by Smith, L. J.
But before Cassie had the chance to answer, Diana got distracted. Her attention turned to someone else who’d just walked in. “Scarlett’s here,” she said.
It was a surprise to see Scarlett making her way through the crowd, dressed conservatively in all black with her wild hair tamed into a neat ponytail.
As she meandered through the crowd, Cassie noticed people stepping aside to let her pass. How weird, Cassie thought, but then it occurred to her the reason why: All these strangers must have thought Scarlett was one of the group. She assumed the air of belonging right there with Melanie and the rest of the Circle, and so people believed she did.
But when she finally reached Cassie and the others, some of that confidence fell away. “I know I don’t really know any of you,” she said, looking down. “But I wanted to say I was sorry.”
Diana scanned Scarlett up and down with her sharp green eyes and then said in a slightly artificial tone of voice, “It was nice of you to come.”
“Yes, thank you,” Melanie said.
Like Sally, Scarlett didn’t have to be there, but she’d gone out of her way to show her support to Melanie and the group. Maybe, Cassie thought, if any good could come from this crisis, it would be the start to better relations with Outsiders.
Adam stepped in to make small talk with Scarlett, giving Cassie the chance to grab Diana and lead her to a quiet corner. “Gather the others,” Cassie said quietly. “Melanie, too. I know why the resuscitation spell didn’t work.”
Diana’s eyes grew wide. She took a step back to size up Cassie’s expression and then immediately began rounding up the group.
Constance’s garage was filled with ancient junk and knickknacks that may or may not have been authentic magical relics. Two stone swords rested on hooks in the wall, bronze jewelry boxes and dusty heirloom books were stacked high on drooping shelves, and multicolored stuffed birds hung precariously from wire pitched to the ceiling. A claw-foot table sat in the center of the room in front of a sagging green couch.
Melanie sat on the couch, but everyone else remained standing, spread out between piles of cardboard boxes. They waited silently for Cassie to begin.
Melanie was examining her, leaning forward, eager to hear what Cassie knew. There were dark circles beneath her usually alert eyes, and all the life had escaped from her features. Cassie suddenly worried this news might be more than she could handle at the moment.
Cassie bought some time and tried to soften the blow by explaining, step by step, the conversation she’d had with her mother the night before. She paced herself, carefully building up to the description of the symbol she saw on Constance’s forehead before everything went black during the resuscitation spell.
“Did any of you see it?” she asked.
Everyone shook their head.
“How do you know it wasn’t just a hallucination?” Faye asked, with a tinge of malice. “Or your overactive imagination?”
“Because Cassie has the sight,” Diana said. “Tell us, Cassie, what exactly did the symbol look like?”
“Well,” Cassie glanced quickly at Melanie before she spoke, “I thought it looked like a hexagon with two bent- up U-shapes inside it. But my mother corrected me.”
“It was a W,” Melanie said, almost to herself. “Great-Aunt Constance was killed by a witch hunter.”
The room shuddered.
“This is bad,” Melanie said, shaking her head. “I’ve read about that symbol.”
Adam sat beside Melanie on the sofa. “Do you think this means there’s someone in town targeting us?”
Melanie nodded, too numb to cry. “And not amateurs like the Bainbridge family, either. These guys are the real thing. They’re descendants of an ancient clan of hunters.”
Adam’s jaw tightened, and his eyes sharpened to an intense navy blue. “The hunter could be anyone.”
“Or hunters,” Diana said. “There could be more than one.”
Laurel sat down on the couch on the other side of Melanie and reached for her hand. “We have to be careful.”
“That’s right,” Adam said, jumping up to pace the room, nearly bumping his head on various hanging fowl as he marched back and forth. “And we have to stick together. More than ever. Is that understood?” He stood still and eyed each member of the group individually.
Then his gaze rested on Faye.
