Destiny (8 page)

“The Eye of Time sees all things,” Helen murmured, tracing her finger over the words. “Yes, that’s right.”

“But that still doesn’t tell us where to go to find Laura,” Josh said.

“Like I said, I think we’ll be shown the way,” Helen replied. “But there’s something I could do that might help. I have to do it on my own, though.”

“You mean have another dream?” Cal asked quizzically.

Helen flushed faintly, and I frowned at Cal. She was too delicate to tease. But instead of being annoyed, Helen suddenly threw her arms around me and Evie, and looked up at Cal and Josh with tears trembling in her eyes.

“You four—you mean so much to me. Stay safe. Stay in the light. Let me do the rest, please.” Helen stepped back, and with a quick swirl she wrapped herself in the dim shadows of the ruined cottage, pulling the air like a soft blanket around her shoulders. The next second she was gone.

“What on earth did she mean?” Cal wondered. “And how does she do all that?”

“Yeah,” said a low, husky voice behind me. “That’s what I don’t understand. So who’s gonna explain?” My heart leaped as I spun around. Standing in the doorway with a wicked grin on her lovely face was Velvet. She had heard—and seen—everything.

F
ROM THE
D
IARY OF
H
ELEN
B
LACK

O
CTOBER
9

E
verything has changed in a few brief moments this afternoon, my Wanderer. I have just got back from the moors, and my friends will be looking for me, but I want to write this down before I forget, while it is all still new, like a breath of wind at sunrise. There is no one here in the dorm to see me, and so I can tell you that a cunning little voice in my head is pleading,
Forget about Laura for one moment. Follow this flickering marsh light instead. Dance down the fairies’ golden path. Just close your eyes and think about what he said. He might never say it again. Make the most of this sweetness. Taste it while you can.

My mind seems to burn with dazzling light! I am dancing, I am soaring through the air, I am a song on the wind….

I am crazy, I know. And so this is my moment of self-indulgence. Let me tell you what happened today, Wanderer, and don’t judge me.

After we had cast our Circle at Uppercliffe Farm, I decided it was worth approaching my mother’s spirit again to see if I could find out more about the Eye of Time. I was also longing to know what had happened after the terrible anguish I had heard her suffer on my last visit. I dreaded that she might have been snatched by her dark master beyond my reach. So I slipped away again before my friends could stop me or question me too closely. I had seen the curiosity in their eyes, and I didn’t want them to have any idea of what I had done, and what I was going to do.

My element of air was kind to me, and in a few moments I had taken the secret path to the Ridge. As I fell out of the air in the shadow of the great stones it started to rain. The first few drops of cool water on my face felt good; then the shower quickly turned into a savage downpour, as it can on the northern moors. Water, earth, and air—I was surrounded by elemental majesty. All that was missing was fire, but then a blue crack of lightning tore across the sky. I heard a strange cry, like the voice of a bird, driving through the storm, and I ran to the edge of the circle
and looked out over the moor. Someone was climbing its slopes, head bowed in the rain. Then he looked up, and I recognized his thin, pale face, and his laughing eyes. It was him, the musician. He seemed to have been expecting to see me, though I can’t explain why I thought that. He strode against the wind, heading for where I stood. Laura—the Eye of Time—all thoughts of my mother and friends—everything vanished. For one moment, it felt as though he was the only other person in the whole world. There was just him, and me, and the wind crying over the hills.

In those few seconds I felt that I had always known the light of his smile, and his lean body, and his artist’s hands. His mind—sensitive and questioning and tender—seemed to brush against mine like a bird’s wing. But I didn’t
want
to feel like that. I didn’t want to feel anything. I had put on my armor, wrapping myself in my loneliness, and suddenly I was moved by this stranger. I told myself I should run and get out of there, but I couldn’t. I was waiting for him to come to me, waiting for him to say my name.

As he reached the summit of the Ridge, the wind and the rain and crashes of thunder were like the wild music of the ancient gods. The boy looked up at the sky and
laughed, and I laughed too, just for the joy of seeing him. I couldn’t help it—it was like a madness that washed over me. But then the next minute we became deadly serious, and we simply stood in the rain on the hillside and looked at each other, as though we would never tire of looking and finding more to wonder at. I had the strangest feeling that since I had last seen him we had in fact spoken to each other many times. As the wind took my breath away, I realized that in all the past days, underneath everything else, an awareness of his presence at Wyldcliffe had been tugging at my heart like a golden thread.

