第 19 页

have any power."

"But we still don't know any more about the skull. Or about Kori," Doug said, unusually serious.

"And I don't think we even know that Black John is-how did you put it, Adam? Malevolent," came

Faye's husky slow voice. "Maybe he just didn't feel like talking."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous," began Laurel.

Before an argument could break out, Diana said, "Look, it's late, and we're all tired. We're not going to

get anything solved tonight. If Cassie really is okay, I think we should all go home and get some rest."

There was a pause, and then nods of agreement.

"We can talk about it at school-or at Nick's birthday," Laurel said.

"I'll take Cassie home," Nick said at the door.

Cassie glanced at him quickly. He hadn't said much while she'd been lying on the couch-but he'd been

there. He'd come along with the rest of them to make sure she was all right.

"Then Deborah can come with me," Melanie said. "She rode in with you, right?"

"Can you drive me, too? I really am tired,"

Diana said, and Melanie nodded easily.

Cassie scarcely noticed the rest of the goodbyes. What she was noticing was that Adam was leaving in

his Jeep Cherokee, heading north, and Diana was going with Melanie and Deborah, going south.

No Herne-and-Diana ceremony tonight, Cassie thought, and a wash of relief went through her.

Relief-and a ripple of mean gladness. It was wrong, it was bad-but she felt it.

Just as she got into Nick's car, she saw Faye smiling at her with raised eyebrows, and before she knew

it, Cassie had smiled back.

The next day when Cassie stepped out of her house she stopped in shock. The sugar-maple trees across

the street had changed. The blazing autumn colors that had reminded her of fire were gone. So were the

leaves. Every branch was bare.

It looked like a Halloween skeleton.

"Nick won't let us do much for his birthday tomorrow," Laurel said. "I wish we could give him a real

surprise party."

Deborah snorted. "He'd walk right out."

"I know. Well, we'll try to think of something he won't think is too infantile. And"-Laurel brightened-"we

can make up for it on the other birthdays."

"What other birthdays?" Cassie said.

All the girls of the Club looked at her. They were sitting in the back room of the cafeteria, having a

special conference while the guys kept Nick away.

"You mean you don't know about the birthday season?" Suzan asked in disbelief. "Diana didn't tell you?"

Diana opened her mouth and then shut it again. Cassie guessed she didn't know how to say that she and

Cassie didn't talk that much anymore, at least not in private.

"Let's see if I can keep it straight," Faye said with a low chuckle, eyes on the ceiling. She began to count

on fingers tipped with long, gleaming scarlet nails. "Nick's is November third. Adam's is November fifth.

Melanie's is November seventh. Mine-and oh, yes, Diana's, too-is November tenth . . ."

"Are you kidding?" Cassie broke in.

Laurel shook her head as Faye went relentlessly on. "Chris and Doug's is November seventeenth,

Suzan's is the twenty-fourth, and Deborah's is the twenty-eighth. Laurel's is, um ..."

"December first," Laurel said. "And Sean's is December third, and that's it."

"But that's . . ." Cassie's voice trailed off. She couldn't believe it. Nick was only a month older than Sean?

And all the witch kids were eight or nine months older than she was? "But you and Sean are juniors, like

me," she said to Laurel. "And my birthday's July twenty-third."

"We just missed the cutoff date," Laurel said. "Everybody born after November thirtieth has to wait

another year for school. So we had to watch everybody else go off to kindergarten while we stayed

home." She wiped away imaginary tears.

another year for school. So we had to watch everybody else go off to kindergarten while we stayed

home." She wiped away imaginary tears.

Suzan dimpled wickedly. "It was a very wet April that year. Our parents all stayed inside."

"It seems odd, I admit," Melanie said. "But the fact is that most of our parents got married the spring

before. So it really isn't that surprising."

