Betrayal (3 page)

FROM THE PRIVATE PAPERS OF
S
EBASTIAN
J
AMES
F
AIRFAX

Evie—my words die, my body trembles, my heart is cursed.

I tried to write a poem for you once before and I failed then, just as I am failing now.

The effort of using pen and ink is almost too great for me, but somehow it brings you before me so clearly. I long to be with you, to hear your voice and see your face, and in these desperate moments when I try to find the words to tell you how I feel, I can fool myself that you are close.

But it is all for nothing. My words are empty and meaningless. The ravings of a madman, people would say, if anyone ever chanced to read them.

They called me mad, long ago—more than a hundred winters ago, in another life. Another reality.

I had returned from London, fired by every possibility of the Mystic Way, both permitted and forbidden. I was obsessed with the dark secrets I had discovered and determined to pursue my selfish dreams of eternal life, whatever price I would have to pay. I studied, plotted, and schemed until my brain was fevered and my body was weak. My family and friends thought I was crazy. Back then it was Agnes who watched and prayed for me from a distance, as I believe and trust that you do now.

Dear Agnes.

Dearest, darling Evie.

How clearly I can recall every detail of that other
life—my mother weeping and my father cold and angry and the servants lingering in corners and the doctor making his pompous pronouncements that so enraged me. Everything that happened then stands out sharp and clear like a picture, and yet the things that happened only recently seem to be fading in my troubled mind.

Fading, blurred and confused, like water clouded with ink.

Everything is fading.

I must remember. I must rouse myself to fight. I must find you.

And yet what can I bring you but more danger and sorrow? It is best that I hide here, like a wounded animal waiting for the end. Here I can but hope to die, thinking of you with my last strength.

No, that will not be the way—my fate is not to know death. There will be no end to my pain and degradation. No end. Life without end. Darkness without end, enslaved.

Is this what I worked so hard for? Is this what Agnes died for? Yet even now I feel my masters hovering, ready to suck me into their black world of demons and shadows.

Evie, I am so afraid. I, who thought I was destined to
know and conquer everything! I dreamed that I would be a master amongst men, a conjurer, a magician, a lord of the Mystic Way. I was fated to be a worker of marvels, to triumph over death itself, and yet now I am afraid.

I have one fear greater than all the rest—that you were never there at all. Perhaps, like my fatal vision of eternal youth and knowledge, you were simply another crazy dream. The raving of a lunatic.

A dream girl.

A dream life.

A dream love.

In my dream we were by the wild sea. It was cold, as cold as the first day of winter, yet my heart was warm and alive, because you were there. I saw you standing by the shore, shrouded in thought, your head bowed. Then I stole up behind you and wrapped my arms around you, kissing your neck, and breathing in the scent of your beautiful hair. I remember your hair, as bright as a living flame. I wanted to tell you something.

I want to tell you—

Do not come back. She is still near, the High Mistress. She is waiting, getting ready to tangle you in her evil webs once again. You must not come back. Never come back. It is better that way.

Oh, Evie, I am not strong enough to mean that! If you are no more than a dream, then come to me, as quick as a bird flying home. I love you, girl from the sea.

Come back, come back, come back.

I
was back at Wyldcliffe, and it was all about to begin again.

“Is this the school?” Harriet asked. “Are we there?”

The cabdriver from the station had dropped us at the wrought-iron gates that led into the school’s private grounds. It was almost dark. Picking up our bags, we turned down the curving drive. The gothic towers and turrets of Wyldcliffe Abbey loomed up in the dusk, frozen in time by the whirling snow. I couldn’t decide whether it resembled a palace or a prison, but either way there was no escape.

“This is it,” I said softly. “This is Wyldcliffe.”

That cursed place
, some of the locals called it. Harriet had been right about one thing—people said that the
place was haunted. The stories about Agnes had become legends: old tales that her ghost walked near the Abbey; that she would come back to Wyldcliffe again one day to put right a great wrong; that she could heal the sick; that Sebastian had committed suicide using an ancient silver dagger. Oh, they said all sorts of wild things, but nothing could come close to the truth.

