The Secret Circle: The Complete Collection (18 page)

Read The Secret Circle: The Complete Collection Online

Authors: L. J. Smith

Tags: #Young Adult, #Fantasy, #Romance, #Vampires, #Juvenile Fiction, #Teenage Girls, #Horror & Ghost Stories, #Love & Romance, #Witchcraft, #Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic, #Social Issues, #Young Adult Fiction, #love, #Dating & Sex, #Massachusetts

BOOK: The Secret Circle: The Complete Collection
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“Turn around,” Diana ordered.
Cassie hoped the cord binding her wrists was going to be cut. But instead she felt hands on her shoulders, spinning her faster and faster. She was being whirled around and pushed from side to side, from person to person. For an instant panic surged through her again. She was dizzy, disoriented. With her hands tied she couldn’t catch herself if she fell. And that knife was somewhere . . .
Just go with it. Relax, she told herself. And magically, her fear dissolved. She let herself be bounced from one person to another. If she fell, she fell.
Hands steadied her, stood her facing Diana again. She was slightly breathless and the world was reeling, but she tried to draw herself up straight.
“You’ve been challenged and you’ve passed the tests,” Diana informed her, and now there was a little smile in Diana’s green eyes, although her lips were grave. “Now are you willing to swear?”
Swear what? But Cassie nodded.
“Will you swear to be loyal to the Circle? Never to harm anyone who stands inside it? Will you protect and defend those who do, even if it costs you your life?”
Cassie swallowed. Then, trying to keep her voice level, she said, “Yes.”
“Will you swear never to reveal the secrets you will learn, except to a proper person, within a properly prepared Circle like the one we stand in now? Will you swear to keep these secrets from all outsiders, friends and enemies, even if it costs you your life?”
“Yes,” Cassie whispered.
“By the ocean, by the moon, by your own blood, will you so swear?”
“Yes.”
“Say, ‘I will so swear.’”
“I will so swear.”
“She has been challenged and tested, and she has been sworn,” Diana said, stepping back and speaking to the others. “And now, since all of us in the Circle agree, I call on the Powers to look at her.”
Diana raised the dagger above her head, pointing the blade at the sky. Then she pointed it to the east, toward the ocean, then to the south, then toward the western cliff, then toward the north. Finally, she pointed it at Cassie. The words she spoke as she did sent shock waves running down Cassie’s spine:
 

Earth and water, fire and air,

See your daughter standing there.

By dark of moon and light of sun,

As I will, let it be done.

 

By challenge, trial, and sacred vow,

Let her join the Circle now.

Flesh and sinew, blood and bone,

Cassie now becomes—

 
“But we
don’t
all agree,” an angry voice broke in. “I still don’t think she’s one of us. I don’t think she ever can be.”
Chapter 12
 
        
 

D
iana turned sharply to face Deborah. “You can’t interrupt the ritual!”

“There shouldn’t
be
a ritual,” Deborah blazed back, her face dark and intense.
“You agreed in the meeting—”
“I agreed we had to do whatever it took to make us strong. But—” Deborah stopped and scowled.
“But some of us may not have believed she’d pass the tests,” Faye interpreted, smiling.
Diana’s face was pale and angry. The diadem she wore seemed to give her added stature, so that she looked taller even than Faye. Moonlight shimmered in her hair as it had off the blade of the knife.
“But she
did
pass the tests,” she said coldly. “And now you’ve interrupted a ritual—broken it—while I was calling down the Powers. I hope you have a better reason than that.”
“
I’ll
give you a reason,” Deborah said. “She’s not really one of us. Her mother married an outsider.”
“Then what do you want?” Diana said. “Do you want us never to have a real Circle? You know we need twelve to get anything done. What are we supposed to do, wait until your parents—or the Hendersons—have another baby? None of the rest of us even has both parents alive. No.” Diana turned to face the others in the group, who were standing around the inside perimeter of the circle. “We’re the last,” she told them. “The last generation in the New World. And if we can’t complete our Circle, then it all ends here. With us.”
Melanie spoke up. She was wearing ordinary clothes under a pale green fringed shawl that looked both tattered and fragile, as if it were very old. “Our parents and grandparents would like that,” she said. “They want us to leave it all in the past, the way they did and
their
parents did. They don’t want us digging up the old traditions and waking the Old Powers.”
“They’re scared,” Deborah said scornfully.
“They’ll be happy if we can’t complete the Circle,” Melanie said. “But is that what
we
want?” She looked at Faye.
Faye murmured coolly, “Individuals can do quite a lot on their own.”
“Oh, come on,” Laurel put in. “Not like a real Circle. Not unless,” she added, “
somebody
was planning to get hold of the Master Tools and use them all by herself.”
Faye gave her a slow, dazzling smile. “
I’m
not the one searching for the lost tools,” she said.
“This is all off the point,” said Diana sharply. “The question is, do we want a complete Circle or don’t we?”
“
We
do,” one of the Henderson brothers said. No, Chris, Cassie corrected herself. Suddenly she could tell them apart. Both the brothers looked white and strained in the moonlight, but Chris’s eyes were less savage. “We’re going to do whatever it takes to find out who killed Kori,” Chris finished.
“And then take care of them,” Doug put in. He made a gesture of stabbing.
“Then we need a full Circle,” said Melanie. “A twelfth person and a seventh girl. Cassie is both.”
“And she’s passed the tests,” Diana repeated. “Her mother was one of us. She went away, yes, but now she’s come back. And she brought her daughter to us just when we need her. Just exactly when we need her.”
Stubbornness still lingered in Deborah’s eyes. “Who says she can even use the Powers?” she demanded.
“I do,” Diana replied steadily. “I can sense it in her.”
“And so do I,” Faye said unexpectedly. Deborah turned to stare at her, and she smiled ingenuously.
“I’d say she can call on Earth and Fire, at least,” Faye continued, maddeningly bland. “She might even prove to have quite a talent.”
And why, Cassie wondered dazedly, did that make hairs on the back of her neck stand up?
Diana’s brows were drawn together as she gave Faye a long, searching look. But then she turned to Deborah.
“Does that satisfy your objection?”
There was a beat. Then Deborah nodded, sullenly, and stepped back.
“Then,” said Diana, with a quiet politeness that seemed to overlay an icy anger, “can we please get on with it?”
Everyone stood away as she returned to her position. Once again she lifted the dagger to the sky, then to the cardinal points of the compass, then to Cassie. Once again she spoke the words that had sent chills down Cassie’s spine, but this time she finished them uninterrupted.
 

