The Power Page 0,33
the night air; seven scents mingling into one delicious composite fragrance. Eddies in the breeze seemed to bring the smell of cinnamon to Cassie, then a whiff of pine, then the sharpness of lemon.
"Passion, beauty, courage, wisdom, inspiration, compassion, and purity," Laurel ticked off, pointing to the candles that represented each.
"Let us all . . ." Diana prompted, nudging Faye.
"Let us all have all of them," Faye said. "Earth, Water, Fire, Air, witness. Not that we don't have them already," she added, regarding the glowing circle with a satisfied smile. Laurel's eyes twinkled at Cassie from across the flames and Cassie let her own eyes twinkle back.
"Well, anyway, we have all of them if you count all of us," Deborah said, and grinned. Diana smiled her gentle smile. For a moment, all the girls were smiling at each other over the candles, and Cassie felt as if they were a part of . something bigger. Each of them contributed something important, and together they were more than just the sum of the parts.
"Now we're supposed to let them burn all night," Melanie said, nodding at the candles.
"What if somebody runs them over?" Suzan asked pragmatically.
"Well, I guess if we don't see it, it doesn't matter," Diana said. "Wait, though, there's something else I wanted to do. It's not part of the night of Hecate, but it's another Greek thing, the Arretophoria. It means the trust festival." She reached into the white bag again. "The Greek priestesses of Athena used to do this. It's where one of the older members of the group - that's me - gives a box to the youngest member - that's you, Cassie. You have to go bury the box somewhere without looking at what's inside it. It's supposed to be a dark and perilous journey you go on, but I think Nick's right and you'd better stick around here. Just take it off the road somewhere and bury it."
"And that's all?" Cassie looked at the box Diana had given her. It was made of some light-colored wood, carved all over with tiny, intricate figures: bees and bears and fish. Something inside it rattled. "I just bury it?"
"That's all," Diana said, handing Cassie the last item from the white bag: a small trowel. "The point is that you don't look inside it. That's why it's called the trust festival; it's a celebration of trust and responsibility and friendship. Someday later we'll come back and dig it up."
"Okay." Carrying the box and trowel, Cassie stepped outside the circle and walked away from the group, leaving the little dancing points, of flame behind.
She didn't want to bury the box close to the road. For one thing, the soil was hard and strewn with gravel; it wouldn't be easy to dig here; she'd just be scratching at the surface. Besides, this close someone might see the ground had been disturbed and dig the box up before its time.
Cassie kept walking east. She could hear the whispering of the sea from that direction and feel a faint, salty breeze. She climbed over some large rocks, and the beach stretched out before her, deserted and somehow eerie. Lacy white waves were lapping quietly at the shore.
A yellow moon, just over half full, was rising above the ocean. The mourning moon, Cassie remembered. It was just the color of Faye's eyes. In fact, it looked like a jaundiced, ancient eye, and Cassie had the uncomfortable sense of being spied on as she stuck the trowel into the cold dry sand and began to dig.
That was deep enough. The sand scooped out by the trowel was caked now, and she hoped the moisture wouldn't ruin Diana's box. As Cassie put the wooden box in the hole, moonlight glinted off the brass hasp. It wasn't locked. For just an instant, she had the temptation to open it.
Don't be stupid, she told herself. After all you and Diana have been through, if you can't do a little thing like bury a box without looking inside...
Nobody would know, the voice in her mind countered defensively.
I would know, Cassie told the voice. So there. She dumped sand on the box decisively, scooping with both the trowel and her hand to cover it faster.
It was sometime while she was covering the box that she noticed the blackness.
It's just a shadow, she thought. The moon was high enough now to throw a long shadow behind an outcrop of rock which was closer to the water than Cassie. Cassie watched