if the Priestess and her hellhounds were already tracking me down.

  The door of the infirmary creaked as it opened. I slipped into the white, clinical room, feeling numb. Nothing seemed quite real anymore. Racing back from the village, sneaking back into the sleeping school, wondering whether I would be caught on the stairs: none of that was real. Only Agnes’s message was real. I had to seek out my sisters and save them.

  A clock was ticking in the corner of the room. There were four white beds, and another door that led to the place where the nurse slept. Helen’s bed was the only one occupied.

  “Oh God, thank you . . . thank you. . . .” I was so grateful to find Helen still there that the shock of her appearance didn’t immediately sink in. But she was just as I had seen her in Agnes’s picture. Helen was lying rigidly on her back with her eyes open, seeing nothing. Her breath was coming in low, ugly rasps with long pauses in between each painful gasp. I felt her forehead and wrist. She was cold and clammy and her pulse was barely registering. A little voice in my head that seemed to come from another world told me I should call out for the nurse and telephone for an ambulance. But the adult world had let us down. Mrs. Hartle and the other corrupt teachers at this fine school had used Helen and Laura and the rest of us for their own ends. The doctors would be helpless against the force that held Helen in its relentless grip. It had nothing to do with conventional medicine; this was the Priestess’s poison at work in her veins. Sophie had been right after all. Despite—or even because of—the attentions of the staff, Helen was near to death.