The Secret Circle: The Complete Collection: The Initiation and The Captive Part I, The Captive Part II and The Power, The Divide, The Hunt, The Temptation

by L. J. Smith

  The town of New Salem oddly came to life around funerals. People Cassie had never even seen before poured into Suzan’s house with flowers and food for Suzan’s dad. He was polite, but dazed. It might take weeks for the reality of Suzan’s death to actually hit him. Cassie wished she could go to him now and offer him some kind of explanation for what had happened to his little girl. He must have so many questions. But Cassie restrained herself. It was probably better to leave those things unsaid. None of it really added up to an explanation anyhow.

  Diana huddled close to Cassie and whispered in her ear. “See those?” she said, pointing to a bouquet of lilies. “They’re from Max.”

  Cassie could see Diana was hurting. Not having Max nearby when she needed him the most couldn’t have been easy. This day would have been impossible for Cassie to endure without Adam. But then again, Adam wasn’t the Circle’s sworn enemy.

  Diana touched one of the lilies longingly. “I broke it off with him, you know.”

  Cassie tried not to appear relieved.

  “After what happened with Suzan, I realized how dangerous it really was,” Diana continued. “I told him I needed to stand with my Circle.”

  “And he’s okay with that?”

  “He doesn’t have a choice,” Diana said, but she gazed around the room as if she were still hoping Max might step inside at any moment.

  Cassie could relate. She had given up Adam once for the good of the Circle and her friendship with Diana. She searched her mind for the right thing to say. Max hadn’t been on the roof the night of their battle, so maybe he wasn’t so bad after all—maybe he was having second thoughts about being a hunter. But Cassie still couldn’t ignore the facts: It was Max who’d marked Faye. It was Max’s father who’d killed Suzan—Suzan, who they’d just buried less than an hour before. Cassie couldn’t help but be glad Diana had broken up with him, at least for the time being.

  “Look, Diana,” Cassie said. “None of us knows what the future holds. What’s going to happen between you and Max down the road isn’t something we can predict. But today, you have your friends. And we’re here for you—we have to be, now more than ever.”

  “You’re right. And I’m grateful. Believe me, I am.” Diana paused. “It’s just that sometimes I wish everything could just be normal. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Well,” Cassie said, looking over at Adam. He was greeting strangers at the door, thanking them for their casseroles and flowers, directing them toward the sitting room. He was always the helper, always the gentle knight. How could Cassie judge Diana harshly for choosing a complicated person to love, when she knew it was hardly a choice at all?

  “You know what I think?” Cassie put her arm around Diana and brought her in for a hug. “I think sometimes, normal is overrated.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Later that night, after the mourners had gone home, the Circle convened in Diana’s living room. They sat motionless, leaning on one another, staring into space as if waiting for something none of them could name. They listened to the sound of the driving rain on the roof and the savage gusts of wind buffeting the bay window. Outside, the night sky had turned pink in the storm: Suzan’s favorite color.

  Nobody knew what to say, and there was much not being said. Those unspoken words hung in the air like ghosts in their midst: that it could have been any one of them who’d been killed. That if Cassie hadn’t shown up, they’d all have witch-hunter death symbols glowing on their foreheads. It was a strange mind-set, to be both grieving for the death of their friend while also giving thanks that they’d been spared.

  Faye sat hugging her knees to her chest on the end of the couch, separate from the others. Her eyes were blank and drooping with exhaustion. Cassie understood it would be a long time before Faye was acting like herself again, and even then, she might never be the same.

  Diana took a deep breath and looked at the group. “One of our own is dead,” she said. “The Circle has been broken.” Her Book of Shadows was at her side. She picked it up and brought it into her lap. “I don’t want to talk about this any more than you do, but we have to find out what happens now that our Circle is incomplete.”

  “It means we’re weak again,” Deborah said. “Like we were before we initiated Cassie, before we were whole.”

  Melanie nodded. “This is the worst time for us to have an unbound Circle, with the combined threat of the hunters and Scarlett. I don’t mean to sound cold, but we need to initiate someone in Suzan’s place as soon as possible.”

