I reached the gloomy dining hall with its rows of wooden tables and benches. The high table where the mistresses sat was on a raised platform at the top of the room. The place was slowly filling up with girls wearing identical red-and-gray clothes. I scanned their faces quickly, then walked over to where a tall, fair girl was sitting alone, her pale beauty dimmed by the air of sadness that clung to her.

“Helen,” I said quietly, slipping into a seat next to her. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Helen looked up and I could tell that she had been crying. Any ideas I’d had of telling her about the note I’d just found evaporated. It looked as though she already had enough to deal with.

“I’m sorry, Evie,” she said in a low voice. “I should have come with Sarah to look for you, but I just couldn’t. I’ve been walking around the grounds all afternoon, hiding from Celeste and her gang, trying to summon up the courage to face the rest of the school.”

“You must be frozen, staying out there in that snow! Besides, you can’t hide from Celeste all term, Helen. You mustn’t let her get to you.”

“I know, I know. It’s going to be so hard, though, listening to all the talk about Mrs. Hartle.” Her voice dropped so low that it was almost inaudible. “About my mother…”

None of the other Wyldcliffe students knew that Helen was Celia Hartle’s daughter. Mrs. Hartle had abandoned Helen in a children’s home as a baby, then had secretly gotten in touch with her a year ago and brought her to Wyldcliffe. She had urged Helen to join the coven, cruelly rejecting her when Helen had refused.

“Now that she has gone, it hurts not being able to let anyone know that she was my…well, my family,” Helen went on. “Does that sound weird? When she was around, I was so angry with her for hiding the truth about me. I’ve had to hide so much, all my life. I’m still hiding. It makes me feel as though I don’t exist.” She picked nervously at the cuff of her sweater. “I hated her for being in the coven and for what she did to Laura, and for what she tried to do to you, but she was still my mother. I suppose I hoped that one day she would remember that. And now it’s probably too late.”

“But do you really think Mrs. Hartle is gone?” I asked quietly. “Is she…is she dead?”

“Shhh!” Helen frowned warningly. The room was filling up with girls and it was impossible to talk any longer. Sarah came in and sat opposite us.

“Sorry I’ve been so long,” she said. “I had to take care of Harriet, then go down to the stable to check the ponies.” Sarah was crazy about horses and kept two in the Wyldcliffe stables.

“Did I tell you Dad has signed me up for riding lessons?” I asked lightly, unable to speak about anything more serious.

“Excellent. Mrs. Parker is a good teacher. Much better than me.” Sarah had tried to teach me to ride the term before on her pony Bonny, but although I could just about cling to Bonny’s back, I wasn’t what you’d call an elegant horsewoman. Helen fell silent as Sarah and I talked about the chances of riding over the hills in the snow; then another bell rang. The girls sprang to their feet as the staff filed in and took their places. The carved chair where the High Mistress had always sat was left empty, like a hollow throne.

Miss Scratton, the mistress in charge of the older students, stood in front of the whole school and said the usual grace in her quiet, scholarly voice. She reminded me of a nun, with her black academic gown and her severe hairstyle and her Latin prayers…Benedic, Domine, nos et dona tua…. In my first term at Wyldcliffe Miss Scratton had been the only one of the mistresses I had felt I could trust. I wasn’t sure why exactly, but her clear mind and scrupulously fair methods seemed to make it impossible for her to be one of those howling, grasping women that we had encountered in the crypt.

The prayer came to an end. Miss Scratton indicated that we should sit down. There was the scraping of chairs and benches and a quick rush of excitement: “She’s going to tell us something…” “I told you so…” “Some news at last…”

“Before we begin our meal, I would like to welcome you back to school,” Miss Scratton announced. “These are not easy circumstances in which to begin a new term. Sadly, our High Mistress, Mrs. Hartle, is still missing. The police are doing everything they can, and we have to carry on as normal, despite the uncertainty, despite the loss we feel.” For a fraction of a second she seemed to look straight at Helen, who was sitting silent and stiff beside me. “In Mrs. Hartle’s absence, we must continue to strive for the high standards she always set. The school governors have put certain arrangements in place to ensure that your education will continue uninterrupted. Miss Raglan, our math mistress, has been appointed as Deputy High Mistress, and will lead the school until further notice.”

There was an intake of breath, a gasp so loud that it sounded like a fist banging on a drum. It seemed that everyone had expected Miss Scratton to be put in charge. I had certainly expected it, and when I saw the faint flush spreading over her thin face, I guessed that she had expected it too. “I am sure,” she went on determinedly, “that we will all give Miss Raglan the support and loyalty that she deserves.” She began to clap and a few people joined in, but the applause didn’t last long.

Miss Raglan stepped forward. She was tall and gray haired, with a heavy, clumsy body and an angry red complexion.

