Destiny (19 page)

The voice called to me, like the wind calling to the birds over the moors, and it was telling a great and beautiful story that had no beginning or end, but was the heart of all truth. That truth called to me, and I understood. At last, I knew how to follow the sign. I had found my miracle.

F
ROM THE
D
IARY OF
H
ELEN
B
LACK
E
VENING
—T
HORNTON
F
ALLS
—T
HE
L
AST
D
AY

T
he sound of the waterfall is all around me. I’m glad I had this little notebook in my pocket, because I know that whatever happens tonight I need to say good-bye to you, my Wanderer. You helped me so much, but I have found myself at last, and I can let you go now. I can let go of all my past, and my future too. The time that was, as well as the time that might have been…

I am going back to the Abbey now, to make an end, one way or another. Now I know what to do.

It was time to make an end. Dusk had fallen. It was a cold, damp evening by the time I got back to the Abbey. The wind moaned in the leafless trees as I walked down the
drive, and the school lay shrouded in soft shadows like an enchanted castle. The Priestess would be back this night. There was no point in trying to hide now. I had to walk straight into whatever was waiting for me.

I turned the heavy iron ring on the front door and stepped inside the hallway. Instead of the usual bright fire and stately welcome, the place felt deserted. The flowers in the heavy vase on the table were dead. A solitary lamp gave off a dim glow. As I closed the door behind me, half a dozen women sprang out and grabbed hold of me. I struggled, but there were too many of them. A distant bell began to sound, like a note of dreadful doom. It was the bell of the village church, not striking the hour as it had done faithfully for so many years, but calling out with harsh, tuneless mockery. It was summoning the living to judgment, and bidding the dead rise from their tombs.

Miss Dalrymple was carrying a heavy stick, and she began to use it. I staggered under her blows as the Dark Sisters jeered. “That’s the last time—you will ever—walk freely—again!” she gasped, and each time she paused for breath she hit me again, until I thought my ribs would break. “How dare you interfere with our mistress’s prisoner? But we’ll soon get him back.”

Despite the pain, a fierce delight shot through me. She
must be talking about Josh…he really had escaped, he was with Agnes, and Cal would find him…. I closed my eyes and thought only of that until Rowena Dalrymple had finished at last.

She threw her stick down and grabbed me by the hair, thrusting her quivering red face into mine. “The moment of your final defeat is near,” she said gloatingly. “The Priestess will then reward us, her faithful followers.” The women laughed as Miss Dalrymple began to drag me up the cold white marble stairs. As I stumbled along on unsteady feet, a long line of neat, orderly students marched down the stairs, led by Miss Schofield. One of the girls glanced up at me. It was Velvet. I thought a glint of recognition flashed in her dark eyes. But she turned away and followed the others, as the bell tolled on and on….

When we reached the second floor, Miss Dalrymple forced me down the corridor until we reached the turret room that had been used for detentions. She pushed me into the middle of the room and I collapsed, nursing my bruises and trying to get my breath back. But as I looked up, I saw in amazement that the room had been transformed from the school’s usual style of bare white walls and plain furniture. It had been turned into a dark, suffocating lair, draped in black silk, and hung with hideous
carved masks and grinning gargoyles. Piles of leather-bound books were heaped on the table, as well as scrolls and parchments, all decorated with skulls and demons and signs of death. A scarlet pentangle had been painted on the floor, and at the window, someone had hung a sign. It seemed to be made of stained glass, in the design of a single, staring eye, wreathed in serpents.

“You are admiring our master’s arrangements?” Miss Dalrymple said with a simpering, cruel smile. “Maybe they will help to focus your thoughts until you are summoned by the Great Priestess.”

I didn’t bother to reply. She was mad, like the rest of them, poisoned by a crazy dream about living forever and seeking power rather than love. I looked into her flushed face, and saw that behind the cruelty and the violence, there was a desperate, sad woman, who was terrified of growing old and lonely, and clinging on to something that could never give her what she really needed. At that moment I felt nothing but pity for her and the rest of the Dark Sisters. And the Priestess, and her lover, Dr. Franzen—they were both eaten up by fear. They had even been frightened of me, an abandoned child, and that’s why they had tried to destroy me. I began to laugh.

Miss Dalrymple hit me across the face with furious
strength, then said coldly, “Your time has come, Helen Black. Prepare yourself for your doom.” Then she swept out of the room, locking the door behind her.

