"I did," she said. She cleared her throat. "They're tiger's eyes. For keeping away bad dreams - or so my grandmother always said."
Cassie managed a small smile for her. "Oh. Thank you." Maybe Melanie's affinity for minerals ran in the family. She didn't bother to tell Aunt Constance what Black John could do to those stones if he tried.
"Bad dreams are a nuisance," old Mrs. Franklin said as Adam and Diana got up to leave. "Of course, good dreams are something else again."
Cassie looked at Adam's grandmother, whose disordered gray hair was coming uncoiled as she happily crunched cookie after cookie. Cassie had never known anybody who liked to eat so much, except Suzan. But there was more to Mrs. Franklin than you'd think at first sight.
"Dreams?" Cassie said.
"Good dreams," Adam's grandmother agreed indistinctly. "For good dreams, you sleep with a moonstone."
Cassie thought about that all the way home.
She and Diana had dinner quietly, just the two of them, since Diana's father was still at his law office. Adam had gone to talk to the rest of the Circle.
"I can't tell them," Cassie had said. "Not tonight - tomorrow, maybe."
"There's no reason you should have to," Adam replied, his voice almost harsh. "You've been through enough. I'll tell them - and I'll make them understand. Don't worry, Cassie. They'll stick by you."
Cassie couldn't help but worry. But she put it aside, because she had other things to think about. She'd made a promise to her mother.
She lay in bed reading her grandmother's Book of Shadows. Her book of shadows. She was looking for anything about crystals and dreams.
And there it was: To Cause Dreams. Place a moonstone beneath your pillow and all night you will have fair and pleasant dreams which may profit you. She also found a passage about crystals in general. Big crystals were better than little crystals; well, she knew that already. Melanie had said so, and Black John had demonstrated it today beyond question.
She put the book down and went to Diana's desk.
There was a white velvet pouch there, lined with sky-blue silk. Diana had long ago given Cassie permission to open it. Cassie took the pouch to the bed and poured the contents out on a folded-over section of the top sheet. The stones formed a kaleidoscopic array against the white background.
Blue lace agate - Cassie picked up the triangular piece and rubbed its smoothness across her cheek. She saw light yellow citrine - Deborah's stone, good for raising energy. And here was cloudy orange carnelian, which Suzan had once used for raising the passions of the entire football team. Here was translucent green jade, which Melanie used for calm thought, and royal purple amethyst - Laurel's stone, a stone of the heart, Black John had said. There were dozens of others, too: warm amber, light as plastic; dark green bloodstone speckled with red; a wine-colored garnet; the pale green peridot Diana had used to trace the dark energy.
Cassie's fingers sorted through the clinking treasure until she found a moonstone. It was translucent, with a silvery-blue shimmer. She put it on the nightstand by her side of the bed.
Diana came in, fresh from her bath, and watched Cassie putting the stones back into the pouch.
"Find anything in your Book of Shadows?" she asked.
"Nothing specific," Cassie said. She didn't want to explain what she was doing, even to Diana. Later, if it worked. "I'm beginning to think my grandmother didn't mean there was anything specific in the book about Black John," she added. "Maybe she just wanted me to be a good witch, a knowledgeable witch. Maybe she'd thought that way I'd be smart enough to beat him."
Diana got in bed and turned off the light. There was no moon; the bay window remained dark. It was peaceful, somehow, with the two of them lying in bed - like a sleepover. It made Cassie think of the old days, when she and Diana had first decided to be adopted sisters.
"We need to find a way to kill him," she said.
A sleepover with a grim and bloodthirsty purpose. Diana was silent for a moment and then said calmly, "Well, we know two things that can't kill him - Water and Fire. He drowned the first time when his ship went down, and he burned the second time, when our parents burned the house at Number Thirteen. But he didn't stay dead either time."
Cassie appreciated the "our parents." Her mother hadn't been trying to burn anybody, she'd bet.
"He said his spirit didn't need to stay in his body," she said. "I think he can make it go different places. Maybe when he died, he just sent his spirit somewhere else."
"Like into the crystal skull," Diana said. "And it stayed there until we brought it and his body together. Yes. But what can we use against him?"
"Earth ... or Air," Cassie mused. "Though I don't see how Air could kill anybody."
"I don't either. Earth could mean crystals . . . but we don't have a crystal big enough to use against him."
"No," Cassie said. "It sounds like it's the Master Tools or nothing. We've got to find them."
She could feel Diana nodding in the darkness. "But how?"