“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t feel in the mood.”
“Then shall I go back?” I asked, but he gave no answer. His eyes were dull and tinged with red. The gurgle of the spring echoed in the darkness. Still he did not speak, and still he clutched my arm in a tight grip.
“Should I go back to the house?” I repeated. “If Mama finds me out of my bed there’ll be a great fuss.”
“Mama! Mama!” he said with a savage scowl. “You still speak like a little girl, Agnes. Do you not understand what we have here? Soon no one will be able to tell us, ‘Do this, do that, go to bed, eat your supper.’ That old life will be over! Instead we will command them. We will command all!”
“Why would we want to command anyone but ourselves?”
“Do not talk like a fool. Do you really want to go through all this secret labor just so that you can cure your cook’s toothache and such trifles?”
“If that is all I can do, it is better than nothing,” I replied stubbornly. “Why should you be angry that I want to help other people?”
“Because you are not helping me! I should be the one to whom you offer your talents, not the clinging crowds of humanity. Aren’t I dearer than anyone else to you? Agnes, do you not care for me at all?” He slowly pulled me toward him until I could feel his warm breath on my lips. His mouth rested on mine, and a fire sprang to life inside my body as he kissed me. I had been dreaming of this moment, and I wanted to cling to him and never let him go. But he pushed me away.
“Stop! What use are your kisses to me when you will not give me the one thing I really want?”
“What?” I gasped. “What do you want?”
He was silent for a long time. Our heartbeats seemed to echo through the little chamber.
“I want to go beyond these…these tricks that we have learned. The book tells us that the Mystic Way is a path of healing and power.” His voice was stilted and strange, as though he had been rehearsing a speech. “You are a healer, Agnes. I have seen what you are capable of, and I know you could work yet greater marvels. I want you to heal me.”
“Heal you of what? So you are ill? Tell me!”
He avoided my gaze and spoke very softly. “Yes, Agnes, I am ill. I have a condition that will kill me if you do not save me.”
I stifled a sob. I could not believe what I was hearing.
“Is it…was it brought on by your fever?” I asked, forcing myself to speak.
“Yes,” he repeated strangely. “I have a fever burning in me. The fever of life.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“We are all sick, Agnes. What is this life but a long, slow death sentence? The seeds of our destruction are within us from the second we are born. I need you to cure me of my humanity so that I will not die.”
“But—”
“You must!” He gripped my arms again. “These studies are exhausting me. I feel them as a burden in my mind. And what is the point of carving out this hard-won knowledge if it will die with us? Maybe not in ten years, or twenty, but eventually. We will die, Agnes, when our time runs out. So why not use this great gift that has been thrown in our path to transcend time? Power and healing, Agnes! Think of it!” He looked at me eagerly, the blue of his eyes dimmed to steely gray by the cavern’s gloom. “Why not heal me so completely that I could transcend death itself? Why not search the Mystic Way for the key to eternal life?”
“No, stop it. You’re frightening me.”
“But why not, Agnes? What is there to prevent us standing side by side forever: unchanging, untouchable, immortal?”
I couldn’t speak or think. He tried to clasp me to him, but I broke free from him.
“Because it is wrong. It is madness.”
“It is madness not to do it, and I won’t let you stop me.” His voice was harsh, and he panted slightly, as though he were running a fever.
I tried to speak reasonably. “Have you forgotten that eternal life has already been promised to all mankind?”
His face hardened. “And to reach it I must grow old and die and be punished for my sins? Who can be sure that eternal paradise waits for them and not eternal damnation? Besides, I want to live here, in this world, to be young and strong forever, not fade into some other world that might not even exist.” He fell to his knees in front of me. “Please, Agnes, please help me,” he begged. “I cannot continue like this, in this torment, knowing that everything I desire is so close and yet so out of reach. You must help me! I know you have the power to do this. I know you touch the Sacred Fire in your mind, and I could reach it through you, if only you would let me. One spark would be enough!”
