“Looks like John the Baptist's head,” she murmured.
“I've used salt and rainwater to try and clear it,” Diana said. “But what it really needs is a full course of crystals and flower essences, and then to be buried in moist sand for a few weeks.”
“We'll take every precaution,” Adam said. “A triple circle of protection. It'll be all right.” He picked up the skull, with a few rose petals still clinging to it, and he and Diana left for the garage. Cassie watched him go.
“Don't be nervous,” Melanie told her. “You won't really have to do anything at the ceremony. You won't be able to; it takes a long time to get the hang of scrying-years, usually. All you have to do is sit there and not break the Circle.”
Cassie tried not to mind the condescending note in her voice. “Listen, do we have time for anybody to drive me over to my house?” she said. “There's something there I'd like to pick up.”
Diana's garage was empty-of cars, at least. The floor was clean and bare, except for a circle drawn in
white chalk.
“I'm sorry to make us all sit on concrete,” Diana said, “but I wanted to do this inside-where I can be sure the wind won't blow out one of the candles.”
There were a number of white candles lying at the center of the circle. They formed a smaller ring. In the very center of that, something draped with a piece of black cloth sat on a shoe box.
“All right,” Diana said to the rest of the group, who had arrived in small clusters and were now standing in the garage. “Let's get this thing over with.”
She had changed into her white shift and jewelry. Looking at them now, Cassie suspected that the diadem and cuff bracelet-and maybe even the garter-had some mystic significance. She watched Diana “cast” the circle, going around it with the dagger and then with water and then incense and then a lit candle. Earth, water, air, and fire. There were also some incantations, which Cassie tried to follow. But when they all filed into the circle and sat down knee to knee as Diana instructed, any interest in the actual ceremony flew right out of her mind.
She had ended up between Faye and Adam. She didn't know how it had happened. She had been in line to sit next to Sean, but somehow Faye had gotten in front of her. Maybe Faye didn't want to sit by Adam. Well, neither did Cassie, although for a very different reason.
Adam's knee was pressing against hers. That was how Diana had told them to sit. She could feel the warmth of it, the solidity. She could think of nothing else.
On her other side, Faye smelled of some heady, tropical perfume. It made her slightly dizzy.
Then all the lights went out.
Cassie didn't see how it was done; she was sure no one left the seated circle. But the overhead fluorescent panels had abruptly gone off.
It was pitch-black in the garage. The only light now was the flame of the single candle Diana held. Cassie could see her face illuminated by it, but nothing else.
“All right,” Diana said quietly. “We're just going to be looking for the last imprints left. Nothing more than that; nobody goes in really deep until we know what we're dealing with. And I don't have to tell anybody that whatever happens, we don't break the circle.” She didn't look at Cassie as she said it, but several of the others did, as if to imply that maybe she did have to say it.
Diana touched the candle flame to the candle Melanie held out to her. The flame doubled. Then Melanie leaned over to light Deborah's candle, and there were three flames.
The fire went around the circle until Laurel gave it to Adam. Cassie's hand was trembling as she held up her candle to receive the flame from him. She hoped everyone would assume it was just general nervousness.
At last all twelve candles were lit and stuck in their own wax to the concrete floor. Each shed a pool of radiance and cast huge dark shadows of the seated figures on the walls.
Diana reached into the ring of candles and pulled off the black cloth.
Cassie gasped.
The skull was facing her directly, its empty eye sockets staring at her. But that wasn't the most alarming thing. The skull was glowing. The candle flames around it played on it, and the crystal in turn reflected and refracted the light. It almost looked-alive.
Around the circle the others had straightened, tensed.
“Now,” said Diana. “Find someplace inside the skull that interests you. Concentrate on it, look at the details. Then look for more details. Keep looking until you find yourself drawn into the crystal.”
Someplace that interests you? Cassie thought blankly. But when she looked carefully at the glowing skull, she saw that the crystal wasn't completely clear. There were gossamer webs and what looked like wisps of smoke inside it. There were internal fractures that seemed to be acting as prisms to form miniature landscapes. The closer Cassie looked, the more detail she saw.
That looks like a spiral or tornado, she thought. And that-that looks almost like a door. And a face…
She jerked her eyes away, stomach lurching. Don't be silly; it's just imperfections in the crystal, she told herself.
She was almost afraid to look again. But no one else seemed disturbed. Their shadows loomed and flickered on the walls, but all eyes were turned toward the skull.
Look at it! Now, she commanded.
When she looked back at the skull, she couldn't find the misty face again. There, that proves it was just a trick of the light, she thought. But the skull had developed another disturbing quality. Things seemed to be moving inside it. It was almost as if the skull were made of water, contained inside a thin skin, and things were drifting slowly around.
Oh, stop it and pick one detail to focus on, she ordered herself. The doorway, look at that. It isn't moving.