THE SECRET CIRCLE 1 - The Initiation

by L. J. Smith

  "Thanks for loaning it to me," she said. "But now that I'm an official witch, I'll probably be finding my own stones to work with. And besides"—she curved her lips in a teasing smile—"we don't want anybody to get the wrong impression about that either, do we?"

  She had never in her life acted like this with a boy, teasing and carefree and confident. Almost flirtatious while making it clear that she meant nothing by it. And it was so easy—she'd never imagined it could be this easy. It came, she supposed, from the fact that she was playing a role. It wasn't Cassie standing here; it was someone else, someone who wasn't afraid because the worst had already happened and there was nothing left to fear anymore.

  A wry smile had touched Adam's lips, as if he were responding automatically to her tone, but it disappeared almost instantly. He was looking at her hard, and she forced herself to return his gaze blandly and innocently, the way she had returned Jordan's on the beach that day in August. Believe me, she thought, and this time she knew the power of her own thoughts, the power she could draw on to enforce her will. Sky and water, sand and sea; As I will, so let it be. Believe me, Adam. Believe me. Believe me.

  He looked away from her suddenly, turning sharply toward the ocean. It reminded Cassie, to her surprise, of the way she had broken free of Faye's mesmerizing gaze.

  "You've changed," he said, and there was wonder in his voice. Then he turned back to look at her with that hard, unrelenting gaze again. "You've really changed."

  "Of course. I'm a witch now," she said reasonably. "You should have told me that in the beginning—it would have saved a lot of trouble," she added in a scolding tone.

  "I didn't know. I could sense—something—in you, but I never thought of you being one of us."

  "Oh, well, it all turned out okay," Cassie said quickly. She didn't like him talking about what he sensed in her. It was too dangerous. "Anyway, thanks for walking me home. This is where I go up."

  With a final smile, she turned away and quickly climbed the narrow path. She couldn't believe it. She'd pulled it off! The relief that flooded her was actually painful, and when she reached the top of the path and saw her house, her knees felt weak. Oh, thank you, she thought, and started for it.

  "Wait," a ringing, authoritative voice behind her said.

  I should have known it wouldn't be that easy, Cassie thought. Slowly, keeping her face expressionless, she swiveled to look at him.

  The faint light from above reflected off the planes of his face as he stood on the bluff with the ocean behind him. Those high cheekbones, those humorous, expressive lips. There was no humor now. His eyes were as keen and piercing as when he had stared after Jordan and Logan that day on the beach, radiating a power she didn't understand, frightening her. They frightened her now.

  "You're good," he said. "But I'm not completely stupid. There's something you're not telling me, and I want to know what it is."

  "No, you don't." The words escaped her lips before she could stop them, but their flat sincerity was unmistakable. "I mean—there's nothing I'm not telling you."

  "Listen to me," he said, and to her dismay he stepped closer. "When I first met you," he said, "I had no idea you were one of us. How could I? But I knew that you were different than that phony friend of yours. Not just another pretty girl, but somebody special."

  Pretty? He thought I was pretty? Cassie was thinking wildly. The clear, despairing calm was leaving her, and she clung to it desperately. Look cool and blank, she ordered herself. Politely inquiring. Let nothing show.

  Adam's blue-gray eyes were flashing now, his odd, proud face clearly revealing his anger. But it was the hurt in the depths of those eyes that confused Cassie most.

  "You weren't like any girl I'd met on the outside—you could accept mysterious things—even mystical things—without being afraid of them or trying to destroy them on sight. You were… open. Tolerant. You didn't automatically hate and reject anything different."

  "Not as tolerant as Diana. Diana's the most—"

  "This hasn't got anything to do with Diana!" he said, and Cassie realized that he meant it. He was so completely honest and straightforward that betrayal had never even entered his mind.

  "I thought," he went on, "that you were someone I could trust. With my life, even. And when I saw you hold out against Jordan—a guy practically twice your size—I knew I was right. It was one of the bravest things I'd ever seen—and all for a stranger. You let him hurt you for my sake, and you didn't even know me."

