“They’ll kill you if I don’t! What choice do we have?”
“We are all free to make our choices,” said Helen, as though seeing a vision. “Sarah has chosen a hard path. But we can’t stop her. None of us can. It is her time. It was written—S for Sarah.”
Evie looked white and unhappy, but she whispered, “I believe in you, Sarah. I trust you to make the right choice.”
“Accept my offering,” I implored the leader, handing him the circlet. “And let my friends go free before the Priestess returns.”
“You will do this for the Kinsfolk?” he asked. “To save your own people?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I promise. And I never break my promises.”
“You bring the lost crown back to the Kinsfolk,” the creature said with a low bow. “We will defy the Spirit Woman and release the others. But you must stay in the earth kingdom with the Kinsfolk, and wear their crown. This is your promise? Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I said. “But you must let my friends go quickly so they will be safe.”
“The Kinsfolk will show them the secret path. It leads from the earth kingdom to the stone circle in the sky world.”
“I can’t leave you here, Sarah,” Cal said in anguish.
“You have to! The whole point is for you to get out. When Mrs. Hartle comes back, she’ll kill you and Josh and make Evie and Helen her slaves—and me. I have to do this. At least it gives the rest of you a chance. Go! Just go!”
“Sarah’s right,” said Josh reluctantly. “She’s our only hope now. We have to do as she says.”
I hugged them one by one, and finally Cal.
“You’ve given me so much,” I whispered. “Enough for all eternity.” His eyes met mine, and I understood everything. Cal was the one who knew me, right the way through. The one I had no secrets from. The one who loved me. Not for being good or strong, but just for being me, all of me, good and bad. And now I had to keep my promise. I had to let him go.
“I love you,” I whispered. “This isn’t the end for us.”
“It can’t be,” Cal said. “I won’t let it be the end. I’ll wait for you at the standing stones—I’ll be there for you—when you get through this—” His voice broke and he couldn’t speak.
“I’ll get through it,” I said. “Wait for me.” I smiled, then turned from him to hide my tears. Josh gently pulled Cal away, and there was nothing more to say.
It was time.
I was ready.
“You must take the secret path,” said the wizened leader to Josh. “My folk will guide you.” Two other tough-skinned creatures, bent and wiry, led the way with torches in their hands. They pulled on one of the stalactites, and with a great rumbling an entrance opened up in the cave wall. This was the way back to the light, but only for Josh, Helen, Evie, and Cal—they were all leaving me behind.
I didn’t watch them go. I closed my eyes until the sound of their footsteps had been swallowed up. And then I was alone in the deep places of the earth, and I had to fulfill my vow.
The rest of the creatures dragged me to the far side of the cavern. A huge pillar of rock spread out in fantastic shapes like a tree of stone. Simple red lamps hung from its branches. The leader lit the lamps with a torch and they began to smoke. A heavy, drowsy smell filled the air. And then it began. The drums. The chanting. The long cold hands reaching for me, tearing at my clothes and tugging at my hair. Maria had known this and been terrified. Sebastian had rescued her, but I had to bear it. Then the leader’s fingers brushed against the Talisman, which was still hanging around my neck, and he sprang back. “Aaeee! The girl wears a stone of power! She has great magic!”
Their drumming and singing became even wilder until the music echoed through the cave. One of the Kinsfolk took a long, coarse piece of cloth from his bag and tied it around my shoulders like a robe. Then they bound me to the tree of stone and began to whet their knives and sharpen their spears. Every instinct made me want to scream, but the heavy smoke crept into my mind, whispering of ancient stories and deadening my terror.
Listen to the drums.
Until now, I had listened to those drums with my head, not with my heart. I had heard only what I thought I would hear—fear and savagery and the dreadful unknown. But now, at last, in that deep place under the sacred earth, I listened with my secret soul. I listened, and on the other side of my fear, I finally understood. The drums were a call to life, and a lament for the Kinsfolk’s long servitude, not a war cry. They were beating in rhythm with my own heart, and I understood that another fate was unfolding in this secret cavern, not simply my own.
“Who are you?” I asked. “Where have you come from?”
