Zak laughed a hard, unhappy laugh. “They would be only too glad that one of our kind is lost.” I had never heard him speak so bitterly before.
“But what if your father has fallen and has broken his leg?” I asked. “You will need a doctor to help him.”
“Your ways are not our ways.”
“But I am like you! I am one of the Roma.”
“Then accept what the Elders have decided,” he said with a scowl. “We will hunt for my father tonight, and it is only the Brothers who will go. The women will stay at home and keep the fire burning. That will keep his soul alive.”
Fairfax passed by us and stopped to speak to me. “Don’t worry. We won’t rest until we find him.”
“Are you going with the Brothers? But you are not even Roma! It’s not fair!”
“But I am older and stronger than you are, little Maria.” Fairfax gave me a tired smile. “And I have some powers of my own.”
“I am not little,” I snapped. “I am nearly sixteen. I am not a child!”
I turned away and mounted Cracker, then galloped back to school, crying all the way. I wanted so much to help, but it seemed that Zak had turned against me. I was good enough to be his carefree companion, to be given secret kisses, but not good enough to ride with the Brothers. I wanted to prove that I was really part of the Gypsy family and just as strong as a boy.
If I had known what I would see, would I still have gone?
I do not know. I will never know.
I turned to Joseph again for help. Another shilling bought what I needed from him. He agreed to leave Cracker saddled and ready in the little paddock by the school gates that night. After lights-out, I told Winifred that I was not well and was going to see the nurse. Then I crept softly down the marble stairs and fled through a side door and into the moonlit grounds. My heart was beating so fast, I thought it would burst. Joseph had done what I had asked and had left a heap of boys’ clothing next to my pony. I pulled them on, muffling my figure with a thick jacket and scarf, then led Cracker out of the gates and down the lane to the village. I didn’t ride straight up to the Gypsy camp. My plan was to hide in the shadows of the trees by the river. Then I would join the men as they rode past in the darkness, hoping that they would not notice one more young lad joining in the hunt. With my hair pushed into a cap, I prayed that I would not be recognized.
My plan worked at first. After a few minutes I saw the riders file out of the camp to the river, on their way to the open moors. Zak was riding at the front, solemn and fierce, next to his uncles. I hung back until they had all gone by; then I urged my pony forward and joined their company. Once we reached the moors, the signal was given and the horses galloped away into the night.
Although I was sorry for Zak and wanted so much to find his father, I could not help rejoicing in that ride. The stars and the hoofbeats and the wind on my face! And the men cried out in low, strong voices; a chant that sounded wild and sad at the same time. They halted now and then to wait for an answering call from Zak’s father, but we heard nothing.
We reached the ridge with the stars shining high above us, and rode up to the standing stones. They looked like a holy temple in the moonlight. The men fell silent and we came to a stop. One of them dismounted and buried a bundle at the foot of the tallest stone. It was food and drink and gold coins. “Spirit of the hills, take this offering in return for our Brother,” he said. “Open the secret ways to us. Release his body and soul.”
Then the man sprang back up onto his horse and we galloped away again. Soon the land became marshy and wet and the horses had to pick a path carefully for fear of falling into the bog. But at last we passed that danger and climbed up to the White Tor, the great outcrop of limestone where the caves led under the hills.
The mouth of the biggest cave looked so black, as though a hole had been cut out of the earth. It felt like the entrance to another world. Everyone dismounted, and the horses whinnied in alarm as they were tethered outside the cave mouth. I shivered and began to think that perhaps this was not such a splendid adventure after all.
“Our Brother has been taken under the earth. We must follow him into Death.”
It was too late to turn back. I pulled my cap farther over my eyes and looked down at the ground as we moved forward, hoping that no one would speak to me and guess who I was. But someone jostled me and stepped on my foot. I looked up guiltily and saw Zak staring at me in recognition.
“You’ll get into such trouble!” he hissed at me.
“I just wanted to be with you,” I whispered back. “Please, Zak, don’t tell.”
