by L. J. Smith
Cassie wanted to stop the action, to freeze the frame. But she couldn’t. It was taking forever, but the dark man was still turning. He was facing her.
She saw the elegant black jacket, the black turtleneck sweater. But above the turtleneck was a monstrosity that forced tears from her eyes and clogged the scream in her throat. The man had no face.
No hair, no eyebrows, no eyes, no nose. No mouth, only a grinning outline of clenched teeth. Even that, even the stark bones which faced her, were as clear as water.
Cassie couldn’t scream, couldn’t breathe. Her mind was out of control.
Oh God, oh God the skull isn’t gone no wonder we couldn’t find it, it didn’t explode at all because it’s in his head, oh Diana oh Adam it’s in his head . . .
“You see, Cassandra,” came the inhuman voice from behind those clenched teeth, “purity plus clarity equals power. And I have more power than you children have ever dreamed of.”
Oh God I won’t believe this I won’t believe this is happening I don’t want to see any more . . .
“My spirit is not confined to this body,” the voice went on calmly, with terrible lucidity. “It can flow like water wherever I direct it. I can focus its power anywhere.”
The hollow eyesockets tilted down, toward the amethyst pendant which hung from a perfectly normal-looking hand. Firelight flickered deep inside the crystal. Then Cassie felt it—an outrush of power like the one she’d sent to scare the dog and to warn Sean and to light the match. Only this was much stronger, much more concentrated than her feeble bursts had been. She could almost see it, like a blaze of light.
The amethyst pendant shattered.
The silver owl swung, but nothing hung from its claws now. The crystal was gone.
Cassie’s ears caught the tinkle as bits of it fell. But she didn’t really notice the sound consciously. She was blind and deaf with panic.
“Now, Cassandra,” the voice was beginning again, and then it was interrupted by a noise so loud that even Cassie couldn’t ignore it. A roar was coming from the front yard of the school, a sound like a pep rally, only angry. Shrill screams rang out against the background of deep shouting.
The principal dropped the silver chain and strode over to the window which overlooked the front of the school.
And Cassie’s brain woke up. It wanted only one thing, to get out of here. With the dark man’s attention distracted, she dove for the door.
She ran straight through the office without looking at the secretaries. There was chaos in the second-floor halls. Everyone was flooding out of classrooms. “It’s a fight!” some guy on the stairs was yelling. “Come on!”
It’s like a riot; they can’t control everybody at once, Cassie realized dimly. She was still running. She ran down the stairs and then down a hallway, instinctively heading for the center of the confusion.
“Cassie, wait!”
Not a man’s voice, but a threatening one. Faye. Cassie paused for an instant, looking around desperately for Nick or Diana or Adam.
“Cassie, stop, for pity’s sake. No one is trying to hurt you. I’ve been running after you all the way from the office.”
Warily, Cassie edged backward. The hall was deserted now. Everyone was outdoors.
“Cassie, just listen to me. He’s not trying to murder you, I promise. He wants to help you. He likes you.”
“Faye, you’re insane!” Cassie’s control broke, and she screamed the words. “You don’t know what he is! Everything you see about him is an illusion. He’s a monster!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s one of us—”
“Oh, my God, oh, my God,” Cassie said. Reaction was setting in and her knees were shaking so badly that she had to lean against the wall. She slid down, tearing a poster about the Thanksgiving football game. “You didn’t see him. You don’t know.”
“I know you’re being a baby. You didn’t even stay to listen to what he had to say to you. He was going to explain everything—”
“Faye, wake up!” Cassie cried. “For God’s sake, will you please wake up and look at him? He’s nothing that you think. You’re completely blind.”
“You think you know so much about it.” Faye stood back, arms crossed over her chest. She tilted her chin up and looked down at Cassie with heavy-lidded, queerly triumphant eyes. Her blood-red lips curved in a smile. “You think you know everything—but you don’t even know what his name was when he was here last. When he came to our parents and he lived at Number Thirteen.”