“It is an honor, even in these sad circumstances, to be responsible for Wyldcliffe,” she said. “I can assure you that everything will continue as it was under Mrs. Hartle’s inspired leadership. There will be no loss of standards. There will be no change at all.”

She sat down abruptly in Mrs. Hartle’s tall chair, looking awkward and out of place. Miss Scratton hesitated for a moment and then said, “Please enjoy your dinner now, girls. Afterward, the lights-out bell will ring early, as it is the first day and you must all be tired from traveling.”

The women who worked in the kitchens brought out large platters of food and placed them on each table and the girls began to serve themselves obediently, their little moment of surprise over. Wyldcliffe students were used to doing as they were told. Everything would be the same; there would be no changes…. Wyldcliffe never changed. Tradition. Order. Discipline. It was the same now as it had been a hundred years ago.

I tried to eat too, but I wasn’t hungry. Celia Hartle might have gone, but I knew that any of the teachers who were surveying the rows of girls could be one of her Dark Sisters. If Mrs. Hartle was indeed dead, then sooner or later another High Mistress would rise up, eager for revenge. I looked at each one of the mistresses in turn: Miss Raglan; Miss Schofield; Mrs. Richards, who taught biology; Madame Duchesne, the French mistress; Miss Dalrymple; and all the rest. My head buzzed with questions. Had one of them written that note? I wondered. Which of them had been in the crypt on that night last term? I had never liked or trusted Miss Raglan, and now she was in charge of the school. Was she also in charge of the coven? Or was she simply a dry, cold teacher, obsessed with the rules and traditions of this elite academy?

As I picked at my food, I looked around at the other students. I noticed that Harriet was sitting hunched over her plate, not saying a word to the girls near her. I guess she’d been shown the true Wyldcliffe welcome. Not having looks or money or confidence to recommend her, Harriet had already been dumped to fend for herself. The rest of the girls—so rich, so well connected, so attractive—seemed to have been protected from every evil from the moment they were born. And yet Laura had been one of those golden girls and she had fallen victim to Wyldcliffe’s secrets. I suddenly felt that I wanted to root out the sickness at the heart of the Abbey for all our sakes, not just for Sebastian.

Dinner was over. More prayers, more standing to attention as the staff filed out, followed by the rows of girls. As Sarah turned to leave, I grabbed her arm. “Meet me and Helen after lights-out,” I whispered.

“Where?”

I mouthed two words: the grotto.

Sarah nodded in silent agreement and walked out after the others, heading for her dorm. I turned to Helen.

“Let’s get this over with as quickly as possible,” I said. As scholarship students, Helen and I both had to do various mindless chores to show our undying gratitude: tidying classrooms, sorting out music books for choir practice, stuff like that. Usually after supper we set trays with china cups and silver spoons, ready for the staff to take their coffee in the mistresses’ common room. I went over to a cupboard at the side of the room where everything was kept and began to arrange the trays, while Helen knocked on the door to the kitchens to ask for some cream. A flustered woman in a rather greasy apron opened the door and peered at us.

“No, not tonight, she doesn’t want you doing it anymore. She doesn’t want students hanging around, she said.”

“Who did?” I asked.

But the woman scuttled back into the hot kitchen. I felt that someone was watching me. When I turned around, I noticed that Miss Raglan was still sitting in her carved chair on the raised platform, slowly twisting her hands together.

“I gave the orders,” she said, getting up and walking toward us. “You are relieved of this duty.”

“But you said there wouldn’t be any changes,” replied Helen. I was surprised. She usually kept quiet in front of the mistresses. “Mrs. Hartle always asked us to get the coffee trays ready. You said everything would continue just the same.”

“I was not referring to such trivial matters.”

“I don’t think Mrs. Hartle’s wishes should be seen as trivial.”

“What? Are you questioning my authority?”

“Of course not,” Helen replied. “You’re the High Mistress now, aren’t you?”

She stared fearlessly into Miss Raglan’s heavy face, holding the older woman’s gaze, until Miss Raglan seemed to stagger and step backward.

“I…I am the Deputy High Mistress; that is all. Naturally we hope that Mrs. Hartle will return shortly…naturally…. Well, carry on.”

Miss Raglan stumped away, reminding me of a beaten dog. I looked at Helen in amazement. “What was all that about?”

“I don’t really know.” She shrugged. “I kind of felt the need to challenge her somehow. Sorry. I guess we shouldn’t draw attention to ourselves.” She looked down and started polishing a spoon, then sighed heavily. “Perhaps it’s just me, but I feel so trapped. We’ll have to be careful, Evie. I feel them hovering on every side, watching, waiting….”

“Waiting for what?”

Helen sighed again. “Waiting for us to make a mistake.”