Betrayal

by Gillian Shields

  Come back, come back, come back.

  Six

  I was back at Wyldcliffe, and it was all about to begin again.

  “Is this the school?” Harriet asked. “Are we there?”

  The cabdriver from the station had dropped us at the wrought-iron gates that led into the school’s private grounds. It was almost dark. Picking up our bags, we turned down the curving drive. The gothic towers and turrets of Wyldcliffe Abbey loomed up in the dusk, frozen in time by the whirling snow. I couldn’t decide whether it resembled a palace or a prison, but either way there was no escape.

  “This is it,” I said softly. “This is Wyldcliffe.”

  That cursed place, some of the locals called it. Harriet had been right about one thing—people said that the place was haunted. The stories about Agnes had become legends: old tales that her ghost walked near the Abbey; that she would come back to Wyldcliffe again one day to put right a great wrong; that she could heal the sick; that Sebastian had committed suicide using an ancient silver dagger. Oh, they said all sorts of wild things, but nothing could come close to the truth.

  Tall trees stood black and bare on either side of the drive, and drifts of snow glimmered in the dusk. Night was falling over the rugged hills that marched around the Abbey like brooding guardians. Sebastian was out there, somewhere, I was sure. For a moment I allowed myself to imagine that he would be waiting for me by the lake on the Abbey’s grounds, eager to tell me that he had been healed by some amazing miracle. I would hear his laughter and see the flash of his mocking blue eyes. I would taste his kisses, which made my heart dance and my blood turn to fire in my veins. We would be like any other teenagers who had stumbled across their first love….

  I hurried forward and Harriet trotted next to me like a faithful dog.

  “Gosh, it’s so big. And so old.”

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  As we drew nearer to the massive building, I thought I heard something in the trees away to my left. I paused and looked around uneasily. Deep in the distant shadows, I thought I caught a glimpse of someone moving silently behind the trees. “Who’s there?” I called, but my voice sounded thin in the frosty air. Everything was still, like a stage set before the play begins, waiting for something to happen. I was being watched. For an instant I wondered if I should turn and run. Had I been crazy to come back at all? But the Talisman lay cool and quiet against my skin, giving me courage, giving me hope. I could do this, I told myself. I could face it. I had to. Sebastian would be waiting.

  “Come on, Harriet, let’s get inside. It’s cold.”

  We dragged our suitcases up to the great oak front door and stepped into the large entrance hall, where a fire was blazing in an old-fashioned stone hearth. The paneled walls and the gilt-framed paintings and the cabinets full of silver school trophies were just as I had remembered. There was the smell of flowers and beeswax and wood smoke, mixed with a subtle scent of money and tradition. Students in school uniform were lingering by the fire, or hurrying down the corridors that led from the hallway, full of first-day errands and importance. As I stood there, taking it all in, a girl with curly hair and warm brown eyes threw herself at me.

  “Evie! You’re back! Oh, it’s so good to see you.”

  “Sarah!”

  We hugged each other and smiled, though there was a lump in my throat.

  “How are you?” Sarah asked quietly. “It must have been hard, having the funeral to deal with.”

  “I’m okay, honestly.” I remembered that Harriet was still hanging on to my shadow like an unwanted party guest. “Um, Sarah, this is Harriet. We came on the train together.”

  “Hi.” Sarah smiled. “Shall I take you to see Miss Barnard, Harriet? She’s in charge of the younger girls. Dinner will be served soon, so you don’t want to be late.”

  “Yes, please,” said Harriet gratefully, and I was grateful too, to be free of her at last. Sarah swept Harriet away with a motherly air, saying over her shoulder, “But we need to talk, Evie. As soon as we can.”

  I headed for the dorm to unpack, hauling my suitcase up the grand marble stairs that wound their way to the upper floors. I paused for breath near the top and glanced down over the edge of the elaborate iron banister. The black-and-white tiles of the hallway looked far below, and the height and space around the magnificent staircase were almost dizzying. For a second, my mind slipped, and the rest of the school didn’t exist, only a terrible sheer drop, with those bright tiles swirling below me like a crazy giant chessboard. I seemed to see the figure of a girl lying on the floor like a broken toy, her eyes staring up into mine, a ribbon of crimson blood spreading over the endless black and white….

