The Secret Circle: The Captive Part II / the Power

by L. J. Smith

  Melanie was grave and thoughtful as usual, as if she neither believed nor disbelieved Cassie’s theory, but was willing to test it out scientifically. Laurel just looked appalled. Suzan was examining the stitching on her gloves. Deborah was scowling, unwilling to give up the idea that outsiders had killed Kori. Nick—well, who could tell what Nick thought? Sean was chewing his fingernails.

  The Henderson brothers were agitated. For a terrible instant Cassie thought they were going to turn their energy on Adam, blame him for Kori’s being killed. But then Doug spoke up.

  “So how come we’re still sittin’ around talking? Let me have the skull—I’ll take care of it,” he said, teeth bared.

  “Yeah—let Doug have it,” Sean chimed in.

  “It can’t be destroyed, Doug,” Melanie said patiently.

  “Oh, yeah?” Chris said. “Put it in with a pipe bomb—”

  “And nothing would happen. Crystal skulls can’t be destroyed, Doug,” Melanie repeated. “That’s in all the old lore. You wouldn’t even scratch it.”

  “And there’s no really safe place to store it,” Diana said. “I might as well tell you all, I’ve got it buried somewhere, and yesterday I set up a spell to tell me if the place is disturbed. It’s vital that the skull stays buried.”

  Cassie had a sick feeling in her stomach. Diana was looking around the group, focusing on Deborah, Faye, and the Hendersons. It would never occur to her to look at me, Cassie thought, and somehow this made her feel sicker than ever.

  “Why can’t we take it back to the island?” Suzan said, surprisingly, showing she was listening after all.

  Adam, who had been sitting quietly, his fine, humorous face unusually moody, answered. “Because the island won’t protect it anymore,” he said. “Not since I took the skull.”

  “Sort of like one of those Egyptian tombs with a curse on it,” said Laurel. “Once you break in, you can’t undo what you’ve done.”

  Adam’s lip quirked. “Right. And we’re not strong enough to cast a new spell of protection that would hold it. This skull is evil,” he said to all of them. “It’s so evil that burying it in sand won’t do anything but keep it from being activated at the moment. There’s no way to purify it”—he looked at Laurel—“and no way to destroy it”—he looked at Doug and Chris—“and no place to keep it safe.” He looked at Suzan.

  “Then what do we do?” Deborah demanded, and Sean squeaked, “What do we do?”

  “Forget about it?” Faye suggested with a lazy smile. Adam shot her a dark look. Diana intervened.

  “Adam had the idea of searching for the dark energy again with a pendulum, seeing if there are any new trails,” she said. She turned to Cassie. “What do you think?”

  Cassie dug her fingernails into her palms. If they traced the dark energy and it led them straight back to Faye’s house, the place where it had most recently escaped . . . Faye was looking at her sharply, wanting her to veto the suggestion. But Cassie had an idea.

  “I think we should do it,” she told Diana evenly.

  Faye’s stare turned menacing, furious. But there was nothing she could say.

  Diana nodded. “All right. We may as well start now. It’s a long walk to the graveyard, so I thought we might try picking up the trail around here. We’ll go out on Crowhaven Road and see if there’s anything to follow.”

  Cassie could actually feel her chest quivering with the beating of her heart as they walked off the beach. She thrust one hand into her pocket to feel the cold, smooth piece of hematite. Iron-strength, that was what she needed right now.

  “Are you crazy?” Faye hissed as they climbed the bluff and headed for the road. She caught Cassie’s arm in a punishing grip, holding her back from the others. “Do you know where that trail goes?”

  Cassie shook the arm off. “Trust me,” she said shortly.

  “What?”

  Cassie whirled on the taller girl. “I said, trust me! I know what I’m doing—and you don’t.” And with that she began to climb again. Iron-strength, she thought dizzily, impressed with herself.

  But she still found it hard to breathe when Diana stood out in the middle of Crowhaven Road—near Number Two, Deborah’s house—and held up the peridot crystal.

  Cassie watched it, feeling the concentration of all the minds around her. She waited for it to spin in circles.

