by L. J. Smith
There was a slight pause, then Diana said, “Yes. Yes—you’re right.” She took a deep breath and let it out, looking at Adam almost tentatively. “Well, then, what if—if we just forget all about this for a while? Just—wipe the slate clean?”
A muscle in Adam’s jaw jerked. Silently, he took the hand Diana extended toward him.
Diana held her other hand out to Cassie. Cassie took it and held on tightly to the slim, cold fingers. She wanted to laugh and cry at once. Instead she just gave Diana a wobbly smile. Looking at Adam she saw that he was trying to smile too, although his eyes were dark as storm clouds over the ocean.
“And that’s it?” Faye exploded. “Everything’s all right now, all sweetness and light? Everybody loves everybody and you’re all going home holding hands?”
“Yes,” Adam snapped, giving her a hard look. “As for the last, anyway. We’re going home—it’s past time for that.”
“Cassie needs to rest,” Diana agreed. The blank helplessness had left her entirely, and although she looked more fragile than Cassie had ever seen her before, she also looked determined. “We all need that.”
“And we need to call a doctor—or somebody,” Deborah said unexpectedly. She inclined her head toward Number Twelve. “Cassie’s grandma . . .”
“Whose side are you on?” Faye snarled. Deborah just gave her a cool look.
Diana’s fingers tightened on Cassie’s. “Yes. You’re right, we’ll call Dr. Stern—and Cassie can come home with me.”
Faye gave a short bark of laughter, but nobody laughed with her. Even the Henderson brothers were serious, their slanted eyes thoughtful. Suzan twisted a lock of strawberry-blond hair around her fingers, looking at Cassie’s and Diana’s intertwined hands. Laurel nodded encouragingly when Cassie glanced at her, and Melanie’s cool gray eyes shone with quiet approval. Sean chewed his lip, looking uncertainly from one member of the group to another.
But it was Nick’s expression that surprised Cassie most. His face, usually so unemotional, was clearly strained, as if there were some violent struggle going on beneath the surface.
There was no time to think about him now, though. No time even to think about Faye, who was seething uselessly, her plans to fracture the coven in ruins. Melanie was speaking.
“Do you want to go by my house first, Cassie? Great-aunt Constance is looking after your mom, and if you want to see her . . .”
Cassie nodded eagerly. It seemed like a hundred years since she had seen her mother, since she had been inside that room filled with red light, looking at her mother’s glassy, empty eyes. Surely her mother would be all right by now; surely she would be able to tell Cassie what had happened.
But when the three of them, Melanie, Cassie, and Diana, who hadn’t let go of Cassie’s hand on the short drive to Number Four, went into the house, Cassie’s heart sank. Melanie’s great-aunt, a thin-lipped woman with severe eyes, led them silently into a downstairs guest room. One look at the ghostly figure on the bed sent chills of dismay through Cassie’s bloodstream.
“Mom?” she whispered, knowing already there would be no answer.
God, her mother looked young. Even younger than she normally did, frighteningly young, unnaturally so. It was as if it weren’t Cassie’s mother on the bed there at all, but some little girl with dark hair and big haunted black eyes that vaguely resembled Mrs. Blake’s. A stranger.
Not someone who was going to be of help to Cassie.
“It’s okay, Mom,” Cassie whispered, stepping away from Diana to put a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “Everything’s going to be all right. You’ll see. You’re going to be just fine.”
Her throat ached, and then she felt Diana gently leading her away.
“You’ve both been through enough,” Melanie said once they were outside again. “Let us take care of things with the doctor—and the police, if they have to come. You and Cassie get some sleep.”
The rest of the coven was waiting in the street, and they nodded in agreement when Melanie said this. Cassie looked at Diana, who nodded too.
“Okay,” Cassie said. It came out faint and slightly hoarse and she realized how tired she was—bone-tired. At the same time she was light-headed, and the entire scene in front of her was assuming a dreamlike quality. It was just too strange to be standing out here in the wee hours of the morning, knowing that her grandmother was dead and her mother was in shock, and that she didn’t have a house to go back to. Yet there were no adults on the street, no commotion, only the members of the Circle and an eerie stillness. Come to think of it, why weren’t there any parents out here? Surely some of them must have heard what was going on.