Tall trees stood black and bare on either side of the drive, and drifts of snow glimmered in the dusk. Night was falling over the rugged hills that marched around the Abbey like brooding guardians. Sebastian was out there, somewhere, I was sure. For a moment I allowed myself to imagine that he would be waiting for me by the lake on the Abbey’s grounds, eager to tell me that he had been healed by some amazing miracle. I would hear his laughter and see the flash of his mocking blue eyes. I would taste his kisses, which made my heart dance and my blood turn to fire in my veins. We would be like any other teenagers who had stumbled across their first love….

I hurried forward and Harriet trotted next to me like a faithful dog.

“Gosh, it’s so big. And so old.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

As we drew nearer to the massive building, I thought
I heard something in the trees away to my left. I paused and looked around uneasily. Deep in the distant shadows, I thought I caught a glimpse of someone moving silently behind the trees. “Who’s there?” I called, but my voice sounded thin in the frosty air. Everything was still, like a stage set before the play begins, waiting for something to happen. I was being watched. For an instant I wondered if I should turn and run. Had I been crazy to come back at all? But the Talisman lay cool and quiet against my skin, giving me courage, giving me hope. I could do this, I told myself. I could face it. I had to. Sebastian would be waiting.

“Come on, Harriet, let’s get inside. It’s cold.”

We dragged our suitcases up to the great oak front door and stepped into the large entrance hall, where a fire was blazing in an old-fashioned stone hearth. The paneled walls and the gilt-framed paintings and the cabinets full of silver school trophies were just as I had remembered. There was the smell of flowers and beeswax and wood smoke, mixed with a subtle scent of money and tradition. Students in school uniform were lingering by the fire, or hurrying down the corridors that led from the hallway, full of first-day errands and importance. As I stood there, taking it all in, a girl with curly hair and warm brown eyes threw herself at me.

“Evie! You’re back! Oh, it’s so good to see you.”

“Sarah!”

We hugged each other and smiled, though there was a lump in my throat.

“How are you?” Sarah asked quietly. “It must have been hard, having the funeral to deal with.”

“I’m okay, honestly.” I remembered that Harriet was still hanging on to my shadow like an unwanted party guest. “Um, Sarah, this is Harriet. We came on the train together.”

“Hi.” Sarah smiled. “Shall I take you to see Miss Barnard, Harriet? She’s in charge of the younger girls. Dinner will be served soon, so you don’t want to be late.”

“Yes, please,” said Harriet gratefully, and I was grateful too, to be free of her at last. Sarah swept Harriet away with a motherly air, saying over her shoulder, “But we need to talk, Evie. As soon as we can.”

I headed for the dorm to unpack, hauling my suitcase up the grand marble stairs that wound their way to the upper floors. I paused for breath near the top and glanced down over the edge of the elaborate iron banister. The black-and-white tiles of the hallway looked far below, and the height and space around the magnificent staircase were almost dizzying. For a second, my mind
slipped, and the rest of the school didn’t exist, only a terrible sheer drop, with those bright tiles swirling below me like a crazy giant chessboard. I seemed to see the figure of a girl lying on the floor like a broken toy, her eyes staring up into mine, a ribbon of crimson blood spreading over the endless black and white….

A bell rang out shrilly. It was the warning bell, telling the last few parents lingering over their farewells that it was time to leave their daughters behind. I took a deep breath and looked again. There was no one lying on the tiled floor. What had it been? A memory? A prophecy? Or merely one of the tricks that the brooding atmosphere of Wyldcliffe played on my imagination?

It was nothing. I wouldn’t allow myself to be distracted from what I had to do. Find Sebastian. Awaken the Talisman. It was as simple—and as difficult—as that.

Climbing the last few steps, I reached the third floor. Long, door-lined corridors stretched out on either side of the staircase. This was the top of the building; only the disused attic lay above. I headed quickly for my dorm, hoping to find Helen there. But the high-ceilinged, cold white room was empty.

There were five beds, each with thin drapes that could be pulled around for a little privacy. The only relief from
the room’s clinical whiteness was a framed photograph of a teenage girl that was fixed over my bed, and an elaborately carved window seat that gave a view of the grounds and the surrounding hills.

