Destiny (7 page)

F
ROM THE
D
IARY OF
H
ELEN
B
LACK

O
CTOBER
7

White wings, take me far away,

Take me where the wind blows free.

High, high in the stars I climb,

And the secret, silent spirit

Of the world’s heart enfolds me;

Like a breath,

Like a mother’s embrace.

I
have been thinking endlessly, fighting myself and my fears. It would be cowardly to run away from Dr. Franzen. My mother ran away from the Seal and all that it meant, and she was left with an empty memento of what might have been. I don’t want
to make the same mistake.

I desperately want to get away from Wyldcliffe, but I won’t go until I know that my sisters are truly safe. Dr. Franzen cannot treat them as he treated me when I was under his “care,” but my mother’s fate must be resolved before I can leave them here. And there is another task waiting for me. Laura.

Sarah and Evie have vowed to release her and break the spells that keep her as a Bondsoul. But the guilt of Laura’s fate is all mine, just as my shame over your fate, Wanderer, is my own private burden. I can’t do anything to help you now, but if I can reach out to Laura, perhaps that will pay off some of my debt. I should have thought of helping her before. You see how selfish I have been, wrapped up in my own thoughts and dreams? I won’t let Evie and Sarah take any more risks, though. I have to persuade them that I can do this myself.

Laura, my mother, my sisters. When they are safe, when all this is done, I will finally run from this place. When that day comes, I will start again, alone, and find my destiny.

“I can do this by myself,” I said. “I’m sure I can find Laura.”

“Alone?” Sarah asked in disbelief. “But what about our Circle? You can’t make the Circle on your own.”

“I might not need the Circle,” I said awkwardly. “I just want to try. I don’t want you two to risk anything, and
besides, it was my fault that Laura was taken. I should be the one to put things right.”

“But wouldn’t it be better for us to work together, like we’ve always done?” asked Evie, looking puzzled.

“It will be easier if you let me do this myself,” I pleaded. “The quicker I find Laura and let her go, the quicker I can—”

“What?” asked Sarah.

“The quicker I can forgive myself, I suppose.” I shrugged.

“It wasn’t your fault, Helen, what happened to Laura,” Evie said softly.

“But I was there when the coven sucked her soul. I could have stopped it!”

“You didn’t know what they were going to do,” Sarah said. “You’ve got to stop blaming yourself.”

“Yes, I know, I know, we’ve been through all that already,” I replied. “But she’s my responsibility all the same.”

“We all feel a responsibility for Laura,” Evie answered. “That’s why we’re all here, to share things. You don’t have to carry that burden on your own anymore, Helen.”

Despite my attempts to persuade my friends to let me look for Laura by myself, I was touched by their determination to stick with me. But I wasn’t going to let that
change things. “Look,” I said in a reasonable voice, “just let me try. If it doesn’t work, then okay, we’ll cast the Circle and see what we can do together. But if it does work, Laura will be safe and I’ll feel as though I’ve paid back what I owe her. So we’ll all be happy. You can’t argue with that, can you?”

They didn’t try, to my relief, though I saw the hurt in their eyes that I didn’t want to do this with them. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be with Sarah and Evie. It wasn’t even that I had a crazy egotistical belief in my own powers. It was because the simplest of all possible solutions had occurred to me.

The Priestess had made Laura into her Bondsoul, and so I would simply ask the Priestess to release her slave. And if Celia Hartle was sincere in all she had said—if she really wanted to show that she had abandoned her dark ways—this would be the perfect way to prove it.

I set off that morning without stopping to think, bunking off class and leaving my friends to make some excuse for me. A few minutes later I stepped out of the secret winds and found myself flung breathless into the center of the stone circle on the Ridge. I looked up. A hawk was hovering above me in the brooding sky, looking for prey. In the far distance I saw a party of walkers in
bright anoraks toiling up the slopes on the other side of the valley. Everything seemed normal, but my pulse was racing. I got to my feet and strode over to the towering black stone and called to my mother’s spirit. She answered quickly, hungrily, filling all my senses with her intoxicating, disturbing presence.

“So you’ve come back?” she asked. “Do you believe me? Do you understand at last how I grieve for you, my daughter? How I repent of my past errors? And Helen, my darling—” My mother’s voice echoed in my mind, low and soft like a sweet caress. “Helen, have you come to set me free?”

