Eternal

by Gillian Shields

“It was Sunday afternoon,” she began. “I’d been lying on my bed in the dorm but I felt restless, so I went out into the corridor and walked up and down, just pacing aimlessly. No one was around. It felt so hot and stuffy, so I opened the window—the arched one opposite the staircase that looks over the front drive. I wanted to get some fresh air.

  “I remember looking out at the moors in the distance, and I wished I was up on their heights, letting the wind push me wherever it liked. I wondered where my mother’s spirit was roaming, and if I dared try to dance on the wind again. I hadn’t been able to do it when we were trying to get into Agnes’s room, but I got this idea that if I could send myself through the air to wherever my mother was and surrender to her, she might be satisfied. If she destroyed me or took me into her power, or whatever it is that she wants, I thought perhaps she would leave you and Evie alone at last. At that moment it seemed that it didn’t really matter what happened to me, as long as you two were safe.”

  “Oh, Helen, you mustn’t ever think that—”

  “I couldn’t see how else you were ever going to get free of her. Anyway, as I was standing there trying to decide what to do, I heard someone coming down the corridor. It was Velvet. She had a riding whip in her hand. She stopped and looked at me oddly, like she guessed my thoughts. And then—it’s hard to describe. A wind blew up, like a freak storm. The window kind of fell out of the wall, and I fell too. I didn’t have time to think, but I knew I would be smashed to pieces on the steps below. Then the next second—well, I was floating. Floating peacefully. I wasn’t in my body anymore. I was in a great white space, and I was dancing, like in a dream. But I wasn’t alone. There was someone I was dancing with . . .” Her voice trailed away.

  “What happened then?”

  “There were people and voices. They were fighting over me. I wanted to be free—and they wouldn’t let me alone—I don’t remember exactly. Then Miss Scratton was there, saying, ‘No, not yet, it’s not your time. You have to wait for the Priestess. You must become the Priestess.’

  “After that the white space vanished. Everything went dark. I wanted to come back, but Miss Scratton wouldn’t let me. She was holding me, and it hurt. It hurt me in my mind.” Helen looked at me unhappily. “I don’t know if I can ever dance on the wind again.”

  “Have you tried since then?”

  She sighed. “Yes, this morning when you were searching for Evie. I wanted to get to the place that Evie is being held, to find her, even if it meant being in danger. But it was like last time, I couldn’t do it. Something is watching me and holding me back. I’m really sorry.”

  “Do you think it’s Miss Scratton again?”

  “I don’t know. It was like—I can’t explain—like someone was sitting on my wings, if that makes any sense.”

  It made sense, but we still weren’t any closer to knowing what to do, or exactly how Velvet fitted into everything. I jumped up and began to walk up and down impatiently. “But even if Miss Scratton is preventing you from doing that, surely we have other powers?” I said. “What could we do to attack the Priestess and her coven—or disarm Velvet—before they hurt Evie?”

  “We can’t use our powers for attack, only defense. Only for the common good.”

  “But I made the earth shake, down in the crypt in our first battle with the coven, and I destroyed a wall, and tore up rocks on the hilltop—”

  “Those battles were forced upon us, Sarah. We can’t be the ones to start the conflict.”

  “But we have to do something! The Priestess has already attacked us. She has taken Evie. We have to fight back.”

  “What are you going to do? Cause an earthquake at Wyldcliffe? Lock Miss Dalrymple in a mound of earth until she tells you where Evie is?” It sounded absurd like that, but it wasn’t a million miles from what I had been thinking. “Anyway,” Helen went on, “what does Cal think we should do? He sees straight. You can trust him.”

  I sat down again, feeling raw and stupid. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him,” I said.

  “Have you quarreled? Oh, Sarah, don’t, please don’t!”

  I was surprised by her distress and tried to shrug the whole thing off. “People do quarrel sometimes,” I said. “It’s not the end of the world.”

  “It could be the end of our world! Everyone who has come into contact with the Mystic Way has some part to play. It’s all for a purpose. We all fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw. Everything is connected. Lose one part of it and we could all be lost.” She tried to calm down and control herself. “We need Cal. You need Cal.”

  Need. That word again.

