Eternal

by Gillian Shields

  Another week began, and although I felt as though I was drifting in my own private quest, with no real purpose or certainty, Velvet seemed to be pursuing a clear plan of her own. She had gathered together a little group of admirers who started to call themselves the Wylde Babes. They turned up their collars and hitched up their skirts in imitation of Velvet, adopted a slouching, sulky posture during class time, and indulged in boisterous jokes during recreation periods. Velvet quickly had Camilla Willoughby-Stuart under her spell, and Julia Symons and Annabelle Torrington-Jones and a few others, and soon poor spineless Sophie was drawn into her crowd. Velvet gave the girls designer clothes and bags from the piles of expensive stuff she had brought with her and made out that they were all great friends, but there was a coldness under her manner to them. It was as if she was the leader and they were her servants, ready to do whatever she commanded. And Velvet seemed older than the rest of the girls in our year, with all her talk of wild parties in New York and Buenos Aires and Monte Carlo, her boasts of how screwed up she’d been when she’d checked into rehab, and how she hated her mother. I didn’t know how much of what she said was true, and although I tried to be friendly and polite to her, I knew I didn’t want to get sucked into her little crowd. However, my lack of interest seemed to make her even more determined to get me involved.

  “Come with us, Sarah,” she challenged me one evening when we were both in the dorm, changing into clean shirts before supper. “We’re going to sneak out and go skinny-dipping in the pool after lights-out tonight. And we’ve got a bottle of vodka that I smuggled into school in my suitcase. It will be cool.”

  “It will be freezing,” I replied. “And as for guzzling vodka, you can do what you like, but don’t go making Camilla and Sophie and the rest of them drunk. You’ll only get them into trouble.”

  “But I want us to get into trouble,” she said. “That’s the whole point.”

  “That’s easy for you, Velvet. You want to get chucked out. But I don’t think the other girls’ parents will be very happy if they get expelled.”

  “Oh, don’t be so good,” she sneered. “I don’t care about their parents. I don’t care about anything except getting out of here.”

  “Well, you should. Wandering about after lights-out isn’t a great idea.”

  Velvet narrowed her dark eyes and frowned. “So how come you were out of your bed the first night I arrived?”

  I froze, but tried to look unconcerned. “What do you mean?”

  “I woke up with a headache and couldn’t get back to sleep. You weren’t there, and you were away for ages. So what were you up to?” she asked. “You weren’t going off to meet Evie’s stable boy by any chance, were you? Trying to cut her out of the action?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Have you two quarreled about something? Sophie told me that you were inseparable last term, you and Evie and that other girl, what’s her name, Helen Black?” Velvet stretched out lazily on her bed and added, “That’s an interesting girl. She looks kind of crazy, but she’s actually incredibly beautiful in that fragile, spaced-out kind of way. I wouldn’t mind getting to know her better.”

  “Please don’t,” I said, oddly alarmed at the idea. “Stay out of Helen’s way.”

  Velvet laughed mockingly. “Good dear Sarah, protecting her friends from naughty Velvet?” Then her expression changed, and her eyes glinted oddly. “That’s what everyone tries to do. But it never works. They all get hurt in the end.”

  My heart began to race. I didn’t understand why, but I actually felt slightly afraid of her.

  “What do you mean?”

  She ignored me. “Look, are you coming down to the pool or not?”

  “Sorry—not interested.” I fumbled to fasten my blouse and hurried out of the room. But why was I so keen to get away from Velvet? She was just an overindulged show-off, a misfit. I should be sorry for her, I told myself, and tried to forget all about it.

  I couldn’t, though. The hungry expression in Velvet’s eyes had reminded me of something I had seen before, but I didn’t know what. I couldn’t shake her out of my mind, so after supper—Evie ignored me and Helen wasn’t there—I went to the small classroom near the math room where the new computers had been set up. A few other girls were using them already, either looking things up for class or playing games. I sat at one of the desks and tapped my password into the computer, hoping that no one else would notice as I typed Velvet’s name into the search engine. A host of entries came up for her and for her father, Rick Romaine. I scanned them quickly.