“I am Kundar,” the leader said. He touched his scarred chest. “I am the head man. We are earth people. Slaves. The new queen will set us free.” He reached into his pouch. It was full of red powder like ground clay. He spat on his fingers and made a stiff paste with it, then drew a shape like an eye on my forehead. “See with Kundar’s eyes. See like the Kinsfolk.”
The smoke and torches and the cavern vanished and I was standing on Blackdown Ridge. The farms and homes of Wyldcliffe were no longer there. The towers and gables of the Abbey didn’t exist. The only landmark that was familiar was the ring of standing stones. Down in the valley below, I saw some wooden huts thatched with straw. Riding across the land was a group of men; short and stocky but strong and free, galloping on their shaggy hill ponies and shaking their bronze spears in the sunlight. Their hair was dark, tinged with red. As they came closer I could see that some of them were wearing intricate necklaces and armbands, and their clothes were made of skins and woolen cloth. Women and children rode clinging behind them and young men ran barefoot alongside the riders, almost as swiftly as the horses.
When they reached the stones, the riders dismounted and the whole tribe stood in a circle. They carried green branches, which they waved in the air as they sang and chanted. Then a young girl, of maybe fourteen years old, was picked out from the crowd. A cry of excitement went up. The people threw the branches to the ground. The girl stepped forward, looking pale and frightened, but proud. A fine metal circlet was placed on her head. “Down into death!” they cried. “The new queen goes down into death! She brings back life for all!”
Then the picture changed with a swirl of color. Now I saw the people sitting together, sharing a meal around a fire outside their huts. A woman was milking a goat. Children played and tumbled in the grass. The next moment the place was filled with screams as yellow-haired men on horseback galloped through the village, scattering the food and slaughtering the men, who had been caught unawares. They snatched the women and children, hauling them away and throwing them over the backs of their horses. Sounds of lamentation filled the air.
The last picture showed a band of the men who had been defeated by the invading tribe. They were roped together and wore chains around their wrists and necks. Dead bodies were heaped up at the edge of the peat bog on the moors. The victorious tribesmen threw the corpses into the black mud, where they sank slowly into the marsh. Then the living prisoners were also thrown into the bog, weighed down by their chains, sinking, slowly suffocating, swallowed up by the earth.
“No . . . ,” I protested, coming back from the vision. “It’s too cruel, I don’t want to see any more. . . .”
“It is a true sight. These things happened. We were cursed by the men who killed us and took our women. We could not die and pass to the land of fathers. So we slept in the earth and changed to bog men, caught between this world and the next. Every hundred winters we wake for a little time, and dwell in the caves of the earth kingdom. We feel pain and shame. We look for the new queen, but we do not find her. But now the Spirit Woman has bound us with fire and magic. She makes us slaves.”
“She wants to make all of us her slaves,” I said.
“She is an evil spirit. Not like our queen. Only the queen brings life to the Kinsfolk.”
“How?” I asked, my heart
racing. “What do you want me to do?”
“The queen goes down into Death. She finds the living Tree that never dies. She comes back with a gift from the Tree. It is a sign that the Kinsfolk are safe, for many winters. Then the queen is safe too.”
“And what if she doesn’t—doesn’t find the Tree?”
“Then she is not the real queen,” Kundar replied simply. “She stays in the earth with Death.”
Now I knew the truth about the Kinsfolk, and this truth would either lead me to triumph, or to destruction.
Kundar raised his hands high over my head, holding the bronze circlet. I looked up at it, and it seemed to me that even in that lightless cave the sun shone through the leaves. Mother Earth, help me, I begged silently. Great Creator, protect me.
I looked at Kundar’s strange, deformed face, which somehow still had an air of tired dignity. His eyes were black and brilliant in the torchlight. The drums began. His face changed to a grinning mask. But his eyes were full of love. They were the eyes of an untamed boy with a proud, deep heart, someone who knew me, good and bad. . . .
“I’m ready,” I whispered. “I’m ready.”
Kundar placed the circlet on my head, and the creatures of the Kinsfolk rushed forward to strike with their polished stone blades. Pain stabbed though me, such pain—
I fell.
I was falling, falling like a leaf in the wind.
