Page 2 (1/2)
"You’ve told the story your way," Adam said "Some of it’s been close to the truth, and some of it’s been just plain lies But none of it happened exactly the way you told it"
He looked around the Circle again "I don’t care what you think of me," he said, "but there’s solanced at Cassie, just long enough for her to see his blue-gray eyes, still shining like silver - "doesn’t deserve to be put through this, especially not tonight"
A few of the coven htly ashary and mistrustful
"So what’s your side of the story?" Deborah said, scowling Her expression said she felt she’d been taken in, and she didn’t like it
"First of all, it wasn’t like that when Cassie and I ht" Ada into the distance He shook his head "It wasn’t love She helped un The witch-hunting kind of outsiders" He looked hard at Chris and Doug Henderson
"But she didn’t know - " Deborah began
"She didn’t knohat I was, then She didn’t knohat she was Witches were so out of fairy tales to her Cassie helped uys were afterin the wrong direction down the beach They tried to get her to tell where I was, they even hurt her, but she didn’t give me up"
There was a silence Deborah, who admired physical bravery above all other qualities, looked quizzical, her scowl sh, was squiret off a hook, and her expression was unpleasant "Hoeet The brave heroine So you just couldn’t resist fooling around with her"
"Don’t be a jerk, Faye," Ada Faye’s ar with her We just - " He shook his head again "I told her ’thank you’ I wanted her to know that I wouldn’t forget what she’d done - reht she was an outsider, and I’d never known an outsider who did anything like that for one of us She was just this nice outsider girl; sort of quiet and pretty, and I wanted to say ’thanks’ But when I was looking at her I suddenly felt - as if ere connected somehow It sounds stupid now, maybe, but I could almost see this connection"
"The silver cord," Cassie whispered Her eyes were full, and she wasn’t aware she’d spoken aloud until she saw faces swing toward her
Melanie’s eyebroent up and Diana looked startled too,Cassie break the silence she’d kept so long Suzan’s rosebud lips were pursed into an O
"Yeah, I guess that hat it looked like," Adaain "I don’t know - it was just this confused irateful to her, and I would have liked her for a friend - how about that, an outsider friend?" There werestraight at Diana, "that’s why I gave her the chalcedony rose you gave me"
No murmurs this time Grim silence
"It was a token of friendship, a way to repay a debt," Adaot in trouble, I could sense it through the crystal and ave it to her - and that was all I did" He looked at Faye defiantly, and then even ht - I did kiss her I kissed her hand"
Laurel blinked The Henderson brothers looked at Adauessed it was his own business what bits of girls he kissed Faye tried to look scornful, but it didn’t come off very well
"Then I left the Cape," Adaain until I came back up here for Kori’s initiation - which turned out to be Cassie’s initiation But there’s one other i In all the time I talked to Cassie I never told her who I was or where I was from I never told her my name So whatever she came up here and did - whatever poems she wrote, Faye - she didn’t knoho I was She didn’t know Diana and I were together Not until that night when I showed up on the beach"
"So I suppose that’s a good reason for pretending you didn’t know each other, for sneaking around behind everybody’s back and ain
"You don’t knohat you’re talking about," Adaain "We didn’t sneak anywhere The first tiht the skull cereht on the bluff when your little spies saw us, Faye But d’you knohat Cassie said to me in our first conversation alone since we’d met? She said she was in love withEver since she’d found out it rong, ever since she realized that I wasn’t just souy on the beach, but Diana’s boyfriend, she’d been fighting against it She’d even taken an oath - a blood oath - not to ever show anybody, by word or look or deed, how she felt about me She didn’t want Diana to find out and feel bad, or feel sorry for her Does that sound like so to sneak around?"
The Circle looked back at hiht You’re saying there’s nothing at all to Faye’s accusations?"
Adam sed "No," he said quietly "That’s not what I’ht on the bluff" He stopped and sed again, and then his voice hardened "1 can’t explain what happened, except that it wasshe could to avoid me, to keep out of ether" He looked at Diana without flinching, although the pain was evident in his face "I’m not proud of myself, but I never meant to hurt you And Cassie is co to ive ive it back to you In all of this, she’s never been anything but honest and honorable No ri black your pardon," Faye interrupted, golden eyes flashing dangerously
Adaerous "That’s what it asn’t it, Faye? Blackht - ere saying good-bye, and swearing never to see each other alone again, and you decided toon with you and Cassie after that, but I could never figure out what it was Cassie was scared to death all of a sudden, but why she didn’t just come to me and tell me what you were up to" His voice trailed off and he looked toward Cassie
Cassie shook her head ht up in it too," she said in a voice scarcely above a whisper "I was afraid you’d tell Diana, and Faye said if Diana found out"
"What?" Adaave Faye’s arm a little shake "What, Faye? If Diana found out it would kill her? Wreck the coven? Is that what you told Cassie?"
Faye smirked "If I did, it was only the truth, wasn’t it? As things turned out" She wrenched away froainst her You blackht? I’ll bet it took souess was dead on target Cassie found herself nodding "I found out where it was - "
"But how?" Diana interrupted, blurting it, speaking for the first tireen eyes with the tears hanging on the dark lashes and spoke directly back
"I did what Faye said," she said tremulously "First I looked in the walnut cabinet - reht and you woke up with ht I’d have to give up, but then I had a drea I’d seen in your Book of Shadows, about purifying an evil object by burying it in sand So I went and searched the beach and finally found the skull under that ring of stones"
Cassie paused, looking at Faye, her voice growing stronger "Once I had ive it to Faye I just couldn’t But she had followed me and she took it anyway"
Cassie took a deep breath, ing Diana to understand "I know I shouldn’t have let her have it I should have stood up to her, then and afterward, but I eak and stupid I’inning, but I was so afraid you’d be hurt" Tears were choking her voice now, andher vision blur "And as for what Ada his fault - you have to know that isn’t true It was my fault, and at the Halloween dance I tried to ht that nothing really mattered, since I was evil anyway"
There etness on Diana’s cheeks, but now she looked taken aback "Since what?’
"Since I was evil," Cassie said, hearing the terrible, stark truth in the si Jeffrey Lovejoy" The entire coven stared at her, appalled "Wait a minute," Melanie said "Run that by me one more time"
"Whenever anybody used the skull, it released dark energy, which went out and killed somebody," Cassie said carefully and clearly "Faye and I were the ones who used the skull before Jeffrey was killed If it wasn’t for me, she couldn’t have used it, and Jeffrey would still be alive So, you see, I’ to Diana’s eyes "But you didn’t know," she said
Cassie shook her head fiercely "That’s no excuse There’s no excuse for any of it - not even for doing worse things because I thought I was evil anyway and what did it matter? It did matter I listened to Faye and I let her bully ht, but there was no point in getting into that She shrugged, blinking more tears away "I even let her make me vote for her for leader I’m sorry, Diana - I’m so sorry I don’t knohy I did it"
"I do," Diana said shakily "Adam said it already - you were scared"
Cassie nodded All the words she’d held back for so long were pouring out "Once I started doing things for her, I couldn’t stop She hadjust went et out of it" Cassie’s voice broke She saw Faye, lip curled, step forward and try to say solance Then she turned and saw Diana’s eyes
They were as luht, liquid with unshed tears, but also with - so else It was a look Cassie had never expected to see again, especially not directed at her A look of pain, yes, but also of forgiveness and longing A look of love
Soht that had been growing since she had started to deceive Diana She took a stu step forward
Then she and Diana were in each others’ arth
"I’," Cassie sobbed