“But I was afraid, Helen. In order to accept the Seal, I would have to give up the ordinary things of this world. I would never marry, or have children; I would never really grow old, or truly die. I would sacrifice this life for a different kind of existence. I dreamed of many strange things after this meeting, and my dreams were dark and disturbing. And so I was afraid, and so I refused.”
Another long pause and a despairing sigh. Then she spoke again. “Afterward, I regretted it so badly. You cannot imagine the bitter taste of that regret. This life now seemed so short, so tedious and banal compared to what I might have had, and who I might have been. The light of the Seal died. It no longer held any mysteries, and though I still had some of my strange abilities, they—well, they had faded after my refusal to follow my destiny. Even so, the idea of being special, soaring high above the common crowd, and living forever took root in my mind. It became an obsession that poisoned my existence. I met your father and drifted into a relationship with him. It didn’t last. Then you were born, but nothing was as real to me as my doomed quest. I sought out new people and darker ways of achieving immortality. I studied the books and scrolls of lore. That led me to Wyldcliffe. The rest you know. I have not been a mother to you. I have been a curse, as I am now to myself.”
“But you gave me the Seal.”
“Yes, I gave you the Seal, Helen, though it was by then no more than a poor trinket. I gave it to you to prove that once I knew what hope and beauty and innocence were.”
My mouth was dry, and I could hardly speak. I wanted to tell her that I could still love her, and that it wasn’t too late for hope and innocence between us, but all I managed to stammer was a few words. “I’m…sorry for you.”
“Then let me go! You can release me, and I will help you. The poor rags of power that I have left I will use for you, to help you find all that your heart desires, all that you dream of. What is it that you wish for most? Let me help you find it!”
“It’s too late for what I have wanted all my life,” I whispered. “Seventeen years too late.”
“Forget about me, Helen! You don’t need a mother to make you strong, or powerful, or good. You are all those things already. It is time to turn from the past and what might have been. Look ahead to the future. Is it love that you desire? Or maybe you will claim the Seal and all that it holds. Let me help you.”
“Help me—how can you help me?”
“Release me.”
I knew at that moment that I could free her. The power of the air and winds that was wrapped inside my veins like an invisible tornado would be enough to blow away any spell or binding.
“Release me, I beg you, Helen,” she whispered pitifully. “Not for my sake, but so that I can do one good thing for you, before it is too late.”
Oh I wanted to trust her! But cold logic warned me against it. “But I—I can’t,” I struggled to say. “You’ve tried to hurt me so often, and my friends too….”
“I won’t make the same mistakes again! I don’t want to serve the Eternal King anymore. I want to return to the light. I vow, Helen, by all that was ever sacred to me. I vow on your own immortal soul!”
A light flashed around the circle of stones, and I saw my mother standing before me, as she had been when she was young. Her face was white with pain. Then she looked into my eyes, and I saw something that had never been there before. I saw love in them. Love for her child. For me.
“I will do as I vow, Helen. And then let me pass through the halls of death, as Sebastian has done, and never trouble you again. I repent! Let me be redeemed. Isn’t everyone capable of redemption? If we don’t believe that, we are all lost in darkness forever.”
I fell to my knees, dizzy with shock. My mother had spoken, and for the first time in my life, I believed her. Was this the sign I had been waiting for?
Six
THE WITNESS OF SARAH FITZALAN
Waiting, waiting, waiting for our destinies to unfold—that’s all it seemed that we could do, as the September days began to slip past and Helen did her best to avoid us.
I spent every moment that I could with Evie and Josh and Cal, the Gypsy boy who had given up his wanderings to stay in Wyldcliffe and be with me. Cal was my true home now; my heart was rooted in his, and our reunion after the long summer vacation was bliss. He’d got some laboring work on one of the local farms, but he often helped Josh out in the stables, and so I saw him nearly every day. In a rush of happiness, we kissed in the shadows of the cobbled yard, and I knew again the scent of his skin and the sound of his laugh, and the strength of his presence. His dark, broad features were softened by love when he caught me in his arms, and nothing else seemed to matter. I was totally, radiantly in love, and I didn’t care who knew it.
