Torches sprang into life as though lit by an unseen hand. They were stuck into niches in the rocky walls and spread their light over the sides of the cave. But the lake—there was something evil by the lake. A low stone trough full of water stood at its edge. It was a crudely carved coffin.
“No—no—no!” Helen moaned. Then I saw it too.
Evie was lying in the stone coffin, under the surface of the water. Her lips were slightly parted and her eyes were closed. Her skin was white as swansdown and there was no life in her at all. So it was true. My vision had been right. Evie was dead and our quest was useless. The whole world seemed to shudder to a halt, and I sensed my grief like a rock in the distance ready to crush me, but for the moment I was numb, holding off the pain.
Josh stumbled forward with a desperate cry. He plunged his arms into the stone trough and lifted Evie’s body from the water. His face was frozen in agony as he sank to the ground, cradling her in his arms.
“Evie—come back, come back,” Josh murmured, stroking her wet hair. “My darling, my love—” He seemed to be willing her back to life, but she hung limply in his embrace. Then he raised his eyes and looked around wildly as though searching for someone. “Agnes,” he called. “If you can hear, help me now! Your spark of healing power—it lives in me—help me!”
Help me . . . help me . . . help me . . . The words echoed around the cavern. Josh touched Evie’s face, as if in blessing; then he kissed her wet mouth.
“Look!” I gasped. Evie’s eyes fluttered, and the breath shuddered through her body. She sat up and threw her arms around Josh’s neck and the next moment we were all crowding round to embrace her, crazy with joy, laughing and crying and forgetting to be careful or afraid.
“And so you have come. Welcome.” A thin, dry voice cut through our celebrations. I saw that in the middle of the lake there was a small island. A cloaked figure was standing there. I steeled myself for seeing the hateful thing that had once been Helen’s mother, the deadly Priestess.
“Welcome,” she repeated as she slowly turned to face us, letting her hood fall from her face. “I am the Priestess. You are the Priestess. We are the Priestess.” But it wasn’t Celia Hartle’s spirit that was confronting us.
It was Laura.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Laura? But it can’t be—”
I remembered Laura van Pallandt as pretty and spoiled and not very clever, always hanging about with her cousin Celeste and following her lead. She’d had thick, honey-colored hair and a wide-eyed, slightly startled expression, as though life was constantly taking her by surprise. But she’s dead, I kept saying to myself. Laura’s dead, this can’t be true. . . . I forced myself to look at the apparition’s gray face. Her eyes were bloodshot and her hair was the color of withered leaves, but it was the girl I had known, I was sure. “Laura!” I cried again.
She turned her blank red eyes to me. “Laura . . . Laura . . . ,” she repeated monotonously. “Yes, that was my name. But that life has gone; I am no longer like you. I serve the king of the Unconquered lords and his Priestess. I am the Priestess,” she chanted. “We all belong to the Priestess. You belong to the Priestess.”
“I don’t,” said Helen defiantly. “I don’t belong to anyone.” I had heard her say that once before in sadness, but now she sounded proud.
“You will all belong to me.”
A new voice rang out. Laura sank down, fear and pain flashing over her face. Some force was pushing me to my knees, making me bow down to all that remained on earth of Celia Hartle, once the High Mistress of Wyldcliffe, leader of the coven of Dark Sisters and now the most faithful servant of the Unconquered lords. As she stepped out of the shadows, Cal fell next to me with a groan. Helen struggled; then her body bent and she too did unwilling homage to her mother. Evie collapsed to the ground, where Josh tried to shelter her in his arms.
Mrs. Hartle’s face was shrunken like a skeleton, and she was shrouded in swirling mist. Dust and ash seemed to fall from her as she moved toward us, gliding over the water without sinking into its black depths. She flicked her wrist and a whip of dark fire lashed out. Cal and Josh were blown off their feet, and the next second they were chained to pillars of stone.