I longed to help him with all my heart, but not by listening to his ravings. For the first time in my life I wanted to get away from him. I tore my skirt from his hands and ran, slipping in the darkness, hardly knowing what I was doing. When I got back to my room I was shaking. I turned the key in the lock and dragged a chair against the door. I was afraid of him. I was afraid of myself.
Surely the limitations on our human life have been placed to keep us safe, to stop us from falling into the void of chaos? What will happen if S. tries to step over those limits? There was a wild look in his eyes, a desperation that torments me. I know, in the secret places of my heart, that I could learn to do what he asks. For some unknown reason I have been blessed—or cursed—with the ability to call upon the Fire. But being able to do something does not make it right. I would have to bend my powers to darkness and despair and know that it would lead to misery. “The four great Elements can heal and protect, but they can also destroy.” Now I know I was right to be fearful when we first dared to explore their mysteries.
Since this dreadful quarrel, I have pleaded that I am unwell and have seen no one. I cannot sleep; I cannot lie still; I cannot sit down. I pace my room with restless energy, and I feel his kisses burning on my lips once more. I am longing to show him my love, but not by doing what is wrong.
Last night I got up and sat on the window seat, looking out across the gardens to the ruins, and I thought a caught a glimpse of him down by the lake. He was dressed in his riding coat and was talking to a girl, but they were both veiled by a strange mist. It was the girl with the short skirts that I have seen before in trancelike visions. I felt no longer jealous but oddly drawn to her; she pulled at my heart for some unknown reason, as though she were as dear to me as a sister. I opened the window, and their figures melted into the shadows. And then this morning I was walking in the gardens and I thought I saw her again. I tried to call out, to warn her, but she faded into the air like a dream.
Today I have heard that he has gone to London. I believe he has taken the Book with him, as it has vanished from our hiding place in the grotto. I hate to think what dark places he might be seeking out in that great city, and in his heart. Perhaps it is too late to save my beloved. But if nothing else, I must find out who the girl is and save her from him.
And from what he might become.
Twenty-five
“E
vie Johnson!” Miss Schofield yelled at me from the other side of the lacrosse field.
“That’s the fourth pass you’ve dropped this morning. Stop daydreaming!”
I looked up, startled. I was so miserable about the row with Sebastian the night before that I hadn’t even noticed that the ball was anywhere near me.
“Get it together, Johnson,” called Celeste as she slyly dug me in the ribs with the end of her stick. Then India barged into me, a sneer spoiling her pretty face, but I didn’t care. Nothing hurt compared to the pain of quarreling with Sebastian. I never want to see you again. I never want to see you…never again. The wind moaned through the trees, and I felt utterly alone.
“Come on! Get those tackles in!”
As I jogged up and down, pretending to look interested, the light suddenly dimmed as though someone had flicked a switch. The shouts of the game around me faded into the thin blue sky, until the only sound I could hear w
as my own heart, hammering out a message of fear. I stood paralyzed, rooted to the ground, unable to speak. The lacrosse stick fell useless from my hands. And then a girl in white walked out of the trees by the side of the field. Her long gown fluttered in the wind, her red hair hung loosely over her shoulders, and her gray eyes pierced mine. She called out, Stay away from him…stay away…be careful.
What do you mean? Who are you? I tried to call back, but my throat was dry and the words wouldn’t form. Then she faded into the air like a dream.
Bang! The lacrosse ball hit me on the side of my head, and I reeled. I thought dizzily that Celeste had chucked it at me out of spite, but then I saw Sarah running up to me.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Miss Schofield,” she panted. “I messed up my shot. I’m sorry, Evie; you must be hurt.” She looked at me significantly.
“No. I don’t know,” I mumbled.
Miss Schofield squared her heavy shoulders and glared at me. “It’s your own fault for not keeping your eye on the ball at all times, Evie. It’s the first rule of the game.”
“I’ll take Evie to the nurse to lie down for a bit,” said Sarah. “Just in case.”
