Immortal (3 page)

The two girls who had been sitting with Celeste at supper were curled up on it. One had baby blue eyes and a childish stare, and the other looked cold and unwelcoming.

“Meet Sophie and India,” drawled Celeste, waving her hand lazily in their direction. “Did you have fun doing chores for the mistresses, Evie? How sweet that Helen has someone to help her to scrub the floors at last.”

I noticed Helen hunch into a tighter ball on her bed.

“Yeah,” I drawled back. “We had great fun. Now, which is my bed? I’d like to unpack.”

“Oh, we did that for you already,” Celeste said with an innocent smile. The girls by the window smirked at each other. “That’s your bed in the corner.”

There were five beds, with thin drapes that could be pulled around for a little privacy, like in a hospital ward. Someone had shut the drapes around the bed in the corner, so I walked over and pulled them open, then stepped back in horror.

The bed was shrouded in black silk and surrounded by tall, funereal candles. Rose petals lay scattered over the pillow, like drops of crimson blood, and a photograph of a wide-eyed teenage girl hung over the bed, staring out at me, watching me. My clothes had been dumped and kicked on the floor. I spun around to confront Celeste.

“What’s this all about?”

Her smile had vanished. “It’s about the fact that you aren’t welcome. The last person who slept in that bed was my cousin Laura. She died. I don’t suppose they told you that, did they?”

“N-no.”

“You’re only here because her place in the school became free. The idiots who are in charge wanted it to look like they were doing their Christian duty by letting you come to Wyldcliffe. But if Laura hadn’t died, you wouldn’t be here.” Celeste’s voice trembled with anger. “Just looking at you makes me feel sick.”

“But it wasn’t my fault,” I protested. “I’m really sorry about your cousin, but I think—”

“I don’t care what you think, Johnson. We don’t want you here, and we’re going to make sure you don’t last long. Don’t forget—you’re sleeping in a dead girl’s bed. And I hope she haunts your every breath.”

Celeste marched out, followed by her little gang. I felt as though I had been slapped in the face. For a second I stood frozen with shock, then anger welled up inside me.

“What the—?”

A bell sounded in the corridor. Helen got up and made for the door, clutching a small bag of toiletries.

“You’d better get changed. The second bell will ring soon for lights-out.” She avoided my eyes and hurried away.

Seething with fury, I snatched up the candlesticks and the yards of black stuff and threw them onto Celeste’s bed. But I couldn’t get the photograph down from the wall.
Oh, brilliant,
I thought,
now I have to sleep with a freaky picture of a dead girl staring down at me every night.
That was all I needed.

I couldn’t believe that my first day at Wyldcliffe had been so disastrous. Celeste was being crazily unfair. Oh, I knew that grief did strange things to people, but it still hurt. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. I could almost hear Frankie’s voice in my head saying,
Poor Celeste, we should be very kind to her.

Frankie knew all about grief. She had lost her only daughter, Clara, fifteen years ago, one cruelly bright spring morning. Clara Johnson. My mother.

She had drowned when I was a baby, swimming in the dark waves that rolled in from the Atlantic and pounded the shore at home. People who remembered Mom said that I was like her: long red hair, pale skin, and sea-gray eyes. I didn’t have a single memory of her, not even the sound of her voice, so darling Frankie had done everything she could to replace her dead daughter for me. And now I might lose Frankie too. I guess I knew how Celeste felt.

“I promise,” I said under my breath, “I’ll try to be kind to her.” But my words were empty. However much I might try to sympathize with Celeste, I knew we would never be friends.

I started to pick up my crumpled clothes. My old blue sweater was still rolled around the bits of glass from Mom’s photo. I unwrapped the bundle, careful not to touch the shattered pieces and stared down in amazement.

The photograph was in an unbroken frame. The glass was completely flawless, as though it had never been damaged, and the bloodstain on my mother’s face had vanished.

