"I have lots of secrets," she said directly to Cassie. "That's only one of them. But anyway," she said to the rest of the group, "it was that night they got caught. They were - well, kissing. That's the polite way to put it. The kind of kissing that starts spontaneous combustion. I suppose they just couldn't resist their lustful passions any longer." She sighed.
Diana was looking at Adam now, looking for a denial. But Adam, his jaw set, was staring straight ahead at Faye.
Diana's lips parted with the quick intake of her breath.
"And it wasn't the only time, I'm afraid," Faye continued, examining her nails with an expression of demure regret. "They've been doing it ever since, stealing secret moments when you weren't looking, Diana. Like at the Homecoming dance - what a pity you weren't there. They started kissing right in the middle of the dance floor. I guess maybe they went somewhere more private afterward ..."
"That's not true," Cassie cried, realizing even as she said it that she was virtually confirming that everything else Faye had said was true.
Everyone was looking at Cassie now, and there was no more jeering from the Hendersons. Their tilted blue-green eyes were focused and intent.
"I wanted to tell you," Faye said to Diana, "but Cassie just begged me not to. She was hysterical, crying and pleading - she said she would just die if you found out. She said she'd do anything. And that," Faye sighed, looking off into the distance, "was when she offered to get me the skull."
"What?" said Nick, his normally imperturbable face reflecting disbelief.
"Yes." Faye's eyes dropped to her nails again, but she couldn't keep a smile from curling the corners of her lips. "She knew I wanted to examine the skull, and she said she'd get it for me if I didn't tell. Well, what could I do? She was like a crazy person. I just didn't have the heart to refuse her."
Cassie sank her teeth into her lower lip. She wanted to scream, to protest that it hadn't been that way . . . but what was the use?
Melanie was speaking. "And I suppose you didn't have the heart to refuse the skull, either," she said to Faye, her gray eyes scornful.
"Well ..." Faye smiled deprecatingly. "Let's put it this way - it was just too good a chance to miss."
"This isn't funny," Laurel cried. She looked stricken. "I still don't believe it - "
"Then how do you think she knew where to dig up the skull tonight?" Faye said smoothly.
"She stayed over at your house, Diana, the night we traced the dark energy to the cemetery. And she snuck around and figured out where the skull was buried by reading your Book of Shadows - but only after she stole the key to the walnut cabinet and checked there." Gleeful triumph shone out of Faye's golden eyes; she couldn't conceal it any longer.
And nobody in the group could deny the truth of Faye's words any longer. Cassie had known where to dig up the skull. There was no way to get around that. Cassie could see it happening in face after face: the ending of disbelief and the slow beginning of grim accusation.
It's like The Scarlet Letter, Cassie thought wildly as she stood apart with all of them looking at her. She might as well be standing up on a platform with an A pinned to her chest. Helplessly, she straightened her back and tried to hold her chin level, forcing herself to look back at the group. I will not cry, she thought. I will not look away.
Then she saw Diana's face.
Diana's expression was beyond stricken. She seemed simply paralyzed, her green eyes wide and blank and shattered.
"She swore to be loyal and faithful to the Circle, and never to harm anyone inside it," Faye was saying huskily. "But she lied. I suppose it's not surprising, considering she's half outsider. Still, 1 think it's gone on long enough; she and Adam have had enough time to enjoy themselves. So now you know the truth. And now," Faye finished, looking over the ravaged members of the Circle, and especially her deathly still cousin, with an air of thoughtful gratification, "we'd probably better be getting home. It's been a long night." Lazily, smiling faintly, she started to move away.
"No." It was a single word, but it stopped Faye in her tracks and it made everyone else turn toward Adam.
Cassie had never seen his blue-gray eyes look this way before - they were like silver lightning. He moved forward with his usual easy stride. There was no violence in the way he caught Faye's arm, but the grip must have been like iron - Cassie could tell that because Faye couldn't get away from it. Faye looked down at his fingers in offended surprise.
"You've had your turn," Adam said to her. His voice was carefully quiet, but the words dropped from his lips like chips of white-hot steel. "Now it's mine. And all of you" - he swung around on the group, holding them in place with his gaze - "are going to listen."
Chapter Two
"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 somebody else involved here. And she" - he glanced 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 members, notably Laurel and Melanie, looked away, slightly ashamed. But the rest simply stared, angry 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.