“Do as I say!” Dr. Franzen growled at the terrified students.
I leaped forward and launched myself at him. “Don’t hurt them!” I yelled. “I won’t let you hurt them!” But he was still as strong as he had always been. He threw me to one side, and Miss Hetherington shouted, “Stop! Dr. Franzen, let the girls go inside, stop this madness—”
Dr. Franzen turned to her and smiled slowly. “You want it to end? Certainly.” He raised his walking cane and pointed it at her. A tongue of blue fire shot from the end of it. Mr. Brooke lunged in front of Miss Hetherington and was caught full in the chest by the blast. He hung there for a moment and then crumpled to the ground.
Silence.
Every eye was fixed on the sprawled figure of Mr. Brooke. Miss Hetherington was shaking as she stared down at him. Dr. Franzen touched the music master with his foot. “He is lucky,” he said. “He is dead. The next one of you to resist will not be so fortunate.”
Pandemonium broke out. Everywhere there were girls crying and screaming and trying to escape. I saw Evie knocked down by a group of terrified students in their hysteria to get away. But no one dared to get past the encircling ring of Wyldcliffe’s dreadful Dead.
The Priestess drew herself up and called, “Listen! No one will be harmed if you do as you are told. It is not you we have come for!” She turned and looked at me, forcing me by her will to meet her gaze. “You know what we want, Helen. It’s you who holds the key to the fate of your friends here. Join us and we will let them go.”
“No!” shouted Sarah. “Helen, don’t listen to her—”
“Be quiet, child of mud! She will listen and she will obey. If not, she will take the consequences.”
“I will never, never listen to you again,” I gasped.
“Very well,” she said. “Then this is your doing.”
Dr. Franzen and the Dark Sisters laughed and howled as the Priestess plucked a whip of fire from the air. As she prepared to slash it down onto the cowering students, I heard a voice calling me.
“Helen!” It was Lynton. In the middle of the heaving mass of bodies I saw his pale face and bright eyes. He clutched my hand for second; then he was pulled back by Dr. Franzen, who snarled, “What are you doing? Take him away!”
The next instant Lynton was surrounded by the Dark Sisters, and Dr. Franzen dealt Lynton a savage blow with his stick.
“Get him out of here,” he ordered. “He doesn’t belong in Wyldcliffe.” The women grabbed hold of Lynton, who was only half-conscious, and began to haul him away. They were instantly swallowed up in the crowd, as the Priestess lashed out with her fiery whip, and I couldn’t see where they went. Everything was pain and confusion and struggle. A circle of flame and smoke was whirling over the ruins like a hellish tornado. There was the sound of wildly beating drums, and the Sisters of the Dead were making horrible, gibbering incantations. All around me girls were screaming and covering their eyes and ears, and flinging themselves on the ground in agony.
A huge pillar of smoke and ash rose up over the ruined chapel. My heart shook in despair as I recognized a shape in the billowing fumes; a tall ruin of a once great man, with a face of terrible beauty and pride. He was wearing armor of steel, and flames burned in his eye sockets. The Priestess threw herself down in worship, and Dr. Franzen bowed his head. It was the Eternal King of the Unconquered lords, who would never perish until the earth itself came to an end, or until a greater power arose to root out their evil. This Dark King had almost dragged Sebastian into his dominions, and now he was hungry for more souls to serve him as demons and slaves. I thought I was going to faint—he had come to take us all—it was over—we had lost—
His voice was thick and dry like a death rattle, as he spoke to his Priestess. “Do my work,” he commanded. “Spread my kingdom.” She cracked her whip again, and hundreds of tiny darts of black fire fell onto the terrified crowd, stinging and biting them like a plague of flies. Then everything fell silent. The flames and smoke coiled away into the night and vanished. The Dark King returned to the Shadows. There were no more screams or struggles, no more crying. Everything was calm.
All the students and staff were sitting in orderly rows, looking ahead with blank, serene expressions. Only the openly acknowledged women of the coven swarmed around the Priestess, who laughed in exultation.
