The Secret Circle: The Captive Part II and The Power (19 page)

“Then let somebody besides you two take a little risk,” he said gently. “For once.”

Cassie went to bed for the second time that night, tired but triumphant. She put the moonstone back on the dresser; she’d had enough dreams for now. She wondered if she’d ever see Kate again.

“I don’t care if her father’s Adolph Hitler.” Deborah’s voice, never soft, rang out clearly from downstairs. Cassie stood just inside the door of Diana’s room, hanging on to the doorjamb. “What’s it got to do with
Cassie
?”

“We know, Deborah, but hush, can’t you?” That was Melanie, a good deal more modulated, but still audible.

“Why don’t we just go upstairs an’ get her?” Doug said reasonably, and Chris added, “I don’t think she’s ever comin’ down.”

“She’s probably scared to death of all of you,” Laurel scolded, sounding like a cub-scout den mother with a recalcitrant pack on her hands. “Suzan, those muffins are for
her
.”

“Are you sure they’re oat bran? They taste like dirt,” Suzan said calmly.

“You’ve got to go down sometime,” Diana said from behind Cassie.

Cassie nodded, leaning her forehead briefly against the cool wall by the door. The one voice she hadn’t heard belonged to the one she was most worried about—Nick. She squared her shoulders, picked up her backpack, and made her legs move. Now I know how it feels to walk out to face the firing squad, she thought.

The entire Circle—except Faye—was gathered at the foot of the stairs, gazing up expectantly. Suddenly Cassie felt more like a bride descending the staircase than a prisoner. She was glad she was wearing clean jeans and a cashmere sweater Diana had loaned her, dyed in soft swaths of blue and violet.

“Hi, Cassie,” Chris said. “So I hear—yeeouch!” He staggered sideways from Laurel’s kick.

“Here, Cassie,” Laurel said sweetly. “Have a muffin.”

“Don’t,” Suzan whispered in Cassie’s ear.

“I picked these for you,” Doug said, thrusting a handful of damp greenery at her. He peered at it doubtfully. “I think they’re daisies. They looked better before they died.”

“Want to ride to school on my bike?” Deborah said.

“No, she doesn’t want to ride to school on your bike. She’s going with me.” Nick, who had been sitting on the wooden deacon’s bench in the hallway, stood up.

Cassie had been afraid to look him in the face, but now she couldn’t help it. He looked cool, unruffled as always, but in the depths of his mahogany eyes there was a warmth that was for her alone. In taking her backpack, his strong, deft fingers squeezed her hand, once.

That was when she knew it was going to be all right.

Cassie looked around at the Club. “You all—I don’t know what to say. Thank you.” She looked at Adam, who had made them understand. “Thank you.”

He shrugged, and only someone who knew him well would have noticed the pain at the edge of his smile. His eyes were dark as storm clouds with some repressed emotion. “Anytime,” he said, as Nick started to steer her to the door.

On the way, Cassie glanced back at Doug. “What happened to your
face
?”

“He’s always been that ugly,” Chris assured her.

“It was the fight,” Doug said, touching his black eye with something like pride. “But you should see the other fifty guys,” he yelled after her.

“Are we all in trouble for fighting?” Cassie asked Nick, outside.

“Nah—they don’t know who started it. They’d have to punish the whole school.”

Which, as it turned out, the principal did. The Thanksgiving football game was canceled, and there was a good deal of ill feeling among the students. Cassie just prayed nobody found out where the ill feeling ought to be directed.

“Can we keep things quiet until Thanksgiving vacation next week?” Diana asked at lunch. Cassie and Adam were the only ones who knew exactly why she wanted things kept quiet—so they’d have time to decide how best to use the Master Tools—but the others agreed to try. No one except Doug and Deborah was really interested in more fighting at the moment.

“I’m afraid, though. I’m afraid he’ll come after us anyway. He could have the hall monitors pick us up for no reason,” Cassie said to Diana afterward.

It didn’t happen. A strange peace, a sort of bizarre tranquility, engulfed New Salem High. As if everyone were waiting, but no one knew what for.

“Don’t go alone,” Diana said. “Wait a minute and I’ll go with you.”

“I know exactly where the book is,” Cassie said. “I won’t be in the house more than a minute.” She’d been meaning to lend
Le Morte D’Arthur
to Diana for a long time. It was one of her favorite books, and her grandmother had a beautiful copy from 1906. “I can pick up some dried sage for the stuffing while I’m at it,” she said.

