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confessing to Diana and having Diana understand vanished like a pricked soap bubble.

It would kill Diana. By the time Faye got finished telling it her way, it would. Cassie's fantasy of

confessing to Diana and having Diana understand vanished like a pricked soap bubble.

Cassie shut her eyes. Against her closed eyelids the light was red as fire.

TWO

Somewhere on the way downstairs Cassie stopped feeling guilty.

She didn't know exactly how it happened. But it was necessary, if she was going to survive this. She was

doing everything she could to protect Diana-and Adam, too, in a way. Adam must never know about

Faye's blackmail. So Cassie would do whatever it took to protect them both, but by God, she wasn't

going to feel guilty on top of it.

And she had to handle Faye somehow as well, she thought, marching behind the tall girl, past Diana's

father's study. She had to keep Faye from doing anything too radical with the skull. She didn't know

how; she'd have to think about that later. But somehow she would do it.

If Faye had looked back just then, Cassie thought, she might have been surprised to see the face of the

girl behind her. For the first time in her life Cassie felt as if her eyes were hard, like the blue steel of a

revolver instead of the soft blue of wildflowers.

But right now she had to look neutral- composed. The group on the driveway looked up as she and Faye

came out the door.

"What took you so long?" Laurel asked.

"We were plotting to kill you all," Faye said breezily. "Shall we?" She gestured toward the garage.

There were only traces of yesterday's chalk circle left on the floor. Once again the garage was empty of

cars-they were lucky Diana's father worked so much at his law firm.

Diana, her left fist still closed, went over to the wall of the garage, directly behind the place Cassie had

been sitting when they had performed the skull ceremony. Cassie followed her and then drew in her

breath sharply.

"It's burned." She hadn't noticed that last night. Well, of course not; it had been too dark.

Diana was nodding. "I hope nobody is going to keep arguing about whether there was any dark energy

or not," she said, with a glance back at Deborah and Suzan.

The wood and plaster of the garage wall was charred in a circle perhaps a foot and a half in diameter.

Cassie looked at it, and then at the remnants of the chalk circle on the floor. She had been sitting there,

but part of her had been inside the skull. Diana had told them all to look into it, to concentrate, and

suddenly Cassie had found herself inside it. That was where she'd seen-felt-the dark power. It had begun

rushing outward, getting bigger, determined to break out of the crystal. And she'd seen a face....

She was grateful, suddenly, for Adam's calm voice. "Well, we know what direction it started in, anyway.

Let's see if the crystal agrees."

They were all standing around Diana. She looked at them, then held her left fist out, palm up, and

unclasped her fingers. She took the top of the silver chain with her right hand and drew it up taut, so that

the peridot just rested on her palm.

They were all standing around Diana. She looked at them, then held her left fist out, palm up, and

unclasped her fingers. She took the top of the silver chain with her right hand and drew it up taut, so that

the peridot just rested on her palm.

Earth and Air, wind and tree, show us what we need to see, Cassie thought, her mind automatically

setting the simple concept in a rhyme. The wood of the wall, the air outside; those were what they

needed to help them. She found herself murmuring the words under her breath and quickly stopped, but

Diana's green eyes flashed at her.

"Go on," Diana said tensely in a low voice, and Cassie started up again, feeling self-conscious.

Diana removed the hand that was supporting the crystal.

It spun on the chain, twirling until the chain was kinked tightly, and then twirling the other way. Cassie

watched the pale green blur, murmuring the couplet faster and faster. Earth and Air . . . no, it was

useless. The peridot was just spinning madly like a top gone wild.

Suddenly, with broad, sweeping strokes, the crystal began swinging back and forth.

Someone's breath hissed on the other side of the circle.

The peridot had straightened out; it was no longer twirling, but swinging steadily and hard. Like a

pendulum, Cassie realized. Diana wasn't doing it; the hand that held the chain remained steady. But the

peridot was swinging hard, back toward the center of the chalk circle on the floor, and forward toward

the burned place on the wall.

