The Secret Circle:
Out of the Darkness
The Secret Circle and its characters aren't mine – they belong to L. J. Smith and HarperCollins Publishers. Portions of the dialogue on pages 1-4 are from The Secret Circle: Volume III, The Power, pages 281-283 and 289-293.
Chapter One
A brown shadow crept over the crescent moon. It covered the last sliver of shining white, but the moon didn't darken. It turned a dull red – the color of old blood. A shape, as insubstantial as fog or smoke, began to rise from the ground at the vacant lot at Number Thirteen Crowhaven Road.
Sean watched as the insubstantial shape solidified into a large rectangular house. Its appearance was almost perfect – flat clapboard walls, broad brick chimney, steep gable roof, heavy plank door, and small, asymmetrically placed lattice windows. It looked like any other 17th century house in New Salem – except for the eerie blood-red glow emanating from it, the same color as that of the eclipsed moon.
It felt wrong. It felt – evil.
The vague sense of dread he had been feeling grew stronger. He was terrified. He wanted to run, to get far away from that house, but he was frozen in place. He couldn't move – he couldn't even look away. The house mesmerized him, compelled him to look at it, to memorize its every detail, every weathered board, every chipped piece of slate.
"Don't go near it," Nick said. His voice sounded far away. "Everybody stay back until he comes out."
"Don't worry," Deborah replied. "Nobody's going near that."
And then Cassie said, "I have to go alone."
Sean stared at her. The members of the Circle were supposed to stick together. That's what Cassie had said before. If they didn't, if Cassie went alone, Black John would kill her, and then he would kill the rest of the Circle, just like he'd killed their parents – the ones who'd confronted him.
Deborah was arguing with Cassie. So was Nick. And Adam. And Chris.
Cassie wasn't listening to what they were saying.
She was watching them – the entire Circle, except Faye. Cassie's expression was wistful, as if she wanted more than anything to belong, to be accepted by the Circle, to be a part of it – and to stay together with them. With her Circle – her friends. More than friends – her family.
After a moment, Cassie straightened determinedly. The wistfulness was gone. Her blue-grey eyes were suddenly as hard and strong as steel. She stood, strong and proud and beautiful in the coven leader's white shift and the softly glowing silver and dark green of the Master Tools, looking around at the Circle.
Sean's terror abated when she briefly met his eyes. In that moment, he felt her confidence. Confidence that she could do what must be done. She could face Black John – and protect her Circle, her family, and her town. And the members of the Circle would do what must be done to support her, their leader.
"If you didn't want to listen to me you shouldn't have elected me leader," she chided them.
But they had elected her – and she was their leader. Cassie looked around, meeting everyone's gaze once again while she told them what they already knew: Black John wasn't coming out. He was waiting, inside, for Cassie – and she was going to fight him. Alone.
"You stay here until I come out," she said. "I'll be all right; I've got the Master Tools, remember?"
Her voice was decisive. She turned toward the house. Her walk was steady and confident as she approached the door.
Sean stared after her. The feeling of dread was back, and getting stronger once again. Cassie was a powerful Witch – and the Circle's leader – but that didn't mean she should go alone. She couldn't – she had to stay with the Circle, to protect them and to be protected by them. They had to stand together.
He had to go after her, to stop her before she could open the door, to follow her inside, to protect her – to make the Circle stay with her, stay together. He had to. But he stood, immobile, unable to do anything but watch as she opened the heavy door after only a moment's hesitation, and walked inside.
Adam started to follow her. Deborah and Nick were right behind him.
"No," Diana said, stepping in front of them. "Cassie's right. She's the only one Black John may listen to; she's the only one who can stop him in time."
The members of the Circle stood outside the house, and waited.
The wind started up again. Still they waited.
"We have to go after her," Adam said. He started again for the door.
"No," Diana said. "Not yet."
Deborah, Chris, and Doug, and some of the others, looked rebellious, but stood their ground.
The wind strengthened.
Finally Diana spoke. "It's time," she said quietly. She started walking toward the house. Adam was right behind her, followed by Deborah, Nick, Laurel, Melanie, Doug, Chris, and Suzan.
Slowly, as if moving through molasses, Sean lifted his right foot and placed it before him, and then his left. And then he was walking – following Suzan and Chris and Doug and the others through the door, through the kitchen and parlor, and up the steps of the steep, narrow, winding staircase. A tin lantern hanging on the wall gave off a dull light, but they didn't need it – the inside of the house was lit with a faint red glow. The wrongness felt even stronger inside the house than it had outside.
"Power of moon have I over thee," Cassie's voice was saying as they reached the room farthest from the stairs. "Power of sun have I over thee."
The red glow coming from the doorway was brighter than the glow in the rest of the house, the bad feeling stronger – a heavy miasma of horror and evil nearly as tangible as the house.
