The Secret Circle: The Divide

 

The kitchen was shadowy and quiet when Cassie stepped inside. Her mother wasn't home, and she was glad. She didn't want to have to explain why she was hauling bricks out of the fireplace. Just up the block, Diana was retrieving the tiara and whatever other materials they'd need to complete the resuscitation spell. And a little farther down Crowhaven Road, the rest of the group was somehow going to convince Melanie to allow them to bring her great-aunt's body to the lighthouse. Before this year, Cassie had never even seen a real dead body, and now she was going to put her hands over one and try to bring it back to life.

The fireplace wasn't such a creative hiding spot for the bracelet, Cassie knew, but it had worked successfully for so many years, why try to think up someplace different?

Deep inside its gaping stone mouth, she found the silver document box just as she'd left it. And when she removed its ancient lid, the bracelet glistened inside, as if it were celebrating the sudden, surprising light.

Cassie allowed herself to admire the bracelet's beauty for only a second. She ran her fingers over the intricate design on its rich silver surface and felt its weight in her hands. But then Diana called to her from outside.

"Be right there!" she yelled, and ran upstairs to quickly change into her ceremonial white shift.

Once she was dressed and ready, she found Diana waiting for her on the front porch swing with a large cotton sack at her side. She'd also changed into her ceremonial shift, but there was a composure to Diana's appearance that Cassie could only aspire to. Even under all this stress, Diana remained in control.

Cassie reached for her hand, hoping some of the strength would rub off Diana's skin onto hers. And somehow it did. A few moments of holding Diana close calmed her.

"We're doing the right thing," Diana said. "We need Constance."

Cassie remembered what a refuge Constance had been since she lost her grandmother. And all the afternoons she'd spent in her parlor, learning new spells and studying ancient rituals. Constance was the only connection to the old ways the Circle had.

"I know we are," Cassie said in her most courageous voice. "I'm ready to go."

"Okay, everyone, let's get started." Diana emptied the cotton sack onto the table when they arrived at the lighthouse and immediately began reading directions from her Book of Shadows.

It didn't surprise Cassie how everyone automatically turned to Diana in moments like this - moments when it really mattered. She would always be the most natural leader among them, no matter what.

"The body should be entirely covered in white cloth of two layers," Diana read aloud to Adam. "With head and face veiled in tull e." She gestured to a pile of fine white netting on the table.

Adam nodded. "I'll take care of it," he said.

Nick, Chris, and Doug pushed all the furniture to the room's perimeter. Melanie kneeled in the center beside the covered body. Cassie helped Deborah drape the windows with purple linens.

Diana approached Faye carrying two golden censers.

"We have to fumigate the chamber with sage and frankincense," she said.

Faye had changed into her ceremonial black shift, and she was already wearing the green leather garter with its seven silver buckles. She accepted the censers from Diana and then called Sean over to tend to the chore. "Where's the diadem?" she asked.

Diana nodded over to Melanie, sitting solemnly with the diadem on her head. "She's the one who gets to wear the Tools tonight," Diana said. "She's doing the conjuring. The rest of us are her support."

Even Faye couldn't disagree that Melanie should be the one leading this spell, but she still tore the garter from her leg with fury before walking it over to Melanie. Cassie followed close behind her, removing the bracelet from her wrist on her way.

In a few minutes, the room had been properly prepared, and Diana called for the ritual to begin.

"Faye and Cassie, will you do the honors of casting the circle according to my instructions? Forgive me if I go slowly - this text is really hard to read - but I'll do my best. Is everyone ready?"

Cassie looked around the dimly lit room. She wasn't the only one who seemed nervous, but nobody was about to back out now. Melanie appeared to be in a cloudy-eyed daze, but she looked more beautiful wearing the Master Tools than Cassie had ever seen her.

Diana cleared her throat and began reading aloud. "A magic circle is to be formed upon the ground with an ink of soot and port wine. A second circle is formed half a foot within the first."

Together Cassie and Faye formed the circles around Melanie and Constance, using the chalice of ink Diana had prepared.

"And within there," Diana continued, "cast a triangle, the center of which will serve as the resting place of the deceased and primary conjurer."

Cassie and Faye formed the triangle within the circles, outlining Melanie and Constance.

"Everyone get inside," Diana said. "And then I'll close the outer circle with the four layers of protection." Quickly the group arranged itself, kneeling upon the outer circle's perimeter as Diana called on the elements.

"Powers of Air, protect us," Diana called out. "Powers of Fire, protect us."

Cassie closed her eyes and listened.

"Powers of Water, protect us." Diana enunciated each syllable with precision. "And finally," she said, "I call on the powers of Earth to protect us."

Diana then joined the circle beside Cassie and continued reading from her Book of Shadows. "To commence, the conjurer must light a black candle and cast it over the body seven times thereon, calling the name of the spirit to be raised."