  It did—in the beginning. The chain twisted first one way and then the other, like a wound-up swing on a playground. But then, to Cassie’s horror, it began to seesaw, pointing up and down Crowhaven Road. Down, the way they’d traveled the first time, the way that had eventually led to the cemetery, and up, toward the headland.

  Toward Faye’s.

  Cassie’s legs felt as if they were sinking into cotton as she followed the group. Faye had no trouble holding her back now. “I told you,” she said vehemently out of the side of her mouth. “Now what, Cassie? If that trail leads to my house, I’m not going down alone.”

  Cassie clenched her teeth and choked out, “I thought we couldn’t trace it at ground level. That energy came out through your bedroom ceiling on the second floor, and it was going straight up. I thought it would be too high to track.”

  “You obviously thought wrong,” Faye hissed.

  They were passing the vacant house at Number Three. They were passing Melanie’s house. Laurel’s house was in front of them; they were passing it. Faye’s house was just ahead.

  Cassie thought she actually might faint. She was almost unaware that she was clutching Faye’s arm as hard as Faye was clutching hers. She waited for the peridot to turn aside and lead them all to Faye’s doorstep.

  But Diana was walking on.

  Cassie felt a violent surge of relief—and of bewilderment. Where were they going? They were passing Number Seven, another vacant house. Passing the Hendersons’, passing Adam’s, passing Suzan’s. They were passing Sean’s—oh, my God, Cassie thought, we’re not going to my house?

  But they were passing Number Twelve as well. Diana was following the pendulum’s swing, leading them out onto the point of the headland.

  And there the crystal began to spin in circles again.

  “What’s going on?” Laurel said, looking around in astonishment. “What are we doing here?”

  Adam and Diana were looking at each other. Then they both looked at Cassie, who came slowly forward from the rear of the group. Cassie shrugged at them.

  “This is the place where Number Thirteen used to be,” Diana said. “Right, Adam? The house that was torn down.”

  “I heard it burned down,” Adam said. “Before we were born.”

  “No, it wasn’t that long ago,” said Melanie. “It was only about sixteen or seventeen years ago—that’s what I heard. But before that it was vacant for centuries. Literally.”

  “How many centuries?” Cassie said, too loudly. For some reason she found her fingers clenched around the piece of hematite in her pocket.

  The members of the coven turned to her, looking at her with eyes that seemed to shine slightly in the moonlight.

  “About three,” Melanie said. “This was Black John’s house. Nobody ever lived in it after he died in 1696.”

  The hematite burned against Cassie’s palm with icy fire.

  Chapter 3

  “This is all too weird for me,” Laurel said, shivering.

  “But what does it tell us?” Deborah challenged.

  “It’s another link to Black John,” Adam said. “Other than that, nothing.”

  “So it’s a dead end, like the cemetery,” Faye said, looking pleased.

  Cassie had the feeling they were wrong, but she couldn’t explain why, so she kept her mouth shut. Something else was worrying her, worrying her terribly. The piece of hematite that right now felt as heavy as a bit of neutron star in her pocket . . . it had come from the ruins of Black John’s house. It might even have belonged to him. Which meant that she had to tell Diana about it.

  People were wandering around, breaking
up into small groups. The meeting, for all intents and purposes, was over. Cassie took a deep breath and went to Diana.

  “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you earlier,” she said. “But I wanted to tell you about something that happened yesterday.”

  “Cassie, you don’t have to tell me. I know it wasn’t like Faye said.”

  Cassie blinked, thrown off balance. “What did Faye say?”

  “We don’t even have to talk about it. I know it’s not true.”

  “But what did she say?”

  Diana looked uncomfortable. “She said—you were over at her house last night, playing—well, some kind of game.”

  “Pizza Man,” Cassie said distinctly. When Diana stared at her, she explained, “Pizza Man He Delivers.”

  “I know what it’s called,” Diana said. She was scanning Cassie’s face. “But I’m sure you would never . . .”

  “You’re sure? You can’t be sure,” Cassie cried. It was too much—Diana’s blind insistence on her innocence. Didn’t Diana realize that Cassie was bad, evil?