But the houses on Crowhaven Road remained shuttered and silent. On the way to Melanie’s house, Cassie thought she’d seen a light go off in Suzan’s house and a curtain whisk back at the Henderson’s. If any adults were awake, they weren’t getting involved.
We’re on our own, Cassie thought. But Diana was beside her, and she could see Adam’s tall form silhouetted against the headlights of the coven’s parked cars. A sort of strength flowed into Cassie just at their nearness.
“We’ve got to talk tomorrow,” she said. “There’s a lot I’ve got to tell you—all of you. Things my grandmother told me right before . . . before she died.”
“We can meet at lunchtime on the beach—” Diana began, but Faye’s throaty voice cut her off.
“No, we can’t. I’m the one who decides where the meetings are now, or had you forgotten?”
Faye’s head was thrown back proudly, the silver crescent-moon diadem gleaming against the midnight-black of her hair. Diana opened her mouth, then shut it again.
“All right,” Adam said with deceptive calmness, stepping out of the glare of headlights to stand by Faye. “You’re the leader. So lead. Where do we meet?”
Faye’s eyes narrowed. “At the old science building. But—”
“Fine.” Adam didn’t wait for her to finish; he turned his back on her. “I’ll drive you home,” he said to Diana and Cassie.
Faye looked furious, but the three of them were already moving away. “By the way, Diana—happy birthday,” she called spitefully after them.
Diana didn’t answer.
Chapter 3
“Jacinth! Are you in there? Jacinth!”
Cassie blinked in the bright sunlight. She’d seen this room before. It was her grandmother’s kitchen—except that it wasn’t. The walls of her grandmother’s kitchen were sagging and dingy; these were straight and clean. Her grandmother’s hearth was stained with the smoke of centuries; this hearth looked almost new and was a slightly different shape. The iron hook for hanging pots on shone.
It was the room in her dream, the dream she’d had the last time she spent the night at Diana’s house. The low chair she was sitting in was the same. But this dream seemed to be picking up where the other had left off.
“Jacinth, have you fallen asleep with your eyes open? Kate is here!”
A feeling of anticipation and excitement filled Cassie. Kate; who was Kate? Without even knowing why, she found herself standing up, and she realized that she was wearing a dress that brushed the tips of her neat brocade shoes. The red leather Book of Shadows fell from her lap to the ground.
She turned toward the voice, toward what would have been the side door of her grandmother’s house. In this house it seemed to be the front door. It was filled with sunlight, and there were two figures standing there. One was tall, with a silhouette like the engravings of Puritan women she’d seen in history books. The other was smaller, with shining hair.
Cassie couldn’t see either of the figures’ faces, but the smaller one was holding out eager hands to her. Cassie reached for them, stepping forward—
—and the dream changed. It was dark and she could hear the tortured scream of wood being ripped asunder. Salt spray stung her face and her eyes struggled vainly to pierce the darkness.
The ship was going down. Lost, all lost. And the Master Tools w
ere lost as well—for now.
But only for now. The savage determination of the thought filled Cassie and she tasted bile at the back of her throat. Even as icy water rushed around her legs she felt the dream lose focus. She tried to hang on to it, but it melted and shifted around her, and the darkness of the turbulent, stormy night became the quiet darkness of Diana’s room.
She was awake.
And relieved beyond reason just to be alive.
It wasn’t really so dark in here. Dawn was brightening the curtains, turning the room gray. Diana was sleeping peacefully beside her. How could Diana be peaceful after all that had happened? After what Diana had learned about her best friend and her boyfriend, after losing the leadership of the coven, how could Diana sleep at all? But the dark lashes on Diana’s cheek were still and serene and there was no bitterness in Diana’s face.