At last, he smiled and spoke.

“What are you doing out here, Helen? Following me again?”

“Of course. To the ends of the earth,” I said lightly.

He grinned. “That’s settled then. But you’ll get soaked. Here.” Taking off his jacket, he flung it round both of us, then we ran to find some shelter under some of the smaller stones that had fallen over hundreds of years ago and now leaned crazily against one another. We huddled together under their sloping sides, and it seemed so natural, as if we had done this many times before. For a moment I even forgot why I had gone to the Ridge as we talked and laughed, and listened to the song of the wind.

I have never been a great one for laughter. Brooding, worrying, feeling lonely and anxious—I’m pretty expert at all that. But he made me want to laugh, not because he said anything funny or witty, but because hope seemed to rise up in me just at the sight of him and his clear, bright eyes, as though life could be as simple and sweet as the first few notes on a flute.

“So what are you really doing up here on the moors?” he asked. “Aren’t you young ladies supposed to be chaperoned at all times?”

“We’re still allowed out for a walk occasionally. It’s not Victorian times.”

“I heard that Dr. Franzen would like to change all that,” he said. “Get everything back to what it was in the old days.”

I stiffened at the sound of Dr. Franzen’s name. I had forgotten my burdens for a moment, but now they came rolling back. “I don’t care what he does,” I said. “I’m going to leave school as soon as I can anyway.”

The boy looked at me quizzically. “I take it you’re not very keen on Wyldcliffe’s new Master.”

“I hate him.”

I hadn’t meant to speak so savagely. The boy leaned closer to me, so that I felt his body pressing gently against
mine as he whispered, “Don’t forget that forgiveness is stronger than hate.”

I stared at him blankly. Miss Scratton had once said exactly the same thing to me.

“How—how do you know?” I stammered. “What do you mean? And what were you doing up here anyway?” All my ease with him began to drain away. I got up and stepped away from him. “Who are you?”

He stood up too. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. My name is Lynton. And I told you, I’m a student at St. Martin’s. I have another lesson with Mr. Brooke this afternoon. It was such a lovely day that I asked the taxi driver to drop me on the moors so that I could walk the rest of the way to Wyldcliffe.” He shrugged his shoulders ruefully. “I underestimated the distance and how quickly the weather can change, though.”

“Never underestimate anything at Wyldcliffe,” I muttered, and turned to go. The wonderful feeling of lightness had vanished, and I felt a dull, aching nausea in the pit of my stomach. I had been making a fool of myself with self-indulgent nonsense; poor crazy Helen Black. He was just a stranger, and there was no connection between us. I didn’t want or need him in my life. I didn’t need anyone. I was just wet and cold and anxious
to get away. To be alone.

“Wait, Helen, let me walk back with you.”

“All right,” I said ungraciously. I couldn’t dance on the wind back to the school if this Lynton was going to stick around. I wished he had never bothered to speak to me in the first place. Life was easier that way.

The rain still drove down as we set off in silence in the direction of the Abbey.
Where do you live? Do you like St. Martin’s? How old are you?
All the trite questions that came to my lips choked me. I couldn’t say stuff like that. For one moment—but that moment had passed and fallen to nothing, and I wasn’t going to fill the hole with breathless, idiotic chatter. It seemed a long walk home.

When we finally drew near to the village, Lynton said, “I get the feeling you liked me better before I mentioned Dr. Franzen.”

I kept on marching down the muddy lane and forced myself to say, “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s nothing to do with that. It’s nothing at all.”

“So you do like me?”

I ignored that last remark, but he caught up with me and took me by the arm, forcing me to stop too. He gently pulled me around to face him. “Helen,” he said softly. “I’m so sorry it still hurts.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing.” He dropped his hand. His eyes weren’t laughing anymore. They looked so sad, and—not young. He looked different, as though he had known many sorrows. “It’s easy to guess that you’re unhappy,” he said. “I can see it in your face. Some people have faces like masks, which hide everything. But although you try to guard yourself from other people, your face is open to me, like a child’s. I’d like to…get to know you better, Helen.”

His words made me feel raw and open, on the verge of tears. “Why? I’m—I’m no one special.”

“Don’t ever say that.”

“But I’m not.” I looked over to where the Abbey lay in the distance, and muttered, “At the school, the other girls laugh at me. They say I’m crazy. Maybe I am.”