  “Cassie, I know you. I know you wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  Cassie was feeling more and more agitated. Something inside her was getting ready to snap. “Well, I was there. And I did do it. And”—she was getting close to the source of the anguish inside her—“you don’t know what kind of things I would or wouldn’t do. I’ve already done some things—”

  “Cassie, calm down—”

  Cassie reeled a step backward, stung. “I am calm. Don’t tell me to calm down!”

  “Cassie, what’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with me. I just want to be left alone!”

  Diana’s eyes sparked green. She was tired, Cassie knew, and anxious. And maybe she’d reached a snapping point, too. “All right,” she said, with unaccustomed sharpness in her normally gentle voice. “I’ll leave you alone, then.”

  “Fine,” Cassie said, her throat swollen and her eyes stinging. She didn’t want to fight with Diana—but all this anger and pain inside her had to go somewhere. She’d never known how awful it was to have people insist you were good, when you weren’t.

  Her fingers unclenched from the piece of hematite, and she left it in her pocket as she turned around and walked away. She stared down over the edge of the cliff at the swirling waves below.

  Faye moved in beside her, bringing a scent of sweet, musky perfume. “Show it to me.”

  “Huh?”

  “I want to see what’s in your pocket that you’ve been holding on to like it might run away.”

  Cassie hesitated, then slowly drew the smooth, heavy stone out.

  Still facing the ocean, Faye examined it. “A hematite crystal. That’s rare.” She held it up to the moonlight and chuckled. “Did Melanie ever tell you about some of hematite’s more—unusual properties? No? Well, even though it looks black, if you cut it into thin slices, they’re transparent and red. And the dust that comes off the stone turns the liquid that cools the cutting wheel as red as blood.”

  She gave the stone back to Cassie, who held it loosely, looking down at it. No matter where it came from, it was her crystal now. She’d known that from the moment she’d seen it. How could she give it up?

  “I found it here, by the foundation of the house,” she said dully.

  Faye’s eyebrows lifted. Then she collected herself. “Hm. Well—of course, anybody could have dropped it here in the past three hundred years.”

  A strange sense of excited relief filtered through Cassie. “Yes,” she said. “Of course. Anybody could have.” She put the crystal back in her pocket. Faye’s hooded golden eyes were gleaming at her, and Cassie felt herself nod. She didn’t have to give up the crystal after all.

  Adam was calling people back into a group. “Just one thing before everybody leaves,” he was saying. He seemed oblivious to the little drama that had been enacted between Cassie and Diana a few minutes earlier.

  “I have an idea,” he said, when the Club had gathered around again. “You know, I just realized that everything connected with the dark energy has led to death, to the dead. The cemetery; that ghost-shape Cassie and Deborah and Nick and I saw on the road; even this place—a ruined house built by a dead man. And—well, the weekend after next is Samhain.”

  There was a murmur from the group. Adam looked at Cassie and said, “You know, Halloween. All Saints’ Eve, November Eve, whatever. But no matter what you call it, it’s the night when the dead walk. And I know it might be dangerous, but I think we should do a ceremony, either here or at the cemetery, on Halloween. We’ll see what we can call up.” He turned to Diana. “What do you think?”

  This time the response was silence. Diana looked concerned, Melanie doubtful, Sean openly scared. Doug and Chris were grinning their wild grins, and Deborah was nodding fiercely. Faye had her head cocked to one side, considering; Nick stood with his arms across his chest, stone-faced. But it was Laurel and Suzan who spoke up.

  “But what about the dance?” Laurel said, and Suzan said, “Saturday night is the Halloween dance and I’ve already got my shoes.”

  “We always have a party on Halloween,” Melanie explained to Cassie. “It’s a big witch holiday. But this year Halloween falls on Saturday, and the school dance is the same night. Still,” she said slowly, “I don’t see why we couldn’t do both. We could leave the dance around eleven thirty and still have plenty of time for a ceremony here.”

  “And I think it should be here,” Diana said, “and not the graveyard. That’s just too dangerous, and we might call up more than we bargained for.”

