No one offered to talk to me, or to share the cookies and hot chocolate that were always served at this time of the day. It was as though Celeste’s dislike of me had made me untouchable. I told myself I didn’t care, and ran down to the ruins to open my letter in peace.
Dearest E.,
I hope by now you are getting used to your new school and making friends. What do you think of Wyldcliffe? It is fine countryside around there. Your mother and I visited the area when we were first married. Clara wanted to see the old farm where her family had once lived. We walked for miles over the moors without meeting another soul, I remember, though perhaps it has changed since then. I can’t tell you how pleased I am that you have been lucky enough to get a scholarship to Wyldcliffe. It is such a weight off my mind to know that you are being looked after so well.
I return overseas tomorrow. It will be good to get back to my men and the job we have to do, but I will be thinking of you every day. I saw Frankie at the nursing home this morning; I’m afraid there’s no change. She didn’t really know me. But never forget how much she loves you. And so do I, my chicken.
Be brave, study hard, and make your old dad proud.
I fought the lump that came into my throat. I didn’t feel brave at all. A crow screeched overhead. I glanced up. The ruins and the moors and the threatening sky seemed so incredibly lonely and desolate. What do you think of Wyldcliffe? Actually, Dad, I’m beginning to hate the place…. But I would never tell him that. I had to deal with it, as Helen had said.
Blowing my nose, I jumped up, then noticed with horror that the other girls had disappeared from the terrace. They must have all gone inside for the next class. I raced over the damp grass and slipped into the building through one of the side doors. There was no one around. I searched my pockets for the schedule and map I had been carrying everywhere.
It was gone. I couldn’t find it. I would be late, I would get into trouble again, and Dad would find out….
Math. That was it—I was sure we had math next with Miss Raglan, the gray-haired teacher who had been so annoyed with me. And I remembered that the math room was at the front of the building, in one of the grand old rooms near the library. All I had to do was to get to the marble staircase and I would be nearly there. I had to be quick, though. Miss Raglan would be just the kind of mistress to dish out a demerit if I turned up late.
I tore along the deserted corridors. Everyone was in class but me. The whole house seemed still and hushed. At last I reached the right place. Yes, this was it, thank goodness. I opened the door.
But it wasn’t Miss Raglan’s room. It wasn’t even a classroom. It was some kind of jumbled parlor stuffed with heavy furniture and vases and gold-framed pictures. A skinny young girl with a smudged face and a black dress was sweeping the fireplace. I slammed the door shut and looked around wildly. Suddenly I didn’t recognize the ornate paintings on the walls of the corridor, or the red carpet on the floor. Now I was completely lost.
Okay, okay, I thought, just make your way to Miss Scratton’s room; you must remember how to get there. Just explain to her that you couldn’t find your way and ask for another map.
Before I could move, I heard a soft noise behind me. Then I saw her again, the girl in white, walking away from me down the corridor. She held a bundle of rainbow-colored silks in her hands. Without thinking I followed her down the corridor, as if in a dream, and all the time I could hear the swish-swish-swish of her long skirt.
“Hi, stop!” I tried to shout. She paused and turned, looking over her shoulder with a puzzled frown. The ground under my feet seemed to collapse, and the colors of the silks in her hand swirled into a strange kaleidoscope, as if the whole world had started to spin. I saw her pale face in the streaming shadows; then it turned into the dreadful dead stare of poor drowned Laura. I began to struggle for breath as the darkness came over me once again. I was falling and no one could save me, no one except a dark-haired boy laughing under the stars. I felt his cool breath on my cheek; I saw the fierce blue of his eyes; I heard his voice: I saved your life…. We’ll meet again. The fading scar on my hand throbbed faintly, like a pulse. I cried out, “Where are you? Who are you?” But he just laughed and murmured, Evie…Evie…
“Evie! Evie!” A stranger was calling me. My head was bursting with pain, and I felt sick. I struggled to open my eyes. A man with gold-rimmed glasses was bending over me. I panicked and tried to push him away.
