Eternal (13 page)

I was fascinated, then felt disgusted with myself for reading such trash. They were just digging for dirt, finding old stories and serving them up with a freaky new twist.

Al the same, I resolved that I would do my best to keep Velvet away from Evie and Helen. Even though the three of us seemed to have fal en apart, I wouldn’t let anybody hurt them. I would die for them first.

The next day Sophie, Annabel e, Camil a, and the rest of Velvet’s little gang appeared at breakfast bleary-eyed, yawning conspiratorial y, so it looked as though Velvet had carried out her midnight plans. Sophie looked worse than the others, and seemed secretly uncomfortable in their company. I guessed she was as timid of Velvet as she had been of Celeste’s snobbish bul ying. But at least she had survived this little escapade with nothing worse than a sick headache and a guilty conscience.

I wished so much that I could be with my own friends, but Evie wasn’t at breakfast, and although I caught Helen’s eye, she only nodded faintly and went back to reading a letter she had hidden on her lap. Another one from her father, I guessed. I noticed that from time to time she winced and rubbed her arm where the mark was hidden under her school shirt, as if it hurt. I glanced up to the high table to see if Miss Scratton had noticed too, but she was looking away, deep in discussion with Miss Dalrymple and Miss Clarke. The loss of our Guardian’s advice added to my sense of isolation.

It was over two weeks since we had made our protective spel with Miss Scratton, and there had been no further sign of threat from Mrs. Hartle or the coven. So it must have worked, I told myself, and tried to feel positive.

But my heart whispered another story, asking what was the point of being safe if I had lost my friends.

Perhaps it was because I was lonely that I started to brood so much about Maria. I had no one else to turn to, and the feeling that she was somehow watching over me in the background grew more intense. It was what I wanted to believe, of course, trying to convince myself that I wasn’t entirely alone. But there was a real connection between us, I was sure. Had Maria been trying to answer my cal through the Talisman the night after my quarrel with Evie?

The strange flash of light and heat that had glowed from the necklace when I had cal ed her name must have meant something. Why not try it again? I forced myself to resist that temptation, reminding myself that the Talisman wasn’t mine. Soon Evie would realize that she couldn’t simply let go of her heritage and would reclaim it from me, and I had to be able to return it to her with a clear conscience.

Maria stil occupied my thoughts, though. I couldn’t help wanting to know more about my great-grandmother as curiosity, loneliness, and desperation ate away at me. I wrote to my mother asking for any further details that she might have about Maria or her family. Seek and ye shall find, I thought to myself half-flippantly, as I posted the letter.

I didn’t real y have any high hopes that my mother could tel me more than she already had, but it was worth a shot. As I waited for Mom’s reply and fol owed the daily routine of study and prayer and the never-ending discipline of the hourly bel s and the mistresses’ scrutiny, I reminded myself that Maria had done al this too when she had been a pupil at the Abbey, surrounded by the same green-gray hil s.

It occurred to me that there might be records of Maria right here in Wyldcliffe. There were plenty of dusty old photographs on display in the corridors and classrooms that gave glimpses of the school’s history: photos of old lacrosse teams and school picnics and long-dead mistresses, and a picture of a German plane that had gone off course during the Second World War and crash-landed on the school playing field. And going further back in time, there was a faded sepia photograph in the entrance hal of the very first students to arrive at Wyldcliffe.

It was dated 1893 and showed a dozen serious-faced girls, al dressed in long, heavy skirts, with thickly curling hair and black buttoned boots.

I tried to work out exactly when Maria would have been a student at the school. From what I already knew of our family history, it must have been just after the First World War, which Maria’s generation had cal ed the Great War. I didn’t real y know what I was trying to find out, but at least my amateur researches gave me fresh energy. On the next Sunday morning, after church, I went to the library and leafed through the col ections of archive material. As Miss Scratton had said, Wyldcliffe was proud of its long history, and successive librarians had hoarded records of the school’s triumphs and achievements. There were many bound volumes containing copies of old school magazines, ful of sentimental poems and reports of examinations and the names of prizewinners. I scanned their yel owing pages, but I didn’t find Maria’s name anywhere. And then, one day, I spotted something in the volume labeled 1919.

