There was no time to think about him now, though. No time even to think about Faye, who was seething uselessly, her plans to fracture the coven in ruins. Melanie was speaking.
"Do you want to go by my house first, Cassie? Great-aunt Constance is looking after your mom, and if you want to see her ..."
Cassie nodded eagerly. It seemed like a hundred years since she had seen her mother, since she had been inside that room filled with red light, looking at her mother's glassy, empty eyes. Surely her mother would be all right by now; surely she would be able to tell Cassie what had happened.
But when the three of them, Melanie, Cassie, and Diana, who hadn't let go of Cassie's hand on the short drive to Number Four, went into the house, Cassie's heart sank. Melanie's great-aunt, a thin-lipped woman with severe eyes, led them silently into a downstairs guest room. One look at the ghostly figure on the bed sent chills of dismay through Cassie's bloodstream.
"Mom?" she whispered, knowing already there would be no answer.
God, her mother looked young. Even younger than she normally did, frighteningly young, unnaturally so. It was as if it weren't Cassie's mother on the bed there at all, but some little girl with dark hair and big haunted black eyes that vaguely resembled Mrs. Blake's. A stranger.
Not someone who was going to be of help to Cassie.
"It's okay, Mom," Cassie whispered, stepping away from Diana to put a hand on her mother's shoulder. "Everything's going to be all right. You'll see. You're going to be just fine."
Her throat ached, and then she felt Diana gently leading her away.
"You've both been through enough," Melanie said once they were outside again. "Let us take care of things with the doctor - and the police, if they have to come. You and Cassie get some sleep."
The rest of the coven was waiting in the street, and they nodded in agreement when Melanie said this. Cassie looked at Diana, who nodded too.
"Okay," Cassie said. It came out faint and slightly hoarse and she realized how tired she was - bone-tired. At the same time she was light-headed, and the entire scene in front of her was assuming a dreamlike quality. It was just too strange to be standing out here in the wee hours of the morning, knowing that her grandmother was dead and her mother was in shock, and that she didn't have a house to go back to. Yet there were no adults on the street, no commotion, only the members of the Circle and an eerie stillness. Come to think of it, why weren't there any parents out here? Surely some of them must have heard what was going on.
But the houses on Crowhaven Road remained shuttered and silent. On the way to Melanie's house, Cassie thought she'd seen a light go off in Suzan's house and a curtain whisk back at the Henderson's. If any adults were awake, they weren't getting involved.
We're on our own, Cassie thought. But Diana was beside her, and she could see Adam's tall form silhouetted against the headlights of the coven's parked cars. A sort of strength flowed into Cassie just at their nearness.
"We've got to talk tomorrow," she said. "There's a lot I've got to tell you - all of you. Things my grandmother told me right before . . . before she died."
"We can meet at lunchtime on the beach - " Diana began, but Faye's throaty voice cut her off.
"No, we can't. I'm the one who decides where the meetings are now, or had you forgotten?"
Faye's head was thrown back proudly, the silver crescent-moon diadem gleaming against the midnight-black of her hair. Diana opened her mouth, then shut it again.
"All right," Adam said with deceptive calmness, stepping out of the glare of headlights to stand by Faye. "You're the leader. So lead. Where do we meet?"
Faye's eyes narrowed. "At the old science building. But - "
"Fine." Adam didn't wait for her to finish; he turned his back on her. "I'll drive you home," he said to Diana and Cassie.
Faye looked furious, but the three of them were already moving away. "By the way, Diana - happy birthday," she called spitefully after them.
Diana didn't answer.
Chapter Three
"Jacinth! Are you in there? Jacinth!" Cassie blinked in the bright sunlight. She'd seen this room before. It was her grandmother's kitchen - except that it wasn't. The walls of her grandmother's kitchen were sagging and dingy; these were straight and clean. Her grandmother's hearth was stained with the smoke of centuries; this hearth looked almost new and was a slightly different shape. The iron hook for hanging pots on shone.
It was the room in her dream, the dream she'd had the last time she spent the night at Diana's house. The low chair she was sitting in was the same. But this dream seemed to be picking up where the other had left off.
"Jacinth, have you fallen asleep with your eyes open? Kate is here!"
A feeling of anticipation and excitement filled Cassie. Kate; who was Kate? Without even knowing why, she found herself standing up, and she realized that she was wearing a dress that brushed the tips of her neat brocade shoes. The red leather Book of Shadows fell from her lap to the ground.
She turned toward the voice, toward what would have been the side door of her grandmother's house. In this house it seemed to be the front door. It was filled with sunlight, and there were two figures standing there. One was tall, with a silhouette like the engravings of Puritan women she'd seen in history books. The other was smaller, with shining hair.
Cassie couldn't see either of the figures' faces, but the smaller one was holding out eager hands to her. Cassie reached for them, stepping forward -