I was in a deep trench that had been dug in the ground, lying on my back. I opened my eyes. Far away, stars glittered overhead. I saw Cal in the stars, then my mother’s face, then the shape of a white swan. Pain was pinning me down. I was bleeding. My life was pouring away into the wet earth. Someone came to stand at the edge of my grave. It was Kundar. He threw a handful of dust onto me and said sorrowfully, “Down into Death.”
Then I saw Evie, looking down at me sadly. “For your long voyage,” she said, as she threw a handful of earth into the tomb. The stars turned again. Helen took Evie’s place. “For the way ahead,” she said, and she threw in a faded garland of flowers. Then the earth began to crumble from the sides of the grave, filling up the space as rapidly as water floods a stricken boat. I was drowning in the earth, I couldn’t breathe, there was dust in my mouth and death in my lungs. The Tree, I thought faintly. I never found the Tree. Then panic engulfed my mind as the black earth smothered me, and every light and sense and sound was extinguished forever.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Into the earth you went, my sister,
Into the earth you sank.
The stones were calling you,
The hills held your heart.
Into the earth you went.
Fear crushed you, stole your breath.
Earth held you like a lover.
Who will see with your eyes now?
Who will comfort those you left?
Into the earth you went.
The grass grows, the river swells,
But the birds are silent.
White swan, leaving us.
You have gone, my sister.
Into the earth you went.
Into the grave you went,
Down into death’s arms.
When will I see you again?
A white swan flies across the moon,
And is silent.
It was Helen’s voice, waking me from a long sleep. I opened my eyes. I was in a forest, surrounded by tall, slim trees. Bluebells shimmered like a violet mist in the distance. White flowers dotted the rich grass. I was wearing a long green gown, embroidered all over with flowers and fruits and intertwining leaves. The bronze circlet was on my head, and there were roses in my hair. A silver charm hung from my neck. I had seen it before; twisted silver strands clasping a bright crystal. Of course, I remembered. It was the Talisman. I remembered everything.
“Use it well,” Evie said. “It is your time.”
I spun around to find her, but she wasn’t there. I was alone in that hushed, secret place. All the colors seemed more brilliant than I had ever known, as though blue and yellow and green had only just been thought of at that moment. The air was so pure that it made my head sing. Here everything could grow, and be renewed, and find peace.
A white peacock stepped slowly across the grass. I followed it and we soon left the forest behind. The land rolled away into a lush valley, with ripe corn growing in fields as golden as the sun. Scarlet poppies brushed against my ankles as I walked through the fields to a wide, glittering lake.
In the middle of the lake, on a grassy mound, a huge tree was growing. It was like the tree of stone that I had seen, but this was alive. It was the living Tree. Its bark was golden and its leaves were every color from pale green to deepest red. As I stood and gazed at it, I heard the rustle of new leaves unfurling, and felt the swell of its fruit growing. This was the root of all trees on earth.
The peacock wandered idly by the banks of the lake, pecking in the grass for seeds. I didn’t know how I could cross the water to reach the Tree. It was deep and clear, too far for me to swim. If only Evie were here, I thought, then I remembered her words. Use it well. I unfastened the Talisman and trailed it across the water. “Please let me pass,” I said. “I am a child of the earth. I mean no harm.”
A spray of ivy at the water’s edge began to stretch and grow, curling itself around like twisted wire, spreading out across the water to make a swaying green bridge. I ran across it to where the Tree was growing and breathing and living.
“Welcome, little sister,” said a voice, though I couldn’t see who had spoken. “You have great courage. This is your reward.”
A single leaf twirled down from one of the upper branches, hovering on the air, until it rested on the palm of my hand. “Go,” said the voice, “and be a queen.”
The next second I was slammed back into the darkness. A mildewed grave cloth covered my face and there was a weight on my eyes. For a moment I panicked. Had the Kinsfolk tricked me? Was there no way back? Making a great effort, I moved the hand that still clutched the precious leaf, then I heard voices.