"But . . ." Cassie still thought it was surprising, although clearly all the members of the Club were so used

to it they didn't wonder about it anymore. And why don't I fit in the pattern? she thought. I guess it's

because I'm half outsider. She shrugged. Melanie was probably right; anyway, there was no point in

worrying. She let the subject drop and they went back to planning Nick's party.

They finally decided to combine all the birthdays for that first week-Nick's, Adam's, and Melanie's-and

hold the party on Saturday, November seventh.

"And," Laurel said, when they explained their plan to the boys, "this one is going to be really different.

Don't ask now-it's going to be unique."

"Uh, it's not some health-food kind of thing, is it?" Doug said, looking suspicious.

The girls looked at each other and stifled laughter. "Well-it is healthy-or at least some people think so,"

Melanie said. "You'll just have to come and see."

"But we'll freeze to death," Sean said, horrified.

"Not with this," Laurel laughed. She held up a thermos.

"Laurel." Adam was having a hard time not laughing himself. "I don't care how hot whatever you've got in

there is-it's not going to keep us warm in that."

A silver moon, slightly more than half full, was shining down on an obsidian sea. It was the sea Adam was

pointing to.

"It's not Ovaltine," Deborah told him impatiently. "It's something we mixed up."

The five boys were facing the girls, who were lined up behind Laurel. There was a bonfire going on the

beach, but at this distance it did nothing to cut the icy wind.

"They're obviously not going to believe us," Faye said, and Diana added, "I guess we'll just have to show

them."

Laurel passed the thermos around. Cassie took a deep breath and then a gulp. The liquid was hot and

medicinal-tasting-like one of Laurel's nastier herbal teas-but the instant she swallowed it, a tingling

warmth swept over her. Suddenly she didn't need her bulky sweater. It was positively hot out here on the

beach.

"To the sea, ye mystics," Melanie said. Cassie wasn't sure what it meant, but like the other girls, she was

shedding suddenly unnecessary clothing. The boys were goggling.

"I want a birthday party like this," Sean said urgently, as Faye unzipped her red jacket. "Okay? Okay? I

want-"

The guys were mildly disappointed when it turned out the girls had bathing suits on underneath.

"But what are we supposed to do?" Adam said, sniffing at the thermos and grinning at the bikini-clad

girls.

"Well . . ." Faye smiled. "You can always improvise."

"Or," Diana put in, "you can look behind the big rock. There just might be a pile of swimming trunks

there."

"Now this really is different," Laurel said happily to Cassie some time later, while they were both floating

in water up to their chins. "A midnight swimming party in November. This is witchy."

"Be more witchy if we were all sky-clad," Chris commented, shaking his shaggy blond head like a wet

dog.

Cassie and Laurel looked at each other, then at Deborah, who was bobbing nearby.

"Good idea," Deborah said, nodding at the other girls. "How about you first, Chris?"

"Wait a minute-I didn't mean-hey, Doug-help!"

"Come on, girls," Laurel shouted. "Chris wants to go skinny-dipping, only he's a little shy."

"Help! Guys, help!"

It turned into a sort of combination of tag and aquatic wrestling. Everyone joined in. Cassie found herself

being chased by Nick and she fled, kicking up great splashes while he cut cleanly through the surf behind

her. He got close enough to grab her.

"Help!" Cassie shrieked, half laughing, so that she accidentally drank some salt water. But there was no

help in sight. Laurel and Deborah were heading an assault on the Henderson brothers, and Adam and

Diana were far away, their sleek heads bobbing side by side.

Nick tossed wet hair-blacker than onyx in the moonlight-out of his eyes and grinned at her. Cassie had

never seen him smile before. "Surrender," he suggested.

"Never," Cassie said, with as much dignity as she could muster while wavelets slapped her. Nick was

handsome-but she didn't want him to get hold of her out here. He made another grab at her and Cassie

shrieked for help again, and suddenly there was a heaving wave between them.

"Go on! Get out of here!" Faye said. Her eyes gleamed wickedly under long, wet lashes. "Or do we have

to make you? Cassie, grab him around the neck while I get his trunks!"

