“So, Helen,” said the Priestess. “The time has come, finally, and this is the night of our reckoning. Nothing can save you now from the choice you have to make. In the trap I have devised for you, whatever you decide is to my advantage.” She laughed joyfully, as though hugging something beautiful to her heart. “Your friends are vanquished. There is no one left to help you. You are alone.”
Helen murmured something. “What was that?” sneered her mother. “Speak up, my dear, so that we can all benefit from your wisdom.”
“I said, I’m not alone,” Helen replied.
The coven howled and laughed and clashed together the long silver knives they carried. The Priestess signaled for silence. “So who is here to help you?” She looked around in mock amazement. “I see my prisoners. I see my loyal companion. I see my Sisters and the remnants of the Departed. They are all here to serve me and my master, the Dark King. Who is here for you?”
“There are many things you cannot see,” Helen said. “I thought once that I was alone in this world, but I was wrong. You are surrounded by your Dark Sisters, your lover, and your prisoners, but you are more truly alone than I am.” She lifted her face to the flickering torchlight and began to smile. “There’s something that’s always with me. It’s everywhere. It’s in the air, and the sea, and the earth. It’s in the fire of the stars.”
“Oh, not that old tale, not your whining, feeble love again. Please spare me! I am sick of the word. Besides, Helen, who on earth ever loved you? Don’t you know what they called you? Crazy Helen Black! They all laughed at you!”
“That doesn’t matter. I thought that what I wanted was to be loved. I wanted that desperately. But now—and now—here at the end of all this, I realize that doesn’t matter.” Helen looked steadily into her mother’s angry face. “I have loved, and that’s enough. That makes me not alone in the world, neither in life nor in death. And no torment you can invent can change that. I believe in love. I am not alone. I believe.”
The Priestess’s face twisted with rage. “Enough! I refuse to indulge your heroics any longer. I gave you a choice, Helen. You must now make that choice—open the Keys of Power for me, or condemn the whole of Wyldcliffe to eternal bondage.”
I felt as though I would faint, even though my body was kept rigid by the Priestess’s spells. This was the moment where all our fates met.
At last, Helen spoke. Her voice sounded very small in the great space. “I know how to open the Keys for you. I know how to give you the powers you desire.”
“And you will do this?” Her mother’s voice trembled with desperate longing.
“The alternative is to abandon my friends, to let them become what Laura once was. And I will never do that. So you win. You’ll get the powers, then you’ll go far away and we will get our lives back.”
“Agreed,” the Priestess whispered.
Oh, Helen! I wanted so much to shout out to her, Don’t do this! Frozen tears ached behind my eyes, but I couldn’t move, or speak, or express any emotion. Helen was willing to risk everything to save our lives, but I knew she was wrong. I knew that the Priestess would never keep any promise she made. She would take the powers that Helen offered, and then turn us into Bondsouls anyway. Nothing would stop her from ruling Wyldcliffe, not just the school, but the people in the cottages and the lonely farms, even the children who played happily in the village school. I could almost hear her deep, hoarse voice delighting in her final victory: Now this whole valley is ours—every man and woman and child—oh, those dear little children from the village! How innocently they used to play! How sweet and fresh! And how good their souls will taste when we drain them dry! Their strength and energy, together with the Wyldcliffe students, will feed us well, and we will be stronger than ever, served by our great host of Bondsouls and slaves! Wyldcliffe was doomed and there was nothing I could do, nothing but hope and pray and trust in Helen Black.
“Let us proceed!” the Priestess cried out in a ringing, eager voice.
“I need my sisters next to me.”
The Priestess hesitated, then gave a slight nod to Dr. Franzen, who beckoned me forward. I walked over to Helen automatically, with no will of my own. Sarah did the same. Helen slipped her hand in her pocket, pulled out a bit of chalk, and drew a simple circle around us on the floor of the ballroom. “There are many circles, and many keys, and many kinds of love,” she whispered, as her mother watched suspiciously. Helen put her hand in her pocket again, and this time she drew out a piece of broken glass. She cut off a jagged strand of her fair hair with it and dropped it in the circle at our feet. “I offer up everything I have,” she said simply, and the Priestess seemed to take a deep breath of satisfaction. Then Helen turned to Sarah and cut off one of her soft brown curls. “Give everything, my sister,” she commanded, and dropped the lock of hair on the ground. Finally she came to me, and did the same. “Give everything—offer it up.” A strand of my red hair lay on the floor next to the others, and a vague thought floated through my mind: We need Agnes too, we need our fourth sister, and then an answering voice seemed to say, No, not Agnes, Velvet, and a confused memory of Velvet cutting her glossy black hair came to me like a strange dream.