Earth and water, fire and air,

See your daughter standing there.

By dark of moon and light of sun,

As I will, let it be done.

 

By challenge, trial, and sacred vow,

Let her join the Circle now.

Flesh and sinew, blood and bone,

Cassie now becomes our own.

 
“That’s it,” Laurel said softly from behind Cassie. “You’re in.”
In
. I’m in. Cassie knew, with a feeling of wild exhilaration, that nothing would ever be the same again.
“Cassie.”
Diana was unclasping the silver necklace she was wearing. Cassie’s eyes were drawn to the crescent moon pendant that hung from it. It was like the one on the diadem, Cassie realized—and like Deborah’s tattoo.
“This is a token,” Diana said, fastening the chain around Cassie’s neck, “of your membership in the Circle.”
Then she hugged Cassie. It wasn’t a spontaneous gesture; it had more the feeling of a ritual. Next she turned Cassie around to face the others and said, “The Powers have accepted her. I’ve accepted her. Now each of you has to.”
Laurel was the first to step up. Her face was serious, but there was a genuine warmth and friendliness in the depths of her brown eyes. She hugged Cassie, then kissed her lightly on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re one of us,” she whispered, and stepped back, her long, light-brown hair fluttering slightly in the breeze. “Thanks,” Cassie whispered.
Melanie was next. Her embrace was more formal, and her cool, intellectual gray eyes still intimidated Cassie. But when she said, “Welcome to the Club,” she sounded as if she meant it.
Deborah, by contrast, was scowling as she stepped forward, and she hugged Cassie as if she were trying to crack a rib or two. She didn’t say anything.
Sean hurried up, looking eager. His hug was a little too long and too close for Cassie’s taste, and she ended up having to extricate herself. He said, “Glad you’re in,” with his eyes fixed on her nightgown in a way that made Cassie wish it were flannel instead of light cotton.
“I can tell,” she said under her breath as he stepped back, and Diana, standing beside her, had to bite her lip.
Under normal circumstances the Henderson brothers might have been even worse. But tonight they didn’t seem to care if it was a girl or a block of wood they were embracing. They hugged her mechanically and stepped back to watch again with their angry, faraway eyes.
And then it was Nick’s turn.
Cassie felt something inside her tighten. It wasn’t that she was attracted to him, exactly, but . . . she couldn’t help feeling a slight inner tremor when she looked up at him. He was so handsome, and the coldness that surrounded him like a thin layer of dark ice seemed only to enhance his looks. He’d stood back and observed the entire ceremony tonight with such detachment, as if none of it affected him one way or another.
Even his embrace was noncommittal. Sexless. As if he were merely going through the motions while thinking of something else. His arms were strong, though—well, of course, thought Cassie. Any guy who had an—arrangement—with Faye would have to be strong.
Suzan smelled of perfume, and when she kissed Cassie’s cheek, Cassie felt sure she left a smudge of cherry-colored lipstick. Hugging her was like hugging a scented pillow.
Finally, Faye came. Her heavy-lidded eyes were gleaming enigmatically, as if she were aware of Cassie’s discomfiture and enjoying it. All Cassie was aware of was Faye’s height and how much she herself wanted to run. She had a panicked conviction that Faye was going to do something awful. . . .
But Faye simply murmured, as she stepped back, “So the little white mouse is tougher than she looks. I was betting you wouldn’t even last through the ceremony.”
“I’m not sure I did,” Cassie muttered. She desperately wanted to sit down and gather her thoughts. So much had happened so fast . . . but she was in. Even Faye had accepted her. That fact could not be changed.
“All right,” Diana said quietly. “That’s it for the initiation ritual. Normally after this we’d have a party or something, but . . .” She looked at Cassie and lifted her hands. Cassie nodded. Tonight, a party could hardly be less appropriate. “So I think we should formally dispel the Circle, but go on and have a regular meeting. That way we can get Cassie caught up on what she needs to know.”
There were nods around the circle and a collective breath released. Diana picked up a handful of sand and poured it over the line drawn on the beach. The others followed suit, each pouring a handful and smoothing it down so that the circle’s outline was blurred, erased. Then they distributed themselves among the still-lighted candles, some sitting on the sand, others on out-thrusts of rock. Nick remained standing, a cigarette in his mouth.

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