“No, don’t. Don’t do anything extra; just come back as quick as you can,” Diana said, pushing a strand of damp hair off her forehead with the back of a greasy hand. They’d been having a strenuous but rather interesting time, trying to stuff a Thanksgiving turkey.

“Okay.” Cassie drove to Number Twelve. They were late with the turkey; the sun was low in the sky.

Just in and out, Cassie told herself as she hurried through the door. She found the book on a shelf in the library and tucked it under her arm. She wasn’t really uneasy—the last week had been so quiet. The Circle had celebrated Suzan’s birthday undisturbed two days ago, on the twenty-fourth.

You see, I told you, she thought to Diana as she came out of the house. Nothing to worry abou—

She saw the car, a gray BMW, sitting beside her grandmother’s white Rabbit. In that split second, she was already starting to act, to jump back through the doorway, but she never got the chance. A rough hand clapped over her mouth and she was dragged away.

Chapter 12

“G
et out of here before any of them see us,” the voice said tersely. Cassie could smell the acridity of sweat.

Jordan, she was thinking. The one with the gun. The one in the Pistol Club. The other one was Logan, who was on the MIT debate team, and was younger than Jordan—or was he older? Cassie never had been able to keep Portia’s brothers straight, even when Portia was telling her about them, back on Cape Cod.

Her mind was working very calmly and clearly.

They drove her out of New Salem, onto the mainland, keeping her squashed on the floor of the backseat the whole time. Jordan kept his feet on her and kept something cold and hard pressed against the back of her head. As if I were a dangerous criminal or something, Cassie thought. Good
grief
. What do they think I’m going to do, turn them into toads?

The other pair of feet resting on her was feminine. Portia, Cassie guessed. No, Sally. Portia was too aristocratic to tromp on somebody’s legs.

Cassie heard the thudding of the tires as they drove over the bridge to the mainland. After that there were a lot of turns, and then a long ride on a bumpy road. When they finally stopped, it was very quiet.

They were in the middle of a forest. Birch and beech and oak, the native trees of Massachusetts, grew thickly all around. They let Cassie out of the car, and then the guys marched her into the woods. Cassie could hear the lighter footsteps of the girls following. It seemed like a long walk, farther and farther away from the road and any semblance of civilization. As dark fell, they reached a clearing.

Somebody had been here before. Logan’s flashlight showed a fire pit, and ropes hanging from a tree. Portia and Sally—Cassie had been right, it
was
Sally—made a fire in the pit, while the guys tied Cassie to the tree. They used a lot more rope than Cassie thought necessary.

And she didn’t like the look of that fire.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked Logan as he stepped back from tying her. When she could see their faces she could tell Logan from Jordan—Jordan was the one with shark’s eyes.

“Because you’re a witch,” Logan said briefly.

“That’s a
reason
?”

Portia stepped forward. “You lied,” she said accusingly. “About the boy on the beach, about everything. All the time, you were a witch yourself.”

“I wasn’t then,” Cassie said, trying to keep her voice steady. “I am now.”

“Then you admit it. Well, we’re going to do now what we should have done then.”

A hard fist of fear clenched in Cassie’s stomach, and she looked at the fire again. Jordan was putting something in it, something long and metal.

I’m in trouble, Cassie realized. I am in very, very bad trouble.

She needed help. She knew that, and knew of only one way to call for it. Her only weapon was her power.

All right, she told herself; do what you did to call to Sean. Get ready, stay calm—
now
.

Adam
, she tried to call to him with her mind.
Adam, it’s Cassie. I’m in trouble
. She wished she had the chalcedony rose to hold while she called; Adam had told her it would help make contact with him. But the chalcedony rose was Diana’s.

Don’t think about that now. Think about Adam. You need to make Adam hear you.

Adam
, she called again, putting all her strength behind it. Strange that the ability to push with her mind, to do whatever she did to send the power lancing out, didn’t seem to deteriorate with use. Instead, it was like a muscle, getting stronger as she exercised it.
Adam
, she called again, keeping the message simple and clear.
It’s Cassie. I need help
.

He’ll come, she told herself. He’ll find this place somehow; he’ll come if I can just stay calm and wait. It was the thought of what might happen
before
Adam came that chilled the blood in her veins.

So here she was, stuck in the middle of nowhere with four witch hunters. And the silence was getting on her nerves.

“The least you can do,” she said slowly, speaking to Logan and Sally because she didn’t think Jordan or Portia would answer, “is explain yourselves. You’ve got me out here, and the least you can do is tell me why you hate witches so much. Because I don’t understand.”

