Eternal

by Gillian Shields

  I dreamed about the caves again last night. I woke up sobbing and gasping and had to call the nurse. I am ashamed of being so weak and childish, but I can’t stop myself. I must be strong! I must be a soldier. . . .

  But I was writing about trying to make friends. Sometimes I kept a piece of cake from supper and offered to share it with the maids in the servants’ hall. I have always been great friends with the village girls at home who help Mother in the house, but these servants were different, sullen and suspicious. No doubt they are given a hard time by Miss Featherstone and are unhappy with their lot. Whatever the reason, they looked at me differently because I was a young lady, and the young ladies at the school looked at me differently because I was a Gypsy. So I was alone. Alone. It is a dreadful word. It makes my heart ache just to write it.

  But when the Brothers came to Wyldcliffe, I was no longer alone.

  Chapter Nine

  I felt terribly alone. The sign, the dust, the earth. The first letter of my name. Now it felt as though I had been pushed into the spotlight, and I wasn’t sure that I liked it. That night my dreams were troubled again, and I woke with my heart racing and my head throbbing. Perhaps, after all, I was better suited to being the one in the background.

  Listen to the drums. What did the message mean? And who had sent it? I had heard drums in my dream—I had listened to their insistent rhythms. What more could I do to obey this strange instruction?

  I got out of bed quickly, trying to shake off my unease. The morning bell hadn’t rung yet, and my dorm mates were still asleep. I dressed without disturbing them and hurried down to the stables. All around me, life was renewing itself. Flowers were in bloom, trees were in blossom, and lambs were growing long-legged and fat next to their mothers on the sloping hills. But in my mind I was still crouching in the dark, gazing at that splintered door and trying to understand.

  During the first hour of the early morning, before anyone else was about, I hid in a corner of Starlight’s stable and searched the pages of the leather-bound Book that we had brought from Agnes’s secret room. It was a curious object, and full of ancient lore and wisdom, though some of the pages were written in Eastern languages that I didn’t understand. The Book also had a will of its own. Sometimes pages would stick together, concealing their contents from the reader, or the writing would melt away and go blank, or change from English to Latin, or into unknown symbols.

  I searched through it patiently, looking for guidance, but found nothing. The only entry that seemed at all related to the mark on Helen’s arm was a small footnote that read:

  As to those who call themselves Witche Finders and do search a Woman’s body for Blemishes, if any such Markes are founde, that poor Soule is declared a servant of the Evil One and is set apart and destroyed. This may be Ignorance and Superstition and yet there remains a Questione. From where do such signs come? Many Scholars declare they are a Sign of great Destiny, with Death in their wake.

  Set apart and destroyed. Was Helen marked out for some dreadful fate? And was there any connection between her vision and my dreams, and the bizarre message emblazoned on the door of Agnes’s secret study? We had been back at Wyldcliffe for less than twenty-four hours, and already I felt that a great snare had been laid around us, and that our enemies were waiting for us to fall into some kind of trap. We had to stick together to survive; that much I knew.

  I began to search the pages of the Book again, desperately looking for anything that would make sense of the message about the drums, but by now the school was waking up. I heard a cat mewing, a gardener’s rake rattling across the terrace, and two girls chattering in the yard as they came to see their ponies before breakfast. Soon Josh would arrive, and I didn’t really want to bump into him. I hastily closed the Book and scratched under the straw in the corner of the stable. Long ago I had found a loose brick that could be pulled away to unearth a shallow hiding place. When I had first arrived at Wyldcliffe I had hidden sweets and childish diaries there. Now I laid the Book in the narrow enclosure, and went to face the day.

  On that first morning of the term, the general mood in the school was one of lighthearted optimism. When it was time for break, the students sat out on the wide terrace that overlooked the lake, enjoying the fresh scents of grass and blossom and talking excitedly about the changes that Miss Scratton had introduced.

  “Did she really say we were going to have new computers?”

  “And a dance!”

