The Power Page 0,16

black and reflective, with a metallic luster. It looked like hematite, but Cassie knew it wasn't. It was a lodestone.

Then, at last, Cassie looked up at the new principal, and she saw the face she'd seen during the skull ceremony in Diana's garage. The face that had rushed at her, faster and faster, bigger and bigger, trying to escape from the crystal skull. A cruel, cold face. For an instant she seemed to see the crystal skull itself superimposed on the principal's face, its bone structure clearly visible. The hollow eyes, the grinning teeth -

Cassie swayed on her feet. Ms. Lanning was trying to support her; she could hear Adam's alarmed voice, and Diana's. But she could see nothing except the darkness of the new principal's eyes. They were like glassy volcanic rock, like the ocean at midnight, like magnetite. They were swallowing her up. . . .

Cassie. The voice was in her mind.

Rushing blackness surrounded her and she fell.

Darkness. She was on a ship - no, she wasn't. She was fighting, struggling in icy water. Cassie clawed out, trying to get to the surface. She couldn't see -

"Take it easy! You're safe. Cassie, it's all right."

A wet cloth fell away from Cassie's eyes. She was in Diana's living room, lying on the couch. It was dim because the curtains were drawn and the lamps were off. Diana was leaning over her, and the long, silvery cascade of Diana's hair was falling down like a shield between Cassie and the world.

"Diana!" She clung to the other girl's hand.

"It's all right. You're okay. You're okay."

Cassie let out her breath, leaning back against the couch, her eyes meeting Diana's.

"Jack Brunswick is Black John." It was a flat statement.

"I know," Diana said grimly. "After you went down we all saw the ring. I don't think he expected us to recognize him so fast."

"What happened? What did he do?" Cassie was envisioning chaos at the cemetery.

"Not much. He left as we were carrying you to my car. Adam and Deborah went after him, but they weren't obvious about it. They're going to try to follow him. Nobody else - none of the adults - realized anything was wrong. They just figured you were exhausted. Mr. Humphries said maybe you'd better take some time off from school."

"Maybe we'd all better," Cassie whispered. Her head was spinning. Black John in charge of the school. What in the name of God was he planning?

"You said Adam went after him?" she asked, and Diana nodded. Cassie felt a pang of anxiety - and frustration. She wanted Adam here, so she could talk to him. She needed him....

"Hey, everything okay in there?" Chris and Doug were hanging in the doorway, as if it were a lady's boudoir that they weren't allowed inside of.

"She's all right," Diana said.

"You sure, Cassie?" Chris asked, venturing a few steps in. Cassie nodded wanly, then suddenly thought of Sally's words in the bathroom. She's the kind guys are just dying to take care of. That certainly wasn't true . . . was it? Sally had warped everything; she'd had it all wrong.

"Come on, you two, there's double-fudge cake in the kitchen," Diana said to the brothers. "Everybody in the neighborhood's been dropping food off, and we need help eating it." Cassie thought it was strange that Diana was leaving her, then she saw that Chris and Doug hadn't been alone.

Nick was standing in the hallway outside the living room. When Diana ushered the Henderson brothers out, he came in, walking slowly.

"Uh ... hi, Nick," Cassie said.

He gave her an odd, fleeting smile and sat on the arm of the couch. His customary mask of stone was gone today. In the dim room, Cassie thought he looked a little tired, a little sad, but maybe that was only her imagination.

"How're you doing?" he said. "You had us scared for a minute there."

Nick, scared? Cassie didn't believe it. "I'm fine, now," she said, and then she tried to think of something else to say. It was the same as it had been with Portia: when she really needed it, her mind wouldn't work.

The silence stretched out. Nick was looking at the scrolls and flowers on the upholstery of the couch. "Cassie," he said finally, "I've been meaning to talk to you."

"Oh, have you," Cassie said faintly. She felt very strange; hot and embarrassed and at the same time weak. She didn't want Nick to go on - but some part of her did.

"I realize