  Cassie thought of the shadowy form she and Adam had seen at the graveyard. A bit too belligerently, she asked, “What are we planning to do with whatever we can call up?”

  “Talk to it,” Adam said promptly. “In the old days people called up the spirits of the dead on Halloween and asked them questions. The spirits had to answer.”

  “It’s the day when the veil between the worlds is the thinnest,” Laurel clarified. “Dead people come back and visit their living relatives.” She looked around the group. “I think we should do the ceremony.”

  There was agreement from the Circle, some of it hesitant, some enthusiastic. But everyone nodded.

  “Right,” Adam said. “Halloween night, then.” Cassie thought it was unusual that he was taking over the job of coven leader this way, but then she looked at Diana. Diana looked as if she were holding some turmoil inside her tightly under control. For a moment Cassie felt sorry for her, but then her own misery and conflict welled up. She left the meeting quickly, without speaking to Diana.

  In the weeks before Halloween, the real cold set in, although the leaves were still bronze and crimson. Cassie’s bedroom smelled of camphor because her grandmother had brought old quilts out of storage to pile on her bed. The last of the herbs had been gathered, and the house was decorated with autumn flowers, marigolds and purple asters. Every day after school Cassie found her grandmother in the kitchen, cooking oceans of applesauce to jar, until the whole house smelled of hot apple pulp and cinnamon and spices.

  Pumpkins mysteriously appeared on everybody’s back porch—but only Cassie and the Hendersons knew where they came from.

  Things didn’t get better with Diana.

  A guilty part inside Cassie knew why. She didn’t

  want to fight with Diana—but it was so much easier not having to worry about her all the time. If she wasn’t always talking to Diana, wasn’t over at Diana’s house every day, she didn’t have to think about how hurt Diana would be if Diana ever found out the truth. The shameful secrets inside Cassie didn’t rub her so much when Diana was at a distance.

  So when Diana tried to make up, Cassie was polite but a little cool. A little—detached. And when Diana asked why Cassie was still mad, Cassie said she wasn’t still mad, and why couldn’t Diana just leave things alone? After that, Diana did.

  Cassie felt as if a thin, hard shell were growing all over her.
/>
  She thought about what Deborah had said about Nick. He gets in bad moods sometimes, but that doesn’t mean you should give up. Of course, there was no way Cassie could go back and ask Nick again. At least, there was no way the old Cassie could have. There seemed to be a new Cassie now, a stronger, harder one—at least on the outside. And she had to do something, because every night she thought about Adam and ached, and she was afraid of what might happen if she went to that dance unattached.

  The day before Halloween she walked up to Nick’s garage again.

  The skeleton-car looked just the same. Its entire engine was out, resting on a sort of bottomless table made of pipes. Nick was underneath the table.

  Cassie knew better than to ask him what he was doing this time. She saw him see her feet, saw his gaze travel up. Then he scooted out from under the table and stood up.

  His dark hair was spiky with sweat, and he wiped his forehead with the back of a greasy hand. He didn’t say anything, just stood there looking at her.

  Cassie didn’t give herself time to think. Focusing all her attention on an oil stain on his T-shirt, she said rapidly, “Are you going to the Halloween dance tomorrow?”

  There was a long, long silence. Cassie stared at the oil stain while Nick stared at her face. She could smell rubber and warm metal as well as grease and a faint hint of gasoline. She felt as if she were hanging suspended in air.

  Then Nick said, “No.”

  Everything came crashing down. Cassie felt it, and for some reason she was suddenly able to look Nick in the face.

  “Oh,” she said flatly. Oh, stupid, stupid, she was thinking. The new Cassie was as dumb as the old one. She should never have come here.

  “I don’t see why you want to know in the first place,” Nick said. Then he added, “It’s got something to do with Conant, doesn’t it?”

  Cassie tensed. “Adam? What are you talking about? What could my asking you to a dance have to do with Adam?” she said, but she could feel the blood rise to her face.

  Nick was nodding. “I thought so. You’ve really got it bad. And you don’t want him to know, so you’re looking for a substitute, right? Or are you trying to make him jealous?”