I wasn’t the only one. Josh was crazy about Evie. I sensed that he was anxiously trying to work out whether he was any closer to winning her at last, and although Evie seemed glad to see Josh, she still held herself slightly aloof; wearing her grief for her lost love, Sebastian, like a protective mask. But however much she tried to convince herself that Josh just wanted to be friends, it was plain to see that he wanted more than that. Evie smiled at him and was kind, and Josh had to be content, though I guessed his heart ached. She was looking lovely, too, after the summer break spent by her beloved ocean. Her skin was dusted with freckles, and her long red hair was twisted into a plait like a heavy rope, and there were dreams and secrets in her gray eyes. No wonder Josh was in love with her.
“It’s so good that you’re both back,” Josh said, with his easy, golden smile, though his eyes were only for Evie. “But is it true that the school is not doing so well? People are saying it might close. What would you do—where would you go?” He looked intently at Evie, who blushed and looked away.
“Wyldcliffe won’t close,” I said. “At least I don’t believe any of the rumors. People are just panicking because no one seems to be in charge.”
The students and parents had all received letters from the school governors, saying that new arrangements for the leadership of the school would be announced shortly. The teachers, even the reasonably human ones like Miss Clarke, the Latin mistress, or Miss Hetherington, who taught art, had remained tight-lipped about who would become the new High Mistress. It seemed to me that Wyldcliffe was a ship without a captain, lost and directionless. Most of the girls had seemed anxious since the new term had begun, as though they needed someone to tell them what to do. A few, like Velvet Romaine, were making the most of the temporary lack of authority by ignoring the rules on lights-out and bedtimes and the usually strict uniform.
Velvet hitched her skirts short and wore bloodred lipstick and strode about the school on skyscraper heels like a catwalk model, but I wasn’t part of her crowd of admirers. Her dark glamour and celebrity parents meant nothing to me, though there were plenty of other girls ready to be friends with the daughter of Rick Romaine, the notorious rock star. I felt only pity and fear when I thought about the deep shadows of Velvet’s past, and what we had discovered about her. The secret truth about Velvet Romaine was that she was a Touchstone. Unlike Helen, Evie, and I, who served our powers of air, water, and earth faithfully, abiding by the Mystic Way of love and healing, Velvet channeled the elemental powers without understanding them. She was wild and selfish, and brought only chaos and destruction to the people around her.
There was only one thing that we could be sure about. Danger was hanging over us, like dark clouds racing across the sky, and we could either wait for it to take us by surprise or rush to meet it, ready for battle. I was willing to fight, but I was only human too. Cal’s arms were warm and enfolding, and his eyes were full of love. Cal is waiting for you, Helen had said. Be happy…. I wanted to help Helen, but she was pushing me away. So if in those first days at Wyldcliffe I told myself that it was better to stay out of trouble and hide in the shadows to steal kisses, was it so wrong to want to shelter for a while from the final storm?
Seven
FROM THE DI
ARY OF HELEN BLACK
SEPTEMBER 24
I have just returned from another visit to the Ridge, and a storm is playing in my heart. I can hardly take in all the things my mother told me about the Seal—and now the sign on my arm is burning again. My mother—and Velvet—and the boy—everything is crashing together like drums in my head—a light is in my mind—burning—the light—
Can she really be saved? And can I?
“Let me be redeemed,” my mother had said as she stood before me, clothed in white light. Then she had twisted in pain and gasped, “I am summoned. I cannot stay.” A shadow seemed to emerge from the ancient stone, and it enveloped her, drawing her spirit back into its silent heart.
“Wait!” I sobbed “Don’t go—don’t leave me!”
