The Captive Page 0,66

That's one mystery that hasn't been solved yet.

"But gradually some of the group were convinced. Nick's father, who'd lost his own fiancee, seen her married off to his younger brother-he listened. And Mary Meade, Diana's mother; she was as smart as she was pretty. Even Faye's father, Grant Chamberlain... he was a cold man, but he knew his infant daughter could set the curtains on fire without touching them, and he knew that wasn't right. They got some of the others talked around, and one cold night, the first of February, the bunch of them set off to talk to him about it."

Chapter Sixteen

Cassie's grandmother shook her head. "To talk! If they'd come to us, to the older women, we might have warned them. Me and Laurel's grandma, and Adam's grandma, and Melanie's great-aunt Constance-we could have told them a few things, maybe saved them. But they went alone, without telling anyone. On Imbolc, February first, more than half the group that he had put together went to challenge him. And out of that group, not one came back."

Tears were running slowly down the seamed old cheeks. "So you see, it was the brave ones, the strong ones that went and died. The ones that are left are the ones too scared or too stupid to see the danger-I'm sorry, Deborah, but it's true." Cassie remembered that both Deborah's parents were alive. "All the best of Crowhaven Road went to fight Black John that Imbolc Night," her grandmother said.

"But howl" Cassie whispered. She was thinking of that row of gravestones in the cemetery. "How did they die, Grandma?"

"I don't know. I doubt if anyone alive knows, unless it's..." Her grandmother broke off and shook her head, muttering. "There was fire in the sky, and then a storm. A hurricane from the sea. The older women got together the babies that had been left with them, and the young parents that hadn't gone with the group, and we managed to save them. But the next day the house at Number Thirteen was burned to the ground, and all the ones who'd gone to challenge Black John were dead.

"We never found most of the bodies. They were washed out to sea, I suppose. But one thing we did find was the burned corpse at Number Thirteen. We knew it was him by the ring he wore, a shiny black stone we used to call lodestone. I forget the modern name. We took him out to the old burying ground and put him in the bunker. Charles Meade, Diana's father, dropped that chunk of concrete in front of it. We figured that if he'd come back once, he might try again someday, and we meant to stop him if we could. And after that the parents that had survived hid their Books of Shadows and did their best to keep their children away from magic. And it's strange, but most of them forgot what they could. I guess because they couldn't remember and stay sane. Still, it's funny, now, how much they've forgotten."

The cracked voice had been growing weaker and weaker, but now Cassie's grandmother grasped Cassie's wrist hard. "Now, listen to me, child. This is important. Some of us didn't forget, because we couldn't. I'd named my daughter for a prophetess, and she did the same for her daughter, because we've always had the second sight. Your mother couldn't bear what her gift showed her, and so she ran away from New Salem; she ran all the way to the other coast. But I stayed, and I've watched all my premonitions come true, one by one. The babies that were born on Crowhaven Road in that single month grew up different, despite everything their parents could do. They were drawn to the Powers and the old ways from the beginning. They all grew up strong-and some of them grew up bad.

"I've watched it happen, and in my mind I've heard Black John laughing. They burned his body, but they couldn't burn his spirit, and it's always been here, waiting, hanging around the old burying ground and the vacant lot at Number Thirteen. He was waiting for his coven, the one he'd planned, the one he'd gotten born. He was waiting for them to come of age. He was waiting for them to bring him back.

"I knew it would happen-and I knew only one thing could stand against him when it did. And that's you, Cassie. You have the strength of our