Eternal

by Gillian Shields

  “Just get out of my way!” She ran past me down the stairs, with a dangerous look in her eyes. An image came into my mind of black smoke licked by dull flames, and the sound of girls screaming and sobbing filled my ears. I felt sick, and seemed to gag on the bitter smell of charred wood and metal. The next moment the sights and sounds had gone and I was alone.

  I wanted to run after Velvet and have things out with her, but I couldn’t let her distract me from what was really important. I turned my back on her and walked down the deserted dormitory corridor. Everyone had gone to class, so there was no one to see me pass through the door in the curtained alcove. I began to climb the hidden stairs to the attic, switching on the flashlight that we kept on the first step. No one would find me here, or see the contents of my parcel. I would look at it quickly, then start my search of the places where the coven might have taken Evie.

  Shutting the door of Agnes’s study behind me, I looked on the shelves where she had stored the ingredients for her healing spells. I found a box of colored candles, and chose four tall white ones and set them on her desk. Four lights for four sisters, four elements, four corners of the Circle. As an afterthought, I put a bloodred candle in the center and lit that for Maria, then turned off the flashlight. Then I sat down and unwrapped my mother’s parcel, pulling away several layers of card and tissue paper until I found a dress made of soft scarlet material, embroidered all over with fruits and flowers.

  “Oh, it’s lovely.” I sighed, gently stroking the fabric. Then I realized I had seen something similar before: the red silk ribbon that Cal’s mother had sent me. This was the same kind of needlework. The dress was Romany craft, I was sure of that. Forgetting everything else for a moment, I turned impatiently to my mother’s letter.

  Darling Sarah, I do hope the term has started well for you. How is dear old Wyldcliffe looking in the spring sunshine? It was lovely to get your letter. I know you have always been fascinated by Maria and our Gypsy connections! You always used to ask me for stories about her when you were a child.

  I am sending you this dress and I know I can trust you to look after it properly. It must be a hundred years old and belonged to Maria’s mother (your great-great grandmother—just think of that!). I think it might have been a wedding dress, though I’m not sure. And I think the leaves are a kind of headdress to go with it. Anyway, I was going to keep the dress as a surprise for your eighteenth birthday, my darling, but as you are going to have a school dance (goodness—we never had such a thing in my day!), I thought you might like to wear it then. I think it would look rather gorgeous on you, much better than a boring old prom dress. It has been passed down as a memento of a different life, and now it is yours.

  I don’t know much more about Maria than I have already told you. Sadly, I never knew her as she died when I was only two or three. My own mother was always rather guarded about Maria, as though she didn’t quite like talking about her. But you know how straitlaced poor Granny was, like all the Talbot-Travers side of the family. All starchy and stiff and old-school manners. I wanted very much to be close to her, but it just wasn’t her style. At least I’ve been a different kind of mother to you, my sweet.

  When Granny was so ill last year, her mind wandered a little and she sometimes talked about her own childhood, in a terribly rambling kind of way, but I did pick up a few things. Apparently Maria was very imaginative and got into trouble at Wyldcliffe for frightening the other girls with ghost stories about goblins that lived up in the caves on the hills. And I know that even though Maria married well (in terms of money and land and all the rest), she still kept in touch with the Gypsy people and did a lot for them. Apparently there was one particular friend she had called Zak. When I was little, I used to think that perhaps Maria and Zak had been secretly in love and I made up quite a romance about them, which made Granny dreadfully cross, as she thought this insulted her own father’s memory. But from what I remember I am sure your great-grandfather was very dull and stuffy compared to Maria’s Gypsy friend! Oh, and another thing, when Granny was reliving her memories in those last few days before she passed away, she went on about Maria and drums. It was quite odd. She kept saying something about “My mother told me to stay away from the drums.” Granny was quite insistent and said it several times. “Stay away from the drums in the deep places of the earth.” Of course, she was very muddled and ill by then, poor love. Oh, it’s all rather sad, looking back on family history, isn’t it? When all the people who have been before us have to go down into the valley of death and leave this world behind—

  But I’m getting too gloomy! I meant this to be a cheerful letter to go with your pretty dress. I do hope you get the chance to wear it. If it doesn’t fit, ask the school housekeeper to alter it for you. I’m sure she will help if you ask nicely.

