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anybody, she'd bet.

"He said his spirit didn't need to stay in his body," she said. "I think he can make it go different places. Maybe when he died, he just sent his spirit somewhere else."

"Like into the crystal skull," Diana said. "And it stayed there until we brought it and his body together. Yes. But what can we use against him?"

"Earth ... or Air," Cassie mused. "Though I don't see how Air could kill anybody."

"I don't either. Earth could mean crystals . . . but we don't have a crystal big enough to use against him."

"No," Cassie said. "It sounds like it's the Master Tools or nothing. We've got to find them."

She could feel Diana nodding in the darkness. "But how?"

Cassie reached over and felt for the moonstone. She put it under her pillow.

Maybe it's not the size, but how you use them, she thought. "Good night, Diana," she said, and shut her eyes.

Chapter Eleven

From the start, this dream was clearer than the others. Or maybe it was Cassie that was clearer; more calm, more aware of what was happening. Saltwater slapped her face; she swallowed some. It was so cold she couldn't feel her hands or feet.

Going down. She was going to drown . . . but not die. With the last of her will she sent her spirit to the place prepared for it... to the skull on the island. Some of her power had been left in the skull already; now she herself would go to join it. And someday, when the time was right, when enough of her body diffused through the sea and washed up on the island, she would live again.

Good dreams, I wanted good dreams, Cassie thought frantically as the water closed over her head.

A shifting ...

Sunlight blinded her.

"You and Kate may go play in the garden," the kind voice said.

Yes. She'd made it. She was here.

The garden was in back. Cassie turned to the back door.

"Jacinth! What have you forgotten?"

Cassie paused, confused. She had no idea. The tall woman in Puritan dress was looking down at the floor. There, on the clean pine boards, lay the red leather Book of Shadows. Cassie remembered now; it had dropped off her lap when she stood up.

"I'm sorry, Mother." The word came so naturally to her lips. And her eyes had adjusted - but she couldn't figure out where the book was supposed to go. Somewhere special . . . where? Then she saw the loose brick in the fireplace.

"Much better," the tall woman said, as Cassie slid the book into the hole and plugged it up with the brick. "Always remember, Jacinth: we must never grow careless. Not even here in New Salem, where all our neighbors are our own kind. Now run along to the garden."

Kate was already going out the door. In the sunshine outside, Cassie noticed that Kate's hair was just the color of Diana's: not really gold, but a paler color like pure light. Kate's eyes were golden too, like sunshine. She was altogether a golden girl.

"Sky and sea, keep harm from me," she laughed, twirling, looking over the herb bushes to the blue expanse of the ocean beyond the cliff. There was no wall in this time - it hadn't been built yet. Then she darted forward to pick something.

"Just smell this lavender," she said, holding out a bunch to Cassie. "Isn't it sweet?"

But Cassie was hovering by the open door. Two other people had come into the kitchen; Kate's mother and father, she guessed. They were talking in low, urgent voices.

"... news just came. The ship went down," the man was saying.

There was an exclamation of joy and surprise from Jacinth's mother. "Then he is dead!"

The man shook his head, but Cassie didn't hear the next few words. She was afraid to be caught listening and sent away. ". . . the skull . . ." she heard, and "... can never tell. . . come back ..."

"And this jasmine," Kate was singing. "Isn't it wonderful?" Cassie wanted to tell her to shut up.

Then she heard words that raised the hair on her arms, even in the hot sunshine. ". . . hide them," Kate's mother was saying. "But where?"

That was it. Where, where? If this dream had any meaning, it was to tell Cassie this. Kate was trying to put an arm around her waist, to get her to smell the jasmine, but Cassie grabbed her hand to hold her still and strained to listen.

The