“I have no choice.” Her face and voice grew faint. “Your powers sent me here, only your powers can free me. Let me go!”
“I can’t—come back, we’ll talk again. Wait!”
But she was gone. There was no echo of her presence in my head or heart, or out on the bleak hillside. She had returned to the prison I had created for her. My tears stung in the raw wind that howled through the circle of black stones. The ancient space seemed to mock my loneliness with its vast emptiness. For a moment I had been so sure that my mother’s repentance was real, but the memory of her taunting words the term before seeped back into my brain like bitter cold: You are nothing to me, Helen…nothing…How could I possibly trust her after everything she had done?
There were too many questions and no answers. There was nothing more I could do that day. I stumbled to my feet and prepared to return to the school, pulling the air around me and stepping into the secret ways of wind and light. As the lights faded and I drew near to the locker rooms, I got a shock. Velvet Romaine and a handful of her friends were there, laughing and joking and passing a bottle of drink around. I tried to wrench my thoughts in a different direction before I crashed out of the air in front of them. But as I did so, I saw Velvet raise her eyes to mine. She seemed to see me in the secret gaps of space and time, and a pulse of energy burned through my body. For a second I was lost in a whirl of noise and power. I saw the circle of stones again, black against the sky, and I saw Velvet’s dark, watching eyes, and I heard distant music, then I fought to get away from her.
A few seconds later I fell out of the air and found myself in the muddy lane outside the school gates, bruised and shaking. I scrambled to my feet and hurried up the lane, but then I got another shock. The boy I had seen earlier with Mr. Brooke was standing by the gates. He was whistling softly to himself, and he smiled when he saw me.
“Hi,” he said. “Nice to see you again. Though you’re not stalking me, by any chance?” His words broke the tension. It was as though all the anxiety I had felt about my mother and Velvet was being washed away, like silk slipping through my hands. I even found myself smiling back at him.
“No, of course I’m not stalking you.”
“So do you usually wander about in the twilight looking for tall, handsome strangers?”
I knew he was teasing me, but somehow I didn’t mind. I couldn’t be threatened by a guy who made music like he did. And there was something so easy and relaxed about him that he made me laugh. “Every night,” I said.
“And have you found any yet?”
“I’ve found you.”
Suddenly our conversation didn’t seem so lighthearted. He looked at me questioningly, and our eyes met. A sense of space and light seemed to fill me, a dizziness—
It was nothing. Just exhaustion after my encounter on the Ridge. “I’d better go,” I said abruptly. “I have to get back in school.”
The boy held the gate open for me, and I had to brush past him to enter the school grounds. My hand touched his for a second. Then the gate closed with a metallic clang, standing between us like the screen of a confessional. He was looking through it, staring at me—
“Don’t go yet, Helen.”
I must have looked surprised that he knew who I was, because he smiled again and said, “I asked Mr. Brooke for the name of the beautiful girl who barged into my music lesson.”
“I’m not—you’re making fun of me.”
“Why should you think that?”
I felt compelled to tell the truth. “Because I’m not beautiful.”
“Perhaps you should let others be the judge of that,” he said softly.
Now I was really out of my depth. No one had ever said anything like that to me, not even in my wildest dreams. I backed away uncertainly, then began to walk rapidly down the drive.
“Helen, please stay a moment!” The urgency in his voice made me stop and look back. “I wanted to talk to you earlier,” he said. “After Mr. Brooke finished the lesson, I went looking for you in the school.”
“Well, now you’ve found me. I’ve really got to go. I’ll be in trouble—”
“Can I see you again, next time I’m here?” he asked.
“I don’t—I don’t know. I suppose so. I’m always here. Wyldcliffe is my home.”
“Home? I thought it was just a school.”
I didn’t want to tell him that I had no real home, not even with my father. It wasn’t the kind of thing you could blurt out to a complete stranger. A complete stranger—and yet he seemed familiar. I was confused. I should walk away, keep my guard up. I don’t need anyone. But his eyes were watching me, cool and calm and full of light, willing me to speak.