Helen put the sliver of glass and the stub of chalk back in her pocket. She raised her arms and looked up at the darkly gleaming globe, which still hovered in the air. The faint outlines of the Talisman, and the Crown, and the Seal were just visible in its fiery heart. “The tokens of our powers, the Keys to the elemental mysteries are present,” Helen said, “though they are beyond our reach, caged in the Darklight. May they hear us now. We release them. Let them choose a new mistress, if that is their will. Let them fulfill their destiny.”
She began to chant: “Water of life, flow to your destination. Earth our mother, reveal your secrets. Fire of creation, burn your path in the night. Winds of heaven, sing to us now!”
The Keys in their cage glowed with an eerie light. The Priestess looked on greedily, ready to snatch at the gifts that Helen was preparing for her. “At last…at last…,” she muttered, her voice thick with selfish passion. “It will all be mine…it will all belong to the Priestess. Helen, be quick! Hurry! Open the Keys!”
But as the Priestess spoke, Helen suddenly pulled up her sleeve and touched the center of the tattoolike mark on her arm. She cried out, “I open the Keys for my sisters and the Mystic Way. I reject you and your commands forever!” A blinding circle of golden light radiated from the sign of the Seal on Helen’s arm, shooting outward like a spinning star. It smashed into the imprisoning globe and destroyed it. The next moment the Talisman was hanging round my neck, and Sarah was wearing her Crown. We were awake, at Helen’s side, and there was a protective circle around us. The Seal was pinned to her breast, and it shone so brightly I could hardly look at it, but it was nothing compared to the light in Helen’s eyes as she spoke to her horrified mother.
“You thought I couldn’t fight you while the Seal was in your possession, but this”—Helen indicated the glittering brooch—“is only an outer shell. Its real presence is in me, just as Evie’s and Sarah’s true powers are in their hearts, not in these outward tokens, precious though they are. You couldn’t steal our powers from us, just as you couldn’t take Josh from our hearts, or truly separate any of us, not even if you flung us onto different sides of the universe. Love connects us, and love is the only real, eternal power. As long as we believe that, we can do anything, and you’ll always be helpless against us.”
“No…no…,” the Priestess groaned. She tried to snatch the Seal from Helen’s clothes, but a blinding light made her stagger and step away. “What have you done?” she screamed in rage.
“You still don’t get it, do you?” Helen replied quietly. “I am stronger than you, because I can feel more than anger and hatred. But the human heart is something you will never understand, because you despise it as a weakness. Look!” Helen held out her arm. “I am marked by love—set aside by fate. I don’t need to claim the Seal now,
it has already claimed me! And now I truly believe in my powers! Sigillum magnum…signum dei vivi…I follow the sign of the One who will never fail me. I have been shown what to do and I’m not afraid to do it. By the power of the Great Seal, I release your prisoners! I believe!”
“Stop!” screamed the Priestess furiously. “The Seal is mine! And I claim you!” Everything seemed to happen at once. Mrs. Hartle and Dr. Franzen lunged forward to seize us, but they were held back by our protective circle. The students all around us began to awake from their trance. Utter confusion and panic set in. Girls caught sight of the long-dead Dark Sisters and the hooded ranks of the living coven and were overwhelmed with terror. The Dark Sisters, dead and alive, howled and drew their long knives and got ready to launch themselves at us, but at that moment a clear voice rang out.
“Helen! Helen, I believe in you too! You’re not alone!”
It was Velvet. She had broken from the ranks of dazed girls. The coven stared at her in amazement, and the Priestess snarled, “Get back where you belong, slave.” She raised her hand to blast down a bolt of her dark fire, but Velvet laughed.