I think in truth he was glad I was there, because he didn’t give me away. He grasped my hand for a moment, and then we followed the men into the cave, walking silently like in a dream.
I can’t write about it anymore. That is enough, for now.
Chapter Fourteen
We had done enough for one night. After we managed somehow to get back into the school, I fell into a deep, exhausted sleep. My dream came again.
I was back in the underground cave. Torches were burning. I could smell the resin and sap of broken branches, a sweet smell above the fumes of smoke. “Where are you?” I called out, and then, “I am ready.” The face in the mask was there again, but I wasn’t afraid now. I was wearing a crown of leaves, like a queen. A pair of eyes met mine, full of love, then the drums began and the blade struck.
When I woke, I felt strangely calm, as though I had slept for hours.
Listen to the drums. This dream had been different, as though something good and hopeful had been just out of reach. I felt an unexpected surge of strength and energy run through me. Getting out of bed, I went over to the window to look out at the grounds. The sun was already warming the smooth lawns. It was going to be a beautiful day. But the sight of the empty ruins brought back the events of the night before with a sickening crash. A wave of guilt poured over me as I remembered what had happened.
Evie’s storm of tears over the vision of Sebastian had eventually subsided, and Miss Scratton had explained that what we had seen had simply been an illusion, memories of times gone by.
“After we made the protective spell, the images of some of the evil done in that place appeared to us. They weren’t real, Evie, only memories.”
“But I saw him! I could have reached out to him, stopped the quarrel with Agnes, saved her . . . and him . . .”
“These things have already happened. You in particular, with your gifts of water, are susceptible to the river of time, and seeing past shapes and stories. But they have already happened. There was nothing you could have done to prevent what has already been fixed. It is over. Sebastian and Agnes are both at peace.”
“So why can we contact Agnes?” Evie asked passionately. “She came when I called her. Why can’t I contact Sebastian again?”
“The Talisman is your link to Agnes,” Miss Scratton said. “But you have no way of reaching out to Sebastian again, Evie. The dead can return, but we cannot summon them at will. Let him be.”
“That’s what I wanted! I wanted him to be free of all this! And I wanted to be free too. I can’t bear to go through all this again!”
“Then let us hope that our work will hold fast and that the spirit that was Celia Hartle will not come near you.”
“Do you really think what we have done tonight will be enough?” I asked.
“I cannot say,” Miss Scratton replied at last. “I hope so, but for the moment it might be wise for you to stay away from one another. That way, you cannot be attacked together, and any watchers that she might send will have to spread themselves more thinly to keep you in their sights. And the coven still watches me with a suspicious eye, so do not seek me out, unless in great need. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“It may also be advisable,” Miss Scratton added, “for you not to leave the school grounds.”
Evie stared at her. “So we’re prisoners?”
“No, I merely advise
caution.”
“So we’re ‘free’ and ‘protected’ and the people we love are ‘at peace,’ but we have to creep around in hiding? We’re free to live and look to the future but we have to keep raking over the past? Well, that’s not the kind of freedom I want. I can’t carry on like this, I can’t!” She clutched at the Talisman around her neck as though she were being suffocated.
Miss Scratton looked steadily at Evie. “We are none of us free to command life to be exactly as we would wish. We are only free to make the choices that seem good to us. Be sure of what you choose.”
“Oh, I am sure,” said Evie. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore.”
“You can’t back out now,” I said sharply.
“Can’t I? Just watch me.”
“That’s right, run away, why don’t you?” I said, suddenly furious. “At least you’ve got your precious Josh to comfort you. Why don’t you run off to him and his healing hands and leave the rest of us to face the danger?”
“It’s not that—,” Evie protested, but I wouldn’t listen.
“And what about poor Helen?” I demanded. “Don’t you care about her? She’s been marked out and we need to protect her. Have you thought about that? We won’t even have the Talisman to help her if you abandon our sisterhood.”