  A bell rang out shrilly. It was the warning bell, telling the last few parents lingering over their farewells that it was time to leave their daughters behind. I took a deep breath and looked again. There was no one lying on the tiled floor. What had it been? A memory? A prophecy? Or merely one of the tricks that the brooding atmosphere of Wyldcliffe played on my imagination?

  It was nothing. I wouldn’t allow myself to be distracted from what I had to do. Find Sebastian. Awaken the Talisman. It was as simple—and as difficult—as that.

  Climbing the last few steps, I reached the third floor. Long, door-lined corridors stretched out on either side of the staircase. This was the top of the building; only the disused attic lay above. I headed quickly for my dorm, hoping to find Helen there. But the high-ceilinged, cold white room was empty.

  There were five beds, each with thin drapes that could be pulled around for a little privacy. The only relief from the room’s clinical whiteness was a framed photograph of a teenage girl that was fixed over my bed, and an elaborately carved window seat that gave a view of the grounds and the surrounding hills.

  I opened my suitcase and hurriedly changed my jeans and sweater for my school clothes. The old-fashioned tie hid any sign of the Talisman hanging under my shirt. I knew, though, that I would have to find somewhere to hide my precious heirloom. I couldn’t trust anyone except Sarah and Helen, and I couldn’t risk the necklace falling into the wrong hands. I had to keep the Talisman safe, as safe as a dying man’s secret.

  Twisting my long curls into a neat ponytail, I checked myself in the mirror. Red hair and pale skin and sea-gray eyes, just like Agnes. In my crisp uniform, I looked like the perfect Wyldcliffe student. It was only the expression in my eyes that gave me away….

  I was about to leave when I caught sight of something in the mirror that made me turn around. Looking carefully on the opposite wall, I noticed that a scrap of paper had been left in the frame of the photo over my bed. I went over and eased it out, but before I had a chance to look at it, a familiar voice rang out.

  “Oh, God, look who’s turned up. Couldn’t you find somewhere else to take you in, Johnson? Like an orphanage?”

  The door had swung open and a pretty blond girl in designer clothes was standing there, flanked by two other students. “Sorry, Celeste,” I replied, slipping the paper into my pocket. “I couldn’t resist coming back just to annoy you.”

  Celeste scowled. “Well, keep out of my way.”

  “Oh, I intend to. I’m not exactly longing to get to know you better.”

  Celeste had done everything she could to make my first term at Wyldcliffe as difficult as possible, burning up with resentment over the fact that I had taken the place of her cousin Laura in the dorm. Poor Laura; it was her photo that hung over my bed. Poor, dead Laura, destroyed by Wyldcliffe. Drowned in the lake, the official story went, but the horrible truth was that she had been killed by the coven.

  Another grim reality. Another Wyldcliffe secret.

  “Hi, Sophie,” I said to one of the girls hanging behind Celeste. I actually almost liked Sophie. It wasn’t her fault that she was stupid and scared and bossed around by Celeste. I smiled at her and she glanced at Celeste anxiously before replying in a stilted voice, “Hello, Evie. Did you have a good holiday?”

  “Why
are you bothering to talk to her?” snapped India. There was nothing soft or helpless about India. Everything about her was expensive and polished, but she never laughed or fooled around or seemed really happy. Wyldcliffe was littered with girls like India, each one of them a tiny betrayal of too much money and not enough love. She pushed past me rudely. “We only came up here to get changed for supper. Why don’t you leave us alone?”

  “Willingly,” I replied. “Well, see you around, Sophie. I’m going to look for Helen. Don’t let these two suck all the blood out of you.”

  I strode out into the corridor. Students were making their way to the stairs in little groups. I caught snatches of conversation around me: “The police still don’t know what happened…” “My mother wasn’t very keen on sending me back here…” “I hope they find out soon…”

  They were talking about the High Mistress. I realized that ever since stepping over Wyldcliffe’s threshold, I had been expecting Mrs. Hartle to swoop down on me, tall, elegant, and cold, as she had on my very first day. It was difficult to remember that she was no longer there, watching over the school like a malevolent queen bee. Even though she was gone, I had to admit to myself that I was still afraid of her.

