“I don’t think so.”
She came nearer to me, and her eyes glinted like black diamonds. “But you started to tell me things last term. Sarah and Evie didn’t want you to, but you know that’s not fair, don’t you? Knowledge should be shared, shouldn’t it? Isn’t that in the rules, ‘Everything for the common good’?”
A flame seemed to shoot behind my eyes and fill my mind.
“What do you want?” I gasped.
Velvet hesitated, then dropped her confident, swaggering pose. “Do you really want to know the truth of what I want?” she said quietly. “I just want to be your friend, Helen.”
“I thought you hated Wyldcliffe and everyone connected with it,” I said in surprise.
“I only hate things that are dull and ordinary,” she said. “And you’re not either of those things. I need your help, Helen. I must know the truth. I saw you yesterday—”
“No! You didn’t see anything!”
I stood up and wrenched my arm from her grasp and ran out of the room.
“Helen, wait—come back!”
But I couldn’t stay. Fear was engulfing me. The tempting promises my mother had made the day before seemed to shatter like glass in my hand. A voice was calling my name, and it filled me with horror. It was a voice I had known long ago, someone I had tried so hard to forget. I had to get away. I walked on blindly, not knowing where I was going. Then another voice spoke, high and remote, saying, “Remember the key that unlocks every door…remember…when your friends are in danger…remember the key…”
As I stumbled down the corridor, all I wanted was to be left alone, but something—someone—was calling me. The mark on my arm was burning again. The summer was dead and gone. Fears and dangers were gathering around me like fallen leaves. The key that opened every door—was that connected with the “secret of the keys” that Miss Scratton had talked about? But how would I find it? And where?
There was no one to ask. Miss Scratton had passed from our sight. My mother had the answers to so many questions, but trusting her would be a dangerous gamble, despite what my heart longed to believe. And I refused to involve Evie and Sarah any further in this. When your friends are in danger, the voice had said. I couldn’t allow them to be in danger ever again. I had to work it all out for myself, and although I loved my sisters dearly, from now on I would have to think of them as strangers.
Eight
FROM THE DIARY OF HELEN BLACK
SEPTEMBER 26
If only I knew my mother better. If only I knew whether her words are true, or twisted lies. If only we weren’t such strangers.
Your face is a mask,
Hiding your soul.
You want to be my friend.
You want to be my mother.
And you want me to think
That I am beautiful.
Masks dancing in the dark,
Voices singing in the night.
What is behind the mask?
Where does the song end?
What is your truth,
Beautiful stranger?
I had seen him again—the stranger, the student from St. Martin’s, but I still didn’t know his name.
It was a few days after my encounter with my mother’s spirit on the Ridge. I hadn’t been back to speak with her again—I forced myself to stay away and take some time to weigh her words. Every time I saw Evie and Sarah in class, or at supper or in the dorm, I felt them gently probing me, trying to work out what was going on, how I was “coping.” In return, I tried my best to keep them at a distance, blandly reassuring them that I was perfectly okay. They were so, so caring, but they were almost too caring. I felt they looked at me like I was some kind of damaged creature, to be watched over and nursed back to health. I was a mystery to them, they said, with their gentle, loving smiles. You’re such a puzzle, Helen. An enigma…
It seemed to me that was just a kinder way of saying “crazy Helen Black.” I didn’t want it to be like that. I’d had enough of being pitied and watched and worried over. A fantasy kept playing through my mind, of being able to make this great announcement: “Look, I’ve rescued my mother, she’s left the dark powers and passed into the light, and she told me she loved me before she passed, and now the coven is broken and you’re free, and so am I….”
Did I really believe that would ever happen? I wanted to believe it. I needed it to be true. I needed to forget that I was frightened, to forget the voice I had heard, and to tell myself that I would easily find “the keys” and become the heroine that Miss Scratton had somehow imagined that I could be. I needed to feel that I was strong and could do everything by myself without help from anyone.
