Immortal (19 page)

Yours truly
,

Margaret Walsh

“So what’s in this document?”

I passed her the worn scrap of paper.

“The generations of our family,” Sarah read, “‘beginning with Evelyn Frances Smith, who was known as Effie. Born in 1884, she rightly belonged elsewhere but was beloved by everyone at Uppercliffe.’ Then there’s a list of women’s names, all in different handwriting.”

“Read out the names,” I whispered.

“Eliza Agnes, daughter to Effie, born in 1904, taken from the valley at the age of two. Frances Mary, born 1933, Then it says, ‘Clara—my dearest daughter. Drowned just before her thirtieth birthday.’” Sarah stopped reading and glanced up at me.

“Keep going.”

“The last name on the list is Evelyn Johnson. Is that you?”

“Everyone always calls me Evie.”

“So Clara is your mother, and Frances Mary must be Frankie?”

I nodded. I couldn’t speak.

Sarah frowned over the paper again. “Eliza was your great grandmother, and the other Evelyn—Effie—was your great-great-grandmother.”

The image of a little girl with bronze curls sitting in the sun flashed into my mind. Was that Effie? Had I really seen her?

“There’s a kind of drawing on the other side of the paper,” continued Sarah. “A sketch of something. And it says, ‘An heirloom of the daughters of Evelyn Frances Smith. May it never be parted from them or fall into darkness.’ I don’t know what that’s about; do you, Evie?”

“I think I do,” I answered slowly.

My hands shook as I pulled my necklace from its hiding place under my school shirt. The silver trinket was exactly the same shape as the sketch on the paper.

“Evie, we saw that on the doorway over the farmhouse—don’t you remember? This paper and the house and your necklace—they’re all connected.”

“So the necklace must be the heirloom.” I gazed at it in wonder. “And now it belongs to me.”

A bell rang. Wyldcliffe didn’t stop for anything. I hid the necklace away again.

“We’ve got to get back to class,” said Sarah. “But we need to try to figure out if Lady Agnes fits into all this. Wait a minute…1884—when this Effie was born—that would be the year of Agnes’s death. Don’t you remember that the painting of her was done in 1882, two years before her accident?”

“I don’t see how this has anything to do with Agnes.”

“But one of these women, your ancestors, has the same name. Look, it says here, ‘Eliza Agnes.’”

“I guess it was a common name back then. It doesn’t necessarily link this particular Eliza Agnes with Lady Agnes Templeton.”

“It’s a start, though, isn’t it?” said Sarah eagerly. Then she frowned. “It’s funny that Frankie managed to send this to you just now, almost as if she knew you needed it.”

Could Frankie really have known?
I wondered. As we went back inside, I wished with all my heart that I could see her and talk to her. There was so much more that I needed to know.

All that day my mind was faraway, with those women whose lives were part of my own. I even shared a name with one of them. Evelyn…Evie…Effie. She was the missing link, the grandmother that Frankie had never known. My great-great-grandmother. It was her name I had heard up on the moors by the ruined farmhouse. And I knew that I had really seen her sitting on a doorstep eating an apple on a long-ago spring morning. I didn’t want to see things that other people couldn’t. I wasn’t like Sarah, excited by the idea of the unknown. I wanted to be sane, sensible Evie Johnson, safe in Sebastian’s arms.

But something was bothering me, and I couldn’t let go of it.

Why should Effie—Evelyn Frances Smith, a humble woman from a poor hillside farm—have been important enough to possess an heirloom that had been carefully handed down from daughter to daughter for five generations? The question haunted me all day. Where had the necklace come from? Was it valuable? And how could I find out?

Thirty-five

THE JOURNAL OF LADY AGNES, MAY

23, 1883
The silver necklace is all I have left. The Mystic Way is closed to me. I no longer have any power, not even enough to snuff out a candle. I can hardly bear to write about what I have done, but I must. I have to accept my new reality.

I watched S. many times in the flames, night after night. It was like a drug. I couldn’t stop myself; I needed to know what was happening to him. Eventually I saw that he had recovered from his illness and was planning to come to London, desperate to find me. No, that wasn’t true. It wasn’t me he wanted to find, only a way to reach the Fire.

