The other girls were laughing at the guys' costumes. "Sean," Laurel said, "you're skinny enough without showing all your bones." He was dressed as a skeleton.
Chris and Doug had strange symbols painted on their faces: black and red triangles, yellow lightning bolts. Their long hair was even more disheveled than usual. "We're Zax," they said, and everyone said, "Who?"
Chris answered: "Zax the magician. He pulls cigarettes out of the air."
"It's from some science-fiction show they saw once," Suzan explained finally.
Faye's slow, lazy voice broke in. "And just what are you supposed to be, Nick? The Man in Black?"
Cassie looked at Nick for the first time. He wasn't wearing a costume, just black jeans and a black pullover sweater. He looked very handsome, very cool.
"I'm supposed to be her date," he said calmly, and without another look at Faye he held out his hand to Cassie.
Faye can't mind, Cassie told herself as they walked to the line of cars outside. Faye doesn't want him anymore; she shouldn't care who he goes with. But there was a thin coil of uneasiness in her stomach as she let Nick guide her to the Armstrong car. Deborah and Laurel got in the back.
On the porches around them, jack-o'-lanterns had fiery grins and dancing flames for eyes. It was a crystal moonlit night.
"A haunted night," Laurel said from the backseat. "Tonight spirits gather at all the windows and doors, looking in. We always put a white candle in the window to guide them."
"Or a plate of food to feed them, so they don't try to come inside," Deborah said in a hollow voice.
Cassie laughed, but there was a slightly false note in the laughter. She didn't want spirits looking in her windows. And as for what Laurel had said two weeks ago, about dead relatives coming back to visit the living-well, Cassie didn't want that, either. She didn't know any of her dead relatives, except her father, and he probably wasn't really dead. No, on the whole, she'd rather just leave all dead people alone.
But the Circle was planning to do just the opposite tonight.
The gym was decorated with owls, bats, and witches flying across giant yellow moons. Black and orange crepe paper was wound around the girders and streamed from the basketball hoops. There were dancing skeletons, spitting cats with arched backs, and surprised-looking ghosts on the walls.
It was all so fun and harmless. The ordinary students who'd come to dance and masquerade and drink purple poison punch had no idea of the real darkness that lurked outside. Even the ones who hated the Club didn't know the full truth.
Diana and Adam arrived together, making what must have been the most impressive entrance New Salem High School had ever seen. Diana, in her simple white shift, with her bare throat and arms looking as fresh as baby's skin, and her aureole of shining hair falling down her back, looked like a shaft of moonlight that had somehow wandered accidentally into the gym.
And Adam-Adam always had a presence, a way of innately commanding respect from anyone smart enough really to look at him. Tonight, as Herne, he was more arresting than ever. He seemed to be the forest god, perilous and mischievous, awe-inspiring but not unkind. Above all, he looked wild. There was nothing domesticated about him; he belonged in the open spaces, running underneath the stars. Raj stayed beside him, looking more like a wolf than a dog, and none of the chaperons said a word of objection.
"You know what happens tonight," a voice murmured, breath warm on Cassie's neck.
Cassie said, "What, Faye?" without turning around.
"Well, the coven leaders who represent the goddess Diana and the horned god have to make an alliance. They have to..." Faye paused delicately. ". . . merge, shall we say? To represent the union of male and female principals."
"You mean they... ?"
"It can be done symbolically," Faye said blandly. "But somehow I don't think Adam and Diana will be satisfied with symbolism, do you?"
Chapter Twelve
Cassie stood petrified. Her heart was going like a trip-hammer, but that was the only part of her capable of motion.
Adam and Diana... they couldn't. Only, of course, they could. Diana was laughing up at Adam now, tossing her straight, shining hair back. And although Cassie couldn't see Adam's eyes behind the mask, his lips were smiling.
Cassie turned, almost blundering into Nick, who was bringing her some punch, and rushed off into the dimness.
She found a dark corner under a Chinese lantern that had gone out. Shielded by a curtain of black and orange streamers, she stood there, trying to get hold of herself, trying not to see the pictures her mind was showing her.
The next thing she knew, she could smell wood smoke and ocean breeze, along with a faint, indefinable scent of animal and oak leaves. Adam.
"Cassie," he said. Just that, as if Herne were calling her in her dreams, inviting her to throw off the covers in the middle of the night and come dancing in the autumn leaves.
And then, in a more ordinary voice, he said quietly, "Cassie, are you okay? Diana says-"
"What?" Cassie demanded, in a way that would have been fierce if her voice hadn't been trembling.
"She's just worried that you're not all right."
"I'm all right!" Cassie was struggling not to let the tears escape. "And anyway-I'm tired of people talking about me behind my back. Faye says, Diana says-I'm tired of it."
He took both her cold hands in his. "I think," he said in a subdued voice, "that you're just tired, period."
I am, Cassie thought. I'm tired of having secrets. And I'm tired of fighting. If I'm already evil, what's the point of fighting?