  Rick Romaine, controversial lead singer of heavy-metal band the Screaming Angels. Arrested several times for drug offenses. His 2002 concert was stopped by police after a fan was crushed and killed. Accused by parental campaigners of “corrupting youth” with his occult-influenced act . . .

  Velvet Morgan Moonlight Romaine, daughter of Rick and Amber Romaine (who famously said that giving birth to Velvet at sixteen was the biggest mistake of her life). Velvet was voted one of the decade’s teen style icons in Vogue, released a number one record with her father, has modeled in New York and Milan. . . .

  This was mostly stuff I already knew, though I felt a swift pang of pity for Velvet. Having your mother thinking that your birth was a mistake wasn’t a great start in life. Then another entry caught my attention. It was on a blog called CelebSpy and it read:

  Velvet Romaine has already been in trouble for drugs and underage drinking in her short life, influenced by her parents’ wild lifestyle, and she checked into rehab at age thirteen. But CelebSpy hears that darker rumors are surrounding the teen. Her younger sister, Jasmine, was killed in a car accident when Velvet’s then boyfriend, singer Jonny Darren, was at the wheel. No charges were brought, but the word is that it was actually Velvet who was driving. A short time later the pair broke up, and Darren committed suicide. She was sent to an exclusive Swiss boarding school to make a fresh start but had been there only a matter of months when a fire broke out that led to the dreadful scarring of one of her classmates. It was deemed to be an accident, but CelebSpy’s informants are whispering that Velvet was involved in the fire—as a prank that went horribly wrong. In another incident, her mother’s personal assistant was recently injured in a freak accident at Velvet’s lavish sixteenth birthday party when a balcony over the dance floor collapsed. Coincidence? Is the shadow that hangs over bad boy Rick Romaine tainting his daughter’s life? Is everyone who comes into contact with her fated to be hurt?

  I was fascinated, then felt disgusted with myself for reading such trash. They were just digging for dirt, finding old stories and serving them up with a freaky new twist.

  All the same, I resolved that I would do my best to keep Velvet away from Evie and Helen. Even though the three of us seemed to have fallen apart, I wouldn’t let anybody hurt them. I would die for them first.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next day Sophie, Annabelle, Camilla, and the rest of Velvet’s little gang appeared at breakfast bleary-eyed, yawning conspiratorially, so it looked as though Velvet had carried out her midnight plans. Sophie looked worse than the others, and seemed secretly uncomfortable in their company. I guessed she was as timid of Velvet as she had been of Celeste’s snobbish bullying. But at least she had survived this little escapade with nothing worse than a sick headache and a guilty conscience.

  I wished so much that I could be with my own friends, but Evie wasn’t at breakfast, and although I caught Helen’s eye, she only nodded faintly and went back to reading a letter she had hidden on her lap. Another one from her father, I guessed. I noticed that from time to time she winced and rubbed her arm where the mark was hidden under her school shirt, as if it hurt. I glanced up to the high table to see if Miss Scratton had noticed too, but she was looking away, deep in discussion with Miss Dalrymple and Miss Clarke. The loss of our Guardian’s advice added to my sense of isolation.

  It was over two weeks since we had made our protective spell with Miss Scrat
ton, and there had been no further sign of threat from Mrs. Hartle or the coven. So it must have worked, I told myself, and tried to feel positive. But my heart whispered another story, asking what was the point of being safe if I had lost my friends.

  Perhaps it was because I was lonely that I started to brood so much about Maria. I had no one else to turn to, and the feeling that she was somehow watching over me in the background grew more intense. It was what I wanted to believe, of course, trying to convince myself that I wasn’t entirely alone. But there was a real connection between us, I was sure. Had Maria been trying to answer my call through the Talisman the night after my quarrel with Evie? The strange flash of light and heat that had glowed from the necklace when I had called her name must have meant something. Why not try it again? I forced myself to resist that temptation, reminding myself that the Talisman wasn’t mine. Soon Evie would realize that she couldn’t simply let go of her heritage and would reclaim it from me, and I had to be able to return it to her with a clear conscience.