She’s so good. I could never be that good, Cassie thought. Not if I tried all my life. Still, just being near Diana made her feel better.
Cassie knew she wasn’t going to sleep anymore. She sat back against the headboard and thought.
God, she was glad to have things right with Diana again. And with Adam—Cassie was almost afraid to think of Adam, worried about what kind of pain it would bring. But although there was a deep-down ache at the picture of him, it was not unbearable, and the poison of jealousy and anger was truly gone. She honestly wanted him and Diana to be happy. She was a different person from the one who’d burned with the frustration of not being able to have him these last six weeks.
She’d done a lot of strange things in the last six weeks, so many that she hardly knew herself anymore. I can’t believe it, she thought; I went out and stole pumpkins with Chris and Doug in Salem. I drove that dog off Chris—that wasn’t like me at all. I played Pizza Man with Faye. I went on that wild motorcycle ride with Deborah . . . well, that wasn’t so bad.
A lot of things she’d done in the last month weren’t all bad. The lying and deception and guilt had been awful, but some of the changes had been good. She’d gotten closer to Deborah and Suzan, and she’d gained some insight into what made the Henderson brothers tick. Even Nick—she thought she understood him better now. And she’d found strength in herself she’d never thought she had. Strength to chase the shadowy thing in the cemetery—Black John?—after Jeffrey’s death, strength to ask a boy to a dance, strength, in the end, to stand up to Faye.
She only hoped it was enough strength to stand up to the days ahead.
Cassie hadn’t been to the old science building since Faye had lured her there and held her hostage, that first week of school. It was just as dark and unsafe-looking as she remembered. She had no idea why Faye had wanted them to meet here, except that this was Faye’s territory, while the beach had always been Diana’s.
It was strange to see Faye in Diana’s place, standing in front of the group with all eyes on her. Faye was wearing ordinary clothes today, black leggings and a red and black striped sweater, but a mysterious aura of leadership still clung to her. As she paced, her star rubies flashed in the shafts of sunlight that came through the boarded-up windows.
“I believe it was Cassie who wanted this meeting called. She said there was a lot she had to tell us—right, Cassie?”
“About what my grandmother said before she died,” Cassie said steadily, looking Faye in the eyes. “Before Black John killed her.” If she’d expected Faye to be abashed, she was disappointed; those hooded golden eyes remained level and arrogant. Apparently Faye took no responsibility for the actions of Black John, even though she was the one who’d arranged for him to be set free.
“Was it really Black John?” Suzan said doubtfully, putting a exquisitely manicured fingernail to her perfect mouth, as if thinking was a new and difficult exercise. “Was he really there?”
“He was really there. He is really here,” Cassie said. Suzan wasn’t as stupid as she acted, and sometimes she had surprising insights. Cassie wanted her on their side. “He came out of that mound in the cemetery. It was his grave, I guess. When we brought the skull to the cemetery and released the dark energy, it gave him the strength to come back.”
“Back from the dead?” Sean asked nervously.
Before Cassie could answer, Melanie said, “That mound couldn’t have been Black John’s grave, Cassie. I’m sorry, but it just couldn’t. It’s far too modern.”
“I know it’s modern. It’s not Black John’s first grave; I don’t even know if he had a grave in the 1600s. I guess not if he died at sea . . .” There were startled looks from some of the group, but Cassie scarcely noticed. “Anyway, it’s not his grave from then. It’s his grave from 1976.”
Laurel, who was pouring a thermos cup of herbal tea, sloshed hot liquid on the floor.
Faye stopped dead. “What?” she snarled.
Even Diana and Adam looked disconcerted, glancing at each other. But support came from an unexpected quarter.
“Just let her tell the story,” Deborah said. Thumbs hooked in her jeans pockets, she moved to where Cassie was sitting on an overturned crate, and stood beside her.
Cassie took a deep breath. “I knew something was weird when I saw all those graves in the cemetery—graves of your parents, all killed in 1976. Diana said it was a hurricane, but it still seemed strange to me. I mean, why were only parents dead? Especially when I learned that you’d all been born just a few months before. With all those little babies, you’d think some of them would have died in an ordinary hurricane. That’s not even to mention the weirdness of all of you being born within a one-month period.”
