The Secret Circle: The Complete Collection

by L. J. Smith

  “I love you,” she said.

  He smiled brightly. “And I love you.”

  She kissed him once more, tenderly, and inhaled a full breath of him. “I really love you,” she said.

  His blue eyes sparkled, and he laughed aloud. “We can play this game all night.”

  “Or our whole lives,” Cassie said, beaming back at him. She found she couldn’t take her eyes from his. They drew her closer and closer in.

  “Maybe even longer.”

  When Cassie finally made her way into the house, she shut the front door behind her and paused. Her mother looked almost like a ghost, and about as frightened as if she’d seen one. Cassie felt awful she’d caused her to worry so much. Her mother had every right to be angry with her.

  “Mom,” she said. “I am so sorry.”

  When her mother made no response, she added, “I needed to go to Cape Cod; it was an emergency. And then—”

  “Forget about the car,” her mother said. “Are you okay?”

  Cassie nodded and dropped her bag at the door. When she reached her mother’s arms, she looked up at her, hoping to see a sign of reprieve in her eyes. But instead, a saddened expression passed over her mother’s face, like a massive wave of pain.

  “Mom?” Cassie asked, not even sure what to say.

  Her mother’s large black eyes, shadowed by dark circles, filled with tears. “I thought you ran away,” she said. “And then I thought you were dead. I swear I could feel your pain.”

  She spoke quietly and regretfully, and Cassie realized her mother probably could feel when she was in pain. They were connected, and she was a witch, after all.

  “You seem to be pulling away from me, just when I thought we were becoming closer,” her mother said. “Was it something I did or said that upset you? Tell me.”

  When Cassie found out her mother kept Scarlett a secret, it seemed like such a betrayal, like the worst secret in the world to keep hidden for her entire life. But now, looking at her mother’s frail, penitent face, Cassie realized she’d done it to protect her. She must have known Scarlett was evil.

  “Oh, Mom,” Cassie said. “I wasn’t angry, just confused. I was confused about so much.”

  After everything that had happened, Cassie realized it was time to finally tell her mom the truth.

  “I have so much to tell you,” Cassie said.

  Cassie didn’t even know where to begin, but she did her best to speak evenly and not leave anything out. She dug her nails into her palms and went on, uninterrupted, for what felt like forever. Then her mother took a shallow breath in and shut her eyes. Cassie knew it was time to be quiet and let her speak.

  “Scarlett’s mother didn’t shy away from the dark side of Black John either,” she said. “She’d been banned from our Circle for performing dark magic. But I’d hoped those days were behind us now. That’s why I never mentioned Scarlett.”

  Cassie nodded, and her mother took her face into her hands. “I would have never kept it from you if I thought you were in danger.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Cassie said. “I should have told you when I found out about her.”

  “It’s not anybody’s fault,” her mother said. “But it’s still come to this.” She took a deep breath and stood up.

  “There’s something I’ve been waiting to give you until it was necessary,” she said cryptically. “Now seems to be that time.”

  The tone of her voice was puzzling. “What is it?” Cassie asked.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Her mother left the room and was gone longer than Cassie expected her to be. But just when Cassie was about to go looking for her, she returned with a book in her hands. It was a faded leather-bound journal with gold, deckle-edged pages. It looked to Cassie like an old bible.

  “This was your father’s Book of Shadows,” her mother said, holding it out to her with both hands.

  Cassie froze, paralyzed, and felt the blood drain out of her face. Black John’s Book of Shadows—just the thought of it made her shudder. Black magic was something she felt was better left unexplored.

  Her mother continued holding the book out to her. “It’s okay,” she said. “You can touch it.”

  Cassie reached out to take it from her mother reluctantly. The book felt cruel and cold in her hands—it almost felt alive.

  “How did you get this?” Cassie asked.

  Her mother sat back down beside her. “It’s a long story. But it’s been hidden here in this house for quite some time. You have to understand, in the wrong hands, this book could be extremely dangerous.”

  Like the Master Tools, Cassie thought. “And you want me to have it?”

  Her mother’s face was stern. “You’ll need it if you stand any chance of defeating Scarlett.”

  The book was heavier than it appeared to be, like its contents were greater than the sum of its pages. It was impossible to comprehend the dark spells and secrets it enclosed. Cassie noticed that its black leather cover wasn’t completely smooth. It was faintly embossed with a symbol that reminded Cassie of the inscriptions on the silver bracelet and the diadem. There were also dull scratches and indentations, like fingernails had worn into its surface. And its upper-right-hand corner was eroded almost completely gray, like a deteriorated oval-shaped stamp.

