But Adam had seen her too. "A witch hunter," he said grimly. "The one whose brothers carried a gun. They're seriously into it - not just as a hobby, but as an obsession."
"And they've come here?" Deborah scoffed. Cassie looked back and forth between the dark-haired girl and Adam; obviously witch-hunting was something these people had encountered before. "They ought to know better."
"Maybe it was a mistake - or an accident. Maybe her parents moved and she was just transferred here or something," Laurel said, ever the optimist.
Cassie shook her head. "Portia doesn't make mistakes," she murmured. "And I pity the accident that tries to happen to her. Adam, what are we going to do?" She was almost more upset by this than she had been by the knowledge that Black John was loose somewhere in New Salem. That terror was mind-numbing, too much to deal with rationally. Fear of Portia was more familiar, and Cassie felt herself being sucked toward an old pattern of helplessness. She'd never been able to deal with Portia; she came out of every encounter tongue-tied and humiliated, defeated. Cassie shut her eyes.
I am not like that anymore. I won't be like that, she thought. But dread churned in her stomach.
"We'll deal with her," Adam was beginning bleakly when Doug leaned in, his tilted blue-green eyes sparkling.
"Hey, she's an enemy, right? Black John the Witch Dude said he wanted to help us destroy our enemies, right? So - "
"Don't even think about it," Melanie cut in swiftly. "Don't, Doug. I mean it."
Doug hunched his shoulders, but he looked at his twin sideways under his lashes.
"Bad magic," Chris muttered, staring into the distance.
Cassie looked at Adam.
"Never," Adam said reassuringly. "Don't worry, Cassie. Never."
Cassie was living with Diana now. "Obviously you can't stay in that house alone," Diana had said, and that afternoon she and Laurel and Melanie helped Cassie move her things. Adam and Deborah came too, for protection, pacing around the house restlessly, and most of the other Club members stopped by for one reason or another. Only Faye was conspicuously absent. No one had seen her since she'd disappeared from school.
The house itself wasn't too badly damaged, aside from the strange burned places on the floor and some of the doors. The official story, as decided on by the adults who'd come last night to take Cassie's grandmother's body away, was that there had been a fire and Mrs. Howard had been frightened into a heart attack. The Club hadn't mentioned an intruder, and the police hadn't even cordoned the house off. How the police thought a hardwood floor had caught fire in such a strange pattern, Cassie didn't know. Nobody had asked her and she certainly wasn't going down to the station to volunteer anything.
The house seemed empty and echoing despite the Circle members bustling around it. There was an emptiness inside Cassie, too. She'd never have thought she would miss her grandmother so much - just a stooped old lady with coarse gray hair and a mole on her cheek. But those old eyes had seen a lot, and those knotted hands had been deft and kind. Her grandmother had known things, and she had always made Cassie feel better.
"I wish I had a picture of her," Cassie said softly. "My grandma." Witches didn't like being photographed, so she didn't even have that.
"She was a pretty cool old broad," Deborah said, slinging a tote bag over one shoulder and picking up a cardboard box full of books and CDs. "You want anything else?"
Cassie looked around the room. Yes, everything, she thought. She wanted her four-poster bed with the dusty-rose canopy and hangings, and her damask-upholstered chairs, and her solid mahogany chest that was just the color of Nick's eyes.
"That's bombe, that chest of drawers there," she told Deborah. "It was made here in Massachusetts, the only place in the colonies that produced that style."
"Yeah, I know," Deborah said, unimpressed. "My house is full of it. It weighs a ton and you can't take it. You want the stereo, or what?"
"No, I can use Diana's," Cassie said sadly. She felt as if she were leaving her life behind. I'm only moving down the road, she reminded herself as Deborah left.
"Cassie, if you want to stop by and see your mom this afternoon, it's okay with Great-aunt Constance," Melanie said, appearing in the doorway. "Any time before dinner."
Cassie nodded, feeling something twist in her chest. Her mother. Of course her mom was going to be all right; Melanie's great-aunt was willing to take care of her, and it would be better for her to stay at Melanie's house than to be taken - somewhere else. Say what you mean: an institution, she told herself fiercely. If the doctors saw her they'd want to put her in an institution or a hospital. But she doesn't belong there, and she's going to be just fine. She needs to rest a little, that's all.
"Thanks, Melanie," she said. "I'll come after we finish moving. It's nice of your aunt to take care of her."
"With Great-aunt Constance it's not so much nice; it's duty," Melanie said, turning to go. "Great-aunt Constance believes in doing your duty."
So do I, Cassie thought, pausing as she picked up a bundle of clothes from the bed. So do I. "I just thought of something - I'll be down in a second," she said.
What she'd thought of was the hematite. One-handed, she opened the jewelry box on the dresser - and then stiffened. She stirred through the contents of the box with her fingers, but it was no use.
The piece of hematite was gone.
Panic swelled in Cassie's throat. She'd kept meaning to do something about the stone, but now that it was out of her hands she realized how dangerous she thought it really was.