Cassie had no idea how to grab a guy as strong as Nick around the neck, especially when she was

laughing so hard, but she surged forward. Faye dove like a dolphin, and Nick twisted and made a hasty

retreat, swimming away as fast as he could.

Cassie looked at Faye and found Faye smiling sideways at her. Cassie grinned.

"Thanks," she said.

"Any time," Faye said. "You know I'm glad to do anything for my friends. And we are friends, aren't we,

Cassie?"

Cassie thought about that, treading water in the silver-glinting ocean. "I guess," she said, finally, slowly.

Cassie thought about that, treading water in the silver-glinting ocean. "I guess," she said, finally, slowly.

Cassie nodded, not getting it for a moment. Of course they were going to have a meeting. And another

party; it was Faye's and Diana's birthday. They were both seventeen

"The leadership vote!" Cassie said, taking an involuntary gulp of salt water again. She stared at Faye with

a sudden terrible apprehension. "Faye . . ."

"That's right," Faye said. In the moonlight she looked like a mermaid, staying afloat effortlessly. Her

glorious mane of hair hung soaking-wet down her back like twining seaweed. Her eyes held Cassie's. "I

want to be leader of this coven, Cassie. I will be leader. And you're going to help me."

"No."

"Yes. Because this time I'm serious. I've been going easy on you, letting you have your way, not making

you play by the rules. But that's over now, Cassie. This is the one thing I want more than anything else in

the world, and you are going to help me. Otherwise . . ." Faye looked over her shoulder to where Adam

and Diana were still bobbing, far away. Then she turned back.

"Otherwise, I'll do it," she said. "I'll tell Diana-and not just about that little cuddling session on the bluff. I'll

tell her about the way you and Adam were kissing at the Homecoming dance-did you think nobody

would see that?

And the real reason Adam went through four circles of protection to save you at Halloween. And"-she

floated closer to Cassie, her hooded golden eyes as unblinking as the eyes of a falcon-"I'll tell her about

the skull. How you stole it from her and gave it to me, so we could kill Jeffrey."

"That's not what happened! I'd never have let you have it if I'd known-"

"Are you sure, Cassie?" Faye smiled, a slow, conspiratorial smile. "I think, deep down, that you and I are

just the same. We're . . . sisters under the skin. And if you don't vote for me on Tuesday, I'll let everyone

know the truth about you. I'll tell them what you really are inside."

Evil, Cassie thought, staring out at the ocean. It reflected the moonlight back like a mirror, like a piece of

hematite, and it surrounded her. She couldn't say a word.

"Think about it, Cassie," Faye said pleasantly. "You have until Tuesday night to decide." And then she

swam away.

It was Tuesday night.

The full moon was directly overhead, the circle had been cast. The members of the Club sat around it.

Diana, who was wearing all the symbols of the Queen of the Witches, had called on the four elements to

protect them, but now she was silent. It was Melanie who was calling for the vote, from oldest to

youngest.

"Nicholas," she said.

"I told you before," Nick said. "I won't vote. I'm here, because you two insisted"-he glanced from Faye

to Diana-"but I abstain."

With a strange feeling of unreality, Cassie watched his handsome, cold face. Nick had abstained, why

couldn't she? But she knew that would never satisfy Faye, unless Faye had already won. And Cassie was

no closer to knowing which way to vote tonight than she had been three days ago. If only she had a little

more time-

With a strange feeling of unreality, Cassie watched his handsome, cold face. Nick had abstained, why

couldn't she? But she knew that would never satisfy Faye, unless Faye had already won. And Cassie was

no closer to knowing which way to vote tonight than she had been three days ago. If only she had a little

more time-

"Adam."

Adam's voice was firm and clear. "Diana."

From a pile of red and white stones in front of her, Melanie put forward one white. "And as for me, I

vote for Diana too," she said, and put out another white stone. "Faye?"

Faye smiled. "I vote for myself."

Melanie put out a red stone. "Diana."