Destiny (3 page)

F
ROM THE
D
IARY OF
H
ELEN
B
LACK

S
EPTEMBER
19

Y
esterday I passed through the secret ways again, to visit my mother’s prison. Her words have created a web of promises in my mind like a glittering net, and now I have made contact with her, I can’t turn back.

I’ve been so angry with her in the past. I have tried to strike back at her before she hurt me again—I’ve even tried to hate her. But I was never very good at hating. Besides, hate is only love turned sour. Tell me, Wanderer, was it wrong of me to approach our fallen enemy? Or was it an act of hope, and faith?

I have to find out. It is painful to be near her, but I can’t stop now. I need to speak to her again. I must know if she means what she says. I must know the truth.

Every afternoon when classes had ended I made my way to the Ridge, desperate to speak with my mother’s spirit again, needing to work out whether her regrets were real. I couldn’t let Sarah and Evie suspect anything. I had tried to warn them to back off so that I could deal with this on my own. I didn’t want them to be hurt again, or in danger, but I couldn’t give up the notion that I might be able to save my mother. My mother—our enemy—the Priestess—oh, it was so dangerous! I was terrified, but excited too, wild with anguished hopes and dreams, and every day I begged the powers to send me a sign.

The excuse I made to Evie for not being around was that I was busy after school at the art studio, preparing a project for Miss Hetherington’s class. Art and music and stuff like that were the only subjects I was not completely hopeless at, so I think Evie believed me, but the lie was heavy in my mouth. You shouldn’t lie to friends. If I had told Evie the truth, though, she would have been frantic with worry. I couldn’t share this with them, so I lied, knowing that then she and Sarah would relax about me for a moment. They would go down to the stables to meet Josh and Cal without having me tagging along as the odd one out.

I didn’t mind that the four of them belonged to one another in a way that I never would. I wanted them to be happy. It gave me pleasure to think of Sarah and Cal, Evie and Josh…even the pairing of their names was like a poem to me; a song full of promise that they had happy futures ahead. One day, perhaps, Evie would love Josh as he loved her. A piece of Evie’s heart had been given forever to Sebastian Fairfax, whose tragic story was intertwined with Agnes and the coven and the long curse of Wyldcliffe. Evie still clung to Sebastian’s memory, but I knew that her heart was big enough to love again, and so I hoped that Josh’s patience would someday be rewarded. I wanted my friends’ stories at least to have a happy ending, even if I was destined to walk a lonelier path.

Another week at school drew to a close. It was Friday evening, with the prospect of a little relaxation of the rules over the weekend. Sarah and Evie were lingering in the stables with the boys, but I made up some story about having a design to finish. I set off as though I were really headed for the art studio, self-consciously clutching my sketchbook. As soon as I was out of their sight, however, I shoved the book away in my bag and switched direction. I needed to get to the locker rooms. No one would see me there. But as I was hurrying past the little music practice
rooms on the way, I heard an airy, wild sound; a light, joyful melody. It seemed to lift my soul like a bird hovering over the moors. For some reason I thought of my Wanderer. His voice seemed to be calling me in the music.

I stopped dead, and without thinking, I pushed open the door of the nearest practice room. Mr. Brooke, the music master, looked up crossly. I had interrupted a lesson, but not with one of the Wyldcliffe girls. Mr. Brooke’s student was a boy. He was eighteen—nineteen? I didn’t really take in what he looked like, apart from being tall and fair and thin, but his eyes met mine, and he smiled as he broke off from his playing. He held a silver flute in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and slammed the door shut.

As I caught my breath, the boy started to play again. For a moment, I stood there, lost in the beauty of the music, remembering the boy’s smile, the cool radiance of his eyes, and his long, sensitive fingers poised on the shining flute. But my mother was calling me, and her voice blotted everything else out. I tore myself away and hurried to the locker rooms, which were tucked away in a back corner of the school. When I got there they were empty, as I had hoped. Now I could escape.

This was my one true gift: to be able to call to the
unseen spirits of the air and ask them to carry me on their hidden paths. When I felt myself being changed from the heaviness of everyday life, when I almost dissolved into the light, I couldn’t help being exalted. At that moment, I was free, I existed everywhere and nowhere, on a wild rapture of rushing energy and power. I called it dancing on the wind when I tried to explain it to Evie and Sarah, but I didn’t really know how it worked, except that I reached deep inside myself and then, whatever I saw in my mind happened in reality. I could take myself to different places through space and air and light. And so I stepped into the unknown—into an invisible vortex of endless power—and when I stepped out at the other end I had reached the circle of stones that dominated the Blackdown Ridge.