And that’s when I saw him again, the boy with the quiet smile and the music in his soul. He was waiting outside one of the practice rooms in the school, chatting to some of the other girls who also had lessons with Mr. Brooke. I hung back in the doorway of an empty classroom, so that I could watch him without being seen. The folded sheet of his music was still in my pocket. I could have just gone up to him and said, Hi, I’ve got the music that you dropped—your song. By the way, what’s your name?
That’s what Camilla and Katie and all the others would have done. But I didn’t want to push myself onto him like an unwanted gift. Anyway, I didn’t need to know his name. I preferred to think of him as the student—the musician. That’s what he was to me. I didn’t want to find out that he was really called Rupert Digby-Rawlins, or something equally snobby, and that his parents had simply the most marvelous place in Hampshire, darling, absolutely rolling in money, oh yes, we see them every year at their chalet in Switzerland for the skiing….
I didn’t want him to be like that.
I tried to watch him from my hiding place as though I was going to draw him, memorizing every feature and observing each fleeting expression. He was tall, with fair hair and a pale, thin face. He looked as though he studied too hard and didn’t eat enough, but he seemed happy inside, as if he had a secret burning in him like a light. I couldn’t tell whether he was what people call good-looking, but I liked the sharp angles of his cheeks and the curve of his mouth. His eyes were light blue, like a bit of sky. They went from being cool and amused to intensely watchful and alive when something caught his interest.
It seemed that I had caught his interest for a short moment when I had burst in on his lessons, but he seemed equally happy now chatting to the crowd of Wyldcliffe girls. A tug of shame reminded me that I would die of embarrassment if Evie and Sarah knew that I was watching a guy with even half-awakened interest. I had always told myself that love and romance was for my friends, not for me. My heart was torn up enough already, and it would never heal while my mother was my enemy. If I couldn’t trust my own mother, how could I trust a stranger?
I was crazy Helen Black, I was alone—marked out and set apart by fate, and I always would be. I turned away, unnoticed by the boy and his little circle of admirers, and the sound of their laughter pierced me like arrows.
Nine
FROM THE DIARY OF HELEN BLACK
SEPTEMBER 30
I want to go to the moors again, to the Blackdown Ridge. My mother is waiting. I hear her calling me. My heart is desperate to go to her, though my head tells me I shouldn’t. Evie and Sarah would tell me to keep away, to treat her like a vicious poison, but they didn’t hear the sorrow in her voice. They didn’t feel the pain in her memories and regrets. I wish Miss Scratton could guide me. Oh, I’m so confused! Nothing seems clear anymore.
But I have to decide. Do I trust her? Should I try to help her, or do I leave her in the black rock forever? I said last term that all would be well. “All shall be well and all manner of things shall be well….” But how can they be when my own mother is my prisoner? And if I let her go, and she betrays me and unleashes her twisted power on the world again…I can’t do that to my friends…but I can’t leave her there to rot….
It was in the middle of this mood of paralyzing doubt that I had a strange dream. I had
gone to bed early with a splitting headache, but after trying to unburden my feelings by writing in my diary, I had found it hard to rest. Now that India had left Wyldcliffe, her bed in the dorm was stripped and bare, and it looked as though someone had died. The curtains were pulled back at the windows, and the gloom of the evening filled the room. The photograph of Laura that still hung above Evie’s bed was staring down at me. Her eyes were begging for my help. I groaned and turned away from that haunting image, and a familiar, dreary litany started up in my head: I should have helped Laura the night she died. I was there, I could have done something, I could have taken Laura’s place at the coven’s soul stealing, I should have offered myself instead of her….
Like so many other times before, I heaped more guilt and self-loathing onto my weary mind. The one person I truly knew how to hate was myself. Laura, forgive me, I begged silently. I’m sorry. I suddenly felt dizzy, and sleep rushed over me, pulling me down into its welcoming depths. And then it seemed that the dream began, straightaway. In my dream I saw Miss Scratton riding her white horse across the lake near the chapel. She was dressed in a robe of silver, and light spilled out from her and shimmered on the water like dancing flames. “It is almost time,” she said. “The time when all paths cross and all circles connect.”