After much thought and suffering, I decided to put the possibility of giving him what he seeks beyond my own reach forever. Now, even if he does discover my hiding place, I cannot be tempted by his anguished cries and his pleading looks. I can do him no harm, and the Mysteries will be guarded for the girl who will one day use them well.

Once I had made my decision, I roamed the markets and parted with my last few shillings to buy a curious engraved trinket from an Eastern trader who spoke little English. There are so many different nationalities huddled in these crowded streets, all selling something. I haggled over the price; then we agreed terms, and he hung the bauble on a heavy silver chain. I returned to my lodging, well satisfied with my bargain.

That night I made the Sacred Circle for the last time. I did everything with great care, wanting to remember the beauty of the gift I was about to give back.

Once I had summoned the flames, I made them dance high around me, like a forest of silver trees rocking in the wind. For a long while I stood in delight, simply watching the light and colors, but then I had to begin my work.

I concentrated all my powers, until I no longer saw with my eyes but with my mind. I needed to go into the heart of the Fire, so I called to its guardian spirit, and the Spirit answered me. Then it seemed to me that I was in the cavern I had once dreamed of, where an endlessly twisting column of flame rose from the very center of the created world. I was not afraid. I was allowed to approach, and then I had a choice. All I had to do was to reach out my hand and I would be part of that immortal beauty and power forever. But instead I thrust the silver trinket into the column of fire. And now, for the first time, the heat scorched me, until I thought I would die. My life force seemed to be dragged out of me and into the silver jewel. I saw two beloved faces, his and hers, and I vowed to protect them. Then the pain became so great that I passed into nothingness. When I awoke I was alone in my poor, bare room, and the necklace was cool in my hand.

My struggle is over. My powers are now sealed in this gleaming talisman, far beyond his reach, or my own. I know that he never truly loved me, though I do not blame him for it. His feelings were those of an eager boy bound for some marvelous adventure. It was excitement and power he needed, not my love.

She will be the one to teach him the secrets of his heart.

And now I must put aside my love for him, like a wedding garment that is no longer needed. I have put my whole life to one side to save theirs. That is my choice. That is my freedom.

Thirty-six

I

t was a long, restless day. I put aside my thoughts of Sebastian and secretly read the letters from the nursing home over and over again, hidden in the pages of my schoolbooks, and tried to make sense of everything. Eventually it was time to get ready for bed. I went to the bathroom and locked the door. Sitting on the floor, I undid the ribbon around my neck and examined the necklace carefully. It was made of twisting silver strands with a glinting crystal at its center, which seemed to glow different colors as I turned it in the light. It was pretty, though I hadn’t thought about it much until now as a piece of jewelry, only as a link with Frankie.

Someone thumped on the bathroom door.

“Hurry up!”

It was India, impatient as usual and snappier than ever without Celeste around to soothe her ego. I sighed and got up. But as I looked in the mirror to fasten the necklace again, I swayed with shock. A different face, not mine, was looking back at me. A girl with long auburn curls, in a black gown, with a gleaming silver chain at her throat and a tiny baby in her arms. It was Agnes.

I clutched the side of the basin. Then I heard her singing:

The night is dark, but day is near,

Hush, little baby, do not fear.

Hush, little Effie, Mama’s here….

The hammering on the door began again.

“Have you dropped down dead in there or something?”

I flung open the door, pushed past India, and marched back to the dorm. Ignoring everyone, I drew the curtain around my bed and pulled the covers up to my chin.

Agnes had a baby called Effie. Agnes had a baby; Agnes was Effie’s mother….
The words raced through my head. I couldn’t ignore what I was seeing any longer. I couldn’t explain it away. This was real. For the first time I began to believe that Agnes herself was trying to tell me the truth of what had happened to her.

