now. "What if somebody comes driving up?"
"We get out of the way, fast," said Laurel.
"I think we're safe," Diana said. "There aren't many cars this late. Come on, you guys, it's cold."
"It's my ceremony," Faye reminded her, taking out the ritual black-handled knife.
"I never said it wasn't," Diana said quietly. She stepped back to watch Faye cast the circle. Cassie felt blood burning in her own face as she stood behind Diana, watching Faye do what Diana had always done, what Diana would still be doing - if not for Cassie. She wanted to whisper something to Diana but instead she just made the promise in her own heart.
Somehow I'll make things right. Faye won't be the leader forever. Whatever I have to do, I'll see to that, she thought. She added, almost absently, I swear by Earth, Water, Fire, and Air.
Chapter Eight
Faye drew a circle on the road with the black-handled knife. Then she went around the circle with water sprinkled from a cup, then with a long stick of incense, then with a lighted candle. Symbolizing the elements Cassie had named: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. The sweet, pungent smell of the incense drifted to Cassie on the cool night air.
"All right, come inside," Faye said. They filed into the circle through a gap which faced northeast, and sat down around the inner perimeter. It was strange to see only the faces of girls around the circle, Cassie thought.
"Do you want to explain or shall I?" Diana asked Faye, her hand on the white bag. There was still something inside it.
"Oh, you can explain" Faye said negligently.
"All right. We each take a candle, you see, and light it, and put it in a circle in the middle. And we each say a word, naming one of the aspects of womanhood. Not the stages, you know, like maiden, mother, and crone, but a quality. A - "
"Virtue," Melanie helped her out.
"Right. A virtue. Something that women have. Then, when we get all of them together, we show the candles to the elements and get their blessing. It's an affirmation of what we girls are, sort of; a celebration."
"I think that's lovely," Cassie said softly.
"All right; let's do it. Who wants red, or do I need to ask?" Diana took a red candle out of the bag. Very faintly, Cassie thought she caught the warm, spicy scent of cinnamon.
"Me. I'm red," Faye said. She turned the candle over in her hands, examining its smooth waxiness. She held it upright and cupped a hand swiftly around the wick. Cassie saw the flame spring into being, shining through Faye's fingers so they looked like pink shells, turning Faye's long red nails into jewels.
Diana, who had been holding a pack of matches toward Faye, put them down.
"Passion," Faye said throatily, smiling her old, slow smile around the group as she dripped wax on the road and stuck the candle in it.
"Is that a virtue?" Melanie asked skeptically.
Faye raised an eyebrow. "It's an aspect of womanhood. It's the one I want to celebrate."
"Let her have it," Laurel said. "Passion's okay."
The red candle burned like a star.
"Next comes orange," said Diana. "Who wants that?"
"I'll take it," Suzan said. The orange candle was close to the titian of Suzan's own hair. Suzan sniffed at it.
"Peaches," she said, and Cassie could smell the sweet, voluptuous fragrance from where she sat. "All right: beauty," Suzan said. She lit her candle in the conventional manner, with a match.
"Beauty definitely isn't - "
"Well, it's not a virtue, but it's something women have," Cassie argued. Melanie rolled her eyes. Suzan stuck the orange candle in its own wax on the road, beside the red one.
"Here, let me go next. I know how to do this," Deborah said. She snatched up the white sack and rummaged in it, coming out with a yellow candle.
"Matches," she said commandingly to Suzan, who put them in her outstretched palm. Deborah lit the yellow candle.
"Courage," she said, clearly and distinctly, tilting the candle so a transparent stream of yellow wax ran onto the road. Cassie smelled a clean lemony sharpness and thought that it smelled like Deborah, like courage. The flame of the yellow candle lit Deborah's dark hair and flickered madly off her leather jacket as it burned by the other two.
"Okay, green," Diana said, retrieving the bag.
"Me," said Melanie, and took the dark green candle. She was sitting right beside Cassie and Cassie leaned in to smell the wax when Melanie did. It