  I bent down and pretended to fiddle with my shoe so that I could hear what the other girls were saying. Wild rumors had circulated among the Wyldcliffe students about Mrs. Hartle’s disappearance the term before: that she had stolen money from the school and had fled the country; that she had run away with a secret lover; that she had been abducted by a crazed killer. It wouldn’t be long before someone blamed alien invaders. None of them could imagine that the truth was even weirder than any rumor.

  The gossiping girls passed by: “…I hope they tell us what’s going on…” “It’s creepy not knowing…” They ignored me. To them, I was just dumb old Evie Johnson, a scholarship student, an outsider who had nearly been expelled last term for wrecking the memorial procession in honor of Lady Agnes Templeton. I was no one.

  After they were gone, I stood up and remembered the piece of paper. I pulled it out of my pocket. In small black letters someone had written:

  AGNES IS DEAD. LAURA IS DEAD.

  YOU WILL BE NEXT.

  Whoever had written the note had wasted no time. This was a declaration of war.

  Seven

  I reached the gloomy dining hall with its rows of wooden tables and benches. The high table where the mistresses sat was on a raised platform at the top of the room. The place was slowly filling up with girls wearing identical red-and-gray clothes. I scanned their faces quickly, then walked over to where a tall, fair girl was sitting alone, her pale beauty dimmed by the air of sadness that clung to her.

  “Helen,” I said quietly, slipping into a seat next to her. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  Helen looked up and I could tell that she had been crying. Any ideas I’d had of telling her about the note I’d just found evaporated. It looked as though she already had enough to deal with.

  “I’m sorry, Evie,” she said in a low voice. “I should have come with Sarah to look for you, but I just couldn’t. I’ve been walking around the grounds all afternoon, hiding from Celeste and her gang, trying to summon up the courage to face the rest of the school.”

  “You must be frozen, staying out there in that snow! Besides, you can’t hide from Celeste all term, Helen. You mustn’t let her get to you.”

  “I know, I know. It’s going to be so hard, though, listening to all the talk about Mrs. Hartle.” Her voice dropped so low that it was almost inaudible. “About my mother…”

  None of the other Wyldcliffe students knew that Helen was Celia Hartle’s daughter. Mrs. Hartle had abandoned Helen in a children’s home as a baby, then had secretly gotten in touch with her a year ago and brought her to Wyldcliffe. She had urged Helen to join the coven, cruelly rejecting her when Helen had refused.

  “Now that she has gone, it hurts not being able to let anyone know that she was my…well, my family,” Helen went on. “Does that sound weird? When she was around, I was so angry with her for hiding the truth about me. I’ve had to hide so much, all my life. I’m still hiding. It makes me feel as though I don’t exist.” She picked nervously at the cuff of her sweater. “I hated her for being in the coven and for what she did to Laura, and for what she tried to do to you, but she was still my mother. I suppose I hoped that one day she would remember that. And now it’s probably too late.”

  “But do you really think Mrs. Hartle is gone?” I asked quietly. “Is she…is she dead?”

  “Shhh!” Helen frowned warningly. The room was filling up with girls and it was impossible to talk any longer. Sarah came in and sat opposite us.

  “Sorry I’ve been so long,” she said. “I had to take care of Harriet, then go down to the stable to check the ponies.” Sarah was crazy about horses and kept two in the Wyldcliffe stables.

  “Did I tell you Dad has signed me up for riding lessons?” I asked lightly, unable to speak about anything more serious.

  “Excellent. Mrs. Parker is a good teacher. Much better than me.” Sarah had tried to teach me to ride the term before on her pony Bonny, but although I could just about cling to Bonny’s back, I wasn’t what you’d call an elegant horsewoman. Helen fell silent as Sarah and I talked about the chances of riding over the hills in the snow; then another bell rang. The girls sprang to their feet as the staff filed in and took their places. The carved chair where the High Mistress had always sat was left empty, like a hollow throne.