  “I can look after myself. I don’t need a guy to lean on. I don’t need Cal.”

  “Haven’t you ever seen a rose growing on the side of a house? Accepting support isn’t a sign of weakness. It makes you stronger.” Helen sighed deeply. “If I had someone—anyone—I wouldn’t waste a second of it in anger.”

  I didn’t know what to say, but I knew she was right.

  “Sarah, I’ve lived my life in a kind of dream,” Helen continued. “Even here and now, talking to you isn’t as real as things that I see in my mind.” She rubbed her head as if in pain. “Sometimes I really do think I am going mad and that I can’t carry on. I don’t know if I can get to the end of all this. I just have to believe that I will, and that I’ll find what I am searching for. Evie and Sebastian—they were doomed from the start. But I know that Cal is real. What he feels for you is real. And if I had that, I’d hold on to it like—like a stone. A stone in my pocket that would always remind me of what is real and true and eternal.”

  “Oh, Helen, I feel so—”

  I never got to finish what I was going to say. A crowd of giggling girls burst into the room.

  “My God, did you see her? She was in such a state!”

  “She doesn’t look so hot now, does she? I reckon that photo will be in all the papers tomorrow.”

  “And after all that showing off about being such a brilliant rider!”

  I went over to them. “What’s happened? What’s the big joke?”

  “Oh hi, Sarah,” said Marion Chase, who’d always been friendly with Celeste. “It’s Velvet Romaine. She’s landed herself in big trouble and made a complete fool of herself and got her picture taken by one of those photographers still hanging around in the village.”

  “What did she do?” asked Helen.

  “Only gone and stolen Miss Scratton’s horse and taken it out on the moors,” Marion sniggered. “But she managed to get herself lost up by the peat bogs and has come back to school half-dead and covered in mud and the horse is practically lamed.”

  “And Velvet thought she was going to look so cool!” Marion’s friends laughed. “She really will be expelled now. She never properly fitted in here, did she?” Their spiteful faces sickened me. They had been so keen to suck up to Velvet when she had first arrived, and now they were crowing over her downfall. And they were supposed to be ladies. What had happened to the ideals of selflessness and honor and loyalty?

  “She’s a Wyldcliffe girl,” I said coldly, “so we should be sticking up for her, not laughing at her because she made a mistake. Come on, Helen.”

  We left them staring at us openmouthed. I knew they would turn their venom on me as soon as we were out of sight, but I didn’t care.

  “I need to get hold of Velvet,” I said, as we marched down the corridor. Although I had said that about sticking together, I was actually furious with her. I knew from my father’s work that even a slight injury to a horse’s leg could lead to it being crippled. And in that case it would be shot rather than left to live a life of pain. “She’ll be okay, but if she’s hurt that horse . . .” I found myself blinking back tears, remembering how Miss Scratton had summoned the beautiful white mare to carry the body of Mrs. Hartle from the hilltop battle. How at that moment we had turned to Miss Scratton as our friend and our rock. How all that had been a lie. Somehow, in my jumble of emotions, Seraph stood for everythi
ng that had been free and good and innocent, before the world grew so dark.

  We crossed the entrance hall. Girls were hanging about there, waiting for the bell, and I caught snatches of their conversation. “. . . so selfish, that poor horse . . . stupid, really . . . I hope they do chuck her out. . . .” It seemed as though the whole school was talking about Velvet. We raced up the stairs to the dorms.

  “Please do not run on the stairs!” Miss Clarke, the Latin mistress, reproved me as I reached the second floor. “Ah, it’s you, Sarah. As you were not in class this afternoon, I want you to come and see me after supper to collect the work we did.”

  “Yes—of course—sorry.”

  I forced myself to walk sedately the rest of the way. When we reached the dorm, Velvet was lying huddled on her bed. Her clothes were filthy, and she had a long scratch down one cheek. Ruby was hovering next to her.

  “We want to talk to Velvet,” I said. “Can you leave us for a bit, Ruby?”

  Ruby must have seen how angry I was, as she scuttled out of the room without another word.

  “You can break your neck for all I care,” I said. “But don’t go hurting innocent animals. You had no right at all to take that horse out. It was totally selfish and irresponsible.”

