She stared at the little prismatic fracture in the left eye socket, just where the pupil of a real eye would be. It looked like a half-open door with light spilling out.
Look at it. Notice the detail.
Dizziness from Faye's perfume swept over her. She was looking-just looking. She could see the door. The more carefully she looked, the larger it seemed. Or perhaps she was coming closer.
Yes, closer… closer. She was losing her sense of space. The skull was so large now; it seemed to have no boundaries, no shape. It was all around her. It had become the world. The door was right in front of her.
She was inside the skull.
Fifteen
The door was no longer tiny but life-size, large enough to go in. It was ajar, and colored light streamed from the other side.
Inside the skull, Cassie gazed at the door, her scalp tingling. If it opened, could I go inside? she wondered. But how could it open?
Maybe if she just imagined it opening… but that didn't seem to do any good. What had Melanie said? Crystals help us call on the Powers. What Powers would be connected with clear quartz? Earth and water? For sand and sea?
That sounded almost like the beginning 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 seem that there was more rainbow light spilling out. More… and more. Keep it opening. Let 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 scream tore through the room.
It was a scream of terror, high 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 same face she'd seen before. But it wasn't receding; 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 same instant, an overwhelming sense of evil. Of something rushing toward them at incredible speed. Something that had to be stopped.
She never quite knew what 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 commotion. Faye seemed to be trying to do something and Sean to stop her, or maybe it was the other way around. They were struggling. Diana was crying, “No, no!” Cassie didn't know what 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 same instant Cassie felt the rushing thing reach the limits of the crystal. It burst out of the skull and past the dark, smoking candles. Cassie didn't know how 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 arm to protect her face, but by that time it was gone.
There was a faint cry in the darkness.
Then everything was quiet again.
“Turn on the lihts,” somebody gasped.
Suddenly Cassie could see. Adam was standing by the light switch. Diana was standing too, her face white and frightened. Around the circle every face reflected alarm and consternation-except Nick's. His
was impassive as usual.
Faye was just sitting up. She looked as if she'd been blown backward by some tremendous force. Fury blazing in her eyes, she turned on Sean. “You pushed me!”
“No, I didn't!” Sean looked around the room for help. “She was trying to get to the skull! She was lunging for it!”
“You lying little worm! You were trying to get away. You were going 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 matters is that-energy-that escaped.”
“What energy?” Faye said sullenly, examining her elbow for bruises.
“The energy 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. Something came out.”
“Oh, you felt it. The expert.” Faye gave her a glance of scorn and disdain. Cassie looked around at the others, who were still sitting, and was surprised to see uncertainty in their expressions. Surely they had felt it too?
“I felt-something,” Melanie said. “Something dark inside the skull. Some negative energy.”
“Whatever it was, it was released when we 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 from the other side of the circle. “If something was released from the skull, it's out there right now. Doing God knows what.”
“It's-bad,” Cassie said. What she wanted to say was “evil” but that seemed such a melodramatic word. Yet that was what she had sensed in the dark, rushing thing. Evil. The intent to destroy, to harm.