Eternal (12 page)

She had left us there, in the shattered ruins. Our circle had been truly broken.

I left the window and quickly felt under my pil ow. The Talisman was stil there. I felt it heavy and cool in my fingers. Despite my awful quarrel with Evie, I couldn’t help feeling a flicker of excitement as I held the necklace in my hand. S for Sarah. Perhaps this was meant to happen? I put on my robe, slipping the Talisman into my pocket, and headed for the door.

As soon as I reached the bathroom at the end of the passage, I went in and locked the door behind me. There was a smal mirror over the basin. Wyldcliffe didn’t believe in encouraging personal vanity. We weren’t al owed to wear makeup or jewelry, although perhaps Miss Scratton was going to change al that too. But the mirror was big enough for me to see myself as I fumblingly fastened the Talisman around my neck.

What had I expected? That it would transform me into the princess, the special one? The Talisman hung cold and quiet against my nightdress. With my untidy hair and sleep-heavy eyes, I looked about ten years old, like a kid dressing up in her mother’s finery. Stubbornly, I placed my hand over the crystal and whispered, “Agnes . . .

Agnes . . .” Nothing happened.

Why should it? I was not Evie, and the Talisman wasn’t mine. I wasn’t connected with Agnes. This wasn’t for me.

Everything is connected, a voice seemed to say in my head. An image flashed into my mind of a girl with dark, curly hair streaming out in the wind as she rode a stocky pony over the moors. I clutched the necklace tighter and said aloud, “Maria . . . this is Sarah.”

The Talisman blazed with light for an instant, and I pul ed my hand away in shock. The skin on the palm of my hand was red and burning. What was happening? Was Maria linked with Agnes? But she couldn’t have been—she had been a pupil at Wyldcliffe, and it was only after Agnes’s death that the Abbey had become a school. So why had her name caused the Talisman to flare out like that?

Someone knocked on the bathroom door.

“Coming!” I shouted, snatching the necklace off and pushing it into my pocket. The Path to Hell, the Book had warned. I longed to know more about Maria, but the Talisman was not real y mine. I had no right to probe its secrets simply for curiosity’s sake, and although Evie had used the precious heirloom, it had been at great cost. Was I real y ready to pay that price? Besides, I reasoned, if the spirit of Celia Hartle had been contained by our spel , and if Miss Scratton was in charge, why did I need to dig deeper into mysteries that should be left alone?

And so for the moment, I hid the Talisman at the bottom of my bedside drawers, muffled in a thick scarf, and made no more attempts to use it. Let it lie there, I thought, let it be quiet.

For the moment.

Helen and Evie and I avoided one another over the fol owing days, as Miss Scratton had counseled. Helen would smile vaguely in my direction as we went into class, but Evie walked past me without even a glance. It was so painful to have quarreled with her, especial y as I felt ashamed of some of the things I had said. I felt that our friendship had been split at the roots and I wanted to mend it, but Evie didn’t come near me. She spent every spare moment down at the stables. I knew she had no great interest in riding. It was Josh that drew her there.

I couldn’t avoid seeing them together, as I had to go to the stables every day to look after my own ponies and exercise them in the practice paddock. There was a light in Josh’s brown eyes as the two of them talked, and the strain on Evie’s face seemed to melt away under the sunshine of his smile. I guessed they were happy to dwel on the bond that Agnes had made between their families.

Josh’s inheritance of a single spark of her fiery compassion would inevitably bring him and Evie closer together. Yet I noticed that Evie was careful not to touch him, or flirt with him, or send off any of those little signals of possession that girls put out around attractive guys. She didn’t behave in any way that suggested she was anything more than a friend to Josh. How could she, when she was stil in love with Sebastian? But at least she wasn’t alone.

I tried not to begrudge them their pleasure in each other’s company, though I felt so miserable myself. And there was no one else I could turn to. Helen was more and more in a world of her own, obsessively writing long letters to her father or scribbling secrets in a notebook. The friends I’d had before Evie arrived at school had dropped away from me since I had taken up with “those two weirdos.” And even worse, I stil hadn’t had a letter from Cal. I was sure now that I never would.

The days dragged past, and my free time hung heavily on my hands. I tried to keep myself busy, of course. When lessons were over, I had my horses to look after, as wel as my own corner of ground in the wal ed garden, which I tended out of a dul sense of duty. But everything that had once kept me busy at Wyldcliffe felt flat and empty without Helen and Evie.

