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Faye drew a circle on the road with the black-handled knife Then she went around the circle ater sprinkled frohted candle Sy the elements Cassie had naent sht air
"All right, coap which faced northeast, and sat down around the inner periirls around the circle, Cassie thought
"Do you want to explain or shall I?" Diana asked Faye, her hand on the white bag There was still so inside it
"Oh, you can explain" Faye said negligently
"All right We each take a candle, you see, and light it, and put it in a circle in theone of the aspects of woes, you know, like maiden, mother, and crone, but a quality A - "
"Virtue," Melanie helped her out
"Right A virtue Soether, we show the candles to the ele It’s an affirirls are, sort of; a celebration"
"I think that’s lovely," Cassie said softly
"All right; let’s do it Who wants red, or do I need to ask?" Diana took a red candle out of the bag Very faintly, Cassie thought she caught the warm, spicy scent of cinnamon
"Me I’m red," Faye said She turned the candle over in her hands, exaht and cupped a hand swiftly around the wick Cassie saw the flaers so they looked like pink shells, turning Faye’s long red nails into jewels
Diana, who had been holding a pack of matches toward Faye, put the her old, slow sroup as she dripped wax on the road and stuck the candle in it
"Is that a virtue?" Melanie asked skeptically
Faye raised an eyebrow "It’s an aspect of womanhood It’s the one I want to celebrate"
"Let her have it," Laurel said "Passion’s okay"
The red candle burned like a star
"Next coe," said Diana "Who wants that?"
"I’ll take it," Suzan said The orange candle was close to the titian of Suzan’s own hair Suzan sniffed at it
"Peaches," she said, and Cassie could srance froht: beauty," Suzan said She lit her candle in the conventional manner, with a match
"Beauty definitely isn’t - "
"Well, it’s not a virtue, but it’s soued Melanie rolled her eyes Suzan stuck the orange candle in its oax on the road, beside the red one
"Here, let o next I kno to do this," Deborah said She snatched up the white sack and ru out with a yellow candle
"Matches," she said coly to Suzan, who put them in her outstretched pale," she said, clearly and distinctly, tilting the candle so a transparent stream of yelloax ran onto the road Cassie sht that it se The flame of the yellow candle lit Deborah’s dark hair and flickered madly off her leather jacket as it burned by the other two
"Okay, green," Diana said, retrieving the bag
"Me," said Melanie, and took the dark green candle She was sitting right beside Cassie and Cassie leaned in to s woodsy: pine, Cassie decided Like a Christray eyes steady as she lit the wick She breathed in the scent for a reen candle on the road The four burning candles formed a semicircle
"Now blue," said Diana Cassie felt a jolt of nervousness and excitement Blue was her favorite color, and she wanted it, but she wasn’t quite sure she ought to speak out Still, Diana and Laurel weren’t saying anything, and she remembered that Laurel liked amethysts and often wore purple Cassie cleared her throat
"I’ll take it," she said, and reached for the pale blue candle Diana offered She was very pleased to have it, to represent blue in the coven’s rainbow - but she hadn’t thought of anything to say What’s blue like? she asked herself, sniffing at the candle to gain tiirls have that I want to celebrate?