  Laurel’s eyes welled up with tears. Cassie couldn’t blame her. She could hardly stand to think about these technicalities either. She wanted to go home, take a hot bath, and bury her head in her mother’s shoulder. But she had to stand by her friends—she had to try to help in whatever way she could.

  Cassie offered the Circle the only information she knew. “Scarlett said whoever dies in a bound Circle has to be replaced by someone of their own bloodline. Whoever’s next in their family lineage. So we’re not going to have much say in the matter of who fills Suzan’s place.”

  “Right,” Adam said, responding to Cassie. “But Suzan had no siblings or other family that we know about. So what happens now?”

  “Maybe it becomes a wild card,” Nick suggested. “And we get to choose whoever we want.”

  “I wish that were the case, but I’d be shocked if it were that simple.” Diana flipped through her Book of Shadows, searching for something. Within a few seconds she found the page she was looking for.

  “This is a family tree spell,” she said, holding the book up for all to see and then setting it back down on her lap. “It could help us fill in any blanks in Suzan’s ancestry.”

  Adam read the spell over Diana’s shoulder. “It can definitely tell us who would be next in line. If there is anyone.”

  “I’m pretty sure Suzan’s bloodline ended with her,” Deborah said. “She was the only child of two only children, wasn’t she?”

  “We can’t be too sure.” Adam looked up from the book. “Suzan’s family was notoriously tight-lipped. Her father refused to talk about the past with her at all. I think checking her family tree is worth a try.”

  Diana read over the detailed instructions. “It seems simple enough. All we need is some canvas paper and …” Her voice trailed off.

  “What?” Sean asked, sounding like he sensed the worst.

  “We need something of Suzan’s,” Diana said quietly. “Something containing DNA. Like her blood.”

  The room fell silent. Awful visions of Suzan’s body buried tightly beneath the cold ground rushed through Cassie’s mind. “There’s no way,” she said. “Forget it.”

  But Laurel quickly got up and ran into the other room. She returned carrying Suzan’s soft leather purse. “I brought this so we could perform a deep peace ritual tonight. As a memorial with some of her favorite things.”

  Laurel opened the purse so they could all view its contents. It was a mishmash of makeup, bubble gum, and crumpled up Twinkie wrappers. Cassie felt a lump form in her throat. There was something sacrilegious about going through a deceased person’s personal items. The purse even smelled like Suzan.

  “I don’t think you’re going to find any blood in there,” Cassie said. “At least I hope you don’t.”

  “That’s not what I’m looking for.” Laurel lifted Suzan’s hairbrush out from the bottom of the purse. She pulled a few tangled strands of Suzan’s strawberry-blond hair out of its bristles. “There’s your DNA,” she said to Diana. “It’ll work the same as a blood sample.”

  “Laurel, you’re a genius.” Diana bolted to her desk drawer to retrieve a canvas art pad. She flipped through the pad, past a number of charcoal drawings and acrylic paintings, until she found a blank page. She tore it out carefully and brought it back to the group. Then she continued reading from her Book of Shadows.

  “We’ll still need ink,” Diana said. “But it has to come from something Suzan had direct contact with. Is there
a pen inside her purse? If she used it recently it might still contain some of her energy.”

  Laurel dug through the bag, but she couldn’t find a pen. “No luck,” she said. “But this might work.” She offered Diana a bottle of Suzan’s nail polish. It was the same color she’d painted her nails earlier that week—sparkle-flecked magenta.

  Diana took the bottle from Laurel and uncapped it. “She definitely had contact with this.”

  Cassie and the others gathered around Diana, forming a circle, as she prepared the spell. She placed the canvas flat on the floor and scattered Suzan’s hair on it, as her Book of Shadows instructed. Then she trickled a few drops of the nail polish on the center of the page and said:

  Reveal to us Suzan’s family tree.

  And who our new Circle member will be.

  Immediately, pinkish purple lines soaked into the veins of the paper like blood. Up from the bottom of the page, a tree began to draw itself in watery magenta strokes. It was thick at its base and grew upward and out in long stalks, spreading across the entire canvas. Branches formed and then names attached to each branch.

  “It’s working,” Diana said. “I don’t believe it.”