  Show nothing, Cassie thought. Nothing.

  "And afterward, I felt something special with you. A special understanding. I can't explain it. But I've thought about it ever since. I've thought about you a lot, Cassie, and I was just waiting to tell Diana about you. I wanted her to know that she was right, that there were some outsiders who could deal with us, who could be trusted. Who might be friends of magic. She's been trying for a long time to get the Club to believe that. I wanted to tell her that you'd opened my eyes—in a lot of ways. After I left you, I even seemed to see more when I went out on fishing boats looking for the Master Tools. I'd look for islands while we were out laying the lines, and all of a sudden I felt like I could see clearer—or as if the ocean was revealing things. Helping me. I wanted to tell Diana that too, and see if she could explain it.

  "And in all that time," Adam finished, turning the full power of his blue-gray gaze on Cassie, "I was never sorry I'd given you the chalcedony rose—even though we never do that with outsiders. I hoped you'd never be in enough trouble to need it, but I wanted to be there for you if you were. If you'd ever done what I told you, held it tight in your fist and thought of me, I'd have known, and I'd have tracked it down, no matter where you were. I thought you were that special."

  Was it true? Cassie wondered dizzily. All those times she'd held the stone—but she'd never held it clenched in her fist and thought only of him. She'd never followed his instructions because she'd never believed in magic.

  "And now I get back—and find you're not an outsider after all. Or only half. I was glad to see you here, and to hear you'd joined the Circle. And from what Diana's said, she saw how special you were right away too. But I couldn't tell her I knew you—because for some reason you didn't want people to know. I respected that; I kept my mouth shut and figured you'd explain when you could. And instead—" He gestured ail-inclusively. "This. You've been giving me the brush-off all week, and now you act as if nothing ever happened between us. You even call on the Powers against me, to make me believe a lie. And now I want to know why."

  There was a silence. Cassie could hear the waves below, like soft, rhythmic thunder. She could smell the clear, cold night air. And finally, as if compelled, she raised her eyes to his face. He was right; she couldn't lie to him. Even if he laughed at her, even if he pitied her, she had to give him the truth.

  "Because I'm in love with you," she said, simply and quietly. And then she wouldn't let herself look away.

  He didn't laugh.

  He was staring, though, as if in disbelief. Not understanding what he thought he'd heard her say.

  "That day on the beach, I felt something special too," she said. "But I felt—more. I felt as if we were… connected somehow. As if we were being pulled together. As if we belonged together."

  She could see the confusion in Adam's eyes—like the whirling, spinning confusion she'd felt when she'd discovered Kori's body.

  "I know it sounds stupid," she said. "I can't even believe I'm saying this to you—but you asked for the truth. Everything I felt that day on the beach was wrong, I know that now. You've got Diana. Nobody in their right mind would want anything more. But that day—I had all sorts of stupid ideas. I actually thought I could see something connecting us, like a silver cord. And I felt so close to you, as if we understood each other. As if we were born for each other, and there was no point resisting it…"

  "Cassie," he said. His eyes were black with emotion. A look of—what? Utter disbelief? Revulsion?

&
nbsp; "I know it's not true now," she said helplessly. "But then I didn't realize. And when you were standing so close to me, looking down at me, I thought you were going to—"

  "Cassie."

  It was as if her words had conjured something magical out of the air, or as if her own perceptions had been sharpened. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw it again. The silver cord. It hummed and shimmered, more powerful and vibrant than ever, linking them. It was as if her heart was directly connected to his. Her breath was coming faster and faster, and she lifted her eyes to his face in bewilderment.

  Their gaze held. And in that instant Cassie recognized the emotion that had darkened those blue-gray eyes before.

  Not disbelief, but realization. A dawning understanding, and a wonder that made Cassie's knees feel weak.

  He was… remembering, she thought. And seeing what had happened between them in a new light. Realizing on a conscious level just what he had actually felt that day.