  Well, that’s nearly all for now, my darling. I hope you are enjoying plenty of rides on Starlight—and Daddy is dropping hints that if you get a good report he might keep one of the young hunters he is training up and give it to you next season. . . .

  The rest of the letter was just gossip and affection and bits of news from home. I read the parts about Maria again.

  Stay away from the drums.

  It was all making a pattern, but not one that made any sense. Then my eye was caught by a sentence in the letter. I think the leaves are a kind of headdress . . . I hadn’t seen any leaves. I felt inside the layers of wrapping again, and my hand touched something cold and hard under the tissue paper.

  It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, a delicate crown made of polished bronze leaves intertwined in an eternal circle. The dress was lovely, but this circlet was extraordinary; a miracle of craftsmanship that glowed a deep burnished color in the candlelight. It was hard to believe that it had started life in the earth, as a lump of lifeless metal ore.

  My heart began to pound. I had already seen this bright circle crowning Maria’s dark head in my vision by the standing stones. Yet it was old, older than the dress that had belonged to Maria’s mother—hundreds, maybe even thousands of years old. Where had Maria found it? What did it mean? And why had it come to me?

  There was a glass-fronted cabinet on one of the walls, containing bottles of ointments and essences. I stood in front of it, just able to see a dim reflection of my face in the glass door. I watched myself, fascinated, as I raised the circlet in my hands and placed it on my head like a crown.

  Everything changed. I saw with different eyes. I was no longer in the attic, but in a meadow filled with flowers. I wore a crown of ripe corn and scarlet poppies, and I was holding the hand of a young child, who looked up at me with trusting eyes. It was sunrise, and the whole day stretched out ahead of me in a long, golden vista. There was a clear pool at my feet, and I looked down and saw my reflection. I was beautiful—I was transformed. I lived now and in eternity; I was far beyond anything I had ever known, and the drums were beginning, driving into my heart and mind and taking me deeper into the magic. I was special, anointed, marked out for a great destiny—

  “No, come back! Sarah, Sarah!” Someone was shaking me. “Sarah, wake up!”

  It was Cal. He tore the circlet from my head, and I fell to the ground. Every trace of the glory had vanished. I was just Sarah again. The moment of vision was over. I burst into tears and sobbed in the dust. Cal knelt beside me, full of concern, but I was too angry to care. “Why did you do that?” I snatched the crown back. “It’s mine, give it to me!”

  He looked surprised, but then drew away from me and stood up. “Here, take it,” he said abruptly. “But what the hell was it doing to you?”

  I got up and forced myself to stop crying, and checked the circlet anxiously to make sure it wasn’t damaged. “It wasn’t doing anything, it was just—you don’t understand.”

  “Then explain. Tell me what’s going on. What was happening here, Sarah?” Cal asked. His face in the shadows looked lean and tired. “You were in some kind of weird trance.”

  “I was trying
to find out about Maria—”

  “I thought finding Evie was your priority,” he interrupted.

  I flushed and snapped, “I know, but I can’t do everything at once. I just feel it’s important. Anyway, how on earth did you get in here? The staff will go mad if they see you.”

  “No, they won’t—I’m officially Josh’s new assistant. He told the school he’s busy studying for college and can’t come every day, so I will be doing some of his work in the stables instead. It gives me the perfect excuse to be here.”

  “And keep an eye on me?”

  “I’m not spying on you, if that’s what you mean.” His voice was proud and hard. “Helen came to the stables just now to see Josh. She said she thought you’d be in Agnes’s room and told me how to find it using the secret staircase. I wanted to help you, but I won’t bother if you don’t need me.” We stood glaring at each other. I didn’t understand why I was so angry with him. All I knew was that I hadn’t wanted to return from where I had been and he had forced me to.