Then I thought that it wasn’t Miss Scratton, but my mother as I had once seen her in a photograph, young and beautiful. Then the face changed again, to a radiant young man, with a face like an angel and a sword by his side. “Helen, wake up,” he called softly. “It’s nearly time. Look ahead to the morning and follow the sign.”
That part of the dream faded. When I was aware of myself again, I was standing in the middle of the stone circle on top of the Ridge. The stars glittered like silver dust. I raised my arms to the heavens and gave myself to the spirit of the air, the breath of life, and began to sing. My song was the wind and the sky, and as I sang, I was connected with all living things. My song was my soul, pouring itself out into the world, seeking an answering voice. And I heard an echo of music that made my heart race. The stars were singing to me, and I saw a vast company of people clothed in light, until I woke up with the music still hovering in the air.
I sat up in bed. My roommates Evie, Sophie, and Celeste were all sleeping peacefully. Hours must have passed since I had fallen asleep, but it felt like only a few minutes. The tormenting confusion and guilt that I had been suffering had eased, as though I were waking up after recovering from a long illness. A sign, the angel in my dream had said. Well, I possessed a sign that might be the key to understanding everything. I had the Seal. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? A Sign of great Destiny, the Book had said. I had to go back to the Seal, know more about it, and try to find out if all my mother had claimed was true.
Silently I got out of bed and grabbed a sweater from the pile of clothes on my chair and crept out into the corridor. The Seal was pinned to the inside of my nightdress—I kept it with me always. I carefully made my way to the curtained doorway at the end of the passage and pushed it open. A narrow, disused staircase led up to the old attic. The worm-eaten steps were thick with dust, and they creaked under my bare feet as I groped my way in the dark. Moments later I reached the little room tucked away under the eaves of the Abbey, where Lady Agnes had secretly studied the lore of the Mystic Way, more than a hundred years before.
It was shrouded in darkness, but I knew where to find matches on a shelf near the door. Feeling my way in the dark, I managed to strike a match and light a candle stump. A flickering glow illuminated the room, with its dusty velvet drapes and worn tapestries. Agnes had worked and studied here, and hoped and dreamed and prayed for Sebastian…the air was thick with memories of her.
“Agnes,” I whispered. “Help me now.”
The flame of my candle grew steady as I sat at her carved wooden desk. It was cluttered with jars of ingredients and scrolls of parchment. I swept them carefully to one side, unfastened the Seal, and laid it on the desk’s gleaming surface.
It was simple, almost plain, in the shape of a circle, crossed with two curved forms. They sometimes reminded me of wings, and at other times of sharp daggers. The brooch had no other ornament or jewel or marking. It was not beautiful like the glittering Talisman, but its design was satisfying, as if it was exactly how it was meant to be. My mother’s words about the Seal came back to me, and my heart began to race.
You will claim the Seal and all it holds…. I picked up the brooch and breathed on it, and it seemed to glow in the soft candlelight. My mother had said that the Seal had lost its powers after she had rejected its call, but perhaps they would wake for me? I seemed to see myself, dressed in white, standing on the top of the Ridge, with the Seal at my breast like a star, and I trembled with delight. To dwell always in beauty and light…
Was such a destiny really waiting for me? How could I reach it? Beauty and light—that’s what I had always longed for. Again my mother’s voice sounded seductively in the air, whispering, Or is it love that you desire?