  She knew this as clearly as if he had told her in words. She knew him. She could feel every beat of his heart, she could sense the world through his eyes. She could even see herself as he saw her. A fragile, shy creature of half-hidden beauty, like a wildflower in the shadow of a tree, but with a core of shining steel. And just as she could see herself, she could feel his feelings about her…

  Oh, what was happening ? The world had gone still, and it contained only the two of them. Adam's eyes were wide and dazed, the pupils enormous, and she felt she was falling into them as he looked down at her. A lock of his hair had fallen onto his forehead, that marvelous, tangled wavy hair that was all the colors of autumn in New England. He was like some woodland god who'd come out in the starlight to court a shy tree nymph, and he was irresistible.

  "Adam," she said. "We…"

  But she never got to finish. He was too close to her now; she could feel his warmth, feel their electrical fields merging. She felt his hands cupping the backs of her elbows. Then slowly, slowly, she felt herself being drawn toward him until his arms were around her, embracing her fully. The silver cord could not be denied any longer.

  Sixteen

  Cassie should have pushed him away, should have run from him. Instead, with a gasp, she buried her head in his shoulder, in the comfort of his thick Irish sweater. She could feel his warmth all around her now, anchoring her, keeping her safe. Protecting her. He smelled so good—like autumn leaves and wood fires and ocean wind. Her heart was pounding.

  It was then that Cassie knew what forbidden love meant. It meant this, wanting this much, and feeling this wonderful, and knowing it was wrong. She felt Adam pull away from her slightly. She looked up at him and knew that he was as overwhelmed as she was.

  "We can't," he said in a thick voice. "We can't …"

  Gazing up at him, seeing only his eyes, the color of the ocean that night when it had whispered to her to drown in it, Cassie's lips moved to form a soundless "No." That was when he kissed her.

  And in that instant all coherent thought was lost. She was swept away by a salty wave of sheer feeling. It was like being caught in a riptide, sucked under, tumbling helplessly head over heels with no way to stop. She was dying, but so sweetly.

  She was trembling, boneless. If he hadn't been holding her, she would have fallen. No boy had ever made her feel this way. In the wild and raging confusion there was nothing to do but surrender, to give herself up to it entirely.

  Each shock of sweetness was greater than the last. She was almost senseless with delight, and she no longer even wanted to resist. Despite the wildness, the abandon of it, she wasn't afraid. Because she could trust him. He was leading her, wide-eyed and wondering, into a world she'd never known existed.

  And still he was kissing her and kissing her—they were both intoxicated, dizzy with the madness of this. She knew her cheeks and throat were wildly flushed; she could feel the heat they made together.

  She never knew how long they stood that way, locked in an embrace that should have melted the rock around them. She only knew sometime later that without letting go of her, he was guiding her to sit on a granite outcrop. Her breath slowing, she buried her face again in his shoulder.

  And found peace there. The uncontrollable passion had given way at last to a warm and languorous drowsiness. She was safe, she belonged. And it was so simple, so beautiful.

  "Cassie," he said, in a voice she'd never heard him use before, and at the sound of it her heart dissolved and went out of her body, evaporating through the soles of her feet and her palms and her fingertips. She would never be the same again.

  "I love you," he said.

  She shut her eyes without speaking. She could feel him rest his parted lips against her hair.

  The silver cord had wrapped them in a shining cocoon, like still, moonlit water all around them. The wildness was over. Everything was so peaceful, so hushed. Cassie felt that she could float here forever.

  My destiny, she thought. She'd found it at last. Every moment of her life had been leading to this. Why had she been so afraid of it, why had she ever wanted to escape it? There was nothing here but joy. She would never have to feel afraid again…

  And then she remembered.

  A shock of pure horror lashed through her. Oh, God, what have we done ? she thought.

  She pulled away so sharply that he had to catch her to keep her from falling backward. "Oh, God," she said, feeling the horror sweep away everything else inside her. "Oh, God, Adam, how could we?" she whispered.