“Your spells can’t touch me. I have my own powers and my own story. And this is only the beginning!” Velvet opened her hand, and I saw that she was holding the knife with the bone handle that Sarah had used in the grotto so many weeks ago…. That time seemed so far away now, like another life.
With a swift movement of her wrist, Velvet stabbed the knife into the polished floor in the center of the chalk circle and shouted, “Awake! Awake for Helen!”
“Stop—stop her!” cried the Priestess. But it was too late. The knife was stuck in the smooth surface of wood, the bone handle quivering slightly. It began to twist and grow, like a tree leaping into life in front of my eyes. Dr. Franzen tried to knock it down with his stick, but he was thrown back with a jerk. The bone handle kept on growing, and I saw that it was taking the shape of two arching antlers. The ground swelled and heaved, and a dark mass of hide and hoof and fur erupted into the ballroom: a mighty stag with wide black eyes and quivering nostrils that reared up and then leaped over the cowering Priestess. A horn sounded in the distance, and the elegant row of French windows shattered into a confetti of broken glass.
“No, no! Get back!” screamed the Priestess, but her words were lost like dry grass in a sweeping fire. I stood rooted to the spot, openmouthed. It was a miracle….
Riders on foaming black stallions were galloping through the broken windows, calling out with savage joy and making after the stag. They were dressed in skins and leather and wore masks of green, and their long hair blew free behind them. The walls of the room seemed to tremble and flicker, and I saw the wild green forest glade that had once been there, before the Abbey had even been built.
“The Wild Hunt rides for you, Helen!” Velvet cried. The Priestess and her followers gaped in horror, trying to avoid the plunging hooves of the horses and the sharp spears of the hunters, as the fearless riders galloped in a circle, blowing on bright horns whose wild, sweet notes echoed through the night. The stag darted away, but now the hunters had other prey—the Priestess and her dark brood. And other riders were joining the hunt: Cal charged up on his faithful old horse, his face grim and desperate as he searched for Sarah in the crowd, and behind Cal, riding through the night on a beautiful white mare, was Josh. He thundered over to where I stood breathless, and swept me up onto his saddle. “Agnes and Cal found me, but I came back only for you,” he said. “Everything I am is yours, Evie, if you want it.”
“I want you so much,” I answered, my voice shaking. “I want to start again. Can you forgive me for making you wait so long?”
“There’s nothing to forgive.” Then Josh kissed me, and I was home at last. His arms were wrapped tightly around me and he was warm and kind and true, and I was ready to start again. Josh was the sun after rain, he was the morning after the storm, he was a spark of healing in a bitter world…. He was Josh, and there was a whole future waiting for us.
But right then the battle had begun. Everything else would have to wait. The coven had recovered from the initial shock and swarmed forward to defend their mistress. The Wild Hunt was ranged on one side, and the coven on the other. The Dark Sisters were trying to drive the hunters back with their bright knives and their long flaming torches. Helen, Sarah, and Velvet stood back to back in our circle. Terrified students cowered where they could, sobbing hysterically. Cal launched himself onto Dr. Franzen, who whipped out a short black knife and slashed at Cal frenziedly. But Cal ducked and wrestled him to the ground; then Dr. Franzen lashed out again and sent Cal spinning across the floor…there was blood on his face…then I couldn’t see him anymore. I slipped down from Josh’s horse. “Go and help Cal!” I said, then ran back to Helen and the girls. We held hands in the circle, meaning to call on Agnes to help us. But we were surrounded by the howling women, goading us with their fiery weapons, and the Priestess was bearing down on us. Helen turned to Velvet. “Can you hold her off, with your Wild Hunt? I need you and Cal and Josh to stay here and just make sure that none of the students gets hurt. And I need Sarah and Evie to come with me.”
“Of course,” Velvet replied eagerly. She was holding a torch she had snatched from one of the Dark Sisters, and she looked like a warrior queen, dangerous, but proud and happy. “It’s your time, Helen, Do whatever you have to do.” Then she smiled. “I chose right, didn’t I? I took my second chance. Now go!”
“Thank you—thank you!” Helen cried. Velvet leaped out of the circle, wielding the torch like a flaming sword, as Helen began to sing, a high pure note above all the fumes and noise and madness. The last thing I saw before the dark, confused battle scene vanished was Dr. Franzen running up and catching hold of Velvet’s hair, and I heard the Priestess chanting a terrible incantation in a reckless, despairing voice….