In desperation, I started going to choir practice at lunchtime, as a way of kil ing time. At least music was a pure expression of the soul, and I hoped it might be uplifting. To my surprise Velvet was there too, mocking and mutinous in the back row, setting the other girls off into fits of giggles as she imitated Mr. Brooke’s hesitant voice and awkward manner. I wished I could be a carefree, laughing schoolgirl like them, but I had another path to tread. And so I sang, and brooded and waited, and missed my friends. And every night, the drums sounded deep in my dreams, but I listened to them in vain; no clear sign or message came to me through that savage, pulsing music.

It was almost a relief when the fol owing Saturday, Velvet created a diversion. She showed up at the stable yard to welcome a superb black gelding that her father had arranged to be sent over to the school for her. He was cal ed Jupiter, and must have cost a fortune, with his aristocratic breeding and high-stepping legs. He skittered proudly on the cobbles as he was backed into his stal , and I sensed the envy from the other keen riders who were hanging around to have a look at the new arrival. Celeste and India, who fancied themselves elegant horsewomen, looked furious that Velvet had yet again stolen their thunder. But I thought the animal was far too showy for the kind of rough moorland rides we had around Wyldcliffe, and I told Velvet so.

“You’re only jealous,” she said carelessly. “He’l be fun, won’t you, Jupiter darling? Dad has to have the best of everything, so he was hardly going to send me a fat old nag to ride. Anyway, you can try Jupiter out tomorrow. We’l take him and Starlight out for a proper gal op over the moors.”

She seemed to expect me to drop any plans I had and immediately fit in with hers.

“Um . . . I’m sorry, I . . . um, haven’t finished my biology assignment. . . .” I hadn’t forgotten Miss Scratton’s warning not to stray outside the grounds, and anyway, I wasn’t real y that keen to hang out with Velvet. For a moment she looked annoyed; then she shrugged.

“Whatever. I can find someone else.” Velvet glanced over to one of the other girls standing about in the yard. It was Sophie, one of Celeste’s set, a harmless but weak and anxious girl who was constantly bossed around by her so-cal ed friend. “Hey, Sophie, isn’t that your name? Would you like to come for a ride with me?”

“M-me?” stammered Sophie. “Do you real y mean that?

I’d love to.”

“It’s a deal then.” Velvet smiled her most charming smile, and I could see that Sophie had just found someone new to hero-worship. My heart sank. I didn’t think Velvet’s influence would do Sophie any good at al .

Despite my troubles and worries about my friends, I had been constantly aware of Velvet’s presence at Wyldcliffe since the beginning of term. It was like knowing that a wasp is hovering nearby, getting ready to sting. I could see that Rick Romaine’s daughter was bored and restless at the school, and in the mood to look for trouble. Although Miss Scratton had promised a new era of modernization, she couldn’t produce this single-handedly in a few days.

Wyldcliffe had been run in a certain way for over a hundred years, and it wasn’t going to change instantly. There were stil the daily prayers, the old-fashioned uniform, the heavy academic workload as we prepared for exams, and the strict routine and antiquated deference to the mistresses.

Not only that, the building itself was so gloomy and silent, with its heavy Gothic windows, its marble pil ars and stairs, and endless passageways, that just being stuck in the school while the sun shone outside felt oppressive. There was stil plenty for Velvet to kick against.

Another week began, and although I felt as though I was drifting in my own private quest, with no real purpose or certainty, Velvet seemed to be pursuing a clear plan of her own. She had gathered together a little group of admirers who started to cal themselves the Wylde Babes. They turned up their col ars and hitched up their skirts in imitation of Velvet, adopted a slouching, sulky posture during class time, and indulged in boisterous jokes during recreation periods. Velvet quickly had Camil a Wil oughby-Stuart under her spel , and Julia Symons and Annabel e Torrington-Jones and a few others, and soon poor spineless Sophie was drawn into her crowd. Velvet gave the girls designer clothes and bags from the piles of expensive stuff she had brought with her and made out that they were al great friends, but there was a coldness under her manner to them. It was as if she was the leader and they were her servants, ready to do whatever she commanded. And Velvet seemed older than the rest of the girls in our year, with al her talk of wild parties in New York and Buenos Aires and Monte Carlo, her boasts of how screwed up she’d been when she’d checked into rehab, and how she hated her mother. I didn’t know how much of what she said was true, and although I tried to be friendly and polite to her, I knew I didn’t want to get sucked into her little crowd. However, my lack of interest seemed to make her even more determined to get me involved.

“Come with us, Sarah,” she chal enged me one evening when we were both in the dorm, changing into clean shirts before supper. “We’re going to sneak out and go skinny-dipping in the pool after lights-out tonight. And we’ve got a bottle of vodka that I smuggled into school in my suitcase.

