Destiny (15 page)

Sarah and Cal set out a wide ring of white pebbles around the pillar. Then Evie said, “We need fire, for Agnes.” She and Josh made another ring of candles, white for innocence, purple for mourning, and red for life. Their flames glowed like flowers. Into a wide, round bowl, Evie
poured a flask of water that glittered in the candlelight. She stood up, lightly touching the Talisman that hung from her neck, and said, “May the earth be strong under our feet. May the fire of love guide our actions. May the water of the living stream cleanse our thoughts.”

I searched inside myself and connected with my inner powers, the storms and winds of freedom that were hidden deep inside. I raised my hands, and a sweet breeze blew through the crystal cavern. Music, bright and delicate as starlight, rang out. “Powers of air,” I said, “lift our hearts above the mistakes of the past. May the winds of change fill our hearts with song.”

Josh handed me the Book, then stood to one side with Cal and Kundar. I opened it at random, and it fell open at a page with an image of the zodiac riding through the stars, and clear bold lettering, saying, “TIME IS, TIME WAS, TIME WILL BE.” It seemed like a good omen. I laid the Book on the stone of sacrifice at the bottom of the pillar, and then took a folded sheet of paper from my pocket. It was a drawing of Laura that I had done, a copy of the photograph that hung over Evie’s bed in the dorm. I placed it next to the Book.

I was ready.

“Laura,” I called. “You had your youth and happiness
taken from you. Hope, joy, and friendship were stolen from you. To make recompense, we give you what we can. I ask the Eye of Time to look at what might have been, and I give you a friendship that now I will never know. Take from my future to heal Laura’s past.” As I spoke, I felt a surge of energy leave my body. A halo of light glowed around Laura’s picture.

Evie followed my lead. “I give a golden summer’s day that now I will never see.” The aura around the picture gleamed again. “Let the light shine on Laura instead.”

Then Sarah came forward. “I give a day of hope that now will not come to comfort me. Let Laura be comforted instead.” The picture glowed with a steady light.

“We must all offer the best that is in us,” I said. “Laura was destroyed by hatred. We must offer our love to her now, to make amends. We offer our love.”

Evie and Sarah repeated softly, “We offer our love.”

I turned to the boys. “You wanted to share our quest. Will you offer something for Laura?”

Cal stretched out his tanned, strong hand toward the picture, saying gruffly, “I offer my strength, to serve and protect.” Then it was Josh’s turn. He held out his hand to the image of Laura, but looked at Evie as he said in a clear, ringing voice, “In the name of the Talisman, I offer my
love.” Then he stepped back and said quietly to Evie, “I’ve offered you that from the first time we met.”

There was silence for a moment; then Kundar crooned, “It is a good sacrifice. Now you must make your magic. The moon rides swiftly through the sky, and the morning gallops near like the horses of the valley.”

Evie, Sarah, and I linked hands in the Circle, murmuring, “Agnes, sister of fire, be with us tonight!” I gazed at Laura’s picture and called, “Child of time, child of nature, child of the light, come to us!” I began to sing, “Child of creation, child of the stars, child of the sun, come out of the Shadows, awake, awake….”

“Awake, awake,” echoed Evie and Sarah; then we fell silent. Laura’s picture had come to life, like a photograph turning into a movie. She looked out at us, eager, but frightened.

“Laura!” I called. “Will you pass from your bondage to the light? Will you leave your prison?”

“I want to…,” Laura whispered. “But you need stronger powers to break my bonds.” Her image seemed to fade and distort; then it turned back into a lifeless drawing.

“No! Wait!” I said. “Wait!” But it was too late. She couldn’t hear us anymore.

“It’s not working,” I said, bitterly disappointed. Our Circle wasn’t enough for this task. Our powers were
missing something. Evie had her Talisman and Sarah wore her crown. But what did I have? What gift was I really bringing to our secret ceremony?

That’s when I knew what I had to do. This was the moment to claim the Seal, not for myself, but to help someone who had suffered more than I had. I was ashamed at that moment that I had ever complained about my life. Laura’s life had been totally destroyed, whereas I still had hope…I still had the Seal.

I hurried to unfasten the brooch from my clothes. I just had to believe in my powers, and in my connection with this object and what it represented.