“So,” she sneered, “you have brought your boyfriends? Helen, you surprise me, I didn’t think you’d ever attract anyone. Especially someone so very charming.” She stroked Josh’s cheek with her bony hands, and he flinched at her touch. The next moment she had gagged both of the boys with another flick of her wrist. Cal and Josh writhed and struggled to get free, but they were helpless. I wanted to run to Cal, but I couldn’t move from where the Priestess held us on our knees. I groped in my mind for an earth spell to shake the ground beneath our feet and break the stone they were chained to, but my thoughts were sucked away by Mrs. Hartle’s poisonous presence.
“Leave them!” said Helen. “They are our friends. That’s something you wouldn’t understand.”
“Let me tell you what I do understand,” Mrs. Hartle said in a dangerously soft voice. “You have all rushed here to save your beloved friend, as I knew you would, but you have achieved nothing. You have done exactly as I planned, exactly as I wanted you to do. I’ve had you watched. I have been calling for you, Helen, looking for you in your dreams. I summoned you to Blackdown Ridge, the night you came back to the school. I wanted to give you a chance to give up your tiresome meddling in the mysteries, and join my great cause. But of course, you had to resist. You fled, and set yourselves up against me, all of you, even that simpering fool Agnes, the traitor, who cannot rest in her cursed grave.”
“What is it you want?” I asked desperately. “Why did you take Evie? Why is Laura here?”
“So many questions!” she replied, amused. “The first one—so very interesting. The heart of all philosophy! What do I want? The great question of life. And yet why should I tell you?” Another dart of fire flashed from her, and I felt as though I had been struck on the face. “But then again—why not? It will be amusing to see you grovel before the heights of my ambition.
“I wanted to become immortal as Sebastian had promised,” she began slowly as though remembering something from a long time ago. “You and your friend Evelyn Johnson prevented that from happening. Yes, you were clever. Clever or lucky—I wonder which?”
“We stopped you because we had right on our side,” I said. “Evil never wins, not in the end.”
“No one ever wins in the end, not in this world, because death takes everything away, even from the victors. When Sebastian failed me, I had to seek another way of evading death’s grip, and I found it. My master is the greatest of the Unconquered lords, he is their Eternal King, and I am his Priestess. By serving him I will live forever in the shadows.”
“Who wants to live in the shadows when they have known the light?” Helen said defiantly. “And even the Unconquered lords will not last forever. Time itself will be destroyed at the end of all things when a reckoning will be made. Then you’ll have to pay for what you’ve done. The Great Creator sees everything.”
The smoke and mist around Mrs. Hartle’s figure seemed to shudder for an instant as she wavered in doubt. Then she laughed. “I hope you’ll be there to see that moment with me—if it should ever happen, which I doubt. Your gods are silent and spent. Only power is real.”
“Power is real,” Laura echoed in the background. “The Priestess will triumph.”
”How does Laura come into this?” Helen asked, keeping her eyes fixed on her mother’s face. “What have you done to her?”
“Why do you ask, my daughter? You were there the night that the coven sucked Laura’s soul, harvesting her strength and energy to feed Sebastian and keep our hopes alive.”
“Only because you made me!” Helen cried. The guilt and anguish that she felt was plain to see, and I realized what a burden Laura’s death had been for Helen to carry.
“You could have refused to be at our ceremony,” said Mrs. Hartle. “Yes, Helen, you are j
ust as responsible for Laura’s death as the rest of my Dark Sisters, simply by your presence. You saw me drink too deep of her youth, and she died. But her soul could not pass. It had been forced from her body by our mysteries and was under my command, so when her body died she remained trapped between this world and the next. And when the girl Velvet made her mockery of a spell on the ancient altar, she released not only the bonds you had tried to lay on me, but Laura’s spirit. In her last living moments I owned Laura’s soul, and so she now exists under my command.”
“Didn’t choose . . . had to . . . join the Priestess . . . ,” Laura intoned.
“Let her go!” I shouted. “Stop tormenting her—and Helen too. Let them both go.”
She laughed at me. “Let them go? You will all join me, willingly or not. Those who resist will be overcome and yoked to me as Bondsouls. Laura is my first Bondsoul, and there will be many, many more. Through them my power will swell, like a spider spawning her brood, and my master will be pleased. We will have an army of them, and Wyldcliffe will be destroyed.” Mrs. Hartle looked coaxingly at Helen. “But if you come to me willingly, Helen, like my Sisters in the coven, yours will be a different destiny. You could be the chief of my handmaidens and share my glory.”