  Velvet pretended to yawn in mock boredom. “Oh, enough with the lecture already, Sarah. Don’t be such a pain. I swear Seraph is okay. It’s just some cuts and bruises. Josh checked her over and said it wasn’t as bad as it looked. Of course, according to Celeste’s dumb friends, I practically killed the stupid animal on purpose.”

  I was relieved by the news of Seraph, but I hadn’t finished with Velvet. “And what were you doing next to Helen when she had her accident?” I went on. “Did you push her—or make her fall?”

  “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” Velvet replied, sitting up and starting to brush the mud from her riding trousers. “I told you before, you and I have nothing to say to each other.”

  “Oh, I think we do,” I said. “We know about the fire at your last school. We know more than you think.”

  “So you know that I wanted Gina to end up scarred for life? That I wanted my boyfriend dead, and my little sister smashed up in that car? I suppose you read in some scumbag newspaper that I was jealous of Jasmine and wanted her out of the way and neatly arranged it all? It’s not actually that easy to stage a car crash, if you hadn’t noticed. God, it makes me sick that people believe that crap. You know nothing about me—nothing!”

  “I know that it makes me sick when people lie to me, and hurt my friends,” I replied. “How did Helen fall? Tell me!”

  “How would I know? Ask her.” Velvet threw a glance at Helen, who was standing to one side. “Face it, Sarah, it was nothing to do with me. Helen tried to chuck herself out of the window, didn’t she? Everyone says she’s nuts. You can’t blame me for that.” She burst into a noisy storm of tears. “They try to blame me for everything. But I can’t help it . . . I can’t control it . . .” Then she shook herself angrily. “Why are you asking me all this stuff anyway?” she demanded. “What do you really know?”

  I hesitated. Part of me wanted to tell Velvet everything, to warn her that she was a Touchstone. I wanted to help her if we could, but I didn’t think she would listen. She was too angry and bitter for that. It wasn’t help that she wanted; it was to lash out at the world that had hurt her, and to hurt it back in return. She was watching me intently, like a cat. “Does it happen to you too?” she whispered. “Do you have any . . . powers?”

  “We’re all powerful, aren’t we?” I replied evasively. “Just being young is powerful.”

  “No, I mean special stuff. Not like my dad’s stage shows, all that voodoo and hocus-pocus black magic. Dad loves it, but I know it’s only an act, even though he claims to be descended from a witch who was hanged God knows how long ago. That’s just all show business. But I do think there is some kind of force out there, controlling things, making things happen. Weird things. Wouldn’t you like to know more about that?” The expression in her eyes was wolfishly hungry, and I knew then where I’d seen that expression before—in Harriet’s tormented eyes when she had been possessed by Celia Hartle’s dark spirit. Velvet radiated the same despair and greed, but even then I wanted to believe that it wasn’t too late for her. If there was any way we could help Velvet, and stop her blundering further onto a path of darkness, it would be worth the risk.

  “We do know some things,” I said, lowering my voice. “Helen was the first to get in touch with her powers.”

  “Tell me!” Velvet grabbed my arm. “What can you do?”

  I looked at Helen for guidance. She looked calmly at Velvet and said, “We are only servants. The powers are only to be used for the common good.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much fun.”

  “It’s not about fun,” I said to Velvet.

  “What do you do? Where do you meet? Is that why you sneak out at night? I’ve been watching you, and reading up about stuff. You need four corners in a Circle, don’t you? So it was you and Evie and Helen—who was the fourth? Is it one of the teachers?”

  I felt uneasy. Velvet’s guesses were too close for comfort. How long had she been spying on us to find all this out?

  “Our secret sister is Lady Agnes,” Helen said.

  “The dead girl in the old painting? No kidding? You’re not winding me up?”

  Helen shrugged. “I never lie. The truth is more powerful than any lie.”

  But I wasn’t sure that Helen had been right to tell Velvet about Agnes. It seemed to me that Velvet was interested in power and excitement and mastery over the people around her, not healing or wisdom. I couldn’t trust her—not yet. “Look, Velvet, forget we said anything. Just try to stay out of trouble, and we’ll take care of the rest. Then maybe we can talk later.” I tried to walk away, but she hung on to my am.