To Cassie’s surprise, Faye had no snide remarks this time. She simply nodded. But this out-of-character response worried Cassie more than if Faye had been her inappropriate, obnoxious self. If Faye was frightened, they were in serious trouble.
Diana glanced at the door. The people inside the house were getting louder, and one muffled voice was asking for Melanie.
“I have to get back inside,” Melanie said.
Diana nodded. “You should. Melanie, I’m sorry to leave, but I’m going to run home. I know I’ve seen a protection spell in my Book of Shadows somewhere. I’ll look into it and see what I can do.”
“That’s a good idea,” Melanie said, standing now but still holding on to Laurel’s hand.
Hesitantly, they all began filing out of the garage, but Nick hung back, and Cassie took advantage of the opportunity to talk to him alone. She reached for his arm and started talking before he could say anything.
“I know you’ve been avoiding the group because of me,” she said. “And I want you to stop doing that.”
Nick turned away, but she forced him to look at her. “Listen to me. We have to stay close now. We’re in serious danger.”
He squinted his mahogany eyes at her as if she were a foreign object.
“I don’t want to see you get hurt,” Cassie said desperately. “Please.”
“Well, thank you for your concern.” He said it sharply, like it was intended to cut her, but Nick always resorted to sarcasm when he started to feel something. It meant she’d gotten through to him, at least a little bit. She’d take what she could get for now.
Chapter 10
Cassie woke up to sunlight streaming in her windows. Her room was bright but cold, and the March morning air contained a windy chill that shook the windows. She would have given anything to stay beneath her warm covers and hide from the day, but she knew that wasn’t an option. Instead she got up, wrapped herself in her blue terrycloth bathrobe, and made her way outside to fetch the newspaper. She assumed there would be a write-up on Constance in the obituary section.
There was no paper on the front porch, but Cassie did find Adam, curled up beneath his jacket, asleep on the porch swing. She watched him for a moment. How peaceful he looked, but he couldn’t be comfortable. His long legs and arms were pretzeled into the swing, hanging halfway off. He’d probably been there all night.
This boy really loves me, Cassie thought to herself, looking down on his beautifully sculpted body, crunched as it was within the confines of the swing. He probably loves me way too much.
She reached out and grazed his cheekbone with her fingertips.
He smiled sleepily at her, stretching.
“What in the world are you doing out here?” she asked.
Adam quickly took inventory of his surroundings and rubbed the back of his sore neck. “Protecting you.”
“From the witch hunters?” Cassie blurted out. “But who was protecting you while you were out here all night protecting me?”
“I was,” Adam said, and then laughed. “But I guess I dozed off.”
Cassie took his face into her hands. “What am I going to do with you?” She kissed his chapped lips slowly and warmly. “Promise me next time you’ll at least come inside and sleep on the couch.”
Adam kissed her back passionately. He wrapped his strong arms around her and pulled her in close. She could smell the ocean on his clothes and in the creases of his neck. She kissed him there and expected to taste salt, but instead it tasted fresh and cold like ice.
“I promise,” he said, with a shiver.
“Will you come inside now and let me warm you u
p?” she asked flirtatiously.
He blinked his long dark lashes at her and eagerly followed her through the door.
“Where’s Faye?” Diana asked, but nobody seemed to know.
Diana had found a protective spell in her Book of Shadows, and she wanted to cast it upon the group as soon as possible. But they’d been waiting at the beach for over an hour.
“Faye’s been late to every meeting this week,” Diana said. “This is unacceptable. Suzan, will you call her again?”
“She’s not answering,” Suzan said. “She’s been totally sketchy lately.”
Sean nodded. “We had plans with her last night, and she blew us off.”
If it were anyone other than Faye they were talking about, Cassie would have been worried. But she knew Faye would show up eventually. In the meantime, Cassie was glad to be at the beach rather than the lighthouse. She felt safe there among the long stretch of sand, the steady repetition of crashing waves, and the vast, limitless sky. She wanted to enjoy every last second they had before tourist season littered the sand with strangers. She imagined it now like a nightmare: foldout chairs as far as the eye could see, bratty sunbathers, and self-righteous surfers; toppled-over soda cans and screaming, orange-fingered, Dorito-munching children. She much preferred a cold, abandoned beach to a hot, crowded one.