"Bingo," Adam said softly.

"We've got it," Melanie whispered. "All right, now you're going to have to move it out of alignment to get

outside. Walk-carefully- to the door, and then try to come back to this exact place on the other side of

the wall."

Diana wet her lips and nodded, then, holding the silver chain always at the same distance from her body,

she turned smoothly and did as Melanie said. The coven broke up to give her room and regrouped

around her outside. Finding the right place wasn't hard; there was another burned circle on the outer wall,

somewhat fainter than the one inside.

As Diana brought the crystal into alignment once more, it began to swing again. Straight toward the

burned place, straight out. Down Crowhaven Road, toward the town.

A shudder went up Cassie's spine.

Everyone looked at everyone else.

Holding the crystal away from her, Diana followed the direction of the swinging. They all fell in behind

her, although Cassie noticed that Faye's group kept to the rear. Cassie herself was still fighting every

second to not watch Adam.

Trees rustled overhead. Red maple, beech, slippery elm-Cassie could identify many of them now. But

she tried to keep her eyes on the rapid swish of the pendulum.

They walked and walked, following the curve of Crowhaven Road down toward the water. Now

grasses and hedges grew poorly in the sandy soil. The pale green stone was swinging at an angle, and

Diana turned to follow it.

They walked and walked, following the curve of Crowhaven Road down toward the water. Now

grasses and hedges grew poorly in the sandy soil. The pale green stone was swinging at an angle, and

Diana turned to follow it.

"Oh, great," Laurel muttered from beside Cassie, and from somewhere in back Suzan said, "I don't

believe this. First we have to walk for miles, and now . . ."

"What's the problem? Just gonna visit some of our ancestors underground," Doug Henderson said, his

blue-green eyes glittering oddly.

"Shut up," Adam said.

Cassie didn't want to go inside. She'd seen many cemeteries in New England-it seemed there was one on

every other street in Massachusetts, and she'd been to Kori's funeral down in the town. This one didn't

look any different from the others: it was a small, square plot of land cluttered with modest gravestones,

many of them worn almost completely smooth with time. But Cassie could hardly make herself follow the

others onto the sparse, browning grass between the graves.

Diana led them straight down the middle of the cemetery. Most of the stones were small, scarcely

reaching higher than Cassie's knees. They were shaped like arches, with two smaller arches on either

side.

"Whoever carved these had a gruesome sense of humor," she breathed. Many of the stones were etched

with crude skulls, some of them winged, others in front of crossbones. One had an entire skeleton,

holding a sun and moon in its hands.

"Death's victory," Faye said softly, so close that Cassie felt warmth on the nape of her neck. Cassie

jumped, but refused to look back.

"Oh, terrific," said Laurel as Diana slowed.

The light was dying from the sky. They were in the center of the graveyard, and a cool breeze blew over

the stunted grass, bringing a faint tang of salt with it. The hairs on the back of Cassie's neck were tingling.

You're a witch, she reminded herself. You should love cemeteries. They're probably your natural habitat.

The thought didn't really make her feel less frightened, but now her fear was mingled with something

else-a sort of strange excitement. The darkness gathering in the sky and in the corners of the graveyard

seemed closer. She was part of it, part of a whole new world of shadows and power.

Diana stopped.

The silver chain was a thin line in the gloom, with a pale blob below it. But Cassie could see that the

peridot was no longer swinging like a pendulum. Instead it was moving erratically, round and round in

circles. It would swing a few times one way, then slow and swing back the other way.

Cassie looked at it, then up at Diana's face. Diana was frowning. Everyone was watching the circling

stone in dead silence.

Cassie couldn't stand the suspense any longer. "What does it mean?" she hissed to Laurel, who just

shook her head. Diana, though, looked up.

shook her head. Diana, though, looked up.

"Like a good hound dog," Doug said, with his wild grin.

Melanie ignored him. "That's the theory," she said. "But we've never really tried this before. Maybe it

means . . ." Her voice trailed off as she looked around the graveyard, then she shrugged. "I don't know

what it means."

