The Secret Circle: The Complete Collection (6 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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Men always leave, Cassie thought, her throat aching. They both left me. And now I’m alone . . . here. If only I had somebody else to talk to . . . a sister, somebody. . . .
Eyes still shut, she let the hand with the crystal trail down and fall into her lap. She was so exhausted with emotion that she couldn’t even get up to go to the bed. She simply sat there, drifting in the lonely dimness until her breathing slowed and she fell asleep.
That night Cassie had a dream—or perhaps it wasn’t a dream. She dreamed that her mother and grandmother came into the room, moving noiselessly, almost gliding over the floor. In her dream she was aware of them, but she couldn’t move as they lifted her from the chair and undressed her and put her to bed. Then they stood over the bed, looking down at her. Her mother’s eyes were strange and dark and unfathomable.
“Little Cassie,” her grandmother said with a sigh. “At last. But what a pity—”
“Sh!” her mother said sharply. “She’ll wake up.”
Her grandmother sighed again. “But you can see that it’s the only way . . .”
“Yes,” her mother said, her voice empty and resigned. “I can see that you can’t escape destiny. I shouldn’t have tried.”
That’s just what I thought, Cassie realized as the dream faded. You can’t escape destiny. Vaguely she could see her mother and grandmother moving toward the door, and she could hear the whisper of their voices. She couldn’t make out any words, though, until one sibilant hiss came through.
“. . . sacrifice . . .”
She wasn’t sure which of the women had said it, but it echoed over and over in her mind. Even as darkness covered her, she kept hearing it.
Sacrifice . . . sacrifice . . . sacrifice
. . .
It was morning. She was lying in the four-poster bed and sunlight was streaming in the eastern window. It made the pink room look like a rose petal held up to the light. Sort of warm and shining. Somewhere outside a bird was singing.
Cassie sat up. She had a confused memory of some kind of a dream, but it was dim and vague. Her nose was stuffed up—probably from crying—and she felt a little lightheaded but not really bad. She felt the way you do after being very sick or very upset and then getting some deep, restful sleep: strangely spacey and peaceful. The quiet after the storm.
She got dressed. Just as she was about to leave the room, she noticed the chalcedony lucky piece on the floor and slipped it in her pocket.
No one else seemed to be awake. Even in the daytime the long passage was dark and cool, lit only by the windows at opposite ends. Cassie found herself shivering as she walked down the hall, and the dim bulbs of the wall lamps flickered as if in sympathy.
Downstairs was lighter. But there were so many rooms that when she tried to explore, she quickly got lost. Finally, she ended up in the front hallway and decided to go outside.
She wasn’t even thinking about why—she guessed she wanted to see the neighborhood. Her steps took her down the long, narrow country road, past house after house. It was so early, no one else was outside. And eventually she ended up at the pretty yellow house with the towers.
High in one tower, the window was sparkling.
Cassie was staring at it, wondering why, when she noticed motion in a ground-floor window much closer to her. It was a library or study, and standing inside was a girl. The girl was tall and slender, with an incredibly long cascade of hair that obscured her face as she bent over something on the desk in front of the window. That hair—Cassie couldn’t take her eyes off it. It was like moonlight and sunlight woven together—and it was natural. No dark roots. Cassie had never seen anything so beautiful.
They were so close—Cassie standing just behind the neat hedge outside the window, and the girl standing just inside, facing her, but looking down. Cassie watched, fascinated, at what the girl was doing at the desk. The girl’s hands moved gracefully, grinding something up with a mortar and pestle. Spices? Whatever it was, the girl’s movements were quick and deft and her hands slender and pretty.
And Cassie had the oddest feeling . . . If the girl would only look
up
, she thought. Just look outside her own window. Once she did, then . . . something would happen. Cassie didn’t know what, but her skin had broken out in gooseflesh. She had such a sense of connection, of . . .
kinship
. If the girl would just look up. . . .
Yell. Throw a stone at the window. Cassie was actually looking for a stone when she saw movement again. The girl with the shining hair was turning, as if responding to someone inside the house calling her. Cassie had a glimpse of a lovely, dewy face—but only for the briefest instant. Then the girl had turned and was hurrying away, hair flying like silk behind her.
Cassie let out her breath.
It would have been stupid anyway, she told herself as she walked back home. Fine way to introduce yourself to your neighbors—throwing rocks at them. But the sense of crushing disappointment remained. She felt that somehow she’d never have another chance—she’d never get up the courage to introduce herself to that girl. Anyone that beautiful undoubtedly had plenty of friends without Cassie. Undoubtedly went with a crowd far beyond Cassie’s orbit.
Her grandmother’s flat, square house looked even worse after the sunny Victorian one. Disconsolately, Cassie drifted over to the bluff, to look down at the ocean.
Blue. A color so intense she didn’t know how to describe it. She watched the water washing around a dark rock and felt a queer thrill. The wind blew her hair back, and she stared out at the morning sun glittering on the waves. She felt . . . kinship again. As if something were speaking to her blood, to something deep inside her. What
was
it about this place—about that girl? She felt she could almost grasp it . . .
“Cassie!”
Startled, Cassie looked around. Her grandmother was calling from the doorway of the old wing of the house.
“Are you all right? For heaven’s sake, get away from the edge!”
Cassie looked down and immediately felt a wave of vertigo. Her toes were almost off the bluff. “I didn’t realize I was that close,” she said, stepping back.
Her grandmother stared at her, then nodded. “Well, come away now and I’ll get you some breakfast,” she said. “Do you like pancakes?”
Feeling a little shy, Cassie nodded. She had some vague memory about a dream that made her uncomfortable, but she definitely felt better this morning than she had yesterday. She followed her grandmother through the door, which was much thicker and heavier than a modern one.
“The front door of the original house,” her grandmother explained. She didn’t seem to be having much trouble with her leg today, Cassie noticed. “Strange to have it lead directly into the kitchen, isn’t it? But that was how they did things in those days. Sit down, why don’t you, while I make the pancakes.”
But Cassie was staring in amazement. The kitchen was like no kitchen she’d ever seen before. There was a gas range and a refrigerator—even a microwave shoved back on a wooden counter—but the rest of it was like something out of a movie set. Dominating the room was an enormous open fireplace as big as a walk-in closet, and although there was no fire now, the thick layer of ashes at the bottom showed that it was sometimes used. Inside, an iron pot hung on an iron crossbar. Over the fireplace were sprays of dried flowers and plants, which gave off a pleasant fragrance.
And as for the woman in front of the hearth . . .
Grandmothers were supposed to be pink and cozy, with soft laps and large checking accounts. This woman looked stooped and coarse, with her grizzled hair and the prominent mole on her cheek. Cassie kept half expecting her to go over to the iron pot and stir it while muttering, “Double, double, toil and trouble . . .”
Immediately after she thought this, she felt ashamed. That’s your
grandmother
, she told herself fiercely. Your only living relative besides your mother. It’s not her fault she’s old and ugly. So don’t just sit here. Say something nice.
“Oh, thanks,” she said, as her grandmother placed a plate of steaming pancakes in front of her. Then she added, “Uh, are those dried flowers over the fireplace? They smell good.”
“Lavender and hyssop,” her grandmother said. “When you’re done eating, I’ll show you my garden, if you like.”
“I’d love it,” Cassie said, truthfully.
But when her grandmother led her outside after she’d finished eating, the scene was far different than Cassie had expected. There were
some
flowers, but for the most part the “garden” just looked like weeds and bushes—row after row of overgrown, uncared-for weeds and bushes.
“Oh—how nice,” Cassie said. Maybe the old lady was senile after all. “What unusual—plants.”
Her grandmother shot her a shrewd, amused glance. “They’re herbs,” she said. “Here, this is lemon balm. Smell.”
Cassie took the heart-shaped leaf, wrinkled like a mint leaf but a little bigger, and sniffed. It had the scent of freshly peeled lemon. “That
is
nice,” she said, surprised.
“And this is French sorrel—taste.”
Cassie gingerly took the small, rounded leaf and nibbled at the end. The taste was sharp and refreshing. “It’s good—like sour grass!” she said, looking up at her grandmother, who smiled. “What are those?” Cassie said, nibbling again as she pointed to some bright yellow buttons of flowers.
“That’s tansy. The ones that look like white daisies are feverfew. Feverfew leaves are good in salads.”
Cassie was intrigued. “What about those?” She pointed to some creamy white flowers that twined up other bushes.
“Honeysuckle. I keep it just because it smells good. The bees love it, and the butterflies. In spring it’s like Grand Central Station around here.”
Cassie reached out to snap off a fragrant stem of delicate flower buds, then stopped. “Could I—I thought I’d take some up for my room. If you don’t mind, I mean.”
“Oh, good heavens, take as many as you want. That’s what they’re here for.”
She’s not really old and ugly at all, Cassie thought, snapping off stems of the creamy flowers. She’s just—different. Different doesn’t necessarily mean bad.
“Thanks—Grandma,” she said as they went back into the house. Then she opened her mouth again, to ask about the yellow house, and who lived there.
But her grandmother was picking up something from beside the microwave.
“Here, Cassie. This came in the mail for you yesterday.” She handed Cassie two booklets bound in construction paper, one red and one white.
New Salem High School Student and Parent Handbook
, one read. The other read,
New Salem High School Program of Studies
.
Oh, my God, Cassie thought. School.
New hallways, new lockers, new classrooms, new faces. There was a slip of paper between the booklets, with
Schedule of Classes
printed boldly at the top. And under that, her name, with her address listed as Number Twelve Crowhaven Road, New Salem.
Her grandmother might not be as bad as she’d thought; even the house might turn out to be not so awful. But what about school? How could she ever face school here in New Salem?
Chapter 5
        