“People think that anything different is crazy. Anything they don’t understand. And you are different, Helen. But being different is a blessing sometimes. A sign.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “A sign of what?”

“Oh, that we can’t all live neat, tidy lives. I don’t think you ever will.” Lynton looked straight at me, and his face seemed so bright and alive, like a flame in the night. “You’re my beautiful stranger. I want to create music for you, and
make you sing, and laugh, and dance on the wind.”

I couldn’t believe what he was saying. “Don’t—don’t mock me,” I managed to gasp.

“I’m not, I swear…. I care about what happens to you.”

“Why on earth should you?”

“Because you don’t deserve to be unhappy. And if you ever feel worried—or frightened by anyone here—by Dr. Franzen—just let me know, won’t you?” He looked at me again, his eyes intensely blue and bright, and I nodded, confused by his words, but somehow comforted.

“Good.” He smiled and relaxed and we set off walking again. All the rest of the way to the school he talked about his music and the weather and the landscape; anything and everything and nothing. His clear, precise voice went on like the soft, soothing murmur of a stream, but I didn’t really take in what he was saying until we reached the huge oak door of the Abbey.

“Well, it was nice to bump into you, Helen. I hope you don’t catch cold.” Lynton shook the rain from his hair, then took my hand as though we had just been introduced at a cocktail party. He leaned forward and kissed my cheek so lightly that I barely felt the touch of his mouth. “I was looking for you, out on the moors,” he whispered. “And I found you. Remember that.”

Lynton turned and walked away without another glance. I watched him go, then hurried away to the dorm, my cheeks blazing and my heart dancing. There was only one person I could tell. I rushed to confess everything to my Wanderer in the scribbled pages of my diary.

Now do you see why my head is still on fire? Because Lynton called me beautiful. He said he cares about what happens to me. He was looking for me. And when his lips brushed against my cheek, I felt something totally new. I felt happy.

Where does the song end?

What is your truth,

Beautiful stranger?

I have indulged myself enough now. I must go and find the others and tell them that I haven’t found anything more about the Eye of Time. I didn’t even try to contact my mother. That’s what I should be thinking about, not a boy I barely know. Powers of the Mystic Way, protect me from myself, don’t let me be selfish, let me keep the promises I have made. But oh, Wanderer, please help me too! Help me to know that what I have told you wouldn’t make you laugh, or make you despise me.

I don’t want you to think I have betrayed you. I don’t mean to
be disloyal to your memory. But perhaps for once life is making me look forward, not back. Help me, my dear friend. Help me to be strong, to be unselfish—

I can’t stop myself, though. My clothes are wet and cold and my fingers ache from scribbling this, but my mind, my heart—they are awake at last. Something inside me is pouring itself out like the song of a bird…happy…happy…happy….

T
HE
W
ITNESS OF
E
VELYN
J
OHNSON

I
wasn’t very happy that our trip to Uppercliffe Farm hadn’t turned out quite as we planned. Velvet was the last person I wanted to see just then, but after she had marched uninvited into the old farmhouse, we couldn’t pretend that we hadn’t seen Helen vanish into the air, disappearing like the memory of a dream. We couldn’t fool ourselves that Velvet didn’t know that we were involved in something deep and strange. The shadows and mysteries that were weaving themselves around us attracted something in Velvet’s needy, searching heart….

And now she had invaded our gathering at Uppercliffe, buzzing with triumph and demanding answers. “How does Helen do that? And can you teach me to do it?
I want to know everything, and I’m not leaving until you start to let me in on your little secrets. Oh, hey, guys—” Velvet broke off and turned to smile at Josh and Cal with her usual look-at-me, seductive charm. “Good to see you again. So you’re still into this witchcraft stuff? Isn’t that strictly for girls?”

Cal didn’t reply, but drew Sarah closer to him and stared back at Velvet impassively.

“What’s the matter?” Velvet said, looking around, all innocence. “Have you all taken a vow of silence to keep poor little Velvet out?”

“What do you want?” Josh asked.

“Same as you, I guess. To have some fun around here, for a start.”

“We’re not doing this for fun,” he replied brusquely. “And it’s not some hokum witchcraft, like dressing up on Halloween. The powers are real and they are dangerous. Helen and Evie and Sarah have risked their lives—”

“And you think I wouldn’t?” Velvet’s expression changed to a sullen scowl. “You know nothing about me.”

