He's nothing that you think. You're completely blind."
"You think you know so much about it." Faye stood back, arms crossed over her chest. She tilted her chin up and looked down at Cassie with heavy-lidded, queerly triumphant eyes. Her blood-red lips curved in a smile. "You think you know everything - but you don't even know what his name was when he was here last. When he came to our parents and he lived at Number Thirteen."
The strength of terror Cassie had felt moments earlier was gone, and the ground suddenly felt very unstable. She pressed a hand against the floor. Faye was still looking at her with those strange, triumphant eyes. "No," Cassie whispered.
"'No' you don't know? Or 'no' don't tell you? But I want to tell you, Cassie, and it's time you did know. The name he used last time was John Blake."
Chapter Ten
Cassie stared, beyond speech, beyond thought. Not believing - but inside her, something knew.
"It's true. He's your father."
Cassie just sat.
"And he wants you to be happy, Cassie. He wants you to be his heir. He's got a lot planned for you."
"And what are you?" Cassie cried, outraged, pushed beyond the limits of her endurance. "My new stepmother?"
Faye chuckled - that infuriating, lazy, self-satisfied chuckle. "Maybe. Why not? I've always liked older men - and he's only about three centuries older."
"You're disgusting!" Cassie couldn't find the right words. None were bad enough, and she didn't want to believe that any of this was actually happening. "You're - you - "
"I haven't done anything yet, Cassie. John and I have a - business relationship."
Cassie felt as if she were gagging. For herself, for Faye . . . "You call him John?" she whispered.
"What do you think I should call him? Mr. Brunswick? Or what he called himself the last time he was here, Mr. Blake?"
Everything was spinning around Cassie now. The pale green cinderblock walls were whirling. She wanted to faint. If only she could faint she wouldn't have to think.
But she couldn't. Slowly, the spinning steadied, she felt the floor solid beneath her. There was no way to escape this. There was no choice but to deal with it.
"Oh, God," Cassie whispered. "It's true. It's really true."
"It's true," Faye said quietly, with satisfaction. "Your mother was his girlfriend. He told me the whole story, how she fell in love with him when he went over to Number Twelve to borrow some matches. They never did get married, apparently - but I'm sure he didn't begrudge her his name."
It was true ... and that had been what Cassie's grandmother was trying to tell her when she died. "I have one more thing to tell you," she'd said, and then Laurel had come in. The last words had only been a whisper, "John" and something else Cassie couldn't make out. But she could recall the shape of her grandmother's lips trying to make it. It had been "Blake."
"Why didn't she try to tell me before?" Cassie whispered raggedly, hardly aware she was speaking aloud. "Why wait until she was dying? Why?"
"Who, your grandma? She didn't want to upset you, I suppose," Faye said. "She probably thought you'd be - disturbed - if you knew. And maybe" - Faye leaned forward - "she knew it would bring you closer to him. You're his own flesh and blood, Cassie. His daughter."
Cassie was shaking her head, blind, nauseated. "The other old women - they must have known too! God, everybody who knew him must have known. And nobody told me. Why didn't they tell me?"
"Oh, stop sniveling, Cassie. I'm sure they didn't tell you because they were afraid of how you'd react. And I must say it looks as if they were right. You're falling apart."
Great-aunt Constance, Cassie was thinking. She must have known. How could she stand to look at me? How can she stand to have my mother in her house?
And Mrs. Franklin had been going to tell her, she realized suddenly. Yes. That had been what that last-minute scene in Aunt Constance's parlor had been all about. Adam's grandmother had been about to tell, about to say something to Cassie about her father. Granny Quincey and Aunt Constance had stopped her. They were all in a conspiracy of silence, to keep the truth from Cassie.
Probably not the parents, Cassie thought slowly, feeling very tired. They probably didn't remember anyway. They'd made themselves forget everything. But Aunt Constance had warned the Circle against stirring up those old memories, and her gaze had settled on Cassie when she did it.
"Just think about it, Cassie," Faye was saying, and that husky voice sounded reasonable now, not gloating or triumphant. "He only wants the best for you; he always has. You were born as part of his plans. I know you and I have had our problems in the past, but John wants us to get along. Won't you just give it a try? Won't you, Cassie?"
Slowly, painfully, Cassie made her eyes focus. Faye was kneeling in front of her. Faye's beautiful, sensual face seemed lit softly from within. She really means it, Cassie thought. She's sincere. Maybe she's in love with him.
And maybe, Cassie mused dizzily, I should think about it. So many things have changed since I came to New Salem - I'm not at all the person I used to be. The old, shy Cassie who never had a boyfriend and never had anything to say is gone. Maybe this is just another change, another stage of life. Maybe I'm at the crossroads.