“See, Helen, look what I can do!” she cried. “They are all mine, under my control. They all belong to the Priestess, as you will before long!”
I ran forward and grabbed hold of Evie, shaking her desperately to rouse her, but she didn’t respond. She just stared ahead with unseeing eyes. I stepped back in horror and cried, “Sarah, help me!”
Sarah turned her gaze to me and said in a flat, hypnotic voice, “Helen, dear, whatever is wrong? You look quite inelegant. Do calm yourself. Remember you’re a lady—you’re at Wyldcliffe.”
“That’s what they all are now, perfect young ladies, without a thought of their own,” crowed the Priestess. “And they’ll endure worse than that, unless you cooperate.”
I looked about wildly and saw familiar faces everywhere—Camilla, Jane, Alice, the group of little girls still clutching their violins, Celeste and Sophie and even Velvet, all with the same blank, perfect, meaningless expression. “What—what do you mean?” I stammered.
“This is only the first step. Tomorrow I will make every one of them into Bondsouls, draining their youth and strength and feeding on it. They will become eternal slaves, an offering to the Eternal King. What could be better? And my Sisters and my faithful friend will help me.” She turned to acknowledge the fawning pack of the coven, and standing a little to one side, Dr. Franzen.
“You!” I groaned. “You’re part of all this! But how? I don’t understand!”
“Helen, you are usually so quick to guess and piece things together,” Dr. Franzen said with a slight, mocking bow. “But I’ll save you the bother of trying to work it all out. Keep your energy for the task we have in store for you. You see,” he continued cruelly, “your mother never cared for your father. He was a weak, dull man, seeing no further than having an ordinary life, like all the other millions of ordinary, worthless lives. But your mother and I were alike. We craved something better. She and I eventually became lovers, but it wasn’t that which drew us together; it was our desire to know the forbidden arts.” He came closer, and I began to shake. “I have studied humanity deep and long, and I became a well-known doctor and psychological expert, but my true studies were far more profound, more terrible. It was mankind’s darkest secrets that fascinated me. I discovered that certain brave individuals, the Unconquered lords, had learned over the ages to control their destiny and rise above the common lot, through ancient, powerful sorcery. I aimed to be like them and become the greatest warlock of our age. And I succeeded.
“Ah, Helen,” he continued, “I know secrets from beyond the grave. I know incantations to raise the dead. I know poisons to smother the living child in the womb. I can call up curses, drink blood, and feast on lies. Your mother and the powers she had were my inspiration. But after you were born, you stole those powers from her, so she gave you into my care at the orphanage with the express intention of breaking your spirit.” He stroked my face lightly, and I gagged at his touch. “I was cruel, wasn’t I, Helen? I confess that I enjoyed giving you pain; it was like crushing a helpless animal in my hands…and I hated you for what you had done to my darling Celia. Everything you had taken from her would have been mine too; everything I tormented you with was punishment for that. But I assure you it was all for your own good, to make you obedient for later, when your mother would reclaim you and initiate you into our ways. But somehow, despite everything I made you suffer, you still remained willful and stubborn. Even now, you won’t see the best and easiest way for you—which is to join us.”
I felt sick. It had been my own mother who had delivered me into the hands of this monster. And yet, in some strange way I felt liberated from a long and hopeless struggle. Thi
s was the final cutting of any ties between us. My childhood was over. Whatever Celia Hartle had done, or not done, for me as I was growing up was all in the past. She and her lover had both hated me, but I didn’t have to continue their work for them. I no longer had to hate myself. It was finished. A surge of energy and strength ran through me as I faced Dr. Franzen.
“I won’t join you,” I said. “You think you’re a great sorcerer, but you’re nothing, just a bully and a fraud. A common murderer! I have more power in one breath than you will ever know.”
“Don’t speak to your Master like that!” cried the Priestess. “He is my companion, my earthly partner, and you will show him some respect! But if you won’t join us for your own sake, why not do it to help your friends? Do you really want to see all these innocent girls become Bondsouls? And I think…yes, I think I will start with these two….” She moved to where Evie and Sarah were sitting side by side and laughed in their faces.