The strength of terror Cassie had felt moments earlier was gone, and the ground suddenly felt very unstable. She pressed a hand against the floor. Faye was still looking at her with those strange, triumphant eyes. “No,” Cassie whispered.
“‘No’ you don’t know? Or ‘no’ don’t tell you? But I want to tell you, Cassie, and it’s time you did know. The name he used last time was John Blake.”
Chapter 10
Cassie stared, beyond speech, beyond thought. Not believing—but inside her, something knew.
“It’s true. He’s your father.”
Cassie just sat.
“And he wants you to be happy, Cassie. He wants you to be his heir. He’s got a lot planned for you.”
“And what are you?” Cassie cried, outraged, pushed
beyond the limits of her endurance. “My new stepmother?”
Faye chuckled—that infuriating, lazy, self-satisfied chuckle. “Maybe. Why not? I’ve always liked older men—and he’s only about three centuries older.”
“You’re disgusting!” Cassie couldn’t find the right words. None were bad enough, and she didn’t want to believe that any of this was actually happening. “You’re—you—”
“I haven’t done anything yet, Cassie. John and I have a—business relationship.”
Cassie felt as if she were gagging. For herself, for
Faye . . . “You call him John?” she whispered.
“What do you think I should call him? Mr. Brunswick? Or what he called himself the last time he was here, Mr. Blake?”
Everything was spinning around Cassie now. The pale green cinderblock walls were whirling. She wanted to faint. If only she could faint she wouldn’t have to think.
But she couldn’t. Slowly, the spinning steadied, she felt the floor solid beneath her. There was no way to escape this. There was no choice but to deal with it.
“Oh, God,” Cassie whispered. “It’s true. It’s really true.”
“It’s true,” Faye said quietly, with satisfaction. “Your mother was his girlfriend. He told me the whole story, how she fell in love with him when he went over to Number Twelve to borrow some matches. They never did get married, apparently—but I’m sure he didn’t begrudge her his name.”
It was true . . . and that had been what Cassie’s grandmother was trying to tell her when she died. “I have one more thing to tell you,” she’d said, and then Laurel had come in. The last words had only been a whisper, “John” and something else Cassie couldn’t make out. But she could recall the shape of her grandmother’s lips trying to make it. It had been “Blake.”
“Why didn’t she try to tell me before?” Cassie whispered raggedly, hardly aware she was speaking aloud. “Why wait until she was dying? Why?”
“Who, your grandma? She didn’t want to upset you, I suppose,” Faye said. “She probably thought you’d be—disturbed—if you knew. And maybe”—Faye leaned forward—“she knew it would bring you closer to him. You’re his own flesh and blood, Cassie. His daughter.”
Cassie was shaking her head, blind, nauseated. “The other old women—they must have known too! God, everybody who knew him must have known. And nobody told me. Why didn’t they tell me?”
“Oh, stop sniveling, Cassie. I’m sure they didn’t tell you because they were afraid of how you’d react. And I must say it looks as if they were right. You’re falling apart.”
Great-aunt Constance, Cassie was thinking. She must have known. How could she stand to look at me?
How can she stand to have my mother in her house?
And Mrs. Franklin had been going to tell her, she realized suddenly. Yes. That had been what that last-minute scene in Aunt Constance’s parlor had been all about. Adam’s grandmother had been about to tell, about to say something to Cassie about her father. Granny Quincey and Aunt Constance had stopped her. They were all in a conspiracy of silence, to keep the truth from Cassie.
Probably not the parents, Cassie thought slowly, feeling very tired. They probably didn’t remember anyway. They’d made themselves forget everything. But Aunt Constance had warned the Circle against stirring up those old memories, and her gaze had settled on Cassie when she did it.
“Just think about it, Cassie,” Faye was saying, and that husky voice sounded reasonable now, not gloating or triumphant. “He only wants the best for you; he always has. You were born as part of his plans. I know you and I have had our problems in the past, but John wants us to get along. Won’t you just give it a try? Won’t you, Cassie?”