The great stones, reaching up to the sky like an ancient giant’s crown, seemed to be waiting for my answer too. I crouched at the foot of the black rock and spoke slowly, hardly daring to breathe for fear of saying the wrong thing. “I need you to do something for me first.”

She seemed to draw her mind away from mine for a fraction of a second, then replied eagerly, “Anything! I will do anything for you, Helen. Tell me what it is.”

“Release Laura. Let her soul pass.” If Celia Hartle really loved me, I was sure she would do this for me. I was so sure….

There was silence. Then a sigh like a long breath of
wind. Joy turning to dust and smoke.

“That is the one thing I cannot do.” She sighed. “I no longer have the powers to perform such complex mysteries. Here, imprisoned in this place, I am cramped and fettered.”

“You—you can’t release her?”

“Not in my present weakness. Besides, Laura is no longer with me. I am alone, and she is hidden in deep darkness. But if you let me go…Free me, and I will regain my strength, and I’ll be able to do this for you, Helen. We will achieve it together, side by side. Laura will be at peace.”

The vision I’d had of my mother the last time I stood in the stone circle flashed into my mind. She was smiling and holding her hands out to me. I wanted to run to her. We would achieve this, side by side…. She opened her mouth to speak, but it wasn’t her voice I heard. It was Miss Scratton, harsh and dry, saying, “
Helen, wake up, wake up…
”

Wake up from what? From the illusion that my mother had truly changed? I longed to trust her, to work with her, but what if…what if…what if…? I stepped back and looked up at the skies, desperate for guidance, but the skies were empty and mournful. I was alone, with the fate of others in my frail and feeble hands. Silence.

The moors. The autumn colors, bright as glass. The wind sighing its secret song. And silence from the black heart of my mother’s dark rock. The whole world was waiting for me to speak.

And the secret, silent spirit

Of the world’s heart enfolds me;

Like a breath,

Like a mother’s embrace.

“I will free you,” I said, clenching my hands into fists.

“My darling! You will not regret this—”

“I will free you,” I repeated, “but Laura must be free first.”

It was not the answer she wanted.

“But that will delay everything! You must trust me!” she replied in despair. “I have told you—I cannot free Laura from this prison. That is the truth.”

“Then I’ll have to help her on my own. And when she is safe, and when my friends are safe—then I’ll come back for you.”

Another sigh. A breath of hope.

“Thank you, my daughter. There is something I can tell you that might be of use. To help Laura, first you must
find her. The Eye of Time watches her. When I was…taken…by you and your sisters, Laura fled from me. Now she wanders in one of the secret places between this world and the shadows. Seek her at the next new moon, when the sky is dark and all things begin again. She is under the Eye of Time. Find the Eye of Time and you will find her.”

“So where is this ‘Eye’? Where should I look for it?” I asked, but at that moment a horrific scream seared through my brain. An image of my mother engulfed in black flames flashed in front of me, and I felt her agony.

“My master—sees—and hears—He is angry with me for helping you—Helen—aaah! No, please, no more—please—stop—”

Her spirit had retreated into dark realms beyond my reach, and now I was crying too. I couldn’t bear it. I would rather have faced Dr. Franzen a hundred times than hear the sound of my mother suffering for my sake.

Sinking into the damp bracken, I sobbed until my throat ached and my eyes burned. Well, I had made my choice. No doubt crazy Helen Black had got it wrong again. Everything I did led to sorrow and despair, and I deserved to suffer, like Dr. Franzen had told me a thousand times.

But the Wanderer had told me a different story.
You’re special, Helen…. You want life to be beautiful, and it will be one day, I promise. You’ll be happy….

The pain in my heart seemed to ease slightly. I sat up and pushed my hair out of my eyes. It was getting late, time to get back. I had come to the Ridge that day with such high hopes, imagining that I would be able to return to my friends and say to them, “Laura is free!” But it wasn’t going to be as easy as that. Nothing would be easy, but I wasn’t going to give up. Maybe one day, all promises would come true: Celia Hartle’s promise to be a mother, the Wanderer’s promise of happiness, and Miss Scratton’s promise of salvation. And I would keep my own vow to help Laura. Only death would stop me.