“Take it! Take it!” Evie threw the necklace at my feet, trembling with passion like a bright flame. “Here, you can have the Talisman. I don’t want it anymore! Isn’t that what you want? S for Sarah. That’s what the sign on the door said, didn’t it? Well, take the Talisman! It’s your turn now.”
She had left us there, in the shattered ruins. Our circle had been truly broken.
I left the window and quickly felt under my pillow. The Talisman was still there. I felt it heavy and cool in my fingers. Despite my awful quarrel with Evie, I couldn’t help feeling a flicker of excitement as I held the necklace in my hand. S for Sarah. Perhaps this was meant to happen? I put on my robe, slipping the Talisman into my pocket, and headed for the door.
As soon as I reached the bathroom at the end of the passage, I went in and locked the door behind me. There was a small mirror over the basin. Wyldcliffe didn’t believe in encouraging personal vanity. We weren’t allowed to wear makeup or jewelry, although perhaps Miss Scratton was going to change all that too. But the mirror was big enough for me to see myself as I fumblingly fastened the Talisman around my neck.
What had I expected? That it would transform me into the princess, the special one? The Talisman hung cold and quiet against my nightdress. With my untidy hair and sleep-heavy eyes, I looked about ten years old, like a kid dressing up in her mother’s finery. Stubbornly, I placed my hand over the crystal and whispered, “Agnes . . . Agnes . . .” Nothing happened.
Why should it? I was not Evie, and the Talisman wasn’t mine. I wasn’t connected with Agnes. This wasn’t for me.
Everything is connected, a voice seemed to say in my head. An image flashed into my mind of a girl with dark, curly hair streaming out in the wind as she rode a stocky pony over the moors. I clutched the necklace tighter and said aloud, “Maria . . . this is Sarah.”
The Talisman blazed with light for an instant, and I pulled my hand away in shock. The skin on the palm of my hand was red and burning. What was happening? Was Maria linked with Agnes? But she couldn’t have been—she had been a pupil at Wyldcliffe, and it was only after Agnes’s death that the Abbey had become a school. So why had her name caused the Talisman to flare out like that?
Someone knocked on the bathroom door.
“Coming!” I shouted, snatching the necklace off and pushing it into my pocket. The Path to Hell, the Book had warned. I longed to know more about Maria, but the Talisman was not really mine. I had no right to probe its secrets simply for curiosity’s sake, and although Evie had used the precious heirloom, it had been at great cost. Was I really ready to pay that price? Besides, I reasoned, if the spirit of Celia Hartle had been contained by our spell, and if Miss Scratton was in charge, why did I need to dig deeper into mysteries that should be left alone?
And so for the moment, I hid the Talisman at the bottom of my bedside drawers, muffled in a thick scarf, and made no more attempts to use it. Let it lie there, I thought, let it be quiet.
For the moment.
Helen and Evie and I avoided one another over the following days, as Miss Scratton had counseled. Helen would smile vaguely in my direction as we went into class, but Evie walked past me without even a glance. It was so painful to have quarreled with her, especially as I felt ashamed of some of the things I had said. I felt that our friendship had been split at the roots and I wanted to mend it, but Evie didn’t come near me. She spent every spare moment down at the stables. I knew she had no great interest in riding. It was Josh that drew her there.
I couldn’t avoid seeing them together, as I had to go to the stables every day to look after my own ponies and exercise them in the practice paddock. There was a light in Josh’s brown eyes as the two of them talked, and the strain on Evie’s face seemed to melt away under the sunshine of his smile. I guessed they were happy to dwell on the bond that Agnes had made between their families. Josh’s inheritance of a single spark of her fiery compassion would inevitably bring him and Evie closer together. Yet I noticed that Evie was careful not to touch him, or flirt with him, or send off any of those little signals of possession that girls put out around attractive guys. She didn’t behave in any way that suggested she was anything more than a friend to Josh. How could she, when she was still in love with Sebastian? But at least she wasn’t alone.