“I’m sure there’s nothing wrong…” began Miss Schofield. Sarah squeezed my hand painfully.
“Ow! Yes…it hurts.”
“All right,” said Miss Schofield. “Off you go. Now, girls, back to the game. You two there, Becky and Sophie, you can come on as subs, but for heaven’s sake, concentrate.”
By now Sarah was already steering me down the path that led back to the main gardens and the chapel ruins. I felt sick and dazed. I thought I had cured myself of these weird visions, that Sebastian had chased them from my overheated imagination. But the girl had looked so real. Stay away from him. I looked around again in panic. Was I having some kind of breakdown?
“Come on, in here,” Sarah said firmly.
The shattered remains of the ruins loomed over us, and Sarah ducked beneath a low archway. A damp stone staircase led underground.
“What’s this?” I asked in alarm. The steps ended in a small, dank chamber slimed over with lichen and moss. It was just the kind of place that I hated. I tried to pull myself together, to think and speak rationally. “Where are we going?”
“I need to talk to you in private, where we won’t be overheard,” Sarah replied. “I’m sorry about chucking the ball at you, but I had no choice.”
“You nearly knocked me out so that you could talk to me? Wasn’t that a bit extreme?”
“I’m just trying to help you, Evie. I know you’re in danger.”
“Oh, come on, you’re not going to give me that ‘I’m a Gypsy with second sight’ junk.”
“It’s not junk,” Sarah replied earnestly. “It’s real. I never thought of it as anything special,” she continued, “because I’ve always been able to do it. Oh, nothing earth-shattering, just things like being able to tell whether people are happy or not, and knowing for certain what the weather is going to be like the next day. And once, when my grandmother fell and broke her arm, I knew it had happened before my mother told me. But since you arrived at Wyldcliffe it’s been different. I keep getting these messages about you that someone is trying to reach you from far away. What did you really see just now?”
What did she mean? Had she seen the girl too? The words of the cabdriver suddenly echoed in my head. That cursed place, he had called Wyldcliffe. Why had I ever come here? I thought wildly. I was drowning in fear, going out of my mind, surrounded by crazy people. And now Sarah was one of them.
“Tell me what you saw,” she urged.
“I didn’t see anything! What’s gotten into you? I thought you were the normal one around here, down-to-earth….”
“The earth is full of secrets,” Sarah said with a faint smile. “You’ve got a few secrets yourself, haven’t you, Evie? Like, wandering the grounds at midnight.”
“How do you know?” I gaped.
“There’s no mystery about that,” she replied. “I went to see Helen in the infirmary last night. She told me that you’ve been sneaking out night after night. She’s been watching you. And she’s worried about you.”
“Oh, yeah, so worried that she told Miss Scratton! That was really friendly of her.”
“Friends sometimes have to make difficult decisions.”
“Listen, Helen Black is not my friend, and if she wants to spend her time spying on me, that’s her problem.”
“So what is your problem, Evie? Why were you staring into space just now, talking to the air? If I hadn’t crashed the ball into you, everyone would have noticed. What’s going on? Why do you leave the dorm every night?”
I couldn’t fight it anymore. I was so tired, too tired to keep pretending. Sinking to the ground, I slumped against the cold stone wall and let the words slide out of me. “I’ve been seeing someone, a boy I met. And I’ve seen her again.”
“Who?”
“The girl in white. I’ve seen her three times now. The first time was that day in Miss Scratton’s room when I had just arrived and you looked after me.”
“I knew something was going on,” said Sarah. “I was sure of it. And so you saw her again just now?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “But this time she was telling me to be careful—of him.”
“This guy you’ve met?”
“I guess so,” I said miserably. “Who else could she be talking about?”
“So who is he?” Sarah asked. “Why would some girl warn you about him?”
“I don’t know! I don’t even know if she really exists. I just feel that I’m going crazy.”
“What is the girl like?”