I ran to the window and looked out. Everything in the school grounds below seemed quiet. But when I glanced through the piece of colored glass with its staring eye, a different sight met me. Things that were far away appeared in sharp, brilliant detail. When I looked in the direction of the village church, I could actually see its stone sides and the bell tower and the surrounding graveyard as clearly as I could see the back of my hand. I saw Agnes’s simple grave and the statue of the angel that guarded it. There were many people gathering there—women in long black robes with hoods covering their faces. They were surrounded by the nightmare skeletons of the coven’s dead, called from their graves once more, trailing the stench of evil from their rotting shrouds. The women jumped up onto Agnes’s tomb and began to paw at the statue of the angel, rocking it back and forward until it toppled over. The head and the wings broke off as it smashed into pieces. Another beautiful thing that the coven had destroyed.

I tore myself away and crouched under the window, waiting. My time had come. I had to be ready. There was
one thing left for me to do. I fumbled in my pocket and found my diary, and scribbled my last words in it.

Evie and Sarah, my beloved sisters. I hope you will read this one day and understand. I hope I get a chance to give this to you.

But if not, if this gets cast away and forgotten, maybe one day a stranger will come along and find it. And this is what I want to say. I was crazy Helen Black, but I saw the truth at last, and I believed. So whoever finds this—whoever reads this—whoever you are—you have to know that I did my best. Don’t judge me too harshly.

Beautiful stranger, pray for me.

T
HE
W
ITNESS OF
E
VELYN
J
OHNSON

A
ll I could do was pray. There was a part of my mind that was still me—still feeling and thinking like myself—even though the rest of me was being controlled by the Priestess. And what I felt was pain. Every thought was agony. I thought Josh was dead, or worse. Sarah was by my side, but I couldn’t even talk to her, except in words that Celia Hartle put in my mouth. Helen, Cal, and Agnes seemed so far away. The Priestess felt horribly close, though, as if she had invaded my being, even in my sleep. Soon she would complete her savage promise and feed on our souls, dragging us into eternal bondage….

Only Helen could stop it.

It’s hard to remember everything clearly from that
night. I was sleepwalking to a dreadful end, like walking over a cliff with my eyes wide open. But I remember that we were summoned by the bell, ringing louder and louder in my head, and every girl in the school moved as one, marching through the dark corridors to gather in the ballroom. We would have done anything we were told to do just then; we would have danced all night until we dropped with exhaustion; we would have climbed to Wyldcliffe’s battlements and thrown ourselves onto the cobblestones below, or plunged into the icy lake and sunk into its dark depths if
she
had commanded us. And if she wanted our youth, our life force, our souls—she only had to give the word and it would be done.

Yes, I remember standing in the ballroom, part of the silent mass of Wyldcliffe students who were meekly waiting for the Priestess and her companions to arrive. Sarah was at my side, but she was staring ahead, unable to protest. And was that Velvet’s straight back and dark hair a little way in front of me? Yes…perhaps…I was losing the ability to see the other girls as individuals.
More than any individual…Wyldcliffe girls…like soldiers…one body, one aim, one identity…We all belong…we all belong to the Priestess…
And so we stood in that airy, quiet space that dreamed of the past, and waited.

And then she was there, our High Mistress, with Dr. Franzen by her side, blazing with pride and power. They both wore long robes and crowns decorated with pentangles and serpents. The globe of dark energy that held the Talisman, the Crown, and the Seal hovered above their heads. The women of the coven gathered around them, wearing black hoods and holding flaming torches burning with heavy smoke that filled the room with bittersweet fumes. Next to each living member of the coven there stood the hideous figure of a shrouded corpse—a dead Dark Sister brought lifeless from the grave to add to the Priestess’s army of terror and despair.

Dr. Franzen banged his cane on the floor, and the drapes fell from the tall French windows. Dancing reflections of the flames from the torches glittered in their glass panes. The Master’s voice boomed out, “The Priestess is ready to receive your homage! Tonight she will complete her great work, here in Wyldcliffe. You are the fortunate witnesses of her triumph. Let us behold her victory!”

The double doors at the end of the room flew open. Two women of the coven, dressed in crimson robes, brought Helen into the ballroom. She was our last hope, and I tried to call her name, but I couldn’t move my lips.

Helen was dragged to the front and forced to kneel in
front of her mother. The Dark Sisters jeered and whistled in mockery. But Helen knelt there in uncomplaining silence, like a saint in the wilderness, and a corner of my frozen heart stirred with pity.

“So, Helen,” said the Priestess. “The time has come, finally, and this is the night of our reckoning. Nothing can save you now from the choice you have to make. In the trap I have devised for you, whatever you decide is to my advantage.” She laughed joyfully, as though hugging something beautiful to her heart. “Your friends are vanquished. There is no one left to help you. You are alone.”

