Secret Circle - The Captive Part 11

Chris came back to the foot of the stairs and looked into her face. "We don't have to go in there yet," he said. "We can wait here till they start to come down."

Ca.s.sie nodded at him gratefully. It was bad enough standing on the edge of this terrible place. She didn't

want to go in until she absolutely had to."Or ..." Chris seemed to be engaging in some prodigious feat of thought. "Or . . . we could just leave,you know."

"Leave now? Why?" Doug demanded, running back.

"Because ..." Chris stared at him. "Because . . . because I say so!"

"You? Who cares what you say?" Doug returned in a whispering shout and the two of them began to

scuffle.

They're not really scary after all, Ca.s.sie thought, a little dazedly. They're more like the Lost Boys in PeterPan. Peculiar, but sort of cute."It's all right," she said, to stop their fighting. "We can stay. I'll just sit down on the stairs."Out of breath, they sat down too, Chris ma.s.saging the toe of his boot.Ca.s.sie leaned against the wall and shut her eyes. She could hear voices from above, someone talking about the Salem witch trials, but only s.n.a.t.c.hes of the lecture got through to her. She was drained from everything that had happened today, and this dreadful place made her feel sick and fuzzy. As if she had cobwebs in her brain.

A woman's voice was saying, ". . . the royal governor, Sir William Phips, established a special court to deal with the cases. By now there were so many accused witches . . ."

So many fake witches, Ca.s.sie thought hazily, half listening. If that woman only knew about the real

witches lurking in her dungeon.

". . . on June tenth, the first of the convicted witches was publicly executed. Bridget Bishop was hung on Gallows Hill, just outside of Salem.. ."

Poor Bridget Bishop, Ca.s.sie thought. She had a sudden vision of Jeffrey's swinging feet and a wave of

nausea pa.s.sed over her. Probably Bridget's feet had been swinging when they hung her, too.

". . . by the end of September eighteen other people had been hung. Sarah Goode's last words ..."

Eighteen. That's a lot of swinging feet. G.o.d, I don't feel well, thought Ca.s.sie.

". . . and a nineteenth victim was pressed to death. Pressing was a form of Puritan torture in which a

board was placed on the victim's chest, and then heavier and heavier rocks were piled on top of the

board ..."Ugh. Now I really don't feel well. Wonder how it feels to have rocks piled on you till you die? Guess I'llnever know since that doesn't happen much today. Unless you happen to be caught in a rockslide, orsomething ...

With a jerk, Ca.s.sie sat up straight, the cobwebs swept out of her brain as if by a blast of icy wind.

Rockslide. Avalanche. Mr. Fogle, the high-school princ.i.p.al, had found out what it was like to have rocks piled on you till you died.

Weird coincidence. That was all it was. But...

Oh, my G.o.d, Ca.s.sie thought suddenly.

She felt as if her entire body were plugged into something electric. Her thoughts were tumbling over each

other.

Rockslide. Pressed to death. Same thing, really. And hanging. The witches were hanged . . . just like Jeffrey Lovejoy. Oh, G.o.d, oh, G.o.d. There had to be a connection.

"... never know how many died in prison. In comparison to the conditions there, the swift oblivion of a

broken neck may have been merciful. Our tour will now take you-"Broken neck. A broken neck.Kori's neck had been broken.Ca.s.sie thought she was going to faint.

NINE.

The voices from above were getting nearer. Ca.s.sie couldn't move; a gray blanket seemed to have enfolded her senses. Chris was pulling at her arm.

"C'mon, Ca.s.sie! They're comin'!"

Faintly, Ca.s.sie heard from above: "If you'll line up in single file, we'll be going down a narrow stairway ..."

Chris was pulling Ca.s.sie off the narrow stairway. "Hey, Doug, give me a hand here!"

Ca.s.sie made a supreme effort. "We have to go home," she said urgently to Chris. She drew herself up

and tried to speak with authority. "I have to go back and tell Diana-something- right now."

The brothers looked at each other, perplexed but dimly impressed.

"Okay," Chris said, and Ca.s.sie sagged, the grayness washing over her again.

With Doug pulling in front and Chris trying to prop her up from behind, they led her rapidly through the

dark, winding corridors of the dungeon. They seemed as comfortable in the darkness as rats, and they

guided her unerringly through the pa.s.sageways until a neon sign announced exit.

On the drive north, the pumpkins thumped and rolled in the back seat like a load of severed heads.

Ca.s.sie kept her eyes shut and tried to breathe normally. The one thing she knew was that she couldn't tell the Henderson brothers what she was thinking. If they found out what she suspected about Kori, anything might happen.