  “My friend’s brother goes to St. Martin’s—the guys there are so hot! I can’t believe it. . . .”

  The exceptions to the general wave of approval were the die-hard snobs like Celeste van Pallandt and her uptight friend India Hoxton. They took a different approach.

  “My mother says that the standards at Wyldcliffe have really been slipping recently,” Celeste announced to anyone who would listen. “All that tacky publicity about Mrs. Hartle going off her head last term, and now these changes.”

  “They’re hardly improvements, are they?” agreed India. “I mean, who wants a whole pack of village kids using our tennis courts and swimming pool? I’m seriously thinking of transferring to Chalfont Manor next term.”

  “Now that really would be an improvement,” commented Evie, and a few other girls laughed. Celeste was in danger of losing her grip over the students in our form. It was Velvet who was the big excitement now. Everyone wanted to sit next to her and make friends with her and ask questions about her famous family. Velvet reveled in the flattery and told wilder and wilder stories about various musicians and actors she knew, and parties in L.A. that had been laced with drugs and alcohol and limitless amounts of money.

  Superficially, it seemed that the usual Wyldcliffe student merry-go-round would launch itself again—petty squabbles and power struggles over who was going to be queen bee, who had the most money, the best holidays, the coolest friends; and it looked as though Velvet would win easily. Celeste might mutter like some outdated old dowager that “the Romaine girl really is most awfully common,” but nobody cared. For once Wyldcliffe was eager to move out of the past century and embrace the modern world.

  For me, though, as I watched those giggling, gossiping girls, I couldn’t help feeling that they were like children playing on a beach, innocently unaware that a tidal wave was coming to sweep them all away. The new term that should have been full of hope—a new start for Evie and all of us—had been secretly overshadowed by the brand on Helen’s arm, and the sound of distant drums.

  When classes had ended for the day, we went to see Miss Scratton in the High Mistress’s book-lined study and told her what had happened the night before.

  “Are you sure?” she asked, sitting at her desk and watching us intently. “Are you sure it was the letter S?”

  “Quite sure,” Helen said. “S for Sarah.”

  “Or Sebastian,” Miss Scratton replied.

  “But Sebastian’s story is over,” said Evie with an effort. “That’s what we—what we achieved last term. Why would he be mixed up in this?”

  Miss Scratton frowned. “It depends who sent the message. Is it a warning or a trap? We can’t be sure. We might be tempted to assume that the message is friendly, perhaps a sign from Agnes, as you were permitted to open her door, Sarah. And you came away with a great prize, the Book itself.”

  “Yes,” I said. I had retrieved the Book from the stables and hidden it in my sports bag only a few minutes earlier, and now I took it out and handed it to the High Mistress. She laid it on her desk, lightly tracing the outline of the embossed silver letters on the cover: The Mysticke Way. As she touched the Book, other letters formed, silvery and uncertain. They glimmered in front of my eyes, and I saw the words THE PATH OF HEALING melt and dissolve into another phrase: THE PATH TO HELL. When Miss Scratton took her hands away, the milky, flickering words faded and vanished.

  She looked up at us, her eyes narrowed. “This Book has brought either hell or healing to the many souls who have come into contact with it. B
oth madness and wisdom lie in its pages. Perhaps we might believe that we are far above any temptation to use it for evil, but we must be careful.”

  “What about the writing on the door?” I asked. It said ‘Listen to the drums.’ Do you know what the message means, Miss Scratton?” I asked. “Can the Book help us?”

  “If the message is important, it will be made clear in time,” Miss Scratton replied. “There is a time for all things. They cannot be forced.” She looked at me and gave me a tired smile. “Dear Sarah, you are always eager to do the right thing. But sometimes we have to wait until the right path is revealed to us. Patience is a neglected virtue.”

  “But what about this?” Helen pulled up her sleeve and showed Miss Scratton the livid mark on her arm. “I can’t just wait to find out about this. Sarah told me what the Book said. People thought marks like this were evil. An omen of death.”