“This is Dr. Harrison, Evie.” Miss Scratton’s pinched face came into focus, hovering behind the doctor. She was watching me intently. “You fainted again. We’re concerned about you.”
I made an effort to sit up. I was in a bare white room that I hadn’t seen before.
“Where…?”
“You’re in the nurse’s room, in the infirmary,” explained Miss Scratton. “One of the junior girls found you lying in the corridor outside the math room. What happened?”
I hesitated, then looked away. “I don’t know.”
“Well, we can’t have you fainting all over the place,” she said curtly. “There must be some explanation.”
“I don’t think there’s anything terribly wrong, Miss Scratton,” the doctor intervened. “Her blood pressure is normal. But this young lady’s had a bit of an upheaval in her life, by all accounts, and no doubt is working hard and missing home. She needs fresh air and exercise.” He turned to me and asked, “Do you ride? That would bring some roses to your cheeks.”
I shook my head and croaked, “I like swimming.”
“Swimming? Excellent! I’m sure that can be arranged. There’s a pool on the school grounds, isn’t there, Miss Scratton?”
“It’s only filled with water in the summer term.”
Dr. Harrison grunted, dissatisfied, but stood up to go. “I’ll leave some vitamin tablets for you to take, young lady. And no skipping meals!”
He gave me a smile and left, followed by Miss Scratton. I lay back down, resting my head thankfully on the cool pillow. What had really happened in that corridor? Who was the girl in white? Was she connected with Laura in some way? And the boy—he had been there, next to me, close enough to touch.
A wave of nausea swept over me. I turned my face to the wall and closed my eyes. It was ridiculous to get worked up about people I would never see again.
Who were they, after all? A boy I had met only once and would probably never meet again. A dead girl from a photograph. A nonexistent redheaded girl I had dreamed up out of my imagination. It was pathetic. I was acting like some sad, demented kid, so desperate for someone to talk to that I’d invented crazy invisible friends. It was stupid, stupid, stupid. I didn’t need anyone.
But however much I might say it, I knew in my heart that it wasn’t true. I did need some kind of human contact, even if it was only with dreams and illusions. For the first time in my life I admitted to myself that I was painfully lonely. Celeste and the other confident, self-satisfied Wyldcliffe girls had made it clear that they didn’t want me around. Perhaps I could have made more of an effort to be friends with Helen, but there was something about her that sort of scared me. And there was Sarah. I really liked Sarah, but she seemed quite happy with her horses and her garden. She didn’t need me. No one did. I was alone.
As I clutched the doctor’s little bottle of pills, I knew it would take more than a few vitamins to heal my troubled heart.
Eleven
THE JOURNAL OF LADY AGNES, SEPTEMBER
30, 1882
Let the reader beware that the Mysticke Way is a path of healing, not darkeness. Although there be those who, through ignorance and vulgar prejudice, have miscalled it common witchcraft, it is no such thing. But all true followers of the Way must not seeke power for its own sake, nor harm any living creature….
This is what the Book says. Now I know what I am destined to do. I shall devote myself to the Mystic Way and become a great healer. As S. said on that first day, what great good could we achieve? There is so much dirt and disease and
ignorance in this world to be cured and conquered. Even I, in my sheltered valley, know of the terrible hardship of some of the poor wretches in London and Manchester and our other so-called “great” cities. I am determined to use our discoveries to alleviate such suffering, and I have made a very small beginning.
There is a pear tree in the corner of the kitchen garden that is blighted, and the gardener had told me that he planned to cut it down next week. So when both Miss B. and Mama were resting after luncheon a few days ago, I locked the door of my room and closed the curtains and consulted the Book.
First, I made an altar on my dressing table, draping it in white silk, lighting pure wax candles, and invoking the secret words of blessing. On the floor in front of the altar I drew a Circle all around me for protection and strength. Then I spoke the incantations, burning the oil and herbs as described in the Book. As I did so, I emptied my mind and concentrated until I seemed to see stars of fire and light all around me.
