by L. J. Smith
“It is the same girl,” Portia said positively. “Only when I knew her she had the sense not to flaunt herself. She knew her place then.”
“Well, right now her place is with the most popular clique in school. They all think they’re so wonderful; they think they can do anything. Including kill people.”
“Well, not anymore,” Portia said with satisfaction. “Things around here are about to change dramatically—for the better. You know, I’m glad my mom decided to move here after the divorce. I thought it would be terrible, but it’s all turning out for the best.”
Cassie held herself carefully still. So Sally and Portia were joining forces. Now if they would just be so obliging as to describe a little of their plans . . .
But the sound of running water drowned out the next few sentences, and then she heard Sally say, “I’d better get to calculus. Want to meet for lunch?”
“Yes, and I think you should come over to my house at Thanksgiving vacation,” Portia said. “I think you’ll like my brothers.”
Cassie stood protectively surrounded by the rest of the Circle. It was Saturday and the burial was almost over.
This wasn’t the old burying ground, the one which had been “vandalized” (that was the official story) the night her grandmother died. It was the modern cemetery where Kori had been buried. Modern in New Salem terms, that is: the oldest graves were from the 1800s. Cassie wondered why the parents killed by Black John in 1976 hadn’t been buried here. Maybe someone had felt the old graveyard was more appropriate.
People were coming up to her, saying how sorry they were, asking about her mother. The official story on her mother was that she was in shock over the death of Cassie’s grandmother and too ill to come. Cassie told them her mother was going to be fine.
Faye had showed up, to Cassie’s surprise. Her lacy black dress was beautiful, if a little too clinging to be appropriate at a funeral. Her red lips and nails were the only touches of color about her.
“So sorry,” a familiar voice said coolly, and Cassie looked up to see Portia. Sally was right behind her; those two seemed joined at the hip these days.
“What a surprise to see you here,” Portia added, her hazel eyes fixed on Cassie’s. Cassie remembered them; mean as snake’s eyes, she thought. They seemed to have a mesmerizing effect, and Cassie felt the crushing sense of helplessness start to descend.
She fought it, and tried to speak, but Portia was going on. “I didn’t realize you had family up here. But maybe now that you don’t you’ll be going back to California . . . ?”
“No, I’m staying.” To Cassie’s frustration, she couldn’t think of anything else to say. She’d come up with a devastatingly witty retort tonight, undoubtedly.
But she wasn’t alone in New Salem. Adam said, “Cassie still has family here,” and moved to Cassie’s side.
“Yeah, we’re all brothers. All life is, like, linked,” Chris said, coming up on Cassie’s other side. He stared at Portia out of his strange blue-green eyes. Doug joined him, grinning his mad grin.
Portia blinked. Cassie had forgotten what the Henderson brothers looked like to people who didn’t know them.
But Portia recovered quickly. “That’s right—they say all you people are related. Well, maybe someday soon you’ll meet my family.” She looked at Adam. “I’m sure they’d enjoy that.” She turned on her heel and walked away.
Cassie and Adam exchanged a glance, but before they could say anything, Mr. Humphries had stepped up.
“It’s been a beautiful service,” he told Cassie. “We’ll all miss your grandmother.”
“Thank you,” Cassie said. She managed a smile for him; she liked Mr. Humphries, with his neat little salt-and-pepper beard and his sympathetic eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses. “It was nice of you to come.”
“I hope your mother is feeling better soon,” said Mr. Humphries, and then he moved on. Ms. Lanning, Cassie’s American-history teacher, came up to talk then, but Cassie’s attention lingered on Mr. Humphries. A tall man with dark hair had joined him, and Cassie heard the rumble of a deep voice, followed by Mr. Humphries’s lighter, quicker tones.
“—introduce me?” the dark man was saying.
“Why, certainly,” Mr. Humphries said. He turned back to Cassie, bringing the dark man with him. “Cassie, I thought you might want to meet our new principal, Mr. Jack Brunswick. He’s interested in getting to know his students as soon as possible.”