She thought of Scarlett then, how it would be nice to invite her out to the beach one night this week. Maybe they could build a bonfire and make s’mores. It would be a fun way to offset all this stressful Circle business.
Then Faye appeared, waking Cassie from her daydream. “Am I late?” she said. “Sorry.”
“Where have you been?” Diana asked.
“Trust me, you couldn’t handle it.”
Diana ignored her comment. “We need to begin the protection spell before the sun starts to set.”
Cassie tried to assume the role of a leader as the group arranged themselves into a wide circle formation. Diana kneeled in front of a stone kettle, mixing together a dark, oily concoction.
“In this cauldron is salt water from the ocean mixed with blueberry oil and eucalyptus,” she said. Then she looked up at Faye and Cassie. “Will the two of you, together, use the dagger to draw our circle around me?”
Faye unsheathed the silver dagger, which had been concealed beneath her flowing black skirt, strapped to the inside of her thigh. Her eyes narrowed, as they always did when she had a sharp object in her grasp.
“Give me your hand,” she said to Cassie. She guided Cassie’s thin fingers around the dagger’s pearl handle and enveloped them with her own. Together, as one, they drew the circle in the sand.
Each member of the group stepped inside as Melanie placed two candles on either end of the cauldron Diana was mixing.
“Here I place two candles,” Melanie announced according to ceremony. “One blue, for physical protection, and one purple, for power and wisdom.”
As she bent down to light the candles, she recited a chant from Diana’s Book of Shadows: “Divine Goddess, God Divine, if evil dwells within this place, make it now leave our space.” She then positioned the book on the ground beside Diana and took her spot within the circle next to Laurel.
Diana stood in the center of the circle holding up the cauldron. “In order for this to work,” she said, “you all need to picture a white light around you. Let it surround your whole body as I recite the chant.”
Everyone agreed and closed their eyes. Diana raised the cauldron high up to the sky and said, “By the power of the Source, no evil shall enter here.”
Then Cassie closed her eyes, too, and pictured a white light wrapping itself around her like a warm winter coat. Diana’s voice dropped an octave, and the chant left her throat like thunder.
Psychic hunters in the night
Psychic hunters of the day
Destroy no more what I achieve
Destroy no more what I receive
There were a few seconds of quiet, hindered only by the billowing wind and crashing waves. Then, Cassie heard the bell-like echo of Diana stirring the mixture inside the stone cauldron.
Diana continued.
With this potion, I anoint this Circle
To be protected from you, this magic I do
Cassie opened her eyes and watched Diana rub a smudge of the inky blue mixture upon her forehead with her thumb. Then she did the same to Faye’s forehead, and Cassie’s, and all the others.
When she finished anointing the group, Diana asked Cassie and Faye to join her in the center. The three of them held hands around the cauldron and candles, with closed eyes. Cassie pictured the white light surrounding not only her own body now but the whole group as one. She imagined it encapsulating them like a giant helium balloon and floating them up to the safety of the cloudless sky.
Diana finished the spell.
By the power of this ocean, wide and deep,
By the power of day, and night, and powers three,
This is our will, so let it be!
Little by little, everyone opened their eyes.
“Did it work?” Sean asked, raising his fingers up to the blue smudge on his forehead.
“How long do we have to walk around with this oil on us?” Suzan asked. “It probably causes breakouts.”
“We can go wash it off in the ocean in just a minute,” Diana said.
“So that’s it?” Faye asked, picking up the dagger from the sand and re-sheathing it beneath her skirt. “We’re invincible now? Why didn’t we do this long ago?”
“There are conditions,” Diana said.
“What conditions?” Faye asked, mocking Diana’s measured, proper tone of voice.