“Don’t touch them!” I rushed forward, but her Dark Sisters held me back. I saw Miss Dalrymple’s look of triumph as she twisted my arm behind my back until I thought it would break. “I don’t care—I don’t care what you do to me,” I sobbed. “Just don’t hurt Sarah and Evie, not them, please, I beg you.”
“Ah, how quickly and how easily I have been able to make you beg,” the Priestess replied sneeringly. “That pleases me, Helen, more than I can say.” She looked straight into my eyes. “Oh, Helen, Helen, how different everything could have been. If only you had joined me in the first place. I wanted that so much when you came to Wyldcliffe. Then we could truly have been mother and daughter, sharing our powers—”
I spat in her face and she drew back, furious. She clapped her hands, and pain invaded every inch of my body. But I laughed as I sobbed and gasped. “I don’t care, you can never truly hurt me again. And your kind of power can never be shared. It’s greedy and vile and self-seeking—you’ll never be more than your dark master’s slave—but I—I am free!”
“And you will use your precious freedom to tell me how to use these signs! Open these Keys and let me take their power!” She clicked her fingers, and the globe of green fire that we had seen before began to spin in front of my eyes. Our treasures were still locked away inside it. The beauty and purity of the Talisman, the Seal, and the Crown shone out and gave me hope.
“I know that the Talisman is the key to fire and water,” she went on, “and the Crown summons earth’s heavy spirit. The Seal was mine, and will be again. I will command the breath of life and the wind of death. If you open these mysteries to me, I will even promise to go far away from Wyldcliffe and use my new powers elsewhere, and leave you and the rest of these stupid girls in peace. You see, I am not as greedy as you think, Helen. I don’t want to conquer the whole world, just a corner of it. So do as I ask—tell me the secret of the Keys!”
How could I, when I didn’t know it myself? Everything we had ever done had sprung from our hearts as we tried to follow the Mystic Way, not from any complicated lore. And then it all came back to me—everything I knew deep in my heart flashed in front of my eyes and echoed in my mind—the message from Miss Scratton—It unlocks every door—then I heard Agnes speaking gently, Open your heart. Learn to love—and I saw Lynton opening the doors of the ballroom and offering me his hand. The earth seemed to spin under my feet, and I heard his voice—It’s as if the whole world is singing just for us, telling us its secrets—and I saw his face smiling at me, lean and gentle and perfect, shining with the light that came from within—and at last I knew—I knew! There are many kinds of keys…many kinds of love…love that lasts beyond the confines of this world. Are you ready for that, Helen?
And yes, I was ready. I knew everything, and the answer was so simple. I began to laugh softly. “It’s love,” I said. “Everything we did was for love. The Talisman, the Crown, the Seal—they only answer to love, and so you’ll never be able even to touch them without being destroyed. That’s the key that you’ll never be able to use, the door you can never pass through—because you’ve refused to love.”
Tears of wonder were pouring down my face. I had known the secret of the Keys all along. It had been so near, just as Miss Scratton had said. We only had to look around and we could see the love we felt for one another reflected in our eyes, in our secret sisterhood, in the love of Josh and Cal for Evie and Sarah, and even in Sebastian’s unhappy passions—there was a great web of love that held us together. I wasn’t alone. Thinking that had been my mistake. I could never be alone again—I was part of an eternal sisterhood. How had I forgotten that? I should have turned to my sisters for help, not to the shadows of the past, chasing after the memory of the Wanderer and yearning for the love my mother could never give me. Instead of locking up secrets in my heart and trying to work everything out by myself, I should have talked to Evie and Sarah—told them what I wanted to do and where my dreams were leading me. I should have told them about Lynton. We were connected for a purpose—to love and help and sustain each other—and I had cast all that away.
“Oh, you think you are so clever, Helen,” the Priestess said in a dangerously soft voice. “Taunting me with that word again. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps there are things I don’t understand in that sentimental world you inhabit. But I understand this—that your friends are in my power, and that you’d do anything for them, wouldn’t you? So do this, Helen. Find a way of passing the powers of the Keys to me by tomorrow night, or they become Bondsouls, just like Laura. Only I won’t be as kind to them as I was to her. They will wish they had never been born. They will beg for death, and it will never come.”