But I was somewhere cool and dim. My anxiety about our enemies, about Josh, and Cal, and the battle, my astonishment about Velvet—all that suddenly left me like taking off a heavy coat and slipping into cool water. Sarah and Helen and I were holding hands, and Helen was singing. It was so beautiful that I thought my heart would break.
Her song was as pure as the starlight, as clear as a mother’s voice calling to her child, as sacred as an angel singing in praise of the wakening world. Helen grasped our hands firmly as she guided us through the secret paths of the air, and this time there was no annihilating storm to pass through. This was all peace, and beauty, and light. We danced on the wind, Helen, Sarah, and I, sustained by her song and renewed by our sisterhood. We saw the trembling shapes of familiar places below us, a long way off, as though through deep water: the Abbey, the ruins, the ring of stone on the Ridge, the tumbled remains of Uppercliffe, and the cave mouth on the White Tor. I thought I even glimpsed the shadow of the old cathedral at Wyldford Cross. “Where are we going?” I asked Helen, though it seemed that I didn’t speak, but that she understood my thoughts.
“To find Time,” she answered. “And what might have been.”
I didn’t really understand what Helen meant. But she was chanting again, a different call now, soft and slow, and we began to descend. The air moved and changed, shimmering like silk, and we had arrived.
It was dark. We were in some kind of cold, damp room—the grotto, maybe? Or some cellar under the school…Helen struck a match, and lit a candle that was stuck in a rusted iron holder attached to a wall of damp gray stones. It took me a moment to work out where we were.
I had been here before. Down in the crypt under the chapel ruins, in a series of underground tunnels and cellars. In my first term at Wyldcliffe I had been trapped down here, pursued by Celia Hartle and her coven as she tried to steal the Talisman and use it to bind Sebastian to her will. Sarah and Evie had helped me to fight them as I had held Sebastian in my arms. And now we were back. Everything had come full circle. And I knew that whatever happened, Sebastian would not resent my happiness with Josh. Sebastian wouldn’t have wanted me to stay
trapped forever in the dark places we had known together. It was with a profound sense of hope that I turned to Helen and said, “Why have we come here?”
“I have to stop this endless fighting, and there’s only one way I can do it. And I have to do it now.” She began to tug at her finger, and for the first time I noticed that she was wearing a plain gold ring. She held it up, and I saw by the light of the candle that there were faint markings on the inside, letters that seemed to spell the word now.
“Do you believe that everything is connected?” Helen asked, her pale eyes gleaming strangely. “I do. I believe.”
She walked to the end of the wide, vaulted crypt and rested her hands lightly on the stone table, or altar, that stood at the other end. She seemed to be searching for something, passing her hands this way and that over the rough stone. “Look!” she said. Sarah and I knelt down, and saw that Helen was pointing to a faint outline of a circle that had been chiseled into the bottom of the altar, a kind of shallow groove. Helen pressed the ring into the circle, and the whole of the stone table began to swing to one side, revealing a spiraling stone staircase that sank down into the very heart of the earth. It was lit by strange glowing blocks of crystal set into the walls. Helen slipped the ring back on her finger and stood up.
“Where did you get that ring?” asked Sarah.
“Lynton gave it to me.”
“Lynton? The boy who played the music for you? What has he got to do with all this?”
“I can’t really explain,” Helen replied. “Not yet. But do you want to go on, or turn back?”
Sarah and I looked at each other. The complete love and trust I felt for Helen was reflected in Sarah’s eyes. “Do you really need to ask?” I said. “We’re with you to the end.”
And so the three of us went down into the secret earth, a hundred steps and a hundred more, again and again. My old fears of the dark had left me, I was with my sisters, and I wasn’t afraid, just driven on to finish what we had started. We went farther down again until we had lost count and were dizzy with the many turnings of the stairs and the endless echoes of our footsteps. And when I felt I couldn’t go any farther, and had lost all sense of time and distance, we came at last to the bottom. We passed though a low wooden door and stepped out into a circular chamber carved out of black rock. Four large lamps of crystal gave off a soft, pure light.
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