And what if the Seal answered? Would that mean that I’d have to choose a life of service, instead of fulfillment?
The person who accepts this Seal will never marry, or have children, or grow old, or truly die.
Was I really willing to make that sacrifice, to make a different choice from the one my mother had made all those years ago? I thought of Lynton, and my secret hopes. Could I ever be loved by Lynton and make a “normal” life with him? Or was this my fate: to love others and work for them without hope of reward?

I looked at the Seal. A circle crossed by two sweeping lines. Bright wings flying across the sun…My heart was beating faster; I was terrified, but I was willing to risk everything to do this. I wanted to save Laura. I wanted to
walk the path of healing. And I knew that Lynton would want me to do it too.

Now…and now…and now…

I was ready.

I stood at the center of the earth’s dark heart, under the Eye of Time. We had made a circle of flame, and stone, and wind, and water. We were all linked in friendship. The place where circles meet and all paths cross. I put the Seal on the stone of sacrifice and knelt in front of it. Silently I withdrew into my innermost self and reached out to my sacred element. I saw the swirling gases of the universe forming and re-forming, I became the wind sweeping across vast continents, I blew the first breath into a newborn baby’s lungs. I was air and energy and invisible light. Words came to me, and I spoke aloud:

“I am fire and air,

I am earth and rain,

All things meet in me

And are made new again.”

I reached out and lightly touched the brooch where the two daggerlike pieces crossed. “Open,” I commanded. “I am ready.”

The Seal burst into light. Everything changed. I was on top of the Ridge in the circle of stones, standing under a black sky sprinkled with whirling stars. Time was turning. The wind raced across the land, the breath of life. A company of radiant beings was singing all around me, and I held the Seal above my head, casting its light over the whole valley of Wyldcliffe. A girl’s shape emerged from the great black stone in the center of the circle. She was walking slowly toward me, and her face was alive with joy and hope.

“Laura!”

Then I was back in the underground cavern, willing her to follow me from the visionary place into the world of earth and stone. “Laura,” I called. “Become our sister tonight! Join our circle! Leave your prison and join the dance of life and death! We give you our strength and courage—we give you the light that shines for all who die young.”

The next moment Laura was standing in front of us. She was alive and whole and well—but just as Evie and Sarah were going to embrace her, an icy wind blew and they fell back.

I said, “We have awakened you, not to life, Laura, but to the gift of death. Will you walk through its gateway?
Do you accept this gift?”

“I do.”

A calm smile was on Laura’s face, and a light was shining in her. I commanded the Seal again, and the wind grew into a storm of whirling stars and light and music, and the last remnant of Laura’s bondage was blown away forever. Her wandering soul was free at last as she left this earth and dissolved into the Eternal Light. The pages of the Book blew wildly this way and that, and then it slammed shut.

“She’s gone,” whispered Evie, clutching Josh’s hand.

“You did it, Helen,” Sarah exclaimed. “You opened the Seal at last!”

There was a moment of wild celebration—hugs and kisses and tears of relief. Then Cal turned to me. “Laura’s free now, isn’t she? She’s passed over to the next life, and your mother can’t touch her anymore.”

“Yes,” I said thankfully, “she’s free.” I took a deep breath. It was time to tell the truth. “There’s something I have to tell you now, a confession I need to make. It’s about my mother.”

But as I spoke, the eye at the top of the pillar cracked into a thousand pieces. The pillar groaned and split apart with a thunderous crash, and the Priestess stood before
us in all her macabre glory. She was robed in black and scarlet, and the expression on her face was as hard as the stones that lay in rubble around her. “Ah, Helen dear. But you look surprised to see me, child.”

Cal and Josh sprang forward as if to attack her, but I held them back. “Wait! Let’s give her a chance to speak.” I turned to the dreadful vision that was my mother’s spirit. “I promised I would come for you after Laura was allowed to pass. Now I can help you—”

“I don’t need your help,” the Priestess said coldly. “I could not break free of the rock by myself, but Laura was my wild card—my way out. I knew that one hint about finding her at the Eye of Time would be enough to set you meddling and worrying away until you had worked it out.”

“So—what—what happened?”