Diana went in. Adam followed her. So did Deborah, Nick, Laurel, Melanie, Doug, Chris, and Suzan. Sean walked with them.
Cassie stood inside the room, radiating power as she stared at the tall man standing before her. But he wasn't quite a man. His entire body glowed with the same eerie light that filled the house.
And it was from him that the miasma of evil emanated.
Faye stood beside the tall man. She was beautiful in her black silk shift and Diana's ceremonial tools. She was watching the tall man – Black John – and the Circle. She looked oddly uncertain.
"Power of stars have I over thee. Power of planets have I over thee." Diana walked through the room, stopping just behind Cassie.
Adam joined her. "Power of tides have I over thee. Power of rain have I over thee," he said.
Deborah, and Nick, and Laurel – nearly the entire Circle stood behind Cassie. Each in turn called on one of the powers of Nature to defeat Black John – who was now cowering before them.
"Power of thunder have I over thee," Doug announced.
"Power of lightning have I over thee," Chris shouted.
Sean was standing just behind Chris; it was his turn to invoke a power against Black John. But he could feel the evil of the man cowering before them – and he couldn't say a word.
Suzan spoke up. "Power of dew have I over thee," she said. She pushed Sean forward.
At last he could speak. "Power of blood have I over thee!" he yelled.
It wasn't enough. Black John straightened. He took a step toward them.
And Faye yelled, "power of fire have I over thee!" She walked over to Cassie and stood beside her, glaring at Black John. "Power of darkness have I over thee. Power of night have I over thee!"
Black John recoiled.
"With me! All of you think with me – give me your power! Now!" Cassie shouted.
Sean thought of blood – the life-giving fluid that bound the Circle and all of their families together – the blood of the last known descendents of the real Salem witches.
A presence entered his mind, filling his mind with power and with images of moon and sun and stars and all of the elements of Nature as it rushed through, taking his power with it.
The skull exploded and a piercing scream rent the silence – and stopped as suddenly as if it had been cut off.
The floor disappeared from under him, and he was falling. He screamed – and opened his eyes.
The blood-red house was gone. So was the vacant lot at Number Thirteen Crowhaven Road. Sean was home, in his own room, lying in his own bed. The curtain was open; the waning gibbous moon lit the room, illuminating the desk and chair, the guitar case leaning against the wall, the wardrobe and dresser on either side of the fireplace, the shelves of CDs and books, the cycling and triathlon posters pinned to the paneled walls and to the door.
Black John was nowhere to be seen.
It had been a dream. Just a dream.
Sean sat up, shivering in the cold morning air, and pulled the quilt tighter around himself.
Black John was gone. The Circle had defeated him. The crystal skull inside Black John's head had shattered, and Black John and the skull had vanished. But had they really killed him? He'd come back from the dead before, at least twice. Nobody knew if he had died before he drowned at sea in 1696. Nobody knew if he would come back again. Maybe he had hidden part of his soul in another crystal skull, or in something else.
Sean shuddered. He stood, dropping the quilt down onto the bed, and paced restlessly across the room.
He is gone, Sean told himself fiercely. Nobody else had been killed this time. Nobody had been badly hurt, either, not even when the house disappeared from under them. Deborah had broken her arm – hers was the worst injury. Everyone else had escaped with nothing worse than bruises. His own bruises were already fading. There hadn't even been any serious injuries on the mainland; the hurricane had turned before striking land. Just property damage, on the mainland and in New Salem.
They had been lucky. Black John had underestimated the Circle – that was the only sensible explanation. He hadn't considered the Circle – a group of twelve sixteen- and seventeen-year-old kids – to be a threat to him, a being more than three hundred years old who had come back from the dead. Had he recognized them as a threat, Sean knew that he could easily have killed the entire Circle – just as he had killed Sean's mother and so many of the other parents sixteen years ago. Instead, he had waited, trying to convince them all to join him – as Faye had, before she decided, in the end, to stand with the Circle. Or as the Circle believed he had – not knowingly, but by being taken over.
Everyone in the Circle was totally convinced that he was a traitor – that he had told Black John everything he knew about the Circle and the Master Tools. Even worse, they were all convinced that he was a murderer. They honestly believed that he had allowed Black John to take over his body and kill Kori and Jeffrey Lovejoy and Mr. Fogle.
No one had said anything to him, not since they first told him what they believed he had done. But he knew they still believed it – every one of them. He could see it in the sidelong looks they all kept giving him; he could feel the cold disdain from Nick and Adam and Melanie. And nobody was talking to him. Not really. Not even Chris or Doug or Laurel or Suzan.
But they were wrong. He hadn't … done what they said he'd done. He couldn't have. Even if he had, he would have remembered it … wouldn't he?
But what if they were right? And he really had been controlled by Black John, and had killed Kori, Jeffrey Lovejoy and Mr. Fogle? And hadn't told anyone what happened? If they were right, then it was his fault that Kori and Jeffrey and Mr. Fogle had died, and it was also his fault that Mrs. Howard had died. And if they were right, then he deserved whatever punishment they might come up with.