All eyes turned to Melanie now. Cassie wondered if she had the strength to do it. But the Tools glistened, and Melanie's posture straightened as she lit the candle and passed it over the white sheet, calling out, "Great-Aunt Constance, Constance Burke, hear us."

Diana continued, "Then from a golden chalice of dried amaranth flowers, sprinkle the body and its surrounding area."

While Melanie did the sprinkling, Diana said, "Melanie, repeat after me: Thou who art mourned, see now the nature of this mourning."

And Melanie repeated, "Thou who art mourned, see now the nature of this mourning."

Cassie felt her eyes fill with tears as Diana chanted: This is the spell that we intone

Flesh to flesh and bone to bone

Sinew to sinew and vein to vein

Constance shall be whole again

They all concentrated hard, harnessing their powers together as one. Cassie could sense an energy rising up from the center triangle, webbing out to each member of the group, linking them all together in a maze of light.

Diana read aloud, "After a moment of silence and concentration, uncover the face of the deceased. Then call to the spirit again, affectionately. Say 'Welcome.'" With

quivering

hands,

Melanie

gently

unveiled

Constance's face. "Great-Aunt Constance," she said.

"Welcome."

"The body will stir," Diana read. "The eyes will open, and then the desired awakening."

The room crackled with energy. Cassie could feel it zipping and twisting around her in spirals, but she wasn't afraid of it anymore. The air around them warmed, and Cassie could see the life flickering back into Constance's face slowly, like the rising sun.

Then a shape began to form. Cassie noticed it faintly at first in the glow on Constance's forehead, but then it grew bigger and brighter until it stood out like an iridescent bruise. It was most definitely a symbol, a primal-looking mark resembling two crooked U-shapes within a hexagon.

Then everything went dark. The light that had come to Constance's face, the symbol, the candles ill uminating the room - all of it disappeared, as if a heavy blanket were dropped from the ceiling, snuffing the room to death.

Diana lit her lantern and held it up to Melanie's grief-stricken face. Her great-aunt Constance was still dead. And now she had to experience her death all over again.

"The spell didn't work," Laurel said.

"But it was working." Diana's eyes franticly searched the group. "Didn't you all feel it?"

"Yes, of course," Adam said. "I don't understand what went wrong."

Faye was silent but looked just as confused as the others.

Adam spoke out again. "Is there anything more to the spell, Diana? Does it say anything else in your book?" Diana squinted at the bottom of the page she'd been reading, then turned to the next page, and then turned it back again.

"It's nearly ill egible," she said. "But there's a scrawled line here at the bottom edge." She held her lantern close to the book's tiny wording.

"It says, 'Should nothing result, and this witch hath been true . . .' and then it stops. Whatever it said next got smudged out."

"Smudged out?" Faye grabbed the book from Diana's hands to have a look for herself. "How could something so important be smudged out?"

"It's a three-hundred-year-old book," Adam said in Diana's defense. "It's not that hard to believe." Cassie wondered if she was the only one who saw the symbol appear on Constance's forehead. Or had she imagined it? Over the echoes of Melanie's sobs, she knew it wasn't the right time to ask. Constance was lost to them forever.

It was late by the time Cassie got back home, but her mother was awake, lying on the sofa in her nightgown. She sat upright as soon as Cassie stepped in from outside.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"Yes," Cassie assured her, closing and locking the door behind her.

"How's Melanie?"

"She's been better." Cassie pulled her jacket tightly closed, not wanting her mother to see she was wearing the white shift.

"And Constance?"

Cassie hesitated. She realized her mother was eyeing the Master bracelet on Cassie's left wrist. "You know then," Cassie said. "About the resuscitation spell." Her mom nodded and gestured for Cassie to join her on the sofa. "I just figured," she said. "Did it work?" At first Cassie simply shook her head and took off her coat. But she wanted to be able to tell her mom everything, even about the symbol she saw ill uminating Constance's forehead. And for once she did, without holding anything back for her mother's benefit.

Her mother surprised her by listening, really listening this time. She didn't change the subject or become so overwhelmed with fear that Cassie had to worry about her more than herself.

Until she mentioned the symbol she saw appear on Constance's forehead.

"The symbol," Cassie said, "looked like something primal. Like two bent U-shapes inside a hexagon." Cassie noticed the alarmed look that flashed across her mother's face. "What is it?"

Her mother shook her head. "Not two U-shapes," she said. "One. A W."

Cassie didn't understand what she was hearing.

"W, as in Witch," her mother said.

Cassie was breathless. Her mother closed her eyes for a moment and when she reopened them they looked as grim as two black coals.

"I know what went wrong with the spell," she said.

"There's a way a witch can be killed that can never be reversed. But there's only one kind of person who can do it."

"Who?" Cassie asked. "What kind of person?"

"A witch hunter," her mother said.