The Captive Page 0,28

to go off on what turned out to be a wild-goose chase, and then she'd lost it. But far worse was the feeling of guilt over Jeffrey.

If she hadn't danced with him, maybe Faye and Sally wouldn't have been so angry. If she hadn't let Faye have the skull, then the dark energy wouldn't have been released. However she looked at it, she felt responsible, and she hadn't slept all night for thinking about it.

"Do you want to talk?" her grandmother said, looking up from the table where she was cutting ginger root. The archaic kitchen which had seemed so bewildering to Cassie when she'd first come to New Salem was now a sort of haven. There was always something to do here, cutting or drying or preserving the herbs from her grandmother's garden, and there was often a fire in the hearth. It was a cheerful, homey place.

"Oh, Grandma," Cassie said, then stopped. She wanted to talk, yes, but how could she?

She stared at her grandmother's wrinkled hands spreading the root in a wooden rack for drying.

"You know, Cassie, that I'm always here for you-and so is your mother," her grandmother went on. She threw a sudden sharp glance up at the kitchen doorway, and Cassie saw that her mother was standing there.

Mrs. Blake's large dark eyes were fixed on Cassie, and Cassie thought there was something sad in them. Ever since they'd come on this "vacation" to Massachusetts, her mother had looked troubled, but these days there was a kind of tired wistfulness in her face that puzzled Cassie. Her mother was so beautiful, and so young-looking, and the new helplessness in her expression made her seem even younger than ever.

"And you know, Cassie, that if you're truly unhappy here-" her mother began, with a kind of defiance in her gaze.

Cassie's grandmother had stiffened, and her hands stopped spreading the root.

"-we don't have to stay," her mother finished.

Cassie was astounded. After all she'd been through those first weeks in New Salem, after all those nights she'd wanted to die from homesickness-now her mother said they could go? But even stranger was the way Cassie's grandmother was glaring.

"Running away has never solved anything," the older woman said. "Haven't you learned that yet? Haven't we all-"

"There are two children dead," Cassie's mother said. "And if Cassie wants to leave here, we will."

Cassie looked from one to the other in bewilderment. What were they talking about? "Mom," she said abruptly, "why did you bring me here?"

Her mother and grandmother were still looking at each other-a battle of wills, Cassie thought. Then Cassie's mother looked away.

"I'll see you at dinner," she said, and just as suddenly as she'd appeared, she slipped out of the room.

Cassie's grandmother let out a long sigh. Her old hands trembled slightly as she picked up another root.

"There are some things you can only understand later," she said to Cassie, after a moment. "You'll have to trust us for that, Cassie."

"Does this have something to do with why you and Mom were estranged for so long? Does it?"

A pause. Then her grandmother said softly, "You'll just have to trust us..."

Cassie opened her mouth, then shut it again. There was no use in pressing it any further. As she'd already learned, her family was very good at keeping secrets.

She'd go to the cemetery, she decided. She could use the fresh air, and maybe if she found Melanie's crystal she would feel a little better.

Once there, she wished she'd asked Laurel to go along. Even though the October sun was bright, the air was nippy, and something about the dispirited graveyard made Cassie uneasy.

I wonder if ghosts come out in the daytime, she thought, as she located the place where she and Deborah had had to throw themselves facedown. But no ghosts appeared. Nothing moved except the tips of the grass which rippled in the breeze.

Cassie's eyes scanned the ground, looking for any glint of bright silver chain or clear quartz. She went over the area inch by inch. The chain had to be right here... but it wasn't. At last she gave up and sat back on her heels.

That was when she noticed the mound again.

She'd forgotten to ask her grandmother about it. She'd have to remember tonight. She got up and walked over to it, looking at it curiously.

By daylight, she could see that the iron door was rusty. The padlock was rusty too, but it looked fairly modern. The cement chunk in front of the door was