“Fine. Let’s keep it that way,” Josh replied. “Come on, Evie, let’s go and find Helen. Maybe she’ll be back at school by now.” He caught my hand in his, firm and strong and real, but even now, after everything Josh had done for
me, I was still holding myself back…. I squeezed his hand quickly in reply, then let it go and walked over to the door.

“Wait! Don’t go yet, I haven’t finished. It’s important!” I turned reluctantly to listen to what Velvet had to say. She lowered her eyes, suddenly humble. “Just give me a chance,” she begged. “I swear I want to help. I want to understand. Ask Helen—if she doesn’t want me, I’ll give up and stop pestering you. I promise.”

I caught Sarah’s eye, and she nodded fractionally. That didn’t surprise me. Sarah was always ready to give everyone second or third or fourth chances, always ready to help the underdog. It’s just that Velvet wasn’t exactly an underdog in my eyes, more like a sleek she-wolf ready to bite the hand that stroked her.

She had been watching us since the previous term, suspecting what we were doing, wanting to find out more. Velvet claimed that she wanted to be like us, and be part of our sacred Circle, but I didn’t trust Velvet Romaine, not for a single heartbeat. This girl had a history of trouble that clung to her like a heady perfume. She had been expelled from every expensive school that she’d been sent to by her famous parents, and there were so many stories: drinking, drugs, nasty accidents happening to the people around her—a long, unsavory list of crises that had been
reported in every tacky newspaper and chewed over in a hundred “celebrity” blogs and chat rooms in cyberspace. Velvet’s experiences had made her hard, rather than sympathetic, and she was careless of other people’s feelings, treating anyone less self-confident than herself as a fool. I didn’t want to have anything to do with her. But at least I would try to be tolerant, and as forgiving as Sarah. If Velvet was begging for a second chance, who was I to say no?

“Okay.” I shrugged. “Let’s see what Helen has to say.”

It had begun to rain. We rode back to the school in single file, Velvet following us on her nervy black gelding, Jupiter. The horses’ tails swished, and their hooves sucked on the muddy ground. It wasn’t a pleasant ride, and I was worrying about where Helen could have gone, but eventually we reached Wyldcliffe. A dismal, late afternoon atmosphere clung to its creeper-clad walls and Gothic turrets. It was already beginning to get dark. Josh and Cal said they would take the horses to the stables while we went to find Helen.

“Come and see me later if you can,” Josh said, lingering next to me for a moment as he took hold of my pony’s bridle. “I want—well, I just want to see you. If that’s okay.”

“Of course I’ll come, if Dr. Franzen isn’t on the prowl.”

“Is he still being the heavy Victorian head teacher?”

“It’s getting worse.” I sighed. “Every day there’s some new rule or order. Wyldcliffe was bad enough before, but now—”

“Are you coming, Evie? We’ll get soaked out here, and we’ve got to find Helen,” Sarah interrupted us.

“Sorry. See you later, Josh.”

The boys headed toward the stables and we slipped inside the school building, with Velvet determinedly at our heels. The imposing entrance hall was empty, and the only light came from the low red flames flickering in the massive stone fireplace. Hanging on the walls in the shadows was a small oil painting, which never failed to catch my attention. It was a portrait of Lady Agnes Templeton, just another relic of the past for the other Wyldcliffe students, but for me it was personal. I had seen those gray eyes and their look of love so many times before, and right now I needed her to guide me. I stopped in front of the portrait and whispered, “Help us, Agnes.” The Talisman was hidden under my clothes, nestling against my heart. “And let the Talisman help Laura,” I added quietly.

“What are you saying? What’s this Lady Thingy got to do with anything?” Velvet demanded, as she noticed me looking at the painting. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“You’ll find out,” I replied shortly. “That is, if you’re
really serious about helping. Come on.”

We hurried past the image of Agnes and went straight up to the dorm that Helen and I shared with Celeste and Sophie. Celeste was lying on her bed and flicking impatiently through a magazine.

“Have you seen Helen?” I asked.

“Talking to me, Johnson?” Celeste looked me up and down as though I were some kind of domestic servant. “Don’t bother, okay?”

“Um…I think…” Sophie was curled up in the window seat, and she glanced over anxiously, surprised to see Velvet with us. “Helen was here, writing in her diary or something; then she rushed out when we came in. She said something about going out…needing air…”

Sarah and I turned and ran down the stairs, followed by Velvet. We passed a group of grumbling students. They were complaining about the latest irritating edict from Dr. Franzen. I wasn’t sure which one, there had been so many:
Students are not allowed to change into casual clothes in the evening. Lights-out bells will now be half an hour earlier. Ancient Greek is now a compulsory course for all students. All students must now enroll in the after-class program of classical music tuition; all students must sing in a choir. All students must perform in the Memorial Concert….