I opened my suitcase and hurriedly changed my jeans and sweater for my school clothes. The old-fashioned tie hid any sign of the Talisman hanging under my shirt. I knew, though, that I would have to find somewhere to hide my precious heirloom. I couldn’t trust anyone except Sarah and Helen, and I couldn’t risk the necklace falling into the wrong hands. I had to keep the Talisman safe, as safe as a dying man’s secret.

Twisting my long curls into a neat ponytail, I checked myself in the mirror. Red hair and pale skin and sea-gray eyes, just like Agnes. In my crisp uniform, I looked like the perfect Wyldcliffe student. It was only the expression in my eyes that gave me away….

I was about to leave when I caught sight of something in the mirror that made me turn around. Looking carefully on the opposite wall, I noticed that a scrap of paper had been left in the frame of the photo over my bed. I went over and eased it out, but before I had a chance to look at it, a familiar voice rang out.

“Oh, God, look who’s turned up. Couldn’t you
find somewhere else to take you in, Johnson? Like an orphanage?”

The door had swung open and a pretty blond girl in designer clothes was standing there, flanked by two other students. “Sorry, Celeste,” I replied, slipping the paper into my pocket. “I couldn’t resist coming back just to annoy you.”

Celeste scowled. “Well, keep out of my way.”

“Oh, I intend to. I’m not exactly longing to get to know you better.”

Celeste had done everything she could to make my first term at Wyldcliffe as difficult as possible, burning up with resentment over the fact that I had taken the place of her cousin Laura in the dorm. Poor Laura; it was her photo that hung over my bed. Poor, dead Laura, destroyed by Wyldcliffe. Drowned in the lake, the official story went, but the horrible truth was that she had been killed by the coven.

Another grim reality. Another Wyldcliffe secret.

“Hi, Sophie,” I said to one of the girls hanging behind Celeste. I actually almost liked Sophie. It wasn’t her fault that she was stupid and scared and bossed around by Celeste. I smiled at her and she glanced at Celeste anxiously before replying in a stilted voice, “Hello, Evie. Did you have a good holiday?”

“Why are you bothering to talk to her?” snapped India. There was nothing soft or helpless about India. Everything about her was expensive and polished, but she never laughed or fooled around or seemed really happy. Wyldcliffe was littered with girls like India, each one of them a tiny betrayal of too much money and not enough love. She pushed past me rudely. “We only came up here to get changed for supper. Why don’t you leave us alone?”

“Willingly,” I replied. “Well, see you around, Sophie. I’m going to look for Helen. Don’t let these two suck all the blood out of you.”

I strode out into the corridor. Students were making their way to the stairs in little groups. I caught snatches of conversation around me: “The police still don’t know what happened…” “My mother wasn’t very keen on sending me back here…” “I hope they find out soon…”

They were talking about the High Mistress. I realized that ever since stepping over Wyldcliffe’s threshold, I had been expecting Mrs. Hartle to swoop down on me, tall, elegant, and cold, as she had on my very first day. It was difficult to remember that she was no longer there, watching over the school like a malevolent queen bee. Even though she was gone, I had to admit to myself that I was still afraid of her.

I bent down and pretended to fiddle with my shoe so that I could hear what the other girls were saying. Wild rumors had circulated among the Wyldcliffe students about Mrs. Hartle’s disappearance the term before: that she had stolen money from the school and had fled the country; that she had run away with a secret lover; that she had been abducted by a crazed killer. It wouldn’t be long before someone blamed alien invaders. None of them could imagine that the truth was even weirder than any rumor.

The gossiping girls passed by: “…I hope they tell us what’s going on…” “It’s creepy not knowing…” They ignored me. To them, I was just dumb old Evie Johnson, a scholarship student, an outsider who had nearly been expelled last term for wrecking the memorial procession in honor of Lady Agnes Templeton. I was no one.

After they were gone, I stood up and remembered the piece of paper. I pulled it out of my pocket. In small black letters someone had written:

Whoever had written the note had wasted no time. This was a declaration of war.