Immortal by Gillian Shields Page A

wasn’t sure what it was. She was pacing up and down in her classroom while I waited miserably for her to pronounce my punishment. Suddenly the sound of thunder rumbled all around us, and the walls began to shake. Then I knew that it wasn’t thunder, but horses galloping. The white walls cracked and crumbled, and I saw an army of horsemen pouring across the grass outside like a dark shadow. One of them wheeled around and it was Sebastian. I leaped up behind him on his black horse, and we sprang away, leaving Miss Scratton behind. She screamed, “Your necklace, Evie! Give me your necklace!” But I laughed at her and held on to Sebastian’s taut body as we galloped freely over the moonlit moors. I laid my head against his shoulder, and our hair streamed out and mingled in the wind. Then the dream changed. We were all alone under the stars, and he breathed my name as he bent down to kiss me.
    I woke and didn’t recognize where I was. Slowly I remembered and knew what I had to do. Pulling the thin drape to one side, I felt carefully for my shoes. Then I headed straight for the narrow stairs that would lead me to freedom.

Thirteen
    THE JOURNAL OF LADY AGNES, OCTOBER
    19, 1882 I am like a bird that has been set free. The Mystic Way is beautiful, like something from a long-forgotten story of stars and fire and ice. We are both making new discoveries every day, and although for some reason S. still cannot reach out to the Sacred Fire, he astonishes me with what he has so quickly mastered. Yesterday he startled me by taking my little mirror and breaking it to pieces, then returning it to me as new, appearing to control the very atoms with his mind.
    I would have not believed this if I had not seen it with my own eyes, but now my ideas of what is possible have been overturned. I cannot explain this strange magic. It is enough for me to be able to see it and do it. I spend hours studying the pages of the Book, and S. is translating those passages of Latin and Greek that hide further mysteries. But one chapter I could read easily enough myself: “To Bring Light into a Darke Place.” I could not resist this and had to try my skill.
    Late last night, when Mama believed me to be in bed, I locked the door of my room and prepared my altar once more. Then I drew the Circle and made the signs, whispering the secret words from the Book. All at once the candles guttered out, and I was surrounded by darkness so black and thick that I could almost taste it in my throat. I began to be afraid that I had done something wrong, for this was not what I had expected at all, but I persevered, chanting the incantations and focusing my mind. I heard the wind blowing over the moors and the sound of the distant sea, and finally a light blazed out in the blackness. This would have been astonishing enough, but there was more to it than that.
    The light seemed to be totally at my command. It took whatever form my fancy gave it, at first like a star, but then it became a brilliant bird with glowing blue wings, then a fiery flower with vivid petals, then a pale round moon of silver. I laughed and caught the light in my hand, then released it like a cloud of shimmering yellow butterflies….
    T here can be no harm, surely, in something so beautiful?

Fourteen
    S
    ebastian was beautiful, just as I had remembered.
    “Have you always lived in Wyldcliffe?” I asked as we sat by the lake, with the ruins tall and dark behind us.
    “All my life. Nineteen years.” A shadow flickered across his face. “But you have no idea how long it really seems.”
    “Where do you live? In one of those cottages in the village?”
    “My family has an old house on the other side of the valley,” he said evasively. I guessed that he didn’t get along with his parents and didn’t want to talk about them. He stood up and walked about restlessly. “I know every inch of this valley, every hill, and every path to the top of the moors. Oh, Evie, I long to see something