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white under her tan. “Was she too high-strung to talk to the police, even though she was the last person to see Laura alive? Was she too high-strung to tell us the truth about what happened that night?” Her eyes filled with tears. “Don’t talk to me about Helen Black, or get involved in things you know nothing about.”
    She walked away, her blond hair swinging.
    “Come along, Evie,” said a brusque voice behind me in the corridor. It was Miss Scratton. “You don’t want to be late again today. I will be teaching you this morning. Follow me.”
    She kept up a monotonous flow of information about my schedule and where to find the various classrooms, but I could hardly take it in. Why would Helen have needed to talk to the police about Laura? I suppose I had assumed that she’d been killed in some awful car accident, but it seemed as though she had died here, at Wyldcliffe. Had she been ill? And why were the police involved? Even more bizarrely, Celeste seemed to be suggesting that Helen knew something about it.
    “You can see from the thickness of the walls and the low ceilings that this part of the building is much older than the rest….” Miss Scratton was saying as we marched side by side down yet another corridor. “It’s part of the original medieval nunnery, possibly once used as a hospital wing.”
    I dragged my mind back into focus, murmuring, “Yes. Very interesting.”
    She led the way into a classroom. It had white walls, rows of desks, and a tall bookcase. A large framed poster of the witches in a production of Macbeth hung behind Miss Scratton’s desk.
    “Find yourself a seat.”
    There were about twenty girls in the class. I was pleased to see Sarah sitting at the back. At least that was one friendly face. She gave me a quick smile, but the other girls seemed to flick their eyes over the scarlet punishment card I was still holding, then turn away as though they didn’t want to be associated with my disgrace. There was an empty desk next to Helen. I sat down and pretended to busy myself with my notebook and pens.
    The atmosphere was hardworking and studious, quite different from the free and easy ways I was used to at home. Miss Scratton taught English and history, and despite her dull, dry voice, she was an excellent teacher. After a while I found myself actually enjoying trying to keep up with the arguments and theories she put forward. It was a relief to lose myself in the work and forget about everything else. I bent over my books, absorbed by what I was reading. And when I looked up, I got the biggest shock of my life.
    The room had changed.
    Oh, I don’t mean the whitewashed walls and the latticed windows—they were exactly as they had been before. And the room was still set up as a schoolroom, but instead of rows of wooden desks and girls in dark uniforms, I saw a large polished table scattered with papers and heavy books. Old-fashioned furniture crowded the room, and a large globe was displayed on a stand. A plump, middle-aged woman with flushed cheeks and a fussy dress was pointing something out on the globe to her only pupil, a girl dressed in white.
    The girl’s gray eyes were alive with concentration, and her auburn curls were caught in a black ribbon. The image of the shadowy girl I had seen the night before in the mirror swam into my mind. This girl was real, though, not a reflection like a vision of a long-lost sister in a half-remembered life. But I didn’t have a sister; I’d never had a sister…. As I watched her, I heard the sudden roar of fire and saw the blinding light of clear white flames. I cried out, then felt myself dissolving into nothingness.
    When I came to I was slumped across my desk, and Helen was bending over me. The other girls pushed her out of the way.
    “What’s the matter? Has she hurt herself? Why did she scream like that?”
    A low voice cut across their eager questions.
    “Evie fainted for a few seconds, that’s all,” said Miss Scratton.