Helen murmured something. “What was that?” sneered her mother. “Speak up, my dear, so that we can all benefit from your wisdom.”

“I said, I’m not alone,” Helen replied.

The coven howled and laughed and clashed together the long silver knives they carried. The Priestess signaled for silence. “So who is here to help you?” She looked around in mock amazement. “I see my prisoners. I see my loyal companion. I see my Sisters and the remnants of the Departed. They are all here to serve me and my master, the Dark King. Who is here for you?”

“There are many things you cannot see,” Helen said. “I thought once that I was alone in this world, but I was
wrong. You are surrounded by your Dark Sisters, your lover, and your prisoners, but you are more truly alone than I am.” She lifted her face to the flickering torchlight and began to smile. “There’s something that’s always with me. It’s everywhere. It’s in the air, and the sea, and the earth. It’s in the fire of the stars.”

“Oh, not that old tale, not your whining, feeble
love
again. Please spare me! I am sick of the word. Besides, Helen, who on earth ever loved you? Don’t you know what they called you? Crazy Helen Black! They all laughed at you!”

“That doesn’t matter. I thought that what I wanted was to be loved. I wanted that desperately. But now—and now—here at the end of all this, I realize that doesn’t matter.” Helen looked steadily into her mother’s angry face. “I have loved, and that’s enough. That makes me not alone in the world, neither in life nor in death. And no torment you can invent can change that. I believe in love. I am not alone. I believe.”

The Priestess’s face twisted with rage. “Enough! I refuse to indulge your heroics any longer. I gave you a choice, Helen. You must now make that choice—open the Keys of Power for me, or condemn the whole of Wyldcliffe to eternal bondage.”

I felt as though I would faint, even though my body was kept rigid by the Priestess’s spells. This was the moment where all our fates met.

At last, Helen spoke. Her voice sounded very small in the great space. “I know how to open the Keys for you. I know how to give you the powers you desire.”

“And you will do this?” Her mother’s voice trembled with desperate longing.

“The alternative is to abandon my friends, to let them become what Laura once was. And I will never do that. So you win. You’ll get the powers, then you’ll go far away and we will get our lives back.”

“Agreed,” the Priestess whispered.

Oh, Helen! I wanted so much to shout out to her,
Don’t do this!
Frozen tears ached behind my eyes, but I couldn’t move, or speak, or express any emotion. Helen was willing to risk everything to save our lives, but I knew she was wrong. I knew that the Priestess would never keep any promise she made. She would take the powers that Helen offered, and then turn us into Bondsouls anyway. Nothing would stop her from ruling Wyldcliffe, not just the school, but the people in the cottages and the lonely farms, even the children who played happily in the village school. I could almost hear her deep, hoarse voice delighting in
her final victory:
Now this whole valley is ours—every man and woman and child—oh, those dear little children from the village! How innocently they used to play! How sweet and fresh! And how good their souls will taste when we drain them dry! Their strength and energy, together with the Wyldcliffe students, will feed us well, and we will be stronger than ever, served by our great host of Bondsouls and slaves!
Wyldcliffe was doomed and there was nothing I could do, nothing but hope and pray and trust in Helen Black.

“Let us proceed!” the Priestess cried out in a ringing, eager voice.

“I need my sisters next to me.”

The Priestess hesitated, then gave a slight nod to Dr. Franzen, who beckoned me forward. I walked over to Helen automatically, with no will of my own. Sarah did the same. Helen slipped her hand in her pocket, pulled out a bit of chalk, and drew a simple circle around us on the floor of the ballroom. “There are many circles, and many keys, and many kinds of love,” she whispered, as her mother watched suspiciously. Helen put her hand in her pocket again, and this time she drew out a piece of broken glass. She cut off a jagged strand of her fair hair with it and dropped it in the circle at our feet. “I offer up everything I have,” she said simply, and the Priestess seemed to take a
deep breath of satisfaction. Then Helen turned to Sarah and cut off one of her soft brown curls. “Give everything, my sister,” she commanded, and dropped the lock of hair on the ground. Finally she came to me, and did the same. “Give everything—offer it up.” A strand of my red hair lay on the floor next to the others, and a vague thought floated through my mind:
We need Agnes too, we need our fourth sister
, and then an answering voice seemed to say,
No, not Agnes, Velvet
, and a confused memory of Velvet cutting her glossy black hair came to me like a strange dream.

