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The door was no longer tiny but life-size, large enough to go in It was ajar, and colored light streamed froazed at the door, her scalp tingling If it opened, could I go inside? she wondered But how could it open?

Maybe if she just iood What had Melanie said? Crystals help us call on the Powers What Poould be connected with clear quartz? Earth and water? For sand and sea?

That sounded al of a poem

Earth and water, sand and sea

As I will, so let it be

She concentrated on the door, willing it to open And as she stared, it did see out More andLet it draw you closer She was floating in front of the door now It was huge, like the door to a cathedral Opening opening She was drowning in rainbow light

Now! Go in!

But at that instant a screah the rooh and wild, and it lanced through the utter silence The door stopped opening, and Cassie felt herself being pulled backward The door was receding, faster, faster Then, just before she found herself outside the skull, a face flashed before her eyes The sa; it was traveling toward her Getting bigger Bigger and bigger so fast - it would burst the crystal It would -

"No!" cried Diana

Cassie felt it at the sa rushing toward the that had to be stopped

She never quite knehat happened next Sean was sitting on the other side of Faye Maybe he was the one who moved first; maybe he panicked and tried to bolt In any case there was a co and Sean to stop her, orDiana was crying, "No, no!" Cassie didn’t knohat to do

She tried to check her instinctive flinching away from Faye, but it didn’t matter Faye lurched forward and Cassie felt the pressure of Faye’s knee leave hers The circle was broken, and Faye’s candle went out

Instantly all the other candles were snuffed out too, as if by a blast of wind In the sa reach the limits of the crystal It burst out of the skull and past the dark, s candles Cassie didn’t kno she could tell this - everything was pitch-black But she felt it She could sense the rushing thing like an inkier blackness It exploded past her, blowing her hair straight up and to the side She threw out an arone

There was a faint cry in the darkness

Then everything was quiet again

"Turn on the lihts," soasped

Suddenly Cassie could see Ada too, her face white and frightened Around the circle every face reflected alarm and consternation - except Nick’s His was i up She looked as if she’d been blown backward by so in her eyes, she turned on Sean "You pushed me!"

"No, I didn’t!" Sean looked around the rooing for it!"

"You lying little wor to break the circle"

"She - "

"No, I didn’t!"

"All right!" shouted Diana

Adam came up beside her "It doesn’t matter who did what," he said, his voice tense "What y - that escaped"

"What energy?" Faye said sullenly, exay that knocked you flat on your back," Diana said grimly

"I fell Because this little snot pushed me"

"No," said Cassie before she could stop herself She was beginning to shake in delayed reaction "I felt it too So caave her a glance of scorn and disdain Cassie looked around at the others, ere still sitting, and was surprised to see uncertainty in their expressions Surely they had felt it too?

"I felt - so dark inside the skull Soy"

"Whatever it was, it was released e broke the circle," Adam said He looked at Diana "It’s my fault I shouldn’t have let this happen"

"You mean you should have kept the skull a secret from the rest of us," Faye said sharply "For your own personal use"

"What difference does it make?" Laurel cried fro was released fro God knohat"

"It’s - bad," Cassie said What she wanted to say was "evil" but that seemed such a melodramatic word Yet that hat she had sensed in the dark, rushing thing Evil The intent to destroy, to harot to stop it," Ada with a button on her blouse "How?"

This silence was long and unco to have sorim unspoken conversation The Henderson brothers were also telegraphing so to each other, but they didn’t look as if theymurderous and evil loose in the immediate community In fact, on the whole they looked pleased

"Maybe it’ll get whoever got Kori," Chris offered at last

Diana stared at hied "Is that what you were thinking ere reaching into it? Is that what you illing?"

"We were supposed to just try and read the last iry as Cassie had ever heard it

The Henderson brothers looked at each other and shrugged Deborah’s expression was so Nick, face expressionless, stood up

"Looks like that’s all for tonight," he said

Diana exploded

"You’re da Cassie She snatched up the skull in her two hands "Now this is going to a safe place, where it belongs Where it should have gone in the first place I should have known you were all too irresponsible to deal with it" Hugging the skull to her, she strode out of the garage

Faye was instantly alert, like a cat who sees the flicker of a mouse’s tail "I don’t think that was a very nice way to talk to us," she said throatily "I don’t think she trusts us, do you? Hands up - how many people here want to be led by someone who doesn’t trust them?"

If looks could maim, the one Melanie threw Faye would have left her a basket case "Oh, get stuffed, Faye," she said in her classy accent "Coot up to follow Diana toward the house

Cassie, not knohat else to do, followed thehtly controlled voice, "I wish you were a guy"

And Faye’s laughing, husky answer: "Why, Adam, I didn’t know your tastes ran that way!"

Diana was putting the skull back in the Pyrex dish when Adam came in behind Cassie He went to Diana and put his arainst him a moment, eyes shut, but didn’t hold him in return And after that ht I’ot to think"

Adah his hair "I should have kept it a secret from them," he said "It was my own stupid pride - "

"Don’t," said Diana "It would have been wrong to keep sos to the than to let them use it for stupid, malicious reasons?"

Diana turned away and leaned against the cabinet

"Someti Maybe the Old Powers should just be left asleep Maybe we’re wrong to think we can handle them"

"Power is only Power," Diana said tiredly, not turning "It’s not good or bad Only the e use it is good or bad"

"Butit badly"