She was relaxing a little now, although it was difficult to talk with everyone looking at her. At least their eyes weren’t glinting with enmity and suspicion today. Only Faye looked hostile, standing with her arms folded across her chest, her feline eyes narrowed.
“But you see, the explanation for all of it is really simple,” Cassie went on. “Black John came back during the last generation, our parents’ generation. Nobody knew it was him, and my grandmother said nobody could ever figure out how he came back, but it was Black John. He tried to make our parents into a coven when they were just a little older than us.”
“Our parents?” Doug asked, snickering. “C’mon, Cassie, give us a break.” There were chuckles from others in the audience, and the expressions ranged from skeptical to troubled to openly mocking.
“No, wait,” Adam said, beginning to look excited. “There are some things that that would explain. I know my grandmother wanders in her mind now and then, but she’s said things to me about my parents—about us kids forming a coven—that just might fit.” His blue-gray eyes were snapping with intensity.
“Here’s something else,” Deborah said, looking sideways at Nick. “Cassie’s grandma said my mom was going to marry Nick’s dad, but Black John made her marry my dad instead. That might explain why my mom freaks when you even mention magic, and why she always looks kind of guilty when she says Nick is growing up to look just like his father. It might explain a lot.”
Cassie noticed Nick, who was standing apart from the group as usual, in a dark corner. He was staring at the floor so hard, his eyes seemed to be about to bore a hole through it. “Yeah, it might,” he said so softly Cassie could barely hear the words. She wondered what he meant.
“It would explain why they yell at each other all the time, too—my parents, I mean,” Deborah was adding.
“All parents yell all the time,” Chris said with a shrug.
“All the parents around here are the ones who survived Black John,” said Cassie. “They survived because they didn’t go to fight him. My grandmother said that after eleven babies were born in one month, our parents realized what Black John was up to. He wanted a coven he could control completely, a coven of kids he could mold while they were growing up. You guys”—Cassie nodded around the group—“were going to be his coven.”
The members of the Club looked at one another. “But what about you, Cassie?” Laurel asked.
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“I wasn’t born until later. Neither was Kori, you know. We weren’t part of Black John’s plans; we were just regular kids. But you guys were going to be his. He arranged everything about you.”
“And the parents who didn’t like that idea went to fight Black John,” Deborah put in. “They killed him; they burned him and the house at Number Thirteen, but they died themselves doing it. The ones that are alive are the cowards who stayed at home.”
“Like my father,” Suzan said abruptly, looking up from her nails. “He gets really nervous if you mention the Vietnam Memorial or the Titanic or anything about anybody dying to save other people. And he won’t talk about my mom.”
Cassie saw startled looks around the Circle. There was a kind of recognition in many of the members’ eyes.
“Like my dad,” Diana said wonderingly. “He always talks about my mother being so brave, but he’s never said exactly why. No wonder, if he didn’t go, if he let her go alone.” She bit her lip, distressed. “What a horrible thing to find out about your own father.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got it worse,” Deborah said, looking grim. “Both my parents didn’t go. And neither did yours,” she added to the Hendersons, who looked at each other and scowled.
“While those of us with no parents are lucky?” Melanie asked, raising her eyebrows.
“At least you know they had guts,” Deborah said shortly. “You and Adam and Laurel and Nick have something to be proud of. I’d rather be raised by a grandmother or a great-aunt than have parents who scream at each other all the time because they’re so ashamed of themselves.”
Cassie was watching Nick again, and she saw something leave his face, some tension that had been there ever since she’d known him. It made him look different, softer somehow, more vulnerable. At that moment he raised his eyes and met hers, catching her in the act of watching him. Cassie wanted to look away, but she couldn’t, and to her surprise there was no hostility in his gaze. His mouth crooked slightly in a wry, relieved smile, and she found herself almost smiling back in sympathy.