Free Immortal by Gillian Shields Page A

women’s faces passed in front of my eyes, all calling his name, screeching and gibbering and weeping, until the last one was the strange girl whose face has begun to haunt my dreams. She looked so sad. An almighty crash of thunder sounded as I shut my eyes and covered my ears in terror.
    Later—I don’t know how much later—I opened my eyes again and saw S. standing over me. He bent down and helped me to my feet. A deep crack had appeared on the floor of the cave where our Circle had been.
    “It has happened,” he said simply. “I have been reborn.”
    And so he is satisfied, and I must be too. It is what I wished for, after all. But I cannot help wondering whether I made the right choice.
    This thought has haunted me for days, like the cry of the gulls by the sea.

Twelve
    I
    was pining for the sea. It actually hurt, a raw physical pain in my chest. I couldn’t forget what the doctor had said about going swimming. My body ached for the stinging waters and the dip and roll of the great waves. I began to feel that if I couldn’t swim, I would crack up.
    “Evie Johnson, are you working, or daydreaming?” asked Miss Scratton.
    The words on the page I was supposed to be studying danced in front of my eyes like a foreign language. I felt as though another tiny bit of me was dying. And then, suddenly, I knew what to do.
    I would swim in the lake. That’s it , I thought. I’ll creep out at night, and no one will ever know. Then the rising flutter of excitement inside me was suddenly checked.
    Laura.
    What about the nightmares I’d had about her—wouldn’t they be a hundred times worse if I actually swam in the waters where she had drowned? My heart plummeted again. It was impossible, a stupid, sick idea. Forget it.
    I tried to. I really did. But one night I couldn’t sleep. Celeste had fussed about being cold and had turned up the heat until the room was sweltering. I was tired, but restless, lying awake for what seemed hours while the others slept, feeling anxious and hot and stifled. Eventually I flung off the covers and got up to open the window, but it was bolted shut. I could see the lake, pale and silver in the moonlight. It looked so cool and pure and inviting.
    I couldn’t resist. I had to feel the air on my skin; I had to get outside; I had to be by the lake. I wouldn’t swim there, but if I could only look at it and feel the cool night breeze across the water…
    Did I know, or guess, what would happen if I went out that night? And if I had known, would I have gone? All I know is that I persuaded myself that what I was doing was perfectly rational as I crept out of the dorm.
    I decided to use the old servants’ staircase that Helen had shown me. There was less chance of being seen that way. Pushing aside the velvet curtain, I drew back the bolts and opened the door. I groped for Helen’s flashlight, then switched it on, my heart hammering away. The thin beam of light was comforting, though I hated the shadows that flickered all around me, and the dark cracks of those narrow steps.
    Just get on with it, I told myself. All I had to do was walk calmly down them, and I would be free. One step at a time, one step at a time…
    I reached the bottom and realized I had been holding my breath the whole way down. The door to the main hallway was ahead, and behind me was the desolate servants’ wing. I stepped forward and pressed my ear to the door. There were voices outside in the corridor. I caught the words “…another attempt…soon.” It sounded like Mrs. Hartle. Her voice sank too low to hear. Another voice—Miss Scratton?—protested, “No, not yet. We should wait.”
    Then Mrs. Hartle cut in icily, “Am I the High Mistress, or you?”
    A late-night teachers’ quarrel. It would be impossible to go that way. I would have to sneak through the servants’ wing and find my way to the green door that led to the stable yard. It was either that or give up and go back, and I couldn’t bear the thought of