  Maria still occupied my thoughts, though. I couldn’t help wanting to know more about my great-grandmother as curiosity, loneliness, and desperation ate away at me. I wrote to my mother asking for any further details that she might have about Maria or her family. Seek and ye shall find, I thought to myself half-flippantly, as I posted the letter. I didn’t really have any high hopes that my mother could tell me more than she already had, but it was worth a shot. As I waited for Mom’s reply and followed the daily routine of study and prayer and the never-ending discipline of the hourly bells and the mistresses’ scrutiny, I reminded myself that Maria had done all this too when she had been a pupil at the Abbey, surrounded by the same green-gray hills.

  It occurred to me that there might be records of Maria right here in Wyldcliffe. There were plenty of dusty old photographs on display in the corridors and classrooms that gave glimpses of the school’s history: photos of old lacrosse teams and school picnics and long-dead mistresses, and a picture of a German plane that had gone off course during the Second World War and crash-landed on the school playing field. And going further back in time, there was a faded sepia photograph in the entrance hall of the very first students to arrive at Wyldcliffe. It was dated 1893 and showed a dozen serious-faced girls, all dressed in long, heavy skirts, with thickly curling hair and black buttoned boots.

  I tried to work out exactly when Maria would have been a student at the school. From what I already knew of our family history, it must have been just after the First World War, which Maria’s generation had called the Great War. I didn’t really know what I was trying to find out, but at least my amateur researches gave me fresh energy. On the next Sunday morning, after church, I went to the library and leafed through the collections of archive material. As Miss Scratton had said, Wyldcliffe was proud of its long history, and successive librarians had hoarded records of the school’s triumphs and achievements. There were many bound volumes containing copies of old school magazines, full of sentimental poems and reports of examinations and the names of prizewinners. I scanned their yellowing pages, but I didn’t find Maria’s name anywhere. And then, one day, I spotted something in the volume labeled 1919.

  At the bottom of a page full of Nature Notes and First Aid Tips, there was a small notice headed News. It listed a few small events that had no doubt seemed of great importance to the girls of nearly a hundred years ago: the birth of a litter of kittens in the stable yard; the acquisition of a new piano for the use of the senior students; a French verse competition. And then, underneath the rest, it said, Miss Maria Melville returned to school last week after her sojourn in the infirmary. She had suffered a broken ankle when riding near Blackdown Ridge.

  I was so excited to see Maria’s name in print. It made her more real, somehow. As I read the little notice again, something stirred in my memory. Blackdown Ridge was where the great stones stood on top of the moors, like gigantic fingers pointing up to the sky. Not only that—it was where Helen had been taken when she had tried to pass through the door of Agnes’s study. Was there some link? I had been to the circle of standing stones only once before, and it was an eerie, haunting place, quite a long ride over the hills from the school and not the usual route for a ramble either on foot or horseback. Why had Maria gone there, I wondered, and how had she met with her accident?

  A sudden, overwhelming desire to visit the place gripped me. I looked at my watch. There was still time to get there and back, and we were allowed to ride out on a Sunday, though I might need permission to go so far. Something told me that Miss Scratton might refuse that permission, as she had advised us to stay on the school grounds. I was torn in two. I desperately wanted to go to the Ridge, and yet I also respected Miss Scratton’s advice. Although she had warned us not to make any contact with her, I decided I would go and see her. If she gave me her permission to ride to the standing stones, I was sure nothing could go wrong. A pang shot through me as I remembered the journeys I had taken with Helen and Evie to Uppercliffe Farm, and to Sebastian’s old home, Fairfax Hall, and I wished they could be with me now.

  Quickly I made my way to the High Mistress’s study and knocked on the door. There was no reply, but as I was turning away in disappointment, I saw the art mistress, Miss Hetherington, walking down the corridor. She stopped and smiled at me. “Are you looking for Miss Scratton? I’m afraid she’s out this afternoon. She’s taken half a dozen of the students from the top class to have tea at St. Martin’s Academy, to make arrangements for the summer dance at the end of term. Are you looking forward to it? I think it’s a splendid idea, don’t you? But I’m surprised you aren’t out riding on a day like this. It’s such glorious weather—just perfect for the first of May!”