Helen put the sliver of glass and the stub of chalk back in her pocket. She raised her arms and looked up at the darkly gleaming globe, which still hovered in the air. The faint outlines of the Talisman, and the Crown, and the Seal were just visible in its fiery heart. “The tokens of our powers, the Keys to the elemental mysteries are present,” Helen said, “though they are beyond our reach, caged in the Darklight. May they hear us now. We release them. Let them choose a new mistress, if that is their will. Let them fulfill their destiny.”

She began to chant: “Water of life, flow to your destination. Earth our mother, reveal your secrets. Fire of creation, burn your path in the night. Winds of heaven, sing to us now!”

The Keys in their cage glowed with an eerie light. The Priestess looked on greedily, ready to snatch at the gifts that Helen was preparing for her. “At last…at last…,” she muttered, her voice thick with selfish passion. “It will all be mine…it will all belong to the Priestess. Helen, be quick! Hurry! Open the Keys!”

But as the Priestess spoke, Helen suddenly pulled up her sleeve and touched the center of the tattoolike mark on her arm. She cried out, “I open the Keys for my sisters and the Mystic Way. I reject you and your commands forever!” A blinding circle of golden light radiated from the sign of the Seal on Helen’s arm, shooting outward like a spinning star. It smashed into the imprisoning globe and destroyed it. The next moment the Talisman was hanging round my neck, and Sarah was wearing her Crown. We were awake, at Helen’s side, and there was a protective circle around us. The Seal was pinned to her breast, and it shone so brightly I could hardly look at it, but it was nothing compared to the light in Helen’s eyes as she spoke to her horrified mother.

“You thought I couldn’t fight you while the Seal was in your possession, but this”—Helen indicated the glittering brooch—“is only an outer shell. Its real presence is in me, just as Evie’s and Sarah’s true powers are in their hearts,
not in these outward tokens, precious though they are. You couldn’t steal our powers from us, just as you couldn’t take Josh from our hearts, or truly separate any of us, not even if you flung us onto different sides of the universe. Love connects us, and love is the only real, eternal power. As long as we believe that, we can do anything, and you’ll always be helpless against us.”

“No…no…,” the Priestess groaned. She tried to snatch the Seal from Helen’s clothes, but a blinding light made her stagger and step away. “What have you done?” she screamed in rage.

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Helen replied quietly. “I am stronger than you, because I can feel more than anger and hatred. But the human heart is something you will never understand, because you despise it as a weakness. Look!” Helen held out her arm. “I am marked by love—set aside by fate. I don’t need to claim the Seal now, it has already claimed me! And now I truly believe in my powers!
Sigillum magnum…signum dei vivi…
I follow the sign of the One who will never fail me. I have been shown what to do and I’m not afraid to do it. By the power of the Great Seal, I release your prisoners! I believe!”

“Stop!” screamed the Priestess furiously. “The Seal is mine! And I claim
you
!” Everything seemed to happen
at once. Mrs. Hartle and Dr. Franzen lunged forward to seize us, but they were held back by our protective circle. The students all around us began to awake from their trance. Utter confusion and panic set in. Girls caught sight of the long-dead Dark Sisters and the hooded ranks of the living coven and were overwhelmed with terror. The Dark Sisters, dead and alive, howled and drew their long knives and got ready to launch themselves at us, but at that moment a clear voice rang out.

“Helen! Helen, I believe in you too! You’re not alone!”

It was Velvet. She had broken from the ranks of dazed girls. The coven stared at her in amazement, and the Priestess snarled, “Get back where you belong, slave.” She raised her hand to blast down a bolt of her dark fire, but Velvet laughed.

“Your spells can’t touch me. I have my own powers and my own story. And this is only the beginning!” Velvet opened her hand, and I saw that she was holding the knife with the bone handle that Sarah had used in the grotto so many weeks ago…. That time seemed so far away now, like another life.

With a swift movement of her wrist, Velvet stabbed the knife into the polished floor in the center of the chalk circle and shouted, “Awake! Awake for Helen!”

“Stop—stop her!” cried the Priestess. But it was too late. The knife was stuck in the smooth surface of wood, the bone handle quivering slightly. It began to twist and grow, like a tree leaping into life in front of my eyes. Dr. Franzen tried to knock it down with his stick, but he was thrown back with a jerk. The bone handle kept on growing, and I saw that it was taking the shape of two arching antlers. The ground swelled and heaved, and a dark mass of hide and hoof and fur erupted into the ballroom: a mighty stag with wide black eyes and quivering nostrils that reared up and then leaped over the cowering Priestess. A horn sounded in the distance, and the elegant row of French windows shattered into a confetti of broken glass.

“No, no! Get back!” screamed the Priestess, but her words were lost like dry grass in a sweeping fire. I stood rooted to the spot, openmouthed. It was a miracle….