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joined her. Suzan's blue eyes were enormous.
"Did you see Faye? What's she doing up there?"
"I don't know," Cassie said. "Nothing good."
"She looks good," Sean said, wetting his lips quickly. "She looks great."
Cassie glanced at Sean, really noticing him for the first time in a long time. Since she'd danced with him at
the Halloween dance, maybe. It was so easy to overlook Sean; in a crowd he just seemed to blend in.
But here, with only him and Suzan beside her, Cassie focused.
I should pay more attention to him, she thought. An image skittered through her mind: Sean as he had
appeared the first time she'd seen him. Shiny eyes, shiny belt engraved with his name. Standing by his
locker full of Soloflex ads, grinning at her. Something about the picture disturbed her profoundly, but she
couldn't think what.
The last of the junior and senior classes were coming into the auditorium. Cassie saw the Henderson
brothers and Deborah sitting down with their history class. There was Diana and Melanie and Laurel
from British Literature, and Sally Waltman, too, with the now-familiar straw-colored head of Portia
Bainbridge next to her. She saw Adam and his chemistry class, but didn't spot Nick.
"Looks like Faye's doing a little extracurricular activity," a voice behind her murmured, and Cassie turned
gratefully. Nick nodded at the guy who was occupying the seat there, and the guy scrambled up and left.
Cassie hardly noticed the occurrence, it was so common. The kids from Crowhaven Road indicated
what they wanted, and the outsiders gave it to them. Always. It was the way things worked.
Nick sat in the vacated chair and took out a pack of cigarettes. He opened it, shook one forward. Then
he noticed Cassie.
Cassie was staring at him with her eyebrows lifted, her best Diana expression on. Disapproval radiating
from her like heat waves.
"Ah," Nick said. He glanced at the cigarettes, then at her again. He tapped the protruding cigarette back
into place and tucked the pack in his pocket.
"Bad habit," he said.
"Testing, one, two, three . . ." It was Faye's voice over the microphone. Cassie turned quickly.
"It's on," Faye said, with a smile Cassie could only describe as kittenish. Faye moved away from the
lectern, and the tall man also standing onstage walked up to it. He adjusted it, his eyes on the crowd of
seated students.
"Good morning," he said, and his voice sent waves of darkness crashing through Cassie. Every muscle in
her body tightened defensively, ready to obey some deeply buried instinct to fight or flee. Just his voice,
she thought dazedly, how can someone's voice alone do that?
"As some of you already know, I'm Mr. Brunswick, your new principal."
SEVEN
There was a scattering of applause, hesitant, dying away quickly. Already the atmosphere in the
auditorium was uncertain, alert. The usual whispers and fidgets snuffed out like candle flames, until the
great room was utterly still. All eyes were on the stage.
He's a handsome man, Cassie thought, fighting the pounding in her brain that was telling her to run, run.
Why did she react so violently to his presence? It was like her reaction on the night of her initiation, when
Adam had produced the crystal skull. Cassie had taken one look at it and felt horror creep up her
spine—to her, it seemed surrounded by a halo of darkness. It had only been later that she realized
not all the coven members could see what she saw.
As Cassie looked around now, she could tell by the expressions of the other students that they didn't feel
the darkness emanating from the new principal. To her, he cast a shadow across the entire auditorium.
To them, he simply seemed powerful, impressive.
"I realize there has been some turmoil at New Salem High School recently," he was saying, his eyes
moving slowly up and down the rows of students. Cassie got the odd impression that he was memorizing
each one of them. "But you'll be happy to know that's over now. The—unfortunate
occurrences—that have plagued this school are behind us. It's time for a brand-new start."
"Turmoil" meaning two students and one principal dead, Cassie thought. Since you killed all three of
them, I guess you can decide when it's over. At the same time she wondered exactly how he'd managed
the murders from his grave. Did the dark energy itself do it? she wondered. She wanted to whisper the
question to Nick or Suzan—or Sean, her mind added hastily, guiltily—but it was hard to
turn her head away from the man on the stage.
"I've heard reports that the last administration's attitude toward discipline was somewhat—lenient.
A policy of, shall we say, permissiveness which was undoubtedly intended to be benign." The principal
glanced toward the teachers lining the auditorium walls, as if to intimate that he knew they might use other
words to describe that policy, but there was no point in speaking ill of the dead. "Certain activities were
allowed which were detrimental not only to the students they affected, but also to the very spirit of formal
education. Certain groups were afforded special privileges."
What is he talking about? Cassie thought. It's like a politician; lots of fancy words and no meaning. But
something inside her was sinking in dismay.
"Well, the policy has changed now, and 1 think in the end most of you will be pleased with the changes.
There's a new hand on the tiller of this boat." The principal held up one hand with a slight,
self-deprecating smile.
Then he started talking again. Afterward, Cassie could never remember exactly what he said, but she
remembered his voice, deep, authoritative. Commanding. There were buzzwords scattered through his
speech: "tough love," "old-fashioned discipline," "punishment fitting the crime." She could feel the
response from the audience: dark, dark. Like something swelling and growing in the crowd. It frightened
her almost more than Black John himself. It was as if he were feeding and cultivating some horrible
power inside the students. They should have hated him, but instead they were enthralled.
The rules. The rules must be obeyed. Students who didn't obey the rules would be sent to the office . . .
"I think it's time for the handout now," Jack Brunswick added in a soft aside, and Faye and several other
girls moved down from the stage, passing out papers. Cassie watched the principal as he watched the
audience, standing at ease, commanding their attention effortlessly even when he wasn't speaking. Yes,
handsome, she thought. He looked something like a young Sherlock Holmes: deep-set eyes, hawk nose,
firm mouth. His voice even had traces of an English accent. Cultured, thought Cassie.
Cultured—and full of conviction.
More like a witch hunter than a witch.
Faye reached Cassie's row, thrust a sheaf of papers at her. Cassie whispered "Faye!" and was rewarded
by a swift flash of golden eyes before Faye moved on. Bewildered, Cassie took one handout and passed
the rest to Suzan. It was three pages long and covered with small type.
Prohibited Actions—Type A. Prohibited Actions—Type B. Prohibited Actions—
Type C. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]