Destiny (17 page)

His voice was thick and dry like a death rattle, as he
spoke to his Priestess. “Do my work,” he commanded. “Spread my kingdom.” She cracked her whip again, and hundreds of tiny darts of black fire fell onto the terrified crowd, stinging and biting them like a plague of flies. Then everything fell silent. The flames and smoke coiled away into the night and vanished. The Dark King returned to the Shadows. There were no more screams or struggles, no more crying. Everything was calm.

All the students and staff were sitting in orderly rows, looking ahead with blank, serene expressions. Only the openly acknowledged women of the coven swarmed around the Priestess, who laughed in exultation.

“See, Helen, look what I can do!” she cried. “They are all mine, under my control. They all belong to the Priestess, as you will before long!”

I ran forward and grabbed hold of Evie, shaking her desperately to rouse her, but she didn’t respond. She just stared ahead with unseeing eyes. I stepped back in horror and cried, “Sarah, help me!”

Sarah turned her gaze to me and said in a flat, hypnotic voice, “Helen, dear, whatever is wrong? You look quite inelegant. Do calm yourself. Remember you’re a lady—you’re at Wyldcliffe.”

“That’s what they all are now, perfect young ladies,
without a thought of their own,” crowed the Priestess. “And they’ll endure worse than that, unless you cooperate.”

I looked about wildly and saw familiar faces everywhere—Camilla, Jane, Alice, the group of little girls still clutching their violins, Celeste and Sophie and even Velvet, all with the same blank, perfect, meaningless expression. “What—what do you mean?” I stammered.

“This is only the first step. Tomorrow I will make every one of them into Bondsouls, draining their youth and strength and feeding on it. They will become eternal slaves, an offering to the Eternal King. What could be better? And my Sisters and my faithful friend will help me.” She turned to acknowledge the fawning pack of the coven, and standing a little to one side, Dr. Franzen.

“You!” I groaned. “You’re part of all this! But how? I don’t understand!”

“Helen, you are usually so quick to guess and piece things together,” Dr. Franzen said with a slight, mocking bow. “But I’ll save you the bother of trying to work it all out. Keep your energy for the task we have in store for you. You see,” he continued cruelly, “your mother never cared for your father. He was a weak, dull man, seeing no further than having an ordinary life, like all the other
millions of ordinary, worthless lives. But your mother and I were alike. We craved something better. She and I eventually became lovers, but it wasn’t that which drew us together; it was our desire to know the forbidden arts.” He came closer, and I began to shake. “I have studied humanity deep and long, and I became a well-known doctor and psychological expert, but my true studies were far more profound, more terrible. It was mankind’s darkest secrets that fascinated me. I discovered that certain brave individuals, the Unconquered lords, had learned over the ages to control their destiny and rise above the common lot, through ancient, powerful sorcery. I aimed to be like them and become the greatest warlock of our age. And I succeeded.

“Ah, Helen,” he continued, “I know secrets from beyond the grave. I know incantations to raise the dead. I know poisons to smother the living child in the womb. I can call up curses, drink blood, and feast on lies. Your mother and the powers she had were my inspiration. But after you were born, you stole those powers from her, so she gave you into my care at the orphanage with the express intention of breaking your spirit.” He stroked my face lightly, and I gagged at his touch. “I was cruel, wasn’t I, Helen? I confess that I enjoyed giving you pain; it was like crushing
a helpless animal in my hands…and I hated you for what you had done to my darling Celia. Everything you had taken from her would have been mine too; everything I tormented you with was punishment for that. But I assure you it was all for your own good, to make you obedient for later, when your mother would reclaim you and initiate you into our ways. But somehow, despite everything I made you suffer, you still remained willful and stubborn. Even now, you won’t see the best and easiest way for you—which is to join us.”