She’d had a baby, but she hadn’t been married. And her baby was little Effie with the vivid curls. I guessed that in those days Agnes couldn’t possibly have kept her; the whole thing would have been a terrible scandal. So, what if Effie had been sent to live on a local farm? What if she had been given a name to hide behind—Evelyn Frances Smith—and had grown up as an ordinary farmer’s daughter? Then she’d gotten married and had her own daughter, Eliza Agnes, my great-grandmother, whose middle name hinted at the connection with the Abbey. That was where Effie had rightly belonged.

My mind was whirling. With a sick feeling in my stomach I remembered the rumors about Agnes’s death, saying that it hadn’t been an accident. What if she had been gotten rid of to hush up the scandal about the baby? Lord Charles was rich and powerful; he could have hired thugs, squared it all with the authorities, spread that story about the riding accident. I imagined him as a cold, cruel Victorian father, caring more about his reputation than about his only daughter. No wonder Wyldcliffe had been cursed.

No, that was impossible. Now I was going too far; no parent would allow such a thing. Besides, Sarah had said that Lord Charles had been heartbroken and had fled abroad after her death. But had he been driven away by grief, or by guilt?

I sat up in bed, my head almost bursting, desperate to work it all out.

Whatever the details, one thing seemed clear to me: Agnes had died under mysterious circumstances, and the violence of that death had left an imprint of energy at Wyldcliffe. And I had picked it up, tuned in to it, just as Sarah had said might be possible, because Agnes was my distant ancestor. Somehow it all made sense. My insights into her world were amazing, but quite logical, a kind of scientific phenomenon. I wasn’t going nuts after all.

I wanted to dance with relief; then I remembered the gentle face of the young mother I had glimpsed across the barrier of time, and grieved for her. Poor Agnes, I thought. She would have been hardly any older than I was, and she must have been so afraid. I wondered what the man she had loved had been like. I hoped they had been happy together, at least for a little time. But he must have let her down, or she wouldn’t have been left to face the consequences alone. Then it hit me:
Stay away from him.
Her words had no connection with Sebastian. She must have been thinking of the man who had betrayed her, not Sebastian at all.

The joy I had felt the night before came flooding back. It was okay. There was nothing to fear. I was right to love him.

It felt as though the last pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. Now I could share all this with Sebastian—in fact, he might even know something about Agnes’s history. After all, he had told me stuff about Lord Charles and his family before. I had to see him, just as soon as the other girls had fallen asleep. And then, in the morning, I would proudly present the whole story to Sarah, like a detective who had just solved an impossible case.

I felt for the little necklace under my nightgown. Now I would always wear it—not just for Frankie, but for all those women who had come before me, especially Agnes. It was the least I could do.

Thirty-seven

THE JOURNAL OF LADY AGNES, NOVEMBER

13, 1884
It is more than two years since I began to keep this journal. I have not written in it for many months, but it is the least I can do now to pick up my pen and continue with my story, if only to make a record for my little daughter of these extraordinary times. As I look back through these pages, it seems to me that those old days in Wyldcliffe were another life, only half remembered, like sleepwalking. When I fled to London I was still a child, caught up in a great adventure, and even its dangers seemed like part of a romantic story I was living in. But now I have changed. I am a woman, with a child of my own to care for and protect, part of the long line of mothers who nurse hope for the future and remember the past.

My child, poor mite, will never know her father. We buried Francis only four weeks ago. He was kind and good and patient to the very end. I knew when we first met that he was already touched by consumption, but I did not know how little time there would be for us. His decline, once it began, was rapid. It is almost too painful and private to write about, but I have learned that in a strange way, suffering has given me strength.

However terrible it has been to lose him, I am so grateful that we had these brief months of happiness. Our meeting was only by chance, when Polly told me about a young man, Francis Howard, lodging in her neighborhood, an artist who had been turned out of his wealthy family for pursuing his dreams, and who was now so poor that he would trade one of his paintings for a hot meal. He had sketched Polly one evening, and she was eager to show me the result. And so we met, and so my life changed. Was that chance—or fate? If I hadn’t gone along that Sunday afternoon to admire Polly’s portrait, would we have missed meeting each other in this world? I don’t know, but I have faith that we will meet again in a better one.