The Power Page 0,9

something was weird when I saw all those graves in the cemetery - graves of your parents, all killed in 1976. Diana said it was a hurricane, but it still seemed strange to me. I mean, why were only parents dead? Especially when I learned that you'd all been born just a few months before. With all those little babies, you'd think some of them would have died in an ordinary hurricane. That's not even to mention the weirdness of all of you being born within a one-month period."

She was relaxing a little now, although it was difficult to talk with everyone looking at her. At least their eyes weren't glinting with enmity and suspicion today. Only Faye looked hostile, standing with her arms folded across her chest, her feline eyes narrowed.

"But you see, the explanation for all of it is really simple," Cassie went on. "Black John came back during the last generation, our parents' generation. Nobody knew it was him, and my grandmother said nobody could ever figure out how he came back, but it was Black John. He tried to make our parents into a coven when they were just a little older than us."

"Our parents?" Doug asked, snickering. "C'mon, Cassie, give us a break." There were chuckles from others in the audience, and the expressions ranged from skeptical to troubled to openly mocking.

"No, wait," Adam said, beginning to look excited. "There are some things that that would explain. I know my grandmother wanders in her mind now and then? but she's said things to me about my parents - about us kids forming a coven - that just might fit." His blue-gray eyes were snapping with intensity.

"Here's something else," Deborah said, looking sideways at Nick. "Cassie's grandma said my mom was going to marry Nick's dad, but Black John made her marry my dad instead. That might explain why my mom freaks when you even mention magic, and why she always looks kind of guilty when she says Nick is growing up to look just like his father. It might explain a lot."

Cassie noticed Nick, who was standing apart from the group as usual, in a dark corner. He was staring at the floor so hard, his eyes seemed to be about to bore a hole through it. "Yeah, it might," he said so softly Cassie could barely hear the words. She wondered what he meant.

"It would explain why they yell at each other all the time, too - my parents, I mean," Deborah was adding.

"All parents yell all the time," Chris said with a shrug.

"All the parents around here are the ones who survived Black John," said Cassie. "They survived because they didn't go to fight him. My grandmother said that after eleven babies were born in one month, our parents realized what Black John was up to. He wanted a coven he could control completely, a coven of kids he could mold while they were growing up. You guys" - Cassie nodded around the group - "were going to be his coven."

The members of the Club looked at one another. "But what about you, Cassie?" Laurel asked.

"I wasn't born until later. Neither was Kori, you know. We weren't part of Black John's plans; we were just regular kids. But you guys were going to be his. He arranged everything about you."

"And the parents who didn't like that idea went to fight Black John," Deborah put in. "They killed him; they burned him and the house at Number Thirteen, but they died themselves doing it. The ones that are alive are the cowards who stayed at home."

"Like my father," Suzan said abruptly, looking up from her nails. "He gets really nervous if you mention the Vietnam Memorial or the Titanic or anything about anybody dying to save other people. And he won't talk about my mom."

Cassie saw startled looks around the Circle. There was a kind of recognition in many of the members' eyes.

"Like my dad," Diana said wonderingly. "He always talks about my mother being so brave, but he's never said exactly why. No wonder, if he didn't go, if he let her go alone." She bit her lip, distressed. "What a horrible thing to find out about your own father."

"Yeah, well, I've got it worse," Deborah said, looking grim. "Both my parents didn't go. And neither did yours," she added to the Hendersons, who looked at each other and scowled.

"While those of us with no parents are lucky?" Melanie asked, raising her eyebrows.

"At