Chapter 7

The drive hadn't been too long, but the path reminded Diana of the road to New Salem: tidy and out of the way. The biggest surprise came when they entered the main neighborhood.

Diana gasped, Nick's jaw dropped, and the two in the front seat were smiling ear-to-ear. Almost one hundred people were standing out in the road, clapping and smiling. Diana slowly got out of the car behind Nick, and walked toward the large group. The closest people looked about her own age. They must be the primary coven, she thought to herself.

Everything was unfamiliar to Diana. For the next half of an hour, she was hugging, shaking hands, and hearing names that she quickly forgot. And there wasn't a sore look in the group. There wasn't a person there that looked as if they had been forced to come. There was even a group of small children that ran out and circled them, calling, "Unity," together. She looked over at Nick, who was wearing a smile that she had never seen before.

She smiled to herself. You're not alone here.

They followed Aidan and Katherine to a large house toward the end of the road. They walked inside, in awe of the beautiful paintings in the main foyer. It reminded Diana of her sketches. She saw Aphrodite, Hera, Athena, and so many others.

She almost jumped when someone whispered in her ear. "Do you like them?"

Diana looked up at Aidan, beginning to blush again. She had never been so bashful in her life. "They remind me of some sketches I did at home."

"Really?" His eyes lit up in surprise. "I've been working on them for years."

"Seriously?" Diana was amazed. "They're astounding!"

He smiled gently. "Thank you. Maybe someday I'll see yours."

"Maybe, if you ever come to the States. But mine are nothing compared to these."

"I imagine they have a beauty of their own."

The four of them continued to walk down the hall until they entered a gigantic living room, a large fire burning in the fireplace. Aidan turned to look at Diana again. "Since you guys had such a long flight, and will be feeling the effects of jet-lag soon, why don't I show you to your rooms?"

Diana and Nick looked at each other and nodded. She could feel fatigue taking over her body.

Diana was grateful when they made it to her room. Nick's room had been monstrous, and hers was no different. The room was bright, with white walls and light green trim. The quilt on the bed was a wonderful pattern of green leaves. Everything in the room was made of a sturdy light wood, probably oak, she thought. A fireplace burned gently from the far wall. Another door led to her own private bathroom. She ran in to look it over.

"Is this good?" Aidan asked.

"This room is too much," she laughed, coming out of the forest theme bathroom. "You'd think I was living here forever!" She set her stuff down and spread herself out on the bed.

He smiled at her. "I hope you enjoy my house while you're here."

"This is your house?" she gasped. "I thought maybe you guys had a meeting hall or something. It must be wonderful."

"It's okay, it just gets kind of lonely."

Diana looked at him slowly, noting the look of sadness in his eyes as he said the word. "I guess it could be."

He shook his head, coming back to Earth. "I have a meeting to start in about twenty minutes. I'll come back up afterwards so we can talk leader-to-leader. That way you can get some rest."

Nodding, she smiled. "That would be nice." She closed her eyes as he made his way out the door.

Within seconds, she was dreaming. But it wasn't actually a dream. All she could see was s silver light completely surrounding her. She couldn't understand it, but she knew the dream was trying to tell her something. When she thought she had put her finger on it, the dream started to flow away from her.

She awoke to a knock on her door. She sat up, seeing Nick walk in. He sat at the dressing table, stretching his arms behind his head and smiling.

"You're just loving this, aren't you?" Diana laughed.

Nick just grinned at her, a face she hadn't seen since they were little kids.

"Then I'm glad you came with me." She propped herself up on her pillows, snuggling into them. "I don't think I've ever seen you so happy, Nick. You actually look . . . content."

"Stranger things have happened," he said. "It's just nice to get away, meet some new people. Everyone's nicer than Hell here. We don't see this kind of reaction back home. Maybe if we did, I would have been more into the witchcraft thing."

Diana felt her heart sink a little bit at that. She had always been a leader. "I guess I could never build this kind of moral at home, where people cherished what they had, instead of wanting more."

Nick sat up to look at her. "That's not what I meant, Diana. It wasn't your fault. I never had a problem with what you were doing. Everything you did was to better us. It's Black John's fault, for coming back and screwing up our parents."

All she could do was shrug. Luckily, Aidan walked in, stopping the awkward silence that was about to start.

"Did I interrupt something?" he asked, beginning to back out of the door.

Nick stood up to leave. "Nope, we were just talking. I'm gonna go get something to eat." He gave Diana one last look before walking out. It seemed to say, "I'm sorry."

She gave a sigh before looking up at Aidan. "So you wanted to talk?" She smiled, blocking out the last nagging thing on her mind.

"If you'd rather I come back later . . . "

"No, no. Don't worry. What did you want to talk about?"

He shrugged. "I just wanted to know about you, how you ran your coven, what you've learned, things like that."

She laughed, thinking of everything they had been through in the past year. "Well, I'm seventeen, and one of three leaders of our coven. I was the only leader until November, when we went through a minor conflict that eventually worked out. We've mainly worked on the basics of our craft. We each have our elements, our colors, our stones," she lifted the chain around her neck to show the peridot hanging from it, "We've been tried and have come up successful."

"Conflict?" he asked. "What kind of conflict?"

Diana bit her lip, trying to think of an easy way to explain it. "Well, the spirit of a dead witch came back and tried to ruin our parents' lives, then tried to ruin ours."

She wasn't surprised to see his mouth hang down in shock. She shook her head and took a breath. This would take a while to explain.