The pale, ghostly image floated in front of my eyes again. “She has red hair and gray eyes.”
“You mean she looks like you?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know who she is, or what it all means. And I’m scared.”
“Come on. We’ve got to get to the library before anyone sees us.”
A few minutes later we slipped into the ornate library, which was lined with dark mahogany bookcases. A couple of older girls were reading quietly at one of the large tables. One of them looked up and frowned at us. “Are you supposed to be in here?”
“Miss Scratton sent us to find something, Emily,” Sarah lied, walking purposefully over to the history section. She glanced over the crowded shelves, pulling out books, searching for something.
“What are we doing in here?” I asked.
“Just wait a second…. Ah! Here it is.” She began to flip through a small blue book. It was old and dull looking, hardly bigger than a pamphlet. A Short History of Wyldcliffe Abbey School by Rev. A. J. Flowerdew. “I found this when I was in my first year. I’ve always been interested in this kind of stuff. It was written by the local vicar—not the one we have; another guy years and years ago. Hang on—look!”
She pushed the open book into my hand. I looked down and read quietly:
The only surviving portrait of Lady Agnes is kept at the Abbey. It is believed to have been commissioned by Lord Charles to mark his daughter’s sixteenth birthday in 1882, two years before her fatal riding accident, which took place after a period of travel on the Continent. The artist is unknown.
The painting was reproduced on the opposite page, its colors blurred on the cheap paper. But there was no mistaking that familiar face, those gray eyes framed by that sweep of auburn hair, and the long, old-fashioned clothes.
“Is that the girl you saw?”
I nodded slowly. A riding accident, it said. I seemed to see it all so clearly. The girl lying in a broken heap on the purple heather. A chestnut horse nuzzling her bright hair, and her eyes staring blankly at the high blue sky as the larks swooped overhead.
“She died,” I said idiotically. “She’s dead.”
But of course she was. Even if she had lived to be a hundred, she would have died long ago.
“She looks like you, Evie. I knew you reminded me of someone when I first met you
.” Sarah frowned over the faded pages. “You could be sisters.”
“We don’t look that much alike,” I replied in a panic. “Just because we’ve both got red hair…”
Emily glared at us and said, “Have you two found what you’re looking for? I’m trying to concentrate.”
Sarah slipped the book under her shirt, and we headed for the marble stairs.
“We have to go see the nurse,” she said, “like we told Miss Schofield. Tell her that your head still hurts from being hit. If she lets you lie down for a couple of hours you can read the rest of this book and see if there’s anything useful in it.”
I let myself be told what to do. The nurse took my temperature, gave me an aspirin, and told me to rest on one of the beds in the infirmary. Helen was fast asleep at the far end of the room. I hid the blue book under my pillow. I didn’t need to look at it again to know that the girl I had seen and the girl in the painting were the same.
Lady Agnes.
If Sarah was right, I was being contacted by the spirit of a dead Victorian girl who looked so much like me we could be mistaken for sisters. And she was warning me to stay away from Sebastian.
Tweny-six
THE JOURNAL OF LADY AGNES, DECEMBER
21, 1882 S. returned from London nearly three weeks ago. I have made myself stay away from him all this time. I longed to see him but I did not want to repeat our quarrel. Then, yesterday, he called unexpectedly at the Abbey and asked me to walk on the moors with him. It was there that he told me his news, half-proud and half-defiant.
“How could you do this?” I stormed. “And why did you not tell me?”
“I did it because you wouldn’t help me. I had to find allies elsewhere. And I didn’t tell you because I knew you would react like this.”
I paced across the heather, hardly aware of where I went. The sun gleamed peacefully on the tops of the moors, but between us all was turmoil and anger.
“Stop! Agnes, wait! Let me explain.”
He caught my hand and made me sit down on the sweet turf. The breeze blew his dark hair from his forehead, and I caught my breath at the sight of his face, as open and eager as in the old days. If only I could stop loving him! Then it would all be so much simpler.