  “I’m not used to needing anyone,” I replied, every bit as proud and haughty as Cal.

  “Fine. Do this your own way. But I’ll tell you one thing—Josh isn’t going to just hang around while you wait to get your ‘feelings.’ We searched the river right up to the waterfall, and across the marsh-bog last night looking for Evie, but there was no sign of her. He’s going out on the moors again this morning to look for her, and if that doesn’t work, he’s ready to go to the police and tell them everything.”

  “What can the police do?” I muttered sullenly. “They won’t be able to find Evie, or track down Miss Scratton either.”

  “I can’t say I’m particularly fond of the police myself,” Cal said with a hint of his old grin. “But they’ll start some kind of investigation,” he went on. “Josh is getting desperate, and he thinks anything that might bring Evie closer is better than nothing. But the authorities could close this place down if there’s any more scandal,” Cal added. “If they send you all home, how will you have any chance of finding Evie again or dealing with this evil spirit—the Priestess? You have to work fast. Maria is only a ghost—a memory, that’s all. Evie is real. If she’s alive, she needs you desperately. You’ve got to find her first.”

  I knew he was right, but knowing that annoyed me even more.

  “I will find Evie, and without your help,” I shouted. “Maria will help me. I know she will. The spirits of the dead can see us still—that’s Romany wisdom, isn’t it?”

  “Fine,” he shouted back, his pride flaming into anger. “If you’re such an expert, you sort everything out with your dead great-grandmother. I’ll go back to where I belong.”

  “Go then—I don’t care! I know what I’m doing.”

  “I hope you do, Sarah,” Cal said. “I really hope you do.” Then he turned and left. I heard his footsteps on the narrow stairs. As the sound quickly receded into the distance, I wished I could take every word back, but it was too late.

  I wanted to cry, but what was the good? I hardened myself against the terrible sense of loss that I felt. If Cal walked out of Wyldcliffe and went back to his family, I would never have the chance to explain or make things up with him. Well, let him go, I told myself, trying to rekindle my anger. Feeling anger was better than feeling despair. Our quarrel had been his fault too, I told myself. He had been ridiculously touchy and impatient. I glanced down at the thin circlet that I was still clutching in my hands, and at the soft folds of the dress that lay on Agnes’s desk. I would never wear that dress for Cal now, but I still had the circlet. That would lead me to Maria, I was sure, and somehow, I was convinced, Maria would lead me to Evie. I would show Cal that I had been right, I would show everyone. . . .

  I gathered up my treasures and held them against my heart, but they couldn’t fill the emptiness that was in me now that Cal was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  I found nothing that day. The crypt under the ruins was damp and empty, as though no one had been down there for months, and the secret grotto—the fancifully decorated cavern in the school grounds that led to the crypt—was deserted too. By the middle of the afternoon I was tired, and not just with sneaking about and trying to avoid being seen while the rest of the school went about its business. For the first time I started to wonder whether I really would find Evie. Josh’s plans to go and report everything to the police began to seem inevitable. There would be publicity, a missing person’s inquiry, and Evie’s father would be dragged into all this, out of his mind with worry. And I would never see her again.

  No. That couldn’t be how it ended. I wouldn’t let that happen. I was strong, I told myself. I was Sarah. Even without Cal I could do this. I would see it through. My mind wearily checked over every possible place in the school where I should still search for Evie, or where I might find some clue, and then it struck me that I had been so stupid. Of course, I still had the Book. It might contain a spell that would teach me all I needed to know. To Finde that which is Loste—it had to have the answer in its illuminated pages.

  I had returned the Book to its hiding place in Starlight’s stable after we had used it to make the healing potion for Helen. I hoped that I wouldn’t bump into Cal again. I just wasn’t ready to face him, but I was lucky, and when I reached the cobbled yard no one else seemed to be around. Quickly I let myself into Starlight’s stall. My faithful pony whinnied with delight, anticipating a gallop, but I gently quieted him, then pushed the straw to one side and lifted the loose brick where the Book of the Mystic Way was hidden. I took it out and sat cross-legged with my back to the wall and rested the leather-bound tome on my knee.