“That’s right,” the tall man said, in deep, pleasant tones. He reached out and took Cassie’s hand in a firm grip. His own hand was large and strong. She glanced down at it as she opened her mouth to say something polite, but then froze, paralyzed, feeling her heart pound like a trip-hammer while the blood drained out of her face.
“I don’t think she’s feeling well—this must have been a long day—” Ms. Lanning was saying, but her voice seemed to come from a distance. She took hold of Cassie’s arm.
But Cassie couldn’t let go of the dark man’s hand with its strong, well-made fingers. All she could see was the signet ring on his index finger, carved with a symbol that reminded her of the inscriptions on Diana’s silver bracelet—Faye’s silver bracelet now. The stone in the ring was black and reflective, with a metallic luster. It looked like hematite, but Cassie knew it wasn’t. It was a lodestone.
Then, at last, Cassie looked up at the new principal, and she saw the face she’d seen during the skull ceremony in Diana’s garage. The face that had rushed at her, faster and faster, bigger and bigger, trying to escape from the crystal skull. A cruel, cold face. For an instant she seemed to see the crystal skull itself superimposed on the principal’s face, its bone structure clearly visible. The hollow eyes, the grinning teeth—
Cassie swayed on her feet. Ms. Lanning was trying to support her; she could hear Adam’s alarmed voice, and Diana’s. But she could see nothing except the darkness of the new principal’s eyes. They were like glassy volcanic rock, like the ocean at midnight, like magnetite. They were swallowing her up. . . .
Cassie. The voice was in her mind.
Rushing blackness surrounded her and she fell.
Darkness. She was on a ship—no, she wasn’t. She was fighting, struggling in icy water. Cassie clawed out, trying to get to the surface. She couldn’t see—
“Take it easy! You’re safe. Cassie, it’s all right.”
A wet cloth fell away from Cassie’s eyes. She was in Diana’s living room, lying on the couch. It was dim because the curtains were drawn and the lamps were off. Diana was leaning over her, and the long, silvery cascade of Diana’s hair was falling down like a shield between Cassie and the world.
“Diana!” She clung to the other girl’s hand.
“It’s all right. You’re okay. You’re okay.”
Cassie let out her breath, leaning back against the couch, her eyes meeting Diana’s.
“Jack Brunswick is Black John.” It was a flat statement.
“I know,” Diana said grimly. “After you went down we all saw the ring. I don’t think he expected us to recognize him so fast.”
“What happened? What did he do?” Cassie was envisioning chaos at the cemetery.
“Not much. He left as we were carrying you to my car. Adam and Deborah went after him, but they weren’t obvious about it. They’re going to try to follow him. Nobody else—none of the adults—realized anything was wrong. They just figured you were exhausted. Mr. Humphries said maybe you’d better take some time off from school.”
“Maybe we’d all better,” Cassie whispered. Her head was spinning. Black John in charge of the school. What in the name of God was he planning?
“You said Adam went after him?” she asked, and Diana nodded. Cassie felt a pang of anxiety—and frustration. She wanted Adam here, so she could talk to him. She needed him. . . .
“Hey, everything okay in there?” Chris and Doug were hanging in the doorway, as if it were a lady’s boudoir that they weren’t allowed inside of.
“
She’s all right,” Diana said.
“You sure, Cassie?” Chris asked, venturing a few steps in. Cassie nodded wanly, then suddenly thought of Sally’s words in the bathroom. She’s the kind guys are just dying to take care of. That certainly wasn’t true . . . was it? Sally had warped everything; she’d had it all wrong.
“Come on, you two, there’s double-fudge cake in the kitchen,” Diana said to the brothers. “Everybody in the neighborhood’s been dropping food off, and we need help eating it.” Cassie thought it was strange that Diana was leaving her, then she saw that Chris and Doug hadn’t been alone.
Nick was standing in the hallway outside the living room. When Diana ushered the Henderson brothers out, he came in, walking slowly.
“Uh . . . hi, Nick,” Cassie said.
He gave her an odd, fleeting smile and sat on the arm of the couch. His customary mask of stone was gone today. In the dim room, Cassie thought he looked a little tired, a little sad, but maybe that was only her imagination.