  Cassie watched each generation of Suzan’s family grow from the tree like blossoming fruit. The first names to appear dated back three hundred years, which meant Suzan’s ancestors must have been among New Salem’s founding families. The tree grew fast through the decades and seemed to be picking up speed as it neared the present. By the time Suzan’s parents’ names appeared, almost every inch of paper had been inked over in fine print.

  “Linda Forsythe,” Laurel said. “That was Suzan’s mother who passed away in the storm. We would have known her as Linda Whittier.”

  “Forsythe?” Cassie said aloud, but nobody heard her. She hadn’t remembered until now that the surname Whittier came from Suzan’s father’s side. She hadn’t given any thought at all to Suzan’s mother’s bloodline.

  “Forsythe?” Cassie said again. Her stomach twisted at the sight of it. “That was Suzan’s mother’s maiden name?”

  But no one responded. Everyone was too focused on the next line being drawn to the tree.

  Linda Forsythe’s name connected to her husband’s and then branched out to form Suzan’s name. But then another branch formed from Linda Forsythe’s name: Laura Forsythe.

  “Who’s that?” Melanie asked.

  “It looks like Suzan’s mother had a sibling we didn’t know about. A sister. Forsythe …” Diana said, turning to Cassie, her face pale. “Hold on. Isn’t that—”

  The final name on the tree brought Diana to a deathly silence. It branched downward from Laura Forsythe’s name and glowed in bright magenta: Scarlett Forsythe.

  “No,” Cassie said. But she watched in horror as one final deep red line connected Suzan’s name to Scarlett’s. “This can’t be right,” she said. “Suzan and Scarlett can’t be related.”

  “Suzan and Scarlett were cousins?” Adam said.

  “Does this mean what I think it means?” Laurel asked.

  Cassie broke into a cold sweat. So that was the name of Scarlett’s mother. Laura Forsythe. The woman who’d sparred with Cassie’s own mother over Black John’s affections. She had run away from New Salem, Cassie knew that. Her mother said she’d disappeared, never to be heard from again. But here she was now, long after she’d died, appearing once more as a crucial element to both the past and the future.

  “Suzan definitely had no idea she had an aunt,” Melanie said. “And Scarlett must not have known either. Or else she would have gone after Suzan the same way she went after Cassie for her spot in the Circle.”

  Diana picked up the canvas and stared at Scarlett’s name. “And now she’s gotten it anyway. She’s our new member, whether we like it or not.”

  “Unless we don’t initiate her,” Cassie said.

  CHAPTER 23

  “If we don’t initiate Scarlett into the Circle,” Adam said, “we’ll be much weaker when we’re fighting the hunters.”

  The rain continued pouring down in sheets. Cassie watched it through the large bay window in Diana’s living room. It was better than staring down at the magenta ink of Scarlett’s name on Suzan’s family tree.

  “We have to initiate her,” Melanie said. “Nothing matters more than defeating the hunters, especially after what they did to Suzan.”

  “But we know she has ulterior motives and can’t be trusted,” Nick said. “Remember, she wanted Cassie’s place in the Circle so she could use our Circle’s power for her own agenda. She’d be as bad as initiating Black John himself.”

  Melanie scoffed at Nick. “That’s an overstatement if I’ve ever heard one.”

  Cassie wanted this conversation to stop. The sky outside had settled to a deep purple and the clouds rolled and shifted in ever-changing shapes. Cassie saw a heart and then a castle, and then nothing, just a sheet of gray. Her mind wandered and an image flashed into view: herself back at the Mission House on the brink of killing Scarlett. But this time she’d gone through with it. She completed the killing spell and Scarlett’s eyes had glassed over the way Suzan’s had up on the roof, and then she stiffened to a lifeless statue. Cassie imagined exactly what it would feel like for Scarlett to be gone forever—how the Circle would be free at last.

  That’s it, Cassie thought. That was the solution. She would have to kill Scarlett. Then they could take their chances with another lost family member to be next in line for the Circle.

  But then she shook the idea from her mind. No, she told herself. Send light to that dark thought, and cast it away.

