Chapter One

The hour was late, but the Boathouse bar and grill was filled with customers. Teenagers crowded in booths, families were seated around tables, and a couple of warmed the stools at the end of the bar.

Dawn Chamberlain made her way through the patrons and approached her target. "Ethan, we need to talk."

Ethan Conant glanced across the bar at her, his hands busy drying shot glasses. "We don't have anything to talk about Dawn."

"Yes we do." Dawn insisted. "It involves Adam and Cassie Blake."

"What about my son and Amelia's girl?" Dawn had Ethan's full attention now. "Did something happen to them?"

"Yes." Dawn admitted, but at the sudden look of panic on Ethan's face, she added hastily, "They aren't hurt…at least not physically."

"What does that mean?" Ethan was out from behind the bar and standing in front of her. He wanted to grab her by the arms and demand she tell him what was going on, but he resisted the urge. He couldn't afford to spark any more rumors.

Adam already had to contend with the rumors of his drunken escapades, and he didn't want to cause his son more embarrassment. Already Adam was avoiding him because of his interference with his son's relationship with Diana Meade, and he didn't want to drive him further away.

"We can't talk here." Dawn said.

"Come with me." Ethan spoke a few words to his bartender, before moving back around the bar. Dawn followed him.

He entered his office/supply room and waited for Dawn to join him. He closed the door behind him and folded his arms. "Now tell me what's going on."

Dawn walked over to the ratty couch patting the worn cushion."Let's sit down."

Ethan reluctantly joined her.

"Our children know they are witches and they have bound their Circle." Dawn stated.

"What?" Ethan paled. "How did they find out? When did they bind their Circle?"

"I'm not sure when they found out they were witches. I'm guessing not more than a year or two at most. I know that at least Diana has found her family's Book of Shadows, but maybe someone else has too. Not Faye though. I don't keep ours in the house."

"Adam couldn't have found ours either." Ethan said. "Everything about that time I packed up and gave to my father to hold onto."

"As you are aware, Cassie only arrived back in Chance Harbor a few months ago. I'm guessing they bound their Circle a short time after she arrived in town." Dawn paused, searching her thoughts, wanting to tell Ethan as much as possible, without revealing too much of her and Charles' involvement before that night. " Since binding their Circle, our kids have attracted the attention of witch hunters and demons.."

"Demons?" Ethan swore, then said suddenly, "Nick's death wasn't an accidental drowning was it?"

"No…well yes, technically, " Dawn said, "But I'm thinking he went into the water because he knew he was infested with demons."

"Oh my God!" *How could I have not known about any of this?* Ethan thought. "Why didn't Adam tell me?" Ethan ran an agitated hand over his head.

*Maybe because you have been out of touch with reality for awhile now?* Dawn wanted to say, but wisely kept her tongue. There was no sense making Ethan feel more guilty than she assumed he already was.

"Don't be too hard on yourself." She said instead. "Faye wasn't exactly forthcoming to me either. And they've acted exactly like we did when we first discovered we were hereditary witches. We didn't tell our parents either."

"And look where that got us." Ethan spat out.

Silence fell between them as both were momentarily swept back to that day sixteen years ago when half the members of their own Circle died tragically, and their lives had been forever changed.

"Tell me the rest Dawn."

So Dawn told him everything she had been able to piece together with Charles' help, ending with her and Charles' rescue of Faye, Jake, and Melissa from the witch hunters on the very boat where their own Circle members, including their spouses, had died.

"You mentioned you and Charles saved Faye, Melissa, and Jake. Where was Adam, Cassie, and Diana?" Ethan asked when she was finished.

"John Blackwell convinced them that the only way to protect themselves from their enemies was to collect our families' crystals so they could do the Crystal Skull ritual."

Ethan swore again.

"Supposedly he needed both Cassie and Diana to make the ritual work. They both have Balcoin blood in them."

Ethan's eyes widened. "Diana is Blackwell's too?"

"Yes." Diana said. "Apparently he and Elizabeth were together during that time she and Charles were separated."

"Damn. That must have gutted Charles."

Ethan and Charles Meade had never been friends, and never would be, but he couldn't imagine finding out that Adam wasn't his, especially if it meant he was actually the blood of his arch enemy.

"There's more Ethan." Dawn said. "Blackwell had no intention of helping their Circle, he planned to kill all of us, and replace the other members of Diana and Cassie's Circle with four more kids with Balcoin blood, so he could have a Circle to control."

"That explains the half hour of writhing on the floor in excruciating pain I went through earlier." Ethan commented.

"Yes." Dawn shuddered as she remembered how her own body had felt like it was burning up from the inside out. "We don't have to worry about John anymore. Cassie and Diana combined their powers with that of the Crystal Skull and destroyed him."

"Good riddance." Ethan sighed. "Poor Cassie…she is all alone now."

"No, she's not Ethan. She will forever have her Circle...especially Adam.." Dawn reminded him.

"What do you mean she has Adam? I thought she and Adam decided to just be friends?"

"No. John convinced them that if they got together that someone in their Circle would die. He told me that he killed some crows, put a spell on Jake Armstrong to make it look like the curse was activated, and he even spelled Jane when she was in the care facility to say it was true. He made them drink an elixir he concocted to make them forget how they felt about each other."

"Damn him!" Anger flooded through Ethan as he remembered how Blackwell had come between him and Amelia, and now he had done something similar to Adam and Cassie. "If he wasn't already dead, I'd kill him!"

"I'd help you too." Dawn meant it. John Blackwell had done too much damage to all of them. "We can fix what John has done to Adam and Cassie. All we have to do is create an elixir to cancel out the one John made them drink and their feelings for each will return to them."

"Why would you do that?" Ethan wanted to know. He was wary of her good intentions.

"Because it's the right thing to do." Dawn told him. "Your families were written in the stars. It's too late for you and Amelia, but not for Adam and Cassie. They deserve to be happy."

"What do you want me to do?" Ethan asked.

"Find Adam and bring him to the abandoned house. We'll find what we'll need there. " Dawn stood up and headed toward the door. "Together the three of us will go to Cassie's and talk to her."

"I'll meet you there within the hour." Ethan promised.

Ethan left the closing of the Boathouse in his employees capable hands, and went in search of his son. He hit the boat first, to see if Adam was there, but the boat was empty. Ethan jogged over to his jeep and climbed in. He cruised by Cassie's house first, but didn't see Adam's car outside. Next he went by Diana's, but all the lights were off at the Meade home. Ethan turned his jeep in the direction that would lead him to the abandoned house. Adam's car was parked alongside the dirt path which led into the woods that surrounded the abandoned house that once belonged to John Blackwell.

Ethan got out of his vehicle and headed down the dirt path with mixed feelings. This was the first time he had been at the abandoned house in sixteen years, and his mind was flooded with unwanted memories. He fought against the urge to turn around and flee back to his car, and continued walking through the woods toward the house.