The Priestess laughed gloatingly. “The Pillar of Time is the root of the great stone on the Blackdown Ridge where you so cleverly ensnared me in our last battle. I admire your skill for that Helen, truly. But I was always one step ahead of you. I had anticipated that one day I might need a way out of your enthusiastic attempts to contain me, and I also knew that guilt about the Bondsoul Laura was eating away at you. I lied when I said she had left me. When you trapped me, you trapped her too, but I
guessed you would try to free her one day. Many months ago I set a marker upon Laura’s wretched spirit so that if I ever needed help, the energy of her passing would release my own spirit. I was prepared to let Laura go. I can make more Bondsouls—tens and hundreds and thousands of them! I was willing to lose her in order to gain the greater prize of freedom for me, and enslavement for you.”

“But all the things you said…Don’t do this,” I pleaded. “It doesn’t have to be like this. We can find a better way, like we planned. It’s not too late for you,” I added quietly. “Every soul is worthy of redemption, even to the very end, even yours. Stop this madness. Let me heal you.”

For one moment, she looked so very tired and old. Then she tried to laugh it off. “What nonsense you talk!”

“Mother, please—”

She gave a ghastly, haggard grin. “How touching to hear you call me that. I believe you really do care for me, poor fool. And that made everything so much easier for me. All I had to do was get your trust with a few scraps of half-truths and a little false humility. You should have shunned me like a foul disease, but you believed what you wanted to believe. You brought this on yourself. As we talked—what lovely talks we had, Helen!—I sensed that the Seal was waiting for you to call it. But I wanted it
back, to conquer it this time. I will not serve the Seal—the Seal will serve me! It will belong to the Priestess! You all belong to the Priestess!” She raised her hand to strike.

“Run! Run!” I shouted. Kundar leaped forward and snatched up the Book, then disappeared down the tunnel we had come through, but the others seemed mesmerized and didn’t move. I flung myself in front of them. “I won’t let you touch my friends!”

“Really?” With one flick of her wrist a whiplash shot out and imprisoned Evie, Sarah, and the boys behind a wall of dark energy. They threw themselves wildly against it to escape, but they were trapped. I had to face the Priestess alone.

“I was ready to trust you,” I gasped, feeling sick with rage and disappointment. “I wanted to help you, I wanted to love you….”

“How noble and unselfish you are, Helen. But nothing good ever came of unselfishness and sacrifice,” the Priestess replied, as though trying to explain something to an obstinate child. “You see, you should have abandoned Laura to her doom and kept me shut in the rock for all eternity. You could have done that, couldn’t you? But no…you’re far too nice, far too heroic…far too stupid!”

“Yes, I was stupid,” I said bitterly. “So everything you
said, it was all just lies?”

“As you see,” Mrs. Hartle replied ironically.

I bowed my head in despair. Every nightmare I’d ever had was coming true. “I was stupid to imagine that you could ever love me,” I whispered.

“Love, love,
love
—your love sickens me. I have something in my heart far more powerful than your pathetic love. I have hatred and revenge! I have hated you, Helen, from the moment you were born. Oh, I admit I felt some slight pangs of conscience over it. Once, long ago, I wanted to be a mother—and a good one. Once, I was like all of you, poisoned with this taint of love and hope and joy and all your fairy-tale ragbag of emotions. But that was before I was offered the Seal. After that, nothing could compare with the glory I had glimpsed and that was then cruelly snatched away from me.”

“It wasn’t snatched away! You gave up the Seal of your own free will! Besides, the Seal was never intended to give you glory—it would have bound you to a path of service—”

“An easy kind of service that brings with it everlasting life and infinite powers! I see now that I could have used the Seal to my own advantage, but I was like you. Too stupid—too human and frail—to see it at the time.
I listened to fears and said no, and then it was too late. You cannot imagine the anguish of my regret. Nothing meant anything to me after that. I told you that after I had turned away from the Seal my inborn powers diminished, but that wasn’t true. I could still do everything that I had done before, but I was alone and directionless. I panicked. It was then that I met your poor weak father, but I soon tired of him and found other companions. He had given me one thing, though—a child. I had you. I thought that would distract me from my loss. My daughter!
You!
” Her face contorted with fury. “The moment you were born I felt it happening. My beautiful mystic powers left me and entered you, like my lifeblood draining away. You destroyed me! I had no choice after that but to crush your spirit so that I could one day regain what you had stolen from me, and have your powers—
my
powers!—under my control again. And that moment is coming. Very soon, oh so soon….”