Eternal Read Free

was an impressive sight. Even Velvet couldn’t play bored about this.
    “Actual y, this is kind of cool,” she said, heading for the chapel. “It looks like Sleeping Beauty’s castle or something. What goes on in the ruins?”
    “Nothing much, general y. But we have the Memorial Procession there every year on the anniversary of Lady Agnes’s death.”
    “So this Lady Agnes real y is a big deal round here? I like that. I’m into ghosts.”
    “She’s not a ghost,” I said shortly, but Velvet wasn’t listening. She had gone ahead to explore the ruins. The wal s of the Abbey’s chapel were only half-standing, and the remains of the great east window hung like a tattered cobweb against the sky. Broken pil ars indicated where a row of arched columns had once marked the chapel’s aisles. Now grass grew in between the weathered stones, and the roof was open to the sky. Velvet stood on the green mound where the chapel’s altar had been and flung her arms up to the sky in a dramatic pose. “This would be a great place for some fun. You know, a voodoo ritual, or some black magic stuff. My dad’s into al that.”
    I vaguely remembered that there had been a scandal a few years back about her father’s stage shows and his socal ed occult performances, with some parents trying to ban them and get warnings put on his records. Velvet threw her head back and began to sway from side to side, dancing rhythmical y with no hint of self-consciousness.
    Then she began to chant, in a low, wailing voice, as though appealing to unseen forces.
    “Stop it!”
    She broke off and stared at me. “Hey, I was only kidding around. What’s up, Sarah, are you scared of the dark side? I’m not. I’m not scared of anything. In fact, I quite fancy al that pagan stuff. I can see myself as a priestess, can’t you?”
    I tried to speak lightly, to let the moment pass. “I can see you getting a demerit if you don’t get changed into your uniform before the bel goes for supper. Let’s go up to the dorm.”
    “But I haven’t seen everything yet,” she complained.
    “What other cool stuff is there? Miss Scratton said you had to show me everything.”
    “I’m afraid the ruins are the highlight of the tour. There’s an open-air swimming pool behind the trees over there that we use in the summer term,” I said, pointing it out.
    “Doesn’t sound too bad.”
    “I wouldn’t get overexcited, the water’s usual y pretty cold. And the sports fields are down the path next to that big oak tree, you know, hockey and lacrosse. The stables are up near the main house.”
    “Jesus, I loathe team games. Stables, please. But I haven’t finished with those ruins. They might come in useful one of these nights.”
    “Useful for what?”
    “Oh, I don’t know, some kind of pagan party,” Velvet replied carelessly. “That would be cool. Midnight magic—
    what do you think? It would liven the place up.”
    I led the way to the stables, feeling uncomfortable. It was so bizarre to hear Velvet joke around about rituals and magic when such things were real for me and my friends, and not only real but threatening and deadly. There were two Wyldcliffes. One was the world of the exclusive school with its exams and traditions, where people were concerned with academic success and preparing for col ege, getting onto the sports teams, and being invited to society parties during the holidays. But the other Wyldcliffe was a battleground between the dark and the light, where ancient forces and deeper powers were at work.
    On that bright spring afternoon it was hard to believe that only a few weeks earlier we had released Sebastian’s soul into eternity, and seen Mrs. Hartle—the previous High Mistress and Helen’s mother—cross over into the shadows as a vengeful spirit. She had chosen to dedicate her warped existence to serving the corrupt king of the Unconquered lords, the terrible powers who had cheated death and found unholy immortality in the shadow