“What are you doing at Wyldcliffe anyway?” I said. It must have sounded rude, but he didn’t seem to mind.
The boy indicated the small black case he was carrying. “Flute lessons,” he said with a grin. “I’ve started as a student at St. Martin’s this term, and their music professor fell sick, so I’m going to be coming over here to study with Mr. Brooke. I’m just waiting for a taxi to take me back to St. Martin’s.”
I felt a strange sense of anticlimax. So he was one of the rich young “gentlemen” of St. Martin’s Academy, a posh boys’ school in the nearby town of Wyldford Cross. He was one of the guys that people like India Hoxton and Camilla Willoughby-Stuart flirted with at parties. The ease I had felt with him vanished. I had nothing to say to him, however talented a musician he might be. We had nothing in common, we never would have.
“I have to go,” I muttered, and this time I really did turn my back on him and walk all the way down the tree-lined drive to the school’s massive front door. It would still be unlocked; I wasn’t too late. Then something caught my eye. A crumpled bit of paper was lying on the top step like a pale leaf. It had been scrawled all over, but it wasn’t writing; it was music, jotted down by hand. As I picked it up, I saw the heading: “A Song for a Stranger.”
A stranger. I knew immediately that the boy must have composed it, to play on his flute. I could almost hear the music in my head, and I shivered as though frost and moonlight and the ice-bright stars were dancing through my mind.
I felt so protective about the scraps of verse I wrote. Each word was precious and could never be repeated if it was lost. The soul struggled to express itself, and secrets were written as words and rhymes and images. I never let anyone see what I wrote, and I would have hated to lose one of my scribbled secrets, my attempts to create a poem. It would have been awful to leave one blowing about on the school steps for anyone to pick up and laugh at, or chuck in the trash.
I suddenly made up my mind and started to run up the drive. “Hey, you lost something! This is yours, you’ve lost your music,” I called out. But when I reached the gates, the boy was gone. He was gone, but I hadn’t heard the noise of a taxi and there were no tire treads in the damp earth of the lane. He had just vanished into the air. Except people didn’t do things like that….
No. He must have got tired of waiting and walked into the village. But I still had his music. A song for a stranger. I stood for a moment at the gates, regretting that he was gone; then I pulled myself together. Exchanging a few words with a St. Martin’s boy was of no imp
ortance whatsoever. It was much more important to work out what Velvet might have seen before I landed in the lane. I stuck the paper in my pocket and wandered thoughtfully back down the drive.
Usually Sarah and Evie tried to keep Velvet out of my way, now that we knew she was a Touchstone, but she had taken me by surprise in the locker room. That’s what I had to concentrate on, I told myself as I slowly made my way back to school; Velvet, and the Mystic Way, and my mother’s doom, not some random guy I would never see again. But as I fell asleep in the dorm that night, the high, wild sound of a flute echoed through my dreams, like a bird greeting the dawn.
The next morning I had no time to indulge in any such fancies. After breakfast, Velvet cornered me as I was collecting a letter from Tony. The students’ mail was always set out on a table in the entrance hall, and I was pleased to recognize his writing. But Velvet spoiled any pleasure in getting a letter. She blocked my way as I tried to leave with it, digging her scarlet nails into my arm and steering me into the parlor, a fancy drawing room off the hall where favored parents were occasionally invited to take tea with their darling daughters and the High Mistress. I’d never been in there before. My mother had never even acknowledged me to the rest of the world, let alone made a fuss of me. Velvet shoved me onto one of the little gilt-framed sofas and closed the door behind her.
“Having fun now you’re back at school, Helen?” she said mockingly.
“Just say whatever is on your mind and let me go to class.”
“In a hurry, aren’t you? Haven’t you the time for a nice cozy chat? I think we’ve so much to talk about.”