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Around four o’clock the poent off The house got colder They lit candles and went on reading

"’For Protection Against Fire and Water,’" Cassie read But Melanie said the spell which caainst a hurricane, and Cassie knew she was right

"Here, this is To Cast Out Fear and Malignant Emotions,’" Diana read froht/ let all dark thoughts/ be put to flight’ Nice thought"

They went on reading A Charm to Cure a Sickly Child An Amulet for Power Three Spells to Bind a Lover To Raise a Storht wryly She read again about crystals: how the larger a crystal was, the y it could store and focus The spell To Turn Aside Evil, she read aloud, although she didn’t understand it

"’Invoke the pohich is yours alone, calling upon the elements or those features of the natural world which lie closest to your heart These powers have you over all that is evil: powers of sun andto the earth’"

She read it again, puzzling "I still don’t get it"

"I think it s that are good, to fight evil," Melanie said

"Yes, but hoe call on them?" Cassie said "And what do they do e do it?"

Melanie didn’t know

It got dark The gray light froether Wind banged the shutters and rattled the glass in the s The rain kept co steadily in the blackness

"What do you think he’ll do?" asked Suzan

"So unfriendly," said Laurel

Cassie was proud of theh to know that fear as behind Deborah’s restless pacing and Melanie’s stillness, but none of the cracked bad jokes, and Chris made paper airplanes Nick sat tense and silent, and Ada to the news on the radio

At six o’clock the storm stopped

Cassie’s ears, used to the dru of wind, felt suddenly e alert

"It can’t be over," Suzan said "Unless it missed us?"

"It’s still out in the Atlantic," Adam said "They think it should hit land in about an hour This is just the calm before the storm"

"Cassie?" said Diana

"I think he’sto sound calhtened

Cassandra

It was his voice in her mind She looked at the others and saw they’d heard it too

Bring your coven to the end of Crowhaven Road To Nu for you

Cassie’s fingers clenched on a piece of unfolded laundry lying nearby She tried to concentrate on the power of the Master Tools, on the warmth where they touched her Then she pushed with herSay hello to Faye

She let out her breath Doug grinned at her "Pretty good," he said

It was sheer bravado, and they all knew it, but it made Cassie feel better She inconspicuously wiped her wet palo," she said

Diana had been right; wearing the symbols of the coven leader and the white shift, she didn’t feel cold Outside, the sky was clear and the earth was silent except for the sound of the waves Yes, the calht It was a very uneasy calain at any moment

Melanie said, "Look at the moon"

Cassie’s stomach lurched

It looked like a crescent moon, a silver disk with a bite out of it But Cassie sensed the wrongness there It wasn’t a crescentinvaded, overshadowed She atching darkness fall on a bright world

She thought she could actually see the shadowmore of the white surface

"Come on," she said

They walked up the wet street,for the headland They passed Suzan’s house with its Grecian pillars, a gray bulk against the urgled down the sides of the road in little rivers They passed Cassie’s house

They reached the vacant lot at Number Thirteen

It looked just the way it had when they had celebrated Halloween here byup Black John’s spirit Empty, deserted Barren There was nobody here

"Is it a trick?" Nick asked sharply Cassie shook her head uncertainly The little voice inside wasn’t telling her anything She looked eastward at the moon, and felt another shock

It was visibly smaller, the crescent very thin now The shadoas not black or gray, but a dull copper-brown color

"Ten minutes until totality," Melanie said

"About half an hour until the hurricane reaches land," said Adam

A fresh wind blew around theht for her, were damp

They stood uncertainly Cassie listened to the waves crashing at the base of the cliff Her senses were alert, searching, but nothing seeed by and her nerves stretched more and more taut

"Look," Diana whispered

Cassie looked at the ain

The dull brownish shadoallowing up the last fingernail-thin edge of brightness Cassie watched it go, like a candle winking out Then she gasped

The sound was involuntary and she was asha too Because the one dark, like a new moon, and it wasn’t even the coppery-brown color As it was covered by shadow it turned red, a deep and oh in the sky, perfectly visible, it glowed like a coal with unnatural light

Then so noise

Cassie turned quickly, in ti On the eular bulk was taking shape, and as Cassie watched, it became more and more solid She could see a steeply pitched roof, flat clapboard walls, sularly placed A door rand froht, like the blood-red moon

"Is it real?" Deborah whispered

Cassie had to wait a et the breath to speak "It’s real now," she said "Right now, for a few minutes, it’s real"

"It’s horrible," Laurel whispered

Cassie knehat she was feeling, what the whole coven was feeling The house was evil, in the same way that the skull was evil It looked twisted, askew, like soripped all of the breathing hard

"Don’t go near it," Nick said tightly "Everybody stay back until he comes out"

"Don’t worry," Deborah assured hi near that"

Cassie knew better

The inner voice, silent just a fewher clearly nohat she had to do What it wasn’t telling her was how to get up the courage to do it

She looked behind her, at the rest of the there The Club The Circle Her friends

Ever since her initiation, Cassie had been so happy to be a part of this group She’d relied on differentto Nick and Ada she had to do, and not even Nick or Adao with her

"I have to go alone," she said

She figured out that she’d said it aloud when she saw the at her The next instant they were all protesting

"Don’t be crazy, Cassie That’s his territory; you can’t go in there," Deborah said

"Anything could happen Let hierous We won’t let you go by yourself," Adam said flatly

Cassie looked at him reproachfully, because he was the one who’d said that being coven leader ht, so he was the one who should understand now Of course this was dangerous, but she had to do it Black John - John Blake - Jack Brunswick, whatever you wanted to call hi for her inside And Cassie had to go

"If you didn’t want to listen to me you shouldn’t have electedyou now, that’s what he wants He isn’t coo in"

"But you don’t have to," Chris said, al

Of the, tears hanging on her lashes It was to her that Cassie spoke "Yes, I do," she said

And Diana, who understood about being a leader, nodded

Cassie turned away before she could see Diana cry "You stay here," she said to all of theot the Master Tools, re toward the house The nails in the heavy timber door were set in a pattern of swirls and dialow redder than the wood around them Cassie touched the iron door-handle hesitantly, but it was cool and solid to her fingers The door swung open before her and she went inside Everything here was slightly h The kitchen was randmother’s kitchen and it was eht of narroinding stairs rose from the back corner of the parlor