It was already dark. Dusk fell quickly now that Wyldcliffe’s brief summer was over. The wind was racing wildly over the empty hills, and the few bent trees were already shedding their leaves.

I found a broken bird,

And a forgotten song…

I would have loved that place, if it hadn’t been my mother’s jail. The air was pure and sharp up there, tearing
at my breath and hair, as though ready to lift me up and dance me away to a far, unknown country. The circle of massive stones had been made by long-forgotten men as a temple to their nature gods, and they vibrated with ancient power. But pulsing at the heart of the tallest stone, I sensed
her
abandoned heart, her agony, her questioning spirit. And in my mind, as I knelt at the foot of her prison, I heard her low voice, made gentle by pain and regret.

“Are you there again, daughter?” she began.

“I’m here,” I replied eagerly.

“It is good to hear your voice.”

“Do you really mean that?”

“What would be the point of lying,” she said with a sigh, “now that all my plans have come to nothing? My truth now is my utter humiliation. That has taught me to turn away from the path of lies. I am so weary, Helen. I can no longer fool myself that I will do great things. Now I am less than nothing, less than the dust under your feet.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It is true. You have youth, beauty, strength, and all life in front of you. I have nothing but eternal darkness and bondage and pain. My followers are scattered. My master, the Eternal King of the Unconquered lords, has abandoned me to my fate, now that I am useless to
him and his dread captains. You have won and my power is decayed. My battles are over. Only the truth is left.”

“If you—if you really mean that,” I said haltingly, “tell me the truth about the Seal. What is it? Why did you give it to me? What does the sign of the Seal on my arm mean?”

The Seal was a little brooch, shaped like wings flying across the sun. My mother had left it with me in the children’s home when I was a baby, before she fell into darkness. “The one good thing I ever gave you,” she had said, when we met the term before in the underground cavern. Since then I had secretly cast spells over it, calling to its inner spirit, but it had not responded. It didn’t seem to have any powers, unlike Evie’s Talisman. By all appearances it was simply an inexpensive brooch, a small gift from mother to daughter. But there was something more.

A strange tattoolike mark—the exact replica of the shape of the brooch, a circle crossed by wings—had appeared like a brand on my skin a few months before, and it hadn’t changed or faded since then. Sarah had found something about marks like that in the ancient Book of lore that Agnes and Sebastian had studied so long ago and that had now come to us. I couldn’t forget what it said.

As to those who call themselves Witche Finders and do
search a Woman’s body for Blemishes, if any such Markes are founde, that poor Soule is declared a servant of the Evil

One and is set apart and destroyed. This may be Ignorance and Superstition and yet there remains a Questione.

From where do such signs come? Many Scholars declare they are a Sign of great Destiny, with Death in their wake.

I had to know what it all meant. I asked her again, more urgently. “What is the Seal? Why did you give it to me?”

There was a long silence. I thought perhaps she had retreated from me, but then faint images formed in my mind as I leaned against the cold stone. I heard my mother’s voice again echoing in my head, low and tender and regretful, and I saw her memories and felt her pain.

“When I was very young,” she began slowly, “I dreamed of many things. I looked at the sunset and dreamed of beauty and power and life that went on forever. I watched the birds fly away in the autumn and dreamed of going on a great journey that had no end, but was its own destiny. I saw snow cover the earth like spun silver and dreamed of healing and peace and a vast, eternal light. I longed for magic and miracles and mysteries. I had no one to share these feelings with. My family laughed and called me childish and romantic. My friends grew away from me. I was alone. I turned inward, and drew upon the secrets of
my own heart and mind. Slowly and painfully, I discovered that I had powers. I didn’t need anyone else to make my dreams real. I could change the weather and make things move and create fire and do as I willed. I could take myself to strange places and see into people’s minds. But I didn’t know what to do with these mysterious gifts. I thought I was a freak, slowly going crazy. And then one day I met…someone.”

“Was it my father?” I asked eagerly.

“Your father? No!” She couldn’t keep the scorn from her voice, but then she controlled herself and went on. “It was a messenger from the unseen worlds who said that I was marked out as different, fated for great things. Once, I was told, many people had been in tune with the lost powers: seers and prophets and priests. Now it was a rare, precious gift, and those who had it were invited to join an ancient and secret order. I would live until the end of time, in every generation, and I would serve the world, dwelling always in beauty and light. And so I was offered the Seal, to confirm my vow of belonging.

“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.