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had nearly been expelled last term for wrecking the memorial procession in honor of Lady Agnes Templeton. I was no one.
    After they were gone, I stood up and remembered the piece of paper. I pulled it out of my pocket. In small black letters someone had written:
    AGNES IS DEAD. LAURA IS DEAD.
    YOU WILL BE NEXT.
    Whoever had written the note had wasted no time. This was a declaration of war.

Seven
    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 covenand 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 theHigh 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