She clapped her hands, and the blank expressions on Sarah’s and Evie’s faces vanished. They both cried out in pain; high, tortured wails that seemed to cut through my mind like a razor. Then she clapped her hands again, and they sank back to being mindless puppets. She smiled cruelly. “By tomorrow night, Helen, or they are mine forever. Refuse, and you condemn your friends and all these innocent girls to be my Bondsouls! Refuse, and live with that guilt, if you can!”
The Priestess turned to Dr. Franzen. “Come—we are summoned by my Master—until tomorrow. And Helen, I hope you enjoy your last day of freedom. Use your time well!” She drew her robes around her, and the next moment they had both vanished. Rowena Dalrymple and the Dark Sisters began shouting orders to the spell-struck students and teachers. They all responded instantly, marching back to school in orderly lines, yet seeing and hearing nothing. The women of the coven taunted me as they passed by, but they didn’t touch me, and for that at least I was grateful. Soon they had shepherded the students inside the school building. The chapel ruins seemed even more quiet and desolate than ever before.
I looked around wearily. At the outer edge of the darkness, the shrouded forms of the Dead glided away into the night. And in the middle of the ruins, pitifully alone, the body of Mr. Brooke lay as though asleep. I slowly walked over to him and said a prayer, then took off my coat and covered him with it.
A wave of exhaustion came over me. I realized I had been clenching my hands together and I opened them, trying to let my body relax and my mind clear. Something fell onto the grass.
I knelt down and picked it up. It was a small golden ring, a perfect circle. Lynton must have pressed it into my hand before he was dragged away. I slipped it onto my finger and made myself cling to hope. Now…and now…and now…
I would believe that I could save my friends. Because the secret of the Keys was love, and love was the miracle that could save us all.
Twenty-nine
FROM THE DIARY OF HELEN BLACK
NOVEMBER 1, 4:00 A.M.
ALL SAINTS’ DAY
I have been writing for so long that my wrist aches, recording everything that happened tonight, trying to understand, and trying to keep terror away. It is almost morning. On the other side of the dorm Evie lies sleeping, but her mind is controlled by the enemy. Will she ever truly wake again? Sarah is in the same dark sleep. Josh is lost, a
nd Cal must still be searching over the wild hills….
Think, Helen, think!
These are the only possibilities that I can see:
I could try to break the bonds that hold Sarah and Evie, just as we did for Laura. But I don’t have the Seal anymore, and I cannot create the sacred Circle on my own.
Or I could find a way to give the Priestess what she wants. Our elemental powers in return for my friends’ safety. She gets what she desires, and the school is freed. But would she really keep her promise about going somewhere else and keeping away from Wyldcliffe? She has broken every promise she ever made. Besides, wouldn’t it be just as bad for her to leave Wyldcliffe and enslave people in another valley, in another land, or even on another continent? My head says yes, it would be just as bad, but my heart says no, because her victims wouldn’t be my friends, it wouldn’t be Sarah and Evie, my sisters….
Or perhaps I could find a way to take the Priestess by surprise, to attack and destroy her? But then I come back to where I started—that I don’t have the Seal, I don’t have the powers to do this, and she knows it. I said I would cling to hope, and belief, but it’s so hard….
I need a miracle, Wanderer.
If only I had studied the lore in the Book, like Sarah. I always relied on knowing what to do by instinct, from my heart. I thought I was being simple and humble, but perhaps that was the greatest arrogance of all. I should have taken more trouble to learn. It’s too late now.
I need Sarah here to come up with a plan, and Evie to inspire me, and Agnes to give me courage. I need my friends.
I sat up in bed and shoved my diary into my pocket. Of course.
I needed my friends. Together we could work miracles. We were connected for a purpose. And although Evie’s and Sarah’s minds were hidden from me under the cloud of the Priestess’s spell, and Josh was in the shadows, I had other friends. There was Agnes, and Cal. There was even Lynton…. Oh, there was still hope!