Diana wasn’t bothered by Faye’s ridicule, probably because she was so accustomed to it. “We’ll be safe from bodily harm inflicted by the hunters,” she said. “But the spell only protects us on the island of New Salem. If we step beyond that, we’re vulnerable.”
“So nobody leaves the island,” Adam said. “Under any circumstances.”
He glanced over at Nick, who had taken to disappearing for days at a time, but Nick ignored him.
Diana dug a deep hole in the sand to discard the remaining potion. “It also doesn’t mean the hunters can’t find us. So everyone has to be extra careful. We have to do everything we can to remain undetected.”
She stood up, wiped the sand from her hands, and looked directly at Faye. “We can’t practice magic at all. The hunters will be looking for anything out of the ordinary to find out who we are.”
“What?” Faye charged at Diana like she might tackle her to the ground. “Our magic is the only power we have. How else are we supposed to defeat these guys if we can’t use magic?”
Diana squared her thin shoulders to Faye and matched her gaze with equal ferocity. “We find them before they find us,” she said. “That’s how we’re going to defeat them.”
“Faye,” Melanie said, stepping between her and Diana. “These are my aunt’s murderers we’re talking about. You’re going to put your magic on hold, because if you don’t, you’re putting the whole group at risk. And we can’t have that.”
Cool-headed Melanie had never threatened anyone in her life, but here she was, an inch taller than Faye, ready for a fight.
Adam got between them before things had a chance to escalate. “Everyone needs to take a deep breath and calm down,” he said. “We can’t afford to be fighting each other right now.”
“No,” Melanie argued, shoving Adam’s peacekeeping hand aside. “What we can’t afford is Faye not following Circle rules when our lives are at stake.”
“Please, Faye.” Adam was practically begging her to cooperate. “No magic. Just until we figure out who the hunters are. Okay?”
“Fine. My God, you people are so boring.” Faye began walking away, toward the ocean.
“That’s not all,” Diana called out. “We also need to be on the lookout for Outsiders who are getting too close. And anyone new in town.”
Di
ana glanced sharply at Cassie. She didn’t name Scarlett specifically, but she didn’t have to. Then she turned to Faye. “So you need to lay off Max.”
Suzan smirked. “How can she lay off him when he won’t even let her lay on him?”
Faye looked like all the fight had been knocked out of her. It obviously bothered her that Max wasn’t falling under her spell like every other boy in school.
“Is that all?” she asked Diana.
Diana nodded. “For now.”
Faye turned and marched toward the ocean to wash her forehead clean. Her black skirt and hair flowed behind her like a dark shadow.
The next morning at school, Faye pulled into the empty parking space beside Cassie and Adam. “Is Diana here yet?” she asked, before she was even out of the car.
“Not yet,” Adam said. “What’s wrong?”
Faye looked anxiously around the school lot, at Sally and Portia gathering their pompoms and books, at a few lacrosse players playing catch, and finally at Suzan sitting on the hood of her Corolla, applying mascara.
“I can’t handle this no-magic thing,” Faye said. “I had to wait for water to boil this morning. Can you believe that? Eight minutes. Like I have nothing better to do with my time.”
“I’m with Faye,” Suzan said from behind her hand mirror. “I feel so ordinary, so unexceptional. It’s dehumanizing.”
“And on top of all that, you have a stain on your shirt,” Faye said.
“I know.” Suzan scratched at the blotch on her collar. “How do normal people get ketchup out of their clothes?”
Diana zipped her Volvo into the spot next to Faye and hurriedly pushed her door open. She was less put together than usual. Her hair was loose and wild, and her jacket was hanging half off. She had a coffee cup in one hand and a bagel in the other, which she shoved in her mouth to dig for her books in the backseat.
“See,” Faye said. “Even Diana’s a mess. We can’t live like this.”
Until this moment, Cassie hadn’t realized how much her friends used magic in their everyday lives.