At the bottom of a page ful of Nature Notes and First Aid Tips, there was a smal notice headed News. It listed a few smal events that had no doubt seemed of great importance to the girls of nearly a hundred years ago: the birth of a litter of kittens in the stable yard; the acquisition of a new piano for the use of the senior students; a French verse competition. And then, underneath the rest, it said, Miss Maria Melville returned to school last week after her sojourn in the infirmary. She had suffered a broken ankle when riding near Blackdown Ridge.

I was so excited to see Maria’s name in print. It made her more real, somehow. As I read the little notice again, something stirred in my memory. Blackdown Ridge was where the great stones stood on top of the moors, like gigantic fingers pointing up to the sky. Not only that—it was where Helen had been taken when she had tried to pass through the door of Agnes’s study. Was there some link? I had been to the circle of standing stones only once before, and it was an eerie, haunting place, quite a long ride over the hil s from the school and not the usual route for a ramble either on foot or horseback. Why had Maria gone there, I wondered, and how had she met with her accident?

A sudden, overwhelming desire to visit the place gripped me. I looked at my watch. There was stil time to get there and back, and we were al owed to ride out on a Sunday, though I might need permission to go so far.

Something told me that Miss Scratton might refuse that permission, as she had advised us to stay on the school grounds. I was torn in two. I desperately wanted to go to the Ridge, and yet I also respected Miss Scratton’s advice. Although she had warned us not to make any contact with her, I decided I would go and see her. If she gave me her permission to ride to the standing stones, I was sure nothing could go wrong. A pang shot through me as I remembered the journeys I had taken with Helen and Evie to Uppercliffe Farm, and to Sebastian’s old home, Fairfax Hal , and I wished they could be with me now.

Quickly I made my way to the High Mistress’s study and knocked on the door. There was no reply, but as I was turning away in disappointment, I saw the art mistress, Miss Hetherington, walking down the corridor. She stopped and smiled at me. “Are you looking for Miss Scratton? I’m afraid she’s out this afternoon. She’s taken half a dozen of the students from the top class to have tea at St. Martin’s Academy, to make arrangements for the summer dance at the end of term. Are you looking forward to it? I think it’s a splendid idea, don’t you? But I’m surprised you aren’t out riding on a day like this. It’s such glorious weather—just perfect for the first of May!”

Miss Hetherington’s natural-sounding enthusiasm swept through the somber corridor like a fresh breeze. I had forgotten that it was the first day of May, the traditional beginning of warm weather and new life. I was so relieved that I could have laughed out loud. Everything sounded so normal. Miss Scratton had gone on a visit to the local boys’

school. Students and staff were looking forward to a dance, and it was a lovely day for a ride. It felt as though everything that had happened last term real y was fading away and the sun was shining on Wyldcliffe at last.

“Yes, I am—I mean it is,” I babbled, then turned and rushed to the stables. Starlight snickered happily as I saddled him up and clattered down the drive. As I passed through the school gates I held my breath, but there was no catastrophe. Nothing would happen, I was convinced, nothing could touch me. The air was warm and sweet and the soft green moors were inviting. In my excitement I ignored any tug of caution and cantered away in the direction of the moors, and the stone circle on Blackdown Ridge.

It was farther than I had thought. I let Starlight walk the last mile as the land rose steeply and the view on either side of the Ridge opened up. The sky seemed endlessly high above the turf, and the val eys that dipped away on either side of me spread out to the horizon like bil owing green waves. But the sight that lay ahead was the most impressive of al . Stark and black against the pale blue sky, a jagged ring of rough-hewn stones stood in a broken circle, like a vast primitive crown on the top of the moors.

As I rode up to them, it was already late in the afternoon.

The warmth had gone out of the sun, and the megaliths cast long black shadows over the heather. I slithered down from Starlight’s back and walked into the center of the circle. Men had dragged the stones here, huge blocks of granite and limestone, for some lost, hidden purpose. I felt my soul stir as I gazed at their stark beauty. There was a deep silence and stil ness as I walked under their shadow, but I wasn’t afraid.

Here, out on the hil s, I felt free of al the worries that had haunted me since I had come back to school. This was my real Wyldcliffe, and my real world. I knelt down and pressed my hands into the black peaty soil and worshipped the wild land’s Creator. Here I had nothing to fear. I was a child of the earth, and I belonged. Here I could do no wrong. Suddenly it didn’t seem such a betrayal to borrow the Talisman’s power. Al I wanted to know was the truth about Maria. Surely it would do no harm?