  Cassie knew she had to fight off every evil intention the moment it appeared now, before it could really get to her and take hold.

  “Cassie,” Adam said. “Are you okay? You’re as pale as a ghost.”

  “I’m fine.” But the faintness of Cassie’s voice gave her away.

  “See,” Melanie said. “Even Cassie is weaker now. I told you.”

  “I’m not weaker,” Cassie shot back.

  But Melanie was adamant. “Yes, you are. We all are.”

  “Let’s just see about that.” Chris directed his attention to the bowl of fruit on Diana’s coffee table. “Who wants to see me levitate an apple?” he asked. But seconds passed and nothing happened. The apple didn’t move, and Chris grew more and more frustrated as the clock continued to tick.

  Melanie crossed her arms over her chest, looking smug.

  “Maybe if we both try,” Doug said, going to his brother’s side. He focused his attention on the fruit as well. With their combined powers, the apple began to shiver. It lifted from the bowl for a brief second, but then it dropped back down.

  “Shoot.” Chris was breathless with fatigue. “We almost had it.”

  “Thank you for proving just how powerless we are,” Nick said. He looked worriedly at Cassie. “We may actually be weaker than we were before you came to town.”

  Cassie returned her gaze to the window and took a deep breath. It was becoming more and more clear that their only option wasn’t destroying Scarlett. It was going against all logic and asking her to join them.

  “We can barely do the simplest everyday magic with an incomplete Circle,” Melanie said. “Let alone anything strong enough to fight off the hunters. I say we initiate Scarlett, defeat the hunters, and then figure out what to do with her later.”

  “What do you mean, ‘figure out what to do with her later’?” Diana narrowed her eyes at Melanie. “Once she’s initiated, we’re bound to her. You know that. Using her and then betraying her would compromise the integrity of our Circle. Not to mention our self-respect.”

  That’s probably what Scarlett will do to us, Cassie thought, but saying so would only make things worse. She stood up and took the center of the room.

  “There is no good decision to make here,” she said. “Only a less bad one. As much as I hate to admit this, I think we do need Scarlett.”

  Nick’s jaw tightened as he gro
und his teeth. “I don’t want her as a member,” he said. “There must be another option.”

  “It’s Scarlett or no one,” Adam said, refusing to make eye contact with Nick as he addressed the group. “We don’t have to trust her, but I think we do have to initiate her. You know what they say about keeping your enemies close. Well, we can’t keep her much closer than in our Circle. At least she’ll be somewhere we can keep an eye on her.”

  “Great,” Nick said. “So we can have a front-row seat as she takes control of us.”

  “Now hold on.” Diana raised her arms to quiet both of them. “There are eleven of us and one Scarlett. What makes you so sure it’ll be that easy for her to take control of us?”

  “Yeah,” Sean said. “One bad seed can’t spoil the bunch, otherwise Faye would have ruined our Circle long ago.”

  Faye glared at Sean as Diana continued.

  “My point is, we know what Scarlett is capable of, so we’re less likely to fall for any of her tricks. And don’t forget, we have the Master Tools back in our possession.”

  Nick considered Diana’s argument for a few seconds before conceding. “Fine,” he said. “If Cassie’s willing to take a chance on Scarlett, then I’m with her.”

  “Do we all agree, then?” Adam asked.

  Nobody spoke out to disagree, which was as close to consensus as they were going to get.

  “Good. It’s settled,” Adam said. “Cassie and I will take care of telling Scarlett the news and bringing her back to New Salem tomorrow.”

  As the group started to split up and head home for the night, the full impact of the decision sunk in. Had she really agreed to bring the other girl Adam’s soul was connected to back into her life? The girl who had tried to kill her, and whom she had tried to kill? It was like restriking a dulled match just to see what would burn.

  Cassie reached for Adam’s hand and squeezed it. “I’ll catch up with you a little later,” she said. “I want to have a word with Diana.”

  Adam kissed her on the lips without question, so she didn’t have to explain exactly why she wanted to speak to Diana. She didn’t have to justify her father’s Book of Shadows shoved deep into the bottom of her tote bag. She simply waited for everyone to trickle out of Diana’s house until it was just the two of them.