  Black John’s fingerprint, Cassie realized.

  She jerked her eyes away from the grayed spot, and her stomach lurched. She was intrigued by it, but it also upset her.

  Cassie refocused on the embossed symbol, trying to remember where else she’d seen that design. And then she remembered: It was identical to the inscription on Black John’s lodestone ring, the one used to identify him as John Blake, and later as John Brunswick.

  Having this book in her hands was the closest thing now to having Black John there in the room with her. It felt like all the darkness in the world might begin to pour forth from its pages at any moment.

  Cassie’s mother watched her handle the book apprehensively. “I know it feels alive to you,” she said. “But it’s just a book, I promise. And you are strong enough to handle it.” There was a candidness in her eyes that Cassie had never seen before.

  The book shivered in Cassie’s hands as she tried to calm herself. It was just paper and words, that’s all it was. And its words contained the key to defeating Scarlett, saving the Circle, and getting the Master Tools back. She didn’t have the luxury of pretending this book didn’t exist, as evil and frightening as it felt to her. She couldn’t simply put it back into its hiding place. It was her responsibility to read it, study it, and ingest its secrets until they became part of who she was. Only then would she be strong enough against Scarlett.

  Her mother silently observed her mental struggle and seemed to know exactly what she was thinking.

  “Remember, Cassie,” she said. “There’s so much goodness in you. There’s much more light in your soul than dark. Do you recognize that?”

  Cassie nodded. “I think so.”

  “But there are things in this book that won’t be easy for you to read. Do you understand what I mean by that?”

  “Yes,” Cassie said.

  “If you open it,” her mother warned, “there’s no going back.”

  Copyright

  Cover art © Michael Frost

  Cover design by Sarah Nicole Kaufman

  HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

  The Secret Circle: The Divide

  Copyright © 2012 by Alloy Entertainment and L. J. Smith.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, witho
ut the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.epicreads.com

  Produced by Alloy Entertainment

  151 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10001

  Library of Congress catalog card number: 2008928243

  ISBN 978-0-06-213039-6

  EPub Edition © FEBRUARY 2012 ISBN: 9780062130402

  11 12 13 14 15 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Created by

  L. J. SMITH

  Written by Aubrey Clark

  THE

  SECRET

  CIRCLE

  The Hunt

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Cassie held her father’s Book of Shadows in her hands and shivered.

  There would be no going back, her mother had said, but now she watched Cassie expectantly.

  The book’s gold deckle-edged pages were cinched closed with a leather string, like a soft, thin belt. Cassie pulled on it, and dust particles flew into the air as its knot came undone, but the book’s cover remained in place.

  “It’s not too late to change your mind,” her mother said. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

  Cassie nodded. If this book contained the secrets to defeating her half sister, Scarlett, and saving the Circle from the hunters, it wasn’t even a question. It was her duty to study it.

  She carefully fanned open the book. Its spine cracked and Cassie’s eyes seemed to meld to the page. The text scrawled upon the paper’s yellowed surface was composed of squiggly lines and archaic symbols. The curl of each brushstroke felt forbidden, like Cassie had revealed something not intended for her eyes.

  But before Cassie could process exactly what she was seeing, the book grew warm in her hands, and then threateningly hot. Within seconds the skin of her fingers was sizzling, and Cassie couldn’t stop herself from crying out. Her flesh adhered to the book, and she couldn’t pull her hands away despite the scorching pain.

  Her mother’s face was stricken with fear, but she acted fast. She raised her palm and with one wide swoop batted the book out of Cassie’s hands and onto the floor.

  Cassie released a whimper of relief, but the damage had been done. Her hands were singed red with throbbing, bubbling burns.

  She looked at her mother, terrified. “You said it was just a book.”

  “It was. Or I thought it was.” Her mother examined Cassie’s injuries to see how serious they were. Then she glanced at where the book had landed facedown on the wooden floor. She moved toward it cautiously, picked it up without harm, and secured it closed by tightly retying the string.

  “I’ll put this somewhere safe for now,” she said. “I’m sorry, Cassie. I had no idea that would happen. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “I don’t understand.” Cassie gaped at her mother, dizzy for answers. “You said I’d need this book to defeat Scarlett, but how can I study it if I can’t even hold it?”

  Her mother shook her head. “I don’t know. It must be spelled, to keep it from being opened by anyone other than its owner.”