I slipped my hand inside my shirt and drew out the Talisman. Now I would try its depths again, and cal out to the Gypsy girl whose blood ran in my own.

Looking out to the north where the hil s marched into the distance, I held up the silver necklace. It twisted in the breeze, and the fading light caught the edges of the crystal.

Now it gleamed deep and intensely colored, as dark as the black earth, as dark as a Gypsy’s eyes.

“Maria,” I cal ed. “You walked this land. You stood on this earth. You saw these stones. If you can hear me, or see me, send me a sign.”

Nothing happened. The air grew dim, and cold, until I was shivering, but not with fear.

“I am your daughter’s daughter’s daughter,” I cried.

“Speak to me. Come to me.”

The light changed. On the far side of the circle I saw a girl lying at the foot of the tal est stone. She had blood on her face and was wearing some kind of circlet on her head, like twisted leaves. Fierce-looking men were hovering around her, anxious and protective.

“Maria?” I whispered.

As if in reply, a terrible roar of anger ripped open the divide between the past and the present. I heard a storm of drumbeats, and then the sun wavered and went out, and the land was covered in shadow.

MARIA MELVILLE’S WYLDCLIFFE JOURNAL

APRIL 10, 1919

As we stepped into the shadows of the caves, Zak stayed close to me. The men were grim and silent.

They stooped and walked in single file down the narrow tunnel that led deeper underground. Every noise—the stealthy pad of feet, the scraping of boots against the rocks, a low gasp of breath—was magnified, echoing and rippling through the dark. I had never been underground before. I had imagined that the caves would be suffocating and enclosed. It was strange, though, because it didn’t feel like that at all. I felt curiously at home in the deep weight of the earth. Some of the men had lit glowing torches that burned red and smoky, but I felt that I could almost see in the dark. My feet didn’t slip on the rough stone. I was safe and sure-footed, sensing when the passage would twist and turn, and I felt convinced that we would find Zak’s father any moment, clutching a broken leg and glad to be rescued. And so to start with I wasn’t afraid. Not then, not yet.

Soon the passage widened out into a flat area, like a rough-hewn room, before coming to an abrupt stop. There was nowhere to go except back along the passage we had already come down.

One of the men, the leader who had spoken before, said in a hoarse voice, “Our Brother is not here. We must go farther to where the evil spirits dwell. Who can show us the way?”

There was some hurried, muffled speech in the crowd, then one voice called out, “The Conjurer must show us. Fairfax. He is a magician with power over the spirits. Let him show us.”

“Fairfax! Fairfax!” The men murmured their approval.

I watched as Fairfax slowly pushed his way forward to the leader. He said, “I have some poor tricks, Josef, that’s all, enough to earn a penny in the marketplace. If you wish, I will put them at your service for the sake of your Brother. But no one here must ever speak of this deed. Do you swear it?” His blue eyes glittered oddly in the torchlight, and his handsome face looked hard and threatening. For the first time, I thought that perhaps he might be capable of doing evil. “Do you swear?” he repeated.

Josef spoke first. “We swear.” He drew a dagger from his belt and lightly scored the palm of his hand until he drew blood. Spitting on his hand, he then offered it to Fairfax. “We swear in blood.”

Fairfax grasped Josef’s hand firmly. “So be it.”

Now I began to be afraid, not of the caves, but of this blue-eyed stranger and the powers he was going to call upon.

Fairfax strode up to the blank wall of rock that barred our way and laid his head against it, as though he was listening for something. Then he began to search the surface of the wall with his fingertips, feeling closely for any cracks or crannies. I remembered how he had broken the piece of mirror and miraculously made it whole again. He began to speak rapidly in a strange language that sounded like curses. He closed his eyes, and sweat stood out on his brow. He ground his teeth and cried out loud, “As I will it, so shall it be!” The next moment the cave wall fell, like a sheet of water. Everyone stumbled backward, amazed, coughing and gasping in the dust. A way through had opened up, a low tunnel streaked with red and silver in the layers of stone. The taste of fear was in the air, whether of the new path that lay before us or of Fairfax’s diabolical powers, I couldn’t be sure.