  The High Mistress seemed to suppress an exclamation, but she merely said, “Cover it up and show no one else. Some force is reaching out for you.”

  “Is it—my mother?”

  “Celia Hartle’s spirit has not left this valley,” Miss Scratton answered gravely. “The remnants of the coven have been gathering, and rumors of her new and deadlier powers are being spread by her faithful favorites.”

  For many months Miss Scratton had masqueraded as a member of the coven in order to track their plans. I hoped fervently that they had no suspicion that she was in fact acting against them and helping us.

  “But the coven is finished, isn’t it?” said Evie. “Their dreams of immortality died along with Mrs. Hartle.”

  “Sadly, there is no limit on evil. It is like foul water that will mold itself to any new shape that it finds. The hatred of evil for innocence is eternal and unchanging. The Dark Sisters are fewer than they were, as any waverers were frightened off by Mrs. Hartle’s apparent death. But she is not truly dead, Evie. She has rejected that great mystery with all her twisted force. And those of her followers who remain—and even I do not know all their identities—are unyielding in their loyalty.”

  “Do they still think you are one of them?” I asked.

  “They do not trust me entirely, and my plans for the school have horrified the members of the coven who work here. Secrecy and rigid rules suited their purposes. I have had to convince them that in opening up the doors of Wyldcliffe we will deflect some of the talk and suspicion that had begun to hover over the school like clouds. Already some parents have withdrawn their daughters this term, and more will go if the school does not change.” She sighed. “In other circumstances, I could have wished to stay here. To be the High Mistress, guiding so many young hearts and minds, would be a worthwhile task.” She fell silent, as if brooding on a deep, insoluble problem, then spoke again. “In the meantime, the Dark Sisters have one aim, and that is to serve Celia Hartle’s corrupted spirit. And in turn she has one simple aim—revenge. She hates you for depriving her of Sebastian’s strength and powers and soul. Sadly, I fear she hates Helen most of all.”

  “I hate her too,” Helen said in a whisper. “Was it her stopping me passing through the air? It is the only freedom I’ve had all these years—I won’t let her take that from me. I won’t!”

  Miss Scratton glanced at Helen with cool pity. “Remember that forgiveness is stronger than hatred, Helen. It could well have been her. But there are other hidden forces at work in Wyldcliffe. As I told you before, deep in the tangle of caves and tunnels under the hills there is a crack, a fractured time shift between this world and the shadows and the unseen lands of the past. You have reached out to mysteries, and this makes you vulnerable to many influences, both good and bad. However, for the moment, I think we can assume that if Celia Hartle is roaming the edges of this world once again, the daughter who dared to defy her will be uppermost in her thoughts. I am sorry, Helen. This is a great burden to you. I wish I could do more.”

  “But there must be something we can do!” I said. “Isn’t there any way of protecting Helen from her?”

  Miss Scratton lowered her voice. “I have already told you too much in revealing that I am a Guardian and in speaking of these matters. That is why I may not be allowed . . . I wish . . . but I will not leave you powerless or unprotected. Tomorrow night—” Miss Scratton broke off, listening.

  There was a sharp knock on the door. Miss Scratton hastily thrust the Book back into my gym bag and pushed it into my hands.

  “Enter!” she called. Then she continued in a cold, loud voice. “Helen Black, your work last term was disgraceful. I would expect better from a ten-year-old. All three of you need to improve . . . ah, Miss Dalrymple, do come in, I have nearly finished.” She turned back to us with a severe expression. “You seem determined to be a bad influence on one another’s studies. I do not wish to see you sitting next to one another in class from now on. And you will each bring me your notes on the French Revolution first thing tomorrow morning. You are dismissed.”

  We filed out silently. Miss Scratton’s pretended anger was convincing, but I wondered if it would fool Miss Dalrymple. We knew that she had been one of Celia Hartle’s inner circle, although she smiled at us hypocritically as we walked past her into the corridor. Then she closed the study door firmly in our faces and shut herself up with Miss Scratton. I looked at the others. They both seemed depressed, occupied with their thoughts.