I tried not to begrudge them their pleasure in each other’s company, though I felt so miserable myself. And there was no one else I could turn to. Helen was more and more in a world of her own, obsessively writing long letters to her father or scribbling secrets in a notebook. The friends I’d had before Evie arrived at school had dropped away from me since I had taken up with “those two weirdos.” And even worse, I still hadn’t had a letter from Cal. I was sure now that I never would.
The days dragged past, and my free time hung heavily on my hands. I tried to keep myself busy, of course. When lessons were over, I had my horses to look after, as well as my own corner of ground in the walled garden, which I tended out of a dull sense of duty. But everything that had once kept me busy at Wyldcliffe felt flat and empty without Helen and Evie.
In desperation, I started going to choir practice at lunchtime, as a way of killing time. At least music was a pure expression of the soul, and I hoped it might be uplifting. To my surprise Velvet was there too, mocking and mutinous in the back row, setting the other girls off into fits of giggles as she imitated Mr. Brooke’s hesitant voice and awkward manner. I wished I could be a carefree, laughing schoolgirl like them, but I had another path to tread. And so I sang, and brooded and waited, and missed my friends. And every night, the drums sounded deep in my dreams, but I listened to them in vain; no clear sign or message came to me through that savage, pulsing music.
It was almost a relief when the following Saturday, Velvet created a diversion. She showed up at the stable yard to welcome a superb black gelding that her father had arranged to be sent over to the school for her. He was called Jupiter, and must have cost a fortune, with his aristocratic breeding and high-stepping legs. He skittered proudly on the cobbles as he was backed into his stall, and I sensed the envy from the other keen riders who were hanging around to have a look at the new arrival. Celeste and India, who fancied themselves elegant horsewomen, looked furious that Velvet had yet again stolen their thunder. But I thought the animal was far too showy for the kind of rough moorland rides we had around Wyldcliffe, and I told Velvet so.
“You’re only jealous,” she said carelessly. “He’ll be fun, won’t you, Jupiter darling? Dad has to have the best of everything, so he was hardly going to send me a fat old nag to ride. Anyway, you can try Jupiter out tomorrow. We’ll take him and Starlight out for a proper gallop over the moors.”
&nbs
p; She seemed to expect me to drop any plans I had and immediately fit in with hers.
“Um . . . I’m sorry, I . . . um, haven’t finished my biology assignment. . . .” I hadn’t forgotten Miss Scratton’s warning not to stray outside the grounds, and anyway, I wasn’t really that keen to hang out with Velvet. For a moment she looked annoyed; then she shrugged.
“Whatever. I can find someone else.” Velvet glanced over to one of the other girls standing about in the yard. It was Sophie, one of Celeste’s set, a harmless but weak and anxious girl who was constantly bossed around by her so-called friend. “Hey, Sophie, isn’t that your name? Would you like to come for a ride with me?”
“M-me?” stammered Sophie. “Do you really mean that? I’d love to.”
“It’s a deal then.” Velvet smiled her most charming smile, and I could see that Sophie had just found someone new to hero-worship. My heart sank. I didn’t think Velvet’s influence would do Sophie any good at all.
Despite my troubles and worries about my friends, I had been constantly aware of Velvet’s presence at Wyldcliffe since the beginning of term. It was like knowing that a wasp is hovering nearby, getting ready to sting. I could see that Rick Romaine’s daughter was bored and restless at the school, and in the mood to look for trouble. Although Miss Scratton had promised a new era of modernization, she couldn’t produce this single-handedly in a few days. Wyldcliffe had been run in a certain way for over a hundred years, and it wasn’t going to change instantly. There were still the daily prayers, the old-fashioned uniform, the heavy academic workload as we prepared for exams, and the strict routine and antiquated deference to the mistresses. Not only that, the building itself was so gloomy and silent, with its heavy Gothic windows, its marble pillars and stairs, and endless passageways, that just being stuck in the school while the sun shone outside felt oppressive. There was still plenty for Velvet to kick against.
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