Maybe they had already told the police. They'd grab him at school in front of everybody – handcuff him – lock him in jail – or wherever they send seventeen-year-old murderers. And he'd be locked inside a cell –
No. That wouldn't happen. There would have to be a trial – they'd have to prove he was guilty. They would ask him questions – questions about the murders, and the victims; questions about where he was and what he was doing at the time of each murder. They would probably ask him about Black John – Mr. Brunswick, actually; that's the name they would use. And everyone would be staring at him, wondering if he'd done what they accused him of … or wondering why.
He wouldn't be able to answer their questions. He didn't know anything about the murders – nothing more than what everyone had heard at school – and what Adam and Nick and Laurel had told him on the night of the hurricane. But they'd keep staring at him, asking him questions. It would be even worse than being called on in class. And he'd panic, and he wouldn't be able to answer even the simplest questions coherently. He might try to run away, and they'd catch him. Or maybe he would confess to whatever they were accusing him of – no matter what they accused him of – just to end it.
No. It wouldn't happen. The Circle would never tell the outsiders what they believed he had done. Even though every member of the Circle believed that he had killed Kori, and Jeffrey and Mr. Fogle, no one, not even Chris or Doug, thought it was his fault, not exactly. He was a … container –that's what Adam had said. A container for the dark energy, for Black John, to use.
Sean stopped at the window and looked outside. The moon was high in the eastern sky. He sighed. The sun wouldn't be up for hours, but there was no way he was going to go back to sleep. He pulled on a sweatshirt, picked up his sneakers, and quietly walked outside.
The air was still, but cold; the night quiet but for the gentle, rhythmic sound of waves breaking against the shore and the water whispering as it flowed back into the sea. Sean walked down the gravel drive. He turned toward town and started off at a slow jog. He sped up to a steady, seven-minute-mile pace when he reached the crossroad at Crowhaven Road and Marsh Street. He kept his gaze straight ahead, on the road – trying not to look at the fallen branches which still littered gardens and driveways or the jagged stumps of fallen trees which remained as too-visible reminders of last week's storm – and Black John …
No. Don't think about that. He tried to focus on his pace, on the steady tread of his sneakers pounding the asphalt, on the road in front of him. He ran into town, past the high school, past the middle and grade schools – all the way to the bridge connecting the island with the mainland. He stopped just before the bridge and looked across the bay, toward the distant lights of Salem.
He could just keep going. Get away from New Salem – away from the accusing faces of the members of his Circle. Away from anything that would remind him of Black John … no. He couldn't leave the Circle. No matter how they looked at him. No matter what they planned to do to him. He had given his word, sworn to be loyal to the Circle and those who stood within, to protect and defend them even if it cost him his life. Besides, they were his friends – his family. And they had come to him. Even though they all believed that he'd allowed Black John to use his body to kill Kori and the others, they'd come to him, and asked for his help in defeating Black John. They'd given him a choice – and a chance for atonement for what they believed he'd done. He had stood with them against Black John. Now he would have to stand with them against the outsiders. And today was the first day of school after … the day of the storm. Whatever the outsiders planned, it would start today.
The outsiders already believed that the Club had something to do with Kori's and Jeffrey's and Mr. Fogle's deaths. Most of them probably believed that the Club had killed the new principal, too. It was no secret that Mr. Brunswick had been out to get the members of the Club – and they had caused his disappearance. They couldn't deny that.
But the outsiders wouldn't understand what had happened. The Circle couldn't just tell the truth. If … no. When someone asked him what he knew about what had happened to Mr. Brunswick, Sean couldn't say something like, "Well, I don't know whether or not we killed him. But he wasn't really Mr. Brunswick. He was Black John – that's his real name. He's an evil three-hundred-year old witch who came back from the dead in 1974 to start a new Circle, one he could control. He killed half of our parents – all of them who confronted him – in 1976, and they killed him. He came back again to take over our Circle and find the Master Tools and … do something. Something not good. And he's Cassie's father. And we called on the powers of Nature against him, and Cassie combined those powers with the powers of Earth and Water in the sand of the beach, and pushed it at him, and the crystal skull inside his head shattered and he disappeared. So did the house we were all standing in at Number Thirteen Crowhaven Road – you know, the one that burned down in 1976. But he may not really be dead. He died in 1696 and in 1976, and he came back each time. We don't know if he's going to come back again."
Not a chance. They'd think he was completely insane, and lock him away. But he couldn't lie about what had happened, either; not even if he wanted to. He was a terrible liar. No one would believe him.
A loud motor broke the silence. A grey sedan rounded the bend and passed him, crossing the bridge to the mainland. The sky was beginning to lighten. Sean looked again at the mainland. He sighed, and ran back home.