  Miss Scratton, the mistress in charge of the older students, stood in front of the whole school and said the usual grace in her quiet, scholarly voice. She reminded me of a nun, with her black academic gown and her severe hairstyle and her Latin prayers…Benedic, Domine, nos et dona tua…. In my first term at Wyldcliffe Miss Scratton had been the only one of the mistresses I had felt I could trust. I wasn’t sure why exactly, but her clear mind and scrupulously fair methods seemed to make it impossible for her to be one of those howling, grasping women that we had encountered in the crypt.

  The prayer came to an end. Miss Scratton indicated that we should sit down. There was the scraping of chairs and benches and a quick rush of excitement: “She’s going to tell us something…” “I told you so…” “Some news at last…”

  “Before we begin our meal, I would like to welcome you back to school,” Miss Scratton announced. “These are not easy circumstances in which to begin a new term. Sadly, our High Mistress, Mrs. Hartle, is still missing. The police are doing everything they can, and we have to carry on as normal, despite the uncertainty, despite the loss we feel.” For a fraction of a second she seemed to look straight at Helen, who was sitting silent and stiff beside me. “In Mrs. Hartle’s absence, we must continue to strive for the high standards she always set. The school governors have put certain arrangements in place to ensure that your education will continue uninterrupted. Miss Raglan, our math mistress, has been appointed as Deputy High Mistress, and will lead the school until further notice.”

  There was an intake of breath, a gasp so loud that it sounded like a fist banging on a drum. It seemed that everyone had expected Miss Scratton to be put in charge. I had certainly expected it, and when I saw the faint flush spreading over her thin face, I guessed that she had expected it too. “I am sure,” she went on determinedly, “that we will all give Miss Raglan the support and loyalty that she deserves.” She began to clap and a few people joined in, but the applause didn’t last long.

  Miss Raglan stepped forward. She was tall and gray haired, with a heavy, clumsy body and an angry red complexion.

  “It is an honor, even in these sad circumstances, to be responsible for Wyldcliffe,” she said. “I can assure you that everything will continue as it was under Mrs. Hartle’s inspired leadership. There will be no loss of standards. There will be no change at all.”

  She sat down abruptly in Mrs. Hartle’s tall chair, looking awkward and out of place. Miss Scratton hesitated for a moment a
nd then said, “Please enjoy your dinner now, girls. Afterward, the lights-out bell will ring early, as it is the first day and you must all be tired from traveling.”

  The women who worked in the kitchens brought out large platters of food and placed them on each table and the girls began to serve themselves obediently, their little moment of surprise over. Wyldcliffe students were used to doing as they were told. Everything would be the same; there would be no changes…. Wyldcliffe never changed. Tradition. Order. Discipline. It was the same now as it had been a hundred years ago.

  I tried to eat too, but I wasn’t hungry. Celia Hartle might have gone, but I knew that any of the teachers who were surveying the rows of girls could be one of her Dark Sisters. If Mrs. Hartle was indeed dead, then sooner or later another High Mistress would rise up, eager for revenge. I looked at each one of the mistresses in turn: Miss Raglan; Miss Schofield; Mrs. Richards, who taught biology; Madame Duchesne, the French mistress; Miss Dalrymple; and all the rest. My head buzzed with questions. Had one of them written that note? I wondered. Which of them had been in the crypt on that night last term? I had never liked or trusted Miss Raglan, and now she was in charge of the school. Was she also in charge of the coven? Or was she simply a dry, cold teacher, obsessed with the rules and traditions of this elite academy?

  As I picked at my food, I looked around at the other students. I noticed that Harriet was sitting hunched over her plate, not saying a word to the girls near her. I guess she’d been shown the true Wyldcliffe welcome. Not having looks or money or confidence to recommend her, Harriet had already been dumped to fend for herself. The rest of the girls—so rich, so well connected, so attractive—seemed to have been protected from every evil from the moment they were born. And yet Laura had been one of those golden girls and she had fallen victim to Wyldcliffe’s secrets. I suddenly felt that I wanted to root out the sickness at the heart of the Abbey for all our sakes, not just for Sebastian.