Laura. She was the one who mattered now. She was the key to all the rest. When she was free I would come back to find my mother, but not until then. I had a job to do, and crying in the wind wouldn’t get me anywhere. I willed myself to feel nothing, to put on an icy armor of numbness so that I could fight this last battle; then I strode down the slope, leaving the desolate circle of stones behind me.

T
HE
W
ITNESS OF
S
ARAH
F
ITZALAN

H
elen slipped back to class later that morning, her face ashen but set hard, as if she had tried to shut off her emotions. She whispered briefly, “My idea didn’t work,” and then seemed to concentrate on her math book, but I noticed that she didn’t even attempt to do any work. At the end of the class she passed me a note:
Saturday afternoon at Uppercliffe. The Circle.
Then she walked on by without speaking. I sighed and wished that she would trust me with her secrets. But at least she had agreed to cast the sacred Circle with us to help Laura. That was a step forward.

On Saturdays we older students were allowed to go out for a ride or walk without supervision. Dr. Franzen
hadn’t gotten around to changing that rule yet. I hoped he never would, though he had certainly made an impact since his arrival, and was already proving to be unpopular. Helen wouldn’t talk about him again, and I couldn’t guess what she was really thinking. I didn’t know that whenever Helen passed Dr. Franzen in the corridor, every time he read prayers at breakfast or supper, every time he marched into one of the classrooms to inspect the work that was going on, she felt sick. I was blind to her pain, and I should have seen more clearly, but despite the fact that I was proud of my Gypsy ancestry and was sometimes gifted with flashes of insight into other people’s hearts, Helen was good at keeping secrets.

The other students weren’t frightened of Dr. Franzen in the same way that Helen was, but they resented his presence. Wyldcliffe had always been such a distinctly female institution, and his new authority was like some weird kind of violation of its past. Yes, the school had been narrow and bitchy and snobby, but there had been another side. At its best, over the long years of its history, Wyldcliffe’s scholarly spinster teachers had encouraged the young women in their care to study and work hard and take pride in themselves and their achievements. But Dr. Franzen was so cold and superior, so aggressively
masculine with his beard and military bearing and walking stick and his heavy, piercing stare. It was as though he despised every one of us and thought we were stupid little girls to be told what to do at every single second of the day.

Miss Dalrymple and Miss Newman, the science mistress, and the bullying sports teacher, Miss Schofield, seemed to approve of the new Master and his methods, but I disliked him intensely. Timekeeping, prayers, extra lessons, demerits, and detentions were enforced more rigidly than before. Dr. Franzen marched up and down the corridors, giving out orders in his cold, deep voice, making both teachers and students nervous and clumsy. Even Velvet toned down her attitude and fell into line as he restored long-forgotten rules and regulations that actually made Mrs. Hartle’s reign seem relaxed and civilized. As for the reforms that Miss Scratton had tried to introduce, they were all swept away. The common rooms she had opened up for students to relax in were now constantly supervised by a member of the staff, as though the teachers were spying on us and on one another. But it was Dr. Franzen’s decision to cancel the ball that was going to be held at Christmas with the boys of St. Martin’s Academy that annoyed the older girls. It had been planned for so long as a great treat, to open up Wyldcliffe’s ghostly Victorian
ballroom and fill it once more with youth and laughter. Instead it was announced there would be a music concert on the night of the Memorial Procession in December, when prayers were said for Agnes according to the will of her father, Lord Charles Templeton. It was a longstanding Wyldcliffe tradition, and this year, Dr. Franzen announced, all students would be expected to sing in the choir or play in a classical music ensemble. I was ready to give every honor to Agnes’s memory, but quite honestly, this concert of Dr. Franzen’s sounded dreary and old-fashioned—typically, horribly Wyldcliffe.

I was disappointed about the dance, but not heartbroken. So many of the good things that Miss Scratton had introduced during the short time she had been in charge of the school had been undone, and now that she had gone I couldn’t imagine that Cal or Josh, who weren’t St. Martin’s “gentlemen,” would ever have been welcome at a Wyldcliffe ball. Besides, it was the eternal dance of good and evil that concerned us, not parties and proms. Laura was our priority now, and when Saturday afternoon came round, we set off to Uppercliffe with high hopes.

Uppercliffe was an isolated farmhouse on the moors, far from prying eyes. The little house was now tumbledown and abandoned, but Agnes had once secretly lived
there after coming back from London with her baby, Evie’s great-great-grandmother. It was a special place for us, full of the echoes of the past.