Slowly, painfully, Cassie made her eyes focus. Faye was kneeling in front of her. Faye’s beautiful, sensual face seemed lit softly from within. She really means it, Cassie thought. She’s sincere. Maybe she’s in love with him.
And maybe, Cassie mused dizzily, I should think about it. So many things have changed since I came to New Salem—I’m not at all the person I used to be. The old, shy Cassie who never had a boyfriend and never had anything to say is gone. Maybe this is just another change, another stage of life. Maybe I’m at the crossroads.
She looked at Faye for a long moment, searching the depths of those amber eyes. Then, slowly, she shook her head.
No.
Even as she thought it, chill white determination flooded her. That was one road she would never take, no matter what happened. She would never become what Black John—what her father—wanted.
Without a word, without looking back, Cassie got up and walked away from Faye.
Outside, the melee was still going on. Cassie scanned the front entrance of the school and saw the weak November sun shining on a cascade of fair hair. She headed for it.
“Diana . . .”
“Cassie, thank God! When Nick told us you were alone in his office . . .” Diana’s eyes widened. “Cassie, what’s wrong?”
“I have to tell you something. At home. Can we go home now?” Cassie was holding on to Diana’s hand.
Diana stared at her for another moment, then shook herself. “Yes. Of course. But Nick will be looking for you. He had the idea that we should start a fight on the first floor as a diversion; just grab a bunch of people and start swinging. All the guys did it, and Deborah and Laurel. They’re all looking for you.”
Cassie couldn’t face any of them, especially Nick. Once he knew what she really was—what he’d held in his arms, what he’d kissed . . .
“Please, can’t you just tell them I’m okay, but I need to go home?” Suzan was standing nearby; Cassie nodded at her. “Can’t Suzan just tell them?”
“Yes. All right. Suzan, tell everybody I’ve taken Cassie home. They can stop the fight now.” Diana led Cassie down the hill to the parking lot. They had barely reached Diana’s car, though, when Adam appeared, running.
“The fight’s breaking up—and I’m coming with you,” he said. Cassie wanted to argue, but she didn’t have the strength. Besides, Diana might need Adam there when Cassie told her the whole story.
Cassie nodded at Adam and he got in the car without further discussion. They drove to Diana’s house and went up to Diana’s room.
“Now tell us what happened before I have a heart attack,” Diana said.
But it wasn’t that easy. Cassie went over to the bay window, where sunlight was striking the prisms hanging there so that wedges of rainbow light bobbed and slid over the walls. She turned to look at the black and white prints on either side of the window; Diana’s collection of Greek goddesses. There was proud Hera, queenly with her mane of pitch-black hair and her hooded, untamed eyes; there was Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, with her soft bosom exposed; there was fierce Artemis, the virgin huntress afraid of nothing. And here, on the other side, was Athena, the gray-eyed goddess of wisdom, and Persephone, fresh-faced and elfin and surrounded by blooming flowers. Last of all, in color, was the print of a goddess older than the Greek civilization, the great goddess Diana, who ruled the moon and stars and night. Diana, Queen of Witches.
“Cassie!”
“Sorry,” Cassie whispered, and slowly turned to face her Diana. Who just now looked sick with suspense.
“I’m sorry,” she said, more loudly. “I just don’t know how to say this, I guess. But I know now why I was born so much later than all of you . . . or, actually, no, I don’t.” She pondered that a moment. “Not why I was so late. Unless he knew by then the coven was going to try to throw him out, so he thought he’d better have a back-up . . .” Cassie thought it over and shook her head. Adam and Diana were staring at her as if she’d gone crazy. “I guess I don’t know everything. But I’m not half outsider, like we thought. That isn’t why he’s been after me; it’s a completely different reason. We thought Kori and I spoiled his plans somehow . . . oh, God.” Cassie stopped, feeling a pain like jagged glass shoot through her. Her eyes filled. “I think—God, it must be. I know why Kori died. Because of me. If she hadn’t died, she would have joined the coven instead of me, and he didn’t want that. She was the one he hadn’t planned on. So he had to get rid of her.” Another spasm of pain almost doubled Cassie over. She was afraid she might be sick.