  “You can’t leave it like that! You have to tell me! I want to be part of it. I want to have powers and control things, make stuff happen.” Her expression darkened. “I want to get revenge. You can help me to do it.”

  “Let go—”

  “But you need me now! I know you’re up to something, and I want to be in on it. Life sucks, but at least this is interesting. Let me in, Sarah. Evie’s gone and she’s not coming back. I could take her place.”

  I stared at Velvet, shocked. “What do you know about Evie? What do you mean, she’s not coming back?”

  “I know enough not to believe that story about her rushing off to see her dad. Don’t you want to know where I got to on my ride? I think you’ll want to hear what really happened.”

  “Okay, tell us. But hurry up!”

  Velvet let go of my arm and stretched out on her bed, taking her time, completely at ease now. “I skipped class this morning and went straight down to the stables. Josh was working there, so I sneaked into that kitchen garden near the yard and waited until he had gone off for five minutes. There was no one else around, so it was easy to saddle Seraph and lead her through the practice paddock and down to the school gates. I thought stealing the High Mistress’s horse might be bad enough to get me expelled, and at least I would have some fun doing it.

  “The only person I saw was the gardener. ‘Where you off to, miss?’ he asked. I said I’d got permission to exercise Miss Scratton’s mare for her, and he believed me. It was gorgeous weather, and I was looking forward to a real gallop over the moors—you were right about one thing, Sarah, Jupiter hates the rough ground and is no fun to ride round here. I could tell that Seraph was a marvelous horse, and even though she was a bit big for me, I knew I could handle her.”

  “So where did you go?” I asked.

  “I didn’t really have any plan, so I just thought I would stick to the main track that led away from the school. It was signposted Beacon Hill—do you know it?”

  “That’s the old hilltop fort,” Helen said. “There’s nothing left of the fort now. The hill was a kind of temple in ancient times.�
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  “Well, I think I must have reached it, because I’d climbed higher and higher until there were the most amazing views. Really you could see for miles, and I started to think that Wyldcliffe wouldn’t be such a bad place if you could just ride and think and be free like that. There was something kind of peaceful up there . . . anyway, I was enjoying myself. I laughed to think of the rest of you stuck in class back at school, and I was wondering what you’d say when you found out what I had done. Then I thought I should get something to prove it to everyone. I began to wonder if I could ride over to the boys’ school, St. Martin’s or whatever it’s called, and sneak in and talk to some of the students, get one of their phone numbers or something as a kind of trophy. I’d even managed to telephone one of the paparazzi guys before I’d set off and told him to get over to the village later if he wanted a photo of me cutting school. I know it’s tacky, but everyone does it—how do you think the paparazzi know where to hang out to get the pictures for the magazines?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t really care,” I said. “What happened then? How did you get Seraph into such a mess?”

  “I’m trying to tell you. I didn’t do it on purpose. Anyway, I set off again in the direction that I thought would take me to St. Martin’s, but that’s when everything changed. Something weird happened.” She hesitated. “I swear this is true, even though it sounds mad. The light kind of changed. Shimmered. I don’t know how to describe it. As though all the color was being sucked out of everything. I heard a woman’s voice singing from far away. It made me want to run straight to whoever was calling out like that. Seraph began to sidestep and toss her head up and down; then she reared up and shot off as though she was a racehorse in the direction of the voice.

  “All I could think about was clinging on and not falling off. I didn’t know where we were heading or how to stop Seraph. She seemed to have supernatural strength, and my arms were aching with trying to hold her back. I was worried that we might be near the bogs on the far side of the moors, because I’d heard stories of people getting lost there and never coming back. We must have been near them already, because the ground started to get soft and marshy and Seraph kept plunging into pools and splashing mud everywhere. I just closed my eyes and hung on. Eventually we started climbing up again and the air seemed fresher. There was a big slope ahead of us, covered in trees and shrubs, and an old house behind the trees. We skirted around the house and its park, and then Seraph went galloping madly up the slope, crashing through rough gorse bushes and cutting her legs badly.”