Evie and I rode there on my ponies Starlight and Bonny. We met Josh and Cal with their horses in the village, so as not to attract the notice of any gossiping tongues in the school. They were waiting for us outside the village hall, which hosted the occasional lecture or meeting, and where the local mothers organized an annual Christmas party for their children. Helen didn’t ride with us. She would arrive in her own way.

We trotted sedately down the high street, and left the village and its cottages behind. It was a fine autumn day, and the bracken on the moors glowed like a smoldering carpet of fire. Soon we were cantering over the hills, and it wasn’t long before the windswept remains of the old farm came into sight. Inside the deserted building everything was dark and cold. There was the rustle of mice in the corner, and the floorboards had rotted to reveal the rich, peaty earth beneath.

We waited, talking quietly, until the air seemed to twist and thicken, and a silver haze formed. I sensed the vibration of low, secret music, and then Helen stepped out in front of us. We had seen her do this many times
before, but it was still amazing.

As Helen caught her breath, I noticed the heightened flush on her usually pale cheeks and the determined glitter in her eyes. She barely acknowledged the boys’ presence.

“Let’s make the Circle,” she said abruptly. “Laura is hidden between life and death. We need to find her under the Eye of Time, at the next new moon.”

“How do you know this about the ‘Eye of Time’?” asked Evie.

“I just know.”

Evie glanced at me and gave a slight shrug of the shoulders, an unspoken message:
What do we do now? I’m so worried about Helen….

“I just know!” Helen shouted. “Stop treating me like a child!”

“Hey, Helen, no one’s doing that,” Josh said quietly. “We all really want to help Laura and strike a blow against the Priestess. Everyone’s ready to follow your lead, but we’d like to understand what’s happening.”

“I’m sorry,” Helen forced herself to say. “I thought you’d be pleased that I’ve found stuff out that will help.”

“We are,” I replied quickly. “It’s just…aren’t you going to tell us how you did it?”

“I—I had a dream. I dreamed about Miss Scratton—she told me what we had to do.”

It sounded kind of fake, and Helen was usually so truthful. Again there was the little frown from Evie, a slight shake of the head from Josh.

“Good. Well…that’s good,” I said uncertainly.

But Evie was still frowning. “What else did you learn from Miss Scratton in your dream?”

“Just that,” Helen replied. “We have to look for Laura and the Eye of Time on the night of the next new moon. Or at least I have to,” she added sullenly. “You don’t have to come.”

Silence. Waiting. Evie seemed to be weighing up Helen’s words, trying to work out what was going on. “Of course we’ll come with you,” she said at last. “We’re sisters, so we’re in this together. We don’t have any secrets, do we?”

“No,” Helen said, but I didn’t believe her and I guessed that she knew that. This wasn’t the time for quarreling, though. It was Laura’s time. I tried to be practical.

“Well, how do you suggest we start?” I said, as though everything was perfectly fine. “We need to make the Circle, of course, and I’ve brought the Book with me.” This ancient, leather-bound volume had first been discovered
by Sebastian, and was full of the lore of the Mystic Way. “Hopefully we’ll find some guidance in here. I’ve looked at a few things already. There’s a charm to awaken people under curses, that might be useful—”

“No,” Helen said, taking the Book from me and handing it to Cal. “We won’t need that, not yet. I think I know what to do. We can’t do anything to release Laura from bondage until the new moon, but we need to make contact with her and prepare her for it. Evie, please may I hold the Talisman?”

The rest of us stared at her. There was a curious intensity about Helen’s words. She was standing in the shadows of the dilapidated farmhouse, wearing jeans and a shapeless sweater. Her fair hair fell across her eyes, and she looked like a pilgrim in an old painting, traveling to some mysterious destination. Evie nodded slowly and gave Helen the Talisman.

As Helen held it, the crystal at its center sparkled clear and white.

“Agnes,” Helen whispered. “Hear us. Be with us now. You poured the power of your love into this Talisman. It links all of us, present and past. Let it be a bridge between the light and the dark. Let it shine in the shadows where Laura is lost and afraid.”