“How’re you doing?” he said. “You had us scared for a minute there.”
Nick, scared? Cassie didn’t believe it. “I’m fine, now,” she said, and then she tried to think of something else to say. It was the same as it had been with Portia: when she really needed it, her mind wouldn’t work.
The silence stretched out. Nick was looking at the scrolls and flowers on the upholstery of the couch. “Cassie,” he said finally, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”
“Oh, have you,” Cassie said faintly. She felt very strange; hot and embarrassed and at the same time weak. She didn’t want Nick to go on—but some part of her did.
“I realize this isn’t exactly the perfect moment,” he said ironically, transferring his gaze to the wallpaper. “But the way things are going we may all be dead before the perfect moment comes.” Cassie opened her mouth, but no sound came out, and Nick was going on, relentlessly, inevitably, his voice low but perfectly audible. “I know you and Conant were pretty attached to each other,” he said. “And I know you thought a lot of him. I realize I’m hardly the perfect substitute—but like I said, the way things are going maybe it’s stupid to wait for perfection.” Suddenly he was looking directly at her and Cassie saw something in his mahogany eyes she’d never seen before. “So, Cassie, what do you think about it?” Nick said. “About you and me?”
Chapter 5
Cassie opened her mouth to speak, but Nick was going on.
“You know, when I first saw you I thought you were just ordinary,” he said. “Then I started noticing things about you—your hair, your mouth. The way you kept on fighting even when you were scared. That night when Lovejoy was killed you were scared to death, but you were the one who suggested we look for the dark energy, and when we were out at the burying ground you kept up with Deborah.” Nick stopped and grinned ruefully. “And with us guys,” he said.
Cassie felt an answering smile tug at her own lips; quickly suppressed it. “Nick, I . . .”
“Don’t say anything yet. I want you to know that I—felt bad about how I treated you when you came to ask me to the dance.” His jaw was tight, and he looked steadily at one particular flower on the upholstery of the couch. “I don’t know why I did it—I’ve just got a lousy temper, I guess. I’ve had it so long I don’t even think about it anymore.” Nick took a deep breath before continuing, “See, I’ve always hated living with Deb’s parents; I always felt like I owed them something. It put me in a permanent bad mood, I guess. I felt like my mom and dad screwed up somehow, getting themselves killed in a hurricane so their kid had to be supported by other people. It made me hate them—and my aunt and uncle too.”
Nick stopped and shook his head thoughtfully. “Yeah, especially Aunt Grace. She talks about my dad all the time, goin’ on and on about how reckless he was, how he didn’t care who he left behind, that kind of crap. It made me sick. I never figured it could be because she missed him.”
Cassie was fascinated. “Is that why you don’t like magic?” It was a blind guess, but he looked at her, startled.
“I don’t know—I suppose it could have something to do with it. I resented the rest of the coven because I felt like they all had a better deal than me. They all had at least a grandparent, and I just had my dead parents that screwed up. And they were all so damn cheerful about it—like Conant. He—” Nick paused and glanced up at Cassie wryly. “Well, maybe the less said about him, the better. Anyway, I know the truth now. My parents didn’t screw up, and if I screw up I can’t blame them anymore. I’ve got only one person to blame—me. So I’m sorry about the way I acted.”
“Nick, that’s okay. You did take me to the dance.”
“Yeah, after you came back and asked again. That took guts. And after I took you we went to Number Thirteen and you got hurt.” The corner of Nick’s mouth turned down. “I couldn’t do anything about that. It was Conant who saved you.”
A memory of the smoky thing at the Halloween ceremony, the dark form that had risen out of the Samhain fire, flickered through Cassie’s mind. She shoved it away, feeling panic rise in her chest. She didn’t want to think about Black John now—frightening though he had been as a smoky figure, he was more frightening by far as a man. His eyes . . .