  Miss Hetherington’s natural-sounding enthusiasm swept through the somber corridor like a fresh breeze. I had forgotten that it was the first day of May, the traditional beginning of warm weather and new life. I was so relieved that I could have laughed out loud. Everything sounded so normal. Miss Scratton had gone on a visit to the local boys’ school. Students and staff were looking forward to a dance, and it was a lovely day for a ride. It felt as though everything that had happened last term really was fading away and the sun was shining on Wyldcliffe at last.

  “Yes, I am—I mean it is,” I babbled, then turned and rushed to the stables. Starlight snickered happily as I saddled him up and clattered down the drive. As I passed through the school gates I held my breath, but there was no catastrophe. Nothing would happen, I was convinced, nothing could touch me. The air was warm and sweet and the soft green moors were inviting. In my excitement I ignored any tug of caution and cantered away in the direction of the moors, and the stone circle on Blackdown Ridge.

  It was farther than I had thought. I let Starlight walk the last mile as the land rose steeply and the view on either side of the Ridge opened up. The sky seemed endlessly high above the turf, and the valleys that dipped away on either side of me spread out to the horizon like billowing green waves. But the sight that lay ahead was the most impressive of all. Stark and black against the pale blue sky, a jagged ring of rough-hewn stones stood in a broken circle, like a vast primitive crown on the top of the moors.

  As I rode up to them, it was already late in the afternoon. The warmth had gone out of the sun, and the megaliths cast long black shadows over the heather. I slithered down from Starlight’s back and walked into the center of the circle. Men had dragged the stones here, huge blocks of granite and limestone, for some lost, hidden purpose. I felt my soul stir as I gazed at their stark beauty. There was a deep silence and stillness as I walked under their shadow, but I wasn’t afraid.

  Here, out on the hills, I felt free of all the worries that had haunted me since I had come back to school. This was my real Wyldcliffe, and my real world. I knelt down and pressed my hands into the black peaty soil and worshipped the wild land’s Creator. Here I had nothing to fear. I was a child of the earth, and I belonged. Here I could do no wrong. Suddenly it didn�
��t seem such a betrayal to borrow the Talisman’s power. All I wanted to know was the truth about Maria. Surely it would do no harm?

  I slipped my hand inside my shirt and drew out the Talisman. Now I would try its depths again, and call out to the Gypsy girl whose blood ran in my own.

  Looking out to the north where the hills marched into the distance, I held up the silver necklace. It twisted in the breeze, and the fading light caught the edges of the crystal. Now it gleamed deep and intensely colored, as dark as the black earth, as dark as a Gypsy’s eyes.

  “Maria,” I called. “You walked this land. You stood on this earth. You saw these stones. If you can hear me, or see me, send me a sign.”

  Nothing happened. The air grew dim, and cold, until I was shivering, but not with fear.

  “I am your daughter’s daughter’s daughter,” I cried. “Speak to me. Come to me.”

  The light changed. On the far side of the circle I saw a girl lying at the foot of the tallest stone. She had blood on her face and was wearing some kind of circlet on her head, like twisted leaves. Fierce-looking men were hovering around her, anxious and protective.

  “Maria?” I whispered.

  As if in reply, a terrible roar of anger ripped open the divide between the past and the present. I heard a storm of drumbeats, and then the sun wavered and went out, and the land was covered in shadow.

  Chapter Sixteen

  MARIA MELVILLE’S WYLDCLIFFE JOURNAL

  APRIL 10, 1919

  As we stepped into the shadows of the caves, Zak stayed close to me. The men were grim and silent. They stooped and walked in single file down the narrow tunnel that led deeper underground. Every noise—the stealthy pad of feet, the scraping of boots against the rocks, a low gasp of breath—was magnified, echoing and rippling through the dark. I had never been underground before. I had imagined that the caves would be suffocating and enclosed. It was strange, though, because it didn’t feel like that at all. I felt curiously at home in the deep weight of the earth. Some of the men had lit glowing torches that burned red and smoky, but I felt that I could almost see in the dark. My feet didn’t slip on the rough stone. I was safe and sure-footed, sensing when the passage would twist and turn, and I felt convinced that we would find Zak’s father any moment, clutching a broken leg and glad to be rescued. And so to start with I wasn’t afraid. Not then, not yet.