  For a moment his eyes were unfocused, open but unseeing, as if he didn't understand why she had broken into their beautiful trance. But then she saw realization come, and his silver-blue gaze shattered. Raw anguish shone out of his eyes.

  Still in his arms, still looking up at him, Cassie began to cry.

  How could they have let this happen? How could she have done this to Diana? Diana, who had rescued her, who had befriended her, who trusted her. Diana, whom she loved.

  Adam belonged to Diana. Cassie knew that Diana had never thought of life without Adam, that all Diana's plans and hopes and dreams involved him. Diana and Adam were meant to be together…

  She thought suddenly of the way Diana's haunting green eyes brightened when she saw

  Adam, of the tender, radiant look Diana got even talking about him.

  And Adam loved Diana too. Cassie knew that as surely as she knew her own feelings. Adam idolized Diana; he adored her with a love as pure and strong and indestructible as Diana's for him.

  But Cassie knew now that Adam loved her as well. How could you love two people? How could you be in love with two at the same time? Still, there was no way to deny it. The chemistry between herself and Adam; the empathy, the bond that drew them together, couldn't be ignored. Clearly, it was possible to love two different people at once.

  And Diana had the first claim.

  "You still love her," Cassie whispered, needing to confirm it. An ache was beginning deep inside her.

  He shut his eyes. "Yes." His voice was ragged. "God, Cassie—I'm sorry…"

  "No, that's good," she said. She knew the ache now. It was the pain of loss, of emptiness, and it was growing. "Because I do, too. And I don't want to hurt her. I never wanted to hurt her. That's why I promised myself I'd never let either of you know…"

  "It's my fault," he said, and she could hear the self-condemnation in his voice. "I should have realized sooner. I should have recognized how I felt and dealt with it. Instead, I forced you into exactly what you were trying to prevent."

  "You didn't force me," Cassie said softly, honestly. Her voice was quiet and steady; everything was simple and clear again, and she knew what she had to do. "It was both our faults. But that doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is that it can never happen again. We have to make sure of that, somehow."

  "But how?" he said bleakly. "We can be sorry all we want—I can hate myself—but if we're ever alone again… I don't know what will happen."

  "Then we can't be alone.
Ever. And we can't sit near each other, or touch, or even let ourselves think about it." She was telling him what to do, but she wasn't afraid. She felt only the certainty of what she was saying.

  His eyes were dark. "I admire your self-control," he said, even more bleakly.

  "Adam," she said, and she felt the melting inside her just at saying his name. "We have to. When you came back Tuesday night after my initiation, when I realized that you and Diana… Well, that night I swore I would never let Diana be hurt because of how I felt about you. I swore I'd never betray her. Do you want to betray her?"

  There was a silence, and she felt the involuntary heave of his lungs. And with her inner senses she felt his agony. Then he let his breath out and shut his eyes again. When he opened them, she saw his answer before he spoke it, and felt it as his arms released her and he sat back, the cold air rushing in between their bodies, separating them at last.

  "No," he said, and there was new strength in his voice. And in his face a new resolution.

  They looked at each other then, not like lovers, but like soldiers. Like comrades-in-arms utterly determined to reach some common goal. Their passion held down and locked away, so deep that no one else would ever see it. It was a new closeness, maybe even more intimate than the trust of boyfriend and girlfriend. Whatever happened, whatever it cost them, they would not betray the girl they both loved.

  Looking right into her eyes, he said, "What oath was it you swore that night? Was it one you got from somebody's Book of Shadows?"

  "No," Cassie said, and then she stopped. "I don't know," she qualified. "I thought I was making it up, but now it seems like it might have come from something longer. It just went, 'Not by word or look or deed…' "

  He was nodding. "I've read one with those lines. It's old—and it's powerful. You call on the four Powers to witness you, and if you ever break the oath, they're free to rise against you. Do you want to swear it again now? With me?"