Then she marked a Circle on the ground with her finger. The three of us stepped into the Circle and held hands while the boys watched. Cal looked torn between being proud of my gifts and slightly suspicious of anything that separated me from him, but Josh’s eyes were full of admiration for Evie as she echoed Helen’s words: “Agnes. Hear us. Be with us now. Complete our sacred Circle.”

And so we called upon the powers of air, water, earth, and fire. Helen held the Talisman high. She began to chant in her pure, clear voice. The humble stone-walled room began to fill with light and sound, which seemed to radiate from the heart of the jewel. Evie and I had stumblingly found our way to our secret elemental powers under Helen’s guidance, and now she was leading us again, like a prophetess, singing to the great unseen. A silver rope of light, which seemed to be summoned by Helen’s song, materialized from the Talisman, weaving circles within circles. Was it then that I first saw that Helen was far beyond anything I could ever be? Or was it when more colored ribbons of light formed in the air, creating shapes and pictures? As we looked up in awe, scenes from Laura’s life swirled into view. We saw her laughing on the terrace at Wyldcliffe with her cousin Celeste, then getting into trouble for some stunt, and
being summoned for detention. We saw her enter the High Mistress’s study; then she was seemingly asleep in the crypt under the chapel ruins, and Mrs. Hartle was bending greedily over her neck as she sucked her soul away. Finally the shimmering images showed Laura as we had seen her last term in the underground cavern: a Bondsoul, white and haggard, as gaunt as a skeleton and totally enslaved to the will of her Priestess, Mrs. Hartle. Even in that hazy picture formed by the blended lights I saw that Laura’s eyes were like two dead pools, and the sight of her degradation filled me with horrified pity.

Helen stopped chanting. “Laura!” she called softly. “Listen to me!”

Laura seemed to focus her eyes, as if trying to look into the distance. She couldn’t see us, but perhaps wherever her spirit was held prisoner, she had heard Helen’s call. Her lips moved. “I’m not Laura,” she whispered. “I am no one…. I belong to the Priestess.”

“You don’t have to,” Helen replied. “You can still be saved. Do we have your permission to cross the threshold of your death and lead you on the path to your true home?”

“I can’t…all…all belongs to the Priestess,” Laura intoned again.

“That’s not true,” Helen said. “Your spirit belongs only to yourself and its Creator. The Priestess’s hold over you will end. I will make that happen, I promise. Let us help you.”

Laura seemed to look around fearfully, and a terrible spasm passed over her face. She moaned in a tormented whisper, “Yes…yes…find me, help me…please…” Her eyes lit up for one instant; then there was a flare of red light and a distant scream, and Helen’s delicately woven images shattered and vanished. The Talisman lay quiet in her hand. We looked at one another and let out our breaths and stepped out of the Circle.

“Helen, you were amazing!” gasped Evie.

“How do you know how to do all that?” asked Josh.

“I’m not totally sure.” Helen looked down self-consciously and handed the Talisman back to Evie. “I see what I want to do in my mind, and somehow the powers make it happen. But it’s obvious that you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. We had to know whether Laura was willing to listen to us. At least we know now that some part of her wants to be free and can see beyond her bondage. Without that there’d be no hope—” She broke off, then murmured to herself, “The prisoner who loves her prison can never be free….”

“So what do we do next?” Evie asked.

“Wait for the new moon.”

“That’s all very well,” I said, “but we have to know where this ‘Eye of Time’ is—or what it is.”

“Don’t worry, Sarah,” Helen said, and the secretive, closed-up expression came over her face again. “I believe a sign will be given. You have to believe that, too.”

Something was stirring in my memory. “But I’m sure I’ve seen…look, there might be something in the Book. It’s worth a try.”

Cal put his jacket on the damp ground and placed the Book on top of it, opening it at the first pages. As we all crowded around, I read aloud the familiar words:

“Reader, if you bee not pure

Stay your hande and reade no more;

The Mysteries Ancient here proclaimed

Must not bee by Evil stained.”

“But it wasn’t here,” I said impatiently. “It was right at the end…. I remember, something about time…” I flipped the pages to the back of the book. There, on the very last page, was an elaborate design of an eye in a circle, surrounded by symbols and the words
Oculus tempi
omnia videt.
For once I was glad of the dull Latin lessons at Wyldcliffe. “Look—
oculus tempi
—the Eye of Time…It says the Eye of Time sees everything….”