 
 

T
he gray cashmere sweater or the blue-and-white Fair Isle cardigan, that was the question. Cassie stood in front of the gilt-framed mirror, holding first one and then the other in front of her. The blue cardigan, she decided; blue was her favorite color, and it brought out the blue of her eyes. The plump cherubs on top of the old-fashioned looking glass seemed to agree, smiling at her approvingly.

Now that the first day of school had actually come, Cassie found that she was excited. Of course, she was nervous too, but it wasn’t the stark and hopeless dread she’d expected to feel. There was something interesting about beginning school in a new place. It was like starting her life over. Maybe she’d adopt a whole new personality. Back home, her friends would probably describe her as “nice, but shy” or “fun, but kind of quiet.” But no one here knew that. Maybe this year she’d be Cassie the Extrovert or even Cassie the Party Girl. Maybe she’d even be good enough for the girl with the shining hair. Cassie’s heart beat more quickly at the thought.
It all depended on first impressions. It was vital she get off to a good start. Cassie pulled on the blue sweater and anxiously checked her reflection again in the mirror.
She wished there were something more to do with her own hair. It was soft and it waved slightly, with pretty highlights, but she wished she could do something more dramatic with it. Like the girl in this ad—she glanced at the magazine open on the dressing table. She’d bought it specially when she’d driven into town last week so she could see the back-to-school fashions. She’d never gotten the courage to walk up to the yellow Victorian house again, although she’d cruised by it slowly in her grandmother’s Volkswagen Rabbit, hoping vainly to bump into the girl “accidentally.”

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