The tingling at the back of Cassie's neck was getting stronger. The dark energy had come here-and done

what? Disappeared? Dissipated? Or ...

Laurel was breathing quickly, her elfin face unusually tense. Cassie instinctively moved a little closer to

her. She and Laurel and Sean were the juniors, the youngest members of the Circle, and witch or not,

Cassie's arms had broken out in gooseflesh.

"What if it's still here, somewhere . . . waiting?" she said.

"I doubt it," Melanie said, her voice as level and uninflected as usual. "It couldn't hang around without

being stored somehow; it would just evaporate. It either came here and did something, or-" Again,

though, she could only finish her sentence with a shrug.

"But what could it do here? I don't see any signs of damage, and I feel . . ." Still frowning, Diana caught

the circling peridot in her left hand and held it. "This place feels confused- strange-but I don't sense any

harm the dark energy has done. Cassie?"

Cassie tried to search her own feelings. Confusion-as Diana said. And she felt dread and anger and all

sorts of churned-up emotions-but maybe that was just her. She was in no state to get a clear reading on

anything.

"I don't know," she had to say to Diana. "I don't like it here."

"Maybe, but that's not the point. The point is that we don't see any burns the dark energy could have left,

or sense anything it's destroyed or hurt," Diana said.

Deborah's voice was impatient. "Why are you asking her, anyway?" she said with a jerk of her dark

head toward Cassie. "She's hardly even one of us-"

"Cassie's as much a part of the Circle as you are," Adam interrupted, unusually curt. Cassie saw the arch,

amused glance Faye threw him and wanted to intervene, but Diana was agreeing heatedly with Adam,

and Deborah was bridling, glaring at both of them. It looked as if an argument would break out.

"Be quiet!" Laurel said sharply. "Listen!" Cassie heard it as soon as the voices died down; the quiet

crunch of gravel at the roadside. It was noticeable only against the deathly quiet of the autumn twilight.

"Somebody's coming," Chris Henderson said. He and Doug were poised for a fight.

They were all hideously on edge, Cassie realized. The crunch of footsteps sounded as loud as

firecrackers now, grating against her taut nerves. She saw a dim shape beside the road, and then saw

Adam move forward, so that he was in front of both Diana and her. I'm going to have to talk to him

about that, she thought irrelevantly.

There was a pause in the footsteps, and the dim shape came toward them. Adam and the Henderson

brothers looked ready to rush it. Quarrel forgotten, Deborah looked ready too. Sean was cowering

behind Faye. Cassie's heart began to pound.

Then she noticed a spot of red like a tiny burning coal floating near the figure, and she heard a familiar

voice.

"If you want me, you got me. Four against one ought to be about fair."

With a whoop, Chris Henderson rushed forward. "Nick!"

Doug grinned, while still managing to look as if he might jump the approaching figure. Adam relaxed and

stepped back.

"You sure, Adam? We can settle this right here," Nick said as he reached the group, the end of his

cigarette glowing as he inhaled. Adam's eyes narrowed, and then Cassie saw the daredevil smile he'd

worn at Cape Cod, when four guys with a gun had been chasing him. What was wrong with him, what

was wrong with everybody tonight? she wondered. They were all acting crazy.

Diana put a restraining hand on Adam's arm. "No fighting," she said quietly.

Nick looked at her, then shrugged. "Kind of nervous, aren't you?" he said, surveying the group.

Sean emerged from behind Faye. "I'm just high-strung."

"Yes, you ought to be-from a tree," Faye said contemptuously.

Nick didn't smile, but then Nick never smiled. As always, his face was handsome but cold. "Well, maybe

you have a reason to be nervous-at least some of you," he said.

"What's that supposed to mean? We came here looking for the dark energy that escaped last night," said

Adam.

Nick went still, as if struck by a new idea, then his cigarette glowed again. "Maybe you're looking in the

wrong place," he said expressionlessly.

Diana's voice was quiet. "Nick, will you please just tell us what you mean?"