I felt sick. It had been my own mother who had delivered me into the hands of this monster. And yet, in some strange way I felt liberated from a long and hopeless struggle. This was the final cutting of any ties between us. My childhood was over. Whatever Celia Hartle had done, or not done, for me as I was growing up was all in the past. She and her lover had both hated me, but I didn’t have to continue their work for them. I no longer had to hate myself. It was finished. A surge of energy and strength ran through me as I faced Dr. Franzen.

“I won’t join you,” I said. “You think you’re a great sorcerer, but you’re nothing, just a bully and a fraud. A common murderer! I have more power in one breath than you will ever know.”

“Don’t speak to your Master like that!” cried the Priestess. “He is my companion, my earthly partner, and you will show him some respect! But if you won’t join us for your own sake, why not do it to help your friends? Do you really want to see all these innocent girls become Bondsouls? And I think…yes, I think I will start with these two….” She moved to where Evie and Sarah were sitting side by side and laughed in their faces.

“Don’t touch them!” I rushed forward, but her Dark Sisters held me back. I saw Miss Dalrymple’s look of triumph as she twisted my arm behind my back until I thought it would break. “I don’t care—I don’t care what you do to me,” I sobbed. “Just don’t hurt Sarah and Evie, not them, please, I beg you.”

“Ah, how quickly and how easily I have been able to make you beg,” the Priestess replied sneeringly. “That pleases me, Helen, more than I can say.” She looked straight into my eyes. “Oh, Helen, Helen, how different everything could have been. If only you had joined me in the first place. I wanted that so much when you came to Wyldcliffe. Then we could truly have been mother and daughter, sharing our powers—”

I spat in her face and she drew back, furious. She clapped her hands, and pain invaded every inch of my
body. But I laughed as I sobbed and gasped. “I don’t care, you can never truly hurt me again. And your kind of power can never be shared. It’s greedy and vile and self-seeking—you’ll never be more than your dark master’s slave—but I—I am free!”

“And you will use your precious freedom to tell me how to use these signs! Open these Keys and let me take their power!” She clicked her fingers, and the globe of green fire that we had seen before began to spin in front of my eyes. Our treasures were still locked away inside it. The beauty and purity of the Talisman, the Seal, and the Crown shone out and gave me hope.

“I know that the Talisman is the key to fire and water,” she went on, “and the Crown summons earth’s heavy spirit. The Seal was mine, and will be again. I will command the breath of life and the wind of death. If you open these mysteries to me, I will even promise to go far away from Wyldcliffe and use my new powers elsewhere, and leave you and the rest of these stupid girls in peace. You see, I am not as greedy as you think, Helen. I don’t want to conquer the whole world, just a corner of it. So do as I ask—tell me the secret of the Keys!”

How could I, when I didn’t know it myself? Everything we had ever done had sprung from our hearts as we tried
to follow the Mystic Way, not from any complicated lore. And then it all came back to me—everything I knew deep in my heart flashed in front of my eyes and echoed in my mind—the message from Miss Scratton—
It unlocks every door
—then I heard Agnes speaking gently,
Open your heart. Learn to love
—and I saw Lynton opening the doors of the ballroom and offering me his hand. The earth seemed to spin under my feet, and I heard his voice—
It’s as if the whole world is singing just for us, telling us its secrets
—and I saw his face smiling at me, lean and gentle and perfect, shining with the light that came from within—and at last I knew—I knew!
There are many kinds of keys…many kinds of love…love that lasts beyond the confines of this world. Are you ready for that, Helen?

And yes, I was ready. I knew everything, and the answer was so simple. I began to laugh softly. “It’s love,” I said. “Everything we did was for love. The Talisman, the Crown, the Seal—they only answer to love, and so you’ll never be able even to touch them without being destroyed. That’s the key that you’ll never be able to use, the door you can never pass through—because you’ve refused to love.”