She couldn’t quite identify the scent, which eet but sharp "It’s bayberry," Melanie told her, as Cassie kept sniffing "A smell with a history The colonists all used to make bayberry candles"
"Oh" Maybe that hy it srandrands Cassie knehat virtue she wanted to celebrate now
"Inspiration," she said "That’s iination - or like the flash of an idea, you know Whenmake my muse outfit for Halloween, she said that’s what the ave people inspiration, the ability to think of new things, to have brilliant ideas And they were female, the muses"
Cassie hadn’t meant to make a speech, and she looked down, eet the matches, she realized - and then she had an inspiration Cupping her hand around the candlewick as Faye had, she concentrated hard, thinking of fire, bright leaping fire - then she pushed with her mind, the way she had with the doberman and with Sean She felt the power leave her like a blast of heat and focus on the wick and suddenly a flah that she had to jerk her hand away to keep fro burned
"An idea - just like that," she said, a little shaken, and she dripped wax on the road to stick the blue candle in The other girls were looking at her wide-eyed, except Faye, whose eyes were narrow and hooded
Deborah grinned "I guess we’ve got more than one fire-handler around here," she said Faye looked even less a herself a little shake and taking a lavender candle fro
"That’son with the ceremony I just wanted to know," Laurel said She looked at her candle "I don’t kno to get mine into one word," she said "I wanted to do environs We’re a part of the earth and we should care about all the other things that live here with us"
"What about ’compassion’?" Melanie said quietly "That would cover it, I think"
"That’s good; compassion" Laurel lit the purple candle
"What’s it smell like?" Suzan whispered as Laurel stuck the candle in the road between Cassie’s blue candle and Faye’s red one, co the rainbow circle
"It’s sweet and floral; I think it’s supposed to be hyacinth," Laurel whispered back
"Wait," Cassie said "If it goes there, what about Diana? Don’t you get a candle, Diana?" She felt jealous on Diana’s behalf, she wanted the blond girl to have a turn too
"Yes: white goes in the middle, and I’m the only one left to do it" And it’s perfect, Cassie thought, watching Diana take out the vanilla-scented white candle and hold it up Diana represented white as surely as Faye did red
It showed in the virtue Diana na the white candle with ainto the circle of candles to place it in the center Anybody else would have sounded ridiculous saying it, but Diana looked like the e there, her beautiful face lit by the candles, her silky straight hair of that i down her back Her expression was serious and unself-conscious When Diana said purity she meant purity, and not even Faye dared to snicker
The circle of candles was pretty; seven tongues of fla into one delicious co the smell of cinnamon to Cassie, then a whiff of pine, then the sharpness of lee, wisdom, inspiration, co to the candles that represented each
"Let us all" Diana pro Faye
"Let us all have all of them," Faye said "Earth, Water, Fire, Air, witness Not that we don’t have the circle with a satisfied smile Laurel’s eyes twinkled at Cassie from across the flames and Cassie let her own eyes twinkle back
"Well, anye have all of therinned Diana sirls were s at each other over the candles, and Cassie felt as if they were a part ofso iether they were more than just the sum of the parts
"Noe’re supposed to let the at the candles
"What if souess if we don’t see it, it doesn’telse I wanted to do It’s not part of the night of Hecate, but it’s another Greek thing, the Arretophoria It ain "The Greek priestesses of Athena used to do this It’s where one of the older ives a box to the youngest o bury the box so at what’s inside it It’s supposed to be a dark and perilous journey you go on, but I think Nick’s right and you’d better stick around here Just take it off the road somewhere and bury it"
"And that’s all?" Cassie looked at the box Diana had given her It was ht-colored wood, carved all over with tiny, intricate figures: bees and bears and fish So inside it rattled "I just bury it?"
"That’s all," Diana said, handing Cassie the last ite: a small trowel "The point is that you don’t look inside it That’s why it’s called the trust festival; it’s a celebration of trust and responsibility and friendship So it up"
"Okay" Carrying the box and trowel, Cassie stepped outside the circle and walked away fro points, of flame behind
She didn’t want to bury the box close to the road For one thing, the soil was hard and streith gravel; it wouldn’t be easy to dig here; she’d just be scratching at the surface Besides, this close so the box up before its ti east She could hear the whispering of the sea from that direction and feel a faint, salty breeze She clie rocks, and the beach stretched out before her, deserted and so quietly at the shore
A yellowabove the ocean Themoon, Cassie remembered It was just the color of Faye’s eyes In fact, it looked like a jaundiced, ancient eye, and Cassie had the unco spied on as she stuck the trowel into the cold dry sand and began to dig
That was deep enough The sand scooped out by the troas caked now, and she hoped the moisture wouldn’t ruin Diana’s box As Cassie put the wooden box in the hole, linted off the brass hasp It wasn’t locked For just an instant, she had the temptation to open it