“She moves . . . she wakes. . . .” I felt hands pulling me upward and tugging the cloth from my face, and then I was back in the cavern. The ropes that had bound me were lying in shreds on the ground, and I was standing in a circle of the Kinsfolk. I was still dressed in green, and in my hand was a delicate leaf, fashioned out of bronze. It was the gift from the everlasting Tree. I had done what I had promised.
“Here is your sign,” I said shakily. “Another piece for your crown.”
“She brings a gift! She is the true queen!” Kundar took the bronze leaf and twisted it into the circlet on my head. Then the Kinsfolk swarmed around me, touching my robe and crown and feet and hands. And as they touched me they stood up straight and broad, their chains and collars falling from them. They were no longer hunched and wizened but were the men I had seen through Kundar’s eyes, Wyldcliffe’s original inhabitants hundreds or thousands of years ago, before they were murdered and cursed. They had dark eyes and red hair, and were crowned with garlands of oak leaves and ears of corn. “You bring life. You free the Kinsfolk. The queen has come!”
Kundar looked at me with eager, glinting eyes. “Now we will sleep well. Now, when the earth ends, when time is finished, and all come back from Death, our womenfolk will know us. Speak your wish. The Kinsfolk serve you.”
There was only one thing that I wished for. “I want to see my friends. I must go to them.”
Kundar bowed. “You are the earth queen, but you live in the sky world too. We will take you to them, then sleep again until you call.”
“If you ever need me, I will come back,” I said.
“That is your promise?”
“Yes. I promise.”
He made a funny clicking sound as though he were laughing. “Come,” he said. “Now we will go to the stone circle.” As Kundar turned to lead the way, I could only hope that I would find my friends there, waiting for me.
I pushed past a tangle of brambles and fer
ns and stepped out of a hidden cave mouth into the night air. We had reached the end of the secret underground tunnel that led from the cavern to the foot of Blackdown Ridge. The wind was fresh and the sky was black, dusted with stars. Was it really the same night that we had entered the caverns under the White Tor? It seemed that I had lived a whole life since then. Kundar came and stood next to me, while the rest of the Kinsfolk folk hung back in the shadows.
“We are in the sky world now.” He looked up at the stars. “The stars have changed. All things change.”
“I shan’t change,” I said. “Stay here please, Kundar. I’m going to walk up to the Ridge. I might need you.”
I made my way up the rough slope as quickly as I could in my long gown. The sound of low voices carried on the night air, and soon I saw Cal and Josh, Helen and Evie sitting on the ground. They were overshadowed by the megaliths and talking softly. I suddenly felt shy and not sure what to say, and pulled the circlet from my head. But Helen saw me and jumped up. “I knew you’d come back.” She smiled and kissed me. “I knew you’d make it.”
“Thank God!” Evie rushed to hug me. “Oh, Sarah, I’m so sorry for everything. If I hadn’t been stupid enough to be fooled by Mrs. Hartle’s lies and deceptions, I would never have caused you all this trouble. I should have known that it couldn’t be Sebastian waiting for me by the gates. I just wanted to believe that miracles might happen.”
“Miracles do happen,” I replied. “Just not how we expect them to. It was Sebastian—or a vision of him—who told us where to find you. But it was Josh who called you back to life.”
“I know.” Evie glanced at Josh with wonder in her eyes, before turning back to me. “When I was asleep in that stone coffin, it was as though I was drowning in dreams. I seemed to see Sebastian again, as clearly as when he had been alive. But he was different, so gentle. He told me that he had been permitted to reach out to help me just once because I was in mortal danger, and that now my sisters were searching for me, and someone else too, who—well, someone who loved me as I deserved to be loved. He smiled at me and his whole face was full of light—just light and beauty—and then he was gone. And I knew that I wasn’t ready to follow him yet, not even into all that beauty. I wanted to come back to the world. Then I heard Josh calling me. Oh, Sarah,” she whispered. “I know now that Sebastian has left this world forever. I mean really know in my heart, not just my head. He won’t come back again. There’s a time for everything, isn’t there? A time to grieve, and a time to heal. And I’ve been given a second chance, and I’m so grateful for everything. . . .” I hugged her tightly. We had all learned so much about ourselves and one another in these past weeks and days. “Thank you so much,” Evie said as she let me go. “Thank you for what you did for all of us.”
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