When the mixture had cooled, I crept into the kitchen garden, making sure that no one saw me, and anointed the tree with it. Then I bound a single strand of my hair around one of the branches. When I placed my hand on the tree, I felt the life force within it answering my call. Today the canker on the stem is shriveling and the blight is fading from the leaves. And I know I can do more, much more. As some have been given the gift to sing or dance or paint in a way that I could never hope to imitate, so I too have been given a miraculous gift: to know and serve the Secret Fire and its great Creator. Oh, my words seem wild, yet I know what I have seen and done.
I can snuff candles with a blink of my eye, and light the fire in my grate with the flick of my wrist and the strength of my thought. I can see through the shadows into the light, where a girl with bright hair and strange clothes walks by the lake, alone and lonely. I want to experience all this and more, and to understand every deep mystery that the Book contains. But S. troubles me. Already I feel that we are walking in different directions, and that makes me afraid for this great adventure. Yes, he troubles me, though it is hard to explain exactly why.
It began the day after our first attempt to cast the Circle in the cave on the moor. He called at the Abbey after breakfast, as usual, but was sullen with me, even angry.
“Why did the spirits answer you and not me?” he asked again and again, as though I had done this on purpose to spite him.
“I do not know; perhaps you should try again….”
“Yes, let us go back to the cave now, immediately.” He hurried me out of the house, and we rode recklessly over the hills. Once in the cave again, he repeated the ritual with a ferocious intensity, following the instructions with great care, omitting nothing of the strange rites. With all his strength and passion, he summoned the powers and called on the immortal fire. But again, the flames sprang to life in my hands, not his. He wouldn’t give up, however, and he called out every word of incantation that he could muster, until his eyes burned with despair. I could not bear to see him so abandoned and distressed, and I secretly wished that he would be granted what he desired.
As the white flames flickered on my hands like laughing children, I seemed to be given a choice. It seemed as though I could allow S. to be included in the Mysteries or not. And I hesitated. All my life I have been in his shadow: younger, ignorant, a mere girl. For one fleeting moment I was tempted to keep this new power to myself.
I could not do it. “Let it happen,” I breathed, “let it be as he would desire….”
There was a fearful rumbling in the cave, like an earthquake, and I thought the walls must fall in on us. Dark coils of smoke, crackling with tongues of green fire, rose at his feet and wound themselves around his body until he was clothed in darkness. I reached out for him, but I was thrown down on the rocky floor. A silver light exploded in my mind. Then a long line of women’s faces passed in front of my eyes, all calling his name, screeching and gibbering and weeping, until the last one was the strange girl whose face has begun to haunt my dreams. She looked so sad. An almighty crash of thunder sounded as I shut my eyes and covered my ears in terror.
Later—I don’t know how much later—I opened my eyes again and saw S. standing over me. He bent down and helped me to my feet. A deep crack had appeared on the floor of the cave where our Circle had been.
“It has happened,” he said simply. “I have been reborn.”
And so he is satisfied, and I must be too. It is what I wished for, after all. But I cannot help wondering whether I made the right choice.
This thought has haunted me for days, like the cry of the gulls by the sea.
Twelve
I
was pining for the sea. It actually hurt, a raw physical pain in my chest. I couldn’t forget what the doctor had said about going swimming. My body ached for the stinging waters and the dip and roll of the great waves. I began to feel that if I couldn’t swim, I would crack up.
“Evie Johnson, are you working, or daydreaming?” asked Miss Scratton.
The words on the page I was supposed to be studying danced in front of my eyes like a foreign language. I felt as though another tiny bit of me was dying. And then, suddenly, I knew what to do.
I would swim in the lake. That’s it, I thought. I’ll creep out at night, and no one will ever know. Then the rising flutter of excitement inside me was suddenly checked.
Laura.
What about the nightmares I’d had about her—wouldn’t they be a hundred times worse if I actually swam in the waters where she had drowned? My heart plummeted again. It was impossible, a stupid, sick idea. Forget it.