“Sit down,” Adam was saying urgently. They were both helping her to the bed.
“Don’t . . . you don’t know yet. You might not want to touch me.”
“Cassie, for God’s sake tell us what you’re talking about. You’re not making any sense.”
“Yes, I am. I’m Black John’s daughter.”
In that instant, if either of them had loosened their grip on her or recoiled, Cassie felt she might have tried to jump out the window. But Diana’s clear green eyes just widened, the pupils huge and bottomless. Adam’s eyes turned silver.
“Faye told me, and it’s true.”
“It’s not true,” Adam said tightly.
“It’s not true, and I’ll kill her,” Diana said. This, from gentle Diana, was astonishing.
They both went on holding Cassie. Diana was holding her from one side and Adam was on the other side, holding both of them, embracing their embrace. Cassie’s shaking shook all three.
“It is true,” Cassie whispered, trying to keep some grip on herself. She had to be calm now; she couldn’t lose control. “It explains everything. It explains why I dreamed about him—him and the sinking ship. We’re—connected, somehow. It explains why he keeps coming after me, like when we called him up at Halloween, and last night on the beach. He wants me to join him. Faye’s in love with him. Just like my mother was.”
Cassie shuddered. Adam and Diana just kept hanging on to her. Neither of them even flinched when she looked them in the face.
“It explains my mother,” Cassie said thickly. “Why he went to our house that night when he came back, when we let him out of the grave. He went to see her—that’s why she’s like she is now. Oh, Diana, I have to go to her.”
“In a minute,” Diana said, her own voice husky with suppressed tears. “In a little while.”
Cassie was thinking. No wonder her mother had run away from New Salem, no wonder there had always been helpless terror lurking at the back of her mother’s eyes. How could you not be terrified when the man you loved turned out to be something from a nightmare? When you had to go away to have his baby, someplace where no one would ever know?
But she’d been brave enough to come back, and to bring Cassie. And now Cassie had to be brave.
There’s nothing frightening in the dark if you just face it. Cassie didn’t know how she was going to face this, but she had to, somehow.
“I’m okay now,” she whispered. “And I
want to see my mom.”
Diana and Adam were telegraphing things over her head.
“We’re going with you,” Diana said. “We won’t go in the room if you don’t want, but we’re going to take you there.”
Cassie looked at them: at Diana’s eyes, dark as emeralds now, but full of love and understanding; and at Adam, his fine-boned face calm and steady. She squeezed their hands.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you both.”
Great-aunt Constance answered the door. She looked surprised to see them and a little flustered, which surprised Cassie in turn. She wouldn’t have thought Melanie’s aunt ever got flustered.
But as Cassie was going into the guest room, Granny Quincey and old Mrs. Franklin were coming out. Cassie looked at Laurel’s frail great-grandmother, and at Adam’s plump, untidy grandmother, and then at Aunt Constance.
“We were—trying one or two things to see if we could help your mother,” Aunt Constance said, looking slightly uncomfortable. She coughed. “Old remedies,” she admitted. “There may be some good in them. We’ll be in the parlor if you need anything.” She shut the door.
Cassie turned to look at the figure lying between Aunt Constance’s starched white sheets. She went and knelt by the bedside.
Her mother’s face was as pale as those sheets. Everything about her was white and black: white face, black hair, black lashes forming crescents on her cheeks. Cassie took her cold hand and only then realized she didn’t have the first idea what to say.
“Mother?” she said, and then: “Mom? Can you hear me?”
No answer. Not a twitch.
“Mom,” Cassie said with difficulty, “I know you’re sick, and I know you’re scared, but there’s one thing you don’t have to be scared of anymore. I know the truth. I know about my father.”
Cassie waited, and she thought she saw the sheets over her mother’s chest rise and fall a little more quickly.