Tears of wonder were pouring down my face. I had known the secret of the Keys all along. It had been so near, just as Miss Scratton had said. We only had to look
around and we could see the love we felt for one another reflected in our eyes, in our secret sisterhood, in the love of Josh and Cal for Evie and Sarah, and even in Sebastian’s unhappy passions—there was a great web of love that held us together. I wasn’t alone. Thinking that had been my mistake. I could never be alone again—I was part of an eternal sisterhood. How had I forgotten that? I should have turned to my sisters for help, not to the shadows of the past, chasing after the memory of the Wanderer and yearning for the love my mother could never give me. Instead of locking up secrets in my heart and trying to work everything out by myself, I should have talked to Evie and Sarah—told them what I wanted to do and where my dreams were leading me. I should have told them about Lynton. We were connected for a purpose—to love and help and sustain each other—and I had cast all that away.

“Oh, you think you are so clever, Helen,” the Priestess said in a dangerously soft voice. “Taunting me with that word again. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps there are things I don’t understand in that sentimental world you inhabit. But I understand this—that your friends are in my power, and that you’d do anything for them, wouldn’t you? So do this, Helen. Find a way of passing the powers of the Keys to me by tomorrow night, or they become Bondsouls, just
like Laura. Only I won’t be as kind to them as I was to her. They will wish they had never been born. They will beg for death, and it will never come.”

She clapped her hands, and the blank expressions on Sarah’s and Evie’s faces vanished. They both cried out in pain; high, tortured wails that seemed to cut through my mind like a razor. Then she clapped her hands again, and they sank back to being mindless puppets. She smiled cruelly. “By tomorrow night, Helen, or they are mine forever. Refuse, and you condemn your friends and all these innocent girls to be my Bondsouls! Refuse, and live with that guilt, if you can!”

The Priestess turned to Dr. Franzen. “Come—we are summoned by my Master—until tomorrow. And Helen, I hope you enjoy your last day of freedom. Use your time well!” She drew her robes around her, and the next moment they had both vanished. Rowena Dalrymple and the Dark Sisters began shouting orders to the spell-struck students and teachers. They all responded instantly, marching back to school in orderly lines, yet seeing and hearing nothing. The women of the coven taunted me as they passed by, but they didn’t touch me, and for that at least I was grateful. Soon they had shepherded the students inside the school building. The chapel ruins seemed even more quiet and
desolate than ever before.

I looked around wearily. At the outer edge of the darkness, the shrouded forms of the Dead glided away into the night. And in the middle of the ruins, pitifully alone, the body of Mr. Brooke lay as though asleep. I slowly walked over to him and said a prayer, then took off my coat and covered him with it.

A wave of exhaustion came over me. I realized I had been clenching my hands together and I opened them, trying to let my body relax and my mind clear. Something fell onto the grass.

I knelt down and picked it up. It was a small golden ring, a perfect circle. Lynton must have pressed it into my hand before he was dragged away. I slipped it onto my finger and made myself cling to hope. Now…and now…and now…

I would believe that I could save my friends. Because the secret of the Keys was love, and love was the miracle that could save us all.

F
ROM THE
D
IARY OF
H
ELEN
B
LACK

N
OVEMBER
1, 4:00
A.M.
A
LL
S
AINTS’
D
AY

I
have been writing for so long that my wrist aches, recording everything that happened tonight, trying to understand, and trying to keep terror away. It is almost morning. On the other side of the dorm Evie lies sleeping, but her mind is controlled by the enemy. Will she ever truly wake again? Sarah is in the same dark sleep. Josh is lost, and Cal must still be searching over the wild hills….

Think, Helen, think!

These are the only possibilities that I can see:

I could try to break the bonds that hold Sarah and Evie, just as we did for Laura. But I don’t have the Seal anymore, and I cannot
create the sacred Circle on my own.

Or I could find a way to give the Priestess what she wants. Our elemental powers in return for my friends’ safety. She gets what she desires, and the school is freed. But would she really keep her promise about going somewhere else and keeping away from Wyldcliffe? She has broken every promise she ever made. Besides, wouldn’t it be just as bad for her to leave Wyldcliffe and enslave people in another valley, in another land, or even on another continent? My head says yes, it would be just as bad, but my heart says no, because her victims wouldn’t be my friends, it wouldn’t be Sarah and Evie, my sisters….

