The Power Page 0,43

suppressed tears. "In a little while."

Cassie was thinking. No wonder her mother had run away from New Salem, no wonder there had always been helpless terror lurking at the back of her mother's eyes. How could you not be terrified when the man you loved turned out to be something from a nightmare? When you had to go away to have his baby, someplace where no one would ever know?

But she'd been brave enough to come back, and to bring Cassie. And now Cassie had to be brave.

There's nothing frightening in the dark if you just face it. Cassie didn't know how she was going to face this, but she had to, somehow.

"I'm okay now," she whispered. "And I want to see my mom."

Diana and Adam were telegraphing things over her head.

"We're going with you," Diana said. "We won't go in the room if you don't want, but we're going to take you there."

Cassie looked at them: at Diana's eyes, dark as emeralds now, but full of love and understanding; and at Adam, his fine-boned face calm and steady. She squeezed their hands.

"Thank you," she said. "Thank you both."

Great-aunt Constance answered the door. She looked surprised to see them and a little flustered, which surprised Cassie in turn. She wouldn't have thought Melanie's aunt ever got flustered.

But as Cassie was going into the guest room, Granny Quincey and old Mrs. Franklin were coming out. Cassie looked at Laurel's frail great-grandmother, and at Adam's plump, untidy grandmother, and then at Aunt Constance.

"We were - trying one or two things to see if we could help your mother," Aunt Constance said, looking slightly uncomfortable. She coughed. "Old remedies," she admitted. "There may be some good in them. We'll be in the parlor if you need anything." She shut the door.

Cassie turned to look at the figure lying between Aunt Constance's starched white sheets. She went and knelt by the bedside.

Her mother's face was as pale as those sheets. Everything about her was white and black: white face, black hair, Hack lashes forming crescents on her cheeks. Cassie took her cold hand and only then realized she didn't have the first idea what to say.

"Mother?" she said, and then: "Mom? Can you hear me?"

No answer. Not a twitch.

"Mom," Cassie said with difficulty, "I know you're sick, and I know you're scared, but there's one thing you don't have to be scared of anymore. I know the truth. I know about my father."

Cassie waited, and she thought she saw the sheets over her mother's chest rise and fall a little more quickly.

"I know everything," she said. "And ... if you're afraid I'll be mad at you or anything, you don't have to be. I understand. I've seen what he does to people. I saw what he did to Faye, and she's stronger than you." Cassie was holding the cold hand so tightly she was afraid she was hurting it. She paused and swallowed.

"Anyway, I wanted to tell you that I know. And it'll all be over soon, and I'm going to make sure he doesn't ever hurt you again. I'm going to stop him somehow. I don't know how, but I will. I promise, Mom."

She stood up, still holding the soft, limp hand in hers and whispered, "If you're just scared, Mom, you can come back now. It's easier than running away; it is, really. If you face things they're not as bad."

Cassie waited again. She hadn't thought she was hoping for anything, but she must have been, because as the seconds ticked by and nothing happened her heart sank in disappointment. Just some little sign, that wasn't much to ask for, was it? But there was no little sign. For what seemed like the hundredth time that day, warmth filled Cassie's eyes.

"Okay, Mom," she whispered, and stooped to kiss her mother's cheek.

As she did, she noticed a thin string of some kind of fiber around her mother's neck. She pulled, and from the collar of her mother's nightgown emerged three small golden-brown stones strung on the twine.

Cassie tucked the necklace back in, waited one more second, and then left.

Can I face it if my mother dies like my grandma? she wondered as she shut the bedroom door. She didn't think so. But she was beginning to realize that she might have to.

In the parlor, Adam and Diana were drinking tea with the women.

"Who put the crystals around my mother's neck? And what are they?"

The old women looked at each other. It was Great-aunt