  “What do you think Miss Scratton was going to say about tomorrow night?” I whispered. “How can we find out? We need to—”

  “Do you mind if we don’t talk about it now?” asked Evie wearily. “My head is killing me. I’m sure Miss Scratton will tell us whatever we need to know later. Until then, why don’t we just forget it?”

  “Evie, we can’t just ignore—”

  “Do you really think Miss Scratton wants us to do those notes on the French Revolution?” she interrupted. Her face was pale and its expression distant.

  “I don’t know, maybe we should,” I said doubtfully. “Miss Dalrymple heard her tell us to do them. We should act like Miss Scratton is nothing more—or less—to us than the High Mistress.”

  “Bother. I wanted to . . . oh well. I’m going to the library to get started straightaway.”

  “We could do it together,” I offered.

  “No. It’s okay.” Evie walked away in the direction of the library. Helen watched her go, then shrugged and walked off too, heading out to the grounds. What was happening to us? I wanted to pull us all together to fight our enemies, but it was like trying to catch smoke.

  I sighed and turned to my only comfort—my horses. I would go down to the stables before starting the notes Miss Scratton had asked for. When I reached the cobbled yard five minutes later, my heart tightened in my chest. Josh was taking a break from his work, sitting on a bale of hay with his long legs stretched out in front of him. He looked up and smiled. “Hey! Sarah!”

  I smiled back. For one moment I thought that he actually wanted to see me. For one moment, that was all.

  “Have you seen Evie anywhere?” Josh jumped up and walked over to me eagerly. “She promised to meet me after class. She must be free by now.”

  My stupid smile froze. How could I have been so naive? A sick tremor of rejection churned in my stomach. I was such a fool. Josh didn’t want me. And he wasn’t the only one. Helen was withdrawing into herself again, and Evie—my best, my dearest friend—had made it perfectly clear that she wanted to get away from me. I had imagined myself to be the faithful anchor of our little world, but it looked as though I had been deluding myself. In that moment, I felt totally humiliated and useless.

  “Sarah? I was asking about Evie? Do you know where she is?”

  “Um . . . Miss Scratton has given us some extra work. Evie went off to the library to do it. I don’t know how long she’ll be.”

  Josh frowned. “That’s a pain. I have to get home now to help my mother, then get down to some studying. Did I tell you I’m going to try to get into vet school next year?”

&nbs
p; “Oh . . . no . . . that’s great, Josh.”

  His smile shone out again. “Yeah. I’m still going to keep up my riding, though, but I think a career looking after horses properly would be better than mucking out stables for the likes of Celeste, don’t you?”

  I laughed feebly. “Oh, definitely.” I just wanted to get away. This was even more painful than I had expected. I felt plain and dumpy and totally uninteresting to anyone. Despite my good intentions, my raw longings for attention and sympathy came flooding back. But I was just kidding myself. My dream of love had been exactly that—a dream, a total fantasy.

  “I was telling Evie about it yesterday,” Josh went on. “She’s been encouraging me to apply to college. We’ve been in touch all through the holidays, but it’s so good to see her again.”

  So they’d been writing and phoning each other. Another thing that Evie hadn’t told me.

  “I wish she’d been able to meet me tonight. I really wanted to show her some stuff before I left. I think she’s going to be amazed by it.” Josh hesitated, looking at me as if he was making up his mind about something. “I wanted to give it to her myself, but it’s more important that she sees it. Hang on.” He dived into the tack room and came out a few moments later holding what looked like a small bundle of papers stuffed in an envelope, and a tightly folded note.

  “Can you give her this? Don’t let anyone else see it, except Helen, of course. It’s some incredible news. Well, I’ll let Evie tell you about it.” He handed me the bundle and the note. “And tell her I’ll see her tomorrow, okay? You won’t forget? Thanks, Sarah, you’re so good.”