  When I tried to open it, though, I couldn’t, however hard I tugged at the cover. Feeling a surge of panic, I laid my hand on the green leather and willed, “Open. Open to me,” as I had when I’d unlocked the door of Agnes’s study. Then the Book sprang apart, its pages flapping as though in an invisible wind. The intricate writing and drawings and symbols became a confused jumble as the pages flipped over rapidly, before coming to a sudden stop. Now the Book lay open on my knee, but the writing on the page didn’t look like a set of instructions for a charm or a spell. Instead I could just about decipher the cramped letters to read the following message.

  “Beware! Oh ye who seeke the Truth and Lighte, ye must know this: There are those who brush against the Mysticke Way, as a lost sheep may brush against an Oak Tree in its wanderings. These Women are neither true Sisters of the Sacred Elements, nor Servants of the Shadows, and yet if they stray too far, they may take all to Ruine with them. Let it be knowne that these Women are called Touchstones. With them it is as though the Lightning strikes them, yet they feel it not, and see not whither it leads, nor whence it came. An Elemental Power such as Fire may touch this Woman to reveal itself, and yet she will know not by what she has been touched.

  Some Touchstones may live in simple innocence, never questioning why Marvels occur near them: why, by example, a well may gush over with wholesome Waters when they chance to pass, or why good harvests come to their village, or why the Fire in their hearths burns up brighter and longer than any of their Neighbors’. But there are others whose Heartes are not so pure, and through them, great troubles may come. With them, the Fire burns the harvest, the Waters of the stream dry up, and the Wind blows in such wild measures as to blow down their Neighbors’ houses. Such a one may come to know themselves to be a Touchstone. Then they seek not the Wisdom or Discipline of the Mysticke Way, only its glory. Indeed they may choose to use the power that they unwittingly attract for Destruction and Evil, and in doing so may be sucked into the Shadows, where they can do great Harme.

  All Life flows in magnetick energy (which doth unite the Elements), from Birth to Death, from the Earth to the Heavens, from one Heart to Another, like a great and sacred Dance. A Black Touchstone usurps the right path of the Dance and destroys its flow and no good can come of this, like wickedly damming a River to create a terrible Floode that washes all li
ving creatures away with its mighty Force.

  I had to read it more than once to understand what it was saying, and even then I couldn’t quite accept what I knew in my heart to be its message—that Velvet was a Touchstone. The fire at her last school, the tragic accident with her sister, her boyfriend’s suicide, even her part in Helen’s fall from the window—they all made a kind of sense now. Velvet in some way attracted untamed energy, a kind of overspill from the elements, and the darkness in her own heart turned this to a negative, destructive force. They all get hurt, she had said, and now I knew why. I leaned against the rough wall of the stable. It was all too much. I couldn’t deal with everything by myself. And now I had quarreled with Cal—over what? A dream?

  The time for dreams was over.

  I went to look for Helen and found her sitting alone in the common room, curled up in an armchair. She had a book of poetry in her hand but was staring into space, her mouth moving slightly as though chanting to herself. She gave a start when she saw me.

  “You didn’t find Evie, did you?”

  I shook my head and sank into a chair next to her.

  “Helen, what really happened when you fell from the window? Did Miss Scratton make that happen too? Or was it your mother?”

  Helen’s face clouded. “I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

  “Was—was Velvet there before it happened? Did you see her?”

  “Yes, she was. I remember seeing her. Why?”

  “Sophie said that she saw her looking down from the window after you had fallen.” I rapidly told Helen what I had just read in the Book and what my suspicions were about Velvet. “She seems to have some way of making bad things happen. And if she gets drawn into the path of the coven or your mother it could be even worse.”

  Helen held her head in her hands and gently rocked backward and forward, trying to remember.