For one moment I thought I must have imagined the whole thing: the dark lane, the boy, the horse—but I couldn’t have; I was still wearing his handkerchief as a bandage. I tore it off, and there it was: a thin mark of dried blood running across my right palm. That proved it. I really had cut myself. I had seen the broken glass. And now the glass wasn’t broken anymore.

Impossible.

Helen walked back into the room. She pulled the drapes all the way around her bed, shutting me and everything else out. I decided to do the same.

I lay down and heard Celeste and her friends trooping back from the bathroom, giggling and whispering. Then a bell rang out and the lights snapped off. A few more whispers; then everyone settled down to go to sleep. But I couldn’t rest.

Impossible, impossible, impossible…

Celeste’s outburst faded into insignificance. It wasn’t her threats that kept me awake, or the image of the dead girl, Laura, gazing down on me. It was thinking about the boy whose existence had briefly collided with mine. Had he mended the glass in some mysterious way? No, that was absurd, ridiculous.

I couldn’t stop thinking about him, though. Who was he? Where had he come from? As I tried to fall asleep, I remembered his intense gaze, his smile, the shadows under his eyes…. I remembered the gentle touch of his hand as it brushed my face and the coolness of his breath on my skin. However much I tried to drive him from my thoughts, I seemed to hear his voice in my head, laughing.
We’ll meet again…again…again….

Eventually I found sleep, but not rest. I dreamed lurid, fevered dreams, until one last dream came in which the terrible gray sea rose over the moors and smashed Wyldcliffe into oblivion with one mighty wave.

I awoke and bolted up, panting and sweating. For a second I struggled to remember where I was. Of course. The school. The dorm. The four other girls lying asleep so near me. I pushed back the white drape to try to get more air, then had to stop myself from crying aloud. Out of the corner of my eye I had seen a girl with long red hair and a pale, frightened face. I whipped around to look at her, then sank back, trembling. How stupid of me. It had only been my own unearthly reflection in a long mirror that was fixed to the opposite wall. I clamped my eyes shut, but there was no way I could get back to sleep.

The feeling crept over me, like rising fog, that I was being watched. There was someone else in the room apart from the five of us; I was sure of it. I strained to listen. There was the softest echo of someone singing a lullaby, as though long-ago and faraway. I heard light footsteps, a cough, and the pages of a book being turned. Someone was there, hidden by the deep shadows.

Another impossibility. I tried to shrug it off. I was just nervous, unsettled about being in a strange place. It was probably someone in the next dorm or on the floor below. Sounds got distorted in a big old house like this; that was all.

That first night I didn’t know any better than to blame it on my imagination. On that first night I didn’t know who was watching over me. I didn’t know that her life was tangled with mine: my guardian, my sister, my other self. I couldn’t guess that I would get to know her, discover her secrets, and even read the pages of her private journal.

I lay awake all night long, until the pale sun emerged like a ghost from the grave.

Four

THE JOURNAL OF LADY AGNES, SEPTEMBER

13, 1882
My news is that dearest S. is back from his travels at last, after months of wandering abroad with his tutor, Mr. Philips. We did not expect to see him again until Christmas, but he arrived at the Hall last night and came here in his father’s carriage early this morning. This has been a wonderful surprise in our humdrum routine. I feel as though life has taken me by the shoulders and given me a thorough shaking and that now I am ready for any challenge.

It was so good to see my childhood friend again! At first, though, I was a little shy. He has grown remarkably tall and handsome, and made me feel quite babyish with his tales of Paris and Constantinople and Vienna
—
I who have scarcely been out of Wyldcliffe’s lonely valley. But very soon we were chattering like magpies. He still has the same eager air, the same desire to share everything with me, the same intense blue gaze. Although our mothers are only very distantly related by marriage, he is closer to me than any cousin could be; truly the brother I never had.

He looked tired, however, underneath his smiles. I was not surprised to hear that he had suffered a fever in Morocco and had been dreadfully ill for many days. Now he is troubled by a wearisome cough and is thinner than he should be, with dark shadows under his eyes. His illness is the reason for his return home earlier than planned.