“Nothing on earth would make me join you,” Helen said.
“Except the one thing you really desire,” Mrs. Hartle replied, her voice soft and low. “A mother’s love. Come to me and I promise I will love you through all eternity.” Her face changed, and she grew young and beautiful. She held her arms open tenderly. I looked at Helen in alarm. Would she be able to resist this offer of the only thing she had always wanted?
Helen gasped. “Cruel! You’re so cruel! Don’t pretend you can love me. No one can. No one!”
“I have always loved you, my child, though destiny drove us apart,” Mrs. Hartle whispered, and for a moment I believed her. But as Mrs. Hartle reached out for Helen I saw the wild glint in her eye that betrayed her grasping desire for Helen’s powers. “We can start again, daughter,” she murmured. “Come to me.”
Helen stumbled to her feet and walked toward her mother as though hypnotized.
“No, Helen, it’s all lies, don’t listen to her,” cried Evie, but Helen ignored her.
“I do love you!” she sobbed, as she stood face-to-face with Mrs. Hartle. “I’ve loved you all my life! I’d do anything for you.”
I felt crushed. We would all be lost if Helen turned her back on us and joined her mother, and Helen would only be hurt, again and again and again. We couldn’t let it happen. Cal and Josh writhed to get free of their bonds, and Evie looked on in fear as Helen wept. I tried to connect with the Talisman that still hung around my neck, hidden under my clothes. Let Helen see the truth, Agnes, I begged silently. Let her know that we love her for herself, not her powers. Don’t let her be deceived. . . .
“At last, my child,” Mrs. Hartle said. “At last you have learned wisdom.”
“I—have learned—that I can’t be like you,” Helen replied with a great effort. “I’ve loved you and hated you, and now I have learned to live without your love. Here—you gave me this, but it has only brought me trouble. Take it back and forget that you ever had a daughter.” She unfastened the wing-shaped brooch from where it was pinned to her shirt and offered it to Mrs. Hartle. “Let this be the end between us.”
Mrs. Hartle stared in surprise at the gleaming token in Helen’s hand, and a strange expression passed over her face. A struggle seemed to be going on inside her, as if she had one last chance to choose good instead of evil, truth instead of lies.
“So you have found the Seal,” she said in a whisper. “The one good thing I ever gave you. Hide it, before—” Then she broke off, and her expression changed. “I have no time for this. Will you join me or not? This is the last time I will ask you to join me of your own free will.”
“I have already made my choice,” Helen said at last, as though every word caused her pain. She looked at us, then back at her mother. “I choose to be loyal to my friends. I choose my freedom—to say no to you.” My heart was breaking for her. She looked so fragile and defenseless, yet she was being so brave.
“You have chosen defeat! You have chosen despair!” Mrs. Hartle’s anger blew away the illusion of her appearance, and she was once again a haggard wraith. “So be it. From this moment you are nothing to me.”
“And you are nothing to me,” said Helen, her face set like a stone. “We will never serve you, and you will never be free of your own wretched choice! We have nothing more to say to each other. Now stand aside and let us go!”
“Do you think you can dismiss me and come and go as you please?” Mrs. Hartle shrieked. “How dare you!” She flung her daughter away from her, and Helen fell back to the ground next to me. Then the Priestess laughed, mad and terrible and frightening. “I won’t allow any of you to escape, not even through death’s gateway. You will stay here, in the hidden places of the earth, and all your powers will serve me!”
She seemed to pace up and down between us, weighing up our strengths and weaknesses, seeing into every secret of our hearts. “Welcome, sister,” Mrs. Hartle said to Evie. “You bring me gifts of fire and water. It will be sweet to have your powers and those of your precious Agnes as my own, a fine revenge on you for allowing Sebastian to evade me. But you won’t be so lucky, I promise. There is no one left to rescue you.