“It’s just not fair!” they complained in resentful whispers, but as I hurried past I wished that I only had Dr. Franzen and his pathetic rules to worry about. We ran out into the rain and onto the school grounds, calling for Helen.

“Look!” Velvet cried.

Someone was standing on the far side of the wet lawn, motionless next to the lake. It was Helen, reaching out to her inner visions, totally unaware of her surroundings, lost in her dreams. We hurried over to her as the rain lashed down on the lake’s dark surface. The ruins of Wyldcliffe’s ancient chapel rose in the background, eerie in the gloom and damp.

“Helen, what are you doing out here in this rain?” I said. “You’ll make yourself ill. And where have you been?”

Helen turned to us, and I stopped in my tracks. I had expected to see her looking haunted and sad, in one of her unhappy moods, but she looked radiant, as though she had been filled with joy like sweet, clear wine.

“Helen—” I felt I should be pleased, but to tell the truth I was amazed, even slightly disturbed. What was happening? Did Helen know something that we didn’t? Had she found the answer to saving Laura? I wanted to ask her a hundred questions but was restrained by Velvet’s
presence. “Helen, Velvet wants to talk to us. She—she saw you, at Uppercliffe….”

Helen looked past me to where Velvet was hovering next to Sarah. A look of understanding passed over her face, and Helen took a deep breath. “So Velvet wants to follow the Mystic Way?”

“That’s what we need to talk about,” I began. “We need to be sure that she…you know…belongs in all this.”

“Were you so sure that you belonged at the beginning, Evie?” Helen gave one of her rare, musical laughs. “Did you even like me when we first met? Did I like Laura when she was alive?”

“Haven’t we all moved on from those days?” I said quietly. “This is about whether it’s right for Velvet to join us now. Can we really be sisters, after all that happened last term? And what’s her element? How would she fit in?”

Helen had been trying to push me and Sarah away since the beginning of term, so I was sure she wouldn’t want Velvet anywhere near her. But she surprised me with her reply.

“We don’t know the answer to that. And it’s not up to us to decide. Maybe our fates are more unexpected than we imagine.”

“I knew you’d understand, Helen,” Velvet said
breathlessly. “You’ve got to trust me. I know I could help you. I could belong.”

“But we don’t need you!” I cried, then regretted my words.

Velvet’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m just asking for a chance.”

“We can’t see who or what we might need one day, Evie,” Sarah said quietly. “I think Velvet should have the chance to know the truth. The truth doesn’t just belong to us. The Mystic Way isn’t an exclusive club or secret society. None of us started out special. We’ve all been helped to discover our powers. If Velvet has some part to play, we should help her to find it.”

“I suppose so,” I agreed, ashamed of my outburst. “What do you say, Helen?”

She hesitated. “Let Velvet find out,” she said at last. “Let her know the truth.”

“Thank you, Helen,” Velvet exclaimed. “Thank you, thank you! I want to do the things that you can do. I promise—”

“Don’t make any promises,” Helen said. “Just walk the path, wherever it leads.”

She set off abruptly across the rain-sodden lawn and we followed, glancing at one another in surprise and
hunching our shoulders against the dreary weather. A few moments later we reached a bank of dripping shrubs that grew thickly at the bottom of the grounds. I recognized the entrance to the old grotto. Soon we had vanished into its echoing spaces, cut off from the rain and from the rest of the world.

The walls of the little cave had originally been decorated with fanciful mosaics of nymphs and flowers and other exotic scenes, but now they were chipped and decayed, dripping with water and reeking with memories. I had been here with Sebastian. I had touched him, held him, and heard his voice…. This was a place full of ghosts. And yet there had been a time when I didn’t believe in such things.
Sebastian, Sebastian
, my heart cried. I swallowed hard and shivered in the cold, dank air.

“We won’t be seen or overheard in here,” Helen said. Sarah reached up into a rough niche in the wall and found a stump of candle, left behind at our last visit. She lit it and the stones and shells of the curious mosaics glinted in the light, but Velvet’s eyes were still black and hungry. I was uncomfortable in her presence, but I trusted that Helen knew what she was doing.

I would have trusted Helen with my life.