I tried to. I really did. But one night I couldn’t sleep. Celeste had fussed about being cold and had turned up the heat until the room was sweltering. I was tired, but restless, lying awake for what seemed hours while the others slept, feeling anxious and hot and stifled. Eventually I flung off the covers and got up to open the window, but it was bolted shut. I could see the lake, pale and silver in the moonlight. It looked so cool and pure and inviting.
I couldn’t resist. I had to feel the air on my skin; I had to get outside; I had to be by the lake. I wouldn’t swim there, but if I could only look at it and feel the cool night breeze across the water…
Did I know, or guess, what would happen if I went out that night? And if I had known, would I have gone? All I know is that I persuaded myself that what I was doing was perfectly rational as I crept out of the dorm.
I decided to use the old servants’ staircase that Helen had shown me. There was less chance of being seen that way. Pushing aside the velvet curtain, I drew back the bolts and opened the door. I groped for Helen’s flashlight, then switched it on, my heart hammering away. The thin beam of light was comforting, though I hated the shadows that flickered all around me, and the dark cracks of those narrow steps.
Just get on with it, I told myself. All I had to do was walk calmly down them, and I would be free. One step at a time, one step at a time…
I reached the bottom and realized I had been holding my breath the whole way down. The door to the main hallway was ahead, and behind me was the desolate servants’ wing. I stepped forward and pressed my ear to the door. There were voices outside in the corridor. I caught the words “…another attempt…soon.” It sounded like Mrs. Hartle. Her voice sank too low to hear. Another voice—Miss Scratton?—protested, “No, not yet. We should wait.”
Then Mrs. Hartle cut in icily, “Am I the High Mistress, or you?”
A late-night teachers’ quarrel. It would be impossible to go that way. I would have to sneak through the servants’ wing and find my way to the green door that led to the stable yard. It was either that or give up and go back, and I couldn’t bear the thought of giving up. I had to go on.
I forced myself to walk down the musty passage, holding up the flashlight and trying to imagine that Helen was with me as I tiptoed past the deserted rooms and storage areas, past the row of old bells, past the door to the ghostly kitchen, on and on until I reached a cobwe
bbed green door. I tugged at the bolts and chains, and then I was outside in the cold night air.
The moon was huge and low and yellow in the autumn sky. A horse stamped restlessly nearby. I had made it. I took a few deep gulps of air and grinned. It had been worth it. I was free.
I tucked the flashlight behind the green door and ran lightly out of the stable yard to the terrace at the back of the house. Checking to make sure that no one was watching from the tall windows, I flitted across the lawns and under the shadows of the trees. The dark ruins on the other side of the water seemed to loom taller than in the daytime, and for an instant I thought I could see something fluttering between the broken archways. An owl hooted. Go back, go back…it seemed to screech. I ignored its warnings and made my way down to the silent lake.
I stooped over the water, feeling wildly happy. I was myself again, not a zombie in a Wyldcliffe uniform. My hair fell over my shoulders as I trailed my hands in the shallows, and the breeze ruffled my clothes. I closed my eyes in ecstasy, imagining that I was sitting on the beach at home, with the wind blowing and the waves racing and the water calling me.
Then I heard a footstep and I knew someone was behind me, watching me, waiting for me. I forgot to breathe, and cursed myself for being so stupid. What dangers might be waiting?
I opened my eyes and saw my wavering reflection in the dark water, and behind it a familiar figure in a long black coat.
“I told you we would meet again.”
I whipped around. He was standing there in the moonlight, the boy with the haunting eyes.
“You terrified me!”
“And you enchanted me.” He smiled teasingly. “You looked like a water nymph saying her prayers. What were you dreaming about?”
I blushed scarlet and tried to summon a brusque tone. “It’s none of your business.”
“I want to make it my business. I want to know everything about you.”
“What makes you think I want to have anything to do with you?” I snapped. I had secretly hoped I would see him again, but now I wanted to get away and hide, as though he already knew too much about me. “I have to go, and so should you. You’ll be in terrible trouble if Mrs. Hartle catches you here.”