“Helen, you bring me new pure secrets of the air, first and greatest of all the elements, the breath of life, the essence of creation. And even you, little earth woman,” she added, sneering at me. “Even you bring your muddy strength to my altar. When I return with my Sisters, we will drain your souls and your powers. You will be like Laura, bound forever to your mistress. Until then, I have other servants to guard you. They awoke with Laura, and I have gathered them to me in the shadows, as all things shall come to me in the end.”
The lights dimmed. She glided back over the water to the island in the middle of the lake, and her darkness seemed to engulf poor wretched Laura, who vanished from our sight.
“Awake, creatures of the endless night!” Mrs. Hartle called. “Stand over my prey.”
Crawling from the farthest shadows, a horde of misshapen creatures emerged. Their heads lolled over their squat bodies, and they wore iron chains at their necks and wrists. They had leathery skin like mummified corpses. Evie hid her face from them as they surrounded us, but I knew what we faced and I made myself look at this new enemy.
The Kinsfolk. The ancient, crawling creatures that had attacked Maria.
They came closer, smelling of death. Some carried spears tipped with bronze, others had crude clubs and drums and leather pouches slung over their shoulders. I felt sick as they came near and the leader pointed his spear toward Evie.
“The girl is ours,” he seemed to say. His twisted mouth barely moved, but I could understand his thoughts. “She was lying in the stone bed, asleep in the water. You promised her to us as a new queen for the Kinsfolk.”
“Fool! I am your queen now,” said Mrs. Hartle. “I stirred your wills and minds with the promise of the girl, but your task is to keep her prisoner until I am ready to deal with her, not enjoy her yourselves. Guard the others too.”
“Promise-breaker!” he grunted. The rest of the Kinsfolk took up his words and beat their spears on the ground. “Promise-breaker! We curse you, Spirit Woman! Curse you! Curse you forever!”
“Silence! The girl is mine!” Mrs. Hartle raised her hand and cracked a whip of fire at one of the Kinsfolk. He began to burn like a dry torch, screaming in agony and flinging himself into the lake to put out the flames. There was silence. Perhaps it was only then that I truly believed that Mrs. Hartle was capable of killing us all.
“The girl is mine,” she repeated coldly. “They are all mine, as you are. Guard them until I return, or your service to me will be more painful than you can imagine. The males you can kill. Be satisfied with that.”
There was another murmur of
discontent, but the leader bowed stiffly to Mrs. Hartle. “The Spirit Woman has spoken,” he said. “The Kinsfolk hear your words.”
“Then do your work well!” She shrouded herself in mist and faded from sight, and the cloud of her presence was lifted. The chains that held Josh and Cal dissolved into smoke, and we were released from our humiliating kneeling position. We all clung to one another as Mrs. Hartle’s grotesque servants moved in closer, like merciless hunters.
There was no way out past their savage weapons. There was no way out at all.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The Kinsfolk swarmed forward with inhuman speed and strength, and the next moment they had overpowered Josh and Cal, holding them down with sharp flint knives pressed against their throats. Then the leader raised his arm to hurl his spear into Cal’s heart, as his people chanted, “Death! Death! Death!”
“No!” I screamed, and threw myself blindly at the leader’s feet. “Stop! You mustn’t do this, please, I beg you.”
The creature paused and turned the black slits of his eyes on me. “It is a blood payment for the Kinsfolk warriors. It is our right. The Spirit Woman gave these men to us.”
“I’ll give you something better if you spare their lives,” I said wildly.
“What?” he demanded. “What will you give?”
“I—I’ll be your queen,” I stammered. Images flashed into my mind, of Maria sobbing, and long hands grasping for me in a glare of red smoke. I heard the drums, I felt the stab of the knife, and I thought I was going to be sick. Terror pulsed through my whole body, but I couldn’t turn back now. I had led my friends into this, and I had to help them. Fumbling in my bag, I dug out the bronze circlet. “Here, this is yours. Take it and take me. But you must release my friends.”
The creatures gibbered with excitement at the sight of the coronet, but Cal groaned, “Sarah, you can’t. I won’t let you!”
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