  “Then I have to figure out how to break the spell. Scarlett is out there somewhere, and she wants to kill me. That book is my only hope against her.”

  Her mother raised her hand to halt Cassie’s anxious stream of consciousness. “One thing at a time. Our first priority is to tend to those burns. I think you’ve had enough excitement for one night.”

  She gave Cassie’s shoulder a quick, loving squeeze, and then she ushered the book out of sight.

  When she returned with an armful of gauze and ointment, Cassie’s mind was racing with new questions and concern for her friends who’d been marked by the hunters. “Faye’s and Laurel’s lives might depend on me opening that book,” Cassie said. “I have to try again.”

  Her mother sat beside her looking forlorn. “Faye and Laurel are in grave danger.” She reached for Cassie’s hands and began dressing the wounds. “But there are two steps to the process of witch hunters killing a witch: They catch you doing magic and you’re marked, and only then can they perform the killing curse. If we can stop the hunters from performing the second step, your friends will be okay.”

  The killing curse. Cassie remembered the hunter mark, the aftermath of the curse on Melanie’s aunt Constance’s forehead the day she died. The Circle hadn’t even known the hunters had marked her until it was too late.

  “Why don’t the hunters just perform the killing curse immediately after marking someone?” Cassie asked. “Why wait?”

  “Because it takes just one hunter to mark someone, but the killing curse requires several of them.” Cassie’s mother wrapped the burns quickly and efficiently, like a battlefield nurse. “It’s a process, much like a spell, so it can’t just happen at any moment.”

  Cassie winced as the harsh gauze touched her raw skin.

  “So Faye and Laurel will need to be protected,” her mother said. “But tonight, the only thing for you to do is rest.”

  Cassie nodded. She still had so many questions, but the pain was making her weary. She moved to the comfort of her own bed and felt her eyes grow heavy. She allowed them to close as sleep overtook her. But even in the soft dark of her own eyelids, Cassie could see the glowing outline of her father’s book shining against the black.

  The next morning, Cassie’s mind was still running in circles while she waited on her front porch for Adam to pick her up for school. She tried to relax, to admire the sun glinting red off the windows of each house on the bluff, but there was too much to be anxious about. In the past week Cassie had learned that her half sister wanted to kill her and take over the Circle—and she’d nearly succeeded. They’d had a confrontation in Cape Cod, and Cassie had chased Scarlett away, but she’d escaped with the Master Tools.

  As if that weren’t enough, there was also the issue of the hunters. The Circle was now sure that Max and his father—Principal Boylan—were witch hunters. They’d already marked Laurel and Faye with the hunter symbol, and it was possible they knew the identities of all the Circle members.

  Cassie looked down at the gray paint peeling off the front porch.

  This old house, she thought, this antiquated town.

  There was no escaping its ancient history.

  It was a sunny, windless day, but how could Cassie enjoy it? She pulled the sleeves of her purple hoodie down over her hands to cover her burns. She would have disappeared entirely into its soft cotton if she could. And then she heard something—a rustling in the bushes.

  It’s just the breeze, she told herself, but not a single blade of grass stirred.

  There was the crunching of leaves. It was coming from her left, along the row of shrubs that lined the path to the house’s side door—an opportune place for an intruder to break in, or for Scarlett to sneak her way into Cassie’s home.

  Treading lightly across the rickety wooden porch, Cassie stepped closer to the sound. The shrubs moved again—this time she saw it with her own eyes—and she screamed, “Scarlett!”

  An orange tabby cat shot out from the wavering hedge, zipping past Cassie and up a neighbor’s tree. The cat’s pre
y was left behind in the uncut grass: a sorry-looking field mouse. Cassie exhaled. She would have laughed out loud at herself if she weren’t so embarrassed.

  She walked back around to the front porch just as Adam pulled up to the curb. Her heart hadn’t yet returned to its regular rhythm when she climbed into the passenger seat of his old Mustang and leaned over for a kiss.

  “What were you doing in the backyard?” Adam asked as he pulled out of her driveway and onto Crowhaven Road. “Running laps? You’re all sweaty.”

  “Is that any way to greet your girlfriend?” Cassie joked. “By telling her she’s perspiring?”

  Adam smiled. “I’m just saying you look hot, that’s all. Hot and humid.” He waited for her to laugh, and when she didn’t he tilted his head at her apologetically.

  Cassie appreciated Adam’s sense of humor, even when he was teasing her. No matter how dire the situation was with the hunters and with Scarlett, Adam was still able to make light of things. Cassie needed that now more than ever.