"Just drop me off at Diana's," she said when they finally returned to Crowhaven Road. "No-you don't

have to go in with me. Thanks."

"Okay," Chris said, and they let her off. Then he stuck his head back out the window. "Uh, hey-thanks for getting that mutt off me," he said.

"Sure," Ca.s.sie said light-headedly. "Any time." As they rolled away she realized they had never even asked her why she needed to talk to Diana. Maybe they were so used to doing inexplicable things themselves that they didn't wonder when other people did.

Mr. Meade answered the door, and Ca.s.sie realized that it must be late if he was home from the office.

He called up to Diana as Ca.s.sie climbed the stairs.

"Ca.s.sie!" Diana said, jumping up as she saw Ca.s.sie's face. "What's the matter?"

Adam was sitting on the bed; he rose too, looking alarmed.

"I know it's late-I'm sorry-but we have to talk. I was in the Witch Dungeon-"

"You were where? Here, take this; your hands are like ice. Now start over again, slowly," Diana said, sitting her down and wrapping her in a sweater.

Slowly, stumbling sometimes, Ca.s.sie told them the story: how Chris and Doug had picked her up and taken her to Salem. She left out the part about the pumpkin patch, but told how they'd gone to the Witch Dungeon, and how, listening to the lecture, she had suddenly seen the connection. Pressing to death-

rockslides; hanging-broken necks.

"But what does it mean?" Diana said when she'd finished.

"I don't know, exactly," Ca.s.sie admitted. "But it looks like there's some connection between the three

deaths and the way Puritans used to punish people."

"The dark energy is the connection," Adam said quietly. "That skull was used by the original coven, which lived in the time of the witch trials."

"But that wouldn't account for Kori," Diana protested. "We didn't activate the skull until after Kori was dead."

Adam was pale. "No. But I found the skull the day before Kori died. I took it out of the sand . . ." His eyes met Ca.s.sie's, and she had a terrible feeling of dismay.

"Sand. To Hold Evil Harmless,'" she whispered. She looked at Diana. "That's in your Book of Shadows. Burying an object in sand or earth to hold the evil in it harmless. Just like-" She stopped abruptly and bit her tongue. G.o.d, she'd almost said, "Just like you buried the skull on the beach to keep it safe."

"Just like I found it," Adam finished for her. "Yes. And you think that when I took it out, that alone activated it. But that would mean the skull would have to be so strong, so powerful . . ." His voice trailed off. Ca.s.sie could see he was trying to fight the idea; he didn't want to believe it. "I did feel something when I pulled it out of that hole," he added quietly. "I felt dizzy, strange. That could have been from dark energy escaping." He looked at Ca.s.sie. "So you think that energy came to New Salem and killed Kori."

"I-don't know what to think," Ca.s.sie said wretchedly. "I don't know why it would. But it can't be coincidence that every single time we interact with the skull, somebody dies afterward, in a way that the Puritans used to kill witches."

"But don't you see," Diana said excitedly, "it isn't every time. n.o.body used the skull right before Jeffrey died. It was absolutely safe-" She hesitated and then went on quickly. "Well, of course I can tell you two-it was safe out on the beach. It's still buried there now. I've been checking it every few days. So there isn't a one-to-one correspondence."

Ca.s.sie was speechless. Her first impulse was to blurt out, "Somebody did too use the skull!" But that would be insane. She could never tell Diana that-and now she was utterly at a loss. A shaking was starting deep inside her. Oh, G.o.d, there was a one-to-one correspondence.

It was like that slogan, Use a gun; go to jail. Use the skull; kill somebody. And she, Ca.s.sie, was responsible for the last time the skull had been used. She was responsible for killing Jeffrey.

Then she got another terrible jolt. She found Adam's keen blue-gray eyes fixed on her. "I know what you're thinking," he said.

Ca.s.sie swallowed, frozen.

"You're trying to think of a way to protect me," he said. "Neither of you likes the idea that my pulling the skull out of the sand had something to do with Kori's death. So you're trying to discredit the theory. But it won't work. There's obviously some connection between the skull and all three deaths-even Kori's."

Ca.s.sie still couldn't move. Diana touched his hand.

"If it is true," she said, her green eyes blazing with intensity, "then it isn't your fault. You couldn't know that removing the skull would do any harm. You couldn't know."

But I did know, Ca.s.sie thought. Or at least I should have known. I knew the skull was evil; I sensed it was capable of killing. And I still let Faye take it. I should have fought her harder; I should have done anything to stop her.