The Captive Page 0,17

nothing had happened yet. No avalanches, no bodies found, nobody even missing. Oh, if only she could let herself believe that nothing would happen. The energy she and Faye had released had been small-she felt sure of that now-and maybe it had just evaporated. Cassie felt a delicious peace steal through her at the thought.

Laurel had moved over to a clump of thyme. "It's not too late to change your mind about coming," she said. "And I wish you would. Dancing is very witchy-and it's Nature. It's like one of our incantations:

"Man to woman, woman to man, Ever since the world began.

Heart to heart, and hand to hand, Ever since the world began."

She added, looking up at Cassie thoughtfully, "Wasn't there some guy you met over the summer that you were interested in? We could do a spell to pull him here-"

"No!" said Cassie. "I mean, I really don't want to go to Homecoming, Laurel. I just-I wouldn't be comfortable."

"Thank you," Laurel said. For an instant Cassie thought it was addressed to her, but Laurel was now talking to the thyme. "I'm sorry I needed part of the root, too, but I brought this to help you grow back," she went on, tucking a pink crystal into the soil. "That reminds me, have you found your working crystal yet?" she said to Cassie.

"No," Cassie said. She thought of the jumble of crystals in Faye's box. She'd liked handling them, but none of them had stood out as hers, as the one she needed as a witch.

"Don't worry, you will," Laurel assured her. "It'll just turn up one day, and you'll know." She stood up with the thyme plant in her hand. "All right, let's go inside and I'll show you how to make an infusion. Nobody should fool around with herbs unless they know exactly what they're doing. And if you change your mind about Homecoming, thyme soup helps overcome shyness."

Cassie cast a look around the great wide world, as she always did now, checking for the dark energy, then she followed Laurel.

The next day, in American history class, Diana sneezed.

Ms. Lanning stopped talking and said, "Bless you" absently. Cassie scarcely noticed it at the time. But then, at the end of class, Diana sneezed again, and kept sneezing. Cassie looked at her. Diana's eyes were pink and watery. Her nose was getting pink, too, as she rubbed it with a Kleenex.

That night, instead of going to the Homecoming game, Diana stayed at home in bed. Cassie, who knew nothing about football and was only yelling when everybody else yelled, worried about her in some back corner of her mind. It couldn't have anything to do with the dark energy, could it?

"Applaud," Laurel said, nudging her. "For the Homecoming Queen. Sally really looks almost pretty, doesn't she?"

"I guess," Cassie said, applauding mechanically. "Laurel, how come one of us isn't Homecoming Queen? Instead of an outsider?"

"Diana didn't want to be," Laurel said succinctly. "And Deb and the others think it's too goody-goody. But from the way Jeffrey Lovejoy's looking at Sally, I'd say Faye made a mistake. She told Jeff to come to the dance with her, but he'd already asked Sally and he's a fighter. It'll be interesting to see who gets him."

"You can tell me all about it," Cassie said. "I saw the last fight between Faye and Sally; this one I can miss."

But it didn't turn out that way.

Cassie was in the herb garden when the phone call came. She had to go through the kitchen and into the new wing of the house to get to the telephone.

"Hello, Cassie?" The voice was so muted and stuffed-up it was almost unrecognizable. "It's Diana."

Fear crinkled up Cassie's backbone. The dark energy... "Oh, Diana, are you all right?"

There was a burst of muffled laughter. "Don't panic. I'm not dying. It's just a bad cold."

"You sound awful."

"I know. I'm completely miserable, and I can't go to the dance tonight, and I called to ask you a favor."

Cassie froze with a sudden intuition. Her mouth opened, and then shut again silently. But Diana was going on.

"Jeffrey called Faye to tell her he's going with Sally after all, and Faye is livid. So when she heard I was sick, she called to say she would go with Adam, because she knew I would want him to go even if I couldn't. And I do; I don't want him to miss it just because of me. So I told her she couldn't because I'd