“Cassie.” Nick’s strong fingers were wrapped around her wrist. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
Cassie gulped a deep breath and nodded, her awareness returning to the dim room. “Thanks,” she whispered. It felt good to have Nick’s hand on her arm: warm fingers, firm grip. It steadied her. And, God, she’d needed somebody to hang on to, for so long . . . She remembered sitting in Adam’s car, aching with the need to hold him, to be held. And knowing that she couldn’t, that she never could. Cassie had that same ache now, and Adam was completely lost to her. How long did she have to live with the empty feeling?
“I know,” Nick was saying in a low voice, “that you’re not in love with me. I know I’m not him. But, Cassie, I like you. I like you a lot, more than any girl I’ve ever seen. You’re so decent to people, you’re not hard, but inside you’re tough as Deb. Tough as me, maybe.” He laughed shortly. “You haven’t kept a grudge against anybody in the Club, no matter how they treated you in the beginning. Deb was really surprised about that. And in the end you’ve made them all respect you. The Henderson brothers never fell for a girl before, but they don’t know if they’re on their heads or their feet anymore. I think they’re going to make you a pipe bomb for Christmas.”
Cassie couldn’t help laughing with him. “Well, I guess that’s one way to get rid of the problem.”
“Even Faye respects you,” Nick said. “She wouldn’t have tried so hard to destroy you otherwise. Look, Cassie, I can’t explain what it is about you—you’re good but you’re tough. You can take it. And you’ve got the most gorgeous eyes I’ve ever seen.”
Cassie felt the blood rising to her face. She could feel his eyes on her, and she was the one forced to study the wallpaper. The hot, strange feeling inside her was stronger every minute.
She was thinking about that first week of school, when Deborah and the Henderson brothers had been teasing her, playing keep-away with her backpack—and suddenly a brown arm had reached into her field of vision, catching the backpack, saving her. Nick. And about how nice he’d been in the boiler room when she’d found Jeffrey’s body, how he’d held her and said, “Steady, steady.” His arms had been solid and comforting then. Nick wasn’t intimidated by anything. She liked Nick.
But liking wasn’t enough.
Cassie found herself shaking her head. “Nick—I’m so sorry. I can’t lead you on . . .”
“I said I knew you weren’t in love with me. But if you just want to give it a try—I’ll be there when you need somebody. We could have some fun,” he added, as lightly as she’d ever heard Nick speak. “Get to know each other.”
Cassie thought about how annoyed she’d been a while ago that Adam wasn’t here at Diana’s. She didn’t have the right to demand Adam
like that—and it was dangerous. I’ll be there when you need somebody. How could Nick know how important that was to her?
She looked up at him, and in a voice she herself could barely hear, she said, “Okay.”
The mahogany eyes widened slightly in surprise—which by Nick’s normally expressionless standards translated into astonishment. A wondering smile curved his lips a little. He looked so happy that Cassie felt herself drawn into it. Why could she never resist smiling back at him?
“I didn’t think you’d go for it,” he said, still wonderingly.
Cassie laughed, but blushed harder. “So why did you ask?”
“I figured it was worth asking, even if you told me to get lost.”
“Nick.” Cassie felt something strange. “I wouldn’t ever tell you to get lost. You’re—well, you’re really special.” She didn’t know how to say what she meant, and the words caught in her throat anyway. Her vision was blurring, swimming. She blinked to clear it and felt tears spill. And then Nick moved toward her and somehow she was in his arms, crying on his shoulder. Nothing had ever been so comforting as that gray-wool-clad shoulder.
She sniffled and she could feel him leaning his cheek against her hair. “Let’s just give it a try for a while,” he said softly. And Cassie nodded and let herself rest in his arms.
It was dark when she let Nick out the front door. Diana was upstairs; Chris and Doug had left a long time ago. Cassie felt uncertain and shy as she tapped on Diana’s door.
“Come in,” Diana said, and Cassie did, remembering the first time she’d tapped on this door and come into this room, the day Diana had rescued her from Faye in the science building. Then, Diana had been sitting at the window seat, surrounded by a whirling crowd of rainbows. Now Diana was sitting at the desk with a pile of papers in front of her.
“So what happened?” she said, turning around.
Cassie could feel the heat in her cheeks. “I—we—we decided that we would give it a try. Being—well, sort of being together, I mean.”