“Are you crazy?” Logan said, as if it should be perfectly obvious. Then, as she continued to stare at him, he said simply, “Because they’re evil.”

“Logan . . .” Cassie searched his face in the firelight. “We’re just like you. We’re more—in touch—with nature, that’s all. We study it and we celebrate it, and sometimes we can get it to do things for us. But we’re not evil. Look,” she said, as Logan turned away, “we have our faults like everybody else, but basically we try to be
good
.”

“What about Faye Chamberlain?” Sally snapped, joining the conversation suddenly. “Is she good?”

“There’s good in Faye,” Cassie said, even more slowly. “Diana said that once to me, and it’s true. Faye just has to find it. But anyway, you can’t judge all of us by one person.”

“How about what they did to the entire school for years? You’re calling that good? They treated everybody like slaves!”

“That was wrong, I admit it,” Cassie said. “But
Diana
didn’t do that—if people treated her like a princess, it wasn’t her fault. Faye was the one treating people like slaves. Some of the others went along because they didn’t
think
about it. And whatever they did, this isn’t the way to solve it!”

“Mr. Brunswick is going to solve it,” said Portia briefly.

“Mr. Brunswick is a murderer! He is
not
your friend, Portia. He’s the one who killed Kori Henderson, Chris and Doug’s sister. He killed her because she didn’t fit in with his plans. And he killed Mr. Fogle, the old principal, because he wanted to take his place. And,” Cassie said, “he killed Jeffrey, Sally!
Yes
. He did it out of spite as far as I can see—or else to drive the witches and the outsiders farther apart. He wants us to hate each other.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Logan said. “Why would he want that?”

“Because,” Cassie said, shutting her eyes, knowing it was probably useless, “he is a witch. The bad kind. The only completely bad one I’ve ever met. And I think he wants us to wipe you out. Or maybe he just wants to take us somewhere else and wipe out the people
there
. I don’t
know
what he wants,” she said, opening her eyes, “but whatever it is, it isn’t good. It isn’t something that’s going to make you happy.”

“Oh, forget this crap. Let’s get started,” Jordan said.

“No, wait, I want to get something clear.” Sally stood in front of Cassie, eye to eye. “You said Brunswick killed Jeffrey—but he couldn’t have. He wasn’t even in New Salem that night, or when the other murders were committed, either.”

“Oh, he was here, he just wasn’t up and around,” muttered Cassie. She looked at Sally. “He didn’t need to be there. He’s a witch. He sent out power—dark energy—to do it. Or else maybe he took over somebody’s mind and made
them
do it.”

Like Faye, Cassie was thinking grimly. When it came right down to it, Faye could have pushed Kori down the steps to break her neck, and could have dislodged a boulder to start a rock slide on Mr. Fogle. She could even have gotten Jeffrey down to the boiler room on some pretext and then strangled him. All it would take would be sneaking up on him from behind and then somehow getting the rope around his neck. The police doctors had said one person could do it.

“What difference does it make, how?” Cassie asked tiredly. “He did it, that’s all that matters. And he
did
do it, Sally, I promise you. He killed Jeffrey.”

Sally was staring hard into her eyes, her pugnacious face inches from Cassie’s. She shook her head and turned away.

“I’m sorry,” Cassie said to the back of her rusty head. “I liked Jeffrey too. I know what you think, that I was trying to steal him or something. But I wasn’t. I was just—I was so excited that night at Homecoming. It was the first dance I’d evere been to when guys wanted to dance with me.”

“Oh, I’m sure!” Sally snapped without turning around.

“It
was
. It’s the truth, Sally,” Cassie said passionately. “Back in California I didn’t know any guys at all. I was just too shy. I don’t even know why they wanted to dance with me at Homecoming. Sally . . .” She gazed at the red-haired girl’s tight shoulders helplessly.

Sally turned slowly. “I guess you don’t ever look in a mirror,” she said, but there was less animosity in her voice.

Cassie blinked away the tears that threatened. “I do, but I don’t see anything special,” she said. “And I didn’t want to steal Jeffrey; I was just so flattered that he asked me. It was a beautiful night, and everything seemed enchanted, and then . . .” She looked from Sally to Logan, blinking again. “You don’t know how I felt when I realized he was dead. I would have done anything to catch the person who did it.”

Logan took a step toward her, but Portia’s voice, sharp as a wasp sting, stopped him. “She’s doing it! She’s using her witch powers on you, right now. Don’t be stupid, Logan.”