Or perhaps I could find a way to take the Priestess by surprise, to attack and destroy her? But then I come back to where I started—that I don’t have the Seal, I don’t have the powers to do this, and she knows it. I said I would cling to hope, and belief, but it’s so hard….

I need a miracle, Wanderer.

If only I had studied the lore in the Book, like Sarah. I always relied on knowing what to do by instinct, from my heart. I thought I was being simple and humble, but perhaps that was the greatest arrogance of all. I should have taken more trouble to learn. It’s too late now.

I need Sarah here to come up with a plan, and Evie to inspire me, and Agnes to give me courage. I need my friends.

I sat up in bed and shoved my diary into my pocket. Of course.

I needed my friends. Together we could work miracles. We were connected for a purpose. And although Evie’s and Sarah’s minds were hidden from me under the cloud of the Priestess’s spell, and Josh was in the shadows, I had other friends. There was Agnes, and Cal. There was even Lynton…. Oh, there was still hope!

I got up and flew down the marble steps. The school was quiet, in the hour before sunrise. The students were all asleep, deep in their dream trance, not knowing what dreadful fate was waiting for them later that day. I had one day to stop the Priestess’s threats from coming true, but I couldn’t do it alone. As quickly as I could, I hurried to the stables. The horses were moving quietly in their stalls. I remembered that no one would have been to tend to them the night before, so I tried to go around quickly with feed and fresh water, though I wasn’t exactly sure what I was doing. I didn’t have Cal or Josh’s expertise with the big, patient beasts. As I thought of Cal, the knot of anxiety in my stomach twisted again. Was he all right? Had he found Josh yet?

And what would his reaction be when he found out
what had happened to Sarah?

A tattered old coat that belonged to Cal was hanging on a hook inside one of the stables. I picked it up and held it close, breathing in his scent of horses and wild grass, and I began to visualize his dark, strong face.

“Cal!” I called to him in my mind. “Where are you?”

The next moment I was in a world of shadows. I seemed to be standing outside the tiny cottage Cal had been lent by the local farmer he worked for. I tried to knock on the door, but my hand passed through it like water, and then I was jerked away into the air and flung down on the top of the moors. In the darkness of the valley below I could see Cal on his horse, galloping across the land, searching this way and that. He was accompanied by a clan of swarthy men riding bareback on rough ponies…the Kinsfolk…They were all looking for Josh….

“Cal!” I shouted, but my voice blew away on the wind. The air swirled again and I was plummeting to the earth, near Agnes’s grave. There was someone there…a dark young man, bent over in agony, biting back tears…Sebastian, Sebastian! No…it was Cal…praying for his friend…weeping for the end of the world…

The vision passed. I flung the coat away and ran to the far corner of the stables. This was where Miss Scratton’s
horse, Seraph, was still kept. I let myself into the stall and murmured soothingly to the dazzling white mare. She nibbled a few handfuls of the oats I offered her, and drank from the bucket of fresh water. When Seraph had quenched her thirst, I quickly slipped a halter over her head and led her out into the yard. There was one more thing I needed. Springing up onto her bare back, I urged Seraph over the cobbles. She shook her ears and whinnied with the unexpected attention, but I crouched low over her neck and tried to keep her quiet as I rode round to the front of the school. A dawn of yellow and silver began to streak across the sky. The oak trees that lined the drive looked like giants waking from sleep in the half-light.