I cannot stop myself from being selfishly glad that he was forced to come back. This year of 1882 has been so very tedious, so long and dreary without him. I never realized before how much his talk and ideas, his books and poems enlivened my existence. Even rambling across the moors was not so keen a pleasure without him by my side. Miss Binns could not hope to fill his place, and I believe she is as delighted as I am that my companion has returned. He does not go to the university at Oxford until the New Year, so he will have every chance to recover his strength, and I will have him near me for many happy weeks.

Poor Miss B. has indeed been sadly puzzled by me of late. She does not understand my thirst for study, although she is a good creature, and I am grateful that Papa engaged such a kindly, gentle governess for me. But can a little French and music and the dates of the kings and queens of England add up to a real education in these modern times? If only I could go away to school! I asked Mama whether I could attend the Ladies’ College in London that I have read about, now that I am sixteen, but she said it was out of the question for a young lady of my rank, and that I must remember that I am Lady Agnes Templeton, not some obscure girl forced to earn my bread by my wits.

I confess that I am driven to distraction by Mama’s notions. What has worldly rank to do with the desire for knowledge? Today there are new ideas in every sphere, and I want to be part of this new world, not just a decorated doll.

Over these last months I have felt myself changing. Earlier in the summer my monthly bleeding began. Mama hugged me when I told her and cried a little, then dried her tears and said I would soon be a wife and mother. I am afraid that Mama will find some stammering young man whose only recommendation is that he is the son of a duke, and will force me down the aisle with him. But I could never marry anyone I do not truly love, not even a royal prince. However, my dear mother appears to think otherwise. I fear that if she knew my true thoughts, we should often quarrel. I must make sure that she never sees this journal.

I feel…I don’t know how to express it…as though I am tingling with some unseen, unknown power, and I long to break free of everything that seems small and dull and superficial. My dreams are full of fire and color, both waking and asleep. There is one strange dream in particular that I have had many times recently. In it, I am standing in a deep underground cavern where a tall flame burns and twists. I walk over to this column of fire and scoop some of it in my hand. The flames dance like bright leaves in the wind, without scorching me. I am afraid, though exhilarated….

Whenever I have this dream I wake feeling restless and head for the freedom of the moors. I lie on the grass, with the earth under my bones and the air on my face, and I still feel that flame burning and dancing inside me.

If only I had someone to talk to, a friend, or a sister. Sometimes I have imagined such a friend so strongly that I swear I could almost see her. But now at least darling S.
is back. I cannot be lonely with him only two miles away at the Hall. His father has given him a fine new black mare, so he has promised that we shall have many rides out together as soon as he is a little rested. I will have to be content with getting my education secondhand from him, and seeing the world through his stories. Yet I know in my heart that I am capable of doing something worthwhile, and I will not rest until I have discovered it.

I stand with my childhood behind me and my destiny ahead, as though I am poised on the crest of a wave that will send me hurtling to some distant, unknown shore.

Five

T

he morning bell was clanging like a fire alarm. I dragged myself out of bed and found my way to the bathroom. There were two or three old-fashioned cubicles, each with an antiquated-looking shower and a tangle of copper pipes. I went into the nearest one and locked the door behind me.

My head ached with lack of sleep, and I couldn’t shake off a feeling of nagging anxiety. As I undressed, I noticed that the cut on my hand had healed into a dark red line—the cut that had apparently come from nowhere. It didn’t make any sense. If only there were someone I could talk to about it.

I missed Dad and Frankie so much it hurt.

Standing under the tepid shower, I tried to let the water wash everything away.
Forget it
, I told myself.
I must have gotten it all wrong.
The glass had never been broken in the first place. I must have grazed myself on a corner of the brass frame; that was all. Or maybe something sharp had fallen into the sweater when I was packing it at home. There was no mystery. And there was no one watching me. There couldn’t be.

Impossible.

I needed to concentrate on dealing with my new school, just ordinary stuff like finding my way around and doing my best in class and staying out of Celeste’s way. I needed to forget the whole thing. Most of all, I needed to forget about the boy with the dark hair and the haunting eyes.