It wil be cool.”

“It wil be freezing,” I replied. “And as for guzzling vodka, you can do what you like, but don’t go making Camil a and Sophie and the rest of them drunk. You’l only get them into trouble.”

“But I want us to get into trouble,” she said. “That’s the whole point.”

“That’s easy for you, Velvet. You want to get chucked out. But I don’t think the other girls’ parents wil be very happy if they get expel ed.”

“Oh, don’t be so good,” she sneered. “I don’t care about their parents. I don’t care about anything except getting out of here.”

“Wel , you should. Wandering about after lights-out isn’t a great idea.”

Velvet narrowed her dark eyes and frowned. “So how come you were out of your bed the first night I arrived?”

I froze, but tried to look unconcerned. “What do you mean?”

“I woke up with a headache and couldn’t get back to sleep. You weren’t there, and you were away for ages. So what were you up to?” she asked. “You weren’t going off to meet Evie’s stable boy by any chance, were you? Trying to cut her out of the action?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Have you two quarreled about something? Sophie told me that you were inseparable last term, you and Evie and that other girl, what’s her name, Helen Black?” Velvet stretched out lazily on her bed and added, “That’s an interesting girl. She looks kind of crazy, but she’s actual y incredibly beautiful in that fragile, spaced-out kind of way. I wouldn’t mind getting to know her better.”

“Please don’t,” I said, oddly alarmed at the idea. “Stay out of Helen’s way.”

Velvet laughed mockingly. “Good dear Sarah, protecting her friends from naughty Velvet?” Then her expression changed, and her eyes glinted oddly. “That’s what everyone tries to do. But it never works. They al get hurt in the end.”

My heart began to race. I didn’t understand why, but I actual y felt slightly afraid of her.

“What do you mean?”

She ignored me. “Look, are you coming down to the pool or not?”

“Sorry—not interested.” I fumbled to fasten my blouse and hurried out of the room. But why was I so keen to get away from Velvet? She was just an overindulged show-off, a misfit. I should be sorry for her, I told myself, and tried to forget al about it.

I couldn’t, though. The hungry expression in Velvet’s eyes had reminded me of something I had seen before, but I didn’t know what. I couldn’t shake her out of my mind, so after supper—Evie ignored me and Helen wasn’t there

—I went to the smal classroom near the math room where the new computers had been set up. A few other girls were using them already, either looking things up for class or playing games. I sat at one of the desks and tapped my password into the computer, hoping that no one else would notice as I typed Velvet’s name into the search engine. A host of entries came up for her and for her father, Rick Romaine. I scanned them quickly.

Rick Romaine, controversial lead singer of heavy-metal band the Screaming Angels.

Arrested several times for drug offenses. His 2002 concert was stopped by police after a fan was crushed and killed. Accused by parental campaigners of “corrupting youth” with his occult-influenced act . . .

Velvet Morgan Moonlight Romaine, daughter of Rick and Amber Romaine (who famously said that giving birth to Velvet at sixteen was the biggest mistake of her life). Velvet was voted one of the decade’s teen style icons in Vogue, released a number one record with her father, has modeled in New York and Milan. . . .

This was mostly stuff I already knew, though I felt a swift pang of pity for Velvet. Having your mother thinking that your birth was a mistake wasn’t a great start in life. Then another entry caught my attention. It was on a blog cal ed CelebSpy and it read:

Velvet Romaine has already been in trouble for drugs and underage drinking in her short life, influenced by her parents’ wild lifestyle, and she checked into rehab at age thirteen. But CelebSpy hears that darker rumors are surrounding the teen. Her younger sister, Jasmine, was killed in a car accident when Velvet’s then boyfriend, singer Jonny Darren, was at the wheel. No charges were brought, but the word is that it was actually Velvet who was driving. A short time later the pair broke up, and Darren committed suicide. She was sent to an exclusive Swiss boarding school to make a fresh start but had been there only a matter of months when a fire broke out that led to the dreadful scarring of one of her classmates. It was deemed to be an accident, but CelebSpy’s informants are whispering that Velvet was involved in the fire—as a prank that went horribly wrong. In another incident, her mother’s personal assistant was recently injured in a freak accident at Velvet’s lavish sixteenth birthday party when a balcony over the dance floor collapsed. Coincidence? Is the shadow that hangs over bad boy Rick Romaine tainting his daughter’s life? Is everyone who comes into contact with her fated to be hurt?