The massive front door of the school was locked, but I remembered how we had got out of the parlor window, the night we went to the caverns. We had got out, so I would be able to get in…. I slipped off Seraph’s back and wrenched the window up. A few moments later I had crossed the parlor and was standing in the black-and-white-tiled entrance hall, which was still deep in shadow. But the school would soon be waking up. I had to hurry. The new day would begin, and the Wyldcliffe girls would go through their perfect routine like zombies, not knowing that they were under the control of the woman who
had once been responsible for their education and welfare. Some instinct told me that neither the Priestess nor Dr. Franzen was in the building, but I didn’t want to be caught by Miss Dalrymple or any of the other Dark Sisters. Quickly, I found what I was looking for and bundled it under my sweater, then headed back through the parlor and climbed out of the window again. I mounted Seraph, who was waiting patiently, and pressed her to gallop down the drive. We flew past the rows of ancient trees, and I had to cling to her mane, digging in with my fingers. I concentrated with all my powers on the wrought-iron gates ahead, and they burst open to let us pass. As we thundered down the lane, I heard a bell ringing in the Abbey, but I ignored it and rode on to the village and the gray churchyard where I knew I would find Cal.

I slithered off Seraph at the church gate and led her down the gray stone path toward Agnes’s tomb, and I remembered the last time I had been there with Lynton. If only he could have been with me now…I hoped desperately that he hadn’t been too badly hurt by Dr. Franzen and the Dark Sisters. They would’ve had to be careful, I reassured myself, and give some convincing story to St. Martin’s about why Lynton had split his forehead open. If he had gone back to school, that is. If Lynton was really…

Then I saw Cal, kneeling by the statue of the angel. His eyes were closed, either in prayer or deep thought, and his horse was quietly cropping the long grass between the slanting graves.

“Cal,” I called softly. He sprang to his feet, and his face lit up as he saw me, but there were dark shadows under his eyes from lack of sleep.

“Helen! Where’s Sarah? I was just on my way to the school to try and see her.”

“Cal, I’m so sorry.” Then the moment I had been dreading. I had to tell him what had happened to Sarah, trying to make it sound better than it really was. “It’s like she’s just sleepwalking, and Evie too, and I know we can help them….”

But Cal stood motionless, as though struck blind. “You mean she’s been—
cursed
—by the Priestess? And the next step is to be turned into a Bondsoul? Like that girl Laura?” He gave a terrible cry. “I won’t let her do this! I will kill that woman with my bare hands if she hurts Sarah—I swear I will hunt her down and kill her.”

“Death is too good for her, Cal. Besides, I don’t think she’s truly alive as we are—she can’t die—”

“But she can condemn others to a living death!” he said in an anguished voice. “And you just let this happen!”

“I didn’t, Cal, I swear!”

“You were there—you could have stopped it.” He stared at me suspiciously, all his Romany pride flashing in his dark eyes. “Why didn’t the Priestess take you last night too? Are you her favored one—her daughter—is that why you aren’t sharing in their agony?”

“She wants me to unlock the elemental powers for her use, in return for their safety.”

“But you can’t do that! She’d be even more dangerous than she is now.”

“I know, but if I don’t, Sarah and Evie and all the others will be lost forever.”

Cal’s face was dark and grim, as hard as granite. He gripped my arms and shook me roughly. “This is your fault! You could have stopped her—she’s your mother, you could have done something. I’ll never forgive you if Sarah doesn’t come back safe to me!” He pushed me away, and I fell against the statue on Agnes’s tomb. The anger seemed to die in him instantly, and the next moment his face was full of concern as he tried to help me to my feet.

“God, Helen, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry.” He was fighting back tears. “It’s just that everything’s so messed up.”

“This is exactly what the Priestess would want,” I said
quietly. “To see us wasting our time and energy in quarrelling. We need to work together—all of us. We’ve got to stick together. I’ve been trying to do things on my own, but I was wrong. We are all connected, and if one of us falls, we all fall. It’s like we’re in some kind of intricate dance—a dance of destiny. We have to work together, you and me and Josh. Sarah and Evie need us to do that for them.”

Cal’s shoulders slumped wearily. “It’s too late. Josh is gone. I’ve searched the whole valley. Some of the Kinsfolk rode with me under cover of night, while the rest searched every underground cavern and tunnel that they know. Wherever he is, she’s hidden him so well that we’ll never find him; besides, my heart tells me that he’s dead. That’s what I was coming to tell Sarah. Josh is dead.”