Cassie looked at her. “Portia, for God’s sake . . .”

“Portia’s right,” Jordan said brutally. “If we listen to her, she’ll trick us. She’s been a liar from the start.” He pulled the metal thing out of the fire.

“What is that?” Cassie asked.

“A cattle brand.”

Cassie thought about that, and tried to keep her fragile grip on control. Jordan stepped in front of her, holding the long rod which was red-hot at the end. That didn’t surprise Cassie. What surprised her was what he said.

“Where are the Master Tools?” he asked.

Cassie was dumbfounded.
“What?”

“Mr. Brunswick told us,” Portia said, her voice thin and hard. “He told us that they’re the source of your power, and that if they’re destroyed you lose it all. He wants to destroy them himself and stop you forever.”

Cassie had the wild impulse to laugh, but she knew that would only bring more trouble. So
he’d
put them up to this. And he knew she’d found the Master Tools. Right now, he must be expecting her to tell Jordan to save herself. Or maybe he was around here, hoping Cassie would call on him for help.

I won’t, Cassie thought. No matter how bad it gets, I won’t do it. I don’t want to be saved by him.

She looked around the clearing, especially at the shadows that flickered on the edges of the firelight.

“He wants the Master Tools, all right,” she said distinctly. “But not to destroy them. He’d use them to destroy
you
, and us, too, if he can’t get us to knuckle under.”

Jordan looked unsurprised. “You’ll tell us in a while,” he said. “I expected you to lie at first.”

Cassie’s entire body tightened as he brought the glowing brand closer to her. I am brave, she thought, trying to calm her heartbeat. I am as strong as I need to be. But when she smelled the hot metal, sheer black fright swept through her.

“Wait! Stop right there, Jurgen and Lowdown, or whatever your names are.” It was Deborah’s voice, angry and filled with elemental savagery. The girl was standing between two trees as if she’d just materialized there this moment. With her tumbled dark hair blending into the black shadows, and her graceful, stalking posture, she might have been some forest goddess come on a mission of vengeance.

Jordan dropped the cattle brand and grabbed his gun, pointing it directly at Deborah.

A new voice spoke quietly from the other side of the grove. “If you move away from Cassie and put the gun down,” Adam said in low, precise tones, “we won’t have to hurt you.” He had appeared just as soundlessly and he looked just as dangerous as Deborah. Cassie thought of the costume he’d worn at Halloween, the stag antlers and autumn leaves of the horned god. Right now she wouldn’t have been surprised to see a stag beside him.

There was another slight movement and Cassie saw Diana.

It was as if moonlight had suddenly stepped into the grove. An unearthly aura hung about the girl who stood with fair hair cascading around her like a shining cloak. Tall and slender, she had such an air of command that she might have been the goddess Diana, with the moon and stars at her fingertips. She looked at the outsiders silently with eyes as green as jewels, and then she spoke.

“Get away from my friend,” she said.

For an instant Cassie thought they were going to do it on the strength of her authority alone. Jordan’s gun wavered. Then it snapped up again, pointing toward Adam, and Logan snatched a burning stick from the fire. He held it close to Cassie’s face, as Jordan had held the brand.

“Keep back or we’ll hurt
her
,” he said.

Adam let out his breath. “We warned you,” he said softly.

Cassie was looking into Diana’s emerald eyes. She glanced at Logan’s burning stick, and then back. She could tell that Diana remembered the candle ceremony.

Fire—so close she could feel its heat on her cheek. The flames changing shape every second, their radiance streaming endlessly upward. There was power in Fire, as Cassie had discovered when Faye had waved a piece of burning paper at her in the old science building. Power there for the taking . . .

This time she took it.

The stick flared up as if someone had dumped gasoline on it, and Cassie turned her face away, eyes shut against the brilliance. Logan screamed and threw the stick. Jordan’s head jerked sideways, he was distracted for an instant—

—and that was all it took. Jordan went down as the Henderson brothers appeared from nowhere, leaping like twin golden flames. The gun fired a shot skyward, and then they were pinning him, one on each arm. Cassie saw Nick surge up from the shadows and grab Logan from behind. Logan struggled, but Adam joined Nick and the fight was over in seconds.

By the time Cassie looked the other way, the outsider girls were taken care of. Sally was on her face, with Deborah kneeling on her back and Melanie standing over them. Portia was flattened against a tree, very still. Two feet from her, Raj was snarling, lips peeled back, hair bristling. Laurel stood just behind him, looking tall and terrible.