Oh, love—love! However many times I told myself that it wasn’t for me, I knew deep down I longed to love, and to be loved. A boy with fair hair and laughing blue eyes…what would that be like? Miss Scratton’s words came back to me and took my breath away: There will come another, neither mother nor father nor sister nor brother, and he will love you beyond the confines of this world. This I can promise you. It is your destiny. Could the Seal really make that happen? I hardly knew what to think, or do. I could barely sit still; I wanted to run out into the open and stride over the moors, letting the wind push me this way and that, as though love itself were overwhelming me, making everything begin again…
I had always craved my mother’s love, of course. But there was another kind of love, which could light up worlds and burn like a sun, the touch of love, the caress of a lover…would I ever deserve to be precious in someone else’s eyes? Would a day dawn—the morning my dream had told me to look for—when I wouldn’t be alone anymore? I heard the student’s dancing music again, like a breath of wild air, and I seemed to know that everything I secretly wanted could come from the Seal, if only I knew how to bring it back to life. Just then I wanted everything my mother had spoken of—beauty and power and wisdom and love. All that your heart desires, she seemed to whisper to me again. It’s time to turn from the past, look to the future…claim the Seal…I was dazzled by her words. I would throw away all grief and doubt and self-loathing. I would be made new, glorified by the Great Seal. It could all be mine, if I simply claimed it as my right.
“Awake!” I commanded in a breathless whisper. “Awake and be mine!”
The candle blew out. I started up and dropped the brooch on the floor. Outside in the night an owl shrieked. The little attic room seemed blacker and darker than ever before. And then, in a corner of the room, a pale light began to gleam on the mottled surface of an old-fashioned looking glass. I went over to it, drawn to the light. I saw my shadowy reflection in the long glass…but no, something was wrong…those eyes were the color of the gray sea…that girl wasn’t me…it was Agnes, and she was trying to tell me something. Her voice was like the distant whisper of the wind. “That’s not the way…. Our task is to give, not to receive…to reach out, not to take…Great powers require great sacrifice….”
Agnes’s face was full of love and understanding. “Soon, Helen, your time is soon, when all paths cross, but you must follow the sign that is sent….” She held out her arms to me, and I flung mine out to catch hold of her hands, but as I touched the glass it shattered into a thousand pieces that fell to the floor like soft, glittering rain.
I was alone in the dark. There would be no easy way to glory for me.
The Seal wouldn’t answer my command, or give me what I wanted simply because I demanded it. Sacrifice, not selfishness, was the path of the Seal. And what did my mother know about that? Everything had been sacrificed to her egocentric desires, even her daughter.
I made my way back through
the dark, back to my narrow bed.
Ten
THE WITNESS OF SARAH FITZALAN
We were just waiting in the dark. I couldn’t bury our problems out of sight any longer. It was wonderful to be with Cal and my friends, but little by little Helen was slipping away from us, and I had to do something.
“We’re meant to be working together,” I fretted. “Why is Helen being so secretive? Why is she trying to push us away?” Cal, Josh, Evie, and I were in our usual haunt in the stable block. I jumped up from where I was impatiently shredding a piece of straw and said for the millionth time, “We’ve got to do something.”
“Just saying it won’t make it happen,” said Cal, putting his arms round me to try to make me feel better. “You’ve gone over everything so many times already. What more can you do?”
“If only Miss Scratton were still here,” Evie sighed.
A lump rose in my throat at the memory of our Guardian. I wanted so much to see her again.
“What would she want us to do?” I asked. “I mean, Miss Scratton?”
“Stay strong,” Evie replied. “Stay true to one another. Never be afraid.”
“Yeah, of course,” I agreed. “But there has to be more, something to do, something practical. It’s time we found out about those keys Miss Scratton spoke of. She said—what was it?—the secret of the keys is near. What did she mean?”
“She also said that this would be Helen’s time,” said Evie. “I’ve racked my brain to think what the keys could be, but maybe it’s for Helen to discover, like Miss Scratton said. All we can do is support her and be ready. Whatever happens, we’ll face it together.” I felt Cal’s arm tighten around my shoulders. Being together felt very precious right then.
“We’re together, but Helen is still alone and unhappy,” I worried. “She hasn’t found what she’s looking for.”