“I don’t believe that, Cal. I won’t believe it. The Priestess would have triumphed in his death if he had passed from us. No, she’s hiding him somewhere and we have to help him. Josh would never lose faith in us; we mustn’t lose faith in him.”

“But even if you’re right, how can we ever find him? I told you I’ve been over every inch of Wyldcliffe already.”

I smiled at him. “We’re not alone. We’ve got Agnes.”

He looked up, puzzled.

“Remember what happened last term?” I said. “We found out that there’s a spark of Agnes’s healing fire lodged deep in Josh—an inheritance from his family at Uppercliffe Farm. If Agnes can reach out to him, that tiny, mystic flame would be enough to cure him from whatever spell the Priestess has put on him.”

“But how can we reach Agnes without Evie, or the Talisman?”

I tugged under my sweater for the object I had brought from the Abbey. It was the little portrait of Lady Agnes Templeton, our secret sister and friend. That long red hair, those sea-gray eyes; it was so like her that it seemed that Agnes herself gazed at us with her air of mild blessing. In the painting she was leaning against a broken arch in the ruined chapel and looking straight out, her softly curving lips parted as though she was just about to speak.

“Look, Cal, here she is.”

“It’s like she’s really looking at us!” he exclaimed. “So you think we can use this picture to reach her?”

“We can try.”

I rested the painting at the foot of Agnes’s tomb and looked deep into her eyes. “Sister of Fire,” I whispered, “Awake! Winds of Time, blow away the veil between us and Agnes. Let us speak to her.”

Nothing happened. I called to her again, and as I gazed on the picture I saw something that I had never noticed before. In the painting, there was a mark on the archway that Agnes was leaning against, as though scratched into the weathered stone. It was a perfect circle, crossed by two marks like the swift wings of a bird…the sign of the great Seal…I reached out and touched it, and suddenly the colors of the painting swirled like autumn leaves. A new image was shimmering in the dark frame. It was Agnes kneeling on the floor, her long skirt spreading around her. She was tending a wounded warrior—a knight who lay with his head in her lap, his golden hair laced with blood. It seemed like something from a fairy tale; then it changed, it was real. Agnes was crouching in a dark, dingy attic, bathing a young man’s head and whispering soothing words. It was Josh, and he was sick, but Agnes was with him. “All circles meet. All paths cross,” she whispered. Then the image dissolved and re-formed into the familiar portrait of an aristocratic young girl with red hair and gray eyes.

“Cal—Josh is alive!” I rejoiced. “And he’s with Agnes—she’s taken him somewhere safe.”

“But where are they? How can we find them?”

“I’m sure I know where they are. I’ve seen that room
before. It’s the secret room in the attic at Fairfax Hall. Sebastian hid there when he was fading, in the grip of the Unconquered lords. It was his childhood home, and he returned there in his troubles, but Evie found where he was hiding and we all went there to help him.”

“Where’s this Fairfax Hall then?”

“It’s on the west side of the Upper Moor. Ride there now, and take Seraph to bring Josh back if he’s well enough. But hurry!” The morning was no longer new. The sun had risen behind the heavy clouds and the air was cold, and time was marching on.

Cal hugged me briefly, then mounted his horse, taking hold of Seraph’s reins to lead her by his side. “Look after Sarah for me, and I’ll be back,” he said as he moved away.

“Meet me at the Abbey as soon as you can!” I called after him. The horses’ hooves echoed in the distance as I was left alone. “Thank you, Agnes,” I said as I bent to pick up the painting. I didn’t want to take her portrait back to the school and be caught with it, nor did I want to leave it on the grave. Instead I ran over to the weathered gray church. The door was open and I slipped inside. It smelled of stone and flowers and polished wood, and was very still, as though time had stopped. With its wooden pews and stacked hymn books, and the faded flags hanging over the
nave, this place hadn’t changed since Agnes was alive. I walked down the narrow aisle and put the